andhen2003

Actually Im pretty sure I read it in an Osprey book that I was looking through while in the bookstore. Unfortunately didn't end up buying but picked up a book on the US Civil War instead!

I was recently reading an account that in WW2 the Americans had both light and heavy mortar shells for the same launcher. The heavies supposedly had the blast of a 105mm howitzer shell, while the lights could of course go much farther. I assume that CMAK models the "light" mortar shell since the blast doesn't look anything like a 105mm. I'm not sure what size mortar shell the article discussed but it looked like an 80mm. Did other armies have similar differented shells for their mortars? Am I correct in assuming CM models the standard light shell? On a related matter, is it worthwhile firing 80+mm mortars at troops in light buildings? I've certainly seen drmatizations of it occuring (Band of Brothers for example) when they fire at the sniper in the farmhouse, but it doesn't seem practical in CM.

the card the PC came with didn't support 3D which is why i chose to upgrade. don't remember off top of my head. i don't mind spending more than $100. And yes, I have an AGP slot, but when i bought the card i thought i only had PCI slots (again i don't know hardware well). Is there a big sacrifice in speed using the PCI slot instead of the AGP slot? i figured it was negligible, which is why i didn't run right back to the store and get an AGP card. BTW thanks for the help; can't get over what a helpful group of people play this game!!!

guys -- i'm not at home but will get you the info. i am fearful after hearing redwolf refer to "marketing trick cards" that i might not have purchased as powerful a card as i thought i did. while it's 128megs, it also was only about $100 bucks US. i don't know crap about hardware. maybe even though the memory is high the pipline to the pc is slow? can you guys please suggest a better card to me?

I recently upgraded my card to ATI radeon 128M PCI card. First off, CMAK and CMBB (to a lesser extent) are both running much slower and choppier. And, I get some strange lines at the bottom of my screen on CMAK. Anyone else have these kinds of problems? I have updated all of the drivers, and I have more than 700megs of RAM, so that shouldn't be the bottleneck. I've heard anecdotally that Nvidea cards are better. Any help or advice?

I recently got Battlefield 1941 and boy was that disappointing. It looks beautiful but is basically a free-for-all FPS, no real tactics, even small group, involved.

Yo KP -- I know I have heard the Russian troops saying "tvaya mat", which means "your mother" though I've forgotten too much Russian to translate the rest. But I'm pretty sure I've never heard an American or British trooper use a similar phrase in CMAK. So are the phrases used really that similar from language to language, hm? I'd love some German translation too, since I play the Germans alot and pretty much only know what "panzer" and "schnell" mean...

Ah, that makes sense, the NCO had the SMG. I wasn't thinking about the officer's role in the squad, but that really makes sense. It also makes sense that the all-SMG squads appeared after Stalingrad and the urban bloodbaths in Russia. Thanks for the info. I always find the forums here to be a fascinating read, even when I start them silly questions. Shows how little I really knew about WWII tactics even though I know the history well.

Thanks. I had a feeling I was asking a dumb question, but y'all were kind to answer. Let me ask a different question, maybe to get this on a more interesting track...why did the Germans mix LMGs and SMGs into their squads, as opposed to having a generic rifle squad or SMG squad as the Brits seemed to do? The SMG men were probably useless unless a battle closed to short quarters. Seems more sensible organizationally to have the SMGs in squads that could be sent in for close combat. I guess the Americans also tended to mix SMGs in with rifle squads? I don't play the Americans much but from the movies and images I've seen, you tend to see SMGs mixed in with the rifles. What's the advantage of a mixed squad?

oh, so that's not the actual ammo load that's being represented? does it have to do then with the Panzergrenadier squads having a mix of rifles, LMGs and SMGs as opposed to straight rifles? This doesn't explain the difference in mortar team loads, however

I know quite a bit about WW2 but certainly don't qualify as a grog. One thing I've been wondering about is why it seems German infantry ammo loads seem to be much lower than their Allied counterparts. I haven't been very scientific about this, so I may just be incorrect. I primarily play using Panzergrenadiers for the Germans. Does this have anything to do with attacking using a combined arms Blitzkreig mentality (e.g. since your tanks, air support, and arty have pummeled the opponent the infantry don't need as much ammo)? Was it a resource issue? This also seems to hold true for German 80mm vs. British 3" mortars -- the Brits have huge ammo loads vs. the Germans. I have a hard time conserving ammo appropriately using German troops -- I'll have a battle go well and then run out of ammo and have the tide turn against me. Any suggestions? Any general useful information about ammo loads and the philosophies of the different armies that guided how much ammo each squad carried?

I usually play the Germans in QBs so I'm not sure, but isn't this just a problem if you select combined arms? if you chose infantry only do you have the same issue? For the Germans there's always the choice of whether to use companies w/ or wo/ transport in CMAK even w/ combined arms selected.

OK fair enough. How about I open this up a bit though and ask how you more experienced players use the casualties option in setting up quick battles. I thought it's a useful way to prevent domination of high cost ubertanks, since you're less likely to purchase one if you can randomly lose it. Is it commonly used?

For the first time in playing a PBEM quick battle, I chose 10% casualties when setting up the battle. Surprisingly, my opponent lost target reference points, trenches and barbed wire as "casualties". I lost some infantry and a gun, which makes sense. It doesn't make sense to me that defensive fortifications -- and it certainly doesn't make sense that TRPs -- should be subject to a casualty penalty. Can anyone explain the logic of including these items in what can be lost through chosing x% casualties when setting up a battle? :confused: