eltorrente

No. Not on the second floor - that sounds silly. The first floor is believable, but I'd be pissed if my opponent had AT guns upstairs..

I don't think it's unrealistic. Walk all day with a bunch of friends and you'll start talking. No one is shooting at you and you don't think the enemy is around, so you'll talk. They weren't a bunch of mutes, even though every step they took during the advance was basically in enemy territory before the shooting actually started.

TheBlitz.org is a good site for this. They have a ladder system there, and some excellent players. Great players here, too btw. There's always someone willing to play a PBEM.

Keep in mind that the mortar crew will also fire their rifles if they can see the target - both with target and target light. For this reason, it's best to area fire just behind an obstacle or wall or whatever. Mortars can target JUST out of LOS, which enables them to hit behind walls and bushes and stuff, down a slope, etc, and when you do that, the rifleman can't see the target so they'll stay quiet.

Don't bother with Target Briefly - use Target Light for mortars. I use this all the time. Target Light area fire fires about 3 rounds or so every turn. Ammo lasts a long time, and you can cause a lot of damage. After each turn, adjust aim slightly and keep up the fire as long as they are still alive. Also, it's best to use Target light area fire rather than targeting an enemy directly. You don't want to stop shooting because they lost sight of the enemy when he cowers behind a wall or something. Also, if he loses sight of a specific target while targeting light, then he sees someone else (ANYWHERE else), he'll start shooting full speed and burn through his ammo quickly - because you lose your target arc as soon as you issue a target command. Best to just area fire when direct firing. I rarely use normal Target anymore, unless the target is juicy and fleeting.

I felt like I was reading something that I wrote for myself. I was about 12 or 13 maybe when cable came to my apartment complex. It was a really big deal going from just a few channels, to a cable box with like 30 or whatever it was. Had to turn a dial to change channels, and it didn't come with a remote. Anyway, The Big Red 1 was on a heavy rotation at that time. I watched it many times back then. There are several scenes that I still remember vividly - like Lee Marvin carrying the kid on his back. It's been many years, so I'm going to Netflix it soon and I'm sure I'll still like it.

If you're getting spotted when slow moving AND hiding, then it sounds like a bad spot. You must not be able to hide in the terrain you are going to, otherwise they wouldn't see you.

Well, overall it's best to not move them around by themselves where they can attract attention. Anytime I try to sneak an FO to the ultimate spot, he gets spotted because he's the only one who has been seen by certain units that haven't been engaged yet by other troops. Best to follow along with some troops, and wherever the troops have been, sneak into those spots. The troops would have either killed whoever could have killed your spotter from that vantage point, or they will themselves present a higher priority target than your FO a distance behind them.

The vehicle driving/pathing behavior is terrible in this game, and has been this way since the very beginning. I wish there was a "convoy" command or something, that made the vehicles simply match the path of the one in front, or something like that. What I usually do, is give a 10 or 15 second delay between vehicles. Also, I like to give the first one a faster move order than the ones behind, so Fast/quick/Move for the first three. Once they start pausing on their own, it goes downhill quick. They start turning off the road, trying to bypass, then causing more problems behind them.

That scenario was tough, and I think it was actually pretty close. It just came down to a couple crucial turns, like in most battles actually. Oh yeah.. I forgot about the planning turns from the older games. I used to hate not being able to watch a movie on certain turns. It works perfect now - watch a movie, then plan every single turn. I was glad you didn't give up on h2hhelper, because I knew you'd love it once it was up and running.

Alright sounds good. I'm going to send you a dropbox invite. If you haven't used dropbox before, you'll really like it. Much better than emailing/attaching/downloading the files. H2H Helper is very recommended, also. It moves the files back and forth automatically to and from the dropbox, has a chat function, and it keeps your incoming/outgoing folders clean.

I'll play you. Sounds like fun. If you want a small battle, that would be cool with me. I usually play large or medium, but it's nice to focus on a smaller force sometimes. I usually play QB meeting engagements with random maps, because every battle is different. I play scenarios sometimes in PBEMs, but I really don't know which ones are the best or anything.

I really liked Saving Private Ryan, therefore I'm an idiot who can't think for myself. Wow, o.k. then. It seems odd to me that people on an entertainment website are calling out people for enjoying entertainment products. Battlefront is clearly manipulating our brains, and we are all pawns in their money making scheme.

Ha - funny you should ask. I read that book while I was at sub school. I loved it, though I read it before I was actually on a sub. I didn't really like the movie much, either, if I remember correctly. It's been a very long time since I've seen it though. One of the best books I've read in a long time was Iron Coffins http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Coffins-Personal-Account-Battles/dp/0306808420 Really, really excellent. I couldn't put it down. It was like reading Das Boot in real life.

Yup - I have the book. I think I read it about 7-10 years ago. Anyway, every sub is basically blind to the rear, so a common procedure for every sub is to "clear baffles". It's just a 90 degree or more turn, stabilize on a course for a while, and look for new contacts. Nothing crazy about it. I don't remember in the book, but regardless I don't doubt that that term was actually used somewhere at sometime on some crazy mission. I'm just saying I've heard it only used as a joke, and noone I ever talked to ever heard of it in a serious way. It would be CRAZY to NOT clear baffles on a submarine. Yeah, I have no problem with that and I love the movie. I expect that, and it doesn't really bother me. I take note of it though, because I can't help it. Plus it's fun to make fun of. Here's another random thing about the movie: The Alpha that was speeding toward them at full power, would have been so unbelievably loud that both the October and the Dallas would have heard it coming from hundreds to thousands of nautical miles away. It wouldn't have just appeared like that lol - plus it would have been blind at that speed (45+ knots). Most sub movies have a sonar ping sound when they show a sub underwater lol. We never once used active sonar while on-station, because it advertises your position to everyone.

I would have like to have contributed to your scenarios. I was on the USS DRUM (SSN 677), which was a fast attack submarine. Das Boot.. such a great movie. I've watched it so many times through the years. The thing that makes it so realistic is how it potrays the various characters and relationships onboard. Now, I'm talking from experience on an early 90's american sub and comparing it to a german u-boat - so it might sound like a stretch, but trust me. The commonalities are that it's a very tight nit crew and the sub service is very different from the rest of the Navy or military in how the crew interact. Much less formal. Anytime we weren't underwater, we were completely drunk and out-of-hand. Everyone counted on everyone else to do their jobs, and to trust the boat. I don't know.. it just captured the sub service, and every submariner will agree - no matter when he served. I'm sure the Navy has advisers that contribute to sub movies, but damn.. Hunt for Red October (which is an awesome movie btw) had so many things in it that there's no way some adviser would have signed off on it. Why was Jonesy the only sonarman on watch? I think there was 5 or 6 on watch at all times. "Make your depth 1200feet, rig for red.". Huh? Why would you rig for red when diving? In fact, we only rigged for red like once - but that's for periscope depth. We'd always just rig for "low level light" and turn the lights off at night with the scope up, because rigging for red screwed with your senses. "Sonar Con Crazy Ivan!". WTF? What is a Crazy Ivan again, Mr. Clancy? Noone ever heard that uttered on a sub before. Oh.. so they can tell exactly where the enemy sub is and what direction it's going, with great accuracy and instantly.. total BS. Sonar systems are nothing at all like what you read about, and I'll leave it at that. Anways.. I still love that movie.

A lot of people mentioned Saving Private Ryan and Inglourious Basterds, and I thought both of those movies were excellent. Basterds was all about the dialogue. It had several scenes that built up the tension and made you feel like you were right there.. I was always empathizing and hoping they'd say the "right" thing. So what if Hitler didn't really die getting his face blown apart in a theater? It was a fantasy-reality and it was satisfying to me. It was like Tarantino was like, "I'm gonna do what so many people would have loved to have done to Hitler". Hey, fine with me. I think Brad Pitt is a good actor, too. I just thought he overplayed his part. His character "worked", though - lot of funny parts. I don't think anyone was really much caring much about his character anyway, necessarily, since it was really about the theater owner. SPR was the most moving war movie I've ever seen. I think it was because it was the first of its kind. I saw it in a theater with my girlfriend and some other friends. We were all blown away by the experience. I liked the story, also. No love triangle - just a war weary squad charged with risking their lives for someone they didn't know. I wanted them to succeed and was invested in their characters. Great acting all around, too. I felt like I had been through a war when I walked out of the theater. Steven Spielberg did a masterful job with SPR, and that led naturally to his involvement with Band of Brothers and The Pacific. I loved both of those series, but I must say that Band of Brothers was much better, in my opinion. I really enjoyed the Pacific, and looked forward to the next episode(s), but I just didn't feel like I knew much about the main characters. I think since Band of Brothers started in training, and we got to go along with them through the war, I got to know everyone. I cared about what happened to them. The various officers, down to the newest replacements all mattered to me.

No, I think it's the vantage point of the type of unit you plotted. I could be wrong, but I think I was playing around with that and came to that conclusion in-game.

Yes. Screenwriters and directors aren't politicians, and care only about their movie making money. If they want to keep it totally accurate, it wouldn't have as many cool explosions, and the studio wouldn't give them money to make it in the first place. I'm fully aware that most movies will butcher history for the sake of more drama or explosions. Of course I am. That's why I play this game and other wargames. Getting upset over inaccuracies in a war movie isn't required for a histroy buff, I don't think. I take note, and get on with the movie. Like I said earlier, I am an ex-submariner and every single sub movie I see is filled with so many crazy inaccurate things, but whatever. It's just a movie. Even if the writer wrote it totally accurate, it would get changed around for dramatic effect to appeal to the masses. Yes - apparently to a fault. From movies, television shows, video games - it's all the same when discussing this subject. People often get too upset when looking at an entertainment product, and it seems to ruin their experience. I was reading on this thread someone talked about a guy who refused to play some video game, like Total War or something like that, all because some uniform patches were wrong. Best to just take note of the inaccuracy, and relax, and maybe the rest of the product is pretty good. Same thing with this game - some folks have proclaimed it to be so inaccurate in some respect, that they simply can't play and enjoy the game. That is funny to me. Maybe 100 years from now when everyone has quantum computers we can have AI that behaves realistically, until then, we play because it's fun despite the deficiencies. I'm sorry I insulted you.

Because they're just movies, not documentaries. Made just to entertain and tell a story. Nothing more. I'm not going to avoid seeing a movie because its budget wasn't high enough to pay for all the CGI needed, or to restore old equipment, or build perfect replicas for every single thing. Maybe they could have paid all the actors to starve and not take showers for several months before they started shooting, to ensure they look realistic. They tell a story with the tools they have on-hand, and they're usually fun movies to watch - despite some wacky things that are in most of them. A lot of it is that when people know a lot about a subject, they can let it take over and can't enjoy watching shows, movies, or even novels because of it. Despite a movie being about the subject matter they like the most, they won't watch it, or will be filled with disgust, because some guy wore his hat the wrong way, or they used footage of an F-15, and it's supposed to be an F-14.

Yes.. which is why it's funny.

It's funny to hear historic movie snobs get upset over small details. It's a movie, not a documentary. I'm an ex-submariner and I can watch submarine movies and enjoy them. Heck, we used to watch Hunt For Red October while we were actually out to sea on specop missions.. you can't have a better atmosphere than that! That movie was just plain ridiculous as far as realism goes, but it's still a great movie. We also were HUGE fans of Das Boot (still am) - which is the greatest sub movie ever made. By a long shot. Hunt For Red October was so bad in terms of life on board a sub, the interaction of officers and crew, the pinpoint accuracy of their sonar systems, the tactics, basically everything.. but it's still a good, fun movie. Tom Clancy knows zero about submarines, despite how he talks so eloquently about them. Crimson Tide was the worst in terms of how life on a sub is. An officer tells an enlisted man to drop and give him pushups. Seriously wtf. No enlisted guy would ever be forced to do something like that, and he wouldn't have to do it either - not in the sub force, at least. That movie did, in fact, suck though.

Seems like the issue is simply with the spotter saying "fire for effect" before he actually has the rounds zeroed in. Seemingly not a big issue, but when I hear him say that I'm assuming rounds are going to be dropping pretty soon and may begin manuevering based on that assumption.

Yup, exactly. Once I started noticing this feature, I can't UNnotice it.. I just don't want to know.

I don't think this is much of an issue, but it's something that would nice. In the perfect world, all that would be required to make it feel more realistic is for the crew to move 10-20 meters here and there to take cover sometimes. However - the game isn't setup for that and it wouldn't be a quick fix in their engine. As far as I can tell, no other units in the game have a "home base" that they are tethered to that allows them to move away from it and back again when they need to. There would be more involved to make this work than just turning the gun into an object that is separate from the crew. BF might have the tech to make the gun behave sort of like a jeep, in that they could crew and uncrew it - but once they uncrew it, they'd need to be locked into a certain radius and place great importance on getting back to it, or disabling it if they need to run away.