Dan Weaver

After doing extensive historical research I have found that the vast majority of World War II photographs encompass only black, white, and shades of gray. This leads me to believe that the world did not become colored until sometime after 1945. I request that CM2 be changed to a grayscale palette in order to be more realistic.

Gentlemen, I present to you (off another forum) the German 702nd Division. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The German 702nd Division was an occupation / garrison unit in Norway. Nafziger gives the following report of equipment BEYOND AUTHORIZED fielded by this division as of January 1945: 722 Grenadier Rgt: 1 50mm fortress gun, 1 47 mm Czech gun w/ 1 LMG, 2 20mm, 4 25 mm 4 100mm Austrian mountain guns, 3 50mm mortars, 56 flamethrowers, 1 45mm Russian gun, 1 Norwegian HMG, 9 Norwegian LMG, 3 French HMGs. (This was in Rgt HQ.) 1 Bn/722: 4 45mm Russian guns, 4 French HMGs, 4 French 75mm guns, 3 flamethrowers, 4 Czech 80mm mortars, 1 50mm fortress gun. 2 Bn/722: 3 45mm Russian guns, 1 Norwegian HMG, 1 French HMG, 3 50mm mortars, 4 80mm Czech mortars, 3 75mm PAK 40, 3 panzerschreke. 3 Bn/722: 3 75mm PAK 40, 2 47mm Russian fortress guns w/2 LMGs, 1 50mm fortress gun, 10 French 50mm mortars, 6 panzerschreke, 13 Russian 45mm guns, 2 Norwegian HMGs 10 French HMGs 2 Norwegian LMGs, 1 French 75mm gun, 87 flamethrowers, 4 50 mm mortars, 1 60mm mortar, 4 80mm Czech mortars. 742 Grenadier Rgt (HQ): 4 75mm mountain guns, 2 French HMGs. 1 Bn/742: 7 45mm Russian guns, 1 LMG, 3 panzerschreke, 4 French HMGs, 6 HMGs, 2 Norwegian LMGs, 3 120mm Norwegian mortatrs, 3 50mm mortars, 1 French 60mm mortar, 4 Czech 80mm mortars. 2 Bn/742: 4 75mm PAK 40, 1 47mm Czech gun, 2 LMGs, 8 French 50mm mortars, 90 flamethrowers, 6 panzerschreke, 8 Russian 45mm guns, 6 HMGs, 15 French HMGs, 2 Norwegian LMGs, 2 25mm Flak guns, 2 75mm Yugoslav Flak guns, 2 76mm Czech Flak guns, 3 Czech 80mm mortars, 5 Norwegian 81mm mortars, 2 50mm mortars. 3 Bn/742: 3 75mm PAK 40, 1 LMG, 3 45mm Russian guns, 1 Norwegian HMG, 2 25mm Flak guns, 1 120mm gun, 3 panzerschreke, 4 80mm Czech mortars. 654th Fortress Infantry Bn: 2 45mm Russian guns, 1 French 37mm gun, 2 Norwegian HMGs, 3 German HMGs, 3 Norwegian LMGs, 2 75mm guns, 83 flamethrowers, 4 panzerschreke, 1 37mm leIG, 2 50mm fortress guns, 4 Czech 47mm fortress guns, 4 LMGs and 2 50mm mortars. This is ALL unuathorized, above TOE equipment. Besides kleptomania, these guys appear to have had a serious arson fetish. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If CM2 doesn't allow me 83 flamethrowers per battalion, it will be a fundamentally incomplete game.

Totally OT: Actually, the Soviet space program was sane. Ours, pre-Viking and Pioneer, was dumb...the Apollo program was a giant publicity stunt and not much else. While we were sending a few fighter jocks to play golf on the moon, they were collecting all sorts of useful scientific data. Let's just count the total of successful Russian space stations (7) versus successful American space stations (1). Their space program wasn't "dumb". It was an inspiration and one of the few bright spots in an otherwise throughly depressing regime.

Try this: Buy some assault boats...it doesn't matter if the scenario is near water. Deploy them near your troops. They'll look kind of silly sitting there on dry land, but just hold on. Move your troops to the assault boats and have them Crawl to the same location as the assault boat, as if you were rejoining a split squad. Your troops will pick up the assault boat and hide under it. This will protect them from arrows and projectiles as they assault enemy fortresses. Of course this tactic only works for Combat Mission: Beyond Cannae.

It seems like this debate always generates the same pious references to Marshall and Depuy. Did anybody else ever study the problem of election and preterition among the infantry?

So why are you here, Xavier?

Seems like everybody's made the same discovery I just did... The other day I read that German units would frequently use mobile flak units to bolster infantry, so I bought a couple of 7/2s in one of the frequent battles I play against myself. The price was right and the 37mm gun seemed like it would be useful... Useful isn't even the right word. Mobile death machine is more like it. A British rifle platoon engaged one at 150 yards and suffered 50% casualties for its trouble, without causing a single loss to the 7/2's crew. It wrecks light armor by virtue of its fast turret and high ROF, and usually gun-damages Shermans and Churchills. The 7/2 is basically the distilled essence of gamey, packaged into a 48-point bottle and delivered direct to your door. What's more, they're fun to drive all over the battlefield in reverse.

In First Clash at Cambes I had a PIAT gunner run into a house, sit down, and immediately knock out a Pz IV by firing between two houses as the tank went by at top speed. Four turns later I used over ten PIAT shots to no avail against another Pz IV. You win some, you lose some. I prefer to keep my anti-tank infantry together rather than parceling them out in penny packets to rifle platoons. When two or three bazookas are engaging together (ideally from different angles!) they stand a much better chance of getting a quick kill...and a quick kill is the only kind of kill they can get.

M-18 Hellcats save my hash time and time again. Why? Their fast turret and faster ground speed means that they can outmaneuver the Germans every time, and their low, low price means that you can get enough of them to launch serious ambushes. But I've loved the Hellcat ever since the days of the demo.

Analysis schmanalysis. 1. Typhoon rockets wouldn't have caused the catastrophic damage suffered by Wittmann's Tiger. Maybe it got rocketed later but there's no way those firecracker rockets are going to knock a tank's turret off. 2. No Typhoons or fighter-bombers, period, were operating in the area at the time of Wittmann's demise. 3. Wittmann's last orders show him about to stumble right into a Firefly ambush. I get tired of people trying to paint Wittmann as some kind of Tank God who could not be killed by mortal tankers. He ran into an ambush, and anybody can do that.

I play the Allies as much as I can. My philosophy on armored engagements is that the Allied tanks' armor can't handle a stand-up fight, so you have to use earth, wood, and masonry as your armor and rely on speed and maneuverability to reduce the German engagement window as much as possible while you're dashing between hiding spots. No matter how much armor I have, one hit from the Germans will knock out any of my vehicles, so I might as well throw out the armor entirely, save points, and use cheap-but-deadly Hellcats and Jacksons. I try to turn every tank battle into a series of ambushes where two or three TDs gang up on one tank.

Playing First Clash at Cambes against the AI, I took out the first PzIV with one PIAT shot from 90m that flew through the gap between two houses and nailed the tank in the side. It took me more than 20 PIAT rounds to knock out the last PzIV. Just luck...

Gotta put a third vote in for First Clash at Cambes. A masterpiece. Dan

The reports of the sabot's demise have been greatly exaggerated. A Cypriot T-80 crewman over on the old Tanker's Net said that his Russian advisers said that Kontakt-5 provided 38% better protection against M829A1 rounds, e.g. not enough to guarantee a stop. No modern tank is really frontally immune to a hit from another modern tank cannon. I ought to add that M829A3 is designed to defeat Kontakt-5 and other reactive armors. The battle goes on. Oh yeah, and modern CM would rule. Dan

Hee hee. Good one, Time. They'll fix that in patch v3.14 along with the Hotchkisss. Dan

I think you want fetid, not fecund, Fionn...after all I hope this question doesn't breed! Still pissed about those Hotchkisss, Dan

I don't like the ideas after CM2. I think that the Eastern Front campaign will gather a lot of interest, but I just don't see people getting as interested in CM3 and CM4. I'm afraid that BTS will stagnate into doing the same old thing. I think that CM3 should be set sometime in the modern era, preferably the October War or Central Europe. Dan

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tss: If someone knows a fool-proof (or should that be student-proof) method for getting some response out of undergraduate students, please tell it to me. - One who has to teach computation theory to 300 future electric engineers who are _not_ interested. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm interested, send it to me by email. Dan

Hehe. C's a HEAT round. T is a tungsten round. Dan

If I have 1.03, and my friend has the latest demo, can we PBEM Valley of Trouble and Chance Encounter against each other? Dan

Simple economics. A Tommy gun cost $600 and was lovingly hand-made, a grease gun cost $12. AFAIK grease guns were issued to people who didn't need them much, like crews. Dan

When I looked at the kill count for one of my tracked Ferraris, er, Hellcats, I noticed that it had this entry: 2 Hotchkisss knocked out Now this is PLAINLY RIDICULOUS!! BTS is SO DUMB that they can't even get tank crews to use PROPER GRAMMAR!! Until BTS fixes this problem so that tank names ending in S have the proper plural suffix and I see HotchkissES, I am going to HIDE MY BTS CD IN A DARK CLOSET!! AND FURTHERMORE I AM GOING TO SIT ON MY BED AND CRY!! AND MY TANKS ENGAGE CREWS WHINE WHINE FART!!!!!! Dan

Hetzers? I didn't think those were tanks. They seem more like some kind of battlefield illumination device. Dan

Infantry can close assault armor but (just like in real life) it's a dicey proposition. Make sure you have a full platoon with few losses and high morale, and have another unit draw the tank's fire. Move them right up next to the tank, don't be shy, and expect to take a few losses, especially as the Americans. The Nahvertesgungswaffe (I think I spelled it right!) can beat up on charging troops. Offer void in Utah. Dan

Does anybody else find these six or eight-tank rushes unrealistic? I just don't see two tank platoons rushing into certain death for most of their members without some really hefty suppression effects. Maybe suppression and leader effects should be modelled for vehicles too. Dan