dieseltaylor
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Posts posted by dieseltaylor
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Well I am now on minus 21 minutes in a 30 minute battle so shortly this battle will cancel its time out : )
It maybe that having a unit on a VP area means the Game Engine decides whether I have sufficient forces to dislodge the opponent. In fact until turn 16 I had a VP area for each side and moved one side off on turn minus17 to see if that would trigger an ending.
So QB's appear to be a dangerous area for length of game.
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I have just run a 30 minute battle where the troops remained in their opening positions and the game ran to minus three minutes. Whether it is a reliable 10% or varies perhaps remains to be established.! : )
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Ihave read the manual and done a search on the forums and there is no assistance at all on QB endings and variability. However from your experience it does seem that they do not stop at the indicated time.
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Does every thread on this forum have to be hijacked
Ha a noobie : ).
It is quite traditional for threads to veer off from quite trivial things to more interesting matters. A V.C. rates quite highly in matters of interest as does PIAT's working as intended.
P.S. How's the weather : )
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I am sure you mean -17 minutes : ) . [ I hate countdown]
In scenarios design it seems a variable time can be set 0-5,0-10, 0-15 but how this translates to your - 17 minutes I am not sure! Very early on I played an interminable game that went on and on but I suspect we also kept hitting the ceasefire button as nothing seemed to happen.
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Some off the cuff and ill-informed comments again on the spotting disparity - the LOS 'rules' are the same for both players, one player is simply better at working with it and the accompanying terrain. I think what's presented in this AAR is highlighting a skill mismatch between the two opponents. One orchestrates his moves several turns in advance, not fixed there's a difference, with a clearly defined goal; whereas the other plans on a turn by turn basis and moves by the seat of his pants with changing goal posts. Still interesting to watch though.
I rather thought that a defender often does have to react to events and I am surprised that this thought was not expressed. The whole point of an attack on a big map such as this is that the attacker generally has the options and if he can command deep areas of the battlefield then he restricts the defence ability to react.
In this particular battle the defence is compromised in situational awareness by its inability to spot well. This seems to me to be function of GAJ not understanding the hiding ability of long grass/spotting effects and having inadequate points for a big map with good hidden routes.
There are a couple of other things like the M10 being unfortunately ineffective and ATG's being placed poorly. I think no doubt Bill is making far better use of the game system and equally important the lay of the land.
If one were to reverse the game with the same units I would not be surprised if GAJ would be looking a better [luckier?] general than he does now.
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Regarding the KW was this action pre-dating the final GL version with more damage to soft-skin vehicles? The results of the M10 vs MkIV in terms of spotting chime with my experience four dead never spotting the IV first. Your commander a +1 mine -2.
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No idea. I am not even clear who has the new weapon!
Interesting to see they capture a female sniper.
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Refined the map muchly and added ATG's and a Tiger [no Elefant available]. I was pleased to find 76mm ATG was able to kill the MkIV and drive off the Tiger despite bombardment from the Tiger. So positioning does seem key from preliminary test.
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I dummied up a M10 on a hill looking down to where a pair of IV's were. In not one of four occasions I ran it did the M10 spot the IV's before getting hit on a first time shot. Now the commander is a -2 but I assume the rest of the crew are not registered blind and that the M10 gives greater awareness.
I am sure that there is a factor for commanders spotting but surely with the gunner and driver looking into a narrowish covered arc that area is benefitting from people with normal sight.
I need to make a smaller map and add extra level crews and do more work. BTW I can understand an argument that a poor commander spots badly and logically this should apply to areas where he is is the only one looking. As it happened a closed IV looking straight ahead spots better to its 2 o'clock than the three crew looking at their 12 o'clock with an armour arc on.
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Very good - fun to see how good ones recognition skills are. Iam sure most are German : )
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Nice looking map.
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BFC uses the slope effect calculations from the Bird/Livingston book WWII Balistics: Armour and Gunnery. I have used a majority of these calculations in the spreadsheet used to generate the silhouette figures, assuming equal elevation and a 75mm gun firing.
Figures for the Hetzer are:
176, 26, 18
176, 26, 18
88, 20, 20
Side angle can be estimated as increasing the armour figure by the percentage equal to the angle, at 30 degrees. I.E. at 30 degrees offset, armour value is approx 130%. Below 30, the effect rapidly drops away to zero. Above 30 the effect is parabolic, increasing with armour thickness. Just assume that hits on the side at 60 degrees should deflect.[Diesels bolding]
Changes in elevation can have a big effect on sloped armour. M10 hull front with 5 degree elevation goes from 82 to 99. However, vertical armour isn't really affected. Pz IVH hull front at 5 degrees elevation goes from 81 to 83.
Interesting to know the basis of BF calculations. Is there any WWW research on the likelihood of a shell glancing off inclined planes? I assume from the sentence I have bolded that this also means hits to the front glacis at 60 degrees will also bounce which is what I have been trying to see would occur in GAJ's case.
Do you know if BFC model shatter-gap and ammunition variation? I may easily believe that would be going too far in terms of playability but cannot see how it can really be avoided if one is trying for complete realism.
For more see here
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Is that the armour thickness accounting for slope? I bet the Hetzer looks pretty innocuous : )
Apparently the T34/85 had to get within 400 metres to penetrate the Hetzer armour rather than it bouncing off. The Hetzer armour was 60mm at 60 off vertical so not dissimilar to the M10 and I was hoping that the firing from below would increase the apparent angle for the armour. The Hetzer armour is quoted as effectively
around 100mm of vertical - but does also obscure the idea was to bounce the shot not stop it.
I think GAJ was almost perfect in angling his M10 so the chassis was not straight on to the enemy.
Too late now for testing.
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Would anyone have dooked it out with the two MkIV's when the opportunity offered?
PS I have now checked sources and the M10 should reliably hit and kill MkIv's to 1000metes. The MkIV has a good gun but the angled armour and higher position lead me to hope that from say 700-1000m the M10 could win. Testing will tell. Interestingly the M10's cross-country speed in RL is twice that of MkIV's.
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The safe way is to actually dummy up the current distance on a non-flat map and dook it out. The quick method is to look up the armour penetration figures and the angled armour. Unfortunately looking through Slat's collected penetration gigures gives a range of choices and in the end all of the figures are for flat shooting.
In the end though is how did BF model it and that is the final answer. I suppose this could be trialled in CMBN but that will have to wait until toniggght - assuming M10's are present!
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I have been seeking the full Armee report for a couple of years or more. Quoted extracts always make me want to see the whole article.
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I was wondering if you had checked PZIV gun range/penetration to your M10's armour. It may be a useful thing to know particularly if there is added height difference.
Great escape though: )
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Given scenario design [and designers] can be very varied in quality I have for some years believed that the only true measure for players to look at is how well they did compared to other players in that scenario.
Though having ten players play the scenario will have people of varied skill, and of course blind luck, a range of scores will be generated. For those who play AI this would be a handy measure. If multiple people play each other in a club the picture becomes a little bit more confused as you have added another variable and humans can be very variable depending on factors like booze, the other half etc.
The great advantage of club play is that at least 50% of players will be interested in your war stories after the event : 0!
PS Is their still a site where scenarios are reviewed and scores posted?
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As a demo game perhaps this is unimportant but if playing for real[!] knowing how the points are allocated I think is very important.
This thread here explores the concept and provides a BF confirmation:
http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=109348&highlight=assault
My initial understanding is this : The maximum occupation points total 750 in an assault and from this is deducted losses in troops. Where the 750 points are allocated could be very important in deciding what to defend.
In this battle I think GAJ mentioned 5000points so kills could outweigh the worth of the victory areas. On this basis anyone want predict who the game calls the winner!
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He does right very well with a nice turn of phrase. I have skip read up to Anzio ... its good.
JK if you can get a copy of Rankins Churchill's Wizards its a real treasure trove of info.
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What I do wonder about and will throw out just as a question to be considered is whether we as a group are as mentally prepared to do all the things that a successful defense requires. I wonder if we don't try to conduct a defense the same way we conduct an attack and then discover that we lack the necessary forces to succeed using that tactic. Discussion?
Michael
If this question was asked of me in CMX1 I could wax lyrical. For some time WeBoB ran tournaments where attack defence battles formed part of the overall score. As preparation ,given the maps were autogenerated, I ran through scores of CMAK maps analysing the different terrain types and playing many using a variety of forces against other players.
CMx2V2 has not really been available long and what one knows of RL warfare circa 1944 may not translate well to the game. So in effect a new game and new system effectiveness to be established.
1. However a basic appreciation of defence is what can the enemy bring to the party. And what counters you have.
2. Terrain [as in marsh, streams, roads,woods] and topography as in hills and gullies need to be considered as in terms of what they do for the enemies advance and for your troop movements.
3. Weather can also be important particularly wind speed and direction. More obviously fog, heavy rain etc do nullify some weapons effectiveness
4. And most importantly time as all else falls apart if the attacker has plenty of time.
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VAb - you understate the difference considerably. In CMx1 you could be reasonably certain on spotting whereas in this game the bar is very much higher. I know in theory it works both ways but the attacker seems to have the luxury of shaping his attack and the defender rarely can move much of his defence.
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I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, dt. Maybe depends on what you mean by 'reasonable'.
I can't really say until I actually have the map to study in 3D, but looking at the screenshots it doesn't look at all undefendable to me. But as I noted several pages back any defense that isn't going to be leaky as hell is going to take a much larger force, maybe twice as large with more of everything.
Michael
Well there is the topography which is one part and most of us have an idea from real life to feel comfortable with, and then how the game engine deals with spotting and how this relates to the map.
One thing we seem to be learning is that long grass is reallly long and one imagines that what might be defensible with short grass [which is what I would bet on in Italy at this time and latitude] is a different ballgame if you can move troops in it without being spotted.
If they can be spotted by having enough eyeballs then there is not enough points to have enough eyeballs to spread across the map.
BTW without reading an entire thread any know if GAJ's troops are hiding?
Brits in Shorts, 9/43
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
For Fsake what a pair of moaning minnies. Don't read his posts but don't censor him on my behalf.