Nemesis Lead

Friendly fire IS a hazard when using aircraft. It is fairly rare, but it does happen. I am not sure if the date (or anything else) makes a difference in how often this happens. My own aircraft have strafed or bombed my troops on many occasions. This seems to happen most often when you have a lot of vehicles relative to your opponent and is especially true when your opponent has no vehicles and you have many. Aircraft like to pound what they can see and vehicles are the most obvious targets on the battlefield. Run about 10 tests with the above settings (and perhaps an inexperienced pilot) and you are likely to see this happen at least once.

Thank you--I have ordered the book and downloaded his paper.

Does anyone know of any analyses (e.g., books) that qualitatively compare WW2 armies (quality of battlefield performance, doctrine, organization etc.)? I have read many books that touch on this, but am wondering if there is a book dedicated (or largely dedicated) to this subject. Most recently I read "Eisenhower's Lieutenants" which (among many other things) highlighted a great debate at the time--did the US or the UK have the more effective army? The debate had corresponding implications for degree of control over SHAEF.

Undead, You might want to check again. While it is not a slaughter, Panthers eat IS-2s on a point by point basis. The best advice is above--hit the Tiger's in the sides with ATGs.

Jason C., As usual, you argue over nothing for the sake of arguing and use a haugty tone to boot. We are all saying pretty much the same thing to aid a player with his question, but you act as though we are all diametrically opposed and only you hold the keys to the Library of Ultimate Knowledge and Wisdom. The bottom line, for keyholed guns there is often an inverse relationship between how effective these guns are (often achieved with larger fields of fire) and how surviveable these guns are (often achieved with smaller fields of fire). There is a tradeoff, see? You seem to want it both ways--you feel you can shatter your opponent without fear of counterfire. What if I never move into your vaunted keyhole? Your 150mm IG is wasted because it will be very hard to reposition. Despite what you say, these are expensive guns (with rarity on which is how people usually play). Jason--of course it is true that an attacker / defender cannot overwatch all potential gun sites. Everyone has had frustrating situations where these guns absolutely eat them up because it will take mortars 2-3 turns (or more) to get into position. But IF YOU ARE PREPARED AND USING MORTAR OVERWATCH--a more frequent scenario is that an IG utterly devastates 1 or 2 squads and then gets nailed by counterfire. A bad trade. Don't get more wrong--these are nasty, nasty guns. But in my experience (which may be different from yours), they don't justify their cost as much as 2 75mm IGs do. 150mm IGs get their fearsome reputation largely because many newer players do not bring any mortars to the fight or do not overwatch properly or bunch up. In such situations, a 150mm IG becomes like a 155mm arty strike that is VERY accurately directed, with a larger ammo supply, and with better AT capability to boot. One thing I did not mention above....if you let infantry get too close to any infantry gun, they can pin them down with automatic weapons fire. It does not take much to suppress these things and you can manuever mortars into position or just kill them with small arms / mortar fire / semi-direct HE fire. So one needs to be very careful with the "point blank" keyhole. Go ahead Jason, tell me how all of the above is total bunk. Tell me how you can have your cake and eat it too.

150mm infantry guns are only one of the many reasons why one should almost always bring medium mortars to a fight. When attacking and you fear the enemy has 150mm IGs...don't bunch up, use scouts, and never move units (other than scouts) into areas that are not overwatched by mortars. When defending and you fear the enemy has 150mm IGs....think about using reverse slope or close in defenses (completely nulifies them), don't bunch up, and bring mortars with good fields of fire and/or covered routes should you need to reposition them to fire on an IG. In both attack and defense, you can also use smoke to blind 150mm IGs, move your threatened units to safety, and then mortar or direct HE fire the hell out of the IG. They are so slow that they are relatively immobile. Personally, I don't use these things much for reasons mentioned above. They take a long time to set up, move slowly, reload slowly, and cost a lot vs. 75mm inf guns (damn cheap). Often the inf gun will break an inf squad or two before it is knocked out. Not a good trade in most cases. 150mm IGs are devastating in those situations where they have some time to work (e.g., when your opponent has no mortars or his mortars are not overwatching properly). Having said that, a good player will deny you this opportunity (for reasons mentioned above). Also--one needs to consider overkill. A 75mm inf gun will reliably break squads while a 150mm inf gun will nearly annihilate them. In my mind, breaking a squad is sufficient--you don't need to annhilate it to get it out of the fight. They extra damage you do does score some points, but is "wasted" killing troops who are out of the fight anyways. Are they overmodeled and/or underpriced? I don't think so. I think they are VASTLY OVERRATED by players who don't know how to fight them. 150mm inf guns will absolutely slaughter those who do dumb things like bunch up in treelines without mortar overwatch. The amazing thing is that people do not learn to respect and counter these bad boys.

It is amazing. The community of people who play this game is very small. One would think that people would attempt to maintain their reputations. Sadly, many do not. That is why I keep a "do not play" list and avoid PBEMs to a large degree. I completely agree with WN and others in that you learn far, far more in the games that you lose vs. those that you win. One loss is probably worth 5 wins in terms of experience gained. Another equally interesting point...your greatest victories...the ones that you really remember....are often the ones in which you were losing and turned around in a big way. One of the great things about CM is that fortunes can turn on a dime. People forget this and often write off games as hopeless when they still, in fact, are capable of winning.

Very nicely done, Robert. Maps well illustrated, shows your upfront plan and how it changed as the game went on, good writing, good action screenshots, shows the conclusion. To make it even better--you may want to describe your forces better--the experience level of the troops you have (green, vet, etc.); the kind of artillery (105mm? Radio?), the kind of mortars (60mm, 81mm?), etc.. It is pretty important and can explain a lot of what happens later. Also, when everything is done, you may want to tell us what you were facing from the German side. I can gather from reading it, but it would be handy to have it all in one place. Playing human opponents is much more fun. The AI in this game (as in nearly all games) is really stupid. AARs become that much more interesting. Good luck, Nemesis

Thanks so much guys. Therein lies the problem. I am running Windows 98. Rather than return the game....I have bought a new computer. Should arrive in about 10 days. Many thanks, Nemesis

Thanks, Aphelion. It did not work, however. Battlefront, any ideas?

Hi Battlefront, Just got my copy of T-72 and am very excited. Only one problem--it seems I cannot install it. I get an error as follows: "The T-72.exe file is linked to missing export Shell32.DLL:SHGetFolderPathA." Any idea what this means? Many thanks, Nemesis

Hi Battlefront, Just got my copy of T-72 and am very excited. Only one problem--it seems I cannot install it. I get an error as follows: "The T-72.exe file is linked to missing export Shell32.DLL:SHGetFolderPathA." Any idea what this means? Many thanks, Nemesis

Check this out: http://www.battlefield.ru/

That is awesome Dook---thank you.

Has anyone ever done any tests of how long you get smoke for various types of ammunition (e.g., US 81mm smoke ammo generates smoke for 120 seconds)?

Very good work for your first game, Talk. I seem to recall that in my first game I brought 2 Elephants and 1 platoon of infantry (and also managed to win). This brings me to my point... In the future, you may want to take a lot more infantry than you did. Infantry do a few things for you: 1) Kill other infantry. 2) Provide good, cheap recon (they are harder for the enemy to see and they see much better than tanks). 3) Kill tanks/bunkers in close combat (depending on their secondary weapons) 4) It sounds funny, but infantry are much more survivable than tanks. Tanks are easily killed by AT guns and other tanks. Further, when you lose a tank, it is gone. An infantry squad can absorb hits and remain effective. 5) Protect your armor from both close-in AT weapons (and longer ranged AT weapons). 6) Soak up your opponent's HE rounds (it is possible to bring so much infantry that your opponent will have difficulty killing them all). 7) Infantry can make maximum use of cover and concealment. Heavy buildings, trenches, trees, can maginfy the effectiveness of infantry. Infantry can ambush the enemy in ways that armor can't. 8) Infantry is cheap and you can take risks with it. Taking risks with 200+ point tanks will lose you games. Taking risks with 25 point infantry squads is a better bet. 9) Infantry magnify the effectivness of other units, e.g., commanders can spot for mortars, infantry can escourt FOs, etc.. Sorry is this sounds like it is stating the obvious. It is just that most new players (including myself when I was new) get enamored with armor/artillery/heavy weapons and forget about infantry. Ultimately, a combined arms approach with a solid infantry backbone is what wins battles (in most cases). Best of luck! [ June 23, 2005, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: Nemesis Lead ]

An interesting thread. I am of two minds on the issue. In WW2, actions like the ones in CM would take much longer than 30-40 minutes/turns (i.e., your average game length for a 1000-1500 a/d game on a medium map). I have read in numerous books that the pace of infantry combat was especially slow. Lots of creeping into position, waiting for supporting units to also get into position, casualties often halt the advance, etc.. Hence, if you want "realism" a game length of 200+ turns would not be out of the question for a company sized battle (silly as it sounds). However, in CM games of 50+ turns are just too long for many people to deal with. Personnally, I have usually had enough at about turn 30. This is why I rarely play games larger than 1500 points in QB. One needs to strike a balance. Hence, a 1000 point QB on a medium map should take between 33 and 40 turns in my mind. While this is way faster than real life and one may sometimes be unrealistically strapped for time (e.g., how many silly tank rushes to flags have we all seen?), but easily doable from a player's perspective.

Guess we agree to disagree then. [ May 11, 2005, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: Nemesis Lead ]

No-one, Prep fire against setup zones in QBs are not neccessarily gamey (provided you are on a medium sized map or larger). In real life, defenders very often shell suspected attack assembly areas. This REALLY hurts you if you miss--it is a big gamble and defenders are severely punished for "start line fires" that miss. I have done this three times (mostly for fun) defending in no-rarity games with very cheap Soviet heavy arty. Once, the results were spectacular (80+ kills referenced above), once I "broke even" (killed/routed a platoon with a 64 point barrage) and once I missed completely. In scenarios with small/known/restricted set up zones or small maps, I agree that this is pretty criminal. All the best, Nemesis

We are done here. Laz and Blaz got much more than he bargained for.

Walpurgis--it is me Nemesis from CMHQ. You and I need to get another game in to break our 1 to 1 deadlock (I really hate tie records). Your turn to attack. Just PLEASE don't use any pre-planned bombardments on me... Jason C--you managed to misinterpret what I said again. I am not saying that opponents usually defend the whole map. I am saying that they often, out of necessity, do not present you with continuous (or in some cases even supporting) MLRs and attackers can often take advantage of this to concentrate overwhelming force (including heavy arty) against a section of the opponent's line, rupture it, and turn his flank. Military Strategy 101--nothing genius here. My point all along is that you cannot think in purely attritional terms. Sometimes you have to "invest" (i.e., accept a less than favorable resource exchange ratio) upfront to reap rewards later. Me a good player? I guess there is only one way for you to find out, but twice you have not responded to my challenges. Frankly, I think you know better. Also funny how you seem to regard anyone with a slightly different point of view than you as an idiot (too bad people did not see your "Horsefeathers" post that you took down). Is it possible there is truth in what BOTH of us are saying or is everything black and white, right and wrong (with you being right)? You seem to have issues with a multitude of people in this community. Is it them OR...just maybe....is it you?

Hi Jason, I see you edited your post by withdrawing your "horsefeathers" comments and generally making it much less condescending. Thanks for that, as your original post made me pretty mad. Always up for a game, if you are willing. I usually play on weekends. Nemesis [ May 09, 2005, 08:31 AM: Message edited by: Nemesis Lead ]

Jason, Horsefeathers? I like the overwhelming majority your posts, but find your arrogance in lecturing experienced CM players a bit disconcerting (you really need to work on this). Time to de-bunk portions (not all) of this attrition-based theory of yours. You seem to assume that CM opponents always confront you with an integrated MLR. In reality, you are much more likely to face platoon-sized strongpoints. They may be mutually supporting, but having a platoon rendered ineffective puts you into a heap of trouble as I will explain (again) below: Point of fact--a medium sized map is over 800 meters across. Most opponents defend with a company of infantry (occassionally reinforced by a platoon) in a 1000 point QB. If flags are spread out (which they often are), each platoon could find itself with a frontage of nearly 300 meters to hold (and the platoon will be no more than 80-100 meters across if you want to take advantage of command bonuses--less in restrictive terrain). Further, if an opponent holds an infantry reserve (not likely) or concentrates his defense (very likely), his frontages may increase much further on the "open" side of the map. Small arms fire (HMGs excepted) loses effectiveness very quickly beyond 100 meters, especially if the attacker knows how to use cover and suppressive fires/smoke. Losing a defending platoon means that unless two platoons were tightly tied in (somewhat rare, actually), the surviving platoon will be hard pressed to stop (much less destroy) your COMPANY (or more and with supporting heavy weapons) as it surges through the gap since it will be firing at you from beyond 100 meters (and probably much more). HMGs may slow you, but you are likely to break through if you are using vets. I do this all the time, Jason. The big danger is that your arty misses and you have to slog your way through. Even then, you are still likely to break through. The question is--will you have the strength left to pivot and roll up your opponent's line? Often, this will not be the case if the money that you spent on arty has been wasted on a strike that misses. But then, the pre-planned bombardment is all about taking this risk, isn't it? This risk is why I don't often do this. The only plausible counterargument that one might have is that flags are often concentrated on one side of the map and the defender does not have to defend the full 800 meters. The solution: Attack the open flank and roll up your opponent from the side--CM defenses invariably face forward and (again) few people refuse their flanks. Force them out of their forward facing holes and into mobile battle! Also--I take SERIOUS issue with your supposition that you primary goal should be to destroy the defender. When two GOOD CM players meet, it is VERY, VERY rare that one force will be destroyed or forced to surrender. Save your finished games--you will note that at the end of a game 40% or more of the defending infantry usually survives (in many cases, the survivors will not even fire a shot because they are on the part of the line that was not attacked). Personally, in my 100+ QBs I have NEVER had an autosurrender forced on me because my force was destroyed. When I do force autosurrenders on others, my opponent is usually a newb who put all his eggs in a few expensive units that get destroyed. CAPTURING FLAGs, CONCENTRATING FORCE, and MANUEVERING TO GAIN POSITIONAL ADVANTAGE are the keys to victory on the attack. You get good attrition results from CONCENTRATION AND MANUEVER. You get points from FLAGs to offset the losses and firepower "wasteage" you incurred penetrating the MLR. Jason--you usually give good advice. In this case, you are giving very bad advice. A attrition-based strategy is unimaginative and adherents will never join the ranks of great CM players. Again, I will demonstrate this to you in a game if you like. Best Regards, Nemesis

Hi Jason C, Have a lot of respect for your opinions and knowledge of WW2. Agree that I messed up your exchange rate. Having conceded that, your attrition theories (dealt with in far more detail in other posts, so please forgive me for digressing and discussing them here) need to account more for OBJECTIVES/FLAGS, which are worth significant points and POSITIONING FOR FUTURE SUCCESS. I will deal with each in turn. OBJECTIVES/FLAGS A large flag (300 points) is worth more than a Panther tank, a good sized arty strike or a couple platoons of veteran infantry. You can be downright wasteful (heavy losses and expenditure of ammo) crushing a portion of your opponent's line and then reclaim all of the "wastage" by grabbing valuable objectives and (even more importantly) by positioning yourself for future success. POSITIONING YOURSELF FOR FUTURE SUCCESS By this I mean....a rupture and penetration of an enemy MLR usually puts you in a position to roll up your opponent's line (especially in 1000-1500 point QBs where most opponents do not refuse their flank, do not defend in depth and do not keep signficant reserves) by pitting many of your units vs. just a few of his at any given time. A long way of saying...one should not slavishly adhere to the "attritional exchange rate" stuff when it comes to penetrating the MLR. You will get all the points back (and much more) via the points for objectives and by destroying your enemy in detail when you roll his flank up/rape his vulnerable rear area units. Look at the Soviets in WW2. The took absolutely horrible losses rupturing German MLRs. However, onces those MLRs where ruptured, the often mauled the Germans via encirclement, rolling up lines, pursuit, breaking down the combined arms team, forcing the Germans to abandon fortified positions and then killing them as they moved, etc.. The Germans did this to the Soviets. The Allies did this to the Germans in Normandy (the exchange rate was equal until the German MLR collapsed and then the exchange rate favored the Allies in a big way). On a much smaller scale, this is how the best CM players win. To use your own example against you. To spend 300 points (actually this is way too much since rarity is off and people are using Soviet/German arty in all the examples cited above) on arty to render ineffective one infantry platoon (worth 100-150 ponits) AND (you left this out) penetrate an enemy MLR/grab a flag IS WELL WORTH IT. It also seems you think it unrealistic that the effective loss of one platoon is a catastrophe in a QB. Well, it is when a company sized force surges into that gap in the MLR. Granted flanking fire may cause some casualties. Maybe even moderate casualties. But when my company grabs a flag, pivots and start to roll up your line... Be careful not reduce CM to a grinding affair where your only objective is to achieve a positive exchange rate AT ALL TIMES. Ultimately, you have to have a positive exchange rate, but THAT IS AT THE END OF THE GAME. IT IS PERFECTLY OK TO BE "WASTEFUL" IF IT POSITIONS YOU FOR LONG TERM SUCCESS AND/OR ALLOWS YOU TO ACHIEVE VALUABLE OBJECTIVES. I am happy to provide a demonstration if you like. Nemesis, out.

Guys, Very interesting thread that got me thinking.... I save the final results of my 100+ QBs. I took at look at the results and noticed is that 80%+ of the time, human opponents are dug into cover (trees, heavy buildings, etc.) near flags. Further, units are often packed fairly close together in order to take advantage of leadership bonuses. This goes for newbies AND vets (much as vets would like to deny it). Arty in the 150mm+ category will break units that it hits. For timing, you have two choices. If you are armor heavy, you might want to fire immediately to kill AT guns that might threaten your tanks. If you are infantry heavy, you might (as Jason C suggests) delay your fire to coordinate with your infantry assault in order to give as little time as possible for your opponent to recover/shift reserves. One item I do disagree with--the artillery does not actually have to "pay" for itself by destroying/breaking 150% of its value in enemy units in a QB attack. If the arty does break a section (even a platoon) of your opponent's line and you concentrate your attack on that part of his line, you can often overrun flags easily (here is where you get the points back) and force him to deploy his reserve and otherwise come out of static defenses. Hence, you can turn a static battle into a mobile fight that almost always favors the attacker. One other thing...prep fires can be used on the defensive. If you look at the map, you can often (but not always) determine the enemy's most likely route of attack (look at flags and covered approaches to those flags). You also know roughly where the enemy start line is (forward edge is about half the depth of your defensive zone) and you can target your arty accordingly. My best result was vs. Meteorite, a pretty good player. Arty fired on turn 1 caused 83 casualties and broke the reinforced infantry company that was to attack me. The arty is especially lethal because your enemy is not dug in and thus extremely vulnerable. Again, both newbies and vets tend to concentrate forces and bunch up on the "start line." Defensive fire with TRPs and conscript FOs are also great and less of a gamble, but you often will not get the concentrated effect that you get with "start line" fires. The thing that puts a damper on all of this... You can only take advantage of all of this with rarity off or (in some cases) with variable rarity. With standard rarity, such tactics are far too expensive and since most people play QBs with standard rarity, it is not often that you can deploy such tactics. Hope this helps, Nemesis