dieseltaylor

Coe. It is not off the wall and has been covered before. Crews bail - eventually.

Couple of bunkers - they may have been as in crucial big bunkers and therefore highly important to success , or not. Answers please. Anyone who played Moltke Bridge knows exactly how painful bunkers can be, and that is in CM which does not particularly favour them. JK: 37mm quads Yes I thought I got it wrong just after I posted : ( This might be interesting: web page

If you search the archives you will find more info. The nitty gritty is yes they can be shot down. I did some experiments so if you search my user number/name and "air", CAS or variations you should find it. It is possibly in the CMBB section as we had arguements about air power running in both at the same time. Quad 37mm and singles work well so a couple or three of those will cover a big battlefield sufficiently well against Stormovik's. Early war 20mm should do for early war aircraft. The Russians are generally AA light until they get the quad AA's , the US is fairly potent bristling with .5 Mg's from virtually every vehicle. The British are intrinsically light of AA. Some of the German A/c's AA capability -- those mainly with the 20mm : )

If you play yourself using PBEM you can you can save all the files.Then this program below could help you. However as it is a clever program you had better keep it turned off whilst you play as it will be confused. What is PBEMHelper? It is a Windows program invented by Harri Pesonen in 2000 to aid players keep organised multiple PBEM games. PbemHelper works with many games, nearly thirty,by a variety of publishers. The most important of these being the CM series : ). The program can be obtained here: web page http://www.nic.fi/~fuerte/ What does it do? An amazing amount of things but lets start with the basic: 1. It searches your hard drive for all games that it works on and lists them as available for use. When you start a new CM game it will appear and request details of the opponents e-mail address and your game password , or it can generate one for you. 2. It will send the turn with its own e-mail program or you can attach the file to your mail program. Either way it will record the time and date you sent it and the turn number. It will also show whether you sent in the standard text format, zipped, or in the native Helper PBM. format. The format obviously is something to suit your opponent but once recorded all future turns will automatically go in the requested format until you decide to alter it. Importantly it also shows whether you are awaiting a turn or you have one to play or send. 3. When you receive a reply and save it to your PBEM game folder . If you open Helper, or refresh it with F5 it will generate a game folder with the correct name and file the old turn and show the new turns arrival time and its status as Play/Send. Double click on the this new turn and Helper will automatically open CM game, load your password and take you to the start of the turn. That is the basic and if you consider I have 200+ folders in my CMAK PBEM folder of which I have made perhaps 30 and filed personally less than 100 files out of several thousand files you can see the time saved and convenience ! Now you might wonder why I would save all my turns. If you have the space to store them PBEMHelper has a nifty movie file system which allows all your active turns to be played like a movie interrupted only by the press of a key and the virtual instantaneous loading of the next movie file. Very useful in those long long games where someone returns files erratically and you need a refresher. Other little things is it has is a gamma correction facility for those dark screens, and you can check your computers system information from the Help screen. Advanced This is the exciting bit. I mentioned that Helper has its own format – PBM. This actually adds much more functionality as if both players use it then Helper can open the game ready to play from your e-mail program. Useful but not half as useful as the ability to play in Fast &Trusted mode. This mode once started means each e-mail carries information that allows each player to watch two movies and to plot two turns. Neat huh! The Fast part is obvious and the Trusted is because the system can be abused by an opponent into re-plotting if he does not like the result before he responds. A slight risk to run for the pleasure of playing three times quicker and the ability to see more of the battle in two minute chunks rather than one minute chunks separated by the time for extra e-mails. And a couple of helpful guides are here: http://www.gregories.net/CMAK/PBEMHelper-Aprimer.doc http://www.gregories.net/CMAK/Unofficial%20PBEM%20helper%20tutorial%20for%20CM.doc Recommendations GJK Member Member # 9191 I'll 2nd the praise for the program. I have 11 pbem games going at the moment and there is no way that I would be able to manage them without it. Ok, I could manage, but it would become a chore to do so. Thin Red Line Member Member # 7438 - Another vote for PBEM Helper . The best invention since sliced bread. I'm also amazed by the number of people not using it, while it could really change their (CM) life. Oh the joy of sending a turn by just hiting 4 keys :F5 F4 CtrlEnter [big Grin].The Replay full batlle feature is great too and works like a charm. Edited for Brevity ....there was too much of it : )

I just know you meant to say INCREASE reaction time

I am glad to see someone who experiments with airpower in the game . It is a much neglected in most games. Of course I routinely buy AA assets so I really appreciate plane power : ) What gets my goat is people who demand no airpower be purchased or rig the weather to stop it.

I get irked that PbemHelper, which has the ability to sped up the scenario testing process so much is so often neglected by PC owners. OK it is a new program to learn but it gives back so much! Anyway as I had to write a little intro for a club I thought lets air my rant ; ) What is PBEMHelper? It is a Windows program invented by Harri Pesonen in 2000 to aid players keep organised multiple PBEM games. PbemHelper works with many games, nearly thirty,by a variety of publishers. The most important of these being the CM series : ). The program can be obtained here: http://www.nic.fi/~fuerte/ What does it do? An amazing amount of things but lets start with the basic: 1. It searches your hard drive for all games that it works on and lists them as available for use. When you start a new CM game it will appear and request details of the opponents e-mail address and your game password , or it can generate one for you. 2. It will send the turn with its own e-mail program or you can attach the file to your mail program. Either way it will record the time and date you sent it and the turn number. It will also show whether you sent in the standard text format, zipped, or in the native Helper PBM. format. The format obviously is something to suit your opponent but once recorded all future turns will automatically go in the requested format until you decide to alter it. Importantly it also shows whether you are awaiting a turn or you have one to play or send. 3. When you receive a reply and save it to your PBEM game folder . If you open Helper, or refresh it with F5 it will generate a game folder with the correct name and file the old turn and show the new turns arrival time and its status as Play/Send. Double click on the this new turn and Helper will automatically open CM game, load your password and take you to the start of the turn. That is the basic and if you consider I have 200+ game folders in my CMAK PBEM folder of which I have made perhaps 30 and filed personally less than 100 files out of several thousand files you can see the time saved and convenience ! Now you might wonder why I would save all my turns. If you have the space to store them PBEMHelper has a nifty movie file system which allows all your active turns to be played like a movie interrupted only by the press of a key and the virtual instantaneous loading of the next movie file. Very useful in those long long games where someone returns files erratically and you need a refresher. Other little things is it has is a gamma correction facility for those dark screens, and you can check your computers system information from the Help screen. Advanced This is the exciting bit. I mentioned that Helper has its own format – PBM. This actually adds much more functionality as if both players use it then Helper can open the game ready to play from your e-mail program. Useful but not half as useful as the ability to play in Fast &Trusted mode. This mode once started means each e-mail carries information that allows each player to watch two movies and to plot two turns. Neat huh! The Fast part is obvious and the Trusted is because the system can be abused by an opponent into re-plotting if he does not like the result before he responds. A slight risk to run for the pleasure of playing three times quicker and the ability to see more of the battle in two minute chunks rather than one minute chunks separated by the time for extra e-mails. And a couple of helpful guides are here: http://www.gregories.net/CMAK/PBEMHelper-Aprimer.doc http://www.gregories.net/CMAK/Unofficial%20PBEM%20helper%20tutorial%20for%20CM.doc

I think I have flashes of conceptual brilliance which may well work if they were not doomed by my inadequacies at getting down to level 1. My chief important military attribute is being lucky. Very highly rated trait : ) I am conscious that I may be nearing the slippery slope of knowing how much fire power suppresses enemy units at 79 metres which I think as close to playing the game mechanics. However I am pretty good at working out what tanks are dangerous and what to do with them. I am very lazy at thinking through plans and writing them down to examine them for flaws. I look at maps now and my subconcious seems to fill me in with speeds to certain points etc. which is probably a function of playing lots of games. I reckon 90 since November 2004. I have been playing for years but that is when my stats at BoB begin. Thinking through a bit further I do think some credit should go to PBEMHelper which when being used in trusted mode means that for each e-mail you plot two turns and see two films. I think that this ability to see cause and effect so closely related must be a very great benefit in getting into the flow of the game. Where in a normal games you may see in a week the whole of what I see in 5 minutes and I have been able to tie them together in my mind easily. Funnily enough the experience can be so immersive that you almost start to view it as a film rather than you are involved in it. I have played a 60+ pBEM game in under a fortnight so you can appreciate the inputs you are recieving are concentrated. It is important from my point of view that win or lose I like to think I played well. Obviously that is a personal judgement but you know when an opponent gets lucky and defies the odds to steal the win, draw etc. And you know when you do something that goes drastically wrong. This could be blind stupidity, battle fatigue : ) or simply the action you took on the information available was the best decision however it unfortunately played directly to your enemies strength. Nice thing about this game there are plenty of reasons why your plans can go awry. In that vein the funniest thing I ever heard was in a tournament towards the end of a very big bloody battle the US had the sole tank left standing which was going to wipe the Axis remnants from the board. The US air support arrived bombed the Sherman, which dying, triggered a global morale collapse and surrender. |: ) Bad planning obviously!!!

Tetrarch - Wiki will tell you all about them : ) Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, 6th Airborne Division- landed by Hamilcar glider as part of Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944 on the River Orne

I think reading through these would have answered your first question several times and MORE importantly given you answers to questions yet to occur to you : ) But then I always believe archives are good things and the PDF rule book as hidden on the CD is pretty useful - not that I have read it yet though ...... On map mortars with observer, etc. 08-06-2006 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Mortars do the darndest things... 07-01-2006 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Newbie needs help w/ demo 16-10-2005 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps exploiting relative spotting to simulate AOs 10-08-2005 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps On Map Artillery Farce, Yes Farce 04-12-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps HQs ahead lagging hiding spotting, woods cover? 08-09-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Indirect Artilliary Fire 28-08-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps A Question of Force Selection 28-06-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Assigning independent units to leaders 28-03-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps HQ for Spotting for Mortars 25-03-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Smoke, Dust, Arty, and You 23-03-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps HQ spotting for mortars 28-02-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Allied Arty Availability 05-01-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Question about mortar spotting 03-01-2004 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Changes that you have noticed in CMAK 23-11-2003 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps German optics in the desert, total allied destruction? 09-11-2003 Combat Mission: Afrika Korps Any real differences between CMAK and CMBB 1.03

I do not frequent this forum so if this has ben posted before is all I can say in my defence is an archive search did not reveal "Cougar" linky

http://www.nic.fi/~fuerte/pbem.htm as for passwords I used to have a very simple system which does suffer if people know it so I have now incorporated into a bigger password things that will give me a clue to the password but will seem innocuous to the average player who may only see your passwords once or twice. Manuals sent to you direct : )

To a degree it can be done now. I have many many games where I have all the turns and with PBEMHelper I am able to run them one after the other, or skip forwar and back by pressing an F key. Remembering the passwords is the only drawback : ) I have now started a gallery of famous moments in my battles including film of a Shrek gettting three Churchills in a minute : ) Must remember to add 3 crack Tigers going down in two minutes in an ambush which happened a couple of days ago. And try to find the Flammpanzer taking out a T34/85 head on. Obviously Helper will only give one sides films but to be honest is not that the most suspenseful and honest way to play it. If one were really keen you could set up the opponents movies on another computer and run them in parallel : )

Helper is the mutts nuts in CM add-ons. The auto-filing of old turns into folders is just one great little help then there is: -record of when you last sent a turn -keeps the e-mail addresses -keeps your password for each game ready -you can string a series of movies together for a quick review of the battle and incidentally, if you know your opponent and you both use it, you can go to trusted mode where each e-mail will contain two movies and two order phases. Apparently a minor benefit but I can play 60 turn games in a fortnight with little stress. And in big battles the quality of your play improves as you are seeing the whole picture every time you plot. Of course other than that it is a waste of space and requires some extra learning - of course you will be saving minutes everytime you use it but hey the learning curve!!! Incidentally if you do an archive search it is written up in a couple of places and two user guides are available : )

stoat So you do not fall into the category of CMBB noobie then : ) But for those unused to the Eastern front, or come to that German equpment on any front a worthwhile warning.

Lt Bull. I can see where you are coming from. Losing a battle but playing well is always more fun than winning easily. You and I have to accept that for a large number of people the score on the board is what they care about. Those people want equality of points, experience levels, tank capability,some want aircraft free skies, some of them want symetric maps ,[ and get upset if you suggest they ought to play chess : )] so there is never going to be a meeting of minds. Nice thing about RoW is that you can have funny forces, be on the losing side and yet know you were a winner. Re:casualties. Even full strength battalions never attacked with 100% - a cadre was left to recreate the battalion if everything went pear shaped. I think 10-20% is definitely hstorically acceptable and does add to the FOW. I sincerely doubt any battalion ever fought at full strength what with sickness, fatal accidents, leave?!, no doubt someone here has probably got that info .....

Lt Bull. I can see where you are coming from. Losing a battle but playing well is always more fun than winning easily. You and I have to accept that for a large number of people the score on the board is what they care about. Those people want equality of points, experience levels, tank capability,some want aircraft free skies, some of them want symetric maps ,[ and get upset if you suggest they ought to play chess : )] so there is never going to be a meeting of minds. Nice thing about RoW is that you can have funny forces, be on the losing side and yet know you were a winner. Re:casualties. Even full strength battalions never attacked with 100% - a cadre was left to recreate the battalion if everything went pear shaped. I think 10-20% is definitely hstorically acceptable and does add to the FOW. I sincerely doubt any battalion ever fought at full strength what with sickness, fatal accidents, leave?!, no doubt someone here has probably got that info .....

Hi Lt Bull I see what you are saying. I am a great fan of casualties as a means of inducing more FOW. However as the current system loses artillery and tanks for you aswell as infantry I see no problem. If you start with 3000 points to spend with 50% casualties you both end up with the equivalent of 1500 purchased points to fight with. Your system might lead to imbalances where I lose all my expensive men by lottery and end up with a fighting value of 900 points against my opponents 1500. It may be true to life but will make battles less attractive under the current scoring system. Incidentally 10-20% seems to be the most that people are comfortable to take .....if at all !

Hi Lt Bull I see what you are saying. I am a great fan of casualties as a means of inducing more FOW. However as the current system loses artillery and tanks for you aswell as infantry I see no problem. If you start with 3000 points to spend with 50% casualties you both end up with the equivalent of 1500 purchased points to fight with. Your system might lead to imbalances where I lose all my expensive men by lottery and end up with a fighting value of 900 points against my opponents 1500. It may be true to life but will make battles less attractive under the current scoring system. Incidentally 10-20% seems to be the most that people are comfortable to take .....if at all !

http://cmak.jemian.com/

For those less weary of the world the answer is to play on huge maps with random weather. The weather may be good or bad but it does stop players optimising their force for the weather. Huge maps mean that fast units like T34's actually have the space to use their best attribute. So who needs to make special provisions when the parameters are there to help equalise. If you are daring play that each player chooses alternately on the weather/ terrain items etc. Big hills in fog and rain ..... just ther place for Tigers : )

The way it works now is just fine. We would not really wish for people to start "arranging" their forces would we : ) I think the parameter setting is almost worth a book in itself in the effects it has on battles and reintroduces the true FOW. Nothing so irritating where someone says regular troops Combined Arms 1500 points whereupon you can calculate to the point what can be spent where. Casualty levels, weather, etc all make it more of an adventure

The way it works now is just fine. We would not really wish for people to start "arranging" their forces would we : ) I think the parameter setting is almost worth a book in itself in the effects it has on battles and reintroduces the true FOW. Nothing so irritating where someone says regular troops Combined Arms 1500 points whereupon you can calculate to the point what can be spent where. Casualty levels, weather, etc all make it more of an adventure

Quality of crew helps.

I will subscribe £200 for the patch : ) If enough like minded people get together perhaps we can have the patch and the kudos of getting a mention. BTW I am happy to put the money with BF so they can see/feel how close the money is for the 2 months work. : )