dbsapp
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Posts posted by dbsapp
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I've made a comparison between visibility in CMCW and Steel Beasts.
Perhaps it could shed some light on the discussed issues.
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Steel Beasts is a tank simulator that is used in several countries to train military personnel.
Combat Mission Cold War and Steal Beasts have a lot of things in common, so it would be interesting to compare how two games simulate combat.
In order to do that and to make as precise experiment as possible I put t72A (m1) tank that is featured in both games against M60 TTS tank that is also present in both of them.
To keep experiment clean I used default "flat map" and the same weather and time conditions - clean weather, the time is June the 1st, 12:00.
In CMCW I had to use additional "formation" units of observers, but I put them behind tall walls, so they didn't interfere in the process. In CMCW skill level of both of the tanks was put on "regular". Steel Beasts doesn't have skill level feature.
Under created conditions t-72A looks directly at M60's side. It is oriented from South to North, M60 - from West to East. The distance between them is 2 km. The conditions are the same in Steel Beasts and Combat Mission Cold War.
That how it looks like in Steel Beasts:
How it looks like in CMCW:
What T72 gunner sees from his position from the very start:
As you can easily notice, M60 is immediately and perfectly visible from gunners sight.
The same with T72's Commander's sight:
The results:
In Steel Beasts t72's AI spotted M60 almost immediately, which is not surprising, taking into account that it has perfect view on the target. It took t72 about 2 seconds to spot the opponent and about 18 sec to hit and destroy it.
In CMCW something opposite happened. I ran several tests and t72 couldn't spot m60 once. Its optics was not enough to spot the tanks directly ahead of it at the distance of 2 km during clean daylight.
In fact, every time M60 spotted t72 first and killed it. It took about 2-3 rounds and from 1,5 min to 5 min to kill t72. t72 didn't see the opponent despite m60 was firing at him.
How it ends in Steel Beasts:
How it ends in CMCW:
The CMCW test scenario is attached.
You can make your own conclusions.
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@IanLIt was Greek tender of 1998, not the Swedish one of 1993, my bad. It seems like @Armorgunner also meant Greek trials, because his description seems to resemble it. I'm not sure that in Sweden T80 had thermals, though it may be true. If I remember correctly, Leo won both of them. In Greece corruption scandal followed with acquisitions of bribing Greek officials by German contractor .
The report on T80 performance in Greek trials (quite critical of the Russian tank) is widely available on Russian AFV themed websites.
@IICptMillerII I don't know why are you argue with me over the notions that I had never tried to dispute. Maybe it fits your definition of "feeding trolls".
I never said that optics doesn't matter or thermals don't make any difference. I also never accused anybody of being "NATO shill" or whatever. Of course thermals give a huge, huge advantage. Of course, tanks don't provide the best spotting opportunities. Those are pretty self evident ideas, but repeating them over and over again can't negate what I'm trying to say.
Maybe metaphor would work better? Mercedes CLS500 is faster car than Honda Civic, that's obvious. But if you would play car simulator game where Honda's max speed is 20 miles per hour, and game designers argue that it's all right because Honda Civic is not as good as CLS500, you will call it absurd.
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You mean that it's one of those things in the game that is visualized, rendered, you can see it, but in fact it's not really there so you should not count it.
Contrary to those many things that are not visualized, not rendred and players can't see, but in fact they exist and should be taken into consideration.
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I suppose that Russian AFV's visibility in game has always been the issue of game design\political bias, it doesn't depend on any facts.
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11 hours ago, XaLVaUA said:
1. There are some issues with T-64A spotting ability. He does not see the tank that is directly ahead.
Here are screenshots showing the T-64A approaching the M60A3, touching it and not seeing it straight ahead.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DzRK01AwXmJAiajxHBzx-omxS2ezWsPV?usp=sharing (attaching media is not working)
Maybe T-64A not very good at spotting but this is overkill.
2. Why M60s have better armor then T-64/72/80s (I mean the section where "armor squares" are shown for the unit)?
IRL all M60 variations (without reactive armor) can be easily penetrated into turret and hull by 3BK14M, 3BK17M and 3BK18M.
While M456A2 has big problem with turrets of T-64/72/80s and some problem with the hull (less for T-64A, T-72A and T-80; more for T-64B and T-80B).
So why M60s have bigger "armor squares" then T-64/72/80s?
There are 2 main reasons.
1) It's the "feature" of game engine that usually calculates armor and personnel vision in a very strange and quite random way, not only in Cold War, but also in other titles as well.
2) In Combat Mission "world" all Soviet\Russian regarded as inferior to Western\American, especially in terms of vision. In many respects it's true to the facts (as far as I know), taking into consideration thermals, optics etc. But what CM games do is taking this technological gap to absurd levels, making "Red team" almost absolutely blind. It feels very unnatural and counterintuitive when several of your tanks can't spot enemy tank directly ahead of you at the distance of 200 meters.
Many times I witnessed how Vulcan's Gatling gun sends the river of red bullets to my AFV, but my tanks\BMP don't see it, despite they are several dozens meters away and not under fire themselves. "Buddy to my right is under uninterrupted rain of hot red bullets from the Vulcan that is 300 meters in front of us... well I don't see anything because... well you know, Soviet optics is bad".
In this regard famous Swedish tank tender of 1993 is very instructing. Swedish Ministry of Defense organized the competition between different tanks, including shooting, terrain and visibility trials. Russian T-80 took part in competition alongside with Leopard and Abrams. In the end it was reported that T-80 spotting was equal to the Western tanks on the distances below 2500 meters in the daylight and 1000 meters in the night (although on the distances above Western tanks had an advantage).
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20 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
You definitely do.. Seriously, you cannot see how all of that "feedback" is not helpful in the least? Here let me help:
In the "admission post", I came back to confirm whether you could see an SU-17 Cluster to try and clear up what was a miscommunication...no response. This after your initial feedback was (and I quote):
"Guys, the Soviet campaign was a mistake.
I mean MISTAKE."
Then your copious screen shots were Campaign end-screens which really do not do much to assist in trying to nail down specific issues. You have not once posted anything to reinforce you -pretty broad-position.
Frankly this all comes across as "CM Karen", not useful feedback. One thing I really do like about the CM community is that this type of feedback is in the minority, unlike the cesspools out in wild internet.
So let me enlighten a bit.
March or Die is by design meant to be really hard...no participant medal here. My best guess was 95% of CM players would not finish it (so you are in with the majority). It is why we built the Standard version so the average player could actually still enjoy the campaign. Mission 3 - March of Die is not "BROKEN AND IN NEED OF COMPLETE REDO". It needed a Tac Air controller at Setup (done, and this one does go to you, I did this because of your "help" btw) and score tweaking to offset the Blue Bonus lock we setup so someone could not just hit ceasefire and advance. Even with these tweaks MK likely would not have met the minor_victory requirement to advance based on his losses above (10 out of 13 tanks) BUT he should have come closer, maybe even a draw.
If there is a lesson for you to learn here is a simple one, that hopefully will come with age: "Just because you do not agree with something, it does not mean it is automatically wrong/broken/immoral/evil". Perhaps a second good one is "Failure is a good thing, so long as you 1) learn from it, to avoid it becoming a habit and 2) try and do it with grace and class."
I didn't make any personal attacks, you did. I didn't call anybody "ADHD 12 year old".
It's unfortunate that my "feedback" is not helpful in the least", though it proved to be true. In the end you are doing the "tweaking" based on the issues I raised. It would be much more helpful if you accepted them earlier.
Instead of offending your customer, you could show more respect to the person who paid money to do beta-testing and listening to how his "feedback is not helpful". If you made some mistakes - which is quite normal and not shameful, everybody does - so acknowledge them "with grace and class".
I don't blame you, don't want to attack you and wish you well.
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20 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
There is a lesson here, you see MK posted screen shots and detailed breakdown, not a bunch of ALL CAPS and exclamation marks like an ADHD 12 year old (unless you are a ADHD 12 year old, then my condolences to you and your parents).
Digging into this and "no" THE MISSION IS NOT BROKEN!!!! emjoi emjoi emjoi (seriously, social media has destroyed a generation at least).
It is very hard and there is something missing which was supposed to be put in. The reality is that mission is winnable but it takes a damn near perfect game to do it, which is unreasonable. Tweaking in progress.
Oh, now it's my mistake.
I would like to remind you that I posted the information on Mission 3 issues on June 15.
It made you acknowledge that the mission 3 is bugged. Unfortunately, nothing followed:
As for screenshots, well, I made a bunch of them:
I understand and I beg your pardon that this is not as enlightening, precise and constructive as:
On 10/10/2021 at 3:04 PM, The_MonkeyKing said:how the fuq is anybody supposed to win the soviet campaign 3rd mission?
I need to learn a lesson.
P.S. Sorry for CAPS-LOCK.
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5 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
Доверяй, но проверяй (Trust, but verify)
As Reagan said
4 minutes ago, Bufo said:Ah its a Russian campaign, so beta testers weren't interested.
Lol
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
And that is because it isn't...now take note, this is how to unpack something. MonkeyKing going to PM you shortly.
I hate to be the person who says, but
On 10/11/2021 at 1:29 PM, dbsapp said:THE THIRD MISSION IS BROKEN.
It can't be won, it REQUIRES PATCHING AND COMPLETE REWORK.
I started March or Die version as well (accidentally), and had to replay normal version of campaign, because it is simply can not be won.
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2 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
Ok, I thought I did acceptably but nope, tactical defeat:
point breakdown:
map at the end (I exited all of my troops):
doesn't feel right...
I hate to be the person who says it, but - "I told you"
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On 10/10/2021 at 3:47 AM, Simcoe said:
I have completed all the training campaigns and played a ton of scenarios but have never played an actual campaign.
What are your favorite campaigns and which ones would you recommend for a newbie?
I've been looking at To Berlin from Fire and Rubble, Courage Conquers from Final Blitzkrieg and Hammers Flank from Red Thunder.
Amonge those you mentioned - To Berlin.
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5 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
I will find out in couple of days.
I have confidence I get around 2/3 of my force to evac zone with most American going to Jesus.
Good luck with that, but it's more probable that your Soviet troops would get Lenin's banner posthumously.
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2 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
You need tactical victory to win.
How did the point math go in the end screen?
I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was some kind of draw or deafeat. I was really surprised, because I managed to withdraw some of my troops through the extraction zone.
In fact even that could be done only via tedious reloading, but as a sick joke in the end they make you lose
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22 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
Hi,
I have to confess I could not complete the soviet campaign ironman style... a couple of battle restarts were required already. haha (I am playing the "March or Die" version)
how the fuq is anybody supposed to win the soviet campaign 3rd mission? Some pointers would be welcome. map: https://i.imgur.com/2UJvlBK.jpg
THE THIRD MISSION IS BROKEN.
It can't be won, it REQUIRES PATCHING AND COMPLETE REWORK.
I started March or Die version as well (accidentally), and had to replay normal version of campaign, because it is simply can not be won.
The funny thing is that after billion reloads and painful struggle I managed to drive some of my forces to the extraction zone. They left the bettlfield, but the mission ended with defeat.
In normal version of campaign it could be skipped.
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On 10/6/2021 at 10:29 AM, zmoney said:
I find myself cursing db
13 hours ago, zmoney said:I have been converted
First they laugh at you
Then they curse you
And finally they see that Bradlies are ugly overpowered.
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More stats on artillery count:
In shells:
USSR Germany 1942 37,983,800 45,261,822 1943 82,125,480 69,928,496 1944 98,564,568 113,663,900
In tons:USSR Germany 1942 446,113 709,957 1943 828,193 1,121,545 1944 1,000,962 1,540,933
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2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Do you have a source for this? Sound pretty unlikely.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/22/695479-krasnaya-armiya
5 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:Great stuff on shell counts, quite important thanks. Does your 1944 figure include all calibres though? I do find it a little hard to believe the Germans outshot the Russians 2:1 by then (on the Ostfront, or on all fronts?), but it's big if true. As we know, German war production peaked in 1944.
I encountered the notion that Russians spent much less artillery ammo than Germans multiple times.
Like recently I read Isaev's book on Bagration, where he cites Soviet and German sources and says ( Google translated):
"The main role in the success of the German defense was played by two things in the battles of the autumn of 1943 and the winter of 1943/44. Firstly, it is the armored vehicles used to fight Soviet tanks, and secondly, howitzer artillery, including heavy weapons. The review compiled by the headquarters of the 3rd Panzer Army following the results of the battles directly stated:
“The consumption of ammunition in the amount of 1510 tons per day for the corps located in the direction of the main attack, and 2910 tons per day for the entire TA in most cases was significantly higher than that of the Russians. Often it was possible to smash an enemy penetration exclusively with artillery fire.
Especially high in comparison with the ammunition was the ammunition consumption of heavy field howitzers mod. 18 y., 21-cm mortar arr. 18 and heavy field howitzers 414 (f) ".
As 15.5-cm 414 (f), the Germans designated the captured French 155-mm Schneider howitzer arr. 1917 However, the share of these guns in the total shot was small.
Here I would like to note that the volumes of shells launched by the German artillery exceeded those at the height of the storming of Stalingrad in September - October 1942. For example, on September 27, 1942, on the first day of the next offensive, the entire 300,000 personell 6th Army of Paulus released 1077 tons of ammunition. Actually, the Seydlitz corps, which stormed the city, released 444 tons that day.
At the same time, September 27 was the day of peak ammunition consumption, in the following days it dropped quite sharply.
The corps defending near Vitebsk shot three times more shells than the one advancing on Stalingrad. Near Rzhev, in the midst of defensive battles, Model's 9th Army shot about 1000 tons of ammunition per day".
And:
Tolkonyuk (he was Deputy Chief of the Operations of the 33rd Army in 1943 and left one of the most interesting wartime memoirs) recalled: “Although we had numerical superiority over the enemy in artillery of small and medium calibers in the direction of the main attack, the enemy fired twice as many shells at the same time than we did. In counter-battery artillery, the Germans outnumbered us by one and a half to two times, which allowed them to reliably suppress our counter-battery artillery groups."
Throughout the war USSR had severe shortage of TNT and relied heavily on lend-lease supply.
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20 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
In pure materiel, the Russians had forces sufficient to stop Barbarossa cold
In my opinion, that's a popular misconception.
I would share some of my thoughts on the reasons why USSR failed so badly in 1941.
People usually pay attention to the number of tanks and planes - which is a relatively easy thing to do - but it is misleading. There were much more impactful factors.
1) The number one is RADIO. What WW2 researchers often don't realize is that Germans success was very much due to the superiority in command and control system (C2), and how Soviets lagged behind in terms of C2. When you start digging deeper into war history the difference becomes striking. In many aspects it was struggle between modern and antiquated armies.
Soviet units almost didn't have radios, and even if they had the quality was so bad, that they couldn't hear anything. Soviet commanders relied on telephone cables, that proved highly unreliable. The cable communication was very vulnerable to artillery, and usually broke down after first artillery strike leaving the hole regiments and armies without control.
Soviet officers often didn't know where the enemy was, and what even more important - where their one units were situated. When the telephones go silent they used communication personnel to deliver orders on foot, which if the person with the paper order stayed alive and managed to deliver it, took hours and even days. In most cases those communication officers came to the area where they thought Soviet troops would be, but to their surprise they saw Germans.
C2 situation like this couldn't be simulated in game like Combat Mission, where you always watch the battlefield from the bird's eye and can pass the order to every soldier in the matter of moments.
2) The Germans had it the other way around. They excelled in radios and communications systems to the point when they could use COMBINED ARMS strategy. They have the perfect aviation intel, knew precisely where enemy and their own forces where, and coordinated their actions very well.
3) AVIATION superiority. It was absolutely daily and ordinary situation when German officer could call pinpoint airstrike from the frontline tank or observation post and STUKAs could deliver it with great precision in the matter of hour or minutes!
Soviet aviation in turn was deaf. The orders to strike took literally days and after Russian planes took off from the airfield they lost contact with ground troops and each other. Ground observation posts used giant white sheets on the ground to communicate with planes and give them directions!
Not to mention that Soviet planes where much inferior to Germans in terms of engines, armament, production quality and pilots training.
In result in 1941-1943 Germans gained absolute superiority in the air. All those years Russian troops had to operate under permanent airstrikes and observation.
4) AMMO.
Do you know that 90% of all T-34 in the beginning of Barbarossa didn't have armor piercing shells? No matter how T-34 was better than TIII, it couldn't fight it without AP shells.
Germans had huge advantage in numbers of artillery shells. In 1942 the Germans fired 18 million 105mm shells, Russians - 10 million 76mm shells. The gap in terms of 152 mm was even greater: Russians - 2.3 million, Germans - 4.8 million. Even in 1944 the ratio was 3.7 million to 7.5 million in favor of the Wehrmacht.
To sum it up USSR fought Germany in the dense fog of war with inferior aviation and weaker artillery support. Only the personal qualities of Russian soldier could compensate it and eventually win the war.
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45 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
For those interested, dipping again into the writings of @JasonC, from years ago in these forums (and BGG):
"Germany was the first great power to know there was going to be a war, but it was also the last to mobilize its economy. Predictably, therefore, it lost catastrophically.
"It was an article of faith for Hitler that Germany should not compete in all out "material struggle" as it had in WWI, but should instead rely on Aryan superiority, quality and tactics to achieve cheap and rapid victories.
"The decision to attack Russia in the first place showed a singular contempt for the military importance of odds. The British empire, Germany, and Russia were approximate equals in industrial and economic terms. The Germans drastically underestimated Russian military power. The idea was indeed annihilation battle, but it was also to defeat Russia in one swift campaign of a single season.
"The hope was that Germany's new methods of warfare had made a war of attrition unnecessary - the complete mobilization, the millions cycled through the fronts, the massive expenditure of treasure and blood through munitions to grind down enemy armies. At the operational level, the Germans were seeking annihilation much more by maneuver than by battle. At a tactical level, they had come to believe in armor as the restorer of shock in the old sense, and the decisive arm, always to be employed offensively.
"The German 1941 performance was outstanding in every military sense, with the Russian moves initially dismal and barely passable later on. The cards were stacked as neatly as you please."The basic story of 1941 is the Germans chop the Russian army into pieces and gobble those pieces up. By the time they finish swallowing, there is a new Russian army in front of them. Repeat until the Germans miss a step and stall. People debate which step was the one that missed.
"What defies basic logic is expecting to fight a state as powerful as Russia to the death in a planned war of extermination, without mobilizing your own economy.
"The main issue was simply that they were in an all fired hurry, for no decent reason, other than not bothering to plan for a longer war.
"The German army in front of Moscow in November 1941 had absolute numerical superiority. It lost it by December. The reason is the Russians were mobilizing a million men per month and the Germans weren't mobilizing even enough to replace their own losses, which were a tenth those of the Russians.
"Germans were still working only a single shift at critical war plants in the fall of 1941. Key plant was being used 10 hours a day, most women were not in the labor force. 40% of steel production was going to civilian industry."The Russians were much closer to losing in pure attrition terms than people often realize, because a 5 to 1 loss rate is one heck of a headwind to try to make up.
"The Russians had been treating formations like ammo. The 1941 Russian economy was working much better than anything else in the picture - they were mobilizing, the Germans weren't; they got massive quantities of war material; they fielded new armies reliably and got them where they were needed, strategically speaking. And those armies milled around, in total chaos, until destroyed - under cockamamie orders and utter confusion. Chaos and confusion reigned in the "near rear" - roughly, railhead to front line in the active sectors. But the next lot were getting off trains 100 miles further east."The Germans overran areas that contained half of the Soviet prewar population. While something like 12 million workers were evacuated and men inducted beforehand and refugees, still around 50 million people passed under German rule. There wasn't any numerical discrepancy left to speak of, in the two population bases, by November.
"Yes the Russians could pull back in space terms. But there weren't a lot of additional recruits to be had in the Urals. Not a million a month. They could keep up the huge mobilization rate for a while anyway, but not forever. Not at 1941 loss levels.
"The sustainability of all the Russian offensives of the second half of the war depended on mobilizing manpower from the last areas cleared, and getting them into new units within 6 to 12 months. Those provided half or more of the new recruit flow. The loss rate simply wasn't sustainable without the front moving their way.
"The Germans are wiping out over three quarters of a million men per month and the Russians are replacing it, but not gaining. The Russian force in the field has a half life on the order of 60 days. And it isn't the October mud pause that stops this - October is just as disastrous as the months before it, and the respite from the mud is too short to matter.
"No, the key thing is that the Germans aren't getting anything themselves. 50k replacements in a time period when the Russians get more like 3 million. It is the sheer scale of the Russian mobilization rate that is the strategic shock to the Germans, and they don't even know it is happening. Every million men they wipe out, they think is the last. When it is just another month or so.
"If the Germans had mobilized as they attacked, they'd have had double the Russian force by November and as many additional tanks as they produced in 1942. What happens in November is the German logistics start giving out, that lets the Russian loss rate fall and the front stabilize, the rear area chaos clears up somewhat (or at least, is matched by equal chaos in German logisitics by then), and Russian front line strength soars.
"The Germans have 2.7 million men in the field and the Russians have only 2.2 million, on November 1. A month later the Germans are weaker not stronger, and the Russians have 4 million. The Russians just don't lose a million men in November - that is all it takes.
In my understanding that's more or less true.
I would add that USSR was far behind in terms of technology (they put a lot of effort into closing the gap and achieved some success but it still wasn't enough). Hence the casualties ratio.
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19 hours ago, Combatintman said:
Suvorov's writings
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3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
Dutch I gave you the clue with the sentence.
Yup, sorry, I had to pay more attention.
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On 9/18/2021 at 6:41 PM, chuckdyke said:
Interesting question, I am 71 years and talked English for 56 years. Technically it is not my first language. Here in CM hunting in the command panel tends to confuse people. The closest unit in which we can apply hunting is the sniper. After all the snipe is a gamebird and very elusive. Like my father told me: "Je moet dus 'n fiets hebben voordat je kan fietsen." (You must have a bicycle before you can go cycling.) Same with hunt it is related to Hund (German) Hond (Dutch) meaning dog or hound.
May I ask what's the first? Just curious.
Khrizantema blindness
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
You are welcome