zahl

I can't give any recommendations, but I think that no atlas has the level of detail that is needed here. Erickson's operational narrative is painfully detailed. To get an idea, the maps should show Rzhev-Vyazma area locations like Osuga, Semelevo, Pogoreloe, Solnenino and Certolino. And that was just one page worth of obscure towns/villages! The Cassell Atlas of the Second World War by Peter Young, for example, has 48 Eastern Front maps, but is hopelessly inadequate. West Point maps are even worse. The maps should also show minor rivers, lakes, heights, woods and marshland.

The notion that you can detect non-daisy chain mines in CM without setting them off is one persistent misconception. Several guys ran rigorous tests in many earlier threads with a wide array of scenarios, but were unable to demonstrate a single case of successful AT/AP mine detection. Then invariably some folks come forth to claim that they see it regularly in normal game play. For my part, I've never seen it in 2+ years.

More figures from When Titans Clashed: "Red Army Personnel Losses" including killed, missing, captured, wounded, sick, etc. 1941 - 4,308,094 1942 - 7,080,801 1943 - 7,483,647 1944 - 6,503,204 1945 - 2,823,381 Wartime Totals - 28.2 million, of which 10.01 million killed or missing. Pay attention to that enormous 1945 figure - at that rate they would have taken close to 8.5 million yearly casualties had the war continued. Monthly averages almost rival their mindless losses from 1941. Total Soviet Union armed forces losses are then given as 29.6 million, including all branches, but does not include Poles or other Eastern Front Soviet allies. These figures should be as accurate as possible since they are derived from Soviet primary sources. Glantz gives the following info to explain the horrendous offensive losses: "Based on interviews conducted by the author with Soviet war veterans in July 1989, it is apparent that Soviet infantry casualties remained high throughout the war, in particular, in first echelon assault units. For example, when asked what the normal losses were in a first-echelon regiment on the main attack axis during the penetration phase of an operation, a former regimental commander of 97th Guards Rifle Division stated "pochti polovina" [almost half] of the regiment's strength. He went on to state that such was the case to the very end of the war." Red Army Weaponry Losses as given in Grif sekretnosti snyat by Krivosheev and quoted by Glantz: Tanks and SP Guns: 96,500 (13,700) Guns and mortars: 218,000 (16,000) Combat Aircraft: 88,300 (11,000) 1945 figures in parenthesis.

Swamp, Wreck and Ghost are definitely among the best players of the community, but there are other exceptional individuals who have not received the recognition they deserve. Hopefully this tourney will change that. The above three are famous because of their feats at TH. I hope that great Rugged Defense players, past or present, do not lose the second slot that was already listed. RD is afterall the largest CM ladder together with TH.

WineCape's first post in this thread currently has the following selection, at least until it is edited: 1. Rugged Defence: Awaiting official nomination 2. Tournament House: Swamp 3. Bands of Brothers: SurlyBen 4. Blitzkrieg: Major TakTik 5. WarefareHQ: DeathDealer 6: Fion Kelley 7: Wreck 8: Broken!

WineCape had two slots for RD players, Broken and RD's official nomination, but he changed it and gave the other one to TH. Now 3 members from TH and 1 from everybody else. A bit unfair, but of course it is up to the organizer.

Robert, I think you misunderstood WineCape's intention. The idea was to choose the players here via our vote. They will in essence represent themselves, not their tourney houses, thus ladder custodian's opinion is no more crucial than anybody's. Anyway, Broken is my nominee due to his exceptional record against RD veterans. Many RD top guys have attained their high rank by playing poorly rated opponents almost exclusively and do not belong in this competition. [ June 04, 2002, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: zahl ]

I feel Rugged Defense must be represented by one player. I nominate Broken. He doesn't play much, but has thrashed some of the best RD veterans repeatedly, losing only once, obtaining a winning percentage of 90%+ and reaching RD 2001 tourney finals unbeaten. He has a positive record against everybody he ever played.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf: Zahl, so what you want is correct orientation of tank and turret, but no marker for the target and no hint what the tank is shooting at. <hr></blockquote> Exactly. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I don't think that will do any good, the only difference is that you don't know in what distance from the tank the target is and what kind of target. Both will be pretty easy to guess, IMHO. I guess that is what makes our opinions different: non-absolute spotting as implementable in a CMBO-like game and as describben by Steves is not that much different from the absolute spotting we have now. It will make the gun more safe for a short time after it is being spotted (because other units will not shoot on it automatically), but after the next player plot phase everyone and their dog with still rain area fire on the gun's position. You seem to overestimate what this will achieve.<hr></blockquote> I think you are overestimating your ability to guess right. First, when you see direct fire impacts around your tank(s) or ricochets, you, as the player, would not know (even though some of your units might know) - 1) are the shooters tanks or guns 2) their type 3) how many shooters are there 4) their exact location. Your tank's first few shots can easily be +/- 30m off at 500m provided the terrain is flat and totally off if there are nasty elevations. More importantly, if there are many targets opening up simultaneously and even if your tank(s) spots all of them and engages one or two, you would have absolutely no idea where the rest are. Then your tank might spot an infantry unit, engage it and then receive direct fire. You would incorrectly assume that your tank is engaging a gun/tank when this enemy gun/tank would still be unspotted and be in a totally different direction. [ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: zahl ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf: 2) This marker is being engaged by the unit (and only by the unit) that spotted it, however the firing units doesn't show the player where it is shooting at.<hr></blockquote> This is more or less what I'm talking about, but there doesn't need to be a marker to start with (that the player can see). Even without the visible-to-the-player marker the unit that has spotted the target is himself aware of it and can engage it. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> 2) has the problem that CMBO generally has player-visible unit facing and turret position. You would have to make that "undefined", which is a pretty big step in the current CMBO logic. <hr></blockquote> No need to make that undefined. You would quite accurately know the target area, but you wouldn't (yet) know _what_ the unit is firing at. Just observing turret facing and impact locations would give you an idea where the target is. But since you don't yet know the target type, it would be unwise to drop and potentially waste area fire on it. Likewise it could be unwise to distract a platoon to "take it out" because you don't know what it is. Ie. a player would preserve his own observation, but this observation would be delayed, not immediate like now. Like I said, the player would gradually improve his observation when more units become aware of the target due to their own relative spotting. Because of this delay, your two gripes (unrelated indirect fire dropped there and unrelated units directed there) would not work. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> before 2) makes any sense, you will also have to break from reality in that only units in the shot path get a realistic chance of spotting, and that should obviously apply to a different degree if the shooter is a gun, a vehicle or a multi-man infantry unit.<hr></blockquote> I don't see why these two are necessary if relative spotting is implemented. [ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: zahl ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf: That still returns us to the original problem, that it is unfair for a single tank, or a tight pair of tanks being shot at by a gun. <hr></blockquote> I can't see how. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Those tank(s) need a fair chance to spot and engage the AT gun. What you say is more like the sound contact now, but nobody can shoot at it. <hr></blockquote> Just because _you_ would not see what your units' can see does not hinder their ability to spot and engage in any way. Tanks engage enemy guns on their own even now. This suggestion however makes it impossible for the player to manually optimize the unit's reaction and eliminates the two abuses you described: the player dropping area fire on the gun after somebody spotted it or directing a platoon to take it out.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf: Even the relative spotting in the engine rewrite as describben by Steve in some post will only be a partial solution. Once somebody spotted the gun, the player will still be able to drop area fire on it or direct a platoon there which in real life would have no idea that easy prey is waiting.<hr></blockquote> The player should not be aware of the gun just because somebody has spotted it. He would only know that the unit is firing at or can see something, or not even that. This would be confusing and make coordination incredibly hard, as it should be. The gun would be identified as Gun? only after more troops have relatively spotted it on their own.

The British 3in on-map mortar is an awesome weapon. Bang for the buck, it is equal to a 3in spotter, but is faster and more accurate. And you get some smoke for free. Each mortar has about 55 rounds of HE for a total blast value of about 1430. Solid arty tactics can negate solid infantry tactics and this is the tool for it. I'd really like to see your movies.

Titan - aren't you just dying to tell us how you routed KiwiJoe in the endgame?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Moon: No soldier on the battlefield knows the EXACT lines of sight around him. He can judge and he can look closer, that's about it. You, as the player, can do the same. Move down to a lower view level and use your eyes - judge. If you need to know exactly, use the LOS tool for some critical spots. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That is not a valid analogy since a soldier on the real battlefield "looking closer" can instantaneously see what in game terms would be a sector of the los field. Not full 360 degrees, but something like 90. He doesn't have to use some gamey bar to determine what exactly he can see. Well, not unless he has "pipe vision".

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: I did a test comparing two 75mm armed tanks, one with Gyros (M4) the other without (Cromwell). ... The gyro equipped tank gained an 8% advantage at 400 meters, but I only did 10 runs, so I have a bit of error in there. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You mean an 8% advantage or an advantage of 8 percentage points?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: BTW, I did get a chance to check with Charles. In an example he gave me a gyro *might* increase a specific vehicle's chance of hitting from something like 10% to 14% while on the move. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That is a very significant improvement, a 40% increase. Or 4 percentage points. Maybe the gyro bonus is dependent on speed and is greater when driving faster? The difference in accuracy was afterall close to 1.9x, although the difference in speed was only about 1.5x. What's more interesting is the good accuracy of the fast moving E8, 43%. This is clearly superior to the Hellcat, be it for whatever reason. The gap is also more narrow, 76% vs. 43%. It is quite difficult to be believe that a real world regular crew in that fast moving (13 mph) E8 could score a hit almost half of the time at 250m.

1000m in 103 secs would be 1000/103=9.7 m/s 9.7*3.6=34.95 km/h 34.95/1.609=21.7 mp/h I tested Hellcat's cross country speed on the fast move and got about 20 mph.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: I can assure you that 2x is way out of the ballpark. Charles is out right now so I can't get an exact number from him, but it is certainly not even close to that high. IIRC the Aberdeen report pegged the figure at about a 30% accuracy increase with gyro while moving compared to no gyro while moving. As I said, we downplayed the number. You are welcome to do some statistical tests if you like As for the Hellcat being the "wrong" choice, only if the test was designed to show the capabilities of the gyro. However, the test was not designed to do this at all. Instead, it was designed to show people that the perception that firing on the move comes without penalty is not grounded in reality. I could have chosen any turreted vehicle to demonstrate this. Steve<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The Hellcat was the wrong choice in the sense that your test failed to refute the basic argument that "chance to hit percentages don't seem to drop very much at all for some Allied vehicles when they are on the fast move". Various candidates were then proposed in this thread. To refute the above claim calls for the best candidate to be tested, a vehicle that is most accurate on the move. This is obviously not the Hellcat, but something that has the gyro installed. I used the same testing methodology you described earlier to see if the Easy Eight Sherman would fare any better than the Hellcat. First I ran the test with the five fast moving Hellcats until they had fired 300 shots at the Panthers. Average hit probability was identical to your test (69/300=23%). Then I replaced the Hellcats with E8 Shermans. Their average hit probability in identical conditions was 130/300=43%. Not exactly 2x better, but close The firing distance was always 200-300m. E8 was 1.87x more accurate than the Hellcat, so the gyro makes a huge difference.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: As I have said over and over again, the gyro does not aid on the move firing accuracy very much. It might ratchet up the numbers a few % points, but that is about it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Judging by all I've seen playing this magnificent game, I can't agree with that notion. Easy Eight Sherman appears to be significantly more accurate on the move than the Hellcat. Something like in excess of 2x. Too bad you chose the wrong vehicle in your test.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: The choice was made because, supposedly, the Hellcat has the biggest "fire on the move" bonus of all vehicles in the game since it is both fast and has the gyro installed<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If the Hellcat has the gyro installed, why is it not shown on the unit info screen?

In my experience, non-gyroed tanks are very inaccurate on the move. Eg. there is a very dramatic difference between a stationary and a fast moving Hellcat. Try lining up a dozen German tanks with no ammo and drive past them at maximum speed (100-300m distance). You will typically score something like 10-15% hits. Now keep the Hellcat stationary and fire at 300m. Around 70% of the shots will hit. I am assuming a regular crew in this example. This inaccuracy of moving vehicles is so obvious and recurring that it really makes me wonder how you came up with an opposite view.

Somebody remember that reference to ethnic cleansing in Konev's memoirs? According to Konev, Stalin had remarked during the Winter War how the Finns would be "moved away" after breaking the resistance. I don't have the book so can't quote it here.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gyrene: Do you think that the effects of a non-fatal hit on a tank's crew has been taken into account?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't think crew suppression is modelled. Heavy concussions do not seem to reduce their fighting ability or reaction times at all, assuming no casualties were taken. In Steel Panthers a few non-damaging hits from heavy guns can render the crew temporarily combat ineffective.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Skipper: > In this context there's reason to believe > that the document reflects actual Soviet > intentions. To form a meaningful opinion about this, it would be worth knowing the contents of that draft document. A copy, perhaps.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Has anyone read Ph.D. Tapio Tiihonen's gigantic dissertation "Karjalan kannaksen suurtaistelut kesällä 1944" (The major battles on the Karelian Isthmus in summer 1944). It is heavily based on Soviet archivals and would probably shed light on this.