Specterx

Maybe you British battalion CO's don't need to study up on the Intel rules, but over in the German camp we study everything. Deadmarsh: As Priest said it all depends greatly on your position and how much YOU want to put in to it. I'd say at an absolute minimum it requires 5 hours or so for orders, reports and other stuff every turn (a turn is anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the number of battles). If you're commanding a Bn. then you also need to do the actual fighting, which can take many hours when you've got a pair of Regiments fighting (there was one case where we actually maxed out the number of objects allowed in a CM battle). We're always looking for more players, and the CMMC site's going to be updated soon. Rumor has it they're going to put up some nice Flash movies...

I'd have to say my favorite is the Britsh 17pdr. That's the great equalizer that allows the Allies to go head to head with the more expensive German heavies.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Priest: As far as spotting goes, I put my trust into BTS to do the right thing, they always do. It still shocking to me that in the first months of the games release everyone was slobbering over the game and it received high marks from every source it was reviewed by, but now some folks are questioning it, hmmm, it has not changed since back then (actually due to patching it has gotten better) and nothing has come out to in anyway invalidate the game so hmmmm. Especially with CMBB coming out this is odd behavior. Oh well to each his own. Personally I am happy to be playing a great game that is in my opinion still the most complete game out for the PC since it's release date.<hr></blockquote> Trust no one.... As more people play the game for longer periods of time, the various bugs, inaccuracies etc. become more obvious and in some cases more pronounced (people start using specific strategies, etc). Nobody's saying CMBO is a bad game (in fact, everyone's saying that its a great game), and I at least am not demanding that BTS release a patch to fix this stuff. However, since CMBB is coming out, there's no harm in trying to get some of these gripes at least looked at.

Why does the attacking side get foxholes? :confused: Was this on the second/third/fourth battle of the operation? If so then you might simply be seeing the foxholes that you occupied the previous round.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges: That's good to know about the Dell. My biggest concern is about upgradeability, though: if I could easily replace the motherboard on my current computer now, I wouldn't feel the need to buy a completely new one for another couple of years. So I want to make sure that the next computer I buy gives me that option, so that in two more years I can simply buy a new motherboard/CPU combo. (Which at that time will probably have something like an 8 gig CPU).<hr></blockquote> My advice is to avoid the major brands and either build a computer yourself (assuming you have the technical know-how) or get one from a smaller computer retailer. The prices are usually better (example: you can get a comparable system from www.unitedmicro.com for around $950), you can always upgrade it since they don't use special cases, power supplies etc. and they don't load em up with spyware. BTW I'd go with the Athlon if you can, rather than the P4.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Silvio Manuel: I've never heard of anyone detecting an AT minefield by doing anything other than driving something over it (boom). It sounds like its a good idea, in a wet conditions when AT mines could block a vital road, to have a nice Jeep/Kubelwagon Guards Gamey Corps to detect the buggers.<hr></blockquote> Ph33r my Elite Jeeps!

I think it is possible that you got an FB... in small point battles the max points per category are 1/3 to 100% of the total points (if it wasn't like this, then you would only be able to spend like 50 points on each category). FYI, the German paratroop platoon probably cost around 200 points (or more, I know that PzGren platoons are like 160). I think you just got some bad luck in this situation.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh: I know there's gonna be a new command in CMBB which will allow your infantry to follow a target but I think we also need an "Assault Vehicle" command. This would allow your infantry squad to rush towards a vehicle, even follow it if necessary and if it's safe, and then assault the vehicle with whatever means necessary to kill it. <hr></blockquote> This seems like a good idea. It'd be nice to be able to have your inf assault the vehicle with one command rather than having to manually send them over the top. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> I also think a graphical display should be added to show the men on top of the tank, trying to throw a grenade down a hatch or firing a gun into the mg slit, something to show that the tank is being assaulted. As it is now, you can never tell and only see the end result. BTS, just give us a simple animation to show this command carried out so we know what's going on.<hr></blockquote> I think the sort of animations you describe would be pretty hard to implement. However, if you look closely you can already see visual evidence of an assault in progress in the form of flying grenades/panzerfausts/demo charges/etc.

I don't think the solution to the spotting issue needs to be really fancy. IMHO just make everything a little harder to spot. I don't have a problem with my ATG being knocked out by artillery the turn after opening fire on an enemy armor column. Trading a 50-point ATG for a 150-point armored vehicle is perfectly fine with me. The problem occurs when my ATG ambushes a tank and immediately has everything on the map taking shots at it. Once an ATG becomes PINNED the chances of a hit plummet and the gun has been wasted. As far as infantry goes, I think spotting needs to be less absolute in the sense that the spotter shouldn't be able to identify infantry with 100% accuracy under all conditions. Infantry moving in open field should be easy to spot and identify, but inf moving around in a forest should be nearly impossible to see and identify.

I know it's been discussed and well-beaten before, but the problems with defending in CMBO are still there, and from the looks of it, it doesn't seem like they'll be fixed in CMBB. In short, defending in combat mission is, IMHO, too difficult. As long as your opponent uses some basic tactics (recon, smoke, narrow front advance, etc.), it's damn near impossible to win on the defense. The primary reasons for this are relatively well known: 1) Simplistic spotting. A concealed ATG 500m away is exposed for all units to see the moment it fires. Soldiers wearing camo in woods are spotted at 200m. Etc. 2) Few of the advantages enjoyed by RL defenders are given to CM ones. For example, there is no advantage for occupying a single space for a length of time, when IRL defenders could create thoroughly hidden positions, sight weapons etc. Since the attacking and defending troops are equal if foxholes are taken out of they equation (and they don't do all THAT much...) the defenders will always loose unless that player is very lucky or the attacker is simply inept. 3) The use of defensive equipment such as mines, wire etc. is not really encouraged, and in some ways discouraged. CM in a way assumes that barbed wire and mines are used in place of actual men, since both are drawn from the same pool. Given the choice between a few minefields and, say, an ATG, I'd take the ATG, since the mines have an overall lower probability of being useful at all and would be likely be less useful than the ATG. 4) Computer-generated maps. No water/bocage, scattered objectives, lack of map depth vs width... 5) Unrealistic modeling of certain weapons. Yes, it's a sin to mention it, but I feel confident that CM could be made much more realistic by simply adjusting the way some weapons work. Mortars in particular seem to have an effect more like that of a popgun than an 81mm bomb going off in your face. I don't know what the kill range of an 81mm mortar is, but it seems that it would cause many casualties if one hit 4-5m away. MG's also feel "wrong". I know that tests have been done to demonstrate how MG's are designed to supress and not cause major casualties, but it seems that a pair of HMG42's firing on a platoon in an open field (or even under cover!) would cause the entire platoon to immediately hit the dirt and start crawling/running to the nearest cover. Right now they're sort of an annoyance but rarely cause much trouble unless they fire on a single enemy squad for 2-3 minutes. (1) has an obvious solution - make spotting more imprecise. Guns in particular should be able to get off 3-4 shots without being spotted, or even more depending on the distance from the gun to enemy troops and what sort of cover the gun is in. For infantry contacts, the "Infantry?" marker should be retained, but it might be nice if it didn't give so much info about the enemy force, e.g. show a grey infantry figure standing still that "jumps" occasionally as the spotted unit moves until the contact firms up. I can also think of an easy solution for (3), drawing somewhat on the system devised for use in the CMMC. The defending side in an attack battle would be given a certain amount of constuction materials (CoM) depending on the number of points in the battle (say 1/10, e.g. 2000pt battle = 200 CoM). Obstacles and fortifications would cost CoM rather than normal points. This could simulate the preparations by defending troops. (2) requires some more thought... I hope that some of these concerns will be addressed in CMBB - after all, the Germans didn't just roll over the Soviet defenses at Kursk.

I usually only buy them when I've got a few extra points to spare and nothing better to do with em. They're actually pretty good as forward scouts or outposts for your MLR. Since it's only one man you can hide them in forests, etc. and the enemy can basically walk right over them without spotting them. Buy them en masse if you want to simulate Civil War combat (why it takes 20 seconds to chamber a round and fire is beyond me). If not, then stay away from them or use one here and there to fill up extra points, as I do. Of course there's always going to be someone who can use his 200 elite sharpshooters to take out the enemy's infantry battalion...

a) Not sure - definately an effect on ToT Depends. Rockets are far, far less accurate than tube artillery. Really big guns also seem to be slightly less accurate than smaller calibers, but they also fire far fewer rounds, so it could just be an illusion. c) See . d) Don't think so e) Depends - if the weather affects the FOO's visibility, then it would. f) Don't think so g) This easily has the greatest effect out of all the factors you listed. If the LOS line is blue, it means the FOO has a direct LOS to the target and thus is assumed to be able to direct the fire more accurately. h) This has the second greatest effect It's really a matter of luck in most cases. You can usually have the same effect as increased accuracy by choosing artillery nationalities and calibers that come with lots of rounds (e.g. US artillery, mortars).

Steve, Frankly, it appears as though BTS has taken a hypocritical stance on these issues. Asking for evidence of imperfections in the game, then discounting/ignoring that evidence because of personal conflicts or a "we know what we're doing" attitude isn't a good way to defend CMBO. There seems to be quite a bit of specific evidence demonstrating a problem with HEAT penetration and/or the KT's armor. If you don't really care about such-and-such tank having 5mm too much armor, then say so. Tell jason to STFU so you can get back to CMBB (which I'd prefer ). Now, you've stated before that we can't necessarily cite CMBO battle experience as evidence of problems with the German heavies because we "don't use them correctly". Setting aside the problems inherent with making such a sweeping, general statement, this is not always true. In the CMMC campaign, I think you can find that armored vehicles are almost always used "correctly". Furthermore, since we're using RL force compositions from RL units, conditions exist that are _very_ similar to those you would encounter on a real life WWII battlefield. I think you'll find a wealth of information in the various AAR's and experiences of the players that can help you corroborate or disprove these sorts of claims. [ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: Specterx ]</p>

I've never actually seen a RG being used. I usually play German, though... As for Fausts, I swear by them. In contrast to the RG which are good for nothing, the German squads always use fausts when tanks are near and almost always hit.

I have a home network connected to a cable modem using a router. In order to be able to host CM TCP games, I need to know what TCP port it listens on so I can set up the router to forward requests on that port to my comp. Anyone have info on this?

I did some extensive tests on this, and here are the results: Summary: Two units each of four different weapons systems (88 FlaK, 88 Pak43, 75mm pak, Nashorn) were faced off with eight vanilla M4 shermans (one sherman per german unit) in eight "lanes", i.e. each unit had only one target. All units were Regular. Terrain Type: Open Ground Distance Between Combatants: 700-710 meters Results: Turn 1 88mm Flak 1: Shot 1: Missed Shot 2: Front upper hull hit on target, KO'ed target Target was destroyed after 20 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: None Crew Status: OK 88mm Flak 2: Shot 1: Missed Shot 2: Missed At this point began taking fire from Sherman, first MG bursts supressed the crew, they became "Shaken". Continued taking fire throughout the turn. Shot 3: Missed Shot 4: Missed Shot 5: Missed Hit by HE shell from Sherman and KO'ed after 50 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: MG fire plus 75mm HE Crew Status: Shaken, then routed. 88mm Pak43 1: Shot 1: Missed Shot 2: Missed Began taking fire at this point from main gun, no MG fire. Shot 3: Front hull hit on target, KO'ed target. Target was destroyed after 29 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: 75mm HE Crew Status: OK 88mm Pak43 2: Shot 1: Hit target track, immobilized target Shot 2: Front upper hull hit on target, KO'ed target. Target was destroyed after 19 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: MG bursts, one 75mm shot Crew Status: OK 75mm Pak 1: Shot 1: Missed Shot 2: Front hull hit on target, KO'ed target. Target was destroyed after 20 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: none Crew Status: OK 75mm Pak 2: Shot 1: Front hull hit on target, KO'ed target. Target was destroyed after 10 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: None Crew Status: OK Nashorn 1: Shot 1: Missed Hit by enemy AP round on first shot, KO'ed. Unit was destroyed after 6 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: MG bursts, 75mm AP Nashorn 2: Hit by enemy AP round on first shot, KO'ed. Unit was destroyed after 6 seconds. Enemy Fire Received: MG bursts, 75mm AP ------------ Conclusions: All AT guns involved displayed exceptional accuracy, and, out of the 5 guns that were not under HEAVY enemy fire, every one destroyed its target within 30 seconds, and only one took more than 20. No more than three shots were used in any case, and in 20% of the cases only one shot was required. In 3/5 of the cases only two shots were required. Furthermore, I've discovered that the ROF of the 88's is identical to that of the 75mm Pak (about 5 seconds per shot). The one gun that was taken under heavy fire had its accuracy sent to hell, and after 5 shots and 50 seconds it finally succumbed to a HE shell. The Pak43s showed more resistance to MG fire, possibly due to that big shield that it has. The Nashorns proved to be... useless. Both were KO'ed with ONE shot, which is interesting indeed. The one vehicle that got a shot off missed. ---------- The test would seem to show that the 88's aren't any more or less accurate than any other gun. The Flak version is easy to supress and thus easier to KO, due to the lack of crew protection. Keep in mind that things such as a moving target and crew supression can SEVERELY affect accuracy, as demonstrated here. The crew that was taken under only moderate fire, and only became "Shaken", became effectively neutralized and soon died. Just having a moving target would throw your aim off, as those big things are hard to turn. Any Q's post here.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by killmore: 256 is a magic number. That is the maximum number you can store in 1 byte of memory. So if BTS allocated only 1 byte of memory for number of units then this is it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I know that, and that's what I was thinking. Simply allocating more memory would do it. If it's an engine limitation thing than that's different. I think the freezes/lockups are caused by the fact that displaying 1500 of those little infantry dudes eats up alot of vram/cpu power. In any case, 360+ per side is good.

I've seen this happen before. I believe that vehicles sometimes fire smoke rounds to help them aim at the target. This is similar to the effect described in the manual where units will fire at a target (usually AFV) with standard ammunition, even if the round in question hasn't an iceballs chance in hell to get a kill, before using rarer types of ammunition ("T" and "C"). Doesn't seem to make sense when firing against infantry, especially if the AFV has no HE anyway.

We in the CMMC have discovered to our dismay that the CM engine has a limit of 256 units per side on the battlefield. Not normally a problem in QB's, but definately one with battles that involve multiple regiments of troops. Hopefully this will be fixed in CMBB. It should be as simply as changing a variable type, since the engine can take all the time it needs to do the calculations.

Well damn... too bad I'm not old enough to drink (I live in Arlington Co., attend TJHSST in Fairfax).

I'd say that the worst combat unit is the flamethrower. Slow, only 2 men, expensive, low amount of ammo.

Either all that or he speaks/writes English as a second language. Lay off him FFS.

When playing as the Germans, I almost always buy Waffen-SS Motorized squads. They have a massive amount of firepower and come with a good mix of rifles, MP44's and MP40's, so they are effective at pretty much any range. I think that the "best" squad in the game is the German Fallschirmjager, which has slightly for FP than the motorized. In relatively small games I stick with the SS Mot., but if you have the points to spare then it's worth it to buy a platoon of FJ as shock troops. When playing as the Allies your choices are more limited, especially in 1944. In 1945 the American '45 rifle is probably the best choice, they aren't as effective as the german squads, but do come with 12 men (redundancy). I tend to avoid British squads like the plague, they are badly outmatched under any circumstances and at close range the Germans will eat them for breakfast. I haven't played the Poles, French or Canadians much so I can't comment on them. People seem to like the American glider and airborne troops. in 1944 those are probably a better choice than the US rifle squads, but in 1945 just stick with the vanilla units.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: I doubt this very much. Even the smallest details like the use of smoke grenades by infantry (universal now, apparently uncommon in WW II) make for a very different game engine. Factor in stuff like helicopters, advanced communication between infantry and tanks (again, non-existent for much of WW II, until some models of US tanks actually had telephones installed on the rear of the hull to allow infantry to talk to the tank commanders), you have a very different tactical picture, even if they still advanced to contact in the same arrowhead they used in WW II. Even so, APCs were the norm for the 1970s, they were a very, very rare exception to WW II soldiers, most of whom never rode in one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think that the differences between WWII and modern armies, as well as "national" differences that were mentioned in a previous post would be quite easy to implement in the existing CM codebase. As to the national morale and "fighting spirit" stuff (willingness to fight to the last man, human wave attacks), both of these are already going to be in CMBB. Fighting to the last man is already simulated by the "fanatic" unit trait. Fanatic units don't break, rout etc. and always fight to the last man. BTS could simply adjust the proportion of fanatic to non-fanatic units of a given nation (for example 85% of all Japanese units will be fanatic). As I recall the Human Wave order is going to be one of the new tactics available in CMBB, I believe the Russians will have that instead of the Assault command. Smoke grenades? Easy, just add a "smoke" order for infantry, and modify the AI so smoke grenades are used in the same way that tanks use smoke dischargers. Simulating advanced communications is also quite easy. In fact, it could be argued that CMBO already simulates this, as the player's "godlike" view of the battlefield and ability to see everything that's happening gives us a definate edge over real-life commanders. Adjusting the comms delays will be good enough. Helicopters would require some creative thinking, although I see nothing wrong with simulating them like CMBO currently simulates planes. Adding a "forward air observer" unit that functions similarly to the arty FO's would take into account improved communications between troops and support aircraft. Increased use of APC's? Just lower the cost of the APC's (10-20 pts instead of 30-50). Really the only major advancements since WWII have been related to the increased use and effectiveness of computers. Since computers don't effect much at the battalion level, beyond better communications, the experience for the player would remain much the same. There have been advancements in certain weapons technology that doesn't involve computers (especially in AT weapons), but this only means that ATGM teams will replace Zooks/Shrecks and ATG's, and the AT weapons that are given to infantry squads will be deadlier (LAW/Carl Gustav/RPG series instead of rifle grenade/faust).

Were there mines of any kind on the road? Once minefields are spotted units will refuse to move into them, unless the unit is broken/routed and accidently runs into the mines. Also make sure there were no roadblocks and no terrain obstacles (ford etc) that would prevent the trucks from advancing. Beyond that I dunno....