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Kingfish

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Posts posted by Kingfish

  1. I'm trying to understand the reasoning for not allowing the MMG carrier to carry passengers, when it would appear at first glance (to me at least) it could carry a team in much the same manner as it's ATR cousin.

    I base my opinion on the fact that the Universal Carrier , which is esentially the same vehicle, can carry the 3" mortar section.

    So why is the MMG exempt when all other variants have the capability? A CM bug, established battlefield doctrine, or did the Vickers ammo really take up that much room in the back?

  2. Originally posted by Tux:

    For the Russians we're using about a batallion's worth of men, but a fair few of them will be HQ-less squads/ half squads. The odd HQ-less SMG squad will represent shock troops, and TH teams will represent smaller ambush teams of men with SMGs.

    You're not able to to get HQ-less squads or platoons, at least from the purchase screen. The best alternative is to buy a platoon and move the squad far outside of HQ range -or- buy an extra couple of TH teams, which are independent formations anyways.

    We think the idea will be for the Russians to have a porous front line, rather than a solid one, let infantry pass and then murder them from close range before HE support can be brought to bear. Does that sound about right?
    Will your opponent be so accomodating? You know that old adage about military plans...

    Also, we're both aware that the Russians would have had heavy artillery support, but that it might have taken quite a while to arrange. What sort of calibre/s would be most realistic?
    The Russians assembled a fairly impressive arty park on the eastern side of the Volga, but I think this didn't happen until later in the campaign. Jason can confirm. My guess would be a mix of mortars, 76mm & 122mm.
  3. An operation on a 400m x 240m map? Is it going to be one battle 10 turns long?

    You may want to increase the size of the original map, not only to make compatible with the minimum size allowed in CMAK, but to allow more room for manuever.

    With regards to your second question, you don't really copy and paste one map to another with the converter program. Instead, you are transferring the data of one map to the program, which in turn converts the information of each tile from the original engine's code to the new code.

    If you need help you can send it to me and I'll convert it for you, but again you'll need to increase the first map's size to at least 1200m x 240m.

  4. Behold!

    In a nutshell, it is a computer program you download and install on your HD, allowing you to convert any map made in any of the CM series of games from one game to another. For instance, a CMBO map can be converted to CMAK, or CMBB, or the other way around.

    Before this program became available I had converted several mid to large size maps from CMBO to CMAK the old fashioned way. It took me all of a month to do Wild Bill's Team Desorby, one painstaking tile at a time. With the map converter program the same map can be converted with 3-4 mouse clicks.

    An excellent program.

  5. No battlefield general goes into battle without knowing what back-up he has
    Sometimes the battle is brought to the general, and he is not prepared.

    Sometimes the general is dead, and his #2 is unprepared.

    Sometimes the back-up is dead, or out of comm, or committed elsewhere.

    Sometimes the opposition decides a battlefield general under attack, and with no back up, is in their best interest, and will do their level best to assure such a situation occurs.

    Having said all that, sometimes scenario designers really do drop the ball when it comes to briefings.

  6. an American staff sergeant named Lafayette G. Pool who, while operating a 76mm Sherman, managed to destroy 258 enemy vehicles between 27 June 1944 and 15 September 1944. This is a far greater achievement than Wittmann's,
    If you consider trucks and Kubelwagons in the same category as Russian tanks and AT guns.

    Wittmann appears to have been killed in a series of Allied air raids called Operation Totalize; he never had a chance to fight back, and his company and his tank were destroyed in the bombing.
    Forget the Typhoon theory, lets kick it up a notch and give the credit to a carpet bombing B17.
  7. You can move them anywhere within the setup zones of subsequent battles, but bear in mind that some operations have the no-man's land setting set to zero, meaning you could literally have the two sides begin the game within kissing distance of each other. Depending on who kisses who first, it could make or break the rest of the game. My suggestion is to play as realistic as possible, with units in cover and a distance away from the front lines.

    Some folks prefer to play by a rule known as "play where they lay" which basically means you leave the units in place and begin the next battle as though the action never stopped. Depending on the situation this is sometimes the most realistic option.

    Also keep in mind that, again depending on the situation, some units will begin the game within their own exclusive setup zone. This is meant to signify units that have pushed far ahead of the main advance and find themselves cutoff when the next battle begins. These smaller setup zones are always a different color than the main zone, and only the units currently in it at setup can deploy there. You have a choice of leaving them there, and possibly losing them if the enemy deploys nearby, or pulling them back inside the main zone.

  8. During the campaign the Russians were able to lay a single rail line that ran from the oilfields near Baku to Astrakhan. This was laid directly atop the steppes without any foundations, so although German mobile detachments were able to cut it at many points with ease, it could be just as easily repaired.

    This line served two purposes; it supplemented the amount of oil supplies being delivered from tankers on the Caspain sea, and later in the campaign it allowed the Russians to deploy forces along that wide open flank of Army Group A. It was these additional forces that helped speed up the withdrawl of AG A from the Caucasus by threatening the crossing points along the Manych river.

  9. Originally posted by coe:

    was this really only lightly guarded and if so what prevent the soviets from simply just marching up the step in that area

    Lack of resources, at least in the opening stages. The dual axis advances towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus, plus the losses sustained from as far back as the Izyum offensive, left the Russians with very little to commit to the open flank of Army Group A.
  10. Originally posted by stoat:

    I'm very skeptical about the flak guns you mention. None of the aforementioned units would have necessarily packed along AA guns, and flak, if present, was not much of an issue among the attacking planes. I'm guessing the two Rufes the YAG maintained were the main air defence.

    I would say dedicated flak guns would not have showed up until the 38th, 45th, and 1st Battery of the 47th AA Battalions showed up as part of the 35th Brigade's support units.

    There were a few coast guns on the island, but I'm not sure that they were ever used. They were big (120-170mm), but they were old, and I have no clue when they were brought ashore.

    Here are a few pics of Tulagi during the invasion:

    h97764.jpg

    USN-CN-Solomons-12.jpg

    You can see one circular AA position just to the right of the lone house in the center of the photo. A smaller firing pit is located at about the 5 o'clock position from the first, and right at the edge of the ridge.

    In my copy of "Guadacanal: The First Offensive" by John Miller (which has a much clearer copy of the second pic above) it lists the captured Japanese weapons as two 13mm and one 3" AA gun. I would assume the larger pit nearer the house would be for the 3".

    Unfortunately, I don't have any pics showing any AA guns on either Gavutu or Tanambogo. I do have this map:

    h97748.jpg

    Which shows suspected and confirmed AA positions on both islands.

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