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Timing smoke


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Originally posted by Der Kunstler:

How do you guys know how to time your smoke when attacking? It seems like I always run my guys out in the open before the smoke starts or it stops right when they are halfway across open ground.

Der Kunstler. You are determinded to master this game with all of these important questions you continually post in here smile.gif . The most important thing you can do is learn how to run tests on your own to get your own answers. You will find, very quickly, that most of the posters that respond to questions in these threads do not know what they are talking about.

Now to your question. If the smoke begins falling the very first seconds of the turn, you should have a functional screen in place around 40 seconds into the turn. So you can set your infantry, or whatever, to charge around that time.

The real trick is mastering arty to get it falling where you need it, when you need it.

[ April 11, 2005, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

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Why is the sky blue?

Shorter wavelength (more energetic) = higher angle of dispersion, so the shorter red wavelength stuff scoots right through the atmosphere, but the blue stuff gets bent down towards our eyese on the surface.

Sour cream does not so much expire as accumulate more fungus than you want to ingest.

We park in driveways because cars make you stupid.

I try and let at least one full minute of smoke barrage accumulate before charging the troops headlong into it. I also recommend using more than one FO for the smoke. See this thread for an example of how I've used it during a factory assault.

Originally posted by Der Kunstler:

Thanks guys. I'll try to do more self-experimenting so as not to become obnoxious. By the way: Does sour cream ever expire? Why do we park in DRIVEways?

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Hehe. No the questions you're asking are good ones indeed. I just want to be sure you understand many of the people that post in here are completely full of ****, so it's best to at least run confirmation tests on your own.

Oh yes, and buttermilk:

When milk producers make milk, they seperate some of the fat depending on the needs (2% milk, etc). That high fat leftover "milk" is now called cream. The fat in that cream is what makes butter. Butter literally consists of cream fat, salt, and water. When a butter plant seperates the fat from the cream to make butter, there is a thin milky leftover which is called buttermilk.

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If someone asks, what is grenade range? You will get answers ranging from 10 to 50 meters. Is the truth in there somewhere? Yep. So if you find that useful that is of course, your agenda.

The truth, which no one on this forum has stated correctly in many, many posts on the topic, is 39.5m. Do a search and see for yourself.

My point is if you ask how far a mile is in meters and someone says 1500 and you find that acceptable, well good for you. But it ain't so.

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How does your question add to anything, Joe?

What makes you think anyone who kindly offers the possibility of helping you with your play owes you anything, in January or any other month? Do you think that needling them will help bring on what you're looking for?

When was the last time you actually thanked someone for something that they *did* contribute?

Lastly, are you debating the fact that Walpurgis stated? I thought his point, which is "treat answers you read here with suspicion" is a valid one. While not infallible himself, Walpurgis has demonstrated that he is one of the people who does know what he is talking about. Wise people will listen. And as Walpurgis said, wise people will check the answers with experiments of their own.

To Adam's point: it doesn't mean that the posts aren't helpful, just that you need to be aware they may not all be well founded.

GaJ.

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Originally posted by JoePrivate:

"people that post in here are completely full of ****"... Sort of like the same people who swore a certain comprehensive strategy article on CMAK would be posted in what January?

lol. I swore nothing to no one. I am as godless as they come (do note the sig) ;) That was Panzer's project and he asked me to write a few articles for him. He has not approached me on it since the day he initially came to me so what can I say. Anyway, it's beside the point my friend. I'm just suggesting you do your own homework. . . :cool:
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Der Kuenstler,

Along with shell size, a major factor in how long the smoke remains is how strong the winds are. Make sure you try differing wind speeds or at least match the wind in the game you're playing when you run your experiment. Other than determining how long smoke hangs around and how easily ground fires spread, I've never been able to find any other effects from the wind speed setting.

[ April 19, 2005, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: The Colonel ]

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  • 2 weeks later...
Originally posted by The Colonel:

Der Kuenstler,

Along with shell size, a major factor in how long the smoke remains is how strong the winds are. Make sure you try differing wind speeds or at least match the wind in the game you're playing when you run your experiment. Other than determining how long smoke hangs around and how easily ground fires spread, I've never been able to find any other effects from the wind speed setting.

Take a look at how easily you get sound contacts in still air vs. windy. . . ;)
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I actually thought of that a while back and tried running some experiments at night to determine at what distance approaching units produce sound contacts. I used unhidden platoon HQs for the "listeners". I had approaching infantry coming through a forest at everything from "sneak" through "run", and armor on a nearby dirt road in both "move" and "fast". To precisely establish the point at which a unit is heard I first wrote down the clock time when the sound contact appeared, and then viewed the opposing force movie to see where the unit actually was at that second. I first did 10 trials with calm wind. Then (after getting yelled at by my wife for "spending too much time on this dumb game") I did 10 trials with Strong wind. There was no apparent affect of wind speed. As you would expect, the faster units are moving the earlier they can be heard. But the wind didn't matter. There was a slight variation on the distance that units were heard from trial to trial, but the variance was very small. You could easily predict where the moving infantry and the running infantry would produce sound contacts. I was interested in the topic because I'm about to launch an 80 turn 45,000 strength point night attack in a PBEM game.

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"…. an 80 turn 45,000 strength point night attack in a PBEM game. "

That would drive me to smoke too.

Colonel, The getting yelled at by my wife for "spending too much time on this dumb game" part might happen again in your nighttime naughtiness? Try using the patented Dumb Dawg Smoke Screen, "Honey, the CPU is acting strange again. I need an hour to reboot." Worked a few times for me.

BTW: "…the faster units are moving the earlier they can be heard." Thanks. Did not know that.

Dawg … never loaded 45,000 points in a CM engine and don’t think my CPU could…. Day or night.

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Originally posted by The Colonel:

I actually thought of that a while back and tried running some experiments at night to determine at what distance approaching units produce sound contacts. I used unhidden platoon HQs for the "listeners". I had approaching infantry coming through a forest at everything from "sneak" through "run", and armor on a nearby dirt road in both "move" and "fast". To precisely establish the point at which a unit is heard I first wrote down the clock time when the sound contact appeared, and then viewed the opposing force movie to see where the unit actually was at that second. I first did 10 trials with calm wind. Then (after getting yelled at by my wife for "spending too much time on this dumb game") I did 10 trials with Strong wind. There was no apparent affect of wind speed. As you would expect, the faster units are moving the earlier they can be heard. But the wind didn't matter. There was a slight variation on the distance that units were heard from trial to trial, but the variance was very small. You could easily predict where the moving infantry and the running infantry would produce sound contacts. I was interested in the topic because I'm about to launch an 80 turn 45,000 strength point night attack in a PBEM game.

You won't see a difference in forest, where both the sound and sight contact distances are very short - I guess all the tree branches are abstractly assumed to deaden a lot of the sound.

Instead, try, for example, open terrain with an infantry "listener" just on one side of the crest of a hill (so it can't see over the top), and then put an enemy AFV on the other side of the crest some distance away, and drive the AFV towards the infantry listener.

Note how much closer the AFV gets to the infantry unit before you get a 'sound contact' in high wind. . . ;)

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You fellows aren’t blowing smoke up the CPU are you? Never thought about smoke like this before. Junk2drive, Advice noted and added to my CM, ‘Smokem if She’s got you’ ready kit. YankeeDog, Are you a long lost Northern cousin of a Southern Dawg who can’t see the forest for the trees? Never thought of factoring these forest / wind parameters. Thanks.

Dawg… pulling stumps out of St. Edouards or I may just ignite the night and beez done with it.

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