dalem Posted February 29, 2000 Share Posted February 29, 2000 I can't believe it's not been hacked to death already, but I searched on "malfunctions", "weapon malfunctions", and "jams", and didn't come up with anything detailed, so here goes... From playing the demo a few times I can see clearly that MG jams are modelled. What about other weapons? I have seen 'damage by fire' to tank main guns, but can the bigger pieces also malfunction or just plain break? or was that kind of malfunction just not an issue at the scale CM portrays? thanks, Dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted March 1, 2000 Share Posted March 1, 2000 I do recall seeing my Tigers gun "jam" ? Maybe I can't remeber too well, but I thought something like that happened a few weeks ago. ------------------ CCJ aka BLITZ_Force My Hompage ----> http://www.geocities.com/coolcolj Double your immersion with my Tweaked Textures and Saving Private Ryan sound set mods for CM!! Check out my new Textures V2.0 photo Gallery and my music while your there, or grab a CM Wallpaper! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted March 1, 2000 Share Posted March 1, 2000 I think I've seen that too. Do tank MGs jam in CM? ------------------ Visit my webpage! http://cm4mac.tripod.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalem Posted March 8, 2000 Author Share Posted March 8, 2000 Howdy. I'm still curious about this question so I'm sticking it near the front again. Dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorak Posted March 8, 2000 Share Posted March 8, 2000 Yes Mg's jam in CM.. has happend to me often enough. Lorak ------------------ ------------------------- This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. Without my rifle I am useless. Without me, my rifle is useless... http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howitzer Posted March 8, 2000 Share Posted March 8, 2000 Isn't the question here more of general mechanical reliability. For instance, motor trouble (notorious Sherman radial engine plug fouling), track throwing or other subsystem failure? Aside from "bogged/immobile" I haven't seen any other non-combat failure modes for vehicles. Anybody have more details on this? Steve C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Posted March 8, 2000 Share Posted March 8, 2000 Hi All! Say, speaking of the radial engine used in some Shermans....I pressume it was mounted with the crankshaft horizontally? A major problem with aircraft radial engines is oil seeping into the bottom cylinders when the engine sits unused for as little as an hour. Since liquid cannot be compressed (unlike air), if you attempt to start a radial engine without draining any accumulated oil out, you can severely damage the engine (This is why you see movies of ground crews pulling props through on radials, to check for, "hydraulic lock" as we call it). So here's my question, how did Sherman crews clear out the oil in those lower cylinders???? The only way to do it in an aircraft is to remove a sparkplug from each of the lower cylinders to drain the oil out. Did Sherman crews have to do this? It would seem to be a hassle in combat. Well, just wondering. ------------------ Darryl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted March 8, 2000 Share Posted March 8, 2000 Dale and others... we do want to model more mechanical side effects in the future. Right now it is pretty much limited to MGs jamming and tanks bogging down (which includes, to some degree, tossing a track). At CM's scale much of the things we read about in terms of reliability aren't an issue, but there is still room for a bit more than we have in there now. Here is an example of something that doesn't need to be simulated at CM's scale... Darryl, you are absolutely correct. I know this not because I read it in a book, but because I read a post on the subject from a military vehicle owner. He was pissed off at some guys at one of the Normandy reenactments who didn't pay this any attention and wound up killing their engine (I think it was in a dozer, but I could be mistaken). Abuse of a piece of history never sits well with fellow MV owners All you have to do is slowly crank the engine for a little while to let the oil out safely. I don't know the specifics of how this is done, as he only described the end user proceedure in any detail. So the above is perfectly correct, but even though Darryl wasn't saying we should simulate this, it is a perfect example of something that isn't an issue for CM. If the Sherman driver screwed up, then the tank wouldn't make it onto the battlefield in usable condition. I suppose if it were defending it would be able to do some limited shooting, but otherwise it isn't an issue. One of the things we want to add in the future is the ability to start out with a tank immobilized. This is to simulate breakdowns like I just outlined above. Dunno when it might go in, but it is on The List for future enhancements. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalem Posted March 8, 2000 Author Share Posted March 8, 2000 rrrg. Okay, I'll try to be more clear before this spirals into a radial vs. in-line engine thread. . Clearly MGs malfunction/jam in CM. In the tactical board game the original CM ideas were rooted in, every weapon system has a chance of jamming or permanently malfunctioning (yes I know that ammo depletion is also a part of that, sometimes separate, sometimes abstracted into the Malfunction die roll result). Due to the above I am accustomed to reliability factors being an issue in gaming tactical WWII, so my quesiton remains... In CM are malfunctions/breakdowns/jams independent of ammo depletion modelled for weapons other than MGs? thanks! -dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted March 8, 2000 Share Posted March 8, 2000 Sorry Dale, I thought I made that clear above. The answer is not right now. As for CM being rooted in ASL, nothing could be further from the truth We didn't take a look at what ASL did for anything. We don't want the baggage and errors of anybody else's designs creeping into CM so we instead turned to source materials instead. As for reliability DURING a battle, whatever other games might have you think, reliability was generally just fine *if* the weapon/vehicle in question actually made it into battle. The way ASL handles it seems to me to be pretty "gamey" if you are getting breakdowns often enough to affect gameplay. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalem Posted March 8, 2000 Author Share Posted March 8, 2000 Steve- Sorry, didn't see your reply before I sent my last - very clear and Thanks a Million for reading. I had kinda figured that the 'gamey' aspects you mention were deliberately avoided, just got curious. And I didn't mean to imply that CM actually used anything from ASL other than having the same unit scale, but I originally stumbled in here last year sniffing after PCASL, so I figured there was a parallel at least at some point. -dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted March 9, 2000 Share Posted March 9, 2000 Hi Dale, Well, like I said, I think we could do a bit more and keep it in the area of "realistic" instead of "gamey", so you are not off the mark to be asking us about it. Like I said, one thing that I and other testers have asked for is the ability to start out with immobilized vehicles. I can think of a couple of battles where this actually happened, although it is quite rare I am sure. Also didn't mean to get all defensive about ASL. Since at one point ASL was looked at there is still some confusion about where CM came from. The truth is that Charles decided to not model after ASL during the first couple of weeks of tossing about designs, even before one line of code was written. For those who might be interested in why, there are a couple of good threads getting into this more on this BBS IIRC. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Posted March 9, 2000 Share Posted March 9, 2000 Steve, I figured AFVs with radials had to suffer the same oil leak problem, but wasn't sure how they dealt with it on startup. Thanks for clearing that up. I can relate to how that guy must've felt to see a priceless piece of history ruined. As a measure of the value of radial engine parts here's just one example, I was told by a Confederate Air Force B-17 pilot that cylinder assemblies for the larger radials now cost around $2,000 apiece because they're just so hard to find anymore. It's sad to realize that these warbirds, and historic AFVs might someday only be seen sitting quietly in a museum, because parts are unavailable. ------------------ Darryl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalem Posted March 9, 2000 Author Share Posted March 9, 2000 Steve- Ahh, it is clearer now... Well, for what it's worth, I agree with the decision to stay away form the gameyness of constant breakdowns. I'm not saying I don't like the way ASL handles it, 'cuz I understand their reasoning for their system, but I'm not going to miss it in CM. What about 'manhandling' small guns? Nevermind, I'll search on it... Besides, I'm one of those 4 guys who actually wants to see 'plain old ASL' on the screen - just hexes and counters on the screen would be fantastic for me. -dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted March 10, 2000 Share Posted March 10, 2000 Small and medium-sized guns can be manhandled across intervening terrain.. I've just walked a 75mm infantry gun up a hill into position to provide DF into a village. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spider Posted March 12, 2000 Share Posted March 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Darryl: Hi All! Say, speaking of the radial engine used in some Shermans....I pressume it was mounted with the crankshaft horizontally? A major problem with aircraft radial engines is oil seeping into the bottom cylinders when the engine sits unused for as little as an hour. Since liquid cannot be compressed (unlike air), if you attempt to start a radial engine without draining any accumulated oil out, you can severely damage the engine (This is why you see movies of ground crews pulling props through on radials, to check for, "hydraulic lock" as we call it). So here's my question, how did Sherman crews clear out the oil in those lower cylinders???? The only way to do it in an aircraft is to remove a sparkplug from each of the lower cylinders to drain the oil out. Did Sherman crews have to do this? It would seem to be a hassle in combat. Well, just wondering. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The engines were fired up every once in a while when out of action because of this, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted March 12, 2000 Share Posted March 12, 2000 Steve, If you can really implement damaged/immobilized AFVs at scenario start, then all kinds of new possibilities open up, and with them, vehicle mods, too. Consider: * Babysitting a damaged Sherman tank and protecting it overnight from enemy patrols while waiting for the recovery unit to show up. * Fighting a vicious rearguard action while a recovery unit (BergeTiger, multiple large halftracks, another Tiger) works frantically to retrieve, say, a Tiger tank. * Conducting an infantry or armored raid to destroy an immobilized friendly or hostile AFV before it can be recovered by the enemy. * Defending a roadblock of wrecks dragged or pushed into place. Alternatively, being able to use a preexisting wreck for cover. * Attacking a field workshop for tanks or covering the withdrawal of same under fire * Tank recovery/repair under fire at Kursk using cut down T-34s for recovery vehicles (Ost Front CM). Russian Military Zone (www.history.enjoy.ru) has several good photos of this in the T-34 in Action part of its T-34 coverage. * Escorting a repair team through enemy lines so that it can fix an immobilized tank. It occurs to me that a nice bit of code chrome would be to set different repair times for representative problems, i.e., thrown/broken track, damaged sprocket, jammed turret, etc., naturally with appropriate fudge factors for repair skill plus randomness. After the repair is completed, the vehicle's returned to the owning side's order of battle. Sometimes, this could well happen during the scenario, particularly if the repair were already begun prior to scenario commencement. Just today I read a post on one board describing Tiger casualties at Kursk. The causes ranged from AT rifle hits on cupola vision blocks, which wounded the commander, to mines, which shattered tracks and roadwheels, to hits from AT guns, to mechanical breakdown of several sorts. See the AFV News AFV Board item Re: Wittmann at Prokhorovka (www.mo-money.com/AFV-news/afvboard/messages/21055.html) for further details. Most educational! TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES (www.tankbooks.com) describes an armored engagement in which the Germans attacked far enough to the rear that they got into a Sherman company's assembly area located in a village to the American rear. One of the Shermans was down from an engine change. The Sherman's engine was out of the tank, but the tank was still able to fight using battery power for turret traverse and elevation. This list is just what I came up with off the top of my head. Even more goodies await! I also wanted to thank you and BTS for remembering the oft ignored,but growing, Mac, iMac and iBook community in putting together CM and its release plans. My thanks in advance for an awesome game which seems to get better with each news item posted. I know you're getting both flak and a lot of pressure to ship CM yesterday, but anxious as I am to play it, and as someone who is also a craftsman in his field, I totally understand why you've adopted a Paul Masson-like attitude on the matter. It's the only viable option if you have standards and integrity, not to mention pride in your work. All the best, John Kettler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Posted March 12, 2000 Share Posted March 12, 2000 Thanks for the reply Spider. I wonder if they had the same problem with oil leaking into the lower cylinders when the Sherman's powerplant was changed over to that bizzare Chrysler arrangement (the one with a number of inline six cylinder engines arrayed around a central crankshaft) What a nightmare that must've been! ------------------ Darryl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spider Posted March 15, 2000 Share Posted March 15, 2000 the engine history to the sherman: M4 andm4a1 had the 400hp wright continental radials (r-975) the A2 had 2 gm 6-71 diesels the A3 had the ford v8 the A4 had the multibank inlines you spoke of, it had a longer hull because of that. the A6 had the cat radial diesel engine ------------------ This is my rifle, this is my gun. This ones for killing, this ones a tasty alternative to turkey at christmas..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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