Jump to content
Battlefront is now Slitherine ×

Krilly

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    216

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Krilly

    BF, You Blew It

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Then why did so many stay with CMBB/CMAK and its aged graphics over CMSF? Cause they preferred the gameplay of WW2 over the graphics of CMSF.

    I really don't think most wargamers have graphics at the top of their priority list or they'd all be playing Crysis, etc.

    It's the synergy.

    Like a tank. It's about the right combination of subject, graphics and depth. (instead of mobility, protection and firepower).

    Finding good combinations is hard to reach and logical when reached. Like for example the T34.

    let's hope THE CMx2 series Will prove the Same. I find the first signs promising :)

    0

    Just a small thread of gratitude

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Thanks for developing this product. As with cmx1, the demo alone has already given me countless hours of fun.

    There's got to be an easier way to make a living then making à tactical wargame for a bunch of nitpicking impatient self declared grogs. Way to go and I sencerely hope you do very well in sales.

    And laslty, a modest singleman applaud to the betatesters which I suspect put in hunderds of hours of hard work behind the scenes, just so they (and us) can have an even better game and have their name in the manual.

    0

    On-Map Mortars = "Superunit" !?

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I was somewhat surprised about the accuracy and lethality of mortars in CM:BN. Not really noticed that so much in other wargames before.

    Then I remembered I bought a book by good old Ian v. Hogg about mortars some time ago. Interesting read. Here's a snippet about 'payload'. (any typo's which creep in are all mine not Hoggs :-P) ;

    In discussing mortars here I have often commented on the particularly deadly lethality of their bombs, and the layman might well ask what was so special about a mortar bomb when compared with an artillery shell? After all, the mortar bomb is a cheaper proposition, so why should it be so much more deadly? The reason lies in two characteristics of the mortar which affect ammunition. The first is that the mortar is less highly stressed - in other words, the propelling charge is a great deal less than that for a gun of the same calibre and thus the projectile suffers less of a shock when it is launched. Because of this it is possible to make the bomb with a thiner casing adn to fill it with more explosive: the average artillery shell of World War II contained something in the order of 8 to 10 per cent of its weight in explosive: thus a 35lb shell could be expected to contain about 3lb of TNT. The mortart bomb on the other hand carried more like 20 per cent: to give a concrete example, the German 10cm bomb for the Nebelwerfer weighed 16lb and carried a filling of 3.4lb of TNT, which is almost excactly 21 per cent of the total weight. It is obvious that more explosive on the target leads to a better effect.

    The second characteristic is the high trajectory of the mortar, which leads to the comb coming to the ground at a steep angle, usually about 70 degrees to the horizontal plane. An artillery gun shell usually impacts at about 30 degrees and thus much of the resulting fragmentation is either smothered by the ground immediatly beneath or is harmlessly dissipated into the air above. But the mortar bomb's steep angle of arrival means that the bomb is almost standing upright when it detonates, and thus spreads its fragments around more venly and without wasting them. Hence more lethality due to better distribution of fragments and blast.

    Seems to me I always underestimated the lethality of the humble mortar.

    On accuracy he also tells some quite interesting things. Seems that they 'went all scientific' so to speak on the then still simple robust mortar after the korean war and accuracy of the mortar took a big leap with the redesign of the mortar bomb, espcially the 'RARDE design'.

    In his words ;

    In one bound the mortar had gone from being an area weapon to being very nearly a poiny-target weapon: with the 3in mortar you could generally guarantee getting the bomb into a football field. But with the 81mm RARDE mortar you could choose into which penalty are to drop the bomb. The 3in had fired a 10lb (4.5kg) bomb to a maximum range of 2,600yd (2.380m); the 81mm fired a 9lb 6oz (4.3kg) bomb to 5,650yd (5.170m). And because the bomb was of a higher quality metal (spheroidal graphited cast iron), specially designed to produce the maximum number of optimum-sized fragments and filled with RDX/TNT, its target effect was greatly increased.

    The 81mm mortart L16 began entering service in 1961.

    This shows however that the present day mortar is a far more accurate and deadly weapon than its simpler WW2 brother. Which was designed to be cheap, robust and easy to use.

    So should mortars be sniper weapons in CM:BN; not really it seems to me. They rather should be more of a pain in the ass with respectful effect on the target when compared to gun-artillery of similar calibres.

    Guess we will have some testing ranges to set up when we get the full game :-).

    0

    Mortar spotting

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Hi all,

    I'm having trouble with something that I never could get to work even in the old engine: using mortar teams to fire on a target spotted by their HQ.

    For instance, in the tutorial battle in the demo, say I have the HQ unit for a mortar team in the second floor of a building able to see into a field that the mortar team cannot, how do I go about getting the HQ unit to spot for the mortar team and allow them to fire at an unseen target? If I select the mortar team and try to target a location that the HQ team can see but they cannot, I get the standard "No line of sight" message and can't fire on it.

    Can someone help me out with this gameplay mechanic please? It would make my defensive "Closing the Pocket" battle a lot easier :)

    Don't forget there is a PDF manual in the demo folder :).

    Anyways. Click the arty button (Cannon) when you have selected the HQ. It should pop up a little menu with all available arty you have. In this case THE 60mm team.

    0

    First Impressions

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I just finished playing the tutorial mission as the U.S. and here is my official list of awesome:

    1) Three infantry squads dueling a pair of HMG42's.

    2) Both of my .30 cals using up all of their ammo (plus the extra ammo) in the space of one scenario.

    3) Using on map 60mm mortars with Emergency/Maximum on a point target.

    4) Watching three of my Shermans exploding and burning, because those 60mm mortars failed to kill an AT gun.

    5) Bridges over water.

    6) 75mm HE impacting against anything, and everything.

    7) Watching my dogfaces fire and reload frantically.

    8) Using the Assault command, and nothing but the assault command for the entire scenario.

    9) Assaulting a squad up to a hedge, and watching that squad get 16 kills in 25 seconds.

    10) Scoring a Total Victory my first time out, through sheer luck, determination, and use of the the assault command.

    Even on my wonky 6 year old computer I could play balanced/balanced at 1024x768 with no slowdowns at all. Even with the textures and resolution turned down, the game still looks great. I've played for 3 hours, and this weekend I have nothing to do but laugh, scream, cry hysterically, and play CMBN.

    What a great post.

    And I agree with you that's is going to be an intersting weekend due to the demo being out :D

    0

    AI hands me my ass in tutorial...

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    By god i suck...

    I saturated the area where the at-gun had been the last 3 missions with mortarrounds (all of them). And the SOB have the audacity to be at a different spot.

    I can't even beat the AI when i'm acting gamey.

    How can you move the startingpositions of your units at deploy? Consulted the manual with no luck.

    Where do you put the MG? First one and the follow up one? What do you do with the ammocarriers?

    There's no option to reposition in the tutorial as there is no setup zone (correct me if I am wrong).

    *spoiler*

    Me, I positioned the MG forward in the middle. Behind the central hedgerow. Nice clear field of fire there and it helped to spot some stuff :-P.

    I moved the early ammo carry'ing team up there with them btw.

    0

    AI hands me my ass in tutorial...

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Sorry for double post, but make sure you get the weapon platoons HQ into the 2 story building looking over the battlefield at the US starting point, from there you can get the general location of all enemies and can call in accurate mortar fire.

    I think this is crucial.

    Also, remember to 'deploy' your mortars and MG's.

    I haven't played much CMSF and always always always seem to forget to deploy my crew weapons.

    0

    First Impressions

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Ah so much to like.

    I instantly recognized the tutorial map from the preview, but there were some new suprises in store :-). I have to admit I had to restart it as I embaressed myself with loosing quite some armor the first time and being in the wrong spot as some nasty arty dropped in.

    Second go went much better and I was able to give the krauts the righteous trashing they deserved.

    And so many nice impressions.

    The map and/or landscape looks lovely, almost beautifull. Infantry movement and combat is a joy to behold and leaps and bounds better then the CMx1 models. And .. and.. and... ah so many impressions.

    Let's just say and was grinning, shouting and cheering at the screen again like I did in the CMx1 days and back at the preview. The old CM magic is back!

    Now excuse me while I get me some more CM on :-D

    0
×
×
  • Create New...