MikeO

BTW, anyone living in London can get any of the IGN Blue series (1:25,000) from Stanfords map shop in the Covent Garden area of the City.

Yep, Andreas is right about the Polish Croms - read 'Steel Inferno'; they took a major part in the Falaise battles. The Polish Divisional GOC even had a famous Cromwell command tank called 'Hela' (decals included in the Tamiya kit).

Forgot to mention another reason why mini games still hold their appeal. If you are into WW2 NW Europe/Russian Front, modern wars or the ACW then chances are you will find a few excellent historical computer wargames. How many (decent) computer wargames deal with the Spanish and Russian Civil Wars or 12th Century Samurai (my favourite periods)?

Talking of vehicles that gain importance because the units they equipped saw intense front line combat in significant battles... I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the German SP guns on converted French chassis used in major battles around Caen/Goodwood. Brainchild of some German Major in 21PD called...ahh name's gone.

Glad this subject was brought up as I've been mini gaming for the last 25 years. For me the great pull of CM was that whilst most historical computer wargames up to now looked like board wargame conversions this one looked a mini game. All those things like 'WE-GO', 3D LOS and scaled down troop stands are familiar as hell to us toy soldier freaks. Hell, with CM you can even paint your tanks, figures and scenery any way you like I go to three different miniature gaming conventions each year here in London and am pleased to report that shows such as 'Salute' are ALWAYS packed out. Some would say they are too overcrowded - trying to get near the trade stands can be sheer bloody murder (and yep, its true. There are still a few diehards who bravely resist the advance of deodorant product science...) Plenty of youth in evidence too - and even (shock, horror) a fair number of female gamers and traders. Perhaps its just because we Brits are a nation of 'anoraks'??

Fantastic. Love the markings. Minor point but I wish there weren't so many shared textures in the game - it would be be nice to do similar things for the soldier figures. Sleeve insignia for the Allies, Camo helmet covers etc for the Germans...

According to 'The World War II Tommy' by Bradley and Ingram there was a greener shade khaki battledress used by the Brits - it was US War Aid Clothing; 'Production began in January 1943...its issue was limited to Italy and the Meditarranean theatre. Battledress, Olive Drab, War Aid was of noticably better fabric and a greener shade than British production. The most noticable identifying feature is the fly front on the blouse but with exposed buttons to the unpleated pockets ' Ironically, despite trans-Atlantic cargo space being at a premium, many items of US web equipment were being manufactured in the UK at the same time!

Also try this earlier thread which had some data on the 12thSS recce: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/009936.html

Like Spook, 'Waterloo' from Breakaway... Vive l'Empereur!

Watch out for the forthcoming Waterloo game based on the Sid Meier's Gettysburg engine: http://www.breakawaygames.com/waterloo.htm Also see a discussion of this and similar games at: http://pub16.ezboard.com/bthnrefugeeforum Cheers, Mike

Hey, why don't you lot try the National Army Museum in Chelsea as well. Their special 'theme' days are worth looking out for - English Civil War, Napoleonic and WW2 Tommy so far. At the last one I got to handle a whole lot of deactivated infantry weapons; Bren, Vickers, 2 types of Sten, Lee-Enfield rifle, MP40, MG34 etc... On Sunday I'm at a christening so can't make it. Have fun, lads.

This photo appeared in a Brit newspaper a few weeks ago. Its a film-set built in Hatfield, Hertfordshire for 'Band of Brothers'. Scenario designers might be interested in layout of the village but just look at those vehicles in the foreground Appear to be a mock-up Stug, Jadgpanther, Shermans and that Tiger again... Apparently Tony Blair pulled a few strings to get his son, Euan, some holiday work as a runner on the set to keep him out of further trouble - nice to have family in high places... Darn it - not allowed to link to photo. Try: http://briefcase.yahoo.com/taisho2002 and look in the photo album [This message has been edited by MikeO (edited 09-29-2000).] [This message has been edited by MikeO (edited 09-29-2000).]

'Steel Inferno' by Michael Reynolds has the following: 1stSS Pz Div (Recce Btn.), June44 1st Recce Coy: VWs 2nd Recce Coy: as above 3rd Recce Coy: PzGrenadiers in SPWs (probably 250s) 4th Recce Coy: 16 Pumas 5th (Heavy) Recce Coy: Medium mortars, Pak40s and Pioneer Platoons 12thSS Pz Div (Recce Btn.) June44 1st Recce Coy: Armoured Cars (probably 234/1 or 250/9) 2nd Recce Coy: as above 3rd Recce Coy: Pz Gren. (prob in Sdkfz250) 4th Recce Coy: as above 5th (Heavy) Recce Coy: Pioneers, Pak40s As far as the Pumas of the 1st SS go, I personally think this is a mistake and the same for those claimed for Graebner at Arnhem. Most likely they were 232s, 234/1s or 250/9. As discussed previously, only 101 Pumas were built and they equipped 4 Panzer Divisions. The two on the Western Front were Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer. 'Puma' seems almost to be used to mean any form of heavy German A/C just as some books would have you believe Tigers were everywhere Panzer Lehr (Recce Btn.) June44 1st Recce Coy: 26 Pumas 2nd Recce Coy: 26 Sdkfz250/9 3rd Recce Coy: Pz Gren in 26 SPWs, of which 2 were 251/2(mortar) and 3 were 251/9(75mm L/24) 4th Recce Coy: as above 5th (Heavy) Recce Coy: 26 SPWs including 6X251/9, 2 towed Pak40s, 2 towed 75mm IG and a section of pioneers. Cheers ('La Panzer Lehr Division', J-C Perrigault)

Yeah, I'm all for more vehicles AFAIK no Ferdinands were used in NW Europe but there are a few others that haven't been included: 1) German Sdkfz222 A/C 2) British AEC A/C - Puma-lovers eat yer hearts out. This little 4-wheel beauty came in 6pdr and 75mm flavours - not a weedy little 50mm... 3) German SP Guns on captured French chassis as used by the 21st PD in Normandy in large numbers. Invented by some German Major called...er, can't think of the name right now 4) Lots more German armoured H/T versions on the 250 and 251 chassis. 5) Sherman Flail 6) Flakpanzer 38t - the standard flakpanzer in the panzer divisions. Far more used than Wirbelwinds, Ostwinds etc. 7) CharB1 flammpanzer as used during Market Garden. 8) Those US H/Ts you mentioned. 9) Polish Cromwells. 10) Panzer IV B or C as used by the 21st PD in Normandy.

I must admit I'm a bit confused as to the standard colours of British-manufactured vehicles in 1944-45 although the majority of books I've seen agree it was 'Shade No.15, Olive Drab'. Terry Wise's 'D-Day to Berlin' states 'until at least late 1943 this (overall colour) was a matt dark earth...' and in '1944...the basic overall colour was changed to khaki drab, which was very similar to the pre-1943 colour, but with more of a brown tone instead of a yellow one.' He states 'we have for D-Day some vehicles in this new khaki drab, others in dark earth, possibly a few remaining in the pre-1943 olive green, plus the USA and Canadian vehicles in olive drab.' He also mentions disruptive camo patterns in black on some vehicles although this seems to have been more common on softskins and light armour, particularly the 'Mickey Mouse Ear' pattern as Formerly Babra states. A rule with Mickey Mouse seems to be that top surfaces were painted black and the patterns extended from top and bottom edges on the sides. 'British Military Markings' (Revised Edition) by Hodges and Taylor says the colour was Olive Drab with older vehicles in 'SCC No.2, Brown'. It also speculates that Terry Wise is probably using unofficial descriptions for the same colours when he talks about 'Khaki Drab' and 'Dark Earth'. 'D-Day Tank Warfare' by Zaloga and Balin also says the main colour was 'Shade No 15, olive drab' and that 'This colour was very similar to US olive drab...in part to avoid the need to repaint US Lend Lease' B.T. White in 'Tanks and Other Armoured Fighting Vehicles 1942-45', states of British AFVs, "In 1944, a new instruction laid down that the brown Standard Camouflage Colour No. 2 should be replaced by olive drab, officially known as Shade No. 15...This colour was much like the green used in 1942 but somewhat duller. It was similar to the U.S. Army standard 'olive drab'." So far so good but what confuses me is an excellent new book by Jean Bouchery called 'The British Soldier, Volume 2' which shows the main overall colour adopted in 1944 as... Bronze Green! A colour completely different colour to the olive drab already described (interestingly the bibliography mentions most of the aforementioned works, so their info has obviously been disregarded). This is probably a mistake. Bronze Green was certainly used *after* the war and may have been used on a few vehicles in the last couple of months of conflict. Cheers, Mike

National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, South West London. Look out for their special 'theme' days - so far English Civil War, Waterloo and the WW2 Tommy. On these days you get to handle actual weapons (de-activated) and armour. On the WW2 day there were Stens, a Bren, Vickers MMG, Lee-Enfield rifle, MP40 and an MG42 Oh and its free...Nice book shop too.

David, the following link may be of interest: www.geocities.com/Baja/1654/arnhem.html It's Bill Murphy's site on German AFV markings but has some interesting notes on equipment at Arnhem - including Hummel's Tiger I's. Also there was Bruce Rolston's notes for his 'Realpara' CC2 ABTF mod. Don't have a link but I can e-mail if interested. Mike [This message has been edited by MikeO (edited 08-13-2000).]

Come to think of it, if you had turret numbers on the German tanks then each tank of the same type would have the same number so perhaps that wouldn't be such a great idea... Still think an increased number of uniform textures would be a nice touch. Might provide opportunity for some artistic output from the creative people here. How about it BTS?

marcusm, as I understand it the squads use a rough 3:1 or 4:1 scaling down and this also affects what weapon graphics you see. To see one SMG graphic, the unit will have to be armed with three or four SMGs in r/l. As most squads only had one or two LMGs you won't see them in the game. You can replace the SMG bmp with a Bren/BAR/MG42 if you want to see the squad carry an LMG instead. Cheers, Mike

BTS - A Humble Request... In keeping with the topic of this thread I would like to like to ask if would be possible to increase the number of texture slots for the troop types (primarily) and also possibly the vehicles. If not for CM1 then for future releases. I love this game and have nothing to suggest to improve the mechanics - the game works fine as it stands IMO and even those suggested changes I've agreed with on this forum (tank gun target priority, the Brit 2-in mortar move rate etc.) are mainly minor tweaks. Applause for the open graphics format as I enjoy playing around with visual mods. So far I've created some new 'face' and interface 'portrait' graphics but have come up against some brick walls when doing alternative uniform mods. I tried creating unit insignia for the Brits but found the same 'sleeve' bmp was used for both infantry and tank crews - Cromwell crews with infantry division badges don't really look right Moving on to the Germans, I converted the 'headwear' bmp into a splinter-camo helmet cover. This looks great on the Heer panzergrenadiers but no so good on the SS who share the same texture and should have 'spotty' camo. Also the Gebirgsjaeger caps now appear in camo Next I turned the Heer tunic into a splinter camo smock which also looked pretty cool on the PGs but found the Gebirgsjaeger also used the same graphic - minus the right sleeve which uses a special field grey texture with the Edelweiss badge! With the vehicle textures I found left and right sides use the same texture mirrored so German vehicle numbers or assymetrical markings were impossible as they appear back to front on one side No big deal, but if it is at all possible (not knowing about demands of texture memory etc.) would Charles please consider increasing the number of unique textures for the different troop classes (vehicle crews, regular infantry, airborne, SS etc.)? Cheers, Mike

I suppose units dosed up on benzies could be treated as fanatical???

Ah, Spike Milligan, Spike Milligan, Spike Milligan. The old git appeared at an awards ceremony a couple of years ago and called Prince Charles (one of his fans) an 'arse-licking bastard' or something similar and got a round of applause...

Good points about movement rates, Bullethead. According to 'The World War 2 Tommy' by Martin Bradley and Richard Ingram: 'Originally, in its prewar format, the 2in had most of the refinements (and disadvantages) of large calibre mortars. However, it was soon simplified by reducing the size of the baseplate, deleting the collimatting sight, and reducing the weight from 19lbs to 10.5lbs, making it a perfectly practical weapon for the infantry platoon. The 2.5lb bomb had a maximum range of 470 yards, and standard rate of accurate fire was eight rounds per minute. A shortened 14in barrel version was issued to Airborne troops, the shortened barrel reducing the range to 350 yards. The mortar and one ammo carrier were a reasonable load for one man, and his No.2 carried at least 12 rounds; but the section rifleman usually had to carry extra ammunition.'

Bit mystified as to what other shades of grey were available besides 'feldgrau'? Granted, local variations in dye always occur, plus action of the elements etc. but in all the sources I've read the term 'field grey' is always used. That Osprey 336 book I mentioned earlier describes the standard colour as 'greenish-grey' but also mentions that the short-jacket M1944 uniform was in 'feldgrau 44' - a browner green-grey than previously used - but still field grey nonetheless.

Hey, even us Brits have to make do with the Deuce-and-a-Half instead of our good old Bedford QLTs...and what about the 25pdrs - they look like Jerry 105's. Never mind, they do the job