c3k

Man, I wish I could find someone who knew anything about a good pair of Oakleys. Oh, wait, he seems to've found this forum. Lucky us!

My understanding is that the round is tracked to the exact point of impact. That determines which part got hit. The text descriptor may be inexact. What are the thickness, slope, and gross metallurgical properties of Priest superstructure armor?

The Romans invented that, doncha know.

FWIW, I thought I'd had my laptop set for CMBN. I was frustrated by the lack of playability. Then I found out I had to RIGHT CLICK the CMBN icon and one of the drop-down menu choices was "graphics setting" or somesuch. Selecting that allowed me to choose "default integrated" or "Dedicated graphics" (or something similar). By selecting the dedicated graphics I finally got the gameplay I thought I should get. BTW, this was despite setting the graphics card menu for CMBN. It took the right-click method to FORCE the operating system to perform the action. Good luck.

I would add a similar sentiment. Ian Daglish did a great job combining actual combat photo recce footage with detailed topo maps and combat reports to create the 3 books in his "Over the Battlefield" series. Depending on your knowledge of Normandy, they may be too tactical in outlook; you may benefit from studying strategic and operational level books, first. Regardless, you WILL regret not having these three books on your shelf at some point in your life. Buy them.

Welcome. Welcome to the machine...

Ramming. That's what they'll cry for; ramming.

Do a quick test. Set up a few stugs, fire off all their HE rounds (area target) then shoot 'em at ammo-less priests 1200m away. The stugs should fire AP and we'll all find out what kind of penetration you may/may not see.

What was the range?

Congratulations.

What is happening to cause this?

Obviously, the best would be to play CMBN but allow me to use CMSF Marine squads against my PBEM oppo's. And an Abrams or two.

Offensive use? It's very simple. Hook them up to their tow vehicle, and then ENSURE you only move by using REVERSE. That should get you pointed in the right direction...

Nicely done... Thanks. Ken

You're on the wrong front, comrade. Get yourself a penal battalion and have them clear out the landmines. Tovarisch.

Drive-byes are nice, but so too are are drive-buys. The worst of the bunch are the drive-bys. (I have an image of a jeep full of armed-to-the-teeth US paratroopers zooming past a bunch of befuddled landsers, who can only watch as the paratroopers wave farewell...)

Whatever round they need at that moment. It's a bit of Schrodinger's paradox: the loaded round is neither/both/all types until it is fired. A lot of threads have discussed this.

Hmmm, first, finding a 1,000 yard space while in the field (not at home base or depot) would be difficult. Second, measuring "exactly" 1,000 yards without surveyor's equipment is very hard. (1,000 paces by Smitty out in "that direction" is a rough approximation.) Third, taping (or otherwise affixing) two threads across a barrel and hoping you've got them at the opposite sides of muzzle is a bit hopeful. (It is very hard to precisely place a thread across the center of a circle. Doubly so with 2 threads. (Ignoring any req't to have them vertical and/or horizontal.)) Fourth, eyeballing down the muzzle to align the threads with the target seems fraught with error. A sight uses 2 points to align; using crossed threads at the muzzle is a single point. If the loader's eyeball is not precisely centered at the breech, then the sight picture is misaligned. Fifth, wrenching the GUN to meet the SIGHT? That seems....harder than the other way 'round. Finally, sixth, I've never done this, all the above is my immediate impression of the errors that could occur. Ken

I spent well over a grand on "ruggedized" optics and mounts for a rifle. See, they tell you the cheap stuff won't stand up to being dropped, thrown, or banged around. Having spent 5 to 8 times more than normal for a "ruggedized" system has made me realize it's too expensive to be dropped, thrown, or banged around. I guess their plan worked! Having spent all that extra cash, indeed, it's stayed zeroed in nicely since I'm so afraid to damage it.

Ahh, but when speaking of artillery barrages, is not "intensive purposes" a very descriptive phrase? It certainly means something different than "harassing purposes", or "smoke screen purposes". Indeed, when I order steel death to rain upon my foe, I frequently do so with quite an intensive purpose myself!

Winkelreid, thanks for putting in the time and effort to quantify the bog or immobilize results. I'm confused by your table. If you have 55 tanks but 72 bogs, does that mean that some tanks bogged more than once? After they did bog, did they continue for the entire test distance? (Sorry, I forget the total distance they travelled. I know it's upstream somewhere.) Plotting the speed vs. immobile numbers is interesting. Thanks, Ken

My emphasis added. What I _think_ should happen is that, depending on morale and the kind of enemy in sight, they should either engage, hide, or run away. If they're going to engage, then small arms (secondary weapons) would be appropriate. If they're running away, whether then or later, why should they throw away a bazooka or panzerschreck launcher? They should keep it. You should coordinate a rendezvous with a resupply truck or halftrack so they can get more rockets. From your description, it certainly sounds like they're acting appropriately. Ken

I think the upper floor issue MAY be caused by something which may be seen in this diagram. |3___X___e| |2________| |1________|_______|_f Friendly unit, "f" is behind an obstacle. Enemy unit, "e", is known to be on the 3rd floor of a building, but is out of LOS. If enemy unit "e" pops up, then "f" can see them and shoot them. However, since "e" is hiding (or suppressed, etc.), then "f" has no option but to area fire at the third floor. Unfortunately, the action spot for the third floor is located at "X". Drawing a straight line from "f" to "X" intersects the obstacle in front of "f". That blocks "f"'s ability to TARGET "X". Drawing a straight line from "f" to "e" (where enemy unit "e" is known to be hiding) clears the low obstacle in front of "f". The game algorithm prevents LOF to that location unless an enemy unit is visible. So, although all the 3rd floor windows are visible, friendly unit "f" cannot area target any of the windows. Do I have it correct?

This was true in CMSF. Area fire can only be targeted at Action Spots. A building has more action spots than open ground, but not every window or door is an action spot. This problem occurs when an obstacle obstructs your unit's view of the desired action spot. The enemy then pops up from in a window. He shoots at you. Remember... If the enemy is in LOS, you CAN shoot at him. The problem gets annoying when that enemy ducks down. Now, you don't have LOS to the enemy, nor do you have LOS to the action spot. You cannot fire at his location. Grrrr. However, this should only occur when the building's action spot is obscured by an obstacle to the SIDE. Are you saying that you can see the entire, say, 3rd floor of a building but cannot fire at the 3rd floor because there is an LOS obstacle blocking your view of the 1st and 2nd floors? That would be a new issue. If you can see the entire width of a floor, then you should be able to draw an LOS to the action spot... Hmm, unless the LOF is drawn to the inside of a large building... Then the LOS line would intersect the building facade LOWER than the targeted floor. Is this what is occurring? See my cool picture: F4 X3 F2 F1__________|___Y Y is shooting at X3. The LOS line gets blocked by wall | because the line goes to the LEFT of the X, causing it to enter the building somewhere on F2? The | blocks LOS to any portion of F2. Is this the condition? Ken

^^^ This touches on one of the factors that seem to be in the game. Remember, tests have repeatedly shown that units HIDING in a stone building are generally immune to area fire. (Area fire is distributed across the face of the building. The smaller building footprint and the lower the building, the more firepower will be concentrated. Many have tested this. Please try it and see if their conclusions are wrong.) So, building walls (excepting barns, sheds, or other flimsy structures) provide COVER. As stated above, windows do not provide cover. If an entire squad is located together in a building location, each window available to the squad will be crowded with men trying to get a shot off. That is a recipe for high casualties. Imagine the same squad split into fire teams (or 2 man pairs) and distributed throughout the various levels and locations. Now their vulnerability to incoming fire through the windows is reduced due to their dispersion across many more windows. An experiment would be to put various 2 man scout teams (using US squads) in a building. Fire at it with, say, an MG bunker. Put enough scout teams in there to equal the size of a full squad. Make the building 2 or 3 floors tall with a good footprint. Then do the same test with a full squad in a single location. Set up 10 of these at a time and run the test 10 times. 100 iterations of each type, with incoming fire and the building being identical would give some good trend information. Now run it with the infantry HIDING. Try both sets - squads and scout teams - 10 times. Now change the building size. Make it smaller. Run the same 100 iterations. Apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Data versus "feel". (I'd set the range to around 100-150m. Fanatic for all. Tight cover arcs for the units in the buildings. Everyone in command, +2.) What I've suggested is 10 iterations of up to 6 different tests. 60 total runs, each with 10 samples. Use WeGo to have savegames and replays available for review. I would think about 5 minutes of incoming fire would be sufficient. The first run would be the one which would determine the length of each test. So, 5 turns, 60 runs. Assume each run takes 3 minutes (saves, reviews, annotating data, etc.) gives 3x5x60= 15 hours of testing. Bueller? Bueller?