Kanonier Reichmann

Funnily enough, these Gammon bombs were modelled in the 1st game- CMBO but not in the 3rd game of the Cmx1 series- CMAK. I never understood why that was so. The other close assault weapon the German infantry had available in their kit bag was the trusty old grenade bundle. Sort of like a poor mans satchel charge I guess. Regards KR

O.K., my question along similar lines. Will CM:BN simulate at least the supressive effects of firing a bazooka or Panzerschreck (or Panzerfaust) from within the confined spaces of a building? i.e. supression of own forces within a building due to firing such a weapon within a confined space. Regards KR

I hesitate to ask but what exactly is that Afghan soldier doing to the regular army guy lying prone beneath him? It appears even sexual preferences are modelled in the game!!! Regards KR

The german with the Machinepistol is firing it at the Americans and obviously causing casualties judging by subsequent screenshots yet looking at his mate while doing it. Trying to impress him with a trick shot perhaps? Regards KR

Just to prove I'm not completely a galss half empty sort of guy as you put it, this is very encouraging news. Do you mean within the lifetime of CM:BN, i.e. a new feature to be released with a subsequent module or only likely to appear with a whole new 'family' release of a new game? As I see it, I guess it's not so critical to have this information for the reasonably restrictive environment of just the Americans fighting exclusively Wehrmacht forces in and around Normandy over a defined time frame. The number of likely matchups is confined enough to allow a good guess at what will be succesful when attempting to engage enemy armour. However, once you include the British, Poles, Canadians, Free French?, 21st Pz Division units in the mix with all their eclectic array of AFV's then it becomes a real problem in my opinion. Anyway, I'm hopeful that's what you meant. Regards KR

You say this and yet Giffords herself stated at the time of the 'target' marketing by Palin the following...When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me to say that what has transpired could well be the consequence of that action. Nut jobs are prone to be easily led by simplistic images and when a target is painted on a politician of an opposition party then bad things can occur. Are there no advertising regulations in the States that specifically state that posting images or text that could incite violence is banned, with some sort of hefty penalty if ignored? Regards KR

Well this is a real shame in my opinion. How will any non grognard player know whether his AFV armed with a 75mmL38 has a decent chance against the front of a JgPzIV. Once he loses his 75mm Sherman does he then asssume that any gun of similar calibre has no chance against the JgPz thereby ruling out the 76mmL52 (it's only a 1mm larger shell after all), the 17pdr (76mm), the so called 77mm on the Comet? Without doing research on the net that player would have no idea and I don't think it's reasonable to expect new players to the genre to first do extensive background research just to be able to play a game well! An opportunity lost as I see it. Regards KR

I'm surprised that this has not been mentioned in the GF to date. Has the loss of a bi-partisanship climate seemingly replaced by hate filled (or at least implied) rhetoric been the catalyst for this sort of tragedy? It was interesting to note this apparent quote from Gifford regarding Sarah Palin's portrayal of the gunned down politicians electorate. Palin declared Giffords a "target." Giffords' district office was subsequently vandalized, and the congresswoman noted that Palin had put "the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district." "When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said. More prophetic words have never been spoken. Here's a link to an article on the event. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/09/2011-01-09_palin_put_a_target_on_her_she_should_have_known_the_dangers.html Regards KR

I believe my post would be what some people would refer to as lobbying. If enough people make it clear that they really want this sort of information included in the game then I would imagine that Battlefront would be crazy to ignore such a groundswell. If it's not in with the first iteration of CM:BN then perhaps they will be convinced to include it with the 1st module? One can only hope, hence the reason for the posts. I don't believe Steve has said that they're never, ever going to include improvements to the game (that don't impact on realism), no matter how much potential purchasers of the game want it. It's called customer service and satisfaction. Regards KR

If they're in Assault Boats then you simply order the boats to move towards the coastline while also providing orders to the individual units within the boats to move off once the boat reaches the shore. It should work fine based on my experience. Regards KR

Good to hear Steve. Thanks for looking into the issue. Regards KR

And yet a colleague of yours said earlier in this thread that it won't take long to learn what guns can take on what enemy AFV's through simple trial and error. A clearly fallacious argument based on the permutations & complexity described above. This is a classic strawman argument as nobody has argued for such comprehensiveness pertaining to an in-game 'ready reckoner' on what a weapon can achieve at certain ranges at certain angles, only you have argued for this via your self made argument over this one guy who apparently wants every bit of data laid out berfore him. I just find it incredible that beta testers are arguing oer the relevance of including some basic statistical information on weapons and AFV's within the game similar to what was available some 10 years ago in a much simpler program on the same subject. Show me an example of a succesful software developer who has released a new generation game on the same subject matter as the previous generation yet not even included the same basic features as previously existed in the obsolete version? These same basic features that were much loved and constantly used by the players of the older generation game. I'm not talking about 3 man representation of squads etc. which clearly has improved with 1:1 representation but BASIC, much loved and utilised features, just so I can nip that argument in the bud about other improvements in the new game. Of course there have been other improvements, why else would you release a new generation but don't, for gods sake, throw out the guts of why the older game was loved by the community. To sum up, all we're asking for is some sort of in game access to basic data that provides a reasonable person with some reasonable approximation of what gun could have a chance to penetrate the front glacis of a Panther at certain ranges for example. A 75L38, a 76mm, a 90mm, anything? We're not looking for absolute certainty, just some bleedin' idea, that's all. The old CMBB & CMAK games provided that kind of basic information so why can't the latest whizz bang game provide it as well? Regards KR

Fair enough. I need to learn the system thoroughly before I can pass final judgement and you're right, I haven't played a CMx2 game as yet but I have downloaded the Afghanistan demo. to check it out. The thing with the screen shot you posted above however is that from my understanding, you know for a fact that the 2 properly spotted units are in fact, pure infantry units with their usual array of infantry small arms. Can't possibly be MG units, an HQ unit or an artillery spotter because if they were then you would know this at this point in the spotting cycle. That's what I feel I'm going to miss. In my opinion, more fog of war is more desireable than less and with the relative spotting sytem within CMx2, you know exactly where everything is and what it is, once properly spotted, although you may not have the ability to specifically target it with all your units that have line of sight to it. Isn't that a fair observation of the CMx2 system? Regards KR

From reading at thread on another bulletin board a very smart observation was made by one of the contributors of the difference between the CMx1 series of games vs the CMx2 series. Yes, the later series has now managed to eliminate Borg spotting but it's been at the expense of now having Borg ID'ing of spotted enemy units. As I see it, the loss of Borg spotting now means that units like AT guns have greater chances of survivability since all other units don't immediately spot it when one of your units are fired upon. Mind you, even with Borg spotting removed there's nothing to stop a player from targeting the area around the gun that has been spotted by at least one unit with everything you have that can at least draw a line of sight to the general location of the AT gun. However, with Borg ID'ing we now know exactly what a unit is as soon as it's been spotted with some clarity by one of your units. This no doubt leads to ensuring high priority targets such as HQ's, Panzerschrek/Bazooka teams, artillery spotters etc are targeted by every man and their dog due to their potential for effecting game changing results. Gone are the days where you didn't really know what that unit ID'ed only as infantry was and therefore the fog of war meant that you often didn't target a critical unit for the lack of information on it. So, has the loss of Borg spotting but at the expense of now having Borg ID'ing been worth it, on balance? Throw in the inability to now portray sound contacts as well and I'm really starting to wonder. Regards KR

A touch of hypocrisy here surely. In CMBB you designed this so called "old, tired and unsupported stereotype" into the game when you imposed much longer command delays on pre 1943 (from memory) Soviet units compared with their faster reacting German counterparts. How does that mesh with your above statement? I was simply trying to suggest a way to insert a similar concept with the yet to be designed and released eastern front game, using the current game engine design philosophy. Regards KR

Decimal point. Where's the decimal point! How many centimetres!!! Regards KR

A possible solution to introducing friction to improve realism is where you have a historically flexible force (such as the German army, especially early in the war) up against a historically inflexible force (such as the early war Russians & the French). With the current CMx2 system not allowing moveable waypoints at this point in time, when it comes to releasing the eastern front version of the game how about retaining the inflexibility for the early war Russians while the German side has access to such flexibility. Naturally, as the time frame progresses (or regresses depending on the module released), the inflexibility of waypoints changes so that by 1944 (say) the Russians are on par with the German side and possibly even overtake them in terms of greater flexibility of moveable waypoints if it's a late war situation. This, to me, seems to be a neat way to distinguish between various forces so that the Germans can still have a chance to do well in early war battles despite their often inferior equipment. PzIIIH & Pz38t vs T34 anyone? All this is predicated on Battlefront being able to implement flexible waypoints by the time the eastern front version of the series is released but I'm assuming it wont be an insurmountable problem based on my complete laymans knowledge of software programming. i.e. virtually none. Regards KR

Good to know that new features can still be added to the CM:BN family of games. Fingers crossed that you manage to find a way to add the features I mentioned before the family is completed. I would throw in moveable waypoints in that list as well. Regards KR

When you say "this release" do you mean this initial release of CM:BN or the entire series of modules that hangs off of CM:BN? If it's never going to be part of the Normandy named game then that's a big disappointment, along with lack of flames and riding on tanks. Am I being too pessimistic here? Regards KR

Yes, they might be similar in appearance but certainly not in sexual orientation! On the matter of the extent of bail that had to be posted, I just find it laughable that the reason for such a high amount was due to the potential flight risk. What, no one would recognise him should he attempt to leave the country and should he succeed in doing so, he'll be able to hide himself in the general community wherever he goes? Yeah, riiiiiiiight. Regards KR

Can someone explain to me why a guy who has been accused of sex based crimes (but not rape) as far as I can tell from the Swedish prosecutor needs to post bail of over 220,000 pounds Sterling? If he was accused of murder or molestation of minors I could understand it but 220,000! Something doesn't quite compute on my bullsh*t radar. Regards KR

Fair enough, but would a 76.2mm (i.e. 3 inch) AP shell be considered a "small penetrator" in the context of Pz III 50mm + 30mm armour? Regards KR

Goes without saying really once you mention that word academic! Regards KR

It seems like the Germans were ahead of the game yet again with their calibre sizes. The British 25 pounder fired 87.5mm sized shells and yet there was the 88mm Flak gun. Just slightly larger again to allow the use of the enemies shells but not vice versa. Coincidence? BTW, I do know the answer is certainly yes. Sheer bloody coincidence! Regards KR

Combat Mission: AWTY Work it out for yourself. Regards KR