Sarge Saunders

hmmm... Translated to German they actually start to make sense. "Das so, wenn. .... die Nazis kann habar Rinder der Krieg wenn sie hatten zerstört der RAF und ohne das Radar des Luftcommando vom Raf, er facil gewesen war, das englische schnelle, asi die Deutsch zu zerstören, die englischen Küsten und den podria hatte nicht gesichert......." But then again, my German is very "rusty". [ August 19, 2002, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Oh mey Godd. To in forum, would speak english. Then Germans are to best in science. Kill lots in on V-8 tomato juice. But shilten had no in my pants. Too bad. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr. OK.

For combined arms 2000 points: American- 4.2" mortars and 155mm. Devestating but use only on known targets since rounds are more scarce. British/Canadian- Tougher choices but try the 3" FO and 25 lber FO. I actually love to use the 25 lber since you can sprinkle all game long. Another combination would be 3", 4.2" and 5.5" which gives you even more firepower but targets must be chosen carefully so as not to waste rounds for the 5.5" FO. Axis- 150mm (most cost-effective killing power for axis IMO) and your choice of either 81mm or 120mm FO. With all nations, killing power does not occur until > than 105mm. Real certain killing power occurs at 150mm and above. Americans have relatively cheap VT so one could easily justify giving up a mortar FO to make the 105mm or 155mm use VT rounds. -Sarge

Hey Kingfish- I was on the other end of FFE's British wrath. I believe he has some very valid points to consider. I seriously think this could be a better scenario with some force changes. What is happening now, is the better player played well on defense and still will probably lose to overwhelming odds. *****SPOILER ALERT******** | | | V For one thing: he did almost everything right and executed his defense perfectly. For example, my force was slammed for the beginning with TRP'd heavy artillery. It was not enough to help the defender. Later, my massing force was engaged with more artillery for 5 or six turns as I approached the outskirts of Gavrus. That was still not enough despite killing dozens of halftracks to treebursts. The defender pulled a quick withdraw from town and counterattacked well immediately back into Gavrus. It hurt but it was still not enough. PIATs performed a textbook defense against my HTs and armor. Still not good enough. My ability to project firepower with halftracks is a bit gamey and may lead to a victory that is arguably undeserved. Yes, it did cost me in points to lose halftracks in droves but combine that with my crack troops and things appear to be unbalanced in favor of the axis side. My suggestions: Tone down the crack troops and allow the HQ bonuses to give the combat advantage mirroring these veteran SS unit's fighting prowess. Only give enough halftracks to carry axis heavy weapons. These should still be enough to project mobile MG platforms in a pinch. By reducing the mounted MGs on HTs for the panzergrenadier, you may want to add some more LMG teams. Trade the worthless axis AT guns for on-board mortars. Give each company around one panzerschreck each because the brit carriers can also be used in a gamey way also, to a lesser extent. And very important: give the SS units some engineers to remove the daisy chain mines. IRL, these type of mines could be picked up(after checking for booby traps) by anyone. CM models only engineers removing them. They effectively deny armor advances in an unrealistic way. I like the scenario, but I really do think the better player needs to take the British and that seems unbalanced. This was just one case, but it was with two decent players who may have tried different things than playtesters. -Sarge [ August 02, 2002, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Use teams. For example, as you advance a company use at least one split squad (2 teams) to run ahead and scout in front of the company. Be sure to reform them once they run into the enemy as they fight better that way and they avoid a morale hit. Cautiously pushing the coy HQ with them in C&C will improve their performance overall. Teams make excellent scouts. -Sarge P.S. And yes scouting is worth it. Not scouting will get your tanks and infantry killed. No way to win that way. [ July 30, 2002, 11:09 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Kingfish- Playing it right now PBEM. A nice review is promised in twenty-something turns. My SS troopies are doing fine but it (may) be slightly balanced against the allied player. Though there's still a bit of game left to know for sure. -Sarge

Well according to Chris's chart both the regular 120mm and 81mm non-LOS TRP FOs fire in 43 seconds. I am sure that the vets (120mm and 81mm) can fire off about the same time ~30 seconds. To pin the enemy down earlier, you will need on-board mortars. Shells should begin to come down ~15 seconds. -Sarge

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Oh Man! I can't wait for Bahrain to Baghdad to be finished. Boy oh boy. Yep, what're BFC and all waiting for!!?

One behavior of TRPs you want to know in advance is how quickly it will help you get arty on target. Will it be 30 seconds or 90 seconds? This depends on quality of the FO and LOS to the TRP. So if it is important to get arty coming down within 60 seconds then you want to set up both your FO and your TRP to have direct LOS. If, for example, you set up your TRP in deep woods without LOS to your FO but still want arty response in less than 60 seconds, you should buy a vet FO and use heavy and light mortars (120mm, 4.2" preceded by 81mm). Hope this helps. -Sarge

Three-Zero. Not old yet. Not young anymore. -Sarge

Yes. Agree completely. It is one thing to purchase your own arty for smoke. another entirely when a scenario designer gives the attacker arty that can't smoke, unless on purpose. Smokabilty (sic) is a key component to artillery. There have been enough historical issues raised here to warrant a revisit for CMBB. -Sarge

Well my advice to you is buy this (if American): 3 M4 Shermans 1 Jackson TD 1 M7 Priest 1 105mm FO 1 81mm FO 8 regular rifle platoons If you want to you can even lose 1 sherman and buy 9 platoons. Your attacker advantage is about 500 points more forces than your opponents. If you put that advantage in infantry then you will win most of the time. This is always true unless the terrain is very open. Even then, use the 81mm FO to smoke your main force approach. The end result is that you can have a full infantry company advantage in numbers. That is usually enough to be decisive in a smaller battle. -Sarge [ July 24, 2002, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Don't forget there is a nice archive from the now-defunct combatmissions site at CMHQ. http://www.combatmission.com/cmsmods.asp Be sure to grab the Tiger Pershing mod. One of my favs. -Sarge

But not a very good one. Prime example would be wheeled vehicles moving fast down a paved road. Realistic they'd move at speed and shouldn't stop at all to turn. With a slowed turn the trip would be slowed down considerably... Cheers Olle</font>

LOL! My wife thought I was playing computer golf too when she first saw CM over my shoulder. And she is a brunette!!! Yeah, Golf. With hand grenades. -Sarge

Nice building Tanks!!!

Tom's Combat Mission HQ has some nice mods. http://home.arcor.de/tcmhq/TCMHQ.html IIRC, I got my axis and allied uniform mods there and also so decent terrain mods. -Sarge

Yes, I understand what you mean. As I became a better CM player I focused less on armor engagements (read luck) and more on infantry. Some micromanagement is required IMO with infantry tactics. Especially with infantry scouting tactics and "very" especially with keeping your main infantry force hidden. Infantry can rule the CM battlefield and is also key to armor victory IMHO. What I meant mainly was that you can and should still micromanage but keep track of the bigger picture. Playing larger infantry battles gives you the practice you need for that to work. BTW, this works best with PBEM when you have a bit of time to consider moves. I am impressed! Very astute observations. I can't remember ever hearing or playing the 4th symphony. Perhaps I'll find the first movement and download it later today... The 5th has always been one of my favorites, partly due to the "classicly heroic" nature of it, but mainly because it is so much fun to play! (played it 5 times as DoubleBass in a Symphony orchestra.) You know the march in the 5ths last movement with trumpet fanfare? IIRC, the Soviets required 32 measures of "patriotic" march in all of Shostie's symphony works. Exactly 32 measures. The idiotic censors counted them. Yet, the one in Sym. 5 is so incredibly tongue in cheek and comical (with the brash tri-tones) that it passes for individuality and yet still passes the censors who are not listening but counting! Shosties4th - Very interesting to meet you. Perhaps we should play a PBEM game. I'd be happy to show you something of coordinating infantry tactics and such. Yep. Before my time, but I enjoyed the re-runs. Cheers, Sarge [ July 21, 2002, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Shosties4th- I am not sure of your exact question but I can take a crack at answering it anyway. Nothing wrong with becoming so immersed in small unit action. Here are some suggestions though to get better at the "big picture". Play larger games. Say 3000 points to 5000 points. Then you will be thinking in terms of companies instead of platoons, etc. Be aware of how a smaller fight within your battle fits in with the overall plan. i.e. If you have a hot and heavy engagement going on with a platoon, then know how important or unimportant it is to the overall plan. If it goes badly, should you retreat those guys, etc. Have plenty of manuevering behind your lines to quickly press forces into action. I dunno if this answers your question or not.... BTW, What does Shosties4th mean? Is it refering to Shostakovich 4th symphony or somefink? Here's a tidbit: Shostakovich wrote his 7th symphony while under the German siege of Leningrad in 1941-43. -Sarge

Hey BDW, I know that these beta testers can't give too much away but I have picked up snippets about CM:BB here and there (especially on this forum). Here's what I know: The Assault command is cross between run and overwatch. The squad advances in leaps and bounds with part of the squad performing overwatch and covering fire. This is all abstracted within the squad. The result is that units will fire at the defenders more than the current run and have a bit more "cover" bonus while assaulting perhaps. Assaulting units will move at a medium speed I think. Now as far as rapid fire defenders: One of these recent CMBB MG bones said that MGs can fire at a higher ROF but use up ammo faster. This may be in conjunction with the cover arc command or somefink. Either way, MGs on defense are quite fixed for CMBB. BTW, low quality units can not use the assault comand. I think they get stuck with the "human wave" command or somefink..... WARNING! All this is unofficial and may be entirely wrong. -Sarge [ July 19, 2002, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

Just saw this last night in a PBEM game. Wasp had 14 ammo points left and fired at a target 70 meters away once. Had 12 left after firing. So yes, Wasps use 2 ammo points for long range shots. -Sarge

Rune, Can not make it now and I am very bummed out! I have a trip to Michigan scheduled that week so I am headed north instead of south.... Aarghhh! Was looking forward to meeting some of the Midwest CM gang. Next time hopefully. -Sarge

Thanks Jgdpzer. That is very interesting about the M7 SPHs instead of Sherm 105s. Makes a difference still. In that case, I think I would rather engage TDs with my EZ8s instead. Very odd encounter in the book. Incidentally, I found out I have a trip to Michigan planned for the week of the 6th. So can't make the Patton museum. Someone please take some photos. I'd be happy to help in posting them. Cheers, Sarge

Fantastic! The backlot sounds great. I had no idea there were that many tanks in storage. Will check my calendar and my wife. Need tacit permission for such an endeavour....Getting off work should be no problem as I work out of my house. Hope to see you. -Sean [ July 17, 2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]