Thermopylae

God King Emperor was not the title I was going to give myself. I was thinking along the lines of Grand Imperator or maybe First Citizen...Anyhow join my organization of politicians and scientists who will help me achieve this! (it involves nukes and sudden overthrow of governemnts)

...and upon closer inspection those are p-51's making the bombing runs..big german fleet for that late Don't think the swatstika emblem is gonna woprk ou well.

Scout Cars, or an unlucky infanty squad that attracts its fire.

On the other ahnd, i've had a signle shreck knock out two jumbos at 168 and 174 m.

But pretending to grog is fun! When a friend descibed RA 2 tactics to me I was constantly irritating him... Friend: You dig in some GIs, and they will slaughter russian tanks. Me: Oh, some of them get AT rocktes..cool..you have to wati for the tanks to pass and shoot them in the flank right? Friend: No, they use Machineguns. Me: Bah! the tanks will just use their machineguns and cannon to rip them apart while bullets spatter off thier armor! Friend: Grrr....

Ahh the germans developed an anti-mass spectromtere! Now they can hold 5 1000 kg bombs in one stuka! And they fall perfectly straight!

I wonder where they got the shallow draft battleships...maybe more experimentation with clown cars?

I would imagine the AP is travellingat a high velocity, and that the real point of it is to punch through armor, and then explode. Against a truck its more than lielky just going to leave an appropriate caliber hole, because its gonna punch out the other side before it explodes. While in the engine block, sure its gonna stop the truck, but a chunk of superstructure shot away isn't going to hurt much.

A campaign doesn't nessecarily have to rpresent the whol war..it could just be a month or so ins specific scetor..so you might fight an attack against a fixed position as an operation, and then using what was left of your tattered troops, and a good inflow of green replacements for your losses, you might fight an adavance/pursue retreating forces operation on a idfferent op map (after all you are racing ahead several miles a day to try and catach the enemy), and then perhaps defending yet another locale (the division overreaches itself) against counyter attack.

I've seen one poor assitant driver killed by internal flaking...of course the next round as everyone shcoked tried to reverse, a 75 long barel put an end to the entire tank..

having looked at the WW2OL debate, i figure dit'd be ebst if we let the current fans answer themselves to our skepticism. And here is a transcript (very, very long) of their answers to your objections. questions from me This will be long. Watching this game's potential be debated in the Combat Mission (a game some of you may want to look into; very very good WWII squad level game, plays up to a reinforced battlion) forums for a few days, I've decide to ask some questions here to prove/disprove the various points being propagated by various people. I will then bring the word back like the ten commandmants to the CM forums. Or like the mark of Cain, but thats no big deal.. 1) In looking at your screen shots, there seems to be virtually no cover for infantry. While its understandable that you want to simplify the open ground for the sake of tankers, for an infantryman every bush, dip, crevice, ditch and rock is potential cover. So is there actually going to be realistic open ground from this respect? 2) Command and control does not seem to lend itself well to multiplayer games online. How realistic is it to expect that some few hundred people will actually be following a general attack plan, defense? It is the prevailing opinion that thanks to the average FPS player, anything larger than afireteam probably isn' going to work, and platoons and such are probably going to use the "lots of people =lots of firepower = teamplay" approach. Is there a plan to counter this? 3) Splitting of forces. It is generally thought over in the CM forums that the chances of players falling int he proper proportions, or even in near balanced positions, is slim. It is widely expected that infantry is not going to be an insanely popular choice, cutting their numbers to the level where they can do very little (1:1 ratio with other services combined or less). Is this true? 4) Strategic Layer. Frankly, it is widely thought that there is no way you willa ctually be able to simulate an entire theater of opertaions, or even nessecarily a division level fight. Even at a 1:2 scale proposed by your rattentruppen this would require 100k's of players. Tell me if I'm wrong. Idea's 1) Limited Strategic Campaign A campaign on the division, or failing that, brigade level, instead of a theater of operations. Upside: fewer players needed, cmapaign feleing still there, more manageable in a global sense. Player levels might actually fit battalion sized fights, or even regiment. Downside: No navy really, limited air, and quite a few disapointted tankers. No longer is grandiose. 2) Set-Piece battles Major battles fought from set-piece, e.g. Stalingrad Grain Silo or tractor Works, any number of other mid sized fights. Upside: Players, players, Players. Downside: Cuts out lotsa air, the navy, and plenty of tankers. 3) Pick - Up games. Platoon - Company level games on random maps to be played ons ervers between either major campaign stages or set - pice battles. Theres also a bunch of stuff suggesting things like executing insubordinate players, but those are essentially the major ones. thank you for your time. -Thermopylae answers from Hammy As an avid Combat Mission player myself, and long time follower of WW2 online, I think it safe to say that WW2 online will not fail to impress even the most detail oriented of WW2 enthusiasts. 1)The screenshots you have seen were done early in beta, and by the time the final product is out, there will be much more in the way of cover for infantry. 2)In theory, this game is being designed with the thought that if you do not work as a team, you do not win. Basically, this is not so much of a fragfest as one would think at first. L337 guys running around being Rambo will die. Dieing = no mission points. People will not want to die, thus acting more like they would in real life. This would lend itself to people actually employing the concepts of military doctrine such as cover fire, etc. 3)Tanks, planes, ships, etc. are limited in supply. I forget the exact allocation system, but there is one. Thus, infantry should still be viable. 4)There will be AI controlling many sectors of the battlefield. My assumption is, dedicated attacks by players will be needed to take many bases, supply points. How this plays out over the whole theater of operations, I do not know. The servers are set to handle 1000 players at a time. Anyway, people who are into Combat Mission should definitely check out WW2 online. It truly seems like it will be revolutionary in it's ambition to create a world that has never been attempted before. Check out the FAQ to see just how detailed this game will be. www.hq.wwiionline.com <FAQ there somewhere Answers from OKW Thermopylae- Don't worry that's not a long post by WWIIOL standards First off, this game has heaps of potential. Even if you don't agree that everything can be done or will actually work there is still a whole heap of potential. The huge theatre, the wide range of vehicle choices, the hardcore realism and an in depth mission system are just some examples. The lack of infantry cover in the screenshots might seem concerning but there are some mitigating factors to consider. Recently the Rats have been focused on testing the tanks and hence they need wide open spaces. There is actually a nice screenshot of a forest on a mountain ridge, which would provide awesome cover for infantry. Most of the buildings that you see are also enterable which will provide lots of cover in a town situation. Unfortunately, you will never be able to get all the multitude of dips, shrubs and rocks etc. that could provide cover in RL. But then that is true for most FPS games as well. Command and control should work out fine as well. If you check out some of the other forums you will see that detailed planning is already underway and squads are getting together so that they can coordinate actions. The rank / mission system of WWIIOL will ensure that there is some direction. People with high ranks will formulate the general strategy, people with intermediate ranks will create missions to achieve the plans and people with low ranks will carry them out (kind of like RL really). Of course, your squad could do whatever it wanted but you'll have a lot more fun and success if you cooperate with other people. I concede that the splitting of forces will never be true to life because a lot of people would rather fly planes or drive tanks. How much of a problem this will be is unknown at this stage. However, infantry are essential if you want to capture territory and will be needed to protect the tanks. Other jobs like clearing out cities will have to be done by infantry players. You are also correct in observing that there will never be enough players to simulate even one division. However, we expect that fighting will be localized at a few key locations along the front. A complete description of how the strategic layer will work is not yet available. Rest assured that the Rats have thought about this issue and will have dealt with it in a sensible way. My own personal hunch is that there will be some relation between the in game performance of your squad and the performance at a strategic level of say a division that you represent. I think that this game will be awesome. Even if you don't think it is all possible, you should at least come along for the beta and try it out. Much more information is available at the HQ FAQ Answers from Silly ok lemme give it a try <serious mode engaged> 1) In looking at your screen shots, there seems to be virtually no cover for infantry. While its understandable that you want to simplify the open ground for the sake of tankers, for an infantryman every bush, dip, crevice, ditch and rock is potential cover. So is there actually going to be realistic open ground from this respect? Some older screenshots have pretty dense forests, latest movie showcases some very neat buildings. bushes and stone fences have also made their appearance. infanrty will NOT be able to hide in the grass a-la DF2, at least not in initial release. will there be enough cover for inf to find concealment in the immediate surroundings? i do not know. CRS guys have said that they will keep this in mind when they develop game terrain. it will probably be a compromise between playable level of cover and playable object count on the terrain(not for tanker's sake, but for hardware/network limitations sake, as i understand it). 2) Command and control does not seem to lend itself well to multiplayer games online. How realistic is it to expect that some few hundred people will actually be following a general attack plan, defense? It is the prevailing opinion that thanks to the average FPS player, anything larger than afireteam probably isn' going to work, and platoons and such are probably going to use the "lots of people =lots of firepower = teamplay" approach. Is there a plan to counter this? Basically, yes, there is a plan. the plan is called "mission/rank system". To make the long story short- you select a mission from the list of posted ones, you try to complete it (working with other people who signed for the same mission). If you succeed, you recieve some mission points. once you accumulate enough of those, you advance in rank. As you advance in rank, you can create and post missions for other people to accomplish. If big operation involving multiple branches is planned, plans are passed from top commander to air/land/sea etc commanders who outline objectives to their subordinate commanders who create actual missions for players to participate in. As you see, most of command/control problems are handled by high ranking players who had already demonstrated their dedication and teamwork skills. Lowly private can sign on a mission and be a part of a huge offensive operation without even realizing its scope - just like ww2. 3) Splitting of forces. It is generally thought over in the CM forums that the chances of players falling int he proper proportions, or even in near balanced positions, is slim. It is widely expected that infantry is not going to be an insanely popular choice, cutting their numbers to the level where they can do very little (1:1 ratio with other services combined or less). Is this true? Infantry is essential to a side's success as it is the only way to take enemy territory(spawn points, bases, strategic facilities). Will many people play as "crunchies"? Here i can only offer guesses. The following opinion is often circulated here : "Since the game will provide ultimate realism as far as WW2 weapon platforms go, many people will find a learning curve too steep for vehicle control(tanks,planes,ships) and stick to playing infantry"....we shall see... 4) Strategic Layer. Frankly, it is widely thought that there is no way you willa ctually be able to simulate an entire theater of opertaions, or even nessecarily a division level fight. Even at a 1:2 scale proposed by your rattentruppen this would require 100k's of players. Tell me if I'm wrong. WWIIOL is not an attempt to re-create ww2 conflicts. we get historical terrain, historical weapons as well as some strat aspects such as supply, R&D, ship construction etc(not much has been revealed about these). The fighing is not likely to cover entire fronts, but concentrate around the hotspots with AI defensive positions informing players of a surprise attack on unmanned facilities and providing some level of defence of such facilities. circuit overheat... system shutdown... <serious mode disengaged> i hope CM'ers will be interested - they would feel right at home in this game. Answers from hans aund Frans 1. Cover. Well, as the people who play Combat Mission well know, infantry don't like open ground (I own it too). As far as their being no cover not all screenshots are on this website. Dogfighter.com, SimHQ, and the WW2HQ and others also have screenshots, and some of them show quite a bit of cover. Plus, CRS may not be done with the terrain. We havent' seen any towns yet, so I am sure of it. Here are two screenshots. The perspective is from a French Char 1B-bis tank, and advancing towards him is two German Panzers, and two infantry. Behind him is his base that he is defending (not shown). I could have posted the larger, full screen shots, but if you want to see them, go here: http://www.hq.wwiionline.com/aar/sitzkrieg.shtml I do recomend reading the story, as it comes from beta test gameplay. 2. Command and Control. Its not a Bizantine, "you must do as I say...or ELSE!", type of control. A system that rigid would probably kill this game's fun factor. Now, to be honest we know very little about the C&C part of the game. However, from what I have read it is a carrot on a stick. You bait your troopers to do what you want by making things valueable. I think it works like this. The General make large, sweeping missions, but only Colonels and Majors can accept them. Colonels and Majors accept and make more specific, smaller missions for Captains and Leutenants to accept. Captains and Leutenants accept the missions, and make their own smaller plans/mission to take their men into combat. So, General Veers says, "Take Belgium." Colonel Potter says, "I will take Antwerp." Leutenant Dan says, "Take the canal bridge north of town." Squads are another command and control device. You can run your squad as tight as you want, and threaten any member who doesn't want to tow the line with dismissal if he won't obey. 3. Infantry are unpopular. There won't be any forcing anybody to play something they don't want to. As far as infantry being unpopular, well that would imply that they are not going to have any use, or be effective. Infantry can go into the buildings and they can hide behind the smallest terrain that wouldn't hide a tank. Tanks draw alot of fire...because they are tanks. Vehicles are easier to see from aircraft than a single pixle that is a soldier from far away. Infantry are also the only players who can "capture" land. We don't know exactly how this works, but bassically they are the only players that can go up to an enemy installation, touch it, flip a switch, or click on something (flagpole?) and the installation switches to their side. In that scenario above, the French Char tank knocked out both enemy panzers, but the two infantry made it into the base he was protecting, and it took him forever to find them. All the while he was being repeatedly dive bombed by a Stuka, which probably was getting up to the minute information from the German infantry on where he was. 4. Simulating an entire theatre. No, they are not trying to simulate an entire theatre with hundreds of thousands of soldiers. This isn't intended to be a 1:1 ratio of real life to game world. Its a game based on WW2 gear and terrain, but not the actual war or Table of Organization and Equipment. A "large" battle is probably going to be on the order of 20 vs 20 people at one location. The game will be a scaled down version of real life. Remember that people can respawn over and over, and in the end if somebody kept count there might have been thousands killed in the course of a single hour, and the grand total of an entire war (counting up every single "death") could number into the millions. So, more or less there will be huge armys marching across the landscape, but actually it will be the same couple hundred over and over. -------------------- Now, to answer your final ideas section, the games like you've describe are not as appealing to me. I would rather have WW2OL. This is a combined arms sim, with navy, airforce and army. It isn't a full scale, true to life sized army sim, but enough is there to get the idea. Hans. Answers from baseline A few things to keep in mind regarding WWIIOL and the real WWII. 1) Although nations fielded armies with millions of fighting men, not all of these troopers were engaged in combat at all times. The majority of the combat action seen during the war was between the big operations. It takes time to gather the men and equipment for such large operations. 2) By the time all of the theatres are finally up and running the player base for WWIIOL should be huge indeed. The experienced player’s will/should have a complete understanding of how the strategic system has worked out. 3) Based on the concept of this game the heroic efforts of one individual operating alone are not going to make much difference as well it shouldn't. The world is a big place even at 1:2 scale. 4) Like it or not teamwork will be the key to success here as it should be. The victorious side will be the side that best manages to pull the motley masses together towards achieving their strategic plan. 5) There is allot that we still don't know yet about how all these systems/plans will work. This is only the beginning; it will only get better. The game IMHO at this point is already better than anything out there. She's nearly ready for Prime Time now. We still have not yet entered open beta. We will/should find things that need tweaked yet. 6) I’m going to go out on a limb here, albeit a sturdy one, WWIIOL will be an ever-evolving project. As technology improves so will the feature set. As we play the game improvements will be made; new units added etc. etc. I'm in this thing for the long haul. Many if not all of you will get tired of seeing Baseline in WWIIOL, if you haven't already. WWII is my passion, and this is truly a dream come true for many of us.

Aftre a long, long look at the website I ahve decided on one other, small, tiny, inconsequential, INCREDIBLY BLOODY HUGE thing. In addittion to the player lust needed to run ANY sizable operation (more than a platoon)... There's no cover for the infantry! Look at the screen shots. While a grass texture mayvery well represent brush, dips, grass, and everything else usable for cover in the open in CM, that just won't do for the individual infantry man...I personally don't want to run three miles knowing I'm on a grass texture and nothing else. This brings us to CPU speed. Every tree in a forest will have to be modelled. the intereior of every house. A million bits of terrain. And it all has to be done over an area where at least tanks can operate. it'd require a mssive amount of Computer to do this, and if you add Human Pilots, wellllll....Its Just BIG tm.

Oh, and I really look forward to being an ifantryman...so you'll all have some one to run over/machinegun/test direct HE on.

I think entire armies may not be a great idea...I can't see a few hundred thousand people signing up... Maybe if you fought it at the battalion level...you still need 800 or more players online for relatively battered battalions on each side, and thats only over a square kilometer. And let me tell you, people aren't going to be pleased that there's only 40-50 tank positions available (meaning gunners, drivers, commanders, loaders, assitant drivers,a nd less if you leave the two less glamorous ones out), and only 5-10 pilots... But lets assume you can feasibly get this level if you prepare a week or so for the battles so everyone has notice, a strategic level of a brigade might work. And you could have quick "pick-up" games of around the platoon size...even if the massive campaign system doens't work, this would still be really fun..of course, the navy and the airforce aren't going to be pleased. And I would like to say, that despite my fears, i'm truly looking forward to this and hoping it works out...

Yes they are French_german troops..what is little know is that they are the parrallel to the German's much vaunted and feared Hamstertruppen. They are the "vee hau hau hamstretruppen de looove..." Just the unit name would make Allied troops go into conniptions. They actually did reach the Bridges over the Meuse int he bulge thrust, something much covered up. After negotiating a seperate peace with Ike, they have been given the old palaces at versailles as their own nation.

What? you mean those fats flying lead bits hurt!?! maybe thats why my US squads can never charge those MG 42s successfully.... of course the worst part is they always get to about 15 m away befor ehtye break...

SPOILER In the pegasus bridge scenario (which takes place at day for some reason?) I've seen the MG bunker use up three ammo per shot.... Yet despite complete destrcution of anythign allied looking, they were awarded VPs for a knocked out bunker.

Unlike Jarhead's Box O Spelling, ours comes with a hundred free miles on pseudo-grog airlines, allowing you to visit any topic thermopylae himself has posted on! Not only that but you can apply for your FREE BOS GerbilWerfer Card, with a low introductory interest that matches a Sherman survival rate! (Note, all terms are null and void should you attempt to do anything besides bribe BTS employyees for news of CM2) Anfd to jarhead. Sorry about the TCP/IP problems...My computer randomly suffered a catatsrophic failure, and i spent about 4 hrs piecing it back together.

1) Explode: the simplest trick to teach a sherman, it requires little more than a 75ll/Panzershreck/rifle/Irrate mosquito to get a sherman to perform this trick, and the learning curve is amazingly low. The sherman, upon coming iiinto to ontatc with any of the above mentioed items, or failing that a stiff breeze, will promptly ignite into a large fireball, probably killign everyone inside. It is notable that your infantry's morale will actually go up when you use this trick because there is no longer a big steel object in their midst that can still explode and injure them. Regrettably, this is the only trick the sherman can actually complete mainly for the following reasons that i will show through example Play dead: Sherman Explodes, Killing Crew Roll Over: Sherman meets tiger, explodes, kills crew Shake: Manages to get a pebble stuck in the turret, ring malfunction causes hull toi shake, sherman explodes, kills crew Beg: Despite repeated Alt-C attempts, sherman explodes, kills crew Kill Infantry: Sherman fires Mgs and cannons, and immediately thereafter explodes, killing crew. Kill Armor: Sherman fires smoke, reverses to hull down, and is blown up by a friendly rifle round, killing the crew. any more?

An abandoned tank as compared to a knocke dout tank only means that it might be recovered. The tank is not likely to be re-usable for a while after a shell has exploded inside, even if the ammo didn't cook off. Fuel lines are ruptured, hydraulics are shot, sensitive equipment is more or less gone...

I'm not an Aussie! But I see lots of you because I dedicate friday and saturday nights/mornings to playing cm...the whole lot of you are usually on.

In response to radar: We are only modelling battalion/reinforced company level engagementsa here, in rough terrain. So: 1) intel: probably already gathered. Your a captain, not a colonel or brigadier. 2) Missiles: This could be most liekly ascertained to those annoying Airplanes, helicopters, and SAMs. As such, the current abstracted airpower/flak type of model could be used, except attack helicopters would have a graphic, actually an apache probablly wuldn't..a hellfie would just streak in from 8km out and that would be support.... After all they don't tend to hang around the battle field lots when theres planes in the air. And missiles could easily be treated as a statistical shot in the given terrain, since they don't have far to go... 3) Arty. Works in CM, works for me. We can safely assume that all those pretty battery, counterbattery, find HQ, disrupt supply, hammer positions before assualt, type mission have occurred before the CM fight. 4) strategic assets. Well, I don't think company commanders have to worry about satellite patterns or AWACs for their overhead planes.

As I/O pointed out, the Soviet plan of attack (according to us)would be to punch through the northern area of germany with probably only one or two armies fighting a holding attack in the south. The terrain belt I refer to is the large strip of woodsy/hilly terrain between the plains/farmland and the Ruhr Industrial center.

SMG stuck in the driver slit? Infantry smoke grenade or standard up the exhaust? Grenade bundle rolled under the tank? Grenade on the turret ring? Grenade thrugh the driver slit? Grenade bundle on the top armor? (hey, if those 60mm mortars have the explosive capacity to kill a panther... )

Actually, the maps would not have to be huge, or even beyond the 1 km squared type of thing. Assuming the soviets will always overrun the rather open sections of West Germany in the early days of the war, the main fighting would occur in the terrain belt further back. In these situations armor and such would be pretty much limited by the battlefield to fighting it out at 1km or less...and the infantrymen would be more than a line of AT rockets in the MLR as would be more the case in open scenarios. ------------------ For god's sakes how come those machineguns won't die!"-Me, whenevre I'm attacking.