General Jack Ripper

I have had quite a few engagement simply end when I ran out of ammo, but that's usually held to the early 1900's. Once you have central firing, and a few national upgrades like better rangefinders, you'll score many more hits, and sink many more ships. It seems to me to be more about positioning, and maintaining a nice steady shooting platform early on. I think what happens in the game is that at the very start, you can fit enough armor to make you immune to your own guns, and it's only after a few shell upgrades that you can really punch holes in things. It depends. The game is intended to simulate the Dreadnought race, not the Ironclad race. Your pre-dreadnoughts really only exist to tide you over until you build more modern BB's and BC's. By 1905 in a typical game, your pre-dreadnoughts are basically obsolete. I, for one, would have loved the game just a little bit more if it started in 1875. But I'm weird.

Um. Yeah. Dudes aim at other dudes. That's how it works. If the leader is the first one to be seen, given he's usually the first in line, then he's the first one to be shot at. If the leader is shooting his SMG, then he's drawing more attention than the men around him, and is the one most likely to be shot at. If the machine-gunner is doing all the shooting, and thus being spotted and noticed by the enemy constantly, then he's the one most likely to get shot at. I don't know why this is difficult. Unless you're ordered to fire at an area, you're going to aim at a specific enemy target and try to hit him. There is no random area fire in this game unless specified by the scenario designer. Every time you are being shot at, they can SEE you, and they're TRYING TO KILL YOU. I gave you perfectly good advice. Try using it.

Were you playing as Spain of some other such underdeveloped nation? I had great success in attempting to model a historical US Navy, making a few sacrifices in order to preserve gameplay. https://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1272/creating-historical-navy It even generated a couple of AAR's: https://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1100/turning-point-aar https://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1609/aar-fleet-battle-sicily I await the full release of that game with bated breath.

Once upon a time I thought of proposing a game using a thread posted in the GDF as a way to allow the forum to participate in such a scheme, but forum games are against the rules, so there went that idea. I do like the method of not allowing the players to see the real dispositions, whereupon they must rely on their own observations, reports generated by the game master, and their own notes to generate their operational plan. It's a great way to enforce a fog of war.

This went much better than I expected. I found a weak spot which allowed me to unravel the enemy positions in quick order.

One's preferred weapon system or method of engagement is largely a matter of personal opinion. I tend to be a bit of an oddball in both Combat Mission as well as other war sim games.

Indeed, I grew tired of the old handle and so divested myself of it. Before that I went by Dengar Roth, but that's neither here nor anywhere else that still exists. I'm getting old myself...

My good man, the only age that matters is this one: Anyone who joined before me is automatically 'old'.

A while back, I picked up a copy of Up Front by Bill Mauldin at a used book store. Having read it several times, and being what it is, I've decided to share it. Anyone who PM's me a mailing address will receive my copy, first come, first served.

Glad to see you old man.

You could always try Steam and Iron, or Rule the Waves. Not 3D, but excellent simulations.

That was an amazing book.

Casualties are not random. Soldiers armed with automatic weapons are a higher priority for the TACAI to shoot. Leaders armed with SMG's and Gunners armed with LMG's stick out like a big neon sign saying 'Kill This Man First'. The only way to mitigate leader casualties is to not expose them to so much fire. I usually split off an Assault Team from each squad as a way to protect the squad leader until use of their SMG and grenades becomes necessary. Otherwise they sit out of SMG range and use their binos while the team's rifles do the shooting.

Four pages later this key piece of information finally becomes available, after having literally everyone make false assumptions about it for a month. The troops DID have contact with the tank! THEY KNEW IT WAS THERE! Now we know there was some other mitigating factor for spotting, such as the unnecessary 360 degree target arc, or the presence of foliage, smoke, dust, etc. See? We're finally making progress towards figuring this out. It only took a month and a half. It turns out your troops are not blind, or deaf. Except they DID notice it, they had a contact marker the entire time! /thread Call me rude all you want, but I was correct about the lack of info, and the OP's inability or unwillingness to provide it.

The only time you need to do this is if something goes wrong. Generally speaking heavy suppressive fires will cause the enemy to exit the building unless they are fanatics. In 'Hell in the Hedgerows' I did successfully order a clearing of a defended building with grenades because my suppressive fire was unable to penetrate the building and pin the defenders. All I did was split an Assault Team and order them to quick move into the house. I judged the enemy team to be sufficiently distracted to allow the maneuver with few casualties. They paused several times to shoot, stopped right outside the front door, threw a couple grenades, and went into the house blowing away anything remaining. It was over in a few seconds. The relevant turn is time-stamped below: The assault team did become pinned by my covering fire, but by approaching from an angle they were spared the full effect of it until they were inside the house. Further down the street I attempted the same maneuver simultaneously to little effect. I did flush the enemy out of the building, but my squad took a casualty and also retreated. Clearing a house with grenade assault is a very dangerous thing to do no matter how you go about it. That being said, I would absolutely love a Target Grenade command not necessarily for clearing houses, but because at very close range I would like to deliberately area fire onto terrain with grenades say from behind a wall or behind a hedgerow.

Don't be discouraged, such solutions are very common.

With any explosive in the game there is a degree of randomness. Steve explained it once as a [paraphrased] 'Chance to Hit' divided by 'Distance' divided by 'Terrain'. So it's still a dice roll, but if the grenade goes off at your feet, you've got maybe a less than .01% chance. I think what you ought to do is go shake that pixeltruppen's hand and congratulate him for being the single luckiest SOB in all of Combat Mission history.

I haven't made a specific test for grenades, but I have used hundreds while playing various scenarios. I think what we get with grenades is deliberately toned down from what I've seen in live videos as far as blast effect. Grenades 'pop' more than they 'bang'. That being said, there are instances of single grenades inflicting many casualties I could count on more than one hand. It really seems to matter what type of terrain you are throwing into, what model of grenade, and how many are thrown. Throw grenades onto a paved surface and men will fall like bowling pins. Throw them into thick woods terrain and you'll likely not even cause a severe casualty. Positioning also matters a great deal, being in defilade from a bursting grenade (even the smallest amount of slope or obstruction) seems to offer great protection. The experience level of your troops also seems to have a determining factor on how accurate a throw is. I've seen Crack troops throw grenades and bullseye individual foxholes or men, and I've seen Regulars scatter them all over the landscape like drunken lawn darts to little effect. This. It would be nice to have a 'Target Grenade' order, but we all want commands we likely won't see. At least I'd like to see less than 100% of a Team throwing grenades all at once.

Or at the very least, the Stryker engineering vehicle already in the game should have a mine-clearing dozer blade, LIKE IT DOES IN REAL LIFE. You could even use the existing mine clearance command from the sherman crab, just without the chain flails. It can't be that difficult, can it?

The original mission in CMSF1 mentioned a minefield, but there were no landmines in the game. Seems logical to add them into the mission now they are available. A clear lane through the mines is designed into the mission. You need only detect all of the mines with your engineers. The mines themselves are antitank mines, and pose no threat to your troops, feel free to walk around the area and find them all. Once you've found them, run your vehicles through the gap single file. See below. My engineers begin their work at 5:00.

Nonsense. All I'm asking is that you TRY to report an issue in a way in which we can all clearly see and understand what's going on. I guess you'd rather be cryptic and indecipherable, to the detriment of all. Thanks for the help. Has our understanding of the problem being reported advanced in any way since the original post? No? Then nothing of consequence has happened in this thread. Thanks for the waste of time.

This is an overview of how things worked out so far, and some news. I hope to get another gameplay video done by next week, subject to the requirements of the service.

But the presence of contact markers can at least inform the TACAI that SOMETHING is over there. A "kill zone" might be a bit complicated, but "possible enemy presence" is not.

Well, we have no idea if there was a contact marker or not given the sad lack of video coverage. If you want issues like this to be investigated and taken seriously, you might want to take your reporting of them a little more seriously. You could at least include a save game. I mean, the absolute basic level of effort might pay off, if you did anything with it. Otherwise, yes. You should keep it to yourself because you are doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

I see no evidence of that.