SFJaykey

Not to the Warren Commission.

I think criticisms of Monty as being overly cautious may be unfair. After Pearl Harbor, as an astute calculator of military power he might have realized, as many did, that Germany's defeat was inevitable. Under such circumstances a methodical approach was appropriate. To rush forward would only add to the casualty figures. Market-Garden was a bad plan: too long a chain with too many questionable links. But it may have been an expression of Monty's patriotism as much as his vanity. At the time of its planning German forces were in headlong retreat and victory seemed imminent: British troops leading the way to Berlin would have benefitted the UK's postwar position as much as Monty's reputation. Alot of speculation in both of these suggestions, admittedly....

According to Control Panel my card is a GeForce2 MX/MX400 with 64meg. The computer is a Dell and the card is the original installed by Dell about 18 mos ago. I installed the latest drivers from nVidia, and swapped in the "clean" cmf file sent by Snarker and I still get the same white squares in the same places, about 8 of them scattered about the map. I read through the archive a little but really this techie is all over my head. None of the posts I read mentioned stability problems, just the cosmetics of the white squares, so if my partner is game I think I will just go ahead and play. Hopefully I will have a chance to dig more into this once the rainy season strikes but at the moment I am hard pressed to keep up with my PBEM turns....not enough spare time to go "under the hood!" Thanks to all and signing off since I now realize this should have been in the tech forum....if you have more suggestions please post them there, I'll be watching!

Thanks Andrew. I just went to nvidia and found they have a new driver released today, 52.16 So I'm downloading that and hopefully that'll do it...

Thanks....got the file, will try it later today.

Hi All! I downloaded the Kursk Pack as soon as it came out, and am finally about to get started on Tank Warning with one of my regular PBEM players. But, when I open the op, it takes almost 5 minutes to load and I see several white terrain squares. I deleted the files (including the zip), emptied my trash, and went to B'n'T and downloaded it again. But the freshly downloaded file shows the same white squares in the same locations. Is this a known problem with the file on the B'n'T server, and if so does anyone have a clean copy of Tank Warning to email to me? [ sfjaykey48@yahoo.com ] Or, is the problem on my system? I am running a P4-2.0 with 256m RAM and 64m Video RAM (Nvidia Geforce something-or-other). I've played big battles before but this would be the largest, and the map has a fair amount of damage....maybe I am just at the limits of my system? If so, where should I invest to overcome the problem: RAM or Video card? Thanks! [ October 22, 2003, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: SFJaykey ]

I once had a 50mm L60 strafed by my own Heinkel! The gun was in a trench, in woods, and hadn't fired. Crew took 3 casualties but didn't abandon...was veteran or crack IIRC. That was the last time I bought aircraft...

That's what I have done in the past, too. But somehow it's stopped working. After posting I remembered I have another extraction utility I downloaded long ago, but forgot as I got comfortable with the Windows utility....the freeware utility (ExtractNow v2.97) was able to extract the scenario files, no problem. So I guess problem solved....though the Windows utility is more convenient and I'm still wondering WTH went wrong with it?

Scenarios, that is. I downloaded the Kursk pack awhile ago, and finally have a chance to play it, but when I use the "Extract All" utility in WinXP, I get "No Files to Extract." Same thing happens with other scenarios downloaded from the Depot and etc. I'm sure I've used the same utility before, with no problems. ??? [edited because I don't really stutter.] [ August 20, 2003, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: SFJaykey ]

I think your fromula is a little off. I am playing an op right now that consists of games of 15+ turns. So far the number of extra turns added to each game have been 0, 2, 4, and IIRC 8....that one seemed to drag on forever. Nothing was being contested; my opponent and I had both pulled back to ensure resupply and we just kept clicking Go and emailing files back and forth. Pretty dull.

I have lost a few tank commanders to ricochets. And infantry located nearby AFVs have been pinned or otherwise affected by shells aimed at the AFV. Don't recall if the shells were AP or HE, but there was definitely an effect. Never seen ricochets strike another vehicle, though.

Ken: I designed Belyi Road. I playtested it several times and while I saw plenty of bogged vehicles, I did not notice a special propensity for the HQ-carrying tanks. I suspect what you have seen is a statistical anomaly.

No apologies necessary, in my opinion nitpicking = valuable feedback! "Belyi" in the scenario title refers to a strategically vital, fortified town on the western edge of the Rshev salient. I have seen other English spellings for the town name but decided to use David Glanz's in the interests of consistency. My scenario attempts to recreate the attempt by a Soviet Mechanized Corps to sever the road to German-occupied Belyi during Operation Mars, November '42. So it could be titled "The Road to Belyi." But I didn't want it to sound like an old Bing Crosby movie, so it became "Belyi Road."

I just uploaded an improved and, hopefully, final version of my Belyi Road scenario to the Proving Grounds. http://www.the-proving-grounds.com/index.html It will also be at the Depot shortly. Based on my sources, I think the deep snow I used initially mirrored the historical conditions, but caused so much bogging of Soviet armor as to make the scenario close to unplayable. So it has been changed to regular snow. Turn limit has also been extended, along with a few other tweaks particularly in the arrival of reinforcements. Sorry to anyone who was frustrated by the first version, and thanks for the feedback!

If you were referring to my comment, yes: I know that's what happens in CMBB. And no, I don't mean to start any arguments. Though I do think units should return to their area fire order if the spotted enemy disappears. With 1-minute turns there is seldom a lot of game time lost before I can reissue the order, but it adds to micro-management.

I like Togi's idea, which I have also seen mentioned before. The way I would use it, would be the exact opposite of Micro-management: I like to play with bases off and _don't_ check all my units every turn, relying on my ears more than anything to hear when people are taking fire. Sometimes on a busy battlefield I will lose track of people. A status board like Togi is asking for would be nice to make a quick double-check, especially if color was used to reflect changing unit status.

You're right, though the morale hit seems less than when using "move" or "run." I haven't done any tests...maybe its no better than using "Withdraw." Re: the name of your proposed command, how about "Fall Back?"

I agree with those who don't feel CM should be turned into a "Combat Enginerring" simulation, ie laying maines, buidling bridges, digging trenches, etc. But bulldozers and blade-equipped tanks would be cool. Pushing paths through trees and walls, knocking down light buildings, collapsing foxholes....

If they are trained, disciplined soldiers, I would expect them to keep firing on the target I'd ordered them to. Unless the unit that popped up was an immediate threat to them, very close by, etc. [ July 18, 2003, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: SFJaykey ]

The "Withdrawl" we have in CMBB v1.03 has worked pretty well for me, as long as the withdrawing troops are in command and moving through some cover, or at least not in LOS of powerful, nearby enemies. For situations like you are describing I will often use "Advance" to withdraw. Kind of like the old story about "attacking in another direction."

I had a series of crashes last week, which started while I was running CM (under Windows XP home edition w/ latest patches). After doing some maintenance and a System Restore, my system is acting pretty normal, except CMBB sometimes runs herky-jerky: intro music skips, game sometimes hangs up for several minutes while loading or saving turns, map scroll is jerky when it used to be smooth. I am going to reinstall CM to see if that clears things up, but I have a question about the mods: Reinstalling my non-CMMOS mods will be ok as I have backups and etc. But should I revert all my CMMOS mods to defaults before reinstalling CM? I'm thinking that if I don't, CMMOS may think that the reinstalled defaults are actually mods? If I should revert to defaults, any suggestions how to do it quickly and easily? With many mods it is not clear (to me) whether they are currently installed or not. Any other potential hangups I should be aware of?

Agreed. And I am still hoping for my little vegetable garden tile, too. One of the things I am most looking forward to with CMX2 is more terrain types, along with smaller tile size to allow more realistic maps, especially towns.

In my American bibles, the words "grain" and "barley" are often used in the places I think Wisbech_lad is referring to. Judging from American photos of the 1930s, grain crops like wheat and barley stood no more than 1.2m tall, often lower. Corn (maize) often reached 2m. Also, corn is (and was) planted in more widely separated rows, allowing movement between the stalks. I think it would provide much better concealment than grain for both moving and unmoving troops. In terms of game effects, the brush tile probably makes a better stand-in for corn (maize) fields than does the wheat tile, and maybe for the sunflowers as well. There's an idea: use the sunflower mod to replace the brush tile instead of the wheat, and you can have a farm map with multiple crops...

Now you're on the right track....except that when I wrote the scenario, the beer was chasing bourbon.... The deep snow does make that one tough on the Russians. I'm thinking about changing from deep to regular snow for v2.0.

If you do survive, try it again in well worn WWII-issue combat boots, rather than 21st-century hiking boots or track shoes.