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gunnergoz

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Posts posted by gunnergoz

  1. The rifle grenade mechanism also interfered with the gas return on the semi-auto mechanism of the Garand; the bolt did not cycle automatically when you fired a rifle grenade and the spent round stayed in the chamber.

    So even if a GI was planning on firing off a series of rifle grenades, and had a clip of blanks loaded, he would still have to manually cycle the bolt.

    Well that would explain all the frenzied fumbling around with the bolt, all right. M-1 Thumb, anyone? :D

  2. I've never tried it but is it possible to insert a bunker into a larger building? I've seen foxholes have half their number end up under a nearby house so it may be possible - though not necessarily what BFC intended.

    If you can somehow build a bunker then a house or large building over it, that may help you replicate something like what you want.

    Alternately, trenches might do it too.

  3. I tried aiming with "smoke" to the same area that I was able to aim with "target". I also tried panning all around the "target" aim point with the "smoke" cursor but got "no line of sight".

    Yes I understand - what I was referring to is that it seems - to me at least - that while we may aim the smoke round at the enemy directly, the actual aim point the game uses once the round is ready to go, is on the ground close in front of the target, not on the target itself. So we may be aiming the round at a tank but the round may always land just in front of it instead.

    I have to admit I've not used the smoke rounds that often so my impression may be off.

  4. I think that's correct. Some RGs used a bullet capture, others used blanks. The M7 was the latter type. I bet GIs didn't carry clips loaded with blanks :)

    Now that you mention it, the special rifle rounds did have a crimped end, much like blanks. Yep, don't want to get those mixed up with the ball ammo when you go after Fritz in the down and dirty! :D

  5. So what - my wife is an avid gamer as well and also happens to play SOME wargames (sadly CM isn't her thing). And she can ientify most German tanks by just looking at them.

    Is it really that bad that we need a women around here? Next thing you know is they want a "Women Only" area, decorate everything with Kitty stuff and constantly reprimand us for our bad manners. :D

    I don't worry about their decorating skills, its the fact that the females of the breed are usually the better hunters... :D

  6. IIRC (correct me if I'm wrong here) the Garand had to have a special round inserted manually in the chamber in order to project the rifle grenade; you did not use the regular ball ammo to launch the grenade. The gestures you are seeing may represent the manual loading of that special rifle grenade round.

    I used to collect inert ordnance and one item I had was a new Garand training rifle grenade in the original heavy cardboard shipping tube; besides the training grenade it came with one or two of these special rounds in the tube with a warning not to use regular ammo to fire the training rifle grenade.

    As for shooting off the AT round first, it does seem a shame but I also seem to recall that it had an HE value as well as its AT use, just like the bazooka round did.

  7. You are not telling us enough about the circumstances you are describing to convey a sense of whether this is off or not. Where are the troops being targeted by the US artillery? In what kind of cover or positions? You mentioned foxholes and basements so I assume it is a mixed urban setting.

    You also indicate you have a good idea of how many rounds were fired but do you know anything about the fuzing (ground impact, delayed action, air burst, etc) in the historical barrage? It sounds like the actual battle you are attempting to portray had a lot of decent cover which sheltered the real troops from the artillery most of the time.

    If you are seeing many more casualties in your game than there were historically, it could well be that you are not simulating the cover sufficiently well, not merely that the artillery effectiveness is excessive. And we know that the game engine at present is limited in its ability to represent hardened, prepared defenses and built up urban terrain.

    As for US losses, the same issue may apply with the issue of cover being adequately represented or not.

    I think you may have to run a lot of trial games to see if these figures average out differently, since any one game may represent an outlier.

  8. I have several times seen mortars and AT guns that I have ordered to fire flick constantly and very quickly between planning and spotting. Once they get into that loop they never come out of it and never fire. Cancelling a replotting the "Target" command or HE fire mission dosen't resolve the problem, even if they ordered to fire on something else. Ordering the unit to move, may, reset the loop but other than that the gun/mortar is useless for the rest of the game.

    This is the only genuine bug I have seen so far.

    My hunch is that the unit would like to move to another location to better spot the target but is having difficulty with the decision process for whatever reason. I may be totally off, but that is all I can come up with given the info at hand. I'd love to hear BFC weigh in on just what the state the planning portrays.

  9. Years ago I was fortunate to be able to go on a former mothball fleet ship, the all-original Essex class CV Bunker Hill, when it was brought down to San Diego's North Island Naval Air Station to be a test bed for antenna arrays for the then-new Nimitz class carriers. When I visited the ship there were still Plan of the Day copies dated 1945 pinned to the cork boards and blankets and pillows in the captain's day cabin. 5" and 40mm brass shell cases were propping open some of the passageway hatches. Most of the 40mm mounts were still there under cocoons and the 5" mounts were open and I got to rummage around in one. The Chief of the Boat gave me the cover for the ships speed and distance indicator from the bridge as a souvenir...unfortunately, I had to sell it years later but it had a nice brass plaque marked "Bendix Instruments, USS Bunker Hill, CV-17." When they scrapped her instead of making her a museum I was really upset about it. Years later San Diego go the Midway for a museum, but I think the BH would have been far more interesting, if not even more deserving of the honor than the Midway (no disrespect to the latter intended).

  10. Is it possible that some of your tanks at least were relying on the commander being able to see the SHermans whilst the tank gun is unable to see the Shermans. They fire at the cupola! and of course hit whilst moving.

    Tactically I think you did nothing wrong at all and Gunnergoz is actually suggesting gamey tactics against a dumb AI. I am all in favour of flanking but I assume you chose the best position available. Incidentally if you gave the map number then someone could replicate the battle.

    So you prefer he learn how to beat the AI in an ahistorical way, all bunched up around the victory objective? What is he going to do when he plays you or another human? If he tries that with them, he'll get eaten alive.

    And what is "gamey" about using real-world tactics against the AI? I thought that was what making the game so sophisticated, was all about. Sure the AI is only the AI, but is there not more satisfaction in beating it using realistic tactics than in just lumping your assets around the objective? In thinking about ways to ambush an enemy by learning to read the ground, figure out probable approach routes, etc?

    I say: Learn, historically correct tactics now, not ones that play to the AI's weaknesses or the game's shortcomings. The game may have clobbered him because of its own present imperfect state and I'd hope he learns the right lesson from all this, lessons he can apply to multiplayer if he ever goes there.

  11. In my defense wouldn't the half tracks have had an extra mg pointing forward anyway? And I only did it at the end of the scenario to crush a defeated enemy before running out of time and it was just short reverses into shooty spots. But yeah I been having a blast with this game, loving some of the kits and all the refinement. and infantry guns and towed guns:D

    Don't need to defend yourself, like I said. Regarding US halftracks, the dedicated infantry carrier (M3A1) had the .50 in a pulpit over the front passenger seat. Any other guns mounted would have been on fixed pintles, either in the center of the troop compartment or affixed to the side armor or rear of the HT. They tried to cover 360 degrees as opposed to providing a lot of forward firepower. H/T variants like the M2 or M3 would not have the pulpit, but MG layout would have otherwise be similar.

    ht_08.jpg

    half04.jpg

  12. Trying to fight panther class opponents directly and only with inferior armor is only going to be an exercise in frustration and casualty generation, particularly if you cannot maneuver your armor to gain a side/rear shot. Try combined arms if possible. Have any artillery assets that could either lay smoke or HE harassing fire that might force him to displace to another location? Have any infantry to sneak past him through terrain he can't see or can't move through? Expand your thinking into something other than tank-on-tank if at all possible since that was often how these beasts were defeated IRL.

  13. Nobody wins if you quit. We (the forum and BFC) are not here to defeat your efforts to enjoy the game. You may have fair reasons to be frustrated and to leave the game unpurchased, but neither we as forum members, nor BFC, have conspired against you in any way. It may simply not be your cup of tea. Fair enough, point made. Just don't leave wearing a martyr suit that no one made you don.

  14. Concur, Clark, the dead vehicles issue takes precedence for me too.

    The thing with these multiple kills with one shot scenarios is that, while they may be technically and theoretically possible (and likely did happen now and again) the actual numbers of recorded instances of it in the WW2 time frame seem pretty sparse. That is either because no one noticed at the time, or it did not really happen often. Given the chaos of the battlefield, I suspect both are true and so there may have been instances of such events that were not documented for various reasons (no survivors, etc.)

    One possibility is that the game may encourage a bit of battlefield foreshortening, for lack of a better term...we as players (and maybe designers) tend to compress geography somewhat and try to cram too much action into too small a space. Units bunch up and the artificial constraints of action spaces, etc impinge upon how units behave in our simulated world. Our game world is not as fine-grained as the real world, in other words, which may allow more of these instances an opportunity to occur than they might have happened IRL.

    Don't know that for a fact, just throwing the possibility out there to ponder.

  15. Unfortunately there were no trees or buildings in the scenario: being on the reverse slope seemed like the only option. My units were only spotted as the enemy came over the hill: I had assumed that I would generally get first shot since I was essentially in an ambush mode

    Yep, you got bit by the "assume" bug. I know, I have the bite scars too. :)

    My advice still holds, just try it sometimes where you are not located "at the end of the bowling alley" where the enemy AI is sure to find you, but rather lining the sides of the alley to intercept the enemy as he rolls towards the objective. That way you get a chance at juicy flank shots. If your terrain is not helpful to that strategy, you got screwed with a battlefield that favors the enemy, which does happen and which real generals try to avoid like the plague if they are clever about it.

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