Combat Mission: Red Thunder announced

[mOBIUS]

one source...

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_OT-34_flamethrower_tank.html

ATO-43 used the exhaust 'fumes' to replace the compressed air cylinders? I would love to see how that worked. T-34s had compressed air cylinders anyway.

That passage seems to be from T-34 Mythical Weapon. The other book I have by Mikhail Baryatinskiy says it was the compression from burning a 45mm cartridge that compressed a piston. After that the fire mixture compression recharged the cylinders.

 

[Redwolf]

I would suspect, given the number of views, that there were quite a few people on Friday afternoons hitting refresh at work. Muttering about the lack of posts.

But, I think this game is just another showcase for 'Attack-Happy-CM'itus. Specifically, the length of the battle itself, and most CMx2 battle lengths, give the attacker plenty of time to abuse the gamey features and chances to try different solutions. Attrition, Ammo-Depletion, Intel-Abuse, etc. the 'real-time' nature of the posting also seemed to allow a few intel leaks from people posting.

But I just think if Bil took all his forces and jammed them early at the right (his right) 'board edge', and just kept going, he would have won anyway without the showcasing of how to abuse the game. It seems that if Elvis so much as scratched his nose, the game gave up locations and info with contacts. Does anyone find the contact he got during the tank charge at Gelb odd? Basically three charging tanks with tank riders are flung down a road, beyond all other Soviet troops LOS, and they get a contact on the HMG in Gelb? Why the HMG never fires is a mystery. Elvis probably had him on hide and forgot him.

Steve certainly wanted the game to showcase 'How to Fight Like a Soviet'. BilH certainly spent half the game fighting like a gamey-CM player.

I am not sure if either player was truly aware of the others setup 'line'. Bil seemed to be searching areas that were vacant except for suicidal Elvis Recon guys.

I think Elvis did OK with his hand grenade and flamethrower. Maybe he will do better when there is a Marine module for CM. Until then, he needs to go back to tank driving 101.

Yupp.

I see serious issues here representing how much extra strength the Soviets had to bring, historically, to overcome German defenses with experienced people dug in well, lots of MG42 parceled out and what artillery they had in good communitcation.

Sure, the lack of mobile reserves, depth in artillery ammunition and deception (or German inability to find out what is going on) will see the Soviets succeed eventually.

But at this scale, the scale of CM, there were serious problems for the attacker. Those include unwillingness or inability to use heavier artillery in a tactical setting will not really be modeled, and then - yes a single HMG simply not working because the action spot system is just not feeling it today is going to be a problem.

The eventual succeess, all factors involved in the success, are above CM level. But in acity spot city the tactical level will succeed.

 

[NUTTERNAME]

I am just wondering what the other maps and scenarios are going to be like. That map, even if it was based on actual earth surface, seemed like a nightmare for Elvis. Not making excuses for Elvis, but he seemed rushed into the 'project' by a overzealous blood-thirsty Bil, and Elvis had business and personal time munchers as well as annoying emails from me screaming "WHAT IN THE FUGK ARE YOU DOOOOIIINNNNGGGG????". But, he retains his dignity while his world collapses and that is the mark of a real person.

I think he could have won if not had a knock down drag out draw. If his last gasp had not faced wrongly, he might have taken out a couple of those T34. He might have actually poured 120mm mortar fire down instead of futzing about with it. He was showing some tenaciousness at the end when he finally decided that woods fighting was not his strong smoot.

I think Bil should allow him to do a 'doo-over' on that crucial bit of track management. It might make up for some of the, unbelievable moves that Bil made. He just might be the next great media psychic. Or just another guy that took a sneaky peek at Elvis' thread...

 

[NUTTERNAME]

It looks like Dorosh was right. Although I tried to make the thread entertaining. I hope I did that at least

The ComradeP posted this, in case you missed it...

Quote from: ComradeP on February 16, 2014, 12:55:11 PM
The beta AAR shows exactly what I feared and why I'm not inclined to buy the CMx2 titles.

One of the challenges when simulating tactical combat for the Soviets is modelling their tactical inflexibility, but unfortunately that is often not handled very well which gives the virtual Soviets a big advantage over their historical counterparts (similar to how simplified logistics tend to give the virtual Germans an advantage in operational and strategic level games where lack of fuel would normally limit operations).

Bil Hardenberger's moving his units with Western-style flexibility. There's no (significant) delay in commands it seems, no pre-battle plan units need to stick to, all of his commanders are competently handling their troops and showing initiative in responding to situations. He already said his armour is advancing in an ahistorical manner.

The map is forested, and Soviet forces have a lot more submachine guns than the Germans. The Germans need defences and distance to make the superior weight of fire of their MG's and mortars work. Even though the Germans are "defending", they have no real defenses so it's basically sort of a meeting engagement around a village. Foxholes being very easy to spot seemingly (unless this was recently changed in a patch) would make defending positions difficult in any case.

Bil Hardenberger carefully checks possible kill zones and once something big fires, he'll use the turn replay feature to see where the shot came from and respond to it immediately. If the German armour fires first, they might at least have a use. If they don't, like in a number of other AAR's, this is going to be over fast.

terd responds...

So, the AAR just wrapped up - as we discussed here, Bil wiped the floor with an outclassed player. I see references to some mistakes in play, notably from the developer who has been active in the thread. Any other reactions here?

It may have been more useful to see an AAR showing Bil taking on the AI with the developer doing commentary regarding how the new AI triggers are working. May have been more valuable as a "sell" for the game. MD

 

[Elvis]

The ComradeP posted this, in case you missed it...





terd responds...

Who didn't see that coming. I actually don't think I did too badly. I was in the thing and still had a shot until the last two turns. I believe everyone makes mistakes and bad moves in every battle they play. More often than not they are mistakes that they are able to overcome. At the end I believed that I had Bil's T34 cornered. And that if I got eyes on them I'd be able to take them out. I had run a scout back and he was able to spot one and I took the chance of going after it. Using the Face command is what did me in. If I hadn't done that and was able to get one or two, we'd still be playing. Mistake? Sure. But overall I feel like I took him off his game a few times. I even did some brazen things to some effect. I have no shame about how I fought the battle. Not a soul thought I had a chance in hell before it started.

When you do these things, especially on a forum with the kind of traffic that BFC has, you know going in that you will be dissected and receive critical feedback. It's the nature of the beast and isn't a bad thing. You just have to have thick enough skin to not take it personally or let it bother you. Dorosh will say Dorosh type things. It's his nature. He can't help himself. I could have written his post for him is how predictable he is.

And I beat the AI more than I lose. So I am a better player than the AI.

 

[NUTTERNAME]

One should critique Bil's handling of his armor. The misuse of the slow firing ISU-122 could have ended badly for him. He was lucky to get away with recrewing the one that got shot up. Getting lucky with these does not make you a great player. It also showed he had no real plan he was sticking to and was just being a typical CM hyper-opportunist.

He bungled the OT-34 use as a sort of recon into Blau. Clearly Elvis had him faked out and hunted his tank down. I believe Elvis killed more guys with his flamethrower than Bil did with his OT-34.

Bil did not concentrate his armor and they were suffering consequences for this. With the loss of the OT-34, and the ISU in the woods, somehow Bil devined that he could rush his T34-85 platoon (risking the game really), and send them charging up that road. He gave detailed area fire orders that seemed to include the location of Elvis' HMG at Gelb. His area fire along the way also was to his right into the woods. He completely ignored his left, or so it seems.

He completely disregarded mines or antitank guns or LATW etc. Hmmmm. He seemed to know, somehow, that he could do that. He cretainly could do the math since at that point he had a good idea of what Elvis bought. But just one AT mine would have wrecked that plan. He did not use overwatch, he did not even use bounding. he just ran into Gelb with supreme confidence and put area fire where it was needed. Hmmm.

I do like to point out that 'Raptor', or whatever his full handle is, encouraged Bil to "Go For It!" when Bil was fishing for advice in his own thread regarding the tank escapade. The fact that Raptor was participating in Elvis' thread sort of would have been a flag for a moderator to step in. But Steve was too busy misunderstanding how mortars work in the game and trying hard to point out how 'Soviet' things are. In fact, I think Steve's comments also gave backhanded information to Bil regarding Elvis' units at Rot.

All in All, I think these AAR should have some lag, perhaps 4-5 turn volleys, before the write ups occur. The whole community involvement in selecting foirces and giving advice was cute but kind of stupid since the terrain analysis was probably difficult enough even if you could have a CM map view.

Not saying someone cheated...just not saying that someone did not cheat.

 

[Elvis]

I don't believe he cheated and didn't see anything that I thought was weird along those lines. There were a couple of things I did that seemed like he didn't expect. The biggest and most apparent that he wasn't expecting was when I got the jump on his ISUs. That's the kind of thing that if someone was cheating they would have been able to be ready for. My flamethrower caught him by surprise. The team I had set up on my left that, I think, took out six of his men wasn't something he saw coming. I haven't read his thread yet but I don't think he knew I had abandoned BLAU. There are probably other examples that aren't coming to me right now. In an email he let me know that many of the things I did put him off his game. I believed him to be sincere and not just giving me the post win "you did a nice job, sport." Bil and I have been around for a long time and it was the most we ever interacted. He seems like a really good guy and I enjoyed working with him.

I haven't had the time to post my post mortem and I will do that there before I do it here. But I know that I took some risks and most of them paid off. Running the HQ to get enough LOS to bring in the harassing fire and getting him back to BLAU safely paid off some. Bringing my armor up on my right and getting some shots in at his ISUs was another. Leaving the flamer behind in BLAU was another.

But as I said in my last post. Everyone makes some kind of mistakes in every battle they play. And as the masthead on the site says "reinventing warfare, one failed strategy at a time"

 

[NUTTERNAME]

I don't believe he cheated and didn't see anything that I thought was weird along those lines. There were a couple of things I did that seemed like he didn't expect. The biggest and most apparent that he wasn't expecting was when I got the jump on his ISUs. That's the kind of thing that if someone was cheating they would have been able to be ready for. My flamethrower caught him by surprise. The team I had set up on my left that, I think, took out six of his men wasn't something he saw coming. I haven't read his thread yet but I don't think he knew I had abandoned BLAU. There are probably other examples that aren't coming to me right now. In an email he let me know that many of the things I did put him off his game. I believed him to be sincere and not just giving me the post win "you did a nice job, sport." Bil and I have been around for a long time and it was the most we ever interacted. He seems like a really good guy and I enjoyed working with him.

I haven't had the time to post my post mortem and I will do that there before I do it here. But I know that I took some risks and most of them paid off. Running the HQ to get enough LOS to bring in the harassing fire and getting him back to BLAU safely paid off some. Bringing my armor up on my right and getting some shots in at his ISUs was another. Leaving the flamer behind in BLAU was another.

But as I said in my last post. Everyone makes some kind of mistakes in every battle they play. And as the masthead on the site says "reinventing warfare, one failed strategy at a time"

There is no way to say that he cheated for certain. And certain things, like your flamethrower rear-guard, were not mentioned in your own thread. So, even if he did read your thread, that info wasn't available.

I did start a thread here titled DAR Blabbermouth (Not for Elvis or BilH). And, yes, I checked and he was 'online' and yes, it said he was in the thread. So, take that for what it's worth.

He seemed as uncertain as to your starting position as you were of his. It seemed to be something that was preying on his mind. The temptation must be oh so great...maybe just a quick peek...

In any case, Elvis should enjoy reading his thread and seeing the backstory. I think this should become a scenario with the product. I envision the scenario represents a breakthrough Soviet force that is assigned to capture a rear depot/repair area so as to secure a flank of the bridge upriver (off map). A hodgepodge of German units have moved into the area and the Soviets must attack and clear them out.

Elvis actually showed keen intuition and in many cases both sides seemed to be reading the other very well. Elvis needs to take the following lines to heart..."Fields they have eyes, woods they have ears".

 

[NUTTERNAME]

Who didn't see that coming. I actually don't think I did too badly. I was in the thing and still had a shot until the last two turns. I believe everyone makes mistakes and bad moves in every battle they play. More often than not they are mistakes that they are able to overcome. At the end I believed that I had Bil's T34 cornered. And that if I got eyes on them I'd be able to take them out. I had run a scout back and he was able to spot one and I took the chance of going after it. Using the Face command is what did me in. If I hadn't done that and was able to get one or two, we'd still be playing. Mistake? Sure. But overall I feel like I took him off his game a few times. I even did some brazen things to some effect. I have no shame about how I fought the battle. Not a soul thought I had a chance in hell before it started.

When you do these things, especially on a forum with the kind of traffic that BFC has, you know going in that you will be dissected and receive critical feedback. It's the nature of the beast and isn't a bad thing. You just have to have thick enough skin to not take it personally or let it bother you. Dorosh will say Dorosh type things. It's his nature. He can't help himself. I could have written his post for him is how predictable he is.

And I beat the AI more than I lose. So I am a better player than the AI.

It's laughable that his 'Merry Xmas Everbody' post here got no replies and very little attention. The Elvis/BilH show got close to a 1/4 million views and 1500 replies combined. The 'geek' page went maybe two pages regarding Red Thunder? Glad he has found a home.

 

[NUTTERNAME]

Here would be a general pro-active defense if I were to play as the Germans and had Elvis' force.

View attachment 45178VG stands for Vital Ground. Within the first minutes, at least one platoon, with HQ and a belt fed weapon, has seized these VG ground locations for observation and defense. The stars are just OPs.

The RF is a reaction force of the three AFV. They have a shreck and a flamethrower and the company HQ as riders. They are situated forward and near the road network. They would be used to immediately counter any threat to the VG locations and help them fall back. The defense would be mobile in that VG locations would be given up once the main thrust of the Soviets is known. Calling mortar fire immediately and letting it run on a concentrations of Soviets would be the goal.

Blau has the minefield shown by pink to it's left. Blau is defended slightly forward on it's right into the woods but the buildings on the left part is not. The flexible defense would draw the Soviets into a killing ground around Blau and the buildings behind it.

The AA gun would be at Rot and would have as great a field of fire as possible. If the woods to the left of Rot allowed a decent field of fire, that would be the place.

 

[NUTTERNAME]

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=114190

Juju's 'Red Thunder UI' discussion thread

Interesting that they are doing an update but I would have thought this would have been closed out at this point. Steve claimed they "just missed" a 2013 release on CMRT. Since we are nearing the end of the first quarter, I find that hard to believe.

In any case, hate the "eyeball" and agree with others regarding "the radio" looking like a toolbox, etc.

 

[Rule_303]

Discussions on this topic were opened on other forums well in advance of this one for those looking for a broader audience and respectful atmosphere to participate in:

Grogheads.com

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=9153.0

Looks like everybody has decamped over to Grogheads. I'm going to follow suit for reasons that are pretty much self evident. Bye all, and thanks for the memories.

Redwolf, have you got a login over on Grogheads? Your posts on the programming dimension of wargaming were pretty much the only remaining reason I had for peeking in here. That forum seems actively moderated and so far contains a reasonable balance of "haterz" and "fanboiz" who are willing to talk gaming, not people. Fingers crossed.

Never shall see Herald more.

 

[Redwolf]

I tried twice to sign up at grogheads but they wasted my time by first filling out whatever they wanted and then it not working. I think I reported the problems at the time.

In a related note, I just cannot stand the software that Matrix put both on their own forums at matrixgames and on the wargamer. Starting with the captcha that doesn't work in Chrome, again wasting my time.

The problems with amateurish homegrown forum software is a big part, IMHO, in the general decline of the wargaming community.

ETA: it worked and looked different. I must have mixed things up. Is this where MD twice ran these big surveys? On those I wasted my time.

 

[mOBIUS]

I'm going to disagree here. Matrix has the best forum. You are allowed to post attached images there and not have to cheesily link to some other site hosting those images.

 

[Redwolf]

I'm going to disagree here. Matrix has the best forum. You are allowed to post attached images there and not have to cheesily link to some other site hosting those images.

That doesn't have to do with the software. In both software systems it is an option that can be turned on or off by the administrator. I think your actual complaint is with the lack of resources committed to GS. But the software on GS supports it, along with proper thread tracking.

 

[Elvis]

ETA: it worked and looked different. I must have mixed things up. Is this where MD twice ran these big surveys? On those I wasted my time.

No. That was Boardgame Geek or somefink like that.

 

[Redwolf]

No. That was Boardgame Geek or somefink like that.

OK. Anyway I'm signed up now.

Will have a look around, especially when it comes to development.

 

[mOBIUS]

I don't see the point in going over there as the same people can sign up anywhere. Unless they allow image posting.

 

[Redwolf]

I don't see the point in going over there as the same people can sign up anywhere. Unless they allow image posting.

The attachments suck anyway.

The inlined pictures from other websites are much better for the viewer.

What's with the attachment to attachments?

 

[NUTTERNAME]

Grogheads was mentioned at Battlefront since they won an award for 'Best Expansion' game or some such. This was for Market Garden. There was something like 266 votes cast total and MG got the majority by 58 votes. That's about the same number of testers+fanbois so it sounds about right. People might think that is some great award. I wouldn't. But it is probably more people participating than the MD polls.

For it's name...Grogheads...it isn't a Grog website but just a lumped wargame/fantasy/etc. website. MD made a stab at 'Grogging'...

The Wehrmacht's supply system never stopped working. Units in the field were obviously able to continue resistance to the very end. I'm sure there were local shortages, most likely acute when formations were cut off. There is no doubt that the quality of items declined sharply during the war. Uniforms were made from wood fibre, Mauser K98s produced without bayonet lugs and fewer twists in the rifling to conserve metal and simplify production, etc. (not to mention greater instances of sabotage by the slave labour who was making the stuff). But as for actual shortages or an inability to move supplies to the front - other than the well-documented Allied air superiority, the Germans did relatively well to move munitions, food and supplies to their front line units. Artillery ammunition was probably one item always in short supply but the Germans came more and more to rely on medium mortars to make up shortfalls of heavier guns.

I think the Germans may actually have had, ironically, poorer logistic support for their troops in the first months of Barbarossa. Railways were of the wrong gauge, no winter clothing had been prepared, anti-tank weapons were at a premium, etc.

But it really would not hold up to scrutiny. Of which there is none at that site. Less rifling saves metal? Winter clothing in the first few months? They started in June and the initial plan was for a victory in 4 months. But, in any case, GH does not have any greater traffic than this website as far as combat mission. In fact, there is no dedicated forum but just a lumping of all threads for all games.