Scipio

Sorry, I mixed up your terms of platoons and groups. Are we talking about radio communication, or are they just shouting? Because he is not able to. - For example, the radios 'FuG 5', used in many tanks, had a frequence of 27.2-33.3 MHz, he 'Fu.Spr.f', used by PzGren, had a frequenz of 19.99-21.47. - German infantry platoons in WWII were ussually not equipted with radios. Fieldtelephons were more common, but ussually on company level. Indeed had only few Russian tanks radios in the early war. - As mentioned, it wouldn't be that usefull. You should know that those radios can send or receive, but not at the same time. So, everyone is screaming in his radio 'I see the enemy', while the commander ain't able to give orders. Radio discipline is a very serious issue. Indeed would relative spotting need a communcation delay. Without delay, we would have borg spotting. Or did you mean there would be no communcation between units? Generally, I think people should not expect to much from relative spotting. Maybe except larger PBEM files. BTW, what do you mean with 'normal relative spotting'? [ April 23, 2003, 03:54 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

I meant wat was quoted here earlier.

Mh, I read from Steve's post that their won't be a relativ spotting. BTW, your description of radio communication is far away from realism. Radio equipted units doesn't communicate with each other unit. This would be nothing but a giant mess. Communication is organized in 'radio circles', meaning different frequencies. For example, an FO uses one frequence to speak to the artillery leader, and the artillery leader uses another to speak to the gun position. And each artillery unit uses another. We once had the case that we falsely received the artillery order from another unit in my military service, we nearly bombarded the next village... In other words, tanks don't speak to infantry over radio or vice versa. Infantry speaks to the infantry HQ, the infantry HQ speaks to the tank HQ, the TankHQ speaks to the group commander, and the group commander to the tanks... So what about the communication delay?

Oh, there is indeed a solution, and a very simple one, too, and they even don't need to implement a new concept: Fog of war. Above has been mentioned some problems of spotting an enemy unit, especially guns. With a 'sound spotting' you have only a raw idea were the enemy unit is. It only would be necessary that the position of a unit, especially a gun in covered terraine, can not be verified that easy, so you spott the unit at a certain place, but it may be 30m away in some direction - so you know only the gun is somewhere in an area of ~9 map tiles. That's close enough for an area fire, but maybe you shoot all the time to the wrong place anyway.

Good point.

Units always select their targets on their own if not ordered to hide or a covered arc. BTW, will a hide or 'cover arc' command have a delay, too?

I think the difference there is something that you can not do with a truck. Produce an almighty bang, flash, and quite a lot of sudden movement. Moving objects are much easier to spot - sudden movement in an otherwise tranquil area, such as a flash and dust being kicked up, or foliage being ripped, is yet much easier to spot. Also, tanks, and quite a few of the other units in the game, have magnifying binos or other instruments, yet again making the spotting job a lot easier. </font>

The keyword is should. It sounds logic that a large AT gun is easy to spot and a small one not. But don't underestimate the distance. It is easy (well, for me) to forget how small things get already at a range of 500 or more meters when you turn the unit size to maximum in CM. Maybe you want to make a test? It's not a problem to see your camo painted pick-up (to take something of the right size) in the open at 1000m distance. Now drive it in a wood. Wear a red dress, climp on the loading area, jump up and down, wave with the arms and shoot in the air with a big rifle all the time. Tell a friend 1000m away to stop the time until he has spotted you. Hopefully he is faster then the guys from the next assylum who want to keep this moron in a red dress back who jumps up and down on a pickup, waving with his arms and shoot in the air all the time. Command delay is of course another problem. Of course this would mean that all direct orders must delayed. [ April 22, 2003, 07:21 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

Yep, good reading. I agree to all of it. But as I said before, the only serious problem I have with the current system is with guns. Because of there (relativ or total) immobility and their hight target priority they suffer most from borg spotting. Or is there another kind of unit that I miss? Let me show two situations. a) Typical - I have a (Soviet 100mm AT) in light wood to cover a road. Now, a group of Tigers show up, 1000-1500m away. My gun opens fire. It was able to get out three shots before it was spotted, all Tigers target it, and the gun was killed before it made the fourth shot. It was overcast weather in dawn/dusk, so visibilty was not optimal. Suprising - My tanks move over steppe. An enemy 2cm opens fire. I only get a 'sound spotting' marker from a wood ~1000-1500 meters away. Well, now I order area fire into the wood. I was not able to take out that gun. Weather was good, daytime. Optimal visibilty. I think situation B was much more realistic than situation A. - Even if a big AT gun is a large target, the crew ussually spends some time to camo it. They know about their vulnarability. At least if the gun has not been moved or under fire for some minutes. - It is generaly difficult to find out from what direction the fire comes. Not to speak about the difficulties to tell somebody else where you have seen something. Try to show somebody else where you see a bird sitting in a tree 3m away. - An additional problem is indeed from borg spotting. Infantry units with better spotting values can spot the gun, while (I assume) the tanks only wouldn't. But the tanks then open the fire. So it is my impression that the borg problem would be solved to some degree if guns would be much harder to discover, depending on the terrain of the gun position and the crew experience. Unless a friendly unit - even with a GOOD spotting value - is 'close' (a few 100 meters), the gun is only visible as 'sound spotted'. Mh, when I think about it - it mostly depents on the number of shots if gun is spotted or not. Maybe a variant of the 'Shoot & scoot' command would be an idea, too?

Thats another point, and I think that will be adressed in the new engine, I seem to recall Steve metioning it. </font>

I just wonder how a concept of relative spotting can be realized - wouldn't this mean that each single unit must have a LOS status for each single enemy unit, and this for each moment of the action phase? On the other hand...what are the real problems of the current system - I think it only get really annoying when guns are spotted, and all tanks target them in same moment immediatly. I wonder if this could be fixed in an easy way. In one of my matches I had an interesting experience. A 2cm gun was shooting on one of my tanks, and all the time I had only a sound spotting. In other words, wouldn't it help if guns - at least in some covered terraine - would be much more difficult to spot? Well, of course it's another question if this would 'violate' realism...

Sounds to me like shooting with my first (worn out) rifle in my military service. I had to target low left 7 to hit the 10... My experience is, I order an artillery target, the shells fall somewhere else - **** happens. So well, I repeat the inital target order - and the shells fall to same wrong place. But my correction order should go to the inital ordered target. Just like 'You stupid butthead - are you blind???'.

Well...we had Gebirgsjäger in CMBO, too. And the only time they fought on the whole western theartre and the CMBO timeframe was once in the alps, and I guess it can be discussed if this wasn't part of the Italian theatre anyway...

If there's a wishlist, I would like to add a few things for the terraine. - Stream : a stream represents a small body of running water that hinders movement of most units, but is not deep or wide enough to prohibit movement over it without a bridge. - Path : this represents a cart path or wide foot path. An ideal way for infantry to move through wooded terraine. - Gully : A small, dry ravine that acts as an impediment to movement and provides cover to infantry. And BTW, it would be nice if gullys/trenches could be represnted in 3D. Well, maybe that's one for the engine rewrite. [ April 09, 2003, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

I wonder - why can't I order to use explosives for direct fire, only indirect?

Let me quote "Das Boot" : Not yet, Kamerad , NOT YET!!!

Hi folks, I made some new sounds for the CM tanks & AT. Go here for the download. I hope you like it.

Hi folks, I'm surprised that my souds are still so beloved I have not read everything above, so excuse if I repeat something. a) There is a soundmap at the CMModDepot by Shatter. Praise his name. CMBB uses more soundfiles for the same weapon, especially for infantry. I don't plan to make 'add-ons' for CMBB. c) The easiest thing would be to just copy my soundfiles and rename them to get the additional sounds (I have done this for me, too). d) I'm currently more interested that BTS would expand the sound map for heavy weapons. Indeed I've send Madmatt a file for the quad-2cm Flak, but it seems he wasn't impressed enough. I'm also not happy that the recoiless rifles and Panzerfausts/-schrecks are still using the same sound, as well as the small and medium mortars. Just some examples.

I guess the question should be, were is the 'workers militia'? Lot's of civilians were recruited and used as combat troops in defense. Partisans could be used as 'militia', but AFAIK they are not always available.

I can only second a question from the yesterdays post...which MG? [ January 30, 2003, 02:10 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

Go here to download my latest mod. I hope you like it. [ January 28, 2003, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

I just wonder, why do tanks turn so slow when they are not moving? I can't remeber from my military service that I have ever seen a tank that needed a half minute or even more for a full turn. But I'm no expert for tracked movement.

If so, it isn't shown in the units stats. They can also not given to them in the editor.</font>

BadgerDog, if this has happend in turn 20 of a 20 turn match, then I don't see the point, cause the battle was over anyway!? Beside that : a) if you don't like capture the flag actions, try to use random game ends. I may have missed it, but you din't mentioned how (or why not) you guarded that bridge/flag with own troops. I suspect you had no troops close to it, otherwise the flag would be 'unresolved'!?

Indeed it was necessary and common practice to 'catch' the tank in some kind trap or with obstacles first to immolize it before the AT teams started their work - before Zooks or Fausts etc were available.