Andreas

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Von Fauster: Wow. That was fast. Thanks Andreas! That was exactly it. 75mm. Thanks for sharing.<hr></blockquote> No problem, that's what it is there for. Please note that I am not 100% sure whether it is actually the IG75 of the game, since both pictures are from 1937/8, so there may have been a later model, or this one could have been superseded by mortars. Having said that, if your friend's grandfather has shoved one of these around north-western Russia, I think it must be the very one. The name 'Leichter Werfer' is what confuses me. If your friend is alright with scanning just one picture, you can always email it to me, so that I can have a look at it. Do you know which unit he was in?

Check your email inbox.

While the use of the Hummel in a DF role is quite unrealistic, I think you can use them to simulate the 15cm SP guns that are not in the game, and were intended for dual use (at least I have seen movie footage where they were thus employed). But sparingly, I would suggest, if you care about realism. If not, let it rip.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dan Robertson: Again it is rather interesting to note that well built castles with reinforced stone walls resisted cannon balls very well, in the same way that reinforced concrete bunkers have resisted modern weapons. Even with cannons castles still achieved their major purpose, which is to allow the defender to fight numerically superior forces, since even a castle with a hole in the wall requires more men to take it that it does to defend it.<hr></blockquote> Case in point, siege of Kenilworth Castle (Warwickshire) during the English Civil War. The castle with its royalist defenders held out for a long time, and was not actually taken in an assault. The attackers had cannons, muskets, the works. After this experience, the roundheads blew in one wall completely, to make sure that there was no repeat performance. Kenilworth Castle was built in the 12th century, at one time featured the largest hall in the realm, apart from Westminster, was added to by the Earl of Leicester during Elizabeth I.'s reign, and is beautifully situated on the old Stratford to Coventry road.

Bugger, good point. Overlooked that.

Hmm, I read in one unit history that the tankers (I think it was in 29th Armoured Brigade) gave their .50s to the motor battalion, to give them some more oomphh. They figured they would not need it. I have seen quite a few pictures of Commonwealth Shermans and M10s with the .50, but by far not all of them did have it.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by CombinedArms: [QB]You can buy 3 regular C VIIIs for 414 points, which offers great combat power for the money, in my book. Not sure how historical that is.... <hr></blockquote> Not very, if at all. A Churchill Squadron had two infantry support Churchills with 95mm howitzers in Squadron HQ. That was it. If you do a search with my username and 'commonwealth squadron OOB' or somefink along those lines, you may turn up an old thread where a few of those who are interested in the Commonwealth provided a lot of info on the structure. I think it was the infamous one where Jason tried to prove mathematically that all the Commonwealth vets were wrong about the number of Fireflies in their troops

Looks interesting and useful - can you email the file to me, I'd be interested to take a peek. Cheers.

I think I'll get myself this. I am sure CMBB will run fine on my current iMac with an 8MB card, but this looks much nicer

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by panzerwerfer42: For style, Pak 43. For Function, Pak 40 all the way.<hr></blockquote> I actually think it is horrendously ugly... And huge. That is me standing next to it, and I am 5'11" (1.81m) This particular gun standing in front of the castle in St. Vith.

A Daimler of the 49th West Riding! Who would have thought. Brilliant Andrew, I will replay my old scenario 49th Recce immediately on publication of the mod. Marcel, thanks for using the 59th AT Rgt RA, 43rd Wessex marking - very much appreciated!

Oh, and I forgot. The manual mentions 'over 10,000' badges were awarded, but the war was still in merry progress then. A website I found with an article about tank-hunter teams in ASL claimed 14,000 badges were awarded throughout the war. This included destruction by PF and PS though. I think we can safely assume that the vast majority of kills would have been through either of these two, and not through HAWADs (Heroic Arians With A Deathwish) charging tanks on hills.

No matter how much ASL Vet likes to think that somehow or other running towards tanks happened often enough to warrant modelling, a look into the Panzerknacker manual (German only), which I think we can all agree was most likely the last word regarding men against tanks in the war, should disabuse anyone of this notion. Some selected quotes: - You run, you die. - Stalk the tank. (this is repeated ad nauseam in the manual) - Let the tank roll over you. - Be absolutely certain that there is no infantry around. - channel the tanks through mining (real or fake) and dig Panzerdeckungsloecher (special one-man trenches that one man can you use to be rolled over). - Use all available cover. - The good thing about the PF/PS is that you no longer have to get close. Nowhere in the manual does it suggest: 'run towards the tank for 30m and then attack it'. Could that be connected to the 'you run, you die' instruction? I think we should be told.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software: Which reminds me... time to update the Manifesto since CDV decided to ruin a perfect trackrecord of brainless publishers Because of there unwillingness to attempt to screw us over like the rest, and instead offer us a very fair deal, a footnote exception is required Steve<hr></blockquote> The rat-bastards How dare they not treat you like code slave scum?

Oh and Argie, was San Martin's real name Diego de Montoya? 'Hello, my name is Diego de Montoya, I have come across the Andes pass. Prepare to die.' Royalist reply: 'Inconceivable'.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by argie: The numbers considered were pretty low for European standards (5200 Patriots against 23000 Royalists). But, of course, nobody study wars with less than 100000 people involved <hr></blockquote> Decent wars don't have Spanish involvement No wonder nobody knows about it.

Brian, I have found that there is little point in debating the finer points of Patton's performance with his admirers. You can as well try to teach trigonometry to a donkey (or advanced algebra to me) Apparently in school many Americans are taught that Patton was the best thing since sliced bread, and they then go on believing it for the rest of their lives. What I found interesting is that Brigadier (then Major General) Essame (commander of the British 214 Infantry Brigade in 43rd Wessex) wrote a very positive work on Patton, while an American Major called Brendan Phibbs (combat surgeon of CCB in 12th Armored) spends a good part of his book (written in the late 1980s - 'The other side of time', a great read BTW) being scathing about him (he prefers Truscott). If nothing else, Patton certainly incites controversy. As for Hannibal - Cannae was the model for the German envelopment battles (Kesselschlachten) of Barbarossa, and his feat of taking his army across the Alps in Winter, IIRC, has yet to be repeated, AFAIK. Been a while, my memory gets hazy. I'd go along with the Mongols being the most efficient army in history.

Regarding the jolly sing-song. Sibelius is really quite interesting.

Hiram, that is good news about your sister and I hope she recovers fully. I lost a friend to a brain tumor about two years ago, two years younger than me. I am really glad to hear that your sister did beat it. Seanachai, go to bed, it should stop you from posting tripe. Mace, 'Andrea' is but the Italian version of my name, so while I believe I understand what you tried to do, you failed. Persephone, nice picture of Bruce the Bruce and his Sheila daughter you posted there - did you get that from the Australian Tourism Office? The question remains - is he Bruce who teaches logical positivism and is in charge of the sheep dip? Inquiring minds want to know. Some of you scum owe me battle updates. Go to it. Joe and Mace, I don't know who of you I hate more, so I just wish that it goes crappy for the both of you. I am sure you are doing unspeakable things on the beauty of a map I gave to you. Iskander, I understand why you hate my scenarios. It must be harsh to be confronted with talent, skill and imagination for you. Next time I see a homeless I'll give him a Euro and think of you.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon: I just prefer to know that I have ordered the **** that happens. You don't want to be made responsible and blame the TacAI for the **** that happens. Two worlds collide <hr></blockquote> Hehe yes you are right. Someone has the classic sigline here 'A scapegoat is almost as welcome as a solution to the problem.' As Kip could tell you, I blame the game for either winning or losing, and I like to keep it that way.

Jason, Steve, one problem I have with the use of delay times for fire plans is that they are quite variable for non-LOS targets, e.g. I had two vet 25pdr FOOs in a game, and they entered at the same time. Both were given non-LOS targets to shoot. Result was 3 (6) mins for the one, and 4 (8) mins for the other. I understand why they have different times, and I agree with the reasoning, yet it messes around with this 'crutch' (for want of a better word) a bit. I don't suppose that will be changed? As for tero's point - even the Finnish rounds had flight time Granted that would be very little, but technically speaking Steve was correct. The point you raise about memory is very important though. In the Commonwealth and Finnish system, almost certainly in the US system, probably in the German and maybe in the Red Army system, the gunners would keep a record of targets they engaged, so that if a repeat shoot was necessary they could just retrain, without having to do the firing solutions again. I.e. any point on the map that I order my guns to shoot at would in these armies have become a TRP by my order to shoot at it. I realise that this is probably difficult to code in, and that TRPs have other properties that would make it inappropriate to allow this memory. Just an observation then - after all, we don't want our games governed by the artillery too much, where would be the humour in that, to quote Fluellen Iron Chef, you probably don't know this, but the board grew on discussions like this one. This is one of the most interesting we have had in a long time, IMO. Since Steve said he learned something from it, it can not be all that bad to have it. If it annoys you, don't read it.

Puff, to be honest, it sounds to me like the TacAI decided that using the PF was not worth it, for any number of reasons. It would still have that decision capability, even if you had ordered it to use it, so even with the order it would probably not have used it. Unless you suddenly want the order to override the TacAI, which would probably open a nice can of worms, and take out the (by some) much-valued uncertainty inherent in the system.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phantom Rocker: It has been stated by BTS in mid December that the game is already 95% completed. Now we know for sure that the game will not show up before March. They needed 'only' 1 year for 95%, now they ave 2 additional month. This sounds to me like a enough time to include several new features.<hr></blockquote> You must be an expert in project management, and coding new features into games? Apart from that, as you can see from the discussion, there seem to be a few people here who don't think the feature is necessary at all, so why spend the time on more important stuff if it is indeed there?

Puff, thanks again. Regarding your foxhole example - the PF is used independently of the other squad weapons, so if the tank is close enough, there is a chance that they will use it although they blast away at something else. Having said that, the real problem is that you use a PF only if you are either in a very good position to get away from, or you really long to die-a-lot quickly for Adolf. I have a book in which a German Feldwebel recounts how in April 1945 in the Harz, he and his troop of HJ all armed with PF lay behind a hedge, less than ten meters away from a Sherman column. He ordered them to just lie there until the Shermans were gone and not fire. Because if they had fired, they would have gotten some Shermans, but then they would all have died. Now imagine the same situation with CMBO, you as the player would scream at the screen, and maybe come here shouting 'fix or somefink'. But it happened like that. Not all soldiers are heroes, in fact, most of them are not. They just want to go home alive. Firing a PF at a tank is not conducive to the achievement of that goal, which may go some way to explain their hesitation in the game.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cromwell.: The lad is just showing that he is indeed <hr></blockquote> Hehehehehehe