YankeeDog

OK, first a disclamer: I am NOT a beta-tester, or an employee of BFC, so I can't tell you anything about how command radius for AFV actually works in CMBB. I can, however, offer a little bit of insight into your question (. Communication within Soviet tank platoon would certainly be much more difficult once the tanks were buttoned up, but they did have some limited means of communication. IIRC, the platoon commander would use colored flags stuck out of the tank through a small hole (maybe one of the pistol ports??) to communicate with the platoon. Obviously, only very basic commands or the initiation of prearranged plans of action could be issued in this way, and messages were probably often missed in their entirity in the heat of battle, but I suppose it was better than nothing at all. Cheers, YD

When I ordered the game from New York City, it took eight business days to show up. I ordered online by credit card, though. If you ordered by money order through the mail, I expect this would add another 3-5 business days to the process. Considering that the July 4th holiday is in there, the three weeks you have been waiting is a bit on the long side, but not extremely so. I would wait until the end of the week. If you haven't heard anything by then, then I think an email enquiry to BFC would be in order. Cheers, YD

Beautiful. Thanks for the quick response. Judging by the rate that answers to silly questions are popping up on this forum, one would think that BFC is pretty close to finishing up this monster and getting it out there for us to tear up. . . Cheers, YD

Hey, any word on whether scenario designer can make it 100% certain that a Jabo will show up? I can understand the logic behind the "sometimes they don't show up at all" for QBs, but for scenario designers it would be nice if you can make their arrival a surity. Cheers, YD

[Edit: Much of this has already been covered by Combined Arms and Mud (they beat me to the post!), so part of what is below is redundant] Lt Wecker: I think the source of your confusion lies in the difference between military doctrine on the tactical level and military doctrine on the operational level. CM largely depicts tactical level conflicts. Operational concerns are largely out of is scope (if you want to try a great operational level game, check out Airborne Assault!!). As you mentioned and Redwolf briefly alluded to, German "Blitzkreig" doctrine certainly did call for the use of armored columns independent of conventional infantry formations to cut deep into the enemy's rear areas, while the infantry followed up these armored formations to solidify the gains made. Especially early in the war, these armored columns could operate successfully with little or no infantry support. Once into the enemy rear areas, there would presumably be very little in the way of prepared defenses, so AT Guns were less of a problem. Later in the war, new technologies such as lightweight, man-portable infantry anti-tank weapons, and the use of more sophisticated defensive doctrine (examples: the "defense in depth" concepts and the mobile reserve) made it more necessary for armored columns to have at least some infantry support in the form of motorized, or even better armored, infantry. There are very good examples of this need for infantry support during the German counterattack attempts in the Normandy Campaign - the allies used artillery and other assets to 'strip' the attacking armored columns of their infantry support. As a result, German Panzers find themselves behind Allied lines in close terrain with no infantry support. While the German Panthers and Tigers were superior in both armor and armament to the allied Shermans and M10s that opposed them, the German Tanks have to stay buttoned up for fear of small arms and artillery fire. As a result, the Allied tanks are able to outmaneuver them, and the Panzer columns are destroyed or forced to retreat. In basic terms, German tactical 'blitzkreig' doctrine called for (1) the probing and exploration of an enemy defensive line in order to discover a undefended, or at least a weakly defended point, (2) the exertion of maximum pressure on this point (known as the Schwerpunkt, or literally "Heavy Point"), (3) once enemy resistance at the Schwerpunkt had been largely defeated, the infantry was to 'roll up' the enemy line on either side of the breakthrough to widen and secure it while armored columns pressed forward into the enemy rear areas, seeking to destroy support assets (artillery batteries, supply dumps, command posts, etc.), and also to prevent the enemy from establishing a second defensive line just behind the first. To succeed, the Bliztkreig attack absolutely relies on speed to keep the enemy off balance and prevent him from reestablishing a solid defensive line. This is why the tank columns have to press foward during the exploitation phase of the attack - 'straight-leg' infantry (i.e., infantry without motorized transport) would slow down the tanks and give the enemy time to react and contain the breakthrough. Straight leg infantry is used to gain the initial breakthrough at the Schwerpunkt, and then to solidify control of areas after the armored columns have passed through. So in one sense, you are absolutely right - Blitzkreig doctrine does call for the depolyment of armored columns far ahead of the main infanty advance. Improvements in defensive tactics and weapons in the late war mean that these tanks need at least some infantry support that can keep up with them to effectively exploit without undue losses, but the basic concept remains the same. This is all operational level doctrine, though. As mentioned before, CM does not really depict tactics at this level. Most CM scenarios depict what happens during part of the attack phase of an operation. In other words, in CM you're usually looking at the assault on the Schwerpunkt, not the exploitation phase of the operation. Even in the early war, the Germans did not generally send tanks foward into a known area of enemy resistance without infantry support to scout and help deal with AT threats. It's all a question of the scale. At the operational level, armored columns comprised of mostly armor and perhaps some motorized/armored infantry can (and doctrinally speaking should) exploit ahead of the main infantry body. At the tactical, tank-on-tank level (what CM depicts), it is generally unwise to send tanks into areas of possible resistance without infantry ahead of them to scout things out. CM can depict situations other than simple Attack/Defend scenarios, and there are many scenarios out there that do this. Meeting Engagements, for example, could represent battles between an attacking force that has broken through the intial enemy defensive line, and is in the process of exploting the breakthough, and a defensive force sent to counterattack and contain the breakthrough. If you want to see what tanks are like in the 'exploitation' phase of an operation, give yourself a company of Tanks. Give your opponent mostly unarmored vehicles (trucks and such) representing a rear-area installation, and a light defensive force - maybe a couple of platoons of infantry and perhaps a couple of AA guns or armored vehicles that just happened to be in the area. In general, you'll find that your tanks do quite well at smashing this kind of light resistance. You might lose a tank or two to bazooka (or Panzershreck/Faust) fire, but you'll cause a lot more damage than that. If you give the Tanks a bit of motorized/armored infantry support, you'll find that you can do even better. I hope this makes things more clear. I'm sure some grog will be along soon to correct my gross oversimplification of military doctrine; As a pre-emptive defence I state that I was only attempting to give a very basic picture if the difference between operational and tactical doctrine. There are, of course, exceptions to all of the above, and there are also differences between the doctrines of the various combatants. Cheers, YD [ July 09, 2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: YankeeDog ]

I sounds like you have a lot of experience with other computer strategy games, but not as much experience with real military tactics. I was in a similar position when I started playing CM about a year ago. In general, you are going to find that real-world military tactics are going work much better in CM than things you have learned from other computer games. There are some good articles on military tactics and how they apply to CM on the web. I would start at Combat Mission Headquarters (CMHQ). They have a number of good articles and also a good page of links to other CM websites. Here's the link to CMHQ: Combat Mission Headquarters There is also an excellent compilation of Tips and Tricks from this forum compiled by Markshot. This is more useful once you have a basic idea of what you're doing in CM, and you have questions about how to use a specific unit, or deal with a certain situation. Here is a link to this thread: Anthology of Useful Posts I imagine some of this stuff will be difficult for you to follow if you are not fluent in English. If you can find any military tactics books in your native language (especially WWII - related), these might also be helpful. Welcome to the game. As a word of encouragement, I found CM quite difficult the first time I played it. I still find it difficult, but now that I have a basic idea of what I'm doing, it's my favorite game. Cheers, YD

Hrmmm... you'd need all the textures used in the movie as well, and the engine to render them. the .EXE and a goodly number of BMPs and WAVs... Well hell, just have a Beta on us...</font>

Excellent. I hope the medical problems weren't too serious. Don't feel like you have to rush and spend your whole 4th of July weekend indoors playing CM just to make the deadline or anything -a few extra days isn't going to kill me. Of course if you WANT to be a CM troll for the 4th, don't let me stop you. Far be it for me to tell you how to enjoy your holidays. Cheers, YD

You can shoot at something you don't see with a DF weapon. It's called area fire. Andyman 'lost contact' to the pillbox, meaning that he no longer has a unit that can actually see the pillbox itself. That doesn't mean that he doesn't know where it is - that's what the contact marker is for. Since pillboxes don't move, he knows it's still there. He can order a tank (or any weapon, for that matter) to fire at the area where the pillbox is. To my imagination, this would simulate the following sequence: "Sargeant, did you see that muzzle flash in the trees at your 3 o'clock?" "Yes, Sir, it looked like a pillbox, but I can't make it out anymore now that it's stopped firing." "Well, fire some HE into that area to keep their heads down while the infantry tries to flank it." The above sequence assumes that the tank has LOS to the area where the pillbox is, but is out of the pillbox's firing arc. Otherwise the tank would likely be dead or moving into defilade very quickly. The tank can't target the pillbox directly because it can't see it, but it can send shots into that general area. What CM doesn't let you do is issue an area fire order at a point which the firing unit does not have LOS to. I'm not sure if this is unrealistic, though. Here's what I imagine this would be like IRL: "OK, sargeant, drive your tank up over the ridge in front of you. We spotted ATG fire coming from a pillbox on a small rise in front of your position. When you crest the rise, you'll see a rise tree-covered hill about 500m in front of you. About 40m north of the crest of the rise is where we think that pillbox is. As soon as you crest the rise, start laying HE into this area to keep their heads down so we can try to flank the pillbox." How accurate do you think the fire from these orders is going to be? My guess is not very. The tank crew might be a bit off in thier targeting, and it will also probably take them longer to figure out exactly where the target point it. Now, there are real world tactics that would help make this kind of thing easier to implement, (chiefly, the use of a mortar smoke shell, or even a smoke rifle grenade as a 'marker'), but it's still a much more complicated series of tasks that will take require more time and effort to execute than an area fire order at a target the tank can see. In CM, you have to have your tank crest the rise to gain LOS to the pillbox location, and then you can issue the area fire order. I think this is probably a reasonable approximation of this additional time and effort. Of course, if you have that tank crest the rise in the pillbox's firing arc, it's probably going to get nailed before it gets too many of those area fire shots off - there are better ways of dealing with pillboxes. The other quirk of CM is that you can issue a target order to a unit that isn't currently in LOS of a given enemy unit, but you can't do this if for a lost contact marker, even if the unit has LOS to the marker. Issuing a target order to a unit that can't see it's target seems to make the unit open fire more quickly on the target in question when and if the target moves into it's LOS. IMHO, you should be able to issue target orders to 'lost contact' markers, especially for stationary units like AT Guns and Pillboxes. This would basically simulate telling a tank crew, "We just spotted gun fire coming from a ridge about 500m due north of your position. It looks like an enemy pillbox, but it stopped firing and we can't make out it's exact position anymore. When you crest the ridge, be on the lookout for it." This would make the unit more likely to focus it's attention on the general area where the pillbox was spotted, meaning that the tank might spot the pillbox sooner and get off a shot or two before it gets capped. The cover arc command in CMBB should basically give you this ability - just issue a 'cover arc' command so the tank turret (and presumably the majority of the tanks spotting attention) will be focused towards the pillbox location when it crests the rise. That's just a guess, though. Alas, I am no CMBB Beta tester.

Bump in the road. I'm starting to get hungry for the next scenario. What's the plan, ST? Are we on schedule to start at it again after the holiday weekend?? Cheers, YD

Archibald - Hey, I can see the recruitment campaign now: "Join the Army!! Learn how to carry lots of heavy stuff!" Every straight-leg infantry grunt I've ever talked to whenever, wherever, and however they served has complained about how much stuff they carried on their backs while in the service. I guess your experience was no different. I'm pulling this all out of my butt because searching for the thread it originally appeared is is fruitless - there's too many MG threads in the past of this forum!! Anway, the standard ammo load of an HMG 42 team in CMBO 95 "shots". IIRC, this is meant to represent an actual number of rounds somewhere in the vicinity of the 4800 you mention; somewhere in the foggy recesses of my brain I remember a figure of 4500 rounds. I'm guessing that the MG42 itself and it's accessories (tripod, sights, etc.) were a bit heavier in WWII than their equivalent nowadays what with the development of lightweight plastics and all, so assuming that German soldiers were as competent pack mules as the men in your outfit, they might of actually been able to carry a bit less ammo assuming an equal weight loading. With rounding to get nice even numbers, dividing your 4800 rounds by CM's 95 'shots' for an HMG42 team, you get 50 rounds per 'shot'. Keep in mind that CM 'shots' are an abstracted thing used to resolve small arms fire - they don't necessarily represent one burst of aimed MG fire or anything like that, and one 'shot' for one MG may represent a different number of actual rounds fired than for another MG with a different ROF. I did a very quick test, (just an open map, Regular HMG42s area firing at open ground 300m away), and under these simple conditions, anyway, HMG42s use about 7 'shots' per one-minute turn, or 350 rounds/min. If an HMG fires on an area target constantly until it runs out of ammo, then, in CM is will run out of ammo in about 13.5 minutes of firing (assuming no jams, of course). So why the discrepancy between the 13.5 minutes for the HMG42 team and the 25 minutes rapid fire you mention from your military experience? Well, first of all, the test I did above more or less represents ideal firing range conditions - I really doubt an MG in acutal combat, even if heavily engaged, would maintain that ROF to a very long time - even if unsupressed, sooner or later, you're going to switch targets, etc. I do think this test demonstrates one of the weaknesses of the MG42 design, though. As most on this forum are well aware, the MG42 had an incredibly high cyclic ROF. I've seen a variety of figures, but they're all around 1500 rounds/min. Apparently, it's a little difficult to peg the cyclic ROF for the MG42 because the MG's ROF actually accelerated over the course of a long burst. This is part of the reason why German gunners were trained to fire the MG42 is short bursts - it had a tendancy to jam on long bursts due to the ROF acceleration. Anyway, most modern GP MGs have a cyclic ROF in the 800-900 rounds/min range. So why the decrease in ROF? Isn't more better? As it turns out, the answer is, "not necessarily". There are many reasons why a GP MG's ROF can be too high - excess barrel wear and high ammo usage are just a couple. The MG42 was certainly the best rifle-caliber MG of WWII, but it actually wasn't a particularly accurate gun. Accounts I've read by soldiers who used both German GP MGs (i.e., German war vets) are all consistent in stating that the MG34 was a more accurate gun. The MG42 made up for this by simply firing more bullets in less time - a quantity approach to firepower effectiveness rather than a quality one. This, I think, is the is the biggest single reason why the CM HMG42 teams might not get as much firing time out of their ammo loads as a modern GP MG team - they may be carrying close to the same number of rounds, but the nature of the MG42 as a weapon means that they're going to go through those rounds more quickly. So the 95 'shot' ammo load for a German HMG 42 team seems about right to me. I'd have to sit down and do research and math about the other MG teams in CMBO to see if their ammo loads make sense - you have to take into account the number of men (from 2 to 6), the weight and mounting of the MG as well as it's ROF, etc, but at quick inspection, none of them seem wildly off base. Eventually, in some future iteration, a resupply, or an 'extra' ammo feature for prepared positions (i.e., more than the team can carry) in CM would be a nice treat. Like I said, though, I don't often run out of MG ammo in my battles right now, so I wouldn't classify this as a high-priority improvement. Your point about personal weapons is well taken. I'm talking off the top of my head again, but I'm pretty sure everyone of the various MG teams represented in CM carried a personal firarm of some sort - I think just a pistol for the gunner himself, but rifles, carbines or SMGs for most of the rest. They probably didn't carry much ammo for these weapons, but I'm sure they would use them if the MG position was in danger of being overrun. There's acutally a similar problem with Mortar teams and HQs - Mortar teams in CMBO are modeled as having pistols (incaccrate because many of them would have at least carbines or SMGs), and they can't even fire the pistols unless they abandon the mortar. Platoon and Company HQs in model at least one member of the HQ unit as being armed with a pistol (presumably the Lieutenant or Captain himself). I don't know what the official TOE was, but I have never seen a photo of a combat infantry Lieutenant or Captain from WWII taken in a combat zone where the officer isn't carrying a rifle, carbine or SMG of some sort. I guess BFC modeled the mortar crews and HQs with pistols, and MG crews with no personal weapons is because their primary job is not shooting their personal firearms at the enemy, but rather supporting their crew-served weapon, or in the case if HQs, issuing orders and the like. 95% of the time I think this simplification works fine - I generally avoid using my MG crews and mortar crews as rifle infantry because they're much more useful in the support roles they're designed for. I generally try to keep my HQs from getting too involved in a firefight because I need their command capabilities and I really don't want them to get panicked or knocked out. Ultimately, though, it seems to me that a better model would be to give the units their proper weapons and then be careful about how you model their usage. MG and mortar crews probably wouldn't use their personal firearms until the enemy got really close and was threatening to overrun their position; HQ units probably didn't put out as much fire in most situations IRL because they were busy commanding their troops and trying to communicate with other officers on the battlefield. I dunno, maybe HQs should have a reduced firepower until they're in very close proximity to an enemy unit. As I understand it, CMBB is going to model personal firearms for mortar and gun crews, but not MG crews.

And my hats off to everyone on this thread for discussing the matter in a generally civil and thoughtful manner. In the past, many discussions about MGs have degraded into name-calling and mudslinging. Nice to see that that doens't necesarily have to happen. Glad you all liked the link. I found it very informative myself. A couple more thoughts regarding Archibald's post: Archibald: I agree with all your points. I would, however, qualify my agreement with your "ammo undermodeling" point. To wit: I remember a discussion about this in the past. Someone brought up questions about the number of rounds a German HMG squad carried. Apparently, on the march MG crews actually had a wheelbarrow-type cart that they carried the gun and a whole mess of ammo. The thing is, they probably wouldn't be wheeling that cart into combat, so the amount of ammo an HMG team is meant to reflect the amount the team could actually carry around on the battlefield. Indeed, the reason why an HMG42 team has 6 members is largely to have more backs to hump ammo. A 7.62mm round weighs 27g, which comes to 37 (roughly) rounds per kilo. So 5000 rounds of 7.62mm ammo (which an MG42 could theoretically burn through in less than 5 minutes of cyclic firing!) weighs a whopping 135 kilos, and we haven't even started to account for the weight of the MG, extra barrels, the tripod, sights, tools to clear jams, etc. It's no wonder that the Germans saw infantry grunts largely as MG ammo porters! The problem is not quite as severe with the lower ROF allied MGs, but I think the point remains clear: Infantry is not going to carry much more ammo on their backs than you see in CMBO. Ideally, an HMG team would have more ammo stashed somewhere in a area a bit rear of the line (i.e, the aforementioned cart) and could send runners back to bring ammo forward as needed. But since CMBO doesn't model ammo resupply, this gets lost. So I don't see your point about ammo 'undermodelling' and mine about the weight of the ammo as necessarily contradictory - IRL, MG teams don't necessarily have to rely just on the ammo they can carry on their backs. The thing is, with the exception of American Airborne (3-man) LMG teams, the American .50 cal. (whose ammo is REALLY heavy), and the German LMG42 teams, I rarely ever run out of ammo for my MGs. I guess if I was into playing really long scenarios this might be more of a factor. It might also be more of a factor in CMBB with the ability of MGs to 'go cyclic' at closer ranges. We'll just have to wait and see. Cheers, YD

lcm - I don't really have enough information about how you ran your test to give an opinion as to whether your results were 'realistic' or not. Here are a few of the things I would need to know: 1) Was the MG team dug in, or just deployed in open ground? 2) When you say "empty level terrain", I assume you mean open ground with no relief?? 3) What were the experience level of the troops in involved? 4) What kind of assault drill did you use for the attacking rifle squads? Or to put it another way, what orders did you issue to the attacking units? Depending on the answers to the above queries, I could say your results are either dead-on, slightly unrealistic, or very unrealistic. If you set up an HMG team in a foxhole firing across perfectly level open ground (and, yes, I know open ground is not pool table flat in CM) at green rifle squads that were ordered to simply run at the MG in a mass (i.e., a "human wave" attack) then I'd say your results if anything show a slight undermodeling of the MG's suppressive/killing effect. OTOH, if you just had the MG team set up in open ground with no cover, and the assaulting rifle squads were were regular or better and moving across more 'realistic' terrain (i.e, open ground, but some relief), AND they were following a good assault drill (i.e., squads keep wide separation; one squad moves while the other lays down suppressive fire, squads make use of what cover they can find in terrain relief), then I would say your results do show a moderate overmodelling of MG performance under the conditions you mention. IMHO, some of the problems with MG modeling in CMBO (see, I'm talking about CMBO, NOT CMBB ) have to do with orders available to other units. for example, you can order the rifle squads in the aforementioned example to "move" (which is more or less a march), to sneak (where they will stick to cover, but they will stop and return fire as soon as they are fired upon), or "Run" (Which is mostly (but not completely) modeled as a flat-out sprint with almost no attention to cover). None of these is really satisfactory for how a squad would move while assaulting an MG position. In other words, the problem is not with MG firepower modeling per se, but rather is a movement under fire issue. Hopefully, the new "Assault" movement order in CMBB will fix this (OK, now I'm talking about CMBB, but I'm only speculating!! ) Since there's been a lot of speculation about what is and is not going to happen with MG modeling in CMBB on this thread, I went back to the CMBB FAQ thread and located the best information I could find "from the horse's mouth" i.e, from BFC). The thread linked to below is liked to on the CMBB FAQ thread, but the link is very easy to miss unless you read through all the posts on the FAQ thread very carefully. Topic: Proposed cover-based MG firepower modifier Most of the thread deals with a proposal JasonC made for the modeling of MGs in CMBB, but there is a long post from Steve regarding what is going to be changed for MGs in CMBB, the logic, and the engine/harware limitations. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. Cheers, YD

Well, except for those out there who are CMBB beta testers, we'll all have to wait until the release to see if they're any good in the game. . . Historically, they were generally inferior to German MGs. As the name implies, the Maxim 1910 was a pre-WWI design; it had undergone some minor improvements in the interwar years, but it was still basically the same gun as was used in the First World War. As noted above, it was very heavy; this is what necessitated the wheeled frame mounting. It also had a much lower ROF than the MG34 or MG42 - the website Parballum refrences above lists the cyclic ROF for the Maxim at 600rpm. On plus side, it was a sturdy, reliable gun. It was easy to maintain and performed well under field conditions. This is particularly important when comparing it to the MG34. While the MG34 was a great gun, it did not tolerate dust, mud, and cold very well. In terms of firepower, I would expect to see a similar performance to the British Vickers in CMBO (Another WWI era gun). I would also expect to see a similar lack of mobility. Worth noting that the Maxim is also similar to the Vickers in that they are both water-cooled (which partially explains the weight). It will be interesting to see if CMBB takes into account the mobility effects of the wheeled carriage on the maxim. Presumably, the wheels would allow the maxim team to move significantly faster over open terrain, but might actually become an additional encumbrance in very close terrain where the wheels wouldn't roll well. I look forward to discovering the answers myself. Cheers, YD [edited 'cause the info on the website Parabellum ref'ed is probably more reliable than the stuff in my head. ] [ June 30, 2002, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: YankeeDog ]

Read the CMBB FAQ thread. There's a link on it to a thread where BFC directly addresses the MG modeling issues. I think you'll find that MGs are not simply being made more lethal. They are being made more lethal in some specific situations, and their ammo usage and fire distribution modeling is being tweaked. I suspect you'll find that the changes being made are more along the lines of what you're taking about.

I grew up in an agricultural area (Vermont, USA) where maize (or corn, as us American call it) was the most common crop. Mostly it is grown in Vermont as feed for dairy cattle. In the northeast U.S., maize grows steadily throughout the summer, reaching a height of around 2m by mid-late august. Some varieties I have seen are slightly taller than this at full height, but certainly not as high as 3m. Maize fields are quite dense. Since fully grown maize is above the head height of all but the tallest humans, LOS for someone standing on thier own two feet in the middle of a maize field is VERY short - perhaps in the order of 10-15m. I played many a game of hide-and-seek in maize fields growing up. A neat little trick: Since most of a maize plant's leaves are on the upper part of the plant, you can actually see better if you crouch down and get your eyes close to ground level. Maize is not tall enough to obscure the view from one tank turret to another, though, except maybe for small or low-profile vehicles like turretless tanks. While I have seen fully grown grain fields that approached my own height (I'm 6'1", or about 1.8m tall), I have never seen wheat, barley, or rye that surpasses the height of Maize. Assuming no intervening terrain feature, I see no way that fully grown grain fields of any sort could conceal the LOS from one Medium or Heavy tank turret to another. Of, course, ALL you would see would be the turret, so fully IDing the tanks would be more difficult, and at long distances, spotting would presumably be less likely because there's less of the tank to see. I guess this is a minor inaccuracy in the CM model. As a little side note, Tanks (or any vehicle, for that matter) leave big swaths of knocked down grain when they drive through cultivated fields. From a higher elevation, even the paths of bent/broken stalks smade by the passage of people on foot is quite apparent from considerable distance. In maize fields, the plants are bigger and spaced farther apart, so you can avoid breaking the stalks if you are on foot and move slowly and carefully. This does slow down your forward progress considerable, though. Cheers, YD

Actually, the secret to my success was partially tempting my opponent to shell my "unsupported" infantry with his tanks so I could get the jump on him with my tanks. My grunts (what's left of them!) probably don't like me very much. My tankers probably have a better opinion of their commander, tho.

Re tank crews abandoning when it might be safer for them to just sit tight or try to drive out of danger: As noted, there is plenty of historical evidence that this is what tank crews actually did, so I don't think CM's modelling of this is unrealistic. This may be more because of an instinctive fear reaction than any rational thought that being outside the tank would be safer. The fear of fire and tight enclosed spaces are pretty basic fears. It does seem that tank crews get killed quite often as they bail out in my CM battles, though. Perhaps they don't surrender as often as they should? Tank crews seem awfully willing to try to dash across 50-60m of open ground to the nearest cover while under heavy fire. IMHO, if they knew that the tank was covered by small arms fire, they might jump out of the thing with their hands up. re Redwolf's comments about multiple shots at possible KOed tanks: I don't see how this would increase manual targetting by players very much. What I am envisioning here is a system where there would be additional possible states for AFVs: In addition to "Abandoned" and "Knocked Out", you could also have "Abandoned?" and "Knocked Out?". If you wanted to be really detailed, I suppose you could also have "Gun Damage?" and "Immobilized?". In some situations (brew up, crew clearly seen jumping out), the tank would go right away to "Knocked Out" or "Abandoned" after being hit. Then the TacAI would immediately switch to another target if one was available. I do believe that the decision to re-target a clearly Abandoned or Knocked Out AFV should always be player-controlled, but that's no different than it is now. Often, though, after a hit, the Vehicle would go to "Abandoned?" (no activity, but crew not clearly seen leaving the vehicle), or "Knocked Out?" (some evidence of serious damage, but can't be sure). In such cases, the TacAI would fire one or two more rounds into the vehicle to be sure. I suppose if a hit on an AFV took place at the very end of a turn, and the vehicle went to "Abandoned?" or "Knocked Out?", but the TacAI hadn't yet fired off it's 'finishing' rounds, then the player might want to pull the targeting off the AFV and manually target something else, but such action would not come without risk - there would be a significant chance that the information was wrong (just like when you ID an AFV as a "Panther?" now and it turns out to be a PzIV) and the supposedly KOed AFV would come back to life. If anything, I would be less likely to manually retarget off a questionably killed AFV in a situation like this; I'd be more likely to allow my Tankers to "make him sure", and then move on to the next target. Admittedly, the TacAI for implementing this might just be too complicated. For example, suppose an 88mm ATG crew with two Shermans in front of it. The ATG hits one Sherman, and the vehicle goes to "Knocked Out?" status, meaning the hit looked good, but the gun crew isn't sure. In the meantime, the other Sherman has clearly spotted the ATG and is swinging it's turret around to bear. Does the ATG crew put another round into the possibly disabled Sherman first (it can do this pretty quickly as range and bearing have already been found), or does it immediately change targeting to try to get the other Sherman before it starts landing HE rounds too close for comfort? If I was a reasonably experienced commander of an 88mm crew and I saw a clear hit on the first Sheman, I think I'd start to target the other Sherman immediately - I'd probably know that the chances of that hit not causing serious damage were pretty low. What if it's the crew of 57mm ATG targeting Tigers, though? Here, the chances of a non-killing hit are much higher. Maybe the crew would want to make sure the first one was dead before trying to engage the second. There's also the issue of how experience plays into all of this. More experienced crews would certainly be better at telling whether or not a vehicle was really KOed or not, but would green crews be more or less likely to keep shooting at a possibly KOed target?? Whatever the case, it sounds like some pretty tricky stuff for the TacAI to model. 'twould be pretty cool tho. . . Cheers, YD

Essayons: Thanks for the compliment. I feel obligated to note, however, that in hindsight I probably should have tempered my "scathing wit" a bit. Maybe I should have added a paragraph at the end explaining to Mustang that my issue was with what I saw as a rather arrogant posting style and a general lack of supporting data, not with his assertions per se. He was, after all, just a new member of the forum looking to contribute something to a couple of issues of debate. I'm glad you enjoyed my attempt at satirical humor, though. And yes, I did note the "WW11" thing, but I decided to leave it out because it didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the stuff I was lampooning. As to whether I play CM as well as I write, we'll just have to meet on the field sometime. Cheers, YD

In response to those disagreeing with my 'not very common' assesment: My meaning was that two killing hits in a row as was described is not very common, even for a relatively accurate AT Gun at relatively close range. Especially if there there's Tungsten ammo involved, there's no doubt that the 6pdr can penetrate both the Tiger's and the StuH's frontal armor. However, in my experience, you'll usually get one or two missed shots in there somewhere. When you factor the chance of two hits on two different targets with the chance of both hits being kills (the kill chance being good but by no means guaranteed), you get a relatively uncommon occurrence. Worth noting that even with a couple of missed shots, a 57mm would still have a good chance of taking out a Tiger and a StuH before those two AFVs could take out the gun - the 6pdr's high ROF and fast rotation mean that the German tankers are going to be sweating hard trying to bring their slow-rotating guns to bear on the ATG before the killing shot comes in. Some other thoughts/questions: Can a Jeep towing a 6pdr really go 50mph?! Thanks for the responses re the use of the 6pdr in AFVs. I guess when you look at some of the allied doctrine surrounding tank usage (i.e., tanks support infantry, tank hunters kill tanks), the scarcity of 6pdr/57mm armed tanks makes more sense. It's a great compact AT gun; it's a crappy infantry support gun. Wasn't there a Halftrack-mounted 57mm/6pdr used in the North African campaign?? Cheers, YD

As to your first question: Nope, certainly not typical. Even at short range results like that are not very common, even with a Veteran crew. They are certainly possible, though - that's one of the nice things about CM is that it models the chances of war pretty well. Trust that karma will come around sooner or later and you'll bounce 3 88mm shells in a row off a sherman or something like that. As to your second question, I don't know. I have often wondered myself why Allied tank designs never made use of the 57mm/6pdr. Cheers, YD

I guess the reason CM makes them so expensive is the fact that they are more often more valuable *not* shooting because they spot enemy really well with very little chance of being spotted themselves. This, of course, gets into the whole 'borg' spotting issue. I suppose if a future iteration of CM were to solve the borg spotting problem, we could Sharpshooters priced more for their acutal combat functionality. You point about sniper rifles issued vs. tanks is a good one. I was reading about US Army TO&E at the platoon level the other day. I don't remember which website I was looking at, but it listed the "HQ Unit" of the platoon as 4 men: a lieutenant, sergant, messenger, and a sharpshooter. If correct, then should the U.S. platoon be a 3-man HQ with a sharpshooter organic to the platoon? That would put a lot more of them in CM battles. . .

One issue that muddies the water here with some of the light guns is that with a few of them one 'shot' in CM is actually a burst of Autocannon fire, so you have the chance of a 'penetration' being more than one shell. I think this is especially important when looking at kills of things like Halftracks by something 20mm FlaK. A single 20mm AP round, especially if penetrating from the side, would have a good chance of hitting *nothing* important in the vehicle. When you consider that that shot is maybe 4-5 shells, the likihood of a 'kill' gets much higher. As noted, though, once we get into CMBB, we will see ATRs and small ATGs in the vicinity of 20mm calibre firing single 'shots', so the reduced liklihood of a 'kills' with small projectiles like these becomes important. S others have already brought up. I would also like to see tank and ATG crews fire another shot or two at at a tank that has been KOed, but has not 'brewed up', of their own accord (i.e., without further orders). Mostly because I think often the tank crew wouldn't be sure if the first hit had KOed the tank in many situations, and would fire another round just to be sure.

Well, I can't speak to your overall intelligence, but this idea isn't such a bad one. I see two problems with this idea: 1) You're going to have to commit a leader. I generally already have enough jobs for my Platoon and Company commmanders running squads and spotting for on-board mortars & c. It's not very often I have an extra one to send on an extended sojurn into enemy territory. 2) Giving your sharpshooter a leader with a stealth bonus may make him even stealthier, but you're also adding another, less stealthy unit to your incursion forces (i.e., the HQ). An HQ with a stealth bonus is pretty low profile, but still not as low profile as a sharpshooter. If the HQ gets spotted, it may put the Sharpshooter at risk as well, as you opponent is bound to assume that you have other units in the area. I think the big thing I forget about sharpshooters is their really long range. Mention has been made of this thread of their effectiveness out to 500m. That means they don't really have to get all that deep behind enemy lines to cause damage on the average CM map. If I thought of finding good hiding spots with a 500m LOS to likely enemy heavy weapons locations, my Sharpshooter would probably get spotted a lot less often when they opened fire. . . Cheers, YD

Yes, indeed. I credit my entire victory to being very careful with how I used my X's. The result was that Witko didn't have any Y's left by the end of the match. Actually, he didn't have any V's or W's left, either. On the other hand, I was not so careful with my Z's and lost all of them for relatively little gain. Otherwise, I could have really done some damage. Cheers, YD [ June 27, 2002, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: YankeeDog ]