manchildstein (ii)

I don't think that is going to happen in 1944. If I followed correctly, BTS will limit availablity of the Ferdinand to historical Eastern front appearings,w hich would be Kursk and very late in 1945. In between they hung out in Italy. Brummbär or Brummbaer will rock, though.</font>

i never read the book, and some people said the movie stunk, but i thought 'starship troopers' was a great 'infantry movie...' another great war movie was 30 seconds over tokyo...

early war german recon, then with tank reinforcements, say in the south where the fighting was reportedly tougher early on (more t-34s?)... say the recon detachment has to take a town/bridge and they've radioed division that the area is secured... pzIIIs and 38Ts are on the way... but the recon has to hold out for 15-20 minutes against furious local counterattacks... tanks show up with infantry in armored carriers... too late or right on time? a scenario representing liebstandarte regiment near the crimea in 1941... so there can be 37mm trucks... and of course elite infantry with 60 ammo in armored halftracks... too bad about no motorcycles in the game... su 152 brumbar and elephant together in '44... oh and the bt series in '41... talk about 'cavalry charges...' it's got to be a wet dream or somefink for the dudes who are currently using swarms of m8 hmc... lots of firepower (45mm 'l' and 76mm 'short' was decent in summer of '41) and speed with no armor... that's what cavalry should be all about... speed (and firepower) kills... [ August 20, 2002, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

i was at the model contest site and saw the sig screen shots. nice work! there was also a pzjg one model photo. that chassis supported a some good specialty vehicles. it will be fun to see them in action in cmbb. that sig 150 could be murder if positoned correctly!

ok... from what i know carell was more than anything a propagandist. i liked the style of writing though; the way the actions were described; the company and battalion-level narrative. please recommend some more accurate authors who cover the war in the east but on the same, company/battalion levels. thanks in advance, andy

black and white view would be cool... that's a good idea...

hi, what types of scenarios are people thinking about for cmbb? i am looking forward to summer 1941 scenarios -mobile scenarios, with companies of pzIIIs (north?) or 38t-s (south front?) -recon... from what i understand no motorcycles but 6-wheeled armored cars and 37mm halftracks (we can hope) will be very cool. -ss regiment 'hitler's escort' ('liebstandarte adolph hitler'... 'las') at the gateway to the crimea... 37mm trucks... and the soft target bug fixed right?! -city fighting for riga.. a remake of the asl scenario with the t-34 turrets, stug 75s*, and the surrounded german platoon in the 'church' -or... the heavy regiment at the dnieper dam, south front, 1944: 2 battalions of elephants (ferdinands?) and a battalion of grizzly bears! -the romanians defending on the north wing outside of stalingrad will make for a high defensive challenge. what are your thoughts on what you might create in cmbb?

sometimes i mix in a crack hmg or elite squad or pzk. this would represent world war one vets who 'still had it'

in quick battles you can sometimes win by attempting to shatter the opponent by driving through them. with the americans you buy a bunch of m8 hmc, m3a1 halftrack, and stuart or chaffee tanks. then you load them up with infantry and drive straight into/through the enemy positions. this is sometimes shattering to any opponent; sometimes their FO is overrun and of no consequence to the battle. it works best in low-los and probably not as well with the germans... there you want to use foot infantry and a combination of psw 234/3, spw 251/9, spw 250/8, and spw 250/9... the 251/1 isn't worth the money... so allies -british or american - are probably better for this sort of tactic...

them su-85s almost bring a tear to my eye... man what a beautiful afv...

even so, it would be worthwhile to know how much, and what kind of ammo the typical t/34 or kv1 or 2 had. maybe there is no 'typical' here. nonetheless it would be interesting to know if the source quoted for the first posting of this thread were accurate about some kind of ammo shortage. as for the kv2, even without ap it would have been killing axis afvs with 152mm he. but a t-34 with low or non-existent ap ammo would be an interesting twist in a scenario.... in any event the signal to noise ratio here appears to be quite high...

if it were indeed true that in the summer of 1941 the t-34s, kv1s, and kv2s all had severe ap ammo shortages; well this would help explain the germans' early success. i could see a couple of t/34s loaded with nothing but HE, sitting there taking a lot of punishment from the german 37mm and 50mm guns but their own fire being at best only marginally effective because of the lack of AP; then finally getting flanked and taken out from the side or rear by the axis. now what does "10%" of ammo mean? does it mean that tanks only had enough for one full loadout, or 3 loadouts, or just 10% of a single loadout? how much ammo were they supposed to have on hand?

Have there been any changes to the AI, especially with regard to larger battles? If I give the AI 50 T-34 85s and 25 SU/76s, will the AI handle them any differently than the equivalent number of Shermans or whatever in CMBO? Thanks, Andy

believe it or not i like the psw 234/3 as 'most bang for the buck.'

and then there is 'midnight' for play as germans against allied ai... go with the default setup instead of 'free to choose' for the ai...

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JasonC: To make more tactically correct bocage, don't use the terrain type with that name (which is a tall wall or fence, practically). Instead, make a "berm" 1 elevation level higher than the terrain on either side, with a line of scattered trees or woods along it. (Use scattered trees to allow vehicles through but with a chance of bogging, woods to disallow vehicle passage in this or that spot). <hr></blockquote> i did just that in my scenarios on the 17th ss pzgd attack toward carentan it seems to work well. it's a funny thing; the other people who end up playing these things seem to always do much better than i - the scenario designer.

ok... i desing mostly huge scenarios. i must say that the ai is lacking here. first of all, even in small battles, it appears to me that the ai on the attack always leads with tanks. this would be fine if they were portraying an armored breakthough and tried to move fast through the enemy, but the ai's tanks generally move normally or hunt, with the infantry _behind_ them. this tends to lead to the tanks getting chewed and the infantry then attempting to finish the attack without tank support. ok, however arguable that might be, the larger problem is in scenarios with something like 50 or more ai-controlled vehicles. the ai is ok with 2 or 3 vehicles, but when you get 10 or 15 in one area, the ai will send them all to one small spot, or so it would appear. time after time in these scenarios i've come across ai vehicles on both attack and defense, seemingly clustered around one tiny spot, be it a flag or no. they're all facing different directions too! it's a real combat mission 'cluster you know what.' sometimes the ai heads for a 100 point flag with 4 or 5 tanks, and clusters there, when there is a heavy battle across the way where there are 10 or 20 400-point flags. it's tough to design a huge vehicle battle with the ai because of this. you have to almost play hotseat and 'substitute' for the ai by making a bunch of group moves for the 'computer player.' in these huge scenarios, a bunch of rudimentary group moves is better than what the ai comes up with. the ai also needs to start moving infantry fast. it never does this from what i've seen. it need not lead with tanks, unless it has overhwhelming firepower and infantry riding. i posted this idea before but received no response. the scenario designer should be able to make some rudimentary ai settings in order to assist the ai in playing the scenario properly. the victory flags need to be generic, and the scenario designer able to set their point value. if the coding were done so the ai took its cues from 'scenario designer input' then this game would really rock! andy

will there be flares in cmbb... like 'very lights' and whatnot? thanks andy

if you design a scenario in the editor you should be able to play it against the ai. you can lock units down (right click, LOCK) in the scenario editor so they will remain there no matter what. of the ones which aren't locked down in the editor, when playing against the ai you can choose 'stick to scenario default' or 'free setup' for the ai player. if you 'stick to default' the computer player won't change the setup for any of the units. if you choose 'free setup' then the computer will move units around. another way of 'locking down' all units is to provide no setup zone for the ai player. so with either default or free setup, the computer player's units will remain in the same place. i hope this helps. andy

i've designed a scenario involving the german 111th panzer brigade and 2111th pz grenadier regiment versus the american 42nd cavalry squadron (battalion). it's 'southeast of luneville.' the date of the scenario is 18 sep 1944. it's called 'tank trap' and is at the scenario depot. there are 'tank trap (huge)' and 'tank trap (small)' versions. andy

Uploaded to Scenario Depot: Tournay: To be played as Americans against the German AI. First things first: This scenario is rated 'huge' although the map is 800x800. It is night and with heavy fog the visibility is less than 30 meters. This is a 'city action.' In this 12-turn scenario, there is admittedly quite a bit of unit micromanagement at the start. Playtesting has shown though that by the end of the 12 turns there is much less unit management, as casualties have proven to be high - at least when i play it. It takes about 45-75 minutes to play. I play on a celeron 400 with 66mhz bus and 10mb graphics card (8mb voodoo attached to some 2mb card); it takes about a minute to 'compile' a turn after clicking on "GO!" Since this scenario is only designed to be played as Americans, this briefing will serve as both the general and U.S. briefing. The German briefing has some designer's notes. Jan, 1945: In Belgium the Battle of the Bulge is thought to be over. The Americans advance toward the German border. Some U.S. Recon have already been through the rail/road junction town of Tournay and they report that it is empty. There is however apparently a minefield in the small rail yard. Two companies ('red' and 'blue') of U.S. Engineers are being sent in to clear the mines and booby traps, and to then get the railyard operational. Since it is night the weapons platoons of the companies are carrying standard platoon gear, so each company is 4 platoons of squads with no weapons platoon. Each company has enough transport - m3a1 halftracks, m20 scout cars, and t8 scout cars - to 'get it around.' 'Red' Company has 6 or 7 Sherman 105 tanks and 2 105mm FOs attached. There are 2 TRPs in the town. Situation: Blue Company has arrived out of the southwest and is on one of the main streets of the town, there running north-south west of the railyard (minefield). Red Company is approaching the town from the northwest. There is a gap between the American companies. The town is thought to be empty of opposition when suddenly - from every direction - the sounds of German vehicles are heard starting up. Blue Company is in the middle of an ambush. The 'building complex' near the city center and the railyard are the two main victory locations. There are 10 large victory flags in both locations. In order to ensure at least a draw result, by the scenario end your forces need to be either 1) contesting both or 2) controlling one of the flag locations (with the 2nd location in German control). For an overwhelming victory you will most likely need to fully control both flag locations. I write 'most likely' because you could possibly get a lopsided victory if you met either of conditions 1) and 2) above, and combined that with an overwhelming defeat of the German forces at hand. In any event, with 2 105mm FOs also attached to the Red Company, perhaps a preparatory barrage is in order. Note the TRPs in the building complex and railyard. Do you want to link up or keep your forces separate? Do you want to take one objective or both? Again there may be a lot of micromanagement at the beginning, but this thing is worth it; and it doesn't drag on for 60 or 75 turns; everything is sped up with that 12-turn limit. If you want instant, heavy action, then this is the scenario for you. ...mobile Ma deuce is your best friend in this one. andy POSSIBLE SPOILER: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .this one is total carnage!!!

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by CMplayer: I'm just trying to suggest what I thought was an axiom of WWII theory, that ideal terrain is open enough to allow full combined-arms coordination: infantry, armor, artillery and air support. That's the ideal for attacking. That's all I'm really suggesting, and I'm looking at that only from the point of view of the Allies in the period and theatre covered by CMBO. <hr></blockquote> but you want to be attacking from the side or rear, 'rolling their flanks.' a frontal attack across open ground could not have been a picnic. with a frontal attack, if you throw in some attackers on the flank or rear it would make all of the difference in my opinion. now the other way an open ground frontal attack can win is with overwhelming firepower, but you can bet dimes to dollars that once an attack were finished, that then those victorious attacking units would move onto other battles against the enemy flank or rear. in cmbo i've won with shattering 'u.s. cavalry' frontal assaults. those victories seemed to involved a combination of surprise and mobility. a) the other player wasn't expecting a swarm of vehicles and infantry within his own ranks by turn 2 or 3 and the americans managed to knock all of the germans out with overwhelming firepower; as if at every point of enemy contact along the route of the charge the americans were all there firing and only a few of the germans. i've seen walls of u.s. cavalry moving fast through the fog and for the germans it has often not been pretty. andy

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by BigAlMoho: Hello, Just a comment on casualties in CM: They are not all dead and wounded... ANYTHING that takes a man out of the battle at hand is included in the totals... Alot of them are not official casualties but only ineffective for the duration of this battle... and so CM casualities appear alot higher than the historical reality... Thanks, Al<hr></blockquote> i always figure "KIA" are really 'dead or incapacitated' and other "casualties" are often the result of cowering and not any actual wound. that way the casualty figures at the end of the game usually seem more reasonable. andy

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Combat General, Concentration of force is a basic skill, and even the best players can get stuffed with it, for example when they have a tank bogged down or a lucky hit on a pltoon by artillery.<hr></blockquote> yes, 'mass and not driblets!' or somefink... ...until you start getting shelled... then driblets sound pretty good... andy