Molotovs - A Rant

[edgars]

I guess i got really lucky in one of my PBEMs.

The PzIII was knocked out with top penetration from molotov.

The squad that threw the molotov was on higher ground, than the tank.

[Bone_Vulture]

Here's another suggestion: in future releases, if the molotov potency cannot be altered then how about trimming the squad AI, so that they'd never try to use molotovs on buttoned armor and such, when a hand grenade might work better.

[Treeburst155]

How about they close assault (grenades) until there are no more grenades, then light smokes with the molotovs after the enemy armor is destroyed? That's what the German units would do.

To all of you who have lost armor, or killed armor, with molotovs:

I'm sure we've all seen molotovs do what they are supposed to do. The thing is, they don't work very often...not nearly as often as close assaults (grenades).

Treeburst155 out.

[Other Means]

just making molotovs work as they should would be best. say it's 5 molotovs for every one shown & have more effect than simply giving your position away. as i've shown in earlier posts, they do seem to work IRL. failing that, a patch to remove them would be best.

oo oo and look, a pixie with my lucky heather.

[Ogiwan]

I'd just like to give one of my expierences with Cocktails (and the only one i can remember now)

I had a squad on the upper floor of a building, with an open-topped German assault gun below them (forget the designation). I'm sitting here rubbing my hands in glee thinking of a result like in Saving Private Ryan (the MC cooks off the ammo and the tank obliderates itself). All three MCs do nothing. I'm dumbfounded, but then the thing gets immobalized by a grenade tossed by a squad a few meters away on the ground. Next turn (and several grenades later) the vehicle explodes.

[Schoerner]

How can Molotovs be used effectively on assault?

I don't want to run, jump down, run with such bottles. Maybe this all under mortar or artillery fire...

IMO MCs effectiveness is modelled the best way the current engine allows.

[kingofthehill]

I think a molotov cocktails would be and it could be good and gamey in assault against every troops position, like MG or squad or mortar in crater, in foxhole, in shack etc..etc..., the problem is that I never see in game troops that launch it against other troops.....its possible that assault AI do grenades primary assault weapons....Anyone see molotov assault against man?

The trick could be, if infantry occupy by man a VPL, and Armor by position, a molotov can by fire and flames...like that for example....

Regards

KotH

[Sergei]

Originally posted by kingofthehill:

I think a molotov cocktails would be and it could be good and gamey in assault against every troops position, like MG or squad or mortar in crater, in foxhole, in shack etc..etc...

And just exactly how much effect do you think a single bottle (0.75 l) of kerosene, petroleum, tar, you name it, would have? Would a glass bottle necessarily even break if it only hit some soft ground? Remember, it's not a 1000lb napalm magic bomb, just a normal-sized bottle filled with fuel... They could have been used to set fire on wooden buildings, but I don't think such methods were used so much when there were occupants inside (that's more of a skinhead tactic).

[Brent Pollock]

Ditto: just had a platoon HQ toss one on the fly during an Advance move. No height advantage though. Hit it with a Top Penetration and the crew bailed out a few seconds later and surrendered. The crew showed two casualties. The HQ has the Pz III in the kill stat section, too.

Originally posted by edgars:

I guess i got really lucky in one of my PBEMs.

The PzIII was knocked out with top penetration from molotov.

The squad that threw the molotov was on higher ground, than the tank.

[Denwad]

Originally posted by Schonhult:

Have anyone ever seen the bug with a über-russ (russian with finn orgin perhaps?) trow a molotov 2 km up in the air and 200+ meters away?

It happens to me all the time, anyone who knows the reason for this bug?

This just popped into my head, but after watching Stalingrad, maybe it's and über-abstraction of a heroic soldier running 170m and throwing the molotov from there?

[kingofthehill]

Would a glass bottle necessarily even break if it only hit some soft ground? Remember, it's not a 1000lb napalm magic bomb, just a normal-sized bottle filled with fuel...

This is obiuvsly but you forgotten the real element of Molotov Cocktail, the bottle was'nt only fill of fuel, like benzene or alcool, (metanol or etanol), but also white phosphorus, to garantee the explosion impact, and tar in order to do that for the inflammable liquid sticks to the objective. And this is not all, additive like some acid was put in the cocktail for increment the explosion upgrades and piercing capacity.

The bottle was very useful against light tank, or halftrack, and naturally against every light building or part of a heavy building... The bad idea is that a Molotov can destroy a building or a tank, the right idea is that item forces man to abbandon position or veichles.

As for any thing in the world, it sometimes works at it sometimes not works....hey but is the life compromises.

Regards.

KotH.

[ April 06, 2004, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: kingofthehill ]

[Sergei]

Originally posted by kingofthehill:

the bottle was'nt only fill of fuel, like benzene or alcool, (metanol or etanol), but also white phosphorus, to garantee the explosion impact, and tar in order to do that for the inflammable liquid sticks to the objective. And this is not all, additive like some acid was put in the cocktail for increment the explosion upgrades and piercing capacity.

And would you like to tell us now how common the use of WP or other additives was? Or how much of it went into a bottle? Are you even sure about the explosion bit, for it's not really the intention to cause a big explosion as that would splash most of the fuel away from the point of impact and restrict their use (you could only use them from a distance). The purpose of the tar, for instance, was not to make the liquid stick, but to create thicker smoke.

Even if a molotov coctail would explode, I think I'd still prefer using a hand grenade.

[kingofthehill]

Even if a molotov coctail would explode, I think I'd still prefer using a hand grenade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_cocktail

I'm not here discussing about what is preferibile contest weapon for us subjective, but on the true effects and the true uses of this arm(MC).... and based on this that use can do in the game....

KotH

[Sergei]

A Molotov cocktail is a crude incendiary weapon which consists of a glass bottle filled with flammable liquid, usually gasoline (petrol) or alcohol (generally methanol or ethanol), and a rag stuffed in the mouth of the bottle.

THAT'S not a molotov coctail!

THIS is a molotov coctail:

According to the Finnish Pioneer Technical Instructions #1 from 1939, an incendiary bottle could contain either petrol, wood alcohol or the mixture of kerosene and one of those, in addition to which 1-2 cubic cm of tar was put for smoke. There were two special matches tied to opposite sides for ignition. I don't know how other armies did it, but doubt they'd have used rags stuffed to the mouth of the bottle... that's so unstylish!

[Sgt AA]

Exactly the same foto is in the book: "Finlands krig" by Kai Brunila (1980), where it states that it also contains potassium chlorate and that sulphuric acid was used for the ignition. (And the writer also claim that it was an efficient weapon against russian tanks )

Ps

krig = war

[ April 07, 2004, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: Sgt AA ]

[kingofthehill]

Hey man those bottle is not a Molotov Cocktail but is a bottle of a poor Russian wine....

KotH

Veritas medium stat.....

[ April 07, 2004, 05:45 AM: Message edited by: kingofthehill ]

[Treeburst155]

All these molotov cocktail details are quite interesting. However, the main point of this thread is the fact that the much less effective molotovs are used before the close assault (grenades), all the time. The existence of molotovs DETRACT from a squad's ability to deal with armor. This is the problem. If a squad is to have molotovs, and those molotovs are to be used BEFORE a close assault, then the molotovs should be at least as effective as a close assault. Experienced players should not find themselves wishing their squads had no molotovs.

Treeburst155 out.

[PS]

A standard German potatoe-masher would not disable a late war Russian tank or even a T34\76 or KV-1 so why does it in CMBB. The Hungarians who knocked out the Russian tanks have stated that the older models (T34\85 and ISU152) were very easy to knock-out with molotovs because of the large open grill vents on the engine decks. While I'm at it, the panzerfausts in the game are crap. These things had a very large hollow charged warhead and were highly effective. Why do squads fire all 4 at a IS-2 or at any other tank to knock it out while in real life the German troops in Berlin were knocking these out with one. They didn't have a chance to fire four!

[stikkypixie]

And why does my tiger get blown up???? I read countless accounts of tigers being invurnable to enemy fire!!

Come man it's not because you read that they knocked tanks out in berlin like that, that happened everywhere in the war (or in berlin for that matter). Besides those guys who missed probably didn't live to tell the tale!

[Determinant]

Interesting stuff. I think Treeburst has a good point. Special anti-armour weapons should add value to the base-level infantry anti-armour value. Instead the molotov cocktail (a special anti-armour weapon) appears to reduce it.

The answer must be that the base-level infantry anti-armour value is too high. Men against tanks is difficult to model. There are many variables. But in general the man, without some special weapon, is pretty much helpless against the tank.

See for instance the Germans against the British tanks in WWI. It was the German field guns that stopped the tanks not the infantry with their liberal supply of grenades.

See also the efforts of the terrorists in Iraq fighting coalition forces tonight. There are lots of terrorists close to armoured vehicles but only their RPGs seem to be doing any damage, but mostly not fatal damage. The terrorists do not seem afraid to press their attacks in the face of certain death and yet they are not killing AFVs in the numbers that one might anticipate from that suicidal determination and knowledge of the CM universe.

This would seem to suggest that the advantage of men against tanks is overdone in CM.

[kingofthehill]

See also the efforts of the terrorists in Iraq fighting coalition forces tonight.

OT emphasize(my opinion)

Terrotists? I did not know that the folks of a province that rebel to forces occupants(coming from other province) the own province, are terrorists....

p.s. I know that you were speaking about other and that the words are alone words, but those "terrorists" the same one has made me to fold the nose....

Sincerely

KotH

[ April 09, 2004, 05:33 AM: Message edited by: kingofthehill ]

[JasonC]

Kindly take your fascist moral equivalence crap to the general forum please. Thank you.

Kidnapping peace activists and promising to burn them alive and eat them, setting off car bombs in front of mosques on holidays, bombing aid worker and UN compounds, hacking rival clergy to death with knives, bombing employment offices - if you can't recognize terrorism in such things then you are one sick puppy. But go toss your puppy cookies all over everyone out in the general forum, it is made for such things.

[kingofthehill]

An opinion is an opinion, and one is equivalent to an other and it does not exist universal an just one, you are free one to think it as you want and I also, and everyway I task that you are more good to write tactical article for gamey than to speak about serious things.....my sincerely advice for you is to write more of first less then the second.....but obviously is one of my opinion...that can be wrong as all..as you also.....and you will be free to do all do you want as me obviusly(although my opinion, or your opinion). I live in a free World, and I hope also you, although Bush or Saddam or whichever other man that it believes of being God in earth, and I free to said my opinion like you like someother.

In truth

KotH.

[ April 09, 2004, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: kingofthehill ]

[Sergei]

So anyway, as I was saying, there was this girl in a nightclub and...

[back to topic]

To repeat myself (and oh boy, do I love to do that), I think the current handling of these weapons is wrong in the point that molotovs, explosive charges, at-mines etc. are treated separately from the generic "infantry assault" ("grenade attack"), when in fact these kinds of weapons should just make those assaults more effective. I'm not even convinced that the mc's are modelled the way they were in reality.

Not that anything would be changed at this point, when even bugs like the fortification point-calculation one can't be squashed any more. Maybe if noise had been made a year and half before. And it doesn't seem to have made the game unplayable, at least not for me.

[PS]

I don't mind that a hand-grenade in the game can take a tank out as long as a molotov can do the same or better. I was not saying that tanks are invulnerable quite the opposite but you don't assault a 30+ ton tank with a standard frag grenade, except in films. The Germans threw mines in front of tanks not a hand-grenade.

Hand-grenade modeling in CMBO was about right but it got farcical in CMBB. Why is it that when sequel games are produced they always bring in new glitches rather than bringing in the best of the old with the best of the new. The angle of the lower front armour of churchill tanks is 20 degrees; in CMBO its 0, in CMBB its 25 and in CMAK ?