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BadgerDog

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Posts posted by BadgerDog

    Armor ratings and CMBN

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I came back here after many years of absence and bought CMBN to see how the game had advanced in detail and accuracy. I think Battlefront has done a really nice job, but the tank gunnery still needs improvement. The Panthers getting pretty consistent first round hits on a Sherman moving laterally across open country at top speed 5th gear at about 35-38 Mph is a reach. :D

    Here's a very old thread I posted years ago on here when I was into CMBO, CMBB and CMAK, that I don't think exists any longer because of the change in board software, but I thought it still had some relevance as to this discussion of tank warfare for the period and how it's being modelled in CMBN….

    I apologize for the length of this thread, but I being an old "tread head", vintage armor has always had a soft spot in my heart.. Let me qualify my statements, just so you know where my experience lays. I haven't driven or gunned a Sherman in over 40 years and I've only ever sat inside a stationary captured German WWII vintage Panther, MK IV and Jagdpanther at the RCAC Museum. I taught at the Royal Canadian Armored Corps gunnery school (Camp Borden) from 1963-65. That combined with an additional 2 years of in-field "grunt" experience as a Troop Sergeant, gives me some real world knowledge of at least the late 1940's and 1950's vintage M4A2E8 76mm Sherman tanks, which the Canadian Army was still using then. I also trained on the "then new" Centurion with the British 105 smooth bore gun that was just appearing for us canucks and had some brief introduction to the standard Panzer Leopard as the Canadian Army bought 50 of them from Germany.

    A close personal friend of mine, we'll call "Gunner Harry", actually landed in a Sherman as a gunner at D-Day on June 6th, with the 6th Canadian Armored Regiment, The 1st Hussars. I served with him in this unit during the early 60's when he was still active. On another BBS related to tank warfare, a discussion as to the use of gyro stabilization on the Sherman's master weapon evolved from a statement that it was a post WWII invention and not a factor in actual combat. This was incorrect and the threads progressed as follows where I wrote:

    "The gyro stabilization that was built into the Sherman M4 and was indeed used quite effectively against Panzer IV's and particularly later on against Tigers. The system built into them was exactly the SAME gyro stabilizer I personally fired from on the M4A2E8 version. Just to make sure that my memory hadn't completely faded, I dug out my old gunnery log book and checked for my MTR 'fire and movement' scores. I had achieved an average of 83% first round hits at ranges from 600-1,200 yards using this system with APDS. I telephoned my local friend, "Gunner Harry" who used this same gyro equipment in combat and he said "there's no way he would have ever wanted to take on Panzer IV's and Tigers without the ability to fire on the move". He also said that this was simply because most of his "tank to tank" engagements during the war tended to be up close and personal, under 1,500 yards. This was primarily due to the nature of the countryside (forested, hedge rows and hilly) where an enemy vehicle either waited in ambush till you were real close, then opened fire, or, both of you simply appeared in the open and surprised each other without any warning. I think many people often get confused about WWII tank warfare in France because they are so used to reading and seeing videos of the Arab/ Israeli wars of the 60's and 70's plus the Gulf War in the early 90's. They see lots of flat open tank engagements at extreme range distances."

    Well, something began to bother me about the typical WWII engagement range my old Sherman vet gave me. Although some of you may think that 1,500 yds is actually quite short, I was a little suspicious because so much of my actual gunnery training in a Sherman M4A2E8 consisted of practicing live gunnery at 1,000 yds or less, quite often moving. So, I contacted Charles Lemons, who's the curator of the Patton Museum and got some interesting feedback.

    This information comes from The Range and Angular Distribution of A.P. Hits on Tanks, Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen Proving Ground MD, December 1951 (Project TB3-1224B, Memorandum Report # 590)

    This study was an analysis of the range and angular distribution of casualties and hits on tanks in WW II (NW Europe). It notes number of reported tank losses for 1st US Army, 3rd US Army, and the reports from the British Army.

    "Mean engagement range for Allied tanks vs German tanks was 701 yards.

    1st Army mean range was 760 yds

    3rd Army mean range was 615 yds

    British 2nd Army mean range was 644 yds

    According to the charts 87% of all engagements resulting in casualties were at more than 200 yds, 65% was greater than 400 yds. However, only 2% were at ranges greater than 2000 yds.

    It was noted in the report that the range at which most encounters took place was 330 yds - or half the average range. It also noted that most hits were on the front of the hull or turret for US Vehicles, but only for little more than 1/3 of the British tanks was this true.

    Several things were concluded during the study:

    1. Four of the five engagements between single tanks went to the tank that fired first.

    2. One half of all casualties were caused by a single hit and the average number of hits per casualty was less than two.

    3. German weapons could penetrate Allied armor, in most cases, out to 2000 yds, whereas Allied guns could perforate German armor only out to about 800 yds.

    A Map study was also included for Northern Europe and it concluded that the average range that a tank could see another tank from any random point was

    322 yards. The probability that a tank could see 1000 yards at any random point in Northern Europe was less than .05 (less than 5%). It was concluded that tank engagements in Europe was controlled by the terrain - thus limiting tank engagement ranges.

    It also noted that in only 3 of 85 cases cited were the tanks actually engaging the gun that knocked them out. It also noted that in only 3% of the cases were the tanks able to return fire before becoming a casualty."

    Well, after hearing this feedback, I phoned Gunner Harry back and asked him, "are you sure about that 1,500 yds?". He replied "that it was just a guess from a very old memory, but that he remembers most times they were so close you could easily read their turret markings, as well as there wasn't a great deal of need to aim the sighting telescope reticule pattern very often". hehehe

    That suggests real up close and personal bore sighting and I would suspect from his visualization of turret markings that Gunner Harry over estimated the 1,500 yard range he provided me earlier. His actual engagements were most likely down in the ranges that were documented above by official army reports and Harry's old memory is perhaps a little off. God bless him anyway." (Update: Harry is now deceased ....)

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    Hate those LOS!!!!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Well, upon watching this phenomenon even more during the scenario, there's apparently no rhyme nor reason for the odd LOS behavior. The gun crew goes from having a great LOS on one turn to being only able to see 9 meters in front of them on the next turn, with no other reason for it. Health is ok and they are not even nervous. No smoke or explosion debris in the way, or any other blockage.

    Really weird...has to be a software bug someplace... I beginning to think I enjoyed the old CMBO, CMBB and CMAK more ...

    Regards,

    Doug

    ps: what's with lots of fields that have solid bocage on all four sides?

    If real life was like that, then how the heck did the farmer get in and out to service it... :D You place troops in it and they have no way of getting out.. :rolleyes:

    0

    Hate those LOS!!!!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I tried a search to see if I could find a topic relevant to my problem and this is the closest I could get, but my apologies if it's not completely on topic.

    LOS .. I don't understand what's happening with it .... :confused:

    I used to understand it with CMBO, CMBB, CMAK etc ...

    Example ....

    I did a setup with AT guns that have a clear line of sight (light blue line) to a cross roads and the surrounding area.

    Once the game started, the LOS was no longer clear?

    It stayed blocked that way through multiple turns with on smoke, trees or anything else blocking the view that was there during the setup.

    I was about to pack up and start moving the gun, then suddenly the original clear LOS view of the cross roads re-appeared and it was fine again, lasting for a turn or two, then it went back to being no longer clear, again, for no apparent reason.

    What the heck is going on? :(

    Is there a bug, or some other anomaly I'm missing?

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    H2H Helper 1.2.0 (Alpha) available

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Hi.. :)

    I've had to give up on testing Mac Alpha 1.2.3 ...

    It simply spends far too much time with the "spinning wheel" going and runs unacceptably slower then 1.13 ...

    Also, I was getting several occurrences of files that were copied from Drop Box to the Inbox and after it was done, the Inbox version was "0" bytes in size, forcing me to to do a manual copy myself to get the complete file transferred.

    I've reverted to 1.1.3 for the Mac and it's working fine at an appropriate speed of operation. I'd be happy to test and future Mac versions that solve these slow running issues.

    Thanks for your efforts .. :)

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    Run on two machines?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Here's the potential problem I'd like some guidance with …

    I run an all Apple world …

    I have a MacBook Pro and an iMac ….

    I have CMBN 1.01b installed on my MacBook Pro with its 15" screen, which I've been using when I travel, but I'd also like to install and run it on my iMac with it's terrific 27" cinema screen and huge sound volume….

    Is this legal for my license and I assume using something like Head to Helper with my common Drop Box, I could easily play the same PBEM game whether I'm on the road or when I get home, continue to play it on the iMac?

    A separate question …

    If I buy a new machine (MacBook Pro is getting a little long in the tooth), I assume I can just restore the current CMBN file structure from my SuperDuper (or Time Machine) backup and carry on without a problem? Any Mac users ever down that?

    Thanks for any feedback … :)

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    H2H Helper 1.2.0 (Alpha) available

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Are you on a PC or a Mac? We found a definite issue with the Mac version, and pulled it from the folder.

    Running on a MacBook Pro with OSX Lion ....

    I restored old v1.3 and that seemed to fix me up again ....

    I have a 38k screen capture of the error screen which Battle Front won't let me attach here as they say it's too big, but I can email it to you if you want it and provide me with an email address, or I can out it in the shared folder you're using for updates?

    I also see there's another 1.2.0 (Alpha) for the Mac been put in the shared folder.. should I try that, or wait for the next iteration...

    Thanks for your efforts... sure makes it easier to track and maintain multiple games. :)

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    H2H Helper 1.2.0 (Alpha) available

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I think this version is a bit unstable....

    It hangs a lot and I've had several instances of having to do a "force quit" and restart ...

    I also got a weird error message when I tried to replace 1.3 with H2H Helper 1.2.0 (Alpha)... (see attached)

    Regards,

    Doug

    Edit: unfortunately, this forum only allows me to attach jpg's smaller than 19.5 kb, which is very weird by today' s standards .... any how, I can't show you the error message... :D

    0

    When will Mac game work under Lion?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Where did you download the 1.01B patch from ? While the links indicate where to get it from, it's quite possible that NONE of the sites actually have it up yet.

    The white text in the lower right hand corner suggests that you have the 1.01 7/21 patch instead (which is what some sites like Atomicgamer seem to have up still - for those that even have that).

    I downloaded the 1.01b patch (Mac) and the arrow keys see to move in the right directions now, but I thought they were supposed to be fine control of the movements?

    These are still pretty coarse and the mouse moves very quickly?

    Thanks ...

    By the way, got it from GamersHell and it is marked as 1.01b both on their site and also the download file itself...

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    CMBN rookie ....

    in English

    Posted

    Hello folks .... :)

    I'm looking for a PBEM opponent to play CMBN against ...

    I've just completed the tutorials, so I'm a rookie at CMBN, but have old CMBO exerience from years ago....

    I'd like to find someone of a similar beginner to CMBN experience, so if you'd like to give it a go, email be at badger@milsurps.com.

    Thanks ....

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    When will Mac game work under Lion?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Can someone please give an update on the patch progress? Thanks

    Well, as a user, I bought the full Mac version 1.0 and applied the 1.01 patch ...

    I also updated Lion OSX on my Macbook Pro to the latest patch which came out a few days ago....

    CMBN now loads (no more white screen) and I'm able to at least get into a battle, although I haven't gone further then that as I need to re-learn the game. I'm about 5 years out of date ... :D

    Don't know if that helps or not...

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    When will Mac game work under Lion?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Thank you ... :)

    That's disappointing ... as an old early member here, I was looking to resurrect my CB gaming and hoping to dust off the rust with the demo, to see what's changed ...

    I had bought all of the past games and unfortunately, after two moves and building a new house, I can't find them or the manuals, plus they were on my old PC anyway.

    I've now converted entirely to the Mac world ....

    Appreciate your feedback ...

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    When will Mac game work under Lion?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    It would list FPS, Q: and LOS values. They would be constantly changing, and the FPS numbers would coincide roughly with the frame rate at the time. It sounds like you're either a) not getting the latest patch from the mirrors (several of the mirrors still have not updated the patch despite our requests) or B) the patch is not properly updating your copy.

    The mirror at Atomicgamer has the latest version for certain.

    Does this include the demo version?

    I would like to try this out before buying full version, but all I see is a white screen and it locks up....

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    When will Mac game work under Lion?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Been away for a while ... ;)

    Running a MacBook Pro with OSX Lion and I thought I'd try CM Normandy (Demo), so I downloaded it...

    Click to start and it simply opens a white box and nothing else happens ....

    Saw there was a patch titled 1.01 for CM Normandy, which I downloaded and installed. Now, it wants a serial number or asks me to buy the game right now.

    Don't want to buy anything until I see the demo run, which I re-installed, but it still won't do anything except open up a blank white box and sit there ....

    Suggestions?

    Thanks for any feedback... :)

    Regards,

    Doug

    0

    Tankers wading through spent shells?

    in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps

    Posted

    They were called "Pistol Ports" in our Shermans. As you can see from pics below, they were also used for re-stocking primary ammo into turret. You had to be careful not to let too many empty 76mm casings build up on the floor of the turret as they were exceptionally hot after being ejected from the breech. As a result, we would often have turret floor fires due to the casings igniting the oily floor and any loose cleaning rags (or parts of uniforms) exposed. I'd usually dump empty casings out the pistol point during every pause in the engagement. More then a few laying around and it was very difficult to get fresh rounds out of the floor ready bin anyway.

    Some pics of how pistol ports worked:

    Sherman M4A2E8 First Day's Shoot (May 1964)

    Sherman M4A2E8 Second Day's Shoot (May 1964)

    Regards,

    Badger

    0

    Tiger accuracy

    in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps

    Posted

    Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

    </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BadgerDog:

    It is only my opinion as an old Sherman gunner that the many of the up close engagements of tanks within the Combat Mission series, tend to be a bit gamey and the accuracy/hit ratio is far too low when engaging targets at less then 1,000 yards, but it's still a fantastic piece of entertainment software and I love every minute of it.

    Regards,

    Badger

    Badger,

    For these close range engagements, were you trained to to aim for specific points on enemy tanks, or just center of mass?

    Also, did you have a different procedure for a "snapshot" as compared to a shot with plenty of prep time (like from an ambush position)?

    Thanks,

    Ace </font>

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