danielh

Admiral Keith, First, thx for the great job of keeping Scenario Depot at live ! You're absolutely right with the Review scoring ! My Scenario (Stalingrad The Moviescene) which got quite good reviews, received two 0 point reviews by an ***hole who quoted having made the same, although mine was already there for a year and a half ! Now there are maybe 8-10 CMBB Scenarios coming in a week and it really doesn't take much time to download 100kb. Most of the time a look at the map already tells a lot about the game, and whether you may like it or not. Greets Daniel

Wicky, Sorry, i was off for a week. Unfortunately, you cannot reach me per E-mail. Try my brother's one: widow@bluewin.ch Greets Daniel

Pzman, You seem to misunderstand me, Currently i cannot see whether or not the AI is doing about the tings i try to create in the scenario, because if i switch to Fog off the AI will behave totally different(because it knows all the targets) especially on the attack. Because most AI battles are fought with extreme fog the AI changes in ways unpredictable unless i play the scenario on extreme fog for testing purpose. Maybe i have to play 30 rounds to wittnes that all the AI-tanks brought in as reinforcment at turn 10 are clogged somewhere. God View would make this clearly visible immediately, it would also be clearly visible which units take which approach, their speed and the like, now i have to fish in muddy waters. The intention of God mode is to make the AI seem better not worse in less time, and thus aid the scenario designer, because he can really see what happens ! Greets Daniel

Two important ones i forgot: - There should be a command "Don't shoot main armament on the move" to allow tanks to advance in bounds and shoot only when being stopped(Maybe with some randomness in it depending on morale and the like..). Now this is near to impossible and the using of cov. arcs doesn't help. I want for instance 3 Tanks in overwatch while 3 advance to a given point and then engage enemy tanks in sight (or other dangerous threats) immediately to allow the overwatch element to move the next turn. If i use "move" or "fast" now the moving tanks will still fire the maingun and waste very precious ammo. - Tanks with bow machineguns should be able to be ordered to use them when Coax & Gun are out of action, now a tank with damaged cannon is almost useless, and uses the bow MG almost never. Maybe gun damage should have some variety in it, for instance gun may be deajusted, gun destroyed, gun & sight destroyed, Gun & Sight & Coax-MG destroyed. However as long there are functioning weapons they should be useable (and an MG can be very important). Greets Daniel

Pzman, Wrong ! Turning off FOW changes behaviour of AI because they also see all your troops. What i mean is only the human player sees all the units, while the AI plays on the selected FOW level. OK ? Greets Daniel

I never go into a defensive battle as german without the 150mm IG. Around 45 rounds of HE will do forever and rout everything very very quickly. Add to that long lasting smoke and very good Tank killing ability. Even on Infantry attacks i almost always use one and end the game with some guns and around 20-60 men cas on the list, always a very good tradeoff for around 50-70 points, never lost one. The 75mm IG is only a complement to the 150mm, and uses up ammo very quickly. If possible i give them a HQ with a stealth bonus (don't know if it really works though). I use AT-Guns only supplementing Tanks in terrain only suited to them, long woodlines for instance. A StuG, T-34, P4 comes for around 100 points, Marder even around the prize for a Pak40, whereas a Pak40 costs around 60-70 points. Mobility by far outweighs the 30 points. On dry open ground i can move a T-34 almost 400m in a turn ! AT-Guns and the mobility of defending Tanks can create very neat killing zones, with a lot of flexibility. Greets Daniel

Improvements: - Tanks simulated with correct relative Turret/Hull area values - Tankcrews with appropriate historic weapons after bailing out - Possibility for Tanks going into full defilade and still observe when equipped accordingly, or even one crewmember leaving the tank to reconoiter. - Automatic cannons calculated correctly (not like now, being abstracted like artillery shells) - Abadoned guns can be remanned - Horse drawn units, an absolute must when german troops being simulated. - Motorcycle-units - Introduction of "real" trenches (Communication, Observation, Fighting, earthbunkers etc., pakemplacements, ) - Ammo supply points for long scenarios - Possibility to camouflage units, either during unitselection (added prize) or during battle using time. - Infantry guns can do indirect fire - On map artillery with indirect fire possibility (for huge maps or special tactical situations) - Better sighting/spotting algorithms in general, taking into account masking, and camouflage. - Taking selected troops from one battle to the next -> Aiding campaigns - Abandoning of smoke creation for vehicles, which for now only distorts gameplay (Tanks zipping into and out from fog forever while being shot at) - Introduction of coloured smoke and/or liasion radios/HQs to control Aircraft strikes more efficient as was standard praxis with the germans in the east, of course for a prize. - Aircraft being equipped with historical weaponmix (for instance Cluster bombs, as being used later in the war) - Single Aircraft lethality dramatically reduced vs. single AFV, especially when being camouflaged or in camouflaging terrain like scattered tree. - Possibility to group units and lay multiple waypoints (reduce wear on the mouse). - Scenario-Editor allowing import of Height-color coded countourmaps. - Scenario-Editor allowing creation of oversized map of which parts can be used for scenarios or campaigns - Scenario-Editor as a separate Fullwindowsized Program - If possible larger Height differences possible in the map (best no restriction). - Godmode View for Scenario-Creation debugging - Smooth Zoomlevel change with "memorize" feature, so one can set zoomlevels freely (current jump from Level 2 to 3 is to great). - A Scriptdriven-extension to the current AI-system to guide units in more complex AI-battles, enabling better historical Battles. (Preplanned Artillery, Approach sectors, triggers and the likes) - Simple Interface to import textfile unitselections -> Aid modders, Monstercampaigns, Operationlevel third party extensions - Vehicle Bogging reduced to believable historical values - More diverse terrain, Tall grass, Sunflowerfield, ploughed field, olive grove orchards, open wood, dense wood and the like - Artillery being able to fire ground ricochet fire -> airbursts if terrain facilitates it. - Terrain, especially Wood being transformed by Artillery fire - And only if everything else is done: Dynamic Lighting, Shadows, weather and only if having impact on gameplay. - In the same category: Even better vehicle models with moving suspensions and higher polygon count and higher resolution textures. - Squads using appropriate formations and space. - If not simulation wise (not really necessary), then atleast visually correct representation of a squad (10 men and not 3, eventually changing formation visually only again to represent different battleconditions). Greets Daniel

Bump !

Some of my Brother... Greets Daniel [ September 18, 2004, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: danielh ]

I've just measured my Panther A 1:35 scale model. Targetarea exposed to enemy in Hulldown: ca. 1.2 square meters being 80 cm high, 1.2 m width at the top and 2.1 m at the bottom, sidewall tilted 25° degrees. Vulnerable area to T-34/85 is smaller than 0.6 square meters. I measured the zone of the mantlet which is tilted less than 30° degrees (T-34/85 doing 100 mm at 500 m AP). This zone is an area about 30 cm high and roughly 1.9 m wide. One can assume that the probability to hit this zone (50 % of whole area) will be quite below every third hitting shot (and to do so quickly the gun must be zeroed perfectly). For the (CMBB) US 76mm of the M4 it would be even worse, the zone being even smaller, because the 76mm is only doing around 90mm for 30° at 500 m. In case the Tank is not Hulldown: Frontal area of Panther Turret + Hull roughly 4.5 square meters. Assuming the enemy aims for center of mass (visually around a line 20-30 cm below the bow MG), probability can be assumed to be around 1 out of 10 (4 m2 : 0.6 m2). Not included are the lower mantlet riccochets. Roughly 20 % of the frontal turret area is protected by the Mantlet + Turretfront (+200mm) and about the same area is only protected by 100 -105 mm near vertical plating thus about canceling eachother out. So the 37% for fully exposed is far to high (should be around 15%), while the Hulldown 28% being atleast very optimistic....(perfect zeroed gun, very small scatter(assumed being within 80 cm Height of mantlet, a kind of sniper gun)) Greets Daniel [ September 14, 2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: danielh ]

Xerxes, i never do something else in CMBB than extreme FOW.

JasonC, Correct, but doesn't help much if one tries to simulate a massed attack, a real shockforce, as was often done by the Russians at their point of main-effort (and surely too by the germans if enough manpower was available). Where they tried to saturate the surviving enemy direct fire with numbers, and uncover them to the interspersed Tanks and the following Assaultguns and Tanks in the second wave. If done on a fairly broad front 4-10 km the enemy must have his artillery largely intact to have a chance to keep the first wave from entering the line. It's also bad the AI is not capable to execute a walking barrage in front of the first wave. Some planning tools for the designer would help much here (The AI tends to uload all Arty onto one spot, either near a flag or something spotted in the first turn). Sanok, Disagree, the AI when attacking, always tries to keep tanks level with the advancing infantry, if the infantry stalls the tanks most of the time wait forever. One can easily determine the frontmost line the infantry has reached within about 100m range even if nothing is spotted. I'm conviced that it is only possible to recreate the vast possible types of attacks only by giving the Scenario-Designer some additional tools to guide the AI to some extent. True for your last remark about the placement of guns and MGs, they are almost always placed very well. Greets Daniel

Rexford, Great work !!! Thanks alot !! Btw. I recently rechecked the Pantherfibel, and i'm still firmly convinced, that on the hitladder PzGr-shot only climbs half a "Strich" for every 100m range added out to around 1200m, recheck page 20 and 22 ! Text from page 22: "Bei "Panzer" ändert es sich wieder. Die Schüsse fliegen flach und nieder, und einen halben Strich nur klettern sie höher bei je 100 Metern..." My free translation: "On using "Panzergranate" however it changes again. The shots now fly flat and low and only half a "Strich" do they climb at every 100 meters increase in range setting" The text on page 22 continues the rule for "Nabelvisier" on page 21 which refers to explosive grenades. The upper picture on page 22 shows the hitladder for explosive, the bigger one below the one for PzGr. Keep up the splendid work ! Greets Daniel

As Panzerman already wrote, quite good in defence. But really weak on the attack, tanks bunching up generating endless traffic jams is one example. It is almost impossible to create a massed tankattack as was so common on the russian side. Infantry also has the fatal habit of bunching up in ridicolous amounts. Only by creating "unnatural" exactly designed scenarios is it possible to reduce this a bit (every new "row" of tiles has to have several good cover tiles which have the same distance to the good cover tile of the previous row). A kind of scripting in addition to the actual system would be very, very helpful for the scenario designer, as would be a "Debug" mode where the designer could play the scenario in "god" mode seeing every unit, while the engine would play with the given FOW setting (Extreme fog of war normally) -> checking AI behaviour. Now reducing FOW settings changes the behaviour of the units. Greets Daniel

Hi Postfux, I've tested 1.03, my test was only vs. enemy Platoon HQ-units. Your test indicates normal inf-squad, or am i wrong ? To the praxis. I always check for stealth bonuses for my foremost advancing troops. Versus AI in defense i can close to within 300-400m depending on terrain shape in generally open terrain. However Tanks spot much, much better. I usually use veteran Sharpshooters for ahaed Recon, they can regularly close to within 300m even in open ground. I always have some HQ-units in good spotting positions. Greets Daniel