Dr. Rosenrosen

I enjoy both, but if you must choose, get CMBB. I play mostly QBs. I find that the randomly generated landscapes are more varied in CMBB. And there are more options for tank and infantry flavors when you purchase units. In CMAK, there is much less infantry variety in the allies and I get frustrated when some types of infantry are only sold with loads of unnecessary halftracks.

It's "The Defense of Hill 781" by James R McDonough. Can't find a fulltext version online though. Anyone else know of one?

My real name is Fletch F. Fletch. :cool:

That makes sense. Just chalk me up as the Dumb Question of the Week.

What do these bars represent on guns?

You can either use your arty early to attack his ridge, or you can let him get into the village then nuke it. Depends how big your arty is. If you have 150mm or better, I'd let him take the village and then pummel it.

Got any screenshots for us voyeurs?

I think it's only in CMBB, not CMAK. However, I fired it up to test it out. The SturmTiger, with a blast of 2116, can take down a tall heavy building with one blast. However, it sometimes takes a second shot to destroy it. A regular SturmTiger crew takes over 2 minutes to reload, so you might still be better off with a smaller gun that has a higher ROF if you don't get it in the first shot. (In my 4 trials, 2 were successful on the first shot.) One of the other advantages of the SturmTiger is the high blast damage. It will significantly damage adjacent buildings as well, which is great in city fighting.

In CMAK it also seems much more likely that infantry will use panzerfausts or rifle grenades against other infantry targets in close range fighting.

Oops! The Nashorn has a 88mm gun, of course. My notes were correct, but poorly transcribed to the computer.

I just tried the scenario Fervent Anticipation from the CMAK Companion scenarios. How in the world are you supposed to make any headway? *********Very minor spoiler********* The map requires that you climb a hill through a wall or a patch of rough and the enemy is waiting point blank at the top. I'd love to know if anyone has any suggestions for dealing with this type of situation. I'm also glad to PBEM as allies if someone wants to show me

So I took the winner from our first test, the Grille, and tried different building types. Even within buildings of the same type, the results isn't always the same. I ran 4 trials. Here are the number of rounds of 150mm that it took to destroy each type of building for each trial. TYPE OF BUILDING: ROUND1, ROUND2, ROUND3, ROUND4 shack: 2, 2, 1, 1 small light: 2, 2, 1, 2 tall light: 3, 4, 3, 4 small heavy: 2, 2, 2, 3 tall heavy: 8, 8, 8, 8 The morale of this story is that the taller buildings of either type take more abuse. I also tested to see whether there was a multiplicative effect when multiple tanks shot at the same building. There is not. A tall heavy building still takes 8 rounds even if those rounds come from 2 different tanks. Although there is clearly a rate of fire bonus so the building drops sooner when you use more tanks. Since I also got ROF info from my tests, I thought I'd share that also. Grille 150mm - 2-3 rpm Hummel 150mm - 2-3 rpm Wespe 105mm - 3-4 rpm StuH42 105mm - 4 rpm Brummbaer 150mm - 2 rpm Tiger 88mm - 5-6 rpm JagdPanther 88mm - 5 rpm Nashorn 105mm - 5-6 rpm StuGIIIG 75mm - 6-7 rpm Any other tests that you are interested in?

This is what happens when someone with a spreadsheet, CM, and an unhealthy interest in watching things go BOOM gets some freetime. I was experimenting just with tall, heavy buildings. Perhaps I'll see how different building types handle punishment. I'd be curious if anyone from the development side of things knows the algorithm and what variables are involved.

I tried to do an experiment to see which tanks were best at destroying buildings. I got 9 German tanks with different gun sizes. I expected to find that the building would fall at a certain blast level. For example, a Hummel has a blast per round of 303. It takes 7 rounds to destroy a tall heavy building. That is a blast total of 2121. However, I found that buildings withstand a vastly different amount of total blast depending on what type of tank is shooting it. A tiger with a blast of 73 takes 19 rounds to kill the same building. That is a blast total of 1387. A Wespe with a blast total of 114 takes 12 rounds for a blast total of 1368. Am I thinking about this wrong, or is there really so much variability in the amount of damage that a building of the same type can take? If it's useful, I also tracked which tanks took down the building first (which accounts for ROF issues as well). Here they are in order of fastest to slowest (of the tanks I tested): 1 Grille 150mm 2 Hummel 150mm - close second 3 Wespe 105mm 4 StuH42 105mm 5 Brummbaer 150mm - tie for 5th 5 Tiger 88mm - tie for 5th 7 JagdPanther 88mm X Nashorn 105mm - not enough HE X StuGIIIG 75mm - not enough HE

Thanks for all of the tips so far! I already found Bitter Victory at the library and am working on tracking down some of the other suggestions. I'll post pictures when I get back if I get some good ones.

Hi gang, I'm going to Sicily this summer, primarily Catania but with excursions to Syracusa and Palermo. I don't know much about Sicily and WW2 except what I've seen in the movies. Any suggested reading or good places to visit so that I can fully appreciate my trip from a historical perspective?

Played a game recently where the enemy never gave me a decent target. Lots of enemy HMGs firing from 100m+ away and I never knew exactly where they were. I did lots of area firing with guns and MGs, but was never able to suppress them all or find out where they were. Any suggestions for changing a sound contact into a real contact? I'm only playing with normal fog of war, so I'm surprised how much fog there actually is.

Arturum, if you're still looking for a PBEM partner, send me a setup file: bpfohl@bates.edu Dr. Rosenrosen

How do you effectively reposition guns on the offensive? The paradox seems to be that any place where I could safely tow a gun is a place that I don't need a gun. If I want the gun to be able to shoot the enemy, that means that the enemy can shoot the gun before he gets positioned and set up. Seems like smoke is one solution, but only very expensive smoke barrages last the couple of turns necessary to get a gun unloaded. Other tips?

Question about using scenarios to play against a human: Obviously scenarios allow for more variety and intrigue than a QB, but the reason I've played almost exclusively QBs against humans so far is that you can keep your troop selection and their positions secret. With a scenario one or both players know the troop allotment and perhaps even map position of both sides. One player would probably look at the scenario in the editor in order to decide that it is a scenario that they would enjoy playing. The other would then look for equal disclosure. Even if you blindly choose a scenario, it seems to me that the tempation to peek is very strong and impossible for your opponent to know about. How do you deal with these issues when playing scenarios against other players? Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen

How do people cheat in a PBEM? I'm not asking for a how-to necessarily, but what is the general cheat method?

On the CMAK CD Hunters in the Groves.

I'm very glad that the developers included Italy in CMAK for the QB maps. Even with heavy trees set, the randomly generated QB maps for the 2 africa regions have practically no trees. While I'm sure this is fairly accurate historically, I have had no luck playing on a map with such little cover. For those of you who have had success and fun playing on the wide open desert maps, what am I missing? What troop purchases, tactics, etc do you use that allow these wide open maps to work for you?

To restate my above question: If I march all of my able men off the map, will the game end automatically even if he doesn't agree to a cease fire and the turn limit isn't reached?

So it's better for me to move my units off the map until a cease fire is forced? I know that my opponent won't accept a cease fire.