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Ultradave

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Everything posted by Ultradave

  1. Well, I have to disagree with this and @Artkin. What you describe is *exactly* what I'd do in real life. But, hey, make any rules you want in agreement with your opponent. Taking away that capability, to me, would remove a perfectly valid tactic. I'd do that even without the TOW firing from the woods. Ooh, look, treeline ahead. Blast it with whatever we've got to keep their heads down, while I have maneuver elements close in. Is it really that much different than putting a smoke screen in front of the treeline even if you haven't spotted anything? Pretty much accomplishes the same thing. Dave
  2. Can you explain more? I don't get this one. If you are on offense, you would call fire along a treeline, hammer a village you plan to assault, etc. On defense you'd target areas where the enemy could be assembling for an assault. Can't hit a whole patch of woods because you can't get a LOS to the middle of it. I suppose you could target the open in front of the woods and overlap into it. I see nothing wrong with targeting an open area the enemy has to cross to attack you with everything I've got, and hoping that that timing of the FFE works with the enemy crossing that area. Catching enemy in the open with artillery is a goal, not something that should be eliminated. Maybe I'm missing your point or objection (certainly possible - it's early, I'm wet from walking the dogs and need coffee ) Dave
  3. I picked Czechmate with me as US. Gives him a lot of resources and I gave a few hints. It's also less of a long range tank duel, of which we've just played a couple WW2 versions of. This one has lots of woods and hills and I have a thin defense. Dave
  4. There is no PBEM++ for Macs, only PCs. The Matrix/Slitherene versions are PC only. They are the same as the BF PC versions. The Mac version are the same with the exception you get them from BF only (Fine with me) and no PBEM++. But PBEM the dropbox way still works just fine. Dave
  5. If you mean the hotkey settings they are a text file. If you changed any of those, you can edit the text file back to original, or you can copy/paste one from another CM title. Dave
  6. Need more info to answer properly. What version are you currently on? There are all in one downloads for the current version and your license key will still work. Or there are updates up to the current version. However, to do those, you need to be on version 4 of the game engine. How old is "this old game?" and then we could point you in the right direction. And no, there is no automatic update download unless you are on Steam, and I'm guessing you don't have it installed there due to your "old game" title. Dave
  7. Along with this I'd like to be able to click a sound/tentative contact and have it highlight which of my units has that contact, just like it works for a solid contact. That would tell me who I need to maneuver to get a better contact on it. I think this is realistic. For example, a squad gets a tentative contact. Squad leader splits off a scout team "See if you see what that is." As long as they still remain in C2, that would then tell me what I'd need to do to fire on it. Sometimes it's only a small change in position or cover, but right now we don't know WHO needs to do that. We just have lots of tentative conctacts and have to guess who MIGHT have a LOS to one. Dave
  8. Its maximum range is in that order, however it has a significantly smaller effective range (like about 1/10th the max range - roughly). It's a recoilless rifle, so that is correct. Dave
  9. I remember one scenario from CM1 where you (if I remember right), the British airborne troopers dropped into Normandy and trying to assemble and take a few houses. You were only allowed to use view 1 - the eye level view - and just tab switch between each unit. It was HARD. Lots of view blocks, so it was really difficult to form up or even determine where the objective was compared to you. I thought it simulated the confusion of the first period after the airborne drops pretty well, minus actual bullets flying at you. Dave
  10. Easy answer. It doesn't have more HE. Scroll back a bit. A 155mm howitzer shell has over twice the explosive weight as a 120mm mortar round. In general terms a mortar is going to be less accurate than a howitzer. The velocity of the shell is lower, the trajectory much higher, making it susceptible to winds aloft more so than an artillery shell. That's something that can be calculated for and input corrections, IF you have time for it. The artillery battalion Target Acquisition Battery will fly a weather balloon a couple times a day and report direction and speed at various altitudes. You (the various fire direction centers) use those to look up deflection and elevation corrections to add/subract to the firing data, based on your expected direction of fire. Now obviously 2x/day still only gives a rough idea and weather and wind can change, so even those corrections are ballpark. In the game, I use mortars for a few things. 1) Against unprotected infantry they are good, or in trenches you'll get the odd direct trench hit which is great, and even if you don't it usually keeps their heads down. 2) Short harassing mission against armor to make them button up. 3) Smaller mortars especially are great for suppressing MG or AT gun positions and are usually quick response. Against buildings or anything substantial, I leave that for the field artillery, unless mortars is all I've got. Mortars can do pretty well against pillbox positions too. They probably won't knock them out, but they can suppress them. Nothing like a couple dozen mortar rounds landing on the roof and all around to disorient them and give them a headache. It helps anyway. Dave
  11. This probably isn't really accurate either. FOs or FISTs are well trained to do so, and have the radio nets "dialed in" and ready to go. The "almost any unit," whoever they may be, will have varying levels of ability to effectively call for fire. Variables like map reading ability, knowledge of the TRPs in the fire support plan (they may or may not depending on the level of command), being able to quickly switch to and make contact with the battery by radio, and their proficiency at using a call for fire, which has a specific format, and how good they might be in zeroing in on target with adjusting rounds, all play a part. It takes some practice to learn how to bracket and estimate distances well. Every battery and mortar section does some training on how to coach an untrained observer, but that adds time to getting the mission going, so mission times for FOs are justifiably shorter than infantry HQ units or whoever else might be calling. So, yeah, the general answer is that artillery call and adjusting in CM is quite abstract and generalized across periods, and some things don't carry directly from real life experience. This was my job for years, so I have a lot of detail in my head. Do I need it in the game? Well, I probably would have fun with it as an artillery simulator. Others might find it tedious In RL, a 120mm shell does in fact have a lot less explosive power than a 155 shell. I was in the Airborne and our direct support artillery was 105mm howitzers, rather than 155mm. In that setup, a 120 and a 105 are roughly equivalent. Roughly. A 105 also has a lot less explosive power than a 155. Hope that helps. Doesn't change anything of course. And my experience is Cold War era, which pretty well translates to WW2 with better comms. There were the beginnings of computerized fire calculations and GPS, but we didn't have those. TACFIRE was a computer based battery fire control system, but it came in 5ton trucks. Can't airdrop those. We had a digital-analog computer that used paper punch tape input (yeah, a dinosaur). It hardly ever worked right and it weighed 400 lbs, and usually broke if you airdropped it. "Charts and darts" (manual paper, protractors and slide rule calculations) were faster anyway. And those methods have changed little since WW2. The physics of ballistics are a constant Dave
  12. The question you asked was real life tactical use of the 120mm mortar. So I provided some real life background.
  13. No. A 155mm howitzer shell has approximately 2 - 3x the warhead charge of a 120mm mortar. (comparing a US 4.2" mortar HE shell to a US 155mm HE shell). I'm sure other country's ammunition would be in the same ballpark. Battalion mortars are more versatile, are under the infantry battalion's direct control, so therefore can be more responsive to the infantry. They are also less susceptible to counter - battery fire as they can pick up and move and then re-emplace faster than a howitzer battery. This becomes more important the more modern the era. It is also more of a difference with towed howitzers than with SP howitzers. Even so a 155 battery is a lot of stuff to move and it's all heavy. In the Cold War period to the present, there is usually a 155 (or 105) battery dedicated to each maneuver battalion, and that association is permanent, so that units train together. Obviously that can be modified depending on circumstances, so there is usually a dedicated direct support artillery battery as well as battalion mortars, so response is fast. In WW2 this wasn't the default organization, so call times to the artillery would be a little longer, not even counting the advances in comms since then. A 155mm howitzer has significantly longer range. While that may be important for targets of opportunity in the rear areas of the enemy, for CM game purposes it doesn't matter much. The normal real life doctrine would be to select firing positions for both mortars and howitzers so that the expected ranges to targets fall at around 2/3 of the max range of the weapon. Mortars then, would be placed closer to the front lines. In game purposes, if you have off map assets, then they are already placed appropriately and can reach the whole map. If you were playing a game a scale level higher, where you control the batter position, it matters more. One last pretty important thing. A mortar section can put A LOT of rounds on the target in a short time. The sustained rate of fire is faster than a 155mm howitzer and they can keep it up longer before having to slow down. A 155 can fire at a high sustained rate but not for very long, if you want to use it again. It just takes longer to load and fire as well. Dave
  14. I've been in a M60 tank buttoned up and I can say spotting anything is hard. It helps when the other guy fires Muzzle blasts and smoke puffs make things easier. But just seeing things tucked in a treeline? That's really difficult. Sights improve, for sure, with the development of thermals, but thinking more of the TC or driver being able to see and ID things out the ports? That was hard. Never been in a WW2 era tank, even in a museum, but I can't believe it was better. It's probably STILL just as hard today. Just a lot easier to hit and kill something once you do locate it. Dave
  15. All I can say is that George's scenarios will challenge you at every turn with surprises. It's not unreasonable behavior. A unit on the attack is going to plaster any suspected enemy locations either by direct or indirect fire, whether or not they spot anything. If nothing else you keep their heads down. Treelines are obvious targets where enemy might be expected. Dave
  16. Steam versions are Windows only. So are Slitherene/Matrix versions as far as I know. The only way to get a Mac version is through Battlefront. Keep in mind that the PBEM++ feature is only available in the Windows versions, not the Mac versions. Other than that, there is no difference. That's no big deal for me, but it might be for others. For Mac, PBEM still works the way it always has. Dave
  17. My wife and I lived in England for several years. We watched ALL the episodes. Dave
  18. It's a fun little scenario. I've played it a number of times, and it's a good one to micromanage everything as you don't have a large number of units to control. I agree that as long as you are careful not to get your Stuart in the way of that AT gun, you can use it for covering fire to advance your men. Go down low to level 1 and 2 and take a good look at the terrain. There are areas where you can approach behind cover. Dave
  19. The AI force picking was greatly improved back a while ago, HOWEVER, it still does bizarre things, and it gets weirder as the battle size gets smaller, like small and tiny. Still needs work. One thing they are good for though, is to practice tactics. Set up the AI played side as defense and pick their forces, pick your own offensive force, and practice a company assault with a few supporting tanks against a village defended by a platoon with 2 AT guns, for example. You'll know what they have, but not where they are, although you can guess likely locations, which in a lot of real life cases might not be that far off. If you pick reasonable forces for the AI, it will usually do a halfway decent job of setting up, I've found. Or even if it doesn't, you won't know where they are until you find them.
  20. Sure, and like I mentioned, he could be impeached - even a Republican House would, I imagine, if they did in fact declare war. Would he be convicted and removed from office? I don't think there's any guarantee of that, even in that situation. But assuming the Senate convicts him and he's out, then what? His hand-picked VP, whichever MAGA sycophant that is, takes over. Does anything change? Or does everyone suddenly throw off the yoke and act "normal" because he has no power anymore? 50/50 - there's still the 8-10-12 however many die-hards in the Republican Party who want to stop everything. On the other hand, if Democrats take over the House, then that crew loses ALL power they have. Sorry for being pessimistic, but if Trump gets elected, it will be messier than last time. He (or more really his closest advisors) won't make the mistake of putting anyone with any integrity in any position of power. I'm also pessimistic about the election in general. If Trump wins, well, we've covered that. If Biden wins, does anyone think that Trump will just say "Congrats" and go home? Nope. We could easily see worse than Jan 6. I'll stop now and get back to play testing and reading everyone elses' commentary, which is always interesting, no matter the viewpoints. Dave
  21. Changes? Well, Democrats used to have a majority in the House, and Nancy Pelosi, whatever you may think of her politically, was a masterful Speaker of the House. So things like aide for Ukraine could make it through the House. The Senate, being (supposedly and usually) the more rational of the two houses, had broad support for Ukraine. Now, Republicans control the House, with a weak and vulnerable Speaker, who has to do a lot of the bidding of the 8 or 12 or whatever the number is based on subject, rebellious Republicans - rebellious to their own party - or lose his job just like the last one did. The Senate remains more or less the same, at least on issues like Ukraine and NATO. Still supportive, but as we've seen just recently with the border security bill, scared witless of Trump, and ready to drop support at his bidding. Maybe that would change after election, should he win. Maybe not. And the biggest danger that I see is that because of legislation Congress passed, a president cannot remove the US from NATO without the 2/3 consent of the Senate (an impossible hurdle to overcome, IMO), he could effectively render US participation in NATO non-existent. He could, by himself, remove all troops from Europe, or anywhere else. He could refuse to support with arms or troops a NATO ally under attack. He could, as he signaled just recently, invite Russia to do "whatever they Hell they want". He could send home our representatives to NATO's organizational structure and not replace them. He could gut the State Department. ALL of these things are functions of the Executive Branch, under the President's control. All he has to do is give orders for any of that, without Congress being involved. So while I'm pretty sure their is very broad support for NATO in the Senate, and probably in the House, even with the Republican fringe trying to throw wrenches in the works, they themselves can't order troop movements, or provide aid even if it was voted for successfully and a president signed it. Again, the implementation of any of that falls under the Executive Branch. Congress only other recourse should a president not honor NATO obligations would be a formal declaration of war against the aggressor. That is in Congress's control. But then, what would a president do, if he didn't agree with the declaration? I think, theoretically, he could just ignore it. If Congress passed bills and a president ignored them, the president could be impeached. But we see how that went, with a closely divided Congress. This is how I currently see it, anyway. Dave
  22. "is possible" How, exactly is winning accomplished that way? Spoiler alert: No winners, 2 losers.
  23. OOh, then you could combine it with the new CMO Showcase:Icebreakers.
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