edgars

No. No reinforcements in quick battles. But i must suggest trying to play a decent scenario. It makes such a difference. Or, at least, an attack-defend QB. I personally hate meeting engagements, they're the same most of the time, so boring...

I review scenarios because it is a way to give back to the scenario designers, who invest time and effort and knowledge in creating one. Thank you. (now it's time for a group hug)

TRPs are different, and no problem with using them as defenders. However prep fire is a plan, which is laid out prior to the battle. And you as a defender can't possibly know the exact minute when the enemy will start to attack. In other words, in real life you don't know at what time there will be a Turn 1.

It IS gamey to prep bombard the attacker's setup zone in my book even on large maps. Especially once you learn how to measure the setup zones in QBs, so you literally know exactly how far forward the attacker's setup zone is. </font>

A great tactic but very difficult if you play against human opponents, who have, i should say, a rather gamey tactic of scouting with infantry.

In a recent game against human opponent a platoon of Panthers totally ripped apart a heavily armored left flank of Soviet advance. The most kills where scored by this cat . It was simply tearing apart the Soviet armor, winning the battle almost singlehandedly. Apparently it had nine lives as my opponent couldn't do nothing about it. I won't disclose the name of scenario, as the picture contains spoilers, but i would recomend this scenario for excellent two player game. If you want to know the name of scenario, feel free to mail me. And big thanks to the Jagger, the author of this scenario.

I think 3 tanks (even light) with one gun is a good result. The reality on the CM battlefield is such, that when you open up with your gun, you expect it do die in couple of turns. Question is, how many casualties can this gun cause inbetween. Keyholing them helps to keep them alive for (little) longer, just time has to be invested to find the possible route of advance. Remember that in this case even if the gun eventually dies, it has bought you precious time by denying ground for enemy advance.

I replayed the Merida scenario recently, against AI. There was a company hq unit in trench, which for full 6 turns were fired upon by more than dozen of squads from all directions, including one partisan squad in heavy building directly behind the trench. The yellow lines coming from that HQ unit looked like a little sun. For the length of those 6 minutes the HQ unit was returning fire at my troops. Only in the middle of 7th minute it packed and decided to creep away and was killed subsequently.

Looks massive. Interesing that it's a private initiative and not government sponsored.

As far as i can see, the distance between MG and target point is 200m. What happens if the distance is increased? Or decresed? [ March 15, 2005, 03:33 AM: Message edited by: edgars ]

Definitely. It'll even unhide itself and fire at the plane no matter where the arc is set.

My main source of studying the WWII is CM series and this board, so i would be interested to know, how the above situation would have been handled in Real Life. Clearly the defending forces can't cover the whole frontage that is given to them (and LOS is very limited). It probably means that there is a mobile reserve force which will respond to threat, so it's important to know where the threat will come from. Which is what those picket platoons are for. Now, you say, they're out of command. By that you probably mean, that the squad is out of physical command range of Platoon HQ. But there are other forms of communication (let's leave walkie-talkies aside for now). Like phonelines. It would seem that for a prepared defence, with trenches, mines etc., there would be lots of phonlines, including one running to that squad in the example. Also there are non-verbal communication possibilities. One example that comes to my mind is rockets. If that poor squad sees armor, they fire red rocket. If infantry - green. That way you, as a company commander know, that there are enemy forces coming from that direction, but you don't know the size of that force, nor any other more specific details. What's great about it is, that you can't judge, whether it is a faint attack or the real thing. Of course i'm not implying that there should be candy-colored rockets in CMx2, they could also be abstracted in this or that way. What i'm saying is that there are other forms of communication on the battlefield, rather than spoken word. Am i right? If you're talking about squad-to-platoon communication, it also raises another question: how is platoon-to-company communication done?

Interesting. Didn't know this fact.

I have a Brummbar in one current PBEM. It just sent two little surprises to the infantry which had just occupied a large rubble tile trying to infiltrate my lines. The effect is stunning, squads running back over open ground chased by MG42 fire. Now the problem is deciding when to head for cover. Since it's very close range and enemy tanks have 85mm guns.

Hi Scheer, hi Sgt Kelly! I still remember Nordic Wannabe Tourney. We played in the same group,i believe (i had a different screen name then - "ciks"). Actually i miss the unbalanced tourneys. It was such a fun. Too bad noone organizes them anymore... If you want a PBEM thou, i have couple of slots free.

Interesting story. It struck me that you could actually easely create a dummy minefield that way, just take a few bricks, paint them green (or apply grease/mud) and tie them together. Voila, the enemy thinks that the street is mined. Was this done in real life?

I just checked this in the scenario editor, and that's not quite true. I set up an test scenario with Conscript truck (movement delay - 45 seconds) and Elite Light machinegun (delay - 7 seconds). If you stick to that 25 meter rule, you don't have to worry about movement delay difference. The MG is in the truck, i give them both Fast move orders to the location some 200 meters away, and the MG stays inside the truck. Disembarkation grog.

There is a difference how far the disembark movement point is from the vehicle and embarked unit. I'll try to explain that. Let's assume there is a truck standing with infantry in it. You give the truck Fast move order to some location, say 100m away. But, you want to disembark the infantry unit right here right now. Then, the only thing you have to do is to place the disembark movement point closer than 25 meters from the truck. The infantry unit will disembark on the very first second of the turn, wait on the ground for the movement delay, and then proceed to the set disembarkation point. Also note that movement path for the infantry unit can be longer (multipoint), the only thing you have to keep in mind is that the first point must be inside 25 meters. If the disembark movement order is further than 25 meters, and the vehicle has movement orders, the infantry unit will ride with the vehicle until it stops, and then follow their own orders. There's also nice trick to get the units off the vehicles while they're in the middle of movement path. Just order one pause for the vehicle, and order the infantry to disembark (again, closer than 25 meters). At the start of the turn, the vehicle will stop for 10 seconds, infantry disembarks and vehicle proceeds further.

I felt the same way, when CMAK came out. So i didn't bought. Is it worth buying CMAK if i'll only play Italy (and Crete, probably)?

I guess there won't be any major news on CMBB ever. At least until the new engine comes out. As for opponents: hell, send me a setup! (e-mail in the profile)

OFFTOPIC: Karlis, i wonder if you're from Latvia (your nickname sounds "latvian-ish"? You can reply by e-mail (adress in the profile).

So why this feature has not been used extensively for other vehicles? Say, why Tiger front is 102mm, not something like 52+50 face-hardened? And second question, how are those combined plates actually made? One plate is simply bolted on to another?

I'd like to mention that it's wrong to have your squads so close that one grenade pins both of them. It also means, that single burst of fire will hit both squads. As for the question, i think i would use sneak command for one squad (that who is targeted by gernan squad), and stand&fire for the other.

What about 85mm AA gun? Haven't used it against human opponent, but keyholed, against AI, it is capable of knocking out heavy cats. There are two drawbacks however, slooooooooooooow ROF, and big profile. To Sir Kozakh Dragonfire: Nikto i v principe nisravnival Tigra i Panteru s Tridcetichvertjortkoi, vopros stojal, kak ispolzovatj T34 protiv nemeskih "koshek".

Also, it's much easier to get a tank in turret-down position if the TC is a tall fella.