GS_Guderian

And again you are evading the issue. Lack of arguments? Point is you can´t discuss about the mal proportion of immobilisations, if you seperate the different causes. The game won´t, why should we do? You are going circles...

Well, for me it is all one issue. The game does not tell me why my tank isn´t moving, it just stops moving. So in any case it could be a mechanical breakdown, something in my tracks, a lost track, a lack or loss of fuel, a sleeping driver whatever. Why are you trying to seperate things, that cannot be sperated at all regarding the game engine? Or to put it in an easier way: How many F1 cars break down on muddy terrain? Might it be possible that even the most excellent technique fails on top of the edge roads? Think about it.

Why don´t you try it? By 10 T-34, buy some 120mm FO. Shoot at ´em.

Dezember 1941, medium map, German assault. The 5.000 point strong defense dug in around the greatest portion of flags. Actually about 80% worth the lag value was located in an area 800m x 300m. With a mediocre amount of woods the overall target area for my Artillery was clear. From 10.750 points allocated to the German Assault, I purchased 2 x 337 incendary rockets and 1 x 280mm Nebelwerfer. All of it fired pre-planned on the mass of flags. As Jason C stated, the lack of depth in QB (im comparision) to the width of a map can be fatal. I never had such terrible result: Nebelwerfer 280mm took out: 132 men 8 guns 6 mortars Incendary rockets took out: 72 men 1 gun 5 motars & 25 men 1 gun After the second volley of rockets hit, my enemy asked for capitualtion. The Luftwaffe was striking, too. One T-34 was destroyed and allready routed soldiers got scared even more. Literally ALL of his men were pinned. First game ever, that was won due to artillery. (I liked the fact especially since I had totaly unexperienced troops. One rocket FO was a recruit actually.)

Well, the question was not about the routine, but rather how fast you could resolve the problem. You say it should be over in 2-3 minutes. I say no. You must be rather potent mechanics to get the machine back to run within that short time, especially in sight of the enemy. I never said it would stop permanently, it ain´t destroyed. And back to the propabilty of irregular stops for my Marder tank. Yes it is rather high. Of course not the rule, but far away from being an exception either.

It doesn't say this at all. I feel like I'm talking to my wife. :-O </font>

Granted for some cases, but a broken oil pipe and the loss of lubricant can´t really be found and resolved in a few minutes. I am very sorry for anyone who lost tanks due to this "immob" stuff, but our Marder 1A3 (modern in terms of CM, still older then me ) tend to break down even more often then any tank in the game. And no, Germany is maneuvering in Mother Russia, nor are trying to hover over swamps. It just happens. Tiny little things, that take out your tanks for a while. And you won´t be able to even look for the problem, as long as enemy is able to spot and bring fire onto you.

I always thought of them as laser shields, kinda lika starwars

You are contradicting yourself a little me thinks: 1. As long as you just tweak the proportion the whole issue stays alike. I assume you would turn the overall numbers down, which makes for less games, in which your lonly Uber-tank renders useless by bogging, but it would still occur. Thus we have the same whining, just less often!? 2. If you say you tweak the proportion to an extent, that it virtually doesn´t happe on dry ground anymore, it is NOT tweaking anymore. Because as soon as one part of the numbers hits zero, we are not talking about percent chances in relation to other percent chances anymore. You can´t get below 0. It doesn´t matter if oyu go down by subtracting absolut numbers from the original chance or by altering all those chances by a factor of 10,20,30 etc %. At one point some tanks won´t mathematically bog while others will still do on the same terrain. If you still say that is ok, you will very much end up with tanks that are totaly unaffected by bogging on dry ground, roads etc. while others are biased because of a mathematically higher and thus possible chance to still bog. And you really think, that wouldn´t call for changes in Prices? Hell it would even need a special description in the buy menue: Like T-34 ´43, will never fail to drive in dry and on roads... or King Tiger, has a tiny little-bitsy mathematical chance to still bog even on dry. 3. Your idea of having tanks never fail on dry ground or roads totaly fails to grasp the whole concept of bogging. It takes into account much more then just loosing a track. It simulates failures in transmission as well as fuel pipe breaches, overheating engines or a lubricant failure. It´s the very same thing as the weapons failure for MG´s, which doesn´t say exactly what happened. Ammo stuck? MG Barrel hot? Visor misadjusted? You will never know, except for the overall info, that something ain´t working for the moment. You aren´t even answering to this argumentation. Again, the game isn´t about fairness, nor about obvious and clear numbers. Like my previous speakers said, stick to chess if you need that.

Yup and Germany could´t afford to equip all of their tanks with "Waffle-Schürzen" in late war anymore, thus they were lost.

Not very helpful, since all other tanks will answer with the same signal, or pass it along to the other tanks. Thus they all look alike.

*installsalittleheadshotscript*

Hell, I wish Sudden Strike never had this repair truck invented. Now all people believe that there actually IS a repair truck out there, somewhere. PS: Repair trucks don´t exist and Pioneers don´t deliver ammo either

I tried some artillery peaces on dug in Infantry and must say that nothing seems to beat the 300mm rockets. 1944, German PzGrenBtl entrenched, spread out on an area about 500m - 800m. (Of course this means it was pretty crowded). I bought 1 x 300mm rockets and fired on my own men (yes, I know...but it was for testing purposes only ) I suffered over 50 dead and 6 20mm Flak gone, compared to the other artillery woth the same money this was the best I could get. 81mm mortars caused a lot of fear, some soldiers even ran, but not even 20 losses from mortars. 75mm artillery did even worse. 4 x 170mm artillery was pretty scaring too, but the actually losses didn´t go over 25 and some 20mm Flak. As far as I see it, the biggest rockets are worth their money, as long as you have a rather dense defense. If it´s only a thin line, you might be better off with individual, smaller batteries. And for the mortars, the ability to fire smoke instead of HE is appealing, too. On the other hand, a commander who fires his rockets "blind" in the open without real assurance of strong enemy presence, basically wasted his money.

From the Russian point of view I must say that 2 x 82mm rocktets helped Zero to nothing vs. entrenched Finns, while my 300mm rocket battery took out 1 gun and 40 men in the same area.

Must be chance then, but I often find spots suiteable to defend from without the immanent threat of enemy HE. But you are propably right, that many attackers are pushing to much and loose tanks because of impatience.

Granted, but that´s all I can get unfortunately and I don´t know a better way to get a fresh map anytime I want. But I absolutely love the overall size of medium - huge maps. Otherwise I might just stick to Close-Combat anyway. Asides often enough small hills, forests effectivly block LOS for tanks, forcing them to get closer. Depends on the landscape, of course.

Now what exactly did I understand wrong? For me this means that JC does NOT necessarily think about the owned areas of cover. Tree Islands and hills aren´t his main focus, correct? Of course he uses cover along the path he steamrolls, but his priority is to go where the enemy is, not where you can go the fastest or where you can gain a significant position.

In QB´s and an assault with 5000/8600 points I often buy rockets as the attacker if I knew the categories for the landscape. I experienced great damage from the bigger rockets to gun positions in small woods streches. Not because of the forest itself, more like a hint to where the guns will hide. Most times you can predict where the enemy will defend, as long as it isn´t all forest or no forest. You won´t kill all of the guns, but you sort some out and thus punch holes into the overlapping fire of ATGs. Allthough if timed right, you can get the rockets down right before you come into effective HMG range and hope to gain some speed in advance since you pinned/panicked some teams. I never used rockets without TRP or without preplanning them (Delay with Q), because it seems to take forever until they finally shoot and you certainly do not have time to wait all day. Attack is speed. Speed ain´t magic. (I know you can time QBs pretty long, but I think it takes away the thrill if the attacker can sneak all his way and still make it in time for the 5 o´clock tea)

One question to the author of this post: I tend to play 5000 points QB´s with Assault on a medium map. (60-65 rounds variable) Rarety on. Maps a decided by chance sometimes, sometimes prepicked. All vs. Human players on the eastern front. Honestly I don´t know what you guys are playing mostly when competing against human opponents, but this my favorite. I would play huge maps with these odds, but it gets even slower in computing inbetween turns . Now since the topic is about firepower and the way to use attrition (in both men and ammo) in your favor, how broad would your actual "Schwerpunkt" be? Cover can´t really be an issue to you since it varies every so and so meters any way (as long as its not a plain plain or forest only map). I have tried various front lenght with small to tiny forces left and right. I made flank attacks and double flanking, massive center etc etc. Do you have a general idea of how broad your advance will be? To the movement critizism: (Btw. I liked most of it and many aspects of Adams criticsm or the differences he saw in between your styles were not obvious to me. Like firepower tactic not making use of the initial success or the concentrated shock, as if you company with 1-2 squads ahead isn´t pure concentration) The thing is, sometimes maps tend to have KEY positions imho. 1. Example If you have few houses, few trees and few hills you end up with 1-3 hills dominating the map. Not necessarily in terms of firepower, I agree that constand HMG fire over 800m is not automatically the key to win. But with good vision the lonely hill covers the only way and also a perfect way to spot your movement. It´s not even about you spotting him (some defendes never dare to move anyway), but him spotting you. "Oh, you have only 4 StuGs, how nice to you". "Oh, you are pulling some ATG up front, thx for intel". Also, your company colums would suffer more from artilley shelling then very thin spread lines, I think we agree on that. You can´t screen that hill with fog forever. Also your FO´s on that hill may finally have a position to direct fire on almost any corner of the map. 2. Example Unfortunately villages in QB do not get flags inside. But still they may be a threat to your attack. Not the lonly 2-story house, any big caliber can simply tear it down, but the whole complex. Villages offer good cover from the front and they are right in the middle. Some of the flags you need left of it, some right. The bulk of the needed flags is in LOS from the village (of course not in wood only or very hilly terrain). Thus ATG´s and Tanks hide at the enemies side of the village for your flank to come. You have to come. Because without the flags you won´t win. They can turn 90° without any danger, while you actually can´t since you don´t know what he offers on his left or right wing. 3. Field fortifications. Now I must say that I make very intensive use of wire, mines and TRP. I can easily spend over 1000 points of my 5000 into that inflexible and passive stuff. BUT, as far as my games tell me it can save your day. About 25% of the tanks I immobilize or I take out are hit by mines. And those companies that received double their front length in wire and additional AP-Mines and TRP held out against any enemy it seems. Now the plan to move along a certain way, narrow but with depth, may just stumble across something really nasty. If you didn´t think carefully, from treeisland to treeisland, thought about every hill and all possible routes to move, you might get stuck easily. Because you decided your attack is here, here and nowhere else. With a great confidence you advance. And of course the overwhelming force of very deep structured attackers might pierce the obstacles after a while, but time is crucial and certainly your normal schedule could very well be upset, no? And this might be the advantage for an rather movement centred tactician I believe. He spots more then 100m barbed wire. He won´t go there. He will choose another way and might, with a quick change of his attack route, safe some time. Especially since this guy thought about several attacking routes anyway, most likely. I know this doesn´t work everytime, and maybe you get spooked of by nothing but wire, but maybe it was worth the reorganisation. For me speed in the initial advance is vital. I often use recon vehicles, not to actually spot units (somehow not even snipers are able to spot anything unless it fires, funny) but to lure out fire, scout for wire and of course mine fields. (The Detection Device is called sound ) I have a plan, yes. I do mass forces, most likely yes. But my "Schwerpunkt" is flexible to a certain extent. [ April 05, 2005, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: GS_Guderian ]

Really? Seriously I meant, that imho Russian early to midwar tanks have less trouble with sideshots compared to German tanks all over the war. First T-34 has same amor on all sides (of course not slope), KV Series is strong all around. That´s what I meant. Especially when it comes down to the Panther, which is really a beast frontally but rather tame sidewise.

Panzerschreck ... and yes it is a little harder with the Russian Infantry men. I never saw any lend-lease Bazooka yet and the ATR are only good enough to make real tanks nervous. The Molotov Cokctails seem to be inferior to normal grenades, at least most times when I kill a tank with Russian Inf they first threw the "Molli" without any bigger effect and then finished the tank off with a normal grenade. In the tank vs. tank issue I suffer similar trouble. Even my SU-152s lost vs. Pz IVH recently. But make sure you get the tank from the flank, I know this is the standard answer, but most German tanks really have trouble with sideshots. If you have superior numbers get them in LOS at the same time from various angles. It´s enough if the tank turns it´s turret just a little bit to get a quick sideshot from the other edge of your attacking force. In a one on one situation, like Panther vs. T-34...don´t attack PS: JS-2 and SU-100 can do one hell of a job, even vs. Kingtigers.

As you mentioned the new CM Engine, is there a chance that more then 2 players will be able to play? I know the game concept isn´t about clicking feast Command & Conquer style, but maybe 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 could be a neat thing. Like a coop-modus, where you didvide your Inf battalions among the players. Or one guy leads the tanks to battle, while another coordinates the foot troops.

Well, unfortunately I am seldomly interested in scenarios. I played thousends of Close-Combat games to compete against another human, not the AI. Thus I would like the ability to "buy" something like that. Nothing of real importance, but I bet more houses were blown up that way, then Panzer IIJ fought on the eastfront

In Reality you stay very very close together when it´s dark. But since you can´t get lost in this game, I doubt you need to do that.