rlh1138

Wow, this brings up bad memorys. Thanks for the recent posts and good tips. I'm going back and retry this one - I've been avoiding it, I think for years.

Just responding to one of the questions here about real life tactics, (as opposed to what may/may not work in CMBB). I've been reading 'Panzer Aces', lots of stories from Eastern front tank fighting. Seems a lot of the German TC favored the rush, at least I'm reading a lot of stories about, '...coming up on a Russian village we encountered an AT screen of guns. We moved forward at high speed, pausing to fire'. I have no idea how this book is regarded, but it seems pretty factual to me. And of course, it's only the recollections/history of 6 or so of the more famous German TC. FWIW rlh138

Just for FWIW, I also use Spybot regularly (and recommend it - wait till the 'Xjupiter toolbar' takes over your IE someday), and it does not affect my ability to log on to this, or other, forums. There were some settings involved with it, which I don't have in front of me, but look thru the Spybot menu and see if you can adjust it's level of killing things off.

Thanks Matt, By coincidence, I'd just tried that very thing before checking back here. Unfortunately, it didn't work. However,I now have the 41.09 drivers and the newer 45.23 in folders, so I'm loading the 41.09 to play CM, then loading the 45.23s to use Photoshop Elemments. Since those are about the only two things I do on the computer, I do a lot of switching back and forth that I'd like to stop. I think I'm just stuck however, until one of the NVidia upgrades no longer messes up CM. (Or play in 640X480, which I don't think I'll be doing) I'll keep trying the new ones as they come out. On another note - you may have been hearing this from others - what's with the very long load times these days for the home page and subsequent changes? ie. going to Forums. Are you guys on the East Coast? I was thinking maybe the power blackout was affecting things. What's been a usual 2-3 second load (DSL) is now about 25 -30 sec. Don't know if it's happening for others or not - most of the rest of the Net, I least where I go - seems normal. Thanks again for the advice - if you think of anything else I could try, I'd be willing. rlh1138

I've posted on this before, some months back. Got a suggestion or two, but nothing that solved my problem. This all started when I upgraded my NVidia driver, and at the same time upgraded to Direct X 9. Upon staring CMBO (and BB) I get the 'set graphics' screen you get when you've deleted your .pref file. It's suggesting 640X480, and in fact CMBO will run at that. (But who wants to). Choosing any other setting gets you the error msg. above, and no CMBO. Today I upgraded to the 45.23 that Matt posts about above, but still the same problem. Any advice, suggestions? Windows 98 SE, Athlon XP 2000+, Ti4200. Thanks for any help Ray PS. Thinking about moving to Windows XP, think that might help this problem??

I'm one of those who are claiming, (or at least feeling in my heart), that DirectX 9 - in conjunction with the NVidia driver upgrade, messed up my CMBO/BB. My symptoms were not being able to run the program(s), and getting an error msg. about 3D, or maybe 3D Direct, (poor memory, not at home machine), not being implemented. I needed the new drivers in order to use some features of PhotoShop Elements. Showing my priorities, I went back to the earlier drivers (couldn't go back to DirectX8), and both games now run fine, as they did before the upgrades. I'm living without levels and curves in PE. FWIW, I don't believe the current drivers and DirectX 9 are compatable in all machines - as far as CMBO goes. But what it is exactly about my machine, (AMD 2000+, Ti4200), that doesn't work, when most people are OK - I don't know. I noticed just today that Matt has posted a test for some new NVidia drivers (45.23), guess I'll test them out tonight - Caveat Emptor I guess

Wouldn't mind playing and being a tester, responding, etc. - but can't face yet another sign up, get a password, no, that one doesn't work, yadda, yadda. Any chance you'd post this or email it somewhere that doesn't require me to register?? rlh1138 res6vm8a@verizon.net

Slappy, OK, I can read so I know I'm not going to get these for awhile, if at all - so you don't have to answer. But, they sound like the kind of thing I'd like - so if/when you want some more testers, (and someone who PROMISES to play them and email you), my address is: (my profile is wrong) res6vm8a@verizon.net Thx rlh1138

They are on the Nvidia web site. But, watch out. I tried to use them after upgrading to DirectX 9, and was never able to play CMBO after that. I finally gave up and reinstalled the 4109s.

Drifting from the topic only a bit... I recently had a HD reformat that led to my installing DirectX 9 as part of the rebuild. I'd been on DirectX 8xx. I then put the latest NVIDIA driver back on as well. (For my GeoF Ti4200). Lo and behold, CMBO would now not 'take' any graphics setting (during first startup), and got me into a problem described on another thread awhile back, of whether 3D Direct, or something like that, was being recognized. In spite of trying various suggestions, I was eventually forced to go back a model # in NVIDIA drivers in order to keep playing CMBO(. So... my point.. as near as I can tell, it was the combo of DirectX and the video drivers that messed up, cause I was using that video driver with DirectX 8 with no problem before the reinstall. Since I can't go back in DirectX versions, (afaik) I'm stuck with the older video drivers, which don't happen to work with a PhotoShop plugin I want/need to use. Rats!! I'm waiting for NVIDIA to release a newer driver and try my luck with that.

FWIW - I couldn't get CMBO to run after installing the 44.03 drivers over DirectX 9. Had to finally go back to the drivers before. Had a black screen, got ask about what screen res I wanted, and that's all the further it would go. Finally gave up, after trying some fixes listed here, and went back one generation of drivers.

Yep, I had a Direct X problem. I'd forgotten that during the reinstall of everything I'd also upgraded to Direct X 9. Evidently DirectX 9 and the new NVIDIA drivers didn't get along, or, something went wrong during the install. At any rate, I reinstalled the earlier NVIDIA drivers, and now I can play again. I'll take some time later to carefully try the 44.03 drivers again and see if I can get them and DirectX to get along. Thanks to all for the help. Ray

After my first virus in 14 yrs. of computing, I've just scrubbed my Hard Drives to the bare metal, reformated, and am having the experience of realizing just how much stuff I had on there. Anyway, I've put CMBO back on and am getting the above msg. upon startup, after I try and select a screen configuration. To be exact, if I chose to 'skip' the first one, I get the msg. If I just wait I get the msg. If I pick the 640 X 480 first choice, the game loads, but runs badly. FWIW, everything ran fine before. I have however, changed to the new NVIDIA drivers during my reinstalling Windows, etc. I had read good things about the 44.03s here, and figured to put them on now. I have an AMD, Athon 2000+, GeoForce 4 Ti4200, 512 MEG ram. Any thoughts, suggestions?? Thanks Ray Hudson

JasonC, Very helpful (as your comments have been in the past). I'd just moved up to higher point fights, using battalions for the first time, and had been dealing with exactly that question. 'How do I get this Heavy Wpns. group into the fight'. This will help alot thanks again. rlh1138

My PBEM partner and I are looking for a new battle, contact me @ res1ejgn@verizon.net - we'll get back to you with feedback. Ray

OK - thanks for all the info. I think I got lucky with that shot. FWIW, the Tiger was on a ridge road with a steep fall off to my zook. The zook was shooting from the side and up. So maybe I did get that lower hull shot... Thanks, rlh

A question for WWII historians. I recently played a PBEM game in which my opponent brought his Tiger into a position where I could target it with 2 different bazooka teams. (Which was good as he'd killed all my armor). As I targeted with each, the game told me the hit % (pretty good), and the kill possibility - which was zero in both cases. Hmmmm, I say to myself, Looks like the game is telling me a bazooka won't penetrate the armor on this tank. (I had a side shot and a rear shot) I'd thought a bazooka could penetrate any tank's armor, shows how much I know. But, I target anyway hoping to knock a tread off or something and then the bazooka kills the Tiger with one shot. So... my question - in WWII - could/did bazookas kill Tigers?? Or put better, could a bazooka penetrate the armor of a Tiger? And if so, any thoughts on why the game said no chance? U Thanks, Ray

Since it's been mentioned twice in this thread I'll ask, why would a flat trajectory be considered a detriment in an anti infantry weapon? I'd think it would be just the opposite. Flat trajectory equals similar aiming point at varying ranges, etc. What am I overlooking? Thanks, rlh1138

I think I'll also keep playing CMBO, I'm still enjoying it a lot and still learning. I've played the new demo and really did't like the look and feel much. Somebody here said something about increased reality vs. 'gameness' (or something like that) and I got that feeling from the demo. Probably has increased 'reality', but was not as interesting visually. I missed the 'unreal' explosions, etc. and was disappointed with the 'thud' and some dirt flying that you get with tank shells. I'll watch the forum to see if it is relatively bug free (I'd be surprised if otherwise, BFC is such a good company in that regard), and I suppose I'll buy it down the road a piece. But in the meantime, hope to keep seeing lots of post here, new scenaros, and so on. rlh1138

Just bumping this - as I am curious as to BFC's knowledge of / comments about this. This thread got a bit sidetracked, I'm not talking about split squads, captured squads, squads moving off map, etc. So, BFC, have you seen this happen, ie. a unit being destroyed (I think the direct fire from the tank hit my unit head on) that disappears from the game in the instant of being hit? Just curious, as it doesn't affect game play. I'm not sure how it affects body count, score, etc. Thanks, rlh1138

Grimthane, Is that new behavior with CMBB? I've seen lots of captured units, both in CMBO and CMBB, but never had them disappear as they were captured? Actually, the only things I've ever seen completely disappear from the game were units moving off the map edge. rlh1138

Spoiler - kind of - as if everybody hadn't played this already - Have I missed earlier comments on this? I was playing Citadel Schwerpunkt and had hidden some anti tank units in the dry river. As the German armor came over the edge, one of the tanks spotted the AT unit, rolled past them, then fired back at almost point blank range. The AT unit disappear from the map! I thought I'd just lost track of them in the Steppe, as the new bases are hard for me to see. So I 'rewound' the move and this time hi-lited the unit. Same results, and the unit truely just ceased to be on the map. No hi-liting, no eliminated unit, nothing. Has anybody seen this before? Kind of weird. rlh1138

Hey Moon - thanks. That's what I call real service. Probably explains why my guys couldn't ID that tank!

Hey, I join the ranks of those asking, 'How about putting this in CM?' My request is that identification of enemy armor be linked to the status, (green, veteran, etc.) of the observing unit. This brainstorm came about after watching an 'unidentified' vehicle roam around forever in fairly plain sight of my troops. Even I could finally tell what it was (from the size of the grey square and knowing who I was facing) but my troops took forever. So how about green troops can't tell Stuarts from Shermans and veteran troops can tell from the sound alone? And my complete lack of any knowledge about programing allows me to say that it probably wouldn't be that hard to implement. So then we'd have a subtle touch that no one (but certain grogs) would ever notice, that would not in any way I can think of ever affect game play, but would be very cool. Is this not a good idea?

Not to prolong this, as I think everyone has expressed their view on the likihood/plausibility/math of this event, but... I don't see anything in the discussion about the HE inside the shell and how it's detonation would affect the formulas. Is this a 'solid shot' shell and I'm the only one that doesn't know that?