M17...Holy freakin' s....!!!!!!

[Gyrene]

Having just received the game this morning and feeling very gamey I decided to set up a QB to see just how BFC modelled the M17 GMC...

Two words:Kick Ass!

The QB was a 1000 point affair and I purchased as many M17's as I could for the money and a sole BA64 with the remainder (Which incidently takes the Cutest Vehicle title away from the Jeep in my opinion...Little clown AC!)

The computer must have been sensing my mood and obliged me by randomly picking a Battalion of conscript Finns backed up by a sole BA10...

I initiated a sweep down both flanks and was fearing that I might run into a Stug or two but I reached the far edge of the map unmolested and then the slaughter began.

The carnage was such that I started feeling bad for the enemy, hordes of panicky troops would suddenly be flushed out of cover like so many über quail only to run right into more awaiting M17's.

The top scoring M17 got 59 infantry kills and some of the sweeping ones were in the high 30's before they ran out of ammo.

The little BA64 didn't hit a single thing.

Incidently the Finnish BA10 got one shot off before it got ventilated.

These M17's are nasty...I can see their abuse in ladder games in the future.

Too bad the M16 never made it in CMBO, but this more than makes it up!

Gyrene

[Prinz Eugen]

You bastard ! I'll give you a whacking as soon as I'm getting the game !

You're not going to get away with this !

Should you be man enough to face my wrath, send me a mail to walter_of_81@hotmail.com. We'll get back on it as the 30th Sep grows nearer.

[ September 24, 2002, 03:29 AM: Message edited by: Prinz Eugen ]

[Gyrene]

They could have been Romanians for all I knew, blame my computer!

Gyrene

[Lindan]

...but if your opponent decides to buy something cheap with a rapid-fire 20mm, like a PSW 222,

your hordes of M17's will turn into burning wrecks in no time. it has been tried before..

[Tero]

Originally posted by Lindan:

...but if your opponent decides to buy something cheap with a rapid-fire 20mm, like a PSW 222,

your hordes of M17's will turn into burning wrecks in no time. it has been tried before..

I would imagine even a few (20mm) ATR's will be enough to send these beasts packing.

[Thin Red Line]

Maybe a kind soul could post a screenshot of the M17 it would help to sustain the frustration of reading this posts for those who don't have the games yet.

[Kwazydog]

I had rifle fire cause one to burn the other day. Quite unlucky Id guess though

Dan

[ September 24, 2002, 04:49 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

[Gyrene]

Originally posted by tero:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lindan:

...but if your opponent decides to buy something cheap with a rapid-fire 20mm, like a PSW 222,

your hordes of M17's will turn into burning wrecks in no time. it has been tried before..

I would imagine even a few (20mm) ATR's will be enough to send these beasts packing.</font>

[Tero]

BTW: what was the date of this QB ?

Just wondering what kind of AT assets that überBattalion had at its disposal, since it seems there were no organig 20mm ATR's present. Or at least you did not mention any.

[FFE]

MG-34/42 HMGS will KO them M-17's, too. No need to break out the 20mm AA.

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Did anyone try this test :

M-17 HTs vs SdKfz7 AA Flakwagons (Cheese Championships !)

[Gremlin]

The top scoring M17 got 59 infantry kills and some of the sweeping ones were in the high 30's before they ran out of ammo.

Wait til you try the German Sturmmörser Tiger! I caused 131 infantry casualties with one of those. That's got to be some kind of record It's hilarious, in a twisted sort of way, to watch one of those shells explode in a forested area and see it take out three squads at once. Every single man.

[TSword]

The M17 is THE gamey vehicle in the game. Not that it was not that effective it actually certainly was. The real bummer is how the Auto 20mm on the german side is handled, a single tiny 20 cm hole in the ground for a 7-8 round serie (If you once have seen the effect of 4 20mm cannons firing on ground targets you understand me). The SS used the 20 mm whenever possible because it was a terror weapon against Infantry (The incendiary rounds setting on fire the men in the vicinity of the exploding round).

Moreover the rarity factors for it in 1943 are extremely low around 20-40% IIRC and extremely cheap 40 or 60 points.

I think this weapon was included the way it is now because of the US-customers of the game...

Best solution would have been to leave it out or atleast impose severe rarity penalties.

:mad:

Greets

Daniel

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by TSword:

The M17 is THE gamey vehicle in the game. Not that it was not that effective it actually certainly was. The real bummer is how the Auto 20mm on the german side is handled, a single tiny 20 cm hole in the ground for a 7-8 round serie (If you once have seen the effect of 4 20mm cannons firing on ground targets you understand me). The SS used the 20 mm whenever possible because it was a terror weapon against Infantry (The incendiary rounds setting on fire the men in the vicinity of the exploding round).

Moreover the rarity factors for it in 1943 are extremely low around 20-40% IIRC and extremely cheap 40 or 60 points.

I think this weapon was included the way it is now because of the US-customers of the game...

Best solution would have been to leave it out or atleast impose severe rarity penalties.

:mad:

Greets

Daniel

It might be "gamey" (re "The M17 is THE gamey vehicle in the game") BUT if there is no programing bug involved and they are easy to kill then good tactics should save the day.

Does the M17 die easy?

I understand the those German AA Flak HT's are no longer invincible and they die EASY as well, so if the M17 has no "invincibilty bug" (cough! undocumented feature ) then killing them should not so hard and that "could" mean they might well pack ALOT of firepower and they might be cheap, implying "gamey" but as long as they die easy there should be no problem? :confused:

comments??

-tom w

[ September 24, 2002, 08:12 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Redwolf]

The hit probability of the 20mm (and other) autocannons has been tuned down, I think from times-3 to times-2. In addition, the effect of a small round penetrating has been cut down, so the halftracks will have a better life from that.

However, the hordes of AT rifles should take care of that problem just fine, shouldn't they?

I took the quad.50cal and the German equivalent with triple-MG for a test ride but wasnt overly impressed. Nice weapons, but not especially powerful.

[ September 24, 2002, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[TSword]

aka, redwolf

May all be true, but they are infantry and HT butchers for free. 40-60 points how many heavy MG do you get for this price, 4 ? (regulars).

I can't understand why it is sooo difficult to handle the 20mm autocannon like a MG with extra punch, it's all it is needed in the first place. Who needs the blast value ?. Does anybody think the 20mm killed by blast value ?? Come on....

There's an imbalance in respecto to Inf-killing power which is because a weapon-system isn't modelled correctly. And this inf-hitting power was the reason it was so searched after by the troops.

In short, a request to BTS, delete the quad german and give us a gun looking like a quad 20mm but with the algorithms of a 12 mm with boosted punch and lowered firerate, OK ??

Greets

Daniel

[Thin Red Line]

Interesting discussion.

Originally posted by TSword:

The SS used the 20 mm whenever possible because it was a terror weapon against Infantry (The incendiary rounds setting on fire the men in the vicinity of the exploding round).

Who needs the blast value ?. Does anybody think the 20mm killed by blast value ?? Come on....

I never observed the effect of real 20mm, so can you please elaborate because i'm confused ?

Moreover the rarity factors for it in 1943 are extremely low around 20-40% IIRC and extremely cheap 40 or 60 points...

Best solution would have been to leave it out or at least impose severe rarity penalties.

This is not clear for me. Do you mean that even with a rarity factor the weapon is still too cheap in CMBB ?

Regards

Nicolas

[Ben Galanti]

A couple M17 questions, actually.

First, am I the only one for whom the gunner comes out of his seat when the turret turns? He doesn't rotate with the turret correctly, and ends up floating in the air... This is on a Mac if it makes any difference. All I have to do is give an off-axis fire order, and when the turret turns, the guy does rotate, but also slides laterly. He'll slide back into place if the turret rotates forward again.

Also, I found it odd that the turret doesn't rotate when attacking aircraft. It treats the MGs like a tank commanders AA MG, where the bullets just start firing up. I would think the turret should rotate and elevate. Dunno if it's possible with the current engine and treatment of AA MGs. I also found it strange that the M17 never actually targetted the incoming aircraft (red targeting line) even though it did fire at it...

Just a couple of observations from playing around with one last night (Sturmtigers make short work of them )

Ben

[Redwolf]

I also think the code for the quad-.50cal halftrack al,lows the MGs to fire independently, as in hull MGs indepentently from coax. When you surround the vehicle with infantry you can see occasional tracers going off in directions the main effort is not going to, just like a hull MG.

It's not too bad, though, the "other" fire is very sporadic.

[TSword]

Thin Redline,

Of course in real the blast with splinters and pieces of phosphor were a big part of the weapon's

effect.

However cmbb is an abstraction of the real, and there's certainly no algorithm in it for the effect of incendiary rounds on infantry.

The most obvious effect when a inf-group is shooted at with 20 mm is exactly the same as with MG, they hit the ground ASAP panicked by the burning and torn apart bodies around them. So what we need foremost is the suppresive effect of an MG, but with better kill and moral effect.

I would warmly welcome a higher blast value in conjunction with suppresive effect, since for the burst (4-6 rounds) only one blast occurs when there should be 4-6, but BTS refused so far.

What we have now is the worst possible solution, to calculate one single tiny blast only, no spread suppressing effect. Do a test with a Quad-20mm vs. advancing Inf-plt in the open and a HMG, amazing difference. The result clearly shows the Quad completely ineffective vs. Inf.

This "behaviour" of the auto 20mm, true is a negligeable in itself, but becomes a real torn in the back when compared to the M17. Now again it's necessary to debate how many one can take in a Multiplayer game and so on. Fact is the german army was abundantly equipped with Flakguns of all calibres from the beginning, where the Russian army was not (Only higher Level reserves) up to very late in the war.

Btw: I would rate a (corrected) Quad 20mm at around 100 - 120 points atleast, and the same so for the M17.

It's also very good that hopefully the gamey 20mm lorries (difficult to kill) have been changed.

It's just that i like to create scenarios with some historical OOB's such as 20mm cannons vs. Inf or softargets. Now it's futile to do so, a waste of points.

OK enough whining, back to the great sides of CMBB !! I'VE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE AT- AND LMG- TEAMS !! (Maybe also candidates for the gamey award...)

Greets

Daniel

[Redwolf]

A CMBO burst of a Flak gun actually models three rounds shot, for what can be seen through the abstraction.

A CMBB shot may model two rounds or still three. They tuned down the hit probablity and they may be because it now stands for fwer rounds or it may be because they assume fewer rounds. Don't know.

Overall I don't find the cry for more lethal flak guns convincing, you probably want to give some more hard historical data.

[Dowarisch]

This reminds me a little of Saving Private Ryan, when the German 20mm opened fire on their own tank to shake off the assaulting G.I´s.

From my personal point of view I will rather take 2 Mg42´s instead of a quad 20mm any time.

I really expected the effect vs infantry to be a lot better.

[TSword]

Redwolf,

Hard fact as you surely know isn't available to this subject (who would shoot at a flok of pigs with a Quad 20mm ????), but every account related to Quad 20mm Flakvierling in a groundrole emphasizes the devastating effect on men and soft targets in general.

Account for instance by Dickfeld (JG52 pilot) where in the struggle of winter 1942/43 their airfield was suprisingly attacked by a russian cav.-battailon in the Night over a frozen lake. They had a single Quad-20mm and otherwise handheld inf-weapons like carabine and MP40 to defend themselve. The bataillon was slaughtered by the Quad 20mm, they counted over 200 dead the next morning terribly mutilated laying in the ice.

Account (and several others i don't remember) for instance in Last victory where a town only held by rear-Security troops, again in the struggle Jan-Feb. 1943, was attacked by massed russian infantry in the Night, a single Quad-20mm again stalled the attack panicking the attackers and leaving heaps of dead behind.

Take the M17 Quad M2, it is devastating vs. Inf. right ? Now bore it out to 20mm. Now out of a sudden it cannot be used vs. infantry anymore because someone rates it now a cannon. Come on..

Greets

Daniel

[Chad Harrison]

The M17 is the coolest thing in the game, besides the Sturmtiger! Both make for great fun!

[Andreas]

When it comes to gamey vehicles, I'd rate the SPW 251/21 quite highly. 39 points, three 15mm MGs, lower rarity than the M17... Budda budda kercheng...