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Holy cow....1 ATG round, 26 casualties (with photo evidence)


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Gents,

Easily my most embarrassing moment in a long history with the Combat Mission series.

Preparing to get the last of my troops over the bridge in the photo, I set a sort of staging area for them to queue up before moving them across in teams with covering fire.

Just when I think I've secured the opposite end of the bridge and the coast is clear, an antitank round comes screaming from a nicely hidden spot all the way down the road (top left corner of the picture) and hits the lead Sherman. The resulting explosion kills or wounds 26 men that were, at that very moment, passing too closely to one another as they got into position. I have video of it too, but I'll have to upload it later.

I wanted to cry.

Anyone else ever make this kind of catastrophic blunder?

CMNormandy2012-01-2705-23-19-35.jpg

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Gents,

Anyone else ever make this kind of catastrophic blunder?

CMNormandy2012-01-2705-23-19-35.jpg

Yea...not quite that many...but yea. I feel your pain.

Shermans are notorious for going "BOOM". Particularly if they don't have "W" in their name, as in "Sherman M4A3W". The "W"'s have a "wet stowage" compartment that has a mix of water and some other chemical (glycol I want to say) that keeps the ammo from making those big booms. ;)

So...the lesson is here, in the future, don't do that again. :cool:

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Losing 26 guys in a truck is as easy as falling off a cliff in Ireland after an all day bender at a Pub 50m away from the edge. Not very challenging :D

This hit, on the other hand, does show the hidden dangers of being close to armor when it goes boom. Especially if the Sherman was hit by something really big, like an 88mm.

I remember way back when during CM:SF Beta testing. I was nearing the end of a scenario I made and was doing pretty good. I began a final assault that involved staging next to a burning T-62. Of course the stupid thing decided to have a delayed secondary explosion! I lost the better part of my assault force (probably at least a squad and a half). That one cook off cost me more casualties than the defending outgoing fire IIRC.

Steve

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Wow. that's a whlole lot of red crosses.

In the future I would S-P-R-E-A-D O-U-T

I have learned my lesson. Big units attrack big ammo. In CMBN, ricochets are real and deadly. I've lost plenty of men standing near tanks and the tanks might survive, but the troops on in the grass take a beating.

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Once I had a Tiger II shooting right trough a M5 Stuart and hitting an M3 Halftrack drving behind it (this happend in reality!). The timed charge of the AP grenade exploded right in the passenger compartment of the HT, KOing everybody in both vehicles. Some 15+ guys in total.

Only difference - it happend to the numbnuts AI, as I played the Germans (KG Engel Campaign, Mission 4). But I lost enough men from cookoffs and ricochets to stay away from tanks at all times.

I always wondered why every combat eyewitness report states this. Always tought tanks make good cover. Now I know.

Thanks BF!

Best regards

Olf

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Slightly OT: I remember, quite clearly, when my Marines in CMSF were trundling along inside their AAV. One RPG round later, ~27 (?) dead Marines. I never again drove an AAV, loaded, anywhere near an uncleared route. Ever.

Ohhh...yea...I've had that Marine moment too. I get into a big hurry to get somewhere and take a chance I know I probably shouldnt take...and then all are dead.

That only happened once. :)

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May I ask which map/scenario this is?

Edit:

Wow, I just noted the second Sherman wasn't phased by the shell, it was destroyed simply by the blast with 3 crewmembers immediately becoming casualties.

How strong would an explosion of a Sherman with all its assets be? Like, comparable to what size of shell or whatever?

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I'm sorry, I actually don't remember which scenario this is. This happened over a year ago, and I just found the footage after believing it had been accidently deleted awhile back.

I'm pretty sure it's a stock scenario, since I never installed any user made ones until very recently.

Does anyone else know? I do remember it was a challenging but very fun battle. Well, until this happened lol.

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