RMC

CM models the turret roof Nahverteidigungswaffe, yes. But it doesn't launch S-mines. The S-mines were launched from 5 separate launchers around the hull on Tigers built from December 42 to September 43. The S-mines aren't included that I've seen. You don't really jack up a tank. You jack individual road wheels, bogies, or torsion bars to do maintenance on the suspension. As to the original question, I can't anything that shows the Pz IV ever had the smoke dischargers. Early models had ports in the turret roof. The late H and J models, which are what you should see in CMRT, were supposed to have the Nahverteidigungswaffe though supply shortages prevented many of them from being installed. The Panther D had the smoke dischargers in early 1943, but like on the Tiger they were dropped in the summer of that same year.

If you look in the Archives you can find posts from Dorosh as far back as Jan 2001. I'm pretty sure he was around before that too. I have no idea why the forum join date shows 2007 apart from it being a forum glitch. There were two major crashes in 2000 that wiped out a lot of accounts.

Was that a bunch of CGI Tigers or mockups?

There's something wrong with those screenshots. The vehicles look undetailed. I strongly suspect that they aren't really going full 3d. I think it is more like the old isometric view that was popular in the RTS games. So gimmick 3d and not true 3d. Why else would you need the little inset map to show you which part of the map you're looking at?

They we're omitted from production starting in June 1943. The Nahverteidigungswaffe replaced them starting in January 44. There is no proper model available. The one operational Tiger in the world is Tiger 131 captured by the British in Tunisia in April 43. I'm not sure that Bovington were keen to let the film makers upgrade it to late production with a new mantlet, road wheels, turret roof, cupola etc. Really they should have used one of the Panthers running around. There are more to choose from and are probably more appropriate to the timeframe than a Tiger 1.

I don't think the fanbase killed it. It's own lack of financial success killed it. They never got the resources to invest in a new engine so they kept repackaging the same one with new maps and a couple of new features here and there. What was true of the CC fanbase is true of pretty much all of them. The vocal, online fans are a tiny slice of the total customer base. CM fans are no different. Over the years the fans have told BFC that CM would fail without hex maps and counters, that 3D was useless, that the battlefield needed to be littered with dead bodies, that players needed the option of executing prisoners, that going to 1:1 representation for infantry would be a huge mistake, and that going to a real-time engine would cause a mass exodus of customers. I can't imagine where we'd be if BFC had listened.

I too loved CC back in the day, particularly CC2 ABTF. When it came out it was the best thing going. Steel Panthers? What's that? Thinking back on how CC developed compared with how CM developed, I think CC suffered for a couple of reasons. These were primarily the rendering engine and the developer shuffle. The original CC came out in 1996, one year after the original Command and Conquer was released, and the 3D revolution was just starting. Quake came out that year too. The original maps were utilitarian and not very pretty to look at, but they worked better than the prettier, drawn maps that followed in CC2 and later games. All of the vehicle pathfinding issues stemmed from the mismatch of the underlying code and the appearance of the drawn maps. I haven't tried any of the CC games after CC5, so I can't say for sure, but it looks like the various Matrix versions still use the same basic engine. So now 18 years after the original CC and 14 years after CMBO, CM has definitely aged better than CC. CMBO graphics were not cutting edge 14 years ago, but they worked and they're still crisp and clear today. The CC unit graphics are fuzzy and pixelated. The CC series has had three publishers and at least two developers over the years, Microsoft, SSI, and now Matrix/Slitherine. CM has had some distribution partners, but it has always enjoyed the singular vision of one developer and that has added to its success immensely.

It hasn't been fixed in their desired time frame (immediately) so they left?

Many of the foreign volunteer units started outside the SS. The Spanish Legion is one example. The Estonian Legion another. By 1944 as part of the deal between the Army and the SS, the Army got a bigger share of the german recruits and the SS picked up all the foreigners.

The Atomic project was Beyond Squad Leader. That title I think gives you the fundamental difference in the goals of the two companies. AH and many fans wanted nothing more than a direct port of SL/ASL to the computer. Heck, the alpha versions of CM still had hexes and there were heated arguments on the BTS forums between those who wanted hexes and counters and those who wanted to take advantage of what the computer could do for the game. I wish I still had those screenshots from the alpha days. OMG. The wayback machine has some of the original forums captured. Take a look at this post: CASL-A dissenting view It was Moon.

I was on a 14.4 dial up connection at Albertshof (Hohenfels training area) in 1998. I searched for Computer Squad Leader and found Big Time Software was working on the game. A month or two later, Avalon Hill was toast and CSL became Combat Mission. Lots of moaning about that name on the old forums they had back then.

Interesting link. Thanks for posting. I especially liked the cross-country stability chart because it reinforces something I saw in a TV show (on youtube) about restoring a Panther. One of the collectors/restorers said that whereas the US was working on stabilizing the gun to allow firing on the move the Germans were trying to stabilize the entire tank with the smooth-riding Panther suspension.

I like steam. I didn't when it came out in late summer 2002 IIRC. I was heavily into Day of Defeat at the time. In my group we continued to play on the WON servers until those went away and we had to use Steam to go online. I see most the discussion has been about DRM and control, but I've always thought of Steam in terms of content delivery which I think is the original intent. Valve has become a publisher of sorts, but they built Steam as a developer so that they could get their games to market and earn more money from each sale than by using a publisher to get a physical package in a store. It's similar to the Battlefront philosophy.

Aparently this is in conjunction with the Airborne marches around Arnhem and Oosterbeek that they do every year. The reaction of the troops is pretty nice. I used this link because You Tube is blocked here at work. http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/little_belgian_boy_saluting_canadian_troops/

Are there actually people here that have never bought a BTS/BFC product? I would never have suspected that. That some of them may have not purchased a product in several years as they await some future product is something else entirely. This is the first time that I've seen BFC hint at some connection between using the forums and buying games. I always assumed everyone here was or had been a customer in some way. Maybe they bought CMBO in 2000 and nothing else. Are you advocating some system of membership where you have to have bought something in, say, the last 2 years in order to use the forums?