Vanir Ausf B

Well, there is the operational level app already announced in the thread right below this one

Also, I wonder how practical these ginormous games people are imagining would be from a computer performance standpoint. BFC has made great strides in improving memory management and performance over the past year, but plopping down several regiments -- or divisions :eek: -- of troops on a detailed 30km² map sounds like a recipe for out of memory crashes on PCs.

I think people should keep in mind that unless something has changed recently, coop play is way far down on the feature list.

I think he was probably responding to Flying Penguin's posts, which pretty much were describing an operational level game. IMO this would actually be very easy to do since the tool for it is already in the game. It's the Force Adjustment modifier. It presently goes up to 150%, at which point a Huge QB meeting engagement offers over 17800 points to play with. The problem is that you can presently only adjust the points for one side. I've never understood why this is. So if BFC were to simply enable adjustment for both sides and increase the maximum allowed adjustment then we would be set.

I've been using Bil Hardenberger's hex base mod ( 2nd link above ) since CMBN shipped over 2 years ago and IMO it is still the best all-around unit base for visibility and facing.

It's not all that hard to control upwards of 2 battalions in WEGO. There are several AARs floating around of games that size. IMO these larger map sizes are going to be of greatest benefit in the Black Sea game where unit densities will be lower than what was typical of WW2 and weapon ranges higher.

Ok, I switched test parameters to something that would show more dramatic differences in spotting ability and the good news is that I was able to find clear proof that when not obscured by invisible dust clouds the 20mm flak is more easily spotted when firing than when not. So the only remaining issue is the invisible LOS-blocking dust clouds. I don't know how difficult it would be to do something about them, but it would be nice to see that fixed since it does make a significant tactical difference in these types of engagements.

Looked like movie mode to me. Unless Bagration took place during a severe drought.

So this is what the weather forecasters mean when they talk about "patchy fog".

This is sort-of already in the game. It's called ammo sharing

So far it is not clear if this is true. It appears that there is either no difference or only a small difference. More testing is needed, unfortunately. That would be cool were that the case, but I have never heard anything from BFC regarding this so I doubt that is a factor in the game.

And that goes double for QBs, which presently have a max time limit of 2 hours.

Ahh, me likey Especially the functional AAA and huge maps. 30km² :eek: Two questions: 1) Can ammo dumps explode if hit by enemy fire? 2) If these features are to be available to CMFI and CMBN as Upgrade 3.0 does that mean the East Front game is already 3.0? It sounds that way but last we heard about 3.0 it was going to debut with Black Sea. 3) Any time frame for release? Ok, I guess that's 3 questions

I'm doing some testing in the " 20 mm AA guns, Tanks, and Spotting" thread in the CMBN forum that so far suggests he might be correct.

Very good, womble. I tested a jeep racing along dry ground separated from a line of enemy infantry by low bocage and was able to confirm that dust ignores relative spotting rules. The rooster tail of dust was completely invisible to the enemy until the jeep exited from behind the bocage and was spotted, at which point every enemy unit could see the dust even if they had not spotted the jeep. But only new dust kicked up from the time of spotting was visible. And there is no doubt that dust visibility is tied to the spotting of the unit that made it. So all of us Desert Fox wannabees that have been moving our tanks along dirt roads on Slow as to avoid detection might as well stop worrying and put the peddle to the metal. On a related note, because of the high variation in spotting times and the fairly small difference seen so far between the spotting of firing units in non-dusty conditions and units not shooting, I re-ran both tests 3 more times to double the sample size. Time to spot flak firing (wet ground) Test 1: 1 minute 45 seconds Test 2: 1 minute 15 seconds Test 3: 1 minute 31 seconds This averages out to 1 minute 30 seconds. Combined with the 3 earlier tests the total running average is 1 minute 23 seconds. Time to spot flak doing nothing: Test 1: 1 minute 52 seconds Test 2: 2 minutes 1 second Test 3: 54 seconds :confused: This averages out to 1 minute 35 seconds, only a 5% difference from the shooting group above. The total running average for all 6 tests is now 1 minute 33 seconds, only 11% higher than the shooting group. I'm getting the uncomfortable suspicion that there may not actually be any difference at all between the time it takes to spot a shooting flak gun and one not shooting. I'll do some more tests tomorrow to see if that gap continues to narrow as the sample size increases. Not good, not good.

I did some further testing and it appears that the vast majority of the "smoke" is actually dust kicked up from the ground. I changed the ground conditions to "wet" and the terrain type to mud and re-ran the shooting tests. Average time to spot: Test 1: 54 seconds Test 2: 1 minute 5 seconds Test 3: 1 minute 45 seconds. So the total average across all 3 tests was 1 minute 14 seconds. That compares to the "sit and do nothing" test average of 1 minute 31 seconds. So the firing units are spotted sooner on average -- albeit not dramatically so at about 20% -- if they are not obscured by dust. I had thought that dust could be spotted independent of units that create it, but I was probably thinking CMx1. I don't think units created dust when firing in CMx1 but dust from moving vehicles could be seen without the vehicles being spotted. It appears that in CMx2 dust is tied to the unit that creates it. The dust cannot be seen by enemy units unless they spot the unit that made the dust, even though the dust can still block LOS both ways, paradoxically preventing the unit that made it from getting spotted.

I know. But if the 20mm won't penetrate what chance does the .50 have?

64 vs 32 bits mostly just affects how much RAM Combat Mission can use. If you never play scenarios or QBs large enough to max out the 32 bit limit then going to 64 bit won't make much difference. But really, there is no reason not to go 64 bit these days.

It should be easier, not harder, to spot anything that is firing. This is kind-of a big deal. Maybe not game-breakingly big, but pretty big IMO. I'm a little surprised no one else has said anything. Based on previous experience I was expecting a minimum of 2 beta testers plus Steve telling me my data is invalid because I haven't run forty two thousand other tests featuring every unit in the game at every possible combination of range and angle, and that besides, this isn't really all that unrealistic anyways because the flak guns are German, and the Germans were Nazis, and the Nazis were just crazy enough to maybe have invented smoke that is invisible but can still block LOS at the same time. Or somefink

My laptop has 4 GB and it does fine, usually. However, if you want to play some very large scenarios or QBs on huge maps the limiting factor on how big you can go on a PC is going to be available RAM, in my experience at least. There have been times that I wished I could dedicate the full 4 GB to CM rather than have nearly 1 GB used by the OS.

The two main features you need to look for are a dedicated graphics card and a minimum of 6 gigabytes of system RAM. Especially the graphics card. CM will not run at all on many integrated graphics systems. Oh, and if this is a PC and not a Mac then for heaven's sake make sure the version of Windows it comes with is 64 bit rather than 32. I think that is the default option on most systems sold these days but it doesn't hurt to make sure.

True, if you try to plot the area fire after the smoke has obscured LOS. If the area fire begins before LOS is lost to the smoke then you can continue shooting through it. I haven't noticed this but it would not surprise me. I did notice that the flak guns seemed to be less bothered by the smoke they made than the tanks trying to spot them, which would be backwards from reality.

Well, this is unexpected. It looks like there is an issue here after all. After seeing how hard it was for the Shermans to spot the 20mm flak guns while they were firing I decided to test how much harder they would be to spot if they weren't shooting. As it turns out, they were not harder to spot. They are actually much easier to spot while doing nothing at all. 10 flak 38 guns vs 10 Sherman 76s at about 500 meters. For the non-firing test all units have a covered arc and are not hidden. The Shermans are buttoned. The firing test is identical except the flak 38s are area firing over the top of the Shermans so the Shermans are never hit and the impacts do not create any dust or smoke between the units. 3 runs per test. Tests while NOT firing: Average time for Shermans to spot flak 38: Test 1: 1 minute 17 seconds Test 2: 1 minute 20 seconds Test 3: 1 minute 56 seconds Test while flak 38 firing I ran into a small problem with these tests: in many cases some of the flak units were still unspotted when they ran out of ammunition. This happened 6 times in test one, 4 times in test two and once in test three. I cut the test off after 8 minutes so for our purposes I will consider all units spotted at that time, even though that will artificially reduce the average spotting time. The difference between the firing and non-firing tests are large enough anyways. Average time for Shermans to spot flak 38: Test 1: 5 minutes 45 seconds Test 2: 5 minutes 42 seconds Test 3: 3 minutes 17 seconds I also noticed that when flak guns are firing both they and the Shermans tend to lose sight of each other after spotting, while sight is maintained constantly when not firing. This appears to affect the Shermans much more than the flak guns. What is almost certainly happening is that the smoke and/or dust cloud the flak creates while firing is partially obscuring LOS. This in-and-of itself is not unrealistic. Sherman 76s were notorious for their huge smoke clouds. But these smoke clouds should affect the shooter more than the target, which does not seem to be the case here. But the biggest issue is that these smoke clouds seem to be considered part of the unit that creates them for spotting purposes, meaning that they are invisible until that unit is spotted. But even while invisible to the enemy they are still capable of blocking the enemy's LOS. Firing test saved game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j85sgcyjvldf74k/gunnery2000%20flaktest%20spotfiring.bts Doing nothing test saved game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4yclko5f9tne32/gunnery2000%20flaktest%20spotnotfiring.bts

That is probably because the game engine classifies bunkers as a type of vehicle, so tanks will keep at them until destroyed just as they will an abandoned but operational tank.

To be fair, the average life span of an NFL player is longer than the national average. And concussion symptoms are not an issue unique to football. It's big problem in girls' soccer.