Tero

Engineers build, pioneers demolish.

Originally posted by redwolf: I can set up an example of T-34 fleeing towards Tigers in a minute. Roger that. Did not recall seen anything indicating that happens.

Is this the same game engine feature used with infantry ? If it is, how come the armour seems to run for cover the right way while the infantry modelling is totally broken ? Panicking vehicle crews do not panic ?

Good work, like Andreas says. Certainly an eye opener (at least for me), well worth the money.

Originally posted by Bogdan: However, the first picture looks more realistic. I mean that the enemy cannot be localized and the photographer is not exposed to incoming fire. What makes me doubt the picture is a composite is the obvious perspective distortion. The guy firing kneeling down would be something of a giant, like 2,5 meters high if the persepective was correct. Also, the tanks are not kicking up any dust or exhaust smoke. As soon as you can easely find a political symbol (red stars, swastika...), as soon as you can spot a retouched spot on the picture (made to hide markings, unit patches...), as soon as you can see soldiers dangerously and heroically sitting exposed in front of the enemy, you MAY be in presence of a fake ! There were several composite pictures made in the pre-war years which did not carry these obvious signs.

Originally posted by Munter: About the picture, check the wheels and tracks. There should not be any reason for doubts. Band of Brothers lovers, eat your heart out !

Originally posted by Mattias: Well, looking at the movie trailer with the StuG's it is clear that at least the gun and the mounting of it is not 100% as it should be on the closest vehicle. When it moves over the oil drum (?) in the first scene the barrel jumps up and down an awfull lot. And.. when it fires in the second scene the interiour of the StuG lights up from the blast, something best avoided in real life I am surprised there would be TWO Stug runners in existence, let alone two in fully restored condition. They might have used a runner which is in less than perfect condition to act as the firing specimen because a fully restored vehicle would be in risk if the pyrotechnics failed.

The second photo looks real. The first might be a collage made out of several photos. I think so because there are several such prominent photos in existence.

Originally posted by ParaBellum: There are some good scenes in "Talvisota" showing (Über-)Finns close assaulting soviet tanks with Molotovs, smashing the bottles against the engine deck. The molotovs did not work as effectively against later tanks like the T-34 and the KV.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: True, but I don't normally find that to be the case. Do you? I guess it depends on your playing style. I am normall looking for small crests in the ground and placing my armor immediately behind them. But I realize that chance may offer some intervening obstacle farther away. I would think the chosen terrain tile dimensions in the game would have some kind of an effect. Question is, is that truly hull down if you are arguing that projectile drop would be sufficient to hit the hull? All that is really being blocked is part of the LOS. I say that in this case the engine should not show it as hull down. Indeed. If you can not actually see it it does not necessarily mean you can not hit it. Furthermore, if the angle of attack of the plummeting projectile is, say, 2 degrees from the horizontal at the time of the impact and given the imperfections of the aiming the point of impact could differ by several meters.

Originally posted by flamingknives: Even a shell travelling at 1km/s will drop by 5m over 1km [Edit]: However, the amount that it will drop between the obstacle and the tank is minimal. Depends on the positioning of the obstacle in relation to the target when looking from the shooters POV. Lets not forget were are not talking about 1/72 or 1/35 scale models. The obtacle can be quite far away from the vehicle it is providing hull down cover for.

Originally posted by Andreas: ....the question on whether Schmidt was a serious historian? There is a dilemma in the issue. Was he serious ? Propably. Was he a historian ? He published what amounts to narratives and first person accounts. I guess you can put him in the same cathegory with Homeros and other classical historians who used the same technique when describing past events. To us "moderns" he used the technique too early to be counted as serious history writing. I came across it when I started reading books about the Vietnam war. Here in Finland they published a magazine "Kansa Taisteli" (which translates roughly as "the Nation Fought") which was comprised almost solely of personal first person accounts of operations and actions and it is considered today to be a valuable source of data when studying aspects of particular actions and operations. The veracity of the stories can (and is) often verified by cross referencing the narratives against official documents. These narratives give colour to the history. I have lamented the fact the Finnish history writing has been riddled by the use of first person accounts in the expence of archival data and numbers. They are captivating to read but it is a real pain to collect actual data which is sprinceled across the text rather incoherently. Perhaps these first person accounst are a collective way for the losers to explain and depict events past the official history writing so the "real, official" history does not get contaminated by controversial issues, like personal heroism of members of NSDAP.

Originally posted by Sergei: No. That hardly proves your claim, however. Subjucate the mind and the ass will follow. They controlled the minds of the people in the countries in their sphere of influence and conse

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: I think the problem is that you have an exceedingly non-standard definition of 'expansion'. Traditionally it means expanding a country's borders to incorporate new lands with or without new peoples. Merely interferring in another country's internal politics does not in and of itself constitute expansion, though obviously it could be a precursor to expansion (e.g., Nazi agitation in the Sudetland and in Austria). What about the Colonial powers in the 19th and early 20th century (up till ~1945) ?

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: [qb]Was there ever any point between 1945 and 1989 when the US was not supporting capitalistic countries, even when those regimes were demonstrably dictatorships? What does any of tha [ January 28, 2004, 07:03 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by Sergei: If you want to point out actual signs of continuity in the Soviet foreign policy that clearly connect 1939 and 1979, then by all means do so. OK. Was there at any point between 1939 and 1979 a time when USSR was NOT supplying or otherwise helping/supporting communist governments or rebelious movements outside her borders ?

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: What happened in 1979 doesn't say much about 1939 one way or the other. Well, in 1939 they invaded Finland and got a bloody nose for their effort. In 1979 they invaded Afganistan and got a bloody nose for their effort. As a result in 1939 they brought about Barbarossa, in 1979 they brought about Perestroika and the eventual downfall of their empire. In any event, if it did, it would tend to prove the opposite of what you claim. The Soviets were willing to abide a truly neutral Afghanistan, but in the mid-70s there was a pro-Western coup that ousted the monarchy. It looked like the CIA might be planning to use Afghanistan as a base for stirring up seperatist feeling among the Islamic republics of the southern USSR. So the Soviets sponsored a Pro-communist counter-coup. When that looked like not settling the question, they finally sent in their own forces with the result we are familiar with. However ill-advised their involvement may have been, it is hard to make a case that it was done for reasons of expansionism. Their form of government was expansionistic by nature to begin with. Just because they did not actively expand their actual territorial mass between 1945 and 1979 does not mean they were not expansionistic. If you accept the empire building nations as having been expansionistic then I see the USSR as an expansionistic state.

Originally posted by Rudy: Were the ground attack aircraft of world war 2 really that dangerous? One thing you must remember is that CAS in CMXX is always on target, even if it misses it. There are no bogus firing passes on hay stacks or other miss-ID'd targets.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: What does that have to do with this discussion? The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan occurred 34 years after the end of WW II and 26 years after the death of Stalin. Don't muddy the waters. Goes to the expansionistic tendencies of the regime. The USSR was among the few nations to come out of the war with its territory expanded beyond its 1939 borders. The borders of 1939 were legal. IMO any and all "final" alterations in the USSR borders were expansionistic in nature. By 1979 the leaders of USSR had forgotten there was a possibility to fail in active exportation of the faith.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: That statement can be disputed. With few exceptions (mainly East Prussia, which I suppose could be regarded as a spoil of war), Stalin only annexed lands that were part of pre-Revolution Russia. By that definition even Finland was expansionistic when we tried to take back what was taken from us in Winter War. He did not annex the countries that eventually became the WarPac, although he certainly occupied them and set up puppet governments in them as well as adjusting their borders. But he wanted them to continue to exist as entities in order to provide a pro-Soviet buffer against invasion from the West. I think that that was purely a publicity stunt more than a non-expansionistic behaviour. Only those that had broken away from the Russian Empire. I don't think that makes his actions morally defensible necessarily, but it's important to note that he wasn't just given to indiscriminant land grabs. Remember Afganistan ? Well, for sure he was looking to fight France. I don't think he saw that fight as avoidable at all. He certainly made no effort to avoid it. The war was the result of the Western Allies finally calling his bluff. He did not make an effort to make it go away but then again he though the Western Allies would be sitting on their hands despite the war being deglared. The ironic thing is, the shipments from German-occupied USSR never matched the shipments from pre-war USSR. You must remember Stalin went way out of his way to make sure the shipments would be made on time, in full according to the schedule set down in the treaty.

double post [ January 22, 2004, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by japinard: Sergei -that map is kind of difficult to read. Does that show the Finnish army on the steps of Leningrad? Nope. The pre-war border in the Isthmus ran in pretty much the same place

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: It's worth noting that Finland never declared itself an ally of Germany. It is also worth noting that the Germany did deglare unilaterally Finland as her ally only in 1941. They were very careful to insist they were "co-belligerents". Once they had reoccupied the territories taken from them by the USSR in 1940, they ceased major operations even though the Germans tried to get them to participate in the attack on Leningrad. Very true. Since the starting point of this scenario was 1939 none of that had ever taken place.

Originally posted by japinard: I've already determined the following (non-superpowers): Finland - Axis In 1939, BS In 1939 Finland was leaning towards the neutral Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) and Western Allies because the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact made both Germany and USSR act hostile towards Finland.

W2K with IE 6.0.2 Occasional "Internal server error"s which clear when the page is reloaded.