Bad Monkey!

So, Ted, what were the procedures for turning in results to you? Do you need the final turns from each of us or somefink like that? Me and Darkknight_Canuck are coming down to the end of our much protracted battle here, and should be done in a couple of days. It's very close, but I have to give the nod to myself, mostly because I've sat firmly on my VL's and have for the most part had complete control of my side of the map and fire superiority across the drive. That, and I just flamed one of my opponent's VL's.

wadepm: I tried not to gloat too much. But honestly, I pointed out that all he had left were a bunch of crews (he didn't buy any infantry), but his moral hadn't dropped to the point to force an auto-surrender. Piggdogg and ASL Vet: I don't remember his name, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell. He seemed young, and somewhat new to CM, so I just let it be. He had said he was pissed at himself for being such a smart-ass during his setup, only to be beat down by a single Panther, so I didn't really hold his rudeness against him. He apologized about a day later, and agreed to another game, but then after a few turns, neglected to return e-mail, for whatever reasons. Aside from a couple e-mails, I didn't bother to follow up.

My very first PBEM, and my first game against a human 1500pt Armoured ME, May '45, default terrain. Elite forces. I picked a Crack KT, two Crack PzIV's, an Elite Panther G, a Vet StuH42, a platoon of crack infantry, and an elite sharpshooter. First turn, I send the KT and one of the PzIV's up the road into the town to lay in wait for the enemy, with the inf running up behind to occupy the town. The Panther and the StuH were on the right, watching the flanks, the remaining PzIV likewise on the left. Second turn, several unidentified enemy tanks appear around the edge of some trees on my left, about 400 yds distant, and engage my two tanks moving up the road. They turn out to be three Elite Hellcats. First shot bounces off my KT, the KT returns fire and gets a gun hit. Next shot kills the KT. Third shot kills the PzIV. Two more tanks round the corner, and begin shooting at my infantry. These two turn out to be Elite Super Pershings. After a serious bit of panicking, I withdraw my remaining tanks, still unseen, to better defensive positions, run my infantry platoon into some nearby woods, and run the sharpshooter and a shreck (which were under cover on the other side of the road)into the town. And I waited for my opponent to come and find me. Which he never did. He retreated the gun damaged Hellcat back off the map, and gathered all of his tanks about 200 meters from the town, about halfway between the town and the map edge. I think he was waiting for me to try and move the rest of my force up into the town, but I'll never know. After a few turns of doing nothing, I decided to go after him. I snuck my infantry into the edge of the woods facing his tanks, and moved my sharpshooter into a tall building at the edge of the town, while racing my Panther around the far side of the map to get on his left flank, and moving the StuH up behind a hill on the opposite side of town, and the PzIV behind a building on the left. After everything was in place, I opened up on his tanks first with the sharpshooter, then the infantry, killing two TC's and buttoning the others. His tanks started shooting at my infantry in the woods. The next turn, I hunted both the Panther and the StuH out of cover on his left, leaving the PzIV be on his right as a reserve. The Panther killed the two Super Pershings and a Hellcat in forty seconds with four rounds, and the StuH got the remaining Hellcat, all flank shots. They never saw it coming. Needless to say, my opponent was in shock. He reacted poorly when I asked for his surrender, and acted even worse when I asked him to send the final turn so I could see the point total. I'm not sure he was more upset at, me or himself, but either way, he didn't take it very well.

Panzer Leader, you got an URL for that Virtual Daemon Manager? I tried a quick Google and Download.com search and didn't come up with anything.

I would argue that if you haven't installed a spare CD-ROM drive in your computer soley to keep your CMBO disc in, then you aren't a true Combat Mission player. (10 points) Of course, a good alternative is to get one of those applications that creates a virtual CD-ROM device on your hardisk, and then image your CMBO disc onto that. (5 points) [ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]</p>

The difference between dead and wounded is not within the scope of CM. Each battle is a set-piece, and doesn't have any ramifications other than who wins the battle. There is not enough time for "wounded" to recover to the point of becoming combat effective, so for all intents and purposes a casualty is a casualty, regardless of whether it's a wound just severe enough to incapacitate or if the poor soul has just been scattered across the battlefield by a direct hit from a 155.

I think you're confusing HEAT rounds with a thermite grenade or some other exothermic device. HEAT rounds are fairly instantaneous. If you've ever seen a video of an anti-tank missile destroying a tank, you've seen a HEAT warhead in action. The only diffence between modern HEAT and the WW2 version is scale and method of delivery.

Greetings from Humongous! The Lord Humongous! The Warrior of the Wasteland, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah... Madmatt! [ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]</p>

"Kampfküchenspüle" I love it!

And another! Have you ever written a book about the ballistics and armor penetration of WW2 projectiles? - 10 points [ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]</p>

Heh, Is your name JasonC, Slapdragon, etc., (name your favorite uber-grog here)? - 10 points Have you ever claimed to have read "like 80% of all books about WW2" ? - 0 points Had that claim be true - 50 points [ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]</p>

Can you say "compensating for phallic inadequacy", kiddies? :eek:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by leakyD: MM- great stuff... just played small QB (700 axis defense) and had two PAW's w/ crack crews. took out the 2 ami tanks in the first turn, and then shelled up the attacking troops pretty well. great gun. fast ROF, great targeting (then again, it may have been the crews), and they seem hard to hit (they survived all kinds of fire, xcept about 100rnds of 81mm- that'll ruin anyone's day- and a zook rnd). <hr></blockquote> Heh. Lest anyone think I was somehow super careless with my tanks... The map had about zero useful cover for tanks, so I just set them up behind a convinient wall out in the open, hoping that they could drill any armour or guns they spotted before they got drilled themselves. Was a crack Hellcat and a vet M4A3. If there had been better cover, I would've hidden them until the infantry had sussed out the guns. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...

Even though my # is no where close to being over 6000, I would still like to be part of this tourney, as I've only been playing CM since April and have never participated in any of the other tournaments.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>As most things, I suppose it depends somewhat on how much it is used, but I don't necessarily see the tactic of "pre-targeting" OB Arty, and then cancelling the order or letting it go through, as 'gamey'. To me this seems to be parallel to a battlefield commander making an educated guess based on terrain and perhaps limited contact as to where the enemy might be concentrating, or about to concentrate, and giving his arty the 'heads up' that they might be needed soon.<hr></blockquote> Perhaps what is needed then is a "Target and Hold Fire" command (along with a corresponding "Commence Fire" command), to let you target an area without actually firing?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe: Folks, have any of the rest of you ever looked at a Winecape post, and wondered if he was actually a she? Not due to any feminist slants, or the like, but a South African named Charl Theron,...hmm....maybe Charlize Theron? Things that make you go "Hmmmm". No aspersions on your manhood intended, Cape. Just couldn't resist.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Heh, I've already asked him something to that effect sometime ago. He was decidedly coy about answering... :eek:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mud: Would there also be penalties or a lower baseline, or is having only bonuses preferred because AFVs are in general currently undermodeled?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I would expect that it would be modeled exactly like HQs are now. My main concern isn't to rectify any inadequacies in the models, but to represent the variations of skill in the seperate crewmen. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Michael Emrys I agree with you, but I was thinking also of troops that do not rigidly behave in the way their commander expects them to. I guess there are various ways to handle this by throwing in a random factor here and there. I'm just not sure that at the end of the day things would look very much differently from the way they do now. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I suppose one could also make the same arguments for the way HQs are treated now. Would you prefer it if the HQ units didn't have any visible bonuses, and that aspect was kept hidden in the game engine? [ 10-09-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]

I initially posted this to the thread about long-range tank gun accuracy, but it seems that it should have it's own thread. I think it would be a good idea to give AFVs and on-map guns combat bonuses, much like the bonuses HQ units get. This would be good way to represent the respective skills of the individual crewmembers, and to add more variety. Driver's Bonus- This represents driver skill. The AFV is quicker to get moving and is less likely to get bogged or immobilized. Loader's Bonus- Faster main gun reloading time. Gunners Bonus- All around accuracy improvement. Commander's Bonus- More effective spotting, but also a "holistic" effect on other tank functions. A good commander will be better able to direct his driver in bad terrain, and is quicker to assess when the tank needs to move, so there should be somewhat of a Driver's Bonus also. And since the commander, in addition to spotting targets for the gunner, is also responsible for initial range estimates (esp unbuttoned, maybe this ties in with the discussion about rangefinders for the elite panzer and jagdpanzer units?) and tracking/spotting the fall of shot, an accuracy bonus for the gunner should also be in line. I feel these bonuses can also be applied to infantry anti-tank and on map artillery pieces. The only real change would be the Driver's Bonus, which I think could be changed to a more generic Mobility Bonus, which represents the gun crews expertise at limbering/unlimbering the gun and shifting it around. So, what think you? Good idea? Bad? Is there a better way of accomplishing the same task, or is the current method sufficient? Discuss.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by WineCape: The more I read this excellent thread, the brighter this idea!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree, I'm rather fond of it also. I'm afraid it's destined to die a cold and lonely death (err, mebbe not cold, not in here ) of neglect in this thread. Maybe I'll see about working my idea out a little more and giving it it's own thread. [ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]

:eek: :eek: :eek:

One thing that I think that should be thrown in here (though I don't know whether it's ever been mentioned or not) is that tanks should have modifiers just like HQ's do. You could have a driver's bonus (faster to get moving, less likely to get bogged), a gunner's bonus (accuracy), a loader's bonus (rate of fire), and a commander's bonus (spotting, other intangibles)

I wouldn't mind trying that. Can you send the posters to naughtysimian@yahoo.com ? - Jason

Continuing the theme: [ 08-15-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by russellmz: hehehe nice. for a second i thought they were nuclear bombs going off in the distance<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No, that would be this: - Jason

Hows that for a little "atmosphere"? - Jason