SgtMuhammed

I've also seen accounts of crews grabbing extra M1s and even Bazookas. Should they be modelled as well? This could quickly spiral out of control.

One thing you tend to find in the desert is that highground tends to just pop up from the tabletop like ground around it. You don't see a lot of foot hills unlike more temperate zones. At least that is what I have noticed. As to cover, to be honest what one should expect is to be forced to attack across low ground against enemies who are enjoying the cover of the highgrounds. For some reason the defender just seems to do nutty things like that.

Then there is always that icon of sleek design and outstanding maneuverability...the Brewster Buffalo. Of course the name is somewhat apt as it did look and fly like one. ISTR the Brits tend to name things by class. Everything of the same class has a name starting with the same letter. After a while you run out of cool names that way.

I think Monty pretty much rides the middle line of what the popular image of him has been. He wasn't as bad as many Americans thought but he wasn't as good as he thought. His forte was the set-piece battle and his contributions to the planning for Sicily and Normandy were invaluable. Unfortunately he tended to be both overly cautions and overly optomistic during the actual execution. Setting Caen as a day one objective was bad enough but then not pushing hard enough for it ensured that it wouldn't be taken. The same thing happened at Market-Garden. An overly optomistic objective with not enough force in any case. As to the Allied problems with the Boccage; the main problem was that so much time was spent on thinking and training for the invasion that little was done to prepare for what was to happen once troops were ashore. One of the main reasons that there was no big push inland immediatly after the invasion, D-day and D+1, was that there was a sense that the work was done. The invasion was what they had prepared for and now it was over. Had there been better preparation for followup operations then the Allies would have been better prepared for what lay ahead. Massive recons, including operatives to gather soil samples, were conducted of the beaches themselves but nothing further in. The interesting part is that southern England has hedgrows that closely resemble the Boccage and would have allowed the invading forces to prepare for what turned out to resemble more city fighting than anything else. The main thing, tactics wise, to come out of the Boccage was the developement of a more all arms approach to fighting. There really weren't a lot of new methodes other than the Rhinos but rather a better implimentation of what the troops were supposed to be doing in the first place. Rather than trying to flood the enemy with infantry or hammer them with armor, Allied commanders had to get used to using the strengths of each to accomplish the mission. Thus the close integration of infantry, armor, engineers, and artillery and air was necessary to fight through the boccage. All of this could have been worked out in training but instead had to be learned under fire.

This has been an issue with me for a long time as well. Michael </font>

In regards to an earlier comment I think vehicle speed would count more than type or size in determining the size of the dust cloud raised. A Tiger creeping along at 5 miles an hour isn't disturbing much air which is what pushes the dust high enough to really be noticed. A jeep flying across the sand at 50 mph is disturbing a lot of air as well as throwing up a lot more dust. Thus a more noticable cloud. In RL you can pick out individual clouds if the conditions are right. While this may not tell you how many vehicles there are you can tell how many groups there are (although deception can always come into the picture). Then again I once spotted an M1 that was hiding behind a hedge because I could see the heat waves from his turbine. If you pay attention you can see all kinds of things on the battlefield. Stay alert, stay alive.

MikeyD has a good point about the need to craft scenarios for the AI. One of the things I really hope to see in CMX2 is better control over the AI for the designers. I prefer to play and design operations and really wish there was more flexibility in the system. I know that trying to give the AI a real tactical sense is a nearly impossible programming task (for now) but it should be possible to define general behavior, (defend, attack, delay, agressive, passive, etc.) while still letting the AI control the actual unit actions. The current scenario designers work wonders with what they have but I think with a tweek or two it would be possible to work wonders.

I like the A-7 SLUF. Short Little Ugly Fellow. Personal story alert When my we were living on Guam during Vietnam some of the crews started calling the C-5 the Big Mac (it was big and all cargo aircraft had the Military Airlift Command banner on their tail, MAC). The base commander hated it and ordered it to stop. Well being the slaves to dicipline that they are, soon no one refered to the C-5 as anything but Big Mac. [ October 24, 2003, 02:52 AM: Message edited by: sgtgoody (esq) ]

Sounds interesting. Please send it to me in PDF. sgtgdy@netscape.net Thanks for all the effort.

They were, they called it Lufthansa. Like their tank projects their tactical air projects were carried out with Russian help. Again not very helpful to the U.S. Marines.

I fully agree that targeting is rather interesting to say the least. One thing I will say though is that digging, trenches or foxholes, is often easier to see from the air than on the ground. The cammo is usually situated to avoid observation from the front. With proper supervision you can cammo a position so well that you can't tell it is there till it shoots at you, from the front. From the air though, the disturbed dirt both around and inside the trenches as well as the shadows makes them stand out. On the original post, one has to be careful when taking one example as the rule. If you were to take some samples from 30th Infantry Division during the course of the war you would arrive at a totally different conclusion.

I think infantry smoke is part of the infantry abstractions. One of those things that happen but we never see. In general I think WP falls into the realm of control. It would be far too easy to abuse these rounds if they were included unless there were a lot of built in controls, meaning more programing work for one and more player gripes about "unrealistic" constraints. WP was not as common and widely used as many seem to think and certainly not as comon as it would become were it included in the game. Hmmm...instant smoke that starts fires and kills things, no it wouldn't get abused. As it stands I don't miss them nearly as much as I think I would hate them if they were in.

Will the CMBB be the special or the vanilla version?

Blame it on progress. As more French farmers aquired tractors they needed wider access. You can get a vague image of what it was like but you have to search to find the real thing. The Shingle was our fault. Once we were ashore the Engineers bulldozed it all to make moving around easier. I guess it will be back in a few thousand years. You'll just have to delay your trip a bit.

Let us also not forget that even once HTs became fairly common the Germans almost never had a fully armored Panzer Division. With the exception of Lehr Panzer (and that only for a brief period) the vast majority of the infantry was in trucks and often even on bicycles or LPCs (Leather Personnel Carriers).

Or the "Electric Jet." Don't know if that one is still in wide use. Haven't talked to any 16 drivers in a while.

Thanks Dan, I can die happy now. No wait I have scenarios to make! P.S. If you plan to take a trip to Normandy to see the Boccage or the Shingle don't bother, neither one is there anymore. There is a small section of Boccage south of St. Lo. although the precise location escapes me at the moment. [ October 15, 2003, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: sgtgoody (esq) ]

At the beginning of the war the U.S. was quite utilitarian about naming tanks. We had such inspiring names like "Medium Tank M3," or "Light Tank M3." Which were sure to stir the passions of their crews. The Brits, being a little more personally involved with their weapons, started naming them. So history remembers the Grant/Lee, the Stuart (or Honey, as in that is a honey of a tank), and the Sherman (originally the rousing Medium Tank M4, brings a tear to your eye doesn't it). With aircraft we had little better tradition in that we actually did give them names. The Brits were better at it though. The change from the Apache to the Mustang is understandable as the P-51 and the A-36 were radically different aircraft even though they shared the same airframe. The original name for the Lightning was the "Electra," which brings to mind such stiring images as blenders and vacuum cleaners. Truely an image to take to war. I think the Brits figured that even though the early models sucked like a vacuum if they gave it a better name maybe pilots wouldn't mind dying in it, so was born the Lightning. The U.S. lack of naming skill continues to this day. The official name of the F-16 is the "Fighting Falcon," which the crews hate. Thus it is shortened to the more acceptable "Falcon."

Remember too that there weren't that many Tigers in the first place. If the Germans actually had as many Tigers and Panthers as the Allied soldiers thought they did they probably would have won the war.

One thing I have noticed is that the AI isn't nearly as picky about its approach aspect. Stuka pilots tried to come in low and fast (well for a Stuka) from behind. The AI on the other hand tends to just attack from whatever angle it happens to be flying in from.

When you play this one be sure to watch the Russian attack from ground level. Awesome. Is there a place where we can post an AAR for this one?

You sure? I think fanaticism is in at all times but you can jack it up in scenario design. One big thing to remember is that what is on screen is not actually what is happening in the world of the program. The guys aren't where they are shown on the screen and the round impacts don't show exactly where rounds are hitting. How many times have we all seen large calibur HE land seemingly right on top of a unit and have no effect. Things like this do happen. During the battle of Berlin two guys with a machine gun held a bridge on the K'damm for nearly 48 hours from all comers. Now if it happens all the time it might be the problem. I think this time you were the ball rather than the bat.

All I can say about CM being behind in its graphics is to recomend that one views a full out Russian tank rush from ground level. I haven't seen anything like it since I left the army.

This one has my stamp as an all time great. I played it using traditional Russian tactics and it was one of the most fun operations I have ever played. Nice work Franko.

I am beginning to wonder if the folks who complain about too much friendly fire from the fly boys may not have a point. I haven't seen enough statistics, either from the RW or the game, to take a position on this yet, but I'm starting to wonder if BFC didn't turn up the volume on this one just a tad too high. Michael </font>