mortarforker

Thaks for the intel.

I've never played a pbem or tcp/ip game. Got some free time, looking to bust that cherry, where do I go, what do I do? Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this but not sure where else to go.

I'd love to see some scenarios based on the exploits of the all black 769'th tank bn. There's a book about them called "hit hard" lousy book, interesting story. I'd also like to see some mod maker take a shot at black face textures. Not holding my breath though, can't say for sure but I suspect the CM crowd is whiter than a garth Brooks concert.

If you really don't want to deal with prisoners (or you're just a bloody minded SOB) you can light 'em up with area fire . Or put them in a building's top floor and bring the house down on them. I confess I've done this a few times to particularly infuriating prisoners, i.e the mg42 that nearly wipes out a platoon then surrenders to the remnants, "too late Hans." As for human shields, since pow's are worth more than kills there is a (gamey) arguement for taking out your cowardly comrades with a well placed 155 barrage.

Must be the New Yorker in me but I can't resist putting zook/schreck teams in top floors. I know they'll end up setting the joint on fire but I just can't help it. In my last game I had a beautiful ambush set up in a church, smg plt, mg42, 81mm fo, company cp...and a 'shcreck. Just as the Ami grunts approached my kill zone, the AT guys upstairs bust a shot at a Sherman, taking it out, Huzzah! Then I saw the flames. Chinese fire drill time and boy was it ugly. When the turn ended there wasn't enough left of those guys to make a White castle burger. Plus, my negligence burned down a church and now fear for my soul. Oh well, I'm sure it won't happen NEXT TIME.

Heard this one from a Navy Chief in Haifa's infamous B-52 club. "How are marines like Bananna's ? They start out green, turn yellow and fall in bunches on the beach" Semper Fi leathernuts!

How Annoying was Sobel? Well, on a night exercise in Georgia, while he was simulating a casualty, some company medics doped him up and made an actual incision in his gut. He woke up hours later bandaged with a fresh "appendectomy" scar. Wish I coulda done that to a certain boot 2LT I served under in the Corps , I would have tried a tracheaonomy job though.

Until recently, one of my favorite defensive tactics was placing AT teams in top floors. They can stay hidden, bust a shot then withdraw to the interior before the S**t-rain starts falling. The problem is, the little bastards keep setting the buildings afire. It's a terrible thing to watch one of your strongpoints go up in flames forcing your little pixilated heros out into the open and certain death. Any thoughts on this? Is the cover worth it? Can teams on top floors get a top hit on AFV's (don't think I've ever seen that)? are stone buildings less likely to burn (don't think so, recently burned two churches, I'm going to hell)? so what's your verdict, let the 'zooks in or put 'em out with the dog?

The long delayed sucsessor to the BAR is the Squad Automatic Weapon. About 20LB's, insane ROF (somthing like 1200 rpm), fed with a 100 round box hooked on the side to facilitate assault fire and an easy to change barrel, 3 in each 12 man rifle squad, total ripoff of the MG42. Unfourtanatly for a few generations of grunts it took the US military procurement system 40 years to come up with a counterpart to the German Mg's of WWII.

Mortar crews abandon their weapon?...never happen. Not in the Marine Corps anyway. Unless there's beer or women or some real heavy s@#t coming down.

Am I the only guy who thinks NCO's don't get their due in CM. When I was in the Marine Corps it seemed like the noncom's always had thier s**t together while the Lieutenants's just got us lost. Yet in CM the squad leader is a nonentity. I would like to see some kind of morale penalty when the sarge gets smoked leaving his squad in the hands of a boot 2LT. This may be a matter of scale, CM simulates larger battles than, say ,Close Combat so maybe there's no room for Sgt. Rock in the engine, maybe for CM2.

The only thing my mortar tracks do is die.. quickly. They can't use spotters so they're basically big, conspicuous direct fire weapons that will fall prey to the nearest 50. cal. Hopefully they'll fix this in CM2. But to answer your question I don't think facing matters

Re: Mr. Clarke Specially trained? kind of. Mortar's are pretty straightforward and half the guys in a mortar squad are unskilled ammo humpers. In general a commander might want to spare his specialists from the meat grinder, but in a desperate situation you use what you got. The fact is, mortarmen's inability to fight or even defend themselves is downright unrealistic.

When mortar fire missions suddenly stop it may be because the mortar has passed into the command radius of an hq unit that cannot see the target. this will happen if another hq gets closer to the tube than the original hq spotter. Very frustrating! PS to Reverendo: don't know about CM but in WWII mortars account for a large proportion of casualties

Pacific Theater. Yes! I know all the objections and I admit the New Guinea Scenarios might suck ( I envision squads moving at bocage speed through the jungle before, weary and suprised, being cut down by a hidden Nambu MG.) But combat in the PTO was quite varied, Okinawa was a straight up landmass battle and the recapture of Manila was house to house. I think people's real beef with PTO is the lack of tanks, but picture this,Marine amphtracs manuvering over the coral at Tarawa. Anyway, PTO would be better than the "clash of the titans" between Hotchkiss and PZIII tanks planned for the early war CM3

Why are out-of-ammo mortar squads as impotent as Bob Dole? As a former Marine mortarman I must protest. 60mm mortars are attatched to rifle companies and their crews recieve the same basic infantry training as riflemen and machinegunners. Our WWII counterparts had at least a few carbines and pistols. In CM I gnash my teeth in frustration as a platoon worth of mortarmen slink away to the rear while decimated rifle squads struggle to hold the line. Even worse, when the enemy gets up in my rear mortarmen are slaughtered like cattle. Mortarmen can fight at least as well as a crew of sorry ass dismounted tankers,give us our due. CM2 must include small arms capibility for mortar crews.

I've been playing CM for about 2 months and I have yet to see the Navertigungwaffe in action. Am I correct that the NV was a short range anti-infantry, multibarreled mortar mounted on panthers and tigers? What does it do in CM? is it effective? what's it look like? I've seen them work to brutal effect in CC2 but not in CM. On a somewhat related topic, what about "beehive" antipersonel rounds for tanks? I'm pretty sure they existed in WWII but i've never seen them in CM. Am I missing something?

As a guy whose apartment stuffed to the ceiling with books about war I have to say my favorite of all time is the Russian Front memoir "The Forgotton Soldier" by Guy Sajer. I found this book in my school library in sixth grade and checked it out so often the librarian finally gave it to me. 16 years later I still read it every 18 months or so. While most WWII memoirs are full of nostalgia and "war is glorious" B.S (I'm thinking of those bantam paperbacks with the illustrations), Sajer's book is so starkly brutal and human that you just know you're reading truth. The book is so compelling and harrowing that reading it is mental version of a 25 mile forced march. If you really want to get a sense of the absolute horror of the Russian war and it's effect on one man (and whet you're appitite for CM2) you must read this book. Also "Goodbye Darkness," William Manchester's memoir of the Pacific War and "Band of Brothers" a great book by Stephen Ambrose which traces the career of a single company of WWII paratroopers from training through Normandy, Market garden and the Ardennes.

being "left for charlie" seems to be a fairly common occupational hazard for infantry. I think in these situations troop morale will be the ultimate factor. Motivated, veteran soldiers might try to save their buddies regardless of their commanders callous, number-crunching decision abandon them. On the other hand, green troops might have to be forced at pistol point to risk their lives for some poor bastards they met last week at the replacement depot. I do think you owe your pixelated cannon fodder at least a smoke round or some covering fire to withdraw under. Then again, it's not like you can be virtually "fragged" by outraged troops, so screw 'em.

I searched on this topic and got nothing.Here's the problem: when I move troops into a building, the "which floor" box appears only intermittently, seemingly at random. This is incredibly frustrating. It could be a problem with the ATI card on my new imac. I found the multimedia update which is supposed to fix the bug but for some mysterious reason it won't install on my 9.0.1 imac. HELP!