MOS was 71331

I'm not sure I agree about the absence of medal awards. Isn't an inclusion on the Heroes site the equivalent? From what I've seen there, the entry standards are very high. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

In Last Defense, every US leg unit with a start position outside of a building is defined to be in a foxhole. Thus, to maximize the number of foxholes available, the US player should split all squads and place every unit outside of a building. On the first turn, the squads can be moved to their really desired locations and reunited. I consider this somewhat gamey, because a leg unit inside a building could have spent its time there improving its position in the building by placing sandbags, moving furniture around, and so on. The unit set up outside gets a foxhole -- in real life, the result of laborious digging; the unit inside (as far as I can tell) is no better protected for having prepared the building than a unit just having entered. My conclusion: start all leg units outside and get the free foxholes. Perhaps I'm wrong. Is the defensive value of a building occupied at the start of a scenario greater than that of a building entered during a scenario? ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Moon: Same would be true for the opponent, though - i.e. the foxholes would provide some nice cover for him when he assaults your position... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, but only if the attacker's start line is near the areas the defender is trying to protect. I see no value in German foxholes in the Last Defense situation. All the flagged objectives are well away from the German start area.

In "Battle of the Bulge" the retreating GI aimed -- and I use the word loosely -- his rifle grenade like a mortar: butt of the M1 on the ground and grenade-topped rifle pointed up at 70 or 80 degrees. It was definitely an indirect fire weapon. Without having ever fired one, I'd guess that having all that weight at the end of the barrel would make it difficult to fire accurately from the shoulder. In the movie, the soldier fired it hastily in the general direction of the attacking Germans.

Although it's definitely "gamey," I'm getting the impression that you should set up a defense by splitting all your squads and placing them around to maximize the number of foxholes in the area you're defending. After the situation starts, you can reunite the squads in the buildings you want to occupy, and the foxholes outside can provide you with useful cover if you want to (or are forced to) redeploy.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Berlichtingen: Madmatt, What did you think of the writing style? I ask, because I just finished it and thought the style was amatuerish (amatuerish? Is that a real word?) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> While I found the book interesting, I must admit that I quickly tired of the author's repeated use of phrases like "any and all" -- as in "Wittmann used any and all chances he had to fire on the ..." Better editing would have improved the book a lot. BTW, while my dictionary does show "amateurish" as an adjective, I'd just use "amateur." I'd prefer "It was an amateur performance" to "It was an am...ish performance."

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Major Tom: Wait a minute! I have seen countless American war movies where every rifle grenade lands in the open hatch of American tanks painted with a black cross! Where are all of these tank's in CM?! What's with this LOW ammunition thing?! Nobody runs out of ammo in war! TV says so! I thought that this game was accurate! The most accurate means of learning thing's in this Generation is through the media, at least that is what TV says.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey, Major, I've seen a lot of war movies, but I can recall only once seeing a rifle grenade used: in the 60s "Battle of the Bulge" when the Krauts attacked Lt MacDonald's (I think that's the name of the actor who played Danno on "Hawaii 5-0" -- as in "Book him, Danno. Murder One.") platoon. One of the retreating GIs plants the butt of his M1 on the ground and fires off a rifle grenade. I was an ROTC cadet when the movie came out, so I took particular note of that scene. What other war movies are you thinking of? ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

Thanks "not here." By the way, that's some link you supplied! It told me a lot more than I wanted to know about the topic. I vaguely recall German soldiers or pilots in some WWII movies I've seen using what passed for German phonetic letters in dialog spoken in English. Something like "Anton" or "Adolf" for 'A', for example. It would have sounded phoney for them to say "Able," but the screen writer probably used something he thought sounded German rather than the official Wehrmacht phonetic -- if there was one.

Hey, these are World War II battles! "Charlie" for 'C' is fine, but I don't want to see After Action Reports using the present "Alpha, Bravo, and Delta" when it should be "Able, Baker, and Dog." Can someone please post the WWII phonetic alphabet? The only letters I recall, in addition to those already given, are Easy, Fox, Golf, Hotel, King, Mike, Nancy, Papa, Sugar, Tare, Whiskey, and Zebra. (And I'm not sure of some of these.) Anyway, let's do it right! If someone has the WWII Limey and Kraut phonetic alphabets, I'd like to see them, too. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968) [This message has been edited by MOS was 71331 (edited 12-23-99).]

In "Bridge at Remagen," I liked the scene where platoon leader George Segal told platoon sergeant Ben Gazarra, upset at having killed a teenage German soldier, that he could loot the body later. I thought the movie went a little far when it had Hauptmann Robert Vaughn executed for not having destroyed the bridge. I don't think that happened. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

Come to think of it, didn't both German and US subs under prolonged depth charge attack sometimes eject oil along with miscellaneous debris to give their attackers the mistaken idea that the attack had be successful? Perhaps a tank could do something similar: say, set fire to stuff lashed to the deck to give the impression of a brew up? Does anyone recall any WWII reports of supposedly destroyed tanks coming back to life? ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

Didn't Avalon Hill offer a "Final Countdown" scenario for their Carrier game? You know, the modern USS Nimitz against the entire Japanese attack force at Pearl Harbor. I certainly enjoyed that movie. If you see the "Final Countdown," watch out for the two sailors playing Squad Leader on one of the mess tables. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

God, why don't I just shut down my keyboard? In my last half dozen posts, I've forgotten that the Brits fought Zulus in the Zulu War rather than the Boer War and that there was a significant landing at Inchon during the Korean War. [Given that I actually spent my first night in Korea in September 1966 at a replacement company in Inchon, you'd think I would have remembered the landings there only sixteen years before!] [i've even seen Reverend Moon's war movie, "Inchon," with Laurence Olivier playing MacArthur!] And I wasn't intending to sell the marines short: the 2d Inf Div, my old outfit, actually had a marine brigade during WWI. I'm so eager to post, I guess I don't think through what I'm trying to say. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968) [This message has been edited by MOS was 71331 (edited 12-16-99).]

A few weeks ago, the Matt Drudge web site had a news item about the British Army having so few drop-in volunteers that they were now recruiting in Her Majesty's prisons. After reading the article, I followed some links around and eventually reached a web page with an application form for anyone who wants to be all he can be. (I didn't see the Royal Army recruiting slogan, but it's probably not the same as the US Army's.) Thinking they might enjoy an application from someone without an arrest record, I submitted one. A few weeks later, I received a reply from Brigadier Andy Craig, Commander Army Recruiting. On spiffy RA stationery, he thanked me for my enquiry but said I was above the age limit for entry. [Hey, I'm only 54! I'm pretty sure Haig was older than that when he commanded the BEF in WWI, and Gordon was probably older than 54 when he was killed in Khartoum. Even if he wasn't, I'm sure Charlton Heston was older when he played Gordon in the movie "Khartoum."] Anyway, if you'd like a personal rejection letter from the Brigadier, look around for the RA website and fill out your application. One word of caution: they may take some of their applicants. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

The old Strategy and Tactics (S&T) magazine once had a man-to-man infantry game on a hex map with buildings with walls running along the hex side -- and giving them some unusual shapes. The men had two postures, erect and prone, they could be exposed or hidden, and they could occupy a hex with a window wall. This led to a rule which started, "If an erect man exposes himself in a window..." ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

On the "vote early -- and often" theory, I once again support CM in the Pacific and in Korea. I fully agree that landing ops won't work (with what I've seen so far), but Guadalcanal, for one, was mostly fought after the landing. And Korea (which, having been stationed there with the 2d Inf Div, I want even more) had no landings at all. (Plus it was all WWII equipment -- on both sides!) ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

A lynch mob is the most perfect example of a democracy. -- H L Mencken Just thought I'd toss that out! ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

Do we really have ramming going on here? Couldn't these apparent ramming events just be artifacts of vehicles scaled larger than life? We've seen plenty of joke screen shots of soldiers walking through walls and impaled by guns.

I had the same experience. My Tiger's turret took three hits, all of which disintegrated as it eliminated two Hellcats. The third Hellcat traded kills with one of my StuGs. All told, I lost both StuGs and all the half tracks in exchange for the three Hellcats, leaving my Tiger the only surviving AFV on the map. ------------------ Airborne Combat Engineer Troop Leader (1966-1968)

Hey, von shrade, you're asking me for details about a movie I saw over thirty years ago! As best as I recall, John Saxon's squad was ordered to shoot some captured Russian partisans with the Nazi squad member in charge of the executions. John Saxon shoots the Nazi and lets the partisans go, one of whom gets a rifle and kills Saxon -- end of movie. That really angered me because I liked the Saxon character. "The Victors" is another WWII movie I haven't seen mentioned in any of these movie discussions. This one followed a US Army infantry squad from Italy into France and Belgium and ends in occupied Germany. The two main actors were infantrymen George Peppard and George Hamilton, but there were other big names in the movie: Eli Wallach was the squad leader in Italy; Melina Mercouri (the Greek actress of "Never On Sunday") was a seductive black marketeer who tried to recruit Peppard into deserting and joining her operation; Peter Fonda was a young replacement whose puppy is shot as it tries to catch up with the truck carrying the squad away. The movie is a collection of ten to fifteen minute episodes, each involving members of the squad. The last has a drunk George Hamilton knife fighting a drunk Albert Finney (playing a Russian soldier) in Berlin: they kill each other and the camera draws back showing their bodies in a muddy street.

"The Young Lions" had Marlon/Marlin? Brando as the admirable German Leutnant Christain Diestel, Maximillian Schell as his ambitious Captain (sorry to be in North Africa when all the medals were being shipped to the Russian front), Montgomery Clift as a sensitive Jewish GI, and Dean Martin as Clift's cynical New York advertising man(?) fellow GI and protector. That one came out in the late 50s. The main villain of the piece was the US Army captain commanding Martin and Clift's training company. He didn't like Jews and rigged a situation in which Clift had to fist fight a sequence of brutal bigots. He manages to win the last of the fights and the acceptance of the other men in the company. Interestingly, Clift boxed in both his WWII movies, "The Young Lions" and "From Here to Eternity." In FHTE he had earlier killed an opponent in the ring and didn't want to box, but his CO made his life miserable until he went back into the ring for the greater glory of his outfit. FHTE's not really a war movie. It mostly shows life in the prewar army in Hawaii. The Japanese don't attack until the last few minutes of the pic. I think there was "A Thin Red Line" made in the 60s, with Jack Warden playing a grizzled sergeant and Kier Dullea (the main character in "2001, A Space Oddyssey") as a young soldier on the way to his first engagement. This black and white version wasn't "artsy" in contrast to this year's version which I couldn't stand. A couple I've mentioned in another thread: "The One That Got Away" with Hardy Kruger playing Franz v Werra, the only Kraut PW to escape from Britain -- actually Canada -- during WWII and "Reach for the Sky" with Kenneth More playing Douglas Bader, a hurricane pilot who'd lost both legs in a prewar flying accident.

Von Shrad -- I think the movie you described was "In Love and War" starring John Saxon playing the German soldier who meets and marries the girl while on leave from the Eastern front. The story was by Erich Maria Remarque, better known for his WWI classic "Im Westen, Nicht Neues" or "Nothing New in the West", usually translated as "All Quiet on the Western Front." Saxon was in a strange squad -- all its members, except possibly for the dedicated Nazi, were Americans including Jock Mahoney and Don Defoe. Don Defoe, whose most memorable role was playing Ozzie and Harriet's next door neighbor, was also in a Korean War movie: "Battle Hymn." In that one, Rock Hudson played Dean Hess, who became a minister after accidently bombing an orphanage while flying P51s in WWII. He's called back to active duty and sent to command a squadron in Korea training ROKAF P51 pilots. When the Korean war starts, his outfit flys ground support missions. Don Defoe plays a WWII buddy assigned to the squadron, and Dan Duryea (one of my favorite actors) plays an NCO. An interesting Korean war movie is "Men in War" with Lt Robert Ryan leading a patrol cut off behind enemy lines. Aldo Ray plays a marine jeep driver trying to get his shell shocked battalion commander back to safety. The best scene occurs when the patrol point man finds some mines in their path. The whispered "Mines!" is passed from man to man -- these must be the infamous North Korean voice activated anti-personnel mines -- until Sgt Nehemiah Persoff yells out "MINES!!!" and starts running away in panic. Needless to say, he's blown to bits after going about 5 yards. Another Korean War flick is "The Glory Brigade" with Victor Mature as a Greek speaking US Army officer assigned to a Greek Army outfit. (I didn't know the Greeks had any units in Korea.) At one point the Greeks are bedded down for the night, while the ever alert Mature wanders around their position. North Koreans disguised as trees and shrubs start sneaking toward the Greek bivouac. Mature senses something's up and whirls around just a fraction of a second too late as the NK troops become still and again appear to be harmless vegetation. The tension becomes almost unbearable as the "trees" get closer and closer without Mature ever realizing that the shrubbery is closing in.

Zulu -- I think the movie you remember was "The Cruel Sea" from the novel by Nicholas Montserrat (spelling of last name probably wrong). "Compass Rose" may have been the name of the corvette. By the way, you're using the title of a great war movie: "Zulu" with Michael Caine (his first starring role). It was the Zulu War <corrected from "Boer War" on 9Jan>, and the movie shows the battle of Roarke's Drift. Thousands of Zulus attacking a stockade defended by roughly a company of Brit infantry. (If you rent this film, watch for a Brit sergeant with a bayonet fighting a Zulu warrior with a spear. Someone trained the Brit actor pretty well!) I second an earlier post recommending "The Hill." It's NOT a WWII combat movie. The setting is a Brit military prison in North Africa to which Sean Connery has been sentenced for refusing to engage the enemy. One warning: Connery's Scot accent makes some of his dialog hard to understand. One movie I haven't seen mentioned in any of the movie discussion threads is "The Bridges of Toko-Ri." This one has William Holden flying jets off a carrier into North Korea. I still remember the shock I felt as a ten year old when Holden's character was killed by NK soldiers after his plane was shot down. For a good Battle of the Bulge movie, see "Attack!" with Jack Palance as a good platoon leader, Eddie Albert as a cowardly company commander, and Lee Marvin as an officer at regimental HQ who wants the political support of Eddie Albert's father, a judge back home. Once again, I recommend "The Caine Mutiny." Along with "Twelve O'Clock High," catch "Command Decision," with BG Clark Gable commanding a bomber group in England taking heavy casualties attacking German jet factories. [Ray Collins (Lt Tragg on the old Perry Mason TV show) as Gable's G2 has some good lines disparaging the top brass.] I'll stop with two more ground combat movies: "Paths of Glory" with Kirk Douglas commanding a French battalion in WWI and "Pork Chop Hill" with Gregory Peck commanding a US company in Korea. [This message has been edited by MOS was 71331 (edited 12-09-99).] [This message has been edited by MOS was 71331 (edited 12-09-99).]

I've no doubt that a relatively small explosive charge would breach the underbelly of a tank. The question is what would cause that charge to explode when the tank was over it? Most mines are pressure detonated, and the only the tank tracks could exert that pressure. The resulting explosion would break the tracks and damage the tank's suspension but probably not breach the crew compartment. The '60s AT mine I mentioned earlier had a rod the tank's belly would push down as it rode over the mine so detonation would occur at the optimum time. Other AT mines could be "command" detonated by an infantryman located near (or with in the case of suicidal Japanese infantrymen) the mine. I suppose there were some magnetic AT mines that would explode because of the tank's proximity. For the most part, WWII AT mines would immobilize rather than destroy tanks. Of course, once the tank is stationary, it's a lot more vulnerable to additional damage.

If I recall correctly from the memoir of the top flying tank buster of WWII, Rudel, he never relied on ricochets to kill tanks. He went for direct hits from his bombs and cannon shots. (I'm sure if one of his near misses bounced into and killed a tank, he'd gladly have taken credit for the result.) I'd really like a source for this concept. I've read a lot of WWII history, and I can't recall anyone suggesting this tactic. As for tanks and walls, I doubt any tank can just push through a stone wall. I'd expect a tank could climb a low (perhaps 1 meter or so high) stone wall, damaging the wall to some extent but not eliminating it. From a programming point of view, I'd treat stone walls as permanent barriers and track no damage to them. If such a wall is taller than x meters, no tank can climb over it. If lower, a tank can. WHILE the tank is crossing the wall, it should be more vulnerable to AT fire. BTW most AT mines work as track busters -- run over the mine and its explosion breaks your track. Back in the late 60s, when I was training or on active duty, the primary US AT mine was topped with a rod sticking up in the air and not easy to see from a buttoned tank. The tank would push the rod down, and the mine would fire, driving metal through the tank's belly into the crew compartment.