Ultradave
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Posts posted by Ultradave
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The photos I've seen of the manpac radios the US Army used in Vietnam weren't a whole lot smaller. I don't know how the weights compared though. As MikeyD said, most of the weight is in the battery.
Michael
I lugged around a PRC-77 for a couple years and it was something like 15 lbs. That was bad enough crammed into a backpack. You'll hear them nicknamed phonetically (as in add an i in the middle and a k at the end and call them....)
(don't want to get censored).
But that thing looks uuuuuugly.
The PRC-77 was an updated version of the 25 that they carried in Vietnam so imagine the weight was similar. (he says without looking anything up :-) )
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As a balance to the long download/complaint thread, I'd just like to say thanks for what looks like another great release. Already downloaded and checked out a few scenarios (haven't had time to play yet but just started up a few scenarios to take a peek).
And thanks to Battlefront for returning and staying with the Mac platform. Not trying to start any platform wars at all. I use a MacBook Pro for reasons completely unrelated to gaming, so I'm happy that CM works great on the Mac again, and thanks to Phil for his troubleshooting in the past.
BF always provided great value in my opinion so keep up the good work.
Dave (entirely satisfied customer).
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Yep, just turned on my 15C, still works after 30ish years. I am going to complain to Apple.
Noba.
I use an HP RPN scientific calculator (HP20 I think) at work and still have an old HP15C that still works just fine.
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That's a good question. I'm assuming that since you can call an airstrike on a spot, like the edge of a treelike, that they wouldn't actually have to see an enemy target to engage, but I could be wrong.
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Slightly off topic... from a Murphy's Law thing our division commander in the 82d sent out long ago (and probably a very old joke) but that won't stop me:
"Remember, tracers point both ways"
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I thought that's what number 1 was. Or it's pretty close, unless of course your guys are prone and can only see the 20 stalks of tall grass in front of them, or the little bugs in the ground as they hug it. :-)
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But that's no different than firing at something you can clearly see - a normal on call fire mission. TRPs only save you the time to compute the data and send it to the guns. They aren't zeroed in and there's a good chance you might have to adjust from a TRP - in fact that's a lot more likely than calling a FFE on a TRP (the bad guys rarely oblige you by walking over your TRP location :-) )
(nothing here applies to firing at unspotted locations - just replying to the last comment)
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AIUI, you're being a little bit optimistic about how much help a map would be, in WW2. They didn't have very good maps, by all accounts, and even having good sightings on fair landmarks, the battery's estimate of their own position (and therefore the first, uncorrected fall of shot) could be out by half the width of a CM battlefield, easy, and the spotter's less-well-surveyed (especially if they're a Green platoon CO, sheltering from MG fire) could be even less accurate. Walking the shells onto target was a necessity of the era.
OK, perhaps I oversimplify. But my artillery experience dates to the days of charts and darts and firing sticks however, well before GPS, computer fire controls and all those cool things that are taken for granted now :-). I'm really not THAT far removed in my experience and techniques from those in WW2.
But even without good maps (which was a fairly common experience for me too), presuming I can figure out where I am to some reasonable level of accuracy (enough that I know I'm not calling fire down on my head), if I can see the edge of the woods and presumably somehow call fire on it, I can call fire 400m into the woods just as well. Granted, I can't see to adjust and walk it on to the target, but maybe all I'm trying to do is keep everyone's head down so I can move (I suspect they are in there somewhere and want to suppress them so I can move)
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I always just assumed you could not area target or call in arty through trees on the side of a slope, hill, mountain, what have you, because there is no LOS to the ground. But I could understand why someone would come away incredulous that this is so. Its seems so simple to be able to do that in real life. I chalk it up to engine limitations. But, yes, whatever the case may be, not being able to get LOS through trees to call in artillery or CAS to the side of a hill definitely has GOT TO GO.
Yes, being an ex-artilleryman, it does frustrate me that I cannot call artillery on a map coordinate that I don't have a LOS to with an observer (if I could I'd be happy with possibly some degradation of accuracy because this is WW2 not present day, so no adjustment is possible). If I have a map - I can hit it with artillery, without having a TRP. The TRP just makes it quicker because the battery will have already done the calculations.
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The links to the downloads are here:
http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/home/downloads/
Expand the CMBN SW-MG
Then expand the CMBN+CW-MG Campaigns under that and you'll find links to both the Allied and German versions.
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I don't know about restrictions. I use area fire against any position where I think it is likely there may be enemy. That also includes plotting artillery missions against likely enemy positions, regardless of whether there is a spotted or semi-spotted icon there or not.
In real life that's what we'd do - plot fires on every location that the enemy is likely to use.
You need that fire to hopefully pin down or disrupt any enemy who might be there and would disrupt your next movement if not suppressed.
I can't see waiting to shoot until I actually id something (presuming of course that anything in front of me is known to be enemy). Or worse, until the first spot I get is my own tank going up in flames.
Dave
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There was a CMBO scenario you were supposed to play this way. Dispersed paratroopers trying to take a village objective, but you could only tab between units at viewpoint one to play. (honor system). It was incredibly difficult.
The biggest GOD-LIKE ability available is view points 2 and up. How many pre-Viet Nam commanders (helocopter) could levitate above the terrain and see down on the battle? Not very many. Additionally you cant see the battle from a spot that you are not on.There was somebody's rule set went something like this:
1. Use the tab key to move from unit to unit and then do pivot while viewing the map.
2. Aways keep your camera at level 1.
There were several more. I'm not sure if this was a rule or not. I would toggle troops off, then using a view 7 review the empty map from high above. Because every commander had a map.
I tried this a few times and said NO WAY. What was the name of those rules??
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I ran the tryme program and it worked on my W7 Parallels on my MacBook Pro. But H2HH works fine for me. Just thought I'd chime in in case it helps.
Dave
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It started up for me, and allowed my to attempt to find my CM installation. It didn't think much of me pointing to the Mac executable :-) But it did run and looked normal.
I guess that's good news and bad news.
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Close. Not sure what Iris Intel graphics is. Mine is:
MacBook Pro 15", 2.4 GHz Core i7 (MacBookPro8,2)
16GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 3000(512MB) + AMD Radeon HD 6770M(1GB)
OS X 10.9
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I could be an extra data point probably. I use a Mac for CM but have W7 installed in Parallels Desktop so I could certainly download H2HH and fiddle with it, as long as you don't need me to try to run CM. I have Dropbox on the W7 virtual machine also.
I'm very computer literate - Mac, Windows, Linux so have at it if you think I can help. I have plenty of time starting today.
Dave
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A little off topic but a funny story about the movie "A Bridge too Far". I had read the book long before the movie came out, however, in 1977, I had just graduated from Airborne School at Fort Benning Georgia and was then sent to Fort Riley Kansas for a short time before going to the 82d. While at Fort Riley, a bunch of us went to see the movie when it premiered. Of course, being newly minted paratroopers and familiar with the story (most of us anyway) we loved it.
Leaving the theater there was a chorus of people talking about how they didn't like the movie. I overheard one tell another, "Because we got the ^&$#^& kicked out of us." Yeah, well, guess what pal.
I've always thought the movie was great. I'm amazed that even with the huge all star cast, many of the big name actors bore a striking resemblance to the real people they portrayed. And the movie pretty much followed the course of the book as it moved from place to place.
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Another good one I thought of - a little on the dry side but good is All American, All the Way - Phil Nordyke.
subtitle is a combat history of the 82d airborne. i've found descriptions of a few of the scenarios in FI, MG in this.
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Oowwwwww! Chocked full of misinformation and hero worship of the American GI that gets downright syrupy at times. If this is your cup of tea, you're welcome to it, but be very, very careful about thinking it is anything like an authentic depiction of the events.
Michael
I thought it was good for the first person accounts. Flavor.
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Finally a plug for Cornelius Ryan's books. With MG just released, a read of A Bridge Too Far is well worth the time. Well written and it's an edge of your seat read as it skips from group to group - can't put it down because you have to see what is going to happen next with the next chapter.
Citizen Soldier by Stephen Ambrose is also good and covers the breakout from the Normandy beachhead to the German border.
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dYes. I play everything on my MacBook Pro. Which btw is almost 2 yrs old and the battery is still at 98% total capacity. Longer than the removable batteries ever lasted. Usually had to by a new one of those at 366 days.
MacBook Pro, late 2011
2.4GHz core i7 - 4 cores
16GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6770M - 1GB
750GB hard drive
I should note that I need this computer for my research work but it runs CM just great. No problems at all. I can run any map at the highest graphics settings.
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Having fired a few 90mm recoilless rifle rounds in my younger days (yeah, I've been around a while), I'm not surprised by the effect on the nearby troops if they were in a room with it. My reaction from those was along the lines of "holy crap if it's that bad on the firing end I'd hate to get hit by it."
Panzerschreck is 88mm so I'd assume the effect to be very similar.
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Yes, Phil, it's definitely noticeable. Much better panning, and gone completely are the flickering shadows (they were most noticeable on early morning - long shadows scenarios).
Great job.
MacBook Pro, 16GB RAM, 1GB video.
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Me too! Which, BTW folks, will run with the same license on Win, Mac and Linux.
(you get 2 activations and can de-activate if you move computers/platforms)
I'm asst commissioner of a long running online league that has a few openings. Anyone here has shown they have good taste :-).. PM me if you are interested in an online league
Soviet radios, really this big?
in Combat Mission Red Thunder
Posted
And I imagine in the Soviet army of WW2 there weren't a huge number of those guys, making it even more important to get him.