civdiv

Check this out, it's new to me; http://www.mannerheim-line.com/ Here's an example of some of the content; http://www.mannerheim-line.com/muolaa/muolaamap.htm

This is a good read but doesn't mention either the self-immolation issue or use on tanks. It deals solely with the Pacific. Portable Flamethrowers: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/chemsincmbt/ch14.htm Mounted on vehicles: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/chemsincmbt/ch15.htm The latter does mention; "Tank crews developed a fear of the periscope type after the fuel container of one burst and ignited upon being struck by an enemy shell, burning the tank crew to death." This site mentions flamethrowers were used against tanks but again gives no specific examples; http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust11.htm [ November 11, 2006, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

This article talks in generalities, but it mentions both that the tanks could explode if hit, and that they were used on tanks, but admittedly, it doesn't give any specific examples; http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/flamethrowers.htm "By the close of the war flamethrower use had been extended to use on tanks, a policy carried forward to World War Two. Flame-throwing equipment, albeit somewhat refined, continues in use to the present day." and "Quite aside from the worries of handling the device - it was entirely feasible that the cylinder carrying the fuel might unexpectedly explode - they were marked men..."

The problem I have with this is what was the Ordnance Board or whatever they were called doing? We captured plenty of German tanks in N. Africa to carry back to Aberdeen or where ever they brought them back then. Plus once they had a few captured Tiger Is they could reproduce the armor (to an extent, I know about face-hardening) and shoot 76mm APC at it. The fact that APC rounds had a high shatter rate should have been discovered by testing. I do, however, agree with you that it's basically impossible for a tanker to discover that his AP rounds are shattering when firing at a target a thousand meters away. Add in the fact that (at least in the Infantry) every tank was a Tiger regardless of what is really was. And when looked at from long range I could see how a partially concealed PzIV could look like a Tiger. And late at night the sound of a tank engine and the clank of the treads led to more cries of 'Shiite, Tigers are coming' rather than 'Shiite, Panzerkampfwagen Fours are coming'.

CM: Shock Force is the CMx2 engine. The first version (Shock Force) will be modern combat. It will then be ported over to a CMx2 WWII game, with like 3 or 4 expansions. BFers, correct me if I am wrong, things change so much around here

Shmavis, do you play Red Orchestra? I was playing the other night with someone having a name very similar to yours.

I will add a couple things but Furball's comments are exhaustive and accurate. Bow MG: One disadvantage was that when the vehicle is hull down it cannot be used. Another possible disadvantage is that in some vehicles the mount creates a 'shot trap' that tend to allow AP munitions to penetrate. But all-in-all I'd rather have a bow MG than not have one. Coaxial MG: On many tanks the coaxial can be used to help range the main gun. I can't remember the exact parameters, but on the Sherman the coaxial MG, out to a certain range (not much beyond several hundred meters) mimicked the ballistics of the main gun such that if you hit the target with the mg, you could just pull the trigger on the main gun and it would hit with a very high degree of first round accuracy. This is still the case with the Abrams.

I have a bunch of thought here, some germane (german? j/k) and some not. zmoney, quit throwing around the Nazi thing, we all know where that leads. I am like 1/36th German, and I like Panthers, that doesn't mean I have a Waffen SS uniform in my closet. Once you even allude to the slur, others begin to assume. Bad combination there. But zmoney, you are right on target with what I was thinking as I was reading this and you stole my thunder. Sure, you got a medium velocity gun on a chassis with iffy armor and you are on the attack, in bad terrain (Bocage), and you are facing even a smattering of Panthers, Tigers, 75mm, r48 and 88mm AT guns, faust and schreks and you are probably going to hate your tank. Throw in maybe one real Wittman episode and a bunch more fabrications of the effectiveness of the Tiger, add a dash of the War Department refusing to put a better gun in the Sherman and you have the genesis of the (mostly) inaccurate portrayal of the Sherman being a piece of chit. Jurgen, part of the confusion here is you screwing up the beginning of your rant by mistating nomenclature. If you had started the discussion by correctly labeling the Shermans in question as the basic M4 with the 75mm r40 (M3) gun we would have known what you were talking about. But decribing one scenario where 4 Shermans killed 4 MkIVs, losing 2 of their own number means nothing. Run that identical situation 20 times and tell us what the results are. A data set of 1 is not sufficient to determine a trend. The fact of the matter is that the MkIV has a better gun while the Sherman has better armor. All things being equal the overall performance versus each other should be about even. If you run the scenario 20 times and the Shermans knock out twice as many MkIVs as they lose, then we got a problem. Until that happens we don't.

Personally I like to employ them off to a flank at an oblique to the enemies line of advance. I tend to 'keyhole' them so they have a pretty small field of fire. I like to stick them behind patches of woods and then put infantry hidden in the woods (perhaps with AT weapons), so I can see what is coming. If I have at least a pair of them I'll try and position the second one on the other flank in the oblique. Hopefully the first TD only engages a tank or two at a time, and they get the first shot from the flank. I'll use covered arcs (armored) to control them, and if, say, two tanks appear close together, hopefully they will nail one. As the second enemy tank turns to engage that usually gives a 90 degree flank shot or even a rear shot for the second TD. Sometimes I will give one TD an armored covered arc and the second a short covered arc to keep him from firing. This will be the one furthest from the enemies line of advance. That way as the enemy armor turns to face the TD that reveals itself by firing (the one with the covered arc), they expose their flank and/or rear to the second TD. I sometimes mix in ATRs/Snipers/Sharpshooters/Long range MG fire/Light Mortars to get the enemy tanks to button.

How about this, much cheaper here; http://www.powells.com/s?kw=red%20army%20and%20Wehrmacht http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&y=0&tn=red+army+and+wehrmacht&x=0 I highly recommend both Abe's and Powell's. Edit: Ah, Grisha, beat me to it, I didn't read the whole string before I posted.

Yeah, he contacted me via email to plead his case. I basically told him I didn't care one way or another as I didn't have a dog in the fight. He was pleasant so he isn't harrassing me or anything. I replied and then I blocked him. I told him I converse with fellow gamers whom I do not know on msg boards, not via email.

Ditto, I am with Hitori on this one. The Swastika is thousands of years old and it still shows up in different and distinct cultures to this day. And I agree, leave it out as it adds little to the game, avoids problems for BFC, and it can be freely added as a mod as desired. And sorry Windy, if you are that ignorant or uninformed in regards to the origin and continued use of the swastika in non-Aryan nation usage, then I just pity you. Before you attack someone try and have a grasp of the topic at hand.

Steve, So he sent you an email saying that was some troll from the UK with a similar IP. Tell me you misspoke; he didn't mention UK or the IP as that would be pretty dumb and clearly indicate his guilt. Re: ToW, this is like DT; I'll take my time deciding to buy it. CM2 (Be it CMWWII or CMSF or whatever I'll not only buy myself a copy I'll buy my brother and another friend of mine who I turned onto CMBB copies also, the day it comes out. Re: The bannings and such and the way they were carried out; I feel a bit uncomfortable with some of it, but that's just me. And I fully understand that I have no RIGHT to be here and I could be banned just for saying Steve talks funny or MadMatt smells like old cheese.

Related question; it seems to me that more waypoints actually slow vehicles down when moving on roads, or is this just my imagination. Say you have an 'S' curve. In my experience the vehicle moves faster with just 4 waypoint to get through the 'S' curve, as opposed to say, using 8 points. It seems the vehicle slows down to reorient itself for each waypoint so it hits them exactly. With 4 points the vehicle may spend part of the movement on the fringes of the road, or even slightly off road, but they seem to move faster. Is it just me?

So you compare what the British lost in a few days taking little to no ground to what the US lost in two months, when they totally broke the German lines and broke out into southern France? I doubt if the total was 4, but the British did withdraw their armor from the frontlines after Goodwood and then recommitted them for Bluecoat. And this is relevent how? The decision was made because when you have two friendly elements moving towards each other it is a military necessity to stop one element to avoid fratricide. With one element stopped the other knows exactly where their FLOT is, so they can plan direct, indirect, and CAS fires to avoid killing friendlies. [ October 19, 2006, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

The new SINCGARS is half the size of the old one.

They are both flashlights. On the SAW you can see a lanyard for the lens cover. On the M4 it has a spring loaded lens cover. And those are EOTech Red Dot sights. Awesome sight, my fav.

When depleted rifle squads (they're half sqauds of 6 men) are sent back to HQ to get re-inforcements, they occassionally become stuck there, permanently. I bumped into this as well. My solution is to order them into the HQ, and then out of it. Yes it's a bug, but that frees them up.

Here is a link direct to the download; ftp://download.intel.com/software/gamecontest/PanzerCommandWinterStormDemoSetup.zip It's more of a technology demo rather than an actual game demo.

Come on dude, it looks like a 97% clone.

I won't post another companies link here, doesn't seen right. But here's a link to a review of the game; http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/panzer_command/ Then go to the companies web site and look at the screen shots.

Is it just me or is tere a certain other game now out that looks like a direct copy of CMBB? I won't even mention the company or the game but I saw a screenshot of it and thought it was CMBB, until I looked a little closer.

I haven't played for a while so I will provide my recollection of the bogging rules. And I may get this right so others please correct me if I am wrong. There are two states; bogged and immobilized. A bogged unit will try the entire game to become 'unbogged'. I'm not sure if that is dependant on a movement order or not. My experience is about 50/50; half the time they eventually get unbogged, half the time they become immobilized. While I do not know what affect things like experience have on unbogging, I do know that the type of vehicle (ie; ground pressure) has a lot to do with unbogging and in getting originally bogged. Some vehicles are just more prone to bogging, and thus are more likely to become immobilized as opposed to becoming unbogged.

JasonC, you are a font of knowledge but you certainly aren't user friendly. Faxisaxis, I went through the same thing as you with JasonC about a year ago. The guy is a d*ck but he knows his shiite when it comes to the game. JasonC; if we worked together and this knowledge applied to what we were doing, I'd use the heck out of you to accomplish the mission, and I might even buy you a glass of a tasty beverage.

You won't even scratch them with the 50mms. It's been a while since I played but IIRC, the 50mms don't come with smoke, do they? Flank it, use the mortars to suppress anyone supporting the pillbox. Flank it, isolate it, and take it down. Now that is assuming you even have to approach it at all. Once you are past it you can also just ignore it. The pillbox doesn't even have it's own crew that can leave the pillbox, so it's not like anyone is going to leave the pillbox and threaten your rear. A lot depends on how good your opponent is. If he knows you have a basic infantry forces and he bought the pillbox, if he is crafty he is intending you to get channelized into a suprise as you avoid the pillbox. But if he doesn't know what he is doing you may just have an isolated pillbox out there. Edit: Ooops, when I started this post no one had replied. Looks like I was on target.