undead reindeer cavalry

come to think of it, i don't know a single CM player who wouldn't play CM just as PBEM or TCPIP (sometimes). AFAIK none of them post or even read these forums, and are rather casual than hard-core players.

the part of the article i quoted dealed with individual soldiers, so the scale was company level and below. i think most of the posters here agree that Germans were extremely good on this scale. perhaps not 1:7, but still extremely good. operational level is a world apart and deals with entirely different subjects. i find the comments on early war a bit strange. German early war victories were real against-the-odds achievements and certainly not something to write off just as expected success against very bad opponents.

didn't find anything with google. IIRC the Swedish study had modelled in CAS, artillery etc, which most likely covers the high 1:7 ratio. the use of CAS, artillery etc of course by no means means lesser efficiency. a bit like the classic misused "US soldiers needed 100 000 bullets to kill each single NVA soldier". found this though. somewhat interesting read. quotes studies that state Germans were only 20% more effective than British & US forces. Complex Societies: The Evolutionary Dynamics of a Crude Superorganism

i read about some extensive Swedish study about 5-10 years ago in some Finnish military mag. it stated something like that German soldiers were 7-12 times more effective than Western Allied ones. does anyone know the study i read about? references?

i noticed that T-72s have snorkel tubes modelled. will we be able to use the snorkels in the game and do deep fording?

some variants had smoke dischargers layed a bit like that, but the lack of gunner's periscopes is a bit puzzling. perhaps the T-72 variant is fictional as well?

you still have very valuable data such as: 1. knowledge of the formation the squad is on 2. knowledge of the role of each man in the squad 3. knowledge of what kind of terrain (cover) each man is on 4. knowledge of what's their distance to the LOS point holder person of the squad 5. what's their distance to a given enemy unit 6. knowledge of some recent successful LOS checks to certain locations these will allow you to have spread squads without 1:1 LOS and not screw up the 1:1 representation and modelling (for most situations). key issues are: knowledge of which man holds the squad's LOS point (decided based on formation and each man's role in the given formation), the ability to calculate the spread of received fire within the squad (based on things like distance and simple terrain type based cover value) and the ability for the AI to change squad's formation (and thus LOS holder) based on events. theoretically you could even calculate LOS holder changes without changing squad's formation, because you know the point the firing enemy unit just had LOS to and the position of each member of the receiving squad, but it may get tricky if the squad is receiving fire from numerous units. i don't have time to explain this deeper right now, but spread squads are 100% doable with the given system. you should be able to figure it out with the above points. the tricky part is having each man receive cover from buildings and objects like tanks, because the cover is not based on distance calculations & terrain type the man is on, but on a LOS block and thus you can't simply calculate how enemy fire is spread within the squad - you need LOS checks. however without objects blocking LOS the system is relatively simple to code and doesn't require heavy calculations. most of it is simple vector maths + terrain cover variables. tho you need to store some recent & succesful LOS checks to make the firing unit maintain LOS to their target even in a situation in which the LOS holder of the target squad is already in concealment. you could do it even without storing some succesful LOS check locations, but it would in my opinion get too abstracted especially if the target unit is receiving fire from multiple locations. but i really need to go, so bye for now.

utilize the superior maneuverability of Soviet tanks. buy light tanks instead of KVs and T-34s. they are dirty cheap so you get hordes of them. flank fast behind the StuGs from a number of directions. StuGs turn real slow and are easy target. keep moving. go for medium or large maps. call in lots of smoke if necessary. your cherry picking opponent is likely to quit the game in disgust and anger as your tiny tanks swarm his clumsy formations and KO his precious Nazi junk. rememer to type lots of LOLZ and OWn3d.

i have read only some posts on these threads, so perhaps this is already covered, but here it goes anyway. i have understood that each soldier's cover & concealment is modelled, but their LOS is not modelled? how can this be? for example if you have two men hiding behind a tank, surely LOS/LOF is the crucial factor that defines both cover & concealment for these fellows [in relation to the enemy they are hiding from]? or is it just that you can't manually check the LOS of each soldier, while it is modelled under the hood? another question that i haven't seen a definite answer to is: will LOF be real 3D lines instead of 2D point objects of CM1? e.g. will we have machineguns that can lay down realistic horizontal fire across a field instead of just point fire? will we finally be able to shoot at houses that are located on higher terrain than us? and dear god will tanks be modelled in real 3D so that e.g. turret size begins to matter? i think both of these questions deal essentially with one and same thing: 1:1 3D modelled LOF/LOS. BTW sounds like a real killer game. amoeba like squads was what i liked the least in CM. keep up the good work and ignore the whine ah, one last thing: it sounds like a WW2 game is the first to come out. any chances of covering the early war?

i hear Finland is going to sell her Soviet equipment so i think it's better to accept the rotten nature of life and start digging NATO doctrines. or better yet, become a wannabe Bosnian

first of all, i do notice the story is a fictional one and i haven't read all info from the website. still, any chances that the terrain will become more realistic (judging from the screenshots it looks more like Afghanistan than Balkans at the moment)? will BattleFront touch such aspects of the game? any chances of covering the Croatian "Operation Storm"? what about fictional land conflict at Kosovo (Serbs vs NATO)? or in general: do the missions relate to real world battles in any ways? will buy anything as long as it covers Operation Storm...

it just feels gamey. i think it's mostly because it only works because you know that enemy is just about to attack, what his target area and strenght is. in reality you wouldn't know any of them and it would make more sense to have a usual defence setup with strenches and all that.

i play infantry heavy battles, of mechanized or at max combined arms type. i use halftracks as a mobile overwatch that follows 100-200 meters behind infantry. halftracks offer superior response time if compared to machineguns or mortars that are moving. that's crucial if you get ambushed. halftracks respond "immediately", where as it may well take a minute to get a machinegun or mortar to fire. of course ideally you would have your mortars & machineguns sitting on some hill, but i rarely play on a hilly terrain. halftracks are also well protected against non-heavy machineguns and mortars. they don't get pinned and thus return fire much more effectively. they are rather resistant against ATR fire - it takes 1-2 minutes for a single ATR to take out one halftrack, where as you can take out a spotted ATR quite easily. heavier guns are a real threat, but you just have to live with it. halftracks also carry godless amounts of ammo. non-halftrack machineguns usually run out of ammo about in a half an hour. halftracks keep firing for an hour. it really starts to show after the first 30 minutes in infantry heavy battles. and those German mortar halftracks are simply super sexy - mobility, good load of rounds and you can still fire indirect fire. some other natural functions for halftracks is moving guns around, doing recon and recon overwatch. i love halftracks, but i think one needs to have a long, infantry heavy battle to have a real use for them.

Could you explain in a bit more detail... sounds interesting. </font>

i use a lot of smoke when i am playing Soviets. it's so cheap i can't help it. i tend to reposition. infantry falls to fallback positions, while machineguns & mortars move to positions where they can hammer the enemy infantry that is about to enter your previous positions. then after a couple of minutes of hammering i launch a counter attack and take back my primary positions. it usually works very well, but you must have had patience to place a good share of your machineguns, mortars etc a bit further back. i have smoked my own defensive positions a couple of times to create a massive ambush. gamey, but satisfying.

hmm. what about going to some divari and buying some good old korkkaris? :| [ August 16, 2004, 02:38 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

ewwh, get your lazy ass to the library. any library in Finland will have meters of books about those subjects. the central library of Vantaa most likely has at least a couple whole shelves about those two subjects.

yeah, Jagdtiger was a real monster. Jagdtiger and Jagdpanther were quite different beasts. Jagdpanther was actually quite fast and mobile, and could be used both to defend and attack. Jagdtiger was more like a bunker on tracks - a thing that could be used only on defence. it was extremely slow and broke down even faster than King Tiger. i wonder if vehicles can get immobilized in Combat Mission just by turning to new direction?

IMO it's the best TD of WW2, having not just a great gun & armor but also great mobility. Germans tried to produce them like crazy, but couldn't. single Jagdpanthers are easy to destroy though, because they have those horribly slow turning rates. just flank it.

most German tanks are good only on a front-to-front duelling, as German tanks have truly inferior armor on their sides & rear and have serious mobility issues. all German tanks, save the superheavy ones, can be destroyed even by light tanks. just make use of their weak sides & poor mobility.

i see. i don't know how likely that is in a ME, especially if terrain has lots of cover or the map is not a small one. it's likely that you'd need to tow the PAKs halfway the map. actually most of my successes with Soviet light tanks have not come from full flank moves, but from situations in which enemy tanks have moved on the flanks to new firing positions (usually now facing to the center areas of the map). i have then quickly sent the previously passive (but forward positioned) lighties to wreak havoc on the Nazi armor. coming from side or rear, they cause serious chaos for turretless targets with abyssmal turning rates. often the lighties have been more succesful in dealing with StuGs than IS-2s and such. often a single light tank can cause a lot of damage. the serious downside is that it's damn annoying to watch the StuGs turn so ridiculously slooooooowlyyyyy, even if you are playing the Soviets. i don't like it, but it works well.

Finns preferred 50mm AT guns to bigger ones for that very reason. Finns would have bought 50mm guns rather than 75mm ones, as in practice 75mm AT guns could not be moved in Finnish terrain. lot's of 75mm AT guns were lost just because you couldn't take them with you once things got too hot.

if you play Combined Arms battles, Germans can't even buy 150mm arty unless you have larger battles. too expensive. i think MEs balance the game a lot against the Germans. MEs have more room for maneuver, and thus you can easily reach position in which fast light Soviet tanks wreck StuGs and such.

i have played some 30-40 PBEM/TCPIP MEs. i think i have lost 3 of them and i have only once raced to the center/flags. all the games have been combined arms operations on maps with lot's of cover. perhaps others play with different settings. other than that, i can't figure how rushing to the center would not lead to the total annihilation of one's troops. EDIT: one of the games was a draw.

Recon units have rifles and quite a lot of ammo, which makes them quite good in ranged infantry fighting. i usually use them to make advancing enemy infantry stuck early in their advance by forcing them to fight forward positioned recon units. the recon units will withdraw to second line positions once they have stalled the enemy advance. to make this more effective, i usually give the recon units a mortar (use HQ to direct mortar fire so that the mortar has chances to pull back) and LMG. they are good for pinning the enemy infantry once they have been located, giving the recon squads much needed time to pull back. i usually have a tank or two located so that they can move fast to support the withdrawing forward units so that they don't get overrun. these tanks usually have favorable positions to knock out enemy tanks that may come after the recon units. and if one is lucky enough, one's enemy will waste some artillery rounds on the recon positions. by which time the recon units have of course already pulled back to their secondary positions. usually recon units manage to escape with only light casualties. if you have reason to expect that your enemy will have support vehicles with their forward infantry, you may want to give the recon units light anti-tank weapons. but if enemy is real strong in armor, it's better to try to hide your forward positioned recon and let the enemy forces pass their positions. enemy armor won't be able to support infantry once they have advanced enough, because it would make them too vulnerable to your tanks. recon units are also good for securing the flanks.