Franz Liszt Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 Hi all~ This is my very first post here, I have been to this forum for a long time, but I had always been a CD-ROM. You guys just got amazingly tons of knowledge concerning WW2. I think I could benefit much more here than in my university library! :cool: There's a question in CMBB that has been bugging me for a long time... what is the actual difference between knocked out and abandoned AFV? It is clear that knocked out AFV is no longer functioning, but what about abandoned ones? If the AFV is functioning, what is the point of abandoning it? One more thing, do tanks being knocked out not always explode? It seems in CMBB the probablity of exploding tanks is relatively small...(in Band of Brothers, tanks always on fire. :confused: Thx for your help~ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parachute Hamster Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 I may be totally wrong, but this is what i think: when a tank is knocked out, it is clear, that it can't be used any more, damage is just too critical. Think about it: would you stay in a tank, that has been set on fire ? And then of course a penetration may have killed some of the crew, a driver for example, so it just can't continue. The crew will bail out. When a tank is abandonded, there may be many reasons: if it is immobilized or a gun is damaged and crew thinks, that is is much more dangerous to stay in it than to run away, they will abandon it. And of course, if you hammer it enough with guns, crew may panick and abandon it, because they fear that one of those shots will penetrate the tank. Welcome to the forum, by the way, and sorry of you find this difficult to read. I'm not a native english speaker, nor am i very good at it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franz Liszt Posted June 20, 2003 Author Share Posted June 20, 2003 Hamster, I got your point and I think you may be right! Besides, I found your English very legible indeed, don't be obssessed of that. I ain't native speaker neither...It is great that loads of non-native English speakers here 'cos that means CMBB is being played all over the world, right? Oh man I really love CMBB... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddy Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 Parachute Hamster or can I call you Mr Hamster? Your English is very good and that response was perfectly clear. Cheers Ed 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl Carrot Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 The important difference is that abandoned tanks can return during the following battles in an operation. Whether they do or not depends on the recovery rate set by the designer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parachute Hamster Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 A bit off topic, but yes, Eddy, you can call me whatever you like. My friends here in Finland often call me with many nicknames, so i'm used to it. Feel free to do it as well . Yeah, but let's get back to the topic, shall we? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 Originally posted by Franz Liszt: One more thing, do tanks being knocked out not always explode? It seems in CMBB the probablity of exploding tanks is relatively small...(in Band of Brothers, tanks always on fire. :confused: Thx for your help~ You have to hit something really critical to explode the tank. It seems the bigger the brick thrown, the more likely the fire. How many cars do explode after accidents? Compare RL to any movie. How does a movie viewer tell a functioning tank from one knocked out? Grog: "Ah, yes, that one over there has the barrel lowered, this is broken. Now wait, can't see if this is functioning as the camera only shows his rear. Have to check this next time I see that fantastic movie!" Anybody else: "Bad movie. No action, no explosions, no fire. Small FX budget. Didn't get the plot. Why did these tanks stop firing on those other tanks and just drove by? This is not realistic!" Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 I play 99.9% battles as opposed to operations, so 99.9% of the time there's no real difference between knocked out and abandoned. And in operations there's no guarantee a particular abandoned tank's going to be recovered before the game's ended either. But game mechanics aside, seeing an 'Abandoned' sign instead of a 'Knocked out' sign over a tank lets you imagine alternate scenes of scrambling tank crews leaping from the tank, and such. Though the game has a great "You are there" quality to it, a little extra imagination always helps . [ June 20, 2003, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: MikeyD ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 How true is that? The IMAGINATION of it all...In this day and age of spoon-fed entertainment I am not alone in imagining the actual events of the battle. Maybe it is from my old work at GW where I had to jazz up intro games to kids with descriptives. Rather than say "he kills him on a 3+ on a six sided dice" it was "the huge space marine clad in inches thick ceramite plated armour leaps forward and swings the whirring chainsword at the Ork, the blow cleaves into the green-skin and if you don't roll a 5 or a 6 the chainsword will carve it open like a cheap turkey at christmas!! Imagination is so important to better games of CMBB. You hit the nail on the head, Mikey. Off topic, sorry 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 Knocked out. Tank is very broken - i.e. big holes through important things. There are actually two states of knocked out in CM, On fire and Not on fire. Not on fire tanks can be recovered in an operation, On fire ones are lost permanently. Abandoned means that the tank isn't really broken, and only needs minor repairs, but the crew don't want to be there any more. An example would be for a tank to throw a track, and for the crew to get out and run away when a Tiger starts heading their way. I think that these are more likely to return in an Operation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franz Liszt Posted June 21, 2003 Author Share Posted June 21, 2003 SO...I have a new idea...when in an operation, the abandoned tanks of our side can be recovered IF ONLY we win the battle, if we are removed from the region, how can we get back the malfunctioning one back for repair? It WOULD be more realistic is the tanks become captured if we lose the battle. At least not regaining them. I am sorry, like MikeyD, I play almost battles, forgive me for not knowing the operation mechanism... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franz Liszt Posted June 21, 2003 Author Share Posted June 21, 2003 SO...I have a new idea...when in an operation, the abandoned tanks of our side can be recovered IF ONLY we win the battle, if we are removed from the region, how can we get back the malfunctioning one back for repair? It WOULD be more realistic is the tanks become captured if we lose the battle. At least not regaining them. I am sorry, like MikeyD, I play almost battles, forgive me for not knowing the operation mechanism... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spotless Posted June 22, 2003 Share Posted June 22, 2003 And on the flammability issue Franz, fire is a tanker's worst fear. Catastrophic destruction of a vehicle is not as common as one would think, along the lines of how many actual KIA's one sees after a battle compared to the total casualties. Some vehicles we also prone to fires and regarded rather dubiously by their crews.(Early US Shermans for instance) Fire causes all kinds of bad things to go boom in an AFV, yet you can make one combat ineffective much more easily than you can actually blow one up. Bailing out of an AFV that is combat ineffective is a tough choice, but one that the morale and experience of the crew determines. I've seen gun crews do the same when their situation is just flat-out untenable and they know that its them or the gun...so they run for the hills! Collecting damaged, abandoned vehicles in operations is a cool function of CM's logic, but as MikeyD pointed out, in non-operations, one is as good as the other. Just my tupence. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaMaX Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 But when I fired my AT guns at abandoned tanks they did not became "knocked out". Nothing happened. :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fly Pusher Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 You can continue to target abandoned and knocked out AFV's in the game should you have the time and spare ammo. This was apparently done in real life in an attempt to set fire to potentially recoverable tank and so destroy them completely. Even if such a burnt out tank was cleaned up and everything burnable was replaced the armor will have been re-tempered by the heat of the fire and is no longer much use. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eichenbaum Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Knocked out or Abandoned ? Only in scenario's you can gain some advantage if a unit gets abandoned instead of knocked out. Depending on the battle's parameters the unit can be repaired over night and returns to front the next morning. If most of the crew is killed or routed, the returning of an AFV is unlikely. That's why you have to withdraw crewmembers from the line-of-fire (and place them near a HQ unit if been rattled). If 1 or 2 members are killed you even can receive replacements, turning the AFV in a fully functional unit again. The first following set-up zone is an other factor. When abandoned units get isolated no repair is possible. Example: In Magnuszew Bridgehead (CMBB Scenario) I lost a Puma (PSW) when a T-70 shell hit the turret and no longer could turn it. The crew remained in the Puma until the battle ended (and killing 2x T-70 tanks). In the next battle the Puma disappeared from the scene. After 2 battles (1 evening and 1 night) the Puma returned fully repaired to the frontline in a glorious morning It's a nightmare for the opponent if a tank gets abandoned instead of knocked out. In most situations you don't have enough time to make sure that the tank is really knocked out (hitting it a few more times with AP shells) Nils 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Engel Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 What about the common situation where abandoned tanks were blown up by their own crews to prevent them from falling into enemy hands? Of course totally useless in battles, but operations might be different; using captured tanks to replace your own lost equipment. Not sure if this actually happened, as the use and distribution of captured equipment was probably handled higher up than within the division. BTW, FlyPusher, your sigline reminds me of a picture I saw in a book about the Finnish battalion in 5. SS Wiking Division; taken shortly after they had repelled a Soviet attack which had started while most of them were in the sauna or bathing, it showed a Finnish machine gunner with ammo belts strapped all over himself and the MG slung in front of him, wearing a slight smile and a helmet (might have had underpants and boots too, I didn't study the picture that closely). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eichenbaum Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Originally posted by Gamax: But when I fired my AT guns at abandoned tanks they did not became "knocked out". Nothing happened. :confused: If you're forced to use area-fire when you can't lock the abandoned tank, only HE shells are used (untill they run out). The impact of a HE shell, smaller then 78mm , is in most times not enough for knocking out a medium or heavy tank. Nils 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaMaX Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Originally posted by eichenbaum: If you're forced to use area-fire when you can't lock the abandoned tank, only HE shells are used (untill they run out). The impact of a HE shell, smaller then 78mm , is in most times not enough for knocking out a medium or heavy tank. Nils No, tank was targeted. AP rounds were fired. And light tanks can also be abandoned. This is bug (but not much important). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eichenbaum Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Originally posted by Gamax: No, tank was targeted. AP rounds were fired. And light tanks can also be abandoned. This is bug (but not much important). [/QB]AP shells fired when no target is locked ? Can you tell me what gun that might be ? Playing CMBB for a while now, never seen AP shells used for an area fire (only when they run out of HE or Canister)... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaMaX Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Originally posted by eichenbaum: AP shells fired when no target is locked ? Can you tell me what gun that might be ? Playing CMBB for a while now, never seen AP shells used for an area fire (only when they run out of HE or Canister)... You can target knocked out tanks. Guns will fire AP rounds. But I was wrong, they fixed this problem in v1.03. You can knock out abandoned tank. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Engel writes: "What about the common situation where abandoned tanks were blown up by their own crews to prevent them from falling into enemy hands?" This happened a pretty fair amount of the time (in real life) with the valuable Big Cats but it took a bit of time and forethought. The textbook method was to drain the gun's recoil cylinder of its oil, chamber a round, attach a lanyard (a long string) to the firing mechanism, then to fire the gun from the safety of a distant ditch, sticking the gun in full recoil. Take a look at most Allied 'knocked out' Tiger photos. It usually has a shorter-than-usual gun signifying that the vehicle had been abandoned and disabled - not knocked out. U.S. tank manuals that I've seen describe the same method od disabling the tank. Often times a U.S. crew would simply drop a Thermite grenade down the hatch. All that being said, whether or not crews disable their vehicles before abandoning them in CMBB scenarios is all up to your imagination. Five crew and only one represented laying next to his abandoned tank. There's no telling what the other four are up to! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eichenbaum Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Gamax : You can target knocked out tanks. Guns will fire AP rounds. But I was wrong, they fixed this problem in v1.03. You can knock out abandoned tank. Ok, now I see the problem... Don't have installed patch 1.03 yet (due to an ongoing PBEM battle). It's good to see they've fixed this. Tnx ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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