|
Well, that was a weird campaign. But the last set of missions show why I basically stopped playing it halfway through. It's really too much jank and micro-madness for me. Don't get me wrong, the huge battles are pretty nice, but this commando stuff isn't that fun to play. Especially since missions are long and will dick you over. So yeah, thanks for keepin on, Ensign.
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 22:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 13:19 |
|
|
Tin Tim posted:Well, that was a weird campaign. But the last set of missions show why I basically stopped playing it halfway through. It's really too much jank and micro-madness for me. Don't get me wrong, the huge battles are pretty nice, but this commando stuff isn't that fun to play. Especially since missions are long and will dick you over. So yeah, thanks for keepin on, Ensign. Enh, it's quite enjoyable in multiplayer. (Where you can revive each other if your guys die...)
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 23:58
|
|
|
So, which exciting battles do you think we won't see in the next campaign? I'm guessing that we're going to give both El Alameins, Sicily, Italy, D-Day, Cobra, Market-Garden and the Bulge a miss. Maybe if we're really lucky we'll get to play in Hurtgen Forest or Aachen! 
|
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 15:00
|
|
|
The Allied campaign has some pretty great missions in spite of its weak opening and the German one is probably the best in terms of Hits Per Mission. The final German campaign mission is a real treat in fact and makes a fitting climax for the game (not counting the bonus missions).
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 19:33
|
|
|
The Sandman posted:So, which exciting battles do you think we won't see in the next campaign?
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 19:35
|
|
|
Welcome to the Allied campaign! With the adventures of Alex and Viktor behind us, let's rewind back to the start of the war. Man, I can't wait to see what this campaign holds. We can desperately fight to prevent the fall of France, buy precious time for evacuating soldiers at Dunkirk, show the Germans the superiority of British Steel at the Battle of Arras...  Haha nope, none of that was important I guess, maybe because Americans weren't involved. It's 1942. Welcome to Africa.  The Allies are landing in three places at once in German occupied North Africa, landing in three places simultaneously: Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca. Such a landing surely would lead to many casualties, so we're going in early to see if we can soften up German resistance a little bit.  Corporal Robinson: Private Terry Palmer! You a reporter?  Private Palmer: Yes sir!  Corporal Robinson: Try to survive. I want to read about me in your newspaper. Meet our main protagonist for this campaign, Private Terry Palmer. He was just a simple  Arsenal. November 8, 1942. Algiers, North Africa, start of Operation Torch  Night time? I don't like the look of this...  The American bourgeoisie only have TWO men per boat! Such decadence.  Our soldiers end up on the beach.  They are approached by a civilian, who brings us up to speed on the plan. He is a member of an anti-German resistance group. They would fight the Germans, but they have no weapons. If we could hit up a gun store or two, they'd be able to cause a ruckus and get the Germans to pull off the shores and give our men an easier time landing.  The disembodied voice is here with us, not limited by the barriers of space, time, and language. There are two points of interest in this town, the bell tower and the German base.  Our job, unsurprisingly, is to capture the German base.  Once we have captured it, we give the signal by replacing the German flag with our own.  This instructs the rebels' truck to pull up.  We load it with the goods and get the hell out of here.  Corporal Robinson: We are at the target, so be careful. D'Aster warned us that there is serious security here. The city is under martial law, and patrols here are increased. Lovely, so this is a combination of the things that ruined the end of the last campaign (bullshit stealth mechanics) and the beginning (tedious defense sections). Well, let's get on with it.  Objective added: Meet D'Aster's man at the old tower. We should probably ask around to see what the deal is with the base, we don't want to go in blind.  Meet our hero, Terry Palmer.  Our squad packed light. The Corporal doesn't even have a gun, just knives and grenades!  At least some of us brought guns. Suppressed, too! And rifle ammo for some reason.  Woah, serious resistance here. Let's try going around to the East.  Corporal Robinson: We should hide the body, otherwise we will be found out too soon. Huh. There's no button to do this, maybe it's just a thing he says for flavour. I mean, I didn't have to do anything with bodies last time.  Max Lehrer: poo poo, he's dead! What happened here?!! Oh, well looks like German soldiers dying for no reason are common enough on the Eastern Front that no one cares, but here it's a big deal.  Corporal Robinson: drat! We did not even get to the warehouse, and they already sounded the alarm! Now half of Algiers will be here to find out what happened... Oops. Let's try this again.  That halftrack is going to stand there forever until you cross this boundary, by the way. Do so even if you aren't going to sneak through this direction.  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, we can't meet with the contact if there are patrols around! Why must they be awake...  You are going to have to kill a couple of guys, no way around it. If you kill them fast enough, no one will raise an alarm. Objective complete: meet with D'Aster's man at the old tower. Corporal Robinson: I knew it, the arsenal is right in front of us. What's behind those walls? Elmer Brown: We got lucky. Most of the garrison left for the sea to prepare for a meeting with your buddies. Only a few guards remain inside. Corporal Robinson: We need to work fast, before the others come back. Any ideas how to get inside?  Elmer Brown: I have been watching the guards for two hours, I know their routes. It will be difficult to enter through the closest entrances, you should try from the riverside. There are guards there, but I think you will manage.  Elmer Brown: After that, we act like we agreed: you take out the guards and raise your flag. I send a signal to our guys and tell them to bring the truck. All that remains is to load the weapons.  Corporal Robinson: We have little ammunition, we should avoid large battles, at least until we get to the warehouses.  Sneaking around the back of the base is trivial. Once we are inside, Robinson reminds us what to do. Corporal Robinson: When you are certain the situation is under control, raise our flag above the arsenal. This is a signal for D'Aster's men. I don't expect much from the civilians, but they can help us hold the place.  Objective complete: reach the weapons warehouses. Terry Palmer: Let's see what they keep here. I hope the garrison hasn't cleaned it out...  Oh baby. There is everything you could possibly want here: machineguns, rifles, grenades, and heaping spoonfuls of ammunition. Stock up, you'll need it.  Germans discover our little shopping spree, and try to get away. We get them, but the gunshots are heard.  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, how I hate that siren! Maybe we should throw a grenade at it. All in good time. Can't rush out of here too quickly!  This is the hidden treasure of the arms warehouse, a box of repair kits. Remember the juggling act we had to perform with repair kits back in the second mission to get enemy tanks back in shape? Not anymore!  And hey, here's the first thing for us to fix: an armoured car. Its rear wheels are gone, and the turret is locked, but fixing it provides you with a machinegun fort. Pretty useful for taking out the garrison of the base here, and holding it later. Remember, this is Africa, there are no Tigers or Panthers here, just halftracks, armoured cars, and light tanks. This thing's armour is pretty reliable.  It's also useful for taking out that annoying alarm and the men at the spotlight.  Yeah, so the stealth component of the level is over. Just like in the last mission of the previous campaign, we're thrown into full blown battle with only four guys. At least we have more ammo now.  Corporal Robinson: It's best to leave the flag alone for now, the bridge is still controlled by the enemy, and our guys will have trouble getting here. You can't signal for the truck until you take out an MG nest at the bridge.  Ooh, we managed to gun down the halftrack crew without damaging it!  Yoink. Now everyone gets a vehicle. Let's take out that machinegun nest real quick.  Yeah, so about that halftrack. It's a massive pain in the rear end to drive. Since it's not a tank, it can't lock a track to rotate in place, so you are stuck doing three point turns like a car. Except a car is much shorter, so even this relatively wide road makes for a tricky rotation. You can't order the AI to do it, either, as it will happily back up into the target instead of pointing whichever way you told it to.  'murica.  Objective complete: signal the resistance by raising an American flag.  There's that truck.  Greg Johnson: Two of you, load that car, the rest get on the walls! Grab weapons, grenades, anything you need for defense.  The flag doesn't just notify the resistance, it notifies everyone. A fuckton of Germans are running to our position to figure out why the base suddenly changed ownership.  Elmer Taylor: The loading is going well, we just need to worry about letting the enemy close to here. Unlike with the second mission of the first campaign, there is no progress indicator. You just have to listen to the voice cues. As for the Corporal's remark about civilians being useless, they really are. They come with no weapons (you should really grab some!), and if you assign them to a stationary gun they tend to abandon it and cower behind it when under fire. Speaking of stationary guns, there are plenty of MG turrets around here, but the one that really shines is this AA gun down south. It's fully automatic, so infantry doesn't last long under its fire, and 20 mm is enough of a caliber to defeat light armour. If you want another one, it's attached to a halftrack in a back alley a little to the north, but I didn't have time to get it before the Germans arrived.  Like so. The gun will be able to knock out anything that comes at us in a few bursts, unless it's obscured by one of the many burnt out husks lying around, which will become a problem soon.  Neil Hunt: The truck is halfway loaded! D'Aster will be happy to get these weapons on time. Sometimes the enemy will get caught on corpses, and you need to shoot him manually.  Uh oh, real tanks! That PzII is a bitch to penetrate with our dinky little gun.  Neil Hunt: we will be done with the loading soon, time to think about getting out of here.  Corporal Robinson: Look, they are calling in reinforcements and blocking off the roads! It will get tough soon. We need to get out of there as soon as possible, or it may be too late! I guess what we had before this was a picnic, huh? Anyway, the rebels will take their sweet time even after this voice cue.  Mission Failed: The truck broke. The operation is a failure. Terry Palmer died during his first battle, this was the fate of many young soldiers. He never liked war, but threw himself into its fires. As many Americans, he died fighting for his country far away from it. The resistance fighters could not get their weapons, and the rebellion died before it even began. English and American forces landed at the appointed time, but met with heavy resistance of the French garrison. Howitzer fire and coastal batteries sank ship after ship, and aircraft began bombing as soon as it was daylight. For hours, the Allied fleet took heavy losses, and was thrown back, away from Algiers. Despite successful landings at Casablanca and Oran, Operation Torch was a failure. Enemies destroyed: 84 men, 6 vehicles. Allied losses: 9 men, 2 vehicles. Yeah, so the truck takes damage, and can blow up. Good to know!  Reload, try again. Well placed AA gun fire knocks out the turret on this PzII, let's see if we can recover it.  The angle the tank stopped at was fortunate, the AA gun can take care of any incoming vehicles while we do this.  Victory!  Elmer Taylor: We loaded everything we need, we can leave any time. Objective added: take the truck with weapons to the evacuation point.  Corporal Robinson: We need to move along this street, it's the fastest way to D'Aster. Push the gas, our guys will draw their fire! Uh, easier said than done. This thing isn't moving any time soon. The Germans haven't given up either, an we'll have to repel their attacks while the truck is being fixed.  Which takes forever. Naturally.  Finally, the truck is in decent enough shape to move in a straight line. Having the AI drive it into certain death too many times, I control it manually. gently caress those guys, they can walk out of this map.  The Germans are attacking D'Aster's men, but they are holding out pretty well.  We hit this point, and the truck drives off the map on its own.  Objective completed: Deliver the truck with weapons to the evacuation point.  Mission complete. Terry Palmer's squad managed to supply the rebels with guns. A rebellion in Algiers is inevitable. "The truck was racing forward, leaving behind clouds of dust. The odd shot rings out behind us, we we're relaxed, as relaxed as you can get squeezed in between boxed of bullets and grenades. poo poo, it's like I'm a character in a gangster movie, but with the difference that our work can save the life of many good guys. Now the resistance has weapons, which they can use to capture key objects in the city. I want to believe that this will benefit everyone and provide our forces with a bloodless landing. That's it, I don't have more time to write, the Corporal says we're almost there. Time to check our weapons and get ready to fight. Enemies destroyed: 132 men, 15 vehicles. Allied losses: 13 men, 3 vehicles.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 00:45
|
|
|
I forget the way to do it, but picking up bodies and hiding them is definitely a thing in the game.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
If I remember correctly, Elmer is the guy who's super duper caricature-level French in the English dub.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 03:03
|
|
|
If I recall correctly, everything you put into the truck is available in the next mission, but the fun part is if you stick something to the back of it. Yes, you can tow one of those AA guns into the next mission, and it's a good idea to do so.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 05:38
|
|
|
FelistheIdiot posted:If I recall correctly, everything you put into the truck is available in the next mission, but the fun part is if you stick something to the back of it. drat, I already recorded the next mission 
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 06:00
|
|
|
Yes, having a stolen 20mm autocannon here kind of breaks the difficulty of the coming mission.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 08:41
|
|
|
Asehujiko posted:Yes, having a stolen 20mm autocannon here kind of breaks the difficulty of the coming mission. Who cares? Game cheats you, YOU CHEAT GAME!
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 10:20
|
|
|
Asehujiko posted:Yes, having a stolen 20mm autocannon here kind of breaks the difficulty of the coming mission. I did exactly this the first time I played (I seem to remember the game implied this would happen?) and it was great.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 12:00
|
|
|
All right, onto the next mission! It's a continuation of the previous one, really. You can tell because they reuse the picture and probably most of the cinematic. The deal is that the troops we've been fighting weren't German after all (despite having German names and wearing German uniforms and using German weapons and insignia), but French. The French garrison isn't all that inclined to fight, and if their leader, Admiral Darlan, is persuaded to order a surrender, they won't complain. Some ambassadors are being sent to talk to him, but our job is to ensure he agrees.  Ceasefire. November 8th, 1942. Algiers, residence of Admiral Darlan.  Despite that cover image, it's still night.  Our men are sneaking around the perimiter.  This guy gets stabbed.  This guy gets a knife thrown into him.  Watch out guys, that floating timer might get you!  All right, disembodied voice, show us what you got. Darlan is here.  And a fuckton of dudes are here, here, and here. Generally everywhere, really.  There are three exits from the compound, we need to guard them all to make sure Darlan doesn't escape.  We then need to defend the residence until the ceasefire is signed.  Oh, and either the French or the Germans are sure to try and recover Darlan, so we won't be bored while waiting.  Nobody noticed this truck pulling up to this convenient pile of corpses.  Objective added: Capture Admiral Darlan. Corporal Robinson: This is it, guys. Let's begin the mission and stick to the plan. Remove the guards, close off the exits, capture Darlan alive. Let's go!  Objective added: cover the exits from the residence. We spawn in with our squad of four and handful of civilians. The civilians are completely unarmed, but thankfully there are three convenient corpses and a truck full of goodies to arm them. The truck contains everything you put in there in the last mission, so unless you intentionally stopped to dump its contents, you have plenty of weapons and mines. Take the mines, they will come in handy. Apparently you can also tow one of the AA guns from the last mission into here, but I learned about this too late.  Corporal Robinson: We need to remove the guards. Do it quietly, without excess noise. Looking good, Elmer!  Corporal Robinson: Try not to take risks and go around lit up areas, we don't need to be found before time.  Ok, let's take out these two guards. You'll have to do it by hand, since these Americans have a tendency to ignore my orders and use grenades instead of knives. As you can imagine, this is not a sneaky solution.  Hand to hand combat is a guaranteed silent takedown though.  Corporal Robinson: I would hide this body away from prying eyes. We best not attract any attention. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.  Aha, a hole! We should head through here.  Unfortunately, the path to there goes past these guys. See that shaded area? We can't cross over it, that's an invisible wall. You know what, game? I have had it up to here with your "rules". Kill everyone! Corporal Robinson: Cease fire! We don't need a war, if half of Algiers runs comes running at the sound of gunshots, capturing the Admiral won't be easy. gently caress you old man, you're not my real dad.  Stefan Brenner: Someone has snuck onto the base. Search everything!  Graham Clark: That's it, we were discovered. Now the fun starts...  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, they turned on the projector! Keep away from the light.  Marcel Weiss: What's happening here?!!  Stefan Brenner: This is an attack! Sound the alarm! The enemy is here!  Corporal Robinson: drat these Frenchmen! Now every dog will hear about us. Be ready for everything guys, now it's going to get tough. All this talking took place while we were running to this breech. Yeah, so the  Corporal Robinson: I see him! The target is running! Get the admiral before he leaves the villa! Be careful, do not kill him! Darlan is running scared! Unfortunately for him, he picked a direction poorly.  Aaaand runs right into our hands. Congrats, dude. Also, out of all the exits the game told you to cover, Darlan is not going through any of them. Further proof that the game hates you and wants you to lose.  Objective complete: Capture Admiral Darlan.  Someone pulls up in an important looking car, probably the American delegation.  Time remaining to establish a defensive: 4:58 Corporal Robinson: All right guys, we did our job, and now we have to see it through to the end. Take defensive positions around the perimeter, leave a few men by the building in case the Admiral tries to pull something. This is where the mines we gathered came in handy. Plop down lots of them.  Corporal Robinson: Commander, D'Aster sent some of his men to help! Wait, I thought you were the commander. Anyway, D'Aster's men come with mines, in case you forgot to bring yours.  Corporal Robinson: Local guards should have a place for storing ammunition, it wouldn't be a bad idea to search everything. First, check those boxes behind the main building. So while those other Frenchmen had an arms warehouse, these guys just dump their poo poo in a pile on the ground. Good to know.  Oh yeah, just because you stormed into the base and captured Darlan, doesn't mean that the existing guards went anywhere. They're around, making setting up for a defensive a mess. I kept close to the villa, unlike what the game told me, since I have learned that it tells only lies.  Our time is up. Objective added: Ensure the safety of the negotiations.  Ralph Smith: Corporal, I see enemy vehicles! Looks like they are serious about this. It's time to see what these anti-tank rifles can do... Well, this is going to be tough. We get plenty of ammunition for our anti-tank rifles, and they aren't kept far, just in the boxes back there.  Viktor Weber: The rebels captured Darlan! Find him! He should be in the main building! Didn't I already kill you?  Elmer Knight: Commander, if we manage to repair captured vehicles, we might be able to use them in our defense! Sadly, I do not temporarily disable any vehicles in this mission. Shame.  American ambassador: Hello, mister Darlan. I represent the United States of America, and have come here to discuss an agreement important to both parties.  Admiral Darlan: I can't say I'm happy to see you, Ambassador, but it looks like I have no choice.  American ambassador: I see. You clearly understand the situation, Admiral. Let's not lose any time and get to work.  Meanwhile, outside the mansion, trucks full of guys are pulling up to every entrance.  Thankfully, Corporal Robinson is a crack shot with heavy weapons.  Corporal Robinson: Hold the line! If Darlan signs the surrender, we'll be heroes! Sigh, this is another one of those fights. You will have to refill your ammunition constantly, and maybe refill the minefields when there is a lull in the action.  I loaded up Robinson with as much ammo as he could carry, and he's making good use of it.  There's an armoured car here that's not attacking us. Maybe the AI glitched out or something, but I'll go get rid of it just in case.  This game has no shortage of explosions.  And no shortage of vehicles to cause them. I am disappointed that no one is trying to sneak up behind the mansion, all those minefields were for nothing.  Corporal Robinson: Things are going well, it seems. At least, the ambassador found a common basis with the Frenchman and they're discussing the conditions of surrender. Just as in the previous mission, there is no progress bar. You have to estimate how long time will take, and there isn't even a well defined halfway point.  Oh, one guy got behind me. Exciting.  Just because the civilians are poo poo at using AT rifles, doesn't mean they can't throw grenades!  Corporal Robinson: Looks like diplomacy is the task for bureaucrats that can't stop talking! Hold on guys, I hope there isn't long left. Oh yeah, this thing takes forever, because of course it does. I'd say about as long as the Sevastopol mission.  Juan Jenkins: Are they drinking tea and talking about the weather in Washington in there? It's a loving war out here, god damnit! Foreeeeeeeever.  You now what, gently caress you ambassador. I'm taking your car.  Objective complete: Ensure the security of negotiations. Haha nope, too late fucker, I'm outta here.  All the enemies turn allied, so I can cruise around in my shiny new car in peace.  Since they're allies, they get out of the way of your vehicles, but you can still knock the machinegun turrets over.  I'd play a game about these two guys, cruising through Africa, solving crimes, righting wrongs. Fine, let's get this over with.  Mission complete. Our operation to capture the Admiral went smoothly, with almost no losses. Any newspaper would offer a pile of money for such sensational material! Darlan is confused and is agreeing to all our conditions, but it looks to me like he's happy about the outcome. The Admiral is tired of playing two sides, and how he has a good reason to switch to one. Right now, English and American soldiers are landing on the shores with nearly no resistance. I'm happy that we prevented the deaths of many people. We owe it to those brave men that captured key objects in the city in one night, ensuring a safe landing. Algiers is ours, and many Frenchmen here are itching to join the fight alongside the Allies against the enemy that occupies their homeland. Enemies destroyed: 228 men, 15 vehicles Allied losses: 1 man, 0 vehicles Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 18:00 on May 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 00:02
|
|
|
Oh, by the way, the best thing about this video is one of the clips your soldiers yell in battle is "weehay!", which is said exactly the same as in this video.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 00:43
|
|
|
Got a broken image tag there.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 14:10
|
|
|
quote:It seems that Russians are no better at distinguishing between "English" and "British" than Americans are at distinguishing "Russian" and "Soviet". By the way, Admiral Darlan happens to be a historical character. Kopijeger fucked around with this message at 15:38 on May 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 15:34
|
|
|
Kopijeger posted:It seems that Russians are no better at distinguishing between "English" and "British" than Americans are at distinguishing "Russian" and "Soviet". AFAIK in the 1940s "English" was still a perfectly common way of referring to all the British Islanders.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 16:22
|
|
|
"British" instead of "English" in Russian is a fairly recent thing, a lot of older people don't bother with the distinction.chitoryu12 posted:Got a broken image tag there. Fixed.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 17:58
|
|
|
Kopijeger posted:It seems that Russians are no better at distinguishing between "English" and "British" than Americans are at distinguishing "Russian" and "Soviet". Let's face it, very few people are.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
I honestly thought British would apply to everyone inside the British island, while English would apply to people from England, instead of Wales and Scotland. 
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 20:42
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:
Also, it never stops to baffle me how hard the game tries to screw you over. I mean, almost every hint has been a lie so far. Wtf?
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 22:04
|
|
|
Tin Tim posted:Lol, those are some baller wheels. A perfect simulation of Military Intelligence
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 22:09
|
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:A perfect simulation of Military Intelligence As someone who did intelligence that stings man. That stings.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 04:21
|
|
|
 Ah, this is the requisite fawning over Rommel part of any British campaign. "A bloo bloo bloo we couldn't do anything, they used Blitzkrieg on us :'("  Meeting the Enemy. November 21st, Tunis, German airport next to Tebourba  A soldier returns form a recon mission in a sandstorm. Apparently sandstorms are just minor inconveniences, and not the unnavigatable deathtraps I've been led to believe they were!  He tells the rest of the squad what he saw.  There's an airport out in these parts.  The disembodied voice confirms that it is indeed an airport.  Enemy airports are a pain in the rear end, so we'll be blowing it up. We can't wait for the rest of the army to get here, so we're doing it ourselves.  After we secure the city, we need to figure out a way to get up to the airport.  We need to sneak in, and take out the guns and planes (or kill the pilots) before the rest of the company can roll in and deal with the rest. Oh god it's going to be another lovely stealth mission, isn't it?  We got lucky. The sandstorm will mask our gunshots and hide us from the guards. We'll do this fast, no one at the airport will notice a thing. For now, let's fortify in the settlement. The Bosch have set up in here, every corner has a heavy machinegun. Let's start with those.  Objective added: destroy the German posts and capture the settlement. Larry Campbell: Act fast, before the sandstorm ends! Take out the machineguns and hold the territory. Let's go!  The game lied to you again, the sandstorm doesn't do poo poo. Also, this map confuses the gently caress out of the AI pathfinding, to the point where your men go halfway around the city to get to where you sent them. In some cases, I would have to handhold them and order the squad to climb over a small wall, and they would go around and climb over from the other side, ending up where they started out. Of course, they got machinegunned to hell on the way, since you have to be very careful where you go here. It took me three reloads before I herded these idiots carefully enough to flank this first MG. Todd Hernandez: Got the first one! Let's move on!  The MGs are positioned so that you can take out most of them without getting into crossfire from the others.  Of course, you will get beaten up, so use those health kits.  Kevin Sanchez: That's how it's done, guys! We need to find and destroy the rest. Sometimes there are guys on the roof to clear up the monotony.  Just because we have to destroy the MGs, doesn't mean we can't use them!  Some of them are very handy for taking out the other nests.  Sometimes you don't notice another MG nest that's covering yours...still, a handful of grenades, and it's all clear.  Douglas Roberts: I see a nest on that roof! A few grenades should do the trick.  Good idea!  Objective completed: destroy the German posts and capture the settlement. Douglas Roberts: I think we're done here. Tell the commander that the recon company can enter the village.  loving finally, tanks! Shermans ride into the village. Pretty heavy stuff for a recon company, but I'm not complaining.  Shawn Brown: The storm is over, we need to hurry. The main forced of the company are busy preparing for the assault, and won't give themselves away until you take out the planes at the airfield. It all depends on you, corporal. Assemble your squad and get to it.  Hey, we don't even get to drive the...Stuarts? Where are my Shermans, you lying piece of poo poo?  gently caress, whatever. Think fast, a German column is approaching.  Now, your first instinct may be to do this. Bruno Klein: The enemy is here! Alarm!   Yeah, I bet they're pretty alarmed. However, this doesn't actually achieve anything. I thought that blowing up the fuel trucks would make the planes unable to take off due to a lack of fuel, but nope. Let's try a sneakier way.  Arnold Schuster: drat desert, I think we drove over a rock again.  Vinzenz Klutz: Oh no! Ralph will kill us if he finds out his precious equipment is broken because of some rock...Stop the car, we need to go see if everything is fine.  Marcus Collins: See that truck with the tarp? I think it's our chance to get inside. Send someone to take care of the drivers without excess noise, but quickly, they can leave at any moment.  No such thing as "excess noise"   Ryan Taylor: Good, clean work. Collect those that you want to send to the airport. Let's go now, while the truck isn't too far behind. This way we won't cause any suspicion.  The truck contains a bunch of boxes and boring things. But before we leave...  There are chickens in the town.  They have a grabby hand over them. Boys, we need that chicken! For uh...tactical...reasons.  Your squad of well-trained hardasses is going to chase that chicken if you click it while it makes clucking noises and runs away. They can't actually catch it  Right then, back to business. We can't actually get into this truck. We need to click the "depart on mission" button, which is a part of the reinforcements menu for some reason. Guess what I had minimized this whole time.  The men depart in the truck.  Ryan Taylor: God is with us, guys!  The Germans wave through the truck that was late and is clearly being driven by Americans.  Taking out these idiots shouldn't be a problem. Objective complete: Enter the territory of the airport.  Harry Jones: drat, I didn't believe that this trick with the truck will work until the last minute! However, we are here, and alive. Now to find the drat pilots... I bet they are in one of the barracks, but we need to search them all to make sure. Juan Jenkins: I think everyone understands that you shouldn't how yourself to the Bosch. At most, take out a guard and move on. Don't fight patrol groups if you can avoid it, while we take out one guy, the rest will raise the entire airport. And make sure that some passerby doesn't see the corpse of his comrade. Great, it's another "stealth" mission. Why "stealth"?  Your bonus objective is to capture that tank. The game doesn't even pretend that this is a stealth mission.  Oh, and if any of your men didn't fit into the truck, they will run after it, causing an alarm. Make sure any extras are ordered to sit still.  Well, let's try it the honest way, send a group of guys for that tank.  Douglas Roberts: I think we are at the HQ building. If there is someone that is responsible for the guards, he's in there. Let's go! One of your bonus objectives is to kill the commander of the guard, but I don't think this actually helps you out at all. Also, the guy is a loving psychic. Notice how he wasn't even looking at me. And yet...  He runs after me, pistol drawn! He hasn't actually seen us (no alarm was raised), but he sensed us through Ahnenerbe magic or something.  Well gently caress you too, game. I tried.  Might as well go loud. The rest of my guys can get this AA halftrack. It's no tank, but it helps.  Meanwhile, the forward squad has a cool toy to play with. These AA guns are scattered throughout the airport and can gently caress up any armour on this map.  Also any buildings. I really wanted to make sure that HQ was gone.  Trucking through the desert, giving no fucks.  Ok, we made it to the tanks. Of course they're broken. The lazy fucks sitting next to them must have been waving their hands for nothing, as they never get fixed up. We have to do so under fire (there's one repair kit, thankfully). There is also an AA gun to prevent any armour from surprising us.  Very effective! HE can take out even armoured cars. There's nothing heavier than that left in the hands of the Germans.  This armoured car is in working order! Let's see if we can use it to destroy the planes.  Nice damage decals, but I think we need a bigger gun.  There's are two 20 mm AA guns here I didn't notice. Thankfully most of my men were out of their range.  Aha! The tank is ready  I'll try to fix this one too. Meanwhile, let's see what a 50 mm gun can do to these planes!  One shot takes care of them.  Marcus Collins: Excellent! Now their airplanes won't take off for sure, and our chances of success increase several times over. Time to start an attack and destroy it all!  Kevin Sanchez: Company, attack! Take no prisoners, act according to the situation. Mortar crews, ready to fire!  We get mortar support. This is some dinky poo poo compared to Soviet air strikes.  Juan Powell: We'll fight in the center. I will give you a few tanks, cover us from the flanks. Get to work!  The Stuarts push in, taking losses from the 88 mm guns. If only they would have let me take them out first. Oh well.  Those annoying bastards make your life difficult.  And 20 mm guns can still knock your track off. gently caress.  Yay physics!  This mission is sure to satisfy your explosion quota.  Let's see what my mortars can do about this gun.  Not a drat thing. Learn to aim!  The objective is to kill everyone on the map. This is tough, as these guys are cooped up inside and don't want to go anywhere.  Objective complete: destroy the defenders of the airport.  Kevin Sanchez: drat, we did it! The enemy is running! Victory!  Mission Completed The airport no longer poses a danger to the Allies. No one expected to find a Luftwaffe base in this godforsaken place. When I saw the rows of planes, the freshly painted buildings, the airport seemed an island of civilization and order in a chaos of local architecture. We turned it into corpses, burning fuel, and piles of bent metal. The smell of burning bodies is unbearable. My war spirit wanes, replaced with tiredness and repulsion. What are we doing in this desert? Saving the world? Yes, every battle we win here brings the collapse of Hitler's regime closer, but the Germans resist fiercely, and every day, the hope that we can win this war with little blood decreases. Enemies destroyed: 158 men, 19 vehicles. Allied losses: 23 men: 9 vehicles.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 20:45
|
|
|
This game. Replicating the horrors of war.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 22:17
|
|
|
American nancy boy is filled with fear and wants to go home and play with dolls. Soviet soldiers would never be daunted by the prospect of killing more fascists!  I wonder if that's a little undertone they actually put in, or if I'm just reading too far into it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 23:25
|
|
|
Samuel posted:American nancy boy is filled with fear and wants to go home and play with dolls. Soviet soldiers would never be daunted by the prospect of killing more fascists! It's likely just the duality of where we get a lot of the stories of these soldiers. The American 'official record' is influenced very heavily by the letters and diaries of ordinary soldiers, who, yeah, are generally going to want this thing to be over so they can go the gently caress home and stop getting shot at. The Soviet 'official record' is influenced very heavily by the propaganda machine, who have a vested interest in portraying the war as glorious and going well for their side. There are tons of diaries and letters from Soviet soldiers that clearly document things like blocking brigades shooting people and shellshocked breakdowns from constant fighting. Relic Entertainment had to dredge a lot of them up after a lot of people threatened to sue/boycott/etc for portraying the Eastern Front as a horrifying meat grinder in Company of Heroes 2. But this wasn't the narrative that prevailed in the USSR after the war. This isn't to say that the Americans didn't abuse the poo poo out of propaganda during the war - there's a few really interesting papers I read from some mass communications classes I sat in on in college that argued pretty effectively that the American propaganda machine was the single most active and effective one of its type on the planet. They managed to convince not just Americans, but a lot of other foreign cultures that their views were Right And Just, when American takes on stuff are just as much opinion as anyone else's take. But it is to say that the tone changes with the source material, and Soviet and American retellings of this historical period traditionally come from very different source material.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
Those 88mm guns are epic fun if you download the Realism 4 mod for the game. It extends the ranges and accuracy of all the weapons to ones closer to reality...which the game isn't built for. During one mission, I was able to terrifically abuse this by using an 88 to take out literally most of the resistance around the objectives from halfway across the map. You don't suffer fog of war or anything, so I could freely shoot through buildings to hit targets. The first Soviet mission also became a cakewalk....after you got the tank. Beforehand, the mod's increase in vision for enemies and damage for weapons makes it downright impossible to complete objectives as simple as blowing up the first armored car. I'm pretty sure it also added enemies to the first machine gun nest.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 03:57
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:It's likely just the duality of where we get a lot of the stories of these soldiers. The American 'official record' is influenced very heavily by the letters and diaries of ordinary soldiers, who, yeah, are generally going to want this thing to be over so they can go the gently caress home and stop getting shot at. The Soviet 'official record' is influenced very heavily by the propaganda machine, who have a vested interest in portraying the war as glorious and going well for their side. There are tons of diaries and letters from Soviet soldiers that clearly document things like blocking brigades shooting people and shellshocked breakdowns from constant fighting. Relic Entertainment had to dredge a lot of them up after a lot of people threatened to sue/boycott/etc for portraying the Eastern Front as a horrifying meat grinder in Company of Heroes 2. But this wasn't the narrative that prevailed in the USSR after the war. I dunno man, Company of Heroes 2 is very much a propaganda-influenced portrayal - only it's Cold War western propaganda about how the Soviets fought the war, mixed in with a liberal dollop of Hollywood falsity (via Enemy at the Gates, largely). Although on a related note I was very amused by how directly Company of Heroes 2 ripped off the Russian campaign from Men of War. Mission 2: Defend a train as it loads equipment. Mission 3: Defend scattered line ahead of Moscow, fall back over frozen river, defend some more, counter-attack when tanks arrive. Etc. I know these could equally be said to be archetypes of Operation Barbarossa but the form these missions take is very, very similar in both games, and given that Relic previously attempted crappy rip-offs of 1C I'm inclined to look at it that way. (COH1 expansion pack Tales of Valor had an abortive attempt at 'direct control' where you could aim with the mouse but still had to click to move with the mouse as well, making it extremely fiddly to use, plus they showcased it in a campaign about Michael Wittman that took the mission structure directly from Soldiers: Heroes of WW2) John Charity Spring fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 10:39
|
|
|
You actually can catch the chicken. If you go prone and sneak up behind it you can capture it. I forget if you have to use a stealthy character like a sniper or scout to do it, but I remember picking up chickens in MP games and beating soldiers to death with them. You'd even get a kill indicator to let the world know that you just beat someone to death with a chicken.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 16:34
|
|
|
You can toss them like grenades, too (they burst into clouds of feathers upon impact and do maybe a tiny bit of damage if they hit someone).
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 17:35
|
|
|
Commoners posted:You actually can catch the chicken. If you go prone and sneak up behind it you can capture it. John Charity Spring posted:You can toss them like grenades, too (they burst into clouds of feathers upon impact and do maybe a tiny bit of damage if they hit someone). We need to see all those things in the video. And the hat stealing. Have we seen hat stealing?
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 01:36
|
|
|
All right, time for another samey mission of the Allied campaign, each more identical than the last. The intro cinematic knows you can never have too much of a good thing and treats us to a map of Tunis again.  Catastrophe at Tunis. February 18th, 1943. Sbeitla, Tunis. After more obsessing overRommel, we get a mission called "Catastrophe". Promising. Apparently our forces at Kasserine pass are in trouble! Do we get to help them fight? No, of course not, that would require the game to show off a famous and important battle. Instead we have to go through enemy territory to help defend a fuel warehouse. Oh boy, a mission where we have to sneak though enemy territory and then defend something? How loving original  What's that out in the distance?  Zoom!  Ooh, a car chase!  A car chase with guns?  The mission briefing is very to the point: go over there with your new fancy armoured car.  Objective added: reach Sbiba through enemy lines. I hope you used direct control earlier on, because you're going to be confused as gently caress otherwise. This level is an on-rails shooter!  Terry Palmer: Step on it, Corporal! And one of your weapons is a bazooka. I take everything back, this campaign just got awesome.  Terry Palmer: Don't let them peek out, suppressing fire!  A halftrack?  Not a problem, especially when we have an infinite (okay, effectively infinite) ammo bazooka!  Wheeee!  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, I think a tire is shot through! Sigh, I guess I'll switch from the bazooka to the heavy MG. As awesome as it is, the bazooka is slow to fire and not all that accurate, rather ineffective against infantry.  Corporal Robinson: Another wheel is hosed! We won't make it far like this.  A direct shot from my bazooka only slightly dented the tarp on that truck.  We got out of the city! I can't wait until my next bazooka rampage.  Terry Palmer: Hey Corporal, why did you stop?  Corporal Robinson: We have a problem, guys. No fuel. They must have hit the fuel line. I can fix it, but we need to go back to the settlement for gas. James Smith: Not a problem, Corporal. I don't think there will be difficulty, we hit them hard. Objective added: obtain a canister of gasoline for your vehicle.  You'd think that the village would be full of angry Germans, but no. Most of the ones you didn't kill un-spawn during the cinematic, and the remaining few are quietly patrolling.  Terry is carrying a gasoline canister, making him slow and useless. It's empty, rear end in a top hat, quit being a pansy.  No need for stealth here, you can easily take out these guys.  Oh joy, the objective has no map marker. I'm going to have to kill everyone and search the whole village.  Hey, here's this lightly dented truck. I wonder if there is fuel in it.  Nope.  Let's keep looking. Also, sometime during that last firefight, Terry decided to quit being a bitch and pull his weight.  A Czech gun, in Africa? Ok, whatever.  I'll take it anyway. No fuel in these boxes though!  The added firepower helps you take out the rest of the enemies.  That little poo poo up in the tower is immune to shrapnel, apparently.  Oh, COME ON!  It took a loving direct hit to kill this guy, after which he cinematically falls  The last two guys were hiding in and around this building.  No fuel here either!  Ok, game, this barrel clearly says Benzin. You can't fool me. There's fuel in there.  As always, the game wants you to do something painfully specific to achieve a goal. First, get your gas can out.  Then walk up to this truck.  Then click it, and start siphoning the fuel. From the radiator, apparently.  James Smith: Like I said, no problem. Let's get back to the Dodge.  There is no difference between walking with a full can or an empty one, Terry still moves like molasses, giving us plenty of time to wheel over that gun.  As always, we are an unstoppable juggernaut, demolishing boulders in our path.  Terry takes enough time with that gas for the Corporal to finish making sand castles and for us to figure out we can't take this gun with us.  Terry Palmer: Everything's in order, Corporal, purest gasoline, straight to order. How's the car? Mission complete: Find a gasoline canister for your car.  Corporal Robinson: I patched up the fuel line. We'll make it to Sbiba, the technicians there can figure it out. Terry Palmer: Then let's fuel up and get going. I don't want to stick around under the Bosch's noses. Terry Palmer is a bossy fucker in this mission. He must have received a hefty promotion off-screen.  Terry Palmer: Hurry! There are more and more of them! We can't use that perfectly good cannon to defend ourselves while the Corporal fuels up, sadly.  Corporal Robinson: Give me a minute, guys, I'm almost done!  Corporal Robinson: Ready! Start her up, let's get out of here!  Just in time, the heavy support is rolling in.  We're back into high speed chase mode!  Terry Palmer: Corporal, we're being chased! Give them a driving lesson! You should probably get a chain of command lesson, Terry.  Terry Palmer: One down!  Terry Palmer: Another one bites the dust!  Apparently the German motorcyclists are suicidal! Corporal Robinson: The vehicle has taken a lot of damage, it's almost uncontrollable! Another couple of hits, and we are done for, guys!  You may notice that I am still using the machinegun. The reason for this is how the game treats its weapons. Any large caliber bullet is effectively interchangeable, meaning that the M2 is as effective as the PTRD or PzB.39. Recall that those weapons were effective against thin armour, but were single shot rifles, taking forever to reload. The M2, of course, is a machinegun. This means that you can deliver about a minute worth of fire from one rifleman into the enemy in a few seconds, absolutely shredding nearly any vehicle we come across.  And the explosions are just as good!  Terry Palmer: All caught up, Jerry?  Corporal Robinson: More Bosch ahead! We're lucky with them today.  Guns blazing, we burst into this small village. Apparently our engine has overheated.  Objective added: Protect the corporal. James Smith: Corporal, they're coming at us! Why am I not surprised...  Even though we did not bring a cannon, we get one here, as well as two machineguns for the odd one out.  John Williams: Bosch to the left! What Private Williams is forgetting to mention is that the Germans coming from the top of the map haven't stopped coming at us either.  Crap, armour is coming in.  The cannon has plenty of ammunition to engage soft targets coming from both directions.  The Germans run at you instead of shooting from afar. If they did that, we would be pretty screwed.  Terry Palmer: How's the engine, cooled yet?  Corporal Robinson: The engine is fine, I just need to borrow some ammo from the Germans and we can move on.  Oh drat the heavy poo poo is here. Robinson you moron, why didn't you bring enough ammo?  Objective failed: Terry Palmer and Corporal Robinson must survive. Mission failed. Rommel's counteroffensive turned out to be a catastrophe for the self-confident Americans. In short time, they were pushed back to the borders of Tunis, losing large amounts of men and vehicles. The desperate attempt to push through Sbeitla did not end well. Terry Palmer's team was surrounded. The four commandos fought to the last round, but the forces were uneven. Meanwhile, three miles West, the fate of the Tunis campaign was being decided. Correctly predicting that the enemy will advance to Tala through the Kasserine pass, Allied command concentrated its forces there. The plan was good, but did not reinforce any other direction. On February 23rd, the Germans suddenly penetrated the defenses of the 6th Tank Army and circled around to the rear of the Allies, cutting off their supplies. In order to avoid encirclement, Eisenhower was forces to retreat to Algiers. Rommel won the battle of Tunis, once again demonstrating his talent as a brilliant commander. Enemies destroyed: 83 men, 4 vehicles Allied losses: 4 men, 3 vehicles.  Let's try to get lucky this time.  Got him!  This is far from the last of the German armour.  Thankfully this gun still has plenty of shells.  Uh oh, lots of them headed this way.  Objective complete: Cover the Corporal. Corporal Robinson: Take your places, we're headed out!  James Smith: Got here just in time, drat it. Try to go around from the right!  Another exciting car chase, very much like the one in the opening cinematic.  Terry Palmer: Step on it, Corporal! Don't let the truck catch up! Uh, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's about as caught up as it can be.  Terry Palmer: Bridge up ahead! This is our chance to lose them!  Terry Palmer: drat! Turn around, there's an armoured car!  Bridges are for conformists. We're ramping this poo poo.  The German truck is not anywhere as cool as we are, so it can't ramp.  A broadside eight-wheeler is an easy target for a bazooka, even at full speed.  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, our wheel is punctured!  Corporal Robinson: Our other wheel is toast! We won't get far like this. This segment is very unforgiving. Two mistakes can cost you most of your health. This is one.  Aaaaand this is two. If that gun hits you, it's bad news.  Corporal Robinson: The car is heavily damaged, it's almost uncontrollable. Another couple of hits, and we're done for, guys!  Corporal Robinson: Terry, a German column! Shoot it to hell! Open fire at the cars!  Corporal Robinson: Motherfucker, a tank! Hold on guys, I'll try to get into range!  This is a boss fight. Your car will circle the tank while you shoot it with your bazooka. It, of course, shoots back.  Two direct hits, and all it did was knock the tracks off! This guy is pretty tough.  Another hit to the side, no visible damage. Boo.  If your car runs out of health, it's game over.  The loss message is the same.  This time, let's do it right.  A shot to the barrels, a shot to the gun, and I arrive at the tank in perfect health.  loving finally. Bastard took five shots to kill!  Terry Palmer: Got him! Hm, can't drive too long without switching up the action. Corporal Robinson: Visibility is nil! We're blind from this sand. Everyone be on the lookout!   Terry Palmer: It's too quiet, Corporal, I don't like it. Something is wrong. We're due for a surprise.  Terry Palmer: Hit the brakes, the road is over!  Corporal Robinson: Stay here, I'll deal with the barricade. Everyone gets out of the car for some reason.  Corporal Robinson: poo poo, ambush! Cover me, drat it! Back into the car!  It's a pretty nondescript two minutes of gunning down guys running at you. You don't even have to do anything for this part, it's not a direct control segment, and the AI picks targets well enough on its own.  Lots of guys from up the road, enough for there to be some serious trouble! Thankfully, the Corporal is almost done.  Corporal Robinson: Get back, it's gonna blow!  Boom. Surely this will free up the road for a nice clean drive to...  God drat it.  Corporal Robinson: Quick, cover! The gun will tear us to bits! That other one didn't! Sigh, fine.  Terry Palmer: We need to deal with that cannon... Objective added: Neutralize the German gun.  I don't know how I feel about leaving the car unlocked in this part of town.  Terry Palmer: We can't move on while the gun is in action and the Bosch are around. Taking out the gun isn't enough, you need to kill everyone.  Which is easier once you have the gun  Much easier.  Most of the time. The AI can be overzealous.  Objective complete: Neutralize the German gun. Terry Palmer: Done! Start her up, let's get out of here.  Back under direct control.  Corporal Robinson: How I hate these narrow African streets. Any idiot can set up an ambush here that will grind up a whole company in five minutes. Ooh, foreshadowing!  Meanwhile, we move at a snail's pace through the alley, gunning down Germans. We're lucky none of them take cover behind sandbags and shoot us from behind!  Terry Palmer: Looks like things are looking up, the Bosch are retreating! Now you've jinxed it.  The Germans wired this house to blow pretty drat fast.  Corporal Robinson: Don't celebrate just yet. Look, they blocked off the road!  We're going around. Slowly, of course.  Oh no, we're stuck! Apparently this shithole village is a sprawling metropolis, and that single alley was the only way across.  Corporal Robinson: Dead end. We can't get over that rubble.  Corporal Robinson: Wait, we can clear the path with a big enough explosion. We have plenty of explosives, give me enough time to put together a big enough bomb.  Objective added: Lay explosives and clear the road. Out of the car...guess where they're going next?  Corporal Robinson: One charge is ready! Eh, for some reason the subtitles don't go off here. Oh well.  Let's send Terry to do the dirty work. The dynamite is the exact same thing we saw in the Soviet campaign.  Terry Palmer: Done! Drag it out of your inventory in the vague vicinity of the rubbe, and you're set.  If you look inside that box, it actually contains MG-42s. I don't know how Robinson is making explosives out of them. He must be an alchemist.  I didn't time it, but it really feels that the time it takes to make a stick of dynamite is inconsistent. This one took a veeeeery long time.  The third stick is the last. Robinson doesn't say it, but he stops making more as soon as he drops it.  He can take the last charge himself.  The crates contain plenty of goodies if you've run out of ammo in that last segment.  Objective Complete: Lay explosives and clear the road. The explosion goes off almost immediately after you drop the last bomb. I thought they had a timer!  Right, let's get back in the car and get out of here.  Corporal Robinson: drat, we made it! This is the road to the pass. Step on it, Corporal! We need to make it there before the German tanks. This was a tough trip. Poor Robinson is speaking in third person now.  Mission Complete. Terry Palmer's team managed to slip by the enemy and reach the supply base. "I never though that our car was capable of this! We skipped though Sbeitla on one breath, leaving behind the captured city and the alarmed enemy garrison. The battles here raged very recently, the burned vehicles still smoke, and bodies of mixed Americans, Germans, and Frenchmen lie by the roadside. May they rest in peace. Eisenhower concentrated main forces at Kasserine, thinking that Rommel would head that way. I think he was right. Looks like a portion of the tanks turned north to Sbiba, and the guys there are likely unprepared. They need to know as soon as possible, and that's why our Dodge is now rushing through the desert at its limit, bouncing up and down on the uneven road and leaving behind a cloud of brown dust." Enemies destroyed: 280 men, 17 vehicles Allied losses: 0 men, 2 vehicles.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 04:29
|
|
|
A rail shooter and action game boss fight in a strategy game? 
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 04:57
|
|
|
"Each more samey than the last" indeed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 05:16
|
|
|
That truck is distilled post-apocalypse punk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 14:43
|
|
|
I loved that mission when it came up as I was playing it. It's just completely the opposite of everything you've been doing in the Allied campaign up to that point.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
Historical Notes Even though most of the things in the Allied campaign already showed up with the Soviets, there are still a few new tidbits. I decided to cover them in a single go. Panzerbüchse 39  Like the PTRD, this is an anti-tank rifle. In-game they are identical, however in real life, they were rather different. Unlike the Soviet 14.5 mm rifles, the PzB39 used a 7.92 mm bullet, but in a huge fuckoff casing. All that extra gunpowder accelerated the bullet to 1200 m/s. This was not much faster than the Soviet rifle, leading to decreased penetration. Unlike the PTRD and PTRS that were produced throughout the war, the PzB39 ceased production in 1941. The rifle was single-shot, but had a curious magazine attachment to allow for loading without reaching for the ammunition bag.  Bazooka  There were traditionally two ways of penetrating armour: make your penetrator go really fast, and make it really big. A big round results in a big gun, and a big gun is a heavy gun. You can only make your gun so big before your "man-portable" anti-tank rifle needs a crew to even lift it off the ground. The common path with infantry weapons was the other direction: speed. There are problems with that approach. At a certain point, your bullet will simply shatter and not deal much damage to enemy armour at all. Even before that, the recoil will be monstrous, and your infantry will not like that very much. Another problem is the behind-armour effect. Ok, so your bullet punched a hole in the armour, but it's a small hole, and barely any shrapnel flies out the other side. Unless you shot directly at a critical tank component (like an engine or ammo rack), that tank is still going to be going forward. Solving the recoil problem is easy, make a recoilless gun! Half the gases are shot forward, half of them are shot back. As a result, you don't feel any recoil. However, recoilless rifles are expensive. You need all these components: a breech, a strong barrel to contain the gases, etc. Those are all expensive, and you are still going to run into issues with caliber. You need to fire a very big shell, but with not very much recoil. Slow-moving objects, sadly, do not penetrate armour very well. A solution to this is to not rely on the speed of the shell, but to have it fire something faster to penetrate the armour when it reaches it, in this case, a highly compressed stream of metal. It might not sound like much, but the result is catastrophic to whatever it hits. Unlike a traditional armour piercing shell that flies at a few hundred meters per second, this blast flies at thousands of meters per second. This blast punches through armour and destroys everything in its path on the other side. This kind of shell is called HEAT (high explosive, anti-tank). It deals poorly with changes in material, leading to metal or mesh screens (later, heterogeneous armour) to block HEAT rounds. The Bazooka's rocket was not the most accurate thing in the world, making the desirable range about 100 meters, but infantry is likely not going to be engaging tanks from a longer range anyway. It was effective against armour of all German vehicles, even the thickest skinned ones. Stuart  The American Light Tank, M3 (known more commonly by the British nickname "Stuart") was designed shortly before the war. As was American tradition at the time, the Stuart was bristling with machineguns: one for the radio operator, one in the gun mantlet, one on top of the turret, and two in the sponsons, fixed to fire forward. Unlike its predecessor, this tank received a cannon, the standard American 37 mm gun. Its armour, meant to protect from heavy machineguns and light anti-tank cannons was pretty thick for a light tank, and the gun was no slouch either, at least against tanks of the same class. During fighting, it was discovered that the two machineguns on the sides are kind of useless. They were removed, and holes plugged with armoured plates. Later modifications had no holes at all. This feature distinguishes M3A1 tanks from standard M3s, along with the presence of a turret basket and many other changes. M3 and M3A1 Stuarts were popular with Allied forces, fighting on all fronts and all theaters. The M5 Stuart was a further improvement to the series. The front armour was sloped, the tracks received skirt armour, and again, several other changes were made. Unlike its predecessor, it was not received warmly by at least the USSR. It was thought that the improvements were insufficient for the tank to remain competitive on the battlefield, and ceased ordering Stuart tanks in 1942.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2014 04:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 13:19 |
|
|
When your machine gun is the M2 Browning, you're going to put as many of the goddamned things as you can on everything.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2014 05:01
|
|