bredberg

I can feel a tone of humor here..... Random factor is great, however the random factor in CM should be tweaked in some areas. I still believe that the gun damage sign is shown way too often. How about include stuff like, gunner out of action, optics broken, and such - not just gun damage - for me it sounds like some has pierced your gun with a LUCKY shot - how often would that happen in real life???? In CM it happens in almost every battle. And the random factor should have a limit in armour vs shot, a 7.62mm will never ever knock-out a Tiger. No it have not happen to me, but... certain guns simply don't have enough penetration energy. Cheers Jonas [This message has been edited by bredberg (edited 02-09-2001).]

Panther losses at Kursk: From Guderians report to HQ (included in Jentz: Panzertruppen Vol 2) regarding the performance of the Panthers in Panzer Reg. 39 (8 Pz V), consisting of: Pz Abt 51 (96 Pz V) and Pz Abt 52 (96 Pz V). 10/7: 10 operational Panthers, 25 total losses (23 knock-out, 2 mechanical total losses), 100 in repair (56 hits/mines, 44 mechanical). 81 Panthers were out of order due to hits (I'm not quite sure if Guderian includes mines as a hit? Also 56+23 is not equal to 81, but 56+23+2....). 140 destroyed enemy tanks, mostly T-34, at an average distance of 1500-2000m 11/7: 38 operational Panthers, 31 total losses, 131 in repair. It seems that eventhough the Panthers were mechanical vulnerable during Kursk, the main part of tanks were out of order, due to enemy action. Cheers Jonas

No Panther at Kursk? Freak you should read the linked article a bit more carefully: Qoute from Nipes article: Only 15 Tiger tanks were still in action at Prochorovka, and there were no SS Panthers available. The battalions that were equipped with Panthers were still training in Germany in July 1943. This DON'T mean that there were no Panthers at Kursk, only that there were no SS-Panthers, which no one has ever claimed. There were however 200 heer-Panthers in the Panzer Brigade 51 (or Decker as Nipe writes). Cheers Jonas

Freak: About the Panther and it may not have been there.... There were no Panthers at Prokoharka (I never get that right) however Panzerbrigade 51 was attached to PzDiv GrossDeutschland and fought in the southern sector, along PzDiv 11 and GD. What I recall there were around 10 knock-out Tigers at Prokoharka. The ill-willed romours of the massive sloughter of germans cats is indeed a myth which was backed by both the russians and the germans. The germans lost severly more Tigers when the withdraw in the later offensive by the russians. The above is backed by Glantz (The Battle of Kursk) and Jentz (German Panzertruppen Vol 2) /Jonas

Ari, I fully agree with you (and Glantz), that the Panther is the most versitile (and 'best') tank of WWII. Agile, good armour, powerful gun, indeed a very potent opponent - which can be utilized on a proper CM battleground. However the Panther is as useless as all other tanks in built-up areas, woods or other general short LOS conditions. The Panther is even more hampered by its slow turret, and hence should be used carefully. Cheers Jonas

Ari: Ok, sorry, I know that there were a lot of teething problems with the Panthers - especially at Kursk - and Jeff is right about the combat record of PzKfw V would improve a lot if there hadn't been a Kursk. My point was that there were still a number (not non-significant) of Panthers knock-out by T34/76 and other less formidable tanks. However, from the top of my head I can't recall what you say is written in the Glantz book - I'm reading it at the moment. (THE most fearsome or a fearsome - the later I agree on the first, no not really) From my knowing, the most feared tank was the Tiger when it appeared in the Leningrad area in late -42. Cheers Jonas

If you haven't read any account from the Kursk fighting, I advice you to do so. Panzerbrigade 51(?) start-out with 200 Panthers, a couple of days later there were something like tens still operational. Mechanical failure, mines and russian tanks have cut the numbers quite a lot. The Panther is far from invincible, which is accurate modeled in CM. However increasing the size of the battle (distance of first engagement) you will see the scale tipping for the Germans. Tiger, Königstiger, Panther all have a very good gun, a good front armour, that will stand most enemies guns from 1000+m. CM2 (the russian front) would (should) show this. Cheers Jonas

Salpdragon: Could you add some info to this line: .... and much better flight characteristics than a tungsten round which develop a slight wobble at the greatest distance. ..... I can't see why the change in material will produce a slight wobble at the greatest distance. The only thing that can do that is an unbalancing moment of the round. This a yawing moment caused by the air resistance. The uranium rounds are most probable at a higher L/D-ratio than a tungsten dito, and will thus likely have a higher tendency to start wobble. (A minor error in the angle-of-attack will mean a yawing moment from the drag force -> wobble). Practise tungsten rounds in the swedish army is a-symmetric to produce this wobble after a couple of km, just so we weren't able to strike some unhappy people 90km (the maximum firing distance with a S-tank) from the firing ground. Cheers Jonas

Hmmm..... Ok I'm not at the math department, however I can see your point. Let me for the sake of simplification, make the following comparision. Two man are about to cross a river. The first man undress and jumps in to struggle against cold/current etc, while the other man take a walk and finds a bridge further downstream. The first man drowns, while the other get across very easy and even dry. I don't wan't to question Charles ability as a programmer his is most probably more experiance than me - however if he haven't though about include these additional vectors to a each unit (agreeable this would eat up a bit of memory) it would be easy.... However a side-effect would be that a unit might not be able to shot at an enemy shown on the map, but not actually seen by this enemy. People not following this thread might find that VERY strange.... And please for you beloved ones leave those stuff (A,B,P,Q) at the office Cheers Jonas

I agree with most of the guys around, the tank AI really need to be improved! 1) Every friendly unit on the map see what all other friendlies can see. I'm not surprised that this is the fact, however it would be VERY easy to implement an improvement to this. The current game-engine checks, at the moment, for each and every unit which enemy units are spotted. Based on this routine it is a simple matter of adding a vector to store which unit can be observed by each unit, and than to do a boolean operation on those vector, with a weighting factor (depending on a command and control routine) which units should be known by every unit. More or less what you as a commander would know. In a matter of fact some of the spotted enemies should actually not be known by you as a commander, only by you as the squad team member. These enemies could then only be targeted by this squad while all the others should not react on these - similar to unobserved enemies. If these spotted enemy-vectors would be included, then tanks can not react to snipers to the side, or AT-teams from behind and would be a sitting duck without the support of infantery. You there is a reason why some tanks have a intercom connection on the outside of the tank. This reaction/delay stuff which is implemented now is foundamentally wrong - and hence should be improved. No matter for how long a AT-team is behind a button-up tank, the tank will never start to rotate! 2) About the tankers desire to shot at anything in sight but forget about any might be dangerous opponent. Here you should include a delay in the code, combined with some danger-weighting function, most likely a tanker would be more afraid by the recently smoke-screen concealed KT than a routing sniper, crossing your left side. /Jonas

Playing a QB yesterday, I was sneaking up on a Churchill VII with a Hetzer from a flank position. The distance being roughly 100m, when both almost simultaneous shoot at each other. The Churchill knocks out the gun of my Hetzer, while the Hetzer misses the target. Now.... Since this more or less happens during the first couple of seconds, the Churchill keeps pounding my Hetzer for the rest of the turn, with every second round hitting the gun, man every second shot! I can't believe this would happen in real life. What percentage of the front area is made up of the gun? Maximum 10% - very maximum. Is it so that the code includes a biased statistical randomize regarding the hit distribution. I can also see (what I think) an unpropitiously high weak-point hits on Panthers/StuGs. BTW the Churchill was unable to knock out the Hetzer, and succumbing to a 1000m flanking shot of a KT. Another guy with KTs and Hetzers, hmmmm.... /Jonas

There are basically two models the Sdkfz 250 and the 251. The 250 being the smaller one. As for the numbers of the 250/? and 251/?, they indicate different versions, and to give you the run down of all those you need to consult for e.g. Chamberlain/Peters/Jentz: German Armoured Vehicle of WWII. 251/9 mounted a 75mm thats for sure. Some versions were engineering (pioneer) vehicle, some ambulances, some standard troop transport, a think there were a cable-lying vehicle and a sound identification vehicle (to position enemy fire) and more. The 251-versions run at least to 251/17, while I believe there were slightly fewer versions of the 250. These vehicle were also used as artillery tractors being the 3-ton, Sdkfz ? and the 1-ton Sdkfz ?. Hope it helped... Cheers Jonas

What is most important of CM2, is to incorporate several new ideas and remove some of the slight flaws in the CM1-engine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since people are talking about both CMII and CM2 (and for the matter also CM3,CM4) - the CMII will include a new engine, while the others are 'merely' a new location with essentially the same engine. I fully understand that the 3D-engine will not be changed from CM1 to CM2 (or CM4) however it would be fairly 'easy' to include a number of new ideas to the game. However I'm not the one to do a wish-list, hopefully the BTS-people will do that. And to the vehicles on the ost-front: Based on the CM1-vehicle not very much have to be added for the germans, however I agree a number of russian stuff need to be graphically and statistically modelled. But it wouldn't surmount the CM1 in workload. I rather include all years, and then leave out some of the oddies. Cheers Jonas [This message has been edited by bredberg (edited 01-23-2001).]

That would be a really good add to CM2. The ambush/return fire stuff is not very good in CM. Why does tanks engage a rifle squad when a decent tank is close by - even if the tank was given as a first priority target? As a tanker I would always go for the heaviest armored stuff first - even if I'm a newbie. As for the ambush: Similar to SP, it should be possible to set a maximum range of fire. Agreeable this would be more strictly kept by the veteran-team, but even the most nervous green ones would probably hold their fire a bit more. Also in ambush-mode the troopers should be rather difficult to spot, however I guess this is already implemented??? Also in ambush-mode troopers don't necessarily return fire, since in real life, the other side might just spraying the area - since it would be such a good ambush site... /Jonas

Navier-Stokes governs fluid flow, and is indeed fully 3D (actually 4D - as you include the fourth dimension time) - and just terrrible to solve - ever seen the weather forecast on TV? Those guys try to solve NS - with a degree of accuracy that you usually can observe the next day... Fun that you bothered. Cheers Jonas