Andrew H.
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Posts posted by Andrew H.
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It would be interesting to see another AAR on this same map, but with different equipment.
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Pre-order achievement is unlocked!
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If you do agree that this game will handly be won by Bil, what do you think went wrong with GaJ? Was he doomed from the start because of the armor imbalance caused by his unit selection? Do you think that his tactics were lacking (limited scouting intel, bunched troop formations, split force in two, general lack of mobility caused by an absence of half tracks or trucks)? What caused GaJ's demise?
I think the biggest issue is the armor: give GaJ another Pz IV and two...I don't know, Pz III's? and the game would still be winnable even now. But if he has them from the beginning, he doesn't have to be as cautious with his tanks as he was (remember, he spent most of the beginning moving his tanks around in cover, rather than using them against enemy troops). One effect of this would be that Bil's intel wouldn't have been as good because more tanks means more of his teams get shot up.
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Except that I don't think there is very much more difference between the TC's and gunner's elevation in a Sherman than with any other comparable tank, say a Tiger. Between TC and driver maybe, but TC and gunner are in the same turret.
Michael
That's true - and I just looked at my Sherman book and the aiming telescope is near the midpoint of the turret. So it kind of comes down to how far out of the hatch the commander is. But it looks like the difference would be more like 3', and not much different between tanks. (Unless US TCs were taller...)
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I remember a post by Steve saying that LOS and LOF for a unit are not the same. A unit may get LOS but not have LOF, which leads to the aiming-firing cycle without actually firing. Imagine how often this problem would crop up if we had gun elevation/depression limits.
I wonder if the problem is worse in the Sherman because it's so tall - i.e., there are more situations in which the commander can see something from 10' above ground level that the gunner can't see at 5' above GL than there would be if the commander were at 8' and the gunner at 5'.
Concerning the battle itself, it seems like there are three important elements:
1. The terrain. The terrain has little cover and little concealment. It's also difficult to move in, although there are a lot of mountains to hide behind.
2. Armor. Bil has (well, had) more than twice as much armor as GaJ (now he only has twice as much). Because the terrain is relatively open, armor will be particularly effective, and somewhat safer than would be the case if there were more trees and more covered approaches.
3. Spotting. Bil seems to be doing a better job than GaJ at spotting, and it seems to be a more of a priority for him.
GaJ bought artillery, but is having trouble making effective use of it, in part because his spotters keep getting spotted.
I think this battle will end not in a big decisive battle, but with GaJ's forces being picked off squad by squad by Bil's tanks (maybe the Stuarts) while the Pz IVs are bottled up by the Shermans.
However, the terrain is so unforgiving that a little bit of bad luck could change things - if Bil lost another Sherman, or wandered across a TRP with too much infantry, or GaJ got a good bead on vulnerable units with artillery, things could change dramatically. But right now I'm expecting GaJ's forces to be whittled down by armor in places where he won't be able to respond effectively.
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Well, as I said, there's something you don't see every day: the critical shot that you need to hit actually hits!
GaJ
Well, to be accurate, it's not something we see everyday when we read *your* AARs.
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I agree; it's time to show some "moral fibre" and charge.
I just wish that CM had a separate "Fix Bayonets" command; I'm not sure that the AI does it as I would wish.
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Oooh, the old "and then the turn ended with the incoming round frozen in midair"!
Keep 'em coming.
I hope not followed by Bil leaving on an extended business trip.
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Any serious war skyrockets weapon-tech development, so it isn't unlikely that the things we currently perceive as top-notch (Abrams + T90, RPG's, MLRS, and what not) will be as fast obsolete in a future war as the fore mentioned weapons (20mm, 37mm and AT-rifles) in WW2.
Personally I believe that rifles are a rather archaic way of killing each other, so I expect some surprising developments in that field when a big war erupts.
I think that this is not *at all* true as a general rule. It was true in WWII to some extent, in some areas, although I can't really think of any other war in which this has applied.
I also think that it's worth pointing out that a lot of what appears to be weapons tech in WWII wasn't really - the Germans started the war in '39 with Pz IIIs and Pz IVs, and ended the war with Pz IVs and StuG IIIs. A lot of the German developments in tank tech were just seeing how much armor and how large a gun you could stick on a preexisting chassis. The most revolutionary tank in WWII was probably the T-34, but it was a pre-war design and its improvement over its predecessors (BT series and T-26's) is as large or larger as any increase that happened during the war.
Radar was improved; aircraft improved somewhat; ships stayed basically the same, small arms stayed basically the same (the StG was an incremental change). Bazookas were developed, which was significant, as were recoilless rifles, which weren't.
The V-2 and the atomic bomb were probably the most significant developments.
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About current .50 cal popularity I wonder how much of that is due to - for lack of a better term - machismo. Firing a .50 cal downrange would seem to be more of a 'cathartic' experience for the firer than squeezing off a few SAW roounds. Though the target you're shooting at would most likely wind up with just as many holes in it.
This is true in the open (in fact, the SAW would probably put significantly more holes in them). But the .50 has a significant advantage against troops in buildings, and it also has a much greater range, which can allow you a bit of stand off room.
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I really appreciate your effort, John Kettler, but - FOR THE FOURTH TIME - I am not trying to equate a wargame computer AI *TODAY* with a chess game. I was making an analogy with chess computers of 30yrs ago and the advances in computer opponent AI since then.
This is true, but it's not true for computer games generally. No computer game has a meaningfully better AI than it did 15-20 years ago. The problem is not the power of the computer; the problem is that no one really knows how to make a computer think like a human.
Chess programs got better not because computers got better, but because programmers got better at explaining the rules of chess to the computer. None of this has much application to actual AI, which is why Big Blue wasn't really a success from that an AI POV.
Even if BF had 100 times the staff and budget, they couldn't make the AI better. Billion dollar AIs in robots have problems with fundamental things like telling a window from a door - they are just not very smart.
Please reread all my posts. And to prove the concept that such advances are at least plausible, CM1 did not provide too unreasonable an AI opponent, though it still had some weaknesses. And I'm saying that for the solo gamer its a shame that for CM2 the priority was to go to 1:1 scale and new graphics etc, rather than to improve on those remaining weaknesses of the AI-opponent of CM1 gameplay. And if they only have, as you say, two guys to do it, then my point persists in that they got their staffing priorities wrong.
They could not have improved the AI. No one could have.
Yes the tac-AI in CMBN attempts to be far more complex and I've not disputed that. What I'm saying is that for the solo gamer all these benefits are more than outweighed by the disadvantages of CM2 having a less independent enemy AI and (perhaps even more importantly for solo-gamer replayability) the doing away with truly random maps. And its a shame more couldn't have been done regards solo-campaigns. And even though they straight-jacket the CM2 computer enemy in this way, as an opponent it acts little better (or no better at all) than it did in CM1. And others on this thread have found the same issue. Which is why I posted on this thread to say the same. And this is why, along with all my previously posted reasons, I've said that on-balance, for the large-battle WW2 solo-gamer, CM2 is a backward step.
I've said all that I'm going to say, and I'm not going to rephrase them all yet again for the many who have not read my argument fully/properly. So I'm now done on this thread. But thanks to the few who have read it all and understood my thrust.
For the record, I don't think that CMx2 is a backward step at all. The details is much better, and the AI in scenarios is also much better, due to triggers. The troops in CMx1 never counterattacked or set traps, for example.
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I never got a proper welcome on these forums. I had to condescend to myself.
Weren't you invited to the monthly forum parties in Maine? Scotch tasting, Weasel rides...good times!
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What about a WW1 game with CM engine?
Early tanks, lots of artillery, a bit of trench warfare. Probably not as exciting as WW2 combat, but I would love to play that (in a way, the Italians do feel like WW1 forces already).I think the real issue with this is that it wouldn't be as interesting at CM's squad level scale (with maybe a few exceptions). You want to play a wargame at a level where the decisions you make make a difference in the battle. With a small handful of exceptions (late war infiltrations, maybe tanks), what your company does won't make much difference at all. You need to be at the battalion or regimental or division or corp level to be able to really affect things in WWI. (This would also be generally true of the Napoleonic wars or US CW - Pickett's charge was, after all, an attack by 3 divisions).
The reason, of course, is that by WWII (and this is even more true today), smaller elements had a lot more firepower, but were also forced to spread out more because everyone had more firepower. Normandy had lots of company level battles in the bocage, for example, and the Bulge had a lot of instances of companies (but also platoons and even squads) fighting independently in significant battles. And despite the larger scale, this also happened in the East as well - Pavlov's house was held by a platoon for two months.
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The other factor is shell/armor overmatch. I've forgotten the details, but because the diameter of a 75mm shell is 3x larger than 25mm armor (3.75x larger than 20mm armor), the armor (or slope?) is effectively reduced by some amount which may be significant in this context.
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Remember the Fionn 75 and Fionn 76 rules?
And he was the first guy I remember with the strategy of very aggressive scouting...often followed by a massive artillery bombardment if the scouts could pin the main enemy force long enough.
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Rematch! Rematch!
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The Tiger 2 produced 700 HP.
An Aston-Martin (a new one) produces 750. :-)
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60 mm mortar works well and is hard to detect.
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Well, how many times can one replay the battle of the bulge, or the assault on monte cassino? it just started to seem somehow pointless to me at some point...
of course, YMMV...
a hint regarding release schedule would be very welcome indeed....
The US suffered 90,000 casualties in the battle of the bulge. Every casualty has a story...
:-)
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3 AS's away !
There's a guy in that MMG team with a champion baseball arm !
Nah, it's just 75 feet - that's less than first to third in little league!
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The hold up for snow? Programming the TacAI to track blood trails. And to walk in the tread tracks to avoid landmines. And programming landmines to jam based on frozen moisture in the fuze train. And the ballistic protection characteristics of packed snow with a layer of ice on the face, in front of positions. And the jam ratio of weapons based on lubrication qualities. And the change in muzzle velocities with cold cartridges. And the denser air's effect on drag. And snow blindness. Blood trails and Yeti; aye, that's the holdup...
So we can assume the beta testing has begun? :-)
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Try playing with Green troops. You'll get your wish in spades.
My favorite way to play since CMBO! :-)
+1 re Jon's comment. Would make the game more realistic. However, the corollary is that the games would be "less fun" as one would spend a lot of time simply rallying panicked troops.With the right scenario and terrain using green troops are a lot of fun; ideally you manage it in such a way that you *aren't* rallying panicked troops. This does require a more cautious strategy, which is easier to manage in infantry only battles where you have a little more control.
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I'm actually a big fan of Battlefront's new pricing system. Although it's kind of strange to say, you should always be worried when there *isn't* a way to pay a company that makes a product you like...since there is literally no other way to insure that they will keep making the products. And as others have pointed out, the price is really very low for any kind of hobby - if you go skiing for a week, you will easily spend much more than $500 and spend much less time doing the activity than I have already spent on CMx2.
Of course there is the question of value...but I have played CMBN, CW, and CMFI more than any other Battlefront computer game I own, and will probably continue to do so.
I've also discovered that I really like the tight focus of these titles. CMBN was, in many ways, all about the bocage. Something that I had read about for decades, but didn't really appreciate until CMBN. If battlefront (BTS was much easier to type...) had come out with a Normandy-Bulge title, I probably would have played a game or two in the bocage and then moved on to play mostly standard open games. But because they didn't, I spent months in the bocage (as it were) and feel like I have a much greater appreciation for the issues it presented. (There are some scenarios, in particular, that demonstrate this quite well).
And then there's the CW module. Again, I don't think I would have appreciated the real differences between the troops and equipment if I hadn't spent so much time with the Americans...but as it is, it feels like a completely different game: it's more open, and the troops have different equipment. (Setting ambushes in wooded areas with the three man recon squads armed with two stens can be devastating; I can't wait for the later war german squads with a larger number of automatic weapons).
And CMFI is again completely different - more primitive equipment, generally; Italians!; and far less cover than before means I have to use different strategies again. (Ones I haven't quite figured out yet. :-()
So I feel like bf continues to give great value for the money, and I'm happy that they are providing me with the chance to get value by spending money. :-)
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Needless to say it is not a good idea to have full squads in upper floors when unexpected artillery starts raining down.
True enough. Although to be honest, there aren't a lot of good places for men to be when unexpected arty starts raining down.
:D
Early tanks, lots of artillery, a bit of trench warfare. Probably not as exciting as WW2 combat, but I would love to play that (in a way, the Italians do feel like WW1 forces already).
Gustav Line
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
It's pretty good, but the plural of "Fallschirmjäger" is "Fallschirmjäger"; it's a little grating to me for the English plural to be just kind of stuck on.