My first post with some questions

[tinkthank]

Thank you for your replies.
If the learning curve is somewhat like Shrapnel's Dominions 2, that is ok.
Before I posted, I DID read through the tutorial and the Tips sections of the GG; in fact, I think I read the whole thing by now. But there is so much that is unexplained; let me briefly say what I mean.
In every single game I have ever played, there has been some form of quantified abstraction relating to the health of a unit -- usually called "hit points". In every single game I have ever played, there has been some form of quantified abstraction relating to the damage a weapon or other damage-dealer does to subtract from that health. I havent found that yet in MBT. In other words: I read and reread and re-reread all those text boxes on all of these units, but I don't feel smarter. This unit has a Mblahblah gun, and that unit has a Mwoowoo gun -- fine. When I check out those guns, I still dont know "how much they hurt"; I am used to that. I see that this unit is an APC -- but without a glossary I don't know what these things mean.
So I feel lost, despite the documentation that I read.
I have never played any other game in this SP series, so I have no idea how bad the AI was before. I suppose I will see soon.

[narwan]

There's no hitpoints here, just men in units. Units can lose men which reduces their combat effectiveness. You can check each individual unit to see how much men they have left (and how many they lost).

Vehicles can sustain damage due to hits received. That also reduces their combat effectiveness (and can take out crewmen). Again, the specific units infoscreen will show damage. Much more common will be the 'destruction' of a vehicle when hit though.

Likewise, damage dealt is not factored in anything like 'hitpoints' damage to the enemy. A round that hits a tank either penetrates or not, if so it'll damage or destroy the target. The stats you see for units show things like armor thickness, penetration capabilities of guns and for weapons against soft targets (like infantry) the relative damage done if they hit. There is always an amount of uncertainty though, you are never garantueed a kill or certain you'll inflict damage (even when hosing down an infantry squad from 50m with your tanks mg's).

Narwan

[tinkthank]

Thank you.

Are you saying that ANY round may damage or destroy any other unit? What are the odds? (I bet that a pistol round has different odds than, say, a howitzer round, right?)

WHen I inspect one of my tanks, I can see something like this(which I cannot copy and paste here, unfortunately, so this is from memory):

120mm M26 91
7.62 mm M240CMG
50cal AMG
7.62 M240 AMG

Then there are ratings for Acc (Accuracy, I think), Kill (What's this 8:0 mean though?), Pen (Penetration?), HEAT (no clue), APCR (no clue), and range.

Now unlike everyone else here, I dont know what these guns are, really; I suppose "MG" is "machine gun", but I dont know what AMG or CMG is or if there is a difference. I just cant seem to glean enough info from these screens to tell me what the purpose of these things are.

I am not a modern "war buff", so I dont even know what those "classes" mean. I did, I really did try to check this up, but when I see that somethng is an "LMG" or an "SPAA", I dont know what that is.

When I select a target and hit "fire", my unit seems to use all of its weapons on that unit. I read the tutorial and other texts in the Game Manual, and they say (doh) to use larger guns on the tanks and machineguns on the infantry -- but I seem to be shooting my cannons at the infantry too. How does one control this fire?

One final question: In playing the tutorial, I see that one of my units, H5 (a Bradley), is 2 hexes away from its commander (H0) -- I checked this in the overview screen. This unit H5 is listed as "out of contact" -- why? He's right next to his commander?! (I am attaching that game save here, if I can find it.)

One final mini-question: When I hit the "h" hotkey, I am taken to the unit overview screen, not the headquarters screen. Is there a different hotkey for that?

Thank you

[Mobhack]

For nuts and bolts stuff - you should refer to the Mobhack help, which goes into more details.

For standard military acronyms, like HEAT, HE, VIRSS etc - these are things that wargamers tend to know, being military history/technical buffs generally.

Google is a great help, if you dont know what an acronym is and also FAS , e.g Big Bullets

For game details - see the GG section "Unit Information Screen" and the related "Encyclopaedia Screen" as the details of the Info screen are the same as for the encyclopaedia.

(At the end of the weapon table in the encyclopaedia entry for the GG, and also within the table the ammo types are defined, in any case).

Weapons with an AP penetration value can defeat armour, and you need an HE kill value to have effect on soft targets. Anti tank rounds are generally AP, HEAT, and APDS/APCR but HE can have an effect on armoured targets.

To turn a weapon off see the "Unit Information Screen" section of the GG, table entry "Weapon Info", final paragraph.

To fire an individual weapon only - see the GG "Main Map Window" section which describes the main game action window, then refer to the table of hot keys, entry for "W" key. This brings up a sub-menu which allows you to fire only a specified weapon at the current target. pressing the 1 key fires only weapon slot 1 etc. For selecting a specific target - see the "T" hot key or the target buton.

Command and control is judged at turn start - not during the turn. If your guy was > 250 hexes away at turn start, and failed a radio check (assuming both had them) then he will be out of CC for that move.

The "H" key takes you to the headquarters menu - it is the "J" key now to go to the units screen, that does not sem to have made it into the documentation. (No idea why I chose "J" - possibly because it has a raised bar making it easy to find, like the "F" key - been a while !

Cheers
Andy

[pdoktar]

HMG -Heavy Machine Gun
AAMG anti-air MG - targets both ground and air units
CMG co-axial MG - targets only ground units
SPAA - Self-propelled Anti-Air (Vehicle)
SPA - Self-propelled Artillery
MBT- Main Battle Tank
APC- Armored Personell Carrier
IFV / AIFV / MICV / ICV - different types on Infanty Fighting Vehicles, usually with autocannons and Anti-Tank Guided Weapons/Missiles (ATGM or ATGW)
RR - recoilless rifle, a low velocity gun, usually anti-tank firing HEAT rounds

Acc - The general accuracy of the gun
Kill - how effective at destroying infantry units
Pen - basic armor penetration capacity of the gun first digit for High Explosive (HE) round, second for Armor Piercing (AP) round
HEAT - penetration capacity of High Explosive Anti Tank round
APCR - Penetration capacity of Armor Piercing Capped Round (or sabot or other special Anti-Armour munition)
Generally bigger is better

If a round has enough penetration when it hits a vehicle, then it will penetrate it´s armor and do damage. For Example 120mm Gun with Pen 32 will penetrate at 0 metres tank armor of 31 and sometimes 32, but not usually armor of 35-50,(APCR might penetrate maybe 70-90 for such a gun). As the range increases, projectiles loose velocity and penetration power (HEAT ammo does not). Remember to check out both armor value and HEAT armor value for a given unit. Reactive armor works differently and will try to defeat a HEAT round before it touches the main armor under it. These armor and pen figures are estimates and corresponde with centimeters of Rolled Homogenous Armor calculations (Armor plate).

In the unit info screen you can click at a weapon system to activate and de-activate it.

[tinkthank]

Thanks very much.

After another week of testing, rather infrequently, unfortuately, I see I still have so much I dont understand.
I still see some of my units "out of contact", even those that moved only 2 or 3 hexes that turn, and are pratically adjacent to their HQ. I dont understand Command and Control enough, apparently. The other thing is weapons -- is there a listing somewhere in "real language" as to what the weapons are -- such as "2x Hydra FFAR"?

When I posted my questions above, by the way, I did read that guide and know about the "w" button -- it just didnt always seem to work for me. Sometimes I would have a target, hit the button, and then the appropriate number, but it would fire all weapons or none. Sometimes it would fire at a different target. (I also suppose I am used to systems which cycle through valid targets -- that is what I expected the "t" button to do. Is it possible to mod the game so that this in fact is done?)

One last question, if I may -- are there scenarios (or could one make them) which involve civilians (in an urban or quasi-urban or suburban setting, for example) and *negative* VPs for harming them as, say, the advancer or attacker?

Thank you very much

[junk2drive]

Part way down the forum page is a thread that I posted FFAR @ FAS.org
I don't have a military background and resorted to google to find the answer.
IIRC the "w" works when your unit already has a target and the weapon number must be selected from the number keys on top of your keyboard, not the 10-key pad.

[Mobhack]

Can make a difference if "num lock" light is lit I think.

Andy

[Mobhack]

to find out what a weapon is, you really need to have the military "knowledge", which only comes from researching the subject matter. There is just not enough space to effectively print a copy of "Janes Weapon Systems" in the GG. (I used to have a copy of Janes Infantry Weapons for 76-77, and it weighed about 10 lbs! . And each volume of Janes requires a mortgage to aquire..

Your best bet is to type "hydra FFAR" into google. Also - to find a nice online website which deals with military acronyms. Fas.org should have one somewhere in its site?.

A quick google of "FFAR" pointed at the fas.org entry for the Hydra series of rockets : Hydra FFAR

Also try globalsecurity.org link

All air Rockets in the game are stated as (X x Name of system) as the "salvo" unit - can be 1 for e.g. the big Soviet 122mm, or 7-8 70mm ones. That allows the 16, 32 rocket pods to be simukated without a separate weapon slo used up for each pod.

Thw W key will only fire one weapon, at the currently selected target and only if the selected weapon is in range and has ammo and a shot opportunity remaining that turn. About the only use I have for this function is to have one of my Russian Guards sections to launch an AT-mine at a tank next door in WinSPWW2, without triggering a close assault which may leave them too supressed to fling a second one if the first failed. Otherwise, I turn off the weapons I do not want to fire the usual way (in the odd circumstance I want to reserve some, about the only time I do that is to preserve an ATGM and biff up a light APC target e.g with the BMPs 30mm and hold the missile) and simply click on the target to fire.

The T key dialogue needs therefore to be used with N and P to navigate to the desired target if no target/not the desired target is currently selected. Again - the only time I use this instead of clicking on the target may be to select a tank for a rifle section to fling an AT weapon at, or perhaps to review the %age to-hit the gunner thinks is best, if selecting between which T-55 to target etc. (Remember that the to-hit %age in the T key dialogue only works for the primary (slot 1) weapon).

Out of contact status is determined at your turn start and the range for guaranteed comms is shouting range between the platoon commander and the sub-unit - 100-150 metres or 2-3 hexes. Any other distance needs both units to have a radio and to pass a radio comms test. You can also be out of contact if the platoon HQ is dead, retreating etc. (Command radius is also irrelevant, if you do not have any need to rally the sub-units that turn.)

cheers
Andy