Andreas

Vielen Dank.

That would of course have helped tremendously, seeing how well those same Germans had just handled the Soviets, winning every time on their way from Stalingrad to Berlin, with the Wehrmacht in a magnificent state in May 1945, over-equipped with well-trained, highly motivated, seasoned soldiers. Ahem.

What sort of mixed sub-units? A company with an attached platoon? Or a company scraped together from various units in a desperate situation? I believe the former would still be called by its normal designation, e.g. 3./GR357 for 3rd Coy Grenadierregiment 357. The latter would be an 'Alarmkompanie'. The naming of KG by its commander's name I think would start from about battalion size formations upwards. The name would be the name of the commander of the HQ unit providing the staff. So KG Hühnersdorff was a formation in 6.PD during Wintergewitter, and Oberst Hühnersdorff was the commander of the Panzerregiment of 6.PD, around which the KG was built. The alternation and the way formation names should be expressed works as follows, AFAIK - but no guarantees. 2. Zug 9. Kompanie (9./IR89) II. Batallion (II./IR89) Infanterieregiment 89 (IR89) 12. Infanteriedivision (12.ID) II. Armeekorps (II.AK)* 16. Armee Heeresgruppe Nord * For some weird reason I fail to understand Korps between 45 and 49 units would be referred to as e.g. XXXXVIII. AK, instead of XLVIII.AK. I think. Companies would be numbered from 1 to 14 in a regiment. 1-4 = I.BN; 6-8 = II. BN; 9-12 = III.BN, with 4, 8 and 12 being the heavy companies. 13. is AT, and 14. is IG. Later in the war, when regiments were reduced to two battalions, 9-12 would no longer be used, but 13 and 14 would not be renumbered. I hope this is all correct, since I am working from memory. [ May 15, 2003, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

If it is the one I think it is, I know two people I would trust who hate it.

Cough - thanks Rogue Male. I look forward to the reviews on the Depot.

I mostly play Allies (75-90% of the time), and I think it is great.

Scale is an important issue here. Many posters here can not know that, but initially there was a very low point limit in the QB engine in CMBO (1,500 point battles, IIRC) which was removed after a lot of clamouring. BTS (as they then were) stated that this was the upper limit of what the game was designed for, and it would work best with 1,000 point battles, or sumfink (working from memory here, but I think the ball-park range is right). To use an inappropriate analogy: asking the game to work just as well with 'To the Volga' type battles is akin to expecting your 1969 VW Beetle to run as smoothly at a constant 80 miles an hour as a modern Beetle would. You can go 80 miles an hour in both - it is a lot more fun in the latter though. Regarding platoon orders for tanks - CMBB introduced the command model for vehicles. This was a big step forward in its own right. I would expect BFC to refine this in the same way as they have refined infantry orders. Whether this will (or should) include specific formations to adopt, I am not sure. I personally think it is fun to do that oneself and rewarding if it works out. It is also more flexible. This comes back to scale again though. I rarely play anything where I have more than 2 platoons of vehicles to contend with. I can see how it would be a different issue with a battle where you have 25 platoons. But I ma just not interested in those, and I don't think that CMBO/B has been designed with those in mind anyway. Selecting commanders with special abilities is just wholly unrealistic, and goes against the grain of what CMBB is about. This did not happen in the real world. Formations had to deal with the officers they were given. I don't think such a mechanism has any place in CM, ever. I am also completely against anything that turns CM into a command game, and I would not buy such a game. You are really requesting a different game then. Fortunately enough, BFC seem to have the same opinion there.

A statement of facts. I am sorry you do not like them. If you try to understand what I posted (better luck 2nd time) you may realise that I do not offer an opinion on anything.

Sorry, that would be Denmark . You must have confused the Danes with the country that managed to exterminate the highest percentage of its Jewish population in Western Europe... </font>

Sounds like "Through Hell for Hitler." I saw that book recommended on many a site and went out and bought it. All it did was talk about the gentleman's romps through the countryside with an occasional mention of the battles around him. Bleh. </font>

Hehe.

Hey Nippy - you really got the point of the battle. Good idea, should have done that myself before I *cough* deleted *cough* CMBO from my HD.

Drinking is a serious business. More so in Bavaria, where they have all the beer halls. Most of them are populated by diggers and kiwis anyway.

Norway? Sweden? Some Scandinavian country for sure.

tracer, Mensch did a Tiger I mod based on (confusingly) Tiger's yellow Tiger I that had camo netting with branches in it. That one was for CMBO, but it looked very nice, and quite realistic. Maybe someone who still has it could post a screenshot here so that you get an impression of it.

The face of battle.

Never played that. Regarding fun, while I am a dour, humourless German, devoid of any deeper understanding of the word, or indeed the very concept underlying this 'fun' thing people keep yabbing on about, I do have a feeling that a look in the dictionary confirms could be called 'fun', when playing CMBB. Moreso than I did in CMBO, by comparison. I think it is a matter of taste. I would not call those people who do not experience that particular feeling, be they German or otherwise disadvantaged, 'Arcadejunkies'. I would only say that it is unlikely that their wishes will be heeded, which I selfishly think is good, and you are just stuck with CMBO, which is still being played by a lot of people, so I would submit that your lot is not really that hard. I think BFC is on the right course with their products.

Germans? A sense of humour? Nevah! Seriously, do these guys look like they are having fun? We all know it is not much fun in Stalingrad. One of them has not slept since 1945. We are all glad England won the World Cup in '66 though, Mein Dickie Old Chum. [ May 14, 2003, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Are those SMG or rifle-equipped 2-headed monsters? Would equipping the Wehrmacht with 2-headed monsters prolonged the war? Can those 2-headed monsters run with HMGs? What if the MGs are Brens on tripods? If a 2-headed monster is penetrated by a 76.2mm blunt-nosed APHE with a large burster, will Rexford care?

They are bavarians - anything is possible, nothing is unexpected. I am from the North myself.

?? check the CMMOS theres a striped version of the ISU-152. </font>

IIMU that the Soviet replacement system was based on 'running down' frontline units (and quite a few were run down considerably in the last few weeks of the war). Once the unit had been severely depleted, it would be taken out of the line, and rebuilt in the rear areas, based on the cadre of survivors, and the HQ units. Grisha could answer this question better than I can. Basically a very different approach to doing things than any of the other armies involved AIUI. But not quite establishing entirely new formations. In these depleted units, the support formations and HQs would presumably build up a lot of experience over time. The PBI got shafted though. I have a Soviet officer memoir in which the staff officer of a Guards infantry regiment talks about a long time during which his regiment was just one battalion. Another Polish officer from 1st Polish Tank Brigade "Heroes of the Westerplatte" saying that his entire Brigade consisted of a grand total of 4 tanks at some point in April 1945. In both cases though, it is quite clear that the formations were not on the main axis of advance, and therefore not first in line for reinforcements. In general replacement seems to have been quite mission dependent, with units being filled up to strength (or not) as was deemed necessary to fulfil their mission. AIUI the commanders had quite a lot of freedom about the posting of replacements, which enabled them to concentrate forces at critical points.

Late war Soviet ISU-122 and ISU-152 with air-recognition stripes on the side and the top of the turret?

Then and now. Check this out. For German-speakers, here is the homepage of Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23 of the Bundeswehr.

Good point - I would question though whether these systems would have survived a move to high-intensity fighting from early summer 45, as would have occurred with a conflict with the SU. I am away from my copy of Dobler at the moment, but IIRC these attempts to reform the system did not appear until the high-intensity fighting abated, and they did not constitute a root-and-branch reform of the RD system. Compare this to the Wehrmacht, which had replacement units back in the Reich associated with formations, and more importantly a TO&E authorised replacement training unit (Feldersatzbatallion) in all (most?) its divisions in 1941. While these were not formally disbanded, AIUI they were often used to plug the lines when the infantry divisions became seriously over-extended following the failure to replace their losses from 1941 onwards, and especially with the move to 2-battalion regiments. Like the US divisions (I suspect that their schools were not set up as part of TO&E changes), German divisions sometimes set up their own training units by order of the divisional commander (auf dem Kommandowege), but these also found themselves in the line, with sometimes desastrous consequences - it could happen that all your future NCOs, i.e. your most promising leadership material got wiped out in some last-stand action. Happened to 1. FJD when their platoon leader school was used to try and oppose the British landings at Termoli in the Adriatic in 1943. From one of the documents Mike dug out in the thread on German views of the Allied performance in Sicily some days back: Just some food for thought on the matter.