Sgt Joch

you also have Saburo Sakai, the great Japanese ace (64 kills), that spared a transport plane carrying civilians in 1942. wiki mentions an unreliable source, but you can find the same story in his 1957 autobiography "Samurai". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabur%C5%8D_Sakai

at which point USAAF started carrying out all their missions without any MG ammo whatsoever, safe in the knowledge that the Jagdwaffe would let them go the target and back unharmed.

In terms of politicization, I was always under the impression that the Kriegsmarine was less politicized than the other two at the beginning of the war, although all branches had their share of Nazis. You also had a process of increased Nazification of all services as the war progressed. In all three services, as losses mounted, new recruits were brought in which had grown up in Nazi Germany and were indoctrinated in Nazi ideology. Hitler also gradually replaced officers in the Armed forces with ardent Nazis who were completely loyal to him, like Model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Model Lets also not forget what happened to officers who dared to question the regime, like Oskar Kusch... http://www.uboat.net/men/kusch.htm ..or Rommel.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#Plot_against_Hitler ..or Blomberg... There were also rumours that Werner Molders was assassinated by the Gestapo and his body dropped from a plane after he turned against the Nazis for their persecution of catholics.

sorry, "Third Wire" makes flight sims, 50-60s jets, for the past 10-12 years. I own a few, they are not hard core, but not arcade either. http://www.thirdwire.com/ TK is Tsuyoshi Kawahito, owner and lead developper who was also one of the lead developpers behind "European Air War", so he is basically another Steve.

AGEOD actually makes very interesting, complex and realistic strategy/operational games and they cover eras which other wargames don't, like the 18th century or ancient Rome. I own both "Rise of Prussia" and "Alea Jacta Est". "Rise of Prussia" is IMHO, the best strategy/operational simulation of 18th century warfare currently on the market. I think their problem is that they are very much in a niche market, even more than CM and they do not have the flashy 3d graphics that games like Total War et al. have which limits the market even more towards "Grogs". If it helps AGEOD stay alive and producing quality games (they have a new U.S. civil war game in development), then I have no problem with the arrangement. On a related note, this post by TK at "Third Wire" shows many of the problems game developpers are currently facing: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB3w/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9420&p=59528#p59528

Excellent!

c'mon guys, let's keep this on the issues.

Its old quantity vs quality debate. In terms of raw numbers, german ground forces reached a peek in 44 and even as late feb. 45, still had 4,000 tanks: 1,500 Pz IV, 2,200 Panthers, 250 Tigers. The Kriegsmarine still had 396 U-boats in may 45. However quality started going down from 41. In 42, infantry training courses were shortened to get recruits up to the front faster. In spring 42, the Germans could not even bring their divisions back up to strength on the Ostfront so they reduced the TO&E of 2/3rds of the infantry divisions by 2/3rds and stripped them of most of their vehicles just to get the infantry/armor divisions on the southern front up to strength. By spring 44, the germans were recruiting 16-17 year old boys and men in the 25-34 range who had previously been passed over for fitness issues to bring their regular army divisions back up to strength. JasonC had done a good overview of Waffen SS formations in normandy in 1944 which points out many of the quality problems: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1256228&postcount=123

IIRC correctly, most Hiwis were Russian POWs/civilians. They were used in a support capacity to free up German troops, so although they were technically troops, they were not combat troops.

watch your language.

ok, we'll look into it.

On SMGs, has anyone noticed a problem with long range fire since 2.01? I did a lot of testing on MG behavior for 2.01 and soldiers equipped with SMGs seemed to wait until enemy troops were fairly close before opening up.

In terms of pilot quality. This chart on flying hours in training tells the tale. The Germans spent more time training than the RAF before sept 42, but thereafter kept shortening the programs while the CW and Americans who had a lot more pilot candidates and could afford to spend more time on their training. In june 41, the average Luftwaffe pilot had 3-4 times as many flying hours as the average Soviet pilot.

JonS beat me to it: 100% loss rate in jan.-may 44, obviously a lot of "expertens" in there as well. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-Luftwaffe/index.html

Its hard to peg a date for when the Luftwaffe lost its edge since it was not a single lost battle, but steady atrrition. The Jadgwaffe was in top form in 40-41, but by 42, it was already shortening its training programs to make up for its Russian losses. It managed to keep a qualitative edge until late 43, at least on the Russian front, but that was more because it still had a hard nucleus of veterans. However, by summer-fall 44, it was pretty obvious the average German fighter pilot was "greener" than the average Allied pilot. The back of the Luftwaffe was broken over Germany in early 44, but I would see it more as a tipping point. Once Allied fighters could accompany Heavy Bombers all the way to the target and back, it was inevitable.

Endymion, you are new here, but that language is not tolerated. Knock it off or your stay here will be very brief.

ok, maybe we could all chill a bit? I think we all agree that even though Stalin was the lesser of two weevils, he was still evil. A good friend of my father, now deceased, was a jew from Poland who survived the camps as a teenager and emigrated to Canada in the 50s. He had nothing good to say about either Nazis or communists.

As far as I am aware, no US sub ever patroled in the med. There was a squadron of fleet subs based at Roskill, Scotland in 42-43 to hunt U-boats, Axis shipping, but due to very restrictive ROEs, they did not sink anything and were relocated to the Pacific. There were also S-boats in the Caribbean off the Panama canal. On Italian losses, the author Tempestzzz linked to claims 98% of men, 90% of material got through, which sounds high, but in the Atlantic, over 99% of all Allied ships got through.

On the Italian Navy, one of its biggest problems was that its only source of oil was Germany which kept it almost all for its own needs, so the Italian Naval ops were severely restricted as a result. As I recall, Italian submarines had a decent enough record in the Atlantic, I would have to recheck Blair's books on the U-Boat wars.

very nice. Good job on the Flak Tower.

on fences, when I was testing 2.01 in "Road to Montebourg", I made a point to test fence damage by going through them with my Shermans and checking for damage. There was slight damage, but never an immobilization.

fields of fire is available on google books. good to use as a reference. Not much info on the brits though. http://books.google.ca/books?id=FD8dRw8SLyIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=fields+of+fire&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qz5DUZNBiuPgA-b8gPgJ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw Baron Jacquinot, it also discusses the Cdn. forces involved in the attack on july 8th. The Highland Light Infantry of 9th Cdn. had the task to clear Buron itself. This is discussed around pp. 103-104.

nice find. The 9th Cdn was the one caught on the march on june 7th and suffered the most casualties. The 7th Cdn. had time to setup defensive positions around Norrey and Putot and stop the later German attack.

Vanir, I am not sure if I understand your posts. Are you saying the accurcay penalty for move+pause is less than for just move?

I am sure whatever tests you run will be most entertaining to read.