are sturmmgruppes(sp?) gamey?

[Croda]

Iron Chef, settle down. You're getting righteous about something ridiculously trivial. The units are in the game and can be mixed. While it may not be historically accurate (which I personally prefer) the game allows it and the future of the free world does not depend on an 800 point Meeting Engagement.

If you prefer to use rifle teams then do so. If you want your opponent to do so as well then lay out the guidelines ahead of time.

I'm guessing you must play ladder games where winning is "important." Around here, people typically play historically win or lose.

As for me, I often use Axis Motorized Infantry. Why? I like it. I even use them to support armor in a combined arms attack. I guess I must be the gamiest sunuvabitch going. I've also taken to using SMG squads in reverse slope ambush falling back on rifle or motorized inf. I bet that gets your goat.

I assume it was impossible for varied infantry types to call for Engineer support? Was that taboo?

"Hey Colonel Franz, we have a minefield. Can you send up some engineers?"

"Nope. Sorry Lt. Hans. You're motorized infantry. No engineer support for you."

"Well what about the Fallschmijager fighting on our left? Can they have them?"

"Let me check my rule book...Nope. Only rifle companies get engineers. You'll just have to walk through them yourselves."

"Righto. Adolf, I have a mission for you..."

Get real.

Try playing some canned scenarios. You'll like them much better. Do you argue with the AI when it picks a gamey force?

[Lah]

I have met very few 'gamey' players from many opponents on the Rugged defence ladder.

The people who do play like that I find are crap at the game anyway so they still lose!

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Stoffel:

Question for the commissar:

you say the smg squads are gamey,right?

in cmbb we probably get the russian shock/assault troops..................and if I am right they were armed almost completely with PPSH's with these nice big drum magazines.

and I am sure these units were pretty common too

But since you think such units are gamey,you for sure aint gonna buy them,right???

They are only gamey because they exploit some game mechanics problems:

Long-range fire from rifle squads isn't effective enough and it uses up too much ammo (compared to historical amount of volleys available for both kinds of troops).

They are only effective at short range, and usually you would have few problems to hold them at range. But in CMBO you cannot prevent them from closing the range, especially because the MGs do not have an effective "let-loose" mode, mines are too expensive, and the "run" command allows too much return fire, supressing the defender.

These problems are being addressed in CMBB, so hopefully the discussion will go away.

In addition, they are quite cheap, because you can buy them with no "overhead", neither obligatory teams nor other smallarms in-squad. This isn't a game problem per se, but it gets on players nerves because the Axis has many more choices, which automatically leads to having units better suited to taste or situation.

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by Herr Kruger:

A) they encountered enemy forces

You mean like, say... every battle in CM!

I have to disagree, I'm currently playing a 25 turns ME PBEM and on turn 15, i occupy all VLs and I still didn't see any ennemy force.

Looks like my partners prefers to hear birds singing instead of war explosions ans shouting...

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by Herr Kruger:

A) they encountered enemy forces

You mean like, say... every battle in CM!

I have to disagree, I'm currently playing a 25 turns ME PBEM and on turn 15, i occupy all VLs and I still didn't see any ennemy force.

Looks like my partners prefers to hear birds singing instead of war explosions ans shouting...

[M Hofbauer]

Iron chef suggests that Motorized axis troops ride their transports into battle, flags waiving in the wind.

Now, is he seriously suggesting they are attacking while riding in their Opel Blitz trucks?

First of all, terminology.

Motorized Infantry would be using trucks.

Only "Armored Infantry" uses the SdKfz 251/1 halftrack transports.

Towards the time span that CMBO covers, many of those units did not have their organic transports.

they would then *have* to fight on foot, so even if someone frontally lobotomized would suggest they should always fight from their transports these units who lack them due to attrition to their transport equipment simply could not.

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai:

I'm not saying SMG squads are always used gamey, but 95% of the time they are. I'm not disgruntled for losing to them or anything, i always win against gamey opponents, it's quite easy, but it takes away from the fun of it all for me.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who is used to seeing people constantly use Motorized infantry squads, with no transports for them, mixed in with pioneer, smg, and or paratroop squad all mixed into one on a single battlefield. Who cares if i win easily, the game is so gross to me it does'nt matter, it's not very fun, luckily i found a very good opponent who has a similar taste in QB's as i do.

Then what you are saying is the SMG squads are not gamey it is just that your opponents force mix unhistorically. Big difference.

Jeff

[Battlefront.com]

Another rather silly discussion

Gamey has nothing to do with the units themselves, but how they are purchased by the player. Unrealistic mixing and matching is not historical and therefore can only be explained as being "gamey". But no individual unit that player picked is more gamey than another. Granted that gamey players have their own favorites, but that is a matter of personal choice (i.e. some always by SMG troops, some always AA troops, some never play anything but British Airborne, etc.).

As for transport... in theory motorized troops fought dismounted, which was acheived prior to being taken under fire. While armored transport (HTs) often did play a role in the battle, they often did not.

Hofbauer also pointed out the long overdue description of what standard German practice was in terms of transport. To add to what he said...

A Panzer Division's Panzergrenadier formations came in two flavors:

Gepanzert (armored)

Motorisiert (motorized)

The first regiment was armored, the second motorized. But imortantly, only ONE battalion of the TWO in the armored Regiment was in fact issued armored halftracks. Which means that in theory they had 3 armored companies out of 12! In reality they often only had enough for a single company in the WHOLE division!

For Panzergrenadier formations... they in theory didn't have armored companies at all. They didn't have enough for the modest requirements of the Panzer Divisions, so outfitting the PzGren Divisios was almost totally out of the question. This is not to say that such formations NEVER had HTs, but it would be a rare exception (like Grossdeutschland PzGren Div)

With the massive losses and difficultites with keeping trucks in service, the Germans centralized their vehicles into motorpools. IIRC this was not the case at the beginning of the war, but was instead due to necessity prior to Barbarossa.

Also keep in mind that this is only a rule of thumb as things changed quite a bit over time, theater, and individual formation. But the basic thing people should take away from this is that for the Germans HT borne infantry was quite uncommon.

Steve

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by Stoffel:

Question for the commissar:

you say the smg squads are gamey,right?

in cmbb we probably get the russian shock/assault troops..................and if I am right they were armed almost completely with PPSH's with these nice big drum magazines.

and I am sure these units were pretty common too

But since you think such units are gamey,you for sure aint gonna buy them,right???

Those Russian SMG's you speak of with the nice drum magazines were the biggest piece of **** gun produced in the war. You guy think the weld marks on The russian tanks were bad, wait till you see these things. The only worse gun i can think of is that Japanese pistol that could fire if you squeezed the top of the gun.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by Croda:

Iron Chef, settle down. You're getting righteous about something ridiculously trivial. The units are in the game and can be mixed. While it may not be historically accurate (which I personally prefer) the game allows it and the future of the free world does not depend on an 800 point Meeting Engagement.

If you prefer to use rifle teams then do so. If you want your opponent to do so as well then lay out the guidelines ahead of time.

I'm guessing you must play ladder games where winning is "important." Around here, people typically play historically win or lose.

As for me, I often use Axis Motorized Infantry. Why? I like it. I even use them to support armor in a combined arms attack. I guess I must be the gamiest sunuvabitch going. I've also taken to using SMG squads in reverse slope ambush falling back on rifle or motorized inf. I bet that gets your goat.

I assume it was impossible for varied infantry types to call for Engineer support? Was that taboo?

"Hey Colonel Franz, we have a minefield. Can you send up some engineers?"

"Nope. Sorry Lt. Hans. You're motorized infantry. No engineer support for you."

"Well what about the Fallschmijager fighting on our left? Can they have them?"

"Let me check my rule book...Nope. Only rifle companies get engineers. You'll just have to walk through them yourselves."

"Righto. Adolf, I have a mission for you..."

Get real.

Try playing some canned scenarios. You'll like them much better. Do you argue with the AI when it picks a gamey force?

There is nothing wrong with Motorized infantry, or SMG's, i use them too, but when you mix in a platoon of paratroops, and mountain troops, and everything rolled into one it's just kind of gross in my opinion, i'm not trying to start a movement to ban it or anything, i posted earlier it's no big deal, everyone like to play different and to just let me know ahead of time. I can see your point about Motorized not need transports in these battles. I just started playing on a ladder, but it's not all abouit winning the games for me, it was just an easy place to find cm players that will play ip games.

[Redwolf]

Two points to make here:

Communiction is the word of the day for these playability problems. The tournamenthouse ladder is as cherry-picking as it gets (that says nothing about the tactics employed there), but I see people agreeing with no problems on a specific set of infantry choices that is fair. Agreements I have seen include:

- Not more than <x> SMG platoons

- Just say "US rifle vs. SS rifle", getting rid of the waste of time thinking about the choices which adds nothing to tactics

- Allow Army/Airborne mix for Allied, but no force mix for Axis

- Make volksgrenadier their own force with limited armor/artillery

About the halftracks, I have seen a number of first-hand accounts (some of them on this forum) that the Germans in fact drove through actual enemy fire with infantry riding in halftracks. Obviously only when no strong AT defenses were expected. And obviously not right into the enemy line. But dropping off the ifnantry in a superiour position, even when that requires crossing open space in front of the defenders - more often that not.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Iron chef suggests that Motorized axis troops ride their transports into battle, flags waiving in the wind.

Now, is he seriously suggesting they are attacking while riding in their Opel Blitz trucks?

First of all, terminology.

Motorized Infantry would be using trucks.

Only "Armored Infantry" uses the SdKfz 251/1 halftrack transports.

Towards the time span that CMBO covers, many of those units did not have their organic transports.

they would then *have* to fight on foot, so even if someone frontally lobotomized would suggest they should always fight from their transports these units who lack them due to attrition to their transport equipment simply could not.

When did i say they should attack WITH their transports? Assumeing your realy not hooked on phonix let me reinterate, i usggested that mabe their transports or trucks should be somewhere on the map, i assume most people would leave them way in the back. Kind of like in Fionn's short 75 rules where everytime you buy a guy, you have to buy a truck or tractor with it.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Buy a gun that is. I think i need a typing class, hehe.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Another rather silly discussion

The first regiment was armored, the second motorized. But imortantly, only ONE battalion of the TWO in the armored Regiment was in fact issued armored halftracks. Which means that in theory they had 3 armored companies out of 12! In reality they often only had enough for a single company in the WHOLE division!Steve

I will add that even in the "elite" divisions - like Grossdeutschland - this still held true. Halftrack mounted German infantry was an extreme rarity away from the battlefield or on the battlefield. The preponderance of websites and books on the SS and Panzer divisions make one forget that they accounted for maybe 10 percent of the field army as a whole - who depeneded on their dice shakers (we call them "Black Cadillacs" in the Canadian Army today) to get them from place to place.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Thin Red Line:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Herr Kruger:

A) they encountered enemy forces

You mean like, say... every battle in CM!

I have to disagree, I'm currently playing a 25 turns ME PBEM and on turn 15, i occupy all VLs and I still didn't see any ennemy force.

Looks like my partners prefers to hear birds singing instead of war explosions ans shouting...</font>

[Battlefront.com]

Iron Cheif,

Watch your language and even more importantly watch your tone. You are not making friends this way, certainly not with us. If your tirades can not be controlled by yourself, we can control them for you by banning you from using our forum.

As for your comments about the PPsH... like many of your I-don't-know-where-the-heck-you-come-up-with-this-stuff comments, the PPsH was one of the best SMGs in the entire war. In fact, German soldiers considered them to be a highly prized addition to their squad's firepower.

Who the heck cares about weld marks and crudely made stocks? The things worked, and worked with deadly effect in any and all circumstances. Having fired a PPsH, MP38, MP40, and Tompson full auto myself... I would take the PPsH any day of the week.

Steve

P.S. Gun snobs, as I call them, make endless negative comments about the MG42 and MP44 vs. MG34 and Kar98k. Yet look at what is used today... MG3 and G3s. Armies like functionality first.

[The Commissar]

Originally posted by Charlie Rock:

Commissar,

How are MGs going to modeled differently?

The best way I can explain why MG's lack in CMBO and how they will be improved in CMBB is by asking if you've ever seen a WW1 movie.

Most of us have, and will thus be familiar with the sight of men running over "No Man's Land" and getting chopped to pieces by raking MG fire.

CMBO cannot do this. Send a platoon charging across open ground at a heavy MG and see what happens.

Depending on how much open land your men have to cross (let's assume 100m), one and rarely two of your squads will be chewed up by the MG. However, the squads right next to the squad being chewed up will suffer little to no casualties! In the real world however, the MG would sweep its fire over the entire platoon, hitting men in every one, causing casualties much more severe.

In stopping SMG squad charges, this is absoluely vital. To stop an effective SMG charge, you need enough men to shoot long enough when the enemy is still in the open. When they close in with you in cover and are still battle-capable, you're dead. One of the few ways to do this in CM currently is by having more squads then the other guy to be able to fire on the attackers. In the real world however, men moving over open space at full speed would make perfect targets for sweeping MG fire, pinning or killing a large number of them with the fire from JUST ONE MG! CMBO cannot handle this, but CMBB (according to Steve) will. This will effectively counter the SMG gameyness threat, making the world a happy place once more.

Originally posted by Stoffel:

you say the smg squads are gamey,right?

in cmbb we probably get the russian shock/assault troops..................and if I am right they were armed almost completely with PPSH's with these nice big drum magazines.

and I am sure these units were pretty common too

But since you think such units are gamey,you for sure aint gonna buy them,right???

You reading skills are in need of some attention, Stoffel. You see, if you don't read an ENTIRE POST, you're just making yourself look silly when you critisize someone when you haven't finished reading what they were saying. As I explained to Charly, SMG are gamey because of flaws in the game mechanics.

To answer your question, yes I will use Soviet and German SMG squads. However, I will have to do a lot more work in getting them safely to close range because of the new and realistic threat MG's will present to infantry.

Originally posted by Iron Chef:

Those Russian SMG's you speak of with the nice drum magazines were the biggest piece of **** gun produced in the war. You guy think the weld marks on The russian tanks were bad, wait till you see these things.

Im sure that the Germans on the other side of that PPH sub machine gun shared your views! In fact, I have it on a reliable source (I got wasted the other night and decided to make up facts about WW2) that whenever a Soviet assault squad armed with PPH's stormed a German position, the Germans would drop their weapons and roll around on the floor laughing because they know those Soviet guns were such f*ing ****! They made sure to tell this to the Soviets before being shot to pieces, Im sure.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Iron Cheif,

Watch your language and even more importantly watch your tone. You are not making friends this way, certainly not with us. If your tirades can not be controlled by yourself, we can control them for you by banning you from using our forum.

As for your comments about the PPsH... like many of your I-don't-know-where-the-heck-you-come-up-with-this-stuff comments, the PPsH was one of the best SMGs in the entire war. In fact, German soldiers considered them to be a highly prized addition to their squad's firepower.

Who the heck cares about weld marks and crudely made stocks? The things worked, and worked with deadly effect in any and all circumstances. Having fired a PPsH, MP38, MP40, and Tompson full auto myself... I would take the PPsH any day of the week.

Steve

P.S. Gun snobs, as I call them, make endless negative comments about the MG42 and MP44 vs. MG34 and Kar98k. Yet look at what is used today... MG3 and G3s. Armies like functionality first.

I've read from many sources that the quality of the PPsH was crude at best. Does that mean it's bullets are not deadly to humans, not at all. The Japanese suffered from not quite up to date small arms and even though the weaponjs they carried were inferior to the US, we still took casualties.

The PPsH worked good in human wave attacks, especialy in Lenningrad, but to claim the the PPsH is better then an MP-40 is well of a totaly different opinion of mine. Not only that but the Allies actualy saw the MP-40 as a prized weapon and alot of US, and British soldiers would pick them up and carry them. I've read on numorous accounts that over all the MP-40 was the best smg of the war. The PPhp was a rugged gun, just like the AK-47 are, but the M-16 is still a superior weapon to it.

The PPhP strengths was that it could be mass produced at an extreme rate. But the Soviet War machine's mentality of basicly having a disposable army, meaning that the commanders did not care about how mny losses they took, as long as they won, i.e Zhukov marching his army thru known minefields to save time instead of having engineers clear a path.

Also i was not aware that swearing was an issue on this forum since i've seen countless times other people include them in their posts. If you want to ban me for diagreeing and not assimilating into others way of thinking it's not a big deal to me. I've noticed that everyone pretty much posts the same on here, wich is'nt bad, they are good posts and nice an orderly, but this is the first forum i've been on. Thats too bad you took such offense to me bashing on your favorite smg. It's just i've heard from WW2 veterens and books that the MP-40 was the best smg of the war.

[The Commissar]

Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai:

Not only that but the Allies actualy saw the MP-40 as a prized weapon and alot of US, and British soldiers would pick them up and carry them.

Duuh, that's because there were no PPsH's on the Western Front!

Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai:

I've read on numorous accounts that over all the MP-40 was the best smg of the war. The PPhp was a rugged gun, just like the AK-47 are, but the M-16 is still a superior weapon to it.

Hmm, that's interesting. Then why did many Germans trade in their supposedly "superior" MP-40's and such for the inferior "for-human-waves-only" PPsH? I guess those were some pretty dumb Germans, huh?

Oh, and don't ignite the M-16 vs AK-47 debate here, k? Lets just say both guns are good in different conditions.

[Michael Dorosh]

NOt so fast Commisar - the Germans did rechamber PPSh SMGs to fire German 9mm; do you know for sure they didn't go west?

Look at all the Eastern European weapons used by, for example, the security company at Remagen in March 1945.

[ February 01, 2002, 04:25 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Iron Chef Sakai]

[/qb]

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Well where the smg's were most prevelent, was in city fighting. Lets use Stalingrad for an example....what German soldier would not pick up a gun german or soviet and use it there? Supplies did'nt always get to the armies at the exact time they needed them. And i'll end this smg debate with this.....the most prized weapon in Stalingrad was a shovel.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thats what i typed so it is'nt confusing, i'm still learning the controls on quotes and stuff to make them look right.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Oh, and don't ignite the M-16 vs AK-47 debate here, k? Lets just say both guns are good in different conditions.

Agreed.

[Battlefront.com]

The Allies also found the MG42 and MP44 "crude". Got Intel reports which say exactly that. But why then did every military after the war build their weapons based on these two examples? Because they sucked?

As for "crude" you can not get more crude than the Sten. Yet it was highly effective. Don't be suckered in by gun snobs or misunderstanding what words like "crude" mean in the real world. The PPsH was a fine weapon and highly prized by German NCOs in particular.

You can stick your fingers in your ears and say "nah-nah-nah" as loud as you can, but the fact is that it was in many ways superior to the MP40 in terms of functionality. And to a soldier who lives and dies due to functionality, that is all that matters. Rear line gun snobs, or ones who have to be careful to not disrupt morale (i.e. telling troops the MG42 is a piece of crap), are not the best judge. The guy in the trench is.

The PPsH was a weapon the Germans tried to duplicate. They went so far as to plan on making a quick knockoff. But pride got in the way of that and so it was canned. However, they did rechamber slews of them to take standard German 9mm ammo. And yes, many of them (modified and unmodified) did make their way to the West, although many were discarded when Soviet ammo stocks were used up. We didn't include them in CMBO, along with dozens of other captured weapons, because they were relatively rare and overly complicated coding. However, in CMBB you will see these guns used by Axis troops.

Steve

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Iron Cheif,

Watch your language and even more importantly watch your tone. You are not making friends this way, certainly not with us. If your tirades can not be controlled by yourself, we can control them for you by banning you from using our forum.

As for your comments about the PPsH... like many of your I-don't-know-where-the-heck-you-come-up-with-this-stuff comments, the PPsH was one of the best SMGs in the entire war. In fact, German soldiers considered them to be a highly prized addition to their squad's firepower.

Who the heck cares about weld marks and crudely made stocks? The things worked, and worked with deadly effect in any and all circumstances. Having fired a PPsH, MP38, MP40, and Tompson full auto myself... I would take the PPsH any day of the week.

Steve

P.S. Gun snobs, as I call them, make endless negative comments about the MG42 and MP44 vs. MG34 and Kar98k. Yet look at what is used today... MG3 and G3s. Armies like functionality first.

I have a question, because i swore in my post, and took a "tone" you percieved i had and disliked you felt it necessary to tell me your company or something does'nt like me? I don't have a problem not swearing, but should'nt you be a little more courteous? I don't mind having debates and conversations or being corrected if i'm wrong, but i don't think anyone like being talked down to. Instead of acting like an annoying parent, why not just try to encourage more postive posts from people?

I understand it's your forum and you can do whatever you want, but to single my swearing out from the rest of the crowd seems a bit over zealos. I did not see anywhere in the rules that all my posts had to have a bibliography of where i got my info from. I don't see the big deal in someone posting about not being impressed with something like a tank or a gun. I've seen un-ending threads about how worthless Waffen SS are in this game, (i don't agree) and people have said much wrose there then me posting a remark about a random smg that i'm not completly impressed with. I'm not crazy about P-47's eaither, does'nt mean they were'nt good.

In my opinion you treating my post, (though admitidly not a very good one) as if i was refering to your mother instead of a random smg.

So if you want to over react and ban me from the forum over this it's fine by me, i understand that alot of people on here are not fond of my posts, i already mentioned before in posts that if they realy wanted to be babies about it, i would make a thread and take a vote to see how many people minded or did not want me one here, if they won, i'd ban myself.