General Jack Ripper

I just wanted to post a quick update. I'm currently at turn 12 in my battle. The tempo should be picking up soon now that those pesky annoying holidays are all over and done with. I'll be writing a narrative AAR as best I can with the leftover saved turns, but I don't want to post anything yet until I can guarantee some regular turnover. sfhand, You definitely drew the short straw going up against c3k. You're going to have to clear every road, house, tree, bush, and shellhole. You never know where the snipers are going to be hiding! I hope you two have fun! Baneman, I'd love to get another game going, but I don't like to run two instances of a scenario. I tend to get confused with numbers greater than 1.

Me too. That battle is turning into so much bloody hamburger meat. I've only gotten about 12 turns done so far. But anyway, that's a discussion for another time. C'mon Bil! Kick some butt Russian style!

I fired up a game and played a few turns in hotseat mode against myself. I think I kicked my own ass a bit. CAUTION: Minor Spoilers. http://youtu.be/MyaryiDlOYo

I'm definitely grabbing this. Wait, I just did! Well, I'm off to go play!

Fast move directly into the action spot occupied by enemy troops! Those imperialist Yankee pigs cannot defeat the ruthless toughness of your Slavic legions! But on a serious note; It seems to me that Scott's mission is to attack and relieve the defenders in the town. If you successfully crush all resistance in the town, then technically Scott will have failed his mission, even if he wins the battle. Sometimes you just have to be more ruthless. I may be grasping at straws, but it might be possible for you to pull off some kind of victory, even a pyrrhic one. I'm really enjoying this DAR, keep up the good work.

I do seem to recall an earlier discussion, maybe a year ago on the effectiveness of Panzer IV vs. Sherman tanks. After a long round of testing, Shermans averaged 4 penetrations out of 5 rounds fired against Panzer IV. Meanwhile, the Panzer IV averaged only 3 penetrations out of 5 rounds fired at Shermans. Any way you cut it, that's a losing proposition. Something to do with comparative armor shape and quality between Panzer IV and Sherman. Remember, the Sherman tank was initially designed to defeat the Panzer IV, and enjoys the advantages of sloping frontal armor, gyrostabilizers, and a fast turret. I could try to hunt up the original discussion, but my luck using the search function on the forums is nonexistent. EDIT: I found this post here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/104728-need-sherman-v-mark-iv-source-material-pls/?p=1373088 And here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/104728-need-sherman-v-mark-iv-source-material-pls/?p=1373252 Actually that whole thread was full of good information. So did this: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/104747-sherman-m4-late-v-pzivh-late-static-v-moving-spotting-test/?p=1373327 And this tidbit: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/95430-armor-far-too-accurate/?p=1256637 http://community.battlefront.com/topic/94401-german-tank-vulnerability/?p=1228447 This whole thread is wonderfully chock full of words: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/94401-german-tank-vulnerability/page-1 Wow, I guess I went a little search bananas there! That's the first time I actually got the thing to find stuff I was looking for. HOWEVER, I COULDN'T FIND THE POST I RECALLED FOR THE NUMBERS AT THE HEAD OF MY OWN POST. So, technically I found everything but the stuff I was looking for!

Bil, Quit being so negative. Your air support will arrive soon and bury those advancing M1's under an avalanche of missiles, rockets, bombs, and gunfire. Ammunition unfired is ammunition wasted! Use every single weapon at your disposal! Throw rocks if you have to! Fight to the death! Moscow is behind you!

Thank you for the compliment. I actually did a search on YouTube for the Euroscape mod before I recorded this and got no results. I figured it might help such a large mod if people could see what they're getting. I think I might record a few more videos of some random battles to show off the mod a bit more, the mod is very impressive.

I figured I'd get back into some Combat Mission, but I'm not feeling up to continuing The Road to Montebourg yet. I got ahold of the Euroscape mod and fired up Task Force Thunder for a bit of fun. Aside from needing to swap out some weapon sounds (damn "brass tinkling" sound effect gives me a headache) I had a lot of fun. Check it out.

With the development of the Battle of the Bulge game, does that mean CMBN has reached the end of it's development? Or is there something else in the works I am not aware of?

I'm going to be out of town for a few days for Christmas, I'll open a thread for posting DAR/AAR stuff when I get back.

You have heard of bayonets, haven't you? There's no need to waste ammunition, just throw the prisoners off the roof of the power station as an example! Bil, Moscow is behind you! Crush all who oppose you! Shoot them, stab them, burn them, run them over with your tanks, leave none alive! Advance toward victory over the burning flattened corpses of your enemies!

Okay, after more thought, we're running a PBEM game. I just wanted to report the battle has begun! I'll be putting together a DAR as things progress.

We'll be doing WeGo, once we can get an entire day set aside. I figure it'll take 8 - 10 hours to play the battle, so it's possible just difficult.

This is in reply to the original post. Short answer: because German MG's can be fired without being deployed, giving them much greater flexibility and reaction time. Long answer: I noticed the machinegun problem a while back: (Caution: Harsh Written Language) http://youtu.be/a99QjvlpiIM When using the editor, or deploying troops in a battle, you might need to re-deploy your machineguns to the same action spot more than once. I managed to fix that .50cal MG in the video by un-deploying the weapon, moving the team back one AS, then back to the AS they were in with a face command added, then deploying the machinegun again. After that, everything worked fine. Reading ahead I find this: This is exactly true, and leads me to another of my rule of thumbs: "Never assume a machinegun or other heavy weapon will deploy exactly where you want it to. If things get messed up, check your LOS and try to deploy again with a face command or target arc active." Using machineguns in bocage, or fighting in bocage in general is a major pain in the a**, and requires a good amount of practice and training to conduct effectively. Even long time Combat Mission veterans screw it up occasionally, as anyone who watches my youtube can attest. To turn around and scream "I can't win! The game is broken! The A.I. cheats!" is just childish. Combat Mission is a serious game, and should be taken seriously. The first thing you need to do is unlearn everything you know about war games, and start all over again. Should be easy, right? Then you need to realize that like all simulation level games, sometimes things don't work perfectly. However, as far as the machinegun problem is concerned Womble and I have told you our workarounds for a bad deployment, but it is up to you to listen and learn. Welcome to the forums, feel free to ask questions. - SLIM

I agree. I want my TC's unbuttoned for as long as possible to help with spotting, but in the middle of a turn it's not possible to have them button up at the first sign of danger. There are many times I will be watching a replay and screaming at my TC's "button up you idiot you're getting shot at!". Most of the time vehicle crew don't button up until bullets actually impact on the vehicle, and 7 out of 10 times that's usually too late. Right now it's a trade-off, either you drive around buttoned up all the time, or you just accept that a few tank commanders are gonna die. I usually do the latter.

I'm having a bit of time coordinating a schedule for a tcp/ip game. I'll be giving it another go sunday night.

Atago, Be good and do your homework! Also: A quick rule of thumb is to never be stationary for more than 5 minutes. Most artillery takes 3-8 minutes to call in, so if you must advance while under enemy observation move constantly. Split your squads into teams and spread them out a bit. Use every piece of defilade or terrain cover you can. While some teams are up and moving, use other teams to provide a base of fire. You must also become familiar with the effective ranges of different weapons. If you are more than 300 meters from enemy positions, small arms are not your concern. Focus your fire on machineguns and mortars instead, and never advance a tank through an area you can't see. Position some mortars in a place where they can see possible enemy positions, then give them a short cover arc and have them hold fire. They should remain undetected long enough to fire on enemy AT guns and MG's that have been spotted. "If at first you don't succeed: regroup, then advance over the smoldering corpses and try again!" - Me

I have spoken with Baneman, and we will be cancelling our game. I will be trying to start up a new game on Friday.

I finished my deployment, and all systems are go. I had to spend about an hour doing a terrain survey, there is a lot of impassible terrain that can't be seen unless the trees are off. In regards to performance issues, I get a steady 7-9 FPS with all settings maxed out. The camera does stutter a bit even with the trees off, but otherwise everything runs pretty well. I'm going to try to write some kind of DAR/AAR to go with the game. I think it would be a good way to keep track of first impressions. - SLIM

Baneman reports he is getting Out Of Memory errors. I'll report if there's any news.

If I don't hear back from Baneman by this weekend, I could run a game with you.

Baneman and I are attempting to start a game. I was out of town for a few days so we've had trouble getting set up.

... while testing my microphone settings. Take a look.

Part 14 has now been posted. With the end of this part, we have now finished the Les Licornets battle. I am truly glad of that because Les Licornets has caused more pain and anguish than one would think just by looking at the map. While the map looked like a bunch of wide open fields, most of them had no LOS from one end to the other. The only real workable tactic one could use was to fling men across the field and hope they stick. I have a phobia about being caught under an artillery barrage, which leads me to keep pressing forward as fast as possible. That way, if the enemy does call indirect fire, I will already be in front of the area they called it in. The fact the Germans were able to land a small barrage on some of my men shocked me into the realization of exactly how much time I had wasted dealing with a single gun. That realization pushed me to attack faster, with the risk of higher casualties. In the end it worked, the map was clear, and all enemy forces destroyed. There is still a hollow space in me that knows that just a few moments of indecision has cost pixeltruppen's lives. I have resolved to crush any future obstacles beneath my boots. Onward to the next battle! There will be many more Hedgerows before this campaign is done.