John Kettler

Treeburst155, TexasToast and troops, I did get the missing file, but somehow we managed to mess up the turn numbering or I got a dupe. Sent it back to TexasToast hoping his brain's sharper presently than mine. So, a mere 54 points per game average in each game of my three remaining will beat Fuerte for third from the bottom, eh? With an average of 30.33 presently, that's not asking much, is it? Of course, if I start getting posiluck instead of the frighteningly common negaluck, I might be able to do this, particularly since one of the three games is against the stalwart sportsman Michael Dorosh, whose endurance in the face of CM adversity is a marvel to behold. Regards, John Kettler

The battle against TexasToast was going great, but now seems to be in freefall. I haven't heard anything from him since I sent the movie yesterday. I hope nothing serious happened. Regards, John Kettler

The fateful day has arrived at last, bearing tidings far worse than expected--17th in a field of 24, two of whom were short notice replacements! I figured that I was doing far better than that. But my prediction was right, at least. I did significantly better in the more structured environs of RoW, where I didn't have to contend with all that mini/max ahistorical nonsense, than I'm doing in the Invitational, where with three more games to go I'm next to last in terms of score. Holien can hire me for "losing the battle" whining, but his whining about losing (while winning) seems to have been the better approach by far, as borne out by the results. Holien, do you offer correspondence courses? Clearly, you have both the tactical and psyop sides of the game well in hand. Congratulations to all the winners! Wish I were one, too! Regards, John Kettler

The third movie revealed this battle for what it is--a meeting engagement. My men advancing rapidly on my extreme left collided head-on with TexasToast's doing the same on his extreme right. Spirited fire's being exchanged, casualties are being taken, and troops are taking cover. I seem to be doing well in this firefight, one so close and nasty that our troops are intermingled. The area in front of the left VL shows a few markers for British infantry and two unwelcome pieces of British armor, tanks methinks. In spite of having the left VL contested, I have maintained my victory level from the last turn. Regards, John Kettler

Battle's joined on Treeburst155's fine map. Support fires are falling, my infantry's advancing, and TexasToast's men have been spotted. The field of battle basically consists of a transverse ridge at either end, quite a few trees, and three major eminences, with small VLs on the left and right ones, plus two major VLs on a big hill in the center. There are no roads, but there are multiple avenues for maneuver, quite a bit of terrain elevation change, and multiple covered routes. Things seem to be going well. I have no idea what TexasToast has by way of a force, other than that he has some infantry. Time will tell. Have seen two movies and just issued orders after viewing the second one. Regards, John Kettler

Treeburst155, TexasToast and troops, TexToastvsJK01.txt has been sent. Am now officially playing CM and am back in the Invitational. Regards, John Kettler

Treeburst155, TexasToast and troops, The zipped file worked perfectly, allowing me to deploy my troops for battle and send my German setup today to TexasToast. This will be my first CM game of any sort in weeks. Regards, John Kettler

Troops, How about... Investigating your local military surplus outlets, especially if close to a U.S. Army post or similar. Visiting used book and magazine stores near you, also second hand shops and thrift stores. Calling directory assistance for Columbus, Georgia. Ask for military surplus store listings. I believe mine was bought at Ranger Surplus, NOT Brigade Quartermaster which features new stuff. Calling directory assistance for Columbus, Georgia. This time you want the Ft. Benning number, specifically the PIO (Public Information Officer). That individual and staff are the principal interface between the military and the civilian world beyond the post. Let the PIO know what you're looking for, why, and ask for assistance. You could also try the same approach with the Pentagon. Haunting gun shows, militaria conventions and the like. I saw some great military references for sale by used military book dealers recently at the Orange County Convention (a big game con) held near Los Angeles Airport over President's Day weekend. I know of a model store within a gun and militaria store that has hundreds of books and manuals for sale. Checking E-Bay and similar resources. I know for a fact they sell manuals because I lost out on the definitive WWII U.S. armor/antiarmor gunnery manual. Contacting any of several organizations for veterans and asking for help. Befriending an infantry officer no longer in the service or a serving officer who no longer needs the manual. Attending estate sales of deceased soldiers. This list is by no means exhaustive. Instead, it serves to illustrate an array of approaches by which to obtain the valuable information in the manual I described. Regards, John Kettler

I wanted to acquaint all of you with a wonderful source of information which cost me the princely sum of a buck. Yes, you read that right. It's called SH 7-42 "Historical Vignettes--Infantry In Action" and is published by the Tactics Division at Fort Benning, Georgia specifically for students in the Infantry Officer's Advanced Course. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. I bought my February 1992 edition out of a big footlocker of used manuals at a surplus store just off the post there and only recently got around to reading it. The thing's an inch thick 8.5 x 11" gold mine, not just for CMBO but for most of the games to come. Want the skinny on seizing the bridge at Remagen? It's there, in amazing detail. Hanker to make a scenario of the taking of Nuremberg? Not only is the information there, but we learn that the key company involved consisted of 95% replacements, that in addition to basic load, each infantryman was further tasked to carry 1.5 more bandoleers of M-1 ammo, two WP grenades (used for room clearing!) and one frag grenade. Further, each platoon, regardless of actual size, was required to bring ten rifle grenades and ten bazooka rounds. Can't wait to fight in North Africa? Then read all about how the Aussies beat Rommel's first attempts to seize Tobruk. Detailed maps and strongpoint schematics are provided. Italy receives rich coverage with the Battle of Santa Maria Infante in May 1944. You'll have to research the foliage, but the maps are detailed enough that you can easily build the terrain and site the defenders and the attackers. Fire support included not only CMBO smoke but WP! CMBO fans can read about and depict the 6th Armored Division's night crossing of the Our River as well as Operation Goodwood. PTO types have the Los Banos raid (sorry about tilde). And Russia? Tons of goodies, including great chunks of the German Reports on Russian battle tactics and German responses to them. Included is a major writeup on the brilliant German withdrawal under heavy pressure from the Demyansk pocket and the important role Sgt. Horst Naumann's stubby StuG (had fifteen kills going in) played in holding off the Russian armor, destroying six T-34s in only a few minutes, four in the first minute alone. He was the first StuG NCO to win the Knight's Cross and was later made an officer for his combat bravery. Gunnery grogs will be especially interested in the discussion of ammo expended per kill, target servicing rates and engagement ranges, not to mention Naumann's use of a scissors telescope. Another pearl is that the Russians used WP as part of the barrage of artillery, mortars and Katyusha fire which preceded the attack. This publication has great maps but unfortunately terrible photos, the inevitable result of multigeneration photocopying. Korea isn't ignored, and Vietnam is depicted by the fight for LZ X-Ray, the very topic covered in Mel Gibson's new movie "We Were Soldiers" in which he plays the role of the on ground commander. This book is dirt cheap and will teach all who read it a great deal about the handling and capabilities of infantry and the coordination of infantry with armor. There's some juicy stuff on how the Americans conducted their World War II combat marches into Germany with armored/motorized units. This alone would be of considerable value to scenario designers. Get yourself a copy of this amazing, ubermeaty document and go hog wild. Happy reading! John Kettler

Okay, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my iMac is now apparently in full working order, even deigning to boot with the CM CD inserted. I'm pleased and grateful. The bad news is that I went to take a look at my recently arrived map for my battle against TexasToast, only to discover upon opening it that the dread flat Earth problem has returned and that I'm playing on the steppes, not Northwest Europe. Treeburst155, please do whatever it is you've done in the past to get me a map file with terrain relief in it. Thanks! Regards, John Kettler

Jarmo, My brain's pretty furry right now. Please explain what you mean and how I'm supposed to do it. For our purposes, please consider me as having an iMac and no means of burning a CD or creating a diskette. Regards, John

kmead and troops, As noted earlier, I have 64MB RAM. Historically, this has been enough to run the game while still in my E-mail program. Otherwise, AAR production would be even harder. The good news (see Invitational thread Part III) is that I have at least enough functioning now in my iMac that I was able to buy troops and send the buy to Treeburst155. So far, it still doesn't boot with the CD in the drive, but at least I can play CM again. Thanks for all your help. Will look into some of the other procedures when I have more grey cells online! Regards, John Kettler

First of all, in light of Ben's dramatic rise to challenge for the top spot, I'll say I guess I was fortunate to get a draw against him (I did, didn't I?). Second, Michael's luck clearly rivals mine. Third, my iMac essentially autocleared, of which more shortly, allowing me to finally buy my troops and send the buy to Treeburst155. TexasToast, it's cybercombat time! Now to return to the strange tale of the seismically stuck/broken/perverse/demonically infested computer. In today's episode I tried to get it to read the CD. Wonder of wonders, it worked. Sort of. The game opened just far enough to kick up a partial error screen, one I know means the game can't find Apple Sprockets. My error message box was empty, though. I closed the screen, closed the game and tried again. Same outcome. I turned the computer completely off, rebooted with the CD out, let the computer finish startup, then inserted the CD. Worked! I've been fooled before, so I next clicked the game icon. Behold! The game opened complete with sound. When I exited to the main panel, all four buttons were there, not the dread two, allowing me to actually open the scenario generator and buy troops for the first time in weeks. There was a fairly interesting development which occurred between by last cybersob here and what I describe above. The development? A magnitude 4.6 earthquake at roughly my latitude and about 70 miles away between two of the Channel Islands. This is spitting distance compared to the apparent problems I had before the Seattle quake. Today's 4.6 is the largest quake California's had in months. The crustal grinding as the tectonic stresses built up prior to the 1:33 p.m. PST quake may thus well account for the cybernetic horrors I've related here. I'm back!!! Regards, John Kettler [ March 16, 2002, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

kmead and troops, I painstakingly went through all the PRAM resetting (logged and reentered the settings), Desktop rebuilding, Finder Pref trashing and the like. I killed virtual memory for a time as well, but didn't mess with the Open GL thing because I didn't know what to do. Zero results as before, together with an insufficient memory flag, which I cured by allocation 65 MB of virtual memory. My iMac was no better after a great deal of work, so I went to bed. Get this. I got up this morning and booted afresh, with the CD not inserted. Booted fine. After boot was complete, I tried putting in the CD. Would you believe that it worked (showed CM CD icon) for the first time in what may be weeks? Not only that, but the game actually ran. Woo hoo. NOT. No sound. I tried every trick and checked all the sound controls. Everything was right. I did a restart with the CD out to kind of kickstart whatever was stuck, only to find that once again the CD drive wasn't registering on the CPU's awareness. That was where things were when I had to leave the area or smash the computer. The latest wrinkle is that I tried again post reboot a little while ago and this time had sound from the beginning (wait for it!) but again got the no CD detected message. Am about ready to entertain the notion the thing's possessed! Regards, John Kettler [ March 15, 2002, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

I have a Russian language 1980 ex-Soviet book called in English THE DEVELOPMENT OF AVIATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE USSR. It treats the development of Russian aircraft and armament during WWII as part of its coverage and has explicit coverage of the latter. This book will only be of real use if you already have a Russian speaker or access to a translator (was starting to learn the language when I got it, but got derailed). Let me know if you'd like to borrow this book to support the war effort. Steve, I hope you got all the Hungarian info you were seeking. Any luck with the Hungarian war veteran group? Regards, John Kettler

And we haven't even discussed mixed fields, isolated mines and antilift devices! Regards, John Kettler

Depends. I've had everything from fighter bombers finding hidden enemy armor over the next ridge and blasting it (love those smoke pillars!) to not showing up or, worse, blasting my own troops, happily not as severely as some here have related. Air power can work great and when it does, exerts vast leverage, but it's uncertainty in both arrival and effectiveness makes it a real wild card. My limited reading on its battlefield effectiveness tends to confirm this. I just finished reading an account of a battle in Italy in which an American infantry unit was hit both by the 3 x FW-190s and a bunch of Mustangs, fortunately without much damage. I tend to prefer artillery, for reliability, overall usefulness, and sustained combat power. That said, I have been brutalized by hostile aircraft in both QBs and tournament play. Hope this helps. Regards, John Kettler

Foreigner, I appreciate the information very much. "Washing Machine Charlie" as tank killer? Wow! Imagine how exciting such an attack might be if the Po-2 throttled back the engine and glided out of the clouds unheard until too late! There's a great episode of the M*A*S*H syndicated TV series which deals with "Washing Machine Charlie" in the Korean War. Every day at dusk he comes winging over the camp, engine sputtering, and drops a single small bomb, which not only never hits the intended target (a minor supply dump) but is the source of a betting pool. Trouble ensues when the sanctimonious Major Burns brings in an antiaircraft gun to deal with the intruder and violates the Geneva Convention by arming a disarmed place. If you've got solid info on the PTAB or anything else along Russian ordnance for CMBB lines, you might want to ping BTS directly. That kind of thing doesn't grow on trees. Regards, John Kettler

Silvio Manuel, I've done the same thing myself. It's easy to do, much like the leading problem found for color TVs not working--set's not plugged in! Regards, John Kettler

Someone in the Invitational thread, part III suggested that I ask for help here. The problems I describe have prevented me from completing the Invitational tournament. My 233 Mhz iMac (64 MB RAM, 2 MB VRAM on ATI Rage Pro, OS 8.6) has strange problems similar to ones I've seen before several major quakes hit. In the past I've had periods of days right before a quake in which the computer was extremely difficult to boot or wouldn't boot at all, only to mysteriously clear hours later after being totally hung up. I've also seen it have terrible difficulties handshaking to go online and have had some instances where the CD was in the drive, yet I kept getting told it wasn't. Usually a couple of restarts handled the last. The computer acts squirrelly during solar flares and geomagnetic storms, too. Let the quake occur or the sun calm down, though, and the computer runs great. As soon as the Nisqually quake hit, my computer immediately reverted to its normal ultrareliable self. I live in Southern California. As noted in the Invitational thread, I believe at least part of this may be attributable to broadband EM emissions which lab tests by Japanese scientists have shown are emitted when granite is crushed, in turn crushing the diferent sizes, hence different frequencies,of quartz crystals embedded within it, and releasing great amounts of piezoelectricity. The tests showed that a PC exhibited all sorts of unusual behaviors while a block of granite was crushed in a giant hydraulic ram, including switching on and off spontaneously, opening and closing windows and programs. Anecdotal evidence from the Pacific Northwest prior to the Nisqually quake reported everything from minor glitches to fried PC hard drives and dead PCs. Saw no reports of dead Macs. With the above as background, here's what's happened and what I've done to fix it. Briefly, my iMac totally hangs up if I try to boot with the CM CD inserted. I never get to see even the Mac icon, getting nothing but blank grey screen. If I pop the CD out while my iMac's hung up, though, the icon pops out and normal boot begins. BTW, the computer is a bit sluggish, but save for the CD problem, otherwise works fine. Worse, if I boot without the CD then insert it either during or after the boot and try to play the game, I get an error message saying I need to put the CM CD in the drive. For whatever reason, the fact that the CD's there already isn't registering on the CPU. I've tried booting with and without the Internet, using both restarts and cold boots. I've even completely unplugged the computer, carefully checked all the connections, then rebooted. No joy. I've rebuilt the Desktop twice, both times trashing the Finder Prefs. No joy. And I've repeatedly cleaned the computer with iClean. Nada. My sense is that somehow CPU cycles are being "stolen" thus hamstringing my iMac as it tries to boot with the CD in the drive (CD has no scratches; drive won't read CDs period; checked read lens with magnifier and found no contaminants on its surface). The boot process with the CD in sounds like the computer's going all out, but simply doesn't have enough oomph to get the job done. The boot sound without the CD in is much quieter and obviously less stressful to the equipment. Has anyone else had problems like mine? Does anyone have a proven serious solution or a potentially good idea to resolve these incredibly aggravating problems which are not only delaying the Invitational but are causing me severe CM withdrawal? I'm a patient man, but these have been so galling I nearly took a hammer to the computer in total frustration. Thanks for any and all help. Sincerely, John Kettler

kmead, Here's another little treasure for you and all the CMBB mod community. I blundered across this site while searching for something entirely different. http://www.activevr.com/afv/1-35.html Regards, John Kettler

Oh dear! I seem to have triggered another PTSD episode in Kingfish. Such wasn't my intention, but my Crocodile experience is rather limited, and he was part of it. He conveniently forgets, though, how many of his actions led to mine and the unspeakable things he did to my troops. Regards, John Kettler

The technical problems continue, but I now have a better sense of what's happening. It's as though the computer barely has enough oomph to run as it does, with the CD adding so much load to the system that it simply won't boot with the CD engaged, nor will it read the CD if inserted after booting. The impression is that the computer is using all of its cycles to operate at all, and that the CD puts it into such overload that it hangs up and stays hung. I've never seen my iMac stay stuck this long before. It's aggravating beyond belief, and that's without factoring in CM withdrawal! Regards, John Kettler

Will German cluster munitions be modeled? Details are available in the scarce Paladin Press reissue of GERMAN EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE, which among other things covers all the German aerial bombs, the pioneering antipersonnel cluster bomb units using 5 cm mortar rounds as the submunition, and the SD 50 butterfly bomb. I'd provide the full nomenclators, but unfortunately, I lent the book a long time ago to a cop in bomb disposal who suddenly went through a horrific divorce and dropped out of sight. Will the Dinort rods (fuze extenders for max destructive effect) be modeled? Will similar Russian weapons be modeled? I believe there was a crude antiarmor cluster munition called PTAB or some such. Regards, John Kettler

kmead, Glad to be of help! Looks as though you're getting plenty. Regards, John Kettler