IPA

Today (Sunday the 17th September) is the anniversary of the launch of Operation Market Garden. How about a minute's silence in memory of those gallant men who gave their lives..... IPA

Sorry that should be spelt "Hairon's". IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

From Ryan's book, it was M. Hairn's Villa that was burning, due to an air raid. I can't find the company commander's name (it's the only D Day book I have). Pvt Ryan's details should be helpful though. If your bothering to go into this kind of detail, you're scenario should be a gooden. Look forward to playing it when it's finished. ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Check out this reply from BTS, way back in March 1999 (Thread was called "buildings", there are dozens of others). "ATs can be put inside buildings, but only ruined ones. This is realistic. Tanks can do this as well, but they will be hit with a MASSIVE time delay to get themselves out, and a decent chance of throwing a track. Tanks can crash into buildings, and cause damage, but can not drive through them. Hollywood and unrealistic games might have tanks driving through buildings (not shacks like in Russia!) and trees, but that is total nonsense. The chances of the tank getting stuck were a near certainty, it had to be done slowly (i.e. AT fodder!), generally multple runs at the building were needed, and it would fall into the basement if there was one." I guess it was never fully implemented (this statement was made very early in the development), but at least it was considered. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

M Bates, are you British? I know the name episode thing is over. But for everyones info - The thing is M. Bates took his handle from a character a very long running well known children's programme in the UK called "Captain Pugwash". Believe it or not the names of crude character names "M******Bates" and "S***** Stains" were not noticed for many years and when this did come to public attention it was laughed off quite light heartedly by the British Public young and old. Of course, because most of the posters here are residing in the US, you wouldn't have heard of it. I'm not trying defend him, but he probably thought that such an inside joke (as lame as it is) might be well known to many of the posters. I doubt that M.Bates meant to cause offence or outrage. Anyway it's over. IPA

For me, if crashing through buildings is considered too marginal a feature to add, then that sounds fine (the iffy proposition comment accepted). However again, what I would like to see is for the defender in the setup phase to be able to place AFV's and AT guns inside buildings with a no further movement penalty. Currently for the Defender, infantry automatically digs in,AFV's can dig in, mine fields and barbed wire can be laid, preset target references point designated. This all implies that CM is simulating that the defender has a certain amount of time to prepare defensive positions. So surely the same should apply to AFV and AT guns "dug in" to buildings (Carefully). The significance of the defensive advantages are surely not in question. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Sorry, I've got to check back. My mail was a quick reply, based on on the spot recollection. Though I've never personally seen an AFV crash through a building(watch out, the risk of damage to tanks when ramming issue might get mentioned again), it's a taken that for prepared positions, AT's or Tanks were set up inside buildings in ambush. I have several photographs of this in my WWII library, as I'm sure many other posters do. For crying out loud, who remembers Donald Sutherland crashing through buildings in a sherman near the end of "Kelly's Heroes"?! (Not really a very convincing source though ) IPA

Yes, I'd like to see both in CM. If it's too difficult to model inside buildings, then at least a patch allowing, these units to enter or if not, to be set up in rubble tiles (in the case of AT guns no movement allowed for the remainder of the battle). This has been discussed at length, I think a couple of weeks back. I think it was concluded that this would not be added (correct me if I'm wrong). IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

It's a lot of megs to download, but you won't regret it. Wonderful piece of work. Greatly appreciated. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Mensch, Sounds good to me, but the Mrs won't let me do that in the house. I spose that helps me cut down though, cause it takes hours before I can drag myself away. Hmmmm...CM helps you quit? IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

I'm working in the far east. The local favorite snack is dried cuttlefish, which is something like "fish" jerky. It's real chewy with a real strong controversial smell. I find it perfect for easing the tension during action phases cause each bite chews for about a minute. It's hands free and kind of addictive. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

PvK, That was perfectly put, I don't need say any thing else, except that the full fog of war setting should be implemented exactly the way you just described it. L4Pilot, It was the AI. You could be right. I'm off to bed, thanks for the comments. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Thanks for the replies. Points about HQs accepted, I didn't think about it hard enough. Maybe my experiences with spotters were not the norm. One example was the Utrechweg operation from the Games at war site(nice map). + + + + + + + + + + Spoiler + + + I was defending as the British. The Germans had a serious amount of fire power, about 6 spotters. I had full fog of war on. The spotters were IDed at various distances up to 200m away. They were all casualties before they had a chance to zero in on me, which rather disappointing as heavy barrages were one of the main features of that particular action. Didn't get plastered until the later battle when the Tigers arrived. I only one mortar barrage. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

I couldn't find a thread on this one in the search, there seem to have been dozens of threads on spotters, so if I'm going over old ground here, let me know and I'll put on the breaks. In the simplest terms (the upper limit of my literary skills), there are certain enemy infantry units in the game, that once identified you'll always want to take out at the earliest opportunity. Two units that come to mind are HQs and artillery spotters. HQs to reduce command and control and spotters for the obvious reason. Now on a given battle field, in the heat of battle, would you really be able tell them apart from other infantry units? They wouldn't look very much different (perhaps a pair of binoculars, a radio, a side arm only, some bloke shouting orders), it would be pretty difficult to make a positive ID. To specifically target them is perhaps gamey, I've done it many times and gained an unfair advantage because of it, even with full FOW on. Rather then forcing myself to do the decent thing and refrain from this practice, I'd like the FOW for these types of units to be more extreme to prevent this type of tactic (if it's not modelled in already). Previously, I'd thought the enemy AI lacked aggression when it came to artillery barrages, but the fact of the matter was that their spotters were all dead. I'd appreciate any feed back. ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Ditto on the op thing. Darn, if there's one place I have to go before I die it's Arnhem. The wife and kids might not find it too interesting though . Be sure to give us an after action report and some pics when you get back. I've heard there's a wealth of battle info that you can get from the museums that you can't pick up anywhere else. I'm a Brit overseas, been here 8 years, so when I go back to UK to visit(Suffolk), I don't get a chance to travel in Europe. Anyway it's 12.53am and I've got an early meeting, better hit the sack. Thanks for staying on for the thread. I hope you reconsider your tactical withdrawal. You might be one of the only posters who understands British humour. Have a great time. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Dr Brian, Are you referring to replacements between battles in operations. Replacements did not always necessarily come in the form green or inexperienced troops, but also experienced units that were shattered or reduced to such extents that they were disbanded and pooled to other units. I guess if your suggestion were to be considered the effect on experience of the reinforced unit could be randomised, but only in extreme loss cases. Large numbers of replacements to a unit would also surely affect squad integrity. Slightly on a tangent, it would be a nice feature to be able to reorganise and combine reduced squads between battles into reformed units. Especially in scarce supply ops. A reduction in squad integrity could also be modelled in. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Oh dear, I just saw Ironcross' farewell thread. HEY don't go, we haven't finished this thread yet! IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Yep, know what you mean. In an op I was playing, I was totally decimating attack after attack. German squads were being reduced to 1 or 2 men, but it seemed that if just one of these squads managed to advance just bit further than the previous battle, then I could be wrong but that was the set position for the new battle line. I'm sure this subject has been discussed many times before (I didn't get a chance to check the search), but as far as I know there haven't been any changes to the way next battle set up lines work so far. Maybe it ain't practical from a coding point of view. If all this has been answered before, could someone point me in the right direction and I'll leave it there. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Check 6 I think for Arnhem 14 the no mans land has already been set to zero. In line with what Ironcross stated, it always appears no matter how much ground you capture, the way the battle line rules work, you still seem to loose ground. In this respect operations only seem to work well for "get to the other end of the map" ops. Whereas battles like Arnhem (my obsession ) are not suitable for ops, even if you set them up as destroy operations. For destroy ops it would be nice for battle lines not to be set straight across the map, but to be plotted based on a zone of control for the territory lost or gained. That way "I'm surrounded" ops like Arnhem that spanned a number of days could be better simulated. Another addition for destroy ops would be the ability to set more than one attack direction for the attacker, but I have to admit that I haven't really thought to deeply into the practicalities of that one. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Tom The Web site looks excellent! Superb pan round. I got an error message when I pressed the theatre button. IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

Thanks for your replies. It would be a nice extra touch of realism. But I guess it could be a too much of a coding nightmare that might far outweigh the benefits. One of the reasons that I asked was that for city or urban defensive battles at night, I'd like to be able to deliberately set fire to a building to gain the increased visibility advantage or disadvantage as the case may be. Somebody mentioned way back that this would kill your night vision, but I'd want it modelled in either way. We'll just have to wait and see. Bullethead, Yes indeed, India Pale Ale, the amber (well brownie) nectar. Also my favorite beer, my stable diet, hence the handle. That's darn good taste you've got there friend. Mannheim Tanker CM and homebrew are perfect compliments to eachother, thus there's no need to sacrifice one for the other. Get the balance right and life will be complete.... Thanks IPA ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."

I'm yet another newbie to the forum, although I've been following it for sometime now. Some say they think that CM is the best computer wargame ever made. As far as I'm concerned that's not an opinion, it's a statement of fact. The general age, maturity and clearly indepth knowledge of the forum members speaks for itself. There's currently a thread running on burning tiles and it's getting real technical. Could anyone tell me whether CM models the increased lighting effects of burning tiles on a adjacent tiles, thus increasing visibility for these areas during night turns. I know this was discussed way back, but I could'nt find a clear yes or no reply from BTS. If I missed it please don't flame me too bad. ------------------ "Surrender? Tell them to go to hell."