tss

Hanns wrote: To which somewill will reply British or Finnish?? Sorry, my mistake. Those guns in Finnish service were actually 18 pounders, not 25. Thirty of them were bought in 1940 and used up to the end of the war. In general, it is quite safe to assume that if a gun model was used in WWII, it was also used by Finns. Finnish field artillery forces had roughly 100 different gun models in use (or at least in stores, some of the older stuff wasn't sent to front), and that figure doesn't include different coastal gun models (~50). - Tommi

Just popping out to post links to the Finnish 1936 artillery regulation snippets that I posted last winter: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=014344 http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=013872 Not that it matters much about discussion on ROF of British 25 lbrs. (Though, IIRC, Finland had few batteries of them in use). - Tommi

Germanboy wrote: Sits in his cave under the Kyffhäuser (a mountain in the Harz range in central Germany) until such a time as the German people need him. I'd guess that he sometimes gets out to spend a night out with the other heroes biding their time to return to save their countries. Together with King Arthur, Väinämöinen, and the one Dane whose name I always forget but whose beard is growing through the table, they can have a nice evening of Bridge and beer. - Tommi

Gunny_ Bunny wrote: I think Canada and the USA should attack Palestine and charge Arafat with crimes against humanity !! Don't you think it would be reasonable to find out who is responsible before starting retailiations? I don't have any idea who did it, but I don't believe Arafat had anything to do with it. He would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. - Tommi

aka_tom_w wrote: T V Abu Dhabi has informed: FDPL has asumed the attacks. Finnish TV news just reported that FDPL has issued a statement where they deny any involment and claim that the earlier admission was faked. - Tommi

Paco QNS wrote: FDPL has asumed the attacks. According to Finnish news, FDPL has issued a statement that they had nothing to do with it and that the earlier admission was faked. Hope the surviving culprits will be caught. - Tommi

Tero wrote: Separating the FO's from specific, dedicated ordinance would be realistic. That would depend on the army and the time period. In your example case of a certain army fighting in the North, artillery FOs would usually direct the fire of only their own batallion until new firing methods were implemented in 1943. After that, any FO could direct fire from any available artillery batallion (sometimes mortars were also included in the same net, but often they weren't). Sometimes in critical situations the FO didn't even know whose fire he was directing. If the battle was "planned" it would have involved an artillery fire plan (including targets, positions, timetable if applicable etc) to integrate the artillery into the overall mission plan. Again, depending on the situation. The pre-attack artillery bombardment was certainly planned, but after that a FO was free to call fire on targets of his choice. And, in 1941 (the relevant period for this particular army), the fire mission would be fired from one or more batteries of his own batallion. (The initial strikes were almost always fired with full-batallion strength, but in the later phases of battles smaller missions would often be fired). Also, not all "planned" attacks would have a prepared fire-plan, though most certainly had. Those that didn't have one would usually be pursuit battles or advances through unknown terrain where the exact location of enemy forces was not known. - Tommi

Michael Dorosh wrote: ever heard of a German human-wave attack? Yes. Some of the early-Barbarossa Waffen-SS attacks can only be characterized as human-wave. My sources are at home so I can't give you now places and dates. - Tommi

ObNitpick: Username wrote: ... Sissu ... ITYM, sisu, HTH, HAND. - Tommi

Guy w/gun wrote: The situation mentioned above seems to suggest the opposite. There's one important thing missing from the account: how long afterwards did the plane attack? If the attack came, for example, two hours after the tank kill, it could still be a direct response and Germans could identify it a such but in CM scale the scenario would be over long time ago. I once read an account that went like this: "A faustman hit a Soviet 2-turret tank of an unknown type [actually a lend-lease Grant] immobilizing it. He then crawled near and set it on fire using a Molotov coctail". By that account, it seems that it would take at most 4-5 CM turns to accomplish that. However, another account mentions that between the two attacks on the tank the Soviet tank crew actually dug their vehicle in. I'm not certain how long it takes a Grant crew to entrench their vehicle, but I would be very surprised if it could be done in less than 5-6 hours. - Tommi

Username wrote: Thats what I am refering to Commisar, no offense, its just a bit much reading some exploits. Of course, it should be remembered that the particular account was a war-time newspaper article and there are plenty of similar exaggerating examples also from other countries. One American example that I read about a few days ago (from Blair's "Silent Victory") was about a submarine (forgot the captain) sailing near the coast of Japan where they saw a passanger train crossing a bridge. By the time the story hit the newspapers, it had morphed into submariners gambling on the outcome of a Tokyo horse race. - Tommi [ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: tss ]

The Commissar wrote: Not this piqued (SP?) my interest. Do provide a few accounts, because from what Ive read everything seemed pretty realistic. Witches?!? This following doesn't have anything to do with witches, I just think that it is a case where a Soviet propagandist most probably strayed from reality to create a more touching account. It would be really interesting to know what really happened. (Note that I'm not implying that all Soviet sources are inreliable. Or to be more exact, I consider just about every newspaper hero-story--no matter the originating country--suspect without an outside confirmation.) From "Their Name is Legion", Moscow 1945, a collection of English translations of Soviet war-time newspaper stories: ELEVEN MEN Northwest of Stalingrad Komsomolskaya Pravda November 5, 1942 "Today the whole front is talking about the heroic deed of eleven brave men: Mikhail Kabribov, Babayar Gaparov, Abdurakhman Irdanov, Diar Akhmedov, Sapkhar Poiziev, Narmurad Khaitov, Saipir Mordanov, Khudaikul Musaev, Bakhmarim Alibekov, Sabir Tlepov, Tamel Khuzin. The hill for which they fought has been named "The Hill of the Eleven Heroes of the East." Here is the story of this fierce battle. A group under the command of Second Lieutenant Mikhail Kabribov--nine Uzbeks, one Kazakh and one Tatar--was holding a hill which commanded a view over the surrounding terrain. The Germans had made a number of attempts to capture this hill but the men who were holding it kept them off. All the attempts of the enemy to capture the hill with small forces were repulsed. Thereupon the Germans attacked with a force of about three hundred men, who were given orders to take the hill at all costs. Kabribov coolly took the enemy's measure when he caught sight of the attackers. "It'll have to be thirty Fritzes for every bayonet of ours. If there's anyone who's afraid, I want him to leave the ranks immediately," he said. No one stirred. "Then let us swear to die rather than retreat," said Kabribov loudly, "so that our names will be uttered with pride in our native East and not with curses." He ordered the men to take up a circular defence. The Germans advanced on the hill at full height. The first volley sounded. The enemy fell to the ground as if they were moved down. Some of them remained lying forever, others crawled on. The first Nazi platoon reached the hill on their bellies. They jumped to their feet and rushed forward. "Let 'em have it, Gaparov!" shouted Kabribov. Machine gunner Gaparov's well-aimed burst cut down the German platoon, but others were coming on. The air was filled with the deafening chatter of tommy-gun and rifle fire. Fierce fighting ensued. The Germans sustained heavy losses, but could not gain the top of the hill. "Figure that we've done for half of the Nazis. That means we can wipe out the rest of them!" shouted Kabribov, carried away by the excitement of the battle. "Comrade commander, I'm all out of cartridges!" reported one of the men suddenly. At about the same time the cartridges of some of the other men also gave out. "Fix bayonets! Follow me!" shouted the Commander and jumped out of the trench to encounter the Germans. All ten men followed him. Even Gaparov, who had been wounded, went into the bayonet attack. Blood was streaming down his face as he shouted "Hurrah!" in a fearful and menacing voice. In the had-fought bayonet encounter that followed all was turmoil... Several hours later a unit of Red Armymen who had come up to the rescue pushed back the Nazis. Here the men saw a mountain of German corpses, the result of the hand-to-hand encounter. By holding the Nazis at the approaches to the hill and destroying a large number of their officers and men, the eleven sons of the East had made it possible for our unit to deploy and throw back the enemy. While searching for the bodies of the heroes who had died the death of the brave, our men heard a faint groan. It was the machine gunner Babayar Gaparov, whose life blood wast fast ebbing away. He told his comrades about this battle. "We did not let them pass," he whispered. These were his last words. He died in his comrades' arms. No! They did not let the enemy pass! A Tatar, a Kazakh, and nine Uzbeks--on Russian soil they defended the high mountains of the Caucasus and sunlight of Central Asia." The booklet in question contains an amazing number of heroic stories relayed by mortally wounded men... - Tommi

Germanboy: What we all want to know Tommi - if that is your standard stock, what is in your non-standard stock?!?!?!?! Well, in this case "standard" as in "I have posted both at least three times before". However, they are also "standard" in the sense that both are mentioned in just about any book about Finnish armored warfare. (Unfortunately, as far as I know, none has been translated to English or other easily accessible language). I would guess that the non-standard stock is something that is mentioned only in passing on some book that has been out of print since 1944 (I have found several books of that kind from old-book stores). (One interesting tidbit that I came across this summer was that the commander of my grandfather's company (1./JR 37) actually ordered a NCO to raise a battle standard when they started the attack to Särkisyrjä (thus violating the old tradition that the flag-bearer should be a 2nd Lt.). Surprisingly, the standard-bearer survived even though the standard didn't.) BTW, coming back to the topic of the thread. There are many pictures of the above mentioned KV-IE m 1942 on Internet. The first one that came up with a Google search is at http://www.pp.htv.fi/jveijala/tankit/tank8.html . The ricochet marks are painted red. (It is the same round at all places). - Tommi

Germanboy wrote: I have some accounts of tankers from 9th RTR (Churchills) sticking it out after penetrating hits. There was also a RKKA tanker who remained in his BT-7 (or maybe it was a T-26) firing away the gun even after the turret was penetrated three times by a German Somua. IIRC, the fourth penetration finally killed him. This happened in Autumn 1941 near Salla in Northern Finland. The Soviet tanker should certainly have been made "A Hero of Soviet Union" posthumously, but most probably his superiors never found out about the combat. But generally, from what I've read, the most likely tanker response to a penetrating hit is to bail out as quickly as possible and to worry about the dangers of the outside later. However, tanks immobilized by mines are a different question. - Tommi

tenfive2 wrote: We chat casually about armor hits that just bounce off, but don't you think it sounds pretty damn loud on inside when a round stikes the tank? Two examples: (from my standard stock) On 26 June 1944 during the Portinhoikka counter attack, a Soviet T-34-85 got a hit on a Finnish KV-IE, but the shot ricocheted away. The impact noise bursted some eardums of the crew, and they bailed out running to the cover of forest. On the night between 14th and 15th June, a Soviet 152mm artillery shell landed some meters away from a Finnish StuG-IIIG. The explosion was so loud that the crew thought they had struck a mine and quickly bailed out to escape before the vehicle would catch fire. When the error was finally found out, Soviets had already advanced so close that it was impossible to salvage the vehicle, or even to destroy it. - Tommi

Well, this is not really a dubious briefing statement, but it is more of the case of a completely dubious briefing. First some background. Polish Karl Arnold Majewski had somehow ended up in the Finnish army some time in the 30s. He commanded a cavalry squadron during the Winter War and rose to the rank of Major receiving command of a batallion in the early days of the Continuation War. He was well-known for his light-hearted approach to war in general as well as for his total lack of self-preservation instincts (he was later killed by a sniper when he walked erect to the no-man's land to inspect Soviet casualties after a failed Soviet attack against a stronghold). Anyway, in January 1942 he was ordered to organize a two-batallion raid to destroy the Soviet supply center at Maj-Guba (I think, my sources are at home) and to cut the Murmansk railway for some time. No written copy of the briefing he gave to the officers of the two batallions has survived, and probably none was ever done. One of the officers later told that the briefing went as follows: Majewski: "We do glorious raid for Mannerheim. We go Murmansk railway, let Russkie encircle us, hold it three day, come home." (Majewski's Finnish was quite bad) Some officer: "What about supply?" M: "The Devil. Didn't think it." (to the supply officer): "You come with us?" Supply officer: "Yes." M: "Then, supply where I am." Veterinary officer (who was young and didn't know Majewski, yet): "What position should the veterinary team hold in the advance column?" M: "The Devil. Vet be where horses be." Veterinary officer: "But what about wounded horses?" M: "We kill them. We eat them. We burn the sledges." That concluded the whole briefing. After it, Major Murole, the commander of the assisting batallion, took the company commanders of the both batallions with him and went on to produce a real plan. The attack was not particularly successful, the supply depot went up in flames and the railroad was blocked for some 10 hours, but the attackers--especially Majewski's batallion--suffered way too many frostbite casualties (over 10% severe cases), since they were not physically fit for the 5-day sleepless skiing and fighting in the forest. (Murole's border jägers were experienced patrolmen and didn't have such problems). - Tommi

tero wrote: We use examples based on the Finnish experiences during the war. For me the main reason for using Finnish examples is that I have ~60 books about Finland and WWII on my bookshelf, compared with ~10 books on the East Front in general, and only one book specifically about infantry warfare on the Western Front ("The Longest Day"). These examples are sometimes grossly out of whack from the experiences of the forces that fought the "real" WWII. Also, I would like to point out that there are also a lot of cases where Finns fared really bad (I've been trying to post also these examples to keep some perspective). [i recently read about the first two months of combat of the Finnish 19th Division. It made me gnash my teeth. One batallion (II/JR37) was practically destroyed because nobody remebered to cancel its attack when timetables crumbled. This happened twice... By middle August pretty much every men (including the commander) of JR16 were certain that the division commander wanted to get them killed...] it would survive the engagement after firing those 20 rounds at a single target. And then there was that one BT-42 that hit an enemy heavy tank (either KV-I or IS-II) 18 times with no noticeable effect and survived the combat. Jager wrote: Tommi, are you getting my mails, is the game still going on? Made the turns and will send your turn this evening. I didn't read my mail once when I was on vacation because I wanted it to stay that way, and now I've been busy preparing for a work trip to Seattle. (Any bets where my luggage ends? I'm having a one-hour plane change at Chigago O'Hare on Friday afternoon.) - Tommi

Lars wrote: Regarding MG's jamming in cold weather, this is also a problem for rifles. It is due to the lubricant freezing up and jamming the firing mechanism. Where's also a nice and easy way to freeze a non-lubricated (and also lubricated) rifle: Take it inside your heated dugout. The moisture (and there will be a lot of it nearly always) in the air will condensate on the weapon, and when taken back out will freeze. - Tommi

Username wrpte: Then why did you say the following? Because I made an exceptionally poor choice of words resulting in a different message than what I wanted to say. What I meant to say was: "Shot accuracy in WWII ..." And now a little elaboration that hopefully will make it more clear (though, I'm not certain about that since I should be sleeping already): There are two main factors whether a direct-fire shot hits its target or not: - inherent gun accuracy; and - gun crew proficiency + psychological situation. In my opinion, the second factor is by far more important than the first in usual combat conditions. That is why I believe that considering just the gun properties would lead into unrealistically accurate gun fire. [somehow I managed to destroy the following paragraph last evening:] In all of the above misses that I mentioned, the range was well within the accurate range of just about any gun manufactured since mid-14th century. At the 15 m range it is enough to have the gun pointing in the general direction of the tank-sized target, but still the crew managed to miss. Some people seem to think that WWII soldiers were like robots and could always keep their calm and perform rationally under fire. Sure, there were people like that, and many of them are mentioned in the lists of Congressional Medal of Honor, George's Cross, Knights Cross, or Mannerheim's Cross recipients or were made Heroes of Soviet Union. However, a large portion (some might say that a majority) of men were scared stiff and consequently did stupid things. All the shots that I mentioned were outliers so you (obviously) can't generalize them to "all first shots at <40m will miss and all first shots >1800m will hit". They were meant to be examples on the freaky stuff that happened on the real war in an (partial) answer to the original poster's accuracy question. Now, I'm not certain whether that above makes any sense, but I'm too tired to write a better reply now. Are all Finns like the Finns that post here on the CM board Well, my girlfriend has repeatedly stated that she thinks that I'm actually an alien (most recently when I spent large chunks of my vacation creating a logic program to solve logical puzzles). Does this answer to your question? - Tommi [ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: tss ]

Username wrote: Shots at such close range as 15 meters, while funny and anectodal, have their own psych effect and are not to be taken as accuracy examples. Never claimed anything else. However, I also have the view that pretty much _all_ shots fired in combat have some "psych effect", regardless of range. I forgot to add one interesting thing to my anecdotes above: - During Winter War, Finns noticed that when firing at dusk at normal combat ranges, the 37 mm Bofors AT guns without sights were actually more accurate than guns with sights. (The coming darkness seriously hindered vision through the telescope sight). - Tommi

Gun accuracy in WWII depended on _many_ variables. I don't go now into CM details, but here are some interesting examples with both accurate and inaccurate shots: - On June 1944 near Johannes in Karelian Isthmus one Finnish 75mm AT gun opened fire at a Finnish T-26 at the range of 15 meters. The first shot missed, but the second hit (while the commander of the clearly marked tank was shouting to the gun crew to stop firing). - Also in Karelian Isthmus, during the Finnish counter attack at Kuuterselkä (14 June 1944) one Finnish StuG-IIIG noticed an enemy T-34-85 very close (40m, IIRC), fired and missed. The T-34 fired back, and also missed. The second shot of the Finnish gunner Lauri Leppänen hit the Soviet tank and blew it up. - Although there is some debate whether the following event actually happened, Finnish T-34-76 gunner Reino Lehväslaiho claims to have hit a Soviet T-34 from the range of almost 2000m with the first shot at Portinhoikka on 26 June 1944. - Then there's also the freak occurrence where a Sherman gunner remembered the exact length of Champs Elysee from school and hit a German Panther with the first shot at the range of ~2000m. - A particularly impressive hit happened on 19 (or was it 20) February 1940, when a Finnish 120 mm coastal gun hit a light Soviet tank with sixth round when the range was, again, about 2km. What makes this impressive is the fact that the sights of the Armstrong gun had been blown off by constant Soviet artillery barrages, the elevation and azimuth controls were damaged, and the gun had to be fired by hitting the firing pin with a hammer. - Tommi

Chad Harrison wrote: so no in game "engine freezes", (even from a tank that has been idleling for a long period of time?) A tank idling in the combat field _will_ have its engine on for the whole time, unless there is a severe fuel shortage. Starting up a tank engine was then not a simple "turn an ignition key". Right now I am looking at the startup procedure of BT-7 tanks (or, to be exact, BT-42 assault gun, but the chassis was BT-7). The procedure has 12 steps (+ a five part checklist): 1) Turn off the main power switch. 2) Open the oil valve. 3) Open the main fuel valve of either the right or the left fuel tank. 4) Set the fuel intake selector to the same fuel tank. 5) Use the (manual) air pump to get a 0.2 bar pressure to the fuel tank. 6) Turn the "ryyppy" [don't know the English translation, old cars had this also to help ignition] on for 3-4 seconds. 7) Lubricate the axle of the water pump by turning the switch number 7 two or three times. 8) Turn the magneto selector to "both". 9) Set the middle clutch to position 1. 10) Press the main clutch pedal. 11) Press the accelerator pedal. 12) Give a signal to the rest crew, turn the crank of the auxiliary magneto with your right hand and start the engine using the crank shaft with your left hand. Only in an emergency you may use the quick-start button. I don't know how long it took in practice for an experienced driver to get the BT-7 rolling, but I would suspect that it would be at least 10 seconds, way too long to be comfortable when the enemy is near. and the MG's will have a greater chance of breaking along with other ordanance. I don't think that MGs should have a greater malfunction rate. However, there should be, IMO, a possibility that when a MG opens fire the first time in a scenario, it is frozen and can fire only with greatly reduced rate of fire. This was a _very_ common occurrence with green troops, and happened occasionally also with experienced men. Also, tanks have one additional place that is suspecticle to freezing: turret. For example, when Finns attacked Karhumäki in December 1941, most of the Finnish tanks were frozen up and only the sole T-34 and two T-28s were running. Both T-28s had severe problems with turret travelsal, and in fact one of them froze completely and the gun had to be aimed by turning the whole tank, which was a pretty difficult procedure because T-28 was notoriously difficult vehicle to turn. - Tommi

Valdor wrote: Large caliber air defense guns (used in the air defense role) did not attempt to score direct hits against bombers. They used high explosive rounds whose fuzes were set to burst at the same altitude as the bomber formation and shrapnel was the main kill mechanism On the contrary, after it was found out that "area barrage" didn't really work and bombers got through with only slight losses, AA units of most countries switched to "tracking fire" where each AA gun would choose a specific target from the bomber stream and tried to hit it with repeated shelling. Note that this wasn't particularly effective until the advent of fire-control radars, at which point Germans could focus the fire of an AA battery against a single target. There were some national differences in AA. For example, Germans concentrated on shooting down bombers, while Finns concentrated on preventing bombs hitting the target. In practice this meant that Finns had a standing regulation that only incoming bombers were shot at. The moment that a plane dropped its bombs, any AA guns firing at it would switch target. This strategy would have been ineffective against large and rigid US bomber formations that dropped their bombs all together, but against more spread-out Soviet fleets it was quite effective. Soviet bomber crews found out about it quickly and a significant percentage of them (I don't remember the actual figure, but I think it was somewhere near 10%) jettisoned their bombs prematurely when the AA bursts got too close for comfort. In the end, during the three strategic night bombings of Helsinki in February 1944, only 5% of the Soviet bombs fell in the target area. - Tommi

Once again back at the internet... Subvet wrote: These weapons had a max range of about 50 yards and could fire for about 6-8 seconds. Many months ago I read a Finnish flamethrower operator's guide written in 1942. I can't remember exact model details, but one of the Soviet models surprised me by its ammo amount: it could fire for 20-25 seconds. It was significantly heavier than the German flamethrower (that was also used by Finns). PzKpfw 1 wrote: An 1942 Sapper Bn consisted of 15 officers, 8 PO's, clerc's, & techs, 25 NCO's, 180 enlisted personel, with 7 bikes, 9 wagons, 1 cart, 21 horses, & a feild kitchen. Do you happen to have 1941 stats available? I'm interested because the RKKA defenders of the Särkisyrjä village in 18-21 July 1941 were composed of a sapper batallion and apparently several rifle companies. (The battle interests me because, as I've told earlier, my grandfather's unit fought there). gatpr wrote: The Russians did not invent the Molotov. The first reference is the Winter War. Those fun loving Finns named it for the Soviet foreign minister. I've seen posts that argue the Molotov was actually used in the Spanish Civil War but the posters gave no references. Yes, flaming bottles were used in Spain (but unfortunately I don't have a reference available at hand) and I think that also in Ethiopia but I'm not certain of that. The name "Molotov's coctail" is probably from the Winter War, coined by some war correspondent. However, I haven't been able to find a contemporary Finnish source that uses the term, for example, all my 1940-41 vintage books (~10) use the term "polttopullo" (lit. "burning bottle"). So apparently the term entered widspread use only later. (Similarily to "potero", Finnish term for a foxhole didn't gain widspread use until summer 1944). The name may (or may not) have a connection to "Molotov's breadbasket" that was the nickname of Soviet firebomb-dispenser containing several hundreds of small firebombs. That device got its name as a reference to Molotov's infamous radio speech where he claimed that Soviet aircraft didn't bomb Finnish towns but instead dropped bread for starving masses. (Molotov may have himself believed that--at least for a while--since it seems that at least some of the 30 November 1939 area bombings were mistakes caused by poor aiming). And going back to the original poster's question... There was one thing that Soviet sappers were particularly good at, namely, clearing secret paths through enemy minefields. For example, There were several cases on the Finnish front where a pair of sappers sent several days in the middle of a Finnish minefield, clearing mines quietly at night and lying motionless during the day, right under the noses of sentries. Then a "tongue-patrol" would be sent along the path to capture prisoners. - Tommi

Dr. Brian wrote: From what I can tell, CM does not have an AI (as defined in academia or research circles). I've always liked best the following AI definition: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> A problem is an Artificial Intelligence problem if we humans can solve it but we don't have any idea how to get machines do it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The corollary of this definition is that when we actually find a method to solve the problem, it is no more AI. L.Tankersley wrote: Expert systems tend to be rule-driven; that is, you will have a lot of rules like if A and B then do C Here should be noted that the research on traditional expert systems (as first conceived in the 70's and then hyped in the 80's) is dead. Or so close to death that it should be taken behind the barn and relieved of its misery. The main problem with old-style expert systems is that rules like: If NOT A then B If NOT B then A tend to cause infinite loops in the inference engine. (Starting from the first rule the engine concludes that B is true if A is not. It then tries to find whether A is true and finds that it happens when B is false. Then it tries to find if B is true and finds that it is if A is not true. Then it again tries to prove A and so on to the end of the world or the user's patience.) Also, maintaining the systems became soon a major problem. The standard industrial excample, Digital's XCON, had ~40000 rules and 40% of them changed each year. (The figures may be off, I'm not inclined to dig up the relevant paper ... Oh, it was just beside my monitor. The 40% was change correct but there were only ~17000 rules in 1988, I don't have newer references at hand). First new-generation rule-based expert system prototypes are now entering the use. They are mostly based on the stable model semantics of normal logic programs or some derivative of it. The stable semantics removes the nasty theoretical problems of old rule-based systems. Their main problem in practical use is that no-one has yet found out a sound way of adding probabilities to the rules so basically the systems operate using the closed-world assumption (i.e., everything important is always known). By this far you may start to wonder why I'm writing this long on the subject of rule-based expert systems, when it is pretty much established that CM isn't one, at least in the traditional sense. Well, I'm working in a research team that has created an implementation of the stable semantics and my future doctoral dissertation will most probably be about the subject. (And here's a link to the software homepage http://www.tcs.hut.fi/Software/smodels ) - Tommi