Historical Accuracy in CM units

[The Purist]

This was off topic for the CMAK Tournament thread so I placed this here.

I do not know enough about the multi-player aspect of the game but is there a problem with balancing early war situations? For example the Pz IIIG and the Crusader I are almost identical vehicles (except for engine reliability) in combat; simlar armour thickness, similar penetration of main gun, quality of armour and so on. How about the Crusader II and the Pz IIIH, again very evenly matched vehicles. The Brits didn't necessarily use the best tactics but that is not the fault of the vehicles.

Is there a built in design bias against the earlier allied and Italian equipment?

Italian infantry often fought well when properly led and supplied, does being "in supply" and "dug in" not help a defender?

I'll admit I'm new to the PbEM crowd and beating the AI is vastly different.

[Redwolf]

CM does not have a bias, but there are some errors and some modeling limitations hurt one side more than the other.

Errors include the front of the IS-2, the penetration of the 76mm Russian against a 80mm front StuG, and probably/maybe the much higher penetration values for the German 75mm L/43-48 and L/70 in CMAK over CMBB.

Mismodeling due to engine limitations include the turret fronts of the M10 and Panther (the M10 comes out stronger :nuts: ), the size of the Pz IV turret front (and hence the overmodeled probability to hit the 50mm armor), same for early T-34 and a few other things I probably forget.

[Vulture(FGM)]

This was off topic for the CMAK Tournament thread so I placed this here.

I do not know enough about the multi-player aspect of the game but is there a problem with balancing early war situations? For example the Pz IIIG and the Crusader I are almost identical vehicles (except for engine reliability) in combat; simlar armour thickness, similar penetration of main gun, quality of armour and so on. How about the Crusader II and the Pz IIIH, again very evenly matched vehicles. The Brits didn't necessarily use the best tactics but that is not the fault of the vehicles.

Is there a built in design bias against the earlier allied and Italian equipment?

Italian infantry often fought well when properly led and supplied, does being "in supply" and "dug in" not help a defender?

I'll admit I'm new to the PbEM crowd and beating the AI is vastly different.


The rotation rates seem v slow for some of the vehicles. Recently saw a video a friend of mine took of a Hetzer. With a trained crew you could have laid the gun onto a target far quicker than in CM.

Also, some vehicles just never perform well in CM. The Nashorn for instance. This was a v successful heavy sniper on the Eastern Front. In CM it always seems to perform poorly....... for me anyway.

Vulture

[ER_Chaser]

Is CM accurate in models and data? The answer is
Absolutely NO!

However, it is the very BEST so far available in the strategy game cirlce.

First of all, it is the first sophisticated strategy game using ballistic trajectory to model the weapon effects. A physical model. This is fundamentally different from kill ratio matrix games, which is at least one generation older. Of course, to implement a fast dynamic model (basically solving a lot of ODEs --- ordinary differential equations) is a job for NASA, not for battlefront.com. And we are not really for a military simulator to train M1 tank crews. So a total accuracy vs. proper entertainment value/cost must be compromised. For this, I feel CM did a pretty decent job.

Then there are certainly huge rooms for CM to go further. The dynamic model apparently contains errors. I had experience of rediculous things like 2 consecutive direct hit of Su152's main gun at 230m range on a Tiger's side armor, but both ineffective. This is impossible (I mean, in reality). But what was the "bug" hiding there? No idea, ... basically many modelling simplifications can cause this. And more or less, this kind of rarity cannot be entirely avoided. But of course, can be improved.

And then, there comes more tricky issues involving "historical human factors" which was even harder to model. For example, in the east, early German success was not due to their weapon superiorty, (in fact, their weapon systems were inferior), but due to their soldiers much higher relative quality against the red army's. This was somehow discounted in CM as "experience" levels of the units. But frankly, it is far far not enough. An early war KV was simply invincible. There was no german weapon could possibly hurt it in CM (I played several games with early KV setup, it can absorb more than 10 direct penetrations from almost any german guns at any range (except 88's, of course). And the crews won't abandon the vehicle, of course. But in reality, many soviet early tanks were not "knocked out" but scared out due to the crew's inexperience. How to model this?

[The Purist]

"But in reality, many soviet early tanks were not "knocked out" but scared out due to the crew's inexperience. How to model this?"

I have noticed in CMAK that a 'green' crew can abandon a tank if it is hit repeatedly and with a few "minor penetration, no serious damage" results. I can't recall if such things happen in CMBO/BB.

[ER_Chaser]

wow, glad to hear that, that is definitely an enhancement :)

[Palantir]

Are those new posts from ER-Chaser?
I thought he'd gotten lost on the battlefield he's been so quiet lately! :)

[ER_Chaser]

hehe.. some1 missing me? :D

well, I thought I was like a plague asking for victims to infect in the "opponent" section ... but now I am already in the tourney, .... of course, mute.

Ah.. just kinda busy recently, many many things to do... not sure when will get out of this :)

[KG_Cloghaun]

Slightly off-topic,

I will say that CMBB's unit formations are extremely close to being historically accurate. I've cross referenced a variety of German formations in CMBB with George Nafziger's OOB books and they're nearly identical.

KG_Cloghaun

[Redwolf]

Slightly off-topic,

I will say that CMBB's unit formations are extremely close to being historically accurate. I've cross referenced a variety of German formations in CMBB with George Nafziger's OOB books and they're nearly identical.

KG_Cloghaun

Hardly surprising since they are more or less straight out of that book ;)

[KG_Cloghaun]

No kidding? I didn't know that.

Thanks for the info.

KG_Cloghaun

[Redwolf]

Well, in general, that and other books pick up written record of German formations, so we have a pretty good picture.

Things are a lot worse for other nations as they didn't write everything down like the Germans did and the records of the victors were not up to grabs after the war.

Heck, the Germans even produced and distributed to the front standardizing documentation for molotov cocktails.

[KG_Cloghaun]

The C. Sharp 12 volume set on the Soviet Order of Battle is very impressive.