Steiner14

I'm amazed that "experts" here calculate with a 3:1 ratio for a successful attack - over open ground without any support weapons and no cover! :D Incredible. Following this argumentation, a 1:1 ratio for attacks in a favourable map would have been enough. How were attacks in reality conducted? The weakest spot is exploited, the terrain with most cover is used, where the enemy has the worst LOF and all support weapons that are available are brought into action. Then the 3:1 ratio could be expected to work. The examples brought up here should be simply suicidal, if the HMG of the defender doesn't jam or isn't supressed. But following this discussion, it seems to be enough to go to ground for the defender to lose interest in the attacker. But how is a HMG crew acting? Lying flat in open ground is only of help for the first few seconds, until the HMG has stopped the advance, brought the attacker down to the ground and afterwards begins to strafe and aim at the cowering soldiers while the other infantry starts the clay pigeon shooting... An attack over open ground has not been a voluntary option, only the last option if everything elese failed. And even then, it needed to be supported by other weapons. Why that? The Soviets hardly reached a 3:1 casualty rate in their most successful battles. Why, if rushing over open ground without support weapons already works with that ratio?! And there is no need to speculate at all: Just take a look at the human wave-attacks of the Soviets and how successful they were. There you find all the facts to study the impact of open ground and how effective HMGs are to stop attacks over open ground!

Wow! That is not the backbone of a defensive position, that's useless garbage.

Why the ignorance about colors?

Interesting, but what are the numbers and the result representing? Losses of the attacker & HMG being destroyed?

+1 Great idea. Maybe it would be even easier to read, if the text was replaced with colors in the background of the weapons - each color corresponds with the action, the soldier is doing. i.e. red/yellow for casualty - grey/white for spotting - green for movement actions - blue for firing actions Shouldn't the colors dominating give an even quicker and more intuitive impression?

You know Schweiß spart Blut (sweat saves blood). RKT Otto Riehs eliminated more than 9 T34 in 10 Minutes. Interestingly he was ordered to take position with his gun on a forward slope. Therefore the crew dug in the ATG completely to the barrel. No concealment was present, only very flat steppe. Only after a few shots had been fired it was spotted (the first two or three shots even were misses, since the gunner threw away his nerves, so Otto jumped out of his hole, jumped into the hole with the gun, threw the gunner out and did the job ). One or two of the tanks tried to ram the gun, so some of them must have driven quite close, without noticing it from further away. On good concealed positions or on reverse slopes, PAKs often were withdrawn after the firefight before the enemy could react to them and they were quickly moved to other preprepared positions (Stellungswechsel), often with the RSO (Raupenschlepper-Ost). It would be great, if that could be modeled before the Eastern Front release.

Indeed, where are the reviews?

@Blackcat: That's an interesting test. The description of your testscenario seems similar to historical human-wave attacks of the Soviets. But in reality even a single MG42 was capable to suppress whole waves at company-size, when the great liberating Boshevik Comissars forced their soldiers to storm over open ground, like in your test. I also have read many anecdotes, where the commanders urged the MG42-gunners not to open fire until the enemy was as close as 50m. That indicates, that the effectiveness at short range seems to be very high and somehow outweigh the danger of close assaults. Overheating the barrel on the MG42 was not a big issue, since it could be changed within 3 seconds. From what i know, supply of ammo and jamming (a major problem in the dirt of the Ostfront) were the biggest problems. Often enough resulting, that the german Ostfrontkämpfer wished for Soviet weapons, which were primitive, but working under all russian conditions. In particular the high suppressive effect of the MG42 due to it's firepower (-> if you know, this sound is aimed at you, you dont want to stand up again), seems to be missing. I hope BTS will find the time to focus on a more sophisticated MG model in general, because CMBN as a work of art and state of the art of tactical warfare simulation would deserve it.

The most important mod of all. Great. Thanks.

Steve, great explanations, very insightful, thanks. Especially the last example demonstrates the huge leap forward the CM2 engine is. But how about helping the user to focus on ground conditions, if they change? For example the player can't see by the graphics alone, when the parameters of the ground conditions for the engine are changing, do we? There are so many different possibilities: If ground has dryed for months a rain that just started could mean nothing. If it had rained for weeks and the sun comes out for three days, everything can look dry, but ground still is soft. Or it could already be hard but a rain again, could change that within minutes. Even in reality with the unlimited range of textures, this can't be seen just by visuals. And even less in any game, with textures being a costly resource. Could you please shed some light on this topic, how this could be handled from the player and/or from the game?

No, didn't you read the PROTIP? Don't use your brain, when it's not necessary. Drive until you bog, and then, when you're far away from all streets, you can dare to switch on your brain and think hard, how you could get back to a street while ground conditions become worse and worse. That's how the PROS with balls do it!

Wow, what a great tip!

For example i would feel how strong the rain is. After some time, if i would become unsure about ground conditions, i would check the ground before i use it. No need to play lottery but also no need, to lose a battle because of wrong assumptions about the ground. I would ask the ground and the ground would tell me not only DRY or WET or MUDDY, but much finer nuances between. Then i would ask the heaven and it would give me a hint, how long it could rain. Then I could weigh all the Pros and Cons and based on these facts, my experience and the situation, i could make a decision. So let me ask you: How do you do that in the game now, sir?

Only info seems to be DRY, WET, MUDDY. So what if it starts to rain? Then i do have to check every turn, when the condition jumps to WET. And when it changes to WET, for high pressure vehicles, that could already be way too late. At least a finer resolution than 3 levels and a popup-message, informing of weakened ground conditions, would be very nice, if the info can't be displayed with the cursor.

1. I would know, how the weather was in the last days. 2. I could get off the tank, touch the ground and inspect it, to get a feeling if it can bear the pressure maybe? 3. Now do that in the game. Especially when not perfect ground conditions are in place, without any infos for the player, it could become quite frustrating, because it forces decision from the player without giving him any knowledge. At least a hint of the ground conditions would be very helpful. If the layers are a problem, then why not giving the player some projection of technical game-data, the engine maybe has anyway, to deal with ground pressures of the vehicles? i.e. "compactness" & humidity?

@Trail Ape: Stop trolling, go and play against good oponents, to learn what reverse slope and hull-down positions are good for...

Yes, i always felt in that regard it was. I had raised that question several times, but have always been ignored. Finally this has changed. In reality there was a big difference between an average or a very good tank commander. Look how much battles RKT Wittman had survived with a StuG. That's because in reality the better commander was the one, who maneuvered the enemy out (is that correct in english?). That means, the one who estimated the range correctly and shot first, usually was the winner. In CMx1 first hit probabilites were that low, that even outmaneuvering the enemy, could easily result becoming knocked out after the third successful shoot-first engagement. Therefore in CMx1 you needed to stack two or even three tanks, that open simultaneously fire on the oponent, to get realistical results. Now that has finally changed. :thumbsup: We now should experience, that with CMBN a single tank, that is maneuvered well, will not only get off the first shot, but this will have the consequence it really had: it will hit with his first shot with a much higher probability (still according to unit quality, too ofcourse) and in many cases deny the enemy to even shoot back. Therefore now we can expect that good players will be able to knock out much more enemy tanks without stacking. While in CMx1 maneuvering also played a critical role, and tank battles were already very nicely modelled, nevertheless it had to be combined with unit-stacking, to compensate for the too low first hit probability to deny the enemy tank to shoot back. IMO CMBN has entered a new dimension of simulating tank-combat. Hats off for that achievement.

+1 for Done-button. :-)

I don't understand, how it can be that difficult, to give the most important ground elements (grass, fields, streets) a 2nd ground-texture, that can optionally be displayed with the push of a button. To solve the problem with connected grid lines, illuminated single dots or small crosses instead of lines may be sufficient for a gradient impression? Could be easily tested by modding the corresponding terrain tiles.

Sounds nice, but why several letters? How about / ...Moving - ...Firing ^ ...Aiming ? ...Hiding + ...Casualty After some time getting used to, that should give a good feeling about the squad's status, without looking at it directly. Try it: - - - ^ - ? - ? ? + + Also like the idea about the location info and a letter for the experience.

A very good question. For me because it was the mother of all wars. While on the Western Front soldiers of both sides could hope to survive with a high probability if they were becoming POW, and the fighting was more or less within certain civilized boundaries, in the East things often were different. In general the fighting lasted much longer and was much more brutal. The psychic and physical stresses, especially when things were not going well anymore, are beyond imagination and did not happen on the Western Front in that extremes. My grandfather, a tank-hunter in 3rd Mountain Div., Heeresgruppe Süd, for example after Stalingrad was lost and the whole front was threatened to collapse, was wearing clothes without a dry fibre for weeks. And then only sleeping outside during freezing nights. Is it possible, that humans can sleep while marching? Can anyone imagine to march 300 km in ten days? While the enemy is pressing hard and trying to outstrip the front? What does it mean that open fires need to be made under tanks, before they even can be started, because it is that cold? How hard must be the fighting, if wounded comrades are begging to be shot instead of falling into the hands of the enemy? How determined is the fight of an enemy, who expels the own people from their villages, takes away their last cattle and corn they need to survive and burns the village down, even during winter? Or can anyone imagine being that exhausted and tired, not to awake anymore even when an enemy tank is going to roll over him? The Eastern Front meant the fighting between two sides, where the soldiers of both sides were willing - and capable - to fight to the very last bullet and to bear physical and psychological strains beyond imagination. And the incredibly huge dimension of the fight. That makes it so special and interesting for me.

Historical hit probability for 1st shot at that distance was above 90%. So you will have to see this happen 9 times for observing only 1 miss. CMx1 was way off in that regard. But what should not happen is hitting while driving. From the result this doesn't sound strange to me. Aiming for ATGs was a more difficult task: While the range for a tank only has to be estimated +-200m @1000m for a hit with the 88 (Panther not much worse, i guess), which allowed several visors to hit, but to knock out a ATG the range estimation must be very close because the ATG is much smaller and therefore the trajectory plays a much bigger role. Therefore the range estimation must be much more precise.

+1 (minimum lettercount achieved)

Depends what the author expects from the weapon. And it indicates, that mortars from other armys were even less accurate. Regarding our discussion of being the one to go solution against ATGs and HMGs, this seems to underline, that they are too efficient. Judging from the source the GW34 was a Battalion weapon, not a support weapon for platoons. akd, that seems to fit. Can you say anything about the distribution? And did you make any tests with the 50mm mortars @500, too?

I haven't played enough with the mortars in the game for a personalfinal opinion about it, but from the discussion going on here, and my initial impressions, they seem to be way to accurate. According to (Lexikon der Wehrmacht http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/granatwerfer.htm ) The 8 cm mortar GW-34 had a diffusion of 65 meters @2400 (it's maximum distance). It was judged as a useful battalion weapon. The german GW-36 (5 cm) had a spreading of 4 meters sideways and 31 meters in depth @500m and it's grenades were judged as being not efficient. Judging from this discussion, mortars should have been the primary weapon against ATGs, MGs and infantry in trenches, which ofcourse they were not. In CMx1 i had the impression the 81mm versions already were way to deadly, with only two of them, always being a 100% solution against ATGs. Now they seem to be even more precise. Maybe someone should have told the Soviets, that they can safe their efforts on building their super strong artillery corps, and instead just give every squad a cheap 80 mm mortar?