sburke

okay off to the PENG thread with the lot of you, and close the door behind yourselves less we hear the driveling racket from the cesspool.

+1 on that or having a couple guys squaring off at a few paces with rifles and pistols blazing away (or blazing as fast as you can with a bolt action rifle) and no one hitting a thing. (yeah Broadsword and I have pics!) If there were no chance for odd luck or room for unexplainable behavior in the heat of combat it would be a lesser game. Now if that one off were to happen on a regular basis, yeah that would be an issue.

Patience sir, it will come and it will be better. Just because CMx1 had something because the overall engine requirements were simpler doesn't make it better. It simply means you have to eat your meat before you can have your pudding. How can you have some pudding if you don't eatchyer meat?! And no, I'm not gonna take offense, it is only (dare I say it) a game and everyone has their own opinion. I just accept that CMx2 is a work in progress as opposed to lamenting they haven't yet included everything the game will eventually have because some other lesser game had those features. I'm just glad they released it now instead of waiting till they had every last item in it as I'd probably be drinking dinner through a straw while folks stood around trying to decide if it was right to pull me off life support yet.

Not if you are on LLFs map trying to subdue resistance in Homs. I'm friggin terrified as to where he is gonna sneak in an rpg. I just lucked out nailing one guy with a sniper team, but that was only because he gave away his position killing one of my SF team guys (and that team never even figured out where the shot came from.) Map design is a huge portion of deciding how a battle will play out in CMSF or CMBN. I have had the good fortune to play in terrain created by two of our best and it completely altered my perspective on what is possible. As to "people not being thrilled with it". To each his own, but CMSF has a very avid community that is very much alive. personally I prefer WW2 era games, but I have to admit to finding CMSF pretty addictive. A Central Europe 1980s game would be really cool, but I'll take whatever BFC comes up with, they have yet to let me down.

There's no problem with looking and asking for feature additions in CM, there isn't a product out there of any type that doesn't get requests for additions or changes. It's the nature of producing a product and getting feedback. Hell at some point in time someone had to say, these bronze swords don't hold an edge too well, you got anything better? When we had stone tipped spears we didn't have to spend so much time worrying about it getting dull. My problem is the original premise is flawed. We are comparing apples and oranges and wishing we could still make apple pie with our blood oranges. There has to be some recognition that the game is fundamentally different and because of that implementation of some things is forever changed and there is no going back. CMx1 did nothing "better" than CMx2. It however does everything different and therefore did some things CMx2 does not...yet. That may sound like semantics, but it is a not so subtle recognition that certain things worked because frankly the TAC AI was a LOT less sophisticated. For example the building (both movement to and assaulting) issues in CMx2 are more tied to TAC AI pathing and the 1:1 ratio of the game. I think the OP was clear they don't want to go back, but at the same time looking at how CMx1 handled these doesn't really help. They just aren't comparable unless you are simply going to ignore they are fundamentally different. That being said as to feature additions I would like. gun jamming, lol I hadn't thought about that one until this thread and if you look at Broadsword's comic screenshot it actually uses that idea as to why they missed my landser. I can just see the snap decision to assault a hedgerow if you think from the drop off in fire that the enemy MG just jammed. Would it create a s**tstorm if they included it with dozens of threads about it happening too often/not often enough/wasn't right for the types of weapons/they unjam too quickly/too slowly etc etc probably. But it could still be cool.

Yeah I can't say the British had any lock on bad decisions. MG at least had a plan and goal no matter what you think of it's chances of success. Huertgen was simply no one stopping to say, does this actually make one whit of sense as we bled several divisions white in there creating the only conditions where Wacht am Rhein had even a snowball's chance in hell of any success. A Bloody Ground by Edward Miller is another good read.

CM The 300 Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness! King Leonidas: Madness...? [shouting] King Leonidas: This is Combat Mission Sparta! *Disclaimer It comes with only one scenario and you thought School of Hard Knocks was a bitch.

Combat Mission John Carter of Mars

Beautiful, just bookmarked it.

In yee olden days we had card board cut out pieces and mapboards. If you decided the rules were incorrect on something you could just change them. If you wanted fire you could just pull out a lighter If you wanted a different eras units, all you needed was a printer. Would you ever consider going back to ASL? Looking back is a waste of time. Keep your eyes on the horizon soldier.

LOL nah Shakespearean English always sounds bass ackward. As to Cmx1, I think I recall that but I deleted it a while back. Even though I prefer WW2 gaming over modern, CMSF spoiled me for what CM could look like.

This may be one source. I haven't had the time to go through it to see if there is anything appropriate. http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/

In at least one point in the Hamel battle Broadsword and I had units behind hedgerows on opposite sides of a road and we were both tossing a bunch of grenades (mostly to no effect). I haven't spent too much time honestly trying to get my units to use them, they seem to decide pretty well on their own when to do that. (I'll have some really cool shots of an OP team ambushing a recon unit using small arms, a PF and grenades). I tend to let the TAC AI decide that and usually it knows what it is doing. I only occasionally use the target command and when I do I find it ends up being a bit of overkill and more wasteful of ammo (another ex from Hamel - the one time I actually give a target command to an AT team they waste 3 PSK rounds on a target they knocked out first shot. The 3 teams I left to make the decision themselves did a much more efficient job)

I'm finally taking advantage of my kindle to keep a military history library I can carry around (and is relatively inexpensive). I've started looking at MG focused books and decided to get all 3 of George Koskimaki's books. The following is the 2nd in the series. I haven't gotten to it yet, but the first book has been pretty good at understanding from first person accounts just how chaotic the D Day drops were and how the individual soldiers coped while also giving an overview from each battalion as to how it was or wasn't able to accomplish it's objectives. Lots of detail. For example I hadn't read before that Col Sink got his ass chewed out on D Day for behaving like an idiot and nearly getting himself killed doing something he should have delegated to a patrol. Looking forward to getting to book 2. HELL'S HIGHWAY: Chronicle of the 101st Airborne Division in the Holland Campaign, September - November 1944 Koskimaki, George

Man you just gotta love the ole Python.

Our Hamel AAR will show me consistently nailing TCs and hitting tanks with AT teams that sometimes have to fire multiple rounds to hit and still aren't getting targeted. I am just glad we don't have flame tanks yet as I am betting Broadsword would've lit up every hedgerow on the map at a certain point out of frustration. Not sure what parameters are in play to reflect some of the disparity in experience, but my AT teams if they are not hit by arty or run in to enemy infantry seem to be able to act almost with impunity at times.

It's golden week there, he's probably piss drunk.

are you daring him to repeat it a half dozen or more additional times? Michael is right on target - yeah that is sig usable it seems, not that having me say you are right lends any authority at all to your sig. Actually it may look quite bad. The battle is the thing, not the end. Honestly, the end is a bit of a downer as it's all over now. The only answer to that being to start another. I enjoy watching my opponents moves and ability to implement their plan as much as my own. It is such a challenge to pull off a good attack that I really like seeing one develop. Points? meh. waste of time. Only good thing about the victory screen is it tallies up losses for you to apply to an OP layer in a campaign.

I have a different method. I split my teams, count out who has the most grenades and automatic weapons. I do some quick calculation, then I roll a 105mm Sherman or StuH 42 up and blow the friggin walls in. Works like a charm.

Best advice? Go back to playing the game. BFC will announce when they are ready to announce. They know damn well that more information from them will just lead to more questions. It is what we do and we are dang good at it. In terms of guesses, the only bit of information Moon gave was it would be about CMBN if in fact that was what he meant and not something more generic. Assuming that is the case it rules out Eastern Front, N Africa, Italy etc etc CMBN is one game family and those would all be others. My hope? They release BOTH the remaining modules so they can wrap this one up and start focusing on the next.

Beautiful. I just added Mord/Darknight's portraits myself for the Hamel AAR screenshots. It is so damn cool.

I thought we had already decided that AT guns were far too vulnerable and could never live up to the tactical tales we have heard of them... get with the program soldier.

Very cool, thanks I learned something new today.

Hmm do I hear an addition to come for my sig line?

Good point. A lot of us form perceptions based on troop quality that doesn't reflect the kind of troops who would typically mass surrender. Trying to fight a battle with the real run of the mill average folks new to combat (ie green, unmotivated or unfit troops) will yield different results and probably a whole other set of tactics. It can be a real eye opener and maybe get you thinking about the tactics you use. Do they really work or am I just getting by because my infantry won't break?