CMplayer

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wolfpack: Actually, watching it, it was definitely their own grenade, I had been tracking all the other grenades they had thrown (Especially the two that landed underneath my engine compartment <shudder>) and I am positive that it was their own. I should mention that it was a large slope, so most of their grenades were rolling back down to begin with, but that was the first one that actually hit...it felt like that scene from Spaceballs where Barf ripped those pipes off the wall and used the Spaceballs own fire against them. =) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In that case I'm impressed. This game sure does keep amazing us with all its cool details. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Splinty: This is slightly OT but relavent in a way. Has anyone noticed the state of crews that are forced to abandon vehicles that become immobile due to bogging? Not just bogged but totally stuck. Their morale state is the same as if the vehicle was hit or detroyed. I.E. shocked or shaken with LOW ammo. Now if my tank or truck was totally immobilized by ground conditions and NOT by or under fire I'd be pissed off not shaken and my sidearm would still have all it's ammo. BTS? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh no, that couldn't have been an oversight in the programming. You see, war is a very messy business and while they were trying to push their vehicle out of the mud maybe someone sprained his wrist, or they dropped their ammo and it got all dirty so they left it there. I mean, it could happen ya know. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wolfpack: My favorite bit of luck happened last night in a QB, and was due more to my own stupidity than anything else. =) Playing a QB defense, I sent my lone tank, a KT out toward a hill where I wanted to get a hull down to try and spot his armor. Unbeknownst to me, he had a couple of infantry squads in the woods by the hilltop. In the span of 1 turn, I got near the top of the hill, spotted the infantry, and had taken out 8 of the squad members. Now, instead of backing away from the infantry as I should have, I decided to keep going. Next turn, an AT team pops up and fires...luckily he missed. The 4 man squad also pops up and chunks a grenade. The grenade flies straight toward my tank, then proceedes to hit the front, fly backwards up into the air and perform an airburst over the squad which had thrown it. The rest of the squad was wiped out, along with the AT team. I think I watched that movie for 10 minutes, just laughing like crazy...wish they had a voice for that situation. =) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That probably wasn't their grenade, but your own tank's nahverteidigungsvaffen or however you spell it. It's a little grenade launcher in German tanks which shoots up little black squares once in a while and does a number on infantry. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan: CMPlayer, Would you drive your tank through smoke to engage unseen targets? You know what was there before the smoke popped, but you can't be certain that more and heavier armor isn't coming up behind that smoke. What I would do is back off from the smoke and be ready to plug whatever appears from behind it. Advancing armor through a smoke filled city street is asking for trouble. And later on, YOU know from where the Allied reinforcments are coming, but Wittman has no clue. It is always his first time fighting the battle, even if you have played it 100 times. Wouldn't you give your infantry a hand if the enemy armor threat has been taken care of (as far as you know)?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hi, Those are interesting and helpful tactical comments, which I will give a ponder. Still, I think that when he starts driving into the smoke (for better or worse) that he should point his turret forwards. Especially because he never even gets time to aim at whatever he is trying to target behind him. I mean, your comments sound smart, but the game ought to allow us to make our tactical errors, and yet still be able to do what we are trying to do, without the AI making such screaching howlers as this one was. (Probably the AI has also saved my butt many times without my knowing it, of course, but that's another story) regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lorak: Title about sums it up. Situation. In a quick battle I have a stug with one crew casualty. (he never fired before he suffered the crew hit) Now since then I had him target some infantry in the woods.... fired 3 or 4 rounds of smoke. I figured I had just made a mistake and marked it down as stupidity. Now this last turn I targeted some infantry in a building, being careful (didn't want to make the same mistake). What happens? You guessed it. He decides to shoot 3 rounds of smoke at the building. Just wondering if anyone else has seen this? I have one other now dead stug( he was full crew and he did fire correctly). So could it be tied into losing the crew member? Maybe the loader got hit, and the driver/TC don't know how to tell the shells apart? Lorak <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I've been noticing this quite a lot lately. It's a real pain if you order the tank to fire HE to suppress or knock out a gun that is busy pounding the hell out of your infantry, and instead it fires smoke, which doesn't even block the gun's LOS to the guys its murdering. You sit there a whole turn trying to think of some cute, war-is-hell, rationalizion of the quirky tac AI, like, 'they think the gun will turn and shoot at them, so they want some smoke; they're peeing in their pants, that's the way war is, etc...'. That's a really unforgivable error actually since they have the drop on the gun, and could knock it out. Instead, they protect the gun for several turns, leaving it with its nice juicy infantry target AND a flank-protecting smokescreen. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lorak: Title about sums it up. Situation. In a quick battle I have a stug with one crew casualty. (he never fired before he suffered the crew hit) Now since then I had him target some infantry in the woods.... fired 3 or 4 rounds of smoke. I figured I had just made a mistake and marked it down as stupidity. Now this last turn I targeted some infantry in a building, being careful (didn't want to make the same mistake). What happens? You guessed it. He decides to shoot 3 rounds of smoke at the building. Just wondering if anyone else has seen this? I have one other now dead stug( he was full crew and he did fire correctly). So could it be tied into losing the crew member? Maybe the loader got hit, and the driver/TC don't know how to tell the shells apart? Lorak <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I've been noticing this quite a lot lately. It's a real pain if you order the tank to fire HE to suppress or knock out a gun that is busy pounding the hell out of your infantry, and instead it fires smoke, which doesn't even block the gun's LOS to the guys its murdering. You sit there a whole turn trying to think of some cute, war-is-hell, rationalizion of the quirky tac AI, like, 'they think the gun will turn and shoot at them, so they want some smoke; they're peeing in their pants, that's the way war is, etc...'. That's a really unforgivable error actually since they have the drop on the gun, and could knock it out. Instead, they protect the gun for several turns, leaving it with its nice juicy infantry target AND a flank-protecting smokescreen. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe: Maybe it happened like this: Sherman comes around corner. TC yells "Target, tank!", gunner has a problem getting breech closed, driver is sitting there looking at Tiger (doesn't matter which end), wetting his pants, when gunner doesn't fire real quick, driver says to hell with this and reverses, gunner finally gets round off late. You had bad luck. Often happens in the loud, scary business of war.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If this kind of thing happens sometimes because the game is supposed to include it, then that's great. It makes it a better game. But if the game has defective code, and people try to cover it up as 'fog and confusion of war' then it's not so great. I mean, in cc2 when the fleeing 88 crew suddenly locked up along the canal, frozen in the 'hand to hand combat' graphics pose and stayed there, I could say maybe they were boogyin' down and dancin' in the streets because they knew they were going to die and wanted to have some fun. I mean, war is weird, and it COULD have happened. Maybe the crunching sound of bayonets was them smashing empty champagne bottles. Or maybe cc2 was buggy. --Rett

villers-bocage spoilers <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Horncastle: I thought the Tiger wasnt primarily an inf or close support tank so shouldnt be too effective at close range surrounded by teeming inf and tanks. I think this is more an accurate model of a Tiger than a bug. Of course, but ineffective shouldn't mean that the tank starts doing a new version of the CC2 tank dance. When I play this scenario I find young Witty to be a dab hand if you place him nicely, say next to a building where the Brits stick their long green snouts from behind. if one leaves him out in the open to see hundreds of threats appearing then dissaperaing all around, like I have done before he does become a bit indecisive. A bit? He has a complete collapse, like captain Kirk in that old episode where they split his good side and his aggressive side into two Kirks. He's trembling in the turbo lift saying 'I'm losing control of the ship...' however when you think that some of the threats could be firefly's and 95mm guns firing hollow charge, it pays to switch targets <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, here is a concrete example. He has just seen some tanks on the other side of some newly layed smoke. I want him to move throught the smoke and engage the tanks. I can not find a way to make him keep his turret pointed forwards towards where the tanks are going to be when he comes through the other side. He always starts rotating his turret to try to shoot some grunt despite the fact that by the time he can shoot at this infantry target he will be in the smoke and lose LOS anyway. Some 'ace'. Now I'm not using the 'hunt' command, but move or fast move. I tried tricks, like targeting the tanks on the other side, but the game refuses to let me target them in advance since Wittman can't see them. So, of course, I come out of the smoke, to confront a couple of stuarts or whatever, and present them a rear turret shot at less than 100m which gives them a pretty good chance. Later, after the reinforcements came, they rotated their whole danged hulls to shoot at some dudes, when _we all know_ the fireflies and 90mm tank destroyers and stuff are coming from the town. So, again, its butt-exposed to the most dangerous threat. Those infantry weren't important. I had my inf platoon back there to take care of them, and the tigers should remain in position to bushwhack allied tanks that may be coming up. I think they worked better before. regards, --Rett

It's really noticable if you play a scenario like Villers-bocage as the Germans. Wittman doesn't seem like much of a tank ace at all, the way he gets distracted back and forth, starting to target one thing, changing his mind, probably taking HE rounds out by hand to change to AT, and back again instead of at least firing off the round, and finally rotating away from 4 or 5 tanks because he noticed some infantry somewhere. I totally agree with the people that have been complaining about this. It can't be explained away as 'war is confusing' etc; it's just an attempt at an AI improvement that had the opposite effect. It might work fine at long ranges, but not in the infighting. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Offwhite: If your infantry are unengaged and didn't spot the bazooka when it fired, then it's probably not very close to them... Knowing where it's not is a step toward knowing where it is. The AI likes to open up at long range with hand-held AT weapons, so I'd look for likely positions out to 200m. If you're playing a human, perhaps he was hiding and all your boys walked/drove past him?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Interesting tips; thx for posting this. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w: It could be Just good FOW Yes in Real Life™ a noticable hole would be present in the side of the Stug. At this point the fact that detailed armour hits do not say which side got hit is in my opinion just another element of FOW. -tom w<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well then why do the armor hits bother to say 'front' penetration, 'rear' penetration, 'top' penetration ? All of these give information about where the projectile might have come from. Why should the sides be singled out for extra-vague treatment? It's inconsistent. That kind of inconsistency needs to be ironed out in a game, not just explained away as extra FOW, IMHO. Besides, one of the things that makes FOW interesting is the process of trying to gather information to overcome it. Gathering information from the dispersion of shellholes, or the sides on which an AFV is hit is realistic and adds a new dimension to the game don't you think? As for getting the information back to the commander, so that it can be useful, I disagree that that need be so difficult. I remember reading about the XXX corps breakout at the beginning of Market Garden. They had all kinds of intelligence guys right up behind the lead platoon of tanks. It was _very important_ to localize the AT guns and they were ready to use every means to figure it out, including interrogating freshly caught German prisoners right on the spot. (They ended up putting a German infantryman up on one of the tanks and had him direct the fire, as you guys all have read about, I'm sure). That's why I think prisoners taken early enough in a CM game should be able to reveal concealed firing positions, btw. It would increase the number of types of 'sub objectives' you can give your troops, and add a new, and realistic, possibility for info gathering. Fun huh? But that's another post. Info gathering by knowing whether the penetration was on the left side or the right side really deserves to be in this fine game. Fog of war is one thing, but there need to be ways for the observant to figure out what's going on besides just sending more guys out to draw fire. regards, --Rett

My Stug gets hit by a bazooka. I can hear it, but I don't see where it came from (despite having infantry forward) Well, the 'detailed' armor hit says 'side penetration'. WHICH SIDE!!!!!????????? I Don't see a hole on the Stug. Can I find this out any way? By replaying the film and seeing which way the Stug jiggles maybe? I mean, I'd really like to get an indicator on where that bazooka might be located, and a hole in the side ought to be pretty noticable, both to the surviving crew members and the infantry around there. Sorry if this has been nitpicked about before, I really do promise to start using search before posting, as I notice people often mention doing. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seimerst: Don't think it is "gamey"-- you are merely putting suppresive fire on top of suspected firing positions. I recall being taught crater analysis to get a bearing on the direction of the enemy's mortar/arty for the purposes of counterbattery fire. I realize that you get a pretty good idea of when the fire is coming from quicker than RL but I would not think it unfair your Wespe silenced my mortars trying to surpress your HMG.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for the opinions, both to you and to those others who took the time to figure out what I was (unclearly) trying to ask before answering. My only worry was that it was easier for me to make a guess about his mortar position because the edge of the map reduced the number of likely locations to one. In real life I might have to expend more ammo on more suspected positions. That is why I used the term 'gamey' (exploits a feature of the game engine, namely the artificial map cut-off). But as you say, since it appears to be a real world tactic, you can hardly expect someone not to use it, when they are trying everything they can think of to tip the odds in their favour. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seimerst: If I want to know how effective a certain weapon system is, I design a QB to where the all I have is the weapon being studied and lots of targets and just watch the action unfold.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now _that_ sounds like an interesting way to use the CM engine! Thanks for the tip. Actually, I guess I've done that a couple of times without thinking that that was what I was doing. Like when I tried 10 14" spotters against a German infantry regiment and 20 tanks packed into a town. Guess who won. Funny thing that... one of the 14" shells got a 'top penetration' against a Tiger tank, and left the tank a burning hulk. I would have expected bits of the tank to be spread all over the map and a sizable crater. Instead the game treated it like any succesful penetration: no crater and a knocked-out tank lying there burning with its turret a wee bit crooked. Must have been a dud. --Rett

Is this gamey to the point of being likely to offend opponents? My HMG starts coming under light mortar fire. By looking at the layout of the shellholes (more a less a straight line) it is easy to trace a line in the direction the fire is coming from. But since we are playing on a fairly small map, the line goes through open ground until it hits a stand of scattered trees right at the map edge (on the opp's side). So, of course, I'm 99% sure of the location of the mortar, and a few rounds of area fire from a Wespe ensures that my HMG is never again surpressed by that mortar. Voila, after the game I find a foxhole there, a little black tube, and no crew anywhere to be seen. The thing is, this seems to exploit the 'gamey' edge of the map, making it too easy for me to guess where the fire is coming from. In real life, they could have been concealed in some kind of cover farther back, since LOS goes through scattered trees. Gamey??? regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Banshee: This conversation brings up a point which I think is a flaw in CM, the lack of 88mm FO's of any kind. 88mm were big indirect fire contributors, but CM doesn't have any in the indirect role. I think CM should have 88mm FO's, 88mm VT FO's, and 128mm VT FO's modeled. The use of 88mm's as artillery is well documented (they were preferred rounds in some cases because they travelled faster than sound and would explode before people could hear them, thus causing more damage with their initial rounds). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This brings up another question. Would it be historically viable to have offboard 88's in a _direct_ fire sniping role? For example, a very well-concealed 88, several hills away, providing direct,long range, harassing fire onto the CM map. Its location, range and height (off map) could be specified to calculate LOS issues, and the hapless Allied player would have to 1) figure out that it is out there somewhere and 2) try to figure out where the fire is coming from by quick-analyzing the shellholes and damage, in order to determine its dead spots. Such a weapon could be a bit sporadic and unpredictable like a fighter bomber, since it could have targets on 'other' maps at the same time. It might be bad for play balance in QB's, but could be very interesting in scenarios. regards, --Rett [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 01-16-2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jshandorf: You need to be more specific on what you saw that was wrong. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry for being unclear. The other guy lost 85 men. But _not a single one of my units_ was credited with a single kill. I was credited with capturing one infantryman during the battle.I thought this must be a bug, but now people are saying that CM is designed this way, as a prolongation of FOW, which seems like a poor decision to me. IMO all possible data should be available after a game is over, up to and including 'who killed this (friendly) vehicle?' and kills stats for units which have exited and therefore cannot be clicked on. Also casualties from friendly fire could be registered and listed. The reason for this is to gain some more balance between the three phases of a battle: planning, the battle itself, and analyzing the battle afterwards. Often I have questions afterwards like 'did the 20mm succeed in causing any casualties against dug-in infantry? Did the artillery do any actual damage? Which tank was most successful?" Getting more accurate stats at the end would help a lot in learning the characteristics of various units. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by danyzn: Yes, I think this is right. It would be nice if there was a way to see exactly what killed what after the battle is over. It makes sense to keep the info hidden during the battle because of fog of war, but there is no reason not to show it after it's all over. Or is the game so super realistic that it's simulating the fact that in real life you still don't know even after it's all over?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Exactly. It's overly pedantic to refuse to let the player get an accurate 'report card' on his units after. regards, --Rett

Just finished a QB where the enemy lost 85 casualties. When I clicked through my units using 'info/kills' I came up with a grand total of '1 infantry captured'. Was I fighting the Monty Python suicide squad or what? regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MC: if the SS did see my spotters first wouldn't my spotters at least have sidearms to shoot back? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Naw, but they could thwack the SS guys with those binoculars. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TeAcH: I was playing an operation called Task Force Rose tonight in a TCPIP match. At the end of the first battle of three total, I had pushed my opponent's German forces back beyond the middle of the map. At the conclusion, all he had in my territory was a Puma that was cornered and surrounded deep in my territory. I had troops not only around it, but all over his half of the field. When the next battle started, my redeployment zone was pushed way way back to the first 1/4 of my side. Now, if that wasn't bad enough, unknown to me at the time, my opponent was granted a small redeployment box deep in my territory where he lone Puma had been at the end of that battle. To make matters worse, the game allows him to put his reinforcements there as if they had been dropped in by helicopter. When the next battle starts, I know face two Panther VGs in my face on my side. How is this possible? Shouldn't you be able to not only keep more ground during a break in the game, but shouldn't the game also allow only the trapped unit (i.e.the Puma in this case) to be jockeyed around within that box while it can't be removed nor any additional units added from that area? The end result was a rude awakening when Panthers began to chew up my column. I don't get it. TeAcH<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The only thing to 'get' is that the guys making CM still haven't figured out a good way to handle deployment zones in campaigns. They've probably spent their time on other things; after all there are only 163 hours in a week. I'm sure they would be the first to admit that the whole campaign system is very weak, and needs a complete overhaul. If they had made a perfect campaign system for CM, some other feature of the game would have been neglected instead. It seems to me that they made the right choice (if it really happened this way) in focussing on game mechanics first, at the expense of higher levels like campaign systems, etc. regards, --Rett

Okay, I understand that the guys in the mortar team are needed to carry ammo, which is why ammo is lost if one of them is wounded. But what if they are dug-in? The ammo would be just lying around available regardless if one or two guys in the team are lost. Same goes for bazooka teams. Does it work that way? Also, after an American Airborne mortar team runs out of HE why do all six guys just cower in their foxholes while German infantry approaches their position? Shouldn't they at least have LOW ammo, for small arms weapons, carbines or something? I realize that mortar teams are misused as 'rifle' reserve squads in CC, but shouldn't they at least be able to lay down some small arms fire in a pinch, in the interest of historical accuracy? I mean there are FIVE or SIX of them for goodness sake. Shouldn't Airborne troops in particular display a bit more versatility? regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 109 Gustav: Yes, it is. If the sound contact is a gun, that means that your troops can hear a gun around there somewhere, usually within 50m of the marker. However, it could be a hull down tank, a heavy mortar, yesterday's can of beans, or anything else that sounds like a gun firing. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, but then why does the information window call it 'infantry sounds'. I thought that that term was used for the sound of small-arms fire. BTW it turned out to be a 20 mm flak, which (in the game anyway) has a very distinctive sound. You can hardly mistake it for yesterday's beans. regards, --Rett

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Steel Rain: Anyone know if you can place a pause command between say two hunts or two moves? I would like to order some armor to hunt -> pause 15sec -> hunt. Thanks in advance. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> A trick you can use is to give the first command, then give it a little string of tiny move/reverse commands, then the next hunt. The tank will go back and forth, in place, for a few seconds, then continue. (Though I'm not sure if this will adversely affect target acquisition while 'paused' in this manner) regards, --Rett