Andreas

Since Grisha and I are not split personalities, I need to point out that I started that particular thread. I would also like to point out that unlike Jason's thread, it is not at all aimed at how to play CM with the Soviets. It is a historical discussion that may or may not have some interesting points relating to CM, but certainly won't tell you anything about which units to choose in CM battles, or how to employ them.

Ah, but the Soviets were not the one doing the betraying, only capitalist colonialist worker-oppressing class-based reactionary societies such as Britain are capable of such acts of heinous backstabbing - in fact the Poles on the Soviet side were fighting for a Poland free to be suppressed by Stalin's stooges, and they magnificently achieved that aim. The trust and unanimity between the Soviets and the Poles was such that the Polish combat units were often commanded by Soviet officers with Soviet commissars thrown in. True friendship and common goals if I have ever seen them.

Where do you live then? Must be Kent or Essex, since there are not Conservative MPs anywhere else. I just need to ensure I give the place a wide berth in the future, if I am not doing so already.

When I still played CMBO I preferred the Pommies, or their colonial side-kicks from Canuckia, or alternatively their soon-to-be betrayed fighters for a free Poland. Must be something about those helmets, and the 25-pdrs. I never warmed to the US forces, and everybody seems to want to play the Germans anyway. Now I much prefer to play the Soviets - most interesting weaponry and tactics.

I do not think this statement is correct. I would not put money onto it, but I am pretty sure that the automated purchase function does take rarity into account for vehicles. Been a while we discussed this on the beta board.

Huh? That is the first time I hear that claim, so I just tested that. Did you by any chance notice that the AI purchases its units BEFORE you purchase yours? Unless it is a mindreader (in which case Charles will soon be abducted by the US government and interned in Area 51), I wonder how it should manage that. There are enough ludicrous claims about the game flying about, no need to add to them with something that is very easy to check, and clearly wrong.

John, I am using a Mac OS 9.2.2 w/Opera 5 as browser, and have no problem. No idea what your problem could be. Best to follow the suggestion to contact the chap.

Those could be Ju-88, unless the war diarist specified the specific model.

Ahem - this is of course only true for the west, not for all 'front lines wholesale', and even there it should be June 1940. Ju 87 Stukas were effective until the last days of the war in the east, and certainly used a lot in the Mediterranean.

Couple of folks wargamed that one and have the AARs up. Kanev 2000

Anything to back up that statement? </font>

You lock the main firing positions in place (bunkers, trenches etc.) - wouldn't they stay in place for the next battle(s)? As for the other assets - yep they can be moved. So what, if that means giving up good positions?

Are you sure that the Kirovograd thing can be counted as a 'drop'? I have not been able to find anything on that, which leads me to believe it was maybe just flying the chaps to an airport close to the frontline. Have you got some easily accessible info on that?

Very nice site - haven't seen that before so here is the link. For Valor

Indeed Marlow. Or have operations with variable battle length, i.e. the first battle is just recon with 20 turns, and the second the main assault with e.g. 60 turns and the main force on the board.

This idea about probing a scenario is quite interesting. Unfortunately there is a real risk that it completely alters the balance of the game. In a scenario I did for CMBO, the initial defense force is so small that the attacker could just waltz over them, in 5-8 turns. In turn 10 however, if the defender has managed to hold on that long, he receives reinforcements that balance the game, if it has not already ended. The key element here is of course that the attacker does not know the exact positioning of the defending forces, does not know how strong they are, and is not aware of the timing of reinforcements. Or, simpler put, operates under FOW conditions. The best scenarios I have played relied on FOW to achieve their class. In that sense, they are one-shot wonders. Replayability is not even not a design-feature, it is purposefully designed out of the scenario. Like Anthony, I only play double-blind, and I never replay a scenario. To me that is not even a question. It certainly is not correct, as postulated here at the outset "[...]that many, if not most scenarios should NOT be played blind." In the case of scenarios I designed, it is quite simply that ALL of them should be played blind, because that is what they were designed for.

4 = number of Shermans in a platoon. It actually works with 2 as well if you have a Commonwealth platoon. Step 1: Platoon IDs German heavy Step 2: Platoon retreats to turret down Step 3: Platoon OC in 75 Sherman plays bait by breaking cover at high speed, trundling past the German heavy Step 4: Firefly breaks cover at different point when the German heavy is turning the turret to deal with high-speed 75 Sherman Step 5: Firefly whacks German heavy or Step 6: German heavy whacks Firefly but gets whacked by flanking 75 Sherman This tactic uses the twin advantage of speed and superior numbers. Was told to me by a platoon commander, the chap who wrote the history of the ERY. He served from October 44 to January 45, when he was badly wounded.

Anything to back up that statement?

Ahem - the TacAI can not 'cheat', since it works the same for you, as it does for the computer, or your opponent. So if there is a propensity to target HQ tanks (there certainly seemed to be one in the early builds, as MikeyD says), then it will work just the same way for you as against you, unless you override the TacAI targetting orders.

Yeah, let's not mention that. Please! The forest running on the border between the Czech Republic and Bavaria is actually the last bit of primeordial forest (Urwald) in Germany, or so I have been told many years back.

flamingknives is quite correct on the range thing. Even the famed north-German plains are not exactly long LOS areas. I grew up in them, and to get LOS ranges up to 1,000m you will usually struggle. There are a lot of copses, small villages, gentle undulations, and some fairly big forests as well. Once you move to the areas e.g. north of the Fulda Gap, around Hersfeld, then north to Kassel, Goettingen, Braunschweig, you are in quite claustrophobic country cut through with rivers, steep hills, dense forests. So I would not worry too much about map sizes.

Some more grist to the mill on this one. I still think you are utterly, completely, and so totally wrong on this one, that your view of the issue is not even false. No offense. Just reading John Ellis 'Cassino'. In the chapter on the horrific clusterf*ck that was the Rapido crossing, he quotes from the radio/phone logs of 34th Division, which at the time had 100th Battalion (the Nisei unit) attached to it. I quote, emphasis by me: As most people will know, 100th Battalion developed into 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and by the end of the war was the highest-decorated unit in the US Army. So while they were new to combat on the day, I guess we can assume they were not held up for wont of trying.

The British report by a company commander speaks of a 'Tiger' being there. Panzerlehr did not have any Tigers with them though. The best guess that a French or Belgian researcher could come up with then was a Jagdpanther (big, 88 gun, pretty hard to take out). That's why it was there.

Sounds like one of the better of my scenarios

That is an interesting point - I discussed that with Justin over a bottle of rather decent Pinot Noir one evening this week. I guess there is an issue here with making scenarios for the game that somehow capture this depressing feel of the East, instead of going down the 'war-porn' route of having lots of green IS-2s slug it out with the crack Panzers. Or sumfink. Kip sees CM as a serious work of history. I would agree with him there, if the scenarios reflect that in some way. One reason of course why the war against the SU appears so depressing could be that it simply is something we know about from listening to the losers most of the time. Very little is written down in English, and even less read, from the perspective of low-ranking Soviet soldiers and officers. I am quite fortunate in having a collection of such memoirs in German. Imagine the only source you had of the Normandy battles was from the German perspective, with next to know information on the detailed level of the US and British actions. The battle accounts we would know of would be dreary tales of trying to hold back an endless horde (I choose this word consciously) of tanks and infantry, supported by endless barrages of artillery and with a complete command of the air. The Ardennes offensive would be a tale of a wasteful pointless attack in the most forbidding weather, crushed by tactically inferior US troops by sheer weight of their artillery and air power. It would be a depressing read, on a par with e.g. Bidermann's or Metelmann's books on their experience in fighting the Red Army. But of course, we have both sides in the west, so we have a far more balanced view of it. But quite apart from that, and to answer the question raised. CMBB is more work than CMBO. There is no doubt about it. But as with every interesting work task, when you excel at it, it is extremely rewarding - moreso than CMBO. One of my friends took since its release to get used to it, and only now has started designing scenarios. In my case, CMBO has left my hard drive a long time ago, never to return. When CMAK appears, the same will not happen to CMBB. [ May 16, 2003, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]