Foxbat

Glantz always gets bashed by everyone for not representing there country well enough [his representation of the US is particularly bad]. But seriously do you expect one guy to dissect both all russian and finnish sources? He has taken upon himself the gargantuan task of opening up the russian sources, and has made efforts to use genuine original sources rather than soviet historiography. [ October 17, 2002, 09:26 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Obviously the germans were able to win a lot of engagements even though there "mechanical stuff" wasn't neccesarily superior. But a more valid point is that the way you use your artillery decides if the performance is hiostorically feasible, for example if you play the Finns you should buy TRP's and make an effort to concentrate your artillery fire in one place at a time. Just like everything else that happens at a higher command level, like for example the gathering of forces before an offensive, etc. But the cost is one of the game implications of how arty practices are moddeled, you can't claim that Finns should get practically free TRP's and then dismiss the idea that it is about cost out of hand. The russians made a concentrated effort to ensure that when heavy artillery was available there was lots of it, so shouldn't the game make it easier for them to buy heavy (ie prep) artillery in bulk? If you think that is enough you should read this: How to attack like a Soviet Rifle Corps in 1944 This isn't modeled for anyone (if anything the russians should get some 0berpowers in this area because of their great tactical intelligence) so I don't see how it is relevant for the Finns specifically.

Bells and whistles imho, I also think that similar systems were worked out by most other countries at that time (except possibly by the soviets, and they do get longer FO delays so in game terms this is actually accounted for already). Thes two claims seem to directly contradict each other, there were good maps of the homefront but crappy aerial survey maps sometimes had to use don't combine into: aerial survey should be so good that artillery can essentialy function as if they were on homeground. I also wonder how effective artillry was during the attack considering it neccesarily followed the infantry and couldn't be pre-deployed. I also think that the claim that the Finns always immediatly had great maps of any area they were advancing towards is a bit optimistic. Or maybe the soviets conducted a reasonably lead and rather tenacious defense (knowing that a success in this area would sever one of the lifelines of the Rodina) in extreme climatic circumstances? Naah, it must have been the lack of finnish maps (aside: the Finns had maps of Murmansk? I thought the lack of decent maps in the northern combat zone was lamented even when the Finns fought on their own soil..). But that's the same for every nation, it's just an abstraction we'll have to live with. That's because at CMBB scale you aren't the division/army commander, I don't think in FO would be allowed to fire an entire battalions worth of ammo on a tactical objective. Besides, spare athough for neighbouring units who will be stuck without artillery support if you hog it all. The Finns turned to the most obvious solution and that makes them "masters of improvisation", I've read about at least one acount of a russian using barbed wire (presumably straight wire and not the coiled stuff) to fix a land line, and they say Finns are masters of improvisation Uhm, yeah. You did : "The Finnish arty doctrine was quite unique. You can NOT apply your knowledge of German, Soviet, British and American arty doctrine to the Finnish arty. There are some universal things like ballistics and meteorological stuff but that is the extent of the similarities." You'd think that by this time other armies would have caught up with what the Finns invented 60-80 years ago, obviating the need for a classified status. [ October 17, 2002, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Ok, I'm starting to get a picture here, but is ther an english language equivalent (or at least translation) for "Korjausmuunnin"?

You grasp of the english language seems quite good, but the situation you portray of Anglo-American histories glorifying themselves just doesn't exist. And you also seem to imply that the Finns were "the best, the brightest, the quickest, the meanest and the most resourceful and all round Best" even if this is denied by Anglo-American Propaganda... I think you're taking this a bit to far.

I read and I didn't see the magic formula..? As far as I can tell the unique finnish system, that had no parralel in the rest of the world, comes down to doing a lot of pre-measuring (almost ad absurdam) and pre-regestering. [EDIT] Not that I don't think it worked, but we were promised a system that had nothing in common with that used by other nations outside of ballistics itself (I guess this is where I should say: fix it or somefink.. but I don't know at whom ). [ October 16, 2002, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

I think that this is tantamount to asking for 0berness. Remember the germans have their mythical skills in panzercraft, it would be nice if one tank in each company was made elite regardless of force composition. Or what about the russian artillery practices? Why don't they get big discounts on heavy arty post-43. And let's not even get started on their deep battle operations, if they're attacking anywhere after 43 they're going to have a massive troop density on the axis of attack, force ratio for russian attackers should be 3:1 and 5:1 in assault (and they would need it to when the finns get free TRP's in any engagements :eek: ). Seriously though, I think you can see where I'm going, such changes are going to seriously inbalance the game, while the arguments for it are on shaky ground. Realism? Historical accuracy? No doubt finnish artillery practices were superior to everyone else's and they spent a lot of time on pre-regestring their fires, but that seems to indicate a lot effort (ie points) was expended on them, and that Finish doctrine was mainly defensive in nature (which would make this a bit of an odd feature in non-defensive battles). I also don't think that the Finns won every engagement they fought, which is certainly going to happen if these changes take effect. [ October 16, 2002, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

It is the best you will get in any game period. Whether it is worth/not worth playing single player is a matter of opinion. If you play a lot of multiplayer games you'll get bored with singleplayer (but that holds true for any game), so if you'll only be playing singleplayer it is actually not a great problem.

The problem is that while that would work in scenarios giving the Finns access to SU-152's, KV-1E's and whatnot could seriously unbalance their amor capabilities (unless giving a huge rarity penalty, which would render them useless in QB's...).

I'm going out on a limb here and I'll say in advance that I don't know how the game mechanics work exactly, but here is how I think they work. If in real life a bomb is dropped it creates a blast effect and shatters shrapnell all around it, since it isn't feasible to recreate this in the intricate detail that reality provides us with this is abstracted in the game. And this probably works something like this; the bomb has a certain footprint and all units in that footprint are queeried as to how they are affected (ie a die is rolled to see if and how much damage/morale hit they take). Since there is no hard upper limit to the number of casualties a bomb can possibly inflict -and this was also apparently a pretty big bomb- it is entirely conceivable that every unit in the area had a bad roll (statistics will do that to you once in a while) and you end up with a field of dead guys (500m isn't very much to begin with, from the bomb's perspective ). Just tough luck, no bug, no Überbomb, just one of those things that happen every once in a while.. [ October 13, 2002, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

I think there was athread on the kill-all bomb a while back, apparently a bug (little one) that peeps up every now and then and that also happened in CMBO. [EDIT]This is the thread but it looks a damn sight worse then what you are describing, so might just have been a very big bomb. [ October 13, 2002, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Buy some rocket arty and pre-plan it, same idea better fireworks

Only if it was incoming.

But if you has SMG squads which are both massively effective and have lots of ammo people would use them exclusively.. boring

That's kind of the point actually, this is not the US Army.. so no fancy-schmancy anytime-anywhere fire support missions. Not to mention that CMBO artillery was actually unbelievable accurate and flexible, as if you're the only unit in the area and the arty is using GPS indicated maps [ October 13, 2002, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

The crux is probably that in Combat Mission the "spotter unit" is an abstraction that represents the link between the forward commanders and the artillery, including calls by platoon/company leaders, plus whatever pre-planned mission are to be plotted. Imagine if it weren't the case, you could buy 3 Army level spotters and thus halt every fire-mission in the army when you call in fire :eek: If you want the direct and undived attention of certain artillery it has to be pre-applied for, or it has to be integral (ie mortars and such).

That's what Target Reference Points are for (they were in CMBO too, but because arty was so much more flexible, accurate and had next to no delay I never used them either ).

That's why you have pre-planned artillery, if you plot the strike on the first round you won't hav the penalty. That's how most the big stuff was used anyway (....kgghk... this is Ivan, we have some jaegers in a bush near hill 145.1, please drop a fair amount of 152mm rounds..over..)

There was a reason for pre-plotted artillery, the spotters are there to make sure that it lands in the right place And yes it could take that long, depending on who-when-where-what.

I feel sad that I'm going to have to delete at least half of your posts because they're such drivel Dang, I'm not allowed to do that. Now they're still cluttering up cyberspace. Btw: If you are offended at this post I'll call you a whiny little bitch ..er.. fanboy, for not seeing the reason in my argument

It now uh.. takes longer and is less flexible. But you can use prep barrages so your rounds will start falling inside the duration of the scenario

Don't know if I'd want "Iron Feliz" Dzjerninski on my turret, but the cammo sure is cool

If you ignore the details I was pretty close Ouch, neutral to a fault them Swedes.

Looks nice, but what does Stalinell mean?