Zarquon
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Posts posted by Zarquon
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(sorry, wrong forum)
[ November 09, 2003, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Zarquon ]
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I've recently built a mini-scenario with two green sharpshooters duelling in a small village, 10 turns, and played both sides. They started in full sight of each other, ~100m apart, but didn't fire their rifles once, instead they shot at each other with their abstracted secondary arms (pistols, foul language etc.). It had no effect at that range, of course.
One of them then advanced slowly, the other one took a morale hit and retreated to a small house. No 1 followed, catched up with him and pinned him. He spent the remaining 7 turns firing his pistol at him at a range of one or two meters. At the end of that nerve-racking game, No 2 was panicked. The end.
Maybe you could get different results with crack experience, but I doubt it.
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Hmmm... Really bad scripting here. Works with Mozilla, does not work with IE. Too bad.
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The chance to hit a unit is proportional to its size, so a four-man HQ is much less likely to be hit than a 10-man squad.
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The tables can be found at:
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Having the same problem, I set up a shooting gallery with 8 reg. wooden bunkers and 8 german reg. AT rifles in 415m distance. Hit chance is 30%. In 6 turns of firing, I've got a lot of partial penetrations, some firing slit hits and a few clear penetrations. One bunker of 8 was abandoned (no crew losses) after being fired at 27 times; I did not count the number of hits. No visible effect on the other 7 so far.
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Ask Google about 'CM unit database'. I believe that Chris Hare included detailed statistics for CMBO arty and that should answer most of your question about CMBB arty, too.
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As a German, I'm perhaps more easily offended by the display of Nazi insignia than people from other countries. Just like Reinald.
For all readers from the US : just imagine seeing someone burning a US flag. Even if your common sense wins over your sense of patriotism, preventing you from going through the roof, you will probably still feel offended. More or less. For me, maybe with Reinald, too, it's the same with swastikas, S-runes (remember the old SSI, Inc. logo?) and nazi propaganda posters, with or without the symbol. Just the other way round. It's offending. We don't like it.
Then, I think we're all influenced by what we were fed since the day we were born. US citizens with US patriotism, Germans with anti-nazi, eh, anti-patriotism. Both are justified, up to a certain point. Beyond that point, they become ideology.
The display of a (intentionally blurred) swastika on Eichenbaum's site could be considered bad taste in Germany. Only that Eichenbaum isn't German, and shouldn't be treated like one.
I know from my own games and from the experience of a friend with a collection of 200+ games, many of them US-produced wargames, ahem, cosims, that US game companies up to the 1990s mostly didn't bother to remove swastikas from their games. Surprise, surprise, German custom officials sometimes confiscated the games at the airport. It's the law. My friend once received an issue of AH's General with half the pages missing - the owner of the hobby store where he had ordered it had to manually cut out all ads and illustrations displaying nazi symbols or he would have risked his business license. No joke.
Now, I don't think all these US wargame companies were run by closet nazis. They were just ignorant of other people's customs.
And correct me if I'm wrong but I think this image was on the very first page of the Eichenbaum site when I visited it first to download the scenario, about three weeks ago:
Right above "This site has nothing to do with any political issues."
BTW, Reinald, if you're looking for a clear-cut case, visit
The site is sometimes quoted here in the forum as a source for technical data and as such, it seems unpolitical.
Then have a look at
which is an official Achtung Panzer! "Site Sponsor and Supporter", complete with first-page banner. The PZG site leaves nothing to imagination.
Reinald, I think what you're crusading against is a very real fact - sometimes, those who claim to have no hidden political agenda or connections to right-wing loonies ... in fact do.
But in dubio pro reo. Just ask the lawyers, why. And watch your language, else people mistake you for a large, furry creature that lives in caves.
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I think it's a rather pointless discussion. CM is a game and will always be a game. Although it handles many technical issues very well, like ballistics or firepower, things like borg spotting and instant communications prevent it from being a simulation. I think they've done an outstanding job of creating a warfare preudo-sim within the confines of a game, i.e. for CM (and any other game), playability comes first.
So there's no 'gamey' tactics as such. Take the game as it is. If the engine allows for something and you haven't agreed with your opponent on disallowing specific tactics, it's OK.
BTS has addressed a few issues since CMBO, like lowering the spotting abilities of crews, that were unrealistic, without compromising playability. But they can only go so far.
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I suppose BFC needs something to live off. CMBO/CMBB sales will decrease over time and developing the new engine can take, hmmm..., years? They need sales to pay the rent until CM II comes out.
So, by omitting the additional CMBO vehicles, BFC will have the option of releasing a western front add-on or sequel, like CMAK, during that time.
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A quick search on www.fas.org turns up a few things:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs99/990406-kosovo-du.htm
"[...] U.S. and Allied forces fired approximately 315 tons of depleted uranium
during the Persian Gulf War. The effectiveness of the depleted uranium
penetrators led the United States and Allied forces to introduce them into
their military arsenal. However, at no time during the Gulf War did the
U.S. or Allied forces brief ground troops of the safety hazards of this
radioactive material or of safety measures for its handling. Allied
personnel most likely to have come in contact with this material are ground
forces who encountered equipment struck by DU penetrators, crews of
military equipment who fired DU, Allied forces involved in friendly fire
incidents, and curious soldiers who entered into or around DU strike
points. Information released by the U.S. Department of Defense demonstrates
that most of the troops deployed in the Gulf came into contact with DU
munitions or passed through contaminated areas.*
When a DU penetrator makes contact with a solid object and burns, the
radioactive U-238 aerosolizes and is emitted into the environment in tiny
particles called particulates. According to scientific research, these
particulates in U-238 can be transported by wind or water and have been
known to travel over 26 miles from their initial source of emission. The
toxic material can enter the human body through inhalation, ingestion,
exploded fragments or other wound contamination.
Many questions have been raised by veterans and other public interest
groups about the contribution of depleted uranium contamination to the
"Gulf War syndrome" that has affected over 100,000 U.S. and Allied service
people who saw action in the Gulf War. The World Health Organization has
launched a two-year study of the possible link between DU exposure and the
dramatically increased cancer rates in southern Iraq since 1991. The U.N.
Human Rights Commission has requested the U.N. Secretary-General to produce
a report on DU along with other "weapons of mass destruction or with
indiscriminate effect" incompatible with international humanitarian or
human rights law. The battlefields where DU weaponry has been used remain
contaminated, risking long-term and widespread environmental damage as well
as the health of civilians and future generations. It appears that the
battlefields and the people of the Balkans will not be spared this fate."
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/990712-for.htm
"[...] Nicholas Arons: Tell us about depleted uranium. It has been used in Iraq and
Kosovo. There is speculation that it relates to high increases in cancer rates.
Scott Ritter: I just do not have the data. I know we used DU extensively.
The former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has called the US war criminals for
using depleted uranium. There is a lot of speculation. People go in and say
that the background radiation already in Iraq is higher than what would be
caused by depleted uranium. Others say the cancer rates have shot up after
the Gulf War. That could be depleted uranium, or it could be the fact that
oil refineries were bombed and people consumed lots of carcinogenic
chemicals, or that the water table has been polluted. The environment of
life is drastically different than before the Gulf War. It’s like Gulf War
syndrome: is it only depleted uranium or is it other things too. No one
knows. It is there. Is it a combination of a sand flees, stress, tension,
and depleted uranium? We do not know the answers.
In my opinion there is a problem in southern Iraq, no one can deny that
there is a problem. The question is what caused this and what can we do
about it? I am not jumping on the depleted uranium bandwagon since I do not
have enough data to make those linkages. No one has enough data. We are not
going to help the deformed children until the sanctions are lifted.
I am not absolving ourselves of responsibility. There is a moral
responsibility for the consequences of war. When we get into a war we have
to think long-term. It is more than putting troops on the ground and winning
a political dispute. We need forward thinking policies."
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Eh, optics means the quality/construction of the main gun targetting thingie, doesn't it? So, if the turret faces straight ahead and a unit approaches the tank from the right, the tank's optics do not matter at all - in real life. In my very humble opinion, the commander's vision is what counts, e.g. having a cupola or not. For unbuttoned vehicles, the difference in optics should be negligible.
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Awesome. BTW, did the russians (historically) counterattack? Might be worth developing it into a head-to-head scenario. There are not many maps of that quality with so much space to maneuver in.
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It's randomly determined, no aiming at specific parts. I think it's 30% for the turret, no matter which tank. So it might or might not be better to seek a hull down position, depending on the tank's armor. This has been discussed in lenght, try a search.
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Borg Spotting comes right after the Big Question about Life, the Universe and Everything. But whatever solution BTS comes up with, it should better be one that is simple and intuitive.
CM has a wonderfully simple interface, but nevertheless the learning curve for wargame novices is quite steep already. Add complicated rules for relative spotting, put more restrictions on what you can see and what you can do. You'll make it much harder to understand what happens and why it happens. While the Perfect Simulation Crowd would cheer, the additional frustration would put off lots of potential customers - including people who love CMBO & CMBB (& CMAK) the way they are.
Making it an optional feature wouldn't help much - I mean, e.g. you can play without EFOW on, but who has ever done so since BB came out? I want to play with every single rule and option enabled, especially if it's a major one. If it sucks, I'd conclude that the game itself sucks because I would judge it by the "whole experience", i.e. everything the game has to offer, not some watered down set of options.
You'd see reviews warning people to buy CM II because "it might be the best WW2 battlefield simulation there is but it definitely is playable only for a handful of ultragrogs" or somefink. Some reviews for BO and BB already had a cautionary undertone like this. While BTS never exactly catered to the mass market, IMHO they have to walk a fine line here.
And then there's programming capacities. Has BTS hired another programmer yet? If not, rewriting the CM engine to make it modular and expandable is more than enough work for one guy I guess.
Better pray for decent multiplayer code. Playing with two or more people on one side will prove to be a remedy for borg spotting, while being the best gaming experience we ever had.
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"HALF a century ago, Hitler's forces stormed across Europe."
A few took the wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the desert - on their own...
CM AK - Where men are still real men and tanks are still real tanks.
Camels not included.
[ April 10, 2003, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Zarquon ]
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What we are talking about is an area of 400 square meters (one tile) becoming completely impassable in a matter of minutes, due to being bombarded with some one-liter molotov cocktails (that's what Ampulomets are loaded with). Sure, there will be lots of small patches of burning gasoline, but that doesn't affect troop movement or visibility in a major way and therefore it is not displayed (graphics performance would suffer badly from a hundred fires, too, I guess). Same goes for buildings - burning one to the ground is harder than you think; most importantly, it takes much longer than a CM battle lasts.
If you doubt that, you can easily try this at home. Be sure to evacuate the cat before you do.
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There was a forum thread about this a few days before.
http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=006342
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Braunschweig, Germany. And it's raining.
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I agree that ht's are too expensive to use in large numbers. But you'll see their main strength when reading the above posts; almost everybody stressed a different favourite use. It's their high versatility - they are fast, bullet-proof (at least compared to a wet paper bag), have lots of MG ammo and in a 1500 pts QB attack you can easily afford 3 of them.
Use them as a mortar taxi during the first 5-10 turns, after that do some careful scouting, use it as a mobile mg nest etc. When you held back a spare platoon as an offensive reserve, you can get them to any place on the map in 5 minutes. Most of them might even get there alive.
The fine thing is that there's always lots of work for them to do. Nothing is worse than an expensive, highly lethal specialist unit waiting for an opportunity that never comes. FTs come to mind here.
OTOH a HT, dashing from tree to tree, accomplishing lots of minor missions during the full length of the game will almost always pay off in the end. Just don't expose them for too long. When there's danger on the horizon, get them out of trouble and find them something else to do.
Now, in a defense they seem mostly useless except for moving reserves.
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There are lots of pseudo-philosophical sayings like "the battle is lost or won in your own head" or the like. Unfortunately, they are true.
Overconfidence and desperation should be listed on the unit purchase screen, right next to heavy artillery. I can't say much about overconfidence, due to lack of experience, but a lot about desparate measures.
One of my favourite mistakes is to play as if the game had only 15 turns instead of 35.
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As far as I know, the entire AI is hampered by the fact that it evaluates the situation each turn, but it cannot remember the position where an enemy unit was sighted as soon as LOS is broken. So a tank (or any other unit) might move into cover, loose LOS and rush forward again the next turn. Repeat until KIA. So a flanking maneuver is out of the question and the only remedy is to wait for The Great Engine Rewrite.
Still I would not bet that the problem will be addressed because making AI units remember things is easy but useless unless the AI is made into a *real* beast.
At the time, it acts and reacts instinctively, without a memory. Even the dumbest laboratory rat will learn from mistakes, sooner or later, because it posesses a memory. Not so the AI. I don't know all the different definitions of "intelligence", but to draw even the most simple conclusions from something, you have to be able to remember things first.
And only *then* comes the tricky part - make it recognize patterns (is this enemy tank I just saw tank part of a defense line of a counter-attack?), formulate plans (hey, I'll just do the gamey map-edge flanking trick!) etc. etc.
And when it is capable of this, go a bit further and make it actually *learn* from it's mistakes and successes.
We can only hope the next engine will not be *that* capable or we'll see BTS swallowed whole by the Pentagon - you'd have to wear a uniform to play CM II.
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Does the Law of the Jungle say anything about having your blood pressure checked every now and then?
Rocket boosted AT gun?
in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
Posted
For its own movement, I mean.
I moved a 28mm Panzerbüchse, transport class 3, across a shallow ford. September, no ice. I expected them to take a couple of turns to reach the other side. Instead, they raced across in exactly 5 seconds.
I've often seen gun crews running like this, but usually this happens after taking heavy fire and they run towards the map edge - without the gun. Not this time. Hey, I don't complain but has anyone seen something like this?