The_Capt

Damn near immposible in RL. I mean you could but the ground would be so banged up that it would probably slow down your own troops more than the minefield was suppose to. Plus the resources required, arty-wise would be much better applied to the acutal enemy locations. And then while they are trying to avoid the rain of steel the Engineers can come in and clear a lane.

And how about the Close Combatesk list of active weapons!!!! It is a rip-off but a very good one. I am not sure what the thing with the vehicle with the bars around it is though. Dear God I hope those aren't "Energy Shields"!!!

Thank you Michael, The Grog elite have begun... tero, that practice is a lot older than the Red Army and as recent as Bosnia.

Take a good look at the new info bar/interface on the bottom..very interesting. Oh ya the tank thingy looks ok too.

If want to make Engineers more relevant to the game the answer is simple...lower the cost of the current obstacles or make them bigger. The mine fields are too small for what they cost when compared to other units in the game. This would allow more use of mines and AT obstacles which would force the attacker to use his engineers as engineers and not infantry. Another key addition would be to include armoured engineers such that existed during WWII. Sig your idea has merit but the "realist Grog elite" will lay eggs at the suggestion. "Ford tiles and corduroy road!!! Just how in the Hell did they do that in front of my position?!" will be the cry. But again as with most things in CM you can always mutually agree to use or not to use.

CM2 HAD BETTER HAVE EXPLODING BANGALORE CHICKENS OR I AM GOING TO HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL I TURN BLUE....DONT THINK I WONT!

Ok settle, Now this was an shallow introspective into the hearts and minds of CM gamers. NOT an opportunity for the Peng crew to try and stage a coup! Get back in your hole cause we are tryin to eat here!!!! Now Lawyer, as much fun as a "child abduction" show may sound, it is bound to get out of control. I mean the first season will be a smash but then we'll get corrupt in order to to stay ahead of the clones. We'll start paying our children to pull a gun, burst into flame or start spouting 8th century biblical prophesies in Egyptian while exhibiting stigmata. Then we'll sell out to the entertainment overlords in L.A. to support our growing hooker and whiskey habit. Next thing you now you and I are sharing a bus stall and fighting over which corner to pee in. I'll wake up one morning to find you dead...go thru your stuff and try to harvest an organ or two. In short it is dangerous to court Fame and Riches for she is a two faced heartless bitch just like Mom.... OK I have issues but anyway...Peng guys buzz off and I will stick with my day job until the ticking sends me screaming over the edge.

Now easy there Lawyer, our booze is more expensive but it does actually contain more than a trace of my friend Al K Hall. Unlike most American swill which will give about the same buzz as bathwater. For anybody that doesn't believe my rant just check out the "What are you going to do with your SturmTiger thread". I swear grogs are going to ruin this board yet.

Well here I am again. Sitting at work with little to do. It is too early to drink and too late to call in sick. It isn't easy being a monkey keeper I can tell you. Brazilian **** Chuckers at that...no picnic at all. I can tell you trying to eat a sandwhich at lunch time can be a real adventure around here. But the pension is solid and we get doughnuts on Monday (if you can still keep food down). Well time for another look into the heart and soul of CM. Time to open the dark dank doors of that closet and shine some light into your withered souls. I see you out there with blood shot eyes and stained underwear. Burnt fingers from that forgotten cigarette in one hand, the other bloody from trying to place that 75 AT Gun in the perfect position...you havn't even noticed that your mouse stopped working 20 mins ago. OK now first thing is to simply ignore the title of this weeks rant, like a spoiled 3 yr old I was only doing it to get attention. The real topic for this "two week" editorial is....."What we really want to see in CM2" There has been an obscene amount of traffic on this topic over the last two weeks. The grogs, goons and freaks have all come out of the woodwork to add their two pennys worth to the next installment of what has become a gaming sensation. Last month a few articles hit the press with screen shots and half the board lit up. Man it was like the Smack Bus had flipped in Addictville. People were freakin out. Everything from: "Wow did you see that ISU-XXX, I saw a ISU-XXX....OH MY GAWD IT WAS BEAUTIFUL (SOBBING SOUNDS)...I can't talk about it anymore...I need to be alone.... to: "Charles and Steve are in league with Lucifer!!! Corporate bastards have sold us all out for a new car and weight set (no offence Charles but you look like you could use it...get some Sun too, your lookin downright pasty, lad). CM2 will cost $300, require a 128Mb Gas Powered Graphics Cards, A P7, the liver of a small child and will be a real time First Person Shooter, "DUKE MISSION: KICKING ASS BACK TO MOSCOW"...I FOR ONE AM OUTRAGED!!" Now once the smoke cleared the posts started: "I want to see Partisians" "I want the StrumTIGER" "I want a Kentucky Blue Grass Mod" And so forth. Now I know there is a segement out there who when CM2 arrives will curse it and swear by CM.."You can pry it from my Cold Dead fingers" type. I saw it in Counter-Strike and it will happen here. "Real men play CMBO, CM:B2B is for losers, freaks and women of negotiable virtue." That lot can move on..nothing to see here. Well be that as it may I will now list what I want to see in CM:B2B (formerly CM2)... "Churchill". No not the tank, the actual man. Short fat and bald (like most of us out there) a man after our own hearts. Oh ya! He lights demolition charges with his cigar and throws em both ways. Depending on the year of the war he'll shoot at Germans or Russians, just think of the mods.... "Mine Dogs". I am not making this up...they actually existed. I think these will be the ultimate in gamey. Imagine the look on some Grogs face when his Axis advance runs into a whole kennel of these things!!! I want to go one step further and see the Kiev Flaming Pigeon...a gallon of gas stuffed into a 4 pound bird, trust me it is for the best when the end comes. "Ghosts". The souls of your newly departed floating heavenward or the other direction depending where you buy the game. "Soundtrack". Something by Puff Wheat Daddy or maybe Jerry Halloway(or at least have her abs on the cover). A rockin soulful beat to drop shells by. Then BTS could download MP3 files so you could insert your music of choice. Planning a Human Wave assault...well young sir nothing but the Beach Boys will do! "Every vehicle in existance the time". I don't care if the only model broke down and burst into flames in the parking lot of the factory...I want to see it. I don't care if it is an Argentinian tractor...if it exsisted in 1941 I want in the game...or I am going to whine until CM3. Oh buy the way the same goes for weapons. "Full Frontal Nudity". Why Not?! I mean if I want my T-34 Tank Commander to jiggle I it should be allowed. Plus it would give BTS the radical front page coverage which will get the game selling like Myst. I mean the radical religous Right will by a couple thousand copies just to play the action turns backwards.."I saw Oasis in a snow bank!!" "Yellow Snow". Yup I am not immune to potty humour. But think about it a couple of hundred thousand guys livin in the snow...hey it's gotta go somewhere. "Just about everything which will make it so close to the real thing that I will need about 10 years of Post Traumatic Stress Counselling after playing". We want flashbacks and avoidance behaviour. I want to wake up screaming at 3 a.m. in urine soaked sheets cause I sent Volksgrenadiers to do a Strumgruppes job. I want BTS to pioneer smell-o-gaming. The sweet stench of human flesh to the pungent sniff of cordite...oh ya BABY can I have an AMEN!!! TESTIFY!!!! Ok I think that is enough for one day. Well feel free to insert your own ideas but remember we are all hooked like junkies here. Steve and Charles could put out a blank CD and half of the crew here would buy two just in case the first one breaks...I do love this game. And remember: CM till you go blind, then hire a monkey to play for you.

A quick question while we are on the topic, Has anybody out there tried a "mobile defence"? I am talking about a smaller force mounted in HTs with armour in support. You would put out a coy or so dismounted forward to feel out the enemy and then hit him in a localized area hard and fast either in a hasty defence or outright c-attack. You could team this force up with arty to stage your "hits". It has the advantage of being able to rapidly hit the en in an area of your choosing and force the local force ratio to 1:1 or better. Once the hit is over you remount and pull back for a second hit. I guess the fundemantal problem I have with the classic method is that you do not have enough resources to do it. Engineer works are too expensive and one cannot mass armour for a c-attack for the same reason. It may be better to fight a traditional "Covering Force Battle" rather than a slugfest when on simply cannot apply the required force to the frontage given. Just a thought.

Hey Parabellum, Be careful with the "reality" argument, it does cut both ways. In reality time is not measured out in 60 second chunks with infinite planning time preceding it. You want reality, take CM and crank it in Real Time with half your troops out of contact and the only thing you can control is arty and your reserve...crazy. No before I get jumped on, CM is an excellent game with a lot of realistic factors. It definitely bridges the gap between hard-core waregaming and the casual Close Combat wargaming lite. The graphics do it. But wargaming, especially hard-core gaming has been and will be on the fringe. Most people won't bother with it. CM goes a good way but you can't please everybody. So my point is quite simply "Here's to us F@#K The Rest!" or "If they don't like CM send em to Hell with a Bible in their pants!" but let's not sweat the little things.

Hey guys, This is all great creative thinking but I think it will be a lot of effort for very little usage. I think these things happened too but very rarely. And very hard to model as well. I mean I guess you could do a spec ops unit capable of such tricks but I am not sure how much extra work that would entail. The air bomb is a good example: How do you arm or fuse it, how much explosives are reuired to "high order" the bomb versus just blow it apart, who is going to do all this, if you are going to rig it how are you going to protect it? All good questions which can be answered but definitely weren't by most units who fought the war. I think you would really go down the road of modeling everything if you did this; for example rubbling, vehicle deadhead roadblocks, boobytraps, triggering lands slides, pulling bridges down with winches. I mean the list gets really long and the effort to model it will get very high. For something very few grogs, goons or freaks will use.

To clarify, I didn't mean the question on this forum was a waste of everybody's time. I meant placing charges and waiting for the enemy to run thru them in some sort of command detonated orgy, was a waste of effort when it could be applied elsewhere. Explosives were and are very cheap, it is more a question of dependability. A crater group for instance has a lot of det leads and stuff hanging around, so it is generally best to blow it and then shell or shoot the tank when it runs into it. Not try and keep the demolition alive long enough to catch the tank in the group as it goes up. Sorry if I sound snarky but the lack of engineer knowledge out there really gets to me. I mean we know how fast the turret an the Panther was but when we talk obstacles it is either ignored or simply glossed over...yes I am bitter. Anyway what was proposed above simply does not happen at the level CM is portraying or simply doesn't happen at all.

Uh guys, All cool ideas but then again so are dragons carrying 75 AT guns and dwarves with MG42s who can tunnel and pop up behind the enemy..pretty much fantasy. First of Bridge Demolition by Arty is really silly. You would waste a hell of a lot of ammo trying to hit the thing and then you probably wouldn't knock the bridge out when you did (except for a rickety wooden bridge but you could try driving over it first). What you are trying to describe is called a "Reserve Demolition", where a strategic bridge is prepared for demolitions and then blown on order (normally when all of our guys are back across..I did say NORMALLY). A force is normally placed on the bridge to protect the fine Engineers who wire and maintain the demolitions on the bridge. The "Demolition Guard", is responsible to traffic and hold the bridge until Monty orders it blown. Now all other bridge demolitions are called "Preliminary Demolitions". These targets are wired and blown immediately and happen long before the bad guys show up..why? Cause the Engineers really don't like being around bridges the enemy is shooting..it tends to lead to heavy bleeding and letters home. So they are blown up long before CM level combat gets involved. As to sneaky demolitions being conducted in the face of the enemy...well while good for Holywood not so good for reality. You see a demolition is a soft and sensitive thing. Stuff like shelling and gunfire tends to cut det cord and move explosives, and in really bad situations cause the explosives to go off early. Not a good idea and a really good waste of everybody's time. Now I know some grog out there will sight the Battle of Turkey Waddle Ridge when Col Fritzy Blackheart blew a cliff face down on LCol Stoopid Rooskie and won the day but keep in mind that it was fairly uncommon and is not recommended practice. I think it would be very hard to model in the game as well. Now a Reserve Demolition Defense would be interesting but again very hard to model.

Teach, I think you idea is bang on. We have been trying to do a simplified Meta-Campaign and the load on the GMs is still high. A software support function that would keep track of units, generate large scale maps, generate tactical battles as well as logistics etc would be very helpful. I think you need to write it for a set of rules (already written or do your own) which address the complexities of playing at a higher level. For example one thing in our game we modeled was communications. All traffic goes thru the GM, that way if a unit is cut off Bde cannot pass direction to it. This is a small example if you want to see the concept rules for the Bde Game just let me know and I'll send a set along.

Panzer Leader The obstacles are going to be laid as per real engineer capabilities (ie if you were an Bn CO and had an Engr Platoon attached for a defence, this is what you could expect to see). The 2500 points is for the defender, I was thinking of a Bn reinforced. This way you can see just how much the engineers would normally put out in a defence scenario. This would be a defence in which they will have 36 hrs to prep (ie before enemy contact). This is old tactics btw based on WWII, the new system attaches a Sqn/Coy of engineers to a Bn. BTW this is British Canadian doctrine but the US are very similar if a bit more centralized. Now a 2000 point map is 1355m frontage to defend so I will use that. I will also turn the map around and show some more depth, a Bn will thru patrolling, Bn guards, recce screen, OPs and LPs exert a depth of deployment much deeper than a QB as well weapons will be sighted for max effective range. I think this may show how in CM, pricing of obstacles is much like comparing apples to oranges. Obstacles are a function of time, engineer resources and terrain. So 10 AT mine squares do not equal a platoon. When the cost of training and using a platoon is much higher than the 1 hr it will take for an engineer platoon to emplace the mines (of which there will be millions pushed forward). Same for wire etc. You see the biggest problem I have with QBs is that you are chasing your shadow. You will need 5000 points to set up a prepared defence but once you use 5000 points your frontage increases drastically so you need more points. If you want something which resembles reality you are going to need to max out the frontage (4000m) and then place an entire Bde along it and still be thin. Then your attacking force will come in waves. In short an entire Operation would have to be set up. Now that is not to say one cannot do QB defences but what they are is a Covering Force skirmish. Where Div and Bde forward detachments establich hasty defences and smack an incoming force. Big difference is that a Covering Force won't stick around to defend flags but stage withdrawls once they've smacked the enemy. What would be really interesting is to set up an Operation which takes one thru the entire operation, Recce/Deep Battle, Covering Force Battle, MDA battle. It would be huge but give a picture of reality. You see in CM you can model this stuff but it really takes a long time. Anyway I should be able to get this thing done in a few days.

OK, I'll set it up and send you the Engineer Plan (ie obstacles) for 36 hours of work and good support from higher, maybe a hvy equipment sect (couple of dozers) and all the M&E we need. No pillboxes as they take weeks not hours to build. The 2500 points will be above and beyond and fit into the plan, otherwise you may have a platoon left out of the 2500 points to defend. You would be amazed at what 3 sects and 2 dozers can do going flat out.

Panzer Leader, I think you hit on a very important point...What is realistic does not make a very fun game. In reality trying to slog thru a couple of mine belts is crazy. In fact the assault force is usually so depleted that a breakout force punches in behind it. As to the real position, I would be more than willing to set it up. I could figure what an Engr platoon (with M&E) could do in say a 36 hr period (I'd get that from the pubs and my own experience) and put it on the map in support of a 2500 pt defending force. I think you might get an idea of why 3-1 or higher is needed in RL even on a wide front. I am not sure if it will help develop tactics for a CM defence but it may be interesting. There is a problem with flanking in RL as well...the fact that flanking units make it almost impossible. But again let's not go too far down the RL road. I have noticed that CM take tactics to it's roots and quickly strips away the non-essentials when small unit actions are involved. Infantry is most important followed by arty. Once you have sufficent numbers of that you can fill in the rest, AT, obstacles, armour but if you fail to cover the basics you are doomed. Make sure to mention the power of the Reverse slope. For the defence there is no other choice.

Now on that one Jak, you would be absolutly correct. It's called Bangalor and makes very short work of barbwire.

Panzer Leader, Your point as to composition of the c-attack is true. One does not have to use armour at all. As to mass armour, I really don't care what Rommel had, only what tactics teaches. You can do more with less but that should not be the "standard", nor should it negate an effort to use the basic principals. As to the frontages of a QB, I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree. At small point values (less than 2000) the frontages favour the attacker just a little too much for my liking A 1000m mine field is tactical my friend and can be put in place by an Engineer Troop in about 6 hrs. Or 1/2 the time it would take to build that MG bunker (depending on ground conditions). The two layers of which I speak is standard (in a prepared defence it is three actually) at the Bn level. The first is for engagement by longer range AT weapons while the shorter is for short range and infantry engagement. 30% coverage is a waste of time and effort and represents such a small amount of engineer effort that any Bn CO would flip if he received such a small amount (and probably did). You have hit my point squarely in the general ignorance of obstacles and there composition in support of a Bn, which would be part of a Bde and Div. Even in a hasty defence one could expect 1000m of minefield to your front, unless of course something has gone seriously wrong. It is not "absurd" or "out of the scope of the game"(well only in that nobody really knows) trust me on this one, I used to do this for a living. Now as you stated quite accuratly, this is CM and a game. So the defence within the game has an art all of it's own but detached from reality.

Hey Redwolf, The problem with your tanks is simple, you are violating the principle of mass. In the real world, tanks are not designed to be used in less than a Coy/Sqn formation. That would be 16(modern I think they had 14) tanks. You can violate that and use a 1/2 Sqn or 8 tanks in exceptional circumstances. An Inf Heavy Battle Group should have a Bn of Inf and at least 1/2 Sqn of armour. Now try your counter attack with 8 or 16 Tigers to see the proper result. 2 Tigers is commonly refered to as "penny-packeting" and is exactly how the Allies got their collective asses handed to them in 1940. Try taking 16 tanks in on an assault sometime and you will get the idea of how armour is suppose to be used. Now I don't know how this compares to actual numbers in WWII but then again I would hope to take the lessons learned from that conflict and use them today, rather than simply re-create them.

Jak, Please read my first post on this thread it might answer your last question.

Well I'd have to check but I do believe HMGs get a defence bonus while in building if for exposure alone. Fortification should be included. As to demolition charges, well much like Hollywood grenades they are far over-estimated. 6-12 bloocks of HE do pack a pretty good punch but not on a 100m of big freakin trees with their bases still attached to the stump and mixed in with barbwire and mined for good measure. You could blast at that all day and still have work left for tomorrow. Not even considering you have to try and keep the guys placing the charges alive long enough to finish the job. That is of course after you go back to Troop HQ for enough explosives to be brought up to try the job in the first place. As to the Brumbar(sp?) well they did include the AVRE so why not?

Oh this is gettin good. I havn't seen this much potential for a Grog fight since the Manoeuvre and Attrition slugfests. I have to agree with Jason here (yup I can't believe it myself). QBs and defence do not mix. Why? One reason..frontage. The frontages the defender is left with are way too large, you wind up in a half circle covering a few flags if you want any kind of "mutual support". Or you wind up with several coy/pl strong points which will eventually be surrounded and die. The only way to even come close to a fair fight is to conduct the attack on the "short side" and give a defender a realistic frontage. That's not to say that one cannot win a QB in the defence but the odds are really stacked against you and a lot has to "go right" in order to win. As to obstacles...don't bother. The cost in order to actually empploy them as they were designed is very high (30% of your force purchase if I recall) and that means you will sacrifice too much firepower in order to make them effective. You may get luck but in reality a defensive position should have at least 2 belts which effect the entire frontage. So at 10-15 points a buy per minefield/wire you can see how on even a 1000 meter frontage at 75% coverage x 2 belts you are going to have 750-1124 points spent on obstacles. So add in a Bn which can cover the frontage (say 1800 for German Airborne regular) and say 500 for Arty, 500 for Sp (AT guns and snipers) and finally 800 for a troop of armour to act as countermoves. You are looking at 4350 for an adequate "textbook" defence of 1000m. And it isn't even "adequate" as a Sqn/Coy of Armour is what one should be looking at and throw in a Covering Force as well. Someone can check but I think a 4350 point defence will give you a much larger frontage in a QB than 1000m.

On arty, Arty is one of the few weapons systems which is really close to the real thing in CM. The rest have varying degrees of success and have been bitched about enough. But arty (when it lands) is pretty effective. In the defence it is one of the few weapons which can do a lot of damage over a wide area to a lot of troops. Key point is getting it too land on them. In the defence, in my opinion, mortars are your best friend. They are cheap and effective against troops in the open. 4.2s and 120mm are devastating. They can shut down a coy assault..cold. As to how to ensure they land on top of the coy, well you can site TRPs on likely approaches but I have found the a "Three Stooges" plan is always the best. That is where you pick a spot for the enemy (ie woods) where a small force of your infantry can keep their heads down and force them to mass for attack. Kinda like hold a door and letting four or five people pile up behind it. Then drop a load of mortars on top of them (a bucket of water over the door) then have your troops F@$$ off at the high-port (open the door) and when the en spills out to avoid more buckets, have a second load on his likely exit points (a bag of flour) or if you really do it well a couple of "stay-back" flamethowers. If it works it can be hilarious to watch and pretty effect at scrambling an assault. And having been on the recieving end, I can tell you it works very well.