Newbie questions about CMBO

[Locksley]

Hey guys

Just a few quick questions about CMBO, which I should hopefully recieve soon. I think I have seen the answers to some of these questions somewhere on the forum but can't seem to find them now.

1. What are the differences between a normal Sherman M4A3, a Sherman Jumbo and one of thise Sherman 8 things?

2. What is this Peng thing all about on the Forums?

3. What is VT artillery?

I've probably got a few more but I can't think of them now. Sorry if these are dumb.

Thanks for your time

Tom

[Cpl Carrot]

1) Select the sherman and hit the enter key. Do the same for the others and compare. Short answer is the basic model blows up slightly sooner than the E8 version followed by the Jumbo

2) Peng is a myth. Cheese is were it is at. Seriously stay away from the Peng threads, you will live longer

3) Variable time. (I think) Means the shells explode just before they hit the ground, scattering shrapnel all around, and dealing lots of hurt.

[Panzertruppe]

Yep.....the differences in the Shermans is how long the crews will survive!

The Peng "thing".....kinda like having a pimple on your butt that you just can't reach!....stay away!

And you will KNOW what "VT" artillery is when a treeburst takes out half a squad!( I thought it meant the differences in time it takes certain types of shells to reach their target area?

Enjoy!

[Dandelion]

Tom

1. In CMBO terms:

The Jumbo has thicker frontal armour and slower speed than other M4A3 models (and is often called assault tank). Think battering ram.

The M4A3E8 HVSS, or Easy Eight, is a normal M4A3 with HVSS (Horizontal Volute Spring System) suspension, enabling heavier armour without loss of speed. A very potent allround vehicle.

But you missed a M4A3 variant

2. Er... well... er...

3. A proximity fuze shell. It's a type of (US) artillery shell equipped with a sort of sonar, a radio transmitter and receiver. The signal bumps when hitting a hard object, reflecting back to the shell, enabling the shell to 'know' its own altitude. Accordingly, it is possible to set the altitude it is to detonate on. VT means variable time as stated above. It had a minimum arming time of five seconds and a recommended one of fifteen, so it wasn't very useful for defensive purpouses, but extremely lethal against enemies moving in the open (such as forces assemblying for attack).

Similar effects were obtained using timed fuzes, an area in which the germans excelled (as they had no vt), obtaining (according to Weseley) the same reliability and effect as US VT munitions. This is however not reflected in CMBO.

the idea is of course to have the shell detonate in the air.

The 'basic' shell has a quick fuze, i.e. it explodes when hitting something hard (the ground, but at least in case of mortar munitions also treetops). The result is a surface detonation. Using a delay fuze, detonating after impact, can achieve either an airburst as the shell bounces up in the air again, or a penetration detonation as the shell buries into the ground. The former efficient against moving units, the latter against fortifications. The possibilities of either is of course determined by ground conditions.

Regards

Dandelion

[Locksley]

Thanks fellas, so basically those tanks just have thicker armour.

Few more though that just occured to me:

4. How easy is the scenario editor to use?

5. Is it possible to put more than one nation for the Allies (like have Polish Inf and American Tanks for example)?

6. Had a very quick go on a mate's version of CMBO and got my ass kicked as Allies on 2000pt game. what I was wondering is was it worth spending that bit more for armoured cars as scouts or just go with cheapo jeeps?

Could just wait for the two weeks it'll take for the game to get to me and read the mannual but I'm afraid I just can't wait.

Ta

Tom

[Dandelion]

Tom,

4. This being a matter of personal taste and habit, I find it extremely easy to use, but also (perhaps therefore) very rudimentary, thus cumbersome and tiring. Think Lego with very small pieces.

5. Quite possible.

6. As far as scouting goes, infantry rules supreme. Ability to scout in CMBO is determined by perception, or spotting ability. Units are rated in this capacity, and capacity is reduced when moving or when the unit is fatigued. Prince of spotters is the stationary infantryman, whereas there are no vehicles with credible spotting ability at all. Jeeps are useful for busing infantry scouts to and fro their OPs. Apart from that, the vehicle is for scouting what the bicycle was for the development of underwater warfare.

Regards

Dandelion

[Locksley]

Great thanks Dandelion, I guess that was one of the many reasons I lost. I will learn.

Tom

[IntelWeenie]

Trivia on VT:

"Variable Time" was a cover name, just like "tank" was in WWI. In reality, it is a proximity fuse that is not "timed" at all. It has a small radar transceiver that workd pretty much like Dandelion said. Pretty much anyone could time arty fuses for bursting effects, but it is very hard to get just right. There's only a window of a few milliseconds that you want the shell to burst in for optimum effect, so all sorts of variables (wind, air pressure, humidity, variables in manufacture of both fuses and powder, etc) can play a big part in making it not work *exactly* right. The VT fuse made it a virtual gurantee that you'd get airbursts (without lots of precise calculations).

It was originally developed by the US Navy as an anti-aircraft round. IIRC, it was in full production in late '43, but was not available for Army artillery until later due to higher demand from the Navy in the Pacific theater and also the British for V1 "buzz bomb" defense.

[Locksley]

I think though, I've seen on this forum somewhere that mixing nations is gamey? If so why?

Also yet another question for people who know their technical stuff:

From what I've read in several books it appears that the Germans only seemed to put the MG34 in their tanks/vehicles and not the MG42. Is this true? and again if so why?

Thanks for time and help

Tom :confused:

[YankeeDog]

1) Mixing forces:

It was a pretty rare thing for different nationalities to fight together at the tactical level in the ETO. It *did* happen every once in a while, but it was pretty rare. So taking British Paras supported by American Tanks or whatever is often frowned upon by player who like to keep their battles reasonably close to historical possibility. This also gets into the issue of 'cherry picking', something that many players frown on. In general, AFVs fought together as platoons or as companies, not as individual tanks. So fighting with Two Shermans, Three Stuarts, a Firefly and a Greyhound is pretty darn unlikely historically.

2) MG34 vs. MG42 on vehicles: I've heard a number of explainations for this. The one I lends the most credence to is that the MG34 was somewhat more finicky about performance in harsh conditions (dust, cold, etc.), so once the MG42 came out it remaining MG34 inventory and production was reserved for the somewhat more controlled environment of vehicles, while MG42s went to infantry

Another one I've heard is that The Hull and Turret MG mounts of German vehicles prior to 1942 were designed for the round barrel of the MG34, and so didn't fit the MG42's square barrel very well.

Finally, my own theory is that the MG42's very high ROF may have been a factor - the MG42's big weakness was that it overheated very quickly due to the high ROF. It was designed with a barrel quick-change to compensate, but it had to have been damn hard to change a hot MG barrel from the inside of a tank. As such, a somewhat lower ROF MG that could put out steady fire for a longer time may have been a better choice for vehicles.

Cheers,

YD

[Dandelion]

Tom

I wouldn't know about gamey, as I don't play QB's, but a daring guess might be that it might be considered cherry picking, and perhaps unhistorical.

Put briefly, why not? The MG42 presented very little improvement over the MG34. One might even say that the improvements were offset by the new drawbacks. The origin of the MG42 was a search for a cheaper, easier way of mass producing the MG34. That's why the MG42 is made of all steel plates, and small ones too (so that any smaller hardware company in Germany could help producing them, even using smaller machinery). During this development, some early MG34 problems were rectified, primarily issues with dirt reaching into the mechanism (an infantry issue), solved in the MG42 by the new housing (which is sort of square-ish and jointed with the main weapon body) and improved mechanism (well, simplified at least). The MG42 was also lighter, as there were no massive wood parts left on her. But on the other hand, the drastically increased rate of fire - which was already ridiculous with the MG34 - led to an equally drastic increase of weapon jamming (remember the aim had been to reduce occurence of jamming - previously dirt-caused jamming), increased occurence of the mechanism overheating (leading to uncontrolled fire), significantly decreased accuracy, increased munitions loads and very short lifespan of barrels. The latter itself forced the development of easy-to-change barrel systems.

In the vehicular role, as well as the AA role, the MG34 did well (not much dirt there). Thus no need to replace it in these roles. In the aeroplane role however, the increased rate of fire of the MG42 was seen as desirable, thus we see the MG42 in several aircraft (until the 15mm and 20mm replace them along the whole line).

Also, the German armed forces were continually expanding, from day one to Stunde Null, and thus no machineguns were ever likely to be recalled.

Regards

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Hey Yankee Dog - Smurf.

[The ConEU expression of 1975 vintage for people saying the same thing at the same time, you must now answer Smurf in order to be polite]

Dandelion

[Locksley]

I kinda guessed that it would be thought of as cherry picking, but surely an player worth playing would want to try and stick to historical accuracy at least the majority of the time?

In Operation Market Garden I'm sure I've read that along Hell's Highway and around Nijmegen there were British tanks fighting along side American paras on numerous occasions. I know it was partley because paras rarely take tanks with them and also the problems with the single road etc. so surely thats historical? (On re-reading that it doesn't really make sense, nevermind)

But anyway thanks again, it shows how realistic CM is, in that on the demo on many of my practice games I have trouble with MG42s jamming. Isn't this game good. Counting the days until it arrives.

Cheers

Tom

[YankeeDog]

Um, OK Dandelion... Smurf back at ya!

And yes, Tom, the fighting along Hell's Highway is one of the most notable incidents of British and American forces fighting together at the tactical level. It's kind of the exception that proves the rule. If you do a bit of rooting around at the Scenario Depot once you get the game, I bet you can find a decent scenario depicting some of this action.

That's the nice thing about playing 'historical' scenarios - no one can accuse you of being gamey about your force selection. . .

Cheers,

YD

[Dandelion]

...and indeed the 79th "funnies" did lend their vehicles - notably the Crocodiles and AVREs - to the Yanks at numerous occasions from Normandy on, as the Americans seem to have grown really fond of them as support in bunker busting situations. Likewise, I know the US Long Toms did hard labour in numerous British operations (and a few defensive battles) as well.

Not to mention how dependent on support services the minor allies were, such as Belgians, Dutch, Poles and, initially at least, the French.

It strikes me now as I'm writing that I've never actually heard of any occasion where the British and Canadians fought alongside eachother in a tactical situation, save Dieppe and one occasion in Italy, and save the Canadian paras. Funny really, considering the amount of contemporary jokes based on frontline encounters between Canadians and Brits.

But when playing QBs, make sure to find agreement with your opponent upon what type of situation to arrange. Points alone rarely make accurate balance in CMBO. You can buy ten trucks to face a single squad, have overwhelming point superiority and still lose if you know what I mean. Points are just indicators, that work best within a given context, agreed upon by the opponents.

Speaking idiomatic English, what on earth is wrong with picking cherries anyway? They're lovely, sensual berries (well, not berries technically) and I suspect even the English with their... very excentric nutritional preferences might actually approve of them. I mean you people like plums, obviously, so why not cherries? Or is it merely the picking of cherries as such, that is revolting to you?

Cherry oh

Dandelion

[Locksley]

I have no problem with picking cherries, but which cherries to pick? National and international cherries? hmm..

Thanks to all

Tom

[Crank_GS]

As far as armor selection, in US units it was common for there to be mixed types of Shermans within a company, as it took a while for a large number of the 76mm armed tanks to arrive. Also the Jumbo was a very limited production run - what 250 or so? - and they were spread around as well. The 76mm Jumbo was a field-mod, too. The Brits used - at the time of Villers Bocage, anyway - one Firefly per troop, since conversions of these were also slow in coming.

So there was a fair amount of type-mixing going on.

[YankeeDog]

Yes, I should have noted this exception - Sherman platoons, both American and British, usually contained mixed types of Shermans. In fact, you could argue that it is more gamey to take, say, 4 Sherman 76s as a platoon than it is to take 3 'Plain Vanilla' M4s and one 76mm as a platoon. I expect we will see this in CMAK, which presumably will allow armor to be purchased in platoons like CMBB does.

What was not common was to have a mix of, say, 2 Shermans, 1 Hellcat, and an M10, or something like that.

There's always the exception where a fire team was scratched together out of the remaining 'runners' in a given area, but usually you'd have to get above the company level before you'd see AFVs of different types in the same unit.

Cheers,

YD