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A Quick Battle AAR: Shermans vs Pz IVs, Not Your Fathers Combat Mission


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Why do the German crew still wear their headphones? Wouldn't they leave those with the tank? Has this been fixed in later builds?

Michael

I think it was standard practice in tanks that the crew were equipped with earphones with detachable wires on the headsets so the wire wouldn't get rapped around the tank crewman's neck when they bailed out.

Think I might have read that in "Tank Aces" 1 or 2 or "Armor Battles of the Waffen SS"

76d3_1.jpg

ISBN 0-8117-2905-2

On another note, the headsets in the screenies look very much like the one worn on by the guy on the right in the above book cover.

Game on.

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only held on by it's own weight? so if they were cruising along then suddenly hit a major bump it could rock around or possibly come off?

I think a an M4 turret weighed about 6 tonnes, a Tiger II about 13 tonnes, so a "bump" on the road that a 30 to 70 tonne vehicle might run over is not going to upset the turret I think.

Also being several meters long and having numerous wheels a single bump won't translate to the rest of the tank all that much, many tanks will simply "flow" over a bump in the road.

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only held on by it's own weight? so if they were cruising along then suddenly hit a major bump it could rock around or possibly come off?

Yes, in theory. But considering that the turret of a tank weighs 4+ tons, it would take one hell of a bump! Considering the rather slow off road movement of most WWII tanks, it's extremely unlikely. Also, don't forget that the turret sits down inside of the hull almost as much as it protrudes out. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the center of gravity of the average tank turret was very near the height of the turret ring.

Even some (most?) relatively modern tank designs use gravity retained turrets. Check out this Libyan tank that's had its turret blown off. That happened last week! It was hit by a missile of some type, but I'd imagine that 20+ rounds of HE inside a WWII tank has at least as much explosive power.

http://exiledonline.com/wn-blog-day-3-blown-turrets-human-shields-thank-you-libya/

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There should be some restraints on a crew though, otherwise we will have Sven Hassel type super crews roaming around. From all the accounts I have read, most bailed tankers either crawled back to their own lines and did not take any further part in the battle that KO'd them, or lay low and then crawled back. I guess the gamey CM1 tactic of scouting crews has been largely eliminated by realtive spotting, but it would be nice to dismount a couple of crew to scout ahead, instead of everyone.

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In CMBO/CMBB I am pretty sure they nerfed the effectiveness of abusing bailed crews in this manner by reducing the spotting abilities and not so sure but they also had a high points value so you didn't want to get them killed.

Another solution could be to give them very fragile morale.

In real life a bailed crew would have limited if any communications with friendlies. They would be doing there best to preserve their own lives in whatever way they saw fit.

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I think it was standard practice in tanks that the crew were equipped with earphones with detachable wires on the headsets so the wire wouldn't get rapped around the tank crewman's neck when they bailed out.

Seems to me that in an emergency, it would be simpler to yank the headphones off and leave them in the tank than to unplug them.

Michael

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Maybe but the headphones often had a larynx pick up as well so getting them off could be a bit of a bugger.

In my rally car we have a female RCA jack in the cable just nearby that we plug our helmets into, that way when you get out you just automatically unplug as you go. Maybe the tanks are the same.

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There should be some restraints on a crew though, otherwise we will have Sven Hassel type super crews roaming around. From all the accounts I have read, most bailed tankers either crawled back to their own lines and did not take any further part in the battle that KO'd them, or lay low and then crawled back. I guess the gamey CM1 tactic of scouting crews has been largely eliminated by realtive spotting, but it would be nice to dismount a couple of crew to scout ahead, instead of everyone.

Not sure how common scouting was. With my relatively limited reading of accounts for sure some crews a single member (typically the TC) scouted ahead where other tank crews simply never did.

It could be tricky to implement and still preserve some sort of historical integrity. Do you give all crews the ability or just a select few?

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Not sure how common scouting was. With my relatively limited reading of accounts for sure some crews a single member (typically the TC) scouted ahead...

I haven't encountered extensive accounts of this practice so I don't really know what went on, but my impression has been that in the cases I have encountered, when the TC scouted ahead like that he was not looking for enemy units so much as reconnoitering dodgy terrain and on the lookout for mines. I'm not sure how this limitation would be modeled, but putting a higher value on tank crewmen would help.

Michael

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I haven't encountered extensive accounts of this practice so I don't really know what went on, but my impression has been that in the cases I have encountered, when the TC scouted ahead like that he was not looking for enemy units so much as reconnoitering dodgy terrain and on the lookout for mines. I'm not sure how this limitation would be modeled, but putting a higher value on tank crewmen would help.

Michael

Definitely. From all the books I've read, it doesn't seem to be a standard practice- if I was a tanker, I'd be rather paranoid about leaving my tank if there were enemy infantry, snipers, artillery, etc. close by.

Plus, when they did get out to take a close look at the terrain, or such, I doubt they ranged out half a kilometer! I'd think at most it would be a VERY short distance from the tank.

In the end, it should be light armor or infantry doing the scouting.

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Plus, when they did get out to take a close look at the terrain, or such, I doubt they ranged out half a kilometer! I'd think at most it would be a VERY short distance from the tank.

That was my thought. I figure he'd be looking for a path amid obstacles that could damage the track or hang them up, which means close enough that the driver could see hand signals and respond.

Michael

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In CM:SF knocked out vehicles only provide protection for infantry not other vehicles. Unless this has been changed in CM:BN?

I'm not sure how that would be possible, given what Steve has said about how the game engine handles projectiles and hits. We've been told that the game explicitly traces the line that a projectile takes and what, if anything, it intersects with. The only way a shot could hit an AFV that is behind another AFV is if the shell goes clean through the first and comes out the other side *or* if the rear vehicle is sticking out from behind the front vehicle. Anything that's hiding behind another object, whether that object is an armored vehicle, house, tree, fence, etc. should receive protection from that object (as well as concealment).

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The thing is vehicles, destroyed or otherwise, do not provide concealment, and as far as the tacai is concerned a destroyed vehicle actually doesn't exist. So you would have situations where your vehicle would happily fire AP round after AP round into a destroyed tank trying to get to the un-damaged tank behind it because the destroyed vehicle doesn't block LOS.

So when anything is firing on a vehicle any destroyed vehicles in-between the firer and target are ignored. This is not the case for infantry however.

I've been playing CM:SF for a little more than a year and have confirmed this on multiple occasions.

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I'm not sure how that would be possible, given what Steve has said about how the game engine handles projectiles and hits. We've been told that the game explicitly traces the line that a projectile takes and what, if anything, it intersects with. The only way a shot could hit an AFV that is behind another AFV is if the shell goes clean through the first and comes out the other side *or* if the rear vehicle is sticking out from behind the front vehicle. Anything that's hiding behind another object, whether that object is an armored vehicle, house, tree, fence, etc. should receive protection from that object (as well as concealment).

The way it works in CM:SF is knocked out vehicles provide cover for infantry against all shooters whether it's other infantry or vehicles. Vehicles however are DELIBERATELY denied cover from other vehicles because the TAC AI system of aiming towards the center of vehicles means that the covering knocked out vehicle would receive an unrealistically high amount of incoming fire. In real life, a gunner could shift his aim to account for part of the target being obscured. In CMx2, the TAC AI can not currently do this. It can't aim towards the center of the VISIBLE area of the target. It aims towards the center of the entire vehicle. This is my understanding of why it's done this way. Someone please correct me if i'm wrong.

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I don't see how that can be true. Steve said earlier in this thread that when targeting hull down vehicles, the TacAI aims at the center of the turret, which is the only visible part. If the AI always aimed at the center of mass of the entire vehicle, hitting a hull down target would be virtually impossible, and would only happen if the gunner overestimated the distance and shot high.

I think there was also mention of taking out vehicles that were partially obscured by buildings and other objects. In that case, aiming at the center of mass of the vehicle would simply end up shooting the building. That makes no sense at all!

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You might be right about dead vehicles not blocking incoming shots against armor. I've never played CMSF, so I have no idea. But as far as aiming at the center of mass of a vehicle when only a portion of the vehicle is visible, that doesn't make sense and doesn't seem to jive with what Steve said earlier in the thread. Hopefully he can chime in and clear things up. I hope that dead vehicles aren't "invisible" to anti-armor shots. That's one thing I always hated about CMBB and was hoping that 1:1 representation would fix.

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I've never played CMSF, so I have no idea

I strongly recommend you download the CMSF mega-demo to acclimate yourself to the interface. Forget about how much you dislike 'modern desert war', playing the interface will make life very much easier when you get to Normandy. The British module scenario might be the most appropriate, they're the least über of the Blue forces. It doesn't hurt that the demo is free, too. :)

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