Atlas

This "bump" is for Dorosh.

"Isn't this thread the equivalent of chasing a burgular into a crowded street, getting tired, then pulling out a gun and shooting everyone in the street? I can clarify if need be!" * Lol! I did not mean to imply "everyone". I meant to imply "too many." But I think your response is entertaining. "Hi Mom indeed. CM is a different product to everyone who plays it; to some a game, to some a means to a simulation. Arguing about it, shouting, telling people to get a life or otherwise be insulting because they do not share your outlook is just plain stupid. Atlas, you are no better than the people you are deriding. Not only can I not believe I'm wasting my own time to respond, I can't believe you wasted your time to share this epiphany of yours with us. Let us all proceed with our lives." * Michael, I see my post has struck a nerve. (-: LOL. BTW, what does "proceed with our lives" exactly mean to you? Is CM your life?

IMHO, there are too many of you who scream "gamey" when your gilded dreams of what CM should be are shattered by contact with a historically unlikely enemy unit or mix of enemy units (e.g. King Tiger, Puma, Veteran Volkstrum.) GET OVER IT! CM IS A GAME, PEOPLE! If you are looking for a perfect historical simulation of WWII, you will not find it anywhere! You are far more likely to discover a time-machine, warp back to 1944 and charge a German machine gun on Omaha Beach than you are to capture every aspect and feel of WWII in a computer game. I worry that people actually think that by moving blips of light around on a computer screen that they have suddenly communed with the bloodiest war in the history of the world. If you do not want "gamey", go to the Holocaust Museum in LA or Washington, D.C.; read a first hand account of the suffering in Leningrad; or talk to one the thousands of US veterans still alive that stood in harm's way. For the sake of sanity and reason, do not play through a half-round of CM (the best war GAME ever made) and then, when you discover that you are getting your arse handed to you by a Churchill/Pershing combination, scream "gamey." Such indignation is not enlightened. If you insist on selecting unit mixes that may have had higher historical probability, fine. Let your opponent know before you both select units that you want to play the GAME that way. When you scream "gamey" it tells your opponent one or two things: A. You are looking for an excuse for your immanent loss or B. You are not smart enough to realize that you are playing a computer GAME. Rant off.

...A total of 254 were built from May 1944 to July 1944. " "In CM the Jumbo 76 is available way before that. Why ?" Huh? Doesn't CM cover the period between June 6th, 1944 and May, 1945?

One fighter bomber destroyed 92 of my veteran British Airborne, 3 Piats, 2 2-inch mortars and pieces or parcels of six other support units IN THE FIRST TURN of a ladder tournament game. I have faced bombers many, many times before and they never did nearly the damage to justify the purchase. They are the great, great gamble (much like a 300mm Rocket FO). I would only purchase a bomber if A) I knew my opponent was a much superior player or/and I knew he was going to show up with a tank I could not otherwise defeat.

EricM, Interesting story. As far as CM is concerned, I do not think such a tactic is possible.

No matter how terrible you feel your skills are, the best way to learn CM is to join a ladder such as www.tournamenthouse.com (TH)and play against the better players. In TH there is a ranking system that let's you choose the level of player you wish to battle. I would suggest you hook up with the best players (Swamp, Ghost) and learn from them.

As mentioned above, surrounding the enemy is key. None-the-less, it is very difficult to get enemy units to surrender if they are controlled by a human opponent. Humans tend to move units out of harm's way before they surrender.

Well done, ScoutPL.

Bump. Keep this topic fresh.

Fire rules in Town, Village QBs. Buy a flame-half track or a WASP (if you are the British) and drive it up to building filled with enemy soldiers. Watch them burn!

Some good points above. Just want to remind those above that the distances in CM are incredibly small. Many tank encounters during WWII (especially in the East) were at 1000-2000 meters or more. (The heavy tanks would try to place themselves a "stand-off" ranges of greater distance to take advantage of their better armor/gun.) It is common in CM for a tank battle to be in the 250m to 500m range. Cheers.

Apache, You may say what you will about Rommel post-Afrika Corp, but the man was a genius on the coast of North Africa - on par with Robert E. Lee in Virginia. Rommel's march through Northern France was as equally impressive. -Atlas

Manx, Excellent job with your web-site. Most impressed with your effort.

Get back on the "Peng" please.

bump

Thank you for the reply BTS and others. I am not sure whether anybody supplied an answer as to why CM's German Infantry would rather die than use their PFs, but I can see that most who replied do not believe it to be a huge issue. A few replies, though, are in order: 1.CavSCout: The beauty of the PF is that one could lay in almost a prone position to fire the mechanism. One did not have to "jump up" to fire it. 2. 109 Gustav: This is, of course, understood. 3.Username: Interesting, but off topic. 4. Hakko: Good point. My sources give no information as to the optimum firing range within classifications of PFs. Still, this does not answer the riddle as to why an infantry soldier would resist the temptation to at least attempt a shot at local armor. 5. BTS: I understood that "Range, unit Experience, and unit state" are the factors that your fine team uses to program the actions of those German Infantry units with PFs. I agree that these factors are important. None-the-less, IMHO I also believe that PFs are under utilized- especially by lesser troops. It serves no purpose for a squad to get destroyed in short order without at least getting one - no matter how impossible - PF shot at a nearby target. Often times in CM, regular INF with multiple PFs will NOT fire even if they are well in range and under no strain. The German military hierarchy worried more about stray PFs falling into hands of the enemy than the over-use of the weapon. (There are documented stories of PFs being used in an anti-infantry role.) What's my beef? I have none. Love the game. I am just debating out loud whether 1. PFs are under-utilized in CM and 2. Whether this matters. Since most feel that the answer to 2. is "negatory", I will move on.

While reading through this fine message board, I found the following question: "Has anybody else noticed how reluctant the German squads are to fire their PanzerFaust?" I think the question is a good one, but one that makes my head spin when I consider the remedy. As most of you know, the Panzerfaust was a disposable recoilless anti-tank weapon that required only one soldier to operate and was, by most accounts, easy to fire. There is no debate of its effectiveness. (200mm of armor at 30 degrees.) It is my experience that the likihood of a German unit to actually use the weapon increases relative to the experience of the unit....which is a one further way CM differentiates the benefits of experience. What I cannot wrap my brain around is the fact that lesser German units equipped with PFs will sit within PF range (30m, 60m, or 100m) of armor and DO NOTHING. Sometimes they will wait until the tank spots them, then grovel, panic and die to the man before anybody in the squad decides to use the ONLY remedy available. Panzerfausts were not scarce (I believe 200,000 of them were being produced every month by April, 1944) and the level of sophistication of these devices was such that many German (Nazi Youth) children were issued PF near the end of the war. A further benefit of the PF was that if the carrier were to become incapacitated, a comrade could pick up the PF and use it without problem (as BF has so well simulated and a good reason individual PF units are not a practical solution.) Perhaps the answer is to allow more experienced German infantry to fire the PF only with better accuracy instead of more regularity. It seems to me that lack of experience would not make a unit slower to use the PF, but faster and in haste to get the heck away from the iron beast. This is, of course, neither here nor there as far as CM1 is concerned and I am not sure of the results in tinkering with the already potent German infantry, but I am interested in how others perceive this issue.

von Schalburg is not only a Dane, he rules the TH with his most excellent CMing ability. The www.tournamenthouse.com makes playing CM via network sooooo easy. Do come and join. The Chat Room is busy and there is almost always a game to be had. It is not hard-core and there are many, many ability levels. Cheers.

This is a hint for those of you new to the ladder (aka "gamey-as-hell") system and do not want to have somebody place a "Total Loss" on your record. Join a 1250 ME scenario, request it be played on a small rural map, buy anything you like or nothing, except include one 300mm Rocket Spotter. During set-up, place all your troops on the edge of the map. During the first order phase, retreat everything off the map except the spotter. With your spotter, target an area close to the biggest flag. Three minutes later, watch as you light up the map with an awesome display of fireworks. After which, your opponent will usually say something like "Wow. What was that?" or "You crushed an entire company." Use this time to say/write, "Yeah, I got lucky. How about you give me the Tactical Victory and we can move on to another game?" If your opponent wants to continue, you can try to bargain him down to a Minor Victory. Otherwise, tell him that all your troops have left the board and ask for a cease fire. The cease-fire should be good for anywhere from a tactical loss to a minor victory, depending what is gathered around "ground zero" and how many victory flags are in the scenario. If you are a moderate to bad player, think of Rockets as the great equalizer. Cheers. p.s. BTW, this strategy will make you many enemies. Good luck.

Bump

Thanks for the follow-up posts and I am happy that most of you feel that the Churchill is not so powerful. Trooper: The Churchill VIII is NOT (as you say)designed to be a tank buster, but the c-rounds (that come with all but a very few) can knock the paste out of most German Tanks. If the gun does not knock out the German tank, there is a good possibility of a dreaded "Gun Hit." Cheers.

I really like the Churchill VIII. What I love most is to hear the "expert" CM players tell others that the Churchill VIII is not so great, that just about anything can knock it out, and that if you play against anybody with any experience the Churchill is chud. These experts envision a solitary Churchill, alone, defenseless, ready to be crushed by a oh-so-clever secret attack. They fail to see the companies of infantry, half-dozen PIATs and other support units that surround the Churchill. They do not see an actual THINKING opponent supporting and maneuvering this absolute MONSTER of a machine. It gives me chills to see a Tiger retreat out of sight when my Churchills come a-calling...whoa...where was I? Oh, yeah. I sincerely hope that those of you who think the Churchill VIII is overrated continue to do so.

Diceman is correct. Although the best tactical WWII game EVER, CM is limited in that the size of the battle field (small) reduces the historical usefulness of some equipment. An 88mm gun had a HUGE advantage over Allied tanks at ranges of 2-4 MILES! (The King Tiger had a firing range of 6 MILES! Uggh.) Thus, a Nashorn would have some use as a mobile AT GUN at long ranges. At 400-800 meters, the Nashorn is a BIG, SLOW (moving and firing), UGLY target. BTW, the biggest problem I see with CMII is incorporating the vastness of the Russian landscape into a small scale tactical simulation/game. Big Time made a WISE, WISE move starting the series in the wooded West Front.

Germanboy, You thoughts are what I assumed and you make a good point of which new players should be wary. Those Victory Flags - if the scoring is what I assume it to be - are not often worth that suicide mission up the gut if it will cost you three Panthers and a Tiger!