TSword

Interesting discussion, nothing to add really beside that the current system is way better then the old one. Attacks are tougher, GOOD !! In CMBO fighting vs. AI just was no fun anymore (And playing defender vs. AI, well...). To my real issue: Can anybody give me a direction where the topic of the lowered camo value bug for light concealment terrain has been discussed in detail ??? Greets Daniel

Michael, Sorry but your reasoning is wrong. It is correct that while moving over open ground fire on the move is highly incacurrate. BUT this is true for all weapons in WWII true ?! So in no way reason enough to single out such action specifically for wheeled PzGren, and if you move on road it is completely wrong. While it is true in general that the purpose of the PzGren was to dismount to fight, like a rule of thumb or doctrine, it never means that it was not done. It was actually done in special circumstances like described by Jaegermeister on all fronts by all nations (For instance the US after the breakthrough in Normandy). In the Kharkov counteroffensive there were several occasions were enemy positions were charged that way. The point is, it is highly risky and if done in the wrong context spells disaster. It was also done by Dt. Kempf in securing a bridgehead in the Kursk fighting. It actually is the appropriate way of fighting when surprise, firepower and speed is necessary. Everywhere where raw firepower at short distance is necessary while on the move. If for instance my recon unit spots a motorized enemy column moving relatively fast on the road, i would charge with my SPW-Company and drive on parallel course and give them everything is there, while another company charges ahead and blocks the way with dismounted inf. Or if i have to storm a forest with suspected enemy in i would like to drive as near as possible to the forest edge and while doing so shoot from every gun available shortly before and while dismounting !!!!!!!!!! No ?? Or shall i first read the manual and dismount my inf 200 m in front ? All we want is freedom of tactical decision no matter what the doctrine might have been, we can find out ourselves. Greets Daniel [ October 16, 2002, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

A truck definetely can carry more then 9-10 men. We had to be over 30 men in a louzy medium truck (A cattle transport gives more room to the animals because they would go crazy, but not so in the army of course). BFC, 2 squads per truck or around 25 men max -> 2 Trucks per platoon sufficient, now one goes crazy to put even a company on wheels (I never saw only remotely as many Trucks in my time as footslogger as one needs for a company in CMBB). An Opel Blitz can carry 3.5 tons btw. so no problem. Greets Daniel [ October 15, 2002, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

My tanks always stick to area fire (unless maybe they are in immediate danger by another source ??). Also most of the time while returning fire, when the crew goes prone the gun becomes an icon, so one has to use area fire (best: use 5cm mortars), many times the icon will remain the same and one has no direct indication whether the gun is actually out of action, quite neat i think. Only with good LOS one has immediate confirmation. However would welcome a dedicated death clock which is dependent on quality of LOS and range. Not a big issue in my eyes however. BFC better invest their time for better editor tools (especially to guide the poor attacking AI to enable a bit more complex battles, the biggest shortcoming in CMBB IME). Greets Daniel

Killmore, That's not a bug it's just a sad and desperate silicon soldier trying to wave a white flag, because there isn't any he has to improvise (i bet he has thrown the weapon away in an instant the commander was looking somewhere else..) , poor computer fellas..no one has mery with them... Greets Daniel

But fact is: The Soviets had 12'000 tanks at 1. Jan. 1943. Produced around 20'000 during 1943 and at the beginning of 1944 had maybe around 15'000 - 17'000 tanks, the rest was unusuable, and not to the smaller part because of german action of which the few tanks (seldom more then 1500 operational) had their fair share. Greets Daniel

In 1940 & 41 the T-34 was the best tank in the world. In 1942 and 1943 the Soviets put out roughly 15'000-20'000 T-34 per year which was only possible by concentration. In 1943 they looked for improvements like the T-40 which was beaten by Tiger and Panther already before introduction. Tiger and Panther led the Soviets to the JS-2 (The only russian MBT which could kill both at over 1000 m from the front). The germans in 1941 were in a disadvantage against the T-34 and KV-1 weapons and armor wise, so they caught up in 1942 with some additional margin. In 1943 the Panther and Tiger then totally dominated vs. the Soviet designs (Which led the Soviets to abandon T-40 and go into direction of JS-2 and ISU-100, ISU-152). Only in mid 1944 the Soviets then catched up with their upgunned tanks like T-34/85 (still inferior to Tiger I and Panther) and JS-2 (basically a KV-1 with a (to) big gun). Although russian doctrine called mainly for artillery to stop enemy tanks, tank vs. tank however sometimes was unavoidable. In 1945 the Soviets then introduced the JS-3 (the ancestor of T-55) which completely outclassed any western design of the time. The T-34 was a 1938 design whereas the odd Sherman was a 1942 design. The 75mm Sherman with it's narrow track and high center of gravity was just a helpless junk of steel in the east (one only imagine them in the mud season, lying stranded on the side like some dead praehistoric animal..). Only positive thing the later M4's had wet ammo storage and good almost luxury interior layout (in comparison to T-34) which made it liked by it's crew. Don't think the 76 mm version were more prominent up to late 1944 then in the West... Greets Daniel [ October 15, 2002, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

Justin, Welcome to the real thing ! CMBB is far, far ahead of the comic like Close Combat thing. In your example you waited to long to go in. What you have to do in an attack: 1. Close in to the enemy and locate him. 2. Suppress him 3. Go in and kill For 1. you need some recons, usually splitted squads are the most economical. As soon your recons stumble into opposition, have your second line (MG's, mortars, squads) ready to suppress it (2.) (Area fire works best) and then 3. Storm the enemy troops with some unfrightend squads. So far the theory, in practical application 3. may still become a disaster when there are other enemy units you haven't seen already. So before transition from 1. to 2. i usually recon the flanks and check whether the approaches are clean and use the time to bring up my heavy weapons like HMGs and mortars. If possible i try to install an additional flank threat. On recon my units (always splitted squads with the exception of a reserve squad always near the HQ) are almost always sneaking/hidden with the exception of the HQ-unit and when being surely out of LOS, thus i can manage to really close in to the enemy. In general this takes time so in case you play QBs give enough time. It's like creating a trap. This advice is true vs. AI. Against human opponents things become much more complicated if you're on the attack. Greets Daniel

Dalem, That occurs when you give a squad the Follow tank command (a waypoint on the tank which can also happen by accident). You have first to issue a delete waypoint, then everything is normal again. Some kind of indication whether one is in "Follow" Mode would be great for the patch. Greets Daniel [ October 14, 2002, 06:36 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

Winterhawk, Today i had a 2-men Tankhunterteam which collected 48 kills !!!!!!!!! It was great fun ! It was a night-battle in a town, they anihilated a whole platoon ! Inf is absolutely deadly now, much much more then in CMBO. Greets Daniel

What i found about the TZFs: T.Z.F.9b For first Tigers T.Z.F.9c For later Tiger T.Z.F.9b/1 (Only early KTs): FOV: 25 ° (62 delivered in 1943) T.Z.F.9d for later KTs starting delivery April 1944 (1092 produced) Panther: T.Z.F.12 (1706 produced) T.Z.F.12a FOV: 28° at 2.5 x Mag, 14° at 5 x Mag (All Panthers leaving Factory starting 1944, Leitz stopped delivery of T.Z.F.12 Binoc in 1943), Total of 6743 produced For the T.Z.F.12 Spielberger and Jentz have exactly the same figures. It's i very unlikely that the respective monocular sights for KT and Tiger were inferior to the Panther sights since they all were produced by the same Factory (Leitz). Interesting the Panther Commandtank version (Sdkfz 267 & 268) was fitted with a stereoscopic rangefinder with 1.32 m Base (Portable ?)! The Rangefinder with 1.32 m Base and 15 x Mag had a practical Error of 68 m at 3000 m Range.... Greets Daniel

I played Jaegermeister as Russian, and all i can say is that it was indeed very swift tank action. 2 rounds after my charging the village i had 2 JS-2 left..., 1 Tiger accounted for 3 JS-2 and 2 SU-76 within 2 or 3 rounds. It was thrilling and devastating. I would have given all my JS-2 for 2 Veteran platoons of T-34/85 to charge the Hitlerits and teach them manners. Greets Daniel

So when will we see the first foam/soap equipped AVF ? You enter a battle and the first thing you do is hit the "SOAP" Button, then out of well placed vents a very slippery soap/water mix is spewed all over the tank. The enemy will be perplex as all his Uranium Hypervelo rounds will only produce some huge Soap bubbles emerging from the target...frustrating ! After Battle hit the "DRIER" Button and your tank is ready for the victory parade and the Rave afterwards.

Michael, A StuG in idle is quiet in relation to a T-34 which is extremely loud while rattling and clanking around, much louder then a StuG, Panther or the like, and certainly the T-34 TC hears nothing else then his own tank's noise. If the Stug was buttoned then the unbuttoned T-34 has a good chance of spotting first, if not i would rate it as bad luck too. Greets Daniel

I almost hated the old system and LOVE the new one !!! Infantry fights are just awesome now. It's a good behaviour now of the inf to be somewhat conservative to open fire on enemies. In real only poor soldiers would open fire on an approaching column in the open at over 150 m. I as the commander can now perfectly finetune what i want my soldiers to do with the covering arcs or explicit target orders. In CMBO it was almost impossible to have units in LOS to the enemy without opening fire (-> a lot of ammo waste). Now i can order my HMG to open up on the enemy early if i like to slow down the enemy, or i can give all my units short covered arcs for a perfect ambush slaughter. To the brittleness. The units aren't more brittle IMO but just hit the dirt earlier which is good. It's all about surprise and fire superiority. Now it's really important to have those reserve squads ready all the time to decide a firefight. 1 Squads is nailed (tramped into enemy), second sneaks in and opens up unexpected -> voila enemy supressed then bring the third squad to mop up or use the time to retreat. I love it !! Greets Daniel

We need dedicated green grass (Same doodads as Steppe but juicy green). Now one is very limited, suddenly at a certain amount of Steppetiles the green grass turns brown which is very annoying. It doesn't matter if you choose a spring month or a Nothern theater (Finland, North, Middle). Request: A dedicated button in the scenario editor for grass tile. Leave the Steppe one as it is now together with it's functionality which is good for certain applications. Greets Daniel

JwxSpoon, thanks for the answer, but i've already right in spring (May 1942 in Hgr. Mitte), so this alone won't work ?! wwb_99, thank you too, sadly you're probably right. Greets Daniel

I'm desperately looking for green grass equivalent of Steppe, but everytime i paint the map with Steppe it turns yellow after a certain amount of the map is covered by Steppe-tiles, no matter what region i choose in the parameter section (Finland, North, Middle). The manual is very vague about this topic. Anyone already has a solution ? Greets Daniel

Ari, You're right on the spot. Those dual magnification optics were the Standard tankoptics in 1944 and produced in large quantities for Tiger, KT and Panther series. Standardization lead to them. I've the number of produced Tzfs at home, will dig em out tonight. Also wondered about the designations of optics in late war german tanks in CMBB already. However, i'm conviced that the current "superiority" of german tanks in CMBB is already sufficient and much more would kill the game. IF the correct optics don't distort the picture to much in favor of the germans they should be in. Greets Daniel

Yes it's very dangerous to use move to contact in the open (Very bad when enemy has elevated position), may easily disrupt the formation. I use move, run and advance in the open. Advance being the best when enemy fire is likely and a dream with highly experienced units (seeing a platoon leaving their HT's and storming a position is just awesome..). Greets Daniel

First, To me the new solution is a far better one then before. One has LOS in a grain field (targetting possible for area fire), but concealment is largely improved, so units lying on the ground are concealed very efficiently, whereas that KV-2-tank may be spotted and targeted no matter what. I think it is a good tradeoff. A unit has a concealment value in a certain terrain tile, while LOS only reflects the principal possibility to target something. In the real world a target 3 m in Height won't be concealed by a grainy field no matter what distance of grainfield lies between it and the shooter, same goes for brush (maybe to a lesser extent) and rough. I was perfectly able to sneak an enemy unit in th e open within 30 m trhough a grain field in July, without being spotted in a scenario (No way in CMBO). CMBB for a very good reason has decoupled LOS and Concealment. Of course the perfect solution would be to really calculate the percentage of concealment of a given terrain type to any dimensioned target -> (Dog, prone Inf, Standing Inf, PzI or KV-2). But then again the LOS line would have to be dynamic (e.g. Bright blue for a KV-2 but black for prone Inf), but that's simply not possible yet without severe performance impacts. Nothing to worry about in my eyes. CMBB is the better CM in every respect. Greets Daniel

I've finished a semi-fictious Berlin Battle, where you the player controls a strong russian force to breach the Fuhrer-bunker and catch or kill Hitler (Resembled by a Bataillon-Commander in the Fuhrer-bunker). I haven't played it through though, so i don't really know what happens at the end (I'm in the middle of it). The scenario is a huge one (> 6000 pt for attacker) and a map (1200 m x 1600m showing Berlin-Mitte's Government-District a bit tightend with the two Mainrailstations, Landwehr-canal, the different HQ's like SS/Gestapo, Luftwaffe, Propaganda, and of course the New Reich's Chancellory with Bunkersystem, and the Tiergarten with a Flaktower. Throw me a Mail if you are interested for playtesting to danielh@active.ch and i'll send it to you. Greets Daniel

ok,ok all fine reasoning why they couldn't make it in. BUT why not invest a tiny little bit of brainpower on workarounds ??? - I would be more then happy to have a VW-Schwimmwagen with MG (As in real) with 3-men transport capacity. - For the Russ-cav already a vector-blob (A non-animated cube would already do it..) or even a sprite for a horse would be enough. -> Squad mounts a single Horse sprite and can therefore move somewhat faster. - Now we have no recon-forces in the game worth the name (A SS-Tankunit had a Recon-bat !). The VW-Kuebel is just to slow crosscountry and has no armament to supress, the SPW-family is also to slow and bulky, leaves only the exotic PSW's where the smaller ones can transport nothing. Hope to see something in the patch to give us recon-units. Greets Daniel

- Completed, Stalingrad Movie scenario, - Currently in the testing/fine tuning: Catch Hitler! (Semi-fictious April 1945 Berlin(Mitte)-scenario, 1200 x 1600 m map, Huge, 6000 pt.), runs fine on my 550 Mhz until now, a lot of Russian heavies and other nasty stuff. - Currently, (test/finetune) Sinelnikovo Feb. 1943 (Parts of 15. ID. secure Dnijepr-crossings by a 50km night-train-raid into Sinelnikovo (50 km SE of Dnepropetovsk). - Emergency in the Rear (Testing finetuning), a russian tank column is marauding in the german rear somewhere around Feb 1943. - Patrol in Force (Testing finetuning), a typical statical front infantry patrol (Small, only infantry force). - Planned(longer project), covering the main actions around 2nd Kharkov-battle (Manstein's counterstroke), extremely intersting for both sides (Tough, only very raw info on russian side available..). Including the grueling retreat of 187. ID, Fretter-Pico's stand, ArmyDet. Lanz, 4th TA - Planned, Kursk 2nd SSPzKorps battle series. - Planned, The Russian offensives Kutuzov and Rumijantsev in Aug. 1943 - Planned, some battles (of which i have material) in 1944. A lot to do....will take it's time Greets Daniel

Posted my first CMBB-Scenario "Stalingrad The Movie" at the Depot. All knowing the 1993 Stalingrad Movie will most certainly know what i mean....hehe Feedback would be great to whether it is playable by other CMBB version then german. (Only tested with german version). Have Fun ! Cheers Daniel [ September 28, 2002, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: TSword ]