A fresh video to hold us over!

[zer0_2121]

Looks like we have our first video AAR!

Yep, I didn't bother to look at the post at the top! Too excited I suppose....so much for my first post on the forum!

[LJFHutch]

That's an awesome video, watching it now

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Four years lying in wait. Looking for the perfect moment. And then... Swing and a miss!

Hi and welcome to the forum!

[Ranger33]

Don't worry, I came in here and saw your post, thinking we were ahead of the curve and typed up a big response. Posted it, saw the sticky and immediately deleted it. I admit to it, I left a fellow noob behind.

[Fenris]

Don't sweat it. I saw your link first too.

-F

[SNAFU]

....so much for my first post on the forum!

It's a good 1st post. Ya done Wisconsin proud!!!

[scottie]

Cant shoot AT devices from buildings is going to take a whole lot of getting use too. Understand the decision if its not realistic but is going to change style of play a bit.

[MikeyD]

About getting used to not firing AT from buildings, don't forget in WWII they're mostly shooting big-bullet rifles, not wimply 5.56 carbines like in CMSF. So its considerably safer behind a building than in one in this title. You saw a bit of that in CM:Afghanistan - mujahideen with their old Enfields exchanging fire with Ruskies between building, the Ruskies dropping like flies as their buildings' walls got pierced and the mujahideen's didn't.

[Noltyboy]

Will the british PIAT be able to be used in buildings like real life?

[scottie]

About getting used to not firing AT from buildings, don't forget in WWII they're mostly shooting big-bullet rifles, not wimply 5.56 carbines like in CMSF. So its considerably safer behind a building than in one in this title. You saw a bit of that in CM:Afghanistan - mujahideen with their old Enfields exchanging fire with Ruskies between building, the Ruskies dropping like flies as their buildings' walls got pierced and the mujahideen's didn't.

interesting point, still a lot of houses made of brick/stone though, cant see a 7.62 getting past that ...

[scottie]

Will the british PIAT be able to be used in buildings like real life?

Good question , i would hope so as its spring loaded .... maybe the hated PIAT has found a niche at last

[Other Means]

Good question , i would hope so as its spring loaded .... maybe the hated PIAT has found a niche at last

I always found the PIAT to be very useful in CMAK. Short range, inaccurate yes - but very stealthy and yes, useable from a building. Whether this will change for the commonwealth module I don’t know but I don’t see why it should.

[scottie]

I always found the PIAT to be very useful in CMAK. Short range, inaccurate yes - but very stealthy and yes, useable from a building. Whether this will change for the commonwealth module I don’t know but I don’t see why it should.

Agree it was useful in CMAK , i probably should have put my argument in context.

It was Weaponology series i was watched IIRC , suggested the PIAT was poor compared to the "American" designed bazooka .... US documentary though .... bias maybe

[Kilgore]

Given the pedigree of CM I reckon PIATs will get the full treatment, if not in the Commonwealth module, surely in the Market Garden one....

From Wikipedia page on Robert Henry Cain VC (Oosterbeek Perimeter)

On the afternoon of Thursday 21st two tanks approached Cain's position. Guided by a colleague in the building above him, Cain waited in a trench until the first tank—actually a StuG III self-propelled gun (SPG)[28]—was close enough to engage.[29] The SPG fired at the building, killing Cain's colleague and showering him with masonry but despite this, Cain kept his position.[29] Staff Sergeant Richard Long of the Glider Pilot Regiment remembered that through the clouds of dust, Cain fired round after round from his PIAT until the SPG was disabled,[26] but whilst engaging the second tank a round exploded in the PIAT with a bright flash and Cain was thrown backwards.[26] Cain recalled thinking he was blind and "shouting like a hooligan. I shouted to somebody to get onto the PIAT because there was another tank behind. I blubbered and yelled and used some very colourful language. They dragged me off to the aid post."[30] The British brought forward one of the Light Regiment's 75mm guns which blew the tank apart

Not exactly a ringing endorsement!

[Sakai007]

interesting point, still a lot of houses made of brick/stone though, cant see a 7.62 getting past that ...

Fair enough, but multiple 7.62 rounds will, and from a whole squad of US infantry with a BAR and a ton of Garands, have fun with that, I will stick to my woodland ambushes It will take some getting used to, mainly the lack of uber great optics and communication gear. It has amazed me before, and probably will again, the things that REALLY make a difference in a CM game. It's not the weapons, it's the communications, and that's abstracted for the most part. But my confidence in CMBN has never been stronger. BF has a real hit on their hands this time, no doubt about it.

[Blackcat]

The Piat as described by, probably, the only soldier to have used one in action in the Burma Campaign (1945):

"...It consisted of about four feet of six inch steel pipe, one end of which was partially cut out to leave a semi-cylindrical cradle about a foot long, in which you laid the bomb, AT the other end of the pipe was a thick butt pad which fitted into our shoulder when you lay on the ground in a firing position, the body of the pipe being supported on a single expending leg. .... Withinh the body of the pipe was a gigantic spring which had to be cocked after each shot: you lay on your back and dragged the Piat on top of you, braced our feet against the projecting edges of the butt pad, and heaved like hell at something or other which I've foregotten. After immense creaking the spring clicked into place, and you crawled out rom under, gamely ignoring your hernia, laid an uncapped bomb gently in the front cradle, resumed the firing position, aligned the barleycorn sight with the gleaming nose of the bomb, pressed the massive metal trigger beneath the pipe, thus releasing the coiled spring which drove a long steel plunger up the tail fin of the bomb, detonating the propellant cartridge, you and the Piat went ploughing backwards with the recoil and the bomb went soaring away - about a hundred yards, I think, but it may have been farther. The whole contraption weighed about a ton, and the bombs came in cases of three; if you were Goliath you might have carried the Piat and two cases.

"Like many British inventions, it looked improbable, unwieldly and unsafe - and it worked."

(George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here)

[womble]

interesting point, still a lot of houses made of brick/stone though, cant see a 7.62 getting past that ...

There was a video of how American smallarms performed, posted here a few weeks ago. It was propaganda, but no one claimed the terminal effects were faked. Garand ammo was apparently entirely capable of going right through a brick wall, and with "armour piercing" ammunition (though how common that actually was, on issue to line troops, I couldn't even begin to comment) seemed to be able to chew holes in concrete.

[Kilgore]

"Like many British inventions, it looked improbable, unwieldly and unsafe - and it worked."

(George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here)

Wasn't there a Canadian VC winner who stopped three Panthers with a PIAT?

[LJFHutch]

I was really surprised at how good the animated foliage was, up until now I thought the CMSF foliage was better looking (was it speed tree?), but now I'm not so sure, that was very nice.

Also, whoever made that second map deserves a round of applause, superb, so much detail! Without a doubt the nicest looking terrain I've seen in Combat Mission to date

[BloodyBucket]

There was a video of how American smallarms performed, posted here a few weeks ago. It was propaganda, but no one claimed the terminal effects were faked. Garand ammo was apparently entirely capable of going right through a brick wall, and with "armour piercing" ammunition (though how common that actually was, on issue to line troops, I couldn't even begin to comment) seemed to be able to chew holes in concrete.

It was pretty common. My father told me they'd load up on AP for the Garands and BARs because of the ability it had to change cover to concealment. He was an infantryman with the 28th from shortly after D-Day till he became a guest of the German army outside of Wiltz.

[Blackcat]

Wasn't there a Canadian VC winner who stopped three Panthers with a PIAT?

Not sure about that. There was a Sgt Smith who took on three panthers and a bunch of infantry. He knocked out one of the Pathers with a PIAT from thirty feet or so, and drove off the infantry with his SMG. He got a VC.

There was also a Brit Captain at Arnhem who took on several tanks with a PIAT, killing at least one Tiger from very close range. Can't remember his name, but he also got the VC.

Both men survived too.

[MikeyD]

My father told me they'd load up on AP for the Garands and BARs because of the ability it had to change cover to concealment.

I recall early in the Iraq war National Guard units were desperately scrounging mothballed forty year old M14 rifles and shipping them over to augment their 5.56 M4 and M16s. Nothing quite beats the ability to pierce a brick wall when it becomes necessary

[Broken]

In the second scenario, I see the AI is still pretty bad in selecting targets for off-map artillery. The only target near the impact zone is one lone MG. Conscript FOs?

Also, the US tanks seem to target the Panther hulls, not the more vulnerable turret. I counted 13 hull hits on the Panthers versus two turret hits. You would think the AI could be tuned a little bit here. Just saying.

[ChrisND]

Also, the US tanks seem to target the Panther hulls, not the more vulnerable turret. I counted 13 hull hits on the Panthers versus two turret hits. You would think the AI could be tuned a little bit here. Just saying.

Oh, please let's not have this conversation again. There was a loooong thread about it already.

Edit: I think the conversion was in the QB AAR stickied thread.

[MikeyD]

Believe me, effective enemy AI artillery spotting has stopped my forces more than once. They can be so effective that scenario designers sometimes deliberately make life difficult for the FO in a effort to balance the game. Limit his field of vision, restrict the number of radios on the map, or restrict the amount of ammo available. If you wan to stage an infantry vs infantry fight you don't provide four FOs and 30 artillery tubes for one side.