Lee

Field Marshal Blücher: Yeah, great vehicle. Not only can it take out any aircraft in the area, but the ground fire it can put out would be devastating to the enemy, the Gepard Flakpanzer rocks! And the Germans would definitely take these with them in an invasion like this. Another cool video of the Gepard.

My only request for a German ground vehicle in the German, Danish, Dutch, etc, module is this.

Rustman: That's what I mean, it worked really well, even though that was one big hunk of metal. Also, apparently from what the guys in the video are saying, he didn't even know about being hit when it happened, not until they noticed the hole days later, which is why they are taking it out now in the video. So it seems the vest so effectively stopped and dulled the impact from that shrapnel that he didn't even know he'd been hit, pretty impressive. These new vests work great, without being so heavy as to be useless for regular wear while on close patrol. They said it didn't hit his side plate, so I agree, I think it hit the kevlar panel that you can place on the side. They have added an option for a side plate to this vest. On the subject of armor in general; as is often the case on many topics, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Very interesting, I've never seen a Javelin fired like that before. Great video, too. Looks like our British brothers slaughtered those terrorists, and made special note of just how bad the thrashing was at the end of the video! haha I just wish they had left the music out, so we could hear the pure sounds of combat.

Looks like the U.S. body armor is some real quality protection, and this thing apparently didn't even hit the hard plate insert (which is the most protected area). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBszXAhBUk&NR=1

Good job, akd! I agree, the weapons should have accurate sounds whenever possible, or as accurate as can be found.

Cool video of an M14 being fired full auto.

I have no problem with the way that BTS is handling this. I think once we get CMII: WWII - Normandy (plus the 3 expansion packs for Normandy) and then CMII: WWII - After Normandy (plus the 3 expansion packs for After Normandy) we'll have every vehicle and unit we had in the original CM, hopefully even a few more (Flakpanzer Kugelblitz! ). That gives BTS 8 separate releases to equal or surpass the original CM in terms of sheer quantity of units, vehicles, variations, etc. I think that's a fair expectation. BTS gets plenty of time/compensation to deliver a truck load of WWII west front goodness at the highest quality levels (visual, technical accuracy, etc.), and in return we get a *ton* of cool WWII west front stuff to play with at levels of detail and accuracy never before seen in a computer wargame. And that's fine by me.

It would be cool to have some variations in water splash animations dependent on the angle of the strike, water depth, and, of course, on the caliber of the rounds hitting the water. A Thompson sub-machine gun causes certain types of splashes, an 88 HE round another kind entirely.

Steve: Um, we did find the WMD's, they were sent to Syria. Terrorists were going to blow up at least 1 (I think it was 2 or 3) truck filled with large quantities of chemical weapons, including VX nerve gas (which Syria doesn't make, but Iraq was known to have made), on an attack in neighboring Jordan. They were going to set it off in some city there, but they were caught before they could do it. The estimate, IIRC, was that around 80,000 people would have been killed if they had succeeded in setting this truck(s) full of chemical weapons off. If I remember right, this took place in 2004, there were news reports about the whole thing, anyone can look them up if they like. But it hardly got any coverage on t.v. in the U.S. Gee, I wonder why such a huge story was almost ignored by the press here? As a side note, at least one of the terrorists captured by the Jordanians said he had been trained in bomb making by Zarqawi (spelling?), the dirtbag who cut that civilian's head off in a video in Iraq, in Iraq from before the war. Ansar al Islam (spelling?) is an Al Qaeda affiliate terrorist group that had a terrorist training camp in Iraq, with Saddam's permission, from well before the war started. This is exactly as was thought by the U.S. military from our surveillance of the Syrian border before we invaded, which saw many Iraqi army trucks driving across the border into Syria before the war began. And I remember hearing news reports on t.v. around the time the Iraqi army had collapsed and the U.S. and Brit forces were taking over that the U.S. military strongly suspected that these were shipments of chemical weapons going to Syria. It also lines up with what an Iraqi general said to us about many trucks and plane loads of chemical weapons being sent to Syria for safe keeping (Saddam was hoping to return to power one day if the U.S. really did invade). This story about the Iraqi general was also on the t.v. news coverage here in the U.S. I'm still not sure why Bush did nothing about this report of the chemical weapons attack attempt in Jordan with chemical weapons that clearly came from Iraq. If I had to guess, it was because then the American people would say, "Well, why aren't we invading Syria immediately? We have to get those weapons from them right away!" Syria is one of the biggest terrorist supporting countries there is, so this would be an urgent problem. But he didn't want to invade another country and end up baby sitting them, too. So he decided to do nothing, well, at least not openly, what went on with our covert special ops in Syria is likely a very different story. I can just see the MH-53M Pave Low IV's flying in low over the desert into Syria now...

Steve: The Blue Bar does more than that. It allows you to watch parts of the action on the battlefield near the beginning of the turn, without seeing what happens later in the turn, and then rewind back and start over so as not to spoil the surprise of a big fight that might be coming up later in the turn. This is a huge plus when major showdowns, like a big tank battle, are about to occur later in the turn and you don't want to see it until you are ready. Also, with the Blue Bar, the system can calculate all the combat before having to display it. This gives maximum frame rate when you do watch the battle, since the computer can put all of it's processing power into one thing, displaying the battle in 3D as fast as possible.

I don't see how a T-90 could get hit by multiple strafing runs from an A-10 and survive. Unless there was some sort of problem with the ammo loadout and maybe the plane was given only HE somehow?

A great Big Time Software (the real name ) link!

Our first screen shot of CMII WWII! A great Tiger tank picture. eddie01: The degree to which those 1/4 scale remote-controlled Tiger tanks that you can buy kick butt is hard to overstate, just awesome!

Wow, almost 10 years. Well, it's been a great run for BTS. They made CM, a WWII 3D tactical combat computer wargame like no other made before (or since), several sequels on different fronts, and now we have the new mighty CMII engine, with which we will soon have the ultimate WWII tactical computer wargames made. Hats off to Steve and Charles, two of the best computer wargame makers ever! Time flies when you're having fun, and it doesn't seem quite that long, but I guess it is. And I'm happy to say I was among the first members. I remember the first Alpha AAR game results from CM that were put on the public forum, Fionn, who is a very interesting fellow to talk with and was a lot of fun to have around (and one of the best CM players), playing the CM demo battle over and over again, being amazed at how real the tracer fire looked and how cool the artillery was, I remember all that stuff.

theFightingSeabee: I second the thought, they are in my prayers very often.

I wish everyone a Blessed and very merry Christmas!

A big thanks to BTS for making it so that the entire 1 minute turn of combat is calculated in full before ever seeing any of the battle in that turn on the video replay! This is a *huge* benefit to turn-based PBEM, so you can see the battle at exactly the pace you want to watch it at (with pause and rewind available right from the start of the turn), without having to view the whole minute of combat in real-time (and probably spoil the surprise of upcoming major combat in that turn that you don't want to see just yet) before you can rewind and pause when you like. Great job!

I couldn't care less what people like that think. Anyone who is so morally bankrupt that he would intentionally refer to osama bin laden and scum like him as "militants", as opposed to terrorists, is an imbecile.

Absolutely. If you can have a B-52 or a B-1B loitering nearby waiting to drop as many bombs on the bad guys as our men could possibly need, that's a *very* nice situation for our troops, and really really bad for the terrorists.

Yeah, it's very true. Two of the most sought after weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan by our soldiers are the great M14 and Colt 1911 .45, they always try to get those issued to them any chance they get. Weapon effectiveness has nothing to do with age, a great weapon is a great weapon, and works just as well now as it did when it first came out. The Browning M2 .50 cal is one of the very finest weapons we have, super deadly and hugely popular with the troops, and we've been using that forever. We still have the 1911 pistols in inventory and issue them, so I guess it would have to have the record, at least in the U.S., for the longest used weapon by our military. Below is a good way to practice with an M14 or a Colt .45, tests not only your marksmanship skills, but the steadiness of your hands when the shot counts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZn2l1tOcHg

Way to go, Marines, what a thrashing! Hmm, designated marksman, sounds like it might have been the deadly M14 so coveted by our troops in the field that was being used to own quite a few of those terrorists.

For all the many M14 fans, check out this video of an M14 being fired in Iraq. Nice close-up look at the weapon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCn0HnBLBmk&feature=related

Yeah, the Royal Marines blew away that trash and had the rest cowering on their knees! Way to go! haha

I'm all in favor of laying down suppressive fire on the enemy. Forces our enemies to keep their heads down, which allows U.S. or Brit forces to more easily either advance on them or withdraw to a better position.