manchildstein (ii)

if you would like to see heavy, heavy artillery, play with rarity off.. sure spices things up when you're attacking someone who has TRPs about and a 210mm FO... grins

the 81mm onboard and offboard are best at taking out guns... as for HMG or 75/76mm IGs on the attack... they're excellent... not really that difficult to move forward if necessary in my experience... once... i had about 8 of the 75mm IG ('battalion support plus regimental battery') in an attack... i was on an orchard board... stealthily i moved the infantry guns forward, perhaps 100-200 metres behind the leading infantry... when contact was gained... the opponent was quite surprised to learn there were so many 75mm guns beaded in on his position... when his KV2 showed up... it lost its gun on the first shot from one of my 75s... 75/76mm "IG"... bread and butter baby...

ways to get more mileage out of QBs: use a custom map... even if it's just random generated and then touched up a bit; roads completed, elevations tweaked, etc. play with the rarity off rock and roll baby!

only if it is pre-planned will the fire continue.. if it is 'on call' the fire will be broken...

another consideration for the '1.04' patch.. is that blast value of '9' for the romanian hotchkiss 25mm aa correct?... i mean the german 20mm is '4' and the russian 25mm is '3'.... '9' seems high for that 25mm hotchkiss...

so to put it into other words... adamo, when you purchase motorized infantry.. the assumption is that they're already disembarked from their trucks.. so in a quick battle for instance.. you're not under any obligation to purchase any trucks... you know the german '41 motorized recon battalion with the heavy weapons company (pioneer platoon, 3 x 37mm AT, 2 x 75mm IG)... that is a great formation for that period...

in cmbb... if i line up about 7 or 8 75mm infantry guns in trees along a road... if a kv shows up on the road... it usually dies within 1 or 2 minutes....

yes it is very tempting to throw good troops after bad... in search of that 'quick score' which can 'get you back into the game' but alas.. it usually causes a player to fall 'farther behind' instead...

when targeting a mortar, the 'out of range' message means the intended target is either too close or too far away from the mortar...

i turned around and attempted 38 soviet aa guns (494 points) versus 20 veteran german snipers (500 points) on the same map... the aa guns didn't do well at all... couldn't spot a single sharpshooter as the gun crews were picked off one by one... so unbalanced forces such as tigers, aa guns, etc... all have their counter... usually, probably the best force to handle all-around contingencies is a balanced one... here is my take: if players stick to more or less balanced forces with both long and short-range AT capability, mortars and sharpshooters to deal with gun-happy defenses, and some infantry and artillery, and some kind of aa capability, that kind of force will have something available to combat whatever combination the other player might think up... the battle results tend to be closer to 50-50... on the other hand when the players start purchasing unbalanced forces such as all kv2s in 1941, or all aa guns.... then the battle often turns out to be a clear victory or loss.... 85-15 or vice versa.... the reason for playing qbs like this; with no purchasing limits and rarity off, is the unique situations it can generate.... if strictly historical is what i'm after, there's always the scenario depot... so yes unbalanced forces are often a nightmare to face (or as it turns out, to field)... but that's what gives such qbs their 'edge'... just my .02... [ December 26, 2003, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

with the rarity off, for roughly 500 points you can get: axis: two tigers (veteran) allied: thirty-eight 25mm aa (reg) or twelve 37mm aa (reg) it looks to me like the 25mm can score an immobilization which could lead to an abandonment... a disabling gun hit would be rare from the tests i've seen... thirty eight 25mm aa guns took out 1 tiger the first minute... the other tiger was immobilized and not taken out for several minutes... (lost about 2 25mm) 12 37mm can take out 2 tigers in 2 minutes (lost 4 guns)... the los situation has to be correct though... don't know if the 'aa battalion' tactic would help in certain quick battles.... my tests were on an open map with the guns sitting in steppe terrain oh.. of the 25mm aa... the tigers had a very difficult time spotting these guns, even in steppe... [ December 26, 2003, 04:10 AM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

try to get the KV2s matched up on single targets... if you get exposed to a lot of guns simultaneously ... even small caliber like light aa and antitank rifle... that lucky gun or track hit can take the tank right out of the battle... i would screen forward and on the flanks with the light armor, and have yet another screen inside that with the infantry, with the kv2s at the center, and move the entire force in a formation like that ... in tank versus tank or just shelling away at infanry, your kv2 is deadly one-on-one against anything but an 88 gun or something... i was just in a battle against KV tanks; as italians a hail of 65mm mountain gun fire, solothurn atr, and 20mm aa took out a kv2... the main thing in fighting against them is to hit them with everything available; again when you have one or two in your force, isolate them 1:1 on targets.... or perhaps in your case, 2:2...

ok.. have posted a note at tpg... please let me know as well if your schedule opens up...thanks

...the idea to be able to search for battles by 2-player or versus the ai is the 1st thing i'd like to see... maybe the reviews should be simplified to a simple 1-4 or 1-5 rating... no subcategories or added text; just a single rating, 1 to 5 or whatever...

bump... looking for playtesting before releasing to the scenario depot... very 1st 2-player scenario i've designed for cmbb... want to see if it's balanced.... if anyone else is designing something i would be willing to playtest yours in return for a playtest of this... thanks spoilers..... . . . . . . . . . . .. . . playtested this one many times, 'self-hotseat' and adjusted the forces, flags, and the map after each playing... germans were consistently unable to fight their way into the town, but as the forces were adjusted over and over again, the germans did better and better in the scenario... i'd like to think the odds are at least close to 50:50 now ... the map is mostly trees with woods... there is a rail line running through a small town... the russians start with possession of all flags, but the germans have the advantage of being able to attack the flag positions from any combination of 3 general directions.... the forces are roughly equal in cost (about 2800 points per side)... detailed order of battle spoiler.... . . . . . both sides are mostly high-quality troops... lots of light armor with a couple or 3 'heavy hitters' per side.... and a reinforced company with artillery spotters per side... since the russians are 'already there' in the town, some of their force includes minefields, fortifications, and guns (76.2mm and 45mm)... meeting action... russians have 3 TRPs and the germans 1...

i want my 25mm panhard armored car... then they could patch it into cmbb too... or... what if they put it all on something like a 3-cd set or a dvd and it had every vehicle from every game, and added the pto and the rest of the eto, and you could mix and match units and terrain in any way you saw fit? ... like instead of 'axis' and 'allied' it would be 'red' and 'blue' and a player could purchase anything from the entire (axis and allied) unit list... so you could still design realistic scenarios but on the other extreme you could also have really crazy quick battles... this is something we did in squad leader once... 3 of us bought anything we wanted and mixed and matched our units on a city map, then had a 3-way street fight... i think one dude had king tigers supported by 6-2-8 soviet smg squads for example.... i would like to see this flexibility in cm

i like kitty's idea... think of the models you would need and the battles you could make: '30s china battles with soviets in late '30s* 'malay' penninsula 1942* burma/india 1944* philippines, 42/44* guadacanal sapain,tinian,guam okinawa soviets in manchuria 1945 fictional scenarios (invasion of japan, etc.) *most interested in so you'd need '30s soviet armor, and 1945 soviet armor, all of the japanese kit from '30s onward, american army and marines from dec '41 to '45...you'd have to throw in chinese, commonwealth, and aussies... would aussies be using at least some amount of american equipment? researching formation types and figuring their editor/qb costs might be the biggest obstacle, but what do i know ... the japanese light tanks sure would be interesting to handle... and american 37mm guns with grape shot (cannister)

and if you want to win this one as russians, set up your guns so they're firing sideways instead of along the length of the map; so they all have firing lanes running crosswise at about the same spot of the map.... you could put about half your guns on one side and another half on the other, each group facing inward and with only that lateral los (line of sight)... the best spot in my opinion is that valley ... i think it's about 2/3 across the map (1/3 from the russian or east end)... set up your stuff in and around there so and is invisible until germans start cresting the hill above... or even a bit later... once that german spearhead first finds a 'hot spot' (lots of your interlocking firing lanes)... you should 'toast' (eliminate) a lot of tanks in short order if things go well...

dang... that bug again... originally posted on thread about 'citadel schwerpunkt'... 'landed' here.. text cut and then paste over there... [ December 11, 2003, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

now available for testing at the proving grounds: http://www.the-proving-grounds.com/scenario_details_link.html?sku=167 Title: Sokolov Screen 2-Player 2-Player Only Semi-Historical Meeting Action 8 Jul, 1941 South, Hot, Dry, Clear, Still, Night Size: 960 x 800 Meters Reinforced Company per side; roughly 3000 points apiece Turns: 22 Scenario Version: 1.0 Jul, 1941: After roughly 2 weeks of fighting the Russians have been pushed back to the Stalin Line. On the approaches to Sokolov a small LAH KG attempts to clear a rail line through the otherwise rugged countryside. A band of Russian defenders braces for the conflaguration.

i've got a scenario in wooded terrain which has an smg company as the core of a russian force... it's cmbb but you can check it out at: http://www.the-proving-grounds.com/scenario_details_link.html?sku=167

so there might have been one or more t-34 factories producing tanks with thicker armor; or do you think these might have been like "t-34 jumbos" with field-modified armor instead?

my experience in close-in (50 meters and less) combat such as in woods is that the side which isn't moving at the moment of contact, 'gets the drop' on the side which is moving, and can tend to inflict heavy casualties. in the situation you described, perhaps the best way to approach is to somehow establish supporting fire into those same woods (which apparently you had with the tanks chucking HE; yet not enough to preserve your platoon under ADVANCE orders) and SNEAK into place. to put it another way, close-range attacks requiring less supporting fire may be able to use the ADVANCE command, but if if they require more supporting fire than is at hand they should probably try and SNEAK to contact instead. one thing would be to try and limit the extent of your moves to stop where your squads are anticipated to come into line-of-site/line-of-fire (LOS/LOF) of the defending units. in any event i can definitely hear you, myself having had many a platoon rendered ineffectual whilst attempting to root out defenders who had automatic weapons in the woods. the main thing to remember is that, if you as the attacker come under fire while making a move at 50m against squads with automatic weapons, it can get ugly really quickly.

another effect of HE on AFVs is via the direct fire approach... the 150mm or 152mm HE is deadly against just about anything... if i've got an ISU-152 with HE-only i'll try to engage armor if the circumstances (first shot, good odds of hitting; or just a plain overwhelming number of ISUs engaging the target) are right... the tac ai might not like it but the proof is in the pudding... when that "6-inch" shell hits it's more often than not "lights out"... and accompanying opposing infantry is 'stripped' by the near misses...

--At the time that the PIIIs had hand cranked turrets the British cruisers had hydraulic powered turrets. -- is that right?... if so, when exactly was that?... 1940?...