Andrew H.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chad Harrison: historically, does anyone know where all the extreme winter problems came from? i know they had problems with the armor/ordanance/MG's, but was it just frozen engines (before starting), and frozen pieces of MG/ordanance before firing, or during/after firing? that would clear things up in my mind. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think the biggest problem with vehicles was the oil -- it would become thick like molasses and not flow. Sometimes tankers would keep a fire burning beneath the engine overnight so that they could start it the next day. I'm not sure of all of the problems that MGs had -- but it would seem that a weapon with very fine tolerances might not deal well with having ice-caked ammo belts fed into it. On the other hand, something like the MP-44, which you would think would be delicate, operated very well when muddy of frozen or both. To some extent you might get some metal fatigue, too, if a small piece of metal is repeatedly cooled down and then heated up to a high temperature. I have heard anecdotal reports that German troops kept freezing their tongues to flagpoles, too.

The .15 degree change between aiming and firing is interesting, but I think that there are a couple of factors that would make it possible to hit beyond 500m. The first point is that there is a very short time period between aiming and firing: the gunner is aiming and the gunner is firing. So the "bump" would have to occur between when the gunner pulls the trigger and when the trigger causes the shell to fire. This delay will be a fraction of a second, even if we include the additional delay between the gunner's brain and the gunner's trigger finger. A second factor would the gunner's ability to anticipate terrain and adjust fire accordingly -- the gunner might wait until the tank has reached what appears to be the top of a bump before firing. Or the gunner may not fire until the tank reaches what appears to be a level patch of ground, or an even slope. Assuming that the driver knows that the tank will be firing on the move (and the driver would know this), the driver may also seek out smoother areas of ground to drive over, to the extent that this is not incompatible with other orders he may have received.

Motorcycles (like bicycles and trucks and horses and mules and elephants) do make a certain amount of sense for rear area transport. They don't make a lot of sense for CM, though, as CM deals primarily with the front line areas. Trucks have to be in CM, though, because as silly as it seem to have unarmored trucks in front line areas, they were, in fact, often used to move guns around and stuff. And while people today (and even in the '40's) tend to think of troops on bicycles as being sort of quaint, they do sort of make sense for certain types of units in certain kinds of conditions. Some armies today are investigating equipping some troops (probably MPs) with mountain bikes. After all, a man on a bike with 40 lbs of stuff can travel 60 miles in 6 hours on roads or even (dry) paths. Traffic congestion would not be much of a problem, and the bike could easily be taken around roadblocks or obstacles that would stop a truck. Of course, they're useless in Russian style mud, or snow.

Given that squads at CM's level seemed to be made ad hoc from existing squads, perhaps the best approach would be to modify the current Split Squad command so that you would have Split Squad and Split Squad (Recon) commands. Regular split squads would not change. Recon split squads would "know" that they were recon units and would act accordingly -- seek to avoid firefights if at all possible, etc. On the other hand, if recon units received special training or had special equipment(even if they were ad hoc units), maybe this should be reflected by having designated "Recon Platoons" or "Recon Squads" which would have special characteristics. I can imagine (and I really am imagining this, in the sense of making it up) that Recon Units would have some of the following characteristics: (1) Slightly better spotting ability (because they are devoting all of their energy to spotting). I think that this needs to be kept within tight limits, though. Specifically, scouts should probably be able to hear a sound contact sooner than regular infantry. When regular infantry can hear a sound contact, recon squads should have a better idea where the sound contact is. I don't believe that recon squads should spot (i.e., visibly) units much before regular infantry, although maybe their identification of the type of unit should be more accurate. Possibly these bonuses should only apply when scouts are moving or sneaking or crawling or stationary. Perhaps the bonuses shouldn't apply at all, and the player just has to move the scouts slowly, or not at all, to get the inherent benefit of moving slowly. (2) Perhaps scouts should be more lightly armed. One would think that you would leave the BAR behind, and perhaps some extra ammo. Maybe some scouts are just armed with carbines. Perhaps this permits them to move more quickly, or tire less quickly, at least in certain types of terrain. (3) Scouts should seek to avoid combat as much as possible, perhaps firing (per the TacAI) only when they have been fired upon. To the extent that they are more lightly armed, they would probably have reduced firepower. (4) Perhaps scouts should be harder to spot than other units because they are smaller units and they are trying to remain unseen. (5) Scout leader bonuses should be biased toward the Stealth bonus and the Command bonus, for obvious reasons. (6) Perhaps scout morale shouldn't suffer (much) when operating as split squads to reflect that they have been trained to operate while spread out. On the other hand, because scouts are intended to engage in heavy combat, their morale probably shouldn't be so super to begin with. They are supposed to run away.

I'd be interested in seeing how many Soviet tanks Hauptmann Kneivel can jump with his BMW motorcycle.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FFE: The transport vehicle is generally big, slow, and full of ammunition. The game could model hits on transports more accurately. The transport/ammo vehicle is the weak link while unlimbering. Shredding the vehicle early in the unlimbering processes makes the ATG useless<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is a good point; 88's were generally transported by unarmored prime movers, which could be easily knocked out by MG fire; HE would be that much more effective.

IIRC, CM doesn't model the specific trajectories of shells that hit; I think it would be a big processor hit. It's also more complicated, but less important, than it might seem. On the complicated side, it's not just a matter of slow projectiles vs. fast projectiles; even assuming the same projectile, its angle of impact will vary depending on the range it's fired at. That is, a shell fired from a German 75/L48 will have a "straighter" impact at 300 meters than it will at 1500m. The reason this isn't important, though, is because CMs penetration figures correspond with real world figures, and the real world figures already include correction for deflection. So if CM and the real world show an armor penetration of a given gun of at a given range, this result is already going to include whatever effect deflection has. If you fire a shell 1000 meters, the resulting penetration reflects whatever change in deflection occurred as the shell travelled to the target. I think that CM does model deflection based on different unit elevations -- so a gun firing from a higher elevation on armor sloped at 60 degrees would penetrate as if the armor were sloped less than 60 degrees because, relative to the shell's impact, it is. Indirect fire weapons, such as artillery and mortars aren't effective against tanks because of deflection; they are effective because their angle of attack permits them to hit a completely different part of the tank. I don't think that any direct fire weapon fired so slowly that it could effectively attack a tanks top armor directly.

I think the use of ranging sticks and pre-sighted shots was discussed in one of the optics threads. The context was the difficulty of knowing whether certain examples of longer range accuracy were solely the result of superior optics, or were due to the fact that the firing tank already knew the range to the target. So I'd look in the optics thread. Enjoy.

I know that Rommel stopped a British counterattack at Arras by hastily deploying some 88s, and the troops deploying the 88s appear to have come under occasional fire from the attacking tanks. It's important to keep in mind that the tanks that attacked at Arras were Matildas which are (1) very slow; and (2) did not have a high explosive round. I suspect that CM accurately models setting up an 88 when confronted by desultory long range non-HE fire. On the other hand, in the Official History of the Battle of the Bulge, there are several comments by US troops that their towed tank destroyers (i.e., AT guns) were useless. Obviously, the latter statement cannot be completely true, as AT guns did knock out a lot of German tanks during the Bulge. But it does point out that there appeared to be significant disadvantages to using AT guns.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Much more than that and you would be seeing some problems because cross country it was actually too light to handle major bumps. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm. I wonder if CM should model a (small) random chance that Hellcat traveling at full speed cross-country might hit a bump and fling the tank commander out of the turret. The sound file for this event could be based on the bridge scene from the Holy Grail. Perhaps this should wait for the engine rewrite.

For me, the best defense for CM has always been the "static defense," at least in Attack/Assault type games. IMO a lot of AT guns (even 50mm or 20mm), spread out so that there is the possibility of flank shots, is a very effective defensive tactic. The best way for the attacker to deal with these AT guns, according to doctrine, is to use artillery. This is time consuming, though, and artillery is limited. Assaulting with infantry can work, too, if the infantry can get close enough, but this distracts from the main attack, and often it is hard for infantry to get close enough to assault without getting eaten up by larger guns. This leaves attacking the AT guns with tanks. This is not generally a great idea, as it gives the AT guns shots at their chosen targets; if the AT guns are set up properly, a hidden AT gun may be able to get a flank shot on a tank attacking another AT gun. However, this tactic does have the advantage of detracting least from the main attack, at least if the AT gun is knocked out. It is probably true that AT guns are too easy to spot compared to actual life -- a feature of absolute spotting. Nevertheless, they are still much more difficult to spot than normal AFVs, which are often spotted before they shoot. It is good to have a mobile infantry reserve that can plug holes or perform a limited counterattack to retake a captured area; this is particularly effective if they can be hidden in a place that won't be attacked wtih artillery. I think that with players more skilled than I, defensive outposts can be effective (i.e., an isolated squad or HMG hidden in a foxhole in a stand of trees). I've seen a small outpost like this render a platoon sized unit combat ineffective in a couple of turns. On the other hand, *my* outposts tend to die quickly while causing few, if any, casualties. . If you've seen those screenshots in AARs that show about 50 targetting lines all leading to one unit, you can get an idea of how effective my outposts have been.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scipio: My English...my English... Kann das mal jemand in's englische übersetzen: Nicht die Panzerung hat eine Neigung von 60°, sondern das Geschoß trifft in einem Winkel von 60° auf die Panzerung.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> "It's not that the armor has a 60 degree slope. It's that the shell hits the armor at an angle of 60 degrees." A better translation would probably use the word "deflection" somewhere. . Note, too, that sometimes a German 60 degree angle is the equivalent of a US 30 degree angle because of where they start counting from. But I'm not sure if this is always the case, or if it is the case here.

And remember that not all Germans speak High German. What about: Koi Ongscht, es isch' halt oi Sherma' Ponzerle -- We see a tank. For that matter, various English dialects should probably be added as well, like: Hey, y'all, it's a tank!

Which one sounds like "Have a pickle?"

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kmead: The M1 Carbine was a lighter (just under 7lbs) semi-automatic rifle chambered for a cartridge intended for a handgun (IIRC). It is a gas operated, magazine fed (30 cartidges) weapon. The cartridge is referred to as the .30 (@8mm in diameter) Carbine, the case of the cartridge was straight without a neckdown to the bullet. The M1 carbine was intended for paratroopers, officers, reconn, sargeants, armored vehicle crews, and others who needed a weapon that was light in wieght, small in size and offered medium range ability (300 yards or less). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The carbine was chambered not for a pistol round, but for an intermediate round between a pistol and a rifle. My Encyclopedia of WWII weapons lists its weight at 5.2 lbs unloaded. In a lot of ways, especially after the carbine was made a selective fire weapon, I think it's similar to the German Sturmgewehr - the range is similar, the round is a similar intermediate round, both hold 30 round clips, and both were selective fire weapons. Unfortunately, the US Army didn't really have the doctrine to permit the M1s to be used as assault rifles. A lot of front line Marine Corps units used M1 carbines, though -- they were very easy to tote around in the jungle, and much of that fighting was at pretty close range.

WRT the 88, remember that it became most feared in the desert against the (mostly) British. This -- 1940-42 -- is much earlier than the time shown in CMBO, which made the 88 relatively more powerful, for a lot of reasons. Here are a few: (1) During most of the North African fighting, there was nothing approaching the size or effectiveness of the 88 in any tank. (2) For this reason, it was easier for the 88 to stand off and pick off tanks -- they simply couldn't hit it at that range with their smaller guns (artillery was still a danger, of course). (3) Many of the early, common british guns did not fire HE. The 2-pounder did not, and it was one of the most common tank guns during most of the desert fighting (4) It is more common to find long lines of sight in a desert environment. (5) British had poor infantry-tank coordination throughout much of the desert fighting; tanks were often treated as cavalry and had a tendency to "charge" when it appeared that the Germans were retreating. The charge often led to a line of AT guns. So, putting this all together, the 88 developed its reputation in a situation with long lines of sight against tanks with small guns which were not accurate at long range, and even if the tanks had the range, most of them could do no damage because they only had solid shot (meaning that they basically have to close to MG range). Throw in a lack of infantry support and you have the making of the 88's reputation. Which was quite deserved, and it is still a formidible weapon which was still effective in 1944. But there's no way it could have lived up to its fearsome reputation by the time of CMBO because so many things had changed. It is true, of course, that relative spotting would make AT guns more effective in a lot of situations, and it is also true that these weapons were often fired from carefully concealed prepared positions which are also not in CM. But these are sort of minor points compared to the others. Oh, also 88s tended to be used in (I believe 4 gun, may have been 6) batteries; you can multiply the effectiveness of the guns if you have 4 of them, assuming terrain with good LOS and the ability to make use of the LOS while placing the guns in supporting positions.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Matthew_Ridgeway: Perfection is in the eyes of the beholder. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it's pretty clear that Beholders had powerful optics. Adventurers who survived encounters with Beholders almost universally mention the power of the Beholder's eye. But it's hard to tell whether the Beholder's optics are more powerful than the Zeiss optics in the Tiger tank.

I've been in a lot of discussions with ex-BW soldiers -- mostly conscripts, but a couple of former Zeitsoldaten, too -- and it's sort of striking to me how often innere Fuehrung came up in conversation, particularly in light of the fact that I never really brought the subject up myself. I concluded from this that the concept seems to have really taken hold. Which is a good thing. Probably a better example than running a red light (which, as Germanboy pointed out, can injure or kill someone) would be parking illegally, which can't. Also, if some soldier killed someone because he was "just following orders" to run the red light, it would be on the cover of Spiegel the following week and would be in the news for months. Yet another reason to avoid such orders. Of course, if the BW is theoretically involved in a hypothetical future war, and the worst anyone can say about them is that they committed traffic infractions, they will have done well by innere Fuehrung. Even if the term sort of looks like it means that you should follow your "inner Fuehrer."

Steve wrote: One thing we have already done is make Green the default Experience level, not Regular. Experience ranges for Quick Battles have also been adjusted downward so, for example, you get to buy Green-Regular troops instead of Conscript-Green or Regular-Veteran. This should lead to more use of Green and Regular troops and less Regular and Veteran combos. I go away for a week and return to discover that this BBS supports sending subliminal messages via sig lines. Cool. Seriously, this is a great idea, and I think that it will go far toward making more games realistic, whether from the lower casualty counts you usually get green troops (who certainly don't fight to the last man) or from the effectively longer ranges MGs have against greens. Green troops tend to reward the use of historical tactics, too. They really rely on FP from support weapons, and they really need to make sure that the enemy in front of them is suppressed before advancing to close range -- especially if they have to cross open spaces. Once again, very cool.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username: Stugs, for a short time, were the best armored and best armed german AFV. Since they were predominately used by artillerymen, they were a bit different than Marders/hetzers/etc. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hetzers were crewed by artillerymen, too, although things like Jagdpanther were crewed by tankers.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sirocco: This has nothing to do with freezing to death! As a Russian, if you have experienced Russian winters - note, I used the term Russian - all your life, then you must be able to operate in those conditions better than someone who is experiencing it for the first time. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is neither physiologically nor, more importantly, historically correct. Leaving aside for the moment the point that at some locations in the USSR (Russia, even), it gets really, really hot, and not very cold, it is also true that soviet troops suffered lots and lots of cold related casualties in the winter war. For this reason alone the "acclimatized" argument would have to fail, unless someone could demonstrate that acclimatization suddenly occurred in 1940. The real reason, as others have pointed out, that the soviet troops did better in the winter is because they were better equipped with winter clothing. The reason that they were better equipped with winter clothing is because that is one of the lessons that they drew from the Winter War. (There are lots of Winter War lessons, actually, including the need to have more heavily armed tanks, and tanks that are more reliable in the winter). If there had not been a winter war, the soviet troops would have been as poorly equipped as the Germans for fighting in the bitter cold. Regardless of the reason, of course, it is true that Germans were at a disadvantage fighting in the cold against better prepared soviet troops. But the reason is not a national quality reason; it is solely the result of one side being better equipped than the other. Nevertheless, it is something that should be simulated; I assume CMBB will make use of the "fitness" modifier.

I'd like a "taunt" command so my troops can insult their adversaries.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by :USERNAME:: ON THE OTHER HAND.. If you want my CM2 money then hopefully something can be abstracted/modeled since we all will have multiGHz systems by then. It was a big deal and rightly so and taken advantage of Im sure.Lewis<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> CM2 or CMII? I doubt that we will all have multi-gig machines by the time that CM2 rolls out

I remember reading some desert war accounts of infantry vs. tanks; apparently one technique that sometimes worked against the Pz III was to fire repeatedly at the side vision ports in the turret from very short range. While the glass block in the vision port was, technically, bullet proof, repeated hits with steel-jacketed ammo would cause it to shatter and then permit bullets to penetrate the turret and bounce around. Which either caused causualties or caused the tankers to open the hatches and escape. I'm not sure how regularly this could be employed, however, as those vision slits are pretty small; it would seem that you could only do this well if the turret was jammed. And of course there is the danger of ricochets from bullets that don't go through the vision slit. In general, though, it should be very hard to take out mobile tanks w/o special weapons.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: I think you are still not addressing the point I made - in the Bulge, the German SMGs were mostly in the hands of less well trained (green in CM terms) troops who went up against the US soldiers of the 1st, 28th, 82nd and 101st divisions amongst others (Regular to Vet, some might argue Crack<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> While I do think that the effectiveness of SMGs on the attack is overstated in CM, it is true that the relative quality and equipment of the troops involved form another variable that is hard to separate from the weapons involved. Many of the battles in the Ardennes when the Germans were on the offensive have a lot of similarities (especially if we exclude the first two days of the battle as well as actions involving the 106th Div): The US troops are in a village blocking the exit out of a valley (or over a river, or on a main road). The Germans don't really have good flanking opportunities because of the steep walls of the valley (or the river, or the absence of roads). For the past 6 weeks, the village was occupied by a platoon which had nothing better to do than chop down trees to establish clear fire lanes, check ranges, dig entrenchments, and familiarize themselves with the terrain. The village is now occupied in company strength by (mostly) retreating, but experienced, US troops. Usually there are some extra 30 cal. MGs or a spare heavy weapons platoon sent by HQ, plus a platoon of tank destroyers (which usually means not M10s, but 4 57mm AT guns). These guys are faced by a depleted battalion of relatively inexperienced German soldiers who are behind schedule, and, in many cases, haven't eaten in 2 days because the roads are so congested. So the Germans have to attack this village. They attack, they're shot up, they waver and run back to the trees. They attack again, are shot up again, they waver again, they run back to the trees. They attack a third time, are shot up, waver, and then get hit by a huge amount of artillery. They retreat and/or give up. Alternatively, a small group of Germans were able to occupy a couple of buildings on the outskirts of the village; they surrender when night falls. The reason I like BTS's proposed reduction in the ability to move and fire is because the attacking Germans in these accounts don't seem to be firing their weapons -- there may be mortar fire, or LMG fire, but there are not really any accounts of the troops actually moving across the field firing as they come. So BTS's fix would model this reported behavior. Now the attacking and the wavering might be due to the troops' green status; perhaps vet troops would advance across the field, take heavy losses because they can't fire back (effectively against troops in foxholes) until they reach close range (20 or 30m), where their SMGs can be used to great effect.