undead reindeer cavalry

StuH platoon costs more than a Wespe platoon, while it carries only ~40 HE shells, where as Wespe platoon over 100. Wespe platoon delivers more than three times more of blast / point. having 4 instead of 3 vehicles is also a nice addition. i don't need the armor of the StuH, because i have other arms for AT work and by definition the Wespes won't be seen by the enemy overwatch. regarding your counters, only CAS is really applicable, because your vehicles won't get to shoot at the Wespes. either i simply don't allow them to, by not giving them the duel, or they will be taken by my AT assets when they move forward. i, as the defender, choose when my Wespes engage targets. naturally a lot depends on the map. if it's a tiny flat open map i won't buy a green Wespe platoon. one counter to Wespes would be to use smoke or harrassing indirect fires, together with quick rushes forward, but that is specifically what a slow methodological approach is not about.

122mm APBC is modelled absurdly low. it should penetrate Panther frontally from ~3km. as is, TacAI makes IS-2s reverse when they sight Panthers. i don't think HE should KO tanks.

units perform well relative to their point values only against specific types of targets under specific conditions. for example i would never buy a green Wespe platoon if i would face an armor heavy force. or if the situation is still the original one, but i have to deliver the fires quicker and against more bunched up enemy, i would buy Hummels or Grilles instead. on the other hand if i had much time to spend in firing at the enemy infantry, plus perhaps the opponent would have practically unarmored vehicles, i might buy a green Somua platoon instead. and so forth.

for attritionist attack the routes are picked before the battle begins, it is not a recon-pulled maneuver force. i deny the attacker those specific routes i as a defender choose. i do not care about the other routes, because they are useless what comes to destroying my force. i trade ground for destruction of enemy forces. i force the attacker to change his plans by denying routes, and at that very point the attack becomes a mess. historically it became a gigantic mess where regiment sized forces suffered operational fires, in CM it becomes less of a mess if the attacker spends hours to plan the needed adjustments.

vehicle selection depends on available points, terrain type and what little you know about likely enemy force selection. i'm not that interested in having good armor in the vehicles, since i am defending and basicly ambushing advancing infantry platoons and other soft assets. i'm not driving into an enemy AT-gun ambush or stuff like that. most of the time the vehicles are sitting out of LOS, and will only drive into firing positions when other eyes have spotted targets or enemy chooses to march into fire. the only survivability concern i really have is that of not being too sensitive to enemy indirect fire. for Germans i'm talking about stuff like a green Wespe platoon. you get a very good load of 105mm HE separated to 4 vehicles. these will tear apart whole platoons of advancing infantry before the enemy has chances to react, especially if used as sections or with interlocked sectors. you can even spare to fire at suspected enemy positions because of the ammo load & the way CM handles HE exploding near moving crew served weapons. the cost is so low that it's hard to not get a positive trade.

sorry, i don't have time at the moment, and i'm not even sure if i am talking about the same thing the others talk about. i am serious about playing against yourself. i used to do it to test out various tactics. areas the defender can't see because of the way he has positioned. e.g. the draw back of keyholing. pretty much the only survivability requirement i have is that it isn't too easy to neutralize with indirect fire. thus, it's a vehicle and it has some armor. a MG is good to have but not necessary. i don't intend to use these vehicles in AT role. if they can do it, it's a bonus. since the main role is HE, it needs to have decent calibre. you rule it out, but in my opinion it needs to be cheap.

why don't you just try it by playing against yourself? in my experience mobile HE is very effective against a crawling attack. it kills his infantry while it doesn't give his overwatch the opportunity to fire back, and you can move it around as needed (which makes pinning by MGs more useful). the talk about defensive "shadows" is a bit moot, since different positions have different shadows, discovery of each requiring first the "activation" of the position. the different shadows between active HE positions and hidden AT positions is especially noteworthy, as it is directly related to the mobility (read: survivability) of attacker's overwatch. anyway, the defender has the privilegion to choose where the battle takes place, thus you can choose a few "cells" at locations that are most suitable for the good work.

in my experience the most effective counter to slow careful attack are cheap HE-oriented individual AFVs in positions that can see the advancing enemy (see as in fire at them) but which in turn can not be seen by the enemy overwatch. i like to have some lightish AT-guns in horizontal (or even higher angles) positions to the front of the AFVs. people tend to do stupid things when they face a situation in which they need to "do something". i also try to bait the enemy overwatch by tiny infantry groups that open fire at enemy at seemingly stupid ranges. if the opponent takes the bait, i take his non-armored overwatch with mortars (HQ-targetted or not). if the enemy has lots of armor it's better to not bait him lots depends on the terrain naturally.

why i don't want to argue about all this with you? because i have already done more than enough. i have no inherent need to point out flaws in CMSF. i actually like your games even if CMSF was a personal disappointment. i have bought several copies of CMx1 games and made other people buy them as well. i consider myself as a fan of BFC. you are free to make the kind of games you want. it's just highly annoying, for a disappointed person, to read quite questionable rationalizations for some design decisions. like, huh, there is no need for bigger maps because engagement ranges and unit footprint are pretty much the same in modern armored combat in Syrian terrain and in WW2? that's seriously strange talk. it's the kind of talk that is at first just funny, then when you (as a person who'd really have liked a bit different CMSF) realize the consequences for the game it simply pisses you off. in WW2 the official effective tank engagement range for German tanks was 600-800 meters (800-1000 meters for Tigers and Panthers). in GW1, almost 20 years ago, the effective engagement range was 3000 meters. for AT weapons the increase in effective ranges is even more dramatical. WW2 German field manuals space tanks 50 meters apart. in GW1 tanks were spaced 300 meters apart. in one of the most studied out modern battles, the 73 Easting, the weather conditions were absolutely awful, visibility ranging from 100 to 1000 meters. no dreams of air support. battle is described as brutal close combat. a single company (troop) footprint has the width of 5000 meters, the footprint for the battalion is 15 000 meters wide. engagement opens at 2000 meters (thermals) with first shot hit probability at 95%. you can't fit in even a single company, even just for the deployment with zero room for maneuver, not to mention actually having the space required in depth to include the actual battle, in 4x4km map. and a 4x4km map is called HUGE. the aim is said to have a battalion of forces. well, try fit that battalion with 15km wide footprint in a map of 4x4km dimensions. map size is said to be a data issue, not an eye candy issue. it's a data issue only because of eye candy (rather irrelevant detail for simulating combat at this level). it's also a playability issue because the game is quite unplayable at larger maps -- some gameplay features would be cool here. map size is just one trade-off amongst many others. for example: tree branches have hit testing so that shells can hit them. yet there is no friendly hit testing so that you would need to have realistic sectors for support arms and maneuver elements. nah, it's irrelevant feature for the game, just fire thru them friendlies. it's vital for the simulation that tree branches have hit testing, tho. right, nuthin wrong with priorities, it's just my "groggy" counterfactual irrational prejudiced nonsense. i just want to hate game, never mind my enthusiastic posts prior release and even supportive posts right after the release. yes, CMSF can be a fun game. yes, you obviously can create some hihgly realistic battles in it. please just do not deny obvious trade-offs that were made between simulation-wise irrelevant visuals and tactically meaningful features. please do not give highly annoying "rationalizations" for these decisions. just call things as they are. now, i'll log out and go sulk in the corner. i'm going to launch a game called "M1 Tank Platoon" in Amiga emulator. this game was released in 1989. in it you command a M1 platoon + some support assets (like Apache, AA vehicle or even a M60 platoon). you have a 2D overhead map where you can see the whole battle map, your forces, inspect their status and give them orders. it also shows spotted enemy forces and some basic information about them. then you have the 3D views, either outside the vehicles or at a driver, gunner or commander position. it's quite fun tactical platoon level 3D modern armored combat simulation. its map size is 10x10 km.

heh, i'm certainly not going to argue with all of you about this. if you think that maximum map size of 4x4km is enough for company level simulation of modern armored tactics in Syria, then more power and tactically stimulating battles to you. 4x4km map size limitation is just one thing amongst others that i have brought up before. the point is that tactics and gameplay are being sacrificed because of eye candy. sure, perhaps BFC tried to do it with CMx1 games as well but just couldn't do it back then. i sure was fooled by the level of graphics BTW what comes to East Front, Kampfgruppe and Steel Panthers - i still have them all installed this very day (tho, the first two run thru emulators). together with more modern games like ArmA. if someone judges games by their looks or basic gaming style it is not me.

in my honest opinion those screenshots are a great example of the "sell out". jesus, i am beginning to question my sanity. am i from a different planet or what is it? so what's wrong with the screenshots? well, what an absolutely brilliant tactical use of M1s! that range is, what, 250 meters? so how do you use M1s with realistic, tactically sound ranges in CMSF? you do not, it is impossible. the engine is incapable of such ranges. why? because of limitations set by eye candy. how is CMx1 better? sure, the maps are limited to about the same size BUT the weapon systems it simulates have nowhere near the effective range M1 has. you actually are able to use sound realistic tactics. CMSF forces you to unrealistic ranges and thus stupid tactics. sure, you get better graphics. wow omg the missile hits the weak spot and i can see it in my own eyes, how cool is that! the difference to getting a weak spot penetration in CMx1? in practise, for simulating company level combat? it's tiny. it's just visuals. it's just eye candy. and because of that eye candy you can not have sound tactics because the engine can not handle realistic ranges. the eye candy, the so called immersion, is not worth the damage it does to the simulation. you can say that the developers just "got the balance slightly wrong" but it's just cognitive dissonance. the devs know what realistic combat ranges are. they just chose that visual eye candy is more important than realistic tactics. they thought the casual gamer doesn't understand realistic tactics anyway, and won't miss a thing -- instead he will drool because of the eye candy. and perhaps they are right about it. being right about it just doesn't change anything. it's still visual eye candy overruling simulation of company level tactics. it's making a game that is worse as a simulation but which sells more units to casual gamers. that's why i call it a "sell out". no doubt am i once again called "irrational" and what else. no doubt once again an obvious failure in the game is said to be just an isolate case and you can't have everything, just like when you point out all those other very similar eye-candy-over-tactics choises. whatever, i am done with this subject. enjoy the game. it's not a bad game and can be good fun.

i believe it's above of what most of the "grogs" could have dreamed of as well. it almost reminds me of flight and tank simulators where every little knob and aspect is simulated. the new support model is without doubt one of the very best improvements in CMSF, together with resupplying and such. they are meaningful additions to a company level simulation. and yes, they do make me silly happy having realistic features does not outclude "selling out". being realistic is a common selling point that big mainstream houses use for their top selling FPS, RTS and simulator games. for me the deciding factor in "selling out" is the move from gameplay and design that focuses on tactics and thinking (at least that's my subjective perception of CMx1, could be that the current path is what you intended all along but just couldn't accomplish until now) towards being more or less just another RTS game (tho with heavy emphasis on being realistic). it's not necessarily a negative thing. it's just a negative thing FOR ME, as i would have preferred more tactics and depth over more eye candy and arcade action. in a way i think it's flattery towards BFC that someone thinks that you could be "selling out". if CMSF was total crap as a game, nobody would be suggesting such. it is exceptional than a wargame company manages to break out of the tiny wargame segment to the larger markets. it is certainly a success story even if i personally would prefer a bit different direction for the games. i honestly do congratulate your team for the achievement. i am not saying that the game shouldn't look good. it is just annoying to have missing and broken stuff what comes to essentials, and at the same time lots of visual candy that are for most parts relevant only for the intial impression of the first 30 minutes (which i fully admit sells most of casual games -- might be a bit different for wargames and simulators). are you consciously "not getting" the difference between simulating relevant and irrelevant things? you can simulate in detail how butterflies and bees fly around in the battlefield, but all that simulation will add zero or worse to the simulation of company level battle. it's just eye candy. you can call it immersion, but a player playing the game will hardly even notice these things. in many cases it is physically impossible to even be able to see that stuff when you are actually playing the game. at worst some such candylike detail will actually make the game play worse than it would be without it. i do not dismiss your work on the game. the game is cool. i am just disappointed, personally, because i was hoping it would be moving to a different direction. it doesn't mean i hate you or your game well, obviously i acknowledge that advances in simulation exist. you just fail to admit that simulation of things x and y, as such, have nothing to do with simulating company level combat (the end product of the things you simulate). some of them do, like the support stuff and resupplying, but much of it doesn't. thus the contradiction: i say that you simulate a lot of cool advanced stuff but that the game isn't necessarily a step forward in simulating company level combat. top class indie strategy games that go retail sell around 30 000 units (and some naturally ten times that). it's hard for me to believe that CMx1 games wouldn't have sold at least 60 000 units together. most of course in retail, so what you get is far from $45 a piece. it won't make one rich beyond dreams, but it isn't exactly 200 copies either. i agree that it was the 3D graphics, but not because they would have looked that good. tactical non-simulator wargame in 3D just was a quite an unconventional game style -- a great concept. so i argue it was the 3D game mechanics, not the actual 3D game graphics. i bet many just really liked the idea of having a combination of Steel Panthers and Close Combat with graphics from M1 Tank Platoon II. neither game looked so good when they came out that people would have bought them because of their graphics. heh, that's what i have been wondering for the last six months; "perhaps CMx1 was good just by accident, by combining things from different games and just by random getting a good mix out of it, and now they want to try it on their own and are making silly errors like removing that handy command system they took from Close Combat. gee, perhaps CMx1 was good just because they were forced to make quick compromises back then and that just happened to make the game better than they planned.". anyway CMSF is a cool game and hopefully Combat Mission will in future become the kind of game i was hoping it would become.

the source is a ~70 page booklet. it's, i suppose, purely by chance that the included AARs contain reports of destroyed tanks at all. the focus is on actions against infantry, bunkers, MG nests and such, and selected so that each vehicle type gets AAR or two. in general the booklet portrays flame tanks to be in most cases quite useless, due to various things (like too light armor and too limited range of the weapon). they don't see much action, but they can be very effective if conditions are right. one also gets the idea that they were one of those silly things Hitler was obsessed about, to the annoyance of the army. nonetheless it seems clear that they were in fact able to destroy tanks. BTW there was an interesting passage in one of the AARs. first 88mm FlaK fired at firing slits of a bunker for one hour. then the flame tanks fired a good number of bursts at the slits for a good while from point blank range. yet the bunker remained in operation. IIRC to be dealt with by engineers.

i totally admit that CMx2 has a better engine than CMx1. in CMx1 you can't even see the squads if terrain slope is too great, the artillery FO model is a bit lacking and so forth to eternity. it's obvious that CMx2 simulates things in far far greater detail and CMx2 has a good number of great game mechanic improvements. BUT most of the added stuff is simply irrelevant (or doesn't even work) and much of the relevant stuff is not included. the amount of simulation being done is in no way related to the qualitative end result of company level combat simulation. most of the simulation being done is going for eye candy. they are mostly just "wow!" features that last for about 30 minutes. in actual game play where you are trying to command a company of infantry + a platoon or two of vehicles, it is in practice impossible to even observe the simulated visual candy. so they are not only irrelevant for the simulation of company level combat, they are also irrelevant for actual game play. their relevance is nice screenshots and "wow cool" feature lists to use in sales. why is it "sell out"? because when you look at the decision path taken after CMx1, it is obvious that the first impression visual candy has importance over actual lasting game mechnics and game play features. instead of improving the actual game play and simulation of company level combat, we got pretty meaningless eye candy. calling what it is is not an insult. taking this path is most likely the rational decision for BFC. it will also make more players happy in general, because there are far more eye-candy oriented RTS players. perhaps more serious wargames will benefit as well, in the long run, because BFC will stay in business and offer a bit more realistic RTS games than what is the norm. there are already dozens of RTS games with hit points out there. obviously you need to stand out from the crowd a bit and the best way to do it is by doing it in a way that you are good at -- by offering higher realism. CMx1 sold damn sure more than a couple hundred copies. i bet the figure is closer to couple hundred thousand. like said, no evil in wanting 2 million buyers instead of 200 000. well, i am trying to move on now

it's understandable that you need to sell out with eye candy to stay in business and expand. it's just somewhat disappointing, and quite annoying when things aren't called with their real names. oh well, time to move on.

10 rounds per minute for PaK43 is an official figure.

yes, the crews could have easily fired the guns faster than they were allowed to.

certainly. i fully admit that CMSF is a lot better game (game, like Pong or PacMan) than any of the CMx1. i totally agree with that. but when these types of things pile up, one starts to wonder if it indicates a larger take on visuals vs gameplay preference. just to throw another example so that nobody thinks i have some fetish about fortifications & mines or just hate vehicle suspension: we get tree leaves that move in the wind, but we do not get towed or SP AA guns that have been specifically noted to be the most effective weapons for urban combat in ex-USSR arsenal (and which Syrians have in great numbers). this stuff annoys me it's good to hear that there will be enhancements. yeah, that's what it boils down to. if only you would hear how i sound live. it's even worse than how i write please don't take me too seriously. i'm only stating what is just my opinion. i'm just talking, throwing things out. i'm just talking, but things like that can also break the illusion. streets in CMx1 do not feel empty. streets in CMSF feel empty even while there are lots more stuff around. sometimes they do not feel empty -- they feel downright creepy. it's the uncanny valley effect. but yes, i do understand what you are talking about. i just wish it wouldn't need to be so. i would be happy with graphics worse than those of CMBO if that would mean i would get all kinds of cool game features that take simulation of tactical combat to the next level. yeah i certainly agree with all that. i am painfully aware of the shortcomings of CMx1 titles and realize that CMSF, as a game and a game engine, has taken the series to a whole new level. i really mean that. i just don't fully accept that CMSF is an evolutionary step forward what comes to simulating tactical combat.

PaK43 could fire faster than was otherwise practicable (the dust kicked up would block the vision and so forth). the rate of fire was thus officially limited to 10 rounds / minute. heavy PakS and especially FlaKs had large crews and they thus could fire as rapidly as 20 rounds / minute.

here goes. the source is "Flammpanzer - German Flamethrowers 1941-1945", by Jentz and Doyle. it's an Osprey booklet. page 13: Pz.Abt.(F) 101 on 26 August 1941, while attached to the 7.Panzer-Division: unfortunately the passages related to the actions quoted above do not contain information about precisely how the enemy tanks were destroyed. fortunately, the following passage does so. page 22: during a counter-attack by 2.Flamm-Kompanie/Panzer-Regiment 26, on 16 December 1943: page 43: a relevant segment from an experience report submitted by Panzer-Flamm-Kompanie 352 on the employment of Flammpanzer 38, dated 23 February 1945:

i'm talking about WW2. i'll try to dig out a quote later today. a book i have about German flame tanks quotes an AAR that reports flame tanks taking out a number of enemy tanks, at least if i recall correctly.

it's quite common to read from an AAR how a person gets hit in the vest and as a result is out of active combat for several minutes even when he is not wounded (either he's pulled off by his mates or he does it himself, to inspect the vest and so forth). i don't mean that they abandon a 12 hour mission, they just don't actively take part in the firefight for several minutes after emptying their mag. it pretty much equals the length of typical CMSF battle. of course it's not rare to read how a fellow takes several hits during a mission and realizes it only afterwards when inspecting his vest.

heh, yes they are funny, tho partly because of the obvious frustration and annoyance experienced by the author. can't help but think of the right vs wrong pictures of WW2 manuals. someone should make CM versions of them.

showing individual men is cool and evolution is the way to go. i am all for improved game features and mechanics. claiming that dynamic realtime vehicle suspension is more crucial than real mines and field fortifications for simulating tactical battles between extremely mechanized hitech aggressor and mostly static lotek defender, however, has nothing to do with it. it is not a question of personal opinion. claiming that it is an evolutionary step is, well, silly. having no real mines or field fortifications is clearly counterevolutionary -- it is a step back. having vehicle suspension instead is just visual candy instead of real tactics. if it shows some strategical desicion about where BFC is heading at you could as well have hitpoints for vehicles, the target audience wouldn't care. of course going Close Combat instead of Steel Panthers is the choise of BFC and there's no point whining about their choises. but claiming that such a choise is made because it simulates tactical battles more accurately or realistically is just nonsense.

while we are waiting for the AAR to continue, i'd like to point out that flame tanks were credited with tank kills.