David Aitken

And while we're on the subject, if you want to destroy a CD you have to use a particular method. I saw a photo a while ago of I think the Japanese or Chinese 'destroying' thousands of pirated software CDs by flattening them with a bulldozer. This is about the surest way to avoid doing them damage, short of packing them away in a box full of polystyrene chips. I tried killing an AOL CD and it would not die. Bend it one way. Bend it the other way. Fold it over. Frantically wag it back and forth. No dice. I had to hack away at it with a scalpel before it would snap. Later I dropped my R.E.M. New Adventures In Hi-Fi CD on a stone surface and it cracked, so the end of Low Desert was jumpy and I couldn't listen to Electrolite. Bummer. So if you want to kill a CD, drop it onto a hard surface. Or if a quick death is too good for it, humiliate it for all eternity as a coaster.

I killed Kennedy... I have the receipt to prove it. I explained my mistake to the FBI and they gave me a new one. He's been keeping Lord Lucan company for the past few decades.

Thanks for the suggestions. Actually, the precise topic names it a pet amusement for me. Does "Firing from halftracks" go under HALFTRACKS, FIRING FROM ... or INFANTRY, FIRING FROM HALFTRACKS ... or INFANTRY, MOUNTED, FIRING ... etcetera? I judge it by how many topics I have of a similar sort. I was planning on having a category starting with GAME ENGINE, but then I decided that most of the topics could theoretically fit in there. So as for your suggestion about small arms, if I had enough threads about enough different small arms, then I would create an ARMS, SMALL category. Just now it's just WEAPONS. We could come down to the issue of, do I have a right to advertise a "CM Thread Archive" when it's really just my personal record, and not complete enough to live up to expectations? I'm afraid it's a hit or miss thing just now. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for, maybe not. I actually think it's better for browsing rather than searching – have a look at some of the greatest points of contention in the forum's history, but don't treat it as an encyclopaedia. It wouldn't be difficult for me to lay out a few abbreviations and their meanings, but of course it would still be off the top of my head, and I'd have to do a lot of work in order to produce a complete reference. Admittedly they're easy for us grogs to throw around, but if you don't know the definition then you're locked out. Maybe I can come up with a basic starting-point reference. Of course, if anyone else knows of a good reference, do let us know!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Scipio wrote: Sounds easy to bring some Panthers behind them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They never went into production. I was talking about the 32-pounder gun.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: I dont have to prove anything! The game agrees with me that the BREN belongs within the squad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm not sure what you were arguing, but it certainly wasn't that. Anyway, we're back on this topic now. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The US, with its air-cooled mgs didnt need a BREN. This platoon level belted MG fire freed up the need for a dedicated belt/clip fed multiman automatic weapons squad-level team.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Quite, and the British, with their excellent light machinegun, didn't need a highly mobile belted machinegun. It's not as though you can't move the Vickers, and it's not as though you can run for miles with the M1919 either. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The whole US squad could then be more mobile and function as an attacking group. The US wanted to get the war over with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The whole British squad could be equally mobile, and also conform more closely to the subsequently accepted doctrine that the squad should be based around a machinegun. They were centred around a greater source of firepower than the US squad, rather than having distributed firepower, but still had individual firepower to be reckoned with. And as for your closing comment... wha? What wavelength are you on? Are you suggesting that British doctrine was intended to prolong the war? We wanted to spread our movement and ammunition over, say, ten years, instead of using it all up in five? Oh never mind.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Triumvir wrote: Personally, I wonder how the Black Prince would have done, had it made it into Europe in CM scope. A Churchill's armour with a Firefly's punch<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Never mind that, what about the 32-pounder gun? 3.7in, it was slated to appear on the Tortoise heavy tank (assault gun really, much like the Jagdtiger in concept) which was designed in 1942. Tortoise never made it and the 32-pounder gun never appeared. This, of course, brings us back to the tank design issue: we never had a tank during the war actually capable of carrying such a big gun, hence our tanks were always underarmed, bar the few that took the 17-pounder, and even that was a stretch.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Scipio wrote: Compared to that I would say: the typical British tanks was to slow, with much mechanical problems and not so good armed as it was necessary and mostly to bad armored.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You can't generalise like this. Some of the British support tanks, notably the Matilda II and Churchill, were very well armoured for their time. The cruiser tanks were very fast, but under-armed and -armoured. We later decided that speed was the least desirable aspect, hence the Chieftain.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Lewis wrote: I think that maybe if the brits had melted down all their tanks and turned them into STEN guns, parachuted them to the underground boy scout resistance groups in Sweden, more would have been done for the war effort.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just an obligatory shut up to Lewis. Sorry we didn't lose the war Lewis. Sorry our weapons actually worked. Sorry the Germans respected us as an opponent. I won't suggest that they credited British troops as more fearsome enemies than Americans, as that is speculation, but I've heard plenty to suggest it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Scipio wrote: Haha - the peaceloving Brits with the biggest battlefleet on Earth in the 1930s!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'll let the politics go and address this technical point. Britain, as an island, has historically always had a very strong navy. Previously having an empire, and the sea being the way to get around until the 20th century, there was good reason to have the strongest navy in the world. I never claimed that we were peace-loving, but we certainly looked that way compared to Germany... BLEEP BLEEP! Political content identified! Post terminated.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: The brits had a lack of belted mobile MG firepower and coupled with bolt action rifles couldnt rely on the BREN to save the day.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You can say the British lacked a sufficiently mobile belted machinegun. I can say the US lacked a proper squad automatic. What are you trying to prove? As for the Sten – no-one is arguing that the Sten is a great weapon, any more than the M3 greaser. Most of us are sticking to the facts, whereas you seem convinced that if it's British it's inferior to US or German.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: Only belted MGs should be modeled as separate weapons. Thats the way it is now.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That explains the HMG42, but not he LMG42. The Bren can easily manage the same ROF as the LMG42. And I would suggest that the relevant question is "were they historically employed this way?", which is true in the case of the MG42 and the Bren, but not the BAR. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If clip fed weapons are reduced to one man through a casualty, can they move?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> A Bren team might realistically be three men, but your point stands. I doubt he could move with much ammunition. What is the case with the LMG42? How is the ammunition carried, in boxes, or do we imagine that it is strapped over his shoulders? Gun in one hand and ammunition box in the other is perfectly realistic in either case. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Do they have a reduction in firepower?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Presumably. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Only one guy to man and load the weapon? Suddenly, the 'near-mg42' slider goes definetly towards the BAR end of the spectrum.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which would be accounted for in the engine. The fact remains that Brens were employed this way and BARs were not. You continue to present arguments which seem to be based on a desire not to allow Commonwealth forces the units they are entitled to, not on any historical or technical issues which would prevent them being correctly modelled in the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Banshee wrote: It really can be quite fun, but honestly the same effect can be had by using flashlights to tag someone vs a paintball.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh man! That is brilliant! Why didn't I ever think of that? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>tar wrote: If there weren't any laces (i.e., German jackboots) you would soon be dead. But in either case, you never, ever saw the Ghurkas.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Gotta love them Gurkhas! Gotta watch what kind of boots you're wearing as well, apparently...

Nowadays you get even less indication of an empty magazine. At least with a bolt-action rifle you can look and see whether there's a round in the breech. Andy McNab (not his real name) of the SAS speaks in Bravo Two Zero about switching magazines in his M16 without really knowing how many rounds he has left, all to avoid the "dead man's click". The Steyr AUG has a transparent magazine for this purpose. How soon before we have computer game style LCD displays which tell us the number of rounds left? It wouldn't surprise me if the OICW has that facility.

At the moment I seem to be wont to mediate. So what if we fought the Second World War with outdated tanks. Nowadays god (and Gordon Brown, arguably one in the same) only knows how much money we spend on ever more expensive high-tech tanks, planes, ships, RADAR, missiles and whatever else we need to be able to kill people in the modern world, and they still don't work, and how badly is our nation compromised by all this misspent money? In 1938 we weren't expecting another world war, and I'm sure that, as ever, we had far more important things to be spending money on than methods to kill people. The result of the war is that now we channel money unreservedly into the military. Should Germany be revered for excelling in the art of invading other people's countries and destroying their armies? Should Britain be criticised for spending money on better things? Maybe we should have anticipated the war and been better prepared. Maybe we should have better instituted our own ideas on tank employment instead of letting the Germans get ahead of us. But the Germans were intending to fight – we were not. If we'd known what was coming we would have designed better tanks, and done absolutely everything else differently, but that's hindsight for you. The BEF was routed, but the German advance was not such the success they were expecting. Sealion never happened and the Luftwaffe campaign failed. Sure we could have done things better, but we didn't do too bad a job against a militaristic nation which had been preparing for 'expansion' for years. It's so easy to look back and kick up a fuss about how bad British tanks were during the war, but at the time things were, and never are, so clear.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>mensch wrote: it moves up FO's even if a HQ has line of sight to the target and the command line is to the FO which lies safe in cover.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> FO indirect fire is not affected by an HQ in the same was as mortar indirect fire is. FOs can fire anywhere on the map without LOS, and being in command of an HQ with LOS makes no difference. Mortars on the other hand can only fire with direct or indirect LOS.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Banshee wrote: That caused really wierd shadows as well, and the best strategy not to get shot was just not moving if at all possible.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Aha! I'm sure this has been thought about and discussed at great length by people that have much more experience than me, but I've developed my own theories about what makes good camouflage. This fits in less with my military interests and more with my general interest in human perception and the like. • I regard the best mode of camouflage, as you suggest, is keeping still. You can look at something at a distance and have no idea what it is. On occasion I've woken up in the morning and seen something in my room that I must have put there, but I've no idea what it is. If you move in relation to it, or if it moves in relation to you, you have much more information with which to decide what you're looking at. • Being the same colour as your background is not the best way to fool the enemy. It might possibly make you less noticeable (assuming you are always against the same colour of background), but once spotted, a self-coloured or regularly-coloured object is easily identifiable. The best camouflage colour is a contrast, to break up your outline, so that even if someone is looking straight at you, they won't necessarily be able to make out your shape and size. One of my friends has a spaniel which is black and white like a cow, and when lying on a dark carpet its outline is so broken up that from a distance I'd have no idea what it was. Coming back to the original subject, in the dark, if you're wearing camouflaged clothes with a simple leaf pattern, you may tone in with your background, but in low light it makes no difference whether you're wearing green or orange. If you were to wear large patches of black and white, someone looking straight at you in the dark from a couple of metres away wouldn't be able to work out what they're seeing. In the dark a person appears as a dark shadow, so if they had big white blotches the shadow would be broken up and they'd be unidentifiable. It does, of course, depend on the kind of camouflage you want. You can try to avoid being spotted, or assuming you will be spotted, you can try to avoid letting the enemy get a good shot at you. Staying still or toning in with your background prevents spotting, whereas breaking up your outline may make you more visible, but less identifiable and targetable. Can you tell I like this subject?

That would explain why on my 'night exercises' I didn't have much trouble seeing. It was light when we arrived and gradually got dark.

The same could be said for all halftracks in CM. They were essentially armoured transport, usually driven by the squad they carried and mounting the squad's LMG, but in CM they are taken into battle and used as IFVs. It is a limitation of the game's engine that weapons cannot currently be used both mounted and dismounted. The SPW 251 cannot mount the squad MG42 for the AA role. Mortar halftracks cannot dismount their mortar. Arguably no halftrack or carrier in the game should be armed; the drawback being that even when mounted they could not use the squad LMG or mortar, which arguably they would not do on the battlefield anyway. Maybe halftracks should also be modelled as assault boats, so that they cannot move unless mounted, as they did not always have their own driver. Hopefully we shall see this modelled more correctly after the engine rewrite, but in the meantime we can be working out exactly what 'correct' is.

Thanks to those involved in resolving the exact wording of my post in my absence. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: In any case, this thread just gives her majesty's servants a vent point.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, and not to address a valid issue concerning the units available to all of the Commonwealth troops in CM? I don't care about the Lee-Enfield vs. Garand debate and I doubt most people here do either. Personally I have no reservations about the British infantry weapons used in the Second World War and I don't feel the need to be defensive about it (see the one post I made to the thread in question, on page six I think). This thread is unrelated to that and concerns the important issue of Commonwealth troops being denied a stand-alone LMG which they had in reality, while all other armies have their equivalent modelled in the game. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The conversation should be if the soviet LMG will be available seperate.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Personally I don't know much about the deployment of Soviet machineguns. We don't yet know whether this will be an issue. The fact is, in CM two of the three main forces have a good selection of machinegun teams, whereas the third is unfairly restricted. Presumably BTS will do their usual research and decide which machinegun teams will be available to the Soviets. If they make a mistake, someone in the know will hopefully challenge them. That time has not yet come, and a challenge may never be necessary. But in this case a challenge is overdue. I would suggest that analysing what has been done and suggesting how it could be improved is much more helpful to BTS's future efforts than trying to guess what they're about to do and imagine what they might possibly do wrong. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In CMBB, MGs will have increased leathality with the improvements to rates of fire, covered arc, etc. To give this to clip fed weapons is a bit much.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I believe the issue you broach is that machineguns are capable of more than is currently modelled in the game. This depends not on the weapon but the configuration. As we have discussed, not all clip-fed weapons are the same. The Bren can be set up for rapid fire, unlike the BAR, and should be modelled as such in CM. The squad weapon would remain as-is, like the German MG42, but the heavier configuration would have greater capabilities. You suggest that this is just an opportunity for us to bitch, but it sounds like you're the only one bitching, as though it annoys you to think that British weapons really were effective.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: So when the guy is running with the BREN is the loader firing his weapon one handed? The loader had a box with 12 clips in it. Looks kind of bulky.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Your point is? In a squad configuration the ammo is spread between the riflemen. Your comments might be relevant to the Bren in the independent support role which we are asking to be modelled. In any case, it still provides equal if not better suppression fire on the move than the BAR. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Andrew Hedges wrote: But even with a 30 round magazine, the Bren would still have more similarities to the BAR than the MG 42<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I disagree, for the reasons I have detailed above. The only significant difference between the Bren and the LMG42 is that the former lacks a belt feed. As I have explained, the BAR is an automatic rifle, whereas the Bren and LMG42 are true light machineguns are far more effective in this role.

My fourth released scenario, and first non-urban. This combines a defence and exit scenario. On a foggy morning, a British supply route is busy with reinforcements heading for the front. The British commander must safeguard their passage against marauding German forces. The map design, weather and time limit are conducive to stealth and caution. Download the scenario here, and let me know what you think! PS. As with all of my scenarios, this is a bit too complex to play well against the AI. [ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

My observations on CM: Yes, you can see pretty damn far at night. What concerns me more is that when fighting at night in the rain, your owns troops are an equal if not greater danger to each other than to the enemy. What gets me is that your troops can see well enough to shoot at two bailed tank crewmen hiding 100m away, but not well enough to avoid massacring a friendly squad moving through their firing line. Night combat in CM is screwed up. My observations on nighttime: When I was in the RAF cadets, on each summer camp we would do a night exercise. Unfortunately they didn't give us weapons of any kind, it was little more than a game of tag, and impossible to work out who had tagged who. However, being nighttime, it tended to get dark. On one occasion we were out in some fields separated by hedges; on another we were in woodland; I am pretty sure it was overcast on both occasions, and I didn't have much trouble seeing what was around me. It might have been due to the fact that they were summer nights, but this was in England, whereas I live in Scotland, and it's only really in Scotland in midsummer that it never gets completely dark. An overcast night in England would be dark enough. I actually think I was able to see better in the woods than in the fields, so maybe there was a full moon above the clouds or something. At one point I was running across a field in the dark, chasing some of the "enemy", and I didn't have any trouble running, but I couldn't quite see who I was chasing, or indeed if they were still there. I think we may have caught them but I was never quite sure. Anyway, moonlit nights are often very bright indeed. You're talking about the sun's light being directly reflected off a white surface, and the result can often be as effective as street lighting. But I don't recall ever having much trouble getting around in pitch darkness. I think CM's modelling of night combat is screwed up though. A clear moonlit night maybe, or a summer's night in northern Europe, but not an overcast night. LOS should be much shorter, fire should be much more reluctant, and the pace of combat should be much slower.

Hey, they have mock-up box artwork for CM2!

Returning to the original topic of this thread, I have come to a personal conclusion about the relative firepower of British, American and German infantry. Firstly, there is no weight behind arguments along the lines of "oh yeah, well if X firearm was so bad/good, then how come Y army did so well/badly in Z theatre?". Each army was trained to use the weapons they were issued with to optimum effect. How an army fares in a particular scenario is down to myriad factors, and the army's basic organisation, doctrine and experience is much more important than how fast they can burn ammunition. All three armies in question were respected by their opponents, and indeed their allies, regardless of a certain inevitable degree of animosity. They fought well with the weapons they had, and none did any better than the other in all circumstances. Secondly, it is not apparent to me that one army's infantry firepower was significantly better than another's. The British Lee-Enfield rifle outclassed the German Mauser, but was bettered by the next-generation US Garand. The US, however, had a poor squad automatic (BAR), which was strictly an automatic rifle compared to the British (Bren) and German (MG42) true light machineguns. The Germans made up for their poor rifle firepower with increasing use of SMGs and the introduction of assault rifles, as well as a fearful HMG (MG42), whereas the British had a MMG capable of sustained fire superior to all others, and the US had a light antitank machinegun to supplement its air-cooled MMG. It all evens out. It's not the individual weapons which are important, it's how they're used and what other weapons they're used with. To answer the basic question which started the thread, no, Commonwealth infantry weapons are not poor. Some are better than others, but taken together, and then considered with the men who are using them, you do not find an army which has an overall firepower deficiency. Even then, firepower is only one facet of overall performance.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Username wrote: The BREN may have been better at suppressing a two window house at 300 meters, but the BAR could suppress the same on the run at 100 meters.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You are quite right that the BAR was originally designed as a mobile individual weapon. However, you are wrong to suggest that the Bren is a static weapon. It is quite possible to fire a Bren from the hip whilst moving. It is arguably better than even the LMG42 in this respect.