NickT

But there are national family trends quite easily recognised - British cruisers through to Comet and Centurion have a strong family likeness...US M3,M4...German tanks to Tiger I (excluding Panther) - there are distinct national design characteristics that are apparent. The influence that other nations' tanks had on a country's tank design was normally/typically expressed in up-gunning and up-armouring your existing designs. The Panther is different - it's not just a bigger version of an existing design, its a brand new design - and given the timeline of its development and the appearance of the T34, it seems a bit wilful not to see the direct impact of the T34 on its design. But you are right in assuming that I'm not about to produce some faded sepia design directives saying: "Copy T34 and call it Panther"

I've never seen so much German infantry. I feel decidedly outnumbered. I hope they're all snipers or something. The only thing this battle is missing is trenches and barbed-wire. And I dread to think what happens when they go "over the top".

Yeh, OK. I could write most of it now: Turn 1 Most of my armour immediately bogs, save for my best piece who is enclosed in 17 sq metres of grass in the corner, surrounded by wood. Turns 2 to 10 inclusive: More casualties inflicted from the high ground across the map. Only those of my men who remain hidden have suffered no casulties. Turns 11 to 35 inclusive: The loss of morale has traumatised nearly all my units. Some are still moving, but only to the rear. Turn 36. My armour manages to unbog itself (see turn 1). Game Ends

NickT and Justin5471 now embarking on Round 2. Oh My God. A map from hell. Moderate woods - but not in the middle; modest hills, but only in the setup areas. Possibly a sneaking sniper might reach a flag unobserved - I think this might be a bit bloody...

A lot of my men have complained about barrel-chill in the winter scenarios...

OK I admit it you swine, you've got me over a barrel.

OK I admit it you swine, you've got me over a barrel.

Go for it! (I can stop practising a platoon of 5 Stuarts trying to baffle a Tiger now!) [ April 06, 2003, 05:42 AM: Message edited by: NickT ]

I'm happy with the your first compromise variant (Guards) - if the Germans want to blow all on a Tiger and Stug combination vs Russian 4xT34 I'm not sure that's unfair given the terrain . And I much prefer the idea of rarity and budget influencing choice rather than agreement - "I won't have a Tiger if you don't have a KV". Put it this way, compared with the original setup I don't think there is an obvious side to want to be any more - each side has different merits. If you achieved that with just one change it seems over-finessing to add other constraints. But I am looking forward to the next round regardless! (Whenever it is!) NickT [ April 03, 2003, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: NickT ]

Yes, thinking harder on this maybe random weather is too mean - but I'd suggest a fixed weather option that precludes the use of aircraft. I like aircraft, but if the armour forces are constrained to 3 or 4 tanks, then the use of aircraft can be a real game breaker. If there were more points available to armour then I can't see a problem with aircraft - it's up to the player to protect them or have sufficient armour that a 1 or 2 tank loss wasn't critical. [Later...] Soviet Guards or Cavalry looks a good compromise. I hadn't realised an Armour option rather than Combined Arms means the Germans could have exclusively armour. [ March 26, 2003, 06:09 AM: Message edited by: NickT ]

1. Weather setting I'd say keep it random, as although it can be a pain, it seems such a fix to actually know the weather beforehand. 2. Force mix I'd plump for armour/mechanised. I don't think these sorts of battles are going to be won by armour alone, but at least the Germans get some buying optons that they just don't have otherwise. And an armour rather than unrestricted option still gives some structured constraint to the force mix. Certainly leaving it as combined arms limits the Germans very severely - Stugs in woody terrain...no thanks. 3. All rounds have Trees: Moderate throughout Hills: Modest. This is fine by me - especially if the Germans can now afford armour with turrets! 4. 30 turns variable. A 25 turn one always seems to keep you going at a fairly swift pace - perhaps a 10% reduction to 27 will allow the slow build adherents to still practise their art yet add a worthwhile reduction. [ March 26, 2003, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: NickT ]

I think the two issues here are: 1. Until the second Stug bailed out there was always the threat that I might lose two or three more T34s, so although I felt I had the upper hand it wasn't something you'd want to stake your life on. 2. If Firefly hadn't surrendered then, say another 5 goes would probably have been sufficient to outflank and kill his remaining armour. I would have conceivably lost another 2 tanks - one to the Stug and one to the unknown 50mm AT gun. That would have left at least 10 turns to annihilate his remaining company of infantry located in a wood. I would have blasted it with the 250 rounds of 82mm mortar available + a T34 + a KV1 and then sent in the SMGs. This would have been very dull and gruesome for both of us - especially by PBEM. The prisoner points are quite high - perhaps they need to be adjusted; but I would prefer that to having to continue a game even when it has reached a point where it isn't fun any more.

Some of my original thoughts were based on a PBEM where I thought I was able to divine the opponent's force mix with some accuracy. Significantly, we knew that we were both constrained to a Mechanized - Combined Arms formation with standard rarity. On reflection, I am not certain that this prior knowledge is as critically helpful as it might inbitially appear. Firstly, the knowledge isn't perfect - basically I got the opponent's force mix wrong, albeit at the margin. But in this case the unforseen units were two AT guns. Secondly, with extreme FOW, even if you guessed the opponent's forces correctly, there is a very good chance that what your men are telling you is going to contradict your own hunches. Of course, if I had had more will-power I would not have forensically disected the opposing force's likely permutations with quite so much effort, but let's just say that it was a substitute for the innate awareness that more experience would have provided. I imagine that there will be some point in the future when I know to within 50 points how much a platoon of Tigers will cost for any given month. So, you play a battle where you feel sure you must know the likely composition of the forces against you. Is that unequivocally helpful? Are there not going to be occasions where you mislead yourself and are hit by forces that you just didn't cater for? If the game you play has unrestricted unit choice (but still with standard rarity) you are even more likely to be wrong in your assumptions regarding the opponent's units. So, I can see that the addition of variable force size adds uncertainty, but I think I now feel that the existing level of uncertainty isn't as small as I once thought and, moreover, thinking that you know the opponent's forces more or less accurately is not necessarily to your advantage.

The terrain gave me the bulk of the roads, so my troops generally got places quicker, sitting on T34s. One of which, cunningly masquerading as the front end of a pantomine T26, gave Firefly's Stug IIIF a quick dose of AP at about 90m range. He managed to miss a Stug flank shot, but immobilised him in the nick of time. I think the German's morale was a bit iffy at this point, as in quick succession an armoured car (with a duff gun I now find out) had lost the duel at 50m with a KV1, and a brave platoon of German infantry had discovered that the woods they were detailed to enter were held by 3 Russian infantry platoons (1 SMG). A lot of these ranges were quite short as the terrain was quite lumpy and dippy in addition to the hills - on only one occasion were the Stugs able to get a shot at other than short range and that resulted in a dead T34. Thanks to Firefly for the game - it was hard work and only at the very very end after a couple of crucial hits did I feel as though I had him on the ropes.

faced off one on one There's your answer: they were using special face-off ammo.

Blue2/Yellow2 currently at turn 11. Main flag is at top of a hill which we have both pushed men up, but the King of Castle has yet to be decided. I know Firefly has armour nearby, but as my men have reported the same vehicle variously as Marder, MkIV, Stug, Tirpitz on a skateboard and VW Polo I am none the wiser. Both our infantry have received fairly heavy mortar fire, but the only certain casualty is an armoured car that got caught mixing it with a couple of Russian tanks. Well, I am guessing it was an armoured car, but knowing my men's eyesight and Firefly's sneakiness it will probably turn out to be a wheelbarrow full of burning tyres. Some progress expected this weekend with a high expectation of game-deciding losses...that'll be me then.

I knew this rang a bell - have located my trusty Pelican, priced 6/- !

I knew that really (ahem, uncrosses fingers) So, very broadly speaking, all caveats being weaselled, a force twice your size will inflict casualties at 4 times the rate of an equally sized force? Nevertheless, there still seems mileage in investigating ways of obscuring force size and mix, and allocation of victory locations. This shows up particularly in the 1500 point games that I would quess are amongst the most popular. [ March 11, 2003, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: NickT ]

I can't find any reference to this in CMBO or CMBB; do you have a pointer?

Buy it chocolates and suck up to its parents Meanwhile Firefly and I are just beginning to make significant contact at about turn 6

I would have loved rain so that my ballet-shoed T34s could tippie-toe round the be-Wellingtonned German tanks. Not that I've seen any german tanks, and the infantry I saw appeared to be running as I playfully ruffled their hair with my co-ax.

I am quietly confident that I can do better than the AI - if only in force selection. This involves buying some T34s instead of having the 10 trucks, 3 MG carriers and a KV1 that the AI seems to prefer. Unfortunately I can't speak Russian* and it all goes rapidly downhill after the initial setup, with me and my men scratching heads in mutual incomprehension. *Other than "Smert mookam" [dodgy spelling] - "Death to flies" - which I have yet to have occasion to use.

Volunteering - YHM [ March 03, 2003, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: NickT ]