Blah Blah Blah

As a newby to the CM franchise, starting with my soon to arrive CMAK, I would like some guidance in playing in a more realistic manner, especially regarding multiplayer. What rules are there to play by, regarding purchases for battles and what level of control targeting etc. After playing the demo I was wondering if there should possibly be no/limited manual targeting of tanks especially when buttoned up. Any input greatly appreciated.

I see your point; however by association I believe it does matter how many shots are hitting the turret at any given range. Why? Because if we are hiting the turret 50% more often than we should at a given range then the we have 2 issues, should the 1 first issue be proven. So whilst these first tests are happening, we could be ensuring that another important facet is not skewed. Then again, I could be missing the point until someone sticks me in the eye with it!

I see your point; however by association I believe it does matter how many shots are hitting the turret at any given range. Why? Because if we are hiting the turret 50% more often than we should at a given range then the we have 2 issues, should the 1 first issue be proven. So whilst these first tests are happening, we could be ensuring that another important facet is not skewed. Then again, I could be missing the point until someone sticks me in the eye with it!

What percentage did the 43 hits make of the total shots fired? Was the percentage of hits on the turret realistic. I am some what new land warfare (being a U-boat follower) but I would have presumed that a large percenatge of hits would have landed on the chasis.

What percentage did the 43 hits make of the total shots fired? Was the percentage of hits on the turret realistic. I am some what new land warfare (being a U-boat follower) but I would have presumed that a large percenatge of hits would have landed on the chasis.

Wisbech_lad, You might be right, as the M10 rear end is a little full for my liking I did not give the thought the due it derserved. But each to thier own I would have thought that after I had targeted the tank for them that they might have moved the extra metre or so to make a proper attack. But in hindsite this must not be the case. What would happen if I used the contact command, so that they only went as far as required and I did not move them further than needed. Or would the contact be already inacted by the proximity of the tank? Thanks for the input.

Oh fellow tree huggers and lovers of all things sweet and innocent, what am I to do about my Camp Tank Hunter Teams? Picture this, the battle is in the high 30's, I have taken out everything other than one American M10 ?? tank hunter on the German right hand flank, which came down the right hand side from the wheat field and stopped 1/2 way down to the German line. Where my veteran Tank Hunter Team fully kitted out with 2 grenade bundles etc was arriving. The Tank Hunter Team sneaks up on rear of the tank that is buttoned up and facing the other way with no infantry around. So there they are, 30+ metres away, and targeting the tank. We zoom in to enjoy this tactical and moral victory over this tank, and... nothing. So for the next minute I target the tank for my little guys, and... they chuck a two small grenades!! The next minute one small grenade. So the yank tank moves 30 metres up the road to get a shot at my Tiger, (which in the end did not see it till it started to nail it, which ended up being too late) the Tank Hunter Team just watched. Well that did it, I sent them on a one way mission, I made them run into the open to within 10 metres of the tank, and guess what, they attacked even though they were now under fire. Any suggestions on how to my Camp Tank Hunter Teams to attack in this situation?

Tonight I got to eat my words regarding the AI's use of the 81mm artillery. Had the usual suspects down the German left hand side, as well as having the 20mm at the end of the road with the 2 MG34 HMG's and on both sides. They were having a ball carving the enemy up paper thin when with a great deal of pricision the American artillery come raining down. Quite a disruption to the fun. However, not much was done in the way of damage. Which I will note was the same feeling I got when I used it.

After playing the yanks it downed on me that the AI in the Line of Defence are not using the artillery except when they could see the men in the wheat field. I do not remember the American AI using it Has anyone else seen this?

I hope that people will post information regarding the different behaviour of the AI from the perspective of both sides in the same situation. Had my first run as the Americans tonight, boy it is hard on the neck wearing that 10 gallon hat My example relates to the behaviour of the Sherman AI. As the foe... The tanks used a lot of machine gun fire on buildings but not canon except in one battle that I can remember. They used canon on the infantry in fox holes. But did not seem to target the buildings with canon fire. Even when they knew an AT team was in the building 5 tanks would target it but only with machine gun. As my friend ... The tanks made match wood out of any building suspected of harbouring a German All this without manual targeting. In 5 or so minutes after infantry contact they had made rubble out of 3 (maybe 4) buildings. BOOM The foe experience could be as a result from the fact that I rarely use buildings as they seem to be a death trap for the occupants when attacked by infantry.

Bit of a sticky point old chap! If I must move my men where they will get spotted, what is the lapse time to the next move. That is, how long before they will not be the focal point from the last sighting? I would be interested if you could send me a setup so that I may, with all sincerity, learn from one of the masters blah@mistari.com.au SPOILER?? I have played 5+ battles as the Germans in the Line of Defence and had won all till the last, where I got my ass kicked by turn 30. The P51 took out my STuh hidding on the left hand side in the first few moves. The Tanks all filed down the left hand side and down through the trees. A Sherman took out the stub nose gun, and all my other AT assets were along the front and on the other side. It was a slaughter

I am playing the demo with the AI on 2+ experience points. The battle is the ‘Line of Defence’. It may be my interpretation on what is occurring is not correct, but you and I know that that could not be the case! I would also like to state up front that even from the demo I can see some great improvements over the previous games (demo experience only, have discussed the poor demo being the reason for not buying CMBB, I have ordered CMAK). There are many things that I like. First point – The AI’s ability to spot the enemy I would like some feed back on the AI’s ability to spot an enemy. It is my opinion, especially during battle, that their ability is too good. Instance One - In the in the thick of battle (i.e. turn 25+), at several hundred metres (generally 350+), the AI almost instantly sees my men as they run from one building to the next. Worse yet, they quit often get a few shots off at them. In this case it is predominantly the armoured vehicles, however, I have seen some simular instances in the left hand side of the battle field (from the German side) at ranges of 200+ metres by infantry. Instance Two – With my Panzerschreck initially hidden in a building, I target the enemy tank 30+ metres away. One rocket and the job is done. BUT instantly the entire tank force knows that they are there and has started shooting the building within seconds. In the case just mentioned, most if not all tanks were buttoned up, but regardless, it takes less than 5 seconds from firing to the destruction of the enemy tank, and unless you were looking directly at the area you would miss it. This type of situation has occurred often, not just once. Instance Three – My AT gun starts to nail a Sherman tank. The Sherman targeted though buttoned up in the first instance, quickly starts returning fire. I would have thought that they would unlikely know where they are getting targeted from and would have scooted to safety first. There does not seem to be a concealment bonus for being in the woods. Second Point - The AI’s ability to shoot a newly acquired target Instance One - It seems unrealistic how quickly the AI can change from one target onto the next and back again. Again more evident (obvious?) in the armoured vehicles, but they seem to be able to very quickly shoot at the newly acquired Target B who is over 60 degrees away from the original target, and then either back to the original or onto a new target. There does not appear to be a suitable pause to bring the weapon to bear, to then target before shooting. Thanks in advance for your input.

Oh well, I guess we will put it down to beginers luck, and I was playing on +2 for the enemy. Still managed to win by the skin of my teeth BTW, how come you did not give the Germans a few extra bullets as they are defending!!

I was surprised when the P51 took out my tank's tracks with machine gun fire! Surely not? Definately machine guns, as 1. he had rocketed me with no issues to my tank, straffed the tank at least one before. I have only seen him attack his own guys once, when they were bunched as was mention by someone else.

Seeing as the enemy Borg is really up there with 3+ targeting my AT gun in less than 15 seconds, I have to say B#@@$^!T So I figure, lets use the pause command for say 50 seconds. So I target the guy I want to attack, hit the pause to 50 seconds, and press 'go'. And off he goes, within the 1st 5 seconds 'bang'. I hope that next time there will be better control over firing, with say, a shoot N hide, a shoot to stay concealed etc

Seriously, my tank disappeared. Any one else seen this or have any feedback?

Thank you for your replies. I set the AT gun with only 1 LOS of approx 30-50 across the crest at a range of 450 to 480 metres. I will try various things suggested to ensure that it is as I think it is.

I am getting very disheartened at the AI's ability to nail my AT gun. Basically the AI instantly knows where my gun is, not even a discernable pause. A well hidden AT gun in amongst the trees should be very hard to see. As it is now, if you do not get the kill in 3 shots you can kiss you AT gun goodbye. This sucks..... Especially as I have already ordered the game

Dolly was last seen in the 'Line of Defence' battle near the bottom righ hand wheat field. Dolly looks like any other STuH42, so please make sure you check her dog tags first. I only looked away for what seemed to be seconds, but in reality might have been minutes, when I looked back there was no trace of Dolly. I looked everywhere, I even used the + & - to try and find her, but alas she was not to be found. Dolly was making her way along the bank and up towards the wheat field when she was lost, feared drowned?

Yes there is, a pattern of not hiding ones head in the sand saying there is nothing wrong with my Video card. nVidia have many issues with many games. However, it has been my understanding that nVidia die hards have a head in the sand approach to thier cards and quick to lay the boot into any other, especially now that ATI kicks nVidia ass in performance and image quality. I do not profess that ATI do not have issues, but it is about time you stopped flogging a dead horse and relise that nVidia is only a manufacturer of GPU's and as the recent driver issues (both video and motherboard), image quality issues and down right cheating indicates nVidia is far from reproach. These are not fighting words, just my point of view on the ATI/nVidia 'wars'.

redwolf, How do you study the exposure percentages for buildings? Or any thing else for that matter? I take it that the pine, tree and bush areas are only indicated by the releveant item, and that I do not have to park my team under that tree, but simply within the shaded area? Sirocco, The CMBB demo contained the most narrow focused and fustrating battles. They allowed for no scope and were excercises in fustration. They also were heavily weighted against one side. Thanks for the input.

So how is fire power modeled in the game? I presumed fire power related to the hitting ability of that weapon at that range. With that as my under standing, inside a building, at 10 metres, a bullet is a bullet. The key at that range is RPM, as well as being able to hit the other guy of course But as the Americans have ran 50-100 meters, missing maybe 1 or 2 men coming through a doorway or window against an enemy that should be well setup and which is able to bring more weapons to bear than the attacker, I should have a 3 to 1 advantage. The exact situation which has as far as I can recolect has been some what consistant, is that a squad of Americans (not a full squad) on +3 can generally decimate my 2 squads of German troops within a building. Please note that I am playing the demo for CMBO, and the patched game and the next CMBB may not suffer this issue. I will set it up so that they can have a free run to the house's and see what happens. On the house problem again, the machine gun in the top florr suffers so many casualties compared to being in a fox hole.

Thanks for your replies. I would not have thought that the American’s or the German’s would have the ‘fanaticism’ that you speak about. However, now matter how ‘fanatic’ you are it does not help you dodge bullets Slappy, yes I think I have the units on +1. With regard to the line of site tool, besides being overly time consuming & clumsy (and not any more realistic than the easier to use SSI games light and dark tool) it does not work from anywhere other than the unit. So I am unable to see before the unit arrives if he will be visible, and by the time that the turn ends the hole in the side of my tank gives me a strong hint that he may have been seen! However there does not seem to be anywhere where I can hide behind/in the trees and see through a ‘hole’ and attack the enemy. A small hole at my end would be from 500 metres almost impossible to see. Anyone got any feed back regarding the ease in which the pillbox's are knocked over, the ease in which my men get killed in a building when the enemy is 100m away in the trees or the reversed results of my men within a building comming out 2nd best to the enemy comming in and with normally 1/2 the men that I have. Most of the above was evident before I up'd the enemy to +3 experience. Again thanks for the feedback. Look forward to your responses. Cheers, Blah Blah Blah

As I eagerly await CMAK, I have some concerns that I hope can be answered, and better yet, put to rest! Let me start with my CM history. After finding out about CMBB, no idea where, I decided to download the demo, this was about 6-9 months ago. Played it a fair bit whilst learning, and decided not to get CMBB. However, by this time I was aware of CMAK and decided to hang around. It was recently that someone mention about how chalk and cheese the CMBO & CMBB demo’s were, and that the CMBB demo was BaD! With nothing to loose, I go and download the CMBO demo, and it’s WOW! Whilst I can see how much better CMBB is to CMBO, the demo’s are worlds apart. Had the CMBB demo been simular to CMBO I would have purchased CMBB. After playing the CMBO demo with the enemy on +3 experience I have some questions. Here are a few things to get the ball rolling. It is my take that when I put the enemy on +3 experience two things occur. They do get way better, and my guys get worse. I say this in particular to my Pill Box gun experiences. The enemy could give William Tell a run for his money using their Armour piercing shell to shred the apple on the young lads head at 500+ metres barely putting a hair out of place. They often get a kill the pillbox in the 1st minute of engagement. Yet when it is the other way around, well goodbye Mr Tank. As a side note to the above, I would have expected a concrete pillbox to be an extremely hard kill for a tank. It also seems very hard to get into a situation where my tank can have a shot through scrub or slightly behind an abject etc where the pillbox cannot knock me out. There also seems to be a situation where I from my perspective view I see that the turret is above the next rise in front, yet unless my entire tank is above that level it cannot target the enemy. I also noticed that there often seemed to be the situation where an enemy platoon would get down to 2-3 men and suddenly become almost super human, and impossible to kill. My men when waiting in a building do seem to cop the rough end of the stick when the enemy come in. I am lucky if two German squads can survive 1 American squad. I would have though that the enemy as they arrived and entered would be well and truly rumbled. But my experience with the demo has been such that I no longer put men in the buildings. Which leads to the other experience with buildings, they make it easier for my men to get shot. Again I have taken to moving my men into the open rather than get slaughtered when within a building. It may be the same scenario as above with regard to the +3 experience in that they get way better, and my guys get worse, but I was impressed at how the AI handles being the German’s in the Valley exchange. Short bursts keeping themselves hidden and not giving away their position, oh if only the AI had the same tact when it controls my men. Or is it more the result of the AI magically knowing where my men are? Cheers, Blah Blah Blah

Delete the file of a simular name to this "Combat Mission BB Demo Prefs" which is obviously the file for the demo. I presume your file will just not have the word demo.