pnzrldr
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Posts posted by pnzrldr
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So - haven't played CM in literally years, but was beta tester and wrote some of the missions on CMRT and CMBS. However, I am now a die-hard IL2 addict, playing the latest IL-2 Great Battles series (IL2 BoX ie. Battle of X - Stalingrad, Moscow, Kuban, Bodenplatte and the upcoming Normandy). IL2 BoX has some issues, but to say that the visuals are astounding is an understatement. Flight models and damage models are a very close second to DCS for realism. Online multiplayer is superb. With head tracking and HOTAS, it is completely immersive, and I am only awaiting the right VR headset to take that plunge. FWIW I believe the summer sale is still on, with most of the titles (minus the brand new ones) available at 50-75% off. Note: IL2 also built "Flying Circus" onto the base of "Rise of Flight" to simulate WWI aviation and it is an amazing sime and lots of fun as well. Also of note, the IL2 Cliffs of Dover - the Battle of Britain sim that was the immediate predecessor of IL2 BoX (came after IL2 1946) is coming out very soon with IL2 Tobruk, which will feature a truly incredible level of aircraft, both existing and new, modded for the North Africa campaign. If you are into flight sims at all you should check it out. Cliffs and Tobruk are only on Steam (I bought BoX direct from 1C Games, to ensure the devs got all my dollars). I think Cliffs of Dover is currently $6 and change. For a taste of IL2 BoX look up either Der Sheriff https://www.youtube.com/c/SheriffsSimShack or iFlyCentral https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6U2wqGyO2APRoFJwOoztA- both Youtubers - who post great content. Not a cheap hobby, but I am consistently amazed at the quality of the community and sometimes have fun just flying formation or doing acrobatics - its that realistic and beautiful.
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Actual true capacity of Bradley in extreme situation = one more. Same answer as 'how many Afghans can you fit in that Bongo van?'
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For all those feeling sorry for Bil, please rest assured he is taking out all the angst he worked up here in the game he is playing against me.
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Bil, I figured you would regret not buying any artillery. Now I know I was right. Hell, it would have at least covered your withdrawal. Barring that, if you run far enough, fast enough, that JT will run out of gas before you do!
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Folks,
Stephen was a good friend and helped bring me into the CM crowd. Though he lived half a world away, we chatted often and shared quite a bit. I miss him. The following piece is from his family:
Stephen Hilla (deceased)
With a lifetime background in Business and Security – Stephens other interests included working with bands, grid iron, computers, aviation, military history and tactics – Stephen could be a formidable opponent in many tactical strategy games whether they were played on a board or a computer and he was always ready to be a part of any interesting discussion, tale or story. He was recently awarded the credit of being a beta tester and scenario designer for the BattleFront - Combat Mission - Black Sea series…
Unfortunately, Stephen has recently left us far earlier than expected in his early 50’s after a sudden heart attack. Stephens lady partner and family would like to thank all those who Stephen interacted with as he called you all his friends and you enriched his world while he moved across the various military, gaming, general interest, forums and sites that he was so active on.Thank you on behalf of us all.
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Bil -
My primary comment is echoed above by Bulletpoint - this type of system could be effectively hard-coded into the game (with significant effort no doubt) to create a realism level above those currently offered. As such, I view it as an 'alpha' build that could form the basis for an add-on system, but until/unless you/we convince Steve and Co. to pursue it, I doubt it will gain much traction. In assessing its marketability, it would make a substantial upgrade for tactical grognards, but might only appeal to them - I don't have a marketing assessment of the overall audience, so cannot say whether you could argue for its development from a profitability standpoint. Without coded-in development, I doubt many will do much more than tinker with it briefly, despite the effort and thought you are applying.
One thing that such a system might allow would be expanding the actions of the TAC AI somewhat. For example, adding in movement to cover as an automatic reaction to enemy fire independent of any player input, with direction of movement based upon current task. Perhaps even with an 'auto-split' for squads taken under fire, half returning fire and half bounding to cover. Player takes over control again once unit completes immediate action. Actual reaction (run for cover, ground in place, return fire, bound to cover w/or w/o covering fire) could depend upon unit type, morale, training, etc... Would automate some of your system as TAC AI actions, and place other aspects under player control.
Highlights one glaring issue to me in CM C3 rules and that is prevalence of sound powered phones on WWII battlefield. Could easily be simulated under your system by designating locations that HQ units start scenario in on defense as having phone hookups - anyone who goes there for a turn is 'in C3' like radio comms. Would also note that when we look at CMRT it highlights the need to apply your settings based on nationality as well as other factors. Russian doctrine obviously/famously allowed for infinitely less initiative than other nations. German and US were not identical either, though more similar.
Just initial thoughts - I'll keep percolating.
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I will put a note in the developer's 'to do' box to address this problem. Quite likely that ENG generated 'damage' from blast is not recognized as 'damage/destruction' for VPs. No guarantee, but possible it gets addressed in a patch. Suspect you've found an issue common across CM, but won't know w/o further test.
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If there are any on the forum from this storied outfit, please shoot me a PM. IG invited me and other Betas to help develop a post-release campaign to highlight your unit, and would appreciate any first-hand experience and insight. Not an invite to participate in development (yet), but would like to at least open dialogue. No, lotsa love for you All American folks, but this is specifically a request to make contact with the Vicenza crowd. PM me and/or Imperial Grunt. Thanks.
To all non-173d types, expect a new campaign on the repository as fast as we can get it done. Hopefully this post-release beta-developed content will enhance your pleasure with the game!
IG / Pnzr
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Beaten? What is that? Oh, you mean like when you play UKR BMP-2s against Bil's BMP-3s and T90s! Oh, no I haven't seen any of that against the AI!
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H2H or otherwise, I move INF over long distances using a jog/walk or 'quick'/'move' combination. Trick is picking the correct distances. Move paths look like candy stripes, but it gets them there fairly rapidly, frequently without being below 'ready' upon arrival. Not sure if this is my real world preference bleeding over into the game or not, but it seems to work.
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Nah, just found out it didn't make the release. I am working w/ Bil to modify each side a tad. Then have to cut up the AI somewhat. Map is the same. Probably take a little bit though. Will keep you posted.
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Whereas I tried to suppress them w/ 30mm fire and burned through a good 150 rounds to get the job done. Mortars would have been a much better solution!
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*** Spoilers *** Didn't get to this during Beta, but just played it through as RUS and liked it a lot. Restarted after misunderstanding a note in the briefing so I had a little intel, but played honest otherwise. My only gripe is that I strongly dislike small maps that have usable/critical terrain right on the boundary. The road on the left (from RUS perspective) is a critical avenue of approach, but the attacking Russian player has no concern for his security to the left side of it as that is all off map! Introduces an artificiality that is just never there in real life, esp. in urban combat where 360 security is a constant issue. Other than that, the AI plan was obviously very well thought out, the forces were fairly well balanced, and I got ground up pretty good before winning. Key to victory was direct-fire 30mm support from the BTRs. Their autocannon is so bloody destructive it hurts. In one instance I meant to target/briefly, but screwed up and used target, when suppressing a small UKR element. Wound up dropping the whole top floor of the building, a vantage point I had actually wanted to use! **spoiler** I was also lucky in that I anticipated the sniper team in the church and guessed right on the floor they were on. They got a face full of 30mm from my setup zone before ever firing a shot. Never did get the mortar mission into play, which is silly as I could really have used the smoke, but was fixated on just the limited HE ammo and trying to conserve until needed. I used a LOT of the BTR and INF laid smoke. Critical factor. Wound up killing the tank from behind with a BTR's 30mm, after running out of ATGMs and missing several times with RPGs. It had counterattacked (painfully) to a point overwatching the bridge, but then lost morale and tried to run away, right past a BTR I had maneuvered around the whole back side of the map. Overall a fun game, good small fairly fast scenario, that rewards good reconnaissance and methodical urban combat techniques.
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Hey, FWIW and obvious major spoilers, but Krause is doing playthrough video of this scenario on the stickied thread at top of the forum. I am heckling lightly, since he tried to label me as 'old.' His pre-mission rundown (all that he has hung so far) is fairly good, with a few miscues. One thing I forgot to mention - management of your individual rounds of AT ordnance can also be key. You will likely get attrited some, and if you play the 'hard' version, you really don't have much to go around. Knowing where it all is and doling it out only as needed can be key.
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Krause. Just started the vid, and thanks for the kudos, but hoping I disappoint you as far as predicatability. There really wasn't much to the AI plan. If you want me to go full on Russian AGMB some time, I'll build one. Good website, btw.
You sure did set up to burn through a lot of your indirect ammo in preparatory fires. Remember, that is your PRIMARY killing agent in this game! You do get another section of Paladins, but be conservative and leave something for later. Remember, no reason your UAS cannot do some of the observing on the NAIs for you. You don't necessarily have to get physical eyes on. And do make sure you take out the overwhelming majority of the IADS before committing your CAS or ATK.
Oh, and I was NOT in the Gulf War (whipper-snapper must think I'm OLD!) - was at Armor Officer Basic when it went down, with my name on the "I volunteer, please send me now..." list. Obviously over by the time I got done. All my interesting time has been in IZ and AFG.
"Hardcore 6, this is Power 6, identify enemy main body serials and pass to X-ray for targeting, break."
"Keep your scouts alive, carefully manage your anti-armor ordnance, and don't shoot dirt with my artillery! Good luck, out."
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Hi all. Overwhelmingly happy to see this thread. Couple points.
1. Chris and I had opposite viewpoint (or simple miscommunication) on allocating easy/hard mission. He wound up giving hard mission to folks who do poorly in preceding one. I thought they should get an easier ride, and folks fresh from overwhelming victory should have to suck it up. Either use a utility (one on GaJ's board?) to decompile the campaign, run through and deliberately throw the preceding mission, or perhaps I'll hang the 'hard' version out there on the repos for a challenge game.
2. Ravens CAN get shot down, esp. by Tunguskas. They are harder to engage though. Not quite sure if SAMS/MANPADs can, but TGs for sure. As stated, GE is immune if observing only.
3. *Spoiler* hard version features Russian Air, US Stingers, and Russian mobile ADA systems, plus slight decrements to US force mix to up the resource management challenge.
Have had some folks say that the Russian mech elements pile up too much, and they don't enjoy the Kuwait/Falaise Pocket "highway of death" aspect. However, one of the US' key concepts is to use Joint Fires to provide the lethality that our limited numbers cannot generate. This is a test of that concept. It highlights the difficulties inherent in going with only GPS precision guidance on many munitions, of getting observers in obsolete 'scout' vehicles to accomplish their missions, and of the challenges inherent in neutralizing an integrated air defense system. I challenge folks to imagine what it would be like if some of us betas had prevailed in our attempts to get vehicle/soldier small arms applied into the AAA equation! But it is fun, trying to take out a MECH BDE (-) with a Stryker PLT and a handful of scouts.
Heck, this was so much fun I may have to build another like it to apply the experience from making this one!
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Yes. Give me some time to work it. Bil and I had discussed. It is a scaled down version of one that I think actually made the release copy, and we had chatted about some of the tweaks we would make to the force mix and reinforcement schema to make it more playable. I'll see about getting after it this weekend.
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However, for current Sci Fi, I go with John Scalzi. Awesome writer. Closest RA Heinlein I've ever read. And I of course have a complete set of Drake's Slammers series for occasional perusal. Funny how many of his concepts have come to pass in our current armored force.
Actually in the market for some new stuff that is decent and thought provoking (or banal and overtly suggestive... as the mood strikes). Someone tee up their new favorite Sci Fi guy/gal.
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In fairness, Ringo is a mixed bag. He manages to combine some utter trash with some interesting stuff from time to time. Plus, how do you not like a novel that mixes at least 55 or 60 Shades of Gray hardcore S/M porn with Mack Bolan / Executioner style gratuitous pulp violence? ;-)
Some of his more serious Sci Fi had some hypothetical asteroid mining/space station creating physics that I found interesting.
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I'll pile in here. Please note:
1. US forces not currently equipped with LWRs, so we have no existing doctrine. Behavior modeled in CM TAC AI is extrapolated/presumed.
2. Vehicles in game DO know the azimuth of the lasing unit, and will normally (but not always) orient their armament / thickest turret armor, towards it.
3. Lasers detectable by modern LWRs include: laser range finders for tanks / IFVs, laser range finders for other weapons (recoilless rifles, sniper systems, etc...), laser designators for precision artillery, CAS or Attack Helo ordnance, and (importantly) lasers for beam-riding ATGMs. Beam riders (eg. Kornet) are different than beam-designated ATGMS (Hellfire, for example) and have the potential to not set of LWRs, depending upon beam-width and spillover. However, there is significant chance (increasing as the missile approaches target) that the beam would spill over onto the target and activate the LWR. BL: sabot rounds will usually follow LWR action within a couple seconds, but ATGMS could be as much as 20 seconds away.
4. Modern LWRs can discriminate between 'real' lasers and run of the mill laser pointers, etc... intended to spoof them.
5. Active Protection Systems (APS) include both 'soft-kill' and 'hard-kill' components. Both are tied to multi-spectral sensors, including LWRs. If your LWR goes off, your 'soft-kill' system kicks on automatically, and that usually includes your smoke grenade launchers. The smoke-popping isn't necessarily cowardly crews, but rather an automatic system response to a threat. Crew could turn it off, if desired, but not necessarily allowed to. Backing up, however, would be a crew level action.
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Yeah, that's kind of big...
I uploaded a 1mb .pdf as a test before I asked the question, so I know that works. Am sure this forum is not intended to serve as a file share server, but figured for smaller stuff it might be an easy way to trade files until the new repos is fully online.
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As the designer (in conjunction w/ Chris and several multi-run playtesters) I am looking forward to your video on mission 2. It served as a bit of a test to see how close to 'right' CMBS gets US Joint fires capability. Very curious what you and the rest of the community think of it.
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Stupid Question Chris - our sexy new forum actually has file attachment capabilities. I show myself (just us betas?) having unlimited upload capacity. Any reason modders/mappers/scenario designers cannot hang their actual .btt / .bts / .brz files right here on the forum, until such time as the repository upgrade occurs? If this is *bad* from a file security or forum overload standpoint, let me know.
Note: I also assume it works for PM messages, would make for Dbox/email alternative for point-to-point file sharing.
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Pretty sure per above the Longbow Apache just does a little BLOS alignment, and overlays radar target that is on line of bearing for Tunguska radar emissions at head of queue for radar Hellfire. Poof! No more Tunguska. Doesn't work in our game, but IMHO the air and UAS is the least important part of the game. They are significant abstractions of the real world capabilities they represent, whereas the ground forces are an actual simulation.
What is more fun and challenging is putting TG's into a scenario w/ no air at all and using them in a ground role. They are serious whoop, and carry a lot of ammo. Paper thin armor, but don't get one shooting at you. See the 'robocop' vid in my AAR. While this is not their primary role (nod to other comments above) it is what the ZSU-23-4 wound up doing in Grozny, and I would bet that it is part of a designated and prioritized role for TG's in latest Russian doctrine. Now, try imagining what this thing could do if all those shells were 'precision airburst.' ;-)
Buying a New PC - IL-2 1946 Install Question
in CM2 General Tech Support
Posted · Edited by pnzrldr
Sure. DCS models a variety of factors not seen in IL2. Take a look at the modeling of wake turbulence for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Q3kd4v3bw&t=62s. This impacts formation flight too, as well as the stuff near the ground depicted. Their actual flight modeling is more rigorous, and - according to a few I know who have flown real warbirds, DCS and IL2 - closer to reality. Another point of significance to us gamers - the ground handling for taxi in DCS is also closer. IL2 taxiing is actually harder than IRL. Also, DCS has recently (last 8 weeks?) begun releasing aircraft with their updated full damage model. Started with the FW-190A8 and I believe they have done their entire WWII warbirds lineup now (double check me). Level of systems detail is even higher than IL2, with full effects of virtually everything. You can, for example, lose your O2 bottles and wind up passing out at altitude, among other potential mishaps. IL2, not to be outdone, also released a full damage model upgrade recently as well (again, last 6 weeks or so?) that focused revising on the modeling of damage from HE versus solid shot (.50 cal) and the delta between skin damage and structural damage, as well as pass through to systems. It diminished the previously high probability of seeing a wing separate from an enemy after a burst or two, and increased pass through damage to engines and incidence of fire. Also, you see increased aerodynamic issues with major HE skin damage and greater damage to engines from penetrating .50 cal fire. They also redid bomb blast damage to more closely model blast and fragmentation radii.
@mjkerner, I currently use a Saitek X56 HOTAS, a Track IR with the LED clip, the intro level Thrustmaster rudder pedals, and a 35" ACER Predator monitor. The Saitek is IMHO the best bang for the buck short of going overseas for Virpil or other snazzy Euro control solutions. Given the price points, I would not even look at Thrustmaster. For IL2 BoX the most exciting release has been Battle of Bodenplatte that has significant US / British late war aircraft fighting P-51D, P-47D, Spit Mk IX, P-38, Tempest, against German 109 K4 / G14, FW-190D9 / A8 and of course ME-262. Battle of Normandy is in pre-order and the first aircraft due out is the P-47D 'Razorback'. This 1944 focused release will also include the Typhoon, Spit Mk XIV, Mosquito, B-26 (AI only) and on the German side, a late-war 109 G6 variant, 190A6, ME-410 and AR-234 plus a few other planes on both sides. They haven't put out a BoN trailer yet, but here's a very recent fantastic vid of BoBP. If this doesn't make you want to play it nothing will. All footage is in-game. No cinematic that I can detect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i1gF-gFa_Y&t=5s
And, as an alternate path on the sim in between 46 and BoX, here's the Cliffs of Dover (CLoD) Tobruk trailer:
If any are interested in this stuff, ensure you take advantage of the sale going on now - or wait for the next one! Entry level right now for Battle of Stalingrad for example is just $20 for the Premium pack with bonus a/c and BoBP is $40. BF please forgive me for posting other folk's stuff, but should not be in direct competition w/ you guys. You know I love you!