dieseltaylor

Lovely map. Congratulations.

http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/mw1_ge/kap_8/advanced/t8_4_2.html Not easy to find a comparison but hardened steel and granite are not hugely apart in hardness and granite in buildings tends to be fairly chunk blocks probably 12" plus. However that would be the exception build rather than the norm Not hard but interesting is sand , these figures from Wikipedia on Hesco:! Protection Filled with sand, 60 centimetres (24 inches) of barrier thickness will stop rifle bullets, shell fragments and other shrapnel. Approximately 1.2 metres (four feet) of thickness provides protection against most car bombs.[citation needed] It takes 1.5 metres (five feet) of thickness to prevent penetration by a rocket-propelled grenade round. In addition, HESCO bastions are even more effective than sandbags against water, which will not compromise the competence of the latter. Shooting through buildings could be misleading. A warehouse may well have many thin walls with the roof etc being held by structural parts - obviously they will give very different results if hit by a shell. And angle of attack will also have some effect. In my limited tests I took some time to blow through a ground floor of a major building but was then unable to shoot at targets through the gap : (

Learning cooking terms is a great help : ) I understand that there are apps, and even books to help. When travelling in Europe we tend to go with what ever the plat du jour is so we experience what the natives eat. And if no plat du jour then we go wild and choose randomly. Only once, so less than 1%, have I ever really regretted this approach.

http://www.propublica.org/article/behind-the-u.s.-cyberattacks-on-iran Codenamed Olympic Games. Those random code generators sure pick 'em. It is rather disconcerting to find that a code that can control industrial machines has been released into the wild - and which nations are most reliant on them? And what advantages does Israel gain by releasing the details - tying the US more closely? And as for a dumb Iranian using a USB drive as the attack vector ...sure.

VAB. I am now of such an advanced age that I invest for fun and eventually hopefully a profit. I trained in accountancy and in banking and am familiar with businesses cashflow, products, etc etc so I can fully understand if there were declining sales for the CMx1 series requires some thinking as to what to do next. And BF decided to go for a more detailed infantry model deriving from what successfully occurred with CMx1. Whether it was the best decision to make can never be known. Sburke talks of Monday quarterbacks and Charles and Steve but most of us have no idea as to the income/expenditure and the team dynamics so we are slightly blind as to the possibles and impossibilities for BF. However as we are paying beta-testers I think we are entitled to post our views. Hopefully with some rational reasons for our view. We are the market research participants after the event : ) Perhaps I should look again at PZOstF but I am torn by a some vestigal loyalty to the CM series and the pain of the still slightly banjaxed game.

Interesting only one answer mentions the specific example of time! I have no idea if there are bigger scenarios with exactly the same type of description where multiple units become available at different times after the start of the battle. So I regard that specific point as a valid criticism of running the reinforcement description one way and the clock the other. Perhaps I missed out on it but I never recalled in CMX1 anyone calling for the clock to be changed to US sports style. Where did it come from ? Also I think most people would agree minus minutes is plain ugly.

Good point General Lee. But that is three primarily US sports versus the World! : ). Actually it is surprising that in a realistic game where you are given time of day for the battle there is the implication that time advances. The randomly chosen scenario Bois De Bauguin kicks off at 14.50 and you have to 16.00 for the mission. Note that the artillery will be available after 5-10 minutes. So just remember to deduct 5-10 from 70 .... easy-peasy and remember it. Just running the clock forwards so 5-10 minutes is on the clock would be really difficult for people. And of course CMBN games with variable endings is just plain daft, I mean whats with -3 minutes. Lets see if it would catch on : ) "Darling I am sorry I am minus 93 minutes late from the office." "But darling that surely must mean you are 186 minutes early!" I honestly do not know what historically happened in WW2 but I assume they carried watches that only advanced forwards without a countdown function ...... PS "Canada and US, the two major countries for hockey, started using this timer. For sports in all other countries, the timers all counted up to make it easier to announce. (ie: A goal with 7:47 left on the olympic clock would be read as 12:13, which is the time they announce.)"

sburke I would hate to think you find my post incomprehensible. If you re-read the link you posted, I am sorry it is lengthy, you will see the reasons why they wanted a new engine as being more realistic. Changing a game system because it can provide more realism/colour is not the same thing as saying we will have more sales because the game is realistic. The argument might be that further complexity may deter ... As it happens I believe at the time CMx2 was being whispered about BF did provide a rationale and that was that a modular system design would allow them to provide more games in a timely way. Apparently the CMx1 was a real bugger to code when going from CMBO to CMBB to CMAK as it was not modular. "Show me a comparable product however that even comes close. There are similar products in the genre, but nothing quite like this." I don't think there is a comparable product but that is irrelevant. In the scheme of things people play what they enjoy be it a wargame or any of a number of other games/hobbies. Campaign of North Africa was without a near challenger so the phrase ""Show me a comparable product however that even comes close. There are similar products in the genre, but nothing quite like this." is equally true. If BF ever sought my advice! then it would be to try to think of the end user and ease of use. I think rather like boardgame designers and testers they get so close to the coalface that they don't recognise klutzy parts of the game. I mean whats with the effing countdown clock for Pet's sake. For the general population time goes forward and I am confident 100% of the population understands it. Of course suspending my normal habits during play of a game that works the other way around is just peachy. CMBN is possibly a great game and can have some great moments but it is bordering on my "Can I be arsed to play it" level. : )

SO JonS do you know whether it is true or not? I have only tested myself vehicle speeds and spotting with tank v.tank so am content that others will have tested other aspects and I will rely on what they post. Given of course numbers who say the same thing, or one person where the methodology is explained and others confirm.

JK From what people have posted here it seems you cannot have your ammo bearers dump the ammo with the ordnance but have to stay until the ordnance finishes using its stock and then it will start using the bearers supply - whilst they remain there I assume. If I what I am reading from posters is wrong please do say. If the ammo was dumped and the ordnance, say a mortar team, moved you could have everything above their intrinsic lift capability lost. Or perhaps a percentage is lost anyway if stockpiled rather than bearers to hand.

From the collected works of J D Salt : ) Many thanks for making them more public and presenting the outcomes. "WO 291/946 Effects of bombardment – present state of knowledge. This summary was published in 1946. Against men in slit trenches, 25-pdr groundburst must hit the trench or parapet to be effective. If firing 1000 25-pdr shells into a 300 ´ 300 yard box with 100 men in it in slit trenches, the expected number of casualties would be nine. Four kinds of effect from bombardment are distinguished: Lethal: Killing or incapacitating personnel. Material: Destroying weapons and equipment. Neutralisation: Preventing the enemy from observing or using his weapons for the duration of the bombardment. Morale effects: Reduction in effectiveness lasting after the bombardment has ceased. Two possible morale effects are mentioned. "Sensitization" means that greater weights of bombardment have progressively more morale effect. The existence of this effect was supported by "abundant evidence". "Habituation" means the lowering of morale effect by men getting used to small bombardments. The occurrence of this was "more difficult to support by adequate evidence". The "minimum effective density" of a bombardment is 0.3 lbs/sq yd for 25-pdr shell. "If the enemy is in protected positions such as pillboxes or concrete gun casemates instead of in open positions the state of affairs is different. No projectile which cannot pierce the protection has any noticeable effect. The neutralising, morale and lethal effects do not exist until the material effect is achieved." Experience on the Normandy beaches suggested that one 81mm mortar had the same casualty-causing effect as 1 MG. Casualties were weapon were one-and-a-half times more on Omaha than the British beaches, where they were in turn four times greater than on Utah. The difference is attributed to greater effectiveness of preliminary bombardment. Morale effect (lasting after the bombardment ceases) "...can only be achieved against enemy in open positions, unless the duration is about 8 hours or more, in which case lightly protected positions may be affected especially if retaliation is impossible." On open positions a bombardment intensity of 0.1 lb/sq yd/hour in 25-pdr equivalents produces collapse in about 4 hours; 1.0 lb/sq yd/hour in about ¼ hour. Neutralising effect, in NW Europe, on an enemy in open positions, was achieved with a bombardment intensity of 0.02–0.08 lb/sq yd/hr. in 25-pdr equivalents. Lethal effect: A density of 0.1 lb/sq yd causes 2% casualties on targets in slit trenches, about 20% on targets in the open. Material effect: A density of 0.1 lb/sq yd damages about 1½% of weapons or guns in pits, 20% of soft vehicles in the open." There is also WO research on how different terrains affect the lethality of bombardment. etc. and of course most things an army should be interested in.

sburke Thanks for the link. It was an interesting read but at no point does it establish a commercial reason why they decided to spend effort on CMX2. Sorting out the infantry problems in CMx1 is what happened but as a businessman I would expect a reasoned argument for time invested against potential reward. And perhaps there was a business case but not one shared with the buying public. In the rationale there is a lot of explaining the realism involved with relative spotting etc and firepower. Given the emphasis on realism at the squad level the areas which seem unrealistic are highlighted and two of these are carry overs from CMx1. Smoke is inordinately powerful in blocking fire even for HMG's that would be set up on fixed lines. While not wishing to be monotonous the vehicle modelling in respect of reverse speed is now, in a later version, improved on CMx1 however vehicles designed to travel equally fast in each direction cannot. This area seems outstandingly underdeveloped compared to squad mechanics detail. Sort of a schizophrenic realism. However the gist of the thread is not getting enough fun - some people think it is just right and others think it is unduly klutzy. Design decisions such as ammo crews not being able to off-load ammo to the gun/mortar, tank crews swopping places when dead crew instantly disappear, etc , etc just seem strange. Does it provide some great graphic moments and excitement - for sure it does. But then most people do not post all the unexciting irritating parts of the plotting etc. : ) We can all agree to differ as to whether it is enjoyable enough for the effort invested.

It seems to me that for any game the player wants certain "fun" per minute of input. This can vary from someone who feds a slot machine to those who play Campaign for North Africa. I suppose I ought to explain the latter:

Statistics for suppression and expected losses under a barrage can be found on-line and are derived from War Office tests in the period 1940-46. It is surprising how little the effect can be.

: ) My son was a disaster. Raised on the original Civilisation by Sid M. and now a psychologist. Sad.

Market Grrden and epigenetics - where wargaming and behavioural effects meet!! http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/holland/hungerwinter-holland-1944-1945-me-ENGL.html

Incidentally the increase in autism rates may actually be something else. The idea that chemicals can change peoples behaviour - phooey! : ) This study was on rats.-

Very funny lads. : ) I do not wish to sound base but in the instance of the church door is the lack of punishment - and I mean physical - actually not helping. I am hypothesising that at an early age if the link between behaving badly/displeasing an adult is a smack across the calfs would this actually help to establish a correlation. I am suggesting I suppose that sending an autistic kid to his room early or for x hours may actaully be no punishment whatsoever - and possibly a reward. Until know I have not thought how one can punish bad behaviour in autistic children. Physical punishment ideally should never be required but in the very early years perhaps it is the only means to convey a message. If it all sounds very primitive bear in mind I think we are but animals and the animal kingdom has lots of examples of raising young but jawing at miscreants to change behaviour is not one I have heard of : )

Not from the book - which remains top of my reading list - apart from the others I have been reading : ) 'Homing pigeons have remarkable navigational skills that allow them to find their way back to the loft when released from an unfamiliar location hundreds of miles away. To perform such a feat, they rely on various cues, such as odors and Earth's magnetic field . Yet, how birds and other animals obtain magnetic-field information has been a mystery. On page 1054 of this issue, Wu and Dickman report how this information is neurally encoded and suggest a candidate magnetic sensory organ in the inner ear of the pigeon Winklhofer And if you go to the link you can read this extract: added

Mere respect for some realism so people laughingly did not point out how bogus 30mph reverse was in a tank. A mere detail to you VAB as I know you thought it was realistic : ) Fortunately BF did change it in Version 1.01 so perhaps I should have credit even if the speed chosen is a bodge. The downside is all those dinky armoured cars with drivers fore and aft and a gearbox that truly allowed them to travel in either direction at speed are banjaxed. I have to admit to being incredibly puzzled that something as simple as speed forward and speed in reverse were not modeled from the start or even CMSF. I am no programmer so perhaps it is incredibly difficult.

But I like games better than simulations. Garbage-truck-simulator-2011 http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/games/865987-garbage-truck-simulator-2011-review-readers-feature

Perhaps you should play the CW module with Fireflies and the 6lber ATG : ) Small maps always favour uber-tanks so try playing on bigger maps so that they have exposed flanks - or at least are nervous of exposing them.

Changing definitions as the problem or is there actually a problem increase.

http://www.oliverperks.com/blog6.html Showing how confusing the spelling could be in the first entry and then German humour in the last entry on the same page. Quite amusing.

The US did not name tanks until they adopted British practice and in fact according to Zaloga names were not commonly used during the war. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AKNgfES1OqkC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=who+named+the+stuart+tank&source=bl&ots=evoOv2KGYL&sig=RvtVLrJpgSFuMX18aVu3x0kYq1c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=C9C9T9XoBMSj8gOthoFJ&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCjgK#v=onepage&q=who%20named%20the%20stuart%20tank&f=false The British obviously understood that J E B Stuart was a cavalry man! BD 6 - True. They were called Honeys as they were peachy to drive compared to other tanks. My uncle was in Honeys until he was captured and ended up as a POW in Italy. Fortunatley the troops could handle the concept of Honey and Stuart without too much confusion. : ) I suspect official documents would always refer to Stuarts.