Carl Puppchen

I am not trying to sound defensive but just so you know I am not some dope who just stumbled into cmak after watching saving private ryan. I have played simulations from Tobruk to Squad Leader to ASL to Panzer General to cmbo / cmbb /cmak and have read military history for 25 years, in addition to traveling to museums in the US and Europe for the express purpose of viewing AFV's. I realize of course that in fact the western allies did win the war and that overall their weapons were effective. In general the allies had overwhelming power in artillery and air power but the general feeling is that head to head tank combat the sherman was going to get the short end of the stick vs most german armor. Since GI Anvil of Victory game makers have attempted to balance the Sherman assets of reliability, excellent HE characteristics, fast turret speed and the gyroscopic stabilizer vs. its disabilities including likihood of flaming when struck, high profile, and limited AP effectiveness against the heavier german tanks. The specific question is - do recent changes in the game engine, stats or whatever make the allied weapons a better match for the german equivalents, and on balance, is this correct? I don't know the answer to this, and that is why I am asking for people's opinion. It certainly seems that they do better head to head in cmak than they did in cmbo.

I have been playing the axis in the cmbo / cmbb / cmak series against a human opponent. When cmak came out we started with a lot of the early war desert battle with relatively light armor and have recently moved into the Tunisia time frame and then Western Europe. As the German player in general I have been doing well head to head vs Allied tanks in terms of PZ IV and STG III F/G but in CMAK I am really getting my rear handed to me when facing Sherman or even Lee / Grant tanks. The PZ III J with long barreled 50mm gun is really getting creamed. I try to stay away from the uber-tank Tigers and Panthers except to rarely throw one in because in the real war they were rare and it doesn't help my tactics to strut around the battlefield with those weapons (in fact, I get sloppy since it is easy to recover from errors). This wasn't happening to me as much in cmbo, in fact these tanks did very well against the sherman. In cmbb there certainly were very hard times against the T34 and JS series, but this was expected on the East front because in my opinion the Germans were battling uphill almost the entire war over there in terms of quality of equipment overall. I am not saying that this is unrealistic - it seems that more often the sherman is getting in first hits due to fast turret traverse and often I am on the attack which of course gives the defender the advantage because he is not moving and / or using shoot and scoot tactics or firing from hull down positions. I am going back to the bunker and trying different tactics now, including advancing much more cautiously and better combined arms tactics with my soldiers drawing fire and consolidating my tanks into platoons and forcing one side of the field. To be honest these were tactics I should have been using all along but I had a lot of success with more aggressive tactics because I was winning more head to head battles. I saw a thread on the effectiveness of the M-10 and this is similar to my new found appreciation for the overall Allied tanks in CMAK (excepting early war british tanks, with a few exceptions). Just wanted to see if this opinion was isolated or common. Thanks for posting and responding.

I was playing tobruk at age 10, too. Not very well, though. Also playing 3rd Reich and the famous Afrika Korps that we see the map board for. However I got tired of the 2/1 and 1/1 attacks on Tobruk

I think we need to tip our hats to the marines at Wake Island. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-Wake/

Has anyone had a bug where tanks were "bailing out" for multiple turns, or stuck forever in that mode? I am playing desobry operation now and I have a PZ IV that has been bailing out for 1 1/2 turns. Will continue to monitor this. Also had this behavior for Knife fight at Cucina. I apologize if someone has already mentioned this I tried to go through all the threads but there are a lot of them.... Sorry for the post my guy did finally bail out 2 minutes later. They were permanently in bailout for Cucina (many turns) but this was with the 1.0 version. [ April 25, 2004, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: Carl Puppchen ]

Can someone please enlighten me on the best method of dismounting infantry from a half track? I had my HT with infantry in an important but hot location. So I put a "pause" command of 30 seconds on the HT and told the infantry to get out at the objective, then I figured my HT would fast move away before it was destroyed. However, my infantry didn't disembark - instead they stayed in the HT and moved away with the HT, spoiling my positioning. Does the HT have to stay still the whole turn if infantry was disembarking? 30 seconds was a lot less than the turn delay for the infantry (they were veterans). Thanks for the help.

Don't forget that you can pre-plan a bombardment but not have it come in turn 1 - i.e. a delay of a few or more turns can help you to bring your troops into position so that you can benefit more from the suppression or smoke effects. It is hard to predict what will happen that many turns out, but if you can it is a very effective combination. One subtle benefit of pre-planned bombardments is that even if your observer is KIA all the shells will fall. Hopefully your observers never get killed, but it has happened to me If you are playing a scenario where you have to assault quickly (limited time) it is nice to put up a smoke barrage that drops on the first turn with your low caliber arty. Of course I agree 100% with the fact that if you have slow Soviet or minor arty you are better off pre-planned or the shells might never come.

I don't agree with the premise of this thread that the German equipment is better across the board. There are many periods where the allies have effective equipment. For CMAK selections if you use the weapons in a semi-ahistorical fashion (i.e. AA guns as AT assets, 88mm in direct fire role) you can fight the Germans on good terms. There are very effective Allied weapons in various time frames including the Lee vs. PZ III or the Sherman which stands up well even vs. PZ IV "special". In CMBB I think that the allies had the overall advantage across time periods in terms of equipment. And anyways, what fun is it to always play tigers and panthers??? Grab a marder or a STG III or a motley crew of AT guns and infantry!

Here is another tip - play RANDOM quick battle meeting engagements. Just pick combined arms on both sides (or both infantry, or whatever you agree on) and let the computer pick 'em. Sometimes you will have OK stuff, sometimes you will have absoute crap. But if you play against a good human after a while you can "phone in" what they are going to pick as a combination of the time, terrain, etc... I know grogs hate these things as gamey but they can be a heck of a lot of fun. And one thing for sure - having no idea of what your opponent has definitely adds to the "fog of war". As Allies in CMBB you can pick great weapons. The T34 is a fine tank and the early war KV1 is virtually unbeatable. In late war pick the JS II with some SU 152 support and you can do well. In most years except for the very end the 76mm AT gun is cheap and pretty deadly against all but the heaviest German tanks. In CMAK it is a bit harder. The Sherman stands up well vs the axis in the desert and the Grant / Lee is murder on the PZ III models. Yes in late war Europe if your opponent always takes Panthers you will have trouble but the 17 pounder is good if you can get it in position and are clever with placement (or lucky in the meeting engagement map).

Thanks. Was there a "destroy" option in the original CMBO for operations that doesn't exist in the CMBB / CMAK series? I seem to remember it somewhere.

I was wondering if someone could help me with tactics for a "destroy" operation. Are the maps static? Do I get extra points for eliminating enemy units? I was going to try that revised Desobry operation for CMAK.

WP is white phosphorus

I am very glad that I started this thread. I learned a lot reading through the various comments. Here is what I think I learned: - trenches are VERY effective against indirect fire, meaning off board artillery - trenches have a relative weakness for on board HE fire and on board mortars - firing at the trenches with a machine gun will suppress the infantry inside and limit their movement (unless they panic and run, which is just what you want to have happen) - no one has really disagreed that trenches are perhaps too cheap in CMAK - since there is very little "good" cover in the desert scenarios such as heavy buildings, rubble, etc.. and open terrain means that the attacker usually has good LOS so a key hole defense is very hard to pull off - thus "relative" to other cover options trenches are hard to beat - trenches in reverse slope defenses are VERY tough to beat, since you can't really bring on board mortars to bear and you can't suppress the defenders with MG's and direct HE (from relatively cheap onboard guns like the 65mm Italian IG) unless you drive a tank up over the crest, and this is a dangerous thing to do (especially when I am playing the Axis in the desert and you have junky british tanks with little / no HE) Thanks again for all the tips.

One other thought from my perspective is that 15 points is too cheap for trenches in terms of desert defense. I realize that fortification costs are constant throughout all years of the game and their value in reality depends on the type of terrain and the opponent you are facing but IMHO trenches are HUGELY valuable in a desert game without much in the way of cover. Roadblocks, on the other hand, are virtually useless, and wire is of some use depending on the type of terrain. I don't have a "simple" solution for this but we probably will increase the costs using the honor system to something like 30 points / trench from 15 (you have to leave unspent $$). I know that the grogs don't really care about the relative cost of stuff but I like QB's and in general the costs are a good representative of overall effectiveness of individual weapons across the board. In this rare case the cost of a trench is too low in the desert.

If you play the same opponent a lot you should occasionally buy planes because it forces your opponent to CONSIDER buying anti-aircraft guns like 20mm and keeping them in reserve (not on the front line) to defend against AA attacks. This is a subtle benefit but a helpful one nonetheless. An occasional strafer is a good annoyance if you are on the attack or on defense - another benefit is that when the enemy AA opens up you can see their gun positions (a bit gamey, I admit) In CMAK it is pretty easy to kill the Brits if you play Axis (as I always do) but I agree that if you are playing CMBB Axis a tank buster is mighty appreciated if you are facing the incredible KV or T34 series in very early war 1941 (virtually the only things that are mobile that can kill them). Best of luck!

I appreciate the feedback. As far as whether trenches are over-modeled or over-represented, the answer is probably over-represented. The assault on Tobruk and the defense of Bach in Crusader do show the power of the trench on the defense, as well as the stubborn defense in Bir Hakeim and of course El Alamein. In a typical attack / assault / QB that we play from time to time if you give the defender trenches you are really giving them a powerful defense in the desert and that ought to be taken into account in the overall balance of the scenario (expectations). Trenches were just very hard to create in the desert - you needed to blast them out - and a typical scenario would see the attacker flank them or avoid the built up position in favor of surrounding them or going for a more favorable target. Thus the scenario where you have to pound out a defender with weapons readily at hand in 1941 are typically going to be very bloody for the attacker (or a repulse entirely, look at the Easter battle for Tobruk or the ferocious defense of Bach at Alam Halfa or the Free French) As far as 25 pounders and 3 inch mortars, dragging them forward into good firing positions in the desert isn't an easy task, especially if the opponent has weapons to return fire. In a particularly maddening scenario I was painfully dragging up 81mm and 50mm mortars and 65mm and 150mm IG's (Italians and Germans) and my opponent bought a strafer plane and knocked out a ton of my weapons sitting out in the open. Reverse slope with bunkers and trenches is particularly onerous for the attacker, including where the attacker doesn't start with good firing positions for mortars and guns. From our head to head QB's we will probably put in our own "house rules" to use good judgement on the pick of fortifications, buy some occasionally but then leave some $$ unspent, using 1941 and early 1942 weaponry.

I have been playing CMAK exclusively since it came out vs. my standard opponent. In the early war desert encounters trenches seem to be virtually unbeatable. In these games I always play the Axis and my opponent always plays the Allies. In a night scenario (don't want to spoil it) I am playing the Germans and my opponent puts an entire ammo load of OBA 25 pounder directly on top of my position containing an infantry gun, an MG and a company commander. I literally have zero casualties (they were pinned for a bit, but no big deal). In other games, I have been on the attack vs. trenches and gotten absolutely no where in terms of harming the enemy, short of using 150mm IG and point blank fire. My opponent resorts to driving his Matildas and other heavy tanks on top of the trench, or sacrificing a Bren carrier or two if my AT guns have been disabled. I realize that part of this is due to the fact that there weren't a lot of high explosive guns of high caliber in the desert - no SU 122 guns or SU 152 guns, or even 105mm Shermans or STUGS. You can use the 150mm IG and OBA of 105mm or 150mm, but these are typically expensive or unusual weapons. As a German player I consider myself lucky to get a high velocity 50mm tank gun or the occasional 75mm early war PZ IV. The Italian Semovente with its 75mm gun is a real treat. On the Allied side it is bleak until you get to the Grant / Lee with the bow 75mm gun and then of course the Sherman. British tanks mostly stink in this regard. Is the effectiveness of the trench over modeled? Or are trenches over represented? Certainly you have trenches around Tobruk and when the Germans were on defense in Crusader, and around El Alamein. However, in most attacks the defender probably ought not to have trenches given the difficulty of digging / blasting them out of rock in the desert. Any thoughts appreciated.

Excellent post. I played a lot of games against a human opponent in similar circumstances. I always played Germans and he always played Russians. For the Russians the OT34 flame throwing tank is a screaming bargain. Its flame has a VERY long range and the fact that it has a 76mm gun and excellent armor makes it a formidable adversary. In any time frame the Russian T34 tanks armed with cannister are also murder on infantry unless you have very powerful AT weaponry. The SMG squads are awesome at close range your rifle armed infantry have no chance unless you use special tactics. All Russian arty suffers from severe delay in the early years and in some circumstances can barely be used within the time frame - thus they are often used on pre-registered targets which can be anticipated as the defender. The "wall of guns" theory with the cheap AA guns is a menacing threat. My opponent got tired of it because it was so "gamey" but it certainly works. The self propelled SU 152 and SU 122 tanks are murder on the Germans. A crafy human opponent will pre-emptively obliterate your likely positions, and with the 152mm shells it doesn't take long to blow you away. As the German player I often have to abandon what would otherwise be excellent positions because I know they will be targeted at long range by these weapons. Also, HE does not really rely on penetrative power so it can be chucked from very long range (accuracy suffers a bit, but you can hit a building usually) which means your AT assets can't really counter this unless you are in a position to slug it out, which I usually am not on defense. Finally, if you survive into late 1944-5 you get smashed with the absolutely dreaded JS II series. They have the fantastic 122mm HE guns and can duke it out w/any German tank if handled correctly. May be expensive but can dominate the battlefield. Good weapons for the Germans are the STG series. When they get the "long" gun and are bought in platoon strength of 3 they are a good bargain. Even the short barrelled 75mm isn't too bad a bargain since they are cheap but they don't have MG's and are next to useless vs armor. Late war you can every so often buy a tiger or the dreaded jadgpanther, but I tend to avoid this solution because it is so "easy". Anyone can keep purchasing Tigers and Panthers but what is the fun in that ? Take a look at the SMG armed Finns. They are a good bargain as attackers. Also the Romanian infantry has 11 guys and are relatively cheap. Romanian support weapons are also cheaper - since they tend to die quickly on defense when targeted, I buy cheap stuff. The Italian 75mm AA gun is an excellent gun vs Russian early war armor. The Romanian mortars have bigger crews and more ammo. I tend to rely on stealth, keyhole defense and reverse slope. The shrek is a good bargain if you have woody terrain or rubble (best) - less useful in buildings due to backblast. I don't get much out of panzerfausts unless I am using tank hunters. Great post!

An excellent question r/e static or an assault... in the scenario briefing they call it an assault. But on the Scenario Depot site, they call it a static operation. I don't know how to tell for certain - if someone knows how to verify this, we can sort it out. The map is indeed huge. This may be causing some of the ahistorical results.

I have been playing the CM series for a while. I really like many aspects of Operations, especially the fact that they cause you to act more historically in terms of conserving forces rather than throwing them into (generally) futile attacks on the last turns of typical stand-alone games. I am playing Tobruk - The Easter battles - a huge operation with a german assault across a broad front against a human opponent. Similar to the tactics used in the actual battle, I am grouping my mobile forces for an assault on a relatively narrow part of the map and leaving behind a thinly manned blocking force across the rest of the map. The outcome of using these tactics is that I have penetrated far forward, past the main obstacle (the anti-tank ditch) on one side of the map. I haven't moved off the starting line on the rest of the map. Although each turn is 40+ turns, we ceased after 25 and resetup again. I was shocked when I went back in for the next battle in the scenario. The front line didn't move at all, and all of my guys in front of their starting position weren't resupplied (or they got very little, if anything) and aren't "padlocked" where they are, but they can either move waaaay back to the starting line or stay exactly where they were. Obviously I left them where they were I didn't want to start the whole battle again from the starting line. My opponent said that his battle line had moved forward - he could have dropped in troops in front of his starting line from the previous scenario - he didn't do this because we generally try to play to the spirit of the game, not the letter of the game, in these types of situations. Thus my conclusion and that of my opponent is that operations are flawed. Although I penetrated far forward in one side, either the "whole" line seems to move forward or it doesn't at all. I can't show penetration in one side of the line and have it fixed in other areas. To solve this problem in "game" terms I would have to resort to what I consider to be "gamey" tactics, like advancing across a broad front. This isn't a realistic approach, especially on a huge map, and isn't an appealing solution, because it dilutes the German advantages of mobility and ability to concentrate forces. It seems to me that the answer is that the line should move forward in segments, so I could push the line forward in some areas, and other areas could be attached to the original lines. Right now it seems to be a single rectangle, although I could be incorrect. Any thoughts are appreciated.

I had the same problem with the US GMC gun carriage - it knocked itself out. Also got credit for this, as well, in the kill section On a more realistic note, as defender my AT guns have been abandoned when they were setup behind houses that were reduced to rubble - apparently the rubble fell on them and knocked them out!

I know that we are talking about an infantry firefight but in close range night fighting light armor, even halftracks, become valuable. Light armor is usually decimated at range in a daylight battle but at night you come upon anti tank weapons and infantry at close range where your MG's have a strong suppressive effect. This is also usually the only way to bring MG's to bear as an attacker - if you drag them forward it slows everything down and they get killed if they are in the front line right away, before they even get setup. Another effective tactic is to throw low caliber artillery up ahead - a lot of the low skill (green, conscript) enemy will run away before you get there (it might land on you, though, because you are firing totally blind ). As attacker you can really take advantage of your ability to apply major force in a distinct spot because poor LOS limits the defenders' ability to move forces to the point of attack. Of course, this can be completely offset by running into MG and quick firing AA guns that just rout the attackers at close range. If the defender has mines / wire and weapons sited immediately behind them in a 50 foot firefight and you stumble around, you will be slaughtered.

Mortars Italian mortars have a high ammo capacity. The 45mm mortar has a load of 80 rounds and the 81mm has a crew of 8 and more rounds than the German counterpart. Tanks The 75mm high explosive on the Semovante (sorry for spelling) is useful in the desert - buying a platoon is a pretty cheap way to chuck HE. Their main disadvantage is a lack of MG. Can't say much good about the M13/40 they are pretty poorly armored, although the 47mm gun isn't too bad. Guns The 65mm mountain gun is a cheap and handy weapon. Their 20mm AA guns are also cheap. The 75mm AA gun can be a killer but it is immobile and I feel ahistorical using them in an AT role because I haven't really seen literature showing them using the guns in that role. The 47mm gun is OK vs tanks especially if you are not facing Matildas or anything like a Lee or of course Sherman. When those tanks come into play you need to use the 75mm / 76mm PAK guns. Infantry Agree on the power of the close in SMG's on the paratroopers. The typical Italian squad is OK with rifles and built in MG. Weird Stuff I haven't had much luck w/those flame tankettes. Hard to hide in the desert and they brew up quickly. The crocodile had better armor! Also the mobile truck guns tend to die pretty quickly. Unlike the 2 pounder portees they shoot forward, so at least you don't have to go in reverse. Timing By the time you get to mid-late 1942 and onto 1943 the Italians get way outclassed. Might as well back your tanks off the board if facing Lee and Sherman tanks. Facing early war British junk, they face a fighting chance, especially if well dug in and led well. The Italians are fun to play, especially if every so often you mix in a German 88 or tank or two to "stiffen" the ranks.

Thanks for taking the time to test it. I think I will follow another poster's advice and go out and buy a new NVIDIA graphics card and see if that speeds up my performance at all. Given that the turn took you 9 minutes (approx), I won't do any more complaining about the processing power of my PC :cool: Thus the conclusion seems to be, once again, that incremental RAM doesn't speed up performance, assuming that you have a decent amount in the first place (i.e. above system minimums).

I am running a 2.0 ghz Pentium 4, under windows XP SP 2. Sorry I sent the wrong turn to Michael - I re-sent the benchmark turn after conversion to CMAK 1.01. I had you confused w/Jason because I was reading a lot of his posts - both your posts are very helpful, btw. My current time on the benchmark turn is 4 min 30 seconds. To date my experience has been that more RAM doesn't help, assuming you have a good amount of RAM to begin with.