Vanir Ausf B

This is an excellent idea. Random terrain too.

Well, I'm not currently on the TH ladder (I'm on RD), but I'll throw out a few thoughts for the hell of it. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w: Only one force type for German and Allied sides may be chosen. Example: German “Heer” Allied “British”.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It seems to me this would really favor the Germans. They can still get units with high short range FP (SS Motorized) with armor support while the Allies (and especially the Brits) are stuck with vanilla riflemen if they want some armor. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> German SMG Troops German SMG platoons and Volksgrenadier armed with SMG will be limited to no more then 3 platoons allowed per game. Unless otherwise agreed upon by the player’s before setup.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Shouldn't this scale for game size same as with towed guns? I'm all in favor of random weather. [ 04-24-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jgdpzr: Kingfish, I'm not positive, but I don't think the command bonuses are attached to individual HQ members. I'm relatively certain that the command bunus relates to the officer (ranking officer in the case of a BN HQ) in the HQ unit and as long as there is one person left, it is assumed to be that officer. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm almost positive this is correct. [ 04-24-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I wouldn't worry too much about the 105 having a gyrosabilizer. According to some posts in the Tips forum 105's will generally fire HE at enemy tanks rather than HEAT due to a TacAI problem.

Exactly. I didn't read through Martin's lengthy solution, but simply having the 2nd comp do it is all it would take. I didn't think about the air support thing. Perhaps the 1st comp should do the weather only. Without a map to look at the 1st player still couldn't look to see exactly what it was.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tanaka: Not true, every time a turn pbem is load by any CPU a NEW map/turn is calculated... So you can reload your turn as many times you want, that when you send your turn to the other player a new calculations is always done.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I wish this were true, but unfortunately Martin is correct. The first computer generates the map that is used, not the second one. This is very easy to test if you think about it. And Martin, you don't have to send the file to yourself to do this cheat. Just use the copy of the first file that is already on your computer. [ 04-21-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Yeah, it would be nice of you could do that, but it's not going to happen until relative spotting. In other words, not for a long while. Frankly, my biggest beef is that tanks themselves can't hide. Even if they are in trees, haven't moved and have a "hide" command they are spotted every time. It makes them of dubious worth on defence. I know for a fact hidden and camoed tanks were much harder to spot in real life until they opened fire, and sometime even after they fired.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M. Bates: Would it be correct to say that the USA has never had either the biggest army in the world / or the best trained army in the world at any one time in its history?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I believe that would not be correct to say. I'm going from memory here, but IIRC at the end of the American Civil War (1865) the United States had the largest standing army in the world. It was also without question the best equiped and most experienced. In short, it was the biggest and the baddest. What did the US do with this awesome force? They dismantled it as fast as they could. And as someone else said, in the late 80's and early 90's the US army was unit for unit as good as anyone in the world IMO, though not the largest. [ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Mattias is right. The mantlet has a variable slope. You just happened to hit the wrong spot. Very unfortunate indeed.

This is just classic. First Lewis rags on Jason (and Rexford) saying: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Is JasonC related to Rexford? I notice the same long winded self serving style in his posts. Also the always lovely "follow my own post with yet another important post by myself".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And then follows that with: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Little do many people here know, but I was instrumental in making changes in the initial infantry firepower handling debacle. It was like everyone was firing blanks. Ive been suggesting run limitations, assault moves,etc, since way back when. Its rapidly becoming apparant that my ideas are slowly transmogrifying into BTS "ideas".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: Hmmm... I'm surprised to hear that. I would think, and reading of doctrine and AARs leads me to believe, that this is a very risky way to defend against a likely superior foe. In current times perhaps this is much more viable as the firepower at this range is so huge? Still, I was under the strong impression that the idea was to keep the enemy from getting near your MRL, not the opposite.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think the idea is that in a forward slope defense, a superior attacker can usually bring most or all of his superior fire power to bear on the defender at once, while in a reverse slope defense the attacker is only able to engage with a fraction of his force at any given time, and is then forced to commit his forces piecemeal. The defender can have support fires from units overwatching his front line, while the attacker is denied this. Of course this works much better if you have a proper defense-in-depth set up which is hard to do with the shallow QB maps (hint, hint .) I think this is what X-00 was refering to when he was lamenting about where the VLs are. [ 04-13-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I think BTS gave units the amount of ammo they have because that's (roughly) how much they had in real life. I would expect they will do the same in CM2. [ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I know I read somewhere recently that the Germans would often give the green crews the better tanks (Panthers) while the vets got the Mk IVs. They thought quality of equipment would make up for lack of expirience/training.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Juju: the best option for avoiding artillery strikes would be to either move north or south!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think that's what they meant by "to the side". Most people view the battlefield from an East-West perspective. [ 04-11-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Will, I'm with you all the way on this, for all the good it will do. What you are really asking for are SOPs (standard operating proceedures) ala TacOps. We're not likely to get them, but let's see what CM2 has to offer and then we can bitch

YES! I was just thinking the same thing today and someone posts it! In a way, you can tell that CM was not really designed for big games (3000 pt or larger). While maps for smaller QBs (1000 or so) are more or less square, as you go up in size the maps get much longer but not much wider. At the upper range you get maps that are so long that in an Attack/Defend QB the defender cannot purchase enough troops to cover that much frontage, but is so shallow that he cannot do a proper defence in depth either. And defence in depth is the reason it is needed. The lack of this abitily is one of the main reasons why it is more difficult to defend in CM than if real life (there are others as well). Here's what is needed IMO: The current map shapes are fine for MEs, but for Attack/Defend QBs they should be square with somewhat less length and a whole lot more depth, perhaps 2-3 times more depth than current. Instead of having all the VLs stretched in a long single line across the map, they would be staggered East-West as well as North-South. This would make it perhaps easier for the attacker to capture the nearest VLs, but a significant acheavement to get the ones furthest back from his settup zone. This would add tremendously to the realism of attack/defend QBs. You would probably have to bump the attacker point advantage back up at bit, but that's fine. Kwazydog, if you can get Charles to do this for CM2 you will be my favorite BTS dude.

Kip: Good points as usual. However, I would take the results of a scenario played against the AI with a grain of salt. Without seeing it I can't say for sure, but I would bet that if you put a human commander behind those "Russians", with 3-1 numerical advantage, you would have dramaticly different results.

Yeah, I thought about that too. The way I envision it is that the turret will simply stay pointed in the direction relative to the hull that you specified until the TacAI sees a target it wants to use the main gun on. It wont be as "sticky" as an ambush command. Note that I said "direction relative to the hull". It would not be stuck to a spot of terrain like with an ambush command either. If you rotate the hull, the turret will rotate with it. This would allow tanks to move in formation without having to worry about the turret turning to face backwards as you move forwards. It's not perfect, and there will be times where it won't work as planned, but it will give players more realistic flexability. [ 04-10-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Olle Petersson: ... which is exactly the situation here. You can't order any unit to fire at an unspotted enemy, only at enemies who's location is pinpointed. If there are other enemies appearing it's the TC (TacAI) that handle those.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> When I said "in advance" I meant before the shooting even starts. It goes without saying that you can't shoot at an unspotted enemy. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In real life there's nothing that prevent the platoon leader to perform this kind of micromanagement (except for time constraints and that he's busy doing lots of other stuff).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which is exactly why he wouldn't do this in real life. Once the lead starts flying he would be too busy fighting his own tank to micromanage the rest of the platoon. Never mind that at any given moment he could not even be sure that a given tank other than his own has spotted a new target that appears. Yes, the TacAI will target new targets that appear during the turn. But during the orders phase the player can change any of these with no command pause (much to Meek's consternation). It's not like evey 60 seconds the platoon leader calls time out to confer with his tank commanders in the middle of a fire fight. Of course all of this ignores the fact that there actually are no tank platoon leaders at all in CM, since there is no command structure for vehicles. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>About the possibility to control turret rotation as is: I've just discovered that the Ambush command works well for this, to some extent. I just had a tank issued an ambush target. Then I had that tank back off, out of sight, and perform a lateral move. It kept the gun pointed towards the ambush point, even though it wasn't in LOS...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've heard of this workaround before, but have not tried it. The problem is that giving a tank an ambush order is very dangerous. If another tank comes into view outside of the ambush zone the ambushing tank will ignore it until it is fired upon which is usually too late. It can be safely done is some circumstances. Really though, being as there are already gimmicky workarounds to make the turret point this way or that anyway (ambush command, area fire) what would be the harm of giving the player a proper command for it that would eliminate the unrealistic side effects? [ 04-10-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I'm fairly sure both A and B would have to wait for the engine rewrite, so they are probably out of the question. It could be 2 year before that is done. No way would I wait that long and BTS needs to get paid sometime. C is hopefully doable for CM2, but I have no idea now hard/easy it will be, or even if BTS intends to do anything with it at all.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Blackthorne: Actually IMHO I don't believe it does put you in as tank commander. You are the commander of the tank commander. You order movement and targets (if you wish) and the tank commander enacts your orders. This is why there is a command pause. The crew and leader is diseminating your orders<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry, I ain't buying it. The commander of the tank commander would be the platoon leader. The game allows you to select the exact target each tank fires at. In real life this is what the tank commander does, not the platoon leader, unless the targets were known in advance and which tank engages which target had been worked out prior to the engagement.

I remember it... I shudder to think how close I came to being on the evening news that day. [ 04-09-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I agree completely with Windowpaene. Of course, none of this is going to change anything, but it's something to talk about, I suppose

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Heinz 25th PzReg: You arent overclocking your vid card or your cpu are you? If you are, try setting things back to default.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Whoa. I forgot about that. I had to un-overclock my card as well before CM would run right.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Olle Petersson: It doesn't let me do so, it requires me to do so, which IMO is something completely different.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Exactly. Good point. Which reinforces my point that if the game is going to put you in the shoes of a tank commander (which it does) it is not at all silly that some players will want to have the same options that a real world tank commander would have. If being able to point the turret in a particular direction independent of the hull were to introduce a level of micromanagement not already present in the game, I would be against it as well, but I don't think it would do that at all. It would just add realism IMO. EDIT: I would like to clarify something. I am not suggesting that TacAI control of the turret disappear, requiring the player to micromanage it at every step. It could funtion the same as it does now, with the added option of the player stepping in and overriding the TacAI control. [ 04-09-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]