Tactical Wargamer Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 Well this is a comment my buddy sent to me via email......I was going to tear a part about his comments but I was hoping to have some higher degree of knowledge from the pros here on the forum Are his comments justified? If so I will have to "eat some crow" I guess. If not can you help me shoot him down just a little "I don't mind the combat mission series its just that the world war II series had funky ammo load outs and weird numbers for their guns.......I mean giving T34's cannister rounds NEVER happened ever. The Russian 85mm gun is no better than the American 76mm and it comes across as a can opener. Anyone has access to this information or can at least find info on WWII armor as it is all unclassified. Heck you can go to Historicon and talk to guys like Steven Zaloga and David Glantz or go to work with me in Ottawa and talk to Gen. Rick Hillier. (shameless plugs aside)....................." Well any comments? Thanks Gents 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 RCMP, His first sentence clearly implies a comparison, so I ask, funky and weird as compared to what? In a separate thread I responded to your canister/shrapnel question. The answers are both complex and far from trivial. Note particularly the legwork that went into answering the question. JasonC's the guy to talk to about specific issues with modeling terminal ballistics for Russian armor piercing rounds. There are some undermodeling issues he's identified for, I believe, the T-34, ZiS-3, 45mm ATG and the SU-85/T-34/85, issues compounded by German player cherry picking in quick battles, for which there are fixes. OTOH, the German ability to neutral steer, thus quickly pivot many tanks and SPs, isn't depicted, nor is that the German weapons used smokeless/flashless powder, greatly complicating locating them, this as attested by veteran U.S. Army troops fighting in the West. Nor do Nebelwerfers in the game typically shatter the foe the way those hit by them report. There have also been enormous debates over the overmodeling of airpower vs. tanks. Also, the Russians are missing a number of artillery pieces used in the DF role in streetfighting, up through the enormous B-4 203mm howitzer. The above said, and bearing in mind that I've doubtless left out other things, to include the glaring and galling absence of WP from either game, and it was important historically, what do we have? A tiny firm with one, yes, one full time programmer undertook to provide the means for players to fight the entire Eastern Front campaign from jump off to the bitter end, anywhere but Manchuria, using not just the major powers plus the Finns and the Italians, but the all but unknown to most Hungarians and Romanians. There are provisions for using captured vehicles, partisans, etc., and the clever have branched out into areas the designers neither intended nor envisioned, such as the Spanish Civil War and the German attack on Poland. This is a toolbox allowing gamers to do almost anything imaginable in the East and going to the bitter end. The courage to even try this, let alone carry it out, on the whole, brilliantly are astounding, and remember, this game got top reviews. This game also completely restructured many of the core activities performed by the earlier CMBO, specifically including modeling MG behavior, suppression, effects of optics on gunnery, implementation of cover arcs, including one geared to fighting AFVS, not to mention digging in some very obscure places for data on such odd weapons as the ampulomet and the orgaization and equipage of Romanian rifle squads. The research and programming must've been simply staggering. CMAK took the players to the Western Desert, to North Africa, to Tunisia, Sicily and Italy. Not only was this a shock for many, but they had to learn to fight in a wholly new environment and deal with something never before seen in CM, save during building collapses: dust. It changed everything. Your friend may indeed run in some important circles, but he fails to appreciate the resources that went into these games, not just the regular research, but the involvement of serving and former military of all appropriate branches, veteran interviews, specialists, such as Valera Potapov on Russian weaponry, rexford on terminal ballistics, Jeff Duquette on ordnance matters, etc. The experts were consulted, and they often disagreed; the manuals, field regs, personal accounts and more were reviewed, all in an effort to get very nitty gritty, but important, technical details right so as to ensure fidelity in the game. We had raging debates for months on how to interpret armor penetration data, target defeat criteria, whose armor was of what quality and when, and all of it had to be done against a tiny company's very real budget, schedule, personnel (one fulltime artist, one fulltime Web guy) and other constraints, while the aforementioned programmer flogged his overtaxed game engine to performance deemed impossible. Will post this now, then resume. Don't want to lose the post from the thunderstorm. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 RCMP, Continuing, I feel very safe in asserting that no two non BFC computer wargames have ever possessed the unbelievable depth and breadth of grogdom in these two award winning games your friend so cavalierly dismisses. Think about what was done, simply to assemble just, say, the vehicle characteristics data. Does your sneering friend know a Zrinyi, from a Toldi, from a Turan? BFC does! What is the correct ROF for an ISU-152? What is the explosive charge for a BM-13 rocket. How far does an Ampulomet fire? Does he even begin to appreciate a gunnery terminal effectiveness model which takes into account not just the usual relative position and canned slope numbers, but also the target vehicle's elevation and orientation relative to the firer--in 3-D? Does he even begin to grok the incredibly detailed calculations of armor type, quality, hardness, potential edge effects and more when that armor gets hit by a an AP shot, AP shell, hollow charge shell, of a specified type, from a specified gun, in order to determine what happened. Does he appreciate the genius stroke that is the Death Clock and how beautifully it models the real world uncertainty of a tanker who's hit the target, but the target hasn't exploded or burst into flame? I suggest you take "Mr. Wizard" out, via PBEM or TCP/IP to Tiger Valley and let him put his supposed brilliance where his mouth is. Unless he's actually played one or both games, in a serious fight, say, Trappenjagd for the East, he simply doesn't know what he's talking about. Can he break the Germans with a low quality force on the attack? Can he hold in the face of seemingly unending Russian tanks by clever siting of limited defensive means? Does he know how to fight in the woods, how to infiltrate, how to use flamethrowers, tank hunter teams and sharpshooters? We'll see! Are the games perfect? No, they're made by mortals. Are they amazing gaming experiences which relentlessly punish stupid decisions? Can you learn a lot about the dynamics of the battlefield from playing them? Are they valuable for teaching military history (Australian Army thinks so; commissioned a special version of CMAK)? Absolutely! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 RCMP, Accuracy in modelling can be taken too far - if your buddy really wants the WWII experience he should somehow allow himself the possibility of being killed, maimed, bored, bullied, shouted at, bitten by insects, etc. The point is, this is a game. A highly detailed, 3 dimensional, rewind and replay game. The ballistics are Newtonian (good enough for me, perhaps your buddy would prefer some quantum level of calculation there), the colours and sounds are those able to be produced on a home PC, the data are as good as can be found. The end result has to be an enjoyable time had by the player - hardly a realistic model of a WW2 veteran - or the software producer starves. Of course there will discrepancies. If your buddy doesn't like the game, good on him for having an opinion. In mine, he disses a magnificent creation. oh, and what John says... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tactical Wargamer Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 Thanks guys I will read your other threads with great interest! Excellent posts! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinrich505 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Hear Hear, John K, very eloquently stated. I concur wholeheartedly. Heinrich505 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 RCMP, You're welcome! Are you now a canister and shrapnel grog? Heinrich505, What can I say? That crack from RCMP's friend brought out the Aemilius Paulus in me. http://www.execupundit.com/2006/04/come-with-me-into-macedonia.html Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHIV Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 I have the T-34 Medium Tank 1941-45 book from the osprey publishing, in it, it states that the standard loadout for a t-34 included five rounds of Shrapnel 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 TheHIV, This long, groggy thread really gets into the what's what of Russian canister and shrapnel. One of the more remarkable discoveries, after a great deal of digging, source cross comparison and the like, was that the Russian shrapnel could be set for, basically, muzzle action, turning it into a kind of canister round. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=43241&highlight=russian+shrapnel+rounds Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHIV Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Thank you very much 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 TheHIV, You're welcome! Grog stuff's so much more enjoyable when shared. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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