StellarRat

I agree. I've had great luck with HE from 8" and 14" guns. Also airplane bombs are highly effective against tanks.

Yea...but the only opinions that matter are at BFC. These types of threads are pretty much a waste of time unless BFC is participating and I see nothing from them here.

Someone already did a test nearly exactly like this one and came to the same conclusions when CMBN was first released. I can't remember what BFC said about it. Weird.

Do you use AT guns with a long narrow FOV? They've pretty deadly with infantry support placed in spot where they fire down narrow LOS corridor. That denies a lot overwatching units a chance to avenge their flamed up buddies. Plus it forces the enemy to attack from certain direction.

I tend to agree with Emrys. Really the best distinction that can be made is completely green i.e. the unit has never seen combat or it's experienced. The other thing you can account for is training and selection. Like special forces or miltia.

One thing to watch out for on defense is the "defend everything" mentally. If you have three objectives to defend, but can win by only holding one or two of them just let one or two go and defend the one worth the most points that is in best defensive terrain. There is an old saying that "he who defends everything defends nothing". That being said, putting some units out in the hinterlands to force the enemy to stop and engage can be a smart move as long as you don't use too many of your resources to do it. Sometimes burning up his game clock is almost as effective as killing his units. Remember that a long wide field of vision/fire isn't always a good thing. It's great for Forward Observers and weapons with good long range characteristics, but sometimes it's a lot better to have a short narrow field of fire. The classic interlocking defense is to only cover to the sides while denying the enemy a direct frontal view of your weapons. This will allow you to ambush the enemy as he starts to pass your positions and denies overwatching units a line of fire to your positions. Most maps in CMBN are not going to really allow you to employ AT guns and other heavy weapons at anything close to there maximum range in overwatching positions so most of the time it's better to place things in positions that are covered from the front and hit the enemy as he passes beside your position. Hopefully, your setting up your games such that as defender you're allow to check out the battlefield and place units in reasonable locations. If you're not doing that you're really just fighting a lopsided meeting engagement.

Defending is something that takes practice. A lot of gamers don't like playing defense so they don't get a lot of practice. If you know what you're doing you should be able to hold off twice you size enemy forces. I seldom lose on defense, but lose more often on offense.

I don't know anyone ought to concerned about "game balance" as far as adjusting artillery. It was done as a matter of course in WW II and should work in game. Artillery is deadly against soft targets. The game ought to reflect this. Your best defense is avoiding detection, good cover and/or rapid movement. If it's too powerful just increase its value in the scenario builder don't cripple the adjust function or change the effects.

Make sure to use 155 mm artillery against tanks. Don't buy 105 mm. 155's have a good chance of immobilizing a tank. 105's aren't big enough and Anything bigger than 155 is too slow.

Mortars are the best type of arty against soft targets pound for pound. The only problem is they don't have the range of other types.

Ober Furher Gundalf ... who had arrived precisely when he meant to, at dawn of the third day, with a company of Tiger tanks. He surveyed the battlefield for a moment from the ridge noting that his countrymen were about to be overrun. Turning to Lt. Elsweir he issued his first order...

Most "real" wargames have a lot stuff the player needs to input/deal with hence UIs are always going to be messier and complex comparatively. Add the need to deal with real time and it gets even worse. Nice layered/organized UIs take more to time drill down into to get to the commands.

I don't really care the fancy unit status. What us RT players really need is a way see all the spots that a unit can see from a tile instantly. Its REALLY hard to move units quickly if you don't know what LOS is without having to zoom in to ground and scroll around to see what's up. This info would nearly instant for anyone actually standing on the ground. When you have command dozens units in RT its simply too cumbersome.

Actually UI changes aren't too hard to make. What's hard is when you make a mistake in the design of the underlaying logic/system, like you find out that vehicles can carry passengers and you forgot to design for that and now you're halfway done. Admittedly this is a gross example but in the business world programmers are seldom experts on business process itself so they have learn about through interviews and such. Moving buttons around or changing command keys is all pretty easy. Granted with CM you might have to some new artwork too. What bugs me is when people that say CM doesn't have a "standard" gaming UI. There is no standard UI for games. No ISO 9000 committee meets puts out a strategy game standards specification. Its really not like any other game anyway, so the controls are bound to be different.

They probably think BLACK OPS is a great game too even though it's just an advanced version of Doom. The problem is that many of reviewers are young twitch gamers themselves. Some games need a good look under the hood and a deep understanding of the subject to really appreciate. My guess is that a lot of reviewers aren't wargamers, aren't interested in history, and/or don't spend the time needed with the game to appreciate it. The best place to get reviews IMO is the Armchair General. Those guys are ex-military/long time gamers.

This is still going....wow!

Unless you have time create entrenchments with overhead cover there really isnt a lot you can do to defend against artillery. The best bet is to disperse and keep moving so they don't zero in on you. Even that is difficult because a smart commander will quickly ID approach routes and likely strong/hiding points quickly. Its a very effective weapon. Modern artillery can even take out tanks. The best defense is probably a good counterbattery program, but we don't do that in CM.

The US got scammed in WW I with the Sho-sho.... that was probably enough to give them a healthy distaste for foreign weapons. As far as the M1 goes some armies thought ammo would be wasted if a gun fired too quickly.

Nationalistic pride and greed have ruined many a weapons program. The farce of the US Air Force. Tanker replacement program is the latest hoax. After Airbus won with lowest bid, Congress forced the Air Force to change the requirements so Boeing could win. What a joke.

Vark - The Nazis didn't pervert an entire generation of Germans. They wanted to but they weren't around long enough to accomplish this. Most of Germans that did the fighting and dying were simple citizens that answered the call of the nation and their duty even if they had doubts about they're government. Sure there were some fanatics like the SS, but for the most part they were just soldiers. You have to remember war was only 6 years long and most of soldiers were adults when it started. Too late for fanatical indoctrination to be effective.

Yes. The navy thing was a huge problem/undertaking, but it came back to bite them repeatedly. Just another reason why they were doomed to fail in the long run. Not that I mind that. Had the Germans won I wouldn't be here. My Mom came over after the war because Germany was in ruins.

I'm not so sure the Allies would have negotiated after Poland and they certainly weren't negotiating after France and Pearl Harbor. Their best hope would have been to stop after Austria.

They also didn't bother with a real navy and had no long range bombers in their inventory. Two huge mistakes IMO.

I agree completely with you Vark. I see no survival for the Reich past fall of 1946 no matter how you look at it. I could easily see Truman saying "hands off" Europe to Stalin though. If the US was already nuking Germany and Stalin has no A Bomb then he'd be a fool to push his hand. It really depends on how much balls Truman has and what the relationship with Russia looks like. Remember the Soviets didn't have a nuke until 9/49. AND bear in mind that the US nukes were increasing rapidly in yield. Good thing the US was more benevolent than the Russians. The atomic bomb is really the trump card in all these debates.

As far as the nukes go it doesn't make much difference. With the B-29 the A-Bomb could have been delivered from many locations other than England or Russia. Iceland, maybe Greenland and Africa, Malta, etc....you'd have to get out a map and see. Also assume that if need be it could be a one way mission so double the range.