Andreas

Added three more pictures, of what probably were the most useless and the most useful tanks the Pommies came up with for the war.

Finally - the page should work now.

Real Life™'s

Not particularly realistic. The Red Army had combat regulations detailing the time needed to dig holes in the ground. A fellow beta tester dug this out from the 1942 infantry combat regulations:

lcm - it really has nothing to do with a Jeep-mounted MG. It is just mounted on a small, wheeled undercarriage, much like the HMG34/42 is mounted on a tripod. It may actually be smaller than these. The Jeep-mounted MG dies because of the vulnerability of the vehicle mount. In this case, there is little to nothing on the carriage that could get damaged to a degree to render the weapon unservicable.

Markus, I certainly agree on point 2, I just got a bit riled up about the blanket statement by tero. I think I also agree on point 1. Optics advantages not being quantifiable,you have to look at what the worst possible case in terms of disadvantaging one side is for any given solution. Assume we can not know what the exact difference is between the optics (as is the case), we just agree that there is one. If that is the case, we could still say that we leave them on a par, call that 'Option 1'. It is clearly unsatisfactory, and wrong, but it has the benefit of being the easy solution, and one that you can defend (as BTS has done). This solution means the Germans are worse off than they were in reality, and is your baseline. Under 'Option 2', you give an X% bonus benefiting the Germans. Now to do that you have to be sure that the Russians are not made worse off than the Germans are under 'Option 1', because otherwise you have just made the simulation more unrealistic than before. So you need some evidence to be assured of that. I think that evidence is still lacking, and it appears BTS thinks so too. We are probably all in agreement that Option 2 is more desirable, but unfortunately you can not ensure that under it, the Russians would not be worse off than the Germans were under Option 1. On top of that, it takes additional coding. In the absence of any evidence other than 'the German optics were better', BTS is facing a 'damned if they don't, damned if they do' situation.

Tom, BTS has not just been refusing to model this because they are lazy or don't like the idea. They have asked here for quantifiable evidence of this superiority. Whether you or I 'believe' that the Germans had better optics, or whether the Finns agreed that they had, is neither here nor there if you are asked to code it. How much better is the crucial question. tero - I have mentioned Soviet tanks firing on the move, and I always said that this was for HE and suppreession. It was not just a shock tactic I believe. Take 30 T34s, have them barrel down on the enemy position while putting down fire. What is the likely effect? A lot of misses, but some will be close, and at least suppress the enemy, because it is HE, and not AP solid shot. Some my even hit by fluke. The Soviets knew that on the modern battlefield you only move if you have fire superiority. So you put a lot of lead and HE down on the suspected enemy position, and keep his head down. Since they made it to Berlin, I think one can assume that in general they knew what they were on about towards the end of the war. Of course you don't do that if you try to hit a tank, or if you have a shortage of HE rounds. Most of the time however, the Soviets could be fairly certain that there would not be any tanks to back up the German defense. They probably also had more HE rounds available than you could shake a stick at. So why not use it?

'Blind' means that you have not looked at the scenario before playing. I.e. not played it before, not looked at it in the editor. 'Double-blind' means that neither player in a multi-player game has looked at the game before playing. If you really want to comment meaningfully on a scenario, you can only do so after playing it 'blind' or 'double-blind'. Otherwise you know the surprises and enemy force composition, and that obviously affects your play, and some scenarios will be completely unplayable, because the designer relied on the fog of war effects.

First pictures by Holien, taken on Canon S40. More in the next few days, when I am no longer so tired that I post Betaboard threads in the main forum. Tankfest 2002 AAR Page [ July 02, 2002, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

I swear, I have no idea what this boiled Suede is talking about, and deny everything. Shurely the words 'cheerful' and 'hospitality' in conjunction with my name must be shome mishtake. Was good to see you all, and we should repeat this next time, when hopefully they will have fixed the Maybach. Highpoint of the day - seeing a Crusader being historically correct, and breaking down in front of us. Absolute highpoint - seeing the T34/85 running over the knife-edge!

As an example, I have seen at least two or three different spellings of Belyi (Rshew/Rzhew sector) in German documents of the time - transcribing Cyrillic was obviously not everybody's strong point. In German, Temeschwar (IIRC) is the correct spelling. Since the place was populated mostly by people of German descent speaking German from the 1600s or 1700s until a few years ago, why would a German scenario designer call it something else for a scenario set in 1944? I think the best you can do is, if you notice a 'mistake' in a briefing, to send a polite email informing the designer. I am sure in most cases people do not design the scenarios with the aim to eff off one particular group of people and/or Finns.

Well, John Salt donated (amongst other items) a gratefully received bottle of Bushmills Malt (10 yrs old) to my well-being when he appeared for my birthday on Saturday. Luckily for the crew I resisted temptation to open it there and then, since the next day I spent 6.5 hrs driving them through south England and watching tanks. A review when I have cracked it open.

Wrong forum [ June 30, 2002, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

There were only few (okay, still more than Pumas) of the Churchills with 6pdr about in Normandy, and probably none thereafter (health warning, John Salt will probably show me up). The Commonwealth also had the Staghound heavy AC, with the 6pdr. No idea how many of those were fielded in NWE though, and again, probably not many. The Commonwealth also produced the RAM and RAM II tanks, at least the latter was equipped with the 6pdr. It was still in service with Canadian regiments in late 1943/early 1944, but was replaced by Vanilla Shermans then.

The Brits did mount it in the Valentine (IX I believe) and Churchills Mk II-IV (IIRC). The Mk IV were later regunned with 75mm guns. Or somefink. British armour development is a bit of a mystery to me. If you get Tungsten rounds the 6pdr can go through Tiger armour like a warm knife through butter. A Stug is no problem at all with ordinary ammo.

Who's interested in girls if there is a Tiger about? That's what separates the Grog from those with a life.

So, Seanachai, do you have any views on the likely release date?

Personally, I think that anyone with member numbers up to and including, say, 1090 is by necessity an anorak, while anyone with a member number from, say, 1092 upwards is a Johnny-come-lately. Neither group has anything worthy to say as far as the future development of the game is concerned. They are, by definition, not worth listening to.

2003

I made sure to be the registered driver on the rental car, and being law-abiding citizens, they would not get home without me. One hopes...

If so, please email me. There are seven of us going, and we could have a get-together over sandwiches alround Also, your chance to see not one, but two beta-testers in the flesh, and hear us answer your questions about CMBB with 'I could tell you, but then I would have to ask that Tiger driver to run you down.' Tank Museum Bovington Tankfest Bovington AAR [ July 02, 2002, 06:23 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

One problem maybe that not just BTS, but also some of the beta testers could be a bit busy themselves. Doing a full AAR (with movies, explanations and arrows drawn on maps) takes time, especially if you want to do it well (and what's the point of doing it otherwise?). In my case, RL considerations would not allow it, and it would therefore take time out of testing. Can't speak for my colleagues of course.

Astonishing - you have discovered a new date! Will it be known as Pvt.Ryan day henceforth? Inquiring minds want to know. Let's just hope that CMBB does not appear on that day, because nobody would friggin' notice.

So it appears.

I could not agree more. Then again, that is easy for us to say... Now who's with me on the bricking?