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com-intern

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  1. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to danfrodo in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Like I've said before, this is all ignoring the fact that Putin was not preparing for war at all.  He was preparing for a coup.  If he thought he was gonna have a fight he wouldn't have crossed the border. 
    His goals could not be achieved militarily but he was so in love w his KGB-style internal subversion and assassination squads he wasn't worried about that. 
    He's not the only blind planner in modern history, paraphrasing below:
    Professor of modern middle eastern studies "what are you going to do when the shia and sunni start fighting each other?"
    Dick Cheney lacky:  "We won't let that happen.  Why would they want to fight each other anyway?  It won't happen."
    (not picking on Bush here, he was sold a bill of goods.  I don't think he's a bad guy, he just got conned.  he should've stayed as CEO of the Texas Rangers baseball team -- a great gig for sure.  I would way rather run a baseball team than be president)
  2. Upvote
    com-intern got a reaction from DavidFields in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Even with an official peace you might still have Ukrainians in the “occupied territories” willing to carry out an insurgency with support of Ukrainians in unoccupied Ukraine for some time. Just because the State negotiations a ceasefire to the war doesn’t mean local Ukrainian patriots can’t source an RPG and AK to continue the war on their own terms.
  3. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Bufo in Out of memory Crash to desktop   
    No need, just update to the latest, it has been fixed by AMD.
  4. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Redwolf in Out of memory Crash to desktop   
    There was a bad version of the ATI/AMD graphics drivers causing this.
  5. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Perhaps you and @kraze might be better off staying out of that noxious swamp, or at least keeping it out of this thread.
    FWIW, my Ukrainian in-laws freely admit to  Russian historical, cultural and ethnic connections, although they have no interest in Putin's (or Stalin's) version either.
    That's the last I will say on this topic.
  6. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Dynaman216 in Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions   
    Does that average shots before a hit is scored mean an HD tank is hit quicker than one that is not?  That is very strange.
  7. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions   
    I updated the text but its the number of shots needed by the tank to hit its opponent. So vice versa of what you typed.
  8. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions   
    To be clear its better for any vehicle to start hull down as there is a very significant concealment bonus and that concealment bonus can be turned into a kill (more efficiently with bigger guns). What you want to watch out for is (with certain vehicles) engaging in an honest to god fire fight where you are trading shots with the enemy. Since so much the hull down bonus is in concealment you are losing a lot of advantage once that happens.

    For sake of argument you have a Panther with 2 hull down positions and then finally a position that is hull up. It is being attacked by a large armor force. You would want to start the fight from the first position and then maneuver to the second position before being spotted. However, once you have been spotted at the second position you would not want to continue fighting from it but move to the hull up position.
     
  9. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions   
    Yea. It why I bolded the below portion:
     

    The decisions being made are going to vary heavily based on your vehicles and your opponents vehicles. For example, if you have a Panzer IV against an M36 then hull down is more beneficial since the M36 has over kill against so you want the concealment and chance to hit protection.
     
    I don't follow but obviously hull down is a beneficial position to start any fight in since you gain such a large concealment bonus. The HD tank is spotting 95% of the time which is H U G E . The complexity for the hull down tank occurs once it has been spotted (and then only if its turret armor is particularly weak). In those situations you want to essentially ambush from hull down and then move to another battle position. Where the hull down tank starts to run into problems (sometimes) is if you get into a true fire fight with both tanks trading fire.

    Part of the problem is that you aren't always going to have another good battle position to move to and may be forced to engage in a firefight.

     
  10. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions   
    I've run some tests on hull down performance and they've shown some interesting info regarding hull down in Combat Mission. The tests were done using two Panthers engaging each other one hull down and the other hull up.  The range was 700 meters and the hull up tank drove into view of the hull down tank. Both crews turned in.

    Results of 62 tests

    Victories:
    Hull down: 37
    hull up: 24
    Draw: 1

    The hull down tank won 60% of the engagements.

    - Being hull down represents a good chance to win a given engagement.

    Spotting

    hull down spotted the hull up tank 59 times
    hull up tank spotted the hull down tank 31 times

    The hull down tank spotted the hull up tank 95% of the time while the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank 50% of the time.

    - Being hull down gives significant protection from being spotted/advantage in spotting.

    Victories in instances where the hull up tank spotted the hull down tank (31)

    Hull down: 7
    hull up: 24

    The hull up tank won 77% of the engagements where it was able to spot the hull down tank.

    - Having a fire fight from a hull down position can be very risky for certain vehicles.

    Avg shots before the tank hits its opponent
    Hull Up: 1.4
    Hull Down: .57

    Avg shots before the tank kills its opponent
    Hull Up: 1.4
    Hull Down: 3.08


    Summary:

    The primary benefit of hull down in CM is a buff to the vehicles concealment.  There is a secondary benefit in that the hull down vehicle is harder to hit. However, this is counterbalanced by a much higher number of shots needed to ensure a kill. Although this will vary based off of the armor of the two tanks engaging.

    My thoughts:

    - When engaging hull down enemies try to gain spotting bonuses to reduce the concealment bonus. Its a large portion of the hull down advantage.

    - If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.
  11. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Artillery ERA armor bug   
    So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

    Issue
    When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

    Test
    Game: Black Sea
    Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
    Target: Oplot

    images and saved game

    https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

    https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL




  12. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to umlaut in Combat Mission has an official Discord channel!   
    That´s what I used to ask my guitar tutor all the time 😉
  13. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to slysniper in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    I am looking at both issues and so far I can find both are correct in what they are seeing and reporting.
    So issue two was stated as being reported, if so, I will add additional notes and files that show subsystems not being affected by near misses. (Its a no brainer that there should be damage done in such an event) presently its pretty clear that is not is happening in the game.
    Issue one is about M1 tanks not being killed by a direct hit.
    I just finished a second test in CMSF THAT PROVES BRITSH 155 ARTY ROUNDS ALSO WILL NOT KILL A M1 with a direct hit from that game.  So it appears the M1 is one tough mother or maybe the assigned programming is a little over estimated.
  14. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Redwolf in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    Well, we are now looking at two different issues:
    1) outright killing a tank with direct hits (this page)
    2) Pelican Pal's findings that near misses never cause subsystem damage other than tracks
    I find #2 much more interesting. Maybe there can be an engine 5 fix for it. PP has made an excellent argument and analysis.
     
     
  15. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    The bar for what folks consider toxic is practically nonexistent. I wouldn't even call his comment "harmful to the title's reputation".  Find me someone who is perusing the forum and deciding their opinion of CM on Erwin's comment in a 5 page thread?

    There are things that damage the game's reputation and I can guarantee you that none of them involve Erwin.
  16. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Centurian52 in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    I feel like that standard for calling someone "toxic" needs to a bit higher than them saying something that is "harmful to the title's reputation". I don't think anything should be immune from criticism. Although I am curious as to what bugs he's referring to. There are ongoing arguments about which stuff is modeled correctly, but those aren't the same thing as actual bugs (and I'm of the opinion that those things are already modeled about right). There were a handful of actual bugs early on, but those have been ironed out (the floating track on the bmp comes to mind). Perhaps he meant "big update"? 'i' and 'u' are right next to each other on the keyboard so it would be an easy typo to make, and "waiting for the big update" makes more sense than "waiting for the bug update". Or perhaps he's referring to the promised performance improvements with Engine 5 (although that isn't specific to CMCW)? In any case, it's best to ask for clarification before being too harsh on someone.
  17. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to dbsapp in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    In Soviet training missions they show how to concentrate your forces and to use them en masse under heavy artillery support, you gather momentum and rush with all you have in one focused blow. 
    In the campaign and many other single scenarios it simply doesn't work. To deploy this tactics means to lose your forces quickly and to do little or no damage to the opponent. The peculiar thing with the Soviet campaign is that it literally asks you to do the opposite things you had learnt from Soviet training missions. What is required from you in the first mission of Soviet campaign is to carefully scout enemy tanks and TOW vehicles and call pinpoint artillery strikes on them.
    Cold War Red Army is described as heavily dependent on artillery assets and massive artillery support to pin down the enemy. But in CM world  artillery strikes on areas simply don't do anything to the vehicles, the only application they have is to bombard towns or infantry positions. At best areal artillery strikes can kill one or two lightly armored vehicles, which is far from being enough to suppress enemy defense. Many times I called pinpoint strikes on single M60 tank to find out 10 or 15 minutes later that bombardment didn't scratch the tank, it seats in full health in Moon landscape among craters with no trees around. 
    In reality it should be completely destroyed or severally damaged. IRL photos from the tests:

     

     
    That's one of the biggest drawbacks of CM engine and inconsistences of CMCW. In theory artillery plays major role in Soviet military planning, but in game practice it has little effect on the enemy. This virtually strips Soviet army of one of its most powerful forces. 
    So does "Soviet tactics" work?
    In my experience it does, but primary in Quick battles. To work it needs certain conditions. First of all, Soviet forces must have serious numerical advantage. In Quick battles this condition is met by assigning more points to the Red side than to the Blue. Second, the terrain conditions should be more or less equal. This is also true for the most of the Quick battle maps. Even artillery, which is relatively weakened under CM engine framewok, could be applied to block enemy infantry from reaching certain zones. 
    But it definitely ineffective under conditions that differs from those of "equal" conditions of Quick battles.  
     
  18. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Pelican Pal in Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?   
    Artillery in CM has two key weaknesses that make it suspect within the context of a mech heavy environment. The first being (as I've been told) that CM does not model vehicles closing up vision ports when under artillery fire. The second that the game does not model fragmentation damage to vehicles.^1 Combined this is causing artillery to under perform against armor. I'm not sure by how much it is under performing but my suspicion is that its not a meaningless loss.
    Part of my reasoning is that, as you have said, the Soviet forces are often at a 2:1 to 3:1 advantage. Within this context you might have a M60 TTS platoon against a 2-3 platoons of Soviet armor and the reduction of even a single TTS's capability to effectively engage results in a significant drop in combat power for NATO.

    Now this can be worked around but it requires that you use artillery in a way that I suspect most players don't readily take to. For example, you have located a TTS platoon astride the advance of your FSE. A player might drop a large number of shells over 8-10 minutes only to find that no damage has been done at all to the opposing armor. Not only that but during the barrage their spotting ability is not being reduced. The player has therefore expended a large amount of firepower and a significant amount of time for no impact on the enemy. I think this fairly leads to frustration on the players part.

    ^1 Documented bug but I also have a suspicion that how CM would model fragmentation might be doing a bit of a disservice to them.


    ~~~

    Overall though I actually disagree that the Soviets don't work. But I do think that the peculiarities of both the Soviets and CM work against players having initial success with them.
  19. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Probus in Disappearing Trees, Shell Deflection and Quantum Acting Shells   
    I've always thought of the individual trees and bushes in Combat Mission as decoration.  But it seems like my tank shells are taking them out.  It may just be my imagination or graphics card or something.  Is it possible to clear trees using area fire or accidental hits on trees?
    (BTW, in my opinion, if a shell hits a tree, it shouldn't explode if its AP or APDS etc... Maybe be deflected, maybe lose some energy, but not explode.  What is the community's opinion on this? Also, his leads me to my next observation:)
    When firing shells at armored targets, I think I may have found a bug.  Again, it might be my imagination (I have a rather large one 🤖). Does it seem like the shell type expended sometimes depends on what the shell hits?  For instance, if it hits the ground the program reduces the HE, if it hits an AFV then its AP?  Does the program calculate the trajectory then, depending on the final destination, reduce the appropriate ammo for best effect?  Sort of a quantum type action? 🤨 This shouldn't be so since the ballistic arc of an APDS shell should be way different than the arc of a HEAT round.
  20. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to theforger in CMFB Rollbahn D Full Campaign   
    Nearly two years. It's my first crack at a campaign having issued Mission to Maas V2 scenario in Feb 2020, which ended up like a mini campaign in a single scenario.
    At one point I decided to break Rollbahn D down into a trilogy, hence there is a part one earlier this year. I issued it just as Cold War and Fire and Rubble was released...great timing!
    In the summer I changed my mind and rolled up parts 1,  2 and 3 together and pressed on, aiming for Dec 16th as a release date, which almost didn't happen.
    No idea how many hours went in to it...I do still have a day job... if you do check out famous Ardennes pics from 44 you may be able to recognise buildings, down to even lamp posts and trees in some cases. The Church at Merlscheid, Buchholz Wirbelwind, SPWs and US prisoners being escorted back into Honsfeld from the NW, Church in Bullingen, destroyed Panther at Cheneux, Trois Ponts bridge, destroyed Panthers at Stoumont Station to name a few. 
    Fortunately much of the area is unchanged, the exceptions were Malmedy and Recht which were more difficult. For the most part Google Earth and pre war postcards came in handy, along with Duel In The Mist 1-3, Then and Now, Timo Worsts book on Knittel. I even took a punt on spending a few hundred euros on a copy of Roppelts 700 page memoir auf der Spur. So I guess Google Translate deserves a mention too. I hope to make my first trip out there in 2022.
    Previous to this campaign, in 2017 I published a couple of CMBS scenarios, Summer In The City and Korsun 2017.
  21. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to theforger in CMFB Rollbahn D Full Campaign   
    @Bootie, thanks for uploading to its rightful place, and using my draft page with the recreation of the staged Kaiserbaracke image.
  22. Upvote
    com-intern reacted to Roby7979 in Official Discord Server Combat Mission   
    Combat Mission has its Official Discord Server
    Join us and enjoy an environment where everything has been designed and tailored for you.
    News and updates in real-time, more than 4 languages, GO LIVE stream with one click, a large area for the community with spaces for PBEM Multiplayer, find opponent, Tournaments, Wall of Honor, Screenshot, Support area, tutorials, guide materials, strategies, map editing, AAR, and much more.
    Join us now here https://discord.gg/E3crsQgCS2
     
     

  23. Like
    com-intern got a reaction from Hapless in Steel Beasts vs Combat Mission t-72 visibility test   
    First I say hello all,
    I have recently returned to CM after a long hiatus and have much enjoyed Cold War. Hats off to Battlefront for the development completion.
    Hapless, I believe this will be determined by tactical situation. In CM terms friendly and enemy board side and mission type. Hence that a Soviet assault you would clearly engage the target 🎯!
     
    @dbsappDBSapp, I appreciate your commitment to the game in testing things. Individuals who do test are invaluable to the community. But I have a thought about your test. As the ardent CM knights have mentioned the game  is not a shooting range design. I have a strong faith that the game does not work correctly when units are spawned “in vision” of each other. Since the game designer (Charles) would assume that one force would move into view. Real combat has no teleportation unlike CM can. So perhaps test with M60 moving rather than not moving.
     
    CM knights, I will say that you are first to bring up the phrase “broken”.
     
    Have a good morning.
  24. Like
    com-intern got a reaction from Anonymous_Jonze in 20 Commandments for the Panzer Grenadier Company   
    What always sticks out to me is that the animation for firing from half-tracks overly exposes the crew. Since exposure = death a better animation would improve the utility of the HTs. I played around a bit with the animation files (after getting inspiration from the animation mod) and was able to get folks in the HT to not stand when firing and they were much less likely to be killed. Unfortunately it broke other things.


    Any a future update a change to firing stance from vehicles would be nice.
  25. Upvote
    com-intern got a reaction from Ghost of Charlemagne in Help Battlefront Out & Leave A Steam Review   
    Yea, its more than a little frustrating as someone whose enjoyed the games a lot. I'm spending a fair amount of time in the last few days trying to help people out over on the Steam forums and put a good face on the game. I don't want to have to deal with people talking faster than they can think.

     
    lawl - so much for some humility.
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