Kanonier Reichmann

Yeh, but that picture is of the famous 1st Guards Midget Battallion. You can't count that! Regards Jim R.

Original scores from ROW I #Sounds_In_Night Enoch 45 Zalewski 55 Dickens 87 Travisano 13 Rohde 58 TabPub 42 Juha 56 Gaspari 38 I'm gaining the impression you don't like night games do you Tom. Regards Jim R.

Bleedin' Yanks. Next thing you know you'll be saying things like "we'll be rootin' for the New York Yankees" when we all know that the only time this sort of expression should be used is when the Dallas Cowboys and Debbie are in town. Regards Jim R.

Ban him! Burn him at a stake! He's a witch I tell you, a witch! Sorry, couldn't resist. Regards Jim R.

I get the distinct impression that Kiwi Joe may have lost alot of his bravado as it's now very difficult to come up with almost certain game winning tactics with the variability associated with CMBB. Now, if that doesn't get him to show, nothing will! Regards Jim R.

One potential solution to your problem easytarget was to actually target the infantry unit that is most in line with the enemy tank(s), when drawing a virtual line from your Panther to the Sherman, but choose to fire the MG. This way, the turret will be oriented in the correct direction when firing at the enemy infantry and once the Sherman starts to pose a threat to the Panther, it should change its target automatically to the enemy tank and fire AP, as originally desired. This way should ensure that ony MG fire is used against enemy infantry while the main gun is used against the tanks. Just a thought. Regards Jim R.

"Gotten"? Tsk, tsk. Try "received". Much better use of the Queens english. Regards Jim R.

O.K., my initial position was that I was amazed that these heavy Soviet "behemoths" would retreat at the sight of a pathetic mid war Pz IV which we know that even a basic Sherman 75 can trade shots with on an almost even kill basis. Then as the thread evolved & I read some of the references that were posted by a number of people I've come to realise that it is probably the smart thing for slow ROF heavy tanks/assault guns to retreat when up against a fast firing medium tank that can penetrate its armour, even if somewhat marginal. The telling thing for me was Valera's site discussing the development of the ISU 122 where it states, and I quote: Ignoring the grammatical errors, this to me is the telling point and therefore CMBB does model the situation quite well, bearing in mind how these types of AFV's were supposed to engage the enemy in real life. So, I've completely changed my position based on learning new information and realising that my previously held beliefs that ISU 122's & IS2's were tank killing machines extraordinaire, was incorrect. They may have been responsible for alot of dead Panthers & Tigers in 1944 & 1945 but I would imagine this killing was done from long range or perhaps surprising relatively small numbers of enemy AFV's with weight of numbers being the telling factor. So, thanks people for pointing out certain shortcomings of the Soviet "behemoths" and ensuring I, once again, learn something new. Regards Jim R. [ December 03, 2002, 03:07 AM: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

I tend to agree Capt. It seems that ROF is a very big factor in the equation to determine whether the IS2 or ISU 122 or whatever backs off after loosing off a shot. Because the Pz IV can fire off shots relatively quickly it seems to be happy to slug it out with a heavy Soviet tank even if its penetration chances are marginal to say the least. provided it has some chance of a penetrating hit it seems to be willing to continue the shot trade. One thing I did notice however when trialling my example a few more times, the IS2 was definitely more willing to fire off a shot at the sudden appearance of an enemy tank before getting the jitters and backing off provided it had an armour covered arc in place. Futhermore, although based on limited number of tests, the IS2 also seemed quite a bit more accurate with the covered arc in place as it was scoring first shot hits on the Pz IV much more frequently than without it. Learn something new every day I guess. Regards Jim R.

But the question is Andreas, is it reasonable for the IS2 to always "chicken out" first in the circumstances, with or without a covered arc, bearing in mind the differentials in kill chances once hit. Regards Jim R. [ December 02, 2002, 07:21 AM: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

Are you using a cover arc for the IS2? Are you using the shoot&scoot command at all?</font>

Think back to Gotta Get Up. It may stir the ol' memory cells. Regards Jim R.

I've now got off my bum and set up a quick hotseat battle between a Regular Pz IVH & a Regular IS2 (1944 early). The situation as saved is with the IS2 sitting hull down on a small hill facing towards a slightly higher hill where I've placed the Pz IVH just out of sight of the IS2. I plot the turn with the Pz IV hunting up the hill and moving into sight of the stationary IS2 about 580 metres away. Now the stats say that the Pz IV has a marginal chance at best to penetrate an IS2's turret at that range depending at which angle it strikes the "curved" profile. Basically with my quick calculations it needs to strike the turret at about 25 degrees or less to have a chance at a penetration. There would appear to be almost no chance of a penetrating hit against the upper hull of the IS2 as it has a 30 degree slope and should definitely defeat a 75mm round from a Pz IV. Suffice to say that the IS2's chances of blowing the bejeezus out of the Pz IV are extremely good based on some earlier tests that whenever it hit at that range the Pz IV would be wiped with no crew survivors. All I'd like to know from those more knowledgeable than I whether it is reasonable that the IS2 should back off every time when the Pz IV looms into its sights. So far from my 5 tests the IS2 has reversed every time against such an intimidating threat while the Pz IV sits tight every time without the faintist hint it's even concerned about getting blown sky high. Is this reasonable behaviour from the TacAI? I'll happily email the save file to anyone who requests it and all they have to do is instruct the Pz IV to hunt about 7 or 8 metres up the rise in a easterly direction (northern end of the map) and then watch the movie play out from the Soviet side with your IS2 sitting in ambush in its hulldown position. Just as an added point, when I was testing this similar situation earlier, I kept having the IS2 backing off from the emplaced Pz IV and only managing to get away 1 snap shot most times before reversing. When I finally buttoned the IS2 so it hopefully wouldn't spot the Pz IV too early it eventually stood its ground long enough(2nd attempt) and fired off a shot while stationary which utterly destroyed the Pz IV whereas in the previous turns it had shrugged off 2 hits to the turret from enemy shots with the shell breaking up on both occasions. Any comments welcome. Regards Jim R.

To me now, the interesting point is the fact that the Pz IV's in The Capt's example didn't reverse when spotting an ISU 122 at 900 metres, hardly the ideal engagement range for a Pz IV against that heavy beast. If the tacAI is smart enough to realise that an ISU 122 with slow reload should back off against a Pz IV at 500 metres, why isn't it also smart enough to do the same when the tables are reversed on the German tanks at range? Regards Jim R.

Count me in T.B. I'll send the required email. BTW, I wanna be in Holien's group as well. I also want to extract revenge from that Carrot fellow & I've yet to take on Holien in a contest. You know if you don't I'm gonna hold my breath until I get my way. ...... ..... .... ... .. . GAAAHHH ACK GASP CLUNK! Regards Jim R.

So John. What have you done differently to get your system more reliable? Regards Jim R.

Wasn't he one of the candidates for the Slightly Silly Party? Or was that Regards Jim R.

Just to throw in my 2 cents worth. It may be related to playing the game in snow/ice conditions (although god knows why). I'm currently playing a game against Noloff set in snow/ice conditions with my units wearing ski's. Perhaps the ski's may have some effect on file size since I noticed my initial PBEM file was almost 2 megs in size which certainly surprised me for a relatively modest sized scenario. I assume the programme has to keep tab of which unit is using ski's & which isn't and this may have something to do with it. Of course, I could be talking completely out of my arse as well! Regards Jim R.

Shouldn't that title be preceded with "Friends, Romans, countrymen...." Regards Jim R.

Just to put all this into perspective, if the AI is coded so that slow firing AFV's like the IS2's & ISU 152's etc. do tend to reverse back when threatened due to their long reload time then that is a satisfactory explanation in my mind. At least there's some logic to it now and I can rationalise the situation. One query though... does that mean the Jagd Tiger will also retreat when targetted by an enemy unit that has a theoretical chance to penetrate it due to its slow reload time? Regards Jim R.

TB. I'd be interested to see if you get the same results using IS2's or ISU 122's but perhaps only a couple of each for the example. Regards Jim R.

Thanks for that link Mikeydz, much apprevciated. Chris H. must have spent literally hundreds of hours to compile all that information. Regards Jim R.

Yes, all games now complete in out ROW II Section 2 area. Thanks to Treeburst and the scenario designers for a, shall we say, challenging series of scenario's. I guess this means I'll have to do some of those dreaded AAR's now. Also, thanks very much to my opponents in these games, they were always very hard fought and always taxing on the ol' grey matter. Regards Jim R.

No-one's mentioned a couple of SSG classics. Carriers at War was an excellent representation of the Carrier battles around Guadalcanal and PNG in 1942. It really had that suspense factor in it when your Task Forces are tooling around deperately trying to locate the enemy while not knowing whether an air strike is already on its way to destroy your best laid plans. The other was Reach for the Stars. The original space conquest game that was almost certainly the inspiration for the brilliant Master of Orion game that came out later, as there were a number of elements that were similar in both games. Regards Jim R.

Sorry, I beg to differ. If you have the drop on the enemy with a side or rear shot you should be able to take advantage of the situation without your heavy AFV getting the hell out of Dodge just because it's being targetted. This is especially true if the enemy AFV is an Assault Gun or something similar which will take a long time to swivel around to be able to get a shot off. At the moment it seems that your well laid ambush plans can often go astray because of this propensity for heavy AFV's (for some reason) to reverse out of "trouble" even when the enemy unit that's been targetted has been caught out. Because of this behaviour it obviously becomes much more difficult in subsequent turns to destroy the enemy unit because your opponent now knows where the threat lies and will either ensure his AFV will not be where it was when at a disadvantage or at least be facing towards the now spotted threat. Regards Jim R.