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WriterJWA

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Everything posted by WriterJWA

  1. This is a cool campaign! Really action packed! Great job! Quick question ... I played this recently as the British and I scored major victories in all but the last one, which was a minor victory, and at the end of the end of the campaign was told I lost. Is the campaign that stringent by design, or am I missing something?
  2. I didn't really agree with the OP overall... but this quote: ... hits a nail on a head. I've talked to a few other CMBN players who lurk around the forums and a lot of them feel there is a general "ASL Good Ole Boy" or "Big Fish/Small Pond" veneer to a lot of the threads here. I'm not suggesting ASL is a bad game, I've got the rulebook sitting on a book shelf and I sometime miss playing it, but it does seem to color the decisions of game development here. At least that is sometimes the impression being made. It definitely colors the tone of a lot of the threads, especially when younger players get on here to bring up more current gaming concepts (such as co-play). The old man "get off my lawn" attitude gets a little windy, sometimes.
  3. I see and respect where you're coming from there.... but it doesn't fit with battlefield realities at all. Tactical commanders constantly shift and move supporting assets where needed and place them under the command of subordinate officers and NCO's. In fact, that's practically a staple of modern maneuver warfare (which WWII combat fits within). Machine gun sections don't operate as a completely separate maneuver element within a rifle company, but they are administratively linked together. The machine gun teams are parceled out to the platoons and placed under the temporary command of a platoon leader. (Heavy weapons companies are exceptions to this rule.) I could definitely see this coming in handy in the event of a leader casualty. If I lose a leader unit, then it would be nice to place operation control of those units under another leader, or have a leader rise up from the squads (the senior sergeant, that sort of thing). At the end of the day, though ... it isn't a game-stopper not having it.
  4. +1 This is a great idea, especially if we could do it on the fly, or during setup! I like to take apart my company weapons platoon and spread out the machineguns to the rifle platoons, sometimes even mortars. Probably a ways off as a dedicated feature in-scenario, though. +1 this as well!
  5. +1 Better be quite, though .... the ASL crowd will come haul you off to the nearest glue factory.
  6. Just my humble opinion ... but RT multiplayer is, in large part, what sells modern games. The bigger and better the multiplayer functionality is, the broader the sales. I would think things like having a lobby (even if outside the game through community chat systems like TeamSpeak and such) and CoPlay practically pay for the coding and development time necessary to make them. The PBEM WeGo system is awesome and genuinely revolutionary (I would love to see live WeGo MP) ... but reading this forum I sometimes get the feeling it's also keeping the game out of reach of the interests of many current wargamers, almost as if it's written to keep the old ASL crowd happy.
  7. Where was the NCO at kicking them in the rear yelling, "Spread out! One grenade will get you all!" I don't think that was coded in....... hmmmm.
  8. Yeah ... it's definitely an OCCASIONAL thing ... not a ROUTINE one. A time-definable autosave would be a great feature on all fronts, though! Especially for RT. Right now, re-doing a turn is re-doing a whole scenario.
  9. YES! I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion -- with infantry, also. It's like "what's the point?" ;-) I've (ashamedly) broken mouses because of stuff like this. I don't want to see this turn into a "dump on CM" thread, I love the game, but I've noticed that the closer in proximity that opposing forces get to each other, the .. ahem ... "gamier" the results. Not all the time, of course, but there are some cases where I'm admittedly stupefied by the decisions made by the TacAI. Some examples I've seen include: 1. Troops who break and crawl/run OUT of cover into the open. 2. Troops who come under close range fire in the open and just go prone instead of sprinting to nearby cover (< 10 meters away). This is especially maddening when watching troops do this when they can practically reach out and touch the door to an unoccupied building. Here's a situation I had a few weeks ago that almost had me melting down my computer: I was playing the first scenario of the Blue and the Gray/29th ID campaign, landing on Dog Green/Omaha Beach. It was toward the end of the scenario and I had cleared the trenches. One bunker remained right near the draw. I had two formations of troops (calling them squads would be a stretch at this point) ready to go to work on this last bunker. I left one team up top, and then sent the other one down the bluff to the rear of the bunker. When they were within 20 meters or so, the team below put a bazooka round into the rear door and threw a few grenades. After a few seconds, whats left of the German MG team comes out like Rambo (completely shell-shocked and with blown ear drums from the concussion), spraying from the hip, and manages to kill or wound everyone in that team. The team above could see the bunker, but couldn't get an aim point on it for whatever reason, this the boss MG team simply sets up their MG again just outside the bunker, and continues it's harassing fire at broken troops on the beach. Meanwhile, I'm breaking furniture in my house screaming at the second team, "throw grenades down the !@#$in bluff! Seriously!" :-P
  10. I disagree. No matter whether the games are abstract or represent a 1:1 scale, each game is doing the same basic thing and has to make similar decisions. Any order given to a unit/squad/vehicle wouldn't be outside of the normal set of orders given to a unit by a player (pop smoke, reverse, unload, etc...), it would just be done automatically, and in a sequence. Even now, there is a slight SOP in effect. Think of AFVs that sometimes automatically pop smoke and reverse when hit by small arms or AT weapon. That is, in essence, a loose procedure conducted by the crew without input from the player.
  11. LOL. I know. I'm an old school TacOps player, too. I like the idea of being able to define engage distances and other factors pertinent to combat operations ... nevermind the fact that it is consistent with actual practices in combat. It would also take some of the micromanagement out of RT. Another game that really took advantage of SOP's is Flashpoint Germany, a game similar to TacOps.
  12. Nice way to take a !!!! on someone's idea.... LOL ;-)
  13. Despite the weird balls comments and whatnot .... Command Ops vs. Commonwealth is a weird pair to choose from. Command Ops is an entirely different game, different scale, different replayability, etc. I'm not suggesting it's a bad game, I own it, but it's just an odd comparison. Even the price is vastly different.
  14. I'd like to see the number of casualties caused by the various types of off-map support. Right now, we can see it for on-map units, but not off-map.
  15. AHHH! Motorcycles. Now THAT would be pretty slick ... especially for fast reconnaissance.
  16. General-purpose standard service ammunition with a solid core bullet. https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog/view/100.ATSC/434948EB-8945-4C25-9389-B33B4927856C-1308726234899/3-22.9/glos.htm And yes.... we've gone into uber-grog land with this thread..... :cool:
  17. Dammit! I want my CM: Red Ball Express w/ Repple Depple module!
  18. I like how you're thinking ... especially regarding the mules, but I don't know how's they fit into tactical combat. They were excellent for logistics, though! They're still used today, in fact.
  19. Here's one: The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Battle-1943-1944-Liberation/dp/080508861X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
  20. Absolutely! I suspect it could be bunching could be mitigated based on the quality of the troops and the rating of the leader. That's what NCO's are for. If the NCO is weak (like a -2 or -1), then the troops aren't as organized, or don't use their training as well. If the NCO is better, then the troops are more dispersed, and operate better.
  21. I'd like to see a more true-to-life advance and assault commands for infantry. Instead of the current assault command breaking a squad down into teams and advancing by rushes, the assault command should be where the entire squad gets up and advances quickly while firing on the move, used within the last 10 or 15 meters to the objective (this is called "assaulting through the objective" in infantry terms) An advance command could be used as the squad fire-and-movement command. The only difference I'd make across the board is that the teams and men need to be more spread out. A rifle squad on line advancing by team has a (ballparked) width of about 50 or more meters. Even when resting, or lying against a hedge or bocage, it feels like the men are too bunched together. Sometimes the game gives new meaning to "one grenade will get you all!"
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