sand digger

Interested to know what happens with assaulting infantry when they come under fire in the open at, say, 50 meters or less from their objective. Do they press on, go to ground, run away? What about casualties and the 'kill rate' of the various weapons used against them? Always found CMAK a bit unrealistic with this aspect of desert warfare, keeping in mind that in real desert warfare '41-'42 Allied infantry often lost their tank support at crucial times and usually had no choice but to cross at least some open ground under fire, often against MG's, in order to advance. I guess the broad question concerns whether this is a 'tank with infantry attached' game or a more 'infantry supported by tanks etc' game.

Open top AFV crews would have a much better situation awareness than tank crews so I would suggest that they should have a reasonable 360* view. Given that such a view would not be utilised at all times in a real situation by the open top crews, perhaps their awareness of something to their rear should be reduced by incorporating a delayed reaction?

You want a similar systrm to what CMAK has by the sound of it.

That US analysis mentions there being 32,00 combat troops at Tobruk at that time. This is incorrect, there were 32,000 there initially but that was the total population, including refugees and POW's. All mentioned in the AU official history.

From memory the Matilda had been withdrawn from service by '43; Valentine, Sherman and Churchill would have been the main tanks used by the Brits by then I think. Oh and they had a self propelled 25pdr, Priest?

Fairy enough, well yes, lets do hope infantry survival is more realistic in II. For example, with advancing infantry, I guess they could make only half of the infantry at any one time exposed to direct fire, take into account the effect of supression fire from the other half, add in cover and evasive movement effects..............

Is this it, CMAK revisited? Loved that game, except for the awful graphics, in particular the lack of ground surface detail. Which made it exhausting and frustrating when trying to work out the topography for cover and protection purposes. Anything that improves that aspect will be a big step forward, as will some sort of LOS indicator which covers the whole battlefield from a particular point in one click, a blanket coverage LOS.

If the gameplay takes into account proper infantry tactics and their ability to gain some cover at least even in apparently open areas then they should not end up dead five minutes into the game. Whether the graphics and gameplay reflect this accurately is another question but fingers crossed, looks like there has been a lot of effort put into this game to make it realistic.

Churchill tank is a must as is the 17pdr AT gun. Not sure what a 25pdr AT gun is, unless its the usual 25pdr using AT shot.

Yeh there was a lot of mouse flicking going on but overall it looked good to me, as mentioned the smoke from damaged vehicles was weird though.

Nothing gamey about overshooting, it helps a bit sometimes to make up for the unrealistic restrictions placed on artillery targeting in the game.

I wonder how long a game developer is expected to continue to provide updates to suit later computer developments? There has to be a limit, afterall is is a continuing expense that has to be paid for out of declining profits from a particular game over time. A few years seems reasonable to me. Vista is mostly rubbish compared with XP anyway, anyone who uses it and finds it unsatisfactory should complain to Microsoft. One thing I will complain about is the failure to update the CM games technology and reissue them as new and improved. Thats where the mistake was made, as was pointed out by millions at the time

The latter. Well the better ones would. Its nonsense to ignore practical considerations and put restrictions on the potential use of weapons in the subject context. If it works you do it, bugger what the book says.

Any 'technical errors' could be explained by the different use of terminology and by trying to remember things that happened a long time ago. Yet some want to turn this into a credibility thing, unbelieveable. I'll take the word of someone who was there over an armchair expert any day, subject to the usual evaluations one makes automatically. Those sorts of blokes should be national treasures and mourned as such.

Any 'technical errors' could be explained by the different use of terminology and by trying to remember things that happened a long time ago. Yet some want to turn this into a credibility thing, unbelieveable. I'll take the word of someone who was there over an armchair expert any day, subject to the usual evaluations one makes automatically. Those sorts of blokes should be national treasures and mourned as such.

That pretty well sums it up except that sniping was all go. As well the recovery of dead and wounded from no mans land was sometimes mutually arranged. The sand storms were unbelievable, not a fun place to be at all. Unless you were beside the sea

Interesting deceptive propaganda, I assume it was meant to be taken seriously despite the jokey approach.

Queried this omission in CMAK a while ago with out much consensus, in fact it seemed that you just had to fire the Bren conventionally or not at all, according to some opinions, sources not quoted IIRC. Anyway, as was inevitable, there is some sound information available concerning the use of the Bren including actual tactical training and practice. Surprise, surprise, it was officially recognised that the Bren could and should be used as an assault weapon. Which involved firing with the weapon slung on the move. For the sake of completeness here are a couple of quotes. "........we trained them all to be very accurate shots from the hip or on the move. The Bren gun had to be, was never fired from the ground, always fired from the hip. Hang onto the strap on the shoulder and always fire, never fire bursts, just one or two shots......" "In action the Bren gun was carried at hip level, slung low from the shoulder using two rifle slings joined together........." Source - On Shaggy Ridge, Phillip Bradley, Oxford, 2004, pp 15 and 23. Perhaps this will motivate some patched realism at long last in possible use of the Bren LMG?

Hehe, you lurkers know SFA about the subject matter of the game don't you eh. Not one intelligent/constructive contribution to the subject. As I've come to expect and as others have warned me

Ran across some info concerning the AT hollow charge ('HC') available for the 75 and 150mm infantry guns. Couldn't find precise penetration figures for the 150 but did for the 105mm field artillery piece. The 105 HC penetrated 100mm at zero degrees, the shell weighing 12.25kg. The 150 shell weighed 25.25kg so it should be safe to say that in 41-42 that shell would penetrate any British tank including the Matilda. This goes to a point I raised a while ago about the inability in CMAK of the 150 to regularly knock out the Matilda. Which meant that without expensive 88's in CMAK against Matilda's you had little hope, making any relevant game rather pointless, particularly when considering the well discussed targeting limitation concerning the 150 in CMAK. The HC performance point is raised merely to inform and to back up a previous comment. IIRC noone mentioned HC ammo when the previous comment was made. BTW, I'm not interested in getting into any arguments with the couple of Luddites or anyone else looking for confrontation who may be lurking around here. Information is from Hogg's German Artillery of World War Two, Greenhill, 2002.

Interesting responses, read em all. Love the 'like us of fluck off' ones, so tribal stereotypical Playing QB ME's I found that against a good opponent the result usually hinged on who had the best end of the map, which got a bit tedious and predictable. A bit surprising that most seem happy with the TacAI, one of the worst aspects of the game IMHO, the snipers knocking off tank commanders who were 'ordered' to button up concerned a Sherman and a Valentine IIRC. With this TacAI an order is not an order, a peculiar situation in war I would have thought. Anyway, looking forward to the newie, right now a change of pace with Call of Duty. Hey, enjoy your games you all

Give us a break, someone asks a relevant qestion and the clowns come out :mad: To sort of respond to the question, Matilda tanks lap up 150mm shells. My guess is that there is a significant problem with 150mm modelling, still waiting to be patched

Thats it, no more games, at least for a while. The final straw involved the TacAI, surprise surprise, tank commnader ordered to keep buttoned up, TacAI says unbutton, sniper shoots commander. Two tanks out of five stuffed by gamey snipers and the game has hardly begun :mad: The TacAI is way too intrusive, in some situations the game you are supposed to be playing is taken over by the TacAI, and usually stuffed up in the process. That plus the restricted artillery, the over emphasis of infantry survival on terrain type, the bomb proof Matilda tank..... Great effort though, what else comes close, really looking forward to the next generation game Which will be out, say again?

I'm not sure what is worse - being obnoxious, or being ignorant. But you managed to do both with one sentence. That must be a talent of some kind... </font>

There was a detailed discussion of British grenades here a while ago, should show up in a search.