tabpub

Actually, when the "canister" round first debuted, I was among the first to come out and say "WTF" is that! Now that it is being determined that it is a short fused shrapnel round, I feel mildly vindicated...and sleeppyy, so verrrry sleeepppyy... :cool:

...and what's your address and when is the next time you will be on an extended family vacation? Oh, I almost forgot. What is the security code again to the house? You told me and I forgot to write it down. My bad, but you know my memory. PS. What is the combo to the wall safe in the bedroom? Might as well make a complete job of this.

Oh, God...it's the "Combat Mission: Battlefield Engineering" game thread coming back to life!! KILL IT! KILL THE MONSTER!! BRING THE FIRE! FIRE I SAY!!

Please, keep this thread alive! Re-reading it over and over is the only cure for my insomnia! The doctors are all amazed at the results!

I thought that problem was in the early t72. I will have to check around...I might be losing my memory somewhere...now where am I?

Platoons with "wedgies"? Is Bob the Dinosaur running around in your game again? http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/the_characters/html/character3.html

Congratulations! When is the Redwolf cub due?

Scenario spoiler: : : : : : : : : : : : Playing into the void as the Germans. Shot a T34 in the flank from approx. 800m for a kill. Normally, that is a good thing. This time, however, the 34 was smack dab in front of the only ford over the stream. Later in the game, its presence there caused a traffic snarl of humongous proportions, resulting in a loss, as I could not exit over half of my force in time. Thus, making that "good" shot, the worst turn in CMBB for me....so far....

then I would suggest plastic.

or GoGamer.com 27 something the last I saw... http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/EN/product/001COM

So, that would be the "High Tide... for Hitler... and Germanyyyy"?

Way back on ROW I, I wrote all of my AARs as I was doing the battle and finished them when I finished the battle. This time around I took some notes but blew off writing the AARS saying I would do it later. Later became I can't really remember enough detail to write a decent AAR. I do wish now I had written all 5, but I am happy to see the best player move on to the finals. We were a pretty evenly matched group I think. In two battles I scored above the median in two battles I scored below the median and in one battle Spanish Bombs and I scored exactly at the median. I do beleive that I have to have one of the highest variances in scores between battles. </font>

This scenario worked well for a tourney, as there were many options for both sides to consider. The Russian could choose any style of defense and the German could choose to concentrate or to "spread" the defense. The designer was good to let both sides have choices. As the Russian, I viewed this as "three eggs in a basket". I decided to use the higher level officers to give me more flexibility with my deployment. I placed trenches near the VL's with a 180 arc of wire around them at the near limit of visibility. Between the wire and the trench went a TRP. Each VL trench had a maxim, an Engineer Squad, and a 3 squad platoon. 2 of the postitions had a company co to coordinate. The best squads of the platoons had been stripped off to form a flying platoon with another company CO, along with a 4th platoon that was all veteran as I recall. The mines were laid across the gap between 204 and 198(hills); AP then AT. Both of the bunkers and the infantry guns were positioned to cover the mines. Sharpies and TH teams were scattered round the perimeter as LP/OP's. In the center valley all the mortars were concentrated under the command of a platoon CO. The T60's sat in reserve. The German launched what appeared to be a full out assault on 204. The Platoon there defended with great panache, holding up the Huns for many minutes. The TRP enabled the mortars to fire upon the attackers and caused much consternation. The flying platoons moved up to either side of the hill to provide support. One launched a counterattack that had much intial success, but ran into a FT that broke it's back. On the other hand, two TH teams infiltrated the enemy rear. One KO'd a prime mover and the other ran into a large group of infantry that had been suppressed by the mortar fire and caused 17 casualties before succumbing! But, the enemy AFVs were able to break through the lines and start down into the valley. The German infantry had had enough and stayed to hold the hill. 2 other platoons had attacked 198 and the STUG's were trying to support it. But one got Immob'd by many grenade hits and the other drove off toward 202 in a late attempt to deny it. At 198 the attack was held off by the short platoon that had been left there. One squad accounted for 26 Germans with 1 loss of his own. End score Russian 61 German 39 As the Germans, I broke in to 3 groups. 1 company with STG to take 198, another simiar group for 204 and the pioneers and the other STG in the center to head for the valley and then up behind any Russian defenders. This plan fell apart from the beginning. Both assault companies almost immediately came under fire. The Russian had deployed in force forward! Almost as if he had read my mind! The company attacking 204 was decimated in minutes, as it was caught in the brush going up the hill. Later it was determined that a Maxim gun there accounted for 43! German casualties. That MG and 2 mortars broke the back of that attack. The mortars pinned my men in the open and the MG raked them. The support STG was woefully out of position, and when it did race to the scene, it was tracked by a infantry gun! It did get both the gun and the MG, but was out of the action now. The group attacking 198 had no better luck. Stopped intially in a similar, but not as devastating manner, they pressed on; helped by the close presence of the STG. Unfortunately, the anxious batt CO called in 75mm how's from the regiment and a short round wrecked the suspension of the STG. The infantry tried to press on, but Russian reserves and mines stymied them. The center force, caught off guard, attempted to counterattack the flanks of both Russian defense nodes. Enemy mortar and MG fire quickly ended the advance across the open snow and the support STG was called away to help save the first immobilized STG that was being threatened by a T60. End result German 31 Russian 69 An eerily same, but then again different outcome than the prior battle. The one constant in both Russian defenses was that hill 202 was less guarded than the others. This is due to the fact that it is more heavily wooded, precluding the close in support of the STG's. In retrospect, maybe this is exactly where the attack should go in, as the defense would not be set in this direction. Hindsight = 20/20 vision...of course.

An additional note to the above: You won't find the file in the email/PBEM section. It will be in the saved game section so you will have to use the start game button to retrieve it.

Offically the T34 was medium, but many of the contemporary statements call it heavy, notably Halder and I believe Guderian referred to it in this manner during the first year.

Not really. You can call a mission, embark the FO, drive around with him, disembark, and the fire mission timer will start up from where it left off. I did a report on this a month ago or so, it is under Tips and tricks with title "benefit of radio spotter over wire" or something like that.

Yes, that was one of the batch that came out on a Monday following a long weekend of celebrating der Fuhrer's Geburtstag...of course there would be some "manufacturing errors".....

Flamethrowers are fine for suppressing defenders, but doesn't this tactic tend to set the building alight, making storming it a bit difficult? </font>

I think there is a fix for this in the 1.03 patch. Check the description on the main board. I seem to remember reading something to that effect.

Sorry for the weird title, but I posted this over in the Tips and Tricks section and it got about as much notice as a fat girl at the Weight Watchers Annual Ball. My only reader suggested bouncing it over here and here we are. Tips and Tricks/ Radio Spotter Anomaly?

Ok, I built a ridge thru the middle of the map, 2 81 radio spotters and tracks, vs lots of truck targets. Both spotters put down targets on the trucks which are out of LOS. One mounts up immediately to drive to the top of the ridge while holding fire. The other waits for his fire to begin before mounting. The waiting one has his pattern fall a little long and right, about 50-75m each way. Not too bad for blind. The one that drives up and dismounts with LOS now has his pretty much right on target. I would be happy in game conditions on target. This particular FO continues this barrage for a turn, and then green adjusts his remaining ammo with no problems. The waiting FO that started firing and then mounted now arrives on the ridge. He was at 78 rounds when he was in the track. From jumping out to the end of the turn he was at 54 rounds remaining. Those 24 rounds landed at the old spot, as He could not adjust while in the track. He green adjusts and this fire falls short and right, luckily catching some trucks in the beaten zone. The last shoot was 12 rounds, that once again was off, this time by about 100 long and 100 right. So, the jury would still be out on whether or not this is useful. I do find it odd that the one spotter seemed to have such difficulty adjusting,and the other not. Perhaps it is the fact that he began his "intial" barrage w/o LOS and then he suffers this penalty for all adjustments forevermore? That would explain why most peoples solution for a "missed" target is too start completely over. Now, the spotter that targeted but held fire until reaching LOS, never seemed to have a problem.... I will leave this to others to mull over. It struck me as interesting, but now I have other things to get to, and I have enough info for now. I will leave it to anyone else that is interested to delve further. I did save some files, drop me a line if you would like to look at them. Ta.

Caveat: If this is old news, don't flame me, I don't read this board as much as I used to and my memory is shot(just ask the wife)... Double caveat: I am using 1.02 During a scenario I was playing, I inadvertantly ordered a spotter that was in the process of calling a FM to embark on a HT. A couple of turns later, I was looking for the FO(cuz I was wondering "What the hell happened to the FM!") and found hime lounging in the HT. There he was with the FM timer stuck on 2 min. Now I personally had never noticed this before so I have tried it out with a couple of 81 radio spotters and 2 ht's. Created flat map with hill, turn 2 targetted spotters to either side of hill, fire missions commenced. On target. Mounted spotters in tracks, drove foward, dismounted. The one that was reading "firing" had shells coming down almost at the same time his feet hit the ground and they were on target. The other that was reading 28 sec counted down and hit on target also. Now you would say, "So what? What is the utility?" One, it is a easy way to "hold fire" on a suspected postition without the constant "adjusting". When the enemy arrives or is spotted, just hop out of the track and "BOOM". But, I digress. The next test was a little different. Set map up with woods covering the center of the board with 2 lanes thru it. a spotter and HT at each lane. Scads of trucks on the other side for targets. One spotter started countdown, mounted, HT moved forward never losing LOS, dismount, rounds on target. The other spotter mounted after intial target, but then I had the HT move behind the woods to break LOS and then back to the lane to dismount.... rounds were on target. Remounted, went behind woods again and back. Dismount, rounds on target. Meanwhile, the first spotter ran into woods himself to break LOS and then moved back. Rounds on target. In fact, the only time the rounds were OFF, was when that first spotter did an adjustment after that, the rounds were about 200m short! In conclusion, this could be a handy way for an attacker to plot artillery, advance with protection from SA, and have rounds arrive in a shorter time. I am going to see what the effect of plotting out of LOS intially and then driving into LOS are....That would be the real cats meow. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.... [ April 24, 2003, 12:55 AM: Message edited by: tabpub ]

I was running a little "test" on a theory that I had. took two regular 81radio spotters during the test. No HQ present. Both had good LOS to target areas that were about 100m apart. One got a 1min delay on the intial spot, the other 2min. However, by the time the first move counted down, the delay was reading 26sec for the first and 40 for the second one. So, from an intial "estimate" difference of 1min, the time difference had decreased to only 14 sec. I presume that this is a random fudge factor that has been used to prevent the "godlike" player from precisely timing barrages. In addition, I would think that an HQ presence would also help the spotters "countdown" faster. The rest is in the T&T section.

Yes, as long as there is nothing else there to "help" the target. Nothing is funnier than a STGIIIB crawling thru some woods buttoned up with 3 units of infantry banging on the hatches. Or an arty prime mover taking a molotov! whoosh! Now, AFAIK, you can issue most any order and get the "follow" result, as long as you are within about 50m of the vehicle. Move, run and advance are all viable. Assault also, but remember that some troop quality comes in to play, like greens out of command, conscripts, etc. The main difference in the orders would then be; 1)ability to advance under fire, 2) delay time differences, and 3)speed of the attack.

have to check with the Ball and see how long my Chain is these days.....