WWB

What he means is the parameters selected will be put into the briefing for the QB. So, you can see if your opponent was a lying scumbag and told you that the forces were computer bought when they were actually human selected. WWB

It might happen once you update your turn, but something real funky is definitely going on. I just tried it and you also get tanks looking to infantry HQs, etc. WWB

I did have an 2nd CMBB process running when I closed the program via Alt-F4. But the system most definitely did not crash. WWB

Pud, There is something up with your system. At the moment, I am running: 2 Copies of CMBB 1 Copy CMBB Demo 1 Copy of CMBO for good measure With few ill effects. I am running Win2000 SP3 on a celeron 800 with 384mb RAM. I have had as many as 6 concurrent sessions of CM of one sort or another going frequently. WWB [ September 04, 2002, 10:21 PM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ]

Yeah, actually, it is not an altogether bad idea. They are far different beasts. WWB

They are NOT MG42s. They are MG34s. But yes, they do kick major behind. I actually prefer the earlier models, because of the greater ammo load. WWB

The +/- versus a purely plus sysem like the one is in place is simple a matter of adjusting your logic. You want a 25+/- turn battle, so you setup a 21 or 22 turn battle. It might end on 23, it might go to 28. WWB

1) The AI will get its rocks off real good in the first turn. I mean real, real good. Like howitzer battalion good with rickets on top. WWB

I'm not sure that a first effort at it will produce the same times getting in and out as for a tank crew who do so every day, and have been trained in bailing out as a drill. Even so, are you honestly claiming that it would take you more than, say, fifteen seconds to climb out of a crew position and out of a hatch? Fifteen seconds is a very long time to sit in a dead tank under fire. I would be interested in finding any hard data on this subject, but it's not something I have ever seen dealt with numerically. Presumably there are "bogey times" to be made when training for bail-out drill somewhere, but I;ve never seen them. The only historical evidence that falls immediately to hand is John Foley's account of bailing out of his Churchill on p.82 of his excellent "Mailed Fist" (Panther, 1957; Mayflower, 1975): "McGinty had just got off the third round when the Tiger gunner recovered from his surprise. I was peering forward through the gloom when suddenly, and without any noise that I can remember, a sharp spike of yellow flame stabbed out of the 88mm gun in front of us. "Sparks flew from the front of Avenger, and she reared back on her hind sprockets, the nose lifting slightly off the ground. "A sudden heat singed the back of my neck and a rapid glance over my shoulder showed flames and smoke pouring from the engine hatches. ""Bale out -- round the back of the tank! I hollered, and snatching off my headset I dived from the turret straight to the ground. "Crosby, Pickford, and McGinty joined me as a second shell crashed through the length of the tank and into the engine compartment." That seem to put the time taken for all surviving members of the crew (Trooper Hunter, the driver, was killed by the first hit) at below the repetition time for an 88mm tank gun. So there's one data point. Any others? All the best, John.</font>

I thought it was a badly needed update, was glad that they provided an upgrade option as opposed to paying the full price and was even more glad that all my programs still worked in W98. What's your point?</font>

Once planned for by designers, it does not favor either side necessarilly. WWB

Yeah, what rune said. A better way of putting it is the unit data file is compiled within the executeable, making it effectively hardcoded to the end user. WWB

Having recently climbed on and in some WWII era AFVs, I would have to say that if anything CMBB makes is a bit too quick in covering bailout times. Fast exit did not seem to be a design spec in the ones I climbed in, especially for the driver and assistant driver positions. WWB

What are you using to make jpegs? I bet there is a setting for high quality out put. Or make .gifs instead, they are a non lossy graphic format. Take more space too...</font>

BIG SPOILERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I played, and beat, a very competent human (Bil Hardenberger) double blind. Luck was not even completely on my side--one of my ATGs died without firing a shot--and my game was definitely not perfect. This is how I did it: Steve gave you a very nice reverse slope position, the Germans must make use of it. I pulled everyone back into the trees, and stripped a squad out of both flanking platoons to form a reaction reserve around the badassed company HQ you have. I also used the fallback foxholes to make semi-hedgehoged positions where I could shift troops around a bit as needed. I placed one ATG on top of the hill, but a bit back from the crest. The other was placed all the way at the bottom in the forest. It only had LOS to the area immediately in front of my two lefthand flags. Most of my infantry had a max 150m LOS in front of them, with MGs placed in supporting positions with much better fields of fire. My opponent started pounding my end of the map for turns one through five, so I ended up wasting my arty pretty much. He was firing too many tank rounds right at the spotters, and I decided better got off than dead. That was a mistake in hindsight. As for my part, I let the MGs open up fairly early, after he had finished pounding me but before he got close. It took him about 15 or 18 turns to push into my positions, mainly because the MGs ran out of ammo on turn 20 or so. I held the rifle fire until he got real close, within 50 or 100m and it was devastating to his first waves. He was compelled to bring up the tanks to deal with my reverse sloped infantry, which brought him into the sights of the ATG. Said ATG crew earned a poshumous Iron Cross for taking out 2 T34s and winging a 4rd before succumbing to return fire. When the battle ended on turn 27, he was in the process of overruning my position to some extent. I still had some unbroken riflemen, but his 3 remaining tanks (winged one had routed) would have been problematic for me to deal with. I believe I got a Minor, maybe a tactical, holding one little flag each with the big neutral. Object lessions here: 1) Limit LOS and make the opponent come into your defenses. You have jack for ranged firepower, so why sit there and let him beat you from range. 2) His infantry is basically stuck as long as you have 2 MGs sweeping the field. Ammo conservation is key. 3) Good lateral fields of fire are key. The bottom of the hill position is a great firebase because it covers much of your immediate front while being out of LOS from the enemy's natural firebases. 4) The arty did little good early on. I really should have held it as final protective fire, dropping it on my own positions if necessary. WWB

What 32mb video card? 3d Chips are not made equal. Which 733 mhz processor? In CM there is a big difference between Celerons, Pentiums and AMDs. I play on a system of generally similar speed (Celeron 800, 384mb RAM) but with a GeForce2 Pro/ 64mb DDR card and it does fine in general. WWB

AT rifles are very useful for a few reasons: 1) Keeping tanks buttoned. Lots of little pings from nearly unspottable units helps. 2) Work very well against a human. Little way to tell if that "Front Turret Hit--Shell Broke Up" was an ATR or a 45mm ATG from a bad angle. So people tend to back off. The AI is not so sensitive. WWB

He did die, by drowning in a river in turkey, which I am forgetting the name of. I stopped by there in my travels in that land. It was an interesting site, and the memorial marker has several .38 bullet holes in it. As an interesting side note, our germans wept while our turks laughed. WWB

ARgh. More nightmares . . . WWB

8mb is not alot to ask for video, except for laptops. James, putting in a video card is not too hard. Alot easier than finding random topo maps of the nameless steppe. The big question is what kind of slot do you have avaliable. If you have an AGP slot, then you can have to get one kind of card, otherwise you are limited to PCI cards, which are slower in some ways. Easiest way to tell is to open the case. You should see a number of white slots. If you see one, usually closest to the CPU (thing with a heatsink on it) that is set back from the others then you have an AGP slot. Most likely it will have a card in it with your monitor plugged into the outside of that card. After you establish that, it is really just a matter of uninstalling the old card and plugging the new one in. Feel free to drop me an email if you need more elaboration. WWB

What black text? All the ingame text is white, or blue for labels, or red and orange for status stuff. WWB

I prefer a good old fashioned whiney bastard stomping. They get red and purple and blue all over then, and can stay that way for weeks if you use steel toed boots. WWB

The hand grenade counter counts by 5s, and only whole 5s IIRC (eg grenades 20-24 are counted as 4 but only 25 as 5). Remember that the portraits are quite moddable. I am sure a real unit portrait mod will appear sooner rather than later. WWB

Its a bit too early to get started on the points debate . . . Lets keep a few things in mind here: 1) Troops suppress alot easier in CMBB than they do in CMBO. Good rule of thumb is they behave one experience class lower for most intents and purposes (eg CMBB Regulars would be like CMBO Greens). 2) Yelina portrays a rather low quality bunch of soviet troops. Not outside of the norm for that time period. By the late war you could oftentimes see veteran soviet troops attacking green and conscript, unfit germans. WWB

I snapped a picture of a panzerwerfermine when I was up at Ft. Knox. It can be found here. WWB