Original OOB or McNamara OOB - Which is best?

[Volcano Man]

Well, I disagree about artillery effectiveness vs. armor. Yes, artillery can be effective by knocking off a track, or something like that, but not only are the changes in line with McNamara's db but also with my personal experience. I don't know a single tank commander that would just sit through an artillery strike, you would simply button up and haul ass through it (or displace). That said, the number of vehicles disabled by artillery would actually be quite low because of most of the time it would be against a moving target.

I am of course speaking of WW2 era artillery, not DPICM or any modern type stuff like that. HE artillery versus armor is not that effective despite popular opinion. So the result I am happy with. But really, we are only talking about the low 105mm guns, the 150 and up are still some what effective versus armor.

[Dave68124]

[Volcano Man]

While I respect your opinion, I am not convinced. I was not suggesting that buttoning up or displacing a hundred meters should be considered as disruption, as classified by the series but, then again, it does not matter because disruption already occurs. Also, disruption is primarily caused by a failed morale check by the target unit as long as you cause at least fatigue accumulation, so it has more to do with the quality of the target unit than it does anything else.

Also, I do not know what hypothetical case you are thinking of. If you are talking about a A or B quality battalion of tigers, panthers or T34s receiving artillery from 105mm guns then yes you will get very little effect. But if you are talking about lighter vehicles or early war tanks then you will definately see effects from artillery. Not to mention, if an armored unit is low on fuel then you will also see good effect from artillery which makes sense because in this state they would more likely be in fixed positions.

And yes I have TC'd a tank and was frequently buttoned up while doing so, and when I was a driver I drove almost exclusively buttoned up as well. I would not consider myself "disrupted" when I was in that state. It is true that my situational awareness was indeed effected I don't think it is something that you would model in a game at this scale (in Squad Battles I would say you would though). Granted it was an M1A1 (HA) and not a Sherman though. :)

[Dave68124]

[Dave68124]

VM-

One last item. I do appreciate all the work you have done in all of the games, so please don't take my comments as criticism, just an opinion and you know the saying.

However, is there any way you could post a separate table regarding original and new values as a easy reference guide? This would be most helpful. Again, IMO!!

Thanks,

Dave

[Volcano Man]

No problem Dave. I understand what you mean and I have taken care to make sure that armor is not unstoppable. I have played B44 with the new OOB quite a bit and I think you will find that armor has a hard time assauting through urban areas and forests, especially when they are not stacked with infantry (because, overall, armor has a lower assault factor than it had before).

Once the Germans begin stretching their supply lines out through the Ardennes then their armor will begin running low on fuel and be vulnerable to almost everything. Also, many will tell you that armored formations left alone run a risk of infantry assaults decimating them if the armor is alone in a forest or city hex as well which make infantry more important to split up and pair up with them. So, while it is true that armor does have an advantage over stock in that they are less suseptable to indirect fire, they do have other weaknesses that are not true with the stock OOB in that in the stock OOB armor and assault guns are usually assault juggernauts that need little infantry support and can hold ground unsupported.

[Volcano Man]

Oh, I forgot to answer the last part:

Unfortunately I do not have the resources (free time) to create a table of stock values vs. McNamara based db at the moment. Now if the community started such a table then that would be fine by me but unfurtunately I don't see me getting any free time in the immediate future to do such a thing.

[Dave68124]

[Volcano Man]

Sure, but you would have to get the information out of the OOB files as far as the ratings are concerned. I have a db I have created over a year or so but I don't want to make it publicly available because of all the effort that went into it.