tsword_new

Doing a scenario Test I witnessed first hand what usually happens in the dark on the AI side: As a Company passed/traversed another unit one chap used it's Bazooka to hit a fellow sitting there in peace on the head !!! Another one jerked his elbow into another one and yet another one used his rifles butt to hit another into the stomach. After thinking about these shocking incidents I came to the conclusion that these men must be frustrated by the knowing carelessness for humans of the tyrant AI-Intelligence ruling them, poor sods ! Moral is low in the AI - Army maybe one reason for it's dismal performance ?

What do you mean with one size fits all ? Of course men should tire quicker when ladden with heavy stuff (not down to the ounce, but howling a 81mm Mortar base plate around you damn sure won't jogg very far). I still remember with some pain, how the HMG-Teams tired in CMAK poor sods ! Terrain should also play a role, does it now in CMBF ?

Yeah, the Hunt-Command for Inf, so useless, all lined up behind each other, one bullet multiple kills and slow as a snail, just a waste of time. In normal walk I can cover 100 m in around 60 seconds. A TRAINED unit uses around 80 seconds to cover the same distance in PROPER (and no, lined up behind each other is only viable in Urban fighting) battle formation normally spread out (there are (german) videos available which cover the proper advance formations in diff. terrain), moreover advance speed is mainly set by the terrain LOS, my figure was for open terrain which is anything with LOS of > 100 m. The following Movement Commands for Inf should be there: 1. Fast as of now 2. Quick as of now but a tad faster formation is not looked after much (training dependent) 3. March which is a forced walk, not running or jogging again formation dependent on training (Training -> acting as a UNIT !!!) 4. Hunt or better Move to Contact (as in CMAK, CMBB) as already described 5. Advance as Hunt but going to fire and movement (in bounds) when shot at or enemy spotted which can be fought, if outside proper range try to advance further using bounds (dep. on moral etc.) 6. Assault as is now 7. slow which is crouching as now but faster (we did hundreds of meters in training in snow, yes one tires but not after 20 m, rather your elbows start to hurt, if done fast which tires one after 20 odd meter, one can cover roughly 1m/s), try it out yourself !

This would be a very major change, and you would still have a truckload of editing to do, what scene now ? How do I make the blendover ? Can I move the Viewpoint dynamically ? Can I record the Cameraviewpoint path ? Can I rotate the camera during the path around all axes ? Is there something better then a mouse to control the camera ? Can I save some typical camera pathes ? Can I also save the Zooming ? That's a truckload of coding AND afterwards to edit your battle.......hours, days, weeks...dreaming is nice..until reality comes in.... But for now just save the replay phases. In my current AI Batallion+ sized battle I usually need around 10 minutes to review the replay and another 5 to plan the next minute..., and I'm only defending. Lately I reviewed an old replay now in 2.0 Version I used 30 minutes to review all the action, better then anything I saw in Cinema....

Doing Scenarios I have noticed that two very small enhancements could vastly enlarge the possible battle types vs. AI. 1. For Reinforcements add a achieved map-objective condition so a specific Reinforcment is only activated if a specific map-objective is controlled by the Player or Enemy. Maximum effort: 2 - 5 days coding depdending on architecture of the game. I could do it 100% certain in 42 hours including analyze(not knowing the engine) and Engineering testing. => Counterattacks , real meaningful achievement based reinforcments 2. Very simple Trigger for orders: Instead of a timed order, a terrain objective bound condition, eg. Group1, order x, (command) if terrain objective Y {controlled = true, controlled != true}. Given that terrain objectives are already tracked, the group class structure only needs to be subclassed (if java or C++ is used for the game), also very small effort but huge gain in flexibility for the Scenario Designer and most important much, much improved tactical possibilities, hell we need to do something meaningful with these beautyful toys... I'm currently a Freelancer and doing a major Modding Project for IL2 Sturmovik 1946 HUGE (Engine-, Systems-, Dynamic Damage Model and more) ! Did already 1 year of development, EXCITING my wildest dreams surpassed ! If you need some capacity I could maybe help, no financial interests.

Many thanks to Paper Tiger, however I found out where to place the file: The \data Dir is fine. The ominous Z-Folder is used to ensure Mods are loaded last because the engine uses alphabetic Folder ordering to decide which version is the right one. Works like a charm. I can now draw "contour" lines first on the map, then screenshot and then superimpose to place things at the correct locations, neat.

I've installed 2.0 yesterday. Great ! Graphics improved marvellously ! But I have a question regarding the Scenario-Editor Map-Overlay feature: The Manual tells to put a bmp named 'special editor overlay' into a Z Folder in the Data dir of the game, but there is none. Any Help ? A small Improvement feature for the future: In Elevation editing it should be possible to trigger the recalculation cycle manually so I can edit some elevations and then to see the result order a recalc, now everytime the whole map is recalculated a new, which takes time... This new line could be a winner if one could bring in some humor and prep up the Movement of Infantry to a level it should have if I would run the training camp.... no ? Now seeing them troddle along in default-move it seems they are drunk or stroling to lunch at work..my grandma would easily overtake them. Adolf would send them to the penal batallion immediately, More Zack, Zack Vorwärts links, zwo, drei !!

Hopefully the pics show up now (atleast I can see em). To the time of experience regarding the exchange results very true of course. But it would be very interesting to hear how detailed the calculations are done regarding such armor as in the M4A3 early-Mid (tiled etc.) . Is it calculated as a single fine piece of armor ? In that case the M4A3 Mid looks fine in the game in a way which is not in accordance with reality. But nevertheless it's great to hear that the sequel finally did it.... !!! I will have it on my rig for sure.

I've read the fine AAR with keen interest. I'm very interested in this sequel of the Combat Mission series. Some questions to Bil_Hardenberger or The_Capt. Is the US-Tanks popping smoke done automatically or does it need a command ? For as it seems to me we are back with the old set gamey situation of tanks popping in and out of smoke and therefore reset the targetting cycle of the opposite side a very bad feature in my eyes. As I understand it the M4 for instance has a type 60mm Launcher with which smoke grenades or maybe even HE-rounds can be shot. The smoke round contains phosphor which is quite nasty for the eyes and respiratory system when inhaled. The same basic system is also installed in german tanks though they mostly used it to launch small HE-grenades but also augmented the earlier used Nebelkerzen mounted at the turret or on the deck. To my knowledge smoke popping was used very seldom because in real life the benefit was minimal, because the time it needs to develop a full screen if at all... won't save one from the next round. Another point. I also read the other AAR with the US attacking with a mixed grouping. In both this and the other AAR the M4A3s enjoyed a strange amount of luck of bouncing or absorbing rounds. It would be interesting to hear what damage each round did to M4s, we know it for the PzIVs already. There was a discussion about the M4A3 (Mids, with the partially welded upper glacis) having something of an advantage at around 500 yards. Now if we check the vulnerable area of the PzIV H vs. the M3 75 mm From CMAK for the M3 Gun at 500 m: ca. 96 mm at Normal, 76mm at 30° and 38mm at 60° (around 50-70 % or rounds will achieve this) we can suppose the PzIV being vulnerable for almost 100% of round to the turret if pointed to the shooter. The upper and lower glacis however is only marginally overmatched and already quite save when at a slight angle (20-30°). It was standard procedure to do this btw. when being in a firing position not intended to advance. Here is the vulnerable area: Notice only the turret is largely vulnerable. For the M4A3 Mid (The one with old type glacis) things look much worse: KwK40 L48 at 500m (from CMAK: 131mm at Normal, 101mm at 30°, 48mm at 60°). We can deduce that theoretically the M3's glacis should be quite safe at 56°, however the glacis is not a single piece. Looking at the actual glacis things look much worse, here is the picture: Here almost all of the turret and much of the Glacis because of the welding- and even screwed seams together with the vertical observation domes is actually very vulnerable to the KwK40 round leading to fatal high energy penetrations with lots of internal damage. So in conclusion technically the PzIV would have the upper hand even at 500m. It is correct that once 1000m are reached the advantage becomes substantial because of the quite small 40 x 1.5m area being still very vulnerable and the much better gun (flatter trajectory). In the M4A3 late with the 47° 2.5" untiled upper glacis things look much better and closely matches the PzIV. However the late was unlikely to have been in Normandy in quantity because the first prototypes were not finished before Feb. 1944. So in light of this data I think the M4 and P4 should generate very similar results atleast at 500 m. The KwK40 round heavily overmatching the M4s turret as does the M3 Gun to the PzIV Turret. First round hits to the glacis might or might not penetrate for both the M4 and the PzIV but a good gunner might get it right the second time around. Luck is bad company in a prolonged war.... Regards Tsword