Vossiewulf

I think it would be most accurate to say that the T-34 established new standards in several important areas of tank performance. You always design vehicles to be better than whatever it needs to beat at that time; so rather than saying the Panther was somehow "copied" from the T-34, it would be more correct to say that the Panther was specifically designed to out-perform and defeat the T-34.

You guys are quite the pair;) Keep it up. Informative and amusing at the same time!

They're not incredibly grimy, but I did a full set of infantry faces for CMBB recently that can be found at CMMODs. Screenshot: CMBB Infantry Faces

As a rule, I don't give a disembark order to a passenger whose vehicle has not yet started moving. Like Brent, I've had a couple of situations where units have decided to walk instead of ride. I almost always, however, give units disembark orders before their transport has arrived. Once the transport is moving, the passengers will stay on board until it stops (assuming no unpleasant enemy intervention). It's very useful to do it this way, as your passengers should always start deploying as soon as their transport grinds to a halt.

From the site that Mr. Tittles keeps pointing us to for gun data: "57mm and 76mm APCR projectiles were accepted into service in October 1943. In 1943 a maximum of 8 rounds per vehicle were issued to units deployed in defensive positions where the Germans were expected to attack. By the Spring of 1944 all vehicles had at least 4 rounds each. Source: Russian Military Zone. Zaloga in the Red Army Handbook 1939-1945 states that 76mm APCR projectiles were issued from August 1942, however Valeriy Potapov from the Russian Military Zone tells me that production was delayed until October 1943 due to their very low quality." Russian Gun Data

Good point Paul. With the depleted neutronium armor and the six-barreled 128mm/L100 rotary cannon firing one shot every second, those King Panthers were pretty tough. Especially with the IIIB series, when they upped internal main gun ammo stowage to 600 rounds. Thank god that the earth's crust frequently collapsed under them, with most last sighted making a beeline for the center of the earth. If not, the war could have lasted quite a bit longer.

Combat Mission Mod Database Have fun, lots of winter mods, lots of every kind of mod.

Note that I did not say "best." Best is a function of circumstance all the way down to particular tactical conditions on a given day. Two people can argue till they are blue in their faces as to what tank/gun/whatever was best, and chances are they'll both be right and wrong. I look at tanks as boxers. Panthers are those guys that dance and never get hit, with arms 12 feet long. Great punch, but should never get close. Can only take a punch from dead straight on, which makes it even more important to stay at long range. T-34/85s, IS-1/2, great footwork, great punch, bad technique. If they ever manage to hit anything, their punch is solid. Excellent maneuverability, but it takes them so long to think that the advantage is often wasted. Tiger, on the other hand, has the whole package. He doesn't care who he's fighting, he can do it all, and do it well. Just point him at anybody from 10 meters to 3000 meters, and whatever you point him at is probably going away very soon. Besides, he has the look too.

Agreed on Retigade's tag line. No need for that. And the Tiger is and always will be the coolest tank ever.

Pz-IIIN is 75mm/L24. M is 50mm/L60. Here's the way I do it. YMMV;) In both cases the first thing I look at is the gun. Pz-IV: 75mm/L24 - strictly infantry support unless you have no other choice. 75mm/L43 - reasonable mid-war AT capabilities, and 75mm is a good caliber for infantry support. 75mm/L48 - really a good gun, except for taking on things like IS-2s. The problem is the Pz-IV will die like a bug if you try and use it in a true MBT role. The armor just isn't adequate. The best way to use Pz-IVs is as shooters trailing behind a Tiger or a Panther, something that will absorb the heat while the IV plinks away with its gun. Pz-III: 50mm/L42 - great early war tank, high ROF, good accuracy, good penetration chance against early T-34s at reasonable ranges. Unfortunately it often takes two or three 50mm rounds to score a kill. Not terribly much good for infantry support, the 50mm round has a very low blast effect. 50mm/L60 - Reasonable mid-war tank, can still beat T-34s at medium ranges. The 2 or 3 hits for a kill still applies, as does the low blast effect. By late war, though, these guys are best in light environments or using ambush tactics, and crossing their fingers. Anything more than T-34/76, it's shoot and scoot time. Of course now someone will come and explain how, with a platoon of Pz-IIIMs, you can defeat six battalions of IS-2s, if you just use them correctly As for armor, the Pz-III is actually the better-armored of the two until we get to the Pz-IVG mid, when the Pz-IV goes up to a 50+30 hull. However, the III's 50/curved turret seems to be superior to the 50/10 turret of the IV, all the way to the end of the war. So if you have mixed IIIs and IVs, it's usually best to lead with the IIIs. That's my story at least, and I'm sticking with it. Unless I change my mind.

Actually, I found the reference painting here. Whether that originally comes from the same artist, I don't know.

Thanks all All my mods are at cmmods.com, you can find them by author- I'm just vossie there. Dey, just photoshop. I use my graphics tablet a little bit but 95% is mouse. Dodge and burn mostly. I didn't do one bit of "painting" on the infantry faces, that's all dodge/burn/sponge/color correction. With a bit of blur to even things out.

I haven't seen a terrain list, I would like one also;) Look in the low number ranges for terrain tiles, lcm, or do as junk2drive first said- download a mod that covers the terrain in question and look inside to see what the bmp numbers are.

Thanks Aristoteles and Jaeger;) I'll keep in mind the dirtiness factor as I do new ones.

Yes, the designer returns to admit that he is, in fact, a retard. Sigh. I know I checked that when I originally allocated them. I know I rechecked it in the game before posting here. Upon further examination, it turns out that "knowing" in this case was applied VERY liberally. Thank you Sergei Well. That throws a crimp in my plans for using heavy-caliber arty in a meeting engagement (even if it isn't realistic it can still be entertaining)

Reviving- I'm playing a scenario where I just received a bunch of artillery observers as reinforcements. They have plenty of transport available (251/1), but most of them won't embark, even though the tracks are empty and we're talking two-man teams. Will embark: 4 x 81mm (radio) 2 X 105mm (radio) 1 X 150mm (radio) Won't embark: 2 X 75mm (radio) 1 X 81mm (radio) 2 X 120mm (radio) 1 X 210mm (radio) Help would be appreciated;)

The Russians have a term for that Mike, they call it normalizing the round. One of the reasons the SU-100 wasn't built in bigger numbers is that it was seriously overloaded on the front road wheel. Mattias has it right. Thicken the glacis, need to redesign the suspension, while we're at it let's fix the turret, you end up with the T-43.

The thing about ME's is that they are going to likely require the most improvisation, as both sides will probably have completely different plans- and on a map of sufficient size, that will result in both guys saying "OH SH*T" at some early point as their plans not only go out the window, but make beelines for Hawaii and a permanent vacation. Then both sides find themselves in a position that requires lots of fancy and decisive footwork. So in one respect, he's right (just in my opinion, of course), as ME's will probably uncover the player who is better at improvisation and radical re-tasking. But Sergei is correct that ME's of any significant size are very rare, so it's not realistic to place the skill of their handling above the skills required to handle the far more common attack/defend situations.

I would like to add that Dandelion appears to have won the thread with a Major.

I'm not sure about how the presence of other buildings fits into the equation; but I can say with certainty that if you want factories to show up, the tiles they are on, and all adjacent tiles, have to be the same elevation. I will demonstrate: In the map editor, we see that the factory and all adjacent tiles are level "7" When we preview, we see that the factory is, in fact, there. Now we go back to the map editor, and change two adjacent dirt road tiles to level "6". Note that that is the ONLY change. Now when we preview, we see the Magic Disappearing Factory.

Heinzbaby, great job on this one! Shadows and highlights where they belong, very nice, and a much better dynamic range on the textures.

Not at all, as long as you credit the source, yadda yadda I think I'm going to fiddle with it myself also- not make it necessarily dirtier (what you're doing looks great), but I think I'm going to make the yellow a bit more yellow.

Not quite. All the tiles on which the various factory tiles are placed are the same elevation. However, the surrounding tiles are of a different elevation- one lower. So the ground on the missing factory section is the exact same height as the two factory sections on each end, but something about the surrounding tiles being of a different elevation makes it unhappy, so it takes its ball and goes home.

And to get back to the disappearing factory sections, yes, it was height change. It's weird- all the factory tiles but the center of a "row" will place fine on terrain that has lower/higher tiles next to them.

You might want to look at Operation Storfang , which is doing some pretty amazing things with the CMBB engine. There's a thread below this one about it as well.