sage

I think soviet grenades are significantly larger and heavier than the German grenades. Also, the egg-style american grenades are significantly smaller than the pinapple grenades. In otherwords, the modern comparisons are probably sort of iffy. If you mix it all together you get a potato and pinapple omlette. Yum! Sage

S3 has always had trouble with DirectDraw implementation. This might fixible by BTS by lots and lots of work to add in specific "if S3 cheapo-card is found, then do this", but the bugs are basically S3's. I'd suggest picking up a discount TNT for $50 or $60. Call the smaller computer stores and ask for an "OEM" package. This means you just get the card in a static bag, but it'll save you a bundle. Sage <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Johan Brittz: Been battling since day one with my limited knowledge - 1) Game freezes - getting by playing the AI using the autosave files, but when I save & later reload it freezes as soon as I go to view level 1 or 2. PBEM files received freeze the same way. 2) I've only got 2 colours (light & dark blue)for C&C; targeting & movement lines; and 3) the house transparency does'nt work. 2 & 3 not too serious, but 1) is a real problem - I would love to get back to PBEM. Tried everything that I could find on the board, that did'nt sound too complicated. Checked that I had the latest drivers for graphics card & mouse; loaded directx7a and then loaded drivers again in case. got a 366mhz with 64Ram; win98; onboard S3 Trio 3D graphics card with 8mb ram (yep - know it's the minimum requiered); MSMouse. Suspect that I'll have to invest in a card, but **** scared that I'm going to buy something that would'nt work either - seems that a hell of a lot of cards are giving problems? So I'm looking for a safe bet - as cheap as possible and widely available. Any suggestions guys/BTS?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Errr... I could be wrong, but I don't believe the "pounds" really had anything to do with the modern projectile. I think it dated back much further to the 1700's where a 9 pound cannon shot a 9 pound ball of iron. Buuuuuuut... I could be wrong. Sage

My point was that these problems were minimal compared to the problems the German tanks had. For 10 Panther tanks, there were ten engine variants -- each one very close to another, but different in the detailed machining. In otherwords, they were more like BMWs than fords -- friggin' expensive to fix, and if you take any where but a BMW place, you'll get screwed. Sage <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bullethead: US tanks weren't as standardized as this thread might lead one to believe. Due to the bottleneck of engine production, different civilian factories converted to tank production were allowed to put their own motors in their tanks. This usually entailed different transmissions as well. This policy led to several variants of the Sherman alone reaching volume production: M4 and M4A1: Wright Whirlwind 9-cyl radial (about 13,000 built with 75mm gun) M4A2: twin GMC 6-cyl deisels (over 8000 built with 75mm gun--most sent out Lend-Lease) M4A3: Ford GAA V-8 (nearly 5,000 75mm built) M4A4: Chrysler 30-cyl A-57 Multibank engine (7500 built--nearly all sent to Brits) So the Allies all had to contend with maintaining and repairing these different motor systems, and the Brits had the added complication of different types of fuel. That they were apparently able to do so very successfully indicates not only mechanical expertise in the field but also very well-organized logistical systems stretching across oceans back to the US factories. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Brewed-up an already killed Tank? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunt52: It can be done. Hard to do with the "W" class Shermans because they have wet ammo storage. I regularly brewed the Tiger and Stugs in LD though. - Bill <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whatever the qualities of Ambrose's reliance on anecdotal evidence, I believe that it IS true that the Germans were not nearly as good at repairing their tanks in the field. This was especially true of later model tanks, such as the Panther. The reason for this is that the Germans had a fragmented system of manufacturing, which meant that most tanks were one-of-a-kind, with slight variations of the different parts (eg, one might have a crank shaft made at one company, another made at another company, and both crankshaft machined by an expert machiner to actually fit due to deviance from spec). As I understand it, this system went back to decisions made about how to treat factories and businessmen in pre-war Germany, although I don't understand this issue clearly at all. What this meant, though, was that it was harder to scavenge one tank for parts (as there was lots of small variation that would keep them from working well in the "same" model), and that a tank with damage to the engine could easily have to be shipped all the way back to Germany in order to be fixed. Finally, the general greater technological complexity of German tanks meant that they were more difficult to service in the field. All of this equated to a much reduced ability to service and recover tanks in the field. By no means impossible, just more difficult. Anyone with better info care to back me up? Sage <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Allan: I have read that in operations some of your knocked out tanks may be recovered for future use in the operation. I was reading Ambrose's "The Victors" where he was comparing the tank recovery of the US vs. the Germans. He quoted the amazing fact that over half of all of the US tanks that were knocked out were back in the line within two days. Those that couldn't be put back in the line were scavenged for parts. That is an amazing record for the tank recovery units. It was also mentioned that the Germans didn't have anything close to those numbers. Will this advantage for the US be reflected in CM? Allan<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Thomas... I want to second his request for bunkers that can hide and a "watch the full movie" feature. Thanks BTS, Sage

Software PM at Seattle company that does multiple-monitor graphics cards. I write tech specs, shepard projects, oversee anything that "slips through the cracks", design UI, test whatever feels week, and so forth. BTW, we're hiring app engineers with a background in DirectDraw. Charles? :=) Sage

Scale would not be an issue, as scale is essentially arbitrary in the CM engine. Scale is simply a factor of weapon ranges, movement distances, spotting distances and how you design a map. Thus scale can be adjusted by the game; the graphic engine is simply a representation of that. The one issue is that map detail will suffer a bit if poly counts are going to stay the same. In "a few years" as hardware increases, the poly count of maps can be increased. The net result of this is that I don't believe the engine is any real prohibitation. Of course, this is speculation. (BTS, care to comment?) The biggest prohibitation is that the game itself (vs. the graphic engine) is NOT designed for modern combat. That was cause the most headaches and rewritten code, I believe. Sage

I'm not sure actually how long, but I recall spending a lot of time looking at the old Combat Mission site (aka the FAQ) when BTS had its own website. I'm not sure how long ago that was, but I think it must be close to two years now. Does anyone recall how long ago it was that the FAQ first went up? I'm curious. Sage

When I print screen, I get the game. I think the reason your card will not is because you are using a VooDoo 2, i.e. a seperate, 3d-only card. As a result, your 2d card still has the desktop in its memory frame buffer. Print screen just takes the frame buffer and turns it into a bitmap. Therefore, you get desktop, not screen. I suspect that's a hardware limitation. I don't think there's anything that BTS can do. Sage

Isn't that what PITS is? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> All these things are not simulated in CM. And rightly so, IMO: or would you want to sit in front of the screen for an hour and a half watching the Battalion commander meet with the Company CO's? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just played VOT for the first time after judiciously avoiding spoilers. I took 31 casualties, and 2 tanks, and the computer lost just about everything and surrendered on about turn 25. I positioned most of my support troops and spotters on the hill. My 2 Sherman 105's were there as well. They went down very early, unfortunately, but took a few pill boxes with them. They could have been used better by holding them behind the ridge line until long range anti-tank threats were ID's, suppressing those threats and then moving the tanks forward to kill them. For the infantry assault, I did a left hook. Basically, I shifted most of my infantry to the left (other than a screen for when my tanks showed up). I then assaulted with three platoons, following a walking barrage and made mince meat of the infantry oposition I ran into. Anything that hadn't been killed by the artillery, or supressed by long range MG fire was easily mopped up in with my infantry assault. When the Panther showed up, my M4s weren't anywhere where they could do anything useful. I had kept them well back as fire-support. I had to run 2 bazookas up from several hundred yards back. I got lucky and managed to time the bazookas just about right, so they showed up at about the same time. In case the bazookas didn't do the trick, I also assualted the Panther with my engineering platoon. It was unecessary. The bazookas quickly killed the Panther. The game ended shortly after that. While I certainly did beat the living crap out of the computer, I had to work for it. I could see how difficult VOT would be if you went up the middle. It was a very interesting tactical problem. I'm sorry to say, however, that the town and the surrounding country side were in very poor shape by the end of the assault. BTS: the one thing that is strange to me is how quickly these scenarios play out. I would expect that an assault like this would have taken 3 or 4 hours, minimum, IRL. Things would tend to develop much more slowly. Am I incorrect? Was this done as a play balance thing? Sage

This was a bug with the beta demo, too. I'm bummed that it wasn't fixed, as it is effectively a crash bug, from a user's standpoint. Basically, if I press ESC to "exit" the game while its running (it seems to require doing it after the setup phase, but I haven't tested extensively), the game goes to desktop. As it shuld. I press ESC again, and game sounds recommense, but the screen doesn't redraw with the game, effectively locking me out of the game or, "crashing to desktop." I have the newest nVidia driver. This was their early card, the TNT. Any suggestions? Sage

Idiot. That's just what BTS needs -- people who are on the fence coming to this forum to see posts like that and deciding maybe it's not worth while after all. Sage

Ditto for me.

For reference, "Einsatzgruppen", although my spelling may be a bit off. It means "First Strike Group", which was just marketing, as it sounds a lot better than, "Overweight middle aged guys out shootin' up Jews." Sage <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by smbutler: There's no doubt that the EF was the most brutal front where all of the worst human impulses came to an ugly head. I remember listening to an NPR peice about the German units (Eingruppen I think they were called) who purged captured towns of certain elements of the population. They played a sound bite from the Nuermburg trial of an English speaking SS officer talking (in a very matter of fact tone of voice) about one massacre. It went something like this: 'In the town of X we killed 80,000 of the inhabitants, give or take around 10,000. One can never get exact figures from these kinds of operations..." Certainly the scale of destruction on the EF was horrible, but the conflict in the Pacific caused humans to de-evolve in many cases. The starving Japanese ate dead Austrailians during the fight for the Kokoda trial, and in Burma the struggle was every bit as primal and surreal as the movie "Apocolypse Now." And many Marine vets will point out that Tarawa was a three-day Omaha Beach compressed into a much smaller area. As the Polish General in "A Bridge Too Far" says, "When men decide to play the war game, it dosen't matter who does what... Everybody dies..."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am going to assume it's all a big hoax until I hear otherwise. Otherwise, I'll be setting myself up for a big letdown. After here a zillion and a half reasons why it couldn't be done, to actually see bodies... brings a tear to my eye. Sage

This has been discussed, re-discussed and over-discussed waaaay reduntantly. The fact that I agree with you is irrelevant -- the decision was made (like a year ago) and they are code complete. In otherwords, no, no, no. Gah. Sage

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bamse: Don't buy M1TP3 it sucks ! I loved M1TP2 but M1TP3 has the same problems and worse as DeltaForce2. Hasbros Gunship on the outher hand is awesome and I dont even like flightsims. This one is a timespender (Doh! It's morning again ) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey, that's pretty cool. You managed to get Microprose's Tank Platoon! five months before it's released... Gunship! bit my weenie. It's an arcade shooter. Sage

I *believe* that that number was reached by S L A Marshall, (historian of the army, right?) based on interviews conducted in 1944 and 1945. I believe it is a flawed figure based on poor evidence. Sage

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Zamo: Don't forget Seattle, Why right now is when we have our three days of clear, sunny weather. Remember the song? "The bluest skies you ever seen are in..." Ah, crap...who am I kidding...It's raining as usual. Back under my poncho liner, Zamo<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Two votes for Seattle. Sage

The irony there is that the story is based off of a Yiddish fairytale. Sage

I'm definitely into that! I have an NV10 based TNT. Sage Holy crap. I just looked at your screen shots. You textures look so much better then the one provided in the beta demo it hurts (ouch! ouch! ouch!). My big problem has always been the poor quality shading and washed-out blacks of the CM textures. That's why when you do modeling, you add extra hi-lighting and shadowing. There is an art to it. It looks like your textures go a long ways to address this. Two words: kick ass. [This message has been edited by sage (edited 02-15-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by maxm2: However, speaking to the point about the anti-Semitic nature of the Third Reich, there was nothing inevitable about a government which chose to attempt to exterminate all Jews. Even a dictatorship could have decided to resort to persecution, deportation, etc. without the madness of the Final Solution. However, Hitler made numerous references to exterminating Jews prior to coming to power, although he experimented with a variety of lesser measures, obviously, before embarking on his final path. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But I think there *was* something inevitable. Governments, dictatorship and otherwise, had done and sponsored relatively similar things (expelling, mass murder, deprivation of civil rights <such as they were -- c.r. is a modern concept> of Jews) for a thousand years previous. Some regimes were better than others. The Nazis were particularly bad (duh) and had the means to industrialize it by using all the inventions of the new age -- trains, factories, machineguns, chemicals, electricity and so forth. The technology and ideology of the industrial age combined with the anti-semitism 'built' into so much European culture meant that the eventual rise of a "Final Solution" was not surprising. People had been talking about a "Final Solution" to the "Jewish problem" for hundreds of years. Sage