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A Canadian Cat

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Posts posted by A Canadian Cat

  1. Sorry for coming late, but what do you guys mean by stacking against a wall? Can't you do this already using the face order (probably already answered but I can't find it).

    By the way, isn't the whole idea of the action-spots? An action for every spot? Thanks for the answers.

    Yes, your men will align up along the wall right now using the face command. What these guys want is a way to order your guys to either:

    1. Hug the wall and stay out of sight
    2. Hug the wall and look / shoot around the corner

    I will refrain from commenting on how the UI should express such a thing but will say that this would be an excellent Tac AI enhancement.

  2. Gateway was a fantastic scenario to play. You wont be disappointed. I mean really, the variety of units, tactical options, and surprises it was a great battle. It was just really unfortunate, by the end it was unplayable to me I wouldnt even watch the movie, I just hit go. =( insanely choppy.

    Good - hopefully I will not run into frame rate issues but it is not as big as this game I am playing now so hopefully I'll be OK.

    So wait. You shot HEAT to the churchills rear to no effect? Thats.. bizarre. I thought you had used your HEAT up and were pinging them with HE. HEAT to the rear should have destroyed them... Very weird. Though the Churchills are fantastic at taking damage. Plus even if they're not KO'd they may be a mess inside - damaged/destroyed sub systems etc etc. You should be commended for taking a realistic force mix. A lot of people hesitate to use Stugs unless they're in a time period they know the Stugs will rock in, or if they're in a defensive position and are gonna keyhole you to death. It's nice to see some other armor used that isnt uber.

    Yeah I just had coffee with Dungeon Tiger - man we talk to much sometimes - but it is fun to talk about the game. And you are right the tanks have taken crew casualties. As for HE vs HEAT. I think one of the Stu42s had two rounds but the other might have been out. Anyway the one that did have HEAT did connect with one of them (first shot was high) and it did *not* get a penetration. According to DT it was the shrek round that caused the most damage. He let slip that an Achilles had eyes on my ambush force - not good for me.

    One of the best parts of this game is how little you know about the shape and make up of the other guys forces. Don't tell your opponent stuff after all - loose lips sink ships.

    I really like Stugs, whenever I face them they shrug off so many rounds and they have such a low profile that they are hard to hit sometimes. They have served me well many times too. And I am not really having a problem with their survivability in this game it is there inability to kill Churchills that is causing me concern.

    Yes, Cromwells are super fast. I think they're the fastest tank in the game. Still never got over how quickly I lost them in that QB. Tainted my view of them...

    If the Commonwealth mod taught me anything it was that I had greatly underappreciated my Sherman tank. For one, the Firefly is probably hands down the best Allied tank availible in the Mod. Churchills come close but I think all around the firefly is the best. If it had a .50 cal for the TC i'd be in heaven. Thats my major beef with CW armor, the loss of the 50 cal is noticeable after using American armor for awhile. the 50 is fantastic for all manner of uses.

    I also often hear people mention the high velocity 75s poor HE performance, whether in talking about the Panther's gun or the Sherman Firefly. At least in my wargaming experience I've never noticed that at all. Obviously an 88 or 105 does the job better, but all the high velocity 75s Ive seen used against me or used myself butchered infantry just fine. And forget about tanks. The only thing more impressive than that Panther gun is the long 88 on Jagdpanthers and KTs. That thing is downright scary.

    I agree regarding the Firefly and the Panther's 75 HE and those 88s *are* damn scary. I have occasionally seen Shermans take a one or two hits form 75s but I have never seen one survive a hit from an 88.

  3. Also keep in mind churchills are probably one of the best armored tanks the brits have. If not the best armored. I used to hear a lot of great things about the Cromwell, and I admit I havent played them that much, but when I did take them out with me I was shocked at how quickly they'd get KO'd. No, the Churchills are the beasts. I like the 95mm variant a lot too. The 57mm 6lber has great AT ability too.

    Yeah I have a lot of respect for Churchill tanks and even more now. I have to admit I a feeling like I brought a knife to a gun fight though.

    Regarding Cromwells: I agree they die easily. But they are amazingly fast. I have a few in a QB I am fighting now. They raced a head of my Shermans and took up an excellent position that surprised my opponent. They did a lot of damage by being in the right place fast. That is there advantage.

    you know reading back through this thread I saw mention of, and remembered it mentioned during release the FI handles graphics better and gets better frames. However my experience has actually been the opposite. I dont know why, obviously I know it's true for everyone else, but for example even playing a modest sized scenario against Slysniper (gateway to palermo) halfway to 3/4s of the way through it was completely unplayable. Im talking one frame a minute if that. Very strange. Other scenarios are fine, but take noticeable longer to load. CMBN meanwhile, with similar or larger scenarios loads a lot quicker, and runs smoothly. Also looks better too, I dont get the graphical shimmering effect. =(

    Interesting I am starting the gateway right now - I hope I fair better. In this game I sometimes get down in the 8-10 frames per second range when there are a lot of ground and lots of vehicles in view. The way I usually watch the frame rate usually stays in the 14-20 range which is reasonably playable.

  4. The reason your Stugs could not knock out the Churchills is because the Stug 42 has no AP rounds, only a couple of HEAT, then the rest is HE, it's the Stug IIIG that has the AP.

    Oh I know. They each had two HEAT rounds. All four used up to no effect - except a TC kill. I was hoping for a HEAT kill since the Stugs 75mm guns have had so much trouble with the Churchill tanks. That's why I sent the 42s around to hit them from the rear.

    My Stugs have been pounding Churchills and not getting KOs. If you look back in the thread you will see an earlier encounter where a Churchill survived 22 hits from Stugs before finally being destroyed by the 23rd.

  5. At the bridge head the platoon will finish their advance to the treeline while the other prong of the advance will move to the other edge of the field.

    275Minute129Orders-BridgeAdvance.jpg

    Since that mortar team still cannot see anything useful – reposition them again.

    276Minute129Orders-MortarRepo.jpg

    Tighten the noose on those two Churchill tanks. The nearby Stugs are going to move to a hull down position behind a rise in the field while the Shrek team moves through the trees.

    277Minute129Orders-CloseIn.jpg

    At the same time the remaining Stug will move forward to avoid falling prey to the Achilles on the other side of the valley plus they will hug the treeline and try to get some protection.

    278Minute129Orders-CloseIn.jpg

  6. The trap has been sprung. I am not a happy commander. The two Churchill tanks took multiple hits – none penetrating. None penetrating – again! The ambush looked flawless. The Stu42s came out of the woods and hit both Churchill tanks from behind.

    270Minute130-129-Suprise.jpg

    The first one hit moved away – towards my Shrek team but the other one stood its ground and took a pounding while it dispatched one of the Stugs.

    271Minute130-129-StugHit.jpg

    The Churchill tank the moved forward came very close to my scout team but the Shrek team behind them did not get a shot.

    272Minute130-129-ChurchillClose.jpg

    Meanwhile over by the bridge more hell was unleashed on my platoon and Panthers moving to the tree line. The Panther took two penetrating hits with little damage and no casualties. Good thing some of my AFVs can take a pounding. The Panthers did manage to take out a couple of more armoured cars.

    273Minute130-129-PantherHit.jpg

    The platoon took quite a few casualties but two squads almost made it to the tree line before the minute ran out.

    274Minute130-129-AdvancingUnderFire.jpg

  7. The other issue with urban fighting is the problem with area fire. The fact that you can only area fire to the centre of an action square is ok when visibility is not tunneled down streets. But it becomes an issue when you cannot target the front of buildings two or three doors down. Clearly your men and or tanks can see the front of the building down the street but you will not be able to target them because the neighboring building blocks your LOS to the *centre* of the further building's actions square.

    This leads to frustrating occurrences when you have tank support and your infantry are clearing building by building. Your tanks cannot effectively suppress the occupants of the building down the street while your men move to the next house. Further more if the enemy is at the windows firing and your tank spots them the enemy can be fired at. So your tank has LOF to the font of the building down the street while the enemy are up and shooting but as soon as they duck you cannot fire at the front of that building any longer. Even though you know they are there because you were just shooting at them.

  8. AT infantry section's behavior just awful. IRL, they HAVE TO use hit and run tactics to stay alive. So you HAVE TO have ability to order them like this: "go there, wait for 30 seconds/or until target spotted, fire your bazooka, fall back IMMIDEATLY or move to other fire position" Instead, we can only designate it a fire sector and specify target type "armor". Upon contact, their just keep standing there and fire again and again for at least a minute (until you'll get to controlls for next turn in PBM; in real time it's better, but you have to move them to other possiton manually) Often this results in its premature death.

    Indeed there are issues to deal with in an urban setting. I had an example of "you cannot give the right order" just yesterday. My opponent had a tank sitting in a back yard for several minutes. This tank had no infantry screen to speak of and I managed to work a team around behind and to its left side. Of course the moment they were in position and were given the order to pounce bad things happened.

    What I wanted to order was to sneak around that building behind the tank and close assault it from behind. But all I could actually order was a series of way points that went around a building and up behind the tank. The trouble was that the tank started moving backwards. So, my men instead of sneaking up behind the tank ran down the street right past it to where the tank used to be. As soon as they were in front of the tank they were spotted an gunned down.

    What should have happened, since the tank moved back towards them while they were behind the building, was step out from the building and take that sucker out.

    I know this is a hard problem. I would like to see work done in this area. After all what self respecting soldier would run in front of an enemy tank when you were already behind it.

  9. 5 Company’s 1 Platoon HQ tries again to call in some 81mm mortar fire on top of a Churchill tank. They tried to call off board 81mm but it was out of range. I have never seen that before but I guess if you are playing on such a large map it can happen. Anyway calling it from one of 5 Company’s own mortars is in range.

    267Minute130Orders-ArtilleryTryAgain.jpg

    One prong from the bridge head is set to advance to the nearby tree line.

    268Minute130Orders-HeadForTreeLine.jpg

    Here is the Churchill trap. On the left you can see the infantry moving up in the tree line. I have them being fairly aggressive but staying in the trees. With any luck the Churchill tanks will focus on them. While the two Stu42s on the right will break the tree line behind the Churchill tanks and then 10s later the two Stugs will crest the hill and come at them from the side. I really hope this goes well.

    269Minute130Orders-Trap.jpg

  10. One more quiet turn; things will heat up again next turn. There is some excitement this turn.

    One of my Panthers advancing from the bridge head spots an Achilles and puts a hole in it. They see some crew get hit but the AFV is still operating as it backs behind the railway track and disappears.

    264Minute131-130-HitAchilles.jpg

    Meanwhile on the other side of the map The Churchill tanks 3 Battery have been working to flank spots my scouts and takes a pot shot. The Scouts are saved by a tree.

    265Minute131-130-SavedByTree.jpg

    Shortly after that the Shreck team trailing the scouts takes a shot. This time it is the Churchill that is saved by the tree.

    266Minute131-130-SavedByTree.jpg

    This is a good thing because those Churchill tanks are no paying attention to the wrong thing. While they are focusing on my infantry they are about to be surprised by two Stugs and two Stu42s from 3 Battery. Next turn is going to be interesting.

  11. American mortars are stuck in cease fire mode I have tried moving them and resetting them and their stuck in cease fire.

    With what little information you have given it is hard to help you. One thing that strikes me as a possibility is: Have you ordered the mortar to deploy? The mortar team cannot fire the mortar until it is setup. On the special command menu there is a deploy order. I usually select the final way point and then toggle the deploy order on.

  12. Two Panthers, pictured here, heading towards the woods to bolster 1 and 2 Company’s strength, for an eventual assault on the town. The artillery is 5 minutes out still which should be enough time for them to arrive.

    259Minute132-131-PanthersInWoods.jpg

    Hunting forward to check for scouts, my teams found no additional enemy scouts in their neck of the woods.

    260Minute132-131-HuntingScouts.jpg

    Minute 1:31 Orders:

    The Stu42s are almost in position. Next turn I will likely order that they pounce.

    261Minute132-131-SneakingUpBehind.jpg

    5 Company’s mortar team still cannot see that Churchill. Try repositioning one more time.

    262Minute131Orders-MortarRepositionAgain.jpg

    Advancing through the field.

    263Minute131Orders-AdvancingArcossField.jpg

  13. A team from 1 Company are ordered to sweep the woods where the scout team were spotted to clear out any other enemy scouts.

    256Minute132Orders-ClearArea.jpg

    Slight change of plans: It looks like the flanking members of 3 Battery can get behind the Churchill tanks. There is no one near their current position. Two Stu42s are sent to the rear of the Churchill tanks and the Stugs get ready behind the crest of the hill.

    257Minute132Orders-ChangePlans.jpg

    5 Company’s mortar team shift over to see if they can get eyes on the Churchill.

    258Minute132Orders-MortarTryAgain.jpg

  14. <snip>it is a little offputting to go to those sites full of ads and try to work out which one is the real link that you want...<snip>

    Yep - I feel the same way. I am sure you guys are using more reputable sites but the last two times I have been infected with a Trojon horse was due to similar sites (once was my son and once was my own fault). When I end up on a site that makes it hard to identify the real link vs the stuff I don't want or worse: my opening position is to close the site and revisit if I really want the software. Since this came from BFC I felt safe enough figuring out what to click on.

    Honestly though, I would rather pay more for the original game so I can download from a BFC server. Really I mean it :)

  15. Yes the hatch was open as I wanted max crew reaction time and the tank (seemed) well protected in defilade.

    Seems reasonable.

    Im just amazed that the game engine can model something like that. I've had collateral damge to infantry near tanks from rounds bouncing off before but nothing like this! I guess thats why footsloggers kept their distance from armour in real life.

    I have lost infantry near tanks due to ricocheting rounds as well. But to have it drop into your tank - well bad luck old chap. Do you have a saved game - getting a screen shot / movie would be awesome.

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