ww2steel

Awesome, thanks! (I have the CDV version with the wierd manuals.) Mike

Hello. I'm just working up a quick campaign tool I can play around with. Anyone know off hand the levels from 'total victory' to 'total defeat' and everything in between? Thanks, Mike

The ones in my game are Henschel with the flat front turret. The Porsche one has a rounded turret front with the aforementioned shot trap. I am playing the CDV version though... Mike

Yeah dude, JS comes from the German language version of Iosif Stalin due to the different pronunciation of the German J from English. It's IS in english. Mike

What the heck!?! I just played a city mission as Germans moving through a city. I had nine half tracks and ALL of them were destroyed by my own aircraft!!!! All crews were crack/ elite oth on gorund and in aircraft! This is stupid! I am never, ever, ever, ever... going to use aircraft... again.

On a 5 day battle the renforcements should be laid out as follows (assuming that there are points for reenforcements all 5 days, and there aren't always... but almost) I also added 75% chance for defender reenforcements and 90% for attacker, to simulate real differences in supply between an organized attacker and a force simply attempting to defend itself. R1- battle 2 R2- battle 3 R3- battle 4 R4- battle 5 (100% for both sides) R5- Battalion R6- Regiment R7- Division ...and of course the program I wrote would spit out the points available on a CMBB scale for each of these reenforcements + the on map (including the guys already in the scenario when the game is started) depending on which side is human... etc. Hope this helps, Mike [ May 21, 2004, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: ww2steel ]

No, not being fired at or worried about being 'bounced', then again, neither were my aircraft in the game- but I was just as busy with after takeoff checks and departure instructions of a large turbine aircraft operating at below 1,000' AGL and certainly not concentrating outside like a combat pilot can and should. There were five conrete bunkers, on a slight rise, several hundred meters from and structures or cover of any kind. My tanks and all equipment were still all inside my deployment area waiting for 'help' from the Luftwaffe- about 500+ meters from the enemy on a tiny map... and I assume that has something to do with it but darn it it was frustrating. Thanks for the Elite/ Veteran tip- and yes, they're usually pretty expensive and I always play <1000 point ops, so maybe aircraft are not justifiable at that level- it sure seems so. If I do get them in the future I'll buy pilots that have at least private pilot skills Mike

The seven reenforcements were set up as follows- 4 additional days of a 5 day battle and then three reserves which came from the points allotted with the maps- as you got the map points when you lost and went to the next map. The Battalion reserves were 1/8th the total of that side's map points, the battalion are 3/8 and division the remaining 1/2... transformed to a CMBB scale and then transformed again to a veteran player... hence different point settings for each side depending on which player is human. You should see all of the equations and the like on the spreadsheet I made- it's really quite ridiculous! Another thing I at least tried to do was look up how many of what units were actually available at the time of the battle... got rid of the unusual vehicles and leaned more towards the commoon- though an unusual one is still here and there for some spice. I too used a 20 turn flat at first, but after a while decided that 20+ worked better... tell me what you think? Thanks for the compliment, Mike

That sucks- wasn't aware of that one from Africa! Man, it seems in Africa it should be even easier... but then again our pilots were very new at that time. My main complaint was of a near refusal to bomb the enemy bunkers even when carrying heavy ordnance, and instead attacking my tanks. About 50% of their ordnance was used on my positions. Mike

The problem with armored FO's is that my halftracks get wacked almost instantly... unless you use it out of LOS of course. I think air recon would work... shoot, many commanders would go up in the Storch themselves to survey the field. I think that just to have the units in the open, and only some of them, pop up as the plane flys over and then go to the lost unit symbol quickly afterwards would be realistic. There would be no more delay than that of a tank commander communicating by radio (and yes, I understand they were on different nets). Just my thought, Mike

A cool addition for CMII would certainly be the ability to purchase an air liason officer and a Storch or something similar that could be used like an attack aircraft... that would not attack. Just have it fly over and spot targets normally, then tell you through your on field air liason officer. I guess you could even have attack aircraft relay information back to you as well. Though obviously rare in the field, they did exist, and nearly always existed on higher levels. I just think it would be a great addition. Mike

Okay this is a bit of a rant, as I know nothing will be done about it until CMII comes out- hopefully. I am really really tired of buying aircraft only to watch them attack my tanks/ infantry/ guns when there are enemy bunkers not 1000m away out in the open. Basically, unless my equipment is under trees the aircraft seem to go on a wild melee if enemy tanks/ vehicles/ occupied trenches are not in plain view. Do the pilots just get bored? I am a professional pilot, I operate aircraft for hours every day. I think that the spotting by aircraft is more or less accurate- it would is very difficult to spot tanks on the ground unless they are in the middle of a field (I have tried personally several times with T-34/85s and M5 Stuarts from something as slow as a Cessna- still hard to spot). Once you spot them though, it's not that hard to tell what it is, and I sure wouldn't drop ordnance on an 'unidentified' vehicle! I agree with some mistaken identity, but it should be rare, especially for something as distinct as a tank. If I can tell the difference between a F-150 and a K-20 on takeoff with me as the flying pilot a PzIV/ T-34 should be no different. Friendly fire is arguably more prone to happen now due to the regular use of standoff weapons such as Mavericks, Hellfire, TOW, LGB, etc- not close in and personal like strafing and dive bombing. Higher levels should be almost immune to friendly fire attacks, low levels (ie green) it should happen frequently. See ya, Mike

That's fine... I'm open to new ideas. I just finsished the Berlin Maps too... need to post them. See ya, Mike

Yes, I know... I am going to go back through them and fix the appearance. I was attempting to get it identical to CC with the openings (big doors) of CC3. I was also hoping vehicles would be able to drive in... no luck Mike

Okay, I have the first nine ops available for both sides. The ones fought on the same map I condensed 2 CC ops into 1 CMBB op so you can contiune with the same troops, it works better that way. I have all available individually or a zip file with everything. http://www.ww2steel.com I'll continue with the next set, that's all the maps I have done so far! Mike

You could do them two player, but I made them to correspond to the difficulty setting of CC, therefore whoever is playing the side of the PC will usually win (about 14% more points, though there is a huge varriance through the scenarios). Put the weaker player, if there is one, on the defending side generally. 1- Blitzkrieg and a reworked KV2 roadblock (not CC) are being uploaded right now to my site. See ya, Mike

Thanks guys, not familiar with "Proving Grounds", I'll see what I can find. I left them original scale exactly, including elevation to make it as close to the original experience as possible. I combined all of the maps of an operation, with as natural barrier such as trees between them. Mike

I added battles 4&5 Kharkov I amd 6&7 Stalingrad for both sides. Mike

I have the # 8 and 9 battles (snow ones) uploaded and ready for both players. I haven't really checked them much though, so bear with me! I removed some counters I had on there, maybe that was causing the problems. Mike [ May 08, 2004, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: ww2steel ]

Good topic so my quick 2c. Interesting points brought up here. My opinion-= victory Soviets. (Many of these already mentioned) 1) Our bombing was helpful but not 100% effective. 2) The huge amounts of land and material lost were expendable and loosable in order to tie up the Germans 3) any country with 16 MILLION workers building tanks, I say has the advantage (even if they were women, kids, and elderly). 4)The German units 'guarding' the west front were often units being rebuilt from the east front battles and had to be off of the front anyway (though africa could have been diverted). That's my main points, not to rehash everything already discussed. G'day, Mike

No need to upload them anywhere, I have my own website- http://www.ww2steel.com. Okay, I'll start tweaking them. Some should be online today (VE day!) Evening. See ya, Mike

I have completed about half of the scenarios from Close Combat III in the form of operations. I have converted the number of points you get from CC3 into a big equation for different difficulty levels of the game and converted it as best I could and bought roughly the same number of CMBB equipment. They are playable from either side, I guess I'll release 'Veteran' difficulty levels. The maps are pretty exact, including height. Before I go through fixing them up to be good enough to release, zipping them up and posting them I was wondering if anyone is interested? Mike

I have made a quick scenario based upon the KV2 version of the scenario as Vanguard/ Osprey gives it. Despite what happened in the book account (though I guessed at ranges) the KV2 normally gets spanked! See my Combat Mission page- http://www.ww2steel.com Mike

I have made a quick scenario based upon the KV2 version of the scenario as Vanguard/ Osprey gives it. Despite what happened in the book account (though I guessed at ranges) the KV2 normally gets spanked! See my Combat Mission page- http://www.ww2steel.com Mike

I downloaded the paper Volgograd map, but I think he wanted Stalingrad (JK!). Thanks! Now I want to make some scenarios of it. It's better than the one I had. Mike