Hinkar

About 25 mm AA. I tried a test, 20 25 mm AA (cost 280 pts) vs 20 KTs (cost nearly 6000 pts), on small map with AAs in trees and KTs Hunting forward from 700 meters. Result, turn 10, 16 dead KTs, the other 4 immobile or Gun Damage. 5 AAs still firing. Gamey? Maybe. But gamey opponents reap what they sow... That combination of conscript 152s and TRPs is marvellous.

Great, thanks Vark. Will try something like that, with maybe a tank or two to take advantage of any of my enemies mistakes...

Great, thanks for the advice! It's 2000 points attack, so 3000 points for him as attacker, and med woods, med hills, rural in Oct 44. With rarity off, he could have bought quite a bit of inf after buying the KTs. Mix of SMGs, Snipers, a few 57mm (with rarity off not so expensive), big arty and trps, mines, and pray for mud! (EDIT : And hope he's not reading this!!). Don't like my chances, but I like a challenge!

Rarity off and German attack with Jerry taking 4 King Tigers and some inf. Rural map. Lots of cover. What's the best Russian defence? Lots of T34-85s and lots of smoke? Lots of 20mm AA? Lots of inf and tank hunters and ATRs? Lots of aircraft? Lots of inf with pioneers and flamethrowers?

I noticed that too...My King Tiger didn't fire even though the little voice was saying "Fire!" in German...It was quite near and eventually the only way I got him to fire was by driving the Tiger right up to the Russian tank and then it fired...(I know it could see the Russian as the Russian kept hitting the Tiger)...

Anyone know how to change the mouse controls in TOW?? In CM, moving the mouse left rotates the view. In TOW, moving the mouse left moves the view left. Driving me mad. The defining keys doesn't seem to allow you to change this. Can It Be Done???

Precisely. Some sort of idea would be helpful. If I select a unit, I should have some idea if it can or cannot see through those 10 trees or not... Whether he can see what's actually there (a prone sniper versus a King Tiger) is a different issue...

This LOS thing is the most frustrating part of the game. It's fine to say "well, you can see through a few trees" but if one is setting up an AT gun, it's not much use. Can my AT gun be seen or not? What's its field of fire? At the moment, there's absolutely no way of telling... The lack of a hide is annoying too...(stop waving at that T-34!!! :mad: ). Still, as they say, the game's good, but it could be great...

You think he was a cliche from a bad WWII novel then?

On PBEM, last I heard, it was "maybe"... Will there be PBEM? Is it now: - Yes - No - Maybe

I do recall (off the top of my head) from Guderian's book that the idea was to inflict a defeat on the Russians to keep them on the defensive and straighten the German line so the Germans could concentrate on the Western Front (though many German generals pointed out they could straighten the line by pulling back from either side of the salient)... Alternatively, the idea was banded about that it would force the Soviets into some deal with the Germans, and after such a victory, the Germans could dictate from a position of strenght...I don't think Hitler would've gone for that though... Going for moscow in 43 etc wasn't going to happen... So the result? The war would've gone on longer...

There's usually something stiring at: www.theblitz.org (or if you're just competitive, you could join their ladder)... This guy also organises a lot of tourneys... http://www.667.hab.dsl.pipex.com/Wargaming/CM/CM-Page.html

Sturmangriff_Jr, Hundreds of oponents can be found at: www.theblitz.org I'll give you a game of CMBB if you want. You can email me at: saint_ruth1691@yahoo.ie

Well, but the whole point of Blitzkrieg was not to attack solid defensive positions. You could say, the Russians would've won by 42 if the Russians had solid defences and the Germans attack was based on the Somme battle plan...too many "what ifs"... Zhukov had a plan to attack in May 1941. It would have been a utter disaster, and worse than reality because 1) Stalin would have been the aggressor (not good for home propaganda if everything hit the fan) 2) the Russian armies would be more compacted in Poland/Prussia and easier for the Germans to encirle effectively...end result, Germans starting to attack Russia itself in June 41 with no Russian border armies to stop them...

I don't buy it that the Russia-Germany conflict was inevitable in the short term. The Russians signed a non-aggression pact when they could've had France and the UK as allies and when the Germans would've been fighting a 2-front war. I find it impossibe to believe that they would then jump into war with Germany when Germany was trumphant in Europe, the vaulted French Army (and it was thought the premier European army in the 30s) had been routed so quickly, and the German army was "unemployed". It was obvious that the main beneficiary would have been the UK, and he was hardly going to risk all that he had built to help out the British. Hitler wasn't a fool. He'd put his principles on the back burner when he signed the non-aggression pact. He'd acquiesced to wishes of those in the Nazi party (Ribbentrop but many others) who wished for the Soviet Union to join the Axis, and an offer was made in Oct 1940 (during an RAF air-raid of all times!!!). It was against his grain of course, but he still did it. He tried to get the USSR onside. Many in the West thought it was inevitable at the time too, which is why the UK and French drew up their plans to attack Baku etc. Russia wished to remain neutral. So Hitler decided to remove it from the game before the US entered. Yes, Mein Kampf mentioned land in the East. But it also mentioned avoiding a two front war. Molotov's demeure when he meet Hitler, and Stalin's antagonising demands didn't help (the Danube Conference and demands on Finland) but Stalin's refusal to believe that the Germans were going to attack (he thought it was British propaganda), his nervious breakdown and dissapperance for 3 days after the outbreak of war, seem to indicate he didn't expect war (never mind his comment at the outbreak: "Lenin founded our state, and we've f**ked it up"). The point of all this is that if Hitler had known what he was getting into, he could've avoided the Russian war in the short term. Long enough to capture the middle east and bring the UK to the negotiating table before the entry of America (at the time, many though that Turkey would be his next target, and through it, the middle east, that he would bully it into letting him have military access)... Looking at the world of April 41, with Germans supreme in the Balkans and all over Europe, having routed the British whenever they fought them, many thought the war was virtually over. The day the US entered the war, Germany lost. Good book on pre-Barbarossa German-Russian relations is "Grand Delusions: Stalin and the German invasion of Russia" -- written by the way as a refutation of the idea floating around that Stalin was going to attack Germany in 1941... By the by, if the Germans had tried to take Moscow instead of switching South to take Kiev it might have made no difference, but it is possible that Stalin might have decided to stay in Moscow like he did in Oct and like Hitler did in Berlin. His death and the loss of Moscow MIGHT have been enough for the whole "edifice will come tumbling down." Maybe mights ifs...