Emar

Used in North Africa, In Sicily against HG, and for Several landings in Italy, as well as for support for Northern advances on the west coast of the boot. So how come no Cruiser spotters in CMAK? :confused:

I asked the same question awhile ago while working on some ops. The answer that I recieved is that it affects the value of the attackers points at the end of the op for victory calculation. ie. if for instance you have the casualty point factor set to 50% then the attacker can sustain twice as many casualties as the defender and still pull a draw if all other considerations are factored out(victory flags, etc). The opposite would be true as well if the factor were set to 200% then the defender could sustain twice as many losses as the attacker for equal end results. As far as I know this is how it works. The manual does not explain it at all and the wording is kind of confusing and could be taken either way. It also seems especially kind of strange if it does work this way that the editor allows you to go up to 1000% in the defenders favor as in most scenarios the attacker is already at a disadvantage. Maybe Matt or Moon will catch this thread and set us straight. P.S. I tried to establish for myself which way it worked by playtesting some of my ops against the AI with settings from 10% to 1000% and beleive it or not could not really establish a solid answer(still had wins and losses at both settings) :confused: :confused: :confused:

I'll give you a hint. its one thats been around for awhile. Thats a"round"

In CM unless a tank is burned out it can be repaired or remanned in ops and targeting abandoned or knocked out vehicles until they catch fire is allowed in the game engine. Putting a few rounds into knocked out or abandoned tanks until they brewed up is actualy a real world tactic used by both sides during the war. Tanks and AFVs which were burned out were usually beyond repair and the intense heat often melted all wiring and made the metal good for little more than scrap. I always use this tactic when playing ops as the Germans. If I knock out a firefly I dont want it coming back at me again in battle 6

Although vehicles are lost if you retreat them off the map abandoned and damaged vehicles and crew served guns will often be returned to the fight in later battles depending on the length of the op (unless they are burned out, burned out vehicles never return). The trick is to pull back gun damaged vehicles to a point on the map out of the enemy line of sight. When the next battle starts it may not be there but it may return in subsequant battles. I have had "abandoned" tanks and guns returned in the very next battle. The trick with that is to pull back the surviving crew to safety for the remainder of the current battle. (if they die or exit the map then the tank will not return) Not sure but would assume that the abandoned vehicle would also have to remain within friendly lines at the end of the current battle Hope this helps [ March 27, 2004, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

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Yeah, the real event was a meat grinder as well with 8th army taking a real bloody nose attempting to take the hill ( many soldiers who had also been at Cassino described the struggle for Gemmano as being much worse). The 100th Gebirgs, survivors of the Greek campaign, Crete, and the Russian front near Leningrad, took so many casualties that they pretty much ceased to be a unit after this fight as well On a side note this battle so impressed future historian James Lucas (often quoted in the CM rule book)with the fighting abilities of the Gebirgs that he called them the most skilled soldiers he had ever faced. ( Lucas assaulted Gemmano with the 169th Queens brigade days after 44th Recce was pushed off the hill. His unit fared no better)

Sgt. kelly is exactly right. The choice for whether one side, both or neither is decided by the designer. In the case of Gemmano and other Gebirgs ops I tried to base that decision on my historical resources. By late 1944 on the western front the Allies ruled the skies so the Germans became masters at nightime advancement and they were more willing than the Allies to take the inherent risks that nightime movement and combat posed. The Allies on the other hand prefered to work under the umbrella of air and artillery support during the daylight hours whenever possible. At Gemmano the Germans brought up reinforcements on a nightly basis for the entire campaign there (my op only represents the first 2 days of a prolonged attempt to capture the Gemmano heights which only succeeded after an entire Indian division was put in over 2 weeks later), while the British tried desperately to consolidate and hold whatever gains they had made during daylight hours throughout the night. As a designer this is a tough decision as it forces an all or nothing choice. Perhaps your suggestion of a percentage chance chosen by scenario designers might be a better choice. Let me know how the op plays out. From previous feedback I am considering tweaking the force balance a little more in favor of the British attacker (maybe one more platoon of infantry).

Also forgot to tell you that if you do this and you want a european setting the displayed date at the bottom will not be correct, ie. my Istibei scenario occured in April of 1941 but the parameters are set to Italy, 1944 in order to have grass and cold weather. That is ok as the units are all still labeled and equiped as 1940 allied units and I informed players in the briefing of the real date.

Same reviewer. Yes I agree a lot of the disc scenarios were lopsided for single player, but thought maybe someone who was familiar with CM would realize that many more homebrew 2 player scenarios would come down the pike.

It absolutely can be done easily to have 1940 British, French and Polish squads with 1940 equipment in CMAK. I am currently working on my next Gebirgs pack scenario depicting the battle for Narvik in Norway. Against the Gebirgs forces I have 1940 British, French and Polish units. Here is how you do it. Load your battle or op and go into parameters. Change it to North Afrika, August 1941. In the unit editor select your 1940 French, British or Polish units. Save and load and go back to parameters and change the setting to Italy and the date to 1943-44 and terrain to dirt( whatever works specific to the weather and ground conditions you desire for your scenario) The Allied troops will still be 1940 label with only rifles, grenades, the occasional thompson and Brens, and as an added bonus the editor will put long pants on them in liue of the shorts. I was planning on making some other early war scenarios using this trick after the Gebirgs series wraps up. Hope it works out for you. PS you will have to do some parameter time travelling as you tweek your force sizes and such but it is worth it. [ February 26, 2004, 11:05 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

On the other side of the spectrum just got my new Computer Gaming mag and their reviewer gave CMAK only 3 out of 5 stars. Dont think the reviewer is overly familiar with CM as he seemed to base a large part of his review on reporting disapointment with the multiplayer balance of the scenarios included on the disc. :confused: Oh well, guess you cant win em all

Thanks for the tip on 7 days Dan and Frenchy. I just ordered it through amazon. Looking forward to this book as well. Will definately come in handy for my upcoming operation.

Just the ticket since I was already going to make this battle the subject of one of my Gebirgs ops. Just ordered it

No worries Charlie. Just a friendly discussion. Agree about your last post including the early M16 debacle, but unlike the other guns I think this one deserves somewhat unique status as this gun worked fine in testing and early use and had no real problems until it saw service in greater numbers . If memory serves the problems that plagued the guns service in Nam were not so much a design flaw as they were a combination of the Army's decision to change the ammunition propellent without notifying the manufacturer and the spreading of a false rumor that the new "Mattel" gun did not need to be cleaned. Believe the gun was originally tested with a commercial powder (called IMR?), which burned clean, and then replaced as the demand for more ammo went up with a cheaper and more readily avilable propellent called ball powder or something like that which produced a sticky residue. After correcting these non design problems and adding the forward assist just to make sure, the gun worked fine.

I'm gonna guess that like me you have a Radeon graphics card. Unfortunately Radeon does not support the fog tables used in CM. Kinda sucks but a t least the game modifiers for units affected by fog are still modeled, even if you cant see it.

Bfc forum Scenario Depot Proving Grounds

You know I was thinking about this subject today at work and came to the conclusion that in some way every Weapon is "flawed". When you create a new gun the final product is always the result of trade offs in one area or another. The Germans were not the first and certainly not the last to attempt to make a weapon that fit all of the goals set out for it and did not achieve what was the hoped for result. It does not take inservice bickering and irrational resource allocation to achieve this result. Look at the US Army for instance. The M1 carbine had a round that was so anemic that it had less stopping power than the pistol it was supposed to replace. Yet this "flawed" gun was made in the thousands including taking the resources to make a specailized paratrooper version. After the war the US took another major step backward and forced the rest of NATO to do the same by insisting on using the full size 308 round and developing the heavy and unweildy but reliable "flawed" M14 which was every bit as uncontrollable on full auto as the Fg42 could have ever been. This even though the British and other nations had already developed a new smaller .280 cartridge and were developing modern Bullpup designs to field it. The Allies were all forced to follow suit fielding the G3 and FN Fal which are also uncontrollable on full auto. The BAR was flawed because it only held 20 rounds and did not have a quick change barrel. US troops still loved it and wanted more. The Garand was flawed because it held only 8 rounds, could not be topped off and made a loud noise when it was empty. etc.etc. The point is that the gun was not a perfect fit for its intended role but it was well made, reliable and some of its features were ahead of their time. And it was popular with the men who used it despite its faults. And personally I would carry it over a lot other guns including the M1 carbine.

I hope I was not portraying myself in defense of this gun. In no way was I claiming that the Fg42 was an effective answer to the Luftwaffe's weapon needs. If you look at my past posts on the subject you will see that I have already agreed with most of your points and that I was the one who said that the gun needed to use a smaller round if it was to be succesful at filling any of its roles at all. As I also said earlier there was absolutely no need for the Luftwaffe to waste time and effort on this gun. Having fired A couple of KAR98,s and a G43 I know what a handful a full battle round can be and how my shoulder felt at the end of the day. Could only imagine what a beast this short barreled and light gun must have been to handle. As far as reliable, I meant that I came across no resources that mentioned any complaints of malfunctions or jams from troops in the field which can not be said of all weapons from this era. Although I completly agree that this gun did indeed have some big flaws as you said there is no denying that some of its aspects were ahead of their time and influenced postwar designs (albeit they used the ideas to a more practical end). I completly agree also that this gun must have originated as a proposed glorified wonder weapon on paper and that there was no chance that it could ever live up to any of those hopes. Still for whatever reason, be it political or overlooking of the guns flaws because of the hype, the Luftwaffe wanted more of them.

In some ways yes but not entirely. The Luftwaffe definately wanted the capability of a bipod mounted support weapon. I would equate the mp44 more as the WWII equivalent of the ak47 or m16 infantry rifle. The Fg42 was also intended to cover the role now covered by the SAW. Even though the design was flawed almost all of the resources I looked at claimed that the Luftwaffe was happy with the gun and begging Rhienmetall and the High Command for more to be produced. A sentiment which was denied due to the excessive resources that would be taken by producing it. Still the need for such a weapon no longer existed and the time and resources could have been better used elswhere. That said the gas operated mechanism and other aspects of the gun such as it's "straight line" layout from butt to muzzle were well ahead of their time and greatly influenced postwar designs. Most of what I have seen written also suggests that the gun was a fairly reliable weapon.

I think the actual hopes that the Luftwaffe had for this gun could have actually panned out if they had not retained the full rifle round. Not sure what the reason for that decision was, logistics? worry about loss of range? etc?. If they had switched to a lighter and smaller round the gun could have indeed come close to filling many of its intended roles and could have been made to be manageble on full auto fire. Also the mag capacity could have been increased without having a much bigger clip and the gun would have been lighter. If they had done this then I think the gun would have been somewhat like an early clip fed version of the M249 SAW(which I beleive also uses a side mounted clip when not belt fed).

A couple sources I got a hold of claim that one of the major reasons for the Fg42's development was simply interservice rivalry. By 1942 the Luftwaffe was encroaching on the preserves of the army to a considerable extent and when they heard that the Heer was developing a self loading rifle they decided they must have one too. The sense I got from reading some of this information was that after Crete the Luftwaffe wanted a do all weapon that would let each soldier fill in any roll that was needed, ie light machine gun for support, rifle for standard infantry tactics, and full auto to replace the assault firepower of the SMG. This way if a drop was scattered then there would be no shortage in any of the above roles. If the mg was lost the Fg42 would step up for support, etc. This theory would certainly be validated by the guns unique design. Firing semi auto with a closed bolt and a low power telescopic sight (replacing the kar98's role). Full auto with open bolt ( replacing the mp40's and LMG role). Round that out with the guns compact size allowing jumps to be made with gun ready and the option of using a bayonet and it is easy to see what the Fg42's hoped for role would be. Also the dramatic first use as the main source of firepower by the storm group rescuing Mussolini shows that the Luftwaffe indeed had high hopes that the Fg42 would be their new wonder weapon. However, as with the Sturmtiger, the Fg42 was a weapon using up time and development resources for reasons which were no longer valid. [ February 18, 2004, 11:14 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

Lets not forget that the Fg42 was also the weapon of choice for Race Bannon on more than one occasion in the old Johny Quest cartoons from the 60's. In his capable hands the Fg42 could not miss, even when the bad guys were hiding around the corner. No problem there, he simply ricocheted the bullets off the blade of a handily parked bulldozer to take them out. Just another useless tidbit of info which also gives away my age

There were also 2 distinct variants of the fg42. The original had a plastic butt and a sloping pistol grip. The newer version replaced these with a wooden butt and a conventional pistol grip and had the bipod moved forward to the muzzle as well as adding some other short cuts. Interestingly the rescue of Mussolini at Gran Sasso saw the first operational use of the weapon. The fg42 however was not a predecessor to the Mp43-44 rifle. The kurz round and the assault rifle were already in development when the fg42 arrived. The fg42 rather was simply the Luftwaffes attempt to have their own "special" weapon. And had it not been a rifle that was overly costly and labor intensive to produce they might have had their wish granted. Many of its features were copied into postwar weapons with the exception of the side mounted magazine which tended to snag on clothing or other items and unbalanced the rifle during firing. [ February 10, 2004, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

The book Last Stand by Bryan Perret has a nice map of all of the guns positions and the positions of all of the knocked out enemy vehicles. Incedently this battle has already been covered on the CMAK disk (File listed as "Defense of outpost Snipe". Not sure but I think Hans was the author.