agusto

I recently though about how they could get the most out of these old vehicles. If they can get the maingun working and if they can get ammo for it, the modern vehicle that comes closest to the tactical capabilities of a T-34 on a modern battlefield is the Stryker MGS. The MGS is highly vulnerable to anything bigger than 14,5mm or HEAT-ish, it has a high calibre main gun and some off-road capabilities. Pretty much like the T-34. Well, excpet for the MGS' night fighing capability, the stabilized gun, communication equipment, laser range finder and other high-tech stuff i guess. Though NVGs, comm systems and a laser range finder could be fitted on the T-34 without too much effort i think. One of the best features of the IS-3 is that its front is completely immune to anything that any of the Ukraininan BTR-variants or MT-LBs (wich are the most numerous APCs of the Ukrainian army) can throw at it. Only few of the Ukrainian APCs are equipped with ATGMs, most rely on their 14,5mm to 30mm main guns. This makes the IS-3 a much bigger threat than the T-34 because the latter can probably be pentrated easily by modern APDS, DU or HEAT rounds, even if they are of lower calibre. So, what are they are going to do with those vehicles, tactically? I still believe in the ultra-high calibre sniper rifle theory i wrote about earlier ITT, but we will see.

I didnt like ToW 3, neither the Korean setting (limited/repetative terrain) nor the new dynamic campaign map (no story and IMO a bit meaningless and somewhat gamey - encricled units for example simply retreat through the enemy lines unharmed and unhindered if attacked and defeated instead of beeing destroyed or captured), so i didnt feel like recommending anyone to buy this game. Maybe i would have liked ToW3 if i hadnt played the previous 2 parts, but appearently i expected too much after the really cool first two parts and that got me frustrated.

Theatre of War 1 and 2 are similar to Combat Mission and both have lenghy SP campaigns. They are available at battlefron.com as well IIRC.

Dont know if you have heard already about http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ , but here is what a 100 Mt nuclear surface detonation in Vienna would have looked like: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&airburst=0&crater=1&casualties=1&humanitarian=1&fallout=1&ff=52&fallout_angle=-110&linked=1&kt=100000&lat=48.2246177&lng=16.397235&hob_ft=0&zm=6 All of Austria either burnt, blown away or deadly radiated with a single strike.

superwoz, i kinda wonder that you havent been banned yet. Less because of you criticising the games (i looked through the other posts you made in this forum and some of your points are valid, although you have a slight tendency to exaggerate them IMO) but more because of your consistent use of personal insults aginst those who own this forum.

Intresting discussion. I have never been into ancient/medevial warfare too much, but judging from some of the Wikipedia articles on ancient battles, warfare between lets say the times of Alexander the Great and the conquest of Rome in 410 AD seems to have been highly coordinated. Was the art of war lost during the middle ages or am i under a wrong impression of what warfare was like in antiquety?

I am currently working on a game that is going be about windows crashing everytime the player starts the game. It is going to be available for 190$ and it going to simulate the experience of playing a totally bugged and overpriced game that has been released before it even reached pre-alpha state. I have yet to figure out how to write an .exe that reliably takes down all windows versions from XP to 8, but i am working on it. The CIA asked me already for contract, they want to use the game to torture prisioners in Guantanamo.

Did you try out the Divide et Impera mod for RTW2? It makes the game quite more realistic when compared to vanilla. Battles in DeI are slower paced, more tactically challenging and unit sizes & looks are also more historical etc.

Yeah, the SF HQ is difficult to take. I solved the problem by first having my vehicles (50.cal, grenade launchers, MGS, etc) fire at the building for several turns, always targeting different floors, i think i even used some Javelins. Then i moved in small infantry teams while constantly surpressing the room they were about to enter and all adjunct rooms with Target Light from the outside.

It isnt bad, really . The article i mean.

You can compare the armor penetration capabilities of the various RPG-7 rounds listet on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-7#Specifications ) against the values in this image: And if you are good at math you can even calculate how the angle of the armor would affect penetration . EDIT: And here are the armor penetration values for the RPG-29: 750 mm (30 in): RHA (600 mm (24 in) after reactive armor effects) 1,500 mm (59 in): Reinforced concrete or brick 3,700 mm (150 in): Log and earth fortification Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-29 Looks like an RPG-29 would reliably penetrate against an IS-3 at any angle. The RPG-22 (400mm vs. RHA), RPG-18 (375mm vs. RHA) and RPG-30 (650mm vs. RHA) would probably also stand a pretty good chance against an IS-3 at most angles, as well as all but the most basic RPG-7 rounds would (PG-7V & VM: 260mm vs. RHA, PG-7VL and PG-7VR both >500mm vs. RHA) Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-30 Conclusion: The IS-3 would seriously profit from beeing upgraded with ERA blocks. Probably some applique armor to prematurely trigger incoming HEAT warheads would help as well, but in the standard configuration, it wont stay alive long on a modern battlefield.

That is a general problem that designers of single player games suffer, JasonC. Either you impose unfair sanctions on the player, give the AI a large advantage or watch the player curbstomp the AI. It is that simple. Artificial Intelligence, with the currently available technology the word stays pretty much an oxymoron. Some grand strategy game designer have solved the problem of beeing unable to satisfy both the curbstomp-fraction of players as well as the masochists by simply letting the player choose himself how much of an advantage/penalty he has over the AI. In my opinion that is the best solution.

I doubt the usefulness of that IS-3 as well. If they get its main gun back to work and if they can get some ammunition, they are probably going to use the tank as ultra-high calibre long range sniper rifle in suprise/hit & run attacks, much like the Syrian rebels use their captured tanks. The thing is, due to the governments air superiority and the vast amount of ground based threads for an IS-3 on a modern battlefield, they cant use it in the classical MBT role. The tank is probably going to spend most of its time beeing camouflaged and hiding from the Ukrainian Air Force and/or beeing repaired, much like the tanks of the Syrian opposition who find themeselves in a very similar tactical situation like the Ukrainian seperatists. Oh, and we are not even talking about the difficulty getting spare parts for that thing!

IMO the exciting thing about H2H is that the result is uncertain. When playing vs. another human being and the odds are more or less even, it is absolutely possible to loose a battle. In fact i have probably lost 2 out of 3 H2H battles myself. When i play vs. the AI, on the other hand, i usually go into battle with the expectation to win decisively. It happens really, really rarely during battles vs. the AI that i have any doubt about my victory at any point during the battle.

I must have overlooked your thread. If the options menu doesnt offer the possibility to make the WASD camera smooth then there is probably no way to make it so.

That is one of the reasons for why i prefer CMSF over the WW2 titles as well. I simple find it much easier to relate to game based on events similar to those i see on the news everyday.

Maybe a bit off-topic, but an interesting anecdote nontheless IMO: After the fall of the USSR, hungarian historians found plans of 1965 soviet wargames in the archives of the country. According to those plans, Vienna, from where i write right now, was to be destroyed by 2 x 500kt nuclear warheads in case of a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Austrias neutrality wouldnt have saved it, the soviet planers believed that the NATO countries would use Austria for maneuvering its troops into the flanks of the soviet forces pushing through Germany anyways and thus planned to destroy the country in a pre-emptive strike. http://www.format.at/articles/1249/930/348235/atombomben-wien

And the second victim is the local WW2 museum it seems. Somalia -1990s. Looks like there is not a single post-1945 weapon present. Also note the horrible trigger discipline of the girl/boy in the front!

My favorite is CMSF. I somehow got an odd love for guided missiles, and the Javelin and the TOW fully satisfy that love.

I really love these two. My favorite titles currently besides CM.

I personally never liked HoI3 much. I loved HoI2 and all its expansions, mods etc, so i picked up HoI3 immedeatly after its release, and it was terrible. Unstable to the point of crashing almost every time i wanted to play, extremely bad performance on my PC frame rate wise (although my hardware was much better than the recommended minimum specs), and i simple really disliked the idea of playing a grand strategy game on a 3D map. Additionally something that i absolutely could not bear was the unit naming system. German army regiments getting names like "3rd armored regiment"? Really? I hated having to rename all my units manually to more historical name every time i started a new game. Anyways, as far as i can tell, the developers have solved all problems regarding stability and performance over the course of the past few years, so today it only comes down to a matter of personal taste weather or not you like the game. I think the engine is quite sophisticated in terms of political, diplomatic and economical simulation. Much better than in all HoI2-iterations IMO.

As ironic as Iraqs prime minister Maliki demanding US airstrikes on his country. Who would have thought that 15 years ago? The world changes, and so does policy. But and interesting article it is indeed. I am positively surprised by the lack of conspiracy theories that can often be found on websites that have "Espionage", "Intelligence, "Terrorism" etc in their header. The same things that can be said about Germanys post-Cold War Bundeswehr can also be said about Austrias army. Including militias, in the 1970s the goal was to be able to deploy up 350.000 men in the case of an invasion of Austria. Today only 29.000 active duty personell are left and approximately another 25.000 militias could be mobilized quickly if needed.

I would like to see super heavy/armoured VBIEDs. The rebels in Syria often modify captured but otherwise useless BMPs as armored suicide VBIEDs, one of those for example ended the battle for Menakh airfield (yes, the same Menakh airfield that is part of the german CMSF NATO campaign) 35km north of Aleppo when it broke through the SAA defenses and destroyed the last building held by the defenders. Also seen quite often are up-armored trucks, capable of delivering up to 10 tons or more of explosives to a target and unstoppable by rifle fire. Here is some footage of the BMP attack on Menakh airfield: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6d2_1376425382 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a75_1375719307 And some of the up-armoured super heavy VBIEDs: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=746_1401218881

That is what the contrails are for, Jammersix. 'They' are using them to secretley release chemical agents that alter the human physiology in a way so it becomes more appealing to alien tastes and digestive tracts. Pretty much the space-lobsters-of-doom equivalent of salt.

A pitty sound contacts arent part of of CMSF, they should be. On the one hand. On the other, i have never noted that they are absent, so maybe they arent worth the coding effort of implementing them.