My disappointment with CMBB

[JulianJ]

Hi all,

I've been playing CMBO for about 18 months and thoroughly enjoyed it - with a few reservations. I am a grog for sure, given that I've been playing board & tabletop wargames for 30 years, and I like the relatively few thinking strategic/tactical computer wargames on the market.Clickfests are for caffeined-up teens...

So I though buying CMBB would be a no-brainer as I've more or less exhausted CMBO. Having had a few install probs I had time to read through the manual (Joy oh Joy, a manual!)

SO far I've been pretty disappointed - my troops appear to act like scared-cats, a whiff of cordite and they're panicking or routed.

But these aren't the Italians, this is the Wehrmacht...a Muhamad Ali among armies, and in 1941 at the top of its game... (Martin Van Crefeld's Fighting Power sums up the position).

I've found myself getting angry and giving up in disgust. I feel there are serious game-modeling failures. For example Iron Roadblock - with 20/20 hindsight I know it's a KV and I can only penetrate it in the rear - I've dashed across the open ground, taking losses from the Wittmanski in the KV who scarcely seems to miss (don't believe it). My troops panic and retreat exposing themselves to much more fire than if they carried out the high speed dash to the objective woods (don't believe it).

My 88 crews panic and retreat (even though they wouldn't know what a KV is) and quite frankly I'd expect them to get their gun into action asap and whack it.

I sneaked a Pz 38t round behind the thing keeping out of sight. But the tank commander who must have esp (don't believe it) whips his turret (even though he's facing enemies from the front) round and fires on the Panzer, who could move forward fast to get shot into the rear, or retreat, guess what he does?

Yes, I accept that KVs and T34s were excellent tanks and a nasty shock to the Germans, but this thing is invincible, and a dead-eye dick with apparently 360 degree radar, and I cannot accept that.

Any help or advice for me?

cheers

Julian

[Bone_Vulture]

A single hint:

Quit whining about the infantry. They were downgraded to realistic, from the CM:BO übermensch that could assault an MG nest over open ground without a drop of sweat.

[Trommelfeuer]

The "Iron Roadblock" can be disabled without great losses by "hail-fire" - if enough grenades hit the KV the crew panics and runs away...( or the gun is damaged / track broken, etc...)

Regards, Sven

[kipanderson]

Julian, hi,

You make very reasonable points, and to some extent I sympathise with your view, having enjoyed CMBO so much.

However, although CMBO was in very way a generational leap in wargaming (I still cannot believe how lucky we all were to get it) there was, in hindsight, one major flaw in the combat modelling. In CMBO our digital, virtual soldiers are too heroic. That really says it all.

At this point I realise you may be thinking, “oh no they are not” or “who says so...” But the truth is that nearly all, there is bound to be the odd exception, who have witnessed real combat agree that in CMBO the digital warriors are too brave. They are not suppressed nearly easily enough. In CMBO it is too difficult to frighten them into changing their behaviour.

The changes made to the suppression modelling in CMBB were very carefully tested with the help of those with real experience of how men behave in battle, under fire.

What you see in CMBB is how war really is. The challenge is to try and win battles using digital soldier who are desperate to live and take a dim view to premature death. For me this is a huge improvement over CMBO and greatly adds to the fun. But not everyone agrees it makes the game more “fun”. I certainly believe the more realistic suppression coding increases the fun; but everyone to their own .

All the best,

Kip.

[JamesT73J]

I know it can seem a bit of a shock when you encounter certain aspects of CMBB in comparison to CMBO.

Heavy tanks are one area, and the care you need to exercise over infantry is another. German infantry is still very effective in CMBB (the LMG's are superb) but you can't expect them to just steam forward in the open without any consequences. If anything, it's due to the increased effectiveness of HMG/LMG fire. I can quite imagine that a single tank's machine gun gave your squads a nervous fit - it's happened to me many a time, and I have also inflicted it on the opposing forces too.

The big tanks are quite a surprise. You'll get frustrated with the T-34's rather alot as well. They have a high firing rate, fast turret traverse, and their armour (all round!) is excellent. I've lost scores of PZIII's and IV's trying to battle it out with them. I remember reading in Anthony Beever's 'Stalingrad' about a Panzer groups early encounter with T-34s on the Steppe that were camouflaged - they ended up defeating the Russians via coordination and maneuver, rather than trying to take them on directly.

This kind of thing is impossible to simulate at the moment. In an ideal world, your virtual tank crews would plan their own flanking maneuvers on their own initiative, but I guess that's something we'll have to wait a few years for!

[Dook]

Julian,

I had the same initial impression of CMBB as you. After time, however, my opinion of the game has changed. I had been playing CMBO for three plus years and had become quite accustomed to the bravery of my little pixel warriors. The change to the more realistic behavior of CMBB troops thus came as quite a shock. The behavior is, however, much more realistic. In real life, very few troops willingly run long distances across open ground in the face of heavy machine gun fire without getting scared witless or tired, as they do in CMBO. I now prefer CMBB and CMAK to CMBO.

What prompted the change?

First, it took time and some trial and error to understand what my troops could/would and couldn't/wouldn't do in CMBB.

Second, the recognition that it takes longer in CMBB than in CMBO to do the same thing helped. I extended the length of the games I play, reducing the time pressure and thus the need to take unrealistic risks just because the scenario was going to end.

Third, the upgrade to v. 1.03 (which took me a long time to do b/c of the size of the patches and my slow dial-up connection) greatly improved things. There is still some behavior under fire that irks me, but it's not nearly as bad.

So, give it time, take more time, and upgrade to v. 1.03 if you haven't done so already. Hope this helps.

Dook

P.S. For Iron Roadblock, use speed, maneuver, and numbers (hail fire) to get close and force abandonment of the KV-1.

[Sirocco]

This has been debated at length previously, and as has been repeated here, infantry modelling is much more accurate in CMBB and CMAK than it was in CMBO. You can't run infantry around the map as you could in CMBO. Even without the new fatigue modelling it's likely they'd be suppressed by MG fire and go to ground. You have to be much more circumspect and precise in your plans. In short you have to be much more of a real world commander.

[Sirocco]

And even though it might be difficult to adjust, remember that it's a well worn path you're following.

[Sanok]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

in hindsight, one major flaw in the combat modelling. In CMBO our digital, virtual soldiers are too heroic. That really says it all.

Why did BFC do this? Couldn't it have been corrected in any of the patches? I *really* enjoy BO over BB, though I do like the better infantry model of BB. If BFC would have corrected this flaw in BO, I'd have been an extremely happy BO gamer.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JulianJ:

I sneaked a Pz 38t round behind the thing keeping out of sight. But the tank commander who must have esp (don't believe it) whips his turret (even though he's facing enemies from the front) round and fires on the Panzer, who could move forward fast to get shot into the rear, or retreat, guess what he does?

As other posters seem to have addressed your other complaints adequately, I'll take this one on.

Yes, I think in this you are absolutely right. It has been brought up several if not many times that buttoned AFVs have too much spotting ability. In some cases that can be attributed to borg spotting. This is something one hopes will get fixed in the engine rewrite.

And it does appear that inferior tanks are now very timid about confronting an AFV that is almost certain to kill them and which they in turn cannot kill through the frontal aspect. This would be reasonable behavior if they were always confronting the frontal aspect. Unfortunately, as written, the code does not appear to recognize that it has a good killing prospect when the opposing AFV is pointed somewhere else. Hopefully this too will get addressed in the engine rewrite.

Michael

[Guest Manstein22]

In some cases that can be attributed to borg spotting.

It is especially strange when you realice how easily a buttoned tank finds the placement of a PaK and destroyes it within some shots. In a book about the battle near Lake Ladoga I found two pictures were a PaK is only in a distance of 100m from the tank it destroyes and apearently the tank runs down a clearing strait towards the PaK. How come the tank didn`t spot that AT gun? Must have been not in CMBB.

Manstein22

[dieseltaylor]

JulianJ

I do not think you can kill the KV from the rear at all ...! You will notice that the KV scomes fitted with a five man crew, vision/pistol slits in the side, and a rear machine gun in the turret so I am not at all surprised it notices a tank sneaking about on a battlefield devoid of cover.

As an 88mm flak crew man your are probably very aware what a nice big target an 88mm is and how long it takes to get it ready to fire -- I would credit the little pixels with enough intelligence to know when the barrel starts pointing there way its time to go.

The point about hidden guns destroying tanks at quite close range is not surprising - moving guns up and hoping a tank does not notice is very much chancier.

BTW in North Afrika where a Panzer group ran into an artillery regiment set up in an olive grove , the closest they found one tank to its eventual killer was 6 feet from the muzzle of a six pounder - thats scarily close.

[kipanderson]

Sanok, hi,

“Why did BFC do this? Couldn't it have been corrected in any of the patches? I *really* enjoy BO over BB, though I do like the better infantry model of BB. If BFC would have corrected this flaw in BO, I'd have been an extremely happy BO gamer.”

The answer is that the new suppression/morale model, in CMBB, involved a lot of work. As I understand it. It was not just matter of adjusting one parameter… the machine gun coding also had to be changed a good deal. Quite a number of factors were changed to give us the suppression model we now have.

All the best,

Kip.

[Sanok]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Sanok, hi,

“Why did BFC do this? Couldn't it have been corrected in any of the patches? I *really* enjoy BO over BB, though I do like the better infantry model of BB. If BFC would have corrected this flaw in BO, I'd have been an extremely happy BO gamer.”

The answer is that the new suppression/morale model, in CMBB, involved a lot of work. As I understand it. It was not just matter of adjusting one parameter… the machine gun coding also had to be changed a good deal. Quite a number of factors were changed to give us the suppression model we now have.

All the best,

Kip.

I'm not a programmer, so I don't know all the work that needed to be done, but it still would have been nice if BFC could have done it for BO. I know I'll eventually get AK to have the western allies again, but I really enjoy the simplicity of BO.

[UgliElmo]

I have just finished a June 1941, Central battle as the German army. My opponent took 5 T-34s and knowing how the Russian armor at the time was overpowering, I chose an infantry army. I had 3 82mm, 8 Heavy Machinegun teams, several 50mm motor squads, and the rest a mix of infantry units, with an emphasis on "anti-tank" capabilities.

I snuck up to the 4 flags, (3 small, 1 large) and ended up getting a few units there first and hiding them. as my slower units approached the objectives, my opponent's T-34s showed up and began routing my men left and right. I had units routing while they were hidden and without ever having been fired upon. I had enough units and HQs to recover these routing troops, but the tanks seemed to have an endless supply of MG ammo, and while the strategy guide says to shoot at them to get them to button up, I found being buttoned up did not effect their spotting ability. I could also understand the tanks being able to spot my men while buttoned, if they had radios. They do not. I also could understand them spying me thru the front arc of the MG which is front mounted, but they seemed to be able to immediately spot me even when I was to their rear flank. Not only this, but they were able to fire the MG at my rear-flanking unit, which to me does not seem right.

My question is, having read some of the responses is: Does the 1941 T-34 have slits in the back and sides of the tank where the crew could spot for the gunners? If so, does the MG have the capability to shoot to the rear arc of the T-34 it is on? I found out the hard way that trying to assault a T-34 from even a short distance away is mostly futile unless you can hit it from several directions at once. I ended up taking out 3 of my opponent's T-34s, but the losses were greater than the gain, and time ran out before I could recover my troops and make a move on my opponent's weak flank. If I had more time than 30 moves, I probably could have made a good showing, as it was I think I did well to get a 40% to 60% loss.

Overall, I do not have a problem with the units being pinned, shaken, broken, and routed when caught in the open by machiegun or HE fire. My big problem is when a unit is hiding, while in the command of an HQ (with a morale bonus), and it gives up its safe position to run away, knowing that it will be massacred by the enemy. The smart thing to do would be to stay hiding, until you are sure the enemy has spotted you, THEN you can either fight or run.

My other problem, as you also have noted, is with the uncanny spotting ability of the T-34, and probably other tanks, as I play more time-frames.

I like CMBB over CMBO, because I never liked the fact that infantry units could overrun machinegun positions without taking massive losses. I think they have handled this very well and the reactions of the units are mostly accurate, in my opinion.

As CMBB stands, the side which has the best armor will be the side that wins, given equally skilled opponents. Unless there is a trick to taking out the early T-34s or KV-1s which I am unaware of.

I have Afrika Corp, but have not played it much, since my friends do not have the game yet and also due to the fact I have several CMBB PBEMs ongoing with them. Have these issues been addressed in Afrika Corp? Or will I find the same spotting ability for "Buttoned" tanks? For all I know, this spotting ability might have been a feature the game's developers put in. I do not know the abilities of the T-34, other than what I have read in the strategy guide.

Do not feel that I am whining about CMBB, it is just these two issues which I have noticed, and since this post addressed them, I thought I would comment here. I love wargames and PBEM games and look forward to coming home from work each night and making my moves for the 10 games I have going on right now.

Great game, keep up the good work. Also, please come up with a nice strategy guide for CMAK, which includes the tables of stats for each unit and when they became available. My enjoyment of the game increased tenfold after I bought the CMBB strategy guide.

[JasonC]

Tanks are not blind when buttoned. Situational awareness is reduced, and some tanks suffer from it more than others, due to layout and vision devices. But essentially all WW II tanks had multiple ways of seeing things.

In the case of the T-34, the driver had a main periscope sight with a relatively wide field of view straight ahead, and two smaller, narrow field periscopes right and left front. These were mostly meant to see where he was going and to watch for obstacles when making turns, respectively. The hull MG had a 25 degree field of fire forward.

The main visual systems were for the gunner. A telescopic sight was slaved to the main gun and coaxial, with a narrow field of view. But most sighting was done with a panoramic periscope sight at the same position, the went up out of the top of the turret. It had a 25 degree field of view and 2x mag available, and full traverse around the tank. It elevated and depressed as well. When used with the main gun its elevation could be matched to that of the gun.

In addition there were two small view ports on the sides of the turret, high up, above small pistol ports. There was also a pistol port at the rear of the turret - the very earliest models mounted a rear firing turret MG there instead.

This was comparatively poor visual layout for a WW II medium tank. The fields of view were not particularly wide, the best mag available was 2x, and it was a 2 man turret with panoramic sight only for the gunner. Maximum situational awareness, unbuttoned, would be much better than when buttoned. But there are 3 sets of eyes looking, 2 forward and 1 whenever he likes.

Good AFVs had cupolas for the commander as well as a sight for the gunner. These had 360 vision from a set of sights all around the cupola, allowing the commander to see in all directions while buttoned, just by turning his head. Buttoned or not, he then concentrated on picking up targets and passing them to the gunner, who then trained his sight on them. Good AFVs had powerful optics at the gunner position, with variable mag up to 8 times.

All of that is directed at real world tank sighting stuff, to correct the idea that tanks are blinkered mules only able to see things directly in front etc.

In CMBB and AK, the main effect of buttoning on a radioless tank is to increase its command delays. The tank goes out of command - radioless AFVs need to be unbuttoned to receive command benefits from a platoon HQ tank. Early war tanks, Russian tanks, green tanks, being out of command - all compound the effect. So do complicated orders involving even 3 or 4 waypoints.

A buttoned green T-34 can easily face command delays over a minute, or be restricted to single waypoint moves if they want to move out in 45 seconds. The result is that large groups of radioless tanks, buttoned, lose tactical flexibility and the ability to coordinate their actions on the fly. Which matters most in large armor fights, 3000 point 2 km map affairs.

When all they have to do is sit and shoot, or move slightly to change what they can see every 3 minutes or so, the effect is nil. Note that having 2-man turrets, T-34/76s need to button to fire their main armament anyway, since the commander is working the gun.

As for general sighting issues in CM, some things it models carefully and are important to understand, others are so easy as to effectively be non-issues. Stationary infantry in cover is basically invisible until walked over. Bunkers in woods are until they fire, but will be fully IDed at range once they do. Small caliber items can remain mere sound contacts while firing - not accurately located - at longer ranges, and it is critical to understand how close one needs to get to various weapons to get a full ID. The same happens with bigger weapons, but at ranges so long they rarely matter in CM fights.

Snipers can remain sound down to 100m. ATRs and MGs more like 200m. Small arms fire from regular infantry, more like 300m. Light AA, it depends on the caliber, but 250mm for the small stuff and 400-500m from the bigger stuff is the ballpark. Small PAK - 37mm, 45mm - it is more like 600-750m. Bigger stuff goes 1 km plus and rarely remains unlocated at CM distances, but can. (E.g. a firing 88mm FLAK in a foxhole in brush will remain sound down to 1800m or so).

Vehicles are generally spotted as soon as there is LOS. Moving infantry in the open is spotted at practically any range. Stationary infantry in the open, or moving infantry in cover, will generally be seen while for a while, then be lost as a flag marker (e.g. when it hides at the end of a move, in steppe). The longer the range the more likely this is. But the critical case tends to be getting someone close enough for a full ID of a stationary but shooting unit in cover, as outlined above.

Infantry in CMBB and AK is not the uber arm it was in BO. That was overmodeled and the correction is welcome. Yes this makes armor much more important and rightly so. More effective MGs and easier pinning when under fire, both make armored MG nests much more effective against infantry, particularly in open ground. A pair of Pz IIs in the open can easily hold off a company. They won't kill it, they don't have the ammo or the HE power. But it won't get to them without being pinned in the open by MG fire.

Infantry needs to get to 30m or so to be dangerous to armor. It also needs to be unpinned, as it generally will not use infantry AT weapons at all while under fire or heads down. In practice, infantry holds cover it is in against armor, but has very little offensive ability against moving armor with functioning armament. Which is realistic, it didn't. Only in especially favorable terrain, or against boneheaded tank driving (e.g. by the AI), will it typically do more than hold its immediate environment, from ambush.

Infantry *force types*, as opposed to squads, do have effective anti tank weapons. But they are based on towed guns for the most part. Late in the war the Germans and western Allies get effective HEAT based infantry AT, that extends the range from 30m or so to more like 100-150m. Early, tanks just need to stay 50 to 100m away from cover, and late more like 200-300m away. They can then blast IDed infantry with impunity, if heavier weapons do not protect them.

Again, this is as is should be. Infantry holds ground against armor by using terrain that the armor can't negotiate. The interiors of woods, cities, up steep slopes or behind belts of rough, streams, marsh, or artifical obstacles (mines, roadblocks). They also hold the edges of these things by "skulking" back through the cover when threatened by a tank, then returning. (Out the back of the building, with the whole building between them and the tank, not one wall, etc).

Close behind a crest, reverse slope positions can also keep the range short enough. A platoon can hold 100m of frontage against tanks with the right terrain - without trying to advance.

As for the MG ammo of a T-34, the standard load varied with the model but in the range 3000 to 5000 rounds for its 2 MGs. Rather a lot really. The HE load was also large, and 76mm HE is an effective caliber for direct fire. Making them strong anti-infantry tanks.

In CMBB they also get rather overmodeled canister, which some evidence suggests are mininterpreted shrapnel rounds that ought to be more like ordinary HE in effectiveness. The AT ability is what is undermodeled, and to some extent the front turret armor (due to the way "curved" is handled, "as an angle").

The right way to fight T-34s in 1941 is definitely not trying to swarm over them with gobs of ordinary infantry. Pz IIIHs can duel them hull down. 28mm squeeze bore guns are effective against them, while remaining stealthy. And larger towed guns work, though they also can be killed by them in reply - 50mm PAK, 105mm howitzers, 88mm FLAK. Hail fire can defeat them with enough shooters. As for using infantry on them, pioneers are the best at it, but still need terrain to get close enough.

Does the side with the better tanks always win? It helps. The armor war matters more than it did in CMBO, where uber infantry or heavy HE as a counter to it were the dominant arms. Full combined arms works best, and ranged heavy weapons are now an additional, fully effective arm (MGs, light guns, etc). They don't just pinprick anymore, they can actually hold ground by firepower and live to tell about it (stealth plus easier pinning plus high ammo loads etc).

As for using CMBB and AK infantry, it attacks slower than in BO and uses different tactical drills. Short "advance" from cover to cover, by bounds, is the way to move. With some units recovering from being shot at while others creep closer. BB&AK infantry attacks typically advance 25-50m per minute. But in 10-15 minutes they will cross even open ground defended by MGs.

They do so not by rushing, but by using "rally power" to spread out the enemy shots at long range and absorb them, without permanent loss. Once enough infantry accumulates in cover close enough to fully ID enemy shooters, its firepower can melt them. The final attack follows breaking any "up and shooting" defenders from 100m away or so.

I hope this helps.

[ April 10, 2004, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[UgliElmo]

Thnx Jason. Let me ask just a few more questions so I am sure I understand what you have stated above:

1. So you say the June 41 T-34s may have an extra MG in the back instead of a pistol slit? That would explain how the tank was able to shoot at me thru its rear flank.

2. You also say it is better to advance over very short distances instead of longer advances to keep your men from routing from sustained MG fire? What would be the best length in meters to advance over open terrain and taking fire from Machine gun units at 600 meters or so? You said 15 minutes (which would take 30 turns), so it would seem to me it would be a very short advance indeed each turn. If this is so, I think that may have been my problem. My guys would get tired fast and I would have to rest them after the long advance. They then would rout easily when under fire (probably due to the "tiring" fatigue factor).

3. I actually killed 3 of the T-34s in that June 1941 game. My opponent may have gotten a bit overconfident or thought I didn't have any men left in the woods he had just routed 3 of my units from. He moved two of his T-34s up and was just passing the woods when I popped up 3 more units and demo-charged the T-34ws into submission. Of course his following SMG infantry destroyed those 3 units, but it was a good trade-off in my opinion. After the tanks died, I was able to mass my remaining rifle unit fire and take out those SMGs. I then controlled the area for a bit until he sent two more T-34s over and I had to hide my men again. This time he stayed back, hull down, on a high spot overlooking the valley where my men were now stuck. Once he stayed put, I could not approach his tanks anymore without losing alot of my men. I attacked at another spot in his line on the other flank, but he held fast at the 300 point flag and I did not have time to slowly attack/hide the way I would normally do. The game was 30 turns, but I think if I played it again I would have made it 50. Near the end of the game at turn 28 I DID rush the two tanks with about 12 panzer rifle units and was able to take out one of the remaining 3 T-34s, but it cost me all 12 units in doing so. They were routed or killed outright from all of the up-close MG fire.

Once again Jason thanks for your help in explaining what I had seen in my last game. I will have to be more fully aware of the abilities of the tanks I am fighting against. I just thought it odd that MG fire would come from the rear of the T-34 when the tanks picture showed only the forward-facing one.

[ April 11, 2004, 01:56 AM: Message edited by: UgliElmo ]

[JasonC]

There are many threads on the way to advance in CMBB and AK. The short answer is the right length is typically between 50m and 100m per "bound". But you don't move each unit continually. The platoon "walks" by having some moving while others are on their command delay.

At the end of each advance, the moving guys "&hide", if out of range to shoot back themselves. (Even in the open. Steppe is better and good cover as a waypoint is best, obviously). Pinned units don't move out. Units under fire stop and hide. Units that sneak sideways ("cover panic") are halted. Short advances or sneaks can be used to get into nearby cover in these cases. Units at "tiring" can keep going, but once they hit "tired" they rest for at least a minute.

The net effect is that which units are leading and moving and visible, cycles over time. Units hit have time to rally, before being asked to move again. Rally is a function of time. By stretching the length of the advance in time, and spreading out the fire received, everybody is kept in higher morale states. Rally is also faster up in those states, than it is in the deeper ones (pinned, broken).

So you have one guy at alerted, one pinned, maybe one cautious too - for 6 minutes on end, different ones at different times - rather than 2 units routed and the others OK. The pauses also rest the men.

The basic idea is not to push the men into the fire too hard, but instead to creep in, only as rapidly as they can stand the resulting fire. Pushing too hard is what makes the formation "come apart". And coming apart - some pinned, some routed to the rear, some still advancing, all spread out - gets only a piecemeal force to closer range. The defenders outshoot those piecemeal forces and the whole attack fails.

So, no "pushing". Listen to the men, in the sense of watching their morale states and asking less of them when they start to get scared. Asking less means more time spent in cover or hiding, less spent continually pushing forward. You don't stop, but you do slow down. And that lets the fresher subunits (taking less fire, with better cover, or just had more rally time recently) take the lead.

As for turret rear MGs, in reality the first 110 or 120 model T-34 As had them, the rest of the run did not. I don't recall them being modeled in CM, but I haven't checked the exact month. Some other types have them (BTs iirc).

As for what you did, the ambush was the right thing, the last minute rush obviously was not. It wasn't worth it to KO one tank. Better to not give him the knockout points for all of that infantry, and let him keep the flag. It is rarely a good idea to give the other guy his dream arms match up, and an infantry charge over open ground at tanks is about as good as it gets - for the tanks. But then, you found that out yourself.

[Schoerner]

I agree with Manstein22:

AT-guns are sometimes way too easily spotted (i hope the new engine will allow to give AT-guns extra camouflage-levels).

Especially the fantastic 88 is almost useless in close engagements, although they were used that way, too. They were even moved on the HKL during the battle.

In general i'm missing the brave behaviour of German and Russian gun-crews. They take cover, although in reality they kept shooting as fast as possible. The rules for taking cover of AT-crews should be modeled different from those to infantry.

[UgliElmo]

Thanks for your help JasonC. I knew the end of game rush wouldnt work, but I knew the outcome was decided already and I REALLY wanted to kill that tank! I got a little "gamey", but the unpredictability of that move might effect my friends tactics in the next game, to work to my advantage! Of course, he may be reading this forum too and I just gave my strategy away.

[Ant]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

I agree with Manstein22:

AT-guns are sometimes way too easily spotted (i hope the new engine will allow to give AT-guns extra camouflage-levels).

Especially the fantastic 88 is almost useless in close engagements, although they were used that way, too. They were even moved on the HKL during the battle.

In general i'm missing the brave behaviour of German and Russian gun-crews. They take cover, although in reality they kept shooting as fast as possible. The rules for taking cover of AT-crews should be modeled different from those to infantry.

I thought that during WW2 AT guns were very easily spotted once they'd fired (no smokeless ammo, dust kicked up etc.)

From my experience I find that AT guns are pretty good at remaining hidden until they actually fire.

[Sergei]

In a real battle, there were all sorts of distractions - when you have artillery battalions unleashed and armoured vehicles are milling around and there is smoke everywhere and so on, a single gun might be hard to notice, especially from inside a tank.

Then again, it DID happen that just after a 45mm ATG had shot one shot at the side of a German StuG 500m away and missed, the assault gun immediately rotated to its direction and blew the gun away with just one grenade. That's not particularly likely to happen in CM either.

[JasonC]

There are numerous AARs of whole tank companies coming under long range ATG fire and taking losses, retreating in confusion, because they could not locate the shooters even after sustained firing. At long range, the time between the actual shot and the arrival of the shell is a couple of seconds. Long enough for flash etc to be gone. Even the best tank aces say finding the ATGs was hard. At short range obviously it becomes much easier.

[Conscript Bagger]

Originally posted by JasonC:

At short range obviously it becomes much easier.

My tankers would agree. "Yep, that's the gun that killed us right there."

[Aco4bn187inf]

There were other problems apart from flash and smoke. In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut (who was captured in the Bulge) writes that US AT guns (37mm, 57mm?) left a big black smear in the snow after they fired, giving away their position.