76mm

I beg to differ, at least in Moscow.

I did this a few days ago; hit Alt 1-5 and then left -click on where you want to put the crater.

I have just installed the game and when I open it am prompted to update to a new version. When I press the Update button the game disappears and no updating seems to be occcurring. What is the problem here?

Another request for map and scenario editor.

Frankly, under the best of circumstances I would not plan on making any significant amount of money on your manual, so I'm not sure if I would worry about illegal/free distribution of a pdf copy. In fact, I think the wider the distribution the better, because if people like the pdf version they might be more inclined to buy a printed version. And I strongly advise against printing hundreds of the things--I think print-on-demand would make the most sense--while this is more expensive per booklet than a large print run, you don't go out of pocket until you've got an order, so you can't lose much money either.

A word to the wise--don't go too much out of pocket for printing lots of copies. You've got to remember that you're producing a niche product for a niche game. You also might want to publish a pdf version, which might be attractive to some users. As you're probably aware, there are also print-on-demand options which would allow you to print individual copies as they are ordered. Don't mean to discourage you--I will definitely buy one (ahem, depending on the price)--but I would not plan on selling too many. As for next vehicles, I would definitely do one of the Soviet work-horses: your SU-122, T34/85, or T34/76. But to maximize sales, you should probably pick another of the sexy German vehicles--Tiger, Jagdpanther, Stug, etc. because most players seem to like them best. Best of luck!

My God man, you've forgotten the Maus?! And I hope you're not expecting a patch at this point in the development cycle...

Luv ya ww2steel, keep up the good work.

I wouldn't call it a bug, I'd just say that the ammo selection routines aren't perfect--it's not like it's firing cannister or something. Also, I'd give three reasons why it might not even be unrealistic: 1) The AI (or real-life) crews might not have the benefit of your 1500 tests--even if the Soviet Army had done comparable tests and knew enough to advise its crews to fire AP instead of tungsten, it is easy to believe that such findings might not have been properly disseminated. If I recall correctly, the average Soviet tank destroyed less than one German tank, so many crews probably didn't have massive amounts of personal experience to draw on about the effectiveness of different types of ammo vs. different targets. 2) The crew might be grabbing the most accessible round in the rack that they think might do the job--this could arise with green units, etc. that didn't arrange their ammo properly, an incorrect pre-battle briefing which caused a suboptimal ammo load plan, or naturally in battle as the crew fires rounds and depletes their neat pre-battle load plan. 3) Also, I'm not sure if I've followed all of your tests exhaustively, but is this true against targets other than the panther? If not, the target might have been misindentified, thus leading to an incorrect ammo choice?

Yes and no. In the CMBB game you will have the forces comprising the three CMC MEs, but CMBB does not have MEs per se. In other words, if you have three company-sized MEs in CMC, you will have three companies in CMBB (but not actually organized into MEs, which don't exist in CMBB). Units' retreat paths are determined by the game, and I think that units can either retreat into a quadrant in a different tile or a different quadrant of the same tile. You can stack MEs, so it doesn't matter if a quadrant is already occupied by a friendly unit (although that might factor into the retreat path calculation).

Bruce, Any provision for artillery fire outside the scope of a CMBB battle (representing interdiction fire, etc.)? And can longer-range units support more than one ME?

OK, I figured it out--if the temperature is "Frozen" the editor turns swamp to water.

OK, dumb question time. Did a search, didn't find anything. I've made lots of maps in CMBB, many of which have some combination of water and swamp tiles. On this particular map, I've set all of the Level 0 tiles to water, Level 1 to swamp. They are not all interconnected. And yet, every time I save, exit, and re-enter the scenario, all of the swamps have been converted to water, still at Level 1. What am I doing wrong??

ww2steel, downboy! I don't really see anybody giving you crap, even if no one is falling over themselves to encourage you. by all means continue (although I'm not staying up nights waiting for the results...)!

Is this true? If so it is amazing... Maybe it could be true of a couple of key areas--engine cowling, etc.?

Well that answer seems rather definitive...thank you Tim Hughes!

Dear JK, I admit that I have not fought many night battles, and in the ones I have fought, I haven't encountered much in the way of friendly fire. From what you say, it sounds like command ranges are reduced and morale is generally lower, so that helps, but it doesn't really capture the kind of problem that I have in mind, where a platoon or company gets lost and stops for 15 minutes (throwing off the scheme of manuever or fire support) or perhaps then sets off in the wrong direction altogether. From what I've read, it seems like the biggest problem with night battles is just getting your men within range of the enemy. While maybe on small maps you could rationalize that everyone on the map had already overcome this obstacle, I play on 3km x 3 km maps and it seems awfully easy to maneuver everyone just where I want them. It would be cool, for instance, if units in CM night battles just stopped moving for 10-15 minutes while the lieutenant argued with the NCO about the heading for the objective...

Just took a look at the wiki page--pretty heated and involved discussion, but it seems like the main issue is source material, not translation. I'm no Soviet military expert, but I would basically treat the claims in your quote as complete baloney, regardless of whether it can be cited to a particular source. From what I have seen, Soviet publications of all types from that era--military, economic, historical, diplomatic, etc. etc.--are all primarily propaganda and should only secondarily be regarded as factual. Your problem is going to be proving a negative--finding a source which states that 300 tanks weren't destroyed by the "ring of death". Hopefully JasonC to the rescue!

In your quote, the references to the first two panzer divisions explicitly mention "tank" losses. The last one lost "machiny" which I think is best translated as "vehicles". I'll try to look at the wiki page later tonight. I don't really think it's a translation issue, just sloppy reporting. or more likely, sloppy historians. Somewhere along the line, someone who didn't know or care any better decided that the only vehicles that panzer divisions must have are tanks...

I'll give it a shot... "The effectiveness of the "Ring of death" was demonstrated at Kursk; the massive application of Il-2 against the German 9th Panzer Division on July 7 1943 led to its loss of 70 tanks in 20 minutes. Two hours of continual strikes cost the 3rd Panzer Division 270 tanks and about 2000 casualties; in about 4 hours the 17th Panzer Division practically ceased to exist as a fighting unit, losing 240 destroyed vehicles out of a total of approximately 300."

I'm playing a home-grown campaign game in which either side can attack at night if they wish. Night battles obviously greatly reduce visibility (and fields of fire) and thus seem to greatly favor the attacker. Night battles in CMBB don't reflect their great disadvantage--the great loss in command and control. I'm thinking about imposing some house-rules to make it more difficult for the attacker to control his troops in night battles--maybe adoption of the "Iron Rules" under which a player can't go above elevation 1 or 2 (which I usually avoid because it is such a pain). Another thing to try might be to make different wings of the attacking force enter as randomly-arriving reinforcements. Has anyone else figured out a good way to impose a little chaos on night batttles?

I was hoping that one of the experts would answer, but since not I'll toss in my two cents: I would expect that for WWII tanks it would take a minute or more to rotate 360 degrees, and most of them probably couldn't rotate 360 degrees in a stationary position at all. This is the "pivot steer" in which (I think) one track goes forward and one backward. Modern tanks can do this, but I think most models of that era could not--I think the best that they could do was stop one track while continuing with the other, and you might not want to do even that because I can't imagine that such a maneuver would be good for the track on the stationary side. Can any of the grogs confirm/deny?

So is all single-player action in a scripted campaign, or are there stand-alone scenarios (a al CM) as well? And how is the AI?

as stoat pointed out, you can get scenarios from many websites. all other things being equal, I would buy it from the Battlefront website, so that they make a bit more from the sale. We want these guys well-funded to keep cranking out these games!

That's pretty cool; are you looking to sell hard copies, or digital files for use as screen savers, etc.? Good luck!