David Aitken

Phew, that's better. Hey, I just get claustrophic if my browser window fills my entire screen, allright? Call me minimalist.

mensch you imbecile, no sooner have we started a nice, shiny new thread than you stumble in and dump a huge great picture in the middle which throws it off the edge of my browser! 500 pixels man, 500 pixels!

But could he have hit a German with it at 100 yards in Scattered Trees on a Rainy day? The general consensus seems to be that the Churchill modelled in CM is slow with weak armament, but very thick skin. Is this an accurate representation?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Foxy Simon wrote: Unsuprisingly you are wrong Aitken.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maybe so, but I am wrong in a historically accurate fashion, in much the same way as Herman Göring was wrong to oblige Hitler in bombing British cities instead of airfields, and Roy Urquhart was wrong not to insist on drop zones closer to Arnhem bridge. This being the polar opposite of your preferred kind of 'wrong', which can be approximated by engineering a child from the genes of Tony Blair, Willian Hague, George Bush and Al Gore, sitting it in front of a television for five years, and then posing questions to it.

Nocturnal PBEM Report Germanboy and Meeks are permanently MIA. Armornut is due back soon. My losses thus far to Moriarty comprise one Cromwell which sank in a wet grain field, was gun damaged by a 20mm cannon and was subsequently abandoned by its crew, who are walking to the rear in the rain to find an engineer. Leeo's Sturmkompanie + 2 Jagdpanzer IV's + 2 Hetzers have come to grief at the hands of a British rifle company + 3 Challengers + 2 Fireflies, despite my thoughtful gesture of obliterating the scenery instead of his troops with my 25lb'ers. dalem's men are running away, and I've barely started fighting yet. Either they fear the enemy commander, or have little faith in their own commander, but probably both. Elvis, having destroyed most of his forces and most of mine in an effort to get anywhere near Rune's bridge, is now executing a textbook Last Turn Gamey Flag Rush. My men are retreating across said bridge accompanied by a Firefly.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panty Liner wrote: I am treated like the guy picked last on the junior high-school gym basketball team?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wait up, didn't someone tell you that the full name for the Peng Thread is Peng, I Take Our Challenge Public (Incorporating Guys Picked Last On The Junior Highschool Basketball Team United)?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panty Liner wrote: Why is it that in real life I am an intelligent, wise athlete-- head of my class, volunteer fireman, Army Officer, handsome, deliberate, lady-killing all-around great guy, but here in the cesspool, I am treated like the guy picked last on the junior high-school gym basketball team?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Pardon me, but did you just admit to murdering women? No matter, whatever you are in Real Life™, in the Peng Thread you will always be a newbie git. Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, no? ::woooom:: Okay, well maybe it slightly raises the temperature of your bones, I'm not sure what other tissue is there to be affected.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stuka wrote in Panty Liner's Polite and Cheerful Cha (sic) Parlour ::woooom:: (echo of empty skull): Dick.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now that was funny. Yes I know, past my bedtime. Edit: Definitely past my bedtime, I missed out some UBB coding. [ 05-29-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panzer Leader wrote: I have the distinct impression that the mealy-mouthed pratttering you directed my way sounded awfully like an affront to my honor and country.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now there's a clever labour-saving technique... saves you having to process any words when someone speaks to you, and you'll be right 90% of the time! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stuka wrote: Time for beddy byes little one, its a big work day tomorrow and we don't want to be all grouchy now do we?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In the spirit of Private Baldrick, I have a cunning plan which will allow me to turn my mental derangement to financial advantage. But in the spirit of... myself, I'm not saying anything else. Which kind of negates my bringing up of the subject in the first place. Ah, I love it when a plan comes together!

I was coming to the end of my diatribe about newbies, when I suddenly had the urge to direct it at Mr. PL personally. Then I found that he'd created not one but two monstrosities which he dared to claim were the new home of our beloved thread. Am I psychic or wot? First mensch, now PL... I don't think we can handle much more of this. We may as well reinvent ourselves under the moniker of "Pansy Leader's Polite And Cheerful Chat Parlour". Has a certain ring to it, don't you think? Sort of like... the echo inside an empty skull...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stuka wrote: Typical poms eh? "Oh look, somebody is enjoying themselves, we must put a stop to this!" You'd think they already had enough to worry about with their 3rd world, decaying country and all. Not to mention their Silly Cow disease, and the crap weather, and their unwashed woman folk, and the price of fuel, and their penchant for Australian soap operas. Have you ever seen an English TV 'comedy'? How many sniggering remarks about 'toilets' can an entertainment genre come up with?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That Penis Puppetry thing got good reviews when it was on in Edinburgh. I hardly think Ananova is a good place to go for news of any kind.

Oh look, I even had a reason for flaming PanzyLeader.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>PeterNZer wrote: posted 08-16-2000 08:48 AM Pah! This thread is HUGE! I'm not going to read it, someone summarise for us all hehe PeterNZ<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is from page 20 of that timeless classic, Peng, I Take Our Challenge Public! It illustrates how even those who the current Peng Thread regulars regard as Elders are in fact newbies themselves. That makes the current host of newbies... well, something in the general catergory of sub-nonentities. Who do we have... Seanachai and MrPeng of course... Speedy, Stuka, Mark IV, bauhaus, Germanboy, Berlichtingen, jdmorse, Lorak, my fine self... ah, I can stop there. Everyone else who posted up to page seven has since buggered off, and everyone who joined in thereafter is a newbie. Oh, we'll throw in Goanna and Moriarty for good measure, and PawBroon gets an honourary veteranship for having salvaged the entire thread before it was partially devoured by the server. Anyone who posted on page 1 or 2 can lodge an appeal with himself. I suppose it makes sense. In the military everyone refers to superior officers as Sir or Ma'am. In the Peng Thread everyone refers to subordinates as newbies. Which makes Panzer Leader a new-new-new-new-new-new-new-new-new-new-bie. You are cordially invited to bugger the hell off, and take your Johnny-come-lately chums with you!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panzer Leader wrote: So Dave - you accept then?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry old bean, you ruled me out with the stipulation: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>excluding British English which is terrible;<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>After your little "treatise" on the hull-down position last night, no doubt brought on by a scorning wife (once again, eh?) you felt you had to show yourself as master of SOMETHING.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes, I find the 'hull down' position to be extremely satisfying and rewarding. It maximises penetration power, you know.

That's the one. Operation Daybreak

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panzer Leader wrote: Strictly speaking, this person of character must meet the following distinctions: knowledge of tactics, both modern and historical; knowledge of the English language as a FIRST language, excluding British English which is terrible; a willingness to read many thousands of words (upwards of 10 pages) in a timely fashion; the ability to gently point out minor flaws in logic and conclusion, while still maintaining a heartfelt adoration for the author as genius; and finally a modicum of generalized intelligence.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Presumably for the purposes of counterweighting your own shortcomings. Maybe you should just have asked them to write the essay in the first place?

You're right Bog, I had the feeling that I'd got the name completely wrong. It's one of these things that I picked up a while ago (read the book and saw the film), but didn't fully register, and I've been trying to dig it out of my subconscious. :0

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Phillies Phan wrote: Any suggestions for more WWII movies?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I assume you have overlooked the 7,481 threads with this very title? Well then I might suggest that you Do A Search! Oh, and then get A Bridge Too Far on DVD. That film is not worth watching in NarrowScreen™.

The Czechoslovakian assassination attempt on Wilhelm Friedrich (head of the Abwehr?) nearly failed because their Sten gun jammed. One man stepped out in front of his car with the gun, and when it didn't work they had to use a Gammon bomb instead. They proceeded into a game of hide-and-seek with the driver, and were eventually tracked down by the German army and committed suicide in the basement of a cathedral. The Sten was a crude mass-produced gun like the US M3, and was soon refined, but always suffered from a poor cartridge insertion mechanism which frequently jammed the gun. Before the end of the war the Sterling was in use, and remained the standard British SMG until the 1980's or thereabouts.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Michael Dorosh wrote: That's not true; they are often a source of information re: minefields, troop dispositions - even shortcuts through forests, etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which remains outwith the scope of the game. At the beginning of a battle, all your reconnaissance and intelligence work has been completed. You have a comprehensive map of the terrain. If a scenario designer wishes to impart knowledge gained from sources such as civilians, he can put this into the briefing, eg. "French resistance has informed us that the village is held by around a company of German motorised troops, and the woods to the northeast have been mined".

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>MrPeng wrote: What time is it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Past my bedtime, methinks. This would explain the fact that I am currently finding everything to be highly amusing.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mike the bike wrote: Dave the 20's usually have 4 times as much HE as AP ammo!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> HE is used for antiaircraft purposes. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stuka wrote: A 20mm sized hole in me would tend to slow me down a bit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well you have a much bigger hole in your mug, and I'm sure all the hot air coming out of there would slow you down, if not propel you backwards...

I suspect 20mm cannon are for killing light armour and aircraft. They're not much use against infantry.

Actually, I lied. Tank B is zapping tank A with a Death Ray, while tank A is hitting back with a... with a... what do you call those things that don't exist that freeze people in their tracks? Tracks! Oh god, I crack myself up. Notice how I can type several pages of grogsp33k in one minute flat?

You asked for it. Hull Down One of the most fundamental battlefield principles is that of allowing yourself an unobstructed view of the enemy, whilst exposing as little of yourself as possible. A rifleman is agile and flexible, and can easily take cover behind trees or walls, exposing only his hands and face whilst firing. Vehicles, however, cannot reduce their profile, or quickly dodge behind cover, so they need to be much more careful about how they move around the battlefield. Vehicles generally have their main gun in a fixed position in the centre of the hull. They cannot benefit from horizontal cover - a house, for example - because if they are able to fire past the house, much of their hull will be exposed to the enemy. The 'hull down' principle, therefore, is the pursuit of vertical cover, protecting the hull of the vehicle whilst allowing it to fire over the top. This kind of cover is much more difficult to find in urbanised areas than in natural terrain, one of the many reasons why towns are very dangerous battlefields for vehicles. It is most abundant in rolling terrain, where the object is simply to have a hill between yourself and the enemy. This is the best example of the principle. [diagram] The diagram shows two tanks - tank 'A' on the left and tank 'B' on the right - and the degree to which they are exposed to each other. Tank A is hull down - it is situated just behind the crest of a hill, allowing itself a good view over the top, but protecting itself from enemy gunfire. It can see the whole of tank B, whereas tank B can only see tank A's turret and the very front of its hull. Another important factor illustrated by the diagram is the obliquity of the armour plating exposed to the enemy. Tank A is angled away from the enemy, so that any shells striking its armour are more likely to ricochet away. Tank B is angled towards the enemy, which actually cancels out the slope of its glacis (the hull front) and turret front. Its weak hull top is also exposed to tank A, whereas tank A's hull top is not exposed at all. In Combat Mission, only turreted vehicles can achieve a 'hull down' status. Line of sight (LOS) is calculated from the centre of the hull and the centre of the turret, so it is possible for the enemy to have LOS to your tank's turret but not the hull, making it hull down. With other vehicles, and with infantry, either the enemy has LOS or it does not. Of course, non-turreted vehicles will still benefit from greater armour obliquity in a hull down position. The 'hull down' status is strictly relative, so the game will not regard a tank as 'hull down', it can only be hull down relative to a specific enemy unit. Keep in mind that while your tank may be hull down to one enemy unit, it may not be to another in a different location. Click on your tank and press 'L' on your keyboard to call up the tank's LOS. Point the cursor at an enemy unit. You will only be informed of your hull down status if the enemy unit is within LOS, and its primary weapon is for antitank purposes, or (in the case of infantry) has not been fully identified and may therefore be an antitank team. If the enemy unit is a tank, it may also be hull down relative to your tank, in which case it will be labelled as such. In order to place your tank in a hull down position, you should first decide where you want it to go, and then anticipate the direction of any enemy units it is likely to encounter. Look for dips in the ground in the area of your desired destination which slope away from enemy positions. You should order your tank to the bottom of an appropriate dip, and then issue a 'hunt' order far enough towards the top so that it will be able to see over the top towards suspected enemy positions. The 'hunt' order ensures that if it spots an enemy tank, gun or antitank team before it reaches the crest of the hill, it will stop, and hopefully be in a hulldown position; but you should not order it over the top on the assumption that it will spot an enemy unit before it is fully exposed. Try to plot its movement so that its flanks will never be exposed to likely enemy positions en route. As you may have gathered, there is no magic 'hull down' trick in Combat Mission or in reality; you should simply understand the benefits of keeping your vehicles hull down as much as possible, and plan their movement accordingly.