Help a newbie figure out what he's doing wrong.

[Cue-Ball]

This is my first post on the forum, though I've been lurking for a while, soaking up as much info as I can. I've actually owned CMBO for several years and CMBB for probably 3 or 4 years at least, but other than a few games when I first bought them, I never really stuck with it. I've finally got a couple of guys here at work who are willing to play (and are as clueless as I am), so I'm hoping to keep with it this time.

I *think* I understand how tactics in CMx are supposed to work, what things you should do and what things you shouldn't, etc. But, somehow, I always seem to lose my armor in the stupidest ways. I don't know if I'm not understanding armor and gun ratings, movement issues, etc. or if I am just using flawed thinking. Or perhaps I'm just plain unlucky. I'm hoping you guys can help me out and give me some pointers.

I'm playing a PBEM game with two guys at work right now (They're playing the Americans and Polish, I'm the Germans). This is the second such game we've played. Both are quick battles, meeting engagements. The current game is rainy and wet with the flag in the center of a small crop of houses. My primary piece of armor, a Panzer IV, was set to fast move from it's starting point to an area with some tree cover for concealment. He made it about 50 yards through open ground before he became immobile! So right there I've lost my biggest armor asset before Turn 2 is even done, simply moving through open ground. I ran a test using the editor and set 27 Panzer IVs to cross open ground (also wet, rainy conditions). All but 5 of them made it 800m across the map. The 5 that didn't make it bogged, but only one bogged after less than 200 meters. Am I just that unlucky?

A few turns later I set my Hetzer to attack a Cromwell that was pushing hard against my front lines. I maneuvered my Hetzer into a hull down position about 250 meters from the enemy tank. As soon as the enemy spotted me he began reversing. The Hetzer fired twice, missing both times, before the turn ended. On my next orders phase I checked the armor and gun ratings for both vehicles and estimated my chances of being hit and penetrated versus the chances of hitting and penetrating the enemy. My chance to hit the Cromwell was 78% with a Good chance of a kill. Having a smaller vehicle (much smaller silhouette), being hull down, and having extremely sloped frontal armor... I figured the Cromwell's chances of hitting me were minimal, and the chances of a kill were virtually non-existent. I'm sure you can see where this is going... Less than 10 seconds into the next replay the Cromwell fires, hits, and knocks out my Hetzer. I simply cannot understand how this happened.

Here's the view from my Hetzer at the start of the orders phase. I didn't give any orders since he was already targeting the Cromwell (far right).
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQrBsnQ0fI/AAAAAAAANT8/wQetei7kXcw/Hetzer_viewpoint.jpg

I'm hull down with a 78% chance to hit (already missed twice from even closer range!) and Good chance to kill. If I'm reading this right, my Hetzer's upper front hull armor is 60mm thick with a 60 degree slope. The lower hull shouldn't matter since I'm hull down, and my silhouette is a svelte 65 (presumably smaller with hull down). http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQrBsjhAjI/AAAAAAAANT4/8PByHQFhIzQ/hetzer_to_hit.jpg

The Cromwell fires from a range of ~220m with it's 95mm gun. It appears that even at 100m, the Cromwell's gun should only be able to penetrate a maximum of 62mm of armor (2mm more than my Hetzer's frontal armor) at 60 degrees. And that's only if it uses a hollow charge round. HE shouldn't have a prayer of penetrating, if I'm reading this correctly. So, I expected that, even if the Cromwell had time to fire, it would most likely be a miss (small target, hull down). And I figured that even IF it hit (I figured the chances to be less than 20%, but my opponent says he was shown a 38% chance) that the round would likely deflect. And even IF he fired and IF he hit and IF it didn't deflect, I expected only a partial penetration at most. Am I reading this totally wrong?
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQrB5O9XyI/AAAAAAAANUA/4lj4P60pD8c/Cromwell_info.jpg

A similar thing happened last game. I was moving a Tiger into position near some trees to take a shot at a Sherman. I mistakenly used the Hunt command instead of move, so my Tiger ended up stopping right out in the open, making a perfect target. I wasn't TOO worried, since it was reasonably long range against a 75mm Sherman. My upper hull armor is 100mm thick with a 10 degree angle (plus I'm parked at a ~30 degree angle to the enemy).
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQ7MW5-QxI/AAAAAAAANUc/70KRsmi4Lhw/Tiger_specs.jpg

At a 30* angle, the Sherman should only be able to penetrate ~73mm of armor, right?
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQ7MCGFeNI/AAAAAAAANUY/JVKuwuiTjVA/Sherman_specs.jpg

Both vehicles fire their guns almost simultaneously...
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQ7M5-I_XI/AAAAAAAANUk/f4sy0H0ujds/Tiger_sherman_simulfire2.jpg

Once again I come out on the short end of the stick (at least this time it wasn't completely sacrificial).
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TOQ7Mr_zXQI/AAAAAAAANUg/6BgVucxcVN4/s640/Tiger_knocked_out.jpg

Am I reading this stuff all wrong? In both of these engagements I've looked at the situation and thought I had the upper hand, only to come out with dead armor (and often nothing to show for it). Or is this just a case of bad luck and even worse luck? How about the Panzer going immobile in under 100m in open ground. Still just bad luck?

[Lord Bane (FGM)]

Welcome to the club. From what I can tell you are a victim of bad luck. You probably need to go ahead and change your handle to Schleprock! I would also recommend that you upgrade to CMBB or CMAK. I know there were numerous patches out for CMBO to fix flaws in it. Maybe you need to make sure your disk has all current patches included. If not, you can go to Battle Fronts web site and download the patches for free. Don't get frustrated and give up on CM.

Lord Bane

[Earl of Grey]

For one, know there were certain silhouette issues within all CMx1 games - the Hetzer in CMBO might have been one of those, although I doubt it. My guess is that the Cromwell got pretty lucky to have its shell arrive at an angle which more or less negated the slope of the Hetzer's frontal armor (at least to such a degree that the penetration power was big enough - 60mm aren't that much after all). Same for the Tiger - sure, side armor is 80mm, but it got no real good "defelction angle" and if you check the Sherman's gun data, the penetration power is more than enough for the Tiger's side armor at 359m (I figure it'd be about 90mm in that position). Hetzer was ******* luck for your opponent, Tiger was to be expected.

[Cue-Ball]

I actually have CMBB, and will be switching over to that platform soon, now that two of my friends have purchased copies. I much prefer the setting of CMBO, but I know that CMBB is a lot more flexible when it comes to stuff like scoot n shoot, cover arcs, etc.

I'd just like to figure out how in the heck I keep winding up losing all my best units in matchups that I should win 99 times out of 100. When my opponent's Cromwell utterly destroyed my Hetzer on its first shot, my jaw dropped. I never in a million years would have thought I'd come out on the losing end of that fight. It's especially frustrating when my "superior German optics" miss twice at <200 m, yet the Brits manage a hit on a hull down, relatively small vehicle with their first shot.

By all rights I should have actually killed that Cromwell the turn before the results that I posted. But on that turn the control system foiled me. I set my Hetzer to move from the bottom of the hill into the position it's in now, then reverse back down. I thought this would mimic the scoot n shoot command from CMBB. To my dismay my Hetzer moved forward, saw the Cromwell, got him in his sights, then reversed back down the hill without taking a single shot! If he had just stopped for 10 seconds to shoot, I'd have had the perfect shot (though, my unit probably would have missed, since he can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn).

[Bootie]

It may be the experience of the crews as well.. you may have been going up against veteran Allied tankmen. :)

Welcome ot the club... how did you find us?

[Earl of Grey]

I actually have CMBB, and will be switching over to that platform soon, now that two of my friends have purchased copies. I much prefer the setting of CMBO, but I know that CMBB is a lot more flexible when it comes to stuff like scoot n shoot, cover arcs, etc.

There's also CMAK which models Normandy reasonably well although you have to live with a bunch of missing vehicles (like Cromwells...). It's a bit akward, but the best we have got at the moment. Certainly better than nothing and CMAK even got proper dust modelling and a bunch of improved vehicle models as well.


I'd just like to figure out how in the heck I keep winding up losing all my best units in matchups that I should win 99 times out of 100. When my opponent's Cromwell utterly destroyed my Hetzer on its first shot, my jaw dropped. I never in a million years would have thought I'd come out on the losing end of that fight. It's especially frustrating when my "superior German optics" miss twice at <200 m, yet the Brits manage a hit on a hull down, relatively small vehicle with their first shot.

It is technically possible that optics weren't simulated the way they are in CMBB and CMAK and that spotting/targeting is done via crew experience. What you also shouldn't discount is the realtive armor thickness iopposing to real armor thickness - 60mm@85% quality is more or less paper thin (51mm to be exact) and no real challenge for the Cromwell. Either way what you have seen is the so-called "Hand of Fate" (or Muprhy's Law if you will) every CM gamer has exprienced more often than he can recount. If I didn't know it better I'd say they have programmed something like a "luck roll" into the game... Meaning: What can go wrong WILL go wrong one time or another.


By all rights I should have actually killed that Cromwell the turn before the results that I posted. But on that turn the control system foiled me. I set my Hetzer to move from the bottom of the hill into the position it's in now, then reverse back down. I thought this would mimic the scoot n shoot command from CMBB. To my dismay my Hetzer moved forward, saw the Cromwell, got him in his sights, then reversed back down the hill without taking a single shot! If he had just stopped for 10 seconds to shoot, I'd have had the perfect shot (though, my unit probably would have missed, since he can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn).

Interesting idea. Did CMBO already have a "Pause" command? I don't remember anymore...

[Cue-Ball]

Same for the Tiger - sure, side armor is 80mm, but it got no real good "defelction angle" and if you check the Sherman's gun data, the penetration power is more than enough for the Tiger's side armor at 359m (I figure it'd be about 90mm in that position). The Sherman shows penetration of 76mm at 30* and 97mm at 0* (at 100 m distance) and 70mm/89mm at 500m distance (30* and 0*, respectively). So, the penetrating force for a 350m shot should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 95mm at 0* or 75mm at 30*. I was under the impression that the penetration value had to be substantially more than the armor thickness (15%?) or you would get a partial penetration at best. I also am not sure how "85% Quality" armor affects things. Does that mean that the side armor acts like it's 68mm thick rather than the 80mm that's shown in the chart?

Edit: Looks like my question was answered above, as I was typing this. I was running under the assumption that my armor was ~90mm thick (80mm * angle of attack). Turns out that since it's only 85% quality, it acts much, much thinner. Easily killable by the Cromwell. Live and learn!

[Cue-Ball]

What you also shouldn't discount is the realtive armor thickness iopposing to real armor thickness - 60mm@85% quality is more or less paper thin (51mm to be exact) and no real challenge for the Cromwell.You answered the question that I was asking when I posted. I wasn't figuring armor quality into my calculations. I won't make that mistake again!


Either way what you have seen is the so-called "Hand of Fate" (or Muprhy's Law if you will) every CM gamer has exprienced more often than he can recount. If I didn't know it better I'd say they have programmed something like a "luck roll" into the game... Meaning: What can go wrong WILL go wrong one time or another.I'm pretty sure Murphy is my Platoon HQ commander. :-)


Interesting idea. Did CMBO already have a "Pause" command? I don't remember anymore...It has the command, but you can only pause at the beginning of the turn. There's no way to move, pause, move. So, my guy moved then stayed there just long enough to show my hand, then backed down the hill. <sigh>


It may be the experience of the crews as well.. you may have been going up against veteran Allied tankmen. :)
I doubt that. The guy I'm playing against is more of a noob than I am. I don't even thinks he realizes you can buy veteran crews. Even if he did, I think he's too cheap to (like me). :-)


Welcome ot the club... how did you find us?
Honestly, I can't remember. I think I got here via a google image search that lead to one of PoorOldSpike's threads on movement or armor ratings or some such. I must say, those threads are *enormously* helpful for those of us just trying to figure this all out. It takes out a lot of the guesswork of "how far can I move" and "Can the enemy see me in these trees".

[Earl of Grey]

The Sherman shows penetration of 76mm at 30* and 97mm at 0* (at 100 m distance) and 70mm/89mm at 500m distance (30* and 0*, respectively). So, the penetrating force for a 350m shot should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 95mm at 0* or 75mm at 30*. I was under the impression that the penetration value had to be substantially more than the armor thickness (15%?) or you would get a partial penetration at best. I also am not sure how "85% Quality" armor affects things. Does that mean that the side armor acts like it's 68mm thick rather than the 80mm that's shown in the chart?

Those figurees usually are for vertical, not horizontal angles, so you'd get different results from the ones shown in the data screen in this case as the Tiger's armor usually is at 0° (which made it somewhat obsolete from 1944 on).
I'm not sure how much bigger the penetration power would have to be, but I figure that 95mm would suffice (obviously have). General modelling and detail wasn't that good when CMBO came out although it was vastly superior to almost eveything out there at that time. Still not perfect of course and I happen to know that shell trajectory was abstracted to a certain degree so the resulting hit would have been even more different from what you'd expect.

[Cue-Ball]

And it goes from bad to worse...

Because my Panzer is immobile and my Hetzer is KOd, My only "armor" left is a PSW with a 75mm gun. My opponent has one Sherman, one Cromwell, and (likely) a Grant. Along with a halftrack or two (and possibly more that I haven't spotted yet, since Allies get more points to spend on armor than Axis). I know that unless I want all of my men to have the buildings come down around their heads, I need to put my opponent on the defensive and even things out by taking out some armor. I position my PSW with a perfect keyhole through some trees and buildings to where I know a Sherman is soon to appear (note the white star at top). He should travel past from right to left, giving me a perfect side shot.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TORmLnY70yI/AAAAAAAANVw/lLSNO0XMp18/psw1.jpg

The PSW goes where he's told and is fine for about 20 seconds. Then he gets distracted by some infantry in a nearby building, turning his attention away from the task at hand. Seconds later who should appear, but the Sherman I was trying to ambush.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TORmLnhDmtI/AAAAAAAANV0/4Vjm0S7FEvk/psw2.jpg

A quick blip from his machinegun shocks the PSW and a few seconds later, knocks it out.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-szOQH6NyOc/TORmL_FMDKI/AAAAAAAANV4/hWOlkzIzHMg/psw3.jpg

So now, instead of settling the score and regaining the upper hand, I've lost my last piece of armor. The only motorized unit I've got left is a half-track with a mortar. Now that I have nothing capable of taking out his tanks (except Panzerfausts, which he's way too far away to make use of) he'll be able to drive right around my left flank and take out the half track and, likely, a large portion of my infantry. And to make matters worse, I bought an 88mm gun during the purchase phase. I set it up to guard my left flank, but made a LOS mistake and it's stuck in the woods with basically no line of sight to anything other than a small building, far away from the fighting. So that was a total waste of purchase points.

For want of an armored cover arc, the battle was lost.

[PoorOldSpike]

Quote- Help a newbie figure out what he's doing wrong
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

1- Forget CMBO, it's old hat; most people play only Cmbb and Cmak nowadays
2- Games can be won or lost at the purchase screen, don't buy useless halftracks, baby tanks or baby guns. and never buy less than VETERAN tanks.
3- Don't worry about hit chance readouts and armour data and fancy tactics, just play by commonsense and gut instinct.
4- And forget about spells of bad luck, we all have 'em. I've been playing CM for 9 years and in all that time I've never gone into a battle thinking "I hope I have good luck" because I'm far too arrogant to rely on that fickle bitch lady luck, she can go screw herself for all i care, and I still win more than I lose..:)

Let me know if you want us to play a cmbb or cmak pbem game and i'll talk you through it step by step and teach you how to kill, then when you go racing up the ladder demolishing people I can think "That's my boy! You're a soldier now!"

"Luck has a peculiar habit of favoring those who don't depend on it" - Anon

"Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men"- E.B.White

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it.... Luck to me is something else.....realizing what is opportunity and what isn't" - Lucille Ball

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Luck is believing you're lucky" - Tennessee Williams

"A person does not seek luck, luck seeks the person" - Turkish proverb

"I deserved my good luck" - Margaret Thatcher


We make our own luck, right Kid?

"Right"

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/ExIS/cinc.jpg

[Cue-Ball]

Quote
1- Forget CMBO, it's old hat; most people play only Cmbb and Cmak nowadays
2- Games can be won or lost at the purchase screen, don't buy useless halftracks, baby tanks or baby guns. and never buy less than VETERAN tanks.

My next game will be played under CMBB. I just had to convince my friends to buy copies. Once they found out it was $5 online, it was an easy sell. :-) I much prefer the western front, so maybe CMAK is in my future.

The current game is a 1000 point quick battle. I could only afford one Hetzer and one Panzer at regular quality. Because of the ~200 point armor limitation for the Axis, I couldn't afford any veterans or anything bigger (unless I only bought one tank, total). Now that I know how armor quality affects results, I'll be less likely to try risky stuff simply because I think the numbers are on my side.

I appreciate the offer to play a few games against you. Give me a while to get a better grasp on the basics and maybe I'll take you up on your offer. I don't want to jump in against an experienced opponent until I'm reasonably sure I can hold my own against someone that's just as bad as I am. :-)

[PoorOldSpike]

...I appreciate the offer to play a few games against you. Give me a while to get a better grasp on the basics and maybe I'll take you up on your offer. I don't want to jump in against an experienced opponent until I'm reasonably sure I can hold my own against someone that's just as bad as I am. :-)

Okay but as training games our result wouldn't count for the FGM ladder anyway.
Playing against experienced mofos is by far the quickest way to learn.
When I joined the Rugged Defense club as a raw green snot-nosed CM novice in 2003, I challenged the top 20 ladder guys at cmbb and they were asking each other "Who's this 'Poor Old Spike' dood? He's challenged all our top guys, ha ha!"
But I beat most of 'em including the ladder leader himself, and within 3 months of relentless ferocious gutter fighting against the whole club, I'd clawed, gouged, bitten and smashed my way to the top of the ladder myself..:)

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub4/rd-cup.gif

Over the following 7 years I also blitzkrieged my way to the top of the Appui-Feu, WPC and FGM ladders, I must have played literally thousands of CM battles during my career..:)

PS- another nugget of tactical advice-
"Play with your brain first and your weapons second"- POS

[AirborneBob]

Welcome Cueball...when you get stuck in the mud, bogged, try canceling the current movement order and go to reverse immeadiately for about 15 meters or so. Often you can recover a bogged vehicle the next turn or two after he gets bogged.

[Earl of Grey]

If you want to play against someone having started with CM when it came out and still totally inexperienced and inadequate, take me on - I loose much more than I win and when I win it's usually because I played a pre-made scenario because I suck at QB force picking. :biggrin1:

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

Welcome Cueball !!

First of all: CMBO too is a great game ! Far less accurate then CMBB but, although I nowadays play CMAK and CMBB almost exclusively, I still like the more simple game CMBO is. And it has some great units in it. like the M36 Jackson and Tiger II, which CMAK lacks !

About your shootout between your Hetzer and Cromwell: acoording to that stats it is actually possible for the Cromwell to KO the Hetzer frontally. The HC round has a penetration possibility of 62mm of 60 degrees angled armour for up to 500 meters. The distance was actually shorter, so no real surpirse there. Althouh you were unlucky to miss 2 or 3 times with the high velocity gun of the Hetzer and your opponent hitting with the slow howitzer gun of the Cromwell. Especially in CMBO the accuracy of the gun depends (almost ?) entirely on the muzzle velocity of the gun.

The duel between Sherman and Tiger was pure bad luck. I have seen shots bounce of a Tiger from almost zero meters !
The aormour quality percentage does play its part. If the percentage is lower then 100% it will be easier penetrated. So, if a gun statistic says it can penetrate armour of 90mm at 500 meters, but the armour of the tank it is shooting at is 100 mm but has a quality of 85% it is actually possible to penetrate it with that gun. Not always but randomly, because not every part of the armour is weaker.

One of the best things of CMAK and CMBB over CMBO are in my opinion the cover arcs over the "ambush" possibilty. Artillery in CMBO is much cooler ! Much more noise and more effective.

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

BTW, the PSW 234/3 only had one armour piercing rounds left. Perhaps it was a bit to much counting on luck to hit the Sherman with one shot with a slow muzzle velocity gun...

[Earl of Grey]

BTW, the PSW 234/3 only had one armour piercing rounds left. Perhaps it was a bit to much counting on luck to hit the Sherman with one shot with a slow muzzle velocity gun...

I've KO'ed a Sherman at 1.5km with a 251/9 once... with the first shot. Happens only one in a hundred, though.

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

I've KO'ed a Sherman at 1.5km with a 251/9 once... with the first shot. Happens only one in a hundred, though.

How many seconds did that round fly ?!

[AirborneBob]

"fly" it actually rolled onto the Sherman...

[Earl of Grey]

How many seconds did that round fly ?!

In reality it'd fly 3.8 seconds. I don't remember how fast it was in CM, but it wasn't quite as fast as a tank shell.

[Cue-Ball]

BTW, the PSW 234/3 only had one armour piercing rounds left. Perhaps it was a bit to much counting on luck to hit the Sherman with one shot with a slow muzzle velocity gun...I knew it was a gamble, but I'm desperate to take out some of my opponent's armor. I don't have much to counter his forces, and my only cover around the flag point is buildings that his Cromwell and Sherman will be able to demolish in another few turns, once they get a good LOS. I've got no Panzershreks, and only a few Panzerfausts, none of which are close enough for a shot.

So, I figured it was worth the risk. I thought that I would most likely get a side shot on the Sherman (left side). Even if I didn't KO it, an immobilization would have been good enough. The target area is situated in such a way that he'd really have no LOS to any of my men if he got stuck there. I figured I could either take the chance of killing/immobilizing his Sherman, or spend the rest of the game trying to maneuver into a position to shoot at infantry without getting in LOS from the enemy's three remaining pieces of armor. There are plenty of buildings, but not enough trees for me to hide for very long against those odds.

Now that my PSW is KOd, I really have nothing that can take out his tanks, other than an immobilized PzIV. If his armor gets close enough for me to get off a shot, I'll probably have already lost (it's raining and very hilly, so line of sight is pretty short).

[Cue-Ball]

If you want to play against someone having started with CM when it came out and still totally inexperienced and inadequate, take me on - I loose much more than I win and when I win it's usually because I played a pre-made scenario because I suck at QB force picking. :biggrin1:

I might have actually fallen for that line and accepted your offer if I hadn't just read the thread where you beat all comers in a tournament against POS! I think this pup is gonna stay on the porch for a bit before he tries to run with the big dogs. ;-)

[Earl of Grey]

Ah, I only beat POS and only because I got lucky with my StuGs.Well, amybe POS wasn't quite himself as well... I've been attributed to be a tough opponent even when I'm loosing. Really, I'm not that good. With the right terrain and a platoon of Panthers I can make your day VERY bad, though... :tongue1:

[PoorOldSpike]

..I think this pup is gonna stay on the porch for a bit before he tries to run with the big dogs. ;-)

That's what I used to think when I was a newcomer to CM; I used to look at the ladder listings and thought- "Wow, maybe one day i'll join a ladder and take on the mighty ladder gods!", and I put off joining for far too long!
When I did join, the first thing I noticed was that most of them were making just as many mistakes as I was, and I realised they weren't gods after all.
That was the turning point for me, I stopped being over-cautious by pussy-footing around and thought- "Right! From now on I'm going to be the hunter, not the hunted!"

PS- Remember, you won't win every game so just put your losses behind you and forget them.
For example, of the 146 FGM ladder games I played last season, I only won 74 (just over half)!
(The remaining 72 were a mix of 42 defeats and 30 draws.)
In other words, i was averaging one defeat about every 8 days throughout the six-month ladder season, taking a terrible hammering!
No sweat, I still ended up as ladder champ, so if I can do it, anybody can..:)