Hans

On the Italian Front in those Mountain divisions did they use pack artillery? I remember in the WWII issues of "Field Artillery Journal" they had a special section on "horses at war" does anyone have access to the FAJ-any red legs from Sill around? For CM3 of course Horses just another form of transport, yep hey and let include a standard "Ash and Trash", "Clerks and Jerk" unit for those special scenarios - Battle for the Corp level maintenance depot or charge of the 21st Replacement battalion's staff!! Those bastards could do some mean work with a wad of carbon paper. Actually at some later time some sort of standard "ad hoc" unit is probably needed to use for cooks etc that are brought up in desperation or for defense of the battalion TOC

Short Question do the defenders in CM get a reaction bonus for being "wired-in"? I assume the defender having been on the ground for awhile has laid land lines etc? Is that modelled?

I know there are large expat communities and would expect them all to be PC users and have net access but are they a viable market in size and purchasing behaviour? Hans: Equal to a large city, most are professionals and above average computer skills. The big market is with the Arab Middle class and also the non-European Middle class (non-Arab) that is also arising Are there many computer or software stores where they can buy legitimate software or do they bring them from trips back from Europe / Asia / N. America? I am interested to know. Hans: Yes, but they tend to be several months behind. I must admit I order things in the US to be shipped here. Piracy IS a problem but much less now than in the past. I wouldn't have considered India / Pakistan to be part of the middle east and certainly even just counting the Indian market I know they are certainly worth addressing. Although the percentage of India who are middle class is low, the size of it is huge. There is very much a case for a muslim-oriented software market. In fact, three years ago I made a business case for setting up a game development / publishing business in Malaysia for that purpose. Part of the challenge was considering a new market (muslims / Indians / non-Chinese or Japanese Asians) for games. While we thought there was a viable market for games with themes that appeals to these groups, we were a bit dismayed at the lack of business support for such a business at the time (distributorship, funding, piracy control). Hans: I would suggest that a CM type came directed at the Indian Middle Class recreating Chinese and Pakistani battles - and future ones would be very successful. Software creation is one area where the Indians excel (in having them "Indianize" existing software to Urdu, Hindi, Tamil etc) by the way, it took me more than one trip to the east to really understand the older generation's fear of new media. Some of the business types I spoke with were leery of another western-centric media taking over the minds of the young. When you couple that with a powerful religious authority in many of these countries, it is a somewhat risky proposition for small developers. Hans: Definitely a problem however in the UAE they are attacking it directly by setting up a special development corporation to deal with it (Dubai Internet City) This last anecdote does not surprise me at all. One business person asked me seriously if I would be teaching Christian or Jewish values in my games. I told him that I would stay away from that issue and be neutral. Hans: This is a common Muslim/Arab "conspiracy" type fear. I do believe that a CM type wargame with Isrealis as the enemy (plus the French and Brits in 56) would be popular especially if the training advantage of the Isreal was "neutralized". One of the gentlemen I work with was a Syrian T-72 driver in the 73 war and he loves the effect of CM but is too computerphobic to actually play…but his sons aren't! Not to mention the other conflicts in the area, the war in Yemen the Brits vs the Communists in Oman etc

I beg to differ I live in the Middle East and you do have a large middle class (especially "Western" expats) who would and are interested in Wargames. As for the Arabs/Muslims of the area. There is some limited interest. For CM if it were to expand into say the 48, 56, 67, 73 wars between Isreal and the Arabs there would be a GREAT interest. As would the Pakistani vs Indian conflicts (Many of these used WWII equipment and there follow ons), the Indian/Pakistani Market would be/is huge and their paying capacity is increasing. Why don't they buy? Most wargames(CM included) are very Western oriented, and directed at US/Europeans they not marketed in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu or any other Middle Eastern/Muslim language. Should CM create (with the Med CM 3 you'd have the desert terrain and the possibility of recreating a number of the actions of interest to Middle Easters. A story: while teaching business in Saudi Arabia It became obvious to me that more than 25% of the college students had no idea that anything called "WWII" had ever occurred!

How about two version of CM, one with Horses for realists and another (carefully labeled)"NO EVIL HORSES WITHIN", The anti horsers can then download the "anti-horse patch" which will turn all horses into Italian made trucks. WWI gave a good indication of how horses can be used in "up front war", especially of the horse artillery units. My father had the honor to be an American Cavalry Officer (1939-1940) and they had a method of teaching horses not to react to gunfire.....wannna guess how they did it? Horses? Sure they'll have to be in the Russian version and certainly in the early war years so we can recreate Polish Lancer vs Pz I's! For CM a low priority patch (probably using coding from CM II) Regards all

The old American 90mm didn't take long to reload but am not sure how they compare to the German RR's?

Retired FA Regards to Sbattler another Hamilton's own & Jager7 another Ft. Sill survivor. Do you know the Commandant of NCO Academy at Sill? He's one of my old comrades. High Points FO A 1-2 FA Baumholder German FIST Chief C 1/87 Inf S-2 and S-4 1-2 FA BN FSO to 1-34 AR Ft Riley KS Bde FSO 1st Brigade 1st Inf Div Commander Svc 1-5 RC to 42nd Divarty and Reserve 77th Arcom Fire support....I just love the arty in CM

Howdy Boys Any of you CM'ers know where I could get the org for a German Heer Late '44 150/170 Artillery BN ?

Favorite AFV M8 Greyhound and the Puma, and that Daimler is great too In a slightly different catagory I would also mentions the great and wonderful M8 Howtizer Motor Carriage...a great little moble gun

Taking the side that in CM that you still need to do some Recon as your forces advance. The problem You have a few vehicles or squads moving forward to find the enemy..they do.....and they open fire! What I think is needed, along with the Fast Move, Move and Hunt command is the Recce command. In Recce a vehicle moves slowly, stoping to listen and senting its crew forward to look over ridgelines etc. It is looking the enemy and also trying NOT to be seen. Additionally when it sights the enemy IT DOESN'T FIRE! it takes immediate steps to back up or otherwise not be seen*. The same move should also be available for leg units. Units with radios would have the options to call for fire-but only for vehicles and units that were/are used for reconnaissance. Just an idea

For Kiwi Joe "It explots a limitation in the game... ie the fact that both players know at a certain time the battle ends - full stop. This would NEVER happen in a real life situation... "quick we have 1 min before every1 stops firing, lets make a dash for the VL, as long as some of us can survive 60 secs of fire we could snatch a win". I would agree with you but there was at least one (somewhat)real world example of this: In WWI on November 11, 1918 at 10 AM just 1 hour before the cease fire was to begin the A Squadron of the 4th Dragoon Guards conducted a mounted cavalry charge thru German lines to seize the bridgehead at Lessines. Just as they finished their 10 mile gallop they were entering the streets of the objective village. The village clock was chiming away and the Germans... The Germans obligingly ceasing firing and halted the formation of an overwhelming counter-attack against the blown and isolated unit. The General who ordered it got a DSO go figure

I would suggest that the best way to avoid "last minute desperation moves" is to make the actually end of the game unknown. You could do this in a QB by having a function which when 30 turns were selected it would add or minus 10% ie 27-33 turns. ie fuzzy game endings, not a perfect solution but it makes it hard to time "last minute grabs"

I can send it to you if you like email below wayne100@emirates.net.ae

Warmonger I did design a WWI scenario for CM A hundred Germans on a slight rise with a double belt of wire and trenches made of rubble.They have 7 MG pill boxes & 3 FO's I made two versions, one had 1200 British soldiers attacking A second with 900 British infantry and 4 Kangaroos (closest thing to a WWI tank I could find!) I ran the scenario 9 times. The Brits won once but took 400 casualties and the other eight times they stalled at the wire and squads getting thru were machined gun by the support trench. I ran the tank version 7 times with the Brits winning all but once (in that one all four tanks bogged or were hit by artillery) The battles at the wire were intense but when they would break thru (while the artillery from both sides beat down) the support line would cut them to pieces. Mortars and flamethrowers were usefull if they could survive the barrage. The tanks ability to run thru the wire and directly machine gun the Germans in the "rubble" trenches was key. All in all, ghastly! Ernst Junger would have loved it!!!

Speaking of Commanders Lets not forgot those FO's, while the mortars FO were often junior NCO's the LT for the arty battery often took over infantry and support weapons leadership, especially if the original leadership was disabled. In the Brit and German forces the FO was often the battery commander and it wasn't rare to have a Battalion artillery officer up front looking for targets and coordinating support for units. Additionally perhaps one should have in the "rules" the possibility of a enlisted man or NCO taking charge (gaining the advantages of the former Platoon leader), the ad hoc leader arise Amen to armoured vehicle commanders and Platoon leaders For CM you should also be able to purchase a "situational" leader (yourself) who is in overall charge of this one section of the battle field.

You really need (kidding) to get into a war somewhere.....cann't you invade Greenland?

Company commander is good but I would also recommend the following Ernest Jurgers, "Storm of Steel" (Author forgotten) "Japanese Destroyer Captain" Anything by SLA Marshall Charles Oman's Peninsula wars

Who had the better tactical maps in WWII? By tactical I mean 1/50,000 or 1/25,000 style /size maps? At what level were they distributed?

I'd vote for "Sand Pebbles", a very realistic river battle scene and the hero dies at the end.

The mobile shoot is one of the most difficult especially if traveling across the gun target line. Can it be done? Yes, a very experienced FO and a good FDC can get it done but I wouldn't recommend it. Obviously the game engine is slightly flawed in this aspect. If a vehicle is stopped you can certainly do a mission from one. You can also do a mission on to a TRP easily also. An adjust fire is another matter.... Another question deals with the radio in question. There were different models, some were man portable some were not. Hey were is the spotter plane by the way in the CM simulation? Ibucephalus, whata you guys using? No digital? No lasers? Are you still at the compass and map level? I was Fo'ing during the transition period from that style to the TACFIRE/FIST systems An old FO

May I assume your talking about the Burg Al Arab? I don't work there but I know people who do and I can see it from my apartment. It big but in my opinion rather ugly inside (over the top decorations) Where are you at?

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Actually South Africans and Russians are in the same general time zones too Where are you at?

What not a single CM'er in the entire middle east..... Er thats SW Asia for your reactionaries

I have thought of a worse way to redeem myself A designed scenario in which you have 120 trucks on an island with the bridges down (plenty of wide open road-image a large parking lot with a few trees for artist effect) versus an opponent with 25 units of fighter bombers, nothing else, enjoy.

To 109 Gustav Hans, I must give you a penance for your sin of putting other games before Combat Mission- Read the entire Peng, I take our challenge public thread, and report all the relevant details to me. It has been done The word "the" was used 12,003 times, no other facts of importance were noted.