gunnergoz
-
Posts
2,933 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by gunnergoz
-
-
An interesting point about German vehicles...I read that some of the pre-war designs, like the Horsch truck, had over 100 lube points in the chassis. I suspect that the german Hanomag HT's were no different.
The engineering of the designs may have been primo, and the performance first-rate when tuned up, but almost no one in the field could have kept up maintenance on such a scale, with dozens of such vehicles in a company or battalion.
The mass-produced stuff that the US factories cranked out was comparatively crude if set next to the German uber hardware, but the US made things that were eminently supportable by line troops under combat conditions.
Like the old saying goes, "the best is enemy of good enough." The German military-industrial complex was a cottage industry by comparison to the US assembly-line juggernaut. The Russians were no slouches in this regard either.
In the end, I'd take an M3 over a '251 if I had to go the distance...
-
To Jeff Duquette -
I know what a CEV is, like I said, I've read Dupuy...
My point is that all these figures we love to bandy about are ultimately meaningless because they are based upon contemporary data that is utterly unknowable. Some factors were not quantifiable data at all but were instead the result if imponderables acting in concert with random chance and fortune.
As much as I was enamored in my youth of the neat little combat-factored units in my AH Stalingrad wargame, I knew that they were just components of a self-contained game system. I could not credibly argue that the war could have turned out one way or the other just because some particular strategy worked on my hex-based map.
To my way of thinking, leadership, vision, morale, training and timing decide more conventional battles than any other factors, asssuming the combatants make maximum effect of their given technology.
Combat effectiveness is as much a spiritual matter as it is mathmatical, I would argue.
The exception is, of course, those times when you simply bombard your enemy into the stone age. No amount of courage, training, leadership or morale will deter a nuke or a B-52 alpha strike from making a mess of your day. That is a quantity of violence applied to a situation that simply overwhelms all other factors, regardless of their quality. And like Stalin said, "quantity has a quality all it's own."
At some point in time, I would argue, we must all take a step back and concede that we're doing nothing less than arguing about "how many fairies can dance upon the head of a pin" as the Victorians would say.
As to CM, I'll happily enjoy the results of our little mathmatical machinations because I know that the armor and firepower values are based upon something vaguely realistic (for my tastes) and beyond that, I'll accept the subjective decisions applied by Steve and the boys when they gin up the troop effectiveness formulae. I'll never pretend, however, that I'm seeing anything but a game, our made-up vision, an approximation of what happened 60 years ago to some brave and very real people.
-
I have to wonder about these loss ratios that grandiosly proclaim that one German was equal to x.x numbers or Allied troops.
I've read Dupuy and like other staff analysts he is very fond of cranking numbers into formulae to come up with predictions of the future and justifications for the past.
Because real war (as opposed to remembered, re-written or revised history of war) is so messy and imprecise, I take all of these number-fests with an enormous grain of salt.
An almost bewildering number of variables come to mind that couldn't possibly be distilled into clean equations and predictors.
For example, the armies were very dissimilar in terms of tooth-to-tail ratios. One soldier at the front thus had a very different balance of force multipliers behind him, depending upon his side and time or war. How does one depict this precisely? How does one capture a snapshot of conditions that really equate to reality at that past moment in time?
Other factors, like morale, training, leadership and doctrine all are difficult if not impossible to quantify. We can devise our own pet looking glass and peer through it, but it remains an artifice; it is not a time machine as we would like to pretend it to be at times.
That's why I like CMBO. It only quantifies what is pretty accessible and which lends itself to numbers.
Above that level, say at the operational and strategic level, one can quantify and devise rules and formulae all one likes, but it is so abstract as to be almost meaningless. All one does is devise a gaming system, not a reality. Statistical analysis and simulation has its limits.
In the end, I guess I'm an inveterate "gut feeling" sort of grog at heart. Throw anything less concrete than armor thickness and velocity numbers at me and I begin to think in terms of my instincts about the subject. And also that's when my hard-coded BS detector comes on line!
-
Scooter-
If you want to speak with someone with a little authority, address your questions to me because I have as little authority as anyone else here.
And thanks to my relative lack of bias I'll answer with my best opinion. And I've never been cursed with a modest opinion in my life.
Oh, yes, I'm singularly unswayed by the facts, clinging only the unvarnished truth as I have determined to my preference.
So ask away!
-
Game performance will be most affected by
(in order):
Processor class and speed (1.3Gig Athlon is very good)
Amount of RAM (128 at least, hopefully you have 256MB or better)
Hard drive free space (too little free space means little HD cache and frequent writes)
Video card & Video RAM (32MB card of recent vintage is very good)
Sound card capabilities (SB Live is way capable and will take a load off your CPU by the way)
CD-ROM access times if you haven't loaded the full game on to your HD (shame on you!)
These are rules of thumb of course, but the machine you have now should be quite capable!
-
Yep, memories aplenty!
I recall with fondness and horror the rusty fallschirmjaeger helmet I got from an Italian farmer in Verona in the '60's. The horror part is that I sold it for pennies years later when I had a lapse in sanity...sob, choke
I'll say this, you guys got a lottta guts and damn few brains handling old live ordnance like that! God Bless you and count your fingers often!
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seanachai:
That's you all over, isnt' it David? Always on about the politics of Modding. When will you cease your ironical attacks on your betters and learn to keep your head down, spoon in your pasty, and thank the gods you're allowed your pint now and then?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
David wears pasties?
-
This big argument with Steve over the inclusion (or not) of the IS-3 cracks me up...I mean, come ON!
The guy owns the company (well, a fair chunk of it). It's his game, his ball, his park and his rules...let the man play!
And if you don't like his game, etc, go home!
Maybe some of us arguing about this forget that it's a labor of love for Steve and his buds, and we're lucky to be invited. I could care less if he includes armored bathtubs, as long as they get it MOSTLY right.
I don't want to sound sour about this, but I just get impatient with the endless squabbling about what is, in the end, out of our hands. I trust Steve and crew to put out a product that will greatly please most of us, most of the time; please a few of us all of the time; and a of course a minority, little at all.
I'm probably alone in thinking this but I suspect that these guys would be working almost this hard on CM even if it didn't turn a profit...it might take longer and be a bit less polished, but it would still get done...and it would be their way all the way.
I do appreciate that we purchasers and players have input and that it is frequently heeded. But I harbor no illusions that I can ever disabuse Steve or any of the BTS guys of the notion that they can do as they please with this game and the business (yea, maybe even a cult) it has spawned.
But then, I forget...we're an argumentative lot by nature, aren't we? Must be that genetic hard-coding for competition.
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzerman:
That not true I am working on a StuG IV right now that is only the outside along with the drives head and tank commander.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Could be a newer kit, because I recall the Bandai Stug having a nicely done interior...I haven't seen those older kits in ages, though.
-
Couldn't stand the movie...well, I guess it was bound to happen, though. Watching a grog lose his mind is kinda sad, sniff, sniff...
-
You guys are amateurs! Pixie counting or whateverthehellyouretalkingabout is for faries!
Us pros know to turn off our monitors during the combat resolution portion so our units enter stealth mode. It works so well, mine units are usually never seen again! Even by me!
Wottabunchofignoramimusses...
-
Might be easier to BACK INTO the target and let the back-blast level 'em!
-
AAHHHH, There I feel better now. Thanks, Steve! I was getting that "waiting for the other shoe to drop" feeling after the magazine articles were announced.
-
The reality is that both saw heavy use in the ETO. M1917's were plentiful as they'd been dropped from most TO&E's and could be scrounged up easily. M2's were frequently salvaged from downed aircraft and immobilized vehicles. Water-cooled .50's were usually associated with ground-moun AA use and were on the early version of the M-15 as well.
The main disadvantage to all of these weapons is their weight. Consequently, they might be more prevalent in units with enough vehicles to carry them about, i.e. armored infantry, cav, HQ's and artillery battalions (for ground defense). Of course, units used "liberated" or "misplaced" vehicles. I recall reading that dozens of jeeps disappeared every week in Paris. Not all of them went to the black market and many must have been taken back to front-line units by the furloughed GI's who "found" them. The rear-area "chairborne infantry" of the COM-Z were universally despised by front line GI's and taking their vehicles was considered a coup.
-
Me too.
Er, all the above.
Both, that is.
Yep.
What was the question?
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Leader:
Oh Mord... Oh Mord... Tell me, will it have a campaign game?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
To hell with a campaign game, will it have horses, M-16's and antitank dogs?
-
Many an enemy was killed by a GI wielding his entrenching tool. The one I had dating from the late 40's even had a bare polished edge, ready for sharpening.
Propaganda is everywhere, but sometimes the truth can be strange and incredible too.
One thing is sure, the Russians used a lot of captured 'fausts! There were thousands of the things lying around in those days.
-
Rexford,
Where and how can I place an order for your book?
-
Ilike the idea of plain-jane mods that we can cammo and ding up by ourselves! It would finally tempt me to abandon my perpetual tinkering with grasses and bases, and get me into the neat stuff that brought me into CM in the first place...tanks and guns!
It would also be neat if BTS would come out with basic skins that would show us exactly what and where the 3D models beneath are like, where the overlap and seams are, etc. The few screen shots they showed us of CM2 3D models sort of whet my appetite and gave me that idea.
-
This argument about upgrading hardware really has no definitive answer...many people will upgrade their PC's and many others wouldn't crack the case to save their lives.
Even for inveterate case-crackers like myself, a substantive change like a video card can be a colossal pain in the buttocks. I'll do it, but don't relish losing a weekend of sweatin' and swearin' in the process.
At the same time, darn few people will buy a new PC just to play a particular game. Some Mac nuts (again yours truly
) went out and purchased a PC clone just to play Harpoon when it first came out. But BTS can't count on these types of fanatics on a regular basis. They have to remain mainstream or risk losing a BIG chunk of sales.
Steve et al are a canny crew. I trust that they'll come up with a hardware threshhold that MOST players can meet.
One unavoidable and unhappy fact of life in the PC world is that precious little software is TOTALLY, unequivocably compatible with every conceivable hardware combination.
Maybe when we're all running variations of UNIX, all this compatibility/upgrade furor will go away...but I doubt it.
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MikeyD:
The ultimate book on the Super Persion would be "Firepower" by Hunnicutt, covering ALL U.S. heavies in amazing detail. The book's as rare a hen's teeth though, so if you find one snap it up!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
A truly excellent work and the first Hunnicutt book I purchased many years ago. Amazingly, I found it at the San Diego Aerospace Museum book store! It was (and remains) nicely bound and covered in plastic, library book style.
Hunnicutt is getting on in years. Does anyone have his email address? I hope he does a book about US armored cars (entitled "Greyhound-The story of U.S. armored cars" of course) next.
-
For my 2 bits worth, it would make more sense to come out with a "CM1.5" with entirely new coding and retail packaging. This version would have all the features of CM2 ported back to the Western Front. It could be sold to owners of CM1 (BTS must have THAT list
) for a goodly discount and avoid all the hassles of figuring out a patch.How about it, BTS?
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mr. Johnson-<THC>-:
We talking about Bush?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Nah, the thread is about FUZZY LOGIC, not FUZZY THINKING.
-
Knowing this crowd, even if there were a CM2 forum, a lot of posts about it would end up on the main forum...look how many general posts get put here!
Once the game comes closer to release, I'll bet BTS will make and enforce the switch. If not, the CM1 grogs will be clamoring for "their" forum back!
Reliability/ Durability/Frequency of German HTs?
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:
Yeah, me too, based only on guesswork.
How about at the German front lines? How common were the German HTs on the German front lines, specifically, how many 75mm, 81mm mortar or 20mm cannon HTs would you expect to see supporting a German battallion, say, in December 1944?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I wouldn't expect too many unless it was a recon batallion, where many of the specialized types were to be found. A Hanomag equipped panzergrenadier battalion might have the mortar and short 75 version in small numbers as well. I think the 20mm versions were mostly recon '250's.