BadgerDog

Actually, the tethering comment is excellent and brought back another memory of the "foot recce" dismount drill. As a Sherman CC , we would dismount from the tank while tethered back to our primary N-19 radio set (originally built for the Russian model Sherman and ours still had Russian markings), via a long 50-75 foot "mic" extension cable. The idea was to be able to check over or around the obstacle and be able to send a "contact report" immediately without having to re-mount, plus you could toggle the "mic" over to Intercom and command the driver to move forward past the obstacle as you walked ahead. Unfortunately, it may seem odd, but these extensions were in short supply and often we only had one in a troop of 4 Sherman's. I won't tell you how many times they got tangled up in the front drive sprocket, destroying the extension and yanking the headphones off the CC, or almost choked the CC to death when it hung up as he jumped off the front left or right fender skirt of the vehicle. Regards, Badger

Excellent point, that's possible. I hadn't really thought about the +2 issue as I was more thinking about the how can he fire if 0% Exposed thing, plus tolerate some pretty oppressive HE proximity fire. I guess I should spend some more time learning the game (it is a game.. ), before I wade into these type discussions. BTW, it's a fabulous game and I enjoy it tremendously, plus I've met some great people through PBEM. Regards, Badger [ March 03, 2003, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Hi John.... As I was taught, albeit over 35 years ago... Here is something I wrote for another game I enjoy.... SOP (Tactics) - Observation and Scanning Terrain The general overriding principles of scanning terrain are first, be stationary in the prone position (on your belly) if possible and second, be concealed and occupying the highest ground that permits the greatest viewing distance. Once in position, you do a quick scan forward, taking in your entire viewing angle looking for anything obvious that you should immediately react to. Pay particular attention to and make a mental note of any "dead ground" in front of you. Dead ground are areas where the terrain is depressed (i.e. gulleys, ravines and wide ditches etc), where the enemy may easily conceal himself, or suddenly appear in front of you as they move forward and rise up out of those depressions. If through your "Quick Scan" everything looks quiet and normal, then you mentally divide your forward viewing angle into three distinct areas consisting of foreground, middle distance and horizon. Once that's done, you begin a detailed and very slow scan of the foreground (greatest threat) area, shifting when complete to the middle distance area and finally, moving your scan to the far horizon. Pretend your eyes on your monitor (using your mouse as well) are like a typewriter carriage in motion, except reversed. Always begin your scan from RIGHT TO LEFT, moving across the designated area (foreground, middle distance, horizon), then as you reach the end of each area, do a "carriage return" and shift your eyes back to the right side of the next area, commencing your detailed RIGHT TO LEFT scan all over again. Why RIGHT TO LEFT? Quite simply, we are conditioned as children and taught to read with a more normal LEFT TO RIGHT eye movement. Our eye motion and associated muscles get very comfortable moving in this direction and it creates very smooth movements through image transitions with few pauses. Unfortunately, this muscle and mind conditioning also creates an environment where it's easy for the eye to be lazy and miss something when scanning in this more learned mode. However, if you scan RIGHT TO LEFT, you'll find it far more awkward for your eye and mind coordination to get lazy, plus there's a tendency for your eyes to stop and pause more often to focus on what you're seeing. The result is that you might identify things that you'd easily miss when scanning in the more natural and conditioned LEFT TO RIGHT mode. Next time you're outside with real life terrain, test out this phenomenon and I think you'll get a clear idea as to how this works. It also works with your eyes on your computer screen and with your mouse movement in a similar, but less pronounced fashion. Thanks for the feedback... Regards, Badger

Huh? :eek: With all due respect, I've had 105mm's go off at about 100 yards in front of my FOP in real life. I guarantee you, HE is not a "contact sport". Perhaps I misunderstood your point, but the kill radius of any HE type round hitting anywhere around the sides or rear of exposed gun crews (even entrenched) is going to minimally rattle their dentures and give them a good reason to put in a career path transfer to another trade spec. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be bothering the little fellas in front of me during this particular PBEM. In our game adventure, I think that HE fire from two 75mm Panthers and an 81mm mortar at less then 300-400 meters away, supplemented by 20mm and HMG direct fire should be causing more damage then it is? Just my opinion folks.... Thanks for listening.... Regards, Badger

So where, exactly, are your mortars? </font>

Just my two cents.... I don't know what causes it, but I have experienced a lot more of these "hit the ground in front" instead of the target area anomalies with v1.02, then I ever remember with previous versions. I've also experienced a similar anomaly with AT guns dug-in behind a concrete wall with 0% exposure. With two Panthers and two 20mm vehicles, plus a 50mm Puma and three HMG's all firing at him, he's able to stand up and return fire without a scratch, presumably because of his 0% exposure. I'm not sure how one can be 0% exposed and yet be exposed enough to effectively fire over hundreds of meters? In fact I have exactly that situation going on in a PBEM right now, as well as several instances of the terrain blocking problem, even though the LOS indicator is locked on red and says it's a clear shot. I've also dropped down to the vehicle level view (target and attacker) to check LOS and I'm able to clearly see the master weapon to the target LOS (and vice versa) without the intervening hill. Regards, Badger ps: If I can help by providing movies showing these effects, I'd be happy to send them to anyone who'd like to view them.

Another thought after playing the game some more ........... CMBB currently employs a "hull down" move command and with the odd exception, it seems to work fine most of the time. The "hull down" command was not something that was used in isolation by Sherman Crew Commanders. It was a two step process. First the CC would direct the driver forward into a "turret down" position, for purposes of a halt and scan (always right to left) SOP, observing for enemy positions, but also choosing his next forward fire position. Why? In simple terms, there's absolutely no point in exposing your turret and master weapon to any kind of incoming fire when it isn't necessary, plus it's very hard for the "bad guys" to spot a small personal silhouette at distance. It isn’t necessary to come up in a "hull down" unless there's something to engage, so why not just stay "turret down" scanning the ground in front through your binos. Once the CC assessed the threat as minimal and had chosen his next bound (fire position), he would command his driver forward with "driver advance slow" and come up in a "hull down", then signal his wingman to leapfrog forward (reverse jockey first!) so he can assume a "turret down" to begin his scan in a similar manner. Using this technique, there was always one Sherman with a ready-to-fire "hull down" and the other was either protected in a "turret down", or in motion to his next fire position. Of course, all of this assumes that the terrain is not featureless and affords the CC the luxury of being able to assume a "turret down" at all. It seems to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for CMBB to add a "turret down" command to the movement orders menu, using the same LOS code that's now employed for "hull down". I hope that's not an over simplification of how it could be done. Thanks for listening.... Regards, Badger

Thanks, but how about January 1943 at Mid-Day?

They look great in the JPG!... But, whenever I unzip them to \cmbb\bmp, the colors of my Stugs now are just grey? I was using CMMOS whitewashed versions and I simply wanted to copy these over whatever was there for these vehicles. I noticed that when I unzipped them, there was no prompt to "overwrite" existing BMP's, as if these were all new BMP? Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Thanks Regards, Badger

I can't speak for modern voice procedure used between tank crew members, but I can give you the battle engagement procedures used by Commonwealth armored forces during WWII and definitely well into the late 1960's. Here's a great anecdotal story about being a Sherman gunner from an old friend, Harry Cluff (Deceased), 1st Hussars (6th Cdn Armored Regt). I diarized this discussion from a conversation I had with him in 1965, when I was just learning to be a young Sherman (M4A2E8) crew commander. He was driving along a road in France shortly after June 11th, 1944 (the Black Day of the 1st Hussars), where they lost most of the Regiment to an SS Panzer division counter attack, therefore he had no wingman. It was a narrow, barely two lane type thing and all of a sudden, a Tiger (he says...hmmm... I wonder about that ID) pulled across in front of them broadside at about 600 yards. His Crew Commander hollered "shot action" (meaning load AP), "shell action" was HE and screamed into the intercom "no traverse - 600 Tank- front" (meaning select the tank target at 600 yards to your front). The Loader/Op shoved an AP round up the breach and hollered "loaded". Gunner Harry bore sighted (it filled the sighting scope) with a response "600 Tank - ON !! (meaning he was ready). At this point, the Panzer begin to traverse its turret around 90 degrees towards them. The CC yelled "Fire" and Gunner Harry yelled back "Firing Now" (don't want the Loader/Op to lose his hand behind breach, so the gunner always indicates he's firing) and he hammered his foot down on the electrical solenoid switch for the master weapon. He said the round hit mid turret on the Panzer and angled off straight up in the air. The CC repeated the fire order drill once again. A second round deflected straight up in the air also. The Panzer continued what appeared to be a manual slow traverse. A third Sherman AP round was let loose and this one hit near rear deck, deflecting into the woods, but still no damage and the Panzer's turret was almost on them. So, Gunner Harry's CC hollered, that's enough for us and told them to "bail". Gunner Harry went out through the CC's cupola, following the CC as they dove off the Sherman and ran into the woods, falling into the grass. He said that maybe 15 seconds later there was a bang and when he lifted his head out of the grass, his Sherman was "brewing up". They ran through the woods and walked back to squadron HQ where they were issued a new Sherman that had come off the boats from England. They never got into trouble for ditching that tank, but he did say he was some "p*&&%$" because he lost all his kit in the tank they abandoned, including his brandy snifter. The voice procedure used by Gunner Harry above was exactly as I was trained twenty years later, ironically on virtually the same tank model that he used in WWII. Regards, Badger Sherman (M4A2E8) & Centurion Group 3 Gunner (RCAC) Group 2 Driver Mechanic Tracked (RCAC) Group 2 Signaler (RCAC) CC and Trooper Leader Instructor

Let me add one more issue to really confuse everyone.... There was an inherit flaw in the training of Sherman drivers and gunners, which would always lead to the kind of movement oddness that Pud talks about here. The driver was trained to immediately turn into incoming fire, so as to present the thickest forward sloped bow armor of the Sherman towards the enemy. The gunner was simultaneously trained to immediately traverse the turret towards the enemy and engage him with fire in the shortest possible time. Now, look at Pud's post showing the BOTH T34 hull and turret pointing 90 degrees to the enemy position. If the driver starts his pivot turn (actually, the Sherman couldn't do that due to the lack of the proper differential, so it was actually just a tight turn), plus the gunner also started a rapid traverse, can you imagine the confusion. Usually, the CC overcame this by verbally overriding somebody's training (often the driver), by shouting "driver halt" on the intercom, leaving the gunner to traverse and set up the shot without any hull movement. If he wanted the gunner to stop, he'd holler "gunner steady", letting the hull movement bring the bow around. In CMBB one can't do that. If either a plotted move or reverse command is present, then there's no override, at least none that I can see. So, I think Pud makes a good point that BTC might want to think about in their next generation product. Actually, I guess this CMBB version could be improved if the movement command cancelled itself (on turreted vehicles), immediately stopping the vehicle and thus permitting the gunner to bring the turret to bear on its own against the enemy vehicle. Interesting dilemma.... [ February 27, 2003, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

I'm not sure if it's right or wrong.... Again, I can only try to convey the sense of sitting in one of these ancient beasts as a gunner. I only know that it's incredible difficult to hit much of anything while sitting in the gunner's seat of one of these vintage (non laser/computerized M1A1 Abrams class) vehicles. Your eye is pressed up against the rubber cup of a sighting telescope and your head is constantly being jostled side to side, or pulled back away from the eyepiece due to any kind of vehicle motion at all. Not only that, even if I had a sight picture lock on a target and hollered "ready" (to fire) to the CC, if that damn driver pulled a tiller bar and caused some kind of lateral displacement (hull movment), the first motion was often so much of an exaggerated "jerkiness" due to overcoming the inertia of the tank's weight, that my head would bang against the side of the turret (or the azimuth indicator). I'd then have to start all over and reposition my eye though the telescope, reacquire the target, re-lay the gun, then holler "ready" again. I have to say, even though I held a fairly high gunnery rating, that re-laying exercise probably took me a good 8-10 seconds in the Sherman. As far as non stabilized guns in motion..... I have no idea how anybody would hit anything at all, even if they were only traveling in a straight line and experiencing no separate hull displacement through driver tiller bar actions. I suppose if the target was at 100 yards and filling the entire sight picture of your telescope, I guess it might be academic... just hit the electrical solenoid for a send and prey shot. Yup, the golden rule, on moving targets ... sight where they're going to be, not where they've been. The tracking "mils" off-set indicators for firing on moving targets were next to useless in the Sherman. Pre-lay and sight on a spot they would move into, preferably off a range card (TRP) was the best thing to do. As far as hull rotation, the same rule would apply. By getting ahead of the driver's pivot turn (because you can out-rotate him in a Sherman on power traverse), you could get ahead of the target, then watch through the sighting telescope as the target came across your sight picture with the hull rotation, although you'd still have to hold counter-rotational deflection of the gun as it will also be moving in unison with the hull rotation whether you like it or not. I still think you'd have to "true up" the telescope's reticule pattern afterwards, unless of course you were right on top of him in bore sight range. [ February 27, 2003, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Absolutely correct! We used to practice on the MTR with GGS "on" and "off". With it "off" and trying to engage any target whole moving was virtually impossible. Many times with it "off", I'd return back to the tank bay from the MTR after a "fire on the move" drill, without having fired any primary ammo. I suppose though that in a real shooting war, I would have blasted a lot of ammo in the "bad guys" direction whether I had a good sight picture or not. My hope would have been that I'd scare him to death. Just some sideband information, but elevation gyrostabilizer was tested in April, 1941, first introduced on the 37mm guns of the light tanks, and introduced into the production M3 medium tank in January, 1942. Tests indicated that it resulted in 60% hits when the vehicle was moving at 10mph. The stabilizer was available on even the first models of Shermans, and reportedly gave it a distinct advantage over the German Mk IV. The crews were instructed to destroy the device if the tank had to be abandoned. Despite the tests and the official position, most crews interviewed preferred to fire from a stable (halted) position. To add personal experience, I have fired hundreds of APDS and APSH rounds from an M4A2E8 Sherman in motion on the MTR wit GGS "on" at speeds of 10mph to 20mph. I found it highly effective for targets at less than 1,000 yds. I actually got a few hits out to 1,500 yds, but although I'd never admit it to fellow gunners, it was pure luck.

Sorry to belabor the point Pud... But, in the case of a turreted vehicle, isn't the reason he doesn't shoot perhaps because it's virtually impossible to get a stable "gun lay", on a target that's moving laterally while simultaneously the gunner is traversing, while simultaneously the driver is rotating the hull? As far as using a turret-less tank, I'm not sure that makes any difference. How would the gunner (who's not the driver controlling the gun's lateral axis movement.. Correct?), possibly maintain enough of a stable sighting picture "gun lay" to get off a decent shot. I would think that depending upon the speed of the target moving laterally versus the speed of the hull rotating, that it also may be that the actual "gun lay" isn't catching up with the target's current location. In other words, the gun is constantly lagging behind the targets motion, even the "red line" used by CMBB says it has a LOS lock. That might only be a representative approximation? Anyway, thanks for all of the testing and pointing out the anomaly. Good information to keep in mind when playing the game. [ February 27, 2003, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Actually, it was certainly easier for me to fire on the move in the Sherman using GGS, providing the driver maintained a straight line "tack" with minimal lateral hull deviation. Our master weapon was the 76 mm with a coaxial mounted 30 cal. It was gyroscopically stabilized so one could fire "on the move" with a stable gun platform. We used to engage targets on the MTR at about 600-800 yards while moving, but the preferred firing mode was from a stopped position. Our Sherman used "power traverse" which could rotate the turret 360 degrees in 17 seconds. It had a manual horizontal wheel backup system, placed at the gunner's right hand, but it would take almost 2 1/2 minutes to get the turret around 360 degrees. Having served with a lot of vets who went through WWII in Shermans (75 mm Mk4), they would always comment that the German armor did not have power traverse, especially the Tiger. The result was that one of their major tactics was to hunt in two's and to keep moving laterally to the Tiger while firing, so as to stay ahead of his traversing speed with the 88 mm. They also said that their 75 mm's would simply bounce off Tigers at 800 yards, so they always tried to get around their rear though high speed maneuvering in attempts to get a rear aspect shot, which they said was the most vulnerable part of the Tiger. Just some ramblings from an old Sherman warrior. Hope they help.

Ahhhh... Now that I understand the point that Pud is making (I'm just a little old and slow... hehehe), although I can't speak for being a gunner in a T34, the demonstrated issue he raises is certainly the actual case in real life with a Sherman (M4A2E8 model). We often practiced on the tank MTR with full motion fire and movement, with GGS both "on" and "off". There was NO auto lock and hold on any tank sights of that era that I know of, but on the Sherman we had to use the traverse and elevation controls (manual or hydraulic) to hold a sight lock on any target. Now, here's the rub. If the damn driver was responding to a CC command of "driver left" or "driver right" while I was attempting to lay the gun on a target (bore sight or range guesstimate), it was almost impossible to hold the reticule pattern from the sighting telescope on the target until he stopped. Most often I couldn't get a visual lock and press my foot on the master weapon firing solenoid until he stopped his hull rotation. Sometimes it was so annoying, I'd holler over the intercom to Trooper Tendler (he was our driver)... "Tendler, stop F&*^%g moving A$&^(^%e, I can't lock him up!". Perhaps there's more realism then we realize and it's not an actual bug. I know that in listening to many of our vets who fought with Shermans from Normandy on through to the end of the war, they often talked about staying in lateral motion with their Shermans against Tigers. They tried to keep his turret traversing while they all fired (halted first, then move again) in unison as they were moving sideways around him. They said he (the Tigers) often didn't fire while traversing and rotating the hull (I presume to keep frontal armor exposed towards the Sherman moving?) Just some thoughts to add to the discussion..... [ February 27, 2003, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Doh! I'm a little confused..... So, what's the moral here, or workaround? Does this mean that ONLY a T34 tank will NEVER fire at a clear LOS based target, regardless of it's pointing direction of the main gun, if the hull is in the process of moving forward or backward or rotating in-place? Is there a workaround to prevent the hull from moving so the gun will fire?

Loking good Mike.... Question? Are there High Res versions of CW's excellent "gridded" terrain missing from the update? I see the Winter versions, but not the Summer grass, which are there in Low Res versions. Thanks for your efforts.... Regards, Badger

Some constructive thoughts (I hope) for the BTC development team. 1. I can only speak for Sherman (M4A2E8) tactics, but the SOP for crew commanders of this era was to dismount with binos and "foot recce" blind corners, defiles, "belly up" crests and other obstacles that presented a potential threat to their vehicle. For example, instead of sticking their bow around a corner, or cresting a ridge onto unknown terrain, the CC would dismount his AFV, then walk, crawl, run to a position of observation with a view around or over the obstacle or terrain feature. He presented a very small and difficult target for the enemy to see and once he thought it was clear, he would hand signal his vehicle around through the obstacle, then re-mount. 2. Stuck and bogged vehicles. This event is very realistic and used to happen to us a lot. However, what is missing is the use of the "winch" that was attached to one in four ( our particular Troop formation) of Shermans, plus almost every one of our A and B echelon vehicles was winch equipped. We would approach the bogged Sherman, attach the winch hook to the "winch eyelets" built into the Sherman's hull in various paces, then simply pull her out. If the Sherman with the winch was the "bogged" critter, you could often get yourself out by looping the extended winch chain around a local tree and pulling yourself out of the mud. If there was no solid tree or obstacle within about 50 meters, then you'd drive another Sherman up and attach onto it as a surrogate tree. I guess my point is that both of these capabilities would seem to be relatively easy to implement with the existing program code routines. We can now embark/disembark infantry, so being able to do this as a tank CC would seem relatively simple. Also, we can embark/disembark towed guns right now, so I assume that same code could be used to implement a "winching" simulation to un-bog vehicles. Anyway, nothing mission critical about having to add these kinds of things, but after having played the game for a while, they seemed to be a few ideas that would help increase realism and enjoyment of the product. In any event, thanks again to BTC for providing me with hours of terrific enjoyment playing PBEM against some really gracious and tactically talented CMBB players. My only regret is that I didn't discover this software a lot sooner when CMBO was released. Regards, Badger Qualifed on Sherman (M4A2E8) & Centurion Group 3 Gunner (RCAC) Group 2 Driver Mechanic Tracked (RCAC) Group 2 Signaler (RCAC) CC and Trooper Leader Instructor

Does anyone have these for download in "wav" format so I can install them in CMBB? Thanks Badger

Welcome back..... Thanks for supporting the mods community. I really enjoy your site, particularly for its speed, plus well organized and coherent approach to presenting the information. I love CMMOS, so it's terrific that your emphasis will lean towards getting support for it current. Thanks again... Regards, Badger [ January 31, 2003, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Terrific entertainment and a great community! I haven't had this much fun, at least with my clothes on, in over 30 years...... Regards, Badger [ January 28, 2003, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: BadgerDog ]

Fablous work.... As is your Russian tank set in the current CMMOS. Will these be CMMOS compatible as well? Regards, Badger

Hello jtcm ... 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. I served with veterans of both Korea and WWII, most notably two close friends who fought with the 1st Hussars (6th Cdn Armored Regt) and served from 1941-68. They both fought on the afternoon of June 11th of 1944, where the 8th Company of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment (12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend") counterattacked the attempt by Canadian 6th Armored Regiment (along with support units) to capture the area of Le Mesnil-Patry. The 12th SS Panzer Regiment commanded by SS-Obersturmfuehrer Hans Siegel destroyed some 37 Shermans, while losing 2 Panzer IVs and forcing Canadians to retreat. I listened and learned from their experiences of that day. Both are no longer with us, but they are not forgotten. Regards, Badger Qualifed on Sherman (M4A2E8) & Centurion Group 3 Gunner (RCAC) Group 2 Driver Mechanic Tracked (RCAC) Group 2 Signaler (RCAC) CC and Trooper Leader Instructor

Thank you... Really looking forward to that... Regards, Badger