engy

Andreas said: sgt goody said: JasonC said: So, we've established how it was done historically (summarized in the above quotes...my apologies if I've snipped something you consider important). But, if we're now talking about how to implement it into CMxx, it doesn't sound like the gun should be able to be transported with it's entire ammo load by just one tank, and it seems somewhat doubtful that towing caissons is going to make it into the code. Would it be accurate then to implement a 1-man-casualty-panzershreck-team type model, where the ammo supply is reduced if the gun is transported? But, then, how would the AI know the difference between being transported by a towing-capacity-6-with-full-ammo (say, a universal carrier) vs a towing-capacity-6-with-reduced-ammo (say, a T-70)?

It's all quite interesting! Thanks for posting it. Now, this may be an absurdly obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway: What about ammo for the guns? Any sign of any, or were the guns being transported to an already-prepared postiion? Edit because I hit the return key when I really didn't want to. [ June 12, 2003, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: engy ]

I apologize. It seemed at the time that you chose to willfully ignore what had already been posted. I see now that it wasn't the case. My response was too harsh. Kind regards, engy

Very, very well stated. Your theory takes into account both the strange results of the test cases (bogging on pavement) and the confusion of the "contradictory" answers by BF.C.

I'm sorry if the following sounds terribly grumpy, but it's early and I haven't had my coffee yet, so I have an excuse... Did you bother to read what I posted above...both the quote from Moon, and the entire thread I referenced? Do you think that Moon doesn't "REALLY KNOW" what is going on in the game? What source can you suggest that would be better than one of the employees at BF.C?

Ok, since everyone else seems to be just as lazy as I am, I did some digging. I searched the CMBB forum on "mechanical breakdown". Something like 10 threads show up, but this one is the most important, because it has a comment by Moon.

:confused: Just to add one more opinion to the mix, but I thought (and was fairly sure until I read the above) that mechanical breakdown was not simulated. Previously, it had been called "outside the scope of CM", i.e. the mechanical breakdowns would change the number of tanks that you had available for the battle, but CMBO/BB was not going to model breakdowns during the battle. IIRC, the ground pressure value, plus terrain and movement speed, are the only influences on bogging, and the vehicles do not have an extra rating for mechanical reliability. However, having said all that, I don't have the manual in front of me, so this is only my opinion, and I'm quite willing to be corrected. Does anybody have a quote from the manual, or an old thread that would settle this?

Yes. No. Once I used sewer movement and several squads resurfaced ~6-7 minutes later in the exact same building they departed from.

Franko's True Combat Rules If you'll go to the "CM 2001 Archive" and search on "Franko's", you'll get a bunch of threads full of comments of people who use/used them.

Free Excel Viewer Edit: OK, so I'm a UBB idiot. Edit #2: OK, so I'm really, really a UBB idiot. :mad: [ March 31, 2003, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: engy ]

Pardon the intrusion, but could you please edit your subject line (which can be done by editing your first post) to clean up the language? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

"Sleestac"... This couldn't be a reference to that incredibly awful Saturday (or was it Sunday?) morning TV show with the crystals, the dinosaurs, and the slee-stac swamp monster things, could it? What was the name..."Lost in Time?" Ugh, it was soooo bad. Apology #1: If I'm wrong with the reference, ignore me. Apology #2: Sorry for sidetracking the thread. Carry on. engy

Some answers can be found here. The emphasis of the test seemed to be for AT mines (single and double), but there is also some useful AP mine information.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but DeanCo has a "Monster Army Truck Race" and a couple of other oddballs at his site. Look under the 'Hysterical Scenarios' section.

You can't get any more correct than the two answers above (Defending Infantry-type units, including AT-guns, etc., automatically start in foxholes if they aren't set up on a road or in a building), but just as a bonus, here are two foxhole tips... 1. If you split your squads at the start, you can generate twice the number of foxholes, which can provide an excellent fall-back position. 2. If you want to set up in a building to start, consider setting up in the open ('foxhole') somewhat behind the building (25m or so) instead. This gives you a fall back position in case of attack or in case of a nasty Direct Fire HE attack trying to bring down the building on your head. I *think* making foxholes purchase-able (great word, eh?) was mentioned for CM:BtB, but it may just be a malfunctioning memory.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr. Brian: Now, are each of the 4 listed above equally weighted, or is the order you listed in degree of magnitude. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It's pretty funny that you should ask that. Last night after I posted I edited the post to include the disclaimer, "Listed in the order they came to mind, without any relative importance intended", but then I ended up not submitting the edit. It's strange how these things work out. But, back on topic...the factors do carry some weighting, but I can't exactly quantify for you. For example: 1. MOVE FAST + Muddy + clear terrain + Medium ground pressure = Certain Bog 2. MOVE + Muddy + clear terrain + Medium ground pressure = Very Likely Bog. 3. MOVE FAST + Dry + clear terrain + Medium ground pressure = No Bog. So, the above show that Wetness is more important than Speed, since... 1 & 2: The difference is only MOVE vs. MOVE FAST, yet the chance of bogging is only reduced slightly, from "Certain" to "Very Likely" (sorry for the terribly unspecific "Very likely", but I haven't run enough tests to give you stats) 1 & 3: The difference is Muddy vs. Dry, and the chance of bogging goes from "Certain" down to "None". Ugh, it's clear in my head, but it's somewhat confusing now that I've put it down on paper. I'd love to run tests and compile the results, but I just don't have the time right now. *Important*: I just edited my first post to include one more factor. The chance to bog occurs all along the movement path, so the distance traveled in bogging terrain also has an effect. The further you travel in dangerous terrain, the more likely you are to bog. (Compare traveling 20m off a road to bypass another vehicle with traveling 200m across a field to reach a crest.) I hope this helped, instead of muddying the water even further. Fire a question/comment back at me if I've made a mess of this.

1. Chance to bog... ...is affected by the following: i. Vehicle ground pressure ii. Speed iii. Terrain iv. Wetness of the terrain v. Distance traveled in "bogging" terrain ...is not affected by the following: i. Driver experience ...may be affected by the following--it seems to be, but I haven't tested it: i. Slope 2. Chance to unbog... ...according to the official BTS response in several bogging threads, is a purely random event in which the movement order of the tank has no effect. Any apparent correlation between movement order and success is purely coincidental. Both these issues were covered in previous threads, but I can't find them (even though I remember posting in them, so it's even more strange ) , so you'll have to take my word for it. engy Edited to include Bogging Factor v., "Distance traveled..." [ 08-23-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

Maybe not the exact answer to your question, but I'll give you a bit of a rant on the British Wasp and being buttoned/unbuttoned. You *always* want to leave it buttoned, since it is able to flame in the buttoned state. However, if the commander is unbuttoned and gets killed, the Wasp goes buttoned with a crew casualty and is unable to fire the flamethrower for the rest of the battle, leaving you with a slightly less than useful vehicle.

Here is one recent thread with a bunch of informative links inside--AVRE thread--but this is quite a docile one. In the past there have been some lengthy threads about the performance of the AVRE, and I'll post the links if I can get the search to work. Edit: Grrrrr. David beat me to it. Grrrr. [ 07-24-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by xerxes: I'll give you two no bonus HQs and 1 regular zook for your E-0. And that certainly does answer my question. Glad I'm not playing you on that pbem. heh. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmm, no deal. I'm handling his infantry quite fine, but my AT guns are going down one by one with no kills. (Kris, stop reading right here!!!) So, he has 4 tanks about to crest the ridge (one of which is a dedicated infantry killer), and I think I'm in trouble, unless he brings his tanks real close. So, I need a bunch of AT help...you can have E-0 for two zooks and a Hellcat.

Just for comparison, here's the list of my Regular HQ's in a current PBEM (with bonus listed in order that you see on the screen...Radius/Morale/Combat/Stealth) A-0 +1/+1/+1/0 A-1 +2/0/+1/0 B-0 0/+1/+2/0 C-0 +2/0/0/+1 D-0 0/+2/0/+1 E-0 +2/+2/+2/+2 (!!! Unbelievable, but true !!!) F-0 0/0/0/+2 G-0 0/+1/0/+1 H-0 0/+1/0/+1 Admittedly, this is one of my best groups of HQ's I've ever seen, but it still shows that Regular troops can get decent HQ's. So, to answer your question: I don't know. Maybe purely randomly?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kingfish: Just guessing here, but I would assume that the stationary units would go to ground at the first shot, therby gaining some benefit of cover.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think you're right. The exposure numbers for moving/non-moving in open were both identical (67%), but in the "Moving squad" test, the only squads that went to ground for cover were the ones that panicked, IIRC.

I was interested enough by your assumption that I ran two tests. First test: -->Sharpshooters: 15 US Crack Sharpshooters in 3 Tall Heavy Buildings, no leaders. -->Target: 3 PzGren Motorized Squads (to see the effect on LMG's in the squad), stationary, open ground, 125m away from sharpshooters; +2 Morale bonus leader to keep them in place. I tabulated the results by which weapon was killed in the order it was killed (eg, I tracked which weapon was killed first, then second, etc, in each squad). Test was stopped when any squad reached 5 casualties. Results of 1st test: 147 shots, 41 kills (27.9% kill/shot ratio) Weapon #Deaths as 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th Causualty SMG 3/0/0/0/0 Total: 3 (7.3%) K98 8/5/5/4/3 Total: 25 (61.0%) MP44 1/7/1/2/0 Total: 11 (26.8%) LMG 0/1/1/0/0 Total: 2 (4.9%) Second Test: Same as first test, but all three squads are given "Move" orders to march back and forth in front of the sharpshooters at 125m like ducks in a shooting gallery. Results: 99 shots, 41 kills (41.4% kill/shot ratio) Weapon #Deaths as 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th Causualty SMG 0/0/2/0/0 Total: 2 (4.8%) K98 10/4/6/3/2 Total: 25 (61.0%) MP44 1/6/1/2/1 Total: 11 (26.8%) LMG 1/1/1/0/0 Total: 3 (7.3%) Starting Composition of squad: SMG 1 (10%) K98 5 (50%) MP44 2 (20%) LMG 2 (20%) I'm going to let someone else draw the conclusion out of this (however, I will draw your attention to the extreme similarity of the percentages between the moving and non-moving cases) if they'd like to--my point was to do the grunt work if this helps the argument at all. Edit: Forgot to include some data. Edit #2: Forgot to include percentages. Bad day. [ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: engy ] [ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: The majority of the war was either poorly equipped troops being overrun (South Koreans by North Koreans, then North Koreans by Americans, then Americans by Chinese) and eventually a war of small unit actions and patrols, with little armour. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry Michael, but I'm going to disagree. Using the US Army resources at www.army.mil reveals how much armor was a part of the Korean battlefield for both the North Koreans and US/ROK forces. Specifically South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu and Combat Actions in Korea give wonderfully detailed accounts of individual battles and firefights, tracking the actions of both infantry and tank platoons. Armor plays an important part in many (I'd like to say 'most', but I haven't reread it in awhile and I don't want to kill my argument by exaggerating) of those accounts, and I can easily visulize those battles as very playable CM scenarios. As far as 'poorly equipped troops being overrun'...well, was that not historically the case in the spring of 1945 in our current incarnation of CM, and will it not be the case in summer/fall of 1941 in CM:B2B? Besides, I like to think of the initial stage of the Korean War as a 'fighting withdrawal to consolidate our postion'...it sounds so much nicer than being overrun. To everyone else, if you haven't done any reading on the Korean War, I highly recommend the two links above. The stories are in plain text files so the formatting is a bit ugly, but the accounts themselves are quite easy to read, very informative, and very engaging. [ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DasBaron: Also, does anyone know of a list for all the unit's info including their price? Maybe in an Excel or Access file? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Chris' CM Database Scroll down to the bottom of the page and note the instructions. It should provide most of the information you're looking for.