wbs

Bump, again...

**Bump** It looks as though whoever's organizing this will need to make a command decision, and let the chips fall where they may.... Which is it going to be-- the 20th or the 21st?

I won as the Germans by taking the VL's, and blowing the Crap out of the Americans until they surrendered. I did not bother trying to exit anyone, but rather I kept all of my units in the game to fight, and tried to force the surrender before the game ended. It was a race against time to see if one event would occur before the other.

For the simple reason that real life isn't always fair, and since CMBB imitates real life, it isn't always fair either One thing that has only been mentioned in passing but has not really been discussed vis-a-vis "bogging" is the quality of the vehicle's crew. It is my observation that in CMBB, you are much more likely to have a "conscript" or "green" crew than if you were playing CMBO, where you are more likely to get a crew that is rated "regular" or higher (at least in randomized games). I would think that this, too, would increase your chances of bogging (everything else being equal), doesn't it? [ January 10, 2003, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

From Colonel Deadmarsh: Colonel, in my first reply to your initial post I mentioned several reasons why it is logical for tanks to have a better chance of bogging down in CMBB than in CMBO. Whether these specific factors were used in modeling a higher bog rate in CMBB than in CMBO I do not know, but the end result is, I believe, historically realistic. As a matter of record, I HAVE had tanks bog/become immobile on dry ground in CMBO, whereas I have yet to have my first one bog in CMBB. I realize this is contrary to what I posted above, so I guess that the law of averages is about to really nail me in CMBB

Since most of us don't know each other, how will we identify which group is the CMBO/CMBB group when we arrive?

from bbaker: No, but perhaps he should choose types of tanks that were more reliable, or at least of a later generation of tank design (i.e. have wider treads, and/or lower ground pressure rating, etc.) than the ones he has been choosing--if he is able to. These factors have likely been modeled into a lower chance of bogging for those tanks in CMBB

**Bump**, because I figure the people who can address the Colonel's question about bogging (in the thread on "Skill vs. Luck" will probably know the answer to this as well....

From Soddball: Why not just use "Hunt/Reverse" anyway? That way you can have either option open: Use "shoot and Scoot" when you want "Fast/Reverse" and do "Hunt/Reverse" when you don't.

Hey, Bruno-- The Colonel gave you a penny for your thoughts on this issue, and you put in your two cents worth, above. What happened to the other penny?

Well, Colonel, I will take the "historical nuts" side and suggest that every battle plan is a good one until you have first contact with the enemy. It is a fact of life (and modeled somewhat in this game) that unexpected events do happen, and it could be said that one measure of your skill level is shown by how well you manage the occurrence of these unexpected events. It's not surprising that you have more tanks bogging down in CMBB than in CMBO for several reasons: 1) The tanks portrayed in CMBB were, historically, mechanically inferior to those portrayed in CMBO, because: a)They represented earlier generations of Tank Design b)They were produced by Nations which were not as wealthy as those in CMBO, and therefore could not spend as much money on each tank that was produced c) It seems that even back in WWII, the Western European nations (and the US) placed a higher premium on enabling crew survival in combat than did Eastern European nations. Thus the Western Nations chose to, as a matter of cultural policy, voluntarily spend the money needed in order to make their tanks more reliable (and therefore enhance the chances that the crew would survive in combat) 2) The terrain on the Eastern Front was rougher than it was on the Western Front (i.e. fewer roads and terraformed agricultural spaces for tanks to drive on). Since Western Europe was more populated, a tank on the western front had a more likely chance of fighting from a road or level farm field than a tank on the Eastern front, which was more likely to be on undeveloped terrain (more rocks/fallen logs,etc.) 3) The weather on the Eastern Front was worse than it was in the West (more snow and/or rain=more mud/damp ground=higher chance of bogging) It could be said that a real test of one's skill level is how you manage all of these factors, and take the chance of their occurrence into account [ January 09, 2003, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

Last week I was playing TCP/IP. My opponent and I chose to do a QB where everything was randomized, with the exception of the year (we chose 1945). The computer gave us an AUGUST 1944 time frame with DEEP SNOW and EXTREME COLD for the weather conditions. The geographical location was in Finland. This happened to us two or three more times during the course of the evening (I.e. We chose randomized everything/1945 and got Finland/August 1944/Extreme Cold/Deep Snow). Aside from the fact that we got a time frame set in the wrong year, I would think that combining "August" with "Deep Snow/Extreme Cold" would be out of whack. It would seem that this is another bug that should be fixed(?). Has this event been discussed on another thread? I looked, but perhaps was using the wrong keywords.... [ January 09, 2003, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

I guess they didn't use enough artillery.. [ October 30, 2002, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

As y'all may or may not know, St. Mere Eglise was captured by the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (82nd Airborne) under the command of Col. William Eckman. His Granddaughter, Katie Eckman, is a good friend of mine as she and I run in the same running club here in the DC area (and MAN! is she one HOT babe!). Katie has some of her grandfather's papers (and photographs taken in the ETO) and has shown them to me--pretty interesting. Her brother has the rest of his personal papers. I'd post Katie's photo here on the board, but I'm not sure how..... [ October 24, 2002, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

Did either of them pass on any interesting "first person" accounts about their experiences?

From Rickhan: Hey Rickhan, This is a little confusing to me. It looks as though you're saying that your Dad served with both the 45th Infantry Division AND was a Dauntless rear gunner during the war. I suppose I'm missing something, but in EITHER case I'll bet he had some interesting stories, and if this post is accurate then please give us more details about his interesting WW2 career.

From jmbunelle: That's because there WERE no survivors on the Eastern Front, Comrade...

From Gaylord Focker: Tanks being blown upside down?? HMMM... It seems that I saw a long-running thread on that about six months ago...More grist for the mill, here...

I was interested to see that in CMBB you can now get airpower assigned to your forces in a QB. I have only played one game with airpower. I was kicking my opponent's butt, and the Sturmovik (or whatever) made three passes and knocked out three tanks, which almost cost me the game. Of course, since he had airpower his ground forces were that much weaker, so maybe it all evened out. I still thought that the success rate for the strafing attacks (100%) was a bit much, but I probably have too small of a sample test population to accurately generalize.

From Schoerner and PeterX: Ah, some more GPL players. I play that game too. Way cool; IMO the best racing game out there. I have visited the "EagleWoman's" Website several times, too.

I have had the same thing happen. It would seem to be inconsistent (i.e. a bug) with the "routed" behavior of other units (i.e. infantry) in the game, or is it? In CMBO "Shocked" AFV's will usually start firing and maneuvering again, but I have never seen this happen in the same turn that the "shocked" result occurred. In my CMBB case, there was no interruption in the firing rate. Could this be, as stated in a post above, that the computer has determined that the gunner was not injured and so the AFV may continue to fire? :confused:

I played a tcp/ip QB the other night that went 30 turns. When it was done we wanted to continue so we imported the map/forces as stated in previous posts and the game continued. We had only elected to continue for 20 more turns, and when we finished those we still wanted to continue for another 20 turns, so we did it again. Voila! A 70 turn QB....(Finns Rock! ) I have to say, however, that ammo supply DID become a problem at the end. Perhaps this matter should be explored further. [ September 30, 2002, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

Hey Peter! Is that your article that appeared on MSNBC.COM yesterday (Sept. 25)? Check out the "CMBO gets notice at MSNBC.COM" Thread.

You know, back on September 15, "Peter Svensson" posted a thread on this board and said that he was a reporter writing a story for Associated Press on this very topic. As he is a CMBO player, I wonder if this is the article he was talking about? At the time, he asked for board members to write him about how they became gamers. Did any of you get quoted? Since he used real-life nerd names in his article, I wouldn't recognize any of y'all in the article. I think I'll add a reply to Peter's thread and ask him if this is his story...

Ok, thanks