Tarquelne
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Posts posted by Tarquelne
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(No source unfortunately)
I was curious about that: "The Valour and the Horror Revisited" turns out to be partially viewable via Google. According to it, Keegan's involvement was a letter consisting "a single short paragraph of general support."
Longer responses from historians seem to have been of the "Yes, but..." variety: Doco got much right, some important things wrong or without justification.
Google also turned up an essay titled "The Bombing of Brian McKenna"
It contained references to a magazine article (in Saturday Night) on the controversy. According to the essay the article contained this:
Brian's teachers at the English Catholic school in Montreal he attended as a boy had been war veterans, who beat him viciously when he tested their patience or authority. As he grew older he came to believe that their violence towards him and other boys came out of their silenced war. It horrified him that they had beaten into him a capacity for violence.
Further down in the essay...
But McKenna, when talking to Collins, was quite willing to emphasize where his arguments were really coming from:
"The fact that I was victimized by these people probably helped fuel my rage against the use of authority in this way," says McKenna. "I refuse to be victimized and I refuse to not document [emphasis in original] how people are victimized."
This declaration recalls the aphorism that an intellectual is a man who turns a private neurosis into a national catastrophe. McKenna's hatred of war is genuine, but mixed with a hatred of warriors. He prohibits himself from applying this to the mass of fighting men, so he can only turn his anger on its "authority figures": hence the demonization of Sir Arthur Harris.
Assuming the quotes from the article correct, and without some (major) bit of exculpatory context, that sounds pretty damning. (We've seen method and opportunity. The quotes speak strongly to motive.)
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New orders! Stand to! 18 Platoon
This'll be my first foray into the CW side of things, and already I find myself a bit flummoxed. I know my Regiment, I know my Battalion, but I haven't the foggiest as to what my Company is.
That confused me, too. I'd nearly lost the scenario when I finally noticed the "D Company" label on each unit (except maybe the HQ for some reason?)
The little read-out off to the side of the unit display says something like
18 Platoon
D Company
1 LOAM
Once I'd figured that out I found the scenario pretty easy.
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Really, it is a terrible AV.
A few years ago there was a rumor on campus that there was someone here who liked Norton AV. So it can't be all bad.
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You can throw all the other factors out.
I agree movement is very important. I doubt anyone disputes that. But it's hardly the only determinant. A moving man is far easier to spot than a moving fly, for example. How about a man - or tank - so far away it's about the size of a fly? How about if the revealed portion is that size? How fast is the apparent movement? How much "visual confusion" is there from other things that move, such as foliage given any wind? And then there's tunnel vision, # of eyballs, etc. And the big factor: Time. Sure, the tank will be spotted. But what we're really concerned with "Is it spotted faster than the other guy spots you?" (In the AAR the Sherman spotting and popping the PzIV so quickly strikes me as at least as odd as the Pz not spotting the Sherman.)
So I really don't think you should throw out all the other factors.
I do suspect that the game under-models how much movement influences spotting. And I have no idea if it attempts to directly simulate any of the factors listed above. But I'm pretty sure there should be more to it than "move = spotted"
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Why, because I kept losing position tanks to just this type of result. some enemy armor moving into position would spot my unit, fire and get first hit before My unit saw anything.
Cover and the quality of the LOS seem significantly more important than movement. Or at least more important than I expected. And I don't know exactly how important movement should be. In everyday life I don't spend what I'd consider a lot of time trying to spot distant tanks moving among trees.
Maybe someone's tested the ease of spotting moving tanks in the open vs. situations with foliage, low-light, etc.?
But I am fairly often startled by the spotting prowess of tanks in the game. Especially vs. ATGs and AT-teams. Reaction speed, too.
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Note that @BigDork pointed out that the Sherman was Stationary when it spotted the PzIV. I was wondering what AAR you were reading when you wrote that:)
The Sherman had to move into position. The Panzer missed that movement.
But BigDork does say the Sherman was hull-down. So there wouldn't have been all that much to miss.
Foliage also seems to have been involved - depending on the angle the Sherman may have been pretty lucky to spot the Panzer. But I'm not surprised the Panzer didn't spot the Sherman.
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It can be possible...
There's an old legend that whoever creates a program make a mobile-viewpoint movie out of a CM game will become a god.
There may be something about killing all the other CM programmers, too.
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E-mail sent!
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That's a problem because once again even 11% of hits striking the front turret armor is 11% too many.
A possibility: Rather than labeling the whole front of the Tiger turret "mantlet" for the hit location text, that label is used only for the raised area around the gun. (Or the central third of the front of the turret?) The rest of the matlet might still be being treated as mantlet for penetration purposes, but labeled "front turret" in the text.
The number of penetrations taken through the front was the same as the mantlet in your tests if I sucesfully counted on my fingers. Which implies the same protection for both the mantlet and the front turret. But a lot more spalling on the "front" hits: The relatively thin part of the mantlet between the raised center and the end bars?
(OTOH, how much damage should we see through the mantlet? Should it be considered as ~220mm of armor?)
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many CM:BN players agree to restrictions on how that capability may be used and don't allow or severely limit first turn indirect fire.
Situationally, I hope. Isn't that scenario supposed to be a big, set-piece attack? That's exactly when you should *expect* per-planned artillery from the attacker.
I've never had long-delay arty when pre-planned wasn't OK.
OTOH, you don't always want to use up all your shells in pre-planned anyway.
I'm presently playing "CW In the Shadow of the Hill 5am" controlling the Brit side. I have a fair amount of artillery ammunition I'd like to fire at suspected Brit positions,
Spoiler: You should really aim at the Germans.
I have three suggestions:
Don't be picky about the target area - use a wide, easy to Spot target. A larger-than-neceessary target should make it easier to set-up the mission and reduce spotting time. You'll waste some shells, but it's better than too-late.
Plan for a "walking barrage" - set the fire mission for Long or Maximum and adjust the target during the barrage. (I used to be concerned this was gamey. Now I think it's fine.) You'll get delays, but not 16 min. delays. This can be tricky. But you can usually find *something* worth hitting.
Go ahead and try an "emergency" mission for the smoke. Still risky, but not "OMG now I'm doomed" risky.
Indirect fire artillery with long delays seem to be one-use weapons, except in scenarios running for hours.
Yes. But it can have a big impact.
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In the first or second turn (racing up the beach) this tank hit a mine and was immobilized.
Immobilizing Shermans just makes them mad. Well, mad and immobile. I immobilized an opponent's Sherman early in my last PBEM. Mortars, tank fire, etc. etc., it goes without saying, were futile. IIRC by the end of the battle bugger had turned out to be his most lethal asset. Finally had to maneuver some AT guys into the hedgerows adjacent to it where one of the many panzerfausts launched finally took it out. I immediately went up an experience level.
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Although I wish people would stop caring about what Dorosh writes, that is hilarious. And probably true, sadly.
Threads dominated by people talking about people talking about MD are scheduled for the CMx3 forums. Because by then it'll be impossible to distinguish the bots from the actual posters, making the process almost entirely painless.
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Sorry Moon, but that's just a little disingenuous. The information is available, but BFC are choosing not to share it with us. ....
Tease marketing is what you're doing.
Well, yeah. Or maybe just not *bad* marketing. If they gave us a bunch of details well before the release date we'd (everybody) get excited, we'd talk about it, we'd generate a little buzz... and then we'd get on with our lives. When the actual release drew near we'd get excited - but maybe not quite as excited, we'd talk about it - but maybe not as much, and we'd most likely generate a little less buzz.
By teasing perhaps all they're doing is lightly tormenting some people.
Personally, I'm 100% behind that.
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This is all part of BF's strategy to grow the wargame market.
They hint something's coming and then go (more or less) silent.
What to we have to do?
Exercise patience.
What do many gamers need more of to appreciate a good wargame?
Patience.
So every time BF drops a hint and then drinks a mug of STFU they create more customers.
This also explains the patching schedule and why they made public the many-years-long CMx2 development path.
The King Tiger skin thing, as you can see, was no accident but one tiny part of a far reaching social engineering project to shape consumer demographics.
When you're a brain in a jar you can afford to think in the very long term.
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Advance through the trees behind a wall of lead. If you can support from stationary units, even inaccurately, all the better.
Given some recent experiences I strongly agree.
You can project suppressive fire quite a bit further than you might expect. Or at least further than I'd expected.
Re: Another thread - This can be a good use for a HT or even a MG jeep when you're going after the edge of the woods - you've got a stable platform for MG fire and you don't really care about how accurate it is. You can stay well back. Or get closer and try to flush out some AT rockets.
Called in arty is going to have trouble unless you're really not picky about the area hit, have a lot of time to get the spotting done, or are hitting the edge. Avoid trying to call arty from a spotter in the woods himself. Bad LOS means looong spotting times.
I think the key thing might be not relying on good LOS. Suppression from HMGs, SMGs in the woods, direct fired area-fire HE... stuff like that.
As BD says requires significant ammo. But if you can't at least have some supporting MG fire or mortars you should, if at all possible, find something else to do with your troops.
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I've got the CW module.
I'm fine with an experimental/unbalanced QB.
If you'd like to play a mirrored game I'd prefer a small QB or scenario.
PM or e-mail me if interested.
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I'm in a PBEM, presumably against a human, and I've had reasonable success with moving AT guns.
In one case it's a light gun - far easier to move. It used hedges for cover.
The other gun was set up in a position with a limited field of view. I wouldn't exactly call it a keyhole, but it's far from wide and certainly protected from view when set-up. I just had to anticipate what'd be useful later.
Here's my lessons from this game:
1) Don't park fire-magnet like a tank near the gun, especially if the tank can be seen from much more of the map.
2) Don't unlimber until you're sure you're in the right position. The time saved isn't worth the pack/unpack-time paralysis if you need to move. *Especially* if you're parked near a fire-magnet.
I've had an opponent use AT guns well in a PBEM. Trucks took the guns through wooded areas and set them up within the tress on the far side , toward me.
Something all these not-disastrous examples have in common was excellent covering terrain and use of the gun not as part of the main attack, but to cover a flank or guard against future enemy movement.
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It's that COVER ARC ARMOR has actually been in the game all along, and in their embarrassment it took awhile to decide how to break the news.
As a group we do have very tender sensibilities. (So hint BFC: Say it with flowers.)
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I've always felt that it is better to be explicit during setup about such rules, even at the risk of looking like a "rules lawyer".
Definitely. I've found it completely worthwhile. Not just to keep players from intentionally doing dubious things. In the first weeks after the game came out I had several QBs harmed unintentionally. Too much artillery for the map being the most common problem.
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Sure, a lighter 12.7mm MG would be great, and I'm sure some other modest improvements could be made as well. But no matter how light the gun gets, once you add the weight of the ammo a 12.7mm MG is never really going to be a man-portable weapons system
The last I heard is that a light-weight/low-recoil 50 cal MG is supposed to come out this year. Not meant to be man-portable, IIRC, but instead mounted on light vehicles.
Google: XM806. Now scheduled for 2013-4. I didn't see anything about it being canceled. Seems intended to supplement the M2 more than replace it. Though I'd guess a gun based on the 806 is supposed to eventually replace the M2.
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Sure, but you still have what is basically the same problem. Assigning them randomly cannot assure you that you've got four 'good' and four 'bad' players in each pool.
The obvious answer is to hold a Nabla-tourney to determine the "good" and "bad" players, and then assign them accordingly for a Noob-tourney.
This gives you the complexity of Nabla at the front but adds a dash of uncertainty for the final winner, essentially combining the worst of each system. But it solves the assignment problem.
pretend that my suggestion is a valid way of determining the best playerJust call it how you're going to determine the tournament's winner and you don't need to pretend anything.
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Should we expect Shermans to be at least a little more resilient than PzIVs to penetrating hits? At least the ones with "wet" storage?
My own experiences with the game have given me the impression the Sherman is "tougher" - better able to withstand penetrating hits - than the PzIV. But that's very anecdotal. I'm curious: Anyone have the opposite impression?
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Full game.
Ah... this is probably why I woke up yesterday possessed of the uncharacteristic desire to buy a Mac.
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I'd wondered why "Tis but a scratch." and "It's just a flesh wound!" were included in the 1.10 "voices" files.
N.B.: The "heavy target tank" folder has "There can only be one!"
"It would be interesting to see what the damage status was on the Sherman and how it changed with each hit/penetration."
Yeah... and I'd like to see behind the target tank. Were the shots going right through the tank, or was the crew (or whatever bits were left) continuing to operate with a few extra 75mm shells rattling around in there with them?
In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
Looked through a few pages... seems the thread has gotten off the topic of the documentary.
In case the comment quoted above was intended to be on-topic:
Short version: No. That was all stuff about McKenna's psychology, not Harris' guilt.
Long version: No. The point is that the documentary maker viewed all WWII vets as being violent due to their experiences in the war. But since of blaming all those heroic vets is something of a non-starter - you have to be a militant hippy for that - the doco-guy shifted the blame to figures like Harris... and figures not like Harris, except that they were also in positions of leadership.
In this view the doco maker AND the most vets are all victims of the perfidy and incompetence of the leaders. And not for something excessive civilian casualties, but for the beatings the doco-maker received in school.
Note, btw, that McKenna does seem to be taking as a given that someone should be "blamed".