Bobbaro

Exploding fuels require a fairly narrow air-fuel mix. Anyone messing with an engine that has it wrong sees first hand how that goes. Fuel tanks are filled with fuel only, either liquid or vapor. That stuff only burns as it comes in contact with outside air. The most dangerous fuel tank as far as explosions are concerned is one that is "empty" where air has been introduced. It the mix is right and a source of ignition is present, bang. Gasoline poses a flash hazard as its heavy vapors may move on away from the liquid from which they are derived before encountering a source of ignition. Such flashes can be very rapid and can, when the mix is right, provide somewhat of an explosively rapid burn. It is much more effective like gunpowder when the mix is contained. Large volumes of fuel as from ruptured fuel tanks suddenly energised by external forces so that the liquid is thrown about sometimes with some of it in various states of aerosolization can provide one hell of a flash or series thereof. For the person nearby, the difference between a flash or burn or explosion is inconsequential. Being tosted in a fireball or disentegrated by blast forces leaves little leeway for the discerning or picky. Speaking domestically, propane is by far safer to handle than gasoline, though it deserves respect as well.

Good site there Willhammer, if we can get some more stuff like this, maybe we can talk BTS into including WP. It is a shame we have 4.2s without their basic ammo. Now to get more info on what was available to other weapons and the degree of use. Quoting from that history posted there, "Over three million WP shells came from filling plants in the United States, more than all other mortar shells, excluding HE, combined. In comparison, the service procured only one-third of a million FS smoke shells, and none containing titanium tetrachloride. The German army would have been happy to have had the same plentiful supply of WP as the American army, but Germany lacked the raw materials for producing phosphorus, and its army had to depend on inferior Berger mixture or on sulphur trioxide."

Regarding tss reporting that Simo prefered iron sights, when I did my rifle training at Ft. Leanord Wood (a long time ago)the range instructer said that the fellow with the highest score at that facillilty, did not even use the sights. But, as sniping probably is an altogether different matter, where wind, temperature ect. must be accounted for at extreme ranges. Shooting with iron sights as a hunter might do could be quite effective, especially with a hunters skills in stealth. It could even be more effective for running up a higher score faster, than the highly selective and time consuming methods of trained sniper. A person who possessed both skills would likely be something else indeed. I read about snipers selecting their equipement and approach according to need, sometimes being closer to combat and sometimes closer to hunting a prized quarry.

Glad to see this topic revisited and so done so well. While I don't see any echoing of BH on the WP issue here, I will amend that. I have made somewhat feable and unsuccessful efforts to find support for the quantities they (BTS) want to see documented, before they will consider it, without result. I suspect that WP was so taken for granted that mention of it gets buried in smoke, so to speak. Its use had to be restricted on account of availability and of being undesirable in a lot of situations where some other munition would work better. A round or two mixed with a barrage or when spotting was difficult seems quite possible as a matter of casual utility. But it would seem to really be appropriate do the job, when moving the enemy elsewhere is important. Machineguns and other supporting positions would be good targets when you not only wanted them to duck away from firing their guns, but also wanted them to leave the area until they could stand to return, after which it would be too late. I am not so sure I would want to attack over a well Willie Petered area right after, but then I am ignorant of these details one way or the other, never haveing had the personal pleasure. It may have been menitioned before as a literature citing, but if so, anyway here again, in his book, A Soldier From Txas, Col. Cecil E Roberts of the 9th Armored Div. wrote casually of WP being used to screen the crossing of the Remagen bridge as though it was not anything unusual to be able to order up a large dose of that munition. As it had not only screening capabilities, but also was a strong motovater for personnel to move elsewhere pronto for reasons beyond its casualty causing properties, I would just love to be able to place some in effective proximity to guns and other particularly annoying positons. The threat represented by a miss should have a morale effect simular to watching a flamethrower blazing close enough to make one think it possible to be next on the hit list. The BTS reservation is as I recall relative quantities available in not only in the theater but also at the front line. With the years intervening, that information has been obscured. I am sure some record of it still exists in archives of ordanance shipped, recieved and moved to the forward dumps. So far no one has come up with any FMs which specify standard load outs to the batteries. The only thing I have seen has been anicdoatal mentions, and rather few and far between. WP is a special purpose tool just as appropriate to employ in CM as a back pack flamethrower. However, unfortunantly I can not show in anyway any documentation that would totally answer BTSs reservations. Just about every speciality in the militery has had it's WWII story told. I wish the Ordinance people were included. You can bet that if the shells were there, they were used when needed. P.S. It was interesting to me to read about the stuff being used in Japanese AA shells and with some effectiveness. I read of how one fellow piloted his plane back to base after a WP hit and that only on landing was the still smoking bit of phosphorus removed from one of his wounds. Talk about stiff upper lip. Wow! [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 09-25-2000).]

While not ETO weaponry employment, in his book shots fired in anger by Lt. Col. John George, there is a lot of interesting info from his personal acquaintance with and testing of enemy weaponry in the PTO. He has a lot more respect for the Japanese weaponry especially as far as adapted to the actual conditions encountered in combat. He also says that the Japanese were a lot more responsive about making improvements as needs were found in the field. As far as morters is concerned, he sorely missed some of the features found in Japanese tubes. In general they were lighter and fired a larger charge for their diameter than American weapons. The knee morter doubled as a granade launcher, able to throw one farther and more accurately than the arm. American mortermen tended to laugh at the Japanese morters they saw, at least until on the reciving end of their trajectroy-- which in some cases could be nearly horizontal. In genaral, at least the lighter ones could be deployed much faster than the American counterparts. They also handled overhead cover much more effectively with either fixed 45 degree firing angles using a small hole in the canopy. Additionally they employed ordinance that would not explode on contact with the canopy on the way out. And trigger or lanyard firing helped a great deal in making such capabilities possible. In the context of our morter firing from a building, one of the 81s firing at 45 degrees varying the range by means of a chamber device in the tube, could do so from inside firing through a door or some other handy hole. They did not need as large an apiture as the Yanks did. On the down side they had shorter ranges. This was of little effect in jungle warfare. I bet the GIs in the Huertgen could have put such weaponry to much better use than what they had.

I am considering a makeshift ploy to gain the ability to draw boundries designating unit sectors, that is to use a handfull of snipers crawling forward. Their path and waypoints could serve this function albeitly not too well, perhaps better than nothing or faster than making a sketch map.

Offer in email.

No black flies in the South? Actually there is at least one spp. It gets called buffalo knat locally. I have know of them as problems around Lake Houston above that city. Also up "north" along the Sulphur River in Northeast Texas. While the fellows around the lake just caused locals to raise a ruckus of complaint, the ones up north killed horses if not cattle. The ag extension boys were called in on that one. They dosed the streams with BTI with some success. We never found the breeding grounds around the lake. And we had an expert looking. His entomological degree did not make him an expert, but I figgured his former residence in Yoouper Land did. Now in support of my neighbors, the Coonasses, a fine and most talented variety of the human spp. inhabiting southern Lousiana, I will just say that it takes a lot more than an item or two of culinary artistry to rise even to a pretense of competition in that arena. These guys have painted every possible eatable item in the zone with the French touch and the combination is a pinnacle of flavor. Add to that the influences of other culinary triditions in that part of La. like Spanish, Itallian and African and nothing but good happens. As far as the little flies (Mosques + -itos) are concerned -- (I have difficulty in understanding why in public information pamphlets in Spanish that we had to translate mosquitoes, a word stolen into English from the Spanish, as sanguras which refers to the insects blood loving habit.) I have experenced them on the Gulf Coast and along Lake Superior. They remain impressive in either locality. I have seen vidio of Alaskan swarms and these fellows make visible clouds of hungry in the day time. I have seen horses in a constant trot as woodland varieties attacked north of Houston. I know a guy who accdentally locked himself out of his car at a most inauspicous time, wherein he found suddenly that the Jersey Saltmarsh Mosquito had a high interest in him and in numbers. He found the motovation to bend the door sufficiently to unlock it. Most interestingly, at a meeting I listened to a research veternarian describe an investigation of cattle deaths on the Texas coastal plain wherein rather than finding evidence of suffocation from inhaling and clogging of breathing passages do to mechanical blockage or swollen tissues, that the poor animal's tissues were a light pink rather than red or purple. The cattle were exsanguanated. Bled to death. Infrared vidio of ricefield mosquitoes intermixed with saltmarsh types makes such findings most plausible. Their mating swarms can be seen rising in tornado like flights of dense clouds of horney little boys and girls rising high into the sky. When these creatures get their minds off of ass and turn their attention to warm blood -- In the summer of 1980 during a terrific heat wave and drouth I watched as a couple of our British cousins, one from the lower tier and the other from Scotland worked on a project near an irrigated rice field. Come sundown the little buggers, ordinarily not loath to attack in broad daylight, would darken the skin. The Englishman had a stiff upper, but the Scotsman caved in and withdrew to their rented auto. I have experenced worse, but these were hungary when released from their heat indused exile. My Lake Superior friendly hosts accompanied by various biting flies kept my wife and I in motion. I expertly advised her that they would go away with darkness, so we kept in motion for a little immediate relief postponing our much needed outdoor baths. I had forgotten just how late darkness comes in the northern summer latitudes. But it finally came. Then the second shift took over. I had not counted on that. Bravely I shook off my clothes, hesitated a moment, then gave up all intention about the outdoor shower, diving for the protective embrase of the screened tent. That was just more bare banquet than I wanted to offer. The observation about the cold country varieties having to make hay while the short warm spell called summer holds out is on the mark. More so in Alaska and high mountainous snow country.

I only downloaded this thing to see the terrain. Damn my bones, I am now just half way through and playing. "You can't just play one turn.", is a syndrome symptomatic of fun. And that is in spite of being the first scenario that has challanged my system. The large map size along with huge numbers of units has my computer rather bogged down compared to all other plays I have had. That includes a scenario under development in my own locker that a fellow player is testing and complaining about being too big and bogging his system. My 500 mhtz handles that one right well. His 320 makes it marginal. In Gettysburg the high interest of play has overcome any reservations I might have over my system's performance. My card and total memory are sort of humdrum but adequate, usually. This has me thinking upgrade or at least bolstering the memory and perhaps the card. Too early to redo the whole works. Afterall, I upgraded last Spring just for CM. I have to admit Madmatt's report was the straw that pushed me over the brink after looking at the wonderfully evocative map. I might just have to add him to my bones smiles or no. This has been more than a little time hit. He is right about play. WildBill, you have seen that map I made and sent to you email which you commented favorably upon. It has now had some corrections of glitch types. If you were hosting a map collection site, would you want to have it with the units removed? I have not tested for some minimal requirement for units to have a scenario work. Perhaps it might automatically create with one objective flag or something of the sort.

The empty clips weren't dropped, they were bounced off of a hard object, like a steel pot. Seen it demonstrated.

Does peace have a purpose? What is it? Is it all that different from that of war? Does purpose actually exist or is it something rationalized and ascribed to circumstance? From what does war arise? Is peace the absence of war or war the absence of peace? Are either ever truely absent, peace without some conflict or war or war without some peace within? Is descriptive language up to providing a satisfactory rendition? If political activity characterizes peaceful conflict, then war is merely political activity extended into more forceful form. Is all human endevor conflict or is it harmony? Are all these opposites just points on a continium? We cut a line between at convinence.

If objective discriptins start getting dry, look for first person autobiographical accounts of WWII experences. In my eyes there is no better way to get into WWII than to slog along in the boots of someone one who was there and is a talented writer. You can't do any better than read Charles McDonald's book, Company Commander. There are other excellent ones out there. When people like these grab you with the way it really was in the unwashed flesh, wet, freezing, tired on top tired, more boredom than action, and action that became an explosion of emotion that few ever experence in immediate life and death moments. It ranges from pure terror to the more grinding every day wondering whether one will live up the the demands of being the kind of person that you so desparately want to be, as a member of a bonded brotherhood of those guys you live with everyday, that is in many ways closer than the husband-wife relationship. I saw Charles McDonald on a televison program showing him conducting a tour of the battlefield where the 2nd Division fought in the Rochterath-Krinkelt battle in December of 1944. He located the remaining depression in the earth that was his old foxhole. I remember as a child seeing newspaper maps showing a spreading stain of black ink growing larger by the day, as the German incursion during the Battle of the Bulge grew larger and larger. I caught the concern it caused in my parents and so those visual images burned in my memory, while that young (7), I still recall and relive the dread atmosphere it raised in my home when that memory arises. This war still lives in the surviving veterans. I have seen tears on the cheeks of old men when a reenactmant of those scenes they lived through get too real. As at Galveston, Texas a couple or three years back when in a staged island invasion involving Sherman Tanks, landing craft etc. with blank ammo and pyrotechnics and aircraft overhead really creating an atmosphere, 200 participants of a new generation with the uniforms and equipment of period including a working flamethrower make those old guys know they were appreciated and honored in a far stronger fashon than mere ceremonies and back slapping can ever convey. These young people were reaching deep within themselves to find something as close as possible there to that long ago experence. This is not stuff of books and grog lists and discriptions, it still lives and breathes. That first edition of the war back in 1918 for Americans and rather earlier for others, kinda flew over my head as well. It still does not provide simular impressions on me the the second edition did. That it was only 23 years earlier than when my 4 year old mind became hazily aware of the parent and relative crowd and something they much talked about with serous emotional overtones, Pearl Harbor. So I can understand via the hazy notions of WWI in my youth, why a lot of folks now have difficulty with even more recient actions than WWII. That a game like Combat Mission can inspire new generations to get into contact with strands of life still existing today and still impacting even the unaware, is a fine tribute to its power to evoke an aspect of the era. Perhaps in 30 years Jsoh will be teaching some newby what a Sherman is. We had one in this town until reciently and still have the Stewart (Honey to the British) and a Priest as well some Jananese tanks. About 4 or 5 times a year one can see the Stewart in action again attacking a pill box with blank firing. WWII aint the only one. I remember how the American Revolution was so hard to grasp through modern eyes which just could not comprehend a war in which one side lost so many battles or positions and ended up winning in the end. A board game called, 1776, came along and so many things began to make sense. Some people can not comprehend why the interest in war and in being in war, especially on losing sides. There are a lot simple human instincts at work and it is after all play in many aspects, but play with a serious element. By getting as much inside of the thing as possible, one can began to comprehend some deep human realities as it existed in another time. It is not really about the equipement and uniforms, but what it was to be one of those people, are no different from us. I have noted a recient thread concerning people getting into the persona of their former enemies. I have often considered how here in this country, which like many others is populated by folks who tend to think, that somehow they are special beyond the rest, and that terrible things that are known to have happened in other places and times just could not happen here. Well the population here has the same kind of people in it with the same capabilities for good and evil. We have lived to see Communism fall apart in Europe and persist in rather altered form in mainly Asia. It could have not happened here. Or could it. Do we forget how many people in the Depression era here began to look to socialistic solutions and a goodly number its communist form. We did install a number of institutions into American life out of the movement gained in that direction then. Nations caught in the floods of calumanity and distress that severely challange the fabric of what constitutes "normal" life there are succeptable to having abnormal elements surge to the top. That such elements may have absolutly no compuctions against lying, stealing, and violance may in no way hender their rise. The people of the United States have enough examples of blood lust grabbing a subpopulation and finding a large body of the citizens on the side of and justifying that violence. We so justify the "Good War". Well it was not good at all. There were actions of nations against Germany following WWI that added incredably to the strength of the abnormal segments of German society with convincing their fellow countrymen that the situation required strong measures. Depression era America also agreed with them, that strong measures were necessary. We were just fortunant that our stresses were not as great or of a kind with Germany, and that our population was not as desparate for remedy as to enable a totally fringe element to bring their cracked ideals to the top. Had we done so would we have found recruits to the cause? Would our "ordinary" people climbed on the bandwagon? You bet they would. If Americans stressed to simular straights as the Germans were, given hope, employment, release from a great deal of fear, a turn around in the economy, then the patriotic jingosim, of an American populace would be inspired and available to turn against somescape goat segment of the population or against an other nation populated with non-us'es. At least enough to become widely scandalous. We did not complain about Japanese internment in the 1940's and the consfiscation of their property to the benifit of some members of the rest of the people. Complaints against slavery were small and not very significant, as far as threatening the institution, even up to the Civil War. Even in the North, not within the population at large. That these were free states was as much a sense of freedom from having these Blacks as nearby neighbors. These abominations to a white society were, if anything, less tolerable to many Northern whites as an element living in their comunities than their Southern countrymen who did have them in theirs. This was a much more widespread sentiment than winning history recorded for a long time. This very normal and human evil feeling was not universal, but did give evidence in quite a number of Northern army regiments which tended to even shoot Blacks as undesirables and causes of the war, as popular opinion had it, when that could be done out of the presence of censuring outsiders. Slavery, inspite of a very vocal and slowly increasing minority, was at least tolerated by the Northern section. After all it profited them too, and they did not have to have them living among them. They could import cheap European labor escaping the rigid class structure and locked social positon, if not downright surfdom and have white servants in the house and workplace. It was more seemly. Are these Southern words seeking justification? Well as hyprocritical as Northern minds became as war especially inspired criticism of the other section, what sophistry and hypocrisy exceeds Southern use of claiming Christian sanctions for the practice of slavery? It was a National evil, not just a Southern one. To paraphrase Samuel Clemens, "If you get all the fools to cast their votes for a candidate, that is a majority in any town. Foolishness is rather more widespread than we like to think. Of course it is something that afflicts the other fellow. I find it very easy to comprehend how the German people were led down the primrose path. I see these capabilities as inherently human, not German alone. All nations have some paticular as well as general traits available for exploition. We see them everyday. So we do well to look at the horror of war and its universal appeal and to know it as closely as possible. In a game as realistic as CM we see how easily death is obtained on the battlefield. And if that were not enough, it brings death to a much wider sphere as well. If we can know its appeal in us and its consequences of death and destruction, then we have made a step in making that most applicable of knowledges, knowing thy self. It is an enemy faced in the mirrow. Sometimes I think whole populations grow bored with ordinary humdrum elements of prosperity, poverty, and the usual daily socital triumphs and tragiedies and just itch for some speical excitement. Nothing like a war in prospect to make identifying with Us particularly thrilling and dealing properly with Them so satisfying. A bully sport. Unless you lose. Well, here's to the losers; they are also us. Perhaps that is why so many don the uniforms and the paraphinalia of the other side. Losing has a curiosity, expecially when the losers did so in extraordinarily prolonged, ingenious and often militarily successful ways that came to nothing in the end. Note Civil War reeactments where it is often necessary to fill the ranks of the Northern Blue out of "Reconstructed Grey" soldiers as that is a popular uniform even above the Mason and Dixon Line. I wonder if Lee has more soldiers than Grant, in the European, American Civil War reenactment groups too. Gee how I wander. It is CMs fault. Anyone's or anything's but mine.

Could it be that the viusals of the tank represented sound IDs?

Thanks old Smillie, I needed that. It worked but with difficulty. But, who cares, if it gets the job done.

Wow, this is good news. Not that I am surprised, but when I go after the 1.05 download, I get nothing. It must be sideloaded with greedy customers like me. I tried the Forum hot button, the TGN button and the one at Battlefront.com's CM page. Nothing available on any of 'em. Maybe I can get on the bandwagon with 1.06. 1.05 ain't so bad anyway. I'll live. Good to see such a user base.

NOT A SUGGESTION!!! But, just thinking about game design possibilities: In CM, the highest HQ on map has recieved its orders with the pregame setup representing the deployment carried out necessary to start the action which begins with turn 1 and all detailed orders planned and on the way. As the turn begins each acting unit experences its delay to simulate the time to get its orders and act on them. All the time the player spends off the game clock simulates the thinking, deciding and communicating that takes place on the clock. While a lot of these delays would take place concurrently, some of them in reality would be serial timewise and accumulative as required to filter down to the units concerned. A game design that would take this time factor, (not the only one left out of CM, [not a complaint just an observation])--- take this time factor into consideration by building in specific command and control sequences necessary to command each unit in the game and include an appropriate delay at each point in the chain and make it accumulative from top to bottom. That way a player could designate a squad leader to give an order and have it carried out with only a delay for that one stage, If he wanted the platoon leader to give an order, the time to carry it out would be accumulative over two stages. An order from the top commander would take all the delays in the chain between. Here is the rub. In CM this is all done in the head of the player and left out until it reaches the actual unit in the game acting on the order. So how one would design a game mechanism to force the chain of command in that one head into producing separate delays for each level of exhange? About impossible I'd say. The command and control feature in CM does not simulate anywhere near adequately the result of being out of command and control. The only penality involved is to increase the reaction time. All the units are in total command and control of the player just as if he had little radios in their helmets that never fail. The only interruption, are the reaction delays and delay levels, unit states of emotion, and Tac AI interventions. This appears to me pretty close to being as good as it can get with one player. As he knows what he wants each individual unit to do in his overall concept of the ongoing battle, he can and indeed must reach out and click up its orders with no interviening chain of command. In his imagination the vision of the reality is there, but when he watches it played out, there is the nagging fact that the battle coordination is far more effective and units act with far more alacrity than one would find in reality. So the game development challange is to determine if there is some mechanism available to simulate this one factor, the inclusion of the accumulative delays that orders passing down the chain involve. What mechanism would take into account the proper sphere of immediate action available to each level and range of their command reach? Steve and Charles have already noted a difficulty with the inclusion of specific radio equipment into the structure. Adding to this specific programming to account for the runner would be additional stress on the resources available. Hand and voice signals are abstracted along with all other communications and none of them are affected by interruptive factors beyond simple distance between a commander and his proximity on the CM terrain and the emotional state of the unit and AI intervention. {repeating here} The problem not only one of limited current computing capacity, but of programming conceptualization for a game with a single player in the role of acting for multiple levels of command. (Damn, here I am restating the problem; where is the solution? Is there one? Are we dealing in a fundimental logical imposibility? That seems possible.) Further analysis of battlefield conditions seem necessary to obtaining enough building blocks of concept for investigating the possibility of solution. The simplest command situation is direct contact with an officer. At its best it is close enough for a monologue from the officer (a dialogue if he wants it), mouth at ear and possible whispering or normal conversational volume. Next is the shouted command. Following that is the visual signal. (Small interruption for rant. I personally feel that the present CM should allow squad teams to be in C&C when suficiently close together, one of them will contain the squad leader and he should have much control over his other team as the platoon leader has over his squad. I just think it is a bit contridictary as other teams have the C&C advantage when in range. A platoon leader has visual and voice and range, but a squad leader does not. Other teams are not so handicapped. This is contridictary.) Anyway, after direct contact there is runner contact. Simulating or abstracting this capability is a can of worms, perhaps not beyond untangling but a heavy duty thing to conceptualize for representating and programming. Then there is the radio. And that is an interesting can itself. How about analysing the 3d positions of the communicating units and the capability of the two instruments with respect to reliability, dead space, power, battery useage and availablity? Understandable why it is not even abstracted in CM. But one day possible? Hummm. So what would restrict a player from interacting immediately with all his units immediately with nearly insignificant delays as is current? Toying with a sphere of action concept, movement paths for individual units could be limited to a given short sphere of action for which a player would be able to implement orders immediatily for each turn with out involving a commander at a higher level with its accumulative delay added to those of the acting unit. Accessing the higher command level would extend the sphere of action and yield a longer movement allowance. And so on up to the top of the chain of command. Is this a possiblility? I don't know. I can see that it would make giving orders a greater ordeal. A player would really have to make his plan out in detail from the first in order to obtain the greatest effect from movement or suffer the increased penalities of delay for playing on the fly at first. Such a design would make these officers on our CM terrain more than just helpful speed and morale boosters along with some times a little spotting help. Losing a Battalion command group would really be significant big time. And so would losing a company or platoon command group impose a only somewhat lower significant penalty. Could this concept include the replacement of such a command group ad hoc from the companies, platoons or squads with increased delays and lessened action spheres but some modicum of continunity as really happens in combat? I can see it being done, with an appropriate time delay. Now I never thought, when I began this, that it would go anywhere, just that it was a problem. But here we are with at least some kind of an idea as a result; but, is it a solution? I don't know; the exercise was interesting to me, though probably boring to anyone trying to follow along. To those who read it to the finish, I am greatful that I was able to provide that much of an incentive to that end, but fearful that most quit long ago or suffer from some kind of dreadful compulsion to forge ahead inspite of the nature of the task. [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 08-27-2000).]

I was looking for this game before it existed. My little pea brain was connecting the possibilities of computer + wargame as soon as it learned that computers were a real possibility for ordinary Joe Blow. As for wargames I played them before I knew one could buy them. I made them up from BBs, wooden blocks, and the real plastic soldiers, pencil and paper or chalk, blackboard and carved balsawood, the good earth and plasticine clay terrain. From even real kids and the neighborhood nearby, I been soldiering. Even played with reenactors a couple of times. I thought about hexes as a medium of terrain in the '50's before I could make them properly(never did, found hex paper first. Squad Leader seemed to me the apex of board gaming, so I even started learningsome programing on the old apple 2+ hoping to put the tables into readily accessable form to take some of the hassle out of playing that wonder. Life intruded to draw that project out into such a thin line that it never fininshed. Then came a long wait, thumbing computer magizines hoping to catch a line that promised the computer would doing the boreing stuff. But, as board games and computers kept coming, then the game console, computer games and finally, Wolfinstein and Doom things arrived. What A shame I thought. This 3d technology is being wasted on foolishness. I caught a magizine article on AH finally getting of the old duff and actually marrying SL and the computer. Well that went south, but we got CC anyway. It was interesting and showed promise. I bought it and tried it. Never became an addict, but did not complain about the purchase price. Even bought a sequel, as much to put a little salve on the raw places made by rubbing old lamps etc in hopes something would work to head further in the right direction, as to have a second verse of CC. I did a check on AH as I got I-Net capabiity and low and behold they were giving it another whirl. Now this is when I could say I got on to the CM bandwagon. I can't fix that in time, except that it was not long before AH itself went south and Computer Squadleader appeared to be dead until the miracle of the dynamic dual dose of doing it right in the persons of Steve and Charles picked up the pieces, and under Bigtime Software carried on to new hights of game design. Now, I been looking into the crystal ball too long to see the process stopping with CM of what ever number be it 5 or 10 or more. As computers get more capable, and programing gets more expert, and programing experts get additionally imaginative, I believe we can expect to find even bigger and better packages under the Christmas Tree. Last night I dreamed the Forum was flaming and smoking over the issue of whether to utilize the computer's capability to bleed, smell of fresh wounds and of death, and whether Steve and Charles would be liable for the combat fatigue cases of players overcome in the virtual reality of their latest game design. I was in tears because I had grown too old to pass the necessary physical players were obligated take in order to qualify for purchase. I am 62 until October. Just how difficult is that physical? I ain't too far from that dreadful disqualification now! [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 08-22-2000).]

I have felt this troubling me on occasion. I send a tank to a position to fire on a known enemy tank and it gets there alright, and my front facing tank with a gun in position is unable to shoot before the other fellow sees him, rotates vehicle, turrent, or both, acquires the target and blows it away. The only excuse that I can find for this situation might be illustrated by the following: Commander in radio contact,"Alright now, do you see him?" Tank commander, "Not yet." Commander, "There, right in front of you!" Tank Commander, "Where?" Commander, "@#$%#$@#$! OPEN YOUR #$&@ EYES! TELL YOUR GUNNER TO TAKE OVER!" Tank Commander, "Uh, Gunner, See anything? Gunner, "I'm not sure, There is a big slab of camo painted metal right in front. I Can't tell what it is." Tank Commander, "Well the boss says for your to take over, By the way, did you just shoot? Damn there is a lot of smoke in here - - - What was that flash ? Commander, "SHOOT SHOOT, YOU DON'T HAVE TO AIM, JUST SHOOT! HE IS ALREADY FIRING" Enemy Tank, "BOOM" Player, (Throwing up sounds)

Now, you did have a foul day! The most I have ever had bogged was one and that in damp conditions. I did once observe a bogging in dry conditions. He obviously found a wet spot, a place with a high water table.

A comment on designing rivers: They should at least run down hill and not wash up the embankments or have hills in them. That is to look good. Roads have the same problems with elevations but are a little more tolerant visually. Where they definitely suck is when elevation changes that result in slopes on the road. That interferes with traffic. I have not investigated whether assualt boats can negoiate slopes on rivers or even whether that feature even applies to rivers. It might be for all I know that an assault boat might be able to ascend a verticle waterfall. I really don't personally have any problem with the gentle slopes that appear in rivers when they decend one elevation level. It just creates a small rapid and is visually acceptable to me. This is probably unrealistic for rivers in large reigons of Europe, but in terrain with a lot of relief, perhaps not so unrealistic.

That was basically my most successful approach. I tended to put more into the church than you did. From time to time 'fausts placed there did well on the Shermans making the load on the Stuggs lighter. But, all in all that was my best solution. Playing the other side, I found two approaches that proved successful, mainly. One was a rush by squad bearing Shermans up to the cross road and hiding out behind the buildings and dumpint their squads. Remaining troops were mainly sent left to the wheatfield\building objective with a few to claim the flag in the wooods in the center in front of the church. That left the Germans having to attack the church etc. On the left my troopers generally were able to occupy the objective and get set for the Germans to work their way through the woods. The other approach was to send all the Shermans up the left side and take shelter with the trees on their left and overlooking the objectives. Infantry riding would get into the woods and protect against German infantry there. In either instance the whole depended on removing the Stuggs, then all else was fairly easy. This was usually accomplished, but not without at least losing a tank or two. Sometimes more. Actually, that is the ticket to playing either side, eliminate the opposing armor, than go after the infantry supported with armor. [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 08-13-2000).]

To spring, or move by springing, from the hind legs, as a horse, or in imitatation of a horse's prancing gate. Commonly employed with show horses or in exhibiting a horses movement for purposes of attracting attention or admiration. A person adding a springing motion or highstepping motion in walking so as to attract attention etc.

We have here two style preferences, quick and dirty and long and careful. I feel there is a place for both. However, my designing preference is for the longer version. Accounts of combat I have read included situations where decisive results came quickly as well as ones where things played out over a longer haul. As we have whole batallions to work with, there are resources available for the longer haul. The smaller the unit, the quicker it was likely to be used up in active combat as its energy and ammo would be expended provided the action was sufficiently heavy. A company taking a town would be badly taxed to hold if successful in cases where a quick counter attack found a seriously depleated unit. On the other hand such a unit followed up quickly by a fresh company would be ready. Especially if the original company did it with two platoons having a relatively fresh third one to at least delay a counter attack until a fresh company came into play. The player may like the simple situation and be happiest in dealing with nothing more. After all even these pack a lot of action. Other players may like the challange of the larger battlefield. In my design effort my last test play found my forces being bled in a series of delaying actions and clearing actions. By the time they got to confront the objective, they were in no condition to have anything like an easy go at the objective. I am finding some potential disagreement with the game engine deciding the result in such cases prematurely in my book. If the situation facing me like this at the end is converted to play as a scenario in itself, with me starting out with a depleated force, and take the objective using that force I potentially can get a victory. But, the same situation at the end of the game originally is likely to interrupt me saying that I have lost, without me even having the opportunity to attempt the objective. I would like to see if my bloody ragtag soldiers could do it anyway. I would say generally they couldn't. But damn, it could be possible. Complexity to satisfy can be found on both large and small battlefields. The player's patience and willingness to pursue the satisfactions of the greater complexities possible in the larger format may be no greater than the others, but they certainly are no less. If patience and will fail, then stay where satisfaction lasts. And it ain't the same all the time for anyone. [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 08-11-2000).]

Involved in a scenario design on a maxie map, I have felt that the thing plays more like an operation. This kicked off a thought to take advantage of the operations larger map format and make a 1 scenario operation. I'll have to look at operation parameters and see if that is possible.

If the flail tanks operate at or one half of walking speed, it seems that there is enough room on the clock to me. On a maxie map scenario under design, I found loss of transport, that forced a hike on the troopers still enabling them to participate with some effectiveness. At walking speed ground pounders can traverse a good part of the maximum length available on the map. Without measuring foot speed, and just speculating, at a rather low speed of 60 meters a minute, that would be 600 meters in 10 minutes and 3600 meters in an hour. At the two hour limit, one could go 7200 meters. This is a lot more than the length of a maximum sized map. A flail could knock off a lot of mined tiles at 30 meters per minute. I am sure if my speculation is off base that better informed persons will certainly be heard. I have found some but not all of the limitations placed on game elements based on time available to be unnecessarily limiting. A 2 hour scenario has a lot of leeway for some things to be done, especially considering the limited space available for these things to take place. My feeling is that when in doubt, give way to making more available to scenario design and less to restriction. In other words leave it to the designer with in reason. If he misuses his tools, then the players will be the judge.