Glider

Oh, not a vet I see, you have not yet started to slow down to a crawl when you se a good ambush position or a good cover from which an 88mm might be poking its ugly muzzle at you

That's all right, a game without a curse is a game wasted Drop me a file anytime! Well, mostly they find me, I guess my rather bad win:loss ratio at the Blitzkrieg club attracts them Do not misunderstand me, I play a number of people and they are extremely fair players (so much so that I am still embarrassed when I remember some of the concessions they made). Its just that about 25%-30% of new ones, who contact me first and initiate a game, tend to quietly disappear or complain and then quit as soon as their less-than-Napoleonic plan starts to fall apart.

You are serious?? :eek: Sneak all the time?!

Speaking about whiners (and I know I am going OT here), how frequent are they? It seems that they are frequent enough that, whenever I play somebody new and my units score some spectacular kill, I am vaguely worried, half-expecting to see a complaint in the next email.

Yes, I found a similar topic, thanks Joachim! Actually the issue is not particularly important but it can affect games somewhat. In one of the cases, at about 1,500m, I saw a 120mm mortar spotter in one of the trucks and a 150mm spotter riding on a panzer. My FO dropped its barrage on the 150mm spotter, routing and possibly eliminating it. Obviously, if the ID was not so accurate I would have to select one of two spotter? teams to target randomly. [ February 26, 2004, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Glider ]

Yes, of course, is anybody using any different FOW level? I know spotters are easy to ID, but the caliber of their battery, its divisional level and the number of tubes? Note: They (the spotters in question) were riding in kubels and on tanks at the moment of identification.

I am sorry if this topic has already been discussed (as I believe it must have been) but I was unable to find it... Anyway, I have been playing a CMBB meta-campaign and, meta-campaigns being what they are, often we get to play completely unbalanced battles, for instance Soviet inf platoon against German panzer bn. In such cases you basically hide and look at them as they go by, while you try to identify the vehicles. Now, at 1000m ranges you have your Pz III?s PzIV?s and an occasional (hopefully) misidentified Panther?. But, on several occasions, among inf? and inf squad? tankriders and truckriders I saw: Artillery spotter, 150mm, 4 tubes, divisional level, radio or artillery spotter, 105mm, 4 tubes, divisional level, radio Now, identifying that at 1000m (it was more lke 1500m)? I can accept an artillery spotter? ID (due to conspicuous field phones and radios they have to carry) but to identify caliber of their batteries you have to be close enough to hear them talk (and know German) or you have to kill them and then spend several minutes examining their papers. Any similar experiences?

Well, I must say I feel a bit relieved Obviously, we discontinued the game but not everyday you get to be accused of using a gamey tactic with such an absolute "I-kept-quiet-for-too-long" certainty. I mean, I played games (scenarios) where Sturmtigers knocked out or damaged a bunch of my tanks with area fire and I never wondered why the German commander was not bringing them out into the open to face my IS-2s and IS-3s head to head

I agree, sometimes it is very difficult to set aside things we know as players. So, if you are assaulting a town with a big flag in it you know there will be enemy units inside. But would a RL commander know that? Similarly, one of the key reality issues is the fact that we all know that enemy strength in CMBB battles is comparable to ours. So, if you have 5 PzIIIJs and you destroy 6 T-34s, you will advance rapidly since you know there can be no entire T-34 company waiting around the corner.

I must say, mostly insignificant. I targeted two closely deployed Tigers in scattered woods with about 300 82mmm mortar shells, 40 76mm artillery shells, 20 122mm howitzer shells, 40 76mm SU-76 shells, 40 85mm T-34/85 shells and 30 122mm IS-2 shells + a few 100mm SU-100 shells 90% of those fired by tanks landing within 10-20m from the targets. No damage whatsoever despite several observed 82mm top hits. This is the most radical example, don't think it was like that every time Mostly I tried to drive them into the open so they could be correctly identified as ordinary Tigers... than their life expectancy would drop to about 60 seconds

Well, I forgot to say that my opponent used his arty to target and damage my tanks (and more successfully, I must say, since I lost 4 IS-2s to barrages). He just never used direct HE fire from tanks. Ah, another interesting note... after we started playing and I noticed that Germans were strangely well-equipped for a defending force I checked the battle designer website and found out that the designer recommended it to be played as Human (Soviet) vs German (AI) That said, I don't think my opponent knew/noticed that piece of info when he selected the battle.

Since the borg spotting is an unavoidable part of the game engine I don't think its part of 'gamey influence' should be considered (after all it affect many, if not almost all, of the game realism issues). Basically, the question is - is it unrealistic to use heavy-caliber direct HE fire to try to damage a tank you know is "there somewhere"? I must admit I never heard of an actual battlefield example but it never occurred to me that such a practice in CMBB might be considered gamey.

NO. in real life you can shoot a tank immobilized, when direct hitting with a he, area doesnt make nothing. </font>

No, I am talking about an enemy tank that your tanks cannot see, but they can see a point few meters from it. So you fire at that point with HE ammo, hoping that the blasts will damage the gun or tracks. Not very effective though, out of 20-25 tanks I destroyed only 2 have been damaged that way.

Really? Didn't know about the small calibers... you mean that they are unrealistically effective? I used everything I could find, from 82mm and 76 mm spotters, through SU-76s and T-34/85s up to 122mm and 152mm IS and SU guns.

I've been mostly lurking around but today I am riled enough to post. I have been playing a 10-battle The Seelow Heights operations as Russian and me and my PBEM opponent are at the battle 7. I enjoyed the operation tremendously but it has been a very hard going with open flooded plains and more Stugs, Panthers and Tigers than I care to remember. And today, after killing the (hopefully) last two Tigers I have been accused of using "dirty" area target tactics, i.e. of concentrating artillery and tank guns aimed at areas close to Tigers&Panthers to cause mobility kills and gun damage. I mean, with my tanks reversing as soon as they see a Tiger (due to range and cover almost always misidentified as King Tigers) it was not easy to arrange a shootout. Any opinions on 'gaminess' of use of area targeting to score mobility kills?

Yeah, with Russkies practically wiping out the Grossdeutschland division garrison defending the town of Grun... ah, th joy of changing history

Ahhh such memories (wipes tear from corner of eye). I'd forgotten all about that one 'til you reminded me. Where did you get that screenie? can it be that you are the last person on the planet to own a working ZX Spectrum? let alone a tape recorder to load the games on?</font>