Akula2

Cheers aco4bn187inf!

In BB, that is true. AK is a different story. Area fire just in front of the pillbox with HE, 75mm-ish in size or bigger, and the splash from the HE will cause a random casualty. Once you have caused 3 casualties, the crew bails. It takes a healthy amount of HE and time to pull it off, but it works very well. </font>

I suck too! I'm in agreement about smoke. It isn't worth it's weight in HE. This used to hold true in the ancient ASL as well. Was this unit in a trench just short of the crest of the hill? Reverse slope trenches remain evil indeed. Did you time your smoke correctly? This is often the most difficult aspect of Combined Arms Warfare ... timing. Were they naked at that 30m? If so, the massacre was justified. In my limited experience, the "Advance" command was correct, though the state of your unit's fatigue must be considered. A "Tired" or "Tiring" unit isn't quite ready to make an assault over open ground. I reckon you were either unlucky, or your firebase was too far off to be effective enough. Unlucky just happens. Ideal positions for support weapons just happens too. Smoke oftentimes leaves holes when one needs cover most. It also never lasts as long as we need it too. Timing is key. The nature of the beast I guess. I know I can't coordinate these things 100% of the time or make the right guesses 100% of the time vs my opponents. I'm being masssacred in a pbem right now because I made erroneous assumtions from the breifing. -Leaky

Thank you all very much. I'll pick off that list and get it off today. Awsome community.

Thanks GreenAsJade! Thanks all! I'm gonna go take a look at it now and give these forums a break. I'm bored! EDIT- I can't seem to find "An Island to Close" at either the Depot or TPG. Is there a prefix or something? I used the search function and looked under CMAK letters A and I. [ October 17, 2004, 04:51 AM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

Not that new. Certainly I haven't played all the CD scenarios but my opponent and I both prefer double blind so in order to avoid a slew of "have you played blah?" emails I'm avoiding them. Thanks though. Hans writes: Your absolutely right. Size doesn't matter here right? Maybe something "not huge". The last one we played was Ponyri by jwx. It was of epic proportions (dang monster!) Playbalance doesnt matter (much) though all armor isnt very attractive; at least to me. Location doesnt matter either. It's high time I got more desert experience though. I'm not fond of the slugfests in the desert. A good map is essential to avoid that I guess. Type doesnt matter though I think we both prefer att/def over ME. At least I do, and he's insisting I pick the scenario this time.

Ack!! :mad: :confused:

oops. Double post.

I don't know if this'll help or not but I almost always set a 30 to 40m covered arc on all my HQs. I don't consider them combat units as much as force multipliers despite their apparent ferocity once engaged. The covered arc keeps them from firing and getting IDed. Can't say if your getting too close or not but any time I'm worried about getting "caught", I'll "sneak and hide" the last leg from where I KNOW I'm hidden to where I KNOW (or hope) I can see what I'm interested in. It's not like he can spot that turn anyhow so I just unhide him next turn and spot then. When he's done spotting he goes back to his infantry responsibilities. (exc. German 4th plt. HQ) This seems to work for me. Admittedly, more often than not, I'll have other units laying fire down on whatever it is I'll be shooting at by the time the mortar and spotter are in place. Its usually just squad firepower but maybe it helps keep some heads down. Conversely, I'm in the habit of targetting anything that gets IDed as "crew?" with increased prejudice for fear that it's evil in one form or another. Sometimes it's a HQ spotting for a mortar. Sometimes it's a mortar or machine gun. Sometimes its a FO. Either way, I want it dead.

Hi. I did a search but I guess I didnt choose the best keywords. Is there anyone that would be kind enough to suggest a couple 'o few scenarios for CMAK for pbem?

I don't know much, but it's my experience that any AFV with an open top has a justifiable fear of those high trajectory bomby things. Sometimes when an enemy AFV (M-10 for example) is being a nuiscience from a hull down position I'll target him with a mortar. Generally, he freaks out and breaks cover, oftentimes driving over the crest into the waiting arms of something more lethal. I've never made an AFV kill with a mortar, but I bet it's not impossible. I just don't shoot at them frequently enough to have accomplished it. I've never fired mortars at either bunkers or pillboxes either. It just didnt seem like the right tool for the job considering the combination of high trajectory and firing slits. In my limited experience, mortars are best used against high value targets in trenches. Trenches can be a real pain. Mortars ease that a little. They're also quiet useful against anything lurking around in trees of course. Airbursts, ya know. ... but I'm sure your aware of that already.

cool. mine usually just surrender, lolz. just as a thought, it seems to me that a mortar crew is close in security. Stealth and restraint would seem to be the order of the day for such a team. Perhaps more than a few of them are busy with ammo also. I won't even adress vehicle crews. Imo they should be taken out of the player's control upon bailing and make for the rear. Machine guns? Perhaps the rifle firepower is built in to the inherent firepower? ... just some thoughts.

I lose often and dramatically junkdrive. Regardless, if my mortars are under small arms fire, I still contend that I must have bigger problems. Thats also the fun of the game. One thing I would like to see in the spirit of the topic is the remanning of at least HMGs. more often than not the crews are killed or wounded and it would seem to me they left a perfectly good machine gun behind complete with ammo. If a squad could rearm this position, it would make perfect sense to me. Certainly it's key. I'm an old moldly ASL guy. I'm accustomed to chasing down "working order" support weapons. =)

lol. thats great! tank bails and wins the game! i love it! hehe, if they get to my mortars ... i got bigger problems than them boys with their hands in the air. Good for them. They live!

I am so much in disagreement that my wish for the next series of squad level gaming is only to have the movement commands expanded. I'd like to see the "Advance to contact" command for when I am certain to meet the enemy. Even "Fast to Contact and Hide" has it's applications in the desert. Free us. (edit) AFV commands are far more trickier. "Hunt to contact and Reverse to Hull Down" for an example of a defensive measure. Am I being unreasonable? (edit2) the more i consider the challenges, the more I realize how amazing CM isl This ... THING ... is certainly a labor of love for someone. One man recognizes that, and thank you BF. [ October 12, 2004, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

I hope they never reconsider the command delay for increasingly complicated movement commands. [CMBO? c'mon. It's evolved mon!] Use shorter movements. Less waypoints! I agree, CMBO interface is a 'lil off imo ... but only compared to BB/AK. Please try zooming closer to the ground to bypass obstacles. The graphics get redundant, though the maps and tactics never will. kudos on saving your tank. This is the fun of the game imo, but make no mistake, you were lucky. This all could have happened 30 seconds off from what it did and the outcome would have been dramatically different. You certainly would know better. After all you played the turn, but if you happened to save it ... delay all your troops 20 secs and replay the turn. See what happens then.

The tank was conceptionalized in WWI to overcome another contemporary innovation's dominance; the machine gun. The TD and dual purpose weapons aside. It's role remains basically the same. It is a weapon of exploitation. Do not get use to taking hits and shrugging them off. The infantry (we) will kill you in the end. All arms support the infantry. Gawd I love CM. This may sound strange, but a King Tiger is a very fragile unit. Yes. Tag it and it never comes back. Knocked out? Abandoned? Gun Hit? ... they are all the same. They are mission kills. EDIT- The hunt command can also be expanded from complete supremecy to local tactical. Hunt command works best here. Think in close. I'm at a loss to describe it but lemme tell you what's going on in a current pbem. He overwhelmed me. Now He's in my perimeter amongst the buildings. I turn my turret to his last or suspected future location and move .... my turret is facing directly at him. His (if any) is facing the infantry squad he's currently persecuing. I have a side facing and he'll die. He has a side facing as well but can't get his turret around in time. He dies. I AM HUNTING MY FOE [ August 30, 2004, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

Where the heck is the delete button?!! Wrong thread ... sorry folks.

[ August 29, 2004, 09:39 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

*whew! I thought I was the only one on earth that terrain considerations came into mind while driving. I don't need to add that sh.t to my mental health folder, that's for sure. This discussion is silly. The factors involved make it so.

Wow. I'm at a loss to define "Covered Arc", lol. First off its an order that can be given to almost any unit. It orders a unit to limit or encourage its fire within the defined area. It is in fact an arc. (I've at times wished it wasn't and that it could be a kill box or such.) There are two types. The blue and the gold. Blue orders the unit to only engage vehicles. The gold encourages the unit to shoot at anything. I've found this order to be essential to all types of play. For instance, if I want an AT gun to hold its fire until I dang well tell it to fire. If I dont it's likely to fire at the first jeep or squad it can see. The uses are innumerable. Some units simply shouldnt fire until the enemy is within a certain range. Smg squads for instance have a firepower rating that drops off drastically after a point. Anyhow, on to why I really posted again. I overshot your question as well. I realized it after I edited my last post. You clearly indicated that you were interested in a known threat. (Sometimes I don't read my briefings thouroughly either ) My experience with a known AT gun is that your dilema has less to do with terrain than tactics. This is a weapon that is designed from the start to punch holes in tanks. The prefered method for me is to kill the dang thing. Sometimes thats easier said than done though and sometimes despite its evil purpose it is my own tank that is the best weapon to kill it. In that case, and others as well, I may have to move my poor tank. If so, it must be pinned under a hail of fire. I find that dissimilar types of fire work the best. Lay a ton of squad firepower on it (hopefully within their optimum covered arc ranges). Use mortars!! They HATE mortars and artillery! Sometimes, that tank can even find a nice lil spot to use the Area Fire targetting to lay some High Explosives of its own within inches it the guns position. (my favorite ) If you can't kill it and you can't supress it and you have to move then your probably going to lose a tank. Thats my experience, as limited as it may be. Beware guns in trenches. Edit- Btw. You mentioned that sometimes your uncertain or nervous when you move your tank. So am I. I hope I'm always a lil nervous too. That thrill is part of what keeps me coming back. Playing others is often very much like a Friday night poker game repleat with luck, bluffs and betting strategys. [ August 28, 2004, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

I am also a LOS challenged player. It gets better. I got blown to smitereens from every one of your examples repeatedly until I had almost a gut instinct. (I still get bit semi often) I don't use all the charts and graphs and stuff. Not yet anyhow. I'm still a newblet. Speaking strictly for tanks I've found that being well behind hills is always a safe bet. Buildings and woods are less reliable. All foliage can be seen into and through to different distances. I think it's something like 26m into woods in the middle of summer. To the credit of the game and the frustration to me, CM seems to adjust these values by season. In the dead of winter I've found that one can see through up to 3 or 4 tiles of woods. Of course other conditions such as night or fog apply also. There is no LOS tool that I know of, and I'm sort of glad for that. I like things the way they are in that respect. It's the very least I can do to send a half squad ahead of my valuable armor to see if it has a LOS to that patch of suspicious trees. Thats what I do now almost without exception. When I do move I almost always dash my vehicles with the fast command to someplace that my gut tells me is safe like behind a big hill that has already been inspected by infantry. Ideally that infantry will still be there in force. This often leaves the tank with a less than desireable LOS himself. My next waypoint is usually "Move to Hulldown" or "Move to Contact" depending on the situation. The other thing I do is use covered arcs to keep my turret in a position facing a suspected threat. If I do get tagged (and I do) I'll probably take a hit in the front. This has saved me many times. Like I said, I'm LOS challenged. It's very difficult for me. It used to be worse. Often I miss wonderful little blind spots that will get me that much closer to where I'm going unless I zoom around at ground level and have a good look. (Tcip opponents rarely enjoy waiting for someone like me to do that.) In a pbem that is still going on I did just that. I missed a nice (if small) ridgeline for many turns. It doesnt take much of a hill to hide a tank depending on the elevation of the threat. To help me I've recently started using the terrain grid mods. I didnt want to for a long time. The fact was that I needed to due to my affliction. It has helped in most situations. It gives a better initial overall impression of the terrain. I still need to be careful in certain terrain types that I don't have covered though, such as wheatfields. I'm sure some much better players will be along soon enough to tell us both much more. (one already did before I finished this post ) [ August 27, 2004, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

There is so many tactical options I would wish to appyl to various "levels" of "experience". The first of wich is "reverse to hull down" ... "to anything" ... ... ... reverse, advance, assault, ... name it ... would be agreeable indeed. more to come

Actually, the scenario is kinda interesting in it's own way. From the git-go partisans started right on top of a few of my squads in town. I mean RIGHT on top. Bayonet range. They were promptly captured. One was killed I believe. But thats not the rub. I keep getting sound contacts right next to my units, sometimes as close as 15m. To keep somewhat on topic, a truck spotted something. A KV tank. *groan (its late '41 I believe) As expected, any PzII with a LOS popped smoke and started doing reverse 180's. Had I parked a slew of trucks in the church compound with my PzII stunt drivers it would have been pandamonium. (sp) /me can justify just about anything.

Hell, I'm using a bunch of trucks for recon right now in a pbem where I'm defending a small town full of flags against partisans. I have them peeking into holes in the treeline outside town and parked on the side of the many wooded roads that are all possible axis' of attacks. These roads are probably the only viable approach for armor. I wont keep them parked there if any of them ever spot anything. I'll run em into town where they can annoy me for the rest of the game. Under the circumstances, I don't think this is too gamey. Some may disagree. I'm using trucks and Kubelwagons this way for a number of reasons. In this case they are every bit as good at ferreting out the axis of attack as other units. Secondly, the designer gave me a buttload of them for no apparent reason at all and my own troops (the designer) mined all escape routes off the map. Otherwise, I may have driven them off board. If partisans are going to blow up my motor pool why not tool around looking for them instead of bunching up someplace that they may or may not impede the mobility of a reaction force? Granted, I have halftracks as well. I also have PzIIs and of course infantry. The only way I justify this is that its partisans but in reality I may have done the same thing if it wasnt. An asset is an asset. My main concern right now is to determine the axis of attack (if any) and realign my defenders correspondingly. I guess I only posted because reading this made me feel a little guilty. A part of me is tempted to pull them in to be a nest of defenseless eggs for the partisan viper ... nah. In truth though, I was given so many of them and they are such a potential hinderance to the movement of my other vehicles that I was gonna do something silly with them anyhow. Its impossible in this case to not park them someplace ridiculously vulnerable, except the church wall enclosure right by a flag wich a couple of IIs are using to remain hull down. Perhaps I could have dispersed them and forgotten about them for all time but I ask this. Is that all that less gamey than them being on picket duty? [ July 10, 2004, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]