Seanachai

I was offered the option of making a tribute to a true original of the Combat Mission Forum:  Dan 'Berlichtigen' Brown.  'Berli', as everyone knew him.  Scenario designer, game tester, map maker, and Old One of the Peng Challenge Thread.  For young people, and for new members of this Forum, that means probably nothing.  For anyone who lived through 'Running with Heavy Machine Guns', 'Bren Tripods' and any number of other weird ass forum topics, he stomped upon the fecking terra.  He was, in fact, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypso.  And you probably don't even know what that means.  
Well, I haven't known what to make of that offer.  It's been 9 months since 'Berli' died of a particularly vicious and aggressive form of leukemia (neither capitalized nor bolded).  The Peng Challenge limps on, and I give full marks to to those who have it on life support.
And now...Now I'm here because I am an Old One of the Peng Challenge Thread, and I have lived so long, and so long with all of this, that I am having to mourn friends more often than an old man should have to mourn them.
Glenn Allan, 'Stuka', Seniour Knight of the Peng Challenge Thread has died, of an extremely aggressive kidney cancer, and brain tumors.  Stuka was one of the Senior Australians of the Peng Challenge Thread, a thread that has always mocked, and embraced it's Australians.
Stuka was, for anyone reading this, probably fecking better than you.  He wasn't an old man.  He was a bloody good Australian.
I would ask, if it is possible, for the Combat Mission guys, if we could have... I don't know...it gets so stupid, trying to find the latest incarnation of the Thread of Threads...if we could have our 'own' space.  Shorn of 'whatever the current game version' is.
Go to your rest, Stuka.  You were one of the first Australians I ever abused.
 

Another good guess would be that the lads at BFC opted not to spend time endlessly modeling bunches of gun tractors that were:
1) Almost completely outside the scope of the tactical, sharp end of the stick frame of reference of CMBB
2) Almost never going to be purchased by players as a useless waste of points given the tactical nature of the game
3) Would, in any case, simply end up as so much burnt out, abandoned equipment in any given battle

Ask yourself this: When was the last time you seriously concerned yourself with spending 100 or so points making sure that the correct gun tractors were being used to move artillery pieces in a 30-60 minute battle in which you never actually had the time or luxury of moving artillery pieces around?

It boils down to whether people are playing an historical sim tonka truck documentary, or fighting a battle.

I can think of a few games in which I had to load up some Artillery and move, or rather, 'attempt' to move it. In no case can I think of how that job would have been made more 'personally significant' if it was carried out by a gun tractor, as opposed to a 'truck', or even a twenty-mule team.

Quite often the result was an abandoned gun, a burning 'transport' unit, and a certain amount of bad language over the failure to move my gun assets to a more 'advantageous' position.

Now, I can imagine that there are certain situations, and perhaps even certain advantages to be gained, by using one of the many, many fabulous gun tractors that the Soviets doubtless produced in an unending stream during the War.

But, in general, it simply doesn't mean a bloody thing within the scope, timeframe, and intended purpose of the game.

That shouldn't stop anyone from dancing around shouting 'Oh My God! The Russian Gun Tractors normally used kilometers away from the action to move field pieces seldom found on the immediate battlefield outside the time-frame of a normal fire-fight are not modeled in the game!' BFC fix, or face the wrath of Soviet Tractor Enthusiasts Everywhere!

What is this, a wargame, or a Monster Truck Rally?