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


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James' point (I think) is a playing style that considers casualties as a prism for the players tactical ability. To me that's the purest essence of wargaming. But sometimes I like to play... ummm... a little looser style, I JUST Gotta say it, "Man I'm in you base, killing your Dudes!"

Surely you mean "All your VL are belong to us!" :)

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Obviously you should first define "realistic". It seems different people have different opinions on what realistic is.

What is clear is that the point scoring is different from a scenario. In a scenario there is a background and a surrounding world. The outcome of the scenario can either be reflected on the real world outcome (if historical) or on the outcome the scenario writer expected.

In a quick battle there are only objectives. There is no background - so it is anyones guess if preserving your forces is more, equal, or less important then getting the victory location. Maybe taking the victory location in this QB won the Germans the war.... would the loss of a few Panzers matter then? Maybe it was irellevant in the larger war efforts - and it looses the Germans the war because they lack the tanks elsewhere...

As it is there is an arbitairy value to preserving your force, and an arbitrary value for the victory locations. You can not like the balance, but whatever the balance is, you can never state is isnt "realistic" without knowing the issue at stake in a wider view (which is of course impossible, because there simply isnt a wider reality).

I still think realism is irrelevant, realism is to do with how the vehicles function, how accurate compared to the real world the penetration system is, how fast a vehicle can travel etc, whereas "authenticity" is more about things like how accurate a scenario is, not so much the tanks themselves but how many, coming from where, the paint jobs etc.

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Been meaning to ask , the title of this thread:

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

What does "not your fathers combat mission" mean to imply ? ... doesn't make much sense to me.

Damn good question Scottie. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been brought up before... ;)

Anyway, this is a reference to the fact that CMBN, though related to the CMx1 series is really a whole new kettle of fish... it plays differently, it resolves armor hits in a much more realistic manner, you have to play it in a much more realistic manner than you did the CMx1 series in order to be successful.

Bil

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Damn good question Scottie. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been brought up before... ;)

Anyway, this is a reference to the fact that CMBN, though related to the CMx1 series is really a whole new kettle of fish... it plays differently, it resolves armor hits in a much more realistic manner, you have to play it in a much more realistic manner than you did the CMx1 series in order to be successful.

Bil

An American car company had an ad that stated that their new car was not like the image of the brand. Not your fathers car implied that you should take another look at the brand.

:) ah i see. 1133 posts later its good to finally understand what i have been reading :D

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Damn good question Scottie. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been brought up before... ;)

Anyway, this is a reference to the fact that CMBN, though related to the CMx1 series is really a whole new kettle of fish... it plays differently, it resolves armor hits in a much more realistic manner, you have to play it in a much more realistic manner than you did the CMx1 series in order to be successful.

Bil

I thought that what it was all about.

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Indeed!

See the link for the commercial and gratuitous use of (erf) Joan Collins shoulder pads:

(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gxuk_william-shatner-daughter-for-oldsmo_shortfilms).

...er...before you get your 20 quatloos...do you have change for a 50 quatloo bill?

Sorry, nothing less than a 100 on me.

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It was indeed a poor quality product that killed the brand, maybe not the product they were making when the brand died, but a long long line of lemons.

And not just in the "beer can in the door" years. My dad, who worked in the business in the 1990s, used to call it "the death of a thousand MBAs" -- each one trying to win promotion by shaving a tenth of a cent off a part through "value engineering" and "strategic sourcing". Which makes even luxury US brands seem "cheap" compared to their Japanese and Euro designed competitors, even if their reliability has improved since the dark years.

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re. the Hull down positioning of the tanks... how do you manouver the tanks into that position? Do you just have to estimate where they must stop so they can see over the brow of the hill? Or do you have to shuffle them back and forward a bit til they are right?

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re. the Hull down positioning of the tanks... how do you manouver the tanks into that position? Do you just have to estimate where they must stop so they can see over the brow of the hill? Or do you have to shuffle them back and forward a bit til they are right?

My method (universal AFAIK) is to give a movement order up the slope, click on the end waypoint to activate it, issue a target command (it acts as LOS tool) and scan the target areas. The game tells you what you can see and what your hull relationship is to that spot.

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sfhand has the correct procedure. I also, somewhere in this thread I think, speak about the procedure in a little more depth.

I am going to post a how to get a perfect hull down position thread after the game is released (along with one or two other tidbits that might be useful)... hopefully we'll get a tactics forum for these types of posts.

Bil

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I'm utterly confused.

Dead vehicles do NOT block LOF only when the target is another vehicle. This is a necessary abstraction to get around a rather big, nasty TacAI problem. Early in CM:SF's history you could safely park behind a wreck and an enemy vehicle on the other side could just pump round after round into the wreck and (probably) not cause any damage. Yet we do allow vehicles to fire through friendly vehicles, which meant that LOF was not "two way" in this circumstance.

Ok, so this suggests that when a dead vehicle is between a friendly vehicle and an enemy vehicle they will have LoS and LoF to each other as long as the dead vehicle is not smoking.

That's been long since changed so that LOF is blocked in both directions. LOS, on the other hand, is only blocked if the dead vehicle is spewing smoke. That's a new addition to CM:BN.

Steve

This says the exact opposite; that the dead vehicle will block LoF both ways (but not LoS absent smoke).

Could somebody clarify?

Also, I'm guessing that friendly non-dead vehicles do not block LoS or LoF but if someone could confirm that I'd appreciate it.

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