The Cost of Doing Business

[Pedro]

Grunto wrote:

"There are definitely disparities in the price list - at least in my opinion and in the opinion of someone else I know who plays CMBO."

"The Stuart should be about 85 points. The Greyhound about 70. The Puma and 234/1 should both be cheaper, probably 70 and 50 points, respectively. The 234/3 seems about right as it is at 67."

There should be a modification to the price list but not in the direction in which you speak. I believe the allies and the US in particular should have more points or cheaper vehicles. . M8’s and Stuarts should be much cheaper than German recon vehicles like the 234 series. Why? Because there were so many US armored recon vehicles and so few German. Germany only made 200-234/1s and only 88- 234/3s!

On the other hand the US made 19 FREAKIN thousand M5 Stuarts and 8,500 M8's. So come on based on rarity alone the US stuff should be cheap and plentiful.

This is one area CM could work on. I understand that in the interest of fairness, players are allowed to purchase units for a QB. But realistically some limits could be placed as the to the number of a certain type of unit that one can have in a given scenario, during a given time. Is it probable not gonna happen? Yes. But I for one believe the Germans fair a whole lot better in this game because of these reasons. Typical German units never even saw these rare gems like a 234 let alone had one. They had to endure with their MG34/42s, PFs, StuGs and superior tactics. The US stuff should be cheaper and more plentiful, bottom line. To adjust for this regular experienced and above units should be very pricey. Apart from the airborne units most US units should be green and regular.

Pedro

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" the recruits are salty,they are ready to eat their own guts and ask for seconds."

[This message has been edited by Pedro (edited 12-16-2000).]

[John Hough]

I think that FAQ needs an entry about a rarity factor in unit prices.... This has been discussed to death. It'll be an option in CM2, but isn't making it into Beyond Overlord.

-John

[Guest Germanboy]

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

Grunto wrote:

There are definitely disparities in the price list - at least in my opinion and in the opinion of someone else I know who plays CMBO.

On the other hand the US made 19 FREAKIN thousand M5 Stuarts and 8,500 M8's. So come on based on rarity alone the US stuff should be cheap and plentiful.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First of all, no matter how often you repeat Grunto's figures (and I saw his original post) - I would still like to see the reasoning behind them. Something a bit more convincing than 'this is my opinion and an unnamed friend happens to agree'. I don't claim to understand how BTS arrived at the figures, but I trust them to get it right and to put research into it. If you want them changed, it will need showing a bit of the research you (or Grunto) did.

Second, I suggest doing a search on 'rarity' and it will yield the answer to your question (which is no, availability is not and will not be featured n CMBO, it may be an option in Cm2). Your idea to solve this abundance of material through making all ordinary US troops green or regular by default is just, excuse me, daft. You are not honestly suggesting that there were no US veterans in the ETO? What about the 36th ID (fought in Italy), or the 1st ID (had seen lots of combat in Africa, Italy)? What about the 4th Armoured kicking around von Manstein's green Panzerbrigaden at the Moselle? I have not even started talking about Commonwealth troops. Nationality modifiers like this have no place in the game.

Thirdly, AFAIK the figures at the Rugged Defense ladder show that contrary to the Urban Myth that some people here desperately try to propagate, German players do not do better than Allies. It is roughly 50:50, suggesting that actual player capability is far more important than which side you are playing. A bad player will make a mess of it, regardless of whether the units under command are King Tigers or Stuarts.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Guest grunto]

Did you read the part about, 'a switch to turn on historically-based values?' That would cover both your request for cheaper American vehicles, and mine for a combat-effectiveness-based points system, regardless of historical rarity.

I don't care about rarity. I care about effectiveness within the context of the game.

Andy

[Guest Germanboy]

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

I don't care about rarity. I care about effectiveness within the context of the game.

Andy<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Andy - how did you arrive at the points values?

[Pedro]

Things I learned today:

For God sake man search the board before you open your suck. Because God knows in the 50 years after WWII, we were the first to ask it on this forum and dammit there will be no repeat questions here! Only the freshest, most insightful, nuevo thinking will be tolerated.

As to my “daft” idea German boy. The few divisions that fought in North Africa and Italy pales in comparison to the dozens more that landed on or after D-Day. These Divisions were untested and green from the start.

Respectfully Pedro

PS-I won’t be back on the board as I will be searching the forum and reading all my history books.

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" the recruits are salty,they are ready to eat their own guts and ask for seconds."

[Guest Germanboy]

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

Things I learned today:

For God sake man search the board before you open your suck. Because God knows in the 50 years after WWII, we were the first to ask it on this forum and dammit there will be no repeat questions here! Only the freshest, most insightful, nuevo thinking will be tolerated.

As to my “daft” idea German boy. The few divisions that fought in North Africa and Italy pales in comparison to the dozens more that landed on or after D-Day. These Divisions were untested and green from the start.

Respectfully Pedro

PS-I won’t be back on the board as I will be searching the forum and reading all my history books.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That seems like a good idea to me, the reading that is. For the record, while I asked you to do a search, I also supplied the official (BTS) answer to your question. The search is only necessary if you want to read it yourself. I did not slight you for asking the question.

As for untested and therefore 'green' - I always marvel at this short-circuiting of reason. Let's see - the US troops defeating the Iraquis were all green, since they had never seen combat, while the Republican Guard was certainly veteran/crack, because they were engaged in an 8-year war with Iran in the 80s. Is that the logic? If so, you neglect the potentially huge effects of training over actual experience. An example of the period in question: 12th SS was 'green', according to your logic. They had never seen combat before (apart from their NCOs and officers, who according to von Schweppenburg apparently were not very good quality). Yet they fought excellently.

Finally - if you can not stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You will have to realise that there are a lot of people on this board who read an awful lot about the history of WW II, and it is generally a good idea to listen to them. I have put my foot in my mouth more than once here, but when I was corrected, my attitude was never 'uh you naughty man - how dare you correct me'. You come here with a very strong opinion, but obviously incapable of accepting it to be thrown out by evidence. Tough. If a discussion for you consists of everybody agreeing with your point, maybe you want to think about that approach, it will not be very fruitful, neither here on the board nor anywhere else in Real Life™.

Have a nice weekend.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Pedro]

Germanboy,

We are getting way off base here. I made one point. It is unrealistic the way the purchsing takes place in a QB. I have played QB's in CM with 6 or 7- 231 series recon cars. Statistics show that only about 300 of this series was ever made. Is this realistic? No. Could it be fixed? Yes. Will it be? No. OK, I have learned this. Now as for my suggestion that some troops are green/conscript/whatever, some modelling of troop quality is apperant in every game. Which system is the or the most realistic? I do not know. I am sure we could discuss this as it has been discussed for centuries. I am throwing out some thoughts and ideas. Don't equate someone not agreeing with me or correcting me as anything that would crush my fragile ego. Life is hard, not fair and I am wrong sometimes.

Have a good weekend too

Pedro

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" the recruits are salty,they are ready to eat their own guts and ask for seconds."

[Guest Germanboy]

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

Germanboy,

We are getting way off base here. I made one point. It is unrealistic the way the purchsing takes place in a QB. I have played QB's in CM with 6 or 7- 231 series recon cars. Statistics show that only about 300 of this series was ever made. Is this realistic? No. Could it be fixed? Yes. Will it be? No. OK, I have learned this. Now as for my suggestion that some troops are green/conscript/whatever, some modelling of troop quality is apperant in every game. Which system is the or the most realistic? I do not know.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree that the QB is unrealistic, but it is a game after all. For historical realism, canned scenarios or people you trust are the best solution. The easiest way to deal with it at the moment is to ask your opponents to play historically reasonably accurate. Or just buy Allied HTs and .50cal and punish them for spending the points that way

I guess the point is really not the QB system, but the way players handle it. I play people I know, and a lot of canned scenarios, and don't have that problem.

There has been a long thread about national modifiers (try using those terms for a search), and it basically left the issue unresoled, because nobody advocating them could come up with a fair and conclusive way to put numbers onto them. This is the problem in a simulation. I am sure we can all agree that Japanese and US soldiers were very different. But how can you model the difference? In CM you get experience levels, and the possibility to set fanaticism. That is not the be-all and end-all, but it is as good as it gets.

Again in terms of historical accuracy, not all German troops were excellent, and not all Allied troops were crap. Especially towards the end of war there were excellent veteran Allies and extremely bad German troops. E.g. I just read an account of the battle for my home village, in which a squadron of Comets managed to dislodge a defensive line of 12th SS (I think) with 88s without losing a single tank. If there was a general UK troops green/reg vs. SS troops crack/vet, it would be impossible to model this battle, and CM would be the worse for it, IMO.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Guest grunto]

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

Andy - how did you arrive at the points values?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi,

I arrived at these values through playing.

Also, the 37mm on the Greyhound and Stuart may be just a tad too powerful against the PZIV frontally at <250m.

The M8 HMC should be 75 points, again from my experience.

As it is, heaven help the unwary QBer who meets the wrath of the "U.S. Cavalry."

Yes all of the values I've suggested are based upon my personal experiences.

The Panther really is a good tank in the game. Tigers have been a disappointment against the Heavy Churchills at close range.

Should a Crack or an Elite Tiger be able to get a lower hull hit at less than 500 meters? (143mm penetration versus 140mm lower hull armor). Elite crews would know the weakest spot on the Churchill's front wouldn't they?

Man that Panther is nice.. 160mm of penetration out to 500 meters... heavy churchill?... no problemo... or is it no problammo? =grin=

The .50 Jeep has nearly as much transport utility as the non-.50 jeep... yet it costs one point less!

Many a time the massed .50 charge has yielded shocking results.

Trucks and weaponless jeeps... they should be 5-10 points.

I know a lot of people would like to factor in rarity, but I'm interested in performance, and for 58 points apiece, a squadron of M8 HMCs buzzing around sure is nasty.

At 68 points the PSW 234/1 is worthless from a performance standpoint. How many QBs have you played where the other player purchased 234/1s?

The 234/2 is overpriced at 83, as is the Greyhound. Both are great pieces of machinery, and give much gratification when scoring a kill, but in my opinion, their price makes them respectively somewhat of a liability in a very competitive QB environment.

In June, 1944, the Centaur IV for the Allies is probably fairly priced at 100 points. It is a very nice assault gun in any case.

The SPW 250/9 is a good mobile 20mm platform for less than 40 points. It doesn't have a lot of ammo but 15 or 20 of them together is fairly tough for a lot of targets to survive against. Even Shermans can become immobilized if nothing else from the 20mm fire.

It seems like there are certain unit combinations which you can buy in quick battles which will really 'bushwhack' the other opponent.

I think it's easier to do with the Allies.

With Germans though, one time I had about 10 each of Pupchen, 75mm recoilless, and Sdkfz 7/1; oh then about 3 platoons of one of my favorite infantry types, the VGD SMG squads.

They hid in a town behind a hill and waited for the Americans to show up. This was an assault (2:1) but the Americans were wiped out anyway.

Needless to say that dude wasn't very enamored of quick battles.

There are definitely combat effectiveness disparities. Again though it depends upon the map. The M8 HMC is great in maps with limited firing lanes, or in heavy fog. Same with the Chaffee.

Using 'weighted combat effectiveness pricing' (wcep), the Panther for instance should be cheaper in a city battle and more expensive in a wide open rural battle.

Then those people who can't stand to see swarms of Pumas running around could opt for the 'historical price modifier' button and then no one would buy them because of their rarity.

Another example: The M8 HMC would become less prevalent in quick battles with the 'historical rarity' button pressed. Only 1000 were actually built.

I've always been a fan of paying only for combat effectiveness. They tried to represent this in the old Squad Leader series with the 'historical rarity factor' and the resulting dual point ('base' and 'historical') values.

The problem with that system was that the armored cars and halftracks were almost never purchased in DYO battles. For some reason they'd been priced beyond their combat effectiveness. No one ever bought those unless there was an agreed set-aside number of points per side in a battle where only those types of units could be purchased.

Right now, despite my criticisms, Combat Mission is so much closer to an 'effectiveness-based' system than Squad Leader ever was. I've only named a handful of vehicles which I think are out of whack. I don't mention the StuGs or Shermans or Cromwells by way of price complaint.

Yes the price list is really good as it is, with just in my opinion what are those few above-mentioned quirks.

For CM2 they just need to add a 'historical rarity' button ala the old Squad Leader, and everything should be good. Hopefully the German optics will also be modelled, ala Squad Leader, and at least the BT-tanks will be torched at long range in 1941.

"Your 37mm is casually knocking off BTs at a distance of 1000 meters, and enemy shells are falling short, far, and wide of you but not on you. Their fire is inaccurate as they charge."

Suddenly a behomoth looms over the horizon, and while its fire is no more accurate than that of its smaller bretheren, your 37mm shells are bouncing off. Aptly, the corporal names your 37mm gun, 'door knocker.'" Suddenly it dawns upon you that these "Ivans" are not to be trifled with.

But I digress...

Andy

Andy

[Guest grunto]

--As for untested and therefore --

When designing a scenario, I rate the troops as to 'how I would like them to perform in the next half hour' as opposed to 'was this historically their first time in battle?'

Sometimes the first-timers are the biggest heroes.

Also, where it is known that a unit fought well historically in its first combat; for instance I'll make an HJ unit Crack instead of Green even though they were technically 'green' on 8 Jun 1944 when 26th PZGdr Regiment tried to pry open the 'fortress' of Norrey-Putot-Bretteville.

Apparently the attacks lacked coordiantion or tactics but were high-spirited. A "Green" rating wouldn't do HJ troops justice in the context of CM. They should be rated Crack, and if the player wants to recreate that "SS feel," they can use these troops recklessly.

Sometimes inexperienced Americans fought well. Was it the American 30th Infantry which stopped Pieper in his tracks in the Bulge?

Sometimes, "Fanatical Green" doesn't cut it for me. If I know that a Green unit fought well - either tactically or at least with a lot of spirit - in their 'baptism of fire,' I'll rate them 'Veteran' and above in CMBO even though they weren't 'technically' such.

Andy

[Guest grunto]

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

Germanboy,

We are getting way off base here. I made one point. It is unrealistic the way the purchsing takes place in a QB. I have played QB's in CM with 6 or 7- 231 series recon cars. Statistics show that only about 300 of this series was ever made. Is this realistic?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here's something you may be overlooking: Yes the Pumas are unrealistic in the numbers you see them in, in the CMBO QBs. That realm though is a fantasy realm to begin with.

No matter what happens with the price list, people will always cherry-pick in quick battles. Players seem to look at the Puma and think it's a good deal. How many 234/1s have you been up against? So yes I'm kind of conceding a point here.

When I see Pumas though I just lick my chops...'yeah it's an 83-point Puma up against my 58-point M8 HMC!!...better yet, two .50 cal M3A1 halftracks at 82-points!!'

The German armored car and halftrack killer is the .50 cal. They all bow to massed M3A1s.

Ok, now on the subject of the 234/1. I'll be these were fairly common. I consider them to be fascimiles of the other 20mm armored car series which aren't represented in CMBO.

Probably a realistic recon company would be

1 platoon of 234/1s

3 platoons of 250/9 halftracks.

If you want to see realistic usage of armored cars or M8 HMCs or anti-aircraft halftracks, play some of the many outstanding historically-based scenarios which are out there. If you want Pumas in an historically based context, play an Arnhem scenario.

If you want Tiger IIs, play the battle of the Bulge.

In QBs you have to be prepared for the cherry picking. An antidote to the M3A1 is the 20mm AA.

I may be way off base here but if memory serves CM2 will have both 'effictiveness based' and 'historically based' pricing.

Andy

[The Commissar]

I think an option in CM2 would be nice, although it is obvious that any major changes to CM1 are out of the question at this point.

I would like an option in QB's to have "realistic" values and, well, the ones we have now.

Massed T-34's the likes of which were seen on the Eastern front cannot be achieved if the T-34 in question costs about the same as a PZ4.

Of course, the experience rates should also be tallied into this "realistic option". I know Im going to come up against strong disagrement here, but I think that because of the massed assaults the Soviets used to such success in the later days of the war (well, success to the high command, that is) most of the combatants should be in the lower experience levels.

I believe that in the "realistic option", experience level should not be allowed to be chosen at all. In real war, the commander doesn't go through his ranks and pick out his "best", because that is hard to do. A tanker could have spent 2 years in the war, but his "just conscripted" buddy may still have better aim through pure skill.

So the skill level of your men should be pretty random as far as tanks go, and should generally improve the later you set the date of the QB. Also, "elite" units should lower the chance of you getting low-quality men when you purchase them.

So, a regular tank platoon might have quite a bit of "greens" and "conscripts", while a "Guards" tank platoon would have a bit more hard-core vets.

If any of you managed to understand the point I was trying to get across, I'd appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Cheers!

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[The Commissar]

In relation to my previous post:

I read through some more arguments against "realistic" values and experience, and I have read that in real life, experience would actually go down as the members of a unit got killed off and replaced by greens.

Well, I think that this would not happen all at once, and there would be a good number of vets left in a unit even after it suffered heavy casualties. So when it is replaced by greens, they would learn a good bit from their veteran comrades that they did not teach them in training. Thereby, the greens would improve a lot more quickly in units who had veterans then in "regular" units who did not.

Also, it is generally safe to say that "elite" units like Guards had more vets because with their "high-quality" weapons they did not die at a rate as high as the regular units. Thus, more vets remaining alive, thus greens learning faster.

Cheers!

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[Guest Mongo Lloyd]

One problem with the argument for point cost based on historical rarity is the fact the the Germans were usually outnumbered, so if you really want to be accurate the Germans should not have as many points as the Allies. That might be good as far as historical accuracy goes but not good for gameplay. The fact is that this game is meant to be fun, players can try many different combinations of units and see what the result is. When someone makes a statement that "I have played QB's in CM with 6 or 7- 231 series recon cars" and they think that is rediculous, maybe they just happened to run into a platoon of these vehicles. If you play against the same person a number of times and they continually choose the same force loadout then maybe you should play games where the computer picks the forces.

I keep seeing people say something where I had such and such and I completely wiped out my opponent, therefore the point values of the units I used must be off.

When grunto says "With Germans though, one time I had about 10 each of Pupchen, 75mm recoilless, and Sdkfz 7/1; oh then about 3 platoons of one of my favorite infantry types, the VGD SMG squads.

They hid in a town behind a hill and waited for the Americans to show up. This was an assault (2:1) but the Americans were wiped out anyway."

All I'm thinking is that the attacker must have been incompetent. If he just went charging into the ambush then he deserves to get wiped. I'd be willing to bet that if I rained down a nice heavy barrage of artillery before making my main push that the results would be quite different.

Personally, I think the point values are pretty good, although I do think the German submachinegun units might be a bit cheap.

[Guest grunto]

--I'd be willing to bet that if I rained down a nice heavy barrage of artillery before making my main push that the results would be quite different.

--

that was the weird thing. this particular opponenet would always shell me but he didn't this time. i was worrying about that and it never happened.

i still maintain that there are units in the price list with, 'a lot of firepower for the price.'

every combination can be beaten, obviously.

again, the world of QBs is 'whacked out' wrt to historical realism.

andy

[Tiger]

It really depends on who you play with. If you were to try picking stuff like you mentioned above grunto, I simply would never play you a game of CMBO again...your loss certainly, not mine. That said I do not think you can rely on the game designers to police how people are going to abuse their game system. This is really what it boils down to. Should BTS to protect the players from themselves with more code? I would argue that you the player should accept some thoughtfulness and responsibility when picking forces.

-regards,

john

[Splinty]

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

That seems like a good idea to me, the reading that is. For the record, while I asked you to do a search, I also supplied the official (BTS) answer to your question. The search is only necessary if you want to read it yourself. I did not slight you for asking the question.

As for untested and therefore 'green' - I always marvel at this short-circuiting of reason. Let's see - the US troops defeating the Iraquis were all green, since they had never seen combat, while the Republican Guard was certainly veteran/crack, because they were engaged in an 8-year war with Iran in the 80s. Is that the logic? If so, you neglect the potentially huge effects of training over actual experience. An example of the period in question: 12th SS was 'green', according to your logic. They had never seen combat before (apart from their NCOs and officers, who according to von Schweppenburg apparently were not very good quality). Yet they fought excellently.

Finally - if you can not stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You will have to realise that there are a lot of people on this board who read an awful lot about the history of WW II, and it is generally a good idea to listen to them. I have put my foot in my mouth more than once here, but when I was corrected, my attitude was never 'uh you naughty man - how dare you correct me'. You come here with a very strong opinion, but obviously incapable of accepting it to be thrown out by evidence. Tough. If a discussion for you consists of everybody agreeing with your point, maybe you want to think about that approach, it will not be very fruitful, neither here on the board nor anywhere else in Real Life™.

Have a nice weekend.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

FYI most of our commanders and senior NCOs were Viet Nam vets and many of our middle ranking officers and NCOs had been in Panama or Grenada,

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Nicht Schiessen!!

[Guest Germanboy]

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

FYI most of our commanders and senior NCOs were Viet Nam vets and many of our middle ranking officers and NCOs had been in Panama or Grenada<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Splinty, thanks for the info. Do you think that it made the difference when you actually had to face Iraquis who decided not to keel over, or was it to do with training, material, whatever? I.e. - if these men had not been in combat before, would you have performed much worse? My thinking is that you would not, but I may well be wrong (I only had crappy officers/NCOs during my time in the Luftwaffe, so my perception is coloured).

Tiger, I totally agree with you.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Vanir]

A few points I'd like to make.

First, I see little point in discussing rarity factors. It has been done to death and we will not see them until CM2. That's not going to change, so let's keep it on a point/performance basis.

Grunto:

The point costs for some of the vehicles you talk about have changed in 1.1. The Puma is now 71 points and the 234/1 is 62.

As someone pointed out above, the performance of some of the cheaper units like the M8 is fairly dependant on the parameters of the game. The M8 is deadly for its cost where terrain or weather or time of day limit visibility and engagement ranges. On an open map with good visibility it is dead meat against even lower end German armor. Another example is the Hetzer. A superb unit for it's cost... until it runs out of ammo. But it's low ammo loadout will likely not be a factor in the 30 turn or less QBs that most people run. Try it in a 50 turn game and you will see why it is cheap. The more expensive armor is usually good in any situation.

The best bang for the buck German tank is the Panther. Having said that I never buy them or any other German tank. German tank destroyers are always a better investment. Why? Because they can rotate in place in CM (something they could not do in real life) and German turrets are so slow. A Tiger I costs 172 points and a Jagdpanzer IV/70 is 149. The Jagdpanzer is much tougher frontally and has a better gun vs. armor. It can also rotate to face a target faster than the Tiger can swing it's turret. And once rotated it has all of its frontal armor towards the enemy where the Tiger has only the turret front with its hull sides exposed.

As I mentioned earlier, in short-medium length games the Hetzer is far more dangerous than a Panzer IV at a much smaller price. Indeed, I don't know why anyone would ever buy a Panzer IV. It is one of the worst performers for its price on the German side. The Jadgpanzer IV costs the exact same amount and is far more survivable.

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You mean my Java coded Real Time Bar Fight Simulator Madmatt Mission: Beyond BiteMe ISN'T going to be published?!?

Madmatt

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Aacooper]

Let me jump in with some historical points:

Peiper's troops were stopped by engineers of the 1111th Engineer Combat Group. Though the engineers had been in Normandy, they didn't directly fight against Germans until Peiper came along. So, they would probably be "green". The 30th Division, to grunto's point, was east of Aachen when the Ardennes started, and was one of the best US divisions. Remember it was a battalion of the 30th that held at Mortain -- one of the best US defensive stands ever.

As far as US troops being "green" or "regular", well it all depends. A lot of US divisions got 2 years of training before they shipped overseas. Some were better prepared than others. 90th Division did famously horrible, whereas divisions like the 104th or 100th did pretty well. If you're doing a historical scenario you have to figure out how experienced the US troops were, and how good they were. If the division recently got a bunch of replacements, well a certain percentage of squads should be "green".

The same goes for Germans. For example, in a fight to cross the Moselle River near Metz, the Germans had a "stomach" battalion (which melted away) near SS battalions, near elements of the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division (rated Class II at that time). So, it all depends -- do your research and give the appropriate troops.

[Treeburst155]

Vanir,

That was a very enlightening post! I do believe you are absolutely right. Thanks for sharing that.

Treeburst155

[chrisl]

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

Why? Because they can rotate in place in CM (something they could not do in real life) and German turrets are so slow.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The PSW 234/3 has a similar advantage over the Puma-- it has no turret, yet gets rounds on target faster than the Puma, because the Puma doesn't rotate the hull simultaneously with the turret to bring the gun to bear, and has a slow turret. The 234/3 rotates the hull pretty quickly. Tanks don't seem to have this problem-- they'll rotate both together, and so the advantage of a fast rotating turretless vehicle over a slow turreted vehicle isn't usually there.

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Slayer of the Original Cesspool Thread.

[Vanir]

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

Tanks don't seem to have this problem-- they'll rotate both together, and so the advantage of a fast rotating turretless vehicle over a slow turreted vehicle isn't usually there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would have to do some tests to be sure, but from what I have seen, I think tanks usually only move the turret when they are in a hurry to engage a target (the target is already shooting at them). They then bring the hull around in between firing shots. This may differ from tank to tank, depending on how fast the turret is and how fast it can rotate it's hull, I'm not sure. I do know in a recent game an enemy Mark IV wandered out in front of one of my Stuarts and spotted it when my Stuart was about 70 degrees off to the left side of it. It moved its turret around only. And ate some 37mm through the upper side hull just before it fired

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You mean my Java coded Real Time Bar Fight Simulator Madmatt Mission: Beyond BiteMe ISN'T going to be published?!?

Madmatt