slysniper

what is the best Air sim out there for WWI combat at the moment. The only one I ever played was The Red BaronII but would like to get something again if there was something good out there to the latest levels.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had bypassed playing that one because of the size. But actually even the size of the map. It is not that bad. I started playing it today, just RT vs the AI. but it sure does remind you of the Russian front battles that some of us are still waiting for that is still a while off in the new engine. I really have not played the new engine in this type of battle much and I am finding it interesting as to play. First decisions I had, do I let my units open up and waste alot of ammo to get them few long range hits or hide and wait until they are in good killing range, plus seeing the long range hits not producing kills is also cool. But I have let the stugs & Panthers do the long range engagements. So the Pz ivs are doing the dirty work in town, so no chance to see them, as to how they would hold up in the long range battle.

Nice Rules Except maybe 24m make more sence in the game since a action spot is 8m and at 24m you have already went from pin pointing 1 action spot to approx 5 full action spots plus 4 partials. That is a massive change. but I do like the approach. Now it is just too bad we cannot get BF to do some adjustments along these lines so it would not need to be agreed on.

Run trucks out in open fields to give them something to shoot at instead of important units. I dont think this actually helps, but you might as well try??

At this point, I agree this would be my choice. I like them both, each has a different feel, but you will have much more to choose from with CMBN and you have better match ups with units also. But its also fun in cmfi in that the infantry is not packing the same amount of anti tank stuff, exspecially the Germans. So it changes the tactics some. Plus the Italians are just fun to have to play with. A real challenge to work with.

VERY POSSIBLE. Makes sence as to why no more rounds are heard. The mortar crew likely saw what appears to be a good hit, whick likely did take out the guys firing over the bank. They saw no more fire and ceased. As for the continued firing. yes it might be others we do not see in the footage. Again it does show a point that I tried to explain before. Mortar crews will likely conserve their ammo because of limited supplies. Only if the target was really killing friendly units and causing hell would I see a crew droping 5-10 rounds on target to make sure it was eliminated for good. It is just one aspect of the game that just is not seeming right. The fixes should likely be, First: somehow make it harder to lock on target and a little more dispersion than even the present adjusted spread. Second: less rounds fired per minute unless given a command to do so, they tried fixing this because many did not want to see all their rounds used in a minute of wego anyway. But the command does not work well. there should be a max rate fire button and a slow rate button. or just a option to select how many rounds are fired this turn. Maybe if the hits were not so quick to be dead on, less likely to be hit with 5 rounds within 30 seconds. Then maybe the defence could react, or if not react at least hide and ride out the storm if at least some of the rounds were landing outside the 3 meters that they do at the moment. As for what they do when they hit, I think that seems pretty realistic, I really do not think the game is all that flawed there. What we really need though is a grog that actually has used the weapon in combat, they might be the best source as to what is possible with the weapon and what to expect. Since much of this issue is opinions anyway, someone has to have some actual working knowledge out there in the world. I remember watching our weapons mortar teams firing only once in any field practices. And to be truthful, I remember very little as to what they did. It was a hill in the distance, they did a general bombing of where the trench line was and I remember a few rounds landing around the trench, maybe some went in. but that the dirt and dust began making it hard to tell where many of the impacts were going. Then they smoked the target which they shifted the landing area so the smoke would drift over the objective., with that they intentionally spread the impact area. so still cannot say what they are capable of.

Now, I find this as somewhat enlightening. Notice that after the hit, you will again hear gun fire coming from this group of men. So, not everyone was wounded. ALSO, ONCE THE HIT IS OBTAINED, WHY WOULD THERE NOT BE ADDITIONAL DIRECT HITS FOLLOWING IT. It reminds me of another problem the mortar crew has, that is many times from their vantage point they would have a hard time knowing if they are hitting on target or not. Not like the in game ability to hit and then for sure drop every round after that on target. In a real world situation, you are trying to see through the dust and debrie you are creating, if the target is behind cover like a wall or hedge and you are dropping rounds behind it. It would be very hard to judge whether you are 2meters or 10 meters behind it as to where your rounds are landing. All I know is , I wonder if them guys think it is a good tactic to move and relocate before they are zeroid in on now. From what I saw, they had time to bug before that round came, but they were firm and steady. I would move down the bank, relocate and start firing again if a target reveals itself. Force the enemy mortar to try to pinpoint me at the new spot. I just heard it called, whacking the Mole recently. The best defence is to never let the enmy lock in on you. Bug and relocate and pop up from a new position. Only fools fire away from a known location. You only do that stuff if you are trying to win firepower supremacy. Not something that is going to happen often fighting gurrilla tactics.

I am not sure if I am understanding the information correctly, but from what I see the odds of getting a direct hit with the 2" mortar seem pretty low. But some of the other data shows that when a hit or close hit is adcheived, looks like men are getting wounded, not just hiding. but that also does not appear to take into account if they would be prone at the time.

Great Work I am glad you did it, it really shows what can be done when someone with skills uses it to do such a work. I always thought it would be fun to try to make such a short movie. but from the sounds of it, maybe again. Not!!! I am not even willing to fight through capturing the video, let alone, all the other efforts and buying a good program to compile it and work with it in. But you can be proud of your efforts. Nice skills & a great movie !!!

Which is even more madness, since he stated the kills were happening 50-70 meters away. I dont want to start down this issue again. But it does bother Me BF does not appear to want to tweek these issues and that it takes a act of God to get a change anymore. The use of Pistols just happens to be one on the top of my list as just being crap and that no changes has happened.

You still have some heads to hunt for your list. Lets see you get that statement from JonS or JasonC, there would be a catch, getting them to claim you were correct on something.

never said it was a wwII tactic that was commonly used. Just saying how I avoid being killed in the game and that my results do not seem unrealistic to real world numbers as to losses. Now if I had trenches and deep fox holes that let me ride it out, then maybe I would not bug out. I do feel that the game has improved a little there, if I make sure my men are given the hide command before it hits. But in general, I cannot even trust that to save enough lives. I rather pull back , let it hit, then run back in and try to beat the enemy to my defenses, than ride it out. So like you said, since real tactics do not produce the best results, then adjusting aspect of the game should be considered. thus the reason this thread has taken life again.

This is the best quate in here. players tend to not play realistic and do what is needed to save their troops. I fiend that field arty is not that bad in the game in its indirect role. I seldom find myself loosing many troops to it. when the spottting rounds come. I bug out if I can and surrender the terrain instead of the troops. If I cannot bug out . they find cover and hide and try to ride it out. Seems realistic. The problem is, with light direct fire from mortars. The defence has no options. If the first round does not pin my men. normally the next few will and they all happen before I can give a order, and by that time no order is going to help anyway. Is this realistic, I am not sure. I do feel that the in game use has a factor that really is not realistic to what happened in the real world. That is rounds available and used on targets. In the game, they always have a full load and are willing to emty their full amout becasuse the scenario is a short given time. Where as. real mortar crews would fire just enough to get the job possible done and save their rounds for the next unknown mission. because they only have what they are packing and they are not getting more til the firefight is over and they get some supplies. They would not know if that was a hour or 3 hours away. They were used to take out or suppress important targets so not so eager to kill any known target. Also a reason why defensive positions were much harder to take. they had stock piled rounds so could be much more free willing with firing away against attackers which did not have the same supplies. So between the defense having no type of protective options and the amount of rounds units have available and willing to shoot both are other factors that twist the results for the small mortars. Along with possible other things mentioned. I still question who is correct about how good the weapons really are. Since we were still using them when I was in, that does not sound like a weapon that is ineffective if it has lasted 40 plus years. But Until someone shows hard combat evidence otherwise. I think some here do not have proper respect for the weapon. Not because they really know. But because of games they played before that had no more realistic knowledge than this one here.

When I run any type of test scenario I always run the game in Hotseat mode and then I also switch which side I start with every battle, even though it should not matter. The other benefit that can happen when doing a test this way. i can step in and give orders to any unit that might start doing some stupid actions, like rotating and exposing its flank to the enemy. generally not a problem but once in a while the AI does some junk.

I will add a few comments. As was mentioned, the campaigns are different than you are thinking but. Some of them are very enjoyable and link missions well and you get a real connection to some of your units and play in a manor that is more realistic. Also campaigns are a one person option only. All I can say is it is much improved over the old system. Some of the designers do a good job at giving you a hard AI opponant. I enjoy them and that is coming from someone tht is pretty much a HtoH fan only type of guy. As for playing Real Time, I find it great when playing the AI in these Campaigns, it adds to you not being able to disect the battle and actually speeds up the play to a enjoyable level. But at times playing the Wego method cannot be beat. At least now you have the two options and they both have strengths. But I would recommend the CMBN game over this one at the moment as for campaign type play, but never know, what might come out in the future. but present missions for me seemed a little weak compared to some from the other series.

Not neccesary I did run a short quick one when the Brits came out with the king Tiger vs the Firefly just to see if I could kill the thing from the front, Which it did a little better than I expected. That shows up in another Thread here.

Recently there has been comments about how some of us think one or the other has an unfair advantage in the game. I personnally did not feel this way and just felt the fortunes of war was showing itself when I had unusual results. So tonight I just ran a few battles to see what type of results I would get in this set up. A company of M4 & M4a1 Shermans against a reduced company of Pz IV G & H tanks, 17 on each side. First distance was 1400 meters apart Reg. crews buttoned up. 2 minutes of battle. results reflect lost tanks or unmanned tank 1st test 1 PzIV/ 13 Sherman's 2nd test 5 PzIV/ 7 Sherman's It is easy to see in the battle the germans get the first shots off which leads to getting the advantage. the other thing to note: within 2 minutes, the Shermans will normally be well shrouded in smoke This was not a test, just something to see if it was going to act as I predicted. So I was seing a advantage for the german tank at this distance. Both in sighting and rounds penetrating So I now adjusted the battle to a range of half the distance to 700 meters and ran it twice again. Figuring this might even up the results. 1st test 14 PzIV/ 7 Sherman's 1st test 5 PzIV/ 15 Sherman's It was easy again to see that the two advantages have almost been removed. The German tanks still did get off the first shots both battles but the shermans were replying in just a few seconds, whereas in the long range battle there is a distinct difference. Second, now when hits were adcheived, full penetration was most likely whereas I saw plenty of partial penetrations from the Shermans at long range. So even though the battles can have one sided results still. I am pretty confident that given enough runs, they would be pretty even, maybe giving a slight advantage to the Germans still. But nothing was happening to give me the impression that the sherman has any unexpected advantages that would be unrealistic to historical accounts. Now to just find a battle where I can engage the Shermans at 1400 meters, I never hardly play a battle that gives me that.

The fluke shot at the end was a perfect finish to such a crazy battle that was a joy to read. Well played and I really liked some of your decisions in this battle. One thing about CMX2 games, predictability is not part of the system. For some reason I actually like that even though it is frustrating as heck at times. But playing all them years with predictable games, where results were pretty consistant. never felt right. Not when you read combat stories all the time that reflect how unpredictable and how non logical things are, how crazy things happen alot out there because it is normally in a state of madness. Command and control is not commonly present. even when I was in the service. Field practice showed you how little you know what was going on generally around you. Only very recently has some of the communication devices really given the adverage soilder the ability to know what is going on in the battlefield around him.

A very good view. Except for JonS, See, he looks to find ways to be rude to others, just look at his history of post. He starts the insults an majority of the time. So for him, he receives in return that for what he gives out.

It takes as long as the amount of skills you have. In other words, Players with more skills normally take longer because of all the things they are running through in their set-up of units. As for my one bit of advice. The more I have played over the years. The more i look for trying to set up as much of a reserve as i feel i can. Units behind the front lines that i can move and locate to what I see is needed when I read my opponants offense. Since this units require no detailed placement other than being organized in command and located where they have good access to the different frontal areas of the map. It has saved me alot of time setting up my defence. But dont be afraid to take time doing that first turn. its worth the effort.

- Units in motion do spot worse than stationary units Ok, lets restate this, since I also posted data on this when the thread was active. Yes it does affect spotting when in motion, I have made a statement that was not correct. Buuuuut. When we ran them test. The over all results was Yes the moving tank after running many test had a overall higher adverage than the motionless tank. But there was the result of how many times both the motionless vs the tank in motion spotted each other at the same time, which was pretty high. and considering that the motionless tank was in good concealment. made little sence as to reflecting good logic. So, though you are correct. I will restate that what I would like to say is Tanks in motion are not being handicapped enough and that at many instances do not show any differance at all to a motionless tank. So , as far as I am concerned, its still broken, even if there is some weird penalty that does affect the tank in motion at times. As for the size , I have not tested it to see for sure how it is impacting the results. But when there is a tank with no concealment in full view of your unit and it is not spotted in the machine sight spotting cycle, which appears to be 7 seconds at the most in certain situations. Then there is a problem. No matter how you justify it. Unless that crew is on some heavy drugs. the spotting likelehood is extreamly high. I have seen this situation at times go from 30 seconds to a minute while running test for head to head duels. So maybe you have some results that show a varience, great. Then lets get some changes to it. So that the game starts spotting tanks out in the open more consistantly. As far as I am concerned, it is not taking size into account correctly until that happens.

I think as some have tried to point Out. Bf actually underpriced their work to begin with with CMX1 even given the fact how much more they could produce in a given time. They really gave us more than they should have for the first group of games. Plus they were learning how best to sell the game. They really likely were underpaid for the CMX1 series. So now they have learned their lession, plus now they are into a much more time consumming game to produce the present very detailed feature, which we the consummers have demanded. So there a sign of no intellegence from anyone who thinks they could possible offer the type of volume they did back in the day and not find themselves in dept to some loan shark.

True, back to some type of testing needs to be done to show some points. But without understanding what programming is involved with the spotting to begin with. It seems a little of a waste. Now I have tested different aspects of spotting to certain things and personnally have come to a conclusion it is no where near real life in many factors, so its not going to get you the warm feeling as to it being natural. Just a few observations from my game play and testing. Motions units do not seemed affected as to spotting, they see as well as a motionless unit. Spotting a enemy unit has nothing to do with size. A unit might as well spot a grunt 200 meters away as he does a tank. or not. In other words the amout of exposure that a target shows is not a factor as to being seen. Shadows, brush and trees do not conceal correctly. If there is a slight clear section to part of the target. The AI reconizes it as a enemy unit. Even if its no more than a sq ft area of the side panel of a tank 250 meters away. Why does it work like this, because it is a math program running some type of calc. that protrays all these type of things, but really is not doing these type of things as we would in real life. Now how do you suggest what to fix when you have no clue how they have come up with something that mimics real life but does not work on concepts that function in real life as to how we see. If we had a clue as to what factors in the program can be adjusted, that would help. But if I had to guess as to a possible area that could improve spotting. Size of the target to the spotter should have a math factor in the calculations that I do not think is there. Very large items should be easy to spot, that would resolve maybe some of the issues, like tanks not seeing tanks immediately when they are out in the open. Or infantry have a hard time spotting tanks in brush and smoke and stuff. large tanks should be harder to conceal in the game.

I Love your side of the AAR and I think this battle has been a classic example of a good close contest where clear victory has not been in view for either side. As for the fate of war outcomes that have shown up, that is just part of playing under the CMx2 engine, never know what to expect. Sometimes things might seem a little non-logical. but in general, the lucky and bad breaks go both ways and in the end add to the unpredictable nature that should somewhat exist in a battlefield situation.

Many a Tank battle is now decided by who spots who first. Much more than armor thickness, and how many tanks vs how many tanks. It sure does take the calculated risk out of the game at times now. Just had a htoh match today that My PzIV just nailed two Shermans in the same minute of play, all due to spotting. One moving, the other was stationary and I had adjusted my tank a few yards. So My opponant is adding his complaint about how his shermans could not but should have spotted my mark 4 sitting directly in front of them. I really think this thread comes down to learning to accept how the game handles spotting. Do I like it all the time. Nooo. Do I think it could be improved Yesssss. But so far BF has done little to improve it. There was some tweeks when they came out with the patch 1.10 for CMBN, and maybe some more when the Brits came out, Not sure about that. But we could hope for some more.