Michael Dorosh

I certainly hope the rest of us are not holding him back!

Thank you! But only with regards to Canadians (it was (and is)) a small army. My mods are mostly low-res. I am blown away by a lot of the German armour especially, but there are some very nice Allied tanks out there, too. I wish I could quit my day job to spend more time on improving my own mods - it's fun and gets to be a bit addictive. ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

We don't use Actual in Canada, but I do know that Slapdragon is correct re: US Army. Was this WW II practice? I know it was in Vietnam. Canadians use the term "Sunray" to designate a commander. If the CO wanted to talk to B Company, he would say "Mike Two, this is Sunray."

I don't claim to be the best or most exhaustive, but I do have a selection of specifically Canadian mods on my site, click below. My vehicles are low res and there are much better ones out there - but if specific unit insignia is something you're interested in, I guess I'm the first to do that. I also have uniform mods for all the Canadian infantry (rifle) battalions that served overseas, plus helmets, a rifle with sling, winter gear, etc. plus I'm working on some historical face icons for the unit info screen. There are a lot of great sites in the webring, just click on the banner on my main page or click LIST SITES. The trouble is that in many cases, there are so many great mods I have no way to test them all, nor can I keep track of whose mods I've used, especially with regards to terrain. There seem to be a ton of photo quality armour mods, plus improvements to everything from buildings to the sky. I would mention a few names but I know I would leave someone out - best advice is to check out the webring. Edit - DraGoon beat me to the webring advice. Well done! ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm [This message has been edited by Michael Dorosh (edited 01-29-2001).]

But only after you have "spotted" it. Will it let you see an "empty" gun and not confirm its status in the same manner that it will not confirm gun type until it actually shoots at you? Good point - still calls for a test to be sure.

I am pretty sure duckbill track extenders were never a national secret - anyone who bought Tamiya's 1/35 M4A3 in the last 20 years has known about them. Excellent point about them not staying on the tracks long - they tended to come off especially easy in urban terrain (ie pavement corners) but I suspect rocky ground as well - I hope no one is about to advocate that the game engine needs to track duckbill end connectors. We will all need P2000s soon! Not being an armour buff, I am not sure what the difference between the Canadian pattern all metal Sherman track and the rubber chevron track was - would it have affected ground pressure?

I wonder if you could do this in a DYO battle by placing an out-of-ammunition gun on the map? Calls for a test.

The backblast of the PF also exposes your position to every machinegun within eyesight - the MGs you know about and the ones you don't know about. Even if you fire while prone, the backblast and resultant explosion from the rocket hitting the tank would pretty much advertise your position to the entire battlefield - something most soldiers were loathe to do. You didn't mention in your example whether or not the Allied armour had already detected the PF armed unit - this would make a large difference. Steve raises an excellent point about resupply, and not wasting ammunition - if an Allied Sherman is going the other way, or you know a AT gun is around the next corner waiting for him, you are not likely to waste your only PF. If you can support your claim that PF units are dumb with specific examples, it would help the discussion immeasurably.

Perhaps it is the lack of visible AT weaponry that allows your units to identify HQ units as such? How else would you distinguish 6 men in dusty uniforms as a headquarters vice infantry squad - except of course for the lack of an LMG and perhaps the preponderance of radio equipment. In such a case, I don't think it's gamey at all to pick your target based on the immediate threat - ie blast the squad cause you know they have AT weapons, or if you have no armour in range of their AT weapons, blast the headquarters. I can't see an already encumbered radio operator carrying a PF, nor a driver, nor der Spiess (Hauptfeldwebel), nor an officer (though many highly decorated officers won the Panzervernichtungabzeichen using them, I don't think they carted them around, as Steve has also suggested.). This is, in fact, what an HQ unit is made up of, no? ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

Somebody email Dilbert and tell him to vote already!

Check out the book by Men at Arms - they show a husband and wife who served in the same self propelled gun together. I believe the book is The Russian Army in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45.

Sounds like we need a wavmeister to get us the "The Statue of Liberty is Kaput" line from SPR....

Hey, Bill. If you email me at madorosh@home.com I will send you a copy and we can exchange notes. I had some good sketches of the set and references for the map, which is the main difference between the two versions. My own version is far from perfect but I thought I came a little closer in matching the terrain and forces involved than yours - truth be told the situation we are modelling is very lopsided in favour of the Germans and your order of battle provides a more even matchup than mine - which provides for a more entertaining game. IIRC, your forces were Heer rather than SS, as well, which I found interesting. Anyway, I didn't mean to dismiss you out of hand - you obviously spent a bit of time designing it and truth be told I found it enjoyable to play. I thought about editing my (mildly inappropriate) offhand comment out later but thought perhaps at worst it might draw you out - which I'm glad it did. I'd be interested in discussing the choices you made in designing your scenario; scenario design can be a passing hobby or an art depending on how seriously you look at it. I would agree with you that Ramelle falls on the "fun" side of the spectrum and so am pretty sure no one will get too worked up - or suicidal - about how "accurate" or "inaccurate" a particular recreation of that scenario is. Thanks for taking it in stride, I do apologize for the clumsiness of my post. As one who is quick to demand class on the part of others, I can see where I failed myself in this instance. I am glad to see that you did not. I look forward to comparing notes. ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

My knowledge of the war establishment of a recce unit is pretty limited - did recce units have 3 inch mortars? Seems like an odd choice for a unit that my nature is supposed to move quickly but I really don't know enough one way or the other. Unless they had vehicle mounted mortars?

That's kind of neat - I wonder if they were commonly used in tactical situations. It would require hardware and tools to do - stuff usually employed by engineers for other tasks. I know Rommel made up tanks using fabric and wood on VW chassis in the desert, and the dummy tanks before D-Day - but these weren't used in tactical situations. I'd be interested in hearing some historical examples of said decoys if anyone knows of any. There are other methods, of course - simply cutting foliage and piling it would work, too. The foliage would wither and die - one of the things you have to remember when camouflaging a tank or position is that withered foliage changes colour and stands out. You could do it on purpose and hope to fool sharp eyed enemy observers into thinking they have found a position. Such a decoy would be easy to do, then - I just wonder how commonly commanders did such things?

58.6%, 459 votes counted...Scott Adams, I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine....

I thought you rotten boys were going to bump this on Monday morning for me so I can vote at work!

Thanks for the kind words, gents, much appreciated. Truth be told, I'd rather use the 3 inch mortars as they were historically used - offboard with a spotter. What do you fellows think? Are there any advantages one way or the other - offboard vs. onboard? ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

I believe the statistic for getting out of a brewed Sherman was that the crew had on average three to five seconds to unass the thing before the secondary explosions started. That would be plenty of time for the commander to pop his hatch and roll out - the driver and co-driver might make it in that time, (bear in mind their hatches were smaller) but the gunner and loader, who had to squeeze out the commander's hatch (in those model Shermans with only one roof hatch) were plain out of luck. In other words, you are absolutely correct that the Sherman was not crew friendly, but I think that the one crewman who survives in your example is probably the commander, who has a big hatch to jump from and a bit of time to do it in. In your experience, are these Shermans buttoned or unbuttoned? An unbuttoned commander is already partially out the hatch to begin with. ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

In other words, you want to play a scenario where none of the orders you give are followed, and the AI does whatever the hell it wants? That is what you are advocating! In all seriousness, Juno Beach had a lot of elements that can't be simulated in CM - besides landing craft, there are the 9 foot walls with barbed wire on top and the use of scaling ladders, plus flail tanks and other funnies.

I can probably tell you, but I can't download it - I get an error message saying "cannot connect to server." Any chance you can email it to me? madorosh@home.com ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm

Good points - it is a convenience store for people with too much money. Me included. I've bought lots of dreck. That's what it's for. I sold a chauffeur's pin that I got for free - a little button about 1 inch in diameter - for about 80 dollars Canadian. I wasn't complaining then!

Just talking out of my ass here, but wouldn't the 37mm guns be used mainly for training by this point? I know you are talking about half track mounts, but if they dumped the 5 cm mortar and the trail mounted 37s, I would presume that the HT mounted 37 would also be dumped. It would be useless against armour, and for use against softskins or infantry the 20mm would be just as effective but with a better rate of fire. So my butt says, anyway! Are you cooking up a historical scenario that calls for their use?

I say we all get hotmail addies and spam the top bidder. LOLOL!!!!! (Did I say that?)

I have a whistle and the list of signals somewhere. I even have a microphone. The trouble is - I live in an apartment! LOL!