Andreas

So isn't that the same as a grain field, only slightly more greenish ? </font>

Is there more or less cover in this forest? Picture taken by my grandfather, probably in the Wolchow sector, Army Group North. To be honest I do not know the answer to it, but I agree that in the new engine I would love to see terrain damage beyond craters. I.e. if a 15cm or a 300mm rocket barrage comes down in the forest, trees should be affected visually. This would add to the game.

Me fail English? That's unpossible. Another little tidbit, it is possible that Zuege and Gruppen were also referred to not by numbers, but by the name of the commander, in official documents, e.g. KTBs. Tommy, are you sure that Zugfuehrer and their water-carriers would be referred to as 'Stab'? That is the first time I hear that. I think the lowest level at which an HQ becomes a 'Stab' is battalion.

Ahem - as my two examples show, it may actually not be correct 'most' of the time. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is really dependent on the length of the scenario. In both cases, the scenarios were set to 60 turns fixed. Delays were about twice what you would expect under the rule of thumb you outlined above. What scenario length did you test things at?

Sometimes much delayed though... During a life-game mini-campaign weekend we had designed two games with air support, and the planes (designed for turn 10 and 15) turned up at turns 25 and 35, respectively... By which time they no longer had any influence on the game.

I fully agree with Joachim. The buildings are grey in our mind because we know them from B/W pictures - or you know them from not being renovated for a long time. A nice dose of colour would do a lot to spice citymaps up. Here are some examples from Berlin - these are all newly renovated, but the colours are quite realistic I would say. Especially since for renovations there are very tight regulations about colours in Germany.

No idea what the predecessor was, but blimey was 15th Guards Rifle decorated... From Skalman.nu: Awards Order of Lenin Order of Red Banner x 2 Order of Suvorov Order of Kutuzov Order of Red Banner (44., 47 & 50 Guards Rifle Regiment & 43. Guards Artillery Regiment) Order of Suvorov (43. Guards Artillery Regiment) Order of Alexander Nevskiy (44. Guards Rifle Regiment) Order of Bogdan Khmelnitskiy (47. Guards Rifle Regiment) Honour titles Khrakov Prague Czestochowa (50. Guards Rifle Regiment) Oder (43. Guards Artillery Regiment) Prague (47. Guards Rifle Regiment) Silesia (44. Guards Rifle Regiment)

These are brilliant. You can also give a nice ochre colour to one of them, and set off the decorative stonework in white. That is fairly common, I think. The pink is not an unusual colour.

Just to add to what Mike already said: 4., 8. and 12. Kompanie were the heavy companies (81mm mortars and HMGs) 13. Kompanie was AT, 14. Kompanie was Infantry-gun. In some regiments the Staff company would be numbered 15.Kompanie Pionier and Flak Kompanies on regimental level were not standard, AFAIK. Pioniere were grouped in a divisional Pionierbatallion, and Flak was either there or not, depending on the division, so I do not think that they would be a standard 15./16. Kompanie. Additionally there would be a regimental band, and a supply column. All this can be found here, if you can read German. I can really not praise Lexikon der Wehrmacht enough.

You are right Mike, and I did *not* word it quite correctly. I think it is an unfair comparison. You can of course make it, but it is a bit senseless, since you are, to a degree, comparing apples and oranges. Comparing the early M4 against the M42/43 T34 still does not get you around the issue that the upgraded T34 was held back by a basic design that at this stage was three years old, if not older (this is really showing in the turret design), while the M4 designers were not encumbered to the same degree, and could use a lot of directly relevant war experience to design their vehicle. A luxury the Soviet designers did not have, since they did not start from scratch. Edit: Ahem... [ July 15, 2003, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

That does not mean there was no cost to the tank. Even in Communism there are value streams. The M3 Lee must have had its combat debut in 1942, since it was used in Afrika before El Alamein. Flamingknives' comment that the M4 and the T34 can be compared because they were used at the same time I do not agree with. That is the same as saying that the Hetzer and the German Jagdpanzer Kanone can be compared because they were in service at the same time for some of their service life. The T34 was a 1939 or 1940 design, if not earlier. It was in production two years before the Sherman, and unlike the Sherman did not benefit from any wartime experience. It is hardly surprising that even upgraded and upgunned it had fundamental design flaws that made the Sherman the better overall tank. In the same way as the Panther is overall much better than the Panzer IV.

Don't know which game you are playing, but in mine you can buy 88s (100% rarity) in June 1941, and Stukas (20%) in (who would have guessed) June 1941. Regarding the impression that your planes always miss, and the opponents' always hit, I can assure you it is the same in my game though, regardless which side I am playing.

Käytän 7x8 km2 karttapohjaa joka kattaa kaiken Talista Ihantalaan ja Juustilan kanavalta Talin myllylle. Kaikkea en aio "värittää", mutta esim. Leitimojärven-Portinhoikan seutu on jo melkein kokonaan pussissa ja joitakin muitakin tärkeitä seutuja, esim. Marjamäki. Portinhoikka-kartta onkin jo Skenaariovarikolla. </font>

Käytän 7x8 km2 karttapohjaa joka kattaa kaiken Talista Ihantalaan ja Juustilan kanavalta Talin myllylle. Kaikkea en aio "värittää", mutta esim. Leitimojärven-Portinhoikan seutu on jo melkein kokonaan pussissa ja joitakin muitakin tärkeitä seutuja, esim. Marjamäki. Portinhoikka-kartta onkin jo Skenaariovarikolla. </font>

He uses the 32MB ATI Radeon 7000 AGP. I know because he told me it was the only one worth having, so I got it too. Looks good.

Leland, excellent work! I got it to run under Virtual PC with no problems. Of course I will get Kip to do the actual exporting for me, but hey, that's what friends are for Thanks a lot for the work you have done for this. BFC should buy the software off you!

Ah - thanks a lot. Your sudden mane change had me flummoxed

So? What's your point? Movies are dubbed all over the world. There are nevertheless people in all those countries who speak more than their native language, especially compared to Britain and the US where much more people are monoglot. I also don't see a rejection of the idea of this type of mod as 'cracking down', but rather a strong encouragement to go out and learn some very basic 'foreign', because it has advantages beyond just understanding terms in the game. It is probably easier than modding it anyway.

That wouldn't be fun, now would it? Anyone can do it with a smokescreen.

They have one at Bovington, just in case you need an excuse to come over.

Had forgotten about the Archer. If you really like the vehicle so much, try to find PawBroon's excellent mod for it, install it, and then play this (if you can get a kind soul to email it to you): Epsom

Well, as a German native speaker living in Britain, I have more than my fair share of exposure to crap German accents in war movies. Still, it is better than getting them to try and talk German (Alan Rickman in 'Die Hard': "Schiess dem Fenster". Indeed...) I have even, on the basis of my own crap German accent when speaking English, been asked to perform as (to wide acclaim) Herr Flick in a short sketch at a company away-day (Brits will know what that is). People should just learn the smuttering of German or Russian needed to get by in CM. That would have the added benefit avoid the most embarassing mistakes in scenario briefings and titles. Ugh...

CMBO: the Challenger, because a few times I had people wondering how that Comet knocked out their Tiger... CMBB: KV1 early in the war. It looks like a battleship, is invulnerable and gets the job done. Later in the war the ISU-152. The philosophy behind it is the same as that behind the Kill-o-Zap. You know exactly which end is the wrong one to be on.

Okay, I have now found a short section in Mellenthin's book on the 8.PD. Seems they did not exactly perform rivetingly (to put it mildly) during the defense against the L'vov Sandomierz Operation, with the divisional commander and one of the regimental commanders having to be relieved by Balck. Such are the perils of Auftragstaktik I guess. Still, not enough detail, and Mellenthin is notoriously useless when it comes to identifying who they actually fought against. Did the Germans really have no effing clue, or can he just not be bothered? Bloody primadonnas, those German staff officers.

And where is the review, eh wot? Where is it?