Joachim

No problem. I'm in a bad mood every day and I am sarcastic any day. Gruß Joachim

I had two years of Russian, but not a single year of small print. Gruß Joachim

It is when I play the Allies. Michael </font>

But I guess this was less based on an extensive research on females in the German armed forces of WW2. OTOH you could then count nurses as well. I remember a tale about somebody who was just doing surgery in a barn when 2 Russians entered. He clamped the cut, took his Schmeisser from beneath the table, shot and continued. As medics were among the best-armed troops on the Eastern front, I guess several nurses did some firing, too. Women were not assigned front-line duty. But the front line sometimes moves rapidly. Gruß Joachim

Oh - I thought these where the paint-filled rounds just like oddball used them. Such a nice red color would look great on an Elefant and make the crew really mad. Gruß Joachim

It works great if you have a decent hit chance. But make sure the hit chance given is the one for the Stielgranate and not for an AP round . As the Stielgranate is very slow it should be fired at tanks that do not move fast. If you have a TRP, ranges of up to 200m at hunting or non-moving tanks are fine. Gruß Joachim

It is an operation. The task of the attacker is to reach the map edge. Note that the map edge in battle 1 is not the edge of the map - you can see only a part of the map (aka map or battle window) in each battle. The map window will move according to the progress of the battle. Depending on whether it is an assault or attack operation, you have to either progress as far as possible or reach the map edge as fast as possible. But in both cases the attackers task is it to advance fast while the defender must try to hold ground and seal any breakthrus. There are several threads on "operation" spread across the forum. A search (or the manual) will reveal more info. Gruß Joachim

Neither do the other projectiles Gruß Joachim

Can't remember the source, but once I read an anecdote eabout D-day. Some NCO or officer remembered that some forward trenches had no covered escape route. He mentioned that a trench for the escape route was necessary, but it was not changed. On D-Day, several soldiers were killed retreating from this trench. a) People retreat across low cover areas if their position is endangered We need the ability to move freely in trenches. Gruß Joachim

I fear it could get worse. Sometimes it is necessary to teach children where their freedom ends. Do not give in to this little menace. Gruß Joachim

Sergei - how old are you? Gruß Joachim

IIRC the trick was not trading shots but single out tanks, lure them to fire at your PzIIIj then moving up 1-2 Marders - TacAI will usually stay on the PzIIIs then. Or wait till the tanks move and show their sides. Then you can kill them with the PzIIjs. Removing the US HTs by shoot & scoot with light armor helped protecting my Marders. Armor Plt HQs are priority targets for the TacAI. Try to move them in view of the enemy later in the turn. If the TacAI already has acquired a target, it has to either switch targets or your HQ is safer. Gruß Joachim

Magdeburg is a town founded about 900-1000 AD. that suggest the usual chaotic medieval city map. And surprise... last time (one day after 9-11) I was there it still had no city grid. Several broad Soviet-style alleys, but the pre 1945 parts that survived the bombings were definitely the usual European style. What you mean is Mannheim. Planned and founded in the Renaissance using a city grid... for the downtown areas. Everything else (read: the villages that grew around it and were swallowed by the city) is the usual "chaotic" style. Suggest you visit these towns (no...ignore Mannheim. Magdeburg had some nice places.) CM roads are not 20m wide. It is possible to have a road with a line of trees on both sides in 20m. It is very hard to overtake a moving vehicle. But I admit there should be "tracks" that merely allow a jeep, but no heavy truck to pass. Gruß Joachim

This won't do. "Minister of Alteration approved by a Horsemen of the Apocalypso". That would sound fine. I would even include the possibility of editing all my posts, double-posting or whatever. Plus I could ask BFC to allow me to edit all posts. Just imagine what Sergei would write afterwards. Gruß Joachim

Ah - yes. Could you please appoinmt me as Minister of Alteration, too? I'll refrain from being appointed for life, my other job will take care of that. Glad you didn't read what I wrote first. Those things about your heroic defence of certain trenches. Forgetting FOs. Inflicting only 4% of my total casualties. And none in front of those trenches I just took without any causalties in turn 33 of 120 despite my pixelhamsters having to cross 600m of open ground (plus additional 1000m of sparsely covered ground). Not to mention at your trrops are dead, captured or running there... But now I'll rewrite history: 2 MGs, a Plt HQ, a FO and a crew - all conscripts - managed to hold 3 trenches against a full-blown assault of the bigger part of a veteran btn for 32 turns. What makes this even more stunning is the FO never ordered a single strike (can I assume there is another one that fired earlier as those shell holes in the middle of nowhere clearly indicate?). Gruß Joachim [ April 15, 2004, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

Double post [ April 15, 2004, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

Yes. This sounds like the truth. Gruß Joachim

Scenario: What If Brummbär and Sturmtiger in Stalingrad or something like that.

Yes. Abandon the project completely, start from scratch, try making a nice battle. Other than that: Your underlying question is long answered. The best thing to do was doing screenshots in the editor, brighten the bitmap a bit and then use mapping mission with the screenshot as underlying bitmap to manually redo your map. I'd suggest using mapping mission anyway - at least in CMBB. Though it is not for AK, most tiles are the same and it might just work, too. Gruß Joachim

It is a scenario well done. Simple but very effective. My assault was not one of my better ones. I doubt I would have done it in RL. I guessed, then made a bet and had it right. If the sandbags had been fake, I would have been slaughtered. My alternative approach should be much better and more robust than what I actually did. The infantry was no problem. Even before the auto-surrender I captured all cause I routed&eliminated the Plt HQ. Seems I had a lucky series of fortunes! Only a few combattants got hurt. My preferred method of taking out guns was driving over them. Works well, yields captives. Gruß Joachim

--- spoiler --- I won the scen. Some cautious hunt/reverse brought no result (aka incoming). So 16 tanks crested the ridge simultaneously and 8 PzIV started to shell any sandbagged area (spray and pray). 2 PzIII raced along the right flank. One PzIV gun damaged, one immo'd, but most guns were not that accurate once under fire. Once a few guns were taken out, I ordered more tanks to race forward. Another approach is to use keyholing and smoke to block LOS to parts of the board, area fire with 4 PzIV and leave the others to concentrate on any guns opening up. If you wait till the 25lbers open up, you loose. An additional gun or another setup would have ruined the party. Gruß Joachim

Most German typewriters (or telex machines) in WW2 usually had no Umlaute. So why bother. The appropriate usage is "sz" for "ß", "Ue/ue" For "Ü/ü", "Ae/ae" for "Ä/ä" and "Oe/oe" for "Ö/ö". BTW: If you want to replace "ue" with "ü" cause you think "ue" is always an Umlaut, make sure you know what you do. I still remember the "Feürknopf" of my "Steürknüppel" in the manual of a cheapo joystick. As you guessed, 2 out of 3 are wrong. Gruß Joachim

You'll get the reinforcements once that marker is close to or in front of your lines. Which is usually in battle 1 for any attacker. Read: You get those markers, but they don't make sense. Gruß Joachim </font>

If you lie, make sure the player notices it. IE if you get some info by higher HQ, have some hint that your patrols found something that didn't fit the picture. Meeting at HQ: "There's only light resistance by conscript infantry, no armor, no air" O-group of your Task Force: Your 3-days behind enemy lines patrol had no trouble getting behind the lines - but when they came back, it was another story. Sure no conscripts. They saw no tanks, but none of our tanks were close enough to them to be heard last night. OTOH the info about air acitivty from higher HQ was always reliable in the last weeks. You have set the mood and the player knows what to expect. Something in the middle. And there is one thing that I'd like to have in operations: Supply and Repair should be at least hinted. I don't need the exact values from the parameters screen. But abundant, medium or scarce would help. Gruß Joachim

Some more data: A conscript Sherman cost only 79,8 and a conscript Priest only 76% of their regular brethren. While a conscript PzIIc or IIf costs 87% of the regular price! So a small survey found that conscript tanks in 2/43 cost from 76,04 to 87,62% (US) and 79,53 to 86,96% (GE). Can't see a bias in any direction here. Gruß Joachim