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Post by Adrian Taylor on Apr 2, 2004 12:51:18 GMT
I have deliberately not vastly increased the number of core units, as doing this makes it extremely difficult to balance the difficulty levels.
Saying that, there is an increase to four tank units at commencement and three artillery units. At each level of generalship these will go up by 4 and 3 represently.
Promotions will roughly follow that of a Panzer Commander so it will be heavy on tanks rather than artillery.
Adrian
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Post by sunray on Apr 4, 2004 6:29:34 GMT
Adrian, I see that you are going to keep core unit numbers down. But I also hope that you keep ratios of support infantry to tanks in a realistic perspective. I don't wish to criticize another mod (because they all do an excellent job), but I do need to quote an example. I have been playing the hagelsturm mod (which is a very good effort), but I was somewhat disappointed with the first mission. It provided you with about 5 or 6 armoured vehicles, but only two infantry squads and a flamethrower team. I know the principle of any breakthrough operation is to mass your armour at key points in order to achieve the 3:1 outnumbering ratio that warfighting doctrine dictates is necessary to ensure success. But this kind of combined arms ratio is certainly not realistic. And a mission is certainly not realistic when you are obliged to assault a village, that is defended by a force of infantry that far outnumbers your own, and is supported by anti-tank guns, HMGs, mortars, and well positioned tanks. And you have no indirect fire support of either guns or aircraft. I just get very disappointed when I see missions, for tactical wargames, being set up by people who obviously don't understand the military doctrines governing tactics, and how to use them. So I guess that I am saying, please support that armour with realistic levels of combined arms support. regards sunray  |
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Post by Adrian Taylor on Apr 4, 2004 6:52:43 GMT
Point taken ;D
One of the strengths of the game is the infantry, unfortunately they can not be utilised as core units. Don't worry there will be plentry of infantry do do the job!
The only mission so far that has little or no infantry is the escort random map missions. These are based on the orginal game, but don't require any storming of heavily defended villages.
Adrian
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Post by Adrian Taylor on Apr 4, 2004 6:54:33 GMT
Just to add those SP Artillery pieces will not be taking up valuable tank slots. You will be able to upgrade your artillery to Self-propelled guns ;D
Adrian
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Post by sunray on Apr 7, 2004 12:09:01 GMT
In the vanilla Blitzkrieg, I got to the stage where I just didn't bother to use my towed artillery, because as soon as they started to fire a mission for me, the AI artillery hit them like a ton of bricks. Obviously they didn't last too long after that, with the amount of time it takes to limber them and move somewhere else. I very quickly learned to leave my towed artillery alone, until I was able to trade some of my armour for SP guns. Then there was some big time payback. You see, I am a big believer in the use of artillery. In my younger days I was a gunner in a field battery of 105mm guns. Wespes, Hummels, and 120mm mortars, just make my day. And bring on those halftrack mounted mortars. It's good to see that you are giving us the ability to upgrade from towed artillery to SP guns, without eating into our AFV numbers. regards sunray |
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(GD) Silvio
New Member
eight, nein, ten banana
Posts: 22
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Post by (GD) Silvio on Apr 7, 2004 18:28:06 GMT
Just to add those SP Artillery pieces will not be taking up valuable tank slots. You will be able to upgrade your artillery to Self-propelled guns ;D Adrian Some sees reason!!! ;D |
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Post by Bogan on Apr 8, 2004 12:51:31 GMT
that was an excellent post of yours sunray, where you wrote about the 3:1 superiority ratio, and relevance of proportionate numbers of infantry to AFVs. isn't it good how in OSTfront missions, appropriate reinforcements coincide with new objectives, so the neccessary ratios can be achieved. also, interesting to hear how you feel about howitzers, since you used to be a gunner. i feel exactly the same way about mortars.  Adrian has ensured us that the infantry will play a big part in the Ostfront Campaign. also, we will usually have mortars and mgs to support our troops which i felt was sadly neglected in vanilla Blitzkrieg.. |
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Post by sunray on Apr 10, 2004 6:07:23 GMT
Hi wolfgang, That localised superiority required to ensure a victory extended to artillery as well. This is another thing I find does not sit well with me in the original Blitzkrieg. You are supposed to be doing the attacking, and the enemy seems to have either equal numbers of artillery as you, or more. In reality, you as the attacker would have large numbers of artillery units assigned to your local area. And as soon as the enemy started to hit your attacking force with their artillery, you hammered them with as much counter battery fire as you could muster. And very quickly you removed most of the artillery support that the enemy had close enough to do any damage to your units. This also freed up your artillery to start concentrating on their defenses in support of your spearhead units. Napoleon was an artillery officer, and he called his artillery his "thunderbolts". In his early campaigning years, he astonished his opponents with the dexterity in which he manouvered his artillery, and brought fire to bear at decisive moments during the battles. It is said that "the infantry are the queen of battle, but the artillery are the god of war". Yes, mortars are a much overlooked, and effective support weapon. I have witnessed mortar barrages, both from the blunt, and the sharp end (thankfully not in a war situation). And contrary to what you see in the movies, they are very devestating. Particularly with the rate of fire a trained mortar platoon can produce. I believe that it is not uncommon for one tube to have six bombs in the air at once. Multiply that by 4 or 6 tubes, and a mortar bombardment takes on a whole new meaning. The tripod mounted machine gun is also a very devestating weapon. So infantry, with their intergrated support weapons, can be a very deadly opponent. This is what a lot of people fail to realise. And tanks were certainly not as prolific in real life as they are in RTS wargames. regards sunray |
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Post by Adrian Taylor on Apr 10, 2004 11:08:31 GMT
Bear in mind on the Eastern Front the Germans rarely had superioty in arms. Although I have not got the details at hand at the moment, but the Germans were roughly on par on all but tanks at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. This got alot better towards August/September after the great encircling battles, but after Stalins' mass mobilisation and re-equiping took hold the Germans steadily lost ground.
Thus, it was only during the early period of war and the odd exception later that the Germans could count on their artillery having local superioty. However, saying that they were masters at its use, especially with mortars.
Adrian
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Post by foxy on Apr 18, 2004 10:32:01 GMT
With the change in the Orange circle eliment in the new game, it will be better for the Artillery to cope.
Towed or otherwise, found the morters very usefull .
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Post by vonscheff on Jun 12, 2004 3:50:29 GMT
are you going to add promation levels,or will it stay at three? i tried to figure out how babs got his to work, cant a simple pak file be made that just adds promotions up to feldmarschall, and maybe changes the kuban shield to the pour'le'merit? ;D
is there any way to specificaly assign core units in my custum blitz'n. what i'd like to do is have core units come in with none core reinforcement groups, the problem i'm having is if i want a core 88 with my heavy weapons headquartes platoon i'm just as like to get a pak38 or a field piece
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Post by Adrian Taylor on Jun 12, 2004 7:09:17 GMT
Yes you add additional promotion levels but you need to amend several xml files to do so. Check out the Ranks & Medals file path.
Ostfront will have four promotion levles, but these will commence from the lowly rank of Leutnant.
Again to change core units there are several files that need changing. However you will not be able to assign specific core units to reinforcement groups. This is because they appear set by the Chapter Script file and not by type of unit.
Adrian
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Post by vonscheff on Jun 12, 2004 16:19:18 GMT
i've had a look at the ranks and medals folder in the data pak, but if i was to fiddle with that and try to repak it it probly wont work. last time i tried my pak was half the size of the original.
how will the full version of ostfront install? will it be pak files that get dropped here and, or there, or will it be an application? i'm going to want to transfer all my custom bs, is that going to work, i'd just as soon start at leutnant, i'm using last winters version of ostfront, with both paks in data, when my chapter finishes it goes to the ostfront campaign. will the full version installed automaticaly start me at leutnant and give me the extra promotiion? all i have to do is adjust the chapter lua?
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Post by Adrian Taylor on Jun 13, 2004 0:47:26 GMT
The full version will install as per the Ostfront_Demo and the TC Add-Ons. Meaning it will install to your Mods directory and you play by selecting the Mod through the Options=>Load Mods of the Blitz Main Menu.
The campaign will start you at Leutnant and you will progress through the ranks to ObertsLeutnant. If you make it that far you have 22 core units!
Adrian
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Post by vonscheff on Jun 13, 2004 5:30:53 GMT
The full version will install as per the Ostfront_Demo and the TC Add-Ons. Meaning it will install to your Mods directory and you play by selecting the Mod through the Options=>Load Mods of the Blitz Main Menu. The campaign will start you at Leutnant and you will progress through the ranks to ObertsLeutnant. If you make it that far you have 22 core units! Adrian i have also ostfront in my mods directory but i dont like to have to remember to select it so i just run it out of data. what i was wondering is will ostfront overwrite the promotions for original blitz in my custom chapter without me having to micky with any pak files |
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