Zamo

At the risk of sounding the Heretic, I must confess I am a little perturbed by the self-rightious indignation many of you are posting. Come on, listen to yourselves! There is not one of you who wouldn't LOVE to get your hands on a bootleged pre-release of this game. Myself included. I am not endorsing piracy, nor trying to promote or encourage it. I have never downloaded WAREZ and am really not too sure of how to do it. But I can tell you honestly, that if I happened to find a link, I'd download it. And so would all of you! My respect and admiration for the guys at BTS would nonetheless STILL get me to buy the final version and I would hope that every mothers son on the this board would do the same. For months now you guys have been asking for a "Gold" demo. Don't tell me you wouldn't like to peek at what's been going on. You'd be lying. And no, I do not have it, nor am I likely to find it, but I AM going to search for it...As I suspect many of you already have. Being honest with himself, Zamo, who LOVES playing the devils advocate...

My father was a Corporal with "M"/4/11 1st MarDiv from Cape Glouster, through Pelileu and on through Okinawa. He served as part of an artillery forward observer team and never really talked much about it until I joined the Marines and none of the family have been able to get him to shut up since! Lot's of good stories, but I am not sure he would want me to retell them...Some funny, some unbearably ghastly. I suppose that is the common thread with combat stories. He enlisted in the Marines at 16 so he wouldn't be drafted and sent to kill our cuisins in Germany. Last year I went to Germany and met family members from the "other side" and that was interesting too. Many more horrible stories. Many of our relatives were on the transport the Soviets sank at the end of the war..I forget the name, but entire villige populations were erradicated by one sub. The last two male Sehmel's from our branch were both lost on the East front. I'm not a big fan of Russians... Chris "Zamo" Sehmel

Regarding the "War is a loss for everyman" message. I'm sure it is, but for almost everyone who survived WWII, and I'm sure other wars, it also becomes the single defining event in that persons life. My father is a combat vet from the Pacific in WWII and (he hated TTRL, by-the-way) I would say it's pretty obvious he considers it the biggest thing in his life. Larger than his subsequential financial successes, his marriage and his three sons. He still shines when he gets a call from an old buddy in ways which I just don't see at other times. In a deep conversation we had one night after I returned from bootcamp and asked him about combat he said: "Well, it's a lot like deer hunting...Where the deer shoot back". I guess the point I'm trying to make is that once again Malik and co. are trying to portray all vets as weepy, whiny AWOL going losers, and not dedicated fellows who did what they had to do to get it over and just wanted to come home, which is what I think the temperament of the average GI really was in WWII and most likely every war since Og threw a rock at Gruk. Zamo, rambling incoherently.

Mk IV, HAHAHA very funny. Me laugh, scratch knuckles on ground...pick nose, poke eye. FYI, Marine tankers not only go through our 14 week boot camp, which is legendary, but then go do the entire Army tank training program at Ft. Knox as well. Maybe you should ask some of those Army instructors there who the better tankers are... My old company, "B" Co., 4th Tank Battalion, 4MarDiv, did quite nicely in the gulf, destroying 119 Iraq vehicles, 59 of which were tanks, and captured 474 prisoners. I believe this was all in one engagement, without any losses. Look it up...Me go eat rock now...Zamo

I have read a lot of books and seen a lot of movies and while I enjoyed the book, I found this movie adaptation to be the absolute worst piece of self-indulgent trip Hollywood has ever produced. I mean that litterally. This was the only movie I have ever felt like walking out on. Sadistically I stayed, I wish I hadn't. Some of the combat scenes were good, but that doesn't come close to holding up the idiotically surrealistic pompitude that meanders wistfully throughout the rest of the ordeal. If he was trying to recreate the hell of war, he sure succeeded, because just like some guy caught in the open during an artillery barrage, I spent most of the movie wishing with every fiber of my being that I was somewhere else... My two cents....Zamo

Lokesa, The Guns of Navarone Playset! Man, I wanted that one bad, MY friend had one and I was so jealous. I had the Desert Fox Playset and the Battleground Playset, but missed out on the GON. I remember when I first got my Desert Fox set, the 105mm and 88mm had spring firing plastic shells (sprenggrenate??!) and I shot myself in the eye! Despite this I was so pissed when I got the BG set a few years later and the arty had been reworked to not have the springs inside. I'm still fuming! Were you around when they had the WWII Axis GI Joes?

36...right in the curve... GUNNER! SABOT! TANK, DIRECT FRONT! Zamo

Fionn, I realize the Iraqi's all had export models of the T-72, and that our guys had M60A3's, but there isn't much diff. between an A1 R/P and an A3, other thant the thermal shroud and Laser rangefinder (which IS a sig. diff). I'm sure our intrepid Jarhead Tankers would have made good account against the T-72's with M60A1 R/Ps. When I was in we were mortified by the then new and threatening T-72, much more than the T-64. We were convinced it was a killing machine which would finish us high profiled 105 shooting targets long before we could even get close to them. Not to mention we were planning for a Fulda Gap defence against the Red horde. Being an educated tanker in a Marine tank unit (ie: not too many numbers) set up against this imposing force was sobering to say the least. My greatest concern was not the tanks though, we knew we could shoot four or five times faster than them, but that damned Hind-D. That was a fearsome opponant. Sorry to run on...especially in THIS thread...Yeah, um, I like the M26 too! Zamo

US: M4A1 (76mm) -or- T30 Heavy tank De: Tiger Ie (mid)-or- Tiger Ie (mid) UK: Centurion -or- A39 Tortoise USSR: KV-Ic -or- IS-3 -or- T-44 Fr: H-35 -or- Char B1 Hard choices to make, so I included an alternate or two. I just couldn't bring myself to comment on the Japanese tanks. Zamo

I don't know what all the fuss is about, I got my release copy the other day and have been having a great time smashing Stuarts with my Jagtigers...You guys haven't got yours yet? Yeah, mine was delivered by the same little blue man who tells me to start all the fires and kill my family and dress up like Cher and..hehehehe I need my medication...hehehe CM withdrawels are getting bad again.....MOTHER! Stop stretching the cat! hmmm, (twitch, twitch) Zamo From the padded cell

I gotta step up to bat and defend the honor of the venerable M60. Sure it's no M1 but they did pretty damned good against T-72's in the gulf. Good enough to earn better praise than you guys have shown here. It was a fine tank and is STILL a fine tank when set up against any threat tank out there we're likely to encounter, just not AS fine a tank as the Abrams. OK, so I'm biased, I was a M60A1 Rise/Passive tank commander in the Marines in the 80's...you caught me. I just wish I could find one surplus... Zamo

Lokesa, yeah that was a great Rock issue, had this old fart, hardnosed Kraut Von Rock clone guy leading his boys. Those really were fun comics...but I'm sure the Haunted Tank was a M3, right up until they created the crazy graveyard conversion special... Did you ever hear the longlasting rumor that Ridley Scott wants to make a Sgt. Rock movie? Zamo

Don't worry, it's there. Just not in the demo.

Kampfgruppe! Though it seems very quaint by todays standards, it rocked at the time. I had never seen a game with as much depth at that point. I played that one for years! Then, in other genres, there was Civ and yes, Pirates! Those were landmarks too. I wasn't aware CM is only going to be availible via direct order, hey BTS, you might want to remind us newbies that that's the case. I've been reading posts here since November myself and that's the first I have heard of it. I'm sure it's blazened all over the site somewhere, but as I only bee-line to this discussion group, I haven't heard it before. Zamo

55) Jeb Steuart and the "Haunted Tank", http://www.gemstonepub.com/cbm/gallery/cbm47.html

Forget Drakes Hover-tanks, fine militaria that they may be, I'll settle for one BOLO Mk. XXVIII "Triumphant" from Laumer and a couple of Companies of M.I. Cap Troopers from Heinlein and I'll be happy...up against about ALL of the rest of the worlds WWII arsenal. Should be a fun six minutes. Zamo

31) Teen aged mutant ninja screaming oriental anal cheerleading nympho babysitting bimbos from hell, part II "The Sequel" Damn, too bad, that sounds more interesting everytime I read it... Zamo

Hauptmann Manieri, Mein Englisch ist gut, als ich bin ein amerikanisches. Ich wohne in Seattle, wie ich am ende meines post sagen. Ich fragte bildlich, lediglich aus Neugier heraus. I applaud whole-heartidly your concern for our German Kommeraden, Fionn, and must endorse without reservation your decision to provide such bitmaps, for "archival" purposes. It's amazing how often these things become corrupted, nicht wahr? I have always been annoyed at games and models with missing or altered graphics. Don't change history, learn from it! Christian Sehmel IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, Where we have a woosie mayor...

I did a search, but was unable to find anything. I'm sure this question has been asked before, please forgive me anyhow. Will there be a German version of this game released and how will it differ from the English version? I know things like Swastika's and mention of certain units are very verbotten in Deutschland to this day. Will the German version have Waffen SS units? Will the Swastika's be replaced by some other national ensign? Or, as a historical simulation, do you guys have some leeway? Are you even planning on doing a version for Heinz and Fritz? Christain Sehmel Seattle

No, I wasn't even thinking of any of you guys. I was so elated by the depth and heroism of this game that I was just bouncing off the walls. As with most heros, that guy probably just ended the virtual krieg and went home and never told anybody about it. He probably got a little virtual job making cyber-schnitzel or puting virtual Audi's together and never told his wife and cyber-kids about the day he was a hero...Makes you wonder doesn't it? Chris

I don't understand all this interest in a "Gold Demo", Aren't you people sold enough? Is ther anybody in this forum who is NOT ready to buy the finished product? Why even consider playing the demo when you can toodle down to the neighborhood game-o-rama and buy the real deal? Two or three days wait? Come on. Get a life. Chris Sehmel Who will probably download the Gold demo anyway himself...

Man, I was playing chance encounter last night as the Krauts and had one man totally deserve the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. With some good hull down positioning I zerstroyed 4 out of 5 M4'sm but the 5th was hiding way back behind the first trees the yanks encounter. He was delivering decimating fire across the map into the troops I had guarding/flanking the right side (German facing). I seized all objectives except the one on the Yank hillside, and they had a 'zook up there so I attacked with infantry which got shot up pretty bad and fell back to the houses. All except one squad, which stayed there. Through the course of the game, this squad resisted attack after attack holding that position. Eventually, I was able to get some more guys up there, but all the while the Sherman was blasting my guys on the right flank. As this lone squad was the only unit who had a chance I had them (now down to only two guys) sneak back around and TOAST the M4 with a Panzerfaust at close range from the flank. Then the two guys return to their defensive position just in time to flank a squad of GI's who were defeating the other shot up squad holding the flag. Sorry this was so long, but it was incredible, my words don't portray it all nearly well enough. This one squad, which ended up just one man. Turned the tide of the battle several times...It must have been Streicker and Schnurbart... This...in a Beta demo...go figure. Man, I can't wait until the real deal. No one will see me for months... Zamo

Gentlemen, I am afraid I must speak up in defense of Gen. Patton. Too many of you here seem to fall victim to EXACTLY the same sort of hoopla that waged at the time regarding the "Slow and steady/few casualties" or the "Grab 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the ass/risky" argument. Every time I read a book on the life and commands of Geo. Patton Jr., I can't help but admire the man more. Of course, as a former Marine tanker, perhaps I understand and endorse his willingness to attack aggressivly more so than my more reserved colleagues. Like him I think the best defense is a strong offense, on any level, and I think Patton's flair for just that reaffirms the point. I believe that he was the tantimount combat commander. Granted he would never have succeeded in a higher role, his grasp of politics speaks for itself there, but I believe we were discussing just such a combat command. Did he take risks with the lives of his boys? You bet. Did he sieze more ground than any other American commander up to desert storm? You bet. Was he a prima donna? You bet. Did he do more for US Armor than any person to date? You bet. Would I have been happy to serve under him? You bet! I honestly think all the other Allied commanders pale in comparison. My two-bits... CHS

I think the next demo scenerio should have the following: (don't make one...spend time finishing the real thing, to hell with another demo!) Chris

I agree, Stalingrad just kinda fizzled out. Granted it was a crappy situation and the movie does a GREAT job of portraying the hopelessnes of being there, but the desertion scenes, and the whole scene where their in the basement with the Soviet woman and their all whining...I could've done without that. It was too melodramatic. Not at all what the "Average" soldat went through. Pretty much turned into "Stalingrad: 90152". I did like the Soviet tank attack in the snow. That was very interesting. I still think I prefer "Cross of Iron" as my favorite East Front movie, and one of the best books I've read on it to this day! Zamo