ASL Veteran

Since Japan and the Soviet Union were antagonistic, in theory Hitler could have gained some diplomatic points with Stalin if he did. After all, if Hitler hadn't invaded the Soviet Union before Pearl Harbor he would still have had a non aggression pact with Stalin at the time of the attack. Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch but there it is. I wonder what FDR would have done in that case!

So you say Hitler would attack the Soviets in 1942 anyway even if he was already at war with the US. That, or they would attack each other. I know that you are really saying that he wouldn't have waited until 1942 and the only possibility is an attack in 1941, but my premise is that he did wait until 1942 so you aren't really addressing the scenario I outlined. There really is no reason why he couldn't have waited and there are plenty of reasons why he would have. The Balkans campaign took time away from the Soviet campaign and put wear and tear on the German armored forces just prior to the invasion so it may have been a good thing to spend extra time refitting after the Balkans campaign rather than invading the Soviet Union right away. I don't know why the Soviet army would have performed any better in an initial attack in 1942 than they did in 1941 - their officer corps wouldn't have suddenly come back from the dead in that extra year.

Maybe this article can help sort that out for you. Essentially Obama has declared the war on terror to be over by prosecuting CIA interrogators, renaming everything (Overseas contingiency operations), and attempting to close Guantanamo Bay. It's only natural that if the President declares the "War" to be over that the soldiers who are fighting might wonder why the heck they are there. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWQ5ZGU0ZTczODYzOTUxNDE3MmY4ZDA4NTA3MzU2MTM=

As long as we are tossing out what ifs and speculation .... If Hitler decided to wait a year and plan the invasion of the Soviet Union for 1942 instead of 1941, then would he have invaded in 1942 anyway even if Japan still attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and Germany declared war on the US as they did in support of Japan shortly after that attack.

Interesting. I'm not sure how relevant that is to how effective a weapon is in the anti aircraft role though. For example the Crusader 155mm artillery system apparently fired off 12 155mm rounds per minute at 43.88 kg per projectile before it was cancelled. So let's see if my math is right - 12 x 43.88 = 526.56 kg = 526,560 grams. Divide those grams by 60 and you get 8,776 grams per second. Wow, that's almost as good as the Gepard and substantially better than the Vulcan. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think using the Crusader 155mm artillery system to shoot down fighter jets would be the most efficient use of that system As long as your AAA system uses a projectile that is sufficiently powerful enough to destroy aircraft, then it's the rate of fire that's the most important factor. High rates of fire give the gunner a better chance of hitting the target. Fighter jets are difficult to hit and the lead time you have to give on a fighter jet flying at full sonic boom speed is pretty dramatic. If you miscalculate your aim point and you end up behind the jet you are never going to recover and lead it again. Your traverse simply isn't going to keep up. You are only going to get one 'shot' at it. Your only hope is to get a solid stream of 'projectiles' out in front of the jet and hope it flies into them. Not an easy task by any standards. So - I'm sticking with the Vulcan with it's superior rate of fire over the Gepard, although the longer range of the Gepard is nice. In the grand scheme of things the poster who mentioned the MANPADS is on target. Two men and a missile is the way to go these days. AAA has it's place, but it's not going to be your primary air defense asset.

I'll give you the range. I'm not sure about the weight of fire in the same amount of time. The Vulcan is putting out at least three times as many rounds per second (or maybe six times if the 500 rpm figure is combined ROF for both guns on the Gepard) and the 20mm isn't all that small. Like all these types of vehicles though they are all basically obsolete now. No way can the turrets traverse fast enough to track a jet and a helicopter can take you out beyond your effective range anyway. Nice to keep around for looks though. Besides, the Vulcan tracers look like a flame thrower. I'm a little biased though - I can't go against my boys

Gepard Shmepard. If you want a real man's AAA weapon you've gotta go with this baby right here: 20mm of lovin' coming at you at 3,000 rounds per minute. The towed version - has better sound on this video It's especially effective if you want to kill insurgents and leave no evidence

I can’t totally buy into that premise. I read your post, thought about it, read it again, thought about it some more and I just can’t see things the same way. I think that it may be true that the vast majority of players who play CM may play it solo, but I think that has more to do with the subject matter than the personalities of those who are playing the game. The way I see it, forum membership and participation has to do with three things: 1. You have to have a certain dedication level to the game in order to visit the forum from either a positive or negative standpoint. If the game isn’t important enough to you then you aren’t going to be spending time discussing it on a forum, which brings me to two 2. You have to have the time available to participate in a forum. The more socially active a person is then by definition the less time that person has to participate in a forum. It’s pretty obvious that if you are having dinner with friends and going to Radio City Music Hall etc that you can’t be sitting in front of a computer participating in an online forum. However, the less active a person is socially the more time that individual will have to participate in a forum. The individual who has less going on in real life is going to have more time to spend on a forum which is exactly the opposite of what you seem to be implying (that being that if there were more socially active multiplayer gamers that there would be higher forum participation). 3. You have to have a willingness to participate. Yes, someone who is more socially active is probably more likely to participate in a forum than someone who isn’t, but I think it’s also fair to say that the threshold for participating on a forum is a lot lower than with real life activities. If I invited you and your significant other to dinner at the finest restaurant in New York City our social interaction would take on a different characteristic than it does while we discuss things on a forum. A forum allows someone a certain degree of anonymity that is not present in face to face interaction thus making it easier for someone who isn’t socially active to jump into the discussion. What has all that to do with how someone plays the game? I don’t think it has anything to do with it. As a human being we all need social interaction at some level unless there is something wrong with that individual. Solitary confinement is punishment because it’s, well, solitary confinement. The problem for most players is probably the subject matter. It’s probably a lot more difficult to find someone to play a game of Combat Mission against ‘in real life’ than it is to find someone to play John Madden Football. If you have a friend who is a man with a pulse and lives in America then the odds are probably pretty good that you could interest him in a game of John Madden Football. If you want to blow up Syrian tanks? Probably not so easy to find someone. My only point here isn't to say that your assumption is wrong necessarily, but to say that without any data there is just no way to know for certain one way or another. I have to believe that a normal gamer who buys Combat Mission and likes it will play it vs the AI for a while and then will try to encourage a friend to play against them. If there is no friend available who will play it (because of the subject matter), then they will either continue to play solo or reach out to the forum and attempt to find an opponent there. Alternatively they may also stop playing after the AI becomes uncompetitive for them if they can't find someone to play against. I would also hazard the guess that those who have been playing CM the longest and the most continuously are more likely to be multiplayer gamers than solo gamers because their gaming experience is going to be superior to those who just play against the AI.

WW1 in 1918 would be the only way to have WW1 combat in CM I think. It's much closer to WW2 style combat than 1914. At the beginning of the war it's probably fair to say that the platoon was the smallest maneuver element rather than the squad. Even then squads were rather large with like 20 guys or something and no automatic weapons. 1918 would work fine though.

Forum membership isn't indicative of players who like to play head to head any more than it's indicative of how many players play solo. I have four friends whom I know 'in real life' who were regular opponents for me in CMx1 yet none of them ever posted on the forum a single time (I tell them everytime there is a new demo out for CMSF but they just aren't biting unfortunately). I am trying to recruit a couple more friends to be opponents and I doubt they will ever post on the forum either. We all just play against each other and they just aren't 'forum' types. None of us belong to any 'clubs' for head to head either so even by that measure it wouldn't be a good yardstick to compare head to head vs solo.

Just a question .... you did 'activate' the IED right? If you don't right click and 'activate' the IED it will never go off. Just want to eliminate that as a possibility.

I understand the poll question dilemma and if you were to ever do one the questions would have to be relevant. I don't think a poll question on 'features' would be a good idea necessarily, but I think poll questions about how people 'use' the game may have some value. My opinion is that you have at least three different types of player who is buying your game. You have the player who plays exclusively against the AI and never ever plays multiplayer, ever. This player has a certain set of 'features' which would be common to that group. They won't be identical from player to player but they could probably all fit into the same feature category. You have the player who plays multiplayer and this player has a set of features that would be common to that group. A subset of multiplayer gamers would be Quick Battle players vs Scenario players who will have different subsets of features that are important to them. Sure, people who play exclusively against the AI will play quick battles and scenarios, but I think the the 'exclusively play the AI' part would be more important as far as categorization for them. I believe that a set of questions surrounding some basic player categories would have some potentially interesting results. Such as the assumption that the vast majority of people who buy CM products play exclusively vs the AI. Is that true? It might be nice to know, because if it is then the campaign might take some priority over other features if that's the case. Or you could just ignore the results and keep doing what you are doing - we would be none the wiser . At least you would have a more solid picture of your customer base and how the game is used. It wouldn't force you to alter your 'feature' decision process. It would just allow you to weight your different feature options a little better. I also don't think a forum poll would be a good idea. I think the only way to do it would be to have some poll questions pop up somehow when someone installs their game - maybe right after the licensing process since I think you need an internet connection to license your game, the poll results could be directly transmitted to your secret lair. It should be optional of course.

An ASL scenario was done on that battle. No need to put it in Normandy though - just wait until the next title and maybe an intrepid scenario designer from BFC will put it in. I've always thought that the book "Berlin Dance of Death" by Helmut Altner would be an excellent basis upon which to build a campaign in the Bagration title. He fights in several battles in a variety of terrain and they range from large battles to small battles. The Editor did a lot of supporting research and includes a lot of maps and good stuff in the footnotes that could help a scenario designer a great deal.

It would be nice if we could hear James Earl Jones calling in an artillery mission . He's the ultimate 'voice'.

Maybe my wires were crossed but it looked like Other Means thought you were English

So I guess when he said that 'we' whooped 'your' butts in the Revolution he was talking about the battle of New York or Charleston and not Saratoga or Yorktown? Do'h!! Looks like some crossed wires in this thread.

The three Tigers guarding the bank at Claremont have to be accounted for too. That's probably after Mortain though.

I got the Brits module in the mail today and I loaded it up after work. I didn't have time to play it, but I did get a chance to eyeball a few scenarios. I glanced at "Full Monty" .... not bad. I have to say that the briefing for the blue side was very impressive. Almost a little too detailed in some respects but it was fully fleshed out and very well done. It was one of the best briefings I've seen on any BFC CD scenario. Map looked nice. Looked like a fun scenario to play as blue. In the Red briefing it was made ... painfully clear that the scenario wasn't made with Red players vs AI in mind but at least there was something there for Red as far as briefings go. It looks like Red players have more scenario options overall in the Brits module so blue vs AI exclusive scenarios aren't as big an issue as before. However, I still think that a scenario like this would be more suitable as a campaign scenario as opposed to a stand alone. I'll give it an eyeball test B+. Hopefully I'll be able to dig into the Brits module this coming weekend. Now if I could just talk my friends into at least trying out a little modern combat .....

Do'h! Yes, that does change the math a bit.

How can there have only been 3 Tiger I's in Normandy. Wasn't there more than 3 Tigers when Wittman attacked? 3 Tiger I's seem way too low. Panzertruppen vol 2 has 104 Tiger I's in Normandy distributed among s.SS-Pz.Abt.101, s.SS-Pz.Abt.102, and sPz.Abt.503. I'm confident someone like Moon or somebody on the BFC staff has a copy of Panzertruppen vol 2. It's on page 191.

What you are looking for will be found when CM Shock Force 2 comes out. It will be set in a temperate setting so you won't get anymore deserts or Syrians when that comes out. You won't get any new terrain when the NATO module comes out.

Apparently there were one or two King Tigers that operated in Normandy. I've seen a photograph of one of them going down a road which definitely looks like it was taken in Normandy because it appears to be summer and there are branches and leaves all over it.

I've been biting my lip ever since this thread was started because I didn't want it to come out the wrong way . This is exhibit A in showing that metaphor mixing is bad for your health . Mowed down like grass ... sure. bullets go through my Brits like a hot knife through butter ... yeah. Mowed down like butter? That's just not working for me . However, if you set several thousand sticks of butter standing on end in a field you could theoretically mow them with a mower so maybe that's what was meant .

I liked the old operations too. The primary problem with them was that the game couldn't draw the set up boundaries properly between battles. Until BFC can figure out a way to get the computer to draw good set up zones it probably is a good thing to just leave them out.

Yes, but I do think that the role playing aspect of the campaigns would be given a big boost if there was a way to somehow insert a special order of battle screen of some type. Something which shows all your assigned forces and core forces and then allowed the player to purchase replacements or new units for the core force or something along those lines. It would be a special screen that popped up before each battle in the series and would be similar to maybe a cherry pickers quick battle set up screen or something but with restrictions placed by the designer on what could be purchased. It would have to have a fancy interface that included pictures of your troops too so it would look cool.