c3k

GOODWOOD was a decent example of how bad air support could be. It was marginally effective, overall. On a relative scale, based on the effort, it was horrible. The safety margin was measured in thousands of yards. Infantry had to relinquish hard-won gains to create the buffer needed for safety. It took DAYS of conferences to coordinate. I forget how many friendly casaulties were inflicted. (Back then, that was recognized as a price to pay. Not needlessly, but war is bloody.) Next was COBRA. Total screwup. Really. Day 1 was the aborted attack. Only a bunch of bombers didn't get the word. Their attack, crosswise to the "box" was a surprise to the ground forces. They'd expected a run parallel to the front. This after WEEKS of coordination. The re-huddled, and re-launched the next day. Again, crosswise to the "box". Of course, now at least some in the ground forces knew this would happen. Both days, lots of shorts. Hundreds of friendly casualties. That was pre-planned, with navigation to fixed targets identified on recon photos, in daylight, with good visibility. (At least at start.) And still, hundreds of friendlies were killed or wounded. WWII CAS was fraught with danger for everyone involved. (Modern CAS has a LOT of improvements, but screaming in at 600 knots doesn't leave a lot time to visually acquire anything. And the USAF brass hates the A-10. Go figure.) Ken

The burning gunner frantically overcranked the gun's elevation mechanism, ignoring the commander's orders that he cease damaging Reich equipment. Then, using the yawning gap he'd created, the gunner dove out of the burning panzer head first. It makes sense to me. No bug here. Move along... Cool flame mod. Whose is it? Okay, elevation "error": you don't have a savegame, but do you know what the Jagdpanzer was doing BEFORE the gun elevated? (I assume the AI has the Jagdpanzer.) Was it rotating, reversing, engaging a target, etc. ANY savegames, not necessarily this turn? Ken

Nah. That's just the price they pay for being pedestrians. Or, don't let your men move around before an airstrike. Keep them in cover/concealment. The airstrike will hit what it can spot. Bigger safety zones and "freeze" your forces. It won't eliminate the chances of friendly fire, but it should lower the chances of it happening.

If you have to ask, you obviously haven't read all the previous posts!

Good eye. Already caught.

SPOILER * * * * * * In that scenario I passed one bazooka across the creek, one along the creek, and one towards the farm near the bridge. Each was accompanied by some infantry. They got cut down by various snipers, machineguns, etc. However, I did use the mortar to blast the bridge area and kill/suppress the German troops. Then the mortar smoked the Tiger. That gave the 57mm time to setup. I pegged the Tiger with many, many rounds of 57mm. Some penetrated the turret. Most ricocheted. Eventually the Tiger crew fled. A very tough nut to crack.

EXACTLY! Or, the tactically nuanced battle chronologist meets the gamey edge hugger! If they didn't want me to win at the end, they wouldn't have put a clock there, would they? I feel like I need to rush my men at some more tanks. It'll be good for them. (And, yes, I owe you a turn.)

Egads! The final screenie is the one above. Sigh. The mid/endgame is working out the best I'd like. Well, I'd prefer for some of the PIAT hits to've destroyed what they hit. As well, that Glider pilot PIAT team getting hit and the one survivor running out was not the best. Given all that (and the forces involved), this is how I'd like the battle to be working. Check my previous posts. Time will be the key... I have infantry. I need to get the company around the Dunes into the fight. I want them to get the road intersections. If my timing is right, then I will be able to do so. If I've started this push too soon, then Bil will have time to crush my men under his tracks. Ken

19:00 to 18:00, cont... TOWN The town sees more of the same. Bil seems to like to soften things up a bit. Tactically speaking, that. He kills my one guy and wounds another with a long round. Two men down. Not bad. I kill another halftrack gunner. I've got some guys hanging about providing buddy aid. Because that's what the white hats do. My arty is dropping around, not too hard. Bil has ZERO infantry about. That doesn't bode well for any kind of town attack. My defense has left the obvious targets mostly empty. Like that house. Guessing at targets isn't that fruitful. It takes a LOT of arty to cover all the hiding places. My defense is still at about 85%. But when you add in their motivation, due to the adoring way they look up at me, it's more like 110%!!! One last one... This could start next turn with a bang, no? Ken out. I've got one final screenie...

Turn 19:00 to 18:00, cont. Dunes, more: The middle is getting fun. Bil is adding more strength and pulling in. That's a concentration. He is sooo easy to mold to my liking. I'd like my PIAT man to kill his Panther. Regardless, now that his combat power is away from the town, I can move the CS tank over. If I can disable/kill Jaggie 241. That's my biggest PITA right now. Windmill No. 4 Platoon may just gain the windmill. My center push has a chance of derailing Bil's total plan. That windmill is a pivot he cannot ignore. The entire battle will rotate around it. Punny? Aye, but true. Jaggie 241 is key. Hunting Jeep My plan is to drive right up to the backside of Jaggie 241, unload these three brutes, and have at it with man versus beast! I've got one demo and 6 grenades. And a pair o'brass ones. It will be GLORIOUS! If Jaggie goes, then my backfield is free. With 18 minutes left, the battle is mine! Mostly. In a skewed sort of outlook. More...

A NEW TURN IS UP!!! And verily, they cheered. Turn 19:00 to 18:00 Overview Above, showing the fun stuff. Jaggie 241 is redboxed. My CS tank is yellow boxed. Center Piat man is green boxed. Town is blue boxed. This is a positioning turn. We're wrestling for an advantage. CS Tank This turn was a dud. I didn't give 'em any area targets so they could be free to engage targets they spotted. Of course, you need to spot targets for that to work. Next turn, a 15 second target order, then FAST to a better position. Hopefully he'll live. If he does, I'll pull him out and help to fight Jaggie 241. (Panzerfausts are my concern. I'll shove 'em close after some suppression and see what happens.) DUNES More....

Danke 4 ten

Nah, I know that his AA halftracks are neutered. As is he!!! All of these have already been addressed. My benefits: - the Piats shoot too far. Really. Extreme range should be about 1/2 what I'm using. - His AA halftracks can't reload. My drawbacks: - my antitank teams take a Bren gunner with them. I had to "cut and paste" my sections to get the Piat guys separated out. It hurt my flexibility. - Infantry chooses the HARDEST cover to move through, rather than the easiest. Some cool (and good) reasons for this, but the dial is twisted too far over. That makes my guys (who depend on leg speed) fatigue far too quickly. An up to date build, taken at this "frozen moment", would see me in dire straits. However, an up to date build would not have gotten me to this "frozen moment". Well, I hope not.

Destraex1, I'm no tech guru, nor do I play RT much. (Only VERY small battles. Feeble minds and all that... ) However, reading your post, the common denominator seems to be imprecise mouse pointing. (Camera placement and box bounding.) Do you have an AMD video card? If so, you should not have the options toggled for it anymore. (There are some threads kicking around on this. Used to be that AMD's implementation of 3d was "off" from what the OpenGL docs called for. BFC put a special code in to make it better. You turn on that code by toggling the AMD graphics option in the menu. Sorry, I've forgotten what it's called. If you need it, let me know and I'll look it up. Anyway, now AMD's drivers are correct. I don't know which driver series got it up. I'm using 12.3 or something.) Long winded. Try it. If you don't have an AMD/ATI video card, ignore all this. Ken

LOL! That was funny. Seriously. Thanks for the chuckle. You, too, GJR144. - It seems that you want to order grenades to be thrown. -- Can you order just your marksman to fire? No. -- Can you order just your smg'er to fire? No. --- You command the UNIT. The men CHOOSE what they do. Free choice, in a pixeltruppen level sort of way. --- If you WANT grenades to be thrown, all you need to do is use the TARGET command. If your men have frag grenades, and the enemy is in range, they'll probably use 'em. Have you tried that? --- Or is the gist of your complaint the RANGE at which frag grenades can be used? - Taking machineguns from wounded men while ignoring their heart-rending pleas: --- Really? This has been addressed sooo many times. You may disagree with the rationale, but spewing forth in the way in which you've chosen to do so does nothing to argue against the rationale. A tantrum does not help. --- If you want to gain support weapons while leaving the wounded there, you're ignoring what keeps a weapon in the fight. Just grabbing a weapon doesn't do much good if you need ammo for it. Giving buddy aid to the dead only takes a few seconds. That's about right to grab a weapon and the ammo for it. And only a bit longer for the wounded; grab the weapon, slap his bandage on the wound, give (or get) a word of encouragement, then back up the hill. - Getting sidearms from wounded/dead --- Sure that would be nice. Please expound on why you think that should be coded. Seriously, without the histrionics. How many SMG's work when slick with blood? How about when hit by incoming fire? How many rounds/magazines do you need? Etc. Do a search. Look at the reasons put forth by BFC for the way things are. You'll probably see things like, "We agree with you, but don't have time to code that in right now", or, "We disagree with you, and will not code that in". It's called "reasoned discourse". Of course, you can always just vent and then be ridiculed. Your choice. Ken

Ahh, the long awaited "Fire Patch"? Alas, but Bil and are locked into this particular battle in a pre-release form, so I cannot hope for burning flames of purity to immolate my enemy! Without getting into too many details, this version has differences from the release version. Overall, I fear the balance of those changes may've benefited me more than they helped Bil. Ken

Gents, An update: Bil (who has had real-life intervene in dramatic fashion), would like to continue this battle. He has stated that, time permitting, he will get back on it, shortly. This is great news. Now my Hunting Jeep can go on safari and bag that nasty Jaggie! My prowling PIAT can kill that Lucky Panther! My marksmen can kill more of his machinegunners! My No. 4 Platoon can sate their insatiable desire to find out what the inside of a windmill looks like! Bil will never gain the town. Never, I say! Ken out.

How much of that would be accomplished using the lowest difficulty setting?

^^^ That would be odd, unless they saw a bigger threat outside of the zone that they were able to fire at from their at-start position. It takes LONGER to deploy in a building due to the need to find, and set up, a fire position which is stable and not leaning out a window. The deploy timer on the unit UI should adjust for their present terrain. Does it show 2 minutes? Ken

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

^^^ This is a subject with a LONG history. What's been posted, above, is part of it. The single greatest factor in gaining hits is accurate range estimation. The higher the muzzle velocity, the less sensitive the weapon is to errors in range estimation. Totally made up numbers follow: A weapon with a 3,000 fps MV can have a 20% range error and still hit a 2m tall target at 1,000m. A weapon with a 2,000 fps MV can only have a 5% range error to hit the same target. (Those are MADE UP NUMBERS!!!) That example shows what an advantage the German long guns had over the medium velocity 75's so prevelant in the Allied arsenal. The great equalizer was the British 17 pounder. It had a muzzle velocity similar to the German long 75's and long 88's. Hope that helps.

My men were motivated. Oddballs are not. Don't use my BETA aar to compare the release version. Also, every one of my teams had smg's (volume of fire) and scoped enfields with marksmen. My men were highly experienced. Whereas there MAY be an issue, my game vs. Bil is an apple to Oddball's orange. Ken

Well, I guess there's nothing I need to say!

Jentz lists the glacis as being 150mm at 50 degrees. (Measured from vertical) The lower front plate, the nose plate, is 100mm, also at 50 degrees from vertical. The "wedge", where the glacis meets the lower nose plate, should measure 80 degrees from one armor surface, through the interior, to the other armor surface. I think the in-game model is too blunt. Ken

What about the glacis slope angle? Is that correct in-game?