Oberst Angsthase

Good advice. My concern was that Fast and Move commands cause the tank to proceed to its destination regardless of what pops up, thereby exposing itself to a flank shot. Am I mistaken in this? I wanted to move from point A to point B, but respond to (kill) any armor that I saw along the way as well. I agree that scouting with a heavy tank is not good strategy, but as the tank was my only starting unit it left me with few choices.

I was playing a game recently in which a Tiger tank had allied armor in front of it and allied infantry behind it. The infantry was no threat, while the armor was. I wanted to root out the armour, but the Tiger kept targeting the infantry, creating a situation where the Tiger was advancing into danger with its turret facing in the opposite direction. I was able to approximate what I wanted by ordering the tank to area fire close to the suspected tanks position and move into a clear los, where the Tiger then targeted the tank. What do the rest of you think about having a total of three kinds of "hunt?" 1. The hunt as it is now, move until you find an armored target, fire at everything. 2. Hunt armor/AT only, ignore infantry unless it poses a close assault threat. 3. Hunt infantry only, avoid or reverse from enemy Armor/AT. These additional commands would let us use our tanks more precisely, and make some useful distinctions about how different armored vehicles engage the enemy. I don't want my ACs to hunt like my tanks. Kurt

I only posted there a few times, but I visited frequently. It comforted me to know there was a place where the art of taunting was practiced in this antiseptic age of political correctness. Or maybe it was comforting to know that the denizens of the cesspool were confined to one space, so the likelihood of running across them above ground was pretty slim. Was the thread closed because of bandwidth issues, or did somebody rent a backhoe and simply fill it in? My condolences to the next of kin.

I play at realistic scale with the bases. I increase the scale to maximum when I want to check the dead bodies to gain some intellegence. i would like to see the figures modeled so that you had 1 figure for every 3 men. US squads would have 4 figures. HMGs would have someone feeding ammo belts into the gun. HQs would have a radio operator with the commander. It wouldn't be as bad a hit on the CPU that modeling every single soldier would be but add a little more depth and add consistancy to what the figures represent.

Oi! Let me apologize to the forum and especially to "Mr. Bates" for being snide. I did not mean to put anyone down, but just figured that someone who chose such a moniker would be ready for some jokes made about his choice of names. I would never want to make any newcomer feel unwelcome; it's a nice place to visit. I will try to limit my future comments to asking stupid questions and combat wombat trivia.

Too late to be noticed I'm sure, but guachi, you are taking two separate posts and imputing a single line of thought. I cannot speak for DEF BUNGIS, but I did not take his comment to imply anything about the gay community as a whole. My own comment was in response to the idea of exchanging files with anyone who identifies themselves by that practice. Yes a joke, but not the one to which you seem to be reacting. sheeesh!

I haven't been assimilated yet either, and let me tell you those faux borg implants hurt like heels, I mean hell! (Whoops, guess my little secret is out too!) TrixxTango, I also welcome you to the err "brotherhood of warriors." We can always use more valkyries, but it probaly wouldn't hurt to get the optional borg testosterone filter as well.

I like 'em in pairs. The 81s will pin the enemy but won't hurt them bad enough (Although I once lost an entire German platoon in VOT to 81s, I haven't been able to duplicate those results) I will usually pin the enemy with smaller caliber artillery fire and kill em with short burts of something bigger--150 to 230. It's amazing to watch that heavy stuff come down!

I don't shoot prisoners either. Partly because I would like to believe I could be chivalrous if I were in that situation, and partly because most of my units end their battles with LOW ammo. It is a wonderful thing to blow a coworker away in a Quake deathmatch, but it is an entirely different action to commit a virtual warcrime. I would LOVE to see this feature added: Move a prisoner to an otherwise unemployed HQ unit. For each prisoner there is a chance that the HQ unit will gain some intelligence, like the position of a machine gun nest, or gain complete information about a sound contact. The lower the quality of the troops, the higher the chance they will talk. The higher the rank of the prisoner the more intelligence they can provide. Granted, in 20 turn games this will not account for much, but in longer games, or operations this could be the difference between winning and losing. It would also make the company and battalion HQs much more valuable.

Congratulations on your victory. It is reassuring to know that someone out there can use them successfully. I eventually had very good success with them (kept all three alive in Chance Encounter) by using an artillery strike to force the ami TCs to button. Once I had the spotting advantage it was relatively easy to pick them off.

Speaking of defensive options, I would like to see a fortress option added to the combined/armour/mech inf/infantry selections. It would be great to be able to make a section of the West Wall in a QB, by increasing the amount of fortifications that can be purchased.

...and run it through a good virus checker before sending it!

I like any Sherman/76. Works well against most armour and really well against infantry.

JagdPanther Not having a turret is a pain, but it kills tanks wonderfully and can do a number on infantry as well. It also looks deadly.

Part of my affinity for taking the german side comes from the fact that I speak a little german (less every year). Part of it is the underdog factor, not so much from history but american media. As a little kid watching TV you just felt bad for the one side that kept losing so spectacularly. Lastly, a lot of my enjoyment in playing the axis comes from all the model tanks I built as a youth. While I built models of many nationalities, I liked the german tanks the most because of the design esthstetic and the fact that they weren't painted olive drab all over. Working out the camoflage pattern of yellow, rust, and green was one of my favorite parts of the process. I used to set my tanks up in little diaramas and stuff. Now I get to play with them all over again, only this time they shoot and burn The time came when I had to get rid of my models, so I sent them over to a lady who acts as a clearing house of stuff, receiving unwanted things and finding people who need them. Her husband saw the box of models, and sheepishly asked if he could keep them. He had been an artillery FO for the US 4th infantry division from Normandy till the end. I couldn't think of a better home for models. cheers

I love the german toys, but I enjoy playing all sides. Having to use different strategies for the different strengths and weakness of the various armies adds an additional level of richness to this already very expansive game.

I am not a programer and am quite ready to acknowledge that what I am requesting is unworthy of the effort. I would like to see CM do a check at the end of the last turn, and test for the average distance between the adversaries. If the two forces are too close, the game continues until one side brakes off. Such a feature would eliminate a last turn mad-dash for a VL. I'm pretty sure in WWII both sides routinely ignored the 20 turn limit.

I prefer longer fights, 30 turns or so in an operation of 4-5 games. If you're not careful your units will run out of ammo in a long game. It also gives the attacker a little breathing space to get his troops into position before they attack. I loved Operation Carentan, but the 20 turn game limit stopped many firefights just as they were heating up. Longer battles let you feel the consequences of the early game more keenly.

I believe your unit needs some offensive capability to hold a victory location. I tried securing one with a 251/1 that had had it's gunner shot...no luck.

I was playing with the Chance Encounter scenario trying to hone my skills at deploying assault guns. Repeatedly my Stugs would get toasted. The last time all three Stugs were positioned so they each confronted a single tank (as opposed to being exposed to 4 or 5), two of them had the drop on their opponents. In all three cases they were killed without so much as scratching the paint on the Shermans. I've used Hetzers and Jgpzrs to great effect, but the Stugs seem to be magnetic to AP rounds. Breathed into the bag, rant complete.

There was an awful one about PT boats called "In Harm's Way". In the end they sent a handful of PT boats to intercept a japanese heavy cruiser. EEEEWWWWWW! Also, "Bombadier". A movie of cliches with some lines so awful it's a wonder they didn't become cliches themselves. One example: An airman is at his hearing to be transfered out of the air corps because he's deathly afraid of heights. After granting the transfer, the officer in charge commends the airman by saying "It takes a lot of courage to admit you're a coward." Dreadful! The other thing I hate about the cliches of that time period is the theme of redemption through death. Somebody does something bad, and they steal an airplane and locate the enemy fleet/base, then are shot down. If you did something a little bad you would end up wounded. And NEVER NEVER get married or engaged in a war movie

I confess I "woo-hoo!" a little louder when I get tanks as reinforcements, but in truth it's the infantry that forms the core. I have gone against tanks & infantry using only infantry and won, I have never been able to hold off infantry with a tank-only force. A platoon used correctly is much harder to kill than a tank, can split into 7 separate units and thus can cover a larger area, can scatter better, can hide better, can move through more terrain, can sneak towards the enemy, and can fight anywhere. Having tanks makes the infantry's job easier, but it's infantry's job, not the tank's.

I confess I "woo-hoo!" a little louder when I get tanks as reinforcements, but in truth it's the infantry that forms the core. I have gone against tanks & infantry using only infantry and won, I have never been able to hold off infantry with a tank-only force. A platoon used correctly is much harder to kill than a tank, can split into 7 separate units and thus can cover a larger area, can scatter better, can hide better, can move through more terrain, can sneak towards the enemy, and can fight anywhere. Having tanks makes the infantry's job easier, but it's infantry's job, not the tank's.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

For design elegance, nothing beats the clean lines of the Jagdpanther, all it needs is a racing stripe.