Wilhammer

My over dependence on them for QBs makes me wonder if I am being "gamey" with them. Typically, in a 1500-2000 point QB, I can buy enough of them to attach one per platoon and still buy a couple of other tanks or GMCs. Since the survivability of them is not much worse than a Sherman at this scale, it is a sound purchase. If you fear some German tanks, buy a pair of Jacksons, Hellcats or 76 Shermans. Because of thier open top, I keep them beyond 200 meters range of enemy units. Ironically, because I am more careful with them, they last longer than if I had Shermans, and they typically use up all of their ammo. Since they have no AP, and are reluctant to use HEAT, they atre not as distracted to other targets as Shermans are. It seems to me that when I have fought battles, most opponents are concerned about one or the other as priority one in fighting Germans; getting their tanks or taking the objectives. I go for the latter. If you ignore planning for the German tanks, you can actually do better. After all, what good is a Panther if it ain't got no tanks/SPGs to shoot at? Might as well own Stugs. BTW, I find the M-20 AC to be a good compliment to the M-8 HMC. It is dirt cheap, and useful for local recon. Not to mention that .50 cal can be deadly to the German PSWs and SPWs.

The only time I buy the LMGs is to fill out my purchasing. The ammo count and crew frailty is just too low for them to have any reasonable combat staying power.

BTW, the biggest beehive round ever was designed (and apparently used) for the Japanese 18 inch gun. It was designed for AA work. Tomorrow is the Anniversary of Watchtower. The 37mm gun was prevalent on Guadalcanal for anti-personnel fire, and earned a deadly reputation there.

WP is not an exotic round. It was extensively used for anti-personnel. BTS did not include it because THEY did not consider it prevalent. WP was a normal mix in arty fire as well, and, OMG, where is the Napalm? If WP was modeled correctly in the game, it would effectively render a location un-inhabitable, and we would see Americans shooting this stuff all over the place, flushing out Germans and setting the map on fire.

Iskander.... Sorry, I actually deliberately smoked that VPF. As for the building blow, that was another gamer, sorry for the mis-identification. As for getting you real upset, I do not consider it possible to get a cess pooler real upset. It is comment best taken in jest, for the pooles surely jest. ... not to mention that they must have no feelings as the insiduous barbs attest. The cessers are the elite volkstrum of CM...

penultimate means "next to last". This proceeds the ultimate, which is the last. In CM, I reserve that for the uber HTs.

CM is the least expensive game of all time... Never in the field of human wargaming has one game provided so much game play for so few. Buying games ain't like collecting Hummel figures or baseball cards. You have proven your intelligence by buying this superior project; don't blow that image by screaming monopoly, as if monopoly is a bad word. What BTS has is a monopoly on talent and ethics. Geez, MicroSoft has co-opted a whole concept..the idea that a monopoly is a draconian misstep. 99.9% of all monopolies are earned, and no one has earned it more than BTS. BTW, FULL INSTALL means all files installed on HD. I have never heard it meant NO CD until today. [ 08-06-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

Iskander was real upset when I ignited a VP building. So he told me about this thread. How come we can't target VPFs? Why were no tanks made of this stuff? I have seen buildings burst into flames, only to explode in glorious balls of expanding force and flame, only to see the VPF land squarely back on its point, so proudly waving, so unburnt, so still THERE. 1. The shaft of the VPF always points down, and never waivers from plum. Talk about your "erect" staff. 2. The Flag never burns, thus avoiding any and all constitutional issues. 3. The flags have INTELLIGENCE. They are perfectly capable of detecting the nationality of the nearest force, or lack thereof, and instantly, in a cameleon like fashion, blend in and get coveted acceptance from that side. 4. The flags have ultimate Stealth, They hide with a shift key combo. This trait is shared with Vehicles too, so it is not unique. 5. The flags possess a large gravitational pull. When visible, if you trace an LOS or targeting line towards them, they tend to grab the visual line and pull them into themselves when the line of sight is too close. The new Uberweapon! VPFs = Viagra Penultimate Farce signal devices.

About the mines... As a child, a friend of mine's Dad was a Korean War vet, a tanker. A story that always stuck in my mind was when his tank hit a mine. Everyone bailed immediatelly fearing artillery or direct fire. They did not know it was mine field until several minutes later they noticed the driver was stuck in his hatch, unable to get out, and still alive, thus proving no direct fire was involved. They called the engineers to confirm and remove the minefield and recover the tank. [ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

Fuel supplies may not be in the scope of the game (though tanks without ANY gas would be). Hopefully rarity will address not only the production of the vehicle, but also things like this. Now, a Campaign is a different matter. Having fuel as a consideration of future vehicle availability between battles makes a lot of sense.

Hehe, AOL has never been about the customer, or the ads wouldn't be so cheesy about it is all for the customer. My greatest fear about AOL now is that AOL-Time Warner thing. You see, I have RoadRunner, and I fear AOL will be layered on it. As for CM, me too. Except for some family games and my son's Army Men wargames, it is the only game on my drive. Wonderful game. BTS is the premier example of a customer-centric enterprise. [ 07-17-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

The American/British method of recovery, as well as the German was designed out of neccesity, they were ridicuolosly far away from the factories. The Russian system, for Russia, makes more sense. They shipped from factory to front quicker, and thus remanufacture after the battlefield was secured made more sense, since the delivery time for a replacement was cheaper for them, esp. in time.

The modeling I assume is based on the prevalence of overs and unders frequency greater than side to side. The real result in world war 2 for the Americans, is that most of the time this dispersion pattern, an ellipse, was perpindicular to the front. This increase the risk of friendly fire damage. During Aachen battles, the American artillery positions were such that this ellipse was parrallel to the front, thus allowing much closer fire to friendly troops. Anothe BIG example of this problem was the use of carpet bombing. The AGF knew that the proper thing to do was to fly parralell to the front. The AAF wanted to get in and out and minimize flight time and were use to flying the West to East way. The AAF did not do as the AGF wished, and di fierce damage to our troops. The depth of the bomber formation does matter, but so to do artillery guns have depth. The problem is not really one of formation, but axis of fire.

Did not BTS say they were to have some captured vehicles? If they made it possible for the Germans to run captured Easy 8s, Chaffees, and M3A1 HT. we could do most of the war. We would not of course have the M-42 Duster (A Whirblewind will do) nor the Pershings.

If some would fear to much micromanagement during the game, the feature could be limited to the setup turn. The idea hit me while setting up a game. I was thinking it would be nice if we could mark out some planning points. Perhaps available every turn would be unrealistic (which I agree with), but it would be acceptable before the mission begins. The markers would be viewable throughout the battle, but not changeable.

I had what I think is a neat interface idea. Would in not be nice to be able to pick a spot on the map and add a comment to it that you can switch on and off like place names? It would have to switched off during an opponents turn, of course. Imagine being able to stick a digital sticky note to a spot on the map, so that we can draw out our battle plans by marking and annotating points of interest.

Side Effects of CM usage: We all have heard the tales of the upset Wife/Girlfriend (stock reply if this happens to you, is: Their are worse things I could be doing now, like chasing women or drinking with the boys). I have noticed another happy side effect, I spend less money! Before CM, buy games hoping to find "The Game". After CM, ...well, I found "The Game". Seriously, ever since buying CM when it forst came out, I have purchased 3 other games, PZC'41:Tobruk being the most recent. My spent money has also gone down as I go out less. Sure, I spend time with the family, but I don't have to entertain myself near as much, and my son and I are converging on interests. Though he has played CM, he prefers the Army Men games and his occasional PS game (as non-thinking as they are, though I enjoy another non-thinking game once in awhile, Half Life). Great, game, great fun, and unlike other products that offer to save you money, this one truly saves you money. All I want for Christmas is my CM2.

Concerning ON BOARD smoke missions, they will end one of 5 ways; 1. Run out of ammo (well, duh) 2. Unit suffers damage that stops firing (duh) 3. Orders to fire smoke ended. 4. LOS becomes blocked (even own smoke rounds) 5. The round lands exactly were you wanted it to. It is area fire, and if it hits exactly at the aim point, it stops shooting. Item 5 is based on my observation, and was not scientifically examined. It just seems that if the round hits the exact spot I dropped the smoke target line end on, the firing stops. As for off board, it is my observation that LOS blocked is LOS blocked, no matter why. Thus, a sustained smoking mission should have a tight pattern near the focal point, and as the smoke fills the air, the scattering is what you would expect for unobserved fire.

The History Channel stopped being serious awhile back. They now sell ridiculous history in order to generate sales of videos, etc. The desire to do questionable history drags the audience to the website for more sales. They have not gone completely off the deep end, its just that the historical integrity from show to show is hit or miss, no consistency. Oh well, if it helps generate more interest in history to the general public, maybe it is a good thing. But, increasingly its version of history is just as bad s Hollywood's.

"the new interface will also feature a graphic display of armor strength for vehicles in the form of a silhouette with color-coded armor bars. " I like this. I am wondering, would it be possible to have an LOS type line you could draw from a tank, and as you move this line, it changes color intensity based on the increase/decrease of armor strength relative between the line perindicular to the armor facing at that point? For example, this "Armor Facing Strength Line" would be a subtle shade if it perpindicular to the front of the tank, while it would intensify in strenght indication at 15 Degrees off the hull front. This line would have to take in 3D aspect of it all, of course. Essentially, as you draw this LOS like line around the tank, the color indicates the strength of the armor perpindicular to this line in space. A numerical indicator would be nice too. Thus, lets say 20mm is red, and 40 mm is yellow, as we flirt between 20mm and 40 mm, the shade of orange changes. And, what of an exposure indicator line? The Side is color coded, as is the front and rear, and as you spin the line around the tank, its color changes as the changing aspects "mix" the colors? Then we can really nuzzle our babies down. [ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

The link to Tiger's arty mods is broken. Combat Missions Net is Active. I have searched high and lo for this item myself. I have to do a complet reinstall of CM and all my favorite mods, so I have been culling all I can find from the 'net. So, if anyone has Tiger's Gun Mods, please let us know how to get them.

Absolutely stunning! I must get on my bent knee and beg for the files needed to pull this off on my machine (Windows 98 with Nvidia TNT2). Please, please, pretty please, let me know how I can get this. Email me either the files or the download location. This is mutha beautiful terrain, and I have to have it. [ 07-05-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

Zoooks were also used to blow holes through walls. BTW, it is Las Malvinas. Long live the Monroe Doctrine and Truman Doctrine!

Has this great site just simply vanished? http://history.vif2.ru/ I hope not.

If Zhukov had not been so well known and so popular, he would of been executed. A Personality Cult has no room for contenders, real or imagined. And Zhukov, leader of the Soviet Army, was one man that could bring down Stalin. As all the communist leaders have proved, real power comes out of the barrel of a gun.