IMHO

This is actually a very interesting point to argue. The whole concept of CMxX is based on the the idea that a human player takes care of a higher-level command and TacAI is busy making minute choices for the grunts. That makes the game appealing to the player (you may get rid of click-fest). But it only works if you push TacAI intelligence standards to near-human. And that's enormously difficult though BFC is clearly extremely successful at that. But at tactical level you've got so many details that are easy to grasp for the human and so bloody resource consuming to code and even more so to test/bug-fix. So unless you've got an Avatar's budget you inevitably end up having crews shooting at Panthers. My humble opinion is that CM games are slowly moving from the initial concept to the design where human takes care of most of the things. It would be really interesting if BFC could give their thoughts on that.

I support that. Even for Russian steppe they were a pain in the ass due to the difficulty of going hull-down. Plus Germany normally used lower-grade armor on Stugs. But for Normandy they were close to a disaster as LOS was normally severely limited. So you sprint to the next bockage and you get a side penetration from the fast rotating Sherman turret. May be Stug dominance is a conscious game design choice.

Other sources will actually give even higher counts for Stugs, if I remember correctly. Weh-keh-pedia gives a strangely low number. OK, for infantry let's count in the costs of defending the German land from the Roman invasion. That will improve the infantry side of the equation Anyway, I see you're truly an awesome opponent Let's close the discussion.

Well... You can find another Seriously, Stugs were more plentiful and cheaper by all means. Actually less armor (read nickel, manganese that were so difficult to get for the Germany), no precision-made gun mantlet bearings, no traverse mechanism. I guess if you count in terms of critical materials and man-hours the difference will be even more drastic than in terms of simple reichmarks. I doubt that even for the start of WWII. For mid to end of WWII that would be grossly untrue - people were thrown into the battlefield with very basic to no training at all.

"Cost of single Ausf G was 82500RM making it cheaper than both PzKpfw III Ausf M at 103163RM and PzKpfw IV Ausf F2 at 115962RM." http://www.achtungpanzer.com/sturmgeschutz-iii-sturmgeschutz-iv.htm Production numbers 9,408 StuG III 8,800 PzKpfW IV (estimate) wikipidia.org

Hookers are really indispensable stand-off weapons. If you can't win - send you send the hookers. Lack of hookers change the whole game dynamics. If could have them included they may have the following game functions: 1. Within their own combat radius they will degrade unit's combat skills and will to fight. 2. Some of the units can even stop obeying the orders for a certain period of time. This can be implemented by "bogged" functionality. 3. If unit spends too much time in the presence of a hooker the unit may start having non-combat casualties. 4. Having hookers we can finally implement a "make love no war" mission. Having soldiers on one side and hookers on another. I think it won't take way more resources implementing hookers than having unfolding maps. Wow, unfolding... Regards, Roman

Magpie, Easy going one here. Let's call it a day now. Don't want to be the fire starter And many thanks for your hand in this, indeed. Regards, Roman

Damian superiority, heh

Dear All, Probably stupid question. We have an Mk19 in the Grenade Launcher squad of the Marines Heavy Machinegun platoon. Do I understand correctly there's way to resupply the squad (e.g. no vehicle to load the squad into and acquire additional ammo)? Regards, Roman

Huge maps are great!!! Please post your map as soon as it's finished. So bad there're no on map mortars in CMSF. Would be great to make on map mortars the only source of heavy fire support for the mission and then make a run who destroys/protects one's mortars best.

Not too much familiar As far as read two roof mounted MGs are for the commander and the gunner. It seemed not too smart (no one is able to fire the gun) but that's what I read So am I right that one MG is for the commander and the other is for the loader? Then loader is the first to take security watch station opened up and the commander is second in line? The gunner always stays inside and manages the gun, coaxial .30 MG and 0.50 MG that is to be mounted on top of the gun in TUSK? Regards, Roman

Well, suggest we separate in-game behavior and real behavior. To sum up in-game - I believe, it's a bug because: 1. Even a lonely tank facing away from the launch site and with IR/Optics knocked-out immediately spots the launch at a 1Km of distance. 2. Instant spotting works only for the computer side. For the human side launch site is not revealed in the very same situation. 3. Instant spotting works for ATGMs but does not work for BMP guns. 4. Instant spotting works only for the first ATGM to launch - ATGMs that are fraction of a MOA away and fraction of a second later to launch are not spotted. But if the first ATGM is trashed by the tank and the rest of ATGMs launch a second volley - the first one and only the first one of them will be immediately spotted just like in the first round. 5. Instant spotting works only if the tank is directly designated as a target for the ATGM. If ATGM area-fires and hits the tank instant spotting does not work. Real-life questions to those that have hands-on experience (abstract "believes"/"not-believes" have no value, I trust - everyone can read wikipedia). To narrow down discussion I assume Abrams crew layout, no APS and AT-14 here but all data is welcome (Merkava guys in Lebanon?). Spotting an RPG launch 100m away on a dusty plains with the commander/gunner opened up is easy, I believe (but may be I'm wrong). So how the following conditions affect the resulting probability to spot (expert guess / real life data sets): 1. Lonely tank vs tank platoon? 2. 360 degrees observation vs. 180 degrees? 3. Two crew-members (commander+gunner) opened up vs. one-crew-member vs. all looking into sights/thermals/panoramic? 4. Dusty launch vs. wet grass? 5. Trenched vs. untrenched launch? 6. 1Km vs. 2Km. vs. 4Km. launch? 7. Angle at which ATGMs is launched - frontal arc, side, back? That looks like an all too ideal menu but may be we can get at least some bits. Again real-life experience is welcome (we all can divide 360/180 for degrees and 4 by 1 for tanks). Regards, Roman

I guess for an Abrams in an urban environment it should be both gunner and commander pop out at the their respective MGs and loader handles the coaxial MG? In an open environment loader may pop-out, commander and gunner stay at the sights? Regards, Roman

1. Facing does not make any difference for me. Front, side, back - same instant lock. Cover does not mean either - I checked mud, mud with bush, top of the building, mud trench, bush trench. Range does not affect the behavior too - I checked ~500m and 900m. As for scenario - it's pretty consistent so you can make it yourself. I used Tactical Vignette 98-3 lastly with a sole Abrams and an AT platoon. But any map with a huge planes will do, I believe. 2. In my case Abrams starts to move turret in the direction of the ATGM team before it pops smoke which seems to be logical. Throwing screen still takes time

Fanboys, truly, we are So first I cross-post the reply from my thread and I suggest we move the discussion to stikkypixie's thread from now on. --- 1. Well, we can speculate about the human logic behind this or that behavior of the code but to me it seems useless - only the development team knows why it was done this way. So for me the code just behaves this way No offense here, I beg. 2. IMHO, some particular behavior - like no instant lock for ATGM area fire or gunfire invalidates the logic you offer. 3. Detecting ATGM launches by heat signature (flash) is an obvious idea. I'm sure just as we speak enough people are busy writing code to discriminate between AT-14 exhaust spectrum and pesky RPG-7V one But in real life IT IS very difficult. Consider scanning wide-field-of-view to detect vs. "pointed" lock/track/discriminate. Add parasite reflections etc. So as of now it's doppler radar. --- 1. I do not doubt that tank optics in principle can be used to detect an ATGM launch if you train automatic FLIR detector or even WFOV thermal sight (say, commander's CITV at Abrams) at the specific point when launch will happen. But it means you know in advance where it will happen )) 2. I'm pretty sure WFOV thermal sights are useless at tracking ATGMs and I doubt there might be reliable production-grade FLIR software in the next 2-3 years. At the moment FLIR plus doppler radar might be more usable but the first reliable person who tells some system can do it will be shot at the spot )) Just imagine Wadi Saluki where you have 20 simultaneous launches and an APS can differentiate between useless RPG-7Vs and freakish AT-14s ))

Let's discuss it in stikkypixie's thread here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=96296. He was the first to note the behavior.

1. Well, we can speculate about the human logic behind this or that behavior of the code but to me it seems useless - only the development team knows why it was done this way. So for me the code just behaves this way No offense here, I beg. 2. IMHO, some particular behavior - like no instant lock for ATGM area fire or gunfire invalidates the logic you offer. 3. Detecting ATGM launches by heat signature (flash) is an obvious idea. I'm sure just as we speak enough people are busy writing code to discriminate between AT-14 exhaust spectrum and pesky RPG-7V one But in real life IT IS very difficult. Consider scanning wide-field-of-view to detect vs. "pointed" lock/track/discriminate. Add parasite reflections etc. So as of now it's doppler radar.

Looks like I was cloning the topics so just in case I cross post it here. Stikkypixie had an issue with CR2, I had with Abrams M1A2. When fired upon with an ATGM the tank instantly acquires the location of the ATGM team and starts trashing it. Instantly means the moment you start to see the rocket exhaust in the GUI the tank locks on the target. Lock is judged by the tank rotating the turret in the direction of the ATGM team. Neither the angle from which the tank is fired upon nor the IR/Optics being knocked out matter. If you fire from behind at a tank with knocked out IR/Optics instant lock will work nonetheless. And it works ONLY if tank is designated as the target. If you order ATGM to area fire then target acquisition takes normal time EVEN if the rocket actually hits the tank. Only the first ATGM team gets instant lock - if other teams launch a fraction of a second later they will not be "painted" for the tank. Instant lock works only for ATGMs - if you gun the tank with BMP there will be no instant detection/acquisition. And ATGM type does not matter either - could be laser beam riding, could be wire guided. And though lock is instant the process of training the gun still takes "normal" time. AFAIK M1A2 does not have a doppler radar and I haven't seen any open information about detecting ATGMs launches by heat signature (even if we speculate it might exist in some latest WFOV FLIR SW releases). So to me seems like a bug. I'm running SF+Marines v1.31. BTS, please comment.

1. First impression is it seems like a bug. Tank instantly acquires ATGM team location ONLY if the tankk was designated as a target for the ATGM. If you make area fire with ATGM then acquisition time seems normal even if the rocket actually hits the tank. Plus only the first ATGM team to launch the rocked at the tank is locked on - other teams are "forgotten" even if they fire a fraction of a second later. All other conditions apply - Abrams is neither sensitive to the angle it's fired upon (can fire at the back - same instant effect) nor to the availability of IR/Optics. 2. Can't attach a save - too large. But I play with Tactical Vignette 98-3, a sole Abrams M1A2 and a platoon of AT-3B. The tank is initially facing away from ATGMs at ~900m distance.

1. Frankly speaking my guess would be that it might be a code "feature". The tank somehow "learns" of ATGMs launched. Shooting at the tank with a BMP gun does not produce the same "instant" behavior - i.e. the tank correctly reacts in terms of target detection/acquisition time to IR/Optics disabled/enabled and to front/side/back angles. But "feature" is just a guess so it would be beneficial if Battlefront could comment on this. This might give a critical reduction in ATGM value - i.e. you have to pay with one ATGM team for every Abrams knocked out whatever circumstances are (Abrams always manages to put at least one shot) 2. I'll do some more experimenting with different tanks, maps and ATGM targeted fire vs. area fire as at least Bradley hasn't shown the same behavior. So will post the saves.

I launch Malyutka 3x that is wire-guided at the ***back*** of an Abrams SEP with knocked out IR/Optics (checked by "surrendering") at a distance of 1Km. Abrams instantly turns turret in the direction of the launcher, acquires target and starts firing. Launcher is in a trench in a bush - not easy to spot. So how may it happen that: 1. Abrams instantly detects ATGM launch? 2. Abrams instantly acquires launcher position. "Instantly" means that visually it takes time to train the tube but no time to acquire the target. In terms of timing "instantly" means many times less than for an Abrams with IR/Optics present to detect a BMP standing in the wide open in the Abrams' frontal arc. Immediate detection works at all angles irrespective of IR/Optics but only for all ATGMs. Change Malyutka for BMP firing the gun and it takes time to determine the source of fire. So how may it happen? AFAIK even SEP does not have a doppler radar and, probably, even no laser painting detector (and that's useless with Malyutka anyway). Regards, Roman

RPGs direct decendants... huh it's like calling JSF a direct descendant of Wrights' toy.

All i simply love ppl doing rec with light armor. it might seem plausible that light armor is good for rec ops against an enemy possessing little if any at capability but that's gonna be similar to using KTs as a rec units against enemy armor. with a good at defense (layering, overlapping LOSs etc) you simply end up wasting vehicles (read points) for nothing. if your enemy relies on close range at capabilities, the freightened crew of your the eliminated vehicle may luckily end up reporting two panzershrieks for 20secs before passing away. in case your enemy possess mid-to-long range at capabilities it will let you go closer and an at gun will score a sure hit. as for your crew it will even have no possibility to report on the gun. on the other hand 50mm might be a good choice for providing close cbt support to rec inf units. but that's a different story.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: The concepts are fairly fuzzy with overlapping grey areas and subdivisions. But one of the best definitions I ever heard was that tactics is the art of winning battles and strategy is the art of arranging battles to win a war. Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> in soviet doctrines grey area is called "operative" level (the art of conducting operations which consist of battles (tac level) and form strategic level). if i'm not mistaken a similar concept exists in the west but rarely used.