BlackAlpha
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Posts posted by BlackAlpha
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Which has actually been my point too. I'm not really saying the armored vehicle is disappearing, it never will as long as the gun continues to exist. What i'm saying is that the MBT may be on its way out. The proper "tank" as we know it. I mean Apocal is right too, muskets didn't get rid of Cavalry, they just changed them so drastically that they weren't the cavalry they used to be anymore. That's how we look toward the future in my mind.
Well, if not a MBT, then what exactly? So, what's your idea on how the MBT will evolve?
Personally, I think the MBT will stick around for a while and will be doing an arms race with missile based weapons. There are still a lot of possibilities with protection systems for tanks, you can make them still much bigger and thus more effective, but missiles are near their physical limit, not much you can improve there (anti tank MIRV or swarm variants would be pretty huge). For that reason, I suspect APS will at some point surpass missile based weapons and will make tanks nearly immune to missile based weapons. Like panzersaurkrautwerfer mentioned, I think the only possible game changer for tanks might be a railgun IF we can manage to create the technology to fit it on something as small as a tank.
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Yup, things evolved, just like the tank currently is evolving. That's partially what I meant.
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Javelins are likely as common as machine guns were in WWI and look how much they shifted warfare.
But machine guns didn't make infantry obsolete, so that's a bad comparison as well.
Instead of talking about historical anecdotes, it's better to look at how things stand in real life. Are tanks obsolete at the moment? Are tanks being phased out? No and no. In fact, countries are designing new tanks. Why do you think that is so?
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It's not that different though is it? Because at the same time most leaders still saw the pike and bayonet as the soldier's primary right up until around the 18th century. The Javelin isn't as common as a rifle sure but that's not the point. It doesn't have to be, it just has to be way more common than a TOW. So common that it's organic to infantry platoons rather than limited to specific anti-tank formations.
Muskets had limitations too, like vulnerability to moisture, misfiring, inaccuracy, etc. All weapon systems have caveats. What matters is what they can accomplish for the investment.
I think you are missing the point. The Javelin is not as commonly available as Muskets were (far from it, in fact), hence your comparison is wrong.
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Yeah but the armor became pointless for a reason. It was because it was a lot of work to manufacture and provide and no longer gave much protection from weapons any peasant in a levy could use. The horse continued as long as it did because as long as Armies were too small to construct proper frontlines (like the kind measured in 50+ miles) then maneuver was still relevant. Direct combat tended to produce a lot of casualties in Cavalry and it seems rather conspicuous to me that in the American Civil War, cavalrymen almost always fought dismounted.
Once you've got a weapon that's ubiquitous and practical enough for everyone to use than the classic infantry-as-screen to some other core unit (mounted heavy cavalry/tanks) relationship reverses.
You forget one huge difference. The musket was a soldier's primary, while a Javelin AT launcher is not. At least for now, you won't see Javelins in every single squad.
The Javelin also has limitations, like the time it takes for a Javelin CLU to get ready. Or the few minutes you get to fire the missile after enabling the missile seeker (if the tank moves out of sight during that time, then that's one less battery for you and more downtime). It's also heavy as hell. The Javelin is not perfect and has weak links of its own.
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panzersaurkrautwerfer,
My mind's reeling so badly right now, I hardly know what to feel, still less think. Most interesting info regarding deliberate spread of battle carry ammo types for a platoon entering combat.
Sublime,
Good to know, but I think it's a bad way to go in terms of a sim. Maybe an AI coin flip would be indicated in the next patch?
Regards,
John Kettler
It's not hard to imagine that in a tank heavy environment everybody switches to AP, then when you're fairly sure the tanks have been taken care off, you switch back to the regular mix. It also depends on how you organize the tanks. If like often happens in Combat mission, you split up a tank platoon and send individual tanks to different locations (bad idea but whatever), then they will carry whatever ammo they deem is necessary for the environment.
But then there's still the problem that the first shot, which is most likely AP in a tank environment, is used against lighter vehicles and is always highly successful, right? I don't think I've ever seen a tank shoot at a lighter vehicle, over-penetrate, and end up not killing it.
Panzersaurkrautwerfer explained how it's possible to react for tanks so quickly. To summarize, it's technology and training. Technology allows the vehicle itself to aim and shoot very quickly. The training gives you multiple ways to engage targets. There's a long way of calling out targets and calling for permission. Then there's an intermediate way when things need to be sped up in certain situations. And finally, there's a very fast way in which the gunner/commander is given the freedom to decide to shoot straight away, enabling them to shoot within seconds, pretty much as fast as the vehicle is capable of aiming and firing.
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On the other hand, if you are not used to play with small froces on large maps, you can quickly feel overwhelmed by the amount of descisions that you have to make. Which avenue of approach is the best one? Where do i put my forces in overwatch? What is the most likely enemy course of action? How do i do reconnaissance? On small maps you dont have too many options available, it is always pretty clear what you have to do. On large maps, with multiple possible approaches to victory, things are more complicated but also more interesting and challenging.
That's what makes it the most fun, in my opinion. I wish all maps were like that.
One thing I don't like is that in most cases, when there's a large map, it's completely filled up with units everywhere. That's probably why many people don't like big maps. But just because the map is big, doesn't mean there have to be loads of units.
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I'm trying to recall how many US helicopters got shot down in the Vietnam war. Roughly 5,000 from the Army alone, I believe, more than half of all aircraft losses. Folks today can barely conceive of absorbing that scale of carnage. Which brings us back to this title. Is the war being depicted on the scale of Vietnam or one of the lesser more recent conflicts? If you're going into the battle willing to sustain high casualties to achieve your objective that changes the dynamic. Like Russian absorbing 81,000 KIA in the push to take Berlin. Maybe they would try suicidal tactics like a helo rush into enemy defenses if they're of that mindset.
Yeah, that's one very important thing to keep in mind, the scale in Black Sea is different. You aren't going to see hundreds of tanks rolling through a country side. The engine probably couldn't support it, anyway.
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Yes, being able to pick a number for both sides would be awesome!
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This wouldn't be the first ceasefire. So, I'm skeptical.
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I only know some things I've read from some documents here and there, so correct me if I'm wrong...
The old Soviet doctrine could be summarized as a zerg rush, but instead of running into a brick wall over and over, they'd try to go as much as possible around it or weaken a small part of it and then break through as deep and as fast as possible. Their air assault brigades were meant to mostly flank the enemy by landing troops next to or behind the enemy, or harass the enemy much further behind enemy lines ahead of the Soviet main assault. You require a lot of helicopters to do this, so they'd have some pretty large groups of them. But I somehow doubt they'd suicide their helicopters onto a heavily defended enemy line. When dealing with heavy enemy defenses, I imagine they'd be more careful in the same way NATO uses their helicopters.
The thing to keep in mind in Flashpoint Campaigns is that in a lot of scenarios you are technically not in the front, but the Soviets have already broken through the main defensive line and have already begun pushing through, and you are somewhere behind the front line, tasked with delaying/halting the Soviet advance. In such scenarios it makes sense for the Soviets to send groups of gunships to sweep the area ahead, without any support, and try to recon and secure the area ahead for the main assault that is somewhere behind them. If the game was capable of it, the gunships would also try to drop off their troops in strategic positions.
Their helicopters may behave sometimes a in a suicidal manner, but that's a different topic, that's because of the AI. Most games have problems with AI (almost all games fail to create a smart AI). So, don't mind the way the AI uses their helicopters...
That said, I'm not sure these days you'd see anyone use helicopters in such a way. Things were different back then.
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I did some testing and played a bunch of battles with Bradleys vs Russian T-72 and T-90A tanks. T-72 tanks don't have a jamer. T-90 tanks do have a jammer. Against the T-72 tanks, the Bradleys never missed (assuming they didn't lose line of sight). Against the T90A tanks, the Bradleys sometimes had that thing happen that the OP shows in his video (in the first post) - the missile goes way off target. So, it looks like the TOW missile can get spoofed in this game, but most of the time it does seem to hit.
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According to Steven Zaloga's book on the Bradley, there was an instance in ODS where an Iraqi tank was using a dazzler against a TOW launched by a Bradley, only for the missile to veer off and impact another tank next to the one the Bradley was aiming for.
However, there was a guy on the Steel Beasts forums who presented a fairly convincing case of why he wasn't too sanguine about the chances of IR dazzlers spoofing particularly advanced missiles and TIS systems:
http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showpost.php?p=256925&postcount=36
I think the important part is at the bottom. Has Russia figured out how to spoof the TOW or not? Can their tanks emit a similar signal as the TOW launcher? But I guess nobody knows.
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Just a guess, I've no idea if this is what the Russian tanks are capable of, but maybe they are creating fake (IR?) signals that resemble the signal on the back of the TOW missile, which confuses the firing computer of the TOW launcher because it doesn't know anymore where the missile is exactly, and so then the firing computer gives wrong corrections to the missile, making it go all over the place?
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Well, from what I've seen, neither Ukraine nor Russia care much for civilian casualties. If there's a military target that is worth shelling, they will do so, doesn't matter if it's in the middle of a town or not, and they don't use precision munitions.
I remember being in Grade school and watching Cruise missiles fly down the streets of Baghdad.
As I recall, Baghdad wasn't an evacuated area; yet there it was, surgical and non surgical ordinance hammering targets and potentially endangering civilians. 2003 was one of the last conventional combats I hope I'll ever see in my lifetime, in addition to the Russian victory in Georgia in 2008. In both instances, built up areas often were close, or hugging, points of strategic or tactical value. So, no, it wouldn't restrict ROE very greatly in fully conventional warfare. High tempo operations put premiums on preservation of momentum and forces, not buildings and civilians. Its a fact, one may find that a sad fact, but I would do the same if I was in the Commander's shoes. My first priority is the preservation of my own forces. It would be no different in what Black Sea is trying to illustrate.
I could be wrong, but I was always under the impression that in urban areas they used precision strikes to minimize collateral damage, no?
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Bear in mind that your battle is not he only action going on iin the area of the particular battle you are gaming. In reality this may very well be only a part of a much larger battle. It may well be that the enemy flank marched that force arund the battle you are in. Maybe the found the seam betwween your battalion and the neighbouring unit. That is not your fault of course. Blame it on the brigade/divisional commander off map. Or perhaps it was simply the fog of war.
Remember,, this kind of thing can ad does hapen in the real world. During the 1991 Gulf War fr example the mericains caught the entire Tawkalna Republican Guard Division facing the wrong way!
In your game situation something like that went wrong due to the mistake of another commander on your side or a clever enemy manouvre. and, unfortunately you are the commander whose flank or rear got attacked. This is nt "teleportatio" It is the consequence of an off map manouvre by another force, not yet involved in the battle.
If, instead of being the victim of this in a scenario would you still regard it as "unfair" or would you smile in satisfaction knowing you might benefit from this. In another scenario the boot culd very well be on your foot instead
However, as the boot is on the enemy's foot this time you are now going to have to find a way to deal with it however unfair you think it might be. In fact try not to vew it as "unfair" at all. Instead regard it as a tactical challenge. Take a look at the tactical situation you are now in as a result of this surprise attack and work out what you need to do to meet the crisis. If you failed to anticipate the possibility of a surprise enemy attack on your flank or rear then I am afraid you only have yourself to blame for your losses. Like I said, sometimes the unexpected happens in war and commanders who are not ready for that suffer the consequences. Just as you did. Thankfully, this time it is not real war and there are no pixilated widows and orphans,
In short live with it, learn from your mistakes and, next time, anticipate the possibility of the unexpected. OK
I think you misunderstood. I don't think people are saying that reinforcements are unrealistic or unfair. What people are saying is that having the enemies teleport on top of the player is unrealistic and unfair.
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Well, a few things can be done to fix this:
- Bigger maps can be used, while still limiting the enemies to the smaller area on the map. This will then make the player focus on the smaller area where the enemies are, and then hopefully when the reinforcements spawn in, the player won't be near them. This way the player can also take in account enemy reinforcements in a realistic manner that will require setting up proper defenses and such.
- Marking the enemy reinforcement zone in advance can be done as well, so that the player knows where the reinforcements may come from and thus the player will know how to avoid situations where the enemy teleports on top of the player.
- Giving the player a warning before the enemies spawn in, like a 15 minute warning, and mark the reinforcement zone. This gives the player time to get away from where the enemies will spawn in.
- A combination of the above.
From a game design perspective, I'd say don't use reinforcements on small maps or do give the player a warning on where the enemy reinforcements may come from, so that the player knows what gameplay limitations there are (ie. can't flank around certain areas because there's no way to secure the flank/rear when there's an imminent threat of teleporting enemies).
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I have mixed feeling about targeting arcs. This is based on the WW2 games. The only real test would be to run the same turn without an arc and see what happens. It would also be interesting to see if the M1 stops and faces the target before firing without a targeting arc.
Not sure what you mean, I don't know about world war 2, but the way it works in real life (and in game), as you come around the corner you would rotate the turret towards the next corner if you suspect there might be an enemy there and if your front is (mostly) clear. The video shows why you want to do that, it allows the tank to react faster and get the first shot off. Whoever shoots first wins, so it's pretty important to do that.
It's a bit similar to infantry tactics, you want someone to cover every angle. The difference is that if you come to a crossroad, you need to take a risk, because there usually isn't enough space to have one tank watch left and at the same time have one tank watch right. However, if you got a whole bunch of armored vehicles, you can then do this thing that infantry does where one vehicle quickly goes a bit left and covers left, while another goes quickly a bit right and covers right, while the rest move in between them forwards. It's not perfect, but it can get the job done if you suspect there are enemy tanks nearby.
That's not the only way of doing things, of course. There are different tactics/SOPs for different situations.
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All I can say is it isn't on our end per se. The game is available on servers all over the world and there's no problem with bandwidth either. Very, very few customers are having issues. Even the complaints being lodged in this thread have dropped off dramatically in the last 2 days, and yet daily sales have remained steadily high. No comfort for those having problems, but it does indicate that theoretically there should be something you can do to work around the problem. Problem is, we have no idea what that something might be since it's going to be situationally specific.
Best thing to do is try different browsers, do NOT use a download helper program, and if possible use a different computer for the download itself.
SteveWell, the download speed is pretty unstable. It changes between 300 and 1000 KB/s. It has been like that since release (if not longer). Such an unstable connection could explain why people are getting corrupt downloads and downloads that suddenly stop. I'd go ask the file sharing provider (Citrix Sharefile?) what's up and why their servers are acting up like that.
As other people have suggested, you can also provide an alternative download with a bunch of smaller files as a temporary solution.
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A coop campaign, or just coop missions.
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...in real life, how does NATO deal with these systems...?
Well, in real life, you have more toys at your disposal, like anti-radiation missiles (ARM), jamming or the ability to time an artillery strike together with an airstrike (SEAD). But I guess that doesn't answer your question of how to deal with Tunguskas in game...
Umm... Well, since we are discussing how to deal with anti air units in game, maybe we should suggest to the devs to give us more options to deal with AA, like the above examples and such.
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would something like a tactical ballistic missile i.e SS-26 (first google search) work as point strike weapon in the scale of combat mission?
On the blue side you could have M270 MLRS with guided weapons and the OTR-21
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think things like the SS-26 are used to take out strategic targets, like military bases, concentrations of military vehicles, etc. It's expensive and creates a really big boom. So, you want to make it really count when you decide to use it.
Rocket artillery, like the M270 or Grad, could be used on the scale of combat mission, but the question is, will it be fun? I don't imagine it will be, too powerful. But that's just a guess.
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Well, I'm not going to tell you how to run your PR because you've made it clear many times that no one tells you what to do, but keep in mind that people pay you good MONEY and in return they expect a good product and good service. It's perfectly reasonable for them to get annoyed and start to talk crap when you don't deliver.
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@Steve
You can't blame people for getting annoyed when they pay money and get a horrible service experience in return. No one is to blame for that but Battlefront. After all, people pay money to you, not Amazon. You can see many people complain about the launch of the game. Don't attack your customers by ridiculing them and talking down on them, no matter how annoyed you are by their posts, that simply won't help. If you don't like it that your customers are complaining, do a better job next time.
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I'm fairly sure people are willing to forgive if you act more humble and respectful. If you don't, expect to rub more people the wrong way.
APS changes everything!
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted · Edited by BlackAlpha
Or maybe you will be able to put it on an IFV and use it to kill tanks easily. Combine that with more robust anti missile protection systems and maybe the MBT will become obsolete (gun and protection surpassed by other vehicles). But we'll need to wait and see how the railgun develops. And we'll also need to wait and see if any new revolutionary power sources, that are small enough for tanks, come into existence. It will take a very, very long time... Dozens of years, at least.