John Kettler

Thought this would be of interest to the CMBS and CMSF2 players. Whether it has any direct relevance to either game is in BFC's hands. SOFAIK, neither game extends this far forward in time. Wonder what will replace the Stryker MGS? Am thinking something like Nona might be good, since it would combine the ability to fire potent HE directly and indirectly, including PGMs. https://www.sofmag.com/army-to-ditch-the-stryker-mobile-gun-system/?fbclid=IwAR1Vi-XqEc4g3zdIa93OSdFI3LuOLgw-ftFer0vNCgx-gaiUcEEK49j_oxA Regards, John Kettler

Here's the GPW portfolio for the artist who did the amazing work above. 375 photos! https://www.flickr.com/photos/22155693@N04/albums/72157641336524475/page1 Regards, John Kettler

This is a marvelous visual resource and gives the GPW a living human face B/W simply can't convey. https://fb.watch/5nH-lo5aMV/ Regards, John Kettler

Though it says Red Army, there are far more time and emphasis placed of the Russian Air Force and Navy. The lack of major coverage of the Red Army per se is disappointing, but, unlike the usual weaponry-driven discourses typical of military documentaries, this one has considerable analysis, by Russian military experts in and outside of Russia, as best I can tell. The program takes the viewer to all sorts of places amazing to this former Soviet Threat Analyst during the Cold War. There is considerable discussion of the Russians in Syria, of defense policy; of real limitations in the decision makers who do not know war, unlike those who served during the GPW and later lived through the terrors of potential nuclear annihilation within an hour a handful of decades ago. There's even a look at Kalashnikov's factory rebuild (while continuing production the whole time), its total vertical integration, tracked combat robot and more. Corruption in the arms industry is talked about, and even with Putin-initiated reforms, apparently the problem is so severe even he has to suck it up. Well worth your 49 minutes to watch his, which I believe was done by the Germans, for there was a WELT (German for world) bug on the video. Regards, John Kettler

Ultradave, Forgot to do the last, but it's moot for now because I can't even get the DL to start now. Shall resume this tomorrow. Thanks for your help! Regards, John Kettler

Ultradave, The BFC requires me to use my email for my Username, but I use my name for the Forums, so there shouldn't be the issue you described. Shall try again on the DL. It'll be either the fifth or sixth attempt. Regards, John Kettler

Ultradave, It didn't so much as twitch, let alone open the message you stated. Had an almost 20 minute conversation and srtill nothing! Am trying again as I write this. Regards, John Kettler

Ultradave, Thanks! Am doing as you describe right now, waiting for it to do anything following the initial Open. What I don't understand is why this DL is such a problem child when, for example, there was nothing like this for CMFB or CMBS? Was there some fundamental change that created this situation? Regards, John Kettler

Have been on Macs from way back to the CMBO Beta Demo and am also grateful BFC still does Mac versions, since so many things are PC only. Sadly, some of the outside developer BFC products weren't, such as TOW, CMA, T-72. Meanwhile, disaster has again struck! Have screenshot, but here's the error message. The operation couldn't be completed. (com.apple.installer.pagecontroller error-1.) Couldn't open "CMCW Mac v100 Installer .pkg". Have been up all night and am going to bed. Perhaps while I'm asleep someone will post some insights on why this is happening? Regards, John Kettler

Am having huge issues with the Mac DL. My internet here works fine, including streaming with no issues, and my iMac restarted faster than in ages, but that DL barely starts and moves glacially if at all. One finally did fully DL but then the installer wouldn't open! Am on my fourth or fifth try. Not one of the previous DLs for a CM game has ever been like this. Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone had an issue with the Mac DL and/or install? If it's not that, then I think there might be a server issue, for everything seems to work here that's not the CMCW DL. Regards, John Kettler

Thanks for the tip. The email with the link was indeed in Spam. DL is watching the glacier vanish over the next hill! Don't know how much is BFC server getting hammered and how much is overall internet, in which FB barely works at all. All, Can someone tell me, please, why the Mac DL is 3 GB and the Windows 2 GB? Microsoft has long been notorious for writing fat code and Apple not, so what gives? Regards, John Kettler

Am in, but my order shows as PROCESS. What now? Regards, John Kettler

Am unclear on how to proceed. Paid for the pre-order and the DVD. Received invoice showing entire order details and that DVD had shipped. Got Activation Key in that invoice. Now, what to I do to download? Am exceedingly rusty on this score. From what I can see from the page called Games, then the CMCW one, looks to me as though it's just a regular order page. Must be missing something in terms of procedure. Thanks! Regards, John Ketller

I see what you mean, but in my elementary school days, our big rolling football equipment locker had WW II pattern (maybe even age) Rawlings leather helmets, and I saw a fair number of people running around in oversized helmets. Here are a few pics from the GPW showing tank commanders in their padded helmets. Unfortunately front only. Though a military miniature only, this does give some idea how bulky the helmet was. There seem to have been several different types, some more trim than others. The modern Russian tanker helmets from before the new ABS ones were introduced were huge, bigger even than the ones from the GPW. http://www.alpineminiatures.com/images/figpix/35215/35215bb.jpg Regards, John Kettler

Forgive the neologism, but you'll understand why when you see this! Unsurprisingly, the builder, Jaime Cara, camotanker on IG, won a contest with this. I Love Scale Models on FB has the full spread of 14 pics of this gloriously nasty looking beast of war. Note the Berlin-Oder strategic operation ID markings. Am puzzled by the lack of a radio antenna. Perhaps it was shot away? Hard to believe as meticulous a model builder as this guy would forget to put it on. Don't know whether it's possible to suppress portions of the track guard yet still see the tracks. Regards, John Kettler

Tout's Battle of Tilly is a nightmare to read, being the perfect storm of turgid writing, hard to read type and near zero white space. This is unfortunate because there's lots of great information and accounts of various aspects of the battle in in it, including how well hidden Tiger 1s in tank pits in cornfields were: practically invisible, but able to wreak havoc on the towering by comparison Shermans, most of whose hull and turret were exposed above the corn. Another good one was the German nickname for the Panzer IV. It translated as Rothbard or Rothbart with the weak chin, referring to the 50 mm turret front armor, the weak point in the tank's frontal armor. The battle for the coal pit was memorable, too, unusual and really ugly. If I could find that British infantry combat account I refer to in my Still Searching OP, would give that an unqualified recommendation. At the time that concerns us, the author of the diary commanded an infantry company, which is about as pertinent to what you seek as it gets, right down to how many men with full sized shovels were immediately sent forward to fortify the area around a newly captured farmhouse before the Germans could counterattack. Stopping the Panzers by Marc Milner got five stars on Amazon and won the Brigadier General John L. Collins Prize. A quick perusal of the Look Inside ringingly affirmed the immense value of this book, which is all about the previous unrecognized signal contribution of the Canadians to preventing the Panzers from attacking the invasion beaches. A single paragraph describing the combat experience of a Panther column butchered by Firefly fire through the flanks was enough to convince me this book is a must read. Gets down to the level of a named TC's tank gets hit, the gunner is killed, and what happens thereafter upon bailing out. Intimate look at tank warfare from the German side, but if that's the way the rest of the book is done, then it's easy to see why it got five stars on Amazon. Patrick Delaforce's Taming the Panzers is all about the 3 RTR at war, including Normandy. It's first rate. Have not read it yet (want to), but Blackburn's book, The Guns of Normandy, on serving with 25 pounders in Normandy, has gotten great comments on the CM Forums and was followed by The Guns of Victory which covers the British artillery to the end of the war in Europe: Belgium, Holland and Germany. One juicy morsel from the first book was of near instant fire support while on the move in column. A battery was designated for the job, and someone carefully tracked the location of the battery on the road. When a fire request came in, the battery would pull off next to the road, deploy, load and open fire. Once the mission was over, the battery would pack up and return to the column as before. And while the battery wasn't in the march column, the column kept rolling. Regards, John Kettler

Warts 'n' all, Too funny! I did find it to begin with and definitely passed the word tomy CM colleagues, too. Would've made all the sense in the world to put it on the CMBN Forum, but for the life of me, I can't find the blasted thing. Maybe because it's no longer existent? That happened to me when I failed to print out a most illuminating analysis of what Russian ATRs did to a Tiger Kompanie at Kursk. So extensive were deliberately targeted vision block losses to the cupolas that the entire Kompanie was unfightable, despite Abteilung stocks being exhausted, forcing getting them from Regiment, which took two weeks. Just as well, for many TCs had glass in their eyes, putting them temporarily out of action, and a few had the vision block and bracket smashed straight into their faces. The guys who got the hit in the face with armor glass and the stout steel bracket for it were hospitalized for upwards of two weeks. When I next looked for the account, it was gone. Huge informational loss of some highly unusual and valuable information! As for the current matter, I think the problem lies in defective memory as to the unit. Believe it was one of those two or three part names, but the short form was five, with the last letter being "S" for sure. As it is, I don't really have enough to use the Internet Wayback Machine, either. That's why I was hoping that seeing the OP might jog someone's memory. So far, no miracles on this project. Regards, John Kettler

Probably a year ago or more I posted that I was trying to find a link for an online account of a British Rifle Company in action in Normandy. Want to say it was the diary of a Major Foster or Forster and that the unit was part of the Hamps, though that could well be wrong. Try as I might on several occasions, I couldn't find it, and no one ever reported finding it, either, though it's somewhere on this Forum, I believe. The level of detail was truly impressive, such as how many men with shovels were rapily advanced to defend a newly captured farm against German counterattack, moving to the assault, necessity of capturing the Jumping Off Point in order that the entire assault by a division (?) could go forward. His company was the spearhead of the whole effort. It talked about fire support, timing, lifting the fire, etc. As a reference on the nits and grits of the British Army at CMx2 level, it was priceless, and I wish I could find it, for myself, and for the Members in general. Can anyone please help? Regards, John Kettler

That, unfortunately, presently remains correct, but this is something I can at least look at once I can DL. The subject matter of the new game was my job from Valentine's Day 1978 on for many years. Killing Soviet and Warsaw Pact AFVs was a major part of the Hughes Aircraft Missile Systems group product line, which included TOW, a whole bunch of Maverick versions, the developmental revolutionary WASP brilliant swarm missile, the deep strike massed armor killer ASSAULT BREAKER and more. If a particular CMx2 title interests me, and I can afford it, I pre-order. May not be able to play now, but am fundamentally an optimist (I WILL be able to eventually play) and a BFC supporter, so pre-ordered anyway. Regards, John Kettler

After closely watching and listening to the Saumur King Tiger, would say that it's considerably quieter, at higher speed, than the ISU-152 at slower speed. It, though, is on an IS-1 chassis, not that of an IS-2. Here is an IS-2 barely moving, even more slowly than the ISU-152 above. Am solely concerned with engine noise. To me, it's much noisier than a King Tiger. Regards, John Kettler

Bufo, Given where you live, obviously! Regards, John Kettler

It's OOP again, and the only ones I could find were astronomic in price--for the exact same plastic model as in 1972. In round numbers, $75 plus $50 shipping from Japan and $180 for a fully built and painted one done in China. No crew and don't know if shipping is included in that shocking price. Regards, John Kettler

KGBoy, Russian antitank gun doctrine was not to fire at maximum range, because of low hit probability and giving the enemy the opportunity to detect and attack the gun positions before really effective range for them was reached. Instead, the Russian practice was to hold fire until the Panzers were in the high probability of hit range, but not so close they could easily overrun the guns. As I stated above, the open fire range for the 45 mm was 500 meters and 750 meters for the more powerful and longer range 76.2 mm ZIS-3. The idea was to deliver surprise fire at close range to shock and disrupt, then bury the Panzers under a hail of follow up fire. This simply can't be done at longer range. Regards, John Kettler

If the Mods don't take care of it first and disappear tis wrong forum post, just pretend the American soldiers who met the Russians at the Elbe saw one. Regards, John Kettler

Mods, After putting this on the wrong forum, I copied it over to CMRT, but try as I might, I can't get rid of my oops. Please make this one disappear ASAP. Thanks! Regards, John Kettler