Will CM2 Be Just A Tank Slug-Fest?

[Col Deadmarsh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Yeah, and if it is a commercial for selling ladies shoes I may just be able to produce it. Other than that, out of my area. Anyone with scripts though should seek out an agent before sticking their heads into the tree-limb chewer of the industry.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Had one who liked the script. Then I got a tour of the endless rewrites and the B.S. in the industry. Finally, before he was to send it out, he quit the agency game and told me he needed a weekly paycheck.

Oh yes, my head has been through the grinder and my ideals have been thrown out the window. These days, I'd settle for someone to purchase the script, write me a check, and then promptly throw my masterpiece into into the fire. And it wouldn't bother me a bit.

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Everything in moderation...except CM.

[Guest Michael emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kitty:

Oh? So can you get me some good deals on shoes? =D

Kitty<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kitty! And here I was, certain that you wore nothing but combat boots! Tsk, tsk...

Michael

[pucker]

I feel that the Russian front overs terrain for all sorts of engagements. It is only because of the huge battles of Kursk et al that everyone thinks it will be a tank slugfest. And this is obviously the way CC3 was protrayed because that was what was perceived as popular and would sell to the masses?!?

Tanks only played a key role on the Eastern front for assaulting and breaking through enemy lines and were thus pretty rare considering the size of the area of operations (unless you look at specific engagements).

The majority of the fighting was done by the PBI's. Just look at Stalingrad and Lelingrad.

CM will accurately model this in there scenarios I am sure, as they have already done so in Beyond Overlord (as a large number of scenario's are purely infantry based). AS for QB's the force structure parameters allow you to pick pure armour, infantry or Combined Arms. This facility was not in CC3, thus everyone picked tanks even the computer (this was only addressed by mods by third parties).

I feel with the amount of time and effort BTS have spent getting OB correct they will not foul up on this one!

Pucker

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

Had one who liked the script. Then I got a tour of the endless rewrites and the B.S. in the industry. Finally, before he was to send it out, he quit the agency game and told me he needed a weekly paycheck.

Oh yes, my head has been through the grinder and my ideals have been thrown out the window. These days, I'd settle for someone to purchase the script, write me a check, and then promptly throw my masterpiece into into the fire. And it wouldn't bother me a bit.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Totally off the subject here, but I can tell you the directors woes. A writer and a producer, two of the most valuable people on earth, can get together and write some of the most unproduceable things ever imagined. I had a small budgest commercial that called for a German tank once. The client, writer and producer were trying to make some point about a product that I cannot remember (who can remember video wallpaper?) and it was the dirty director who had to point out that, unless some private citizen had the tank in Florida, we would have to have one built for us in Ohio at a cost of something like 20 times the budget of the commercial. Then I was the dirty director standing in the way of the poor writers creativity.

Better off with your script to turn it into a web page and self publish.

[IntelWeenie]

Getting in on this late, but it seems like folks here are forgetting that CM2 is going to be 41-45. The last year of combat (roughly) was not on Soviet soil. We'll get terrain and scenarios from eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, etc. Don't forget Finland, which (from what I've heard, at least) was pretty heavily forested in places along the Soviet border...

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Canada: Where men were men, unless they were horses.

-Dudley Do-right

[Bruno Weiss]

Right Intel, that was what I was trying to say earlier, or in another thread. Forget. Anyway, the Ostfront conflict took place over thousands of miles of varying terrain, years worth of equipment and tactics evolution, and saw an ever changing tide of battle. From Barbarossa to Berlin, just about every conceivable type of terrain was fought over, most of the equipment inventories of both the Soviet and German armies saw action, and the basic doctrines of offense and defense for both armies changed quite a bit as well as each side exchanging places with regard to the basic nature of their primary purpose. Invasion versus defense. So, IMHO the various aspects of the conflict are pretty much unlimited and dependent only upon the time and the location of a particular scenario or operation.

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"Wer zuerst schiesst hat mehr von Leben"

Moto-(3./JG11 "Graf")

Bruno "Stachel" Weiss

[Los]

"Steppes are merely plains. Open farmland and river banks don't rovide concealment either. Mountains and hills may work but from what I've read on this forum, there have been problems with infantry hiding on reverse slopes."

BS. Open terrain and steppes are hardly billiard board terrain layouts. There are plenty of minor variations in terrain sufficient for infantry to use a cover and concealment even in these areas. Even if you have no first hand experience of having walked some of this terrain, it's pretty easy to look at some WW2 East front videos and observe them critically to come to that conclusionn.

Combat Mission is limited only by the scenario designer's imagination....

Los

[Schugger]

There is maybe one thing that puts infantry in CM 2 at a disadvantage: Larger maps.

Many players would like to see larger maps to simulate long range tank duells. Consequently, the infantry has to move a bit longer to even get in combat range as in CM1.

Even if they are motorized, I don't like the prospect of moving my trucks for a couple of turns before they can unload the groudpounders.

[M Hofbauer]

Supertanker:

I would guess the same will apply to CM2. Scenarios will likely focus on battles for cities, villages, and other terrain where infantry played a vital role and had a good chance to take out armor. Personally, I've got a few dozen virtual sticky bombs that bear the hammer and sickle and are aching to be applied to some German armor. They didn't apply Zimmermit because they thought it looked cool!

Unlike the germans, who used the Panzerhandmine in large numbers and assumed the enemy would introduce similar weapons employing magnetic attachment and shaped charges, the russians never used anti-tank magnetic-attached mines (ATMM) to any noticeable degree, nor did the western allies. That's wy the use of Zimmerit was discontinued in 1944.

B.Weiss/Abbott: Paul Carrells books seem an interesting read but you gottta read them carefully (like anything else for that mater). He seems to be quite a revisionist to me. And most probably he never fired a bullet in anger himself when you look at his resume/career, being more of a political figure, a leader in the NS propaganda dept. who decades after the war was still rather upset that the war didn't turn out as it had to in his view. Just my take.

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"Say i think u all need to chill out." (GAZ_NZ)

[Wild Bill Wilder]

I remember well Steve and Charles telling me early on that this game (CM) is primarily an infantry game, with tanks and other units being in support of the infantry.

Of course, we all love tanks, and the fast paced, explosive outcomes of encounters with the armored behemoths. I do too.

Many of the scenarios (including mine ) are armor heavy because folks like them.

So I think to a large degree it depends on the type of scenarios produced with the game and after it comes out as to how "tank heavy" CM2 will be.

As you all know so well, more vehicles put more work on the program (and your computer .

I also remember commenting once during the beta testing and scenario design for CMBO that the load time after starting a turn was taking too long. The advice Charles gave me was, "Get rid of some of those trucks." I did and the load time increased significantly.

So I am sure there will be a lot of tank battles but I hope there will a focus and appreciation for the millions of groundpounders on boths sides that fought on the Eastern Front.

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Wild Bill

Lead Tester

Scenario Design Team

Combat Mission-Beyond Overlord

billw@matrixgames.com

[Turret Ring]

This is an interesting thread. A lot of you folks out there seem to have some valid concerns about wheather-or-not CM2 will be historical. A good point, counter point thread.

But.... All the way through my reading I kept coming back to the thought that CMBO seems to be one of the most historically and technically accurate "wargames" I have ever had the pleasure to use. No I don't think we have anything to fear. CM2 will be just as great for all of us "Historical techno freaks," if not better.

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"Then we shall fight in the shade." (Greek general's comment upon being told that the Persian archers could blot-out the sun with their arrows.)

[Hundminen]

Compared to CC2, infantry in CC3 was simply canon fodder. Therefore many battles (on the zone) ended up as tank-heavy affairs with little or no skill involved in winning. Tank versus tank kills were often determined by seemingly arbritrary factors, unknown to many average players.

The great thing about CC2 was the German infantry carried panzerfausts and were often lethal to allied armour, which usually tried to keep well out of range (100m - 200m). This required both players to pick a balanced blend of infantry, armor, and arty, not just armor.

The result was CC2 was often a brilliant (although perhaps a little unrealistic) game of "rocks-paper-scissors", in which the player who developed the best strategy usually won.

I hope CM2 is more like CC2 than CC3.

[Supertanker]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Unlike the germans, who used the Panzerhandmine in large numbers and assumed the enemy would introduce similar weapons employing magnetic attachment and shaped charges, the russians never used anti-tank magnetic-attached mines (ATMM) to any noticeable degree, nor did the western allies. That's wy the use of Zimmerit was discontinued in 1944.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey, I still learn something new every day. I had always assumed they were used heavily by the USSR (thinking back, this is probably based on playing original Squad Leader and a couple of accounts or pictures), but I never researched the issue.

So, what did they use as infantry AT weapons? I have seen photos of modern day Soviet AT hand grenades (shaped charges, with a streamer or small parachute on the back to orient the charge), but don't know if there was a WWII version. Captured panzerfausts? Molotov Cocktails? A T-34?

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I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

[Guest Big Time Software]

Folks, you have NOTHING to worry about First of all, out of the thousands of bucks worth of books I own... the overwhelming majority are about the Eastern Front. If you think I am going to be involved in making a game that does NOT tap into this huge investment of mine, think again

The other thing is it is silly to look at what happened with CC3. There are many reasons why it turned out like it did, and none of them had to do with the Eastern Front itself.

As Combat Mission 1 did with the Western Front, Combat Mission 2 will do with the Eastern Front. That is, simulate it in a way that does it justice and corrects many of the misconceptions and prejudices wargamers have toted around with them from game to game. The CM2 will not be a slugfest, and it will not be a human wave killing frenzie. That much I can assure you. Sure, there might be a few scenarios like this, but with the editor and Quick Battle generator we can not tell anybody that all battles must be this way.

Supertanker, I think the problem was the Soviets didn't have magnetic materials in enough quantity. This is why the Germans don't have them in CM1. By 1944 they did not have the ability to field many due to materials shortages.

Steve

[Col Deadmarsh]

Hundminen said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Compared to CC2, infantry in CC3 was simply canon fodder. Therefore many battles (on the zone) ended up as tank-heavy affairs with little or no skill involved in winning. Tank versus tank kills were often determined by seemingly arbritrary factors, unknown to many average players.

The great thing about CC2 was the German infantry carried panzerfausts and were often lethal to allied armour, which usually tried to keep well out of range (100m - 200m). This required both players to pick a balanced blend of infantry, armor, and arty, not just armor.

The result was CC2 was often a brilliant (although perhaps a little unrealistic) game of "rocks-paper-scissors", in which the player who developed the best strategy usually won.

I hope CM2 is more like CC2 than CC3.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Booya! You're right on the money with this. Rock/Paper/Scissors--I like it. Good analogy of the balance in C2. Something that that CC3 didn't have.

In CC2, the Germans had the heavy tanks that could outduel the Shermans and anything else the Allies could put on the field. So, how do you counter? Well, the one thing about CC2 was that it was somewhat easy to sneak infantry around the map which meant you could get a zook or a piat around for a side or even rear shot on your enemy's large investment.

If that wasn't an option, there were always the cheap Daimlers you could buy to speed around in back of the German offense and hit the behemouths with a flanking shot. Of course, the unrealistic part of CC2 was that the Daimlers in that game came with a 6 lb gun and yet no mg on it. Aside from it's unrealistic capabilities, it was a great way to threaten the Germans without spending a lot of clams.

Then of course there was the dreaded Hetzerfammen for the Axis. This tank was a menace because it could wipe out the Allied forces in no time flat if given the chance. Of course, even the Hetzerflammen had it's weaknesses. Put a 50 cal. in a building off to it's side and you could pierce through that soft side armor before it got off it's first shot.

The Hetzerflammen had other opponents it didn't like to go up against like the Crocodile which seemed impervious to frontal flame shots. And let's not forget the AVRE which could hide behind a building and take out the pride of Germany with a well-placed area shot.

Yes, it was definetly a game of rock/paper/scissors. I haven't played enough games of CM yet to form a complete opinion but it looks as though it has it's own flavor of this and I hope CM2 follows the same path as it makes for very addicting play.

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Everything in moderation...except CM.

[M Hofbauer]

Supertanker:

"A T-34?"

exactly. the russians didn't have that much an urgent need for infantry AT-weapons. They had enough tanks to counter german armor with their armor. As for the early years, the basic russian soldier would have to rely on grenades and grenade bundles, Molotov cocktails and AT rifle grenades as a means of AT.

The germans also ceased using the ATMM because they were essentially made obsolete by the later dvelopment of the Panzerfaust, which was practically a means of engaging the enemy armor with the same type of warhead from a distance which didn't require that up-close personal running to (and fro) the enemy tank but allowed the infantry to...well I'm repeating myself

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"Say i think u all need to chill out." (GAZ_NZ)

[Col Deadmarsh]

BUMP

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Everything in moderation...except CM.

[Gregory Deych]

The Soviets also used several infantry grenades tied together as a field expedient. Obviously for this to work, a grenade had to have a handle. Even with several grenades explosing together, anything other then a torn track was very rare. Anti-tank grenades were a little bit different, of course...one could take out a tank under right circumstances.

Re: Motorized Infantry

Soviet manuals categorically state that trucks are not to be used in the combat zone. They are strictly an operational mobility item, and should not be used tactically. I'm sure it's the same reason why German Motorized squads don't come with their organic transport.

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kitty:

Oh? So can you get me some good deals on shoes? =D

Kitty<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kitty, if I was still making video wallpaper, you could have all the junk I used to get. I did fashion, hard goods, all sorts of commercial production, and would from time to time get offered some of the product by reps. Never happened with car commercials though....

[Tobe]

I have heard from a source working at BTS that CM2 will be closely modeled after the Atari 2600 game Combat's tank battles.

[Lorak]

Tobe that is really cool!

Modeled after the atari game means that bouncing shells will finally make it in!

Lorak

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"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."--William Butler Yeats

Cesspool

[Guest MantaRay]

Too bad I am chiming in late here, but I for one have no doubt as to how realistic CM2 will be. If you look at BTS and how they did CM1, you honestly think there is cause for concern? I think most of us who have been around for a while KNOW just how serious Steve and Charles are about their work, and on many occasions Steve has gave hints as to his real love.....Eastern Front.

IIRC, CM1 was WF based to draw us in and then CM2 will make us seek rehab.

As for Russian and Germans having trouble using infantry in CM2, I see no trouble just for the simple fact that CM1 is not a tank only game. A good commander CAN defeat tanks, and I for one remember how ppl used to remark, "Finally, a game that has useful infantry."

Ray

[Combatboy]

What is this with the pictures? I mean they are cool, but what do they mean?