c3k

You suck at tactics? Hmm, sounds like the PERFECT pbem partner. PM me. C'mon. You know you'll get it. Just buy the whole bundle. It just went on sale. Tell your wife it's for Christmas. Regardless, welcome back!

Do Russian war movies have the same hackneyed stereotypes? You know, farm boy, Brooklyn, true heart Indian, and the father figure NCO/Captain, and the unblooded Looie who dies to atone for his earlier mistakes? What would they have? The Muscovite, streetwise and arrogant. The Ukrainian wheat farm boy, wide eyed and innocent. The scamming Georgian, always scheming and trading. The Uzbeck, who listens to the ground and states, "3 Tigers to the West. They approach with hate in their hearts. We have 10 minutes." The Komsomol recruit who keeps looking to his pocket guide as if that will tell him what to do while under direct machinegun fire. And the Commissar, waving his pistol about, foam and spittle flying, who dies while gloriously taking out the Tiger tank and saving the men who hated him. Just wondering...

I've always been surprised at how much emphasis has been placed on the tactical influence of armored trains. Now, I've never fought against one, but you know it will only appear if the railroad tracks are present and uncut. However, Stalin and Hitler thought allocating one to a certain area would bring about instant results. There must've been some reason to have such belief in them. Shrug. Ken

"T": Rokko describes it just upstream, post 11. There's a thread showing it. I'll try to find it. Meanwhile, what you do is start at least 2 AS away from the obstacle. From 1 AS away, order a BLAST which takes you up to, but not through, the obstacle. So, using my l33t ascii skillz: 0-B-X 0 is start AS B is blast AS X is obstacle The blast will be directed forwards, through the obstacle. Now, if your guys are finished at the B location, any enemy will fire through the gap they just created and decimate them. (At least, that's my experience.) So, after the BLAST command, give 'em a QUICK or FAST in a lateral direction (left or right) to shelter in cover. That's the "T". Edited to add: Here are two threads with pictures and words. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100140&highlight=Blast+command&page=2 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98406&highlight=Blast+command They should help. Ken

Or "T" them into the obstacle, not through it. The parallel technique (sometimes) leaves a wider hole in bocage. That's what I use when I want vehicles to have access. The "T" technique is useful for buildings, or other point obstacles when you don't want your engineers moving laterally. Some good folks have created tutorials with great pictures of how to do this. My search skills are lacking, but the threads exist somewhere... Ken

You can aim smoke very easily. First, give a FACE command. Give it where you want the smoke to go. Next, give the POP SMOKE command. You'll see that it aligns precisely with the previous FACE command. Presto magicko: you've just aimed your smoke. Ken

Verdammt! If it weren't for that darn mantlet deflection problem, they would've succeeded!

These issues have been noted and passed on to the appropriate jar. Keep 'em coming. Ken

Gah... Yes, MG is built with v2.0. Sorry for the incomplete/wrong information.

Thanks! Any verification? Ken

The v2.0 upgrade gets applied to all the games in the family: CMBN + all the modules you own (and buy later). V2.0 only needs to be purchased once. I highly recommend it. (It is not mandatory, but it brings a lot of improvements.) Ken

So, all those Sherman tankers talking about their 75's being worthless against the front of the Panther were wrong??? Panther losses were staggering. They were outflanked, over-extended, and self-destroyed. However, frontal penetrations were rare. 76's helped. 90's were good. C'mon. Let's not mix up unit stats with individual combats and facings.

LOL, I rarely get a chance to just play the game lately. However, I did create some time and sat down last week and picked this one. I hadn't looked at it during the development process. It's a gem! FWIW, I really enjoyed the map, the intel, the briefing, the nature of the fight, etc. Is there a typo in the briefing? Yep. But then, just about every posting I make has one, as well. The one typo I saw does not detract in any manner. So, if you've read this thread, give this battle a shot. As recommended, I played as US vs. AI, one run through - NO restarts! - and won. Well, -I- won: my many dead paratroopers may not think of themselves as victors. Nice battle. Ken

What is this "East" of which you speak? Did something happen other than Normandy?

Woods. Your men will die. The advantage, rightfully, goes to the units which are immobile and waiting. Woods hunters don't walk around hoping to trip into a deer. They wait for the deer to come to them. So, you can either do as they do, and load a bait trap, spray some pheromes around, cover yourself in the urine of a menstruating female, or you can use tactics. I prefer tactics. Split your squads up. Spread out. Use scouts. Then use more scouts. Leapfrog when moving. Not necessarily over one another, but nearby. Squad 1 should be split into Team A and B. (Bonus if you can get a C.) A sits. Draw a Target line. If it stops at 20m, then that's as far as B will go (or just shy of that spot). Move B up. Let B sit, then move A up. Use Hunt for the point team. Every squad does this. Keep the leadership with the weakest squad. You'll need more men. Always. Sit, wait, watch. If you move quickly in the woods, you will die.

8 faces of death: or, is the panther mantlet modeled in steps, not as a curve. I understand the question posed by this. (If you look closely, there are no curves anywhere in the game. Everything is rendered with straight line segments. The Panther mantlet is shown this way as well. It has 8 (if I counted right) segments. (Or, thinking of it as a part of a wine or beer barrel, 8 staves.)) The solution, as discussed upstream, would be to trace the arc of EVERY upward deflecting round fired from the same location and see if they follow 8 paths, or individual paths. If they fall into 8 paths (actually 4, due to the 1/2 which would deflect upwards), then the game models the mantlet as shown, rather than as it was. If that is true, then the downward deflection model may be broken. VaB has done a TREMENDOUS amount of work on this. I, for one, applaud you for it. Sincerely. Ken

We don't actually know this. Why do you think the game differs from reality? Ken

VaB, I am actually sympathetic to your argument. However, calling a hypothetical 1^ angle of incidence requirement a "band" is stretching it a bit. My point wasn't whether or not it was a band or a singularity, rather that the extent of the band is unknown. It is also unknown whether the band size is a constant for different rounds, or for the same round at different velocities. Panther crews were confident enough in their vehicles to face Allied armor. Allied armor, for the most part, considered the Panther invulnerable to the fornt. Many Panthers were destroyed. Many through side and rear hits, many through self destruction for various reasons. Some through frontal penetrations. (Stop it!). A very low subset of that suffered from the ricochet effect. How many thousands of rounds had to be fired at a Panther to get one ricochet into the hull roof? (Likewise, if you told me the odds of two bullets hitting one another in a battle, I'd show you the various Gettysburg displays showing just that. Should that be modeled in a Civil War tactical game? Would it make a difference one way or the other? Not the same: I understand. (A Panther ricochet by an otherwise underpowered gun can be quite the game changer.)) Until there is hard data on real life ballistics, we're all just guessing. (JasonC's maths nothwithstanding.) Ken

No. Imagine that a specific round has to hit the mantlet at a 67^ angle to deflect into the roof. 66^ is non ricochet as is 68^. (Fictitious example. ) The mantlet is symmetrical in this case. Nor does it matter what elevation the Panther gun is at. In fact, it relies upon symmetry for this effect to be a vulnerability. The imaginings that there was a broad band of mantlet impact zones that could cause the ricochet is baseless. It may have been one specific angle foe each shell. Further, I would postulate that the ogive of the shell would be critical to this effect. As would L/D ratio, angle of incidence, velocity, alloy, energy, and any compound angle. It was a rare phenomenom. It was taught as a ray of hope to outgunned allied troops. It existed but was more rare than Luke's ability to destroy the deathstar with a single shot. In fact, that should be analyzed by the statistically mimded amongst us as a comparison. The ricochet spot may be a lot smaller than many think. Yhe reality of many engements remain to tell us that the ticochet effect was very rare. Typos due to smart phone and bumpy road... Ken

Okay, what if it hits the bottom 1/100th of the mantlet? Will it hit the roof? No, it will hit the lower edge of the turret face. What about the lower 2/100th? Etc. The "band" to ricochet into the hull roof may not exist. It may be a specific spot, only. (Different, based on different shells, etc.) YES, Panthers took hits which ricocheted and penetrated the 16mm hull roof. Sometimes the driver or radio operator were hit by them. But which ones? (Shots, that is...) And, based on the relative rarity of the chin mantlet and the incredible reputation for frontal invulnerability that the Panther had, it must've been VERY RARE to get a ricochet which put the Panther out of the fight. Ken

Umm, if half bounced UP, that would be about right for a random distribution of hits, right? What if the game doesn't randomize the aimpoint? Is it biased towards the center of mass? How many would hit the lower "sweet spot" band? That band is PURE conjecture. Perhaps it's a precise spot, different for each round/velocity/impact angle combination. Not discounting the work you've accomplished, which is great, but of the 2310 mantlet hits in v2.12, how many were from a "bad" spot, how many with a "good" combination? Pouring over the books, I don't see a consensus about where and how to take advantage of this supposed "guarantee" ricochet effect in real life. Only that it MAY be possible and it's the ONLY chance you've got if facing a Panther with certain Allied tanks. Ken

Again, I decry the assumption of knowledge about this phenomenon. Perhaps that 1^ descent angle is critical, when considering the ogive of the shell, curvature of the mantlet, and location relative to the mantlet. Ken

LOL! You can't scare me with those words!

I'm glad that VaB has found that the game does, indeed, replicate this effect. JasonC is on a quest to show that it should happen...more often. I don't see how you can even start to question whether the game models the frequency correctly. Given: No one knows what conditions in real life created this effect. Given: No one has tested the conditions in the game which create this effect. Ergo, you cannot compare an unknown to an unknown and declare that one of the unknowns is wrong. Now, obviously VaB has (through persistence, diligence, hard work, etc.,) found ONE condition which works. ("Work" defined as a specific weapon, range, and aspect ratio which creates an in-game ricochet/roof penetration.) What about using the SAME weapon, range, and aspect ratio, but with a DIFFERENT ammunition? Should it work? Shrug. Now, let's start moving the aspect ratio: Slightly askew, rather than nose-on. Should the compound angle increase or decrease the odds of the rooftop penetration? (Remember, this is not an intuitive problem. If it were, do you think the Germans would've designed the mantlet that way in the first place?) Next, let's change the range. And the angles. Oh, we haven't mentioned different elevations of target/shooter. Now let's change the weapon... In short, VaB's work has shown a data point. (And some null points.) Great. Sincerely. But to what do we compare it to? The Isigny test? Okay, tell me the muzzle velocity of the round fired, the range, the aspect ratio, the relative heights, the armor hardness, etc. All of these are variables. "We shot it from 800m." Really? Not 832m? Nor 787m? Does that make a difference? I don't know. Perhaps that 800m ricochet was an extreme outlier. There is no information presented which describes the real life vulnerability. Only anecdotes. So far, the game physics ALLOW this behavior. It's just not where you thought it should be. Okay, defend why it should be the way you want it to be. Ken

Congratulations! You've spotted the unicorn. - Chin models: oops, I must've been thinking about a different CM game. - Lower 1/4 of the mantlet vs. lower 1/2 of mantlet: where did I hear that before? - Change weapon and elevation: did someone say that the ricochet effect may only be seen at very specific ranges/engagement characteristics? Now that you've found what works, I'd be hesitant to include the non-working tests as part of a baseline. Ken