TSword

Abteilung, Do a search for rexford and you'll find some recent posts including penetration of vanilla 3.7cm AT. The 3.7cm in 38(t) is only marginally better almost unnoticeable. 67 mm @ 0° and 100m is most probable wrong and more around 45-50 mm. Greets Daniel

Knaust, Thx, learnt something ! Greets Daniel

Yes, standard fog blocks at 250 m

Agree, if it happens it must be a very rare ocurrence.

Wow !! Where can i get one of those babes ?? Btw. Is it delivered with a plastic repairkit in case of "heavy" use ?

CNN-style reporter commenting the action would be neat...

Agree 100 % The scripting should not augment but rather complement the current AI. The bigger moves, coordination, assess terrain and the like are the problem of the AI. Here scripting could aid tremendously. Of course only games vs. AI would gain something. New type of battles would be possible, more historic accurate battles would be possible and most important a challenging Computer driven attack would be possible. A rather small investment for huge gains when compared to other requirements. Greets Daniel

Also had some oddities with LOS Arty fire. Maybe the problem arises when the spotting rounds fall into terrain out of LOS (which, btw would be logical) ? One might have to do a test in targeting the border of a wood where further LOS in target direction is obscured by the forest ? Greets Daniel

In CMBB however atleast for tanks it was toned down quite a bit, otherwise i couldn't kill such huge loads of AI tanks. Maybe now it has some latency before spreading. And it seems that a buttoned T-34/76 with early turret doesn't participate in Borg spotting at all....

Bastables, Wrong, they might remain poor but not necessarily. Totenkopf performed poor in Feb./March 1943 in their first weeks back in russia because they were unacustomed and inexperienced, but performed superb in the Kursk campaign. Already in the Kharkov-campaign after about 2 weeks performance increased noticeable. Same goes for 320. ID poor in the beginning but good after some time. Take it this way, you may be superbly trained extremely motivated (overmotivated maybe), selfconfident. But when you face endless mud, extreme cold, deep snow drifts, enemy infested rear area and the like for the first time all training in the world and motivation will not prevent you from failing. It is the ability to learn,react and adapt which makes the difference, and here good professionel Leadership bears the main responsibility with example and positive motivation. Btw. i'm happy with the current morale and experience system. Expansion into more parameters would be masked anyway by the comparatively poor AI (measured vs. real world). It would only lead to even more grotesque distortions in AI behaviour, IMHO. Greets Daniel

Under Capitalism, man sells itself to man according to his "free" will for market conditions. Greets Daniel

Magnum, I studied your picture a bit, how does it come your PzIV D is exposed like this ? T-34 or the like in every direction around it.... Your opponent seems to have a 1000 point tankforce atleast (If all are T-34s then even more). I suppose the game is an axis defence. What were your assets at start of game ? 1. There's absolutely no need to take your PzIV D so much forward unless you certainly know your enemy has lost the majority of it's armor already. One tank is no tank. Put your tankforce behind a ridge in cover some distance behind the MLR and keep them there until the enemy has showed off most of its armor and you can assure firesuperiority over him. To reach this lure him into certain sectors piecemeal by use of AT assets or the like or even a heavy ari barrage may scatter him. 2. I see no enemy inf near your position, so try to use some inf to threaten and distract his tanks. 3. Your Pz4s need flankshots to be quickly succesful. Use them together with doorknocker guns en masse to panic and/or distract him, even cheap Pz2, 3.7cm AT guns can do this job very well. 4. When going into Hulldown pos always plan in a way that your tanks reach firing pos after 30 seconds of turn, so you don't have to expose them too long and can direct them back to cover in the next turn. Even a failed attack will bring caution into the attacker. He most probably will seek cover from your threat, this is the moment for another force to take a shot at them, this then will really unnerve him. 5. If possible have a secondary firingposition ready for each group to change between them, in this way you again force your enemy to disperse his force. 6. There are two possibilities your enemy can attack you: 1. As expected or 2. unexpected In case of 1 you should have no big trouble in case 2 retreat, regroup, hide and check the implications on your initial tactics layout, is a revision necessary and possible ? Has the enemy already committed his main forces ? If a major revision is necessary you're in trouble, now improvise and try to reach a position again where you have firesuperiority. If no option is left try to wear him down, or surrender. 7. Prior to the start of game, check the map in detail for covered approaches important sectors, good defending positions. Then do a quick check how your enemy most probable will act, what approaches will he must he take ? What weapons might he use ? Try to create a battle plan and crosscheck it with the expected enemy action, will it work out ? 8. In case of QB-PBEMs buy a "conservative" force. In case of defender: - Some TRPs and 1 heavy Artillery asset to really kill (150 mm). - 1 or 2 Sharpshooters to make his tanks blind - Some AT-guns (but not to much, 4 are a good medium, don't put them to far forward if possible) - A decent mobile reserve/Counterforce which consists of armor and or selfprop AT guns. Plan to use them in pairs (In your mind count 2 tanks as one firing position) - A lot of HMGs and infantry around 50 % or more of your force. - One can never ever have enough on map mortars ! - Some Tankhunter teams should also be available. In case of Attacker almost the same but you don't need killer artillery, emphasize must be on suppression (up to 10 cm Artillery). A lot of Infantry (include 1 additional LMG for every platoon if possible), and as always one can never ever have enough on map mortars, especially 5 cm are neat..A decent tankforce, whereas in early german go for numbers irrespective of gun size (starting with 20mm everything is ok), later you can reduce for quality. Hope this can give you some ideas Greets Daniel

Rexford, Very interesting ! Hopefully you also inform BTS on your findings ! Greets Daniel

As was stated by rexford, the performance of early (1941-1942) german AT-guns in CMBB is most probable to high. Foremost the 3.7 cm, 5 cm and the 7.5 cm /L24 (the short 75 in ealry Stugs and Pz4s). There also is the known abstraction of relative turretsize which is fixed thus making certain tanktypes more suspect to turrethits (T-34/76, Pz4 and Pz3). Also it seems (from a rexford statement) that curved mantlets are to often hit in the "penetration zone" (One thinks of the T-34/65 and Panther for instance). Greets Daniel

Sgt. Schultz Right on the spot ! Just one thing to add, the AirFO MUST be able to travel on/in a vehicle and target (If out of question due to code limits, then a dedicated vehicle type must be there, one tank (Commandtank), one car like vehicle, and one HT like). Greets Daniel

BUMP to an essential question !

If my units have to really move no matter what i use move, fast and foremost advance whenever possible. The latter works fine for experienced units even under fire (but fatigues troops very fast ). So in planning an advance i calculate 40 m as average advance pace per turn. I use MTC only for scouting purposes. Greets Daniel

Most of the time the AI is poor. But i had a scenario where there was a platoon of russ. Inf testing ahead then followed by a pack of T-34s to gather my attention while another flock actually flanked my position (out of LOS) of AT-guns and 2 Stugs. The flanking T-34s popped out of the fog (Normal fog = 250 m LOS) at full speed while another flock raced at full speed to flank my other side (man they can be fast), couldn't believe what i saw all in two rounds ! Needless to say that my Stugs and AT-guns were wiped out. I created the scenario myself and have no explanation for this, all the T-34s (around 10)spawned at the same place. Maybe a 1 in 1000 incident ? Greets Daniel

L4Pilot, There's a good book about WWI-(mobile)warfare by Erwin Rommel "Infantry attacks". What i've read there is completely in agreement with CMBB. Gain firesuperiority either by manouver and/or massing (to suppress the enemy), then attack, otherwise fail and take a lot of casualties. Greets Daniel

Maybe unlimber times seem so long because in real a typical battle took the following form: - Probing the attack zone to estimate frontline took hours - 15 minutes - hours preparatory fire with shellnumbers in the thousand for each gun - The infantry attack supported by tanks which normally lasted hours. Usually a given formation had objectives for the day (eg. until Noon or the like) , and i suppose only stupid Commanders would give their subordinated units an order like I. Battalion takes that enemy ridge within the next 30 minutes...., even the biggest idiots wouldn't do that and rely on it. Also tankbattles to catch a handful of tanks could last for hours. So time in CM for playability reason is compressed not that 1 sec. realtime is not 1 sec. gametime but in real things are much more difficult and as anybody knows even the easiest things tend to go forever in the army..., not so in CM (or nobody would play it i suppose, imagine one needs 45 minutes (45 turns) to load a company on trucks as it might take in real..) Greets Daniel

We need air FOs that's all.... Greets Daniel

In the Yelna-stare demo my puny 75mm FO (with 60 rounds i think) had around 40 kills. Ok, during gameplay i could hardly notice some effect, in fact i thought that the barrage was quite ineffective, well the kill stat at the end of the game made me think different. Who would ever buy 75 mm FOs in CMBO and expect anything from it ?? I think we are fooled by EFOW in respect to HE efficiency a bit. I also had a game where i had 2 Brummbaers (150 mm howitzer) they repeatedly needed 3-4 shots to rout or kill the target (In one instance, a Coy HQ, the shell landed exactly at the place of the HQ without any noticeable effect). One should keep in mind that the main effect of HE is psychological to suppress and panic the enemy. Most of the time we waste ammo on already broken enemies i think. To suppress soft targets not entrenched, small calibre mortars or gun's shells are the most efficient ones, because the killzone does only increase with about diameter of round, although the weight is for times higher. -> Killing is expensive while supression is cheap. The only bug in CM may be in the calculation of blast effect which seems to low, eg. that HQ-unit unhidden at the edge of the woods would certainly be history if a 150 mm shell explodes spot on (within 1-2 m). Greets Daniel

Ant, For attacks i group my mortars in teams of four to have some punch. I always give them a HQ-unit with command bonus so i can put them fairly behind the spotting unit. In the attack i always try to position them out of LOS so that they only execute my commands (and not shoot to something unimportant). I follow the lead elements closely to be ready for support fire in a short time. When using them for suppressing fire for an attack i set an area fire command every 20 m together with HMG or LMG fire this ensures very good suppression during the assault (The barrage and the attack have to be almost simultaneously to have maximum effect, since mortar barrages seldom kill). 2-3 mortars work wonders against AT gun positions usually a one turn barrage is enough. Give the observing HQ-unit a minimum cover arc (so he doesn't open fire) and position it at the edges of wood or the like. This btw has the benefit of additional battlefield observation. In a scenario with fog one can use mortars also to maximum effect in the open. In the open Commandlines usually are very long so it's easy to keep the mortars out of LOS. Give them some motortransports and you can quickly change positions. One can never have enough mortars in the attack !! In the defense one might use them single and with direct LOS, although even then i prefer out of LOS and in Command setup to have control and punch at the critical moment (Blocking barrage, Counterattack preparation, smokescreen etc.). If only they'd have more shells Greets Daniel [ November 01, 2002, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

Admiral Keth, I've tried to contact you via e-mail already several times and always the mail could not be delivered. Also with the current version of the submitpage i'm unable to submit scenarios for CMBB. I'm running IE 5.5 with security low for that session. A suggestion for the submitpage: Force types can also be mixed Greets Daniel

I'm doing a quite big operation with a lot of tanks and around 2 companies of inf. I always view action at Level 1 or 2 with bases off, looks absolutely great. Level 3 is to far away (Terrain type steppe cannot be seen). Best would be a parameter driven Level 3 view or bigger. I need Level 1 or 2 also to really see what is going on. In Level 3 one can miss a lot, like shooting AT-guns which are not yet noticed. In this way i have to review action phase 3 - 4 times. Greets Daniel