Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: Of course you should try all in a perfect society but the "revenge trials" after WW2 weren't exactly fair you know?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The Nuremberg trials were held according to the tenets of international law. Which of the condemned Germans do you think were condemned injustly? Many were found not guilty ar found guilty and given light sentences (for example German Armaments Minister Albert Speer, responsible for German slave labor). Other "unfair" trials such as that of Panzermeyer (where one of the judges was in a conflict of interest) had their sentences reduced by Eisenhower and others, although Panzermeyer was clearly guilty of the alleged crimes. Can you give an example of an unfair trial at Nuremberg? Intelweenie mentions the presence of Soviet judges as "two-faced". Since most German atrocities took place on the Eastern Front, why shouldn't the Soviets have a place in the trials? Are there any examples where the presence of Soviet Judges led to an questionable condemnation? The best-known case of disagreement between Western and Soviet judges has to do with the release of Hess (the US favored it), but that is not a question of the sentence itself, but of parole, and yes, the parole question was political. Most Nazi criminals were released before the end of their sentences, including the ones captured in Russian and judged solely by Russian courts. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jochen2: My girlfriend said, that the goal in the war is, to kill and destroy the enemy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well no, according to a US General friend of mine who did two tours in Vietnam and is a retired professor at West point, the purpose of battle is to NEUTRALIZE the enemy (which does not always require killing him), I presume that is what is being taught to officers today, not only at West Point, but everywhere. Henri

Just for a bit of balance. The Geneva convention was put together by people who knew war very well, and realized that there was too much unnecessary killing of soldiers and innocents. To trivialize war crimes by claiming that they are "necessary" is dangerous. It IS a fact that some war crimes were committed by Allies and generally remained unpunished (but it is ludicrous to claim that the crimes were equal for both sides, and to give equal credence to facts established in trials and anecdotal evidence for which no documented proof was ever found). This does not change the fact that the Axis criminals who were punished deserved their punishment (and most were never prosecuted). There was no UN at the time (and even if there had been...), and justice could only be meted out by the victors. An important was sent out by the Nuremburg trials. Yes, it would have been better if criminals from both sides had been prosecuted, but we live in an imprefect world. Not prosecuting the criminals would have led to the proliferation of actions such as those by the British secret service, who sent a squad of executioners into Germany after WW2 to execute Germans who had tortured and killed British agents during the war. There were no trials. I ask you, is this better than a fair trial? It is understandable that in the heat of battle, men will sometimes act out of control, based on their training, and trials will take that into account (cosider the Mai Lai trials). The criminal mentality, in the army or elsewhere that "I have the gun and I am the law" is no more acceptable in the military than in civilian life. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by OsinO: LoL, welcome abord Mortiis! I too live in ontario and I too was so very happy when my package arrived! Were you unlucky like me and get charged by the Gov for Customes Fee? Haha I didnt care I just wanted the damn thing in my hands! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm, no I was not charged customs here in Quebec, tha package said that it was worth $5... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jgdpzr: Your complaints may be justified, because the map and scenario design can create some problems. However, my take was a little different, probably because I may have adopted a different strategy than you did. Also, my reinforcements on the railroad side of the map may have come in earlier than yours did.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So did mine, and they had a negligible effect on the battle. Maybe the game needs a function where the designer can give a "last entry date" to avoid reinforcements arriving much too late when the probability is low. Or else maybe designers shoulsd avoid low-probability arrivals below say, 25%. Most people don't play the scenariotwice anyway. I also believe that this scenario is well-designed for what it does: the player (if he follows the briefing recommendations) is met with one surprise after another, and the game feels a bit like an obstacle course. As a result, the tension is maintained right until the end, because by the time that the British player reaches that point, he is conditioned to expect the sky to fall on his head any minute as it has for the past 70 moves... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The DesertFox: Second, I highly recommend to read the book of his son, Kurt Meyer, Title "Geweint wird wenn der Kopf ab ist", published 1998 via HERDER/SPEKTRUM and afaik not translated into english. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for all the info. Just to complete, there was an interesting program on the Canadian History channel on Meyer's trial, which included an interview with Meyer's son,who obviously regrette his father's continued involvement with the SS after his release from jail. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rommel22: So what is the commanders name, I really like to now. Maybe he is mentioned in my book. And this book is great!!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Heinz Lammerding was the Das Reich commander at the time and he gave the orders for the massacre. He must surely be mentioned in your book since he commanded the division 1n 1943-44. A good site for a description and sicussion of the Oradour massacre by Das REich is the web site <http://www.ualberta.ca/~dreinbol/oradourindex.html>, which even includes a "German perspective" (whitewash) of the massacre, claiming that eyewitnesses were unreliable because they were all communists or refugees from Poland ans Spain... . Anyway, you job as a grandson is not to judge your grandfather, but to love him. And yes, Germanboy is correct is saying that the trial of Panzermeyer was tainted as described, which probably saved Meyer's life.But German soldiers under Meyer's command testified at the trial that he DID give the orders to kill the prisoners. And I would agree that the fact that Meyer remained a rabid Nazi until his death does not prove in itself that he was guilty of murder, although it doesn't help to make him more sympathetic... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: Peiper wasn't on the scene BUT his orders not to take prisoners etc were to blame for the massacre to a large extent.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just to set the record straight, Peiper was tried for the Malmedy massacre and sentenced to death (later commuted to jail) in a "fair" trial. It is widely believed that his murder was by some former soldiers or relatives of the dead who didn't agree with the leniency. As for the Allied "orders" not to take any prisoners, it is possible, but no documentary evidence has ever been produced to back up the anecdotal evidence. True, the victors are never put on trial after wars... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1: I keep expecting to have the Brit's go into a Monty Python routine after gettin hit, say Ie, "Tis but a fleshwound" 8). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'M waiting for the WW2 equivalent of the scene from the movie "Waterloo" where one officer on a horse who has just been grazed by a cannon shot exclaims "I seem to have lost a leg!...", and the other next to him glances down and sez "So you have, so your have...", then keeps looking at the battle Now THAT is what I call keeping a stiff upper lip Henri

I have had many crews bail out of immobilized vehicles, it is all a question of morale. I don't believe that it is realistic for a battalion commander to have the option of ordering a crew to bail out! "Hey corporal, run over to that tank and tell the crew to bail out!" Crews need to decide for themselves whether or not to bail out.Talk about a non-problem Gimme a break! Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mannheim Tanker: I'm assuming it's best used in the defensive role?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In one game, I sent a Hetzer forward on a road, and it destroyed a Sherman and an AT gun after the Sherman and the gun bounced three shells off the front of the Hetzer from about 200 m. I was impressed. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: It's probably just my rig, but sometimes (more often than not) they appear to be flying back to their source. Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This may be due to the "stroboscope" effect if the frame rate of your computer is a bit slow (a bit like wagon wheels goig backwards in old cowboy movies). Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rommel22: Henri Why do you have to ruin it. Don't blame it on the whole division. just becuase one guy does it doesn't the whole country is the same.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I didn't say that <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Do you know the commanders name that order those hangings???<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No, but if you really want to know, I have the book at home... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I am nor really interested in reading about the attrocities commited. I am very intersted in German military history. I acknowladge the attrocities and camps, but all I care about is the military aspect of the whole war. so don't include the attrocitie issue.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I respect your opinion, but you can't tell me what to write. My own opinion is that one must keep the SS atrocities in mind when playing those games, to avoid the danger of "SS worship" that is perhaps too prevalent in some quarters.I usually prefer to play the Germans myself, because they were in general better soldiers, but I am no collector of Nazi insignia <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I know some German soldiers killed some Americans too, but the Amis killed about 50 German prisoners. And no they took no part in the killing of the Amis before.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Over 40 1st SS Panzer Corps officers were condemned to death for war crimes, including Joachem Peiper for the Malmedy massacre of over 80 US soldiers(only two death sentences were carried out). Kurt "Panzermeyer" Meyer was condemned to death by a Canadian military court after the war for ordering the shooting of over 20 Canadian prisoners in Normandy. Eisenhower changed his sentence to life imprisonment (Germany was needed for the cold war), and Meyer was realeased from Dorchester prison in New Brunswick Canada after serving about ten years. He remained a dedicated Nazi and SS until his death, to the dismay of his son.Meyer was one of the best German Panzer commanders, but one interested in WW2 should be aware of his failings as a man. To claim that war crimes carried out by the Waffen SS was a rare occurence is ludicrous; and yes, not ALL Waffen SS soldiers committed war crimes.I hope that your grandfather was one of the innocent ones who onlyu did his duty. Henri [This message has been edited by Henri (edited 07-26-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Trooper: Both kilograms and lbs/pounds are mass, just one is metric the other imperial. (You are still talking about mass divided by a surface area.) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In fact, people use kg (mass), whereas the proper term would be Newtons (weight); I have never seen a store advertise food in Newtons ; in the English system, people correctly use pounds. Since the relation between mass and weight on the Earth is a constant, it doesn't make any difference. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I love these inane conversations sometimes... Where's the resident physicist gone then?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm one of them. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Sure, while we're at it, we'll ask an old favorite of mine: Which weighs more.. a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> A pound of gold (or is it the other way around , which is measured in the old Troy system, whereas other English weight measures are in in Avoirdupoids (literally "to have weight" system). Henri

This question goes back all the way to the Clauzewitz vs Liddell Hart debate before WW2; I believe that the originator of this thread supports the Clauzewitz view (adapted by everyone in WW1)that to win a battle, the attacker has to as much power as possible at the point of conflict. It is hard to debate that whoever puts more into the fray is likely to win a slugfest.But... The Liddell hart view as defined in his book "The Strategy of the Indirect Approach (which harkens back to Sun Tzu) is instead to use maneuver to disrupt the enemy, to open lines to his rear and then to create havoc in his rear areas. This was adopted by the Germans in WW2, and later in the war, also by the Soviets, for whom "rear" meant up to 500 miles behind enemy lines! I believe it is at least partly the US Marine Corps' doctrine. A poor application of the theory is Churchill's decision to bomb German civilians instead of industries in WW2 Now although those concepts were developed for the operational scale, they are also adaptable to the tactical scale of small units (the scale of CM). INdeed, the key ingredient to the whole idea is mobility, and mobility is highly hampered if one does not have a reserve. Contrary to some popular thinking, most available tanks were not used to create holes in enem,y lines in the Blitzkrieg: rather most were kept back in order to exploit the breakthrough, because fresh units were required for this phase of the battle. For an illustration of how to use surprise to disrupt the enemy and to derail his plan, as well as how a reserve arriving at the right time can change the tide of battle, as well as how the ABSENCE of a reserve can render an enemy unable to react, see Fionn's AAR of The Sunken "Lane" on Thegamers CM web site and my analysis of the battle on this forum. No one doubts that when the battle boils down to a slugfest, whoever can put the most into the battle will usually win, and those who follow Clausewitz are following a master of high level , but if they meet a Rommel in their battles , they will find themselves eating their socks in frustration Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Von Brizee: This was meant to be a reply to the topic about Nimtz, but I hit the wrong button<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You can delete or edit your posts if you want to. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by panzer_2nd_ss: i just downloaded the demo and when i try to play it the white box comes up for the resoulution then i push skip to next and it says "program error could not initialize direct 3d" whats wrong?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Try doing it twice; when it does that to me, it works the next time around. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ARCHANGEL: ANY time I enter Cm, there is a screen asking me at what rez I want to play...even tho this is set in the control panel...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I can't say about your other problems, but the resolution thing is normal (don't ask me why:confused . If you want to increase your resolution, you have to throw away the prefs file in the cmbo folder, then set your monitor to a resolution at least as high as the one you want to use for the game. The game connot run in a resolution higher than the one set on the monitor when you start the game. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rommel22: It's a great book I just got it. It has actually entries by soldiers who served in the division. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You should also read the book "Das Reich" by Max Hastings for a bit of balance (Das Reich was the 2nd SS Panzer Division). That book concentrates on the infamous atrocities committed by the Division as they headed fromthe South of France towards the beaches. As an aside, the Das Reich commander who ordered teh hanging of 75 hostages in retribution for resistance attacks went back to the village after the war, and was surprised to find that the French people of the village were mad at him . He was lucky they didn't lynch him from the nearest lampost... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: Also, I'll point out that a plan to simply sit and react to the enemy's actions IS a valid plan.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> From reading your AARs, it is not the kind of plan that you use very often... You're not trying to set up your next opponent for one of your "attacking is the best defence" strategies, by any chance? Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Trooper: That said, no matter what the enemy does, I tend to ignore it unless it poses a real and immediate threat to my mission. I've found that one of the worst mistakes you can make is react to your enemy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ho boy! How about the adage that no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy? "Captain, I just spotted three German tanks approaching on our right flank!" "Just ignore them and follow the plan, Sargeant; we don't want to lose the initiative!" I thought that having the initiative consisted of forcing the enemy react to your actions. Not reacting when one is on the receiving end in no way ensures that one has the initiative. Of course you are correct in saying that there are situations where one is better off coninuing with the present plan, but that is a choice that one must make and which cannot be made in advance. IMHO there are more cases where the appearance of some unexpected event requires a change of plans than cases where one just carries on. Of course, if the plan is good, some flexibility has already been incorporated into the plan. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tdredalert: I would like to know if their is some way to watch a replay from beginning to end of a scenerio that I am playing (a full action replay)? I like that way I can watch the replay for each turn. It is almost like watching a war movie.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. You can always hope for a patch... Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Trooper: You have to stop with the 'reserve' business at some point. A platoon doesn't have a reserve. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There are cases (see the infantry formations tutorials on Thegamers) where the standard procedure is to send two squads forward and one behind in reserve. In many infantry formations, one can consider a flexible formation where one or more units lag behind ready to support the others as the use of a reserve in the wide sense of the word. If you don't have a reserve and your line breaks or the enemy shows up at an unexpected location, especially in situations where reaction time is slow, you can rapidly find yourself up the creek without a paddle. The "reserve" idea is just one implementation of the concept of maintaining flexibility in the face of uncertainty. Clearly the side with more ability to adapt should carry the day. Having said this, there are cases where a reserve is not appropriate because it removes units fromthe fray; one such case is when the disposition of the enemy is fully known, and where he is on the defensive. That didn't happen too often in the real world during WW2: just ask the Germans who failed to spot the massive Soviet reinforcements coming in the battle for Stalingrad.The lack of a reserve force to plug up the collapsing flanks doomed the Germans to defeat. Henri

One useful addition to the scenario creation would be a copy command; I found an interesting scenario in a wargaming magazine, but the companies as described in that scenario did not correspond at all to the companies in the CM game. So I had to put the units in one by one, THREE times; it would have been convenient to do it only once, then to copy the OOB into the two other companies, since the 3 companies had the same composition. Henri

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: I still think the advance on the right with a wheeling turn into the German left flank and rear is the way to win the scenario as quickly and easily as possible. Vs a human opponent your attack strategy is simply inviting heavy infantry losses which you simply can't afford.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I`m only suggesting that the right flank attack may not be the only one possible, if it were the Germans wouldn`t have to defend their right flank! How would the right flank attack fare then, against the whole of the German defence. You know I have the highest respect for your strategic ability .But I like to pick at certainty... Seems to me you were the one suggesting in another AAR that one should strike where one is not expected . Anyway, I guess the proof is in the pudding, and we won`t know whether my idea is any good until someone actually tries it out against another human (Intelweenie doesn`t say if he played against a human or the PO). Henri