Andrew H.
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Posts posted by Andrew H.
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Something else I totally don't get is how BFC can model all the angles, including terrain slope and elevation differences, when an armored target's engaged by, say, a cannon, yet mysteriously has no gun elevation model at all, whether for depicting the effects of limited gun depression on AFV exposure or or elevation limits on upper story target engagements in city fighting? Given the first game was all about such encounters, I really don't see why this hasn't been addressed.
Regards,
John Kettler
That's an issue all the way thru CM2. Some aspects appear to be modeled to high fidelity, other aspects are completely fudged.IIRC, I think Steve or a beta tester once posted that they had difficulty getting the AI to understand how to behave correctly when there were elevation issues.
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But when you expect direct fire action, the last thing you want to be doing is fishing around in the ammo containers and charge canisters, handling loose powder bags in the back of the 'track, dropping fuzes as the driver hurtles around the battlefield, etc. So you prep rounds ahead of time. The charge doesn't matter very much for direct fire - they will all get there, and maximum charge will give the highest muzzle velocity for flat trajectory shots (though it is also tougher on the barrel, longer term). Specialized direct fire rounds like HEAT have their own fuzes, and for the rest you would prep mostly quick and a few delayed and store them separately to use the one needed for a given direct fire target.
Yeah, I thought it was interesting in the green book example above that the priest was able to reload almost as fast as the tank, despite having to deal with a separate charge (as well as, presumably, a larger shell).
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Arty in CMBN doesn't seem quite right to me...but I don't know whether its lethality is actually overmodeled, or whether it's because the kind of situations I use it or find it being used against me are historically unusual. Or both. (Although certainly the "Spotting round! RUN!!!" behavior seems ahistorical.)
But most of the historical instances I run across using artillery involve either preplanned barrages (aside from certain large emergency fires called by Americans in the BotB), or at least a lengthy wait for arty to arrive. The individuals receiving arty always seem to be in some sort of fox hole or slit trench (again, aside from certain BotB situations). However, the existence of these trenches may simply reflect the lethality of artillery as accurately reflected in CMx2, with the flaw being the prevalence of meeting engagements.
But what I can't recall having seen (certainly with much frequency) is the use of 81mm mortars (or smaller ones, for that matter) being used on direct fire like snipers.
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Rankorian,
I'm a highly experienced wargamer, but am all but totally new to CMx2. Yesterday showed me just how bad hedgerow fighting could be. Knowing what I know now about being able to move only through the gaps, I'd completely change that fatal bound which got 18 Platoon shredded in about two minutes. Schmeisser fire at close range is simply devastating, especially to men exposed while moving. Also, it would appear I underestimated how long it takes to get effective suppression when the enemy has a hedgerow as cover, but then there's the bloody schedule to consider.
Regards,
John Kettler
This is one of my favorite scenarios. Since you're new to CMBN, you might want to familiarize yourself with p. 40 of the (CMBN) manual, since I think you may not be making full use of your assets.
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The only other exception I am aware of is some bunker busting work against fortified positions, sometimes with SPA even bigger than the Priest. In those cases it was a matter of a static enemy position in a known location, which could be engaged "assymmetrically" with little danger to the gun, but where numerous high caliber shots might be needed to get the desired direct hit, and where indirect fire would be ineffective. This is a traditional "assault gun" role, basically. Sherman 105s were made for it, but Priests (and SPA 155mm howitzers) got pressed into that role. In the operational histories one can find such cases at the west wall in the ETO fighting, for example; in the fighting for Metz; some block-busting work in the Aachen city fight, similarly. That is about it.
I hope that helps.
I found a couple of instances on Sicily in the Sicily/Italy Green Book:
As the [German] tanks waddled slowly down the highway, Battery B tried to engage them with direct fire, but a high wall near the bridge not only limited observation but also prevented the howitzers from opening fire. German infantrymen, who crossed behind the tanks, turned to engage the Americans near the railroad bridge. The tanks continued moving slowly along the road, seemingly intent on going through the American beachhead.
Battery B tried to displace to positions from which it could fire on the tanks, but the Germans spotted this movement. In the ensuing fire fight, the tanks knocked out two of the American guns and two ammunition half-tracks. The exploding ammunition drove the Battery B crews from their other two guns, although one crew returned to its vehicle and moved it onto the highway, just around a bend in the road. No sooner had it gone into
position than the lead German tank rounded the bend. The American artillery crew fired first, and missed. Then the tank fired, and also missed. The second rounds from both vehicles, fired almost simultaneously, struck home. Both the tank and the self-propelled gun started to burn furiously.
p. 402
But the German tanks never reached the 1st Division beaches. Nor was there any thought of American re-embarkation. The 32d Field Artillery Battalion, coming ashore in Dukws moved directly into firing positions along the edge of the sand dunes and opened direct fire on the mass of German armor to its front. The 16th Infantry Cannon Company, having just been ferried across the Acate River, rushed up to the dune line, took positions, and opened fire. Four of the ten medium tanks of Colonel White's CCB finally
got off the soft beach, and, under White's direction, opened fire from the eastern edge of the plain. The 18th Infantry and the 41st Armored Infantry near the Gela-Farello landing ground prepared to add their fires. Engineer shore parties stopped unloading and established a firing line along the dunes. Naval gunfire, for a change, was silent-the
opposing forces were too close together for the naval guns to be used.
pp. 170-71. [Note: I am assuming that the 32d F.A. Battalion is equipped with m7s, both because of how they came onto shore, and because the M7 equipped FA battalions were assigned to support armored divisions, which is what seems to be happening here. But I haven't been able to confirm this.]
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Is this cockney slang? Or a vegetable?
Cockney is non-rhotic. Must be a vegetable...
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I currently have a tank doing precisely that. It's been paniced for a while now, but wasn't retreating because it had nowhere to go that it liked. Now I've blown a hole in the bocage behind it, it's reversing out of danger, still in a Panic state.
Surely a big explosion behind them won't make them less panicked...
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According to the notes from SL (Maybe GI:Anvil), in the pacific GIs used 37mm AP when shooting at bamboo bunkers because the HE wouldn't damage them but the AP would go right through. Presumably with a large number of bamboo splinters...
So my first thought is that's what's going on here.
I don't think that the target window command will be available until Market Garden.
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The best counter to a truck rush is a jeep rush! Umm, counter rush...
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Some background info for the OP:
At the beginning of the war, most armies had two kinds of direct fire weapons: (1) small caliber, high speed guns for anti-tank purposes; and (2) high caliber, low speed guns for anti-personnel purposes. Early on, the US and the Germans used a high speed 37mm gun for AT purposes and a low speed 75mm gun for AP purposes; the French (and presumably the Italians) used a high speed 47 mm gun and a low speed 75mm gun. The British used a high speed 40mm AT gun (called a 2-pounder) and a low speed 3" howitzer (about 76mm).
As armor improved, the small caliber AT guns weren't powerful enough, so the combatants moved to higher speed large caliber guns for AT purposes: the US moved to the 75mm gun on the Sherman; the Germans to the long 75mm gun on the Pz IV and StuG; the British also had a longer 75mm gun. But the Italians weren't able to make this upgrade, so they are essentially fielding the pre-war models which are largely obsolete against modern tanks.
(Later on, even higher speed 75mm guns will be around, making the guns on the Sherman & Pz IV essentially medium speed guns.)
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I think it's better to not choose your own troops against the AI - either let the computer pick both sides, or let it pick yours and you pick the AI's. IME, the AI fights best against as the defender in a "Probe" type battle.
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That's awesome. It also has interesting implications for CMFI, where sometime roads are the only passable way for armor through certain terrain.
And is it "gamey" put my Priest on the bridge you need to cross to get to the VL?
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mmm maybe, but there is also a good chance that artillery that would've hit the crew is also going to destroy the gun or the crew hides somewhere and gets killed but the gun is still sitting there, now unusable...at which point we will cry foul how come nobody else can crew the gun cause Private John E Atcheley of Company H 2nd BN 505th PIR did exactly that at St Mere Eglise destroying an StuG in the process single handedly. (true story)
Personally I wouldn't mind having this feature, but it's inclusion is one of those I think BF has judged to mostly be prone to "gamey" applications more often than need. We have a lot of work ahead of us to convince them differently.
ISTR that this was a pretty common tactic later in the East, at least for larger battles with significant fortifications. So maybe we'll see it there.
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I do believe/fear that there is a danger that we could see a repeat of what happened to the cardboard game "industry" in the late 70's-early 80's. Maybe most of you were not around then, or didn't play cardboard wargames at that time. But, at that time there was a very vocal demand for increased realism which was answered by game companies who produced very larger more complex games that attempted to be better simulations.
This resulted in rulebooks that took (literally) days of hard study to read and required an eidetic memory to remember and a lawyer's capabilities to understand. These games often took more than a full day to setup, covered several dining tables with maps, and months, even years to play. They were hard work to play and were no longer fun.
Not long after, the hobby imploded, most players like me became "collectors" since so few had the time to play these monsters. Great game companies like West End Games, Victory Games, SPI etc etc went out of business.
I was a cardboard wargamer at that time and I don't think that it was complexity that killed the industry: at the same time that the "drive-every-tank-in-the-German-Army" games were coming out, there were also fairly simple games coming out - "Storm over Arnhem"; "Hitler's War"; Napoleon: the Waterloo Campaign (the game with wooden blocks); and others. "Up Front" (the card game) was also popular at this time.
The biggest problems with wargames for most people wasn't the complexity; it was finding opponents. (I seem to remember Avalon Hill having some data suggesting that a slight majority of their customers never played against an opponent). I was lucky enough not to be in that situation, although I do own several games that I've never played against anyone.
Computer wargames took over, IMO, because they gave everyone an opponent...and most people preferred to play even the simplified computer wargames available in the 80's against the AI than to set up a cardboard game and play it solitaire.
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I think this was in one of the pre-ASL SL rule sets, too.
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There's always this interesting thread: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=13323&highlight=lind
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Great AAR! This reminds me of those squad leader scenarios that end on the last turn with two squads in hth combat in the VL.
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I find that the defensive battle is generally won during the setup phase. This means that the defender needs to carefully analyze the terrain, likely approaches, bottlenecks, etc.
I tend not to play extremely large battles (and I tend to play QBs), so I find I'm usually not able to do significant maneuvering once the main battle has been joined - I may be able to commit some dedicated reserves, or slightly shift some troops, but if I try to do wholesale reinforcing it turns into a meeting engagement where I am significantly outnumbered.
Speaking very generally, I think that the most valuable defensive weapon is a properly concealed AT gun (75mm or larger). These are almost impossible to spot until they fire, deadly against tanks *and* infantry, and usually harder to knock out than tanks. Of course, they are also basically immobile, so you have to put them in the right position - I like them far in the back, in cover, covering the flanks.
Smoke is my biggest fear as a defender - if the attacker can blind me with smoke and then rush in to areas with cover, I've lost a lot of my advantage right there.
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For an attack, I usually like 105 for off-board and 81 for onboard arty. I'd use at least some of the 105 for a prep bombardment, but schedule it for 5 (or 10, depending) minutes out - some players will keep troops back in the first couple of turns to avoid 1st turn prep bombardments.
The onboard tubes can follow to deal with strongpoints as you identify them.
But if it's a very large map and you don't think you can predict where the enemy troops will be, you might be better off with a bunch of 81mm tubes onboard, though.
Also, IME arty is generally more effective in wego battles; in RT a halfway competent player will move troops as soon as the arty starts falling.
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At the risk of being repetitive:
1. Split off the 3-man scout team from an infantry squad and use that to scout.
2. Give the team a short covered arc (<10 meters) - otherwise, they will open up on what they discover and get killed.
3. Use the "hunt" command with a "hide" command at the end. This way, as soon as they spot something, they will go to ground and hide and *probably* not get killed. They won't spot as well while hiding, so the next turn unhide them, but don't move them.
4. Move through cover only if you think you might encounter enemy units.
5. "Slow" is too slow and too exhausting to use much, but use it for the last 10 meters or so if you think you are coming up on an area where there are likely to be a lot of enemy troops. I.e., if you suspect that there are enemy units back behind a hedgerow, "hunt" through cover until you get close to the hedgerow, and then "slow" up to the hedgerow itself, ending with a "hide".
6. Double check to make sure you've set appropriate covered arcs. This is tedious...
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"It was noted that "the average firer has a higher overall chance of hitting an enemy at 200 yards with a Sten than with a rifle." "
I should have thought with those numbers the document must be open to serious question. I would suggest a closer reading of the paper.
The 68% chance of a hit would seem to be an extrapolation based on the spread of a burst fired at a target 30 yards away from a rested weapon under range conditions. Just look at the terms of the trial, even in its own terms the conclusions are barely justified.
Furthermore the paper seems to be a summary by Mr. Salt of a much bigger set of documents. Sorry, with all respect to Mr. Salt, the data quoted doesn't support the conclusions stated.
I wouldn't assume that the data are not correct, but it is important to consider the circumstances of the test. First, the person firing the sten is prone and has the weapon rested, while the rifle is not rested. Second, the Sten's chance of hitting is based on firing a 4-round burst; the rifle's chance is based on firing one round. And third, these results seem to deal with "semi-skilled" infantrymen - they also state that these results would probably not hold for a "first rate" shot.
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I had to dismount crews* to spot.
This is actually realistic. It was very common for tanks in unfamiliar areas to stop on the reverse slope of a hill and the TC to dismount, crawl to the crest, and scope out the terrain with binoculars before bringing the tank up.
Most recon was done in a similar manner, with the armored car hidden on a reverse slope and the dismounted crew conducting the actual recon out of the vehicle (usually quite concealed).
Of course, you may have used your crews more aggressively than described above. But I do often wish you could dismount a one man vehicle scout.
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In a QB, I'm going to pick higher quality troops, because I would rather have a platoon of Chuck Norris's than a platoon of Pee Wee Hermans.
But would you rather have a platoon of Chuck Norrises or a company of Pee Wee Hermans?
In CMBB infantry-only attack QBs, if the Russian player chose green troops and the Germans made the mistake of choosing "crack," you would end up with something like three companies to 1. You then hide one company in the woods and attack with two. After 15 minutes or so of heavy fighting, both sides will be pretty shot up...and, more importantly, the German squads will be out of ammo. At which point you bring up the untouched 3d company with full ammo and just march over the surviving German platoon.
Showing that it was just as easy to be gamey with greens as with cracks.
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I always thought that playing green troops in CMx1 led to more realistic gameplay - you really needed to stay back and soften up the enemy before you could advance, which struck me as being eminently reasonable. It also often led to better results, as troops that ran into an ambush or unexpectedly strong opposition would usually break and run before they were completely destroyed...meaning that few turns later you could put them back into the line.
I don't yet have a good handle on how this plays out in CMBN yet - although when mortars start falling on my squads in WEGO, I really do want for them to break and run early - before the platoon is competely demolished.
M7 Priest--How Often Used for DIRECT Fire?
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
It's maybe not clear, but the two examples aren't the same unit or the same action.