Ultradave

I get a Errorcode - contact your vendor for assistance. Has anyone else had problems on a mac with SF not starting after upgrading the OS to Yosemite?

This depends on the artillery also. 105mm and 75mm is cased ammo and the powder bags are in the brass casing. 155 and 203 mm are separate with a "stack" of powder bags.

Standard Army answer. "Depends on the situation". I don't know how CM does it but it *could* be if you call for say, an Emergency fire mission, to pick an example. The rounds will come out quicker, possibly the observer might cut short his adjustment (like drop 200 FFE if he thinks he knows). And the faster the battery puts out the rounds from the call for fire the less chance they have to check their data. Trust me, doing it manually it all happens VERY fast, and if you in the FDC and the observer are in a hurry, then (speaking from my own experience) I monitored the charts to watch the 2 guys doing deflection calculations and my team sgt monitored the computer (a person - that's his position name) calculating elevation and time settings. We would both also listen to the data being called out from the other half and give each other a thumbs up if it was ok, down if not. The computer talks to the gun line and if he didn't get 2 thumbs up he didn't send the data. Now this by no means indicated we had made a good check of the actual data. It meant for both of us that the data given was: 1. Correct charge 2. Elevation put it beyond our front lines by a margin. 3. Within a l/r limit that we were confident was also safe (lines being fluid). So that round, if the &*%$ is hitting the fan and the observer wants rounds on a target 10 minutes ago, may not be going exactly where it was supposed to. Close hopefully, and somewhere out in front of him at worst case. If you are in a hurry, the observer may make the call and stop adjusting and FFE, because you just really need those rounds out there, right now. Another factor also might be the skill of the observer. FO's have a short life span in real life combat. It takes a bit of practice to get good at reading terrain and estimating distances. Inaccuracies can stem from the FO just not being that good or being pressured by the infantry LT or CPT to "get those rounds out there RIGHT F-ING NOW" Other times you may have the luxury of more time, and the observer can take some time to adjust. A good example might be the difference between trying to stop an infantry company moving toward your lines, where you have very little time to adjust (they are deploying to attack you), as compared to adjusting in on a trenchline you've spotted, or a pillbox you want to neutralize (maybe not destroy but at least interdict). They aren't going anywhere, so you should be able to do a better job adjusting and the firing battery can take an extra few seconds each round to better check the data. Those stationary things tend to be in easier to estimate coordinates too. Like a trenchline at the front of a treeline (easy to find on the map), or a bunker covering a crossroad - estimate from the crossroad location. The fewer features around the harder it is to call for fire. But it's an old Army cliche that everything "depends on the situation".

Well first of all just what Seinfeld Rules say. Obviously he has "modern" experience. Mine dates back to methods very similar to WW2. What I was trying to say, while giving background, is that the game's methods are generally on target (haha). It's very hard on the spur of the moment to do a FFE with no adjustment and actually hit the target, unless it's to a point known to high exactness to both the FDC (fire direction center) and the observer. The goal is to register the battery once a day to take out as much firing inaccuracy as possible. For those not familiar, registration uses the #3 gun, which is supposed to be your best piece and crew, and fire and adjust to a known point, and adjust to +/-25, rather than the normal "drop 50 FFE" Then compare "should hit" data to "did hit" data and make minor corrections to firing data from then on. As Seinfeld said - weather conditions change, the way the piece fires after heavy use, etc, will change that data, but you seldom have a chance to do it later in the day, or sometimes at all that day, depending on what's going on. As a substitute you can use another battery's data, knowing that it won't be as accurate as your own (but better than nothing at all). It also made a difference if a weather balloon was flown to get winds aloft. And to show how accurately we calculated the rotation of the earth is taken into account. Howitzer time of flight is about 12-25 seconds depending on size and range. The earth moves a few meters and we accounted for it. FFE to a call for fire to a grid coordinate provided by the observer was seldom successful. To have a chance to hit a target the size of a platoon trench line, or a CP/OP, etc, that way requires: 1. Observer has to know his own location to within 50m (preferably 25) This is tough in combat. 2. Observer compass direction to target (easiest) 3. Observer estimate of distance from himself to target to at least 50m (preferably 25) (hardest, in fact damned near impossible). With 2 and 3 the observer can get a grig coord off his map. Without 2 and 3 he can still get a grid coord by measuring distance and direction on the map to some known feature (crossroads, hilltop), and then direction and distance L/R +/- to the target. Depending on where the target is this method could be more accurate. It's the accuracy required of the distance estimates that make a FFE on first round so tough. Today, ALL of this is made so much easier by computers and GPS. Sometimes I'm amazed at how much of all of this I recall. I think I could still do a pretty good job of running my FDC. Hope that helps for background. Adjusting fire on a battlefield is not easy. Preplanned fires tend to land where they are supposed to. Easy to get a good coords on a treeline or hilltop or road junction and also quality check firing data carefully. Calls for fire take time to get the FFE to go where it is supposed. Lots of times you don't have that time luxury and it may come down to "drop 200 FFE" and hope for the best.

A couple of comments (and war stories) from a former artilleryman who served long ago enough that the techniques I used were pretty much the same as those used in WW2. Charts and darts, as we said then - no fancy computer stuff. We did have TI-59 calculators with a gunnery chip but they were crap. Being in the 82d Airborne it was years later that we got any kind of computerized fire control. Too fragile to airdrop. So all of our firing data was done with protractors, pins in charts, and "firing sticks" which are specialized slide rules to calculate elevation and fuse timing. "Normally" a FFE would only be called in 3 cases (#3 only applies to combat situations of course) : 1. Preplanned target where firing data was calculated and checked beforehand. 2. At a known point on the map requiring no interpolation by a FO (like a crossroads, of some other unmistakably identifiable feature) 3. Desperation. In combat of course it's entirely possible that an observer would not see a round fall or misjudge it due to other explosions in the area or smoke, or incoming fire to the spotter making his spotting difficult. So the scenario about "did you see it" works because chances are that the unobserved round landed somewhere in enemy land. But rather than have the observer call in a new coord though it's usually more effective for the battery to send a round out in front of him to adjust - to the center of expected firing area. If he didn't see the first one there's a good chance he gave the wrong coordinate or direction to the target. That's of course assuming that the firing battery has checked their firing data to the coord and the survey of the adjusting piece. As an aside, when in training we NEVER followed that sequence. We'd get some report from an observer FO: "Round unobserved, Repeat. over" Btry: "Uhhh, did you see ANYTHING? Dud maybe?" FO: "No, nothing. Round unobserved. Repeat, over." Btry: (aside to themselves ) - "No f-ing way I'm sending another one if they didn't see the first one" Next step is to fire an adjusting round to the center front and have the observer adjust THAT one. Meanwhile hoping that Range Control doesn't call on the radio wanting to know why we hit McPherson Church Road or OP11 or some such. You may wonder why I know this routine in such detail :-). Let's just say I had years of experience as both a forward observer and as a Fire Direction Officer and Brigade Fire Support Officer. I was always lucky - every time something like that happened (more often than you'd like) we in the Fire Direction Center were right and it was always the gun line that was off (center gun surveyed out 300 mils, wrong charge fired, time round fuse taken off safe but no time set - explodes when armed, which is about 2 1/2 rotations - makes for an exciting day when the Bn Commander is on his way to visit and it happens in the air over him - just a small selection of our disasters which thank God did not kill any troopers).

One of my favorites so far. And the map has a nice combination of good cover, rolling terrain and terrifying open ground.

If smoke were coming out of most of those it might resemble a couple of CW scenarios I failed at.

Ok, thanks. We'll just wait. Not that big a deal and we're already in a scenario. For me it's the only FI/GL one I'm playing.

In my excitement I think I neglected to say thanks for the work. Great job. $10 well spent. Haven't checked FI/GL yet because I'm in the middle of a match. We'll wait til we're done and then update. (Is that necessary or can it be done mid PBEM game? )

Ok. Downloaded the 3.0 update and immediately got to see hit decals appear on my M4s. :-( Boom, boom, BOOM! Oooh, look at all those holes. I think they call that recon by being fired on.

Maybe it's just my usage of them, but my Russian tanks excel at one thing and that's burning after being hit by (usually) one shell. CLAAAANNGG FOOOOOM! with 4 little crosses floating in the air. They really are outstanding at this. It's probably me.

For the original question, I think you can still do it with a firing arc, depending on how you want the troops to behave. 1. For an observation post, like a team out front to provide warning who you want to remain hidden, set a small circular firing arc but do not have them hide. They will "scout" better. If they get fired on, you probably want them to fall back anyway so cancel the firing arc and bug out (assuming they've survived the initial firing on). 2. For other situations, set a firing arc short of where the enemy is or to a distance that you feel would be reasonably effective for your return fire and at which point you no longer care if they are spotted. If someone walks into that arc they may fire first, so you want to set the distance of the arc to minimize that - a guess as to when they might be spotted given the terrain. Cancel the firing arc if fired upon. This is probably the best you can do and should handle *most* situations. What is missing is that unless you are playing RT, you have to wait to cancel the arc. Even in RT it's limited by your ability to react, pause the game, figure it out and then resume. That's probably not too unrealistic. A team given orders to hold fire unless fired upon would probably go through a process similar to: a. "incoming". b. everyone ducks. c. team leader (or the poor sucker he designates) attempts to figure out where fire is coming from. d. team leader tells everyone - return fire on treeline at our 2 o'clock. e. everyone un-ducks (technical term) and returns fire. This takes some measurable amount of time (been there).

Back to the original. I would have loved some of those lego type kits when I was growing up. I'm old enough that we had lots of Legos but they were the basic red, white, yellow, blue, and some clear bits. My brother and I made lots of stuff, mostly towns for Matchbox and Corgi cars along with the bridge and girder construction set - someone may remember these, red I-beams, little corner pieces, cross braces, and plastic panels for window walls and pavement sections. You could make some serious bridges and skyscrapers. Reminiscing :-)

Ah, well, that depends on what you work on. For me, being able to run unix software on my Mac and also having Parallels Desktop to run Windows - all at once - makes my research work smooth. There is a lot of scientific software that will only run on Unix/Linux and will never make the port to PC. So for me, my MacBook Pro is the solution. And yeah, it cost a few bucks, but people continually compare the fact you can buy a 399 PC laptop to an 1800 MacBook Pro. They aren't the same computer (and I'm aware that computer savvy people know this). Both have their places and the Mac specializes in the type of environment I'm in. We have about a 50/50 mix here.

Sorry if I've missed some word on this but just wondering if it's soon or will be a while so I don't keep checking the BF main page looking for a link.

I have had to do this a few times and they were very responsive. Operating system changes will sometimes make it necessary to re-activate. It hasn't been a problem yet.

Not a good scenario to rush in. Too many ways to get caught in a crossfire. (Believe me this is the voice of experience) :-)

I (and many others) would be happy to play H2H with you on a when you have time basis. That's really the only way I play these days. My opponents and I are very relaxed about sending turns and if a couple or few days go by with no turns that's fine. We do notify each other if it appears we won't be able to play for an extended period (vacation, business trips, etc). I wouldn't let a when you have time schedule stop you from H2H. If you are interested I have have room for a game and am happy to play at whatever speed works for you (as long as it's not 3 turns/day!). I have everything for RT, BN/CW/MG, and Strike Force so whatever your pleasure is.....

As a Mac user myself, I've just been thrilled that BF brought CM back to the Mac at all. Everything else is gravy. I just figured that there was some Mac related glitch that didn't affect the PC version (maybe graphics) that added a delay. Good things come to those who wait.

Man, I played the hell out of those Civil War SSI games on 5.25. They were fun.

I spent that on lunch with a co-worker. No replay value there.

Didn't have an effect for me, and I'm on a Mac too. Everything looked fine either way. It's a tough one to win if you aren't patient. As you note there are a lots of ways for the Russians to cause casualties and you'll need a fair number remaining plus some fire support to take the rail yard. I ran through it several times play testing and did well once. But that was after already knowing a fair amount (by being shot up and failing). I don't want to give away any spoilers but there are at least a few options for cover and concealment and different axis of advance to try.

A good place to get started is to go to youtube, and search for "Combat Mission Armchair General" There is a series of many videos that start from introducing basic concepts through most of the general situations you'll have to fight your way through in scenarios. The tutorials in the manual will give you a good feel for getting started, and are good for someone brand new because they start with a limited number of units. Welcome and good luck.

Yeah. They are always wrong I guess, depending on who wants to make a point or criticize the government. :-)

$10 in 1975 is $44 in today's dollars.