OFFICIAL PATCH REQUESTS AND BUG THREAD V1.01

[John Kettler]

I don't know whether this is patchable or not, but here goes. When one is given mines, the field limits are clearly visible, but only during setup. All bets are off, though, once the game begins, for all there is is a sign, a sign with no indicator whatever as to the minefield orientation or limits.

Is there some way to give the owning player the same info he/she had about minefield positioning

during setup? On a related note, at 1280 x 1024, even up close, the minefield signs are unreadable.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Redwolf]

I usually keep a screenshot with the visible minefields after setup. There was a certain CMBO tourney game with several "unfortunate" incidents.

The signs are certainly not unreable for me and I play at 1600x1280.

[John Kettler]

Forgive me if this has perhaps already been mentioned, but where, praytell, are the naval support fires for the Allies, never mind the what ifs involving the Italian Navy? It's bad enough that they're not available in QBs, but more in the outrageous range that they're unavailable even in the Scenario Editor, especially given the critical role they played at Salerno. Seems there was also some battleship,cruiser, and destroyer? fire as part of TORCH.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MAsta_KFC]

The three things I prefer to be fixed atm are:

1. Proper counts of kills for crew

2. Artillery price adjustment for QBs

3. Lowered percentage hit for Pz turrets in hull down. I dont ever remember buying a PZ in ANY type of QB when a Stug has much better survivability despite its turn rate.

Thank you for your time.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Forgive me if this has perhaps already been mentioned, but where, praytell, are the naval support fires for the Allies, never mind the what ifs involving the Italian Navy? It's bad enough that they're not available in QBs, but more in the outrageous range that they're unavailable even in the Scenario Editor, especially given the critical role they played at Salerno. Seems there was also some battleship,cruiser, and destroyer? fire as part of TORCH.

Regards,

John Kettler

The only thing you are missing in CMAK is the 14" spotter, which represented a naval spotter for a battleship in CMBO. For heavy Cruisers use either 7.2" or 8" spotters, light cruisers use either 6" or 155mm, Destroyers use 4.5"

[John Kettler]

Kingfish,

While I take your point to a degree, I would argue

that what the workaround doesn't model at all well is the rate of fire naval guns were capable of generating, what with power hoists, hydraulic ramming and the like that they had. A Brooklyn class light cruiser was capable of withering rates of 6" fire all by itself (15 x 6" rounds/broadside, 10 broadsides a minute, somewhat lower sustained rate). Think of what it would take to generate that sort of firepower in CM terms, and how long it would be between volleys. Begin to see why naval gunfire so shattered the German counterattacks at Salerno? Not only should we have the naval guns, but the FOs should be configured so that they reflect appropriate turret and/or full broadside configurations for the ships whose firepower they represent. Why should we not also have 15" and 16"

FOs as well? Am highly in favor of depicting Italian and other navies in FO form as well, since this opens many exciting scenario design possibilities.

There is no modeling at all of the 5" 38, by far the most common U.S. naval gun, of the sophisticated fire control found on the larger ships (inc. likely use of spotter planes), of the ammo types available, and definitely not the real limits naval guns also had vs. , say, 8" howitzers on the ground when dealing with defiladed targets. The high velocity, relatively flat trajectory naval guns simply couldn't get into certain types of terrain because of this and a) had lower elevation limits, and had nowhere nearly as many charge increments as a same caliber howitzer unit, thus limiting their engagement flexibility.

These are some of the concerns I have.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

John, while everything you say may well be true, it is also true that all of it applies equally well to regular ground-based artillery (GBA). I would far rather see BFC fix the existing issues with GBA before they go off futzing around with NGS again.

Regards

JonS

[junk2drive]

what fun would the game be if you could annihilate the enemy in round one? uber arty would spoil play balance imho

on a serious note, my april 1st prediction draws no comment. where i live thats april fools day. i waste my humor on you all.

[Kingfish]

John,

You have to take into account what effect that kind of spotter would have from a gaming standpoint. As junk2drive pointed out, whats the point of playing a scenario if your opponent can wipe out your reinforced battalion in 2 turns with only one click of the mouse?

Keep in mind that real life FOs did not have the luxury of borg-like spotting, nor the ability to scout every inch of the battlefield (including enemy held territory) from ground level.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

I strongly support a whole series of fixes to GBA, several of which I mentioned when I welcomed Wires

and DaveR in the "I just got Afrika Korps" thread.

I want mixed volleys, WP, orientable sheaves in point, parallel, and open configurations. I want to be able to plot fire defensive concentrations, run several types of barrage, etc. Spotter planes would be nice.

Kingfish,

I also fully support things like graying out areas of the map not seen, providing a topo map in lieu,

limiting what the players know about things they shouldn't, screwing with commo, fire missions preempted by higher priorities, the possibilities of faulty/out of date intel, etc. I fully recognize the shattering possibilities inherent in naval firepower, but it still has to be paid for, and it's far from cheap. That alone rules it out of most battles, as does the little matter of being inland for most of them. I think of the CM series as being a wargaming toolkit, and I hate being deprived of what I deem to be many important tools.

Hope this clarifies a few things.

Regards,

John Kettler

[junk2drive]

you want blitzkreig from cdv

[John Kettler]

Much to my surprise, I have discovered an apparent

"Great Leap Backwards" in both the CMAK and CMBB manuals--no flamethrower listing in the index. The CMBO manual, by contrast, not only had a basic listing, but also subsidiary listings for portable and vehicle mounted flamethrowers. I feel that this is an important matter given the proliferation of flamethrower equipped AFVs in CMAK, relative to CMBO. Also, the installation variations from vehicle to vehicle can cause serious switchology problems.

Bluntly put, standard procedures for Crocodile use in CMBO will totally backfire with the L3 33 flame tankette in CMAK. If you answer "No" when asked "Use main gun?" while equipped with the flame tankette, you're done, for you've now prevented the flamethrower from firing. This is the exact opposite of how the Crocodile flame order works in CMBO. Not sure about Wasps, as have used them only once, years ago in tournament. We seem to have FTs where an MG was, FTs in addition to an MG, and we should have (if BFC gives us the Flammpanzer IIIs which ought to be in CMAK (employed in Italy, already done from CMBB), FTs as the primary armament. Given this diversity, it's easy to get confused. In someone's separate Wish List thread, I argue that we need a Flame command added to all future CM games, so that players don't get confused. Would love to see it as a CMAK bug fix, but don't know whether this is doable.

I discovered the missing index entry after painstakingly plowing through a sea of flame entries in the PDF, during which I found, that as implemented, there is no fast way to systematically search a topic. One can't go to a topic then simply toggle through the entries in succession. Is there any approach akin to hyperlinking available in PDF docs which would allow this? Frustrated by this, I broke out my CMBB manual looking for the same information in printed form, which was how I found there was no flamethrower index entry there either. Nor does the entry under special weapons for AFVs or infantry offer any help. Either I'm blind/inept, or we have a serious oops in the manuals for CMBB and CMAK.

Further, I noticed that some text was apparently uncritically employed in the CMAK manual after apparently being copied from the CMBB manual. According to the CMAK manual, only the Germans have

AT rifle grenades, which is news to me (M9A1, No. 68 Grenade anyone?). There may well be some related hobgoblins there as well. I don't, for example, recall any discussion of HE/HE frag rifle grenades.

The discussion of how terminal effects are handled in antiarmor warfare inaccurately informs us that the shell can either be explosive filled or solid

metal. Do tell. Last I checked, a shell by definition had a filler of some sort, therefore can't be solid. Am surprised the grogs weren't all over that one.

Noted quite a few typos when whipping through the CMAK manual, including "Rfle" instead of "Rifle" in one instance, and two words run together in another. The text needs to be thoroughly spell checked and grammar checked.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Grumbling Grognard]

Posted when the game came out but lost in the shuffle...

Increase the quality of the Matillda's armor. The thing had a solid, cast steel turret (and hull as well I think). That alone should warrant much better than a the crappy Soviet-like 90% quality they currently have (i.e. no major weld seams)

Adjust the AI for the 2pdr Portee's. They seem to be confused sometimes as to which way to point (the gun is rearward facing).

Adjust the AI in regards to using dust for cover. It brings back many bad memories from Close Combat (et al) when I watch the AFVs in CM3 do the “Close Combat Shuffle” (shudder ). But, at least this is the 'only' time they do it (actually quite understandable considering the dust 'is' cover, but still... )

Thank you for your time and an all-around great game,

GG

[John Kettler]

I have another dust issue. Vehicles operating at speed on what appears to be asphalt throw up a continuous roostertail of dust which is well beyond vehicle high, visually impenetrable and would be the envy of both Road Runner and Baja 1000 competitors. Not only is the trailing part impenetrable, but I can't even see any part of the lead vehicle. I certainly expect dust, in quantity, on cross country movement, but this seems more in the realm of advanced obscurants than dust. Based on what I've seen, this is a serious problem because it allows fast vehicles an immunity they didn't have and completely defeats multiple game mechanisms which would normally allow the opponent to shoot at them.

Don't know whether it's possible, but the dust monster needs to be toned down or eliminated on paved roads. At the very least, there ought to be some exposure of the lead vehicle while at speed. If I can't see him at all, then how can he see to drive?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kingfish]

John,

The road in which you are referring to is not paved. It is nothing more than a dirt track in the desert, thus the huge dust clouds you see in your movie.

Sergio

[John Kettler]

Kingfish,

Gah! You got here before I could edit my original post. While I now accept the prominent roostertail of dust, I still believe that the front end of the vehicle making it should be visible--and targetable. Does the AI modify dust volume as a function of ground wetness?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Does the AI modify dust volume as a function of ground wetness?

Yes, damp ground will not generate dust.

[tabpub]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Kingfish,

Gah! You got here before I could edit my original post. While I now accept the prominent roostertail of dust, I still believe that the front end of the vehicle making it should be visible--and targetable. Does the AI modify dust volume as a function of ground wetness?

Regards,

John Kettler

John:

Perhaps you have the "high wind in direction of travel" situation. A 30mph wind in the direction of travel would cause the dust to be pushed along with the vehicle that is generating it?

[sand digger]

Trig 29 - Aussie Equipment topic.

Just got the game so I haven't had much time to check it out in detail. But Aussie equipment for the Trig 29 scenario, Oct 1942, looks all wrong.

Sten guns were never seriously used, as far as SMG's go the Thompson was used into 1943 being gradually replaced by the Owen which itself was not available for NA.

The Boyes AT rifle would have not have been manually carried into battle, if used at all by then. At the most it would have been carried in a vehicle in addition to the usual armament.

The British 'sticky bomb' was used as an AT weapon around then.

Not sure about the Crusader CS. But 40 RTR were involved in giving infantry support and I believe they had Valentines. The CS is a remote possibility I suppose however my knowledge of what the RTR's had and used then is limited.

The M5's (Whites?) are very doubtful. Very much more likely to have been the universal (Bren gun) carrier, various versions of which were made and used throughout the war and even later in Korea.

The Dingo armoured car I know nothing about.

I might add that it was common to use additional weapons including enemy ones. Eg I was looking at at unit history references today of official training in the use of captured weapons and the use of a 20mm Breda cannon for air protection. The 9 Div was relatively quite heavy on firepower.

So, where to from here? Canberra is where all the AWM material is, I'm in Brisbane. What sort of hard evidence is required?

[ March 15, 2004, 01:50 AM: Message edited by: sand digger ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by sand digger:

Sten guns were never seriously used, as far as SMG's go the Thompson was used into 1943 being gradually replaced by the Owen which itself was not available for NA.

See first post of this thread.

The British 'sticky bomb' was used as an AT weapon around then.

See first post of this thread.

I might add that it was common to use additional weapons including enemy ones.

This was in CMBB, but, like sewer movement, seems to have been dropped for CMAK.

So, where to from here?

See BFCs responses in this thread

Regards

JonS

[sand digger]

Thanks Jon. Noticed a query over the first appearance of jeeps in NA. May 42 or Feb 43?

Haven't the definitive answer but 9 Div had them for El Al 2. They are specifically mentioned in a vehicle list appendix to the operational order for 'Lightfoot'. Info accessed online from the AWM site.

[SpitfireXI]

Just my two cents about the upcoming patch. On pretty much all battles as the British, I always have Canadian crews in tanks. Also, when I was playing Bir Hachiem the flag over the fort was British and not French, also there was a lone British ATR guy there. I realize it may be for historical purposes but did not the French have ATR's?

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by SpitfireXI:

Also, when I was playing Bir Hachiem the flag over the fort was British and not French, also there was a lone British ATR guy there. I realize it may be for historical purposes but did not the French have ATR's?

Of course they have. Same model as the Brits.

[John Kettler]

Unless I'm blind (again) the reset target command "r" is missing from the Hotkey list, but Shift R

(hides roofs) is there. Almost hit it by mistake.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Treeburst155]

The arty bug:

If, at any time during the arty delay period, spotter LOS to the target point is blocked by smoke (not dust), the strike is treated as a blind strike. This is true even for the briefest of smoke interruptions.

Treeburst155 out.