Rinaldi
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Posts posted by Rinaldi
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16 minutes ago, Myles Keogh said:
SPOILERS:
[Snipped]
Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to playtest, I'm glad you enjoyed the scenario. You lucked out and got the 'least historical' of the AI plans - the counterattack was added at the request of a few testers but unfortunately it ends precisely how it would; with total and complete disaster given the situation. If I must be candid I'm not a fan of its inclusion and I think its the most poorly constructed of my AI plans.
If its any consolation re: difficulty, Duel In the Mist has been re-done after some reading, re-reading and re-re-reading and the creation of a mastermap. I think I have an even better understanding of German dispositions and expectations placed on the American commander and this should make for a longer, larger and more difficult scenario regarding potential for ambushes and expectations for force preservation, so on and so forth.
The new version will be published after the much-belated and promised AAR is posted. I'm a dozen minutes in and will start a thread showcasing the scenario when I have a comfortable head-start.
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22 hours ago, HerrTom said:
Indeed. The bridge really is the weak point, but I'm not sure if my opponent sees this yet. It is not very defensible...
Perhaps you're made of sterner stuff than me, but I'd be trying to pull back those remaining forward units out and across the water obstacle already, preferably behind a smokescreen. Even if its tempting to keep them forward to track the enemy and act as a speed bump, every rifle counts on your side of the river at this point.
You mentioned you have a TRP on the bridge if I read that correctly, I'd put it under fire immediately and on a harassing rate of fire - the BMP-3s might be amphibious but his MBTs are not, so that defile is easy to interdict. At this point seperating his infantry mounts from his tanks would be really ideal for you, because you could just pull back into the town and frustrate attempts to fire cross-river.
I'm probably reading the situation wrong. Loving this AAR though.
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The answer is....it really depends. Getting medium howitzers on target, especially in a RCT or Taskforce would've been relatively quick as you can contact the battalion subordinated to you and could often order a fires plan rather than request one. But even with an embedded FO going to Division (for the Germans) or Corps for heavier support could take you upwards of half an hour to get things organized and approved - often more. Getting artillery 'on the fly' was a difficult thing and most times a fire plan, even a rudimentary one, was established and approved well before a unit was in attack position.
I do agree that sometimes a TRP FFE should be much faster, since the TRP is the best thing we have to simulating an attacker's organized fireplan, but I rarely complain because the enemy never sees the timed barrage coming.
Since, to my knowledge, CM doesn't really model having a battalion subordinated to you in the manner I'm speaking (even with the prebuilt Taskforces we see in Black Sea) , I've always accepted artillery in game as an abstracted middle ground. Besides, as the attacker, you rarely feel like the artillery is too sluggish when it makes half a platoon combat ineffective
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Re: Keeping organized in the night
Who said it was that easy? Getting lost at night was and is a common occurance for military units even on administrative marches. In WWII an entire infantry battalion could be marching single file literally holding onto the rucksack of the man in front of him; if the guides got it wrong, you're going to be out of position.
Given that otherwise ably led and competent units on both sides could find themselves on the wrong hill or town in broad daylight, I have no idea how that impacts what @Vanir Ausf B and myself said earlier in the topic. (1) Just because it says 50m visibility, doesn't mean it will be, (2) motor columns passing one another in the middle of the night wasn't just typical, it was frequent, esp. when battles 'opened up' and front lines were just pretty crayons on situational maps.
23 hours ago, JoMc67 said:... he (and some players) is frustrated as to why we are we able to play a Scenario at all under these conditions if it's going to give us these unrealistic results.
Now you know how that thug Peiper felt and how the Americans thrown into the breach, unsure and unaware of anything going on, felt. The results are far from 'unrealistic' they are pretty much a perfect representation of the fighting conditions.
Again and not to sound harsh, but people are finding frustration where they could otherwise find oppurtunity. The low visibility in that scenario makes infiltrating the better part of your Kompanie and its Panzers if you're fast enough into firing positions without ever being seen. What's more frustrating: losing a handful of men when you bump into vulnerable halftracks, or watching your entire KG get annihlated from across the river by 76mm and HMG fire?
Forest for the trees, etc etc. The Stavelot scenarios were expertly constructed and one of the best showcases of CMs dynamic weather and lighting. Also very true to the actual battles. I think its a bit base to simply write it off as mindless groping in the dark from the first 15 to 30 minutes of the scenario.
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Most of the missions that come with the game are from community members to begin with, I always assumed. I would love to see another pack a la JonS's - playing the campaign and that huge 'what-if' drop on the Meuse was amazing; one of the largest infantry bashes I've ever done.
You know, presuming we can track them down and get permission, I don't doubt a few of the single scenario makers would mind if you re-hashed their missions for them.
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18 hours ago, IanL said:
What [Baneman] said about command delay is only one part of the problem. The real kicker comes when you fully appreciate that your roll as player is *all* the commanders. Command delays are fine when you are thinking like the company commander and you are issuing orders to coordinate your platoons to assault a position. It is perfect then. It completely and utterly falls apart when you think about your roll as the squad Sargent who realizes his men just stepped into an ambush. There is no way in hell that a command delay of 30s or even 10s makes any sense when you just need to get into that ditch near by to get some cover. Or when you are playing the roll of the tank commander and you need to get your driver to back up over the crest of the hill right, this, second. There is no planning that needs to be done. There is no back and forth discussion between various peers with different information. There is an order and the frantic execution of it. Period.
[Bil] created a very cool self imposed initiative system that covers what is good about the command delay but in my opinion the command delay from CM1x is utterly broken and I am glad to see its back.
I suppose this also comes down to optics; what do you view CM as - a virtual tabletop, a tactical simulator or a command simulator a la Scourge of War? I'm practically in full agreement with you here.
With regards to the sentences I emphasized, that's why I'm ambivalent to the idea of re-introducing a command delay. I've always viewed CM as a tactical simulator, and the turn-based nature of it allows the player to slow down and play every leader from the obergefreiter up to the oberst-leutnant. The soft factors help control your ability to react insantly somewhat; if you take the fireteam leader and make him act unilaterally you have to think of it as him seizing the initiative; and if he's a poor leader it won't have the same effects as a strong leader exercising his own judgment.
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Good, solid plan that leaves options open Ian. I suspect you'll have no trouble gaining fire superiority until at least the village.
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40 minutes ago, c3k said:
Speak for yourself, pilgrim. I do. All the time. I turn my monitor off, but keep the volume nice and loud. I still make orders, but you can imagine how confused my men must be. When the fighting starts, it's bloody. I wait till sunrise, then turn on the monitor and see what's what.
True Grog
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34 minutes ago, akd said:
If the observer cannot see the fall of the spotting round, another is fired with the same chance of error as the previous. This is repeated until the observer "gives up" and orders fire for effect on the last spotting round location. Because the error is random and the observer has no subjective ability to make a judgement based on the direction of the fall of the round in relation to himself and friendly forces, this can sometimes result in friendly fire. Although the mechanism that produces the result is artificial, the outcome is not (that observation in poor conditions can result in terrible errors).
What we lack in game is some more direct feedback from the observer: "Dude, I cannot see the fall of these rounds. Do you really want me to just guess?"
Wishlist: actual dynamic splash chatter. Battery firing spotting round calls splash, if FO does not observe impact in LOS, player doesn't hear splash return audio. Player takes that as his cue to adjust.
As it is now its much more of a judgement call as to when to call for adjusted fire. I will admit though, I've had splendid luck with artillery firing on where I want it to go. I cannot recall the last time I called for adjusted fire. In terms of ETA and behaviour CM's artillery system remains second to none, but we can always hope for more.
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I remember when this happened in my playthrough too
- I knew it was coming from reading about the seperate Armored Infantry unit at the battle though and had my Stummels in front.
This is one of the few times where I'll say it wasn't the janky spotting system; the weather and light conditions limit spotting to 50m at first. That doesn't mean you'll immediately identify things at 50m, just that it becomes possible. In that context its far less surprising this happens. Its also good to note that this happened constantly in WWII. We have stories from the Roncey pocket for example of German motorized columns passing in the opposite direction of Armored spearheads with niether side really realizing what's happening. Upon realization and some delay of course, the German column would be totally and completely smashed.
You should also use the atrocious weather to your adv. in this mission. I had my HMGs set up enfilading possible defence points of the bridge well before visibility was at 200m and was able to push and secure the North side of the bridge as visibility generally improved. Look for oppurtunities where you otherwise find frustration, lots of dismounted infilitration routes to be had in this scenario.
Bit of context, bit of suspension of disbelief and a bit of puckering. That's what I like about situations like this.
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20 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:
There has been many threads on this. My opinion is speed has no impact on bogging. Some things that I think do are: Ground conditions, ground tile (Mud etc.), vehicle off road rating and according to the engine manual commander experience.
I have to concur, but its far from definitive. When I was playtesting the excellent Parroy Forest scenario I tried to pay attention to how my tanks behaved in the mud; which was a key tactical issue for the attacking US. The attrition rate on forcing a platoon sized unit even at the slowest pace through a muddy sideroad was atrocious. I lost 3/5ths of them to immobilization despite the low speed.
I haven't had the time or inclination to set up a test on a small map but its on the list of things to do when I'm finished with my next AAR and map editing.
7 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:would probably be far too complicated to create a "churned up" graphic effect.
It can be done though, CM already has active ground deformation with cratering - when many more modern games try to emulate it instead with a texture and a bump map. Debate around complications aside it would probably put more unneeded load on your CPU for something niche enough to be abstracted without taking away from the fidelity of the game.
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1 hour ago, IICptMillerII said:
I just think that there are better things to complain about than a supposed drastic lack of graphical fidelity
To this I agree; when it comes to simulators I want my CPU going to everything but graphics first.
Just to show that I understand both sides of the argument too; http://kriegsimulation.blogspot.ca/ recently posted about 4.0 and the comments quite literally left me dumbstruck. People were complaining that the 4.0 update simply did not add enough (note: Not even whining about the payment, just in and of itself that it was a underwhelming patch). It shows that some people can't be taken seriously because their complaints aren't made in good faith. I just like reminding people that many more criticisms, even about things like graphics, can be made in good faith, especially from participating consumers.
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13 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:
You both couldn't be anymore wrong about that game, I recommend going back and playing it for at least 2 hours. Your claims about the graphics are actually hilariously innacurate, especially with the new title.
All I will say on this subject is that people on this forum have no idea how popular WW2 games and strategy games are becoming and if they think Combat Mission wouldn't sell with more exposure than I'm sorry you just don't understand the trend right now. Theres hundreds of people that play IL2 Battle of Stalingrad, IL2 Cliffs of Dover and even 1946 still, many newcomers are from War Thunder which is more on the arcade side but serves as an avenue to more serious study sims like DCS.
This.
@||CptMiller|| - I have to disagree with you on this one.
I prefer CM to Graviteam but that in no way discounts Graviteam. Hmmm...complaints about janky UI and animations in one but not the other - almost sounds like a pure subjective opinion to me, because I'm damn sure we just heard the same complaints in CM. As for graphics, I think its laughable to assert Graviteam has poor graphics, poor effects maybe, not not graphics. The graphics are about 5 years ahead of CMs, despite how good looking I think CM is, even I'm willing to cede the obvious.
Graviteam's obscure theaters may be boring to you but it what appealed to me. Another purely subjective point. Especially given the topic we had on these forums not even a month ago where people were throwing out some fairly 'out there' suggestions for titles. If you don't recall, there was very little consensus on what was interesting, so I'm not sure what the ultimate point is with that little dig at Graviteam.
In general and not directed to anyone in particular:
I remember raising one eyebrow, then both, when people decided to die on a hill for arguing against a newer, more accessible distribution platform for CMx2. The same people who shook their fists and cried "confounded DRM system!" and "Windows 10 is literally eating my CM from the inside out!" I have to say I was greatly disappointed with BF in their own opinions on the matter, but its not worth crying into a pillow over. Its their decision to hamstring their ability to shift units if they like to convince themselves they make more money per unit on their 90s era museum piece of a website.
Despite my teeth-gnashing criticisms of BF's handling of their own business their product gets them my patronage again and again, given that I own or have been gifted all of their titles to date. See, you can criticize something and still enjoy it immensely. The trend on these forums however are to simply dismiss someone with legitimate criticisms as immature or poor at the game, and while sometimes it is true, its just as often not. BF rarely needs to weigh in on anything when they have their band of grognards ready to jump on the slightest hint of critical analysis. Despite the disclaimers, speaking on behalf of BF is precisely what you're doing.
Oh and by the by, "been in business for 25 years" is a crappy argument for continuing competency. I've dealt with fellow lawyers who have been in practice for 40 years and have never taken a case to trial, are blissfully incompetent, or are incredibly out of touch and stuck in their ways (an amazing thing to be, given the profession's constant change). Its also an argument that discounts quite a bit of brand loyalty. Quite a few people are probably of the position that they could create many more loyal customers if they branched out a bit. That's not saying BF are poor businessmen, but really point out their competency through other means. A lot of their success has to do with community outreach, visiblity and on-going game support. Things other Dev teams could seek to learn from.
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Will be watching this with interest.
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I thought the Netherlands has retired their CV90 fleet and put it up for resale? Or are they phasing them out?
Edit: Well, color me surprised, they haven't. Anyways, IMI hasn't shied away from selling their equipment to even non-aligned Western countries, but yes I agree its dubious that they would provide TROPHY or similar to Kuwait - US Ally or not.
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Downloaded, cheers for the hard work!
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He was non-committal, that's correct. I remember him stating that there was issues viz. coding and that it wasn't worth the hastle for something that wasn't a very common combat practice prior to the gross material losses suffered by Army Group B. Which is fair, but disappointing none the less.
@Ithikial_AU seems like we'll have to do without.
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John I can search for books on Amazon that tell me in irrefutable terms that the Nazca lines are complex invasion signals to ET lifeforms. I can also, should my dander ever rise for such a taste, search up Vampire Gore Porn fan fictions on Amazon - that's the glory and pants-on-head silliness of Amazon allowing you to self-publish with relative ease.
I won't even begin to address this trite in depth, but suffice to say an indictment for a single private citizen in 1942 is far from what I call irrefutable, concrete evidence of a grand banking conspiracy that somehow gave rise to ideologies totally at odds with one another. Ideologies whose genesis are two decades apart. Needless to say that banks collaborating with the German government prior to the US's entry into WWII is also quite well documented - you're not giving anyone the vapors by regurgitating 40 year old historiography. Unless of course the men like Henry Ford who dabbed their fingers in the NDSAP were telepaths who could immediately divine German intent I'm not entirely sure why you're tossing hay and straw in my face. Tilt at other windmills John, with all due respect.
While we're on the subject of irrefutable evidence and claims; consider this my written confession: It was I who killed Vince Foster. I did it in the Kitchen with the Candlestick.
I won't presume your profession, if you even have one, but in my line of work stringboard theories meets no burden of proof I've ever seen. If only it was that easy I'm sure I would be a top 30 under 30.
On 12/25/2016 at 1:21 PM, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:Firstly as to being totally on topic:
There really needs to be a step back and a better understanding of just what the Raven was designed to do. It's a short duration, Company level tool designed to give the commander the ability to check out near objectives prior to moving in. In terms of being able to operate in a high EW environment, a lot will depend on how it's being used, and where even on an encrypted digital link.
They're being given to the Ukrainians because on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how "sensitive" the contents are, ranks somewhere around a -4, enough disappeared in Iraq, or have gone to other less reputable allies. If this was closer to what Russia claims the fighting in the Ukraine is, the Raven would be an excellent tool. However with EW support, it's effectiveness obviously will suffer.
Yes exactly. While it its concerning that the analog models are easily compromised its not nearly the coup de main the DPR chest-beating would like it to be.
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6 hours ago, Marwek77 aka Red Reporter said:
...act like dicks in relation to guys who saved them during WWII?
First of all there will be maybe no WWII without possible support of Mr. George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, who was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.
??????
The ability of some of you people to totally and utterly derail a thread with hamfisted BS like this continues to amaze me.
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Congrats to @Battlefront.com on the release, hopefully now you guys will actually rest for the Holidays instead of constantly trying to please the fickle crowd
Thirty dollars well spent, and we were just wondering aloud when we could get the stream terrain for Normandy - our latest Arracourt maps needed it.
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Don't rush on our accounts - I'm watching this with interest no matter what.
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On 12/20/2016 at 0:02 PM, VladimirTarasov said:
Yes according to my sources it was a Ukrainian push and DPR counter-attacked. Doesn't look good for Ukrainian forces there for now.
Okay Suvorov
- I can't believe you people take this gentleman's bait every single time.
@Machor - thanks for the ping. I'm usually not the biggest fan of VICE, but their documentaries from the front have always been enjoyable to watch. 'Proxy War' is the only way to describe it really, none of us really have the political capital to intervene directly so we have to help the Ukrainians help themselves, and avoid spinning into a train wreck government as they handle this crisis.
It's the best bet we have to countering Russia's ability and willingness to wage 'hybrid' wars.
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17 minutes ago, PanzerMiller said:
Thanks to all for this recent exchange...really insightful and helpful comments from you folks, as always. If I only had more time to put into this gem...
A relevant aside: What are the primary references you're using for scenario design?
Thanks again! Looking forward to the evolving product.
Several sources. Most notably "Arracourt" a thesis paper for the Combined Arms school by Major Barnes, Hugh Cole's excellent "Lorraine Campaign" part of the US Army's WW 2 series and "Patton versus the Panzers" by Zaloga.
Don Fox's 4AD history was also used extensively by me, as well as the 37th Armor Battalion's Combat Diary.
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5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
I personally always design for only one side - the attacker. Because the only way to make a defence scenario pose any kind of challenge is to either customise the map to offer huge disadvantages for the defender and/or to massively overpower the AI attacking force.
With a few caveats not worth getting into, I generally agree. Duel in the Mist and its follow-up scenario was designed to be played as the Americans, whom are on the offensive. The Americans in reality basically had the ideal attacker's ratio to the Defenders, and with the exception of a nasty surprise that resulted in a fairly serious tank duel, the battle in reality went about as well as it could. I did my best to capture this. If a standalone scenario is a 'vignette' then why does have to be the Kobiyashi Maru?
I love a challenge (see: my Colossal Crack AAR) as an attacker, but there's room to put yourself into scenarios that aren't as desperate. Good examples of these are your own latest release against a German delaying action, or JonS's Battlepack, which featured similar small-scale actions.
Its part of the reason why I chose to do scenarios based on the 20th of September: one the Americans are attacking and two its a unique experience in CMBN - I don't think there's a single Battalion-level combined arms scenario currently out there for the Americans. Finally, Abrams is some pretty big shoes to fill, I put the same stringent expectations on the player that he put on himself. You'll get beat up in the score-card department if you feed men and machines into the grinder just to say "I killed all the Germans!"
- I knew it was coming from reading about the seperate Armored Infantry unit at the battle though and had my Stummels in front.
- I can't believe you people take this gentleman's bait every single time.
[Preview] Community Scenario Pack - The Battle of Arracourt
in CM Normandy Maps and Mods
Posted · Edited by Rinaldi
Glad you're looking forward to it.
That's definitely the thought process behind the 20th of September scenarios; besides a full tank battalion attack in the European Theater that wasn't compartmentalized because of terrain is exceedingly rare: The experience enough should be unique, and a lot of guys around these forums don't strike me as 'tread heads.' There's only a handful of significant scenarios that really spring to my mind immediately that are anything like this - and most of them center around actions near St. Vith or the Moder River area in Alsace, exclusive of the British experience around Caen. To those who don't have Myles patience it might be a challenge in command and control, and with the AI plans sorted out it might be a straight tactical challenge as well, but no spoilers - we'll save those for the AAR.