Agua

Thanks Dan! Gorgeous (but I'd have expected nothing less).

Re - Spotting round Okay, just did three tests each with only June 43 German 75mm wire and 81mm radio, elite, crack, vet, reg, green & conscripts. On these arty types, only 1 spotting round fell. In each test, with Vet & higher FOs, a spotting round did fall in the turn immediately prior to the barrage. I wanted to report that with regular and lower, the round fell in the same turn, but that is not what happened as there was a spotting round in the turn immediately prior to the conscript's barrage. There was no consistency between the *amount* of time between the spotting round and the FFE barrage, within a given experience level of FO, that is, one trial, elite spotting round falls on second 45, next trial, on second 60. SO, my comment that the spotting round typically falls in the same turn as the FFE was incorrect. With CMBO, I generally never spent the points on experienced FOs, so my comment was based on limited observation. Sorry for the rabbit trail. Note - no off target barrages in the tests.

Are you saying that FFE 60 seconds after the first spotting round, then 30 seconds after the second? If that's correct, then my assumption is completely at odds with reality. Happens. I'll check it out tonight.

It is, I imagine, or at least it was in CMBO. The more common smaller stuff (not going to make a "cut off" point here, because I don't know where that is), seemed to typically fall in the same round.

Question - what is the delay between the spotting round and the commencement of FFE rounds? It seems that the usual case is they both land in the same turn - no adjustments can be made between the spotting round and the barrage.

Thanks TB. It does give the general impression that adjustment inolves the slight "within-100m-green-line" type adjustment we were referring to. Okay, maybe I didn't adjust enough times. The barrage will exhaust the ammo, obviously, if I have to make several "adjustments", spaced one minute apart. Well, good thing they're rare. This is the first time I've noticed it in, I guess, six weeks of daily play.

What does it say regarding spotting rounds / adjustment of FFE, precisely? If it's too much to type out, I'll look at it when I get home in another three hours.

True. No dispute about that, and anyone who has played the game for more than a week should be aware of this and be careful about plotting arty barrages at the limit of LOS. That is definitely NOT what happened with the experience I related above as the LOS tool indicated at least another 50m radius (probably much more) around the target was within LOS - it was in wide open, flat terrain. Now there's an idea. We really need some comment on this. I think its a neat feature, but just want to know how it works. [second edit made to include the following:] However, that's really not an adjustment, but plotting a new order. I wish I had the manual in front of me. I don't recall that it stated plotting a new barrage target was needed. [ November 04, 2002, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: Agua ]

That would be fine, except the manual represents that the off target barrage can be corrected by adjusting the targeting. If they wanted non-correctable, off target barrages, then why should they indicate that they can be corrected through adjustment? [edited to include the word "non-correctable" for the purpose of clarity] [ November 04, 2002, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: Agua ]

I believe he was referring to the ability to "adjust" targetting by moving the line to a different target within 100m and within LOS. If this is done, you suffer a minor delay time (as compared to the original targetting). That feature was present in CMBO, as well. That does not appear to make the correction for the "off target barrage" that we're discussing here. I believe Bh stated previously that he didn't believe that it happened, or that maybe he hadn't seen it.

If you're referring to the apparent inability to correct the odd off-target barrage, which is stated to be correctable in the manual, then I agree. Perhaps we're just not doing it right though. Maybe it requires an entirely new plotting - maybe it requires the player to attempt to estimate the deviation and compensate by "adjusting" in the opposite direction of the variance. Dunno.

BH, It happens. It happened to me last night with a crack 75mm FO. Either the FO had LOS, or the LOS tool was giving false info, as were the LOS tools for a PzIII about 10m to the left of the FO. It's not a common occurrence, but it does happen. I had read in the manual that it can occur, so it didn't freak me out or anything. However, when I attempted to adjust the targeting, I moved it ever so slightly to the right of the original target. The LOS line was green, indicating that the call in would benefit from reduced delay because it was 1) within LOS, and 2) it was within 100m of the original targeting point. Following adjustment of the targeting, the rounds landed waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off again, though in another direction (not the same direction as the adjustment I made to the original target). I'm just wondering if it's a bug, or how the adjustment is made.

Yeah. There's already a thread treating this scenario. I'm not sure if it's in the Tips forum or not though. Excellent training for infantry work.

Okay, thanks, and congrats. Nice job. I've tried similar and the PSWs skulking up to the front get taken out by the AT guns.

Agreed.

yapma, Since this thread was created for spoilers, tell us how you did it.

Guys, give it a chance. It takes some getting used to, but you have to use the new infantry movement commands. You still use, generally, the same tactics you used in CMBO, you just have to go more slowly - don't try to cover as much ground in each order. Stephen, this may be a result, to some extent, of the scenarios you have chosen to play. There's one on the CD named "Hill 312" that works as a good infantry "training" scenario. Think about what the new commands do, use the terrain just like in CMBO, don't ask a single unit / platoon to do too much in one turn, focus your support teams to the immediate task confronting your infantry, and give that one a try.

He he hehee. Setting the QB to random everything with computer picked forces, I got a North region, February, no snow, treeless, flat, infantry only, attack QB, the other night, with the defender in trenches, a single stone wall and a peasant shack for cover. It went about as you imagine.

Not uncommon. With the "view movie" turn between order phases, which must be transferred between the players, the already slow pace of pbem play is exaggerated with CM and people just lose interest. TCP play works well though, except that it requires blocks of time to be set aside that a lot of people don't have available.

Yup, or at least that's my experience. Any enemy unit that is seen by a squad will be sufficient to halt movement. If they begin the turn with LOS to a spotted enemy unit, they won't move. Read the thread in the "Tips and Tricks" forum styled "CMBB Infantry Tactics" for a brief discussion of relative advantages / disadvantages / uses of the infantry commands.

I ran into this the first night with the demo and a platoon of T-34s. It was during setup as well. I've run into it a time or so since then, but, IIRC, it resolves itself following the setup. Was that your experience?

Thanks Ben, That's all I need to know. I'll change the setup zones and see what can be done with VLs. Beautiful map.

Hmmmmm..... The map is beautiful, but the default setup zones appear to allow only meeting engagements to be played when imported as a quick battle. That is, most (all?) of the VLs are outside the setup zones when setup for "assault" and "attack" engagement types. Am I doing something wrong here? Can I edit the setup zones?

I honestly don't know, as I don't know how size of the file relates to the resources available, though I have a 128mb graphics card and two gigabytes of RDRAM. TBC - That's what I was wondering. The stock graphics really do look oustanding, and it may not be worth the modders' time to attempt improvements beyond insignas, "dirtying", and such.