Olle Petersson

There's your problem! You use "Hunt" instead of "Move to contact". For me "Hunt" means "Shoot any enemies you see, you'll see them before they can kill you". This mean that it shouldn't typically be used a lot or for longer distances by anything but heavy armour. Cheers Olle

There's your problem! You use "Hunt" instead of "Move to contact". For me "Hunt" means "Shoot any enemies you see, you'll see them before they can kill you". This mean that it shouldn't typically be used a lot or for longer distances by anything but heavy armour. Cheers Olle

I would rarely use gun tractors for "pick your force" QBs against human opponents, but I'd love to have one generic (heavy) tracked tractor for use in designed scenarios. Cheers Olle

This is a vital point! I got some nice books for christmas, one of which discuss Sweden during WW2. It makes an interesting remark about the Winter war: The whole thing started with a demand from Stalin for Finland to give up a large part of Karelia (to move the border away from Leningrad) and to lend out Hangö for a couple of years. The Finnish government refused, and so the war started. What would have happened had the Finns complied in the first place? If this would have appeaced Stalin and prevented war, then the Soviet army would not have "gotten it's **** together" in 1940, and therefore probably done even worse in 1941. Germany might have managed to take Moscow as well as gone further on the other fronts. By late '42 Ural might have been the frontline... Cheers Olle

This one deserves a repeat! I like mods, but can't download all of them. When somebody announce a mod and then simply point at the CMMODS site, it's nearly useless to me when I find the thread a week or two later and that mod is no longer "new". The CMMODS site normally put up a picture of each mod, and supplying a link to that image in the announcement should, IMO, be standard! Cheers Olle

Remember that the 105mm howitzer was commonly used to tackle KV tanks (with direct fire) before PaK 40 became available. Cheers Olle

Checked their website today. CM2 is listed under RTS games, at a price of 499:-. Cheers Olle

The game engine treat all minefields individually no matter where they're placed (even if it's on top of each other). For mixed fields you therefore also get the interesting result that running troops on foot into it will only reveal it as AP. Somebody did a test some year ago and got the predictable result. Cheers Olle

I think the last note is the most important, and the real reason for not making widespread use of HEAT in WW2. Notice that in the '50ies HEAT became the standard ammo type, and AP/APDS almost disappeared. The advent of reactive armour lead to a come-back for kinetic energy AP, in the form of APFSDS. During the WW2 HEAT rounds were still of a fairly experimental design. The effect of a HEAT charge depends a lot on design and precision in production. For maximum effect it is necessary to have total symmetry (down to individual molecule) around the length axis. This type of symmetry can't be acheived in large scale production today, and was far off during WW2. Individual modern HEAT charges, produced under laboratory conditions, can penetrate more than eight calibres of armour plate. Regular modern HEAT rounds can penetrate 5-7 calibres. WW2 HEAT would be 1-3 calibres, with large variation between rounds of the same batch. One way to overcome the problem with rotation is to use a warhead slightly smaller than the gun tube, and have it fit to a sleeve that can rotate freely. This way the sleeve rotates and provide stability while the warhead have nearly no rotation at all. This is the way the ammo for the Carl Gustav 8.4 cm RR is designed. Cheers Olle

Don't forget that minefields can be "stacked". This way you can increase the probability of somebody setting off a mine considerably. Why not make each mine field three AT and one AP "high"? Cheers Olle

I agree mostly with Quintus. Given that Hitler's main goal was to conquer the European Soviet union, I think he'd gone a long way to make peace and form an alliance with UK (and possibly also make peace/cease fire with France). Then Germany, aided by Finland and UK and cheered on by Sweden, would have started the advance on USSR a bit sooner, and Fall Gelb would have been postponed (if not cancelled all together). What would happen from there on I can't tell. Perhaps Japan would use the turmoil to invade Asian USSR. Cheers Olle

OK, perhaps I picked a range a bit too far... Relatively what? Perhaps making the attacker a full company could take care of that? ... and get shot for cowardise and not following orders! Not an option if I'm ordered hold the ground at all costs, and no matter for the main issue. My main issue is: When the enemy is running away, do you spend or conserve ammo? (Given that you're not likely to get any more ammo soon.) Cheers Olle

Correct! The reason being that experience from France showed the importance of supporting infantry. The organisations from '41 on reflect and correct this. Cheers Olle

Slightly off topic, but I'm urged to tell... About ten years ago, I was home at a friend of mine and played Colonization, solo. (I didn't have the game myself, but loved it.) Started about 7 p.m. and finisehed by 7 a.m. My friend got a good nights sleep meanwhile... Cheers Olle

Notice that in CMBO/BB that would read: How this bug from CMBO made it into CMBB is beyond me. (Backblast weapons go Boom!) Cheers Olle

I'd like some deeper discussion about the effect/SOP when shooting at retreating troops. Simple setup: A rifle platoon is hastily dug in near (inside) a treeline, with excellent field of fire across some >400m of open ground that any attacking enemies will have to cross. The force of the enemy in the local area is unknown. A platoon of enemies is seen advancing cautiously, slowly closing the distance. When the nearest enemy is about 150m away, the entire defending platoon open fire, a high rate of aimed small arms fire. They instantly pin the attackers, and inflict some casualties. The attackers start shooting back, but soon realise the hopeless situation and try to run away. As a defender, what do you do in that situation? a) Take a few cheap pot-shots before ceasing fire and prepare to engage the next, larger, wave of attackers, that might appear soon. Continue to spend lots of ammo until no enemy is seen moving within range, hoping that no new enemies will show up. In CM most/all defenders seem to default to alternative . Personally I find alternative a) to be a more sensible default unless the player has specified a fleeing unit as target. If my point makes sense, then making defenders less aggressive against retreating units would solve all "problems" without adding new orders or reducing realism. Cheers Olle

The story I've read say they actually did extensive trials (during the winter '42-'42(?)) with the T-34 and found too many flaws with the design to make it worth a straight copy. The flaws weren't mentioned straight up, but I'd guess they include; - Two man turret. - Lack of proper radio. - Uncomfortable for the crew. - Gun only "adequate" by late '42, and in need of upgrade (implying the need of a new, larger, turret). Cheers Olle

It's #11240. Observe that there's a typo in the manuals: (International version p.12, CDV version p.8.) It says: Volkssturm Infantry, Mechanized It should be: Volkssturm [infantry?] Finnish Infantry, Mechanized Cheers Olle

I'm likewise very sure that the typical regimental artillery was 2 towed sIG 33 and 6 towed lIG 18 (75mm). The exception being armoured infantry regiments, that had 4 SP sIG 33 (Grille). The regimental artillery never had any other type of large calibre gun, AFAIK. Therefore follows that the two-tube regimental spotter controls towed IGs. They had a maximum elevation of about 70 degrees and a maximum range of about 3 miles, so indirect fire was definitely an option. (Minimum range in upper registry was less than 800m.) Correct! My math was a bit off by 2 a.m. ... Cheers Olle

Sundsvalls Tidning, Sweden, 2002-12-17. 5/5 Online version (My review is too short to be good, and they left out all the essential weblinks I provided in the script.) Cheers Olle

One tactic I've used successfully against a tight formation of two KV-1 and one KV-2 (unsupported) in the open was to; 1) overwhelm them with targets by shooting with a battery of 37mm ATGs and move a couple of light tank platoons in a fast pincer move to the left and right (to act as decoys). 2) speed a couple of Flammpanzer II almost straight at the KV tanks and make a BBQ. I lost half a dozen or more of my light tanks and one flamer, but I won the battle! Cheers Olle

Hitting a target at long range require high precision; - gun mount. - gun barrel. - gun sight. - ammunition. - range finder. The FlAK gun battery had all of this. In addition to this you need a steady weather. I recall reading that in the desert the typical hit probability was about 10% against tanks at 2km range. (Since the British tanks didn't have any weapon against soft targets at that range the FlAK crews could take their time and spend lots of ammo on each target...) Cheers Olle

No, neither the T-35 nor any other multi-turret tank can be modeled with the CM game engine. Cheers Olle

CDV cheated in version 1.00 and left out the 3D models for a couple of vehicles (~40MB worth) that were included with the international version. These (with textures) are included in the patch. Cheers Olle

Let's see... Accuracy: Some of the ATRs were used as base design for sniper rifles. Power/penetration: Enough to cause the German army to put sideskirts on just about every AFV in the inventory. 'Nuff said? Cheers Olle