manchildstein (ii)

does this happen to anyone else? sometimes i'll be playing with 50 or so tanks and i know they're all about to come under fire. thus i button them all up, then in the following turn i hear that tell-tale noise and it sounds like half of them are unbuttoning... then i look again and a good number of them have taken crew casualties... if i would change one small thing about this game, it would be that if i button a tank up, it stays buttoned until ordered to unbutton... i just don't see the sense in my buttoning it, then it unbuttoning on its own, only to take a crew casualty to small arms fire or whatever... it's almost like i never get the full advantage of 5-man crews (3-man turrets) because a good half of them have taken crew casualties by the time the battle is entered in full... is this one area of cmbb where allowing player micromanagement might be good? thanks for your consideration

there's always... 'i split my force and it was destroyed piecemeal'... then there is, 'i packed the (same) force too closely together and it was waxed big time by the artillery... these are both common themes for me...

ok.. thanks guys... i did a search on the web and found some scale model kits called, 'pzbefwg' and they had antennas all over the place... for this scenario... a battalion of the panzer regiment of the 11th panzer 'near dubno'... for this scenario i'm going to represent the 3 pzbefwg of the hq company as pz iii f and deplete their ammo a bit... perhaps in 'real life' these 3 tanks were a combination of dummy guns and normal...

bump bump

bump

that's brutal... i had that happen with an 82mm mortar fo... i mean the inaccurate part... i got lucky... it dropped in open ground... i think as well that such was my last time for calling in artillery blind... something i did all the time in cmbo... now i'm a big fan of pre-planned

i don't know... but what i do know is that, i loaded that 'baby' into the scenario editor and recoiled in horror... what... 18,000 to 9,000 points?.... too much for my duron 1200 with its puny (128k?) "L2" cache... i doubt that it will burn out your cpu though... someone told me just the other day, that even when your cpu is 'idle,' that it's really not... that it is constantly 'polling' for new instructions...

i have heard that, at least at the higher levels (regiment, division?) that these "command tanks" had no gun and instead their turrets were filled with radio gear and a wooden dummy gun. what about on the battalion level? would the PzBefWg tanks in the battalion's hq company have no main gun? thanks in advance (tia)

sl/asl had the 82mm variety... as well as other 'calibers'

PCZONE magazine sucked with CMBB rewiev but I still love it and I hate :mad: PC GAMER,sorry.[/QB]</font>

t-34s were encountered in late june around dubno

are you sure the large flags aren't 400?... if they're indeed 300, what have i been smoking? anway, yes i too like to use multiple flags in the same location... you may want to keep in mind though that in the case of the ai, it doesn't appear as though such a location is given any greater weight... as for exiting units, as another option were you aware you could set them to 'exit' or 'no exit' when you design the scenario... just a few random thoughts...

Major Heat, thanks for the review Spoiler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i'm wondering from your description: "I noticed the multiple flags that the previous review mentioned, also there were a couple of flags near the Axis deployment zone that just seemed to be sat in a wood, about 10 metres apart, I wasn't entirely sure what they were for. However, this is a minor quibble that didn't affect my enjoyment of the game. " if those were the ones on the axis' left? i will have to re-check the scenario map when i get a chance but i'm wondering if those flags are the ones where the units are guarding the 'rear' of the pillboxes, which themselves are facing 'backwards' in those 'left-side woods?' . . . . . . . . . anyway, thanks for the review... oh... and i understand now that the 0s don't count... after my earlier posting to Stevie on this i realized that they didn't... thanks again...

Major Heat, thanks for the review Spoiler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i'm wondering from your description: "I noticed the multiple flags that the previous review mentioned, also there were a couple of flags near the Axis deployment zone that just seemed to be sat in a wood, about 10 metres apart, I wasn't entirely sure what they were for. However, this is a minor quibble that didn't affect my enjoyment of the game. " if those were the ones on the axis' left? i will have to re-check the scenario map when i get a chance but i'm wondering if those flags are the ones where the units are guarding the 'rear' of the pillboxes, which themselves are facing 'backwards' in those 'left-side woods?' . . . . . . . . . anyway, thanks for the review... oh... and i understand now that the 0s don't count... after my earlier posting to Stevie on this i realized that they didn't... thanks again...

in cmbo, i designed a number of american cavalry scenarios... a couple of things that i remember from the webpages on the subject were: 1) u.s. cavalry squadrons (battalions) would sometimes be used to defened large stretches of 'quiet' sectors of the line. this was because, man for man they had more firepower than any other unit type... thus they could be 'strung out' and still offer a 'tough picket' 2) the m24 chaffee as a replacement for the stuart gave the american recon squadron 'f troop,' "the ability to operate in the vicinity of enemy tanks" i really enjoyed attempting to depict u.s. recon operations in cmbo... as a matter of fact it was my favorite thing in that game... as for the germans and their willingness to 'stick around for a fight,' the only thing 'concrete' i remember was a book on various german formation 'to&es;' in there they had mentioned that the germans were a sort of 'fighting recon' and again, i can believe that because for instance in 1941 those 20mm cars can go 'toe to toe' with the russian t26 and bt tanks... ...and in cmbb this is 'fun' to portray...

it might be interesting to know how long it took that squad to go 'back' from 'tired' to 'ready'...

i've also read - there and about - that the german recon would fight... and i design certain scenarios to reflect that... they had pretty good gear... for instance in '41 each battalion seems to have a motorized heavy weapons company with a pioneer platoon, 2 x 75mm IG, and 3 x 37mm AT... in my experience, in afv-only combat those 20mm armored cars are the equal of any bt or t26 tank...

people who say cmbb is 'too close' to represent the fighting in the 'east' are probably forgetting one thing; that cmbb is a tactical level game and not really operational level. if cmbb claimed to be operational level i could see the veracity of such 'too close' criticism. having said that, i believe that even as a tactical-level game, cmbb can be 'tweaked' into representing 'operational level' stuff fairly well... as an earlier poster may have mentioned, a large operation on a 6k by 4k map is.. well, it's 'operational-level.' of course this entails a lot of micromanagement... perhaps 'too much' for some players. myself, i don't mind micromanagement... because lots of units lead to great - astounding - 1-minute movies... in cmbb i don't play operations (haven't yet anyway) but i do find that large maps can accomodate battles on the battalion level. right now i'm working on a single battle which is 3k x 2k and has about 6000 points per side. so it is a way of doing an 'operational-level' action in a 'tactical game.' there are over 2 battalions of soviet infantry, and around 50 or 60 soviet tanks... on the german side there is just a company of armored infantry (with 2 platoons of 'regimental' tanks)... and there is a battalion of tanks (4 companies of between 10 to 14 tanks)... as i mentioned... i don't mind the micromanagement because the movies are so incredible... oftentimes these 'huge' scenarios turn out to be be several smaller - but interrelated - battles... if one wanted a truly operational-level game they would have to wait for panzerblitz, refined for the computer... that is to say that it would have tank platoons and infantry companies as single units... and the maps would be much larger, without the 'single buildings' we see in cmbb... but is cmbb 'too close?' actually, i had once wondered about that myself but in practice don't find it to be the case... the 3k x 3k map limit for battles really adds to the possibilities of 'tactical' combat... let's compare with the venerable squad leader... there you had a single board which was ostensibly 400 meters by '800' meters. so if we were to lay them out 4 x 4, we would have 1600 x 3200 meters... about the size of your 'average,' 'huge' cmbb mapboard. only in cmbb you would probably have a lot more AFVs on that same map... so perhaps consider cmbb to be more 'operational' than the old sl/asl, but less so than the old panzerblitz...

To Stevie: thanks for the review of this scenario, over at the depot. i'm happy to have gotten a 6.75, especially given the zeroes for replayability and pbem suitability. as for the multiple flags in certain locations; yes this is by design. this is to make such locations critical for the player's success against the ai. the problem with this approach is that the ai doesn't see such locations in the same way; instead it sees, say 7 single large flag locations and not one 2800-point location. so the human player sees the importance of the location (7 flags in one spot), but this is lost on the current ai. this is why i call for a single victory flag type with a designer-programmable flag value in the future. 'The number of tanks gave the Axis an advantage but only if the traffic management issues could be resolved. Overall, a good force balance that led to a stiff fight with a few hairy moments. ' spoiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes the traffic management can be a problem. i too found it to be a good fight. i would fight through the scattered trees on the left and by the time i had gotten past the pillboxes and gun positions, i could 'more or less' fan out in and around the town. those dug-in kvs there before the town are probably best avoided, at least by the 38t tanks and armored cars. i think that the infantry can handle them though; assuming that the infantry can get close enough. i'm at 'work' so if memory serves, if you can get to the town and take the mass of flags around there, you should be able to win without having to take the train station...taking the kvs out would help to cement a grip on the town thanks for playing and reviewing... i'm glad you enjoyed the fight... i remember one time when i played this one i took the town out using that 'left hook' described above, but the kvs were out there in front of the town in those scattered tree patches, sitting there defiantly... i then charged the kvs with every available tank and in the process was severely smoked... smoked to the point where i called a cease-fire... Stevie, if you ever happen to read this posting, i would be interested to know if you managed to take the KVs out? . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . end spoiler thanks again for the review ...

To Stevie: thanks for the review of this scenario, over at the depot. i'm happy to have gotten a 6.75, especially given the zeroes for replayability and pbem suitability. as for the multiple flags in certain locations; yes this is by design. this is to make such locations critical for the player's success against the ai. the problem with this approach is that the ai doesn't see such locations in the same way; instead it sees, say 7 single large flag locations and not one 2800-point location. so the human player sees the importance of the location (7 flags in one spot), but this is lost on the current ai. this is why i call for a single victory flag type with a designer-programmable flag value in the future. 'The number of tanks gave the Axis an advantage but only if the traffic management issues could be resolved. Overall, a good force balance that led to a stiff fight with a few hairy moments. ' spoiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes the traffic management can be a problem. i too found it to be a good fight. i would fight through the scattered trees on the left and by the time i had gotten past the pillboxes and gun positions, i could 'more or less' fan out in and around the town. those dug-in kvs there before the town are probably best avoided, at least by the 38t tanks and armored cars. i think that the infantry can handle them though; assuming that the infantry can get close enough. i'm at 'work' so if memory serves, if you can get to the town and take the mass of flags around there, you should be able to win without having to take the train station...taking the kvs out would help to cement a grip on the town thanks for playing and reviewing... i'm glad you enjoyed the fight... i remember one time when i played this one i took the town out using that 'left hook' described above, but the kvs were out there in front of the town in those scattered tree patches, sitting there defiantly... i then charged the kvs with every available tank and in the process was severely smoked... smoked to the point where i called a cease-fire... Stevie, if you ever happen to read this posting, i would be interested to know if you managed to take the KVs out? . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . end spoiler thanks again for the review ...

more spoilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . --The Toldis took out a ton of guns, but usually lost a tank for each one. -- that matches my experience... i'm glad to hear someone bested the ai here... you have the same idea as me... take the church and inflict more casualties... in my case though it was just out of reach... the way your fo died is 'something else'... i mean... 'weird'/tragic... yes that kv2 seems quite 'slippery'.... thanks for the 'aar'... i'm currently working on one called 'hill 267 point 9' and it is about the 11th panzer wheeling about and attempting to clobber elements of the soviet 34th tank corps (7th and 8th armored, 11th mech) on the outskirts of 'dubno'.... it has a huge 3k x 2k map with a huge hill in 'steppy' terrain with the 'outskirts of dubno' on one edge... at some point after that i think i will try something involving the 2nd hungarian army in '42... anyway, but yes those little tankettes have a lot of ammo, and if you can get them into mismatches against enemy infantry they do quite well...

ok... despite the force allocation, how does this one play? in playing these self-designed scenarios i always try to use standard, general tactics and then see what happens. aar spoiler: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In this scenario there is this huge fire lane, ostensibly cleared by Soviet workers, from the top of the "command post" hill down into the town of Divina, and even up further along the 'road' toward the area of the Axis setup zone. With this in mind the Axis can't really afford to expose their thin-skinned AFVs on the road itself. I went with a partly default setup, but transfered everything from the right side of the road and put all over on the left. The briefing mentions that probable Soviet positions are marked by victory flags so by attacking on the right I avoided the large flag on the far left of the road. The briefing also mentions using the 105mm FO to either prep the hill and attack the town or vice versa. Realistically, attacking the hill first off would take extra manuever. This time I did neither of the suggested methods and instead set the FO prep fire onto the area of the cemetary in the town; I was going to both shell and attack the town, while avoiding the 'main fire lane' off of the hill at all costs. Once the town had been cleared I would worry about the hill. The shelling started and all of the AFVs and infantry bounded forward through the scattered trees. The armored cars stuck to the right side of the road and the tanks moved through the areas further right and off of the road. The 37mm AT and 75mm IGs stuck to the road along with the HMG 34s. Early on the BTs across the road were discovered, and one PSW 222 from an armored car platoon managed to take out 2 of the tanks. Soviet infantry also appeared in that same patch of woods as the BTs and was engaged by the PSW 221s and MG 34s. After that position had pretty much been nullified the guns continued to push forward and the armored cars provided overwatch. I lost 1 222 and another fired so much it ran completely out of ammo. On the right my tanks and infantry approached the woods just across the road, s-se of the cemetary. Contact was sporadic until my infantry first made it into the woods proper, backed up by PZ IIs right behind them. Then it was discovered that there was a belt of wooden MG pillboxes (even as the scenario designer I forget these sorts of things) and I tried to insert an infantry platoon backed by flamethrowers (FTs) into the area closest to the cemetary and out of covered arc of the 'end' wooden pillbox. In the meantime some T26s were discovered in yet another patch of wood at the back (N) of the town and various piecemeal attempts at dislodging them met with varying degrees of success. It became apparent at this point that exposing my armor to the T26s also often meant exposing the same to guns on the hillside. The 105 barrage died down and it had apparently done its job as resistance was not too heavy. The infantry and PZ IIs, along with some 8-rad ACs cleared the main patch of woods there by the cemetary, and on the right of that same patch they dispatched a series of Soviet Guns, MGs, and Ampulomets across the road. One 37mm AT gun had pushed all the way to the e-w road and was directly across the street from the now rubblized church. It took out one of the T26s. Several armored cars were sent piecemeal to attack a wooden pillbox on the other (W) side of the road leading into town. I never learn. These piecemeal moves resulted in the loss of 4 armored cars, mainly to fire from guns from behind them and on the hill. I'd thought that maybe the ACs could have gotten deeply into the scattered trees over there without being hit, but it didn't work out that way in practice. These armored cars were actually trying to save two sharpshooters who had earlier made their way across. There at the wooden pillbox was an accompanying DP LMG and the sharpshooters were within about 5 meters of both, and at a standoff. As it turns out, the Battalion HQ was sent over there and dispatched the pillbox. By then the sharpshooters had already taken out the DP but they could do nothing against the MG pillbox. In the meantime the 2 75mm IGs were engaging targets on the left side of the road from a patch of woods directly on the right. I can remember when they first started firing. I'd been so used to the sounds of my own 20mm cannons that when those 2 boomed out with their low report, I was wondering what was going on. At the end of the movie I realized they'd been engaging Soviet infantry which was attacking piecemeal from across the road. The HMG 34s were switched from overwatching the road, and moved due east, then north and finally into the church rubble, along with my lone LMG 34 and a platoon HQ. After the town had pretty much been cleared, my Panzer IIs regrouped and began assembling in the woods on the hillside, just short of the fire lane and pretty much east of the town. In the briefing I had mentioned that the PZ III tanks were going to be pivotal to this scenario, but in my case that hadn't ringed true. 1 was knocked out by a gun on the hillside when it got into the main fire lane from the hill by accident whilst hunting for the T26s at the back of the town (those T26s - actually OT 134s - were now all silent). Another PZ III had its gun damaged so there was for the greater part of the battle only 1 serviceable PZ III. As it turns out all of the 'heaving lifting' was done by the PZ IIs. One infantry platoon had been kept in reserve during the initial fighting - this was the pioneer platoon with its 6 small squads. I'd wanted to keep one with some ammo and as it turned out, the other 3 motorized recon platoons were almost all 'low.' As the tanks - and a couple of remaining 8-wheeled ACs - assembled at the bottom of the hillside, my infantry platoons bounded forward and into another large patch of woods. There was a tough firefight there as the Soviets just kept throwing men into the inferno. As my squads were mostly 'low' on ammo they often had to sneak right up to the defending Soviets and eliminate them in hand-to-hand. The tanks snaked their way up through the scattered trees in a NE direction with the main firing lane from the hill on their left and embattled patch of woods on their right. After 4 or 5 turns of intense woods combat the second Soviet woods position was broken (2nd if you count the one with the line of pillboxes just S-SE of town as the 1st). By now it was about turn 35 of 47+ and there was just enough time for the infantry to regroup and follow the panzers up the side of the hill. It was discovered that there were two routes onto the strip of trees on the hill; one from E-SE of town and another from the cemetary in the town itself. 1 platoon of PZ IIs took the latter route, careful not to get into the main firing lane from the hill lest they be exposed to withering fire from an assortment of Soviet guns and as it turns out, KV2s. At some point one friendly recon squad was spotted by a KV2 situated in the main firing lane off of the hill. Since the distance was now generally 100 meters or less, I ordered my entire force to close to the edge of the scattered treeline and take on whatever might be there in the rocky ground of the main firing lane itself. Also by then there were friendly tanks and infantry near the top of the hill as well. My infantry and tanks all moved toward the edge of the woods, where some of their positions would be within 50 meters of the lumbering KVs and their supporting guns. A platoon of 3 (out of an original 5) PZ IIs at the top of the hill tried to curl around and get behind of the KVs, but as it turns out they were bushwacked by some BTs dug in even further east, ostensibly facing one of the secondary fire lanes from the hill but by then with LOS to the approaching PZ IIs. The first KV fell victim to a demo charge from one of the squads. The surrounding gun positions melted under a fusilade of 20mm fire and hand grenades. A turn later, another KV fell victim to the infantry. Another turn and the last KV was taken out. By then the BTs on the right were also silenced without the further loss of any AFV on my part. There were still scattered guns on the other side of the main fire lane, but my tanks by then were able to overwhelm them, and in the end the command post was crawling with friendly infantry, and PZ IIs advancing along the east side of the hilltop silenced a further 3 BT tanks on the opposite (north) side of the hill. At some point I had wondered about the KV2s and why they hadn't moved much but what did them all in was the fact that when I reached them they were all 3 immobilized, probably because of the rocky ground. I will say one thing about the PZ II... it sure 'gets around' in scattered trees and rocky terrain. I noticed this in contrast to the armored cars and panzer IIIs - one of which I was using as a decoy because of its shattered main armament. The "hero" of the battle was one of the 75mm IGs still down in the patch of woods on the road below. It had 25 infantry kills and knocked out 2 BTs. Unfortunately, during the height of the battle where my forces had engaged the KV2s, apparently one of them - one of them or perhaps one of the Soviet 76mm guns - had gotten off a lucky shot at 2 of my 37mm AT guns crossing the road by the cemetary. Both 37mm guns had been knocked out by a single shot. This was one of those things where I didn't actually see it until I'd ended the movie and was in the orders phase of a turn. During the move-making just before engaging the KV2s on the hillside, those two had been ordered forward into some scattered trees at the bottom of the main fire lane from the hill. TOn the way to that they had been caught in the e-w road by the ruins of the church and had both been knocked out by a single shot... The crater was there and all that remained were two 'burnt out' guns and a 2-man crew off to the side. What's interesting is that, at the end of turn 47 the computer had 'had enough' and actually surrendered. This gave me an 80-20 win whereas if the thing had just ended the battle instead I think that the ratio would have been more like 60-40 in my favor due to the fact that I never took any of the flags on the left (w) side of the road leading into town; instead the AI simply surrendered them to me at the end of the scenario. In actuality there was a platoon of BTs over at that large flag on the left which never saw action; again the AI just surrendered them. Maybe that's par though for a 1941 conscript force. So the concept of shelling the bejezus out of the town with a prep 105 barrage worked quite well. As a matter of fact, as the last shell fell my forces were right there across the road on the south side of the cemetary, looking at - more than anything else - already ruined Soviet positions. The intense fighting for the woods patch on the side of the hill right after that was a bit surprising. Then the fight for the hilltop proper was anticlimatic as by then I just had too many 20mm guns and high explosives for the computer to handle. I was lucky that the KV2s showed only 5 kills between them at the end of the battle. Honorable mention in my forces were a PZ II with 19 infantry and 2 guns, and an 8-wheel with 16 infantry and 1 gun knocked out. My platoons averaged about 35 kills apiece for the loss of about 40% of their strength (10-12 men). On thing about the briefing is that it lists 3 platoons of PZ IIs while there are really 4 platoons. I like that tank. Like I said; very good in scattered trees and rocky (and soft ground), and the cannon is effective against T26s and BTs as well as against infantry. More than its poor gun against heavier armor; or its own thin armor; I would rate its biggest drawback as its fairly limited ammo load. For 1941 it was fairly common from what I hear.

i always include sharpshooters as part of an AI force in the battles i design. then when i attack against the AI, the sharpshooters add an element of uncertainty to my advance. they're cheap to buy and they often inflict casualties whose value is far in excess of their own point cost.