Sailor Malan2

My Dad was in BAOR twice in the 50's and once in the early 70's (just too early for this . He told me that German farmers hoped never to pay to knock down and replace outbuildings. He told me of one time the farmer told the tank crew that they could hide the tank in the shed (although they weren't meant to). They said the shed was too small. "Ja, Ja, ist goot. You drive in." Got himself a brand new shed.

Really simplistic view of the causes of WW2. The Polish corridor was Hitler's excuse of the week for Sept 39. Could have been any number of causes, realistically from militarising the Rhineland in 36 on.

I think you need to re-read the article. The point is that firers will (more often than not) miss what they are aiming at under battle conditions. With a single shot weapon on the range, a firer might have a group of 100mm, which will hit a head sized target most of the time. However under battle conditions they will miss that target most of the time. However teaching them to put a round through a 1m square aiming point every 3 seconds is more achievable and efficient. Putting 10 rounds through that 1m square doesn't give additional effect, and (with a single shot automatic weapon) probably wont happen, as to get that rate of fire aiming goes by the board completely (ditto LMG bursts). I think the point is that suppression is best achieved/sustained by slowing the rate of fire and holding consistent aim points. A single rifleman (auto rifle) can probably keep suppressed one target at 1/3 rd per sec which is much better than firing a much higher number of shots over a wider area. More realistically a team can suppress 2-3 m of linear position for a long time if controlled properly but if not will run out of ammo very quickly and not achieve measurable suppression. The article is indeed very positive to a device sold by the organisation assisting the writer, but that doesn't make it wrong!

Your analogy is flawed. Windows 10 doesn't have all the features of previous versions. They don't all count as 'removed'. CM2 is a completely different product from CM. And software programming/development all takes time. What feature from CM2 would you be prepared to sacrifice (in an alternate history) to get campaign reserves? Personally I have a list of things I would like added, not things I would sacrifice for a relatively specialised campaign feature (that would probably not be used, or would cut the number of campaigns because they would take longer to design)

Because they weren't 'removed', they were not included in the new engine. Your statement implies effort was used to degrade the game, but in reality it was a choice of where to put it to best improve the game...

I couldn't remember. The shell is in a vision cupola rather than a weapons point. When I went, you could look in from the access, and see iron rungs in the concrete wall. The access went up through the concrete roof into a round/hemispherical steel cupola. The shell poked through rather like the plate in the picture above.

As to the shell looking clean in the armour, I think it is probably real. There is another Maginot line bunker (well, the southern extension of the line in Alsace) where a cupola very similar to the one JK shows was attacked by an 88mm. There is a partial penetration there, and I recall the nose of the shell being just as undamaged. The Bunker is not far from Colmar if I recall.

I hate to take issue with your assertion, but Dunkirk was not a blunder by anyone other than the Germans. The blunder was in the 10-14 days before, and that was by the Allies (or possibly French) not just the Brits. But you are about to tell me about irony I guess?

No, I think it is just the barrel length which allowed a bigger propellant charge. The peak design chamber pressure is probably the same, and the decay is such that if you use a bigger charge on the Tiger I gun there is still a lot of pressure available at the muzzle (which is wasted and also produces a big flash). The Pak 43 can use this energy, so had a bigger (longer) cartidge with more propellant. The barrel lengths were 56 calibres and 71 (IIRC) so over 10% longer in the case of the Tiger II gun... I can't find the details of the charge weights.

You people don't know you're born. I was only in the Cadets but we had British Army Compo 24hr individual rat packs (they came with my Lee Enfield No4, which was made in 1942!). The compo came with "Biscuits AB". There are various things you can do with Biscuits AB: use them to stop bullets. Kill mice with them. In extreme circumstances bite down on them when you sprain your ankle (or worse) as they are more hygienic than sticks. Just don't eat them! Not if you value your teeth and jaws Don't get me started on hexamine stoves! Although there was the time one of my school mates was using an old Army trick to cook faster: use your knuckle to put a small dent in a the food can, and then heat the can directly on the stove until the dent pops back out. Voila - instant pressure cooker and much faster heating without the need to wash mess tin. Do NOT (as this guy did) forget about the tin while heating it. Especially in poor weather when cooking just outside the mouth of the tent. The report of a bean tin rupturing is quite loud. He got well covered in beans. And your partner in a 2 man tent will not thank you when he is finding beans in the tent at 2am after night patrol later on! (We didnt have Health and Safety in the 70's

No and yes. Guns have pretty much always been designed to a maximum chamber pressure, and propellant mass is set to achieve that. There are also secondary effects like barrel wear and peak temperature (which can also be linked to propellant). The more modern guns have better metallurgy and hence allow somewhat higher chamber pressures whilst keeping gun weight sensible, but also more modern propellants allow higher velocities without undue barrel wear, I am not an expert but I presume it is more to do with predictable and consistent burn rate, rate of change of pressure etc rather than pure "power". Anyone want to step in?

The logic is exactly right but I am afraid you have the term Sabot backwards. The Sabot is the light jacket or sheath whose job is to keep the sub-calibre penetrator centred in the barrel whilst being as light as possible. (This means the sabot falls away leaving the tungsten or depleted uranium penetrator to fly on, with less cross sectional area and hence less drag but most of the energy imparted by the propellant, which it applies to a much smaller area of the target than a full calibre round would, as you say). The APDS designation (and its more modern versions like APFSDS etc) means Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (i.e. it is the Sabot that is discarded)

This sounds like the perfect RL description of the Italians in WW2!

I seem to have an issue with the glow from muzzle flashes and explosions persisting until the end of the video. Anyone noticed this? (Dusk battle, the light of the flash illuminates the surrounding objects, but doesn't fade, just vanishes next turn or when you change view sometimes)

One of the things that used to irritate me was 3" mortars using the 75mm art sound (so you got a whistling mortar round). At some point this has changed and there is now a nice mortar crump and silence. IS this a 4.0 thing?