It's time for a ludicrous hypothetical question

[David I]

General Colt,

Ah, a jock then?

DavidI

[Stan Hope Park]

Perhaps the Battlefront crew will consider the option of making the next CM engine more moddable

This topic deserves a thread of its own. I've heard it said that Battlefront is leery of making the game too moddable for fear of losing sales. This is very different from the approach taken by Atomic/ Microsoft/ SSI with the Close Combat series. As I'm sure you are aware, Close Combat has been stripped down to its engine and rebuilt several times. It remains extremely popular. Indeed a new generation of Close Combat games have been or soon will be released.

Not bad for a game which is older than Combat Mission!

Nobody mods unpopular games.

[Redwolf]

Any side in WW2 had enough HE firing indirect that you would cause at least a maintainance nightmare for the owners of the modern tanks. If they can't see anything from wiped out vision devices they won't do much good.

Modern armor in that environment would at least have to have:

1) decent counterbattery capability (radar to spot batteries from the flying shells and then airplanes or own long-range artillery)

2) bridging, general engineering, which require even more protection from indirect fire

And then, you can drive anywhere, but then what? You can't eliminate static infantry hiding in isolated places. Your enemy won't be able to do anything, to move, but that doesn't mean you win the war.

Now, if you defend a country and can leave the attacker stranded without vehicles and without artillery, that'll be cool.

[Bone_Vulture]

On a second thought, the most effective thing to do would be to grant the faction of your choice a bit of a research boost: imagine if the Germans would've had complete schematics for turbojet fighters, early assault rifles and superior tank designs (like the Panther II) in, say, 1935?

[Major Belles]

Y'know, I was thinking, back to the original topic (modern tanks in WWII), I'll bet they'd eventually go down at the hands of enemy infantry - that's one of the best ways to take out any tank, if you can get close enough. Maybe?

[Cannon-fodder]

Y'know, I was thinking, back to the original topic (modern tanks in WWII), I'll bet they'd eventually go down at the hands of enemy infantry - that's one of the best ways to take out any tank, if you can get close enough. Maybe?

Well, that's unlikely - you have to remember that with a massive main gun and 1/2 MGs, infantry are pretty unlikely to get close. Many modern AT weapons have difficulties taking out the latest breed of tanks, thanks to composite armor. I think you'd probably want between 2 and 5 hits on a modern tank with an AT weapon in order to take it out nowadays... back in WW2 it would have been virtually impossible.

To be honest, given enough spare parts, a couple of divisions of Leopards Mk.II or Abrahams would be virtually unstoppable if used right. If the user just dug in, or concentrated on destroying the enemy forces, it would be possible for the enemy to win on attrition (though they would be so weakened they would lose the war anyway). If used to force a breakthrough, exploit it and push towards the hostile capital city, they could end the war in maybe a couple of weeks. The other troops in the army could then follow through in their wake.

Just remember that modern tanks are INCREDIBLY hard to kill. Composite armor means that even when, say, a Leopard is duking out with a Abraham, each could probably survive a couple of hits. Coupled with vast tactical training superiority, vastly better targetting equipment, impossibly harder hitting guns, more than double the top speeds and with much lower breakdown likelihoods, modern tanks are utterly superior to anything pre-1970, and could sweep away more than ten-times their number, given some reloads:)

Well that's my two cents:D Depressing, eh?

[dieseltaylor]

Gee if only they had had two divisions of modern tanks in Vietnam - game over.

No, hold it a minute what if the enemy refuses to fight unless it is mountainous, wooded or marshy, or built up areas.

[Bone_Vulture]

Vietnam was probably the worst possible theater for armor. In the jungle tanks are useless.

[flamingknives]

Actually, Vietnam wasn't as bad for armour as most people believe. There are a couple of papers on the subject floating around on the net. Try these links:

web page

web page

[Other Means]

So a couple of divisions of modern era armour are pushing towards your capital - what do you do?

Well to a large part you ignore it. What's it going to do? You can't hold ground with a couple of divisions of armour. Some would be taken out by mines, some would be hit by over the horizon arty, some would break down. And when it does what's going to fix it while under sniper fire and/or an arty strike.

500lb bombs would blow the tracks off anything, rivers would stop them. The crews have to eat. To use any weapon apart from guerillas you need a massive support tail. That is vulnerable and longer for modern weapons.

It's a nice image having Abrams/C2/L2 etc winning WWII but only in comics.

That sounds worse than I want it to - it's fun to imagine these things but they wouldn't work in the real world.

[Denwad]

do you guys really think a division doesn't have organic artillery and anti-aircraft weapons?

no JABO is going to evade a Stinger

no towed artillery will survive the counter-battery fire of 155mm shells

{EDIT} just because it's called an armor divison doesn't mean it's 100% armor, that is what's fantasy. Armor divisions have thier own mechanized infantry

[stikkypixie]

Just send in more aircrafts than there are stingers.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by Denwad:

do you guys really think a division doesn't have organic artillery and anti-aircraft weapons?

Unless the division also has a factory to produce munitions and spare parts, its fighting capability will wither in several weeks.

[Denwad]

that's true

[Foobar]

I think its a sad state of affairs that no-one has brought Mike Ditka into this yet....

[Bigduke6]

On the modern tanks in WW2, basically it would be like having a couple of divisions equipped only with basically a super Tiger II. You can kill everything, nothing can touch you. But you can still lose a war, because there's more to war than having the most uber-tank.

First, there is fuel quality. Modern tanks from what I have seen are pretty picky about muck in their diesel. WW2 diesel was pretty mucky, compared to the modern peacetime stuff. There's your first batch of maintenance casualties.

Second there is support. By this I don't just mean spare parts, whichi its own problem, but all the other stuff that goes into, well, making a modern tank division go. Tanks wear out fast just by using them. If I was in command of a WW2 front and I knew the enemy had two divisions of tanks of Merkavas or Challengers or whatever I couldn't touch, I would just retreat wherever the uber-tanks advanced, and advance wherever they weren't. Let the enemy play fire brigade with his modern tanks until they break. Hey - that's the recipe for fighting Tiger II.

My situation vs. the modern tanks gets even better if the modern tank divisions have to use WW2 supply channels. 'Nuff said.

Second to finally, a 500 lb dumb iron air bomb on target will trash a modern tank just fine, if it hits. Just look what the Iraqis or the Palestinians can do when they get 50 kg of plastique in the right place. Stack your P-47s or Stukas and let them have at the modern tank assembly areas.

Finally, those tanks may be modern, but the people inside them are no more intelligent, enduring, or technically skilled than 1940s humans. Those modern tankers still would have to sleep, eat, get letters, etc. So obviously go after that.

And if the people in those modern tanks are REAL modern people - meaning they just don't want a meal and some sleep during a war, they have to have three hots and e-mail and the modern PX you're going to have huge problems running those two armored divisions.

[Moon]

Originally posted by CSO_Talorgan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Perhaps the Battlefront crew will consider the option of making the next CM engine more moddable

This topic deserves a thread of its own. I've heard it said that Battlefront is leery of making the game too moddable for fear of losing sales. This is very different from the approach taken by Atomic/ Microsoft/ SSI with the Close Combat series. As I'm sure you are aware, Close Combat has been stripped down to its engine and rebuilt several times. It remains extremely popular. Indeed a new generation of Close Combat games have been or soon will be released.

Not bad for a game which is older than Combat Mission!

Nobody mods unpopular games. </font>

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

First, there is fuel quality. Modern tanks from what I have seen are pretty picky about muck in their diesel. WW2 diesel was pretty mucky, compared to the modern peacetime stuff. There's your first batch of maintenance casualties.

Perhaps the really modern stuff, but the previous generation of heavy armour, specifically the Chieftain, will run on just about anything short of tea. Tea being required to keep the crew going.

[Bone_Vulture]

Like I said before, it'd be more useful to take late war weapon schematics to pre-war time. This way the weapons could be both manufactured and maintained with the era's technology.

[Stan Hope Park]

Originally posted by Moon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CSO_Talorgan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Perhaps the Battlefront crew will consider the option of making the next CM engine more moddable

This topic deserves a thread of its own. I've heard it said that Battlefront is leery of making the game too moddable for fear of losing sales. This is very different from the approach taken by Atomic/ Microsoft/ SSI with the Close Combat series. As I'm sure you are aware, Close Combat has been stripped down to its engine and rebuilt several times. It remains extremely popular. Indeed a new generation of Close Combat games have been or soon will be released.

Not bad for a game which is older than Combat Mission!

Nobody mods unpopular games. </font>

[Bone_Vulture]

The interchangeability of the future CM releases remains to be seen...

[mikeadams]

There was a story some years back, in which aa modern fighter got transported back to WWI. Basically it flew too fast to deal with the old aircraft, the missiles couldn't see wood/fabric planes, so he used his wake turbulence to destroy them. Then he ran out of fuel, which was basically unavailable in WWI

[llama]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bigduke6:

First, there is fuel quality. Modern tanks from what I have seen are pretty picky about muck in their diesel. WW2 diesel was pretty mucky, compared to the modern peacetime stuff. There's your first batch of maintenance casualties.

Perhaps the really modern stuff, but the previous generation of heavy armour, specifically the Chieftain, will run on just about anything short of tea. Tea being required to keep the crew going. </font>

[flamingknives]

The high cost was something to do with the fuel consumption brought on by the ability to use anything and everything. In any case, the Chieftain was a match for nearly anything on the field until it was replaced. You've got to feel like the ubertank having a 120mm when all your allies only have a 105mm.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

You've got to feel like the ubertank having a 120mm when all your allies only have a 105mm.

It's not the size that matters, but finesse.