[When will there be a dedicated CMAK forum?]

Just curious. There is really no major hurry, but I just think it would be nice to split up the threads since there is so much CMAK traffic lately.

[The Briefing quality of scenarios - decreasing?]

Is this a 'bone' in disguise, or I am making too much out of these briefings?

There will be army rangers and other special forces in CMAK? Or do they already have special forces in CMBB and I am just way behind?

[CM feature idea : "abandon heavy weapon" order]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

IMO people are fretting a bit too much about the recrewing issue. Think about it: under what circumstances will a crew abandon their weapon?

In CM, crews abandon their mortars/HTs/Jeeps pretty quickly under art fire - oftern without a casaulty. I would think that it would be harder to damage a mortar tube with art than damage a human with art, so I always take it to mean they just got scared and ran away. And that being the case, they should realitically be able go get their weapon when the bombing stops.

Of course, whether it would be worth the coding time needs to be considered - but art causing mortar/hts/jeeps to abandon seems common enough to justify the consideration.

[CMAK request - if it isnt too late]

thanks - I'll use that.

[CMAK request - if it isnt too late]

Does anyone know a solution for problem #1 mentioned above? Does anyone know how CMMC deals with this?

In a campaign I am running, I have told the players to stop one turn before the end, so that only I can look at the AAR screens. However, this doesnt prevent auto surrender, and I couldnt use variable-ending battles.

[Could we have a way to block AI HT purchase in CMAK QBs?]

Michael, I think it could be done over the wire - just save it and email.

I dont think there is anyway for the 3rd party human to pick just AI forces, like it is done in a QB. Of course, you could create a scenario, generate a random map in the editor, have a 3rd party human pick computer forces, and then have him send it back to you and you pick your forces in the scenario editor (just dont peek at the opponents forces).

But I agree with the original poster - the AI does pick too many HT's. IIRC, the only exception I have seen is with "armor" force types - but I havent played a lot of computer pick "armor" battles.

[CMAK request - if it isnt too late]

I would like to request a couple of changes for CMAK that would make 3rd party campaigns (eg CMMC) more secur.

1)It would be extremely helpful to have an option in the scenario editor that turns off the AAR and the map when the battle ends? This would need to be tied to a password in the scenario editor so that only the person who created the scenario could look at the final map/AAR.

2)Currently, it is kind of a pain to set up a battle so that it is impossible for opponents not to load the game into the scenario editor and/or load the game as a hotseat game and look at something they are not supposed to. I think this could be fixed with pre-assigned password options in the parameters section of the scenario editor.

Note, there is a work-around for problem #2, so it isnt as necessary as option 1. BTW, these seem to me like relatively simple changes, otherwise I wouldnt ask for them. Of course, I know that what seems easy to somebody outside the program could in fact be a lot more complicated once you get into the program.

Since we wont have any other CM games for 2 years or so, I figure people will be playing a lot of custom campaigns, and these would be much used features.

[cmx2 what will be the fundemental difference?]

Multiplayer. Please, please, please make it multiplayer!!

I get so excited just thinking about it.

And if you do make it multiplayer, please make sure you can mix and match human and AI players in any combination. For example, if the max players would be eight, you could have 4 humans and an AI vs 1 human and two 2 AIs.

[ September 23, 2003, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: David Chapuis ]

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

Originally posted by Specs:

At any rate, it certainly wouldn't be much fun if the game automatically forced a surrender or inflicted a massive morale penalty (presumably panicking or breaking most of one's troops in a single turn) simply because the Black Hats slipped a company of infantry or a platoon of tanks behind you.

I never thought it should do this, and certainly did not mean to advocate that it should. However, I still think (although not as strongly as before - btw, I am enjoying this discussion - although now I feel like a little fish in the shark tank) that in real life an enemy force appearing in your rear (unexpectedly) would cause some degree of shock, and wonder if that could be/should be modeled in CM.

but I never expected the enemy forces to fold simply because I managed to pull off something dastardly. I expected that the opposition would demand a demonstration of the full dimensions of my dastardliness -- and then fold.

Again, I never expected that either. Actually, I knew they would just turn around and start shooting at me - just like they would if I had attacked from the front. But I wonder if that is realistic - I'll let JasonC and Kammak hash if out for a while longer while I go find some of the "battle shock" examples I have read about.

[ September 21, 2003, 01:12 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Dodge ]

[Hurricane Peng – A Cat 5 Challenge or just a steady drip?]

Originally posted by Cabron66:

If there are some 13,000 people on this forum you guys account for what? 0.0003% of them.

More problems with math.

AHHH - I just postd in the Peng thread. I think I just lost something important.

[Close air support?]

Originally posted by Cabron66:

(In my head I begin to do the math.)

10,000 posts X average 10 minutes per post

100,000 minutes divided by 60 minutes in an hour

16,666 hours by 24 hours in a day...

And he has trouble with math.

Dorosh, I loved your pirate talk. That was hilarious.

[Air Support! Is it worth it?]

Originally posted by redwolf:

I did some tests to get an idea how BTS came up with the price for the Allied fighter-bomber.

I found, that for a "typical" combined arms mix, that means infantry, support, vehicles and tanks, in percentatges as proposed in the Quickbattle setting, the fighter-bomber will kill enemy units about the value value as its price.

Redwolf, I am wondering if you factored friendly fire into these calcs? Do you happen to remember?

[CMAK is to be released SOON ENOUGH]

JasonC chose to make a joke! And it was pretty humourous! He came in here just to be funny!

This is a great day for me, snif. I'm so proud. Grogs are once again embracing humour.

Seanachai,

I'd have to say you raised the bar on being funny in the 'snow' thread. The song was good - really good. But this absolutely killed me:

I don't know, of course, how all the rest of Canada feels about you wrapping their flag around your genitalia while pounding the ground with a stick and hooting at your enemies.

ROTFL!

Too bad good things cant last forever. The 'snow' thread needed to be shut down - but I will miss it.

[CM:XX Game Extensions]

I could/would help with the programming. However, could this be done without BTS making a change to CMBB or CMAK? And since that seems unlikely, I think we will have to wait for CMX2.

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

Originally posted by Adam_L:

Re: White Flag -- you aren't thinking of the time he told them the war was all over are you? Sounds similar.

i dont know. I am pretty sure there were a couple 'rommel offering the white flag' incidents. Not entirely sure if this was one of them, but I am pretty srue they surrendered without much resistance. I also am pretty sure it happened before, but close in time to, the event that JasonC described. I am 99% sure they were Italians and they were marching. After that, the details get a little fuzzy. If nobody else knows for certain, I guess I will have to go find the book at the library.

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

I went back and tried to make sense of my grumblings, and I see that my argument has twisted, turned, and evolved in so many different directions it is hardly meaningful – even to me. Therefore I am going to try to hedge this down something more concise.

I know I have a think skull, but every once and a while a little light shines in. And what you (the people that are in general disagreement with me) are saying does make sense. But I also think that some of the things I have said are correct too, especially in regard to units becoming paralyzed to some degree (based on leadership/training/etc) when encountering situations they just were not expecting.

I also disagree with some things - this for one:

But it does not change the basic fact. It is not mere appearence behind somebody but the forseen tactical consequences that lead to important morale effects.

I really do hate to disagree, because I know that you are so much more knowledgeable about this, however ...

Let me start by saying that I wouldn’t call myself a ‘maneuver theorist’, but apparently I am a ‘battlefield shock theorist’. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the information I read, but it seems like often - not always – maybe not even the majority of times – but more than just rare circumstances –the mere appearance/position/breakthrough of an enemy will shock a unit (from squad size to division size) so bad, it will just disintegrate. And not because of a rational thought process based on a changing tactical situation. Based on an uncontrollable fear that takes over and continues unchecked.

I hate posting that without some references (other than the not-too-confident references listed before in this thread). But do you really think I am way off base? It seems like in almost every war account I read, this ‘battlefield shock’ will rear its ugly head somewhere.

[ September 19, 2003, 02:52 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Dodge ]

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

Originally posted by Adam_L:

Maybe Dodge is thinking of this one:

This takes place with Rommel winding around and showing up in the rear of some Rumanians defending a tree line on a hill, with Lieb's detachment and Hugel's Platoon attacking forward into it. The defense was well prepared from the front but not at all from the rear.

Actually, that isn’t what I was thinking about. Nor is JasonC's account - although I can see why he would think so since I wrote this earlier (which is more in line with what JasonC is referring to than the occurance I had in my head):

e.g. Rommel's great inf exploits in WWI - he captured a couple thousand troops with merely a company because he was in their rear and it shocked them so much they just surrendered

The ‘Rommel feat’ I was thinking of (and again, I must remind you I don’t have a book to check my facts – I hate that, but it is true) was when he surprised a group of Italian infantry in their rear. IIRC they were marching (somewhere - I think to teh front). Correct me if I am wrong, but the long and the short of it is that Rommel sent a person forward with a white flag and asked them to surrender, and they did. I don’t recall the size of the group, but I thought it was greater than a company. I also thought that Rommel’s forces didn’t even fire a shot – just caught them so off guard that the surrendered. Well that is the way that I remember reading it, but I could be mistaken. And btw, it wasn’t from the book Rommel wrote – it was a biography – I don’t remember the name of it.

The other ‘Rommel feat’ I was thinking of, which isn’t quite as powerful of an example, was about Rommel's first tour on the Western in WWI. I know he lead some men into the British (?) trench system and fought off some troops. Then a large force was heading his way, and he realized he couldn’t retreat because his men wouldn’t clear the wire before being spotted. So he decided to attack, and he routed this larger force. Again, IIRC, they didn’t give much fight because they were kind of shocked and routed quickly.

[ September 19, 2003, 03:10 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Dodge ]

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

Originally posted by Walker:

I agree with the many good points presented above, except for the original grumble that attacks from the rear do not cause enough despondency amongst the attacked. Personally, I feel extremely despondent even if it's just small force that unexpectedly appears behind my lines. It deprives me of the certainty that a specific part of the map is 'mine' with all the complication of no longer knowing for sure that certain areas and routes are out of enemy LOS, with the irritating need to reposition or guard some of my heavy weapons, tanks, spotters, unhiding them in the process. Plus the morale hit to the 'higher command levels' tar already mentioned, i.e. to me the player, for letting it happen in the first place.

See I have a problem with this. You say that you – the human player – get disturbed and take a ‘moral hit’ when you see enemy units in an area that you thought should have been yours. I agree with that part. But, unless I am misunderstanding, you don’t think that your units should be affected when enemy units starting shooting at them from what should be a ‘friendly area’. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Certainly if you find that disturbing to some degree, the actual units fighting should too. In CM, those units will react just as if they were being attacked from the front. If the enemy’s initial fire doesn’t suppress them, they will simply turn towards the enemy and start shooting back. That is what I have a problem with.

I think Jason is right about well-trained and disciplined troops not bothering too much about being surrounded, unless the condition carries on longer than a CM game allows, say for 24 hours or more. Panicking at an early stage of the fight was usually something that poorly trained and inexperienced conscripts or overaged reservists did,

I don’t think that it is true that only poor quality troops get panicked when they find an enemy where they don’t think he should be. From what I have read, everybody takes a ‘morale hit’ at times like this. However, veteran troops can recover without breaking, whereas poorly trained or poorly lead units will often never recover. For example, in Last Parallel: A Marine's War Journal (Martin Russ), Russ – a US Marine who was a veteran of the war at this time – explains how he was on a patrol into NML and got ambushed. The ambush only killed one or two people with the initial bursts, but the greatest effect of the ambush wasnt the initial casualties, but the initial panic that hit the group. Russ describes the sheer terror that left him, and I assume every other marine in the patrol, incapacitated for some time (I cant remember exactly how long - another library book). Eventually - he attributed it to his rigorous training – he was able to function and began to return fire. Now this was an attack from the front, not the rear, but the group of high quality troops took a substancial moral hit, but was able to recover quickly.

So to summarize my point:

1) Troops that encounter the enemy in an unexpected location will take some sort of ‘moral hit’

2) Troop experience will not determine ‘if’ a unit takes a moral hit, but to what degree and how quickly it will recover

3) In real life, it is not based so much on position of the enemy, but on finding the enemy where you don’t expect him – in CM terms that translates to the rear of the map

4) CM does not model this at all, even though it does model cross-fire effects and fanaticism effects (surely fanaticism is more rare in combat that becoming panicked by an unexpected enemy - even of much smaller force size).

[ September 18, 2003, 01:56 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Dodge ]

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

When Rommel got an infantry company behind some Italians in WW I, they did not panic and surrender because they were emotionally ill disposed to grey-clad people behind them. It was mountain terrain, and WW I, against Germans.

That means an era of tactical defense dominance, where moving in the open under enemy observation was nearly suicidal. In mountains means once someone is on a height behind you he sees all the previously covered routes to and from your positions. Against an enemy with a monstrous heavy arty arm.

You are therefore pinned in place (until nightfall, perhaps). The artillery fire will come long before then, and against WW I Germans that probably means 210s (if you are lucky only 150s). It will take a while to arrange, but if you aren't able to move and don't have friends behind ready to come free you, they have that time. The surrounded Eye-Ties simply could see all of this.

They knew what would happen if they tried to get back out in daylight - they had seen friendly units MGed in the open. They knew what would happen if they remained located and pinned for the hours necessary to arrange a 210 barrage - they had seen the fragments left in caved in trenches where they replaced a unit destroyed by artillery fire.

What you describe here is not a very good representation of what I have read concerning Rommel's WWI exploits in both Italy, the Balkans, & the west front (wwi west front). Although I do admit that it has been almost 2 years since I read the account, so maybe the problem is my memory - and since it was a library book I dont have it available at the moment. IIRC, Rommel's accomplishments were not from surrounding troops and waiting for them to realize they were in a hopeless position. Far from it. Rommel's accomplishment came by showing up were the enemy did not expect him to be - sometimes behind them, sometimes on their flank, but often right in front of them. And the enemies did not always just throw down their arms - like they did in Italy. Often they just paniced and ran away. However, you never see this in CM.

That being said, let me clarify again that I am not just talking about troops surrendering. I am talking about troops taking significant moral hits when an enemy force is spotted in an unexpected location - for CM concerns this is in their rear.

Nor am I talking about shooting down already paniced troops. I was wondering if CM models the panic I have read about often in every war, when units suddenly appear where none was expected to be. Apparently it does not.

As for panicking a *StuG* by "surrounding" it with a platoon of airborne, um, whew. Where do I start? AFVs are not scared of infantry. Infantry are scared of AFVs.

Actually, I do think in real life a Stug crew would panic if they were the rear units in their force (as this stug was), and suddenly a platoon of inf with bazooka support appeared in its rear. I dont think it would calmly turn around and start pulverizing the inf. A real life example - I just finished a book about on the Veitnam Eastern offensive of 1972. A entire NVA armored force was halted when the lead tank was shot at by a pair of south vietnamese marines with a NAAW (sp?) when trying to cross a bridge. those NAAWs were pratically useless against those tanks, but since the NVA were not expecting resistance, the tanks paniced and retreated - long enough for reinforcements to arive and blow the bridge. (btw, I do own that book, and would be happy to provide more details, but dont have time right now).

Again, it doesnt have to do with being surrounded, it has to do with being in an unexpected location - which IMO would be the rear of a CM map. I have read of numerous accts of similar situations - yet these events would never happen in CM.

[Sneak Attacks - are they worth it?]

Originally posted by Adam_L:

Istari,

Rommel surprised the hell out of them, and they were at gunpoint. Of course they surrendered.

Rommel did surprise them, but they weren't always just at gun point. The way I interpreted the situation was that the units surrendered rather quickly and without much fight because they found enemy units where they should not have been. That was the issue more than being at gun point.

But there are lots of accounts as well of well dug in troops being attack from two sides at once, or even from all around, and beating off attacks. Troops simply don't give up unless there is a real and tangible threat to their lives in the current situation. Soviet doctrine often recommends platoon strongpoints be made 360 degrees so that when supporting positions on the flanks collapse, the men can easily occupy a perimeter and hold out.

I never said that the troops should just surrender. My theory is that troops who get envoloped should take a severe moral hit (with differences for experience/type of troops, eg paratroops/etc), more so than they recieve now for getting cross-fire from two different positions.

Istari's comment here sums up my point well:

On a Combat Mission battlefield, Rommel would have been annihilated several times over, because those troops would have turned and shot his heavily outnumbered mountain infantry to pieces.

[CM:XX Game Extensions]

Originally posted by Tim O'Shenko:

I can understand Battlefront's reluctance to open up the program itself. Look and Quake et al. and the extent thay have to go to to prevent cheating with PunkBuster. It sucks.

That being said, I can see a few places where the ability to read and write OOBs in simple text format would be super useful. Tab delimited text would be sufficent.

Most useful for campaigns and meta-campaigns:

-Read OOBs into the Scenario Editor.

-Write out YOUR OWN OOBs during your turn and at end game.

Both of these would be an immense boon for projects like CMMC, or for players trying to track what happened in a game.

Maps could be written and read using a text or binary format.

-In the map editor, read in Elevation, setup zones, Terrain data from an open map format.

Write out would be nice too, but not as vital.

This could be minimally supported, just a simple documentation of the format. No fancy API.

I think an import/export utility, like you mention here, would be an incredible addition. to the game. It would limit the changes to thing external to the basic CM engine, and provide a mechanism for incorporating the CM tactical battles into larger campaigns.

In fact, it would be great if somebody could/would create an operational game - call it CM:OP - that BFC could publish that would interface with CMX2. CM:OP runs at the operational level, and when battles need to be fought data is sent to CMX2 to create the tactical battles. If you could make CM:OP a multiplayer WE-GO game - ohh yeah - that would be the true CM Meta Campaign.

[Moving in snow - ridiculous]

doesn't sound like advancing in snow would make a squad go from rested to tired in 10 meters, as the claim has been.

The claim about 10m was for deep snow. JasonC's test was in regular snow.

[CMAK is to be released SOON ENOUGH]

Why not just show it here:

[CMAK is to be released SOON ENOUGH]

By the way, you should see the new splash art for the CMBB:Special Edition, very cool.

For anybody that hasn't seen it, here is a link to the new CMBB SE cover art

[CMAK Cover Art - will the Germans get to win this time?]

As to being serious ... do YOU think it would be a good idea to put a picture of a NAVAL combat on a LAND wargame?

naval combat? :confused: What does that have to do with anything, other than your silly comment that I discarded. I was NOT wondering if you were being serious about the naval picture (You should have known that since I left it out of the quote). I was wondering if you were being serious about calling Mr Spkr a doofus because he wanted a picture from italy or crete. And I am still wondering.

And, btw, actually I do think that would be a good idea, especially since some people, perhaps you including, keep forgetting that CMAK involves much more than just Africa.

Isn't the State slogan: 'Holding up the fun-house mirror to Texas'?

I am afraid it is much worse than that. It is 'Oklahoma is OK'. That is so embarrasing.