dieseltaylor

"If this were even close you could debate it somewhat, but it seems pretty clear that even BF wanted to tone it down a bit in AK." Possibly, and possibly it means dry is substantially drier in the Med - and that neither of us can prove the if it is not a mixture of both reasons that lead to a reduction in bogging. [or that it is special treatment for Tigers : )]

I think with modest hills that there is probably a reasonable amount of dead ground to utilise. The flags will probably be village based - and then I knocked up a couple of maps Neither time were the flags in the village - and the village was not up to much in terms of houses or density.

There may be threads on fitness and how far troops can run before tired - or you can do a little test. I think a minutes running knackers regular troops - a figure of 80 metres comes to mind - after that a mixture of move run - and eventually advance

And if you are in BoB remember your stats!. Some one wisely said thta if all is lost just try to fight and gain a few small victories - an enemy platoon overrun or your men selling their lives dearly when trapped. All good experience for games when those few points really matter. Also gives him achance to make a booboo : )

"Whatever some people say, in MOST cases (terrain, date, etc) the russians will have the upper hand in a QB." What NO one ever does is talk about the size of battle, size of battlefield, and terrain. These three things are the vital parts of force selection and tactics. If we argue from the standpoint of these factors you can easily deduce the likely usefulness of various units. For instance : we fight in the woods of Finland, we fight on the the southern steppes. Immediately you realise that in heavy woods the superior range and optics of the german armour is wasted compared to its value on the steppes ..... in daylight : ) If the terrain is boggy and the weather wet it should favour Russian armour over German. If the map is huge the chances are that the Russiand will be able to envelope flanks as they, normall, can buy more numbers.If the map is very small the chances of being shot in flank armour drops dramatically. Open topped vehicles become a little more likely to expire early in the battle without doing much : ) The more I think about it the more I think people should look at the various sizes , terrains maps possible and consider what they would buy and do in each terrain so as to get a feel for the possibilitiies that exist. Terrain, size of map and weather together are far more important factors in determining your force selection than anything else. The fact that the Russians have more of this and that is nowhere near as important. Rant over : )

For fairness sakes I have run 36 T34's fast for thirty minutes over rural flat terrain and had two immobilised.

It is always interesting how long discussions go on before someone realises that size of battle matters as to whether breakdowns are crucial to the game or not : ) I get tired of mentioning it as it seems fun not to rationalise the points of view that people are arguing past each other on. Of course the vast majority of my games will be 2000+ as I think it offers more of the real deal in terms of a greater range of forces and tactics. That I think it is fair that the same breakdown probability applies throughout the game is so that it remains uniform in effect. Jason - as a man who has fielded plenty of T34 platoons I cannot recall ever having one breakdown travelling over a dry field - even that would have been noteworthy to me. As for a Tiger breaking down ... I thought that was a Tiger feature that they were unreliable. Just to refresh my memory I had two platoons of Tigers and a platoon each of MKIV's and StugIII's. After thirty minutes of fast over battlefield movement I had lost two Tigers immobilised and the others fine. Reminds me why I so very very rarely used them : ) - and bought the lesser tanks.

I cannot tell you exactly but you can get the same result if you save it and save again. He may not have understood that PBEM files auto load themselves into Helper and saved it again. It should not affect the turn he is to play. You can e-mail me with queries if you wish

Walpurgis "Kind of funny Andreas suggested a no-bog toggle would benefit Germans more than Russians. I see it as neutral across the board. In fact when I get the flashes of anger thinking of times I've bogged, it's always from when I was playing Russians . . . tanks with low psi on flat, dry ground. Russian armor has no choice but to fast move like mad in BB. That is it's main advantage." I am with Andreas on this - German tanks should be more prone than Russian tanks. I am still surprised that you can recall these boggings you suffer - over 60-70 games must have been CMBB and I cannot recall one specific incident at all. I am sure it happened but obviously not crucial - or worth remembering. Is it that I see it as a game and overcoming the enemy and fate to win. Perhaps others need to re-affirm their smarts and only winning will do it for them, and every thing that happens to prevent this win .. ..... who knows

And.. "This was the debut of the new British Crusader tanks,and their mechanical unreliability would prove their undoing.By the 17th the British had withdrawn south,and possesion of the battlefield went to the DAK.In a desperate attempt to ensnare the British armor,the 15th Pz.Div. looped south,but Wavell was one jump ahead.Two squadrons of Matildas held off the German armor for the better part of a day,while their Cruiser tanks withdrew south." Edited to remove useless line breaks. And BTW Guderian in France drove in a Czech tank as they were more reliable than the German tanks. Not that anybody apparently cares on historical grounds. : )

KVI Heavy tank "In May 1940 the yearly production plan was increased from 50 units to 200 units. The ABTU was worried that the tank had still not completed its tests and might contain many hidden defects. The KV-1 Heavy Tank Model 1939. So, in May 1940 the tank tests began again on the Kubinka proving ground and also near Leningrad. After running 2648 km some serious defects were found in the transmission, chassis and gear-box. The engineers of SKB offered to stop production until all the defects were eliminated. However, the production plan was already signed, so the production continued anyway. " Thank you for your information on M109's operating in a peacetime setting Jason. Do you have anything more relevant to WW2? If we want to extend the arguement to realistic speeds turn rates etc I will leave you to it. We know the game is far from perfect. However it does have a set of rules within which we all operate and play the same game.

Walpurgis , I assume that bogging would be less likely in CMAK as it is a hell of a lot drier around the MED. Paul Au I see you are a player since January and applaud your desire to see the game "improved". However as BFC have always said the deal was that it was to be a realistic game then I am afraid bogging - even if it does ruin someones day - should remain. ‘Untutored’? I can’t see any logical place for a comparison between player ‘skill’ and being happy with game-deciding random events. Being able to accept game-deciding random boggings as just part of the game is no indication of any level of ‘tutoring’, or skill. Accepting that in war sh** happens and that this game is designed to be realistic and it happens in game is fine by me. It is a price I pay for playing a detailed game. You say that my acceptance indicates no skill or knowledge - the poster after you explained about the Russian snows and armoured cars. I know that paved roads were very rare in Russia particularly once outside towns so bogging on a "road" is not likely to be a big surprise to me as apparently it is to some. Of course it is useless knowledge when compared against people's opinions of what makes a "fair" game and how tweaking parts of the game would improve their gaming pleasure. If I wanted a fair game I would have continued to play chess - however the delight of overcoming unfair obstacles and springing ambushes is what makes this game greater fun. I fear that all gamers who wish to introduce tweaks to improve their idea of what makes a good game eventually lead us to the state where we no longer play the same game at all - just variants with which to argue about and disparage the parameters that others play to. For the greater good I strongly believe that the less alternatives offered the more people will settle to playing [and hopefully mastering] the realistic WWII game that exists rather than spending time tinkering with toggles trying to achieve what they believe to be a better gaming experience.

that is one beautiful map. Very French sea-side. I am not a great one for ops. and playing the AI but this really looks tasty. It will be hard to restrain passing comment without giving stuff away. Looks like me and Kingfish will be comparing notes : )

Ditto as per Kingfish : )

I am amazed at this thread because I must have played well over 200 games in the CM series and bogging has never been more than an occasional inconvenience to me. Have I been abnormally lucky? I do not think so, perhaps I do not make such a big deal out of it and carry it around like an albatross lamenting how unlucky I am. Of course I have suffered badly by using a MKIV Stug with the super 75mm which bogged twice in a game and contributed to a loss but then I know it is a nose heavy bugger when I bought it - win some lose some. Yes I know that some tanks are more boggy than others and I use them more carefully if I buy them. As for a turn off switch I think that sums it up perfectly -- lets all start playing to different versions of the game where our personal untutored opinion is gratified. God forbid that we ever play anyone whose perceptions differ from ours -- 10 e-mails arguing over the game settings -- great!

I have pasted your idea to Band of Brothers and its getting lots of comments. The nice thing is they are saying good things about it : ) http://p204.ezboard.com/fwebandofbrothersfrm1

If I remember correctly the T34 was notoriously bad for its ability to depress its gun .......... you mean BF factored it in!. Right result wrong reason? And while we are on busted games I find chess is too predictable can they fix it or somfink. I mean also the morale rules are crap as men always do exactly as you tell them even if it means they will die immediatley - come on how realistic is THAT! [ April 14, 2005, 12:06 AM: Message edited by: dieseltaylor ]

Looks a very cunning idea - lots of mileage to increase game play. Thanks for posting.

It would be nice in RL to know that you are faced by a solitary Panther. Well known that they always went around singly and that if you could not see the the others in no way meant that they were about to crest the hill or fire from some undiscovered position. Obviously therefore sensible to duke it out and try and strike lucky before it terminates you. I have a great respect for the AI's intelligence of when to cower. It does mean suicidal orders that are actually actioned occur far less than some players would want.

Having lost 5 widely spread TD's to a 310mm rocket barrage I can tell you that do not have to get that close for crews to bail.

Interesting article. To see that in Afghanistan the Canadians had the better kit than the Yanks. Bet that went down well.

I have steered clear of AOL since the nasties of there own system a decade ago. I tend to think of AOL as the " happy ground" for noobies and if I was of the mind to hack I would go after them. I find it hard to believe the way they [aol] market that it does not have a high percentage of the innocent..

Eich! Your OSF is a work of art. Hats of to you and your team. The terrain is again marvellous , the town believable, and the background to the game truly immersive. Once I sort some RL I will fight my way through- hte whole thing is too inspirational to ignore. diesel

Interesting to see they could set fire to wooden buildings. Very good article. Thanks

Great news. Brightens my day.