Simon Fox

Fionn, Your ironic attempt at self-justification was very funny LOL! Lorak, The tactics you are using seem good for moving rapidly through forest otherwise I would suggest a stop start movement pattern. Remember your guys spot better when stationary therefore you can sometimes spot that ambush before you spring it. If your point squad is stationary and complete you can possibly get the drop on the ambush and fix them while you flank with other units. If your point unit is weak and forced to withdraw you give the enemy the opportunity to redeploy. I would also resist the temptation to recce with low experience units: it doesn't seem to work.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>(just teasing )<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Good to see you went out of your way to make that abundantly clear Jon. After all Fionn's not one for giving you a serious answer to a tongue in cheek post...

I confused MadMatt woohoo! On second thoughts maybe that's not such an accomplishment Oh and those banner ads still suck [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 03-15-2000).]

A good thread. Personally I think Fionn's just sooking about board edge creep because he ascribes the school of "active" defense and likes to run his defenders forward to place nasty ambushes and feels pretty silly when he has to run them back again when outflanked On the pretty small maps found in the beta demo scenarios I don't think there's anything wrong with it and on larger maps it would probably be largely self defeating. [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 03-15-2000).]

I give Davidial credit for sticking his neck out and stating his opinions however perplexing they might be to those with a more balanced view of the world. The length of his post and his effort to explain himself suggest to me that he is not some agent provocateur stirring up the hornets nest I am sure 1 paragraph could have acheived the same. I have been deeply offended by the excessive use of obscene language in this thread ie "marketing" "MBA" The bane of any high technology industry are people whose primary qualification is non-technical (ie m*******g, accountants and lawyers ) because they have such a narrow perspective that it results in considerable intraorganisational tension. It doesn't help that they are often better renumerated than technical staff resulting in resentment in the latter and insecurity in themselves. A lot of the crap they spout can be ascribed to this fundamental insecurity since they find it necessary to to overemphasise their importance. Don't get me wrong, I think these skills are very important, a lot of great products have foundered because they weren't applied. But personally I have found the one dimensional approach totally inadequate to the task. By far the easiest person to work with IMO is someone with a primary technical qualification and a postgraduate or second degree in the business/law area because these people have a more balanced perspective and are likely to be much more constructive. Sure there are exceptions but unfortunately they are just that.

People still play the AI? No offense to bill's opponent in that AAR but I would say he succeeded in doing everything wrong by the sound of it.

The problem with all these discussions is that they are inherently circular. What came first the chicken or the egg? ie If Hitler was bit more decent then he wouldn't have invaded them in the first place so the question of whether he could have managed them better just doesn't arise. In the years leading up to 1941 a lot of things fell in to place for Hitler politically and militarily in a way that was often less to do with design and more fortuituous. Subsequently he was more exposed. I think basically he was a very astute politician but a hopeless leader.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Well, would just look at that! There must be, what ? ten or twelve people in NZ, and 2 of them are right here on this board. wow! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah and the other couple of million are over here and hey that last joke at Tasmanians expense was totally uncalled for I have a couple living next door to me and their perfectly normal just a couple of siblings and their three kids....

When I saw this thread had dramatically expanded I was hoping for some entertainment. Sadly even Fionn's attempt to pour a bucket of well deserved vitriol on Manieri's head was quite feeble by his standards. Unfortunately Steve also continues to demonstrate saintlike patience (I have printed out that thread where he told someone to "go and ....." and framed it ) Yawn

It would be a gross oversimplification to blame German munitions production problems merely upon Hitler's reluctance to adopt a wartime economic footing which I might add was a largely political decision which in itself had some merit (though not of course in hindsight ). Indeed there is some evidence that the widely held belief that Germany did not move to a full war economic status until 1943 is in fact at least partially mistaken. Nor can they be adequately ascribed to shortages of specific raw materials. Such views are reminiscent of the "Hitler's Fault" theory of German military failure. As such they are equally unbalanced and are an essentially worthless version of the wistful vision of a defeated nation and therefore of no service to responsible historical research. Speer's work is certainly of great historical value and interest but it is fundamentally a personal justification as are the memoirs of Manstein, Guderian etc and as such must be considered in it's proper context. In fact the German economy was inherently quite weak and totally incapable of sustaining her war effort. Furthermore the Nazi management of the economy was generally deplorable and characterised by gross inefficiencies and misdirection of resources. Certainly some significant production increases were acheived under Speer's control. But these increases were not necessarily translated into increased delivery to the frontline troops and paled into insignificance when compared with the massive increases acheived by their opponents economies. Every now and again statements along the line of "What they could have acheived if Hitler hadn't done...." crop up which I find extremely distasteful and ignorant as if the allies sailed through WWII without a single blunder If they had correctly identified the weaknesses in the German economy and directed the strategic bomber offensive at them earlier it is quite possible that Germany could have been crushed much earlier. Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Those who survived, emerged as different men. They and their friends had offered their all, trustingly, and they felt, right or wrong, that this trust had been squandered. The belief that their leaders knew best and knew all, this Victorian belief which had enabled them to entrust their very lives to the will and care of others, was as dead as the 5,415 men who lay out in the No-Man's Land of this Northern Sector. From now on, men would begin to think of themselves first, a little more often, and would want to have more of a say in the control of their own future.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bell's account is quite interesting but I think the best US small unit leader account I have come across on the web is that of Brown who seems to have been an above average officer. http://www.tankbooks.com/brown.htm [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 03-06-2000).]

Yes I too often have trouble accessing CMHQ. Most commonly the menus and banners load but the content doesn't. Either that or its so slooooow that I give up in frustration. Quite frankly accessing CMHQ is about the last thing I would try to cure the "blues"... [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 03-03-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Here was a miracle greater than the fortitude of the officers: soldiers, half of them reservists, peasants who had reported for duty only a month ago in birchbark clogs, their minds still on the sights and sounds of home, their fields, their prospects, their families, totally ignorant of European politics, the war, the East Prussian campaign, the objectives of their corps or even its number, did not flee, or slink into the bushes or hang back, but possessed by some unknown force, passed the dividing line beyond which love of self and of family and even the instinct of self-preservation cease to exist and, belonging now to not themselves but to their cruel duty, rose up three times and advanced into gunfire with their noiseless bayonets<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wouldn't characterise bayonet charges as rare though probably uncommon in the CM1 time frame and theatre. I also would definitely not characterise them as berserk behaviour, under certain circumstances they're actually quite sensible A very good shock tactic for a force inferior in numbers and/or firepower to use especially when unexpected. There has been quite a lot of discussion of morale states before and my understanding is that in the long term BTS would like to have a more complex multiscale system which also incorporates unit experience and training ie green fanatics or wimpy veterans. I think if your going to have fanatic units you should also have something at the other end of the spectrum like anti-fanatic. It seems to me that at the moment units always do what you ask. Wouldn't it be funny if you ordered your veterans to assault an enemy position and all of a sudden they started acting like conscripts he he Even if they were a bit slow to get going it could stuff up a multi-unit assault and they wouldn't have to stay that way the whole game either. A bit of unpredictability would be fun gee I'm evil he he

Start?

Perhaps this should be renamed the boasting thread!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm afraid I have caught you in a mistruth here.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> OBG, My dear fellow, your powers of deduction are truly stunning to us lesser mortals with limited perception. OBG= Oh by golly ?

At first I thought that boastful attitude was a bad approach to finding an opponent. But then I looked within and identified the urge to take it, twist it around and shove it right back up your .... from whence it emerged. So I guess it is a pretty good tactic. Even so I have resisted it.

I would expect squad firepower to be a non-linear function as it is a composite of each individual weapon in the squad which may in themselves behave in a non-linear fashion firepower-wise. Even so it should be fairly straightforward to generate a composite graph for a squad once the individual weapon graphs are generated. Comments Jason? As I understand it cover currently degrades small arms firepower in a linear fashion which seems pretty reasonable to me but I wonder whether that abstraction works as well for closer engagement ranges. I am a bit uncomfortable with the fashion perpetuated by Fionn and others for closing in to very close range as it doesn't quite gel with my historical reading, frequency wise. I feel that such attacks should be harder to mount in a morale sense. Given the very severe casualties typically suffered by both sides I would like to see a bit more reluctance displayed for such 'suicide charges'. A bit of mutiny wouldn't go astray hehe.

Buildings aren't so bad as long as there is no direct HE around. I just assaulted a stone building in a PBEM. I suppressed the occupants with fire from 2x HMG42 and three heavy SMG squads (that's 8MGs!), from 2 sides of the building. My assault force 2xSMG squads + Plt-HQ got within 20-30m before detection and got chewed up badly although there was a second wave also providing suppression. Casualties to the occupants were minor. Most of mine came from a single grenade blast which wiped out most of a squad. Not having played the Germans before I had an inkling of the fragility of the SMG squads but figured if I suppressed the building enough I would be OK. I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong If only they would use their Fausts on the damn thing!

The point about who would want to take the role of a Japanese CO, is a good one I suspect for a PTO-CM there could be a lot more vs AI play than PBEM. Just musing as the nature of the bonsai (oops banzai) charge. I guess it depends upon the nature of the infantry ethos: stand off and blast 'em or get in amongst them. Interestingly accounts of banzai charges seem to figure more frequently in US accounts since they were seen as a suicidal tactic whereas Commonwealth accounts seem to see them as a more legitimate tactic. From an Australian army assessment of the fighting in New Guinea: "Japanese infantry are extremely susceptible to a well timed bayonet charge" Think of the current CM beta demo tactic of charging those German SMG squads up to 20 metres and blasting away, a tactic which I might add is fairly ahistorical though I am not sure how it could be discouraged. Trying to match that kind of close range firepower is a waste of time. Just consider (though CM doesn't allow for it) you can't attach a bayonet to a MP40 and the Germans didn't like the close quarters stuff much.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>SPR happy ending<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's a happy ending? I would think 2hrs the same as the first 20min of SPR would be a bit bizarre for my liking. Everything you have to say about Dieppe doesn't ring completely true to what I remember (eg 50% inland) but I accept there were some successful bits. I wasn't intentionally comparing the two but you are right that overall Crete at least had some redeeming features. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The 30,000 men had a full complement of small arms (Rifles, LMG's, HMG's and Mortors) and were only lacking motorized transport and heavy artillery.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not wanting to, but unable to resist, get into a debate about Crete. Your above statement is completely incorrect, especially with regard to MGs and Mortars. Extensive use was made by the defenders of captured German weapons especially small arms, grenades but also mortars, MGs and in several cases AT guns and light artillery precisely because a significant number didn't have any or they rapidly ran out of ammo. All types of arty were limited and furthermore consisted largely of antiquated French or captured Italian pieces with poor quality ammo. I should also add the almost total absence of AA guns other than AAMG. Even so the most significant deficiency was in radios. With better coordination in all liklehood the defenders would have inflicted a stunning defeat upon the Germans instead of the phyrric victory they gained. [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 02-16-2000).]

Dieppe IMO would be a hopeless subject a tale of futility and woe, incompetence and pointless heroic sacrifice- oh yea great. How about Crete (the WW2 Gallipoli). Elite Commonwealth troops once again wasted on a stupid operation by bumbling moronic British commanders and politicians. Inadequately supported, with insufficient ammo, antiquated weapons especially arty, insufficient small arms to arm all troops. Still coming within a hairsbreadth of victory against an incredibly motivated opponent who gained victory by metaphorically climbing a mountain of their own corpses. Strictly tongue in cheek suggestion of course

LOL Doug Griffin, Keep that serious **** out of this thread OK?