Are we playing CMBB or Combat Mission: Cross of Iron?

[Mark Gallear]

Is Combat Mission 2 the best game ever? It really should be considering the man-hours that went into it – which were clearly a labour of love. The choice of tanks and graphics is absolutely assume – the terrain is brilliant – how is any amateur mod maker going to get it better than this?

I bought it on its day of release from a shop – I normally never do that I always buy games mail-order for cheapness (I am a hardup Yorkshireman.) when their price is dipping a bit and I know it really is a good game because it sold heavily – and the patches are available for it. Even so only about one in 10 will make me think this is a REALLY good game. So I must have thought that CMBB was going to be something special. For that matter I don’t normally even bother looking at forums let alone post on them.

However, the more I play the game the more I have to the conclusion that I am playing Combat Mission: Cross-of-Iron not Combat Mission 2 Barbarossa-to-Berlin. You get these cool Iron Cross icons on the scenario choice screen (They are missing the central Swas’tika and ribbon – if this to simply the icon or censorship). Just like Sergeant Steiner my troops carry Russian submachinguns and can crawl through 3d wheatfields. The wheatfields are cool, having half my troops with Russian submachineguns is bugging me. It just could not have happened – because troops fire on the distinctive sound of their enemy’s weapons. A soldier, who fired a burpgun from the German lines, would cause all his mates to think they were been flanked and they would all let him have it. Only the odd soldier in reconnaissance on both sides would take the risk of using an enemy gun. (Steiner after all was from the Recon Platoon.)

CMBO success was about playing a balanced tank-infantry game by email with a human opponent. It was my most played game ever and ousted the ageing Steel Panthers 2 from my hard disk. CMBO’s success was despite not really been a true simulation of combat on the Western front. Shermans seemed to be upped a bit in power and Tigers and Panthers down a bit. There seemed to be a lot of mistakes the British 17pdr was called a 76mm gun in its long form and properly a 77mm in its short form but was only a bit more powerful than a 76mm gun. The usual Wargame HVAP myth that made a Sherman into a Panther killer was expanded despite the tank having no means to judge the range. None of these things were ever corrected or really mattered because that’s not what the game was about. What we had was short 75 rules to make the game even more fairer and gamey and a proving ground for mod artists – making mods is almost as much fun as wargaming even if you have no artistic talent!

Is CMBB like CMBO – no I don’t think it is at the moment. Despite having the most realistic simulation of WWII combat ever. The reason is that the capabilities of the Russian tanks are way out The T-34 and KV1 on paper were awesome beasts on paper and were a shock to the Germans. The reason why the German’s victories continued was that they had better organisation, leadership, training and command and control. An ex-SS tanker on the history channel described the shock of meeting T-34s for the first time and the reason why they coped. He described how they beat a unit of KVs, despite not been able to penetrate the front armour in what he described as an almost naval manoeuvre to the enemies side over the Russian steppe. The reason was that Russians still had to wave flags each other, whilst all it took was a simple command down the radio for the SS tankers. I was expecting in CM2 to get to grips with having capable Russian tanks but low command and control and poor bad morale from the effects of poor training and poor leadership on the Russian side. It is just not there.

(It was even more visible in the demo!!)

Does this matter – no if like CMBO – CMBB gives a balanced email game. I have been player a Russian CMBO player called Ivan he picked a scenario with a large number of T-34s attacking two Stugs. I killed them all with easy – did I do anything really bright no. I would have lost if I taken Russian. If I had played the scenario a few times I might have stood some chance – but this is not what made CMBO successful.

This issue is a lot more serious than the WG censorship issue. Ok crawling around 3d wheatfields and pretending you are Sergeant Steiner is fun but is going to keep people playing and inspire them to read books about the Eastern Front in the same way that CMBO did. I really hope so. Somebody criticised my posts by complaining that you can’t have everything in a game – this s of course true. I also believe that computer wargames cannot effect people’s beliefs – but maybe they should. CMBB is a very sanitised view of the war on the Eastern Front – you cannot model troops falling dead at Stalingrad from starvation or have NKVD troops machine-gunned men on their own side who were retreating but it happened and if CMBB was a truly great game it should be implied so we all remember what really happened.

I remember a truly great game called Squad leader: Cross of Iron it was ground breaking for its day and took all the elements of micro armour battles and put them in a boardgame – for the first time every weapon was modelled – and we believed it was right, it was a gamey game that gave a fair battle but it also reminded you of the horrors of war even through the movie link.

Does anything I say matter or will it make any difference – I am wise enough to know that it doesn’t matter – no body is going to buy the game or not because of what I say in a post. I certainly have no influence on whether people will play CMBB or in the end go away and play PENG.

Please prove that I am totally wrong - below here.

Dirty Mark

[phil stanbridge]

It seems pretty accurate to me. I've been playing tcp and I'm up against three of four KV2's and they're killing me. I've lost loads of infantry to them and now he's knocking my PZIII's out. I just can't touch 'em. How have you been playing as a matter of interest? Against the AI or via tcp?

[Berkut]

Well, i have had the game for only a week and have managed to play only a couple of games.

I am playing a couple email games to test the nasty rumours of incompatibility between the US and EU versions,so far I have not had any problems.

I do accept that tank combat occured at much closer ranges in CMBO and so the advantage of german armour would be diminished, but I have had some odd results in past games that caused me no small amount of frustration.

On to CM2, I did notice something odd with the demo version. I played the kursk scenario and witnessed panzer IVg's taking out KV1's with frontal shots over a distance of 1000mtrs, I am not sure those tanks had that kind of hitting power over that range. At least the optics seem to be working, they were hitting nearly every time

I was also able to take out most of the T34's in the second scenario with a couple 37pak's registering some frontal penetrations. although these hits did not kill the tanks, accounts of encounters with these beasts suggest penetrating frontal hits with a 3.7cm pak would have been very rare and it was over 200mtrs, and these paks survived to the end of the battle! so that would have been even rarer. lucky me

I have not noticed it yet in the full game, but it is early days. I did have a pzIIIm have it's shots bounce of a T34 front upper hull and turret at 125mtrs, I needed to get a flank shot to take it out, which I did. The AI is an unimaginative opponent and obliged me...not sure I would have had the same luck with a human opponent.

I am sure we will see a lot of odd behaviour from tanks that jars with what we know from our history texts and veterans stories. I am sure we have all read the CMBO threads about these glitches

[Amedeo]

Mark,

a copule of quick notes. I don't think the soviet tanks are undemodelled (and I play rhe Red Army 90& of the times). The armour model is probably the best ever done on a commercial wargame. The KV is an awesome beast against almost everything the german can throw against it in 1941.

If you play with the right troop qualities you'll see the results your asking for.

(Possibly there's a problem with the relative frequency of front turret hits on the T-34, see this thread )

Regarding the T-34 vs StuG-III issue: well, it's known that the German AFVs armed with the long barrel 75mm guns were very effective against T-34 tanks, even at 1000m and more.

For what concernes NKVD blocking detachments, actually BFC planned to implement this but situation like those on the opening scenes of EatG movie turned out to be fictional. The action of NKVD in repressing the real or suspect cowardy was more indirect. In fact the only cases I know of, of blocking detachments shooting at retreating troops on the field, relate to regular army units that shot on their comrades (and you can do this also in the game, if you want).

The starving of soldiers is out of the scope of tactical operations, but if you want you can simulate the reduced fighting ability with the fitness rating.

Just my two cents.

Regards,

Amedeo

P.S. I agree on the 'too much Iron crosses' issue, this is a symbol more related to the 1813-1918 Prussian Army, than to the Wehrmacht). In fact I'd prefer to see a Balkankreutz as unspotted unity marker, as it was in CMBO (and it would have no censorship problem since it's not a nazi symbol)

[rune]

Been discussed before. You base this on the demo, which had the KV-1S, the under armoured version, and the Model 40 t34. Umm...Even the Russians stated the panzer III was a better tank, and up-armoured the T34.

The majority of tanks in 1941 were Panzer IIs. Did you select panzer IIs and take on the T34? No? Instead you took the StuG, with 80mm of front armour, the T34s were ineffective against them. I have posted many times the links, and they are available, but here are two quick ones.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/stug.htm

Look at the kills racked up in the StuG.

Here is the Russian opinion on the Panzer III against their T34.

http://www.battlefield.ru/t34_76_2.html

Notice that in 1940 the Russians did note the Panzer III was better then their current version of the T34. Did you use the later models of T34s? Did you know there are over 7 versions?

Looking at infantry, I opened the editor and looked the the squads in 1941. Look, 1 smg per platoon, which was their TO&E. So you based they are using so many Russian SMGs, what year? what time? what scenario?

As you said, not going to change your mind. However, since i KNOW Russians sources were used, with Russian references, and that the model for armour penetration is the most accurate out there...maybe, just maybe, your perceptions are wrong and maybe the game has it right?

Rune