engine 2

[Cauldron]

Hy,

I know this has been done to death.. but I just wanna put my 2 pence in ...

engine 2:

Pleazzzeeee fix the rediculous perimiter model.

Please fix the operations so they kinda work. Having flags in op's might focus things ok.

Moving through buildings might be considered important instead of around them. )

For the video hounds among us, continous video footage would be good.

There has been a fixation with getting armour and the " bang for your buck" issue right. I think it is time to get the GAME component working.

There has already been discussion on infantry under fire and thier propensity to want to get killed, PF teams that refuse to fire at an AFV 20 m away but glady expend all ammo at an infantry squad the same distance.

I do not for a second think these issues are simple to solve, the programming effort is pretty amazing up till now, but I would be amazed if most of the talk for the next engine is not game related as opposed to " technical" related.

May the force be with you BTS

eric

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Cauldron,

"Perimeter model" ?? Waddaya mean ?

If it's the flag control model, in this case why do you then ask for it in operations ??

[Berlichtingen]

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

Moving through buildings might be considered important instead of around them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bit difficult with a wall in the way. Mouse holing you say? Requires engineers with the explosives to do it... not as common as you may think

[Tero]

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

Bit difficult with a wall in the way. Mouse holing you say? Requires engineers with the explosives to do it... not as common as you may think<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How big a bang do you need to go through a wooden wall or a single layer brick wall ? What about the use of rams and other non-explosive devices ?

What do you think about differnet load outs for infantry to simulate different levels of preparedness ? They would carry different loads as needed according to the type of battle: march, hasty attack, deliberate attack, street fighting, assault, ambush, delaying action, hasty defence, deliberate defence, counter attack.

Also, more ammo should be given to dug in units. Once they move they revert to standart ammo load.

[Berlichtingen]

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

How big a bang do you need to go through a wooden wall or a single layer brick wall ? What about the use of rams and other non-explosive devices ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How big a bang? Not that big really... but it does have to be done right. Chuck a grenade up to a wall ain't no guarantee you're going to make a hole. Also, the situation he describes only occurs in large stone buildings... the seperating wall would be stone, not wood

[Cauldron]

the bang for the buck statement was against AP values not " moving through buildings".

I only add this so the thread stays within the scope intended.

thanks

eric

[mikeadams]

Most attached/terraced houses in Europe tend to be brick or stone, not wood. This means that getting through a wall is not trivial. Given the length of most battles it is unlikely you would have time to break through. from my readings of WWII city fighting, this was not a common issue since the battles were not protracted. In CM2 with Stalingrad-type conditions then it might be more useful.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

How big a bang? Not that big really... but it does have to be done right. Chuck a grenade up to a wall ain't no guarantee you're going to make a hole.

Agreed. But once you see it done properly you can DIY in no time.

I wonder how it is actually done using a land mine without blowing the operator apart. I know the mine is put against the wall and held in place with a support but how is the mine detonated ?

Also, the situation he describes only occurs in large stone buildings... the seperating wall would be stone, not wood

In CM I have seen also wooden buildings adjacent to each other. And when you plot a move from buiding to another AI replots the move outside, not straight from buiding to building.

[Warphead]

Right now I am sitting in a German house in the center of Wiesbaden built 1870. The outside wall to the neighbouring house is 80 cm of big boulders (shale) and clay. The neighbouring house is built in the same way. No wonder the AI does not want to plot moves through 160 cm of stones...

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Warphead-:

Right now I am sitting in a German house in the center of Wiesbaden built 1870. The outside wall to the neighbouring house is 80 cm of big boulders (shale) and clay. The neighbouring house is built in the same way. No wonder the AI does not want to plot moves through 160 cm of stones...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gamey AI bastard, but once you learn how to do it, it is easy.

[Slapdragon]

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

Hy,

I know this has been done to death.. but I just wanna put my 2 pence in ...

engine 2:

Pleazzzeeee fix the rediculous perimiter model.

Please fix the operations so they kinda work. Having flags in op's might focus things ok.

Moving through buildings might be considered important instead of around them. )

For the video hounds among us, continous video footage would be good.

There has been a fixation with getting armour and the " bang for your buck" issue right. I think it is time to get the GAME component working.

There has already been discussion on infantry under fire and thier propensity to want to get killed, PF teams that refuse to fire at an AFV 20 m away but glady expend all ammo at an infantry squad the same distance.

I do not for a second think these issues are simple to solve, the programming effort is pretty amazing up till now, but I would be amazed if most of the talk for the next engine is not game related as opposed to " technical" related.

May the force be with you BTS

eric

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are many mistakes in your reasoning.

At 20 meters, firing a Faust is an act of courage. So that reluctance is just a real representation of the squad getting the weapon into position, and then some guy crouching with it and going "oh ****." Unlike common thoughts here, squads are not automatons that immediately do the right thing. The presence of a tank is a factor that effects morale.

Try the same thing with a Crack squad and a Green squad. A tank can break a green squad merely by sitting next to it.

All BTS research discussed elswhere shows that while a hollywood trick, mouseholling was uncommon at best, dangerous, and mostly planned ahead of time and executed by engineers. It was just not something a bunch of dog faces choose to do suddenly and got to work. Infantry squads have a limited amount of explosives, and explosives that are designed to do the wrong thing. Engineers have the rigtht stuff, but they may not do it either. In Stalingrad and Berlin, two places where it was done, it was part of a well planned out and practiced strategy of building movement to improve positions and flank the enemy, and was just not done as a whim under fire.

So some of what you want is just not realistic. Which may effect BTS and their willpower to add these features.

[Slapdragon]

Tripe removed by request of other board members.

[ 09-26-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]

[Fairbairn-Sykes]

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

Mouse holing you say?... not as common as you may think<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps - indeed frequency may be the issue here, but, some attention to specifics such as the composition of the wall and overall type of structure might impact the ability to perform this task within CM's buildings.

Furthermore, in the book For King & Country: British Airborne Uniforms and Equipment in WWII [©1999 Harlan Glenn], the author writes that the Red Devil veterans he interviewed stated they used the PIAT for "mouse-holing" with some frequency in several theatres - it was a "preferred method for house to house" fighting. Of course, the PIAT was spring-loaded so it didn't create the backblast of a Zook or Schreck that would endanger a building's occupants. this could introduce new approaches to urban combat in buildings that don't just vaporize after repeated structural hits (as they do currently).

[ 09-26-2001: Message edited by: Fairbairn-Sykes Trench Knife ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

At 20 meters, firing a Faust is an act of courage. So that reluctance is just a real representation of the squad getting the weapon into position, and then some guy crouching with it and going "oh ****." Unlike common thoughts here, squads are not automatons that immediately do the right thing.

Unlike common thoughts here tank crews were basically blind as bats, especially if buttoned up. Getting within 20 meters and to a decent position was the hard part. If done right the rest of the squad/platoon would tackle with the accompanying infantry while the AT guy does his thing.

Überfinns found Pzfaust and Pzschrecks to be ideal for infantry. They had been forced to use satchel charges, mines and Molotovs and with all these you had to actually "count coup" to score a kill (which was far tougher, practically impossible, with the later Red Army tanks and improved Red Army tactics).

During Winter War casualties among the close assault AT teams had been severe but that did not make getting volunteers any harder. Finnish troops had soon learned that while they look and sound menacing the men inside the tanks are just as scared as they are, only the tankers can not see their attackers most of the time.

The presence of a tank is a factor that effects morale. Try the same thing with a Crack squad and a Green squad. A tank can break a green squad merely by sitting next to it.

I have often wondered if this feature is a bit overemphasized in CM. Up to a point it is realistic but there are times when the squads seem to be just a bit too brittle, if you take into account the prevailing circumstances. The most blatant example I have seen was a case when a green squad was butchered in the open when it ran into the "cover is here, no cover is there" loop after it broke and ran from a position out of LOS to a nearby tank. Any RL squad would have either burrowed deeper or pulled back.

[Slapdragon]

OK, I should have said that normal squads, with the historical example of Willey Brandt, need to get into proper position with a faust (which takes time) and fire the faust (which take courage and experience or the thing goes ploink! off the side), but of course Finns are totally different, manfully able to fire from any angle without getting inrto position, and never botching a shot, nor hesitating from fear of the tank.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

but of course Finns are totally different, manfully able to fire from any angle without getting inrto position, and never botching a shot, nor hesitating from fear of the tank.

You are missing my point on purporse ?

With your extensive and highly accurate knowledge of the Finnish (military) history you should know how it went down and how Finnish infantry AT was organized.

The Soviet assault in 1944 started in June 9th/10th while the Pzfausts and Pzschrecks became available later into the campaign. Before that all our troops had were AT guns (of which were the PAK38 and PAK40 were useful) and satchel charges and Molotovs which proved to be ineffective against the newer Soviet models. Their use was also more dangerous as the Red Army tactics had changed and it was very difficult , practically impossible to get close enough (to a touching distance) to the tanks to use them. (BTW: that had happened even during the last stages of the Winter War when the Red Army had learned to be more mindfull of the safety of the tanks if they were stripped of their infantry screen).

Nevertheless they were all our troops had and when these stand off weapons became available the infantry was no longer impotent in the face of the new armour. Of course our troops panicked with the best of them and botched up shots with the best of them but they knew that the accompanying infantry was more of a menace to them than the tanks were. And that was because they knew tanks were essentially blind in the battlefield. They knew they could evade the tanks but they could not evade enemy infantry.

When they had been forced to use the satchel charges and Molotovs they had learned how to get into a position. With the stand off weapons it just became easier.

[Panzer Leader]

I know that it is becoming fashionable to pick on Cauldron and his inane comments but I think (and I'm sure most would agree) that it is bad form to publish a person's private email. Slapdragon, I might postulate that he EMAILED you privately in order to discuss this matter privately. But you always seem ready to pounce...

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Leader:

I know that it is becoming fashionable to pick on Cauldron and his inane comments but I think (and I'm sure most would agree) that it is bad form to publish a person's private email. Slapdragon, I might postulate that he EMAILED you privately in order to discuss this matter privately. But you always seem ready to pounce...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Except, Cauldron has started 38 threads in the past 50 he has posted to, 34 threads he never visited a second time. 15 or 19 threads were bomb threads (I believe that allied tungsten is to powerful... depends on what you call a bomb), and 8 threads he started recently were the exact same thread restarted after the original one.

So, when he e-mails me with a rude e-mail, why should it not be posted to the thread he threw the bomb in and left? It is nothing he did not say, and it was not a sensitive, lets take this off list to keep from gumming up the board. Also it was not a negotiation to be kept under the rose.

Perhaps if he was in the habit of posting more than once to a thread he starts it would not have been that big a deal. Von Shrad and I had a long discussion about this.

However, I do understand your point. I did not post the threats I got by e-mail last week to back off a subject "or face the conseqences", nor did I post the e-mails between Shrad and I where we worked out the Cauldron issue from another forum. They were off topic and had nothing to do with CM. Also, when someone and I agree to keep it off topic because it is a subject that cannot be successfully talked about on this forum, for example I am talking to someone about Finnish history, to another person about World War One tactics, I keep it off. If you e-mail me and ask me the weather I wouldn't post it. But if you e-mail me with tripe because the board is too hot, then I feel it should be posted.

[ 09-26-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]

[Joe Shaw]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Perhaps if he was in the habit of posting more than once to a thread he starts it would not have been that big a deal. Von Shrad and I had a long discussion about this.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> While I can certainly see your point, Slapdragon, I must regretfully {gag} agree with PanzerLeader on this one If I send a private email to someone, regardless of the content, I intend for that email to be private and not public.

By the same token, I tend to agree about Cauldron's "bombing". Mind you he could be one of those mega-enthusiasts who just CAN'T shut up about the game and has the BBS version of automatic writing

Joe

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joe Shaw:

While I can certainly see your point, Slapdragon, I must regretfully {gag} agree with PanzerLeader on this one If I send a private email to someone, regardless of the content, I intend for that email to be private and not public.

By the same token, I tend to agree about Cauldron's "bombing". Mind you he could be one of those mega-enthusiasts who just CAN'T shut up about the game and has the BBS version of automatic writing

Joe<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, perhaps you are correct. I will remove his tripe while I think it over further.