Terence

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: You know Ksak, you are so unbelievably thick, it is almost funny. The armour CO in question was still in his tank, as were all his crews, they had not seen the enemy yet. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Im glad I read your post. I was about to say that the tanker was still INSISDE the tank. And it seems to me that there's a similar episode in Company Commander as well. Have you run across any other such instances, and if you have, why do you think they did? Was it because infantry commanders had innacurate expectations of what the tanks could accomplish and the tankers saw the requests as suicide? [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 01-08-2001).]

My 2 Cents on the Whole Thing, In Case Anyone Wants to Know: I have no pretensions to expertise at weapons system analysis, and therefore cannot argue convincingly for or against operating Iowa Class battleships. I have some thoughts, though. But I was following the situation in Kosovo and the Persian Gulf pretty closely over the last couple years when I worked as a reporter in the world section at ABCNews.com (please, please hold your scorn for reporters, I've heard it all before, and its really a topic for email or another thread) And after listening to plenty of Pentagon briefings and talking a great deal to some very smart folks at the Army War College and RAND and Brookings, it certainly seems that putting a bomb or missile on target from the sky is no easy thing, especially when people are shooting at you. Some damage assessments for _military targets_ from the latest dustup in Kosovo were terribly terribly low, and a famous GAO report on Desert Storm made it pretty clear that a lot of bombs were dropped for every one that made it to the target. Things have improved since then, but still -- people talk about pushbutton war but its not that simple. So, if I was in charge of the US Navy, I would necessarily want to get rid of something that could destroy what it was shooting at with such ease as has been reported here on the board. The question is -- does it have to be a battleship? I know people have cited some really interesting reasons to keep an Iowa class around, but the one that they keep returning to is the gunnery. Are there alternatives? Also, in the future, the US armed forces are likely to be fighting a lot more Somalia-type conflicts than we are to be attacking across defended beaches. Concerns over collateral damage will be very high. In situations like that maybe attacking with something that doesn't explode like a 16 inch shell is a good thing. Finally, one thing that I kept reflecting on as I wrote my stories at ABC, was that in the current environment, brute force is an overrated weapon. Just because the United States has a huge military, doesn't mean that we can make the Kim Jong Ils and Saddam Husseins and Slobodan Milosevics of the world do what we want.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Juardis: Sounds OK to me <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, me too, I guess. But what I really want to know is if you are in posession of a Hidden Agenda and a Cunning Plan to add an interface like this: www.amihotornot.com to the pictures? Admit it now, churls, if your intentions do that way tend. [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 01-08-2001).]

My Tiger tank outflanking two shermans in a bocage scenario, coming around behind them, gazing at their thinly armored posteriors having clear LOS and then rotating its turret 90 degrees to shoot at some infantry 124 meters away. At this point, a bazooka popped up on the other side and smoked the tank. Oh well. It was exciting, at least. My wife happened to stick her head in while I was setting up my orders the previous turn and muttering and ask what I was doing. I explained it to her and we sat and watched as the Tiger rolled up behind the shermans, turned its turret the other way, and then exploded when the bazooka hit it. My Wife: What was that? Me: A guy with a bazooka. My wife: Was that your last tank? Me: Yeah. My Wife: So, you are ****ed now, right? Me: Pretty much, yeah. Wife: Did you know the guy with the bazooka was hiding there? Me: Well, I knew there was some infantry in the area, but I didn't know for sure about that guy. Wife: Well, its your own damn fault then, sending the tank out there without anyone to look after it. Lets go to the grocery store. Me: [Gaping in astonishment] [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 01-05-2001).]

full. but i could see how none would be really cool for scenario design....

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gremlin: Terence, you realize a number of the quotes were suggested jokingly <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes. I do.

I suspect the profit margins on t-shirt sales are low enough that the opportunity cost of spending time on it for BTS is too high. Phrased another way, it makes more economic sense for them to work on software than it does to design, produce and distribute a tshirt. Besides, the wierd and obscure stuff you guys want written on the shirts would be nearly useless from a marketing standpoint. Nevertheless, please accept my best wishes for your eventual satisfaction --one way or another --in this arena.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ksak: Has this gamey nonsense so permeated the thinking of supposedly intelligent people that it is now verboten to use the whole map? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ksak!!!! HEY!! I resemble that remark. I _never_ pretended to be intelligent, so lets nip that allegation in the bud right now. Hahaahahaha! Truth is, Ive never played a pbem or tcip, and I'm trying to get a feel for what is considered good play before I jump in. I don't want accusations of gamy-ness levelled at me, you see. ANDREAS!!! -- There were some AT assets along the way, but the Stuarts and the Wasps came rushing at them so fast that they didn't have much time to react and my boys took them out on the bounce. Nyah ha ha. Terence

yes. that would be nice.

Every so often, I play a game where the objective is to exit my forces off one of the map edges. In that case, Ill advance my crews towards that map edge (and coincidentally the enemy) so that I can fulfill the mission requirements. Gamey?? Other times, when I lose vehicles, I pull the crews off to the sides of my axis of advance, where they are out of the way and wont get killed. They are not much use in combat, see. I found once, by accident, that when I did that, the crew was also functioning as an OP, and warned me of a sneaky flanking attack in time for me to shift my reserve to block it. Is that gamey, even though it was unintentional? Should I not do that if I play a pbem or tcp/ip game? Also, once, I was playing a QB as the British, where I had to assault over a rather interesting map which was set up in such a way that a series of small hills and some trees on the left flank blocked LOS from the VP locations in the center of the opfor side of the map. It looked kinda like this: | x x x | O | O | O where the | symbols represent the map edge, and the Os are small hills and the vps are xes.. After examining the terrain, I discovered that there was path of advance that would lead me to a rather nice position on the enemy's left flank (from my pov). By coindicence (or something,) the path itself was only open to enemy fire in a few spots. So, first I took my Stuarts and Wasps and scooted them as fast as I could behind the hills and knolls until they were in the position I decribed earlier -- which was a good sized depression on the opfor extreme left flank. I kept the visible opfor troops (and a few places I thought might contain troops) under heavy artillery fire during this maneuver. Simultaneously, platoon by platoon, I ran nearly my entire assault force of infantry, along nearly the same route and ended up with most of my force assembled on the enemy's left flank in a kind of depression, close to vps, but out of his immediate los. More artillery to keep him from getting feisty. (Then I attacked from out of his left flank with some more artillery and really knocked the living hell out of him.) So, there were good reasons for me to take that covered route for my advance, but HERE'S THE THING: That route was fairly close to the left edge of the map. So was this approach gamey, even though it seemed tactially sound and shielded me from lots of nasty enemy fire, including that of a couple anti tank guns and a KT? [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 01-04-2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pritzl: A few weaks later, almost my entire response was quoted verbatim and passed off as the reviewers own insights into the workings, compromises, highlights, and faults of the game. They never even mentioned talking to me. That's called plagerism.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Plagarism happens when you take from a published or unpublished work that is not your own. If a reporter interviews you and reproduces your response in an article, that is not plagarism. I will say, however that the reporter who does this is a little confused about what reporters are supposed to do. A good reporter would be happy to quote " " your words (unless you were off the record) cause as a beta tester, you are a good, informed source. Reporters are supposed to interview informed people and pass those informed views along to readers, not act as pundits themselves. It sounds as if this reporter wanted to be the expert, not just report on what the experts said.

Yo G-Dog, I respectfully suggest that you _may_ believe too strongly in the advantage of having your men in particular formations. I think you are supposed to micromanage your squads, and that this is an aspect of the game that is both fun and interesting. Allowing you to choose the path for each squad and team also allows you to move your men with the terrain and available cover and to maximize every advantage of firepower. If CM had an alogrithm running that kept you in tight formations you could find this much harder to do. Peace, Terence

Hmmm. The sherman? Rings a bell, I think Is that the large brown vehicle that burns easily?

How is it that nobody has mentioned "The Bridge on the River Kwai" yet? that is a first rate movie. Just bought the DVD today, actually...

im running the game on a vile little ****box compaq: p2 233 32 mb ram with a 16 mb voodoo 3 3000 card. On tiny and small scenarios, its fine. Mediums grind a bit ( I just finished Elsdorf which was a bit slow waiting for the turns to compile, but OK.) but large is out. Ill have to get a new computer next year when the prices on the new P4s go down... [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 12-19-2000).]

i think there is little historical justification for an Ammo Truck appearing onto the battlefield during the action, althought it might, from another pov, be a good and interesting unit. If one were to appear in the middle of a firefight, imagaine how unhappy you might be if it rolled up to one of your squads and got hit by an enemy mortar round. Boom! No more sqad, no more truck. Resupply happens between battles in operations, though. Try to keep your infantry from shooting until they get close enough to do some damage -- usually that's under 100 meters, depending on terrain. That way you won't waste ammo at long range.

I feel the same way about bb guns as I do about toy guns, I feel as though they are misleading for the shooter--that it is possible to end up with sloppy safety attitudes since "hey! its just a bb gun!" (of course it depends on the kid, too) And there's a chance that because of that the bb gun could be employed in all sorts of mischief. Shooting pigeons or something.. With a real gun, something that has serious, deadly consequences, this is much less likely. I got a 12-gauge shotgun for my 14th birthday and went skeet shooting with it nearly every weekend after that for years. If you want to get him a gun, my advice would be to get him a nice .22 or a .410 shotgun or something. That way, you can be sure that the thing is taken seriously and you can do a lot more stuff with it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Kettler: Madmatt, I've noticed a different sort of problem with newest version of the Public Beta in a QB vs. the AI. I'm running a 233 MHz iMac with 64 MB RAM and 2 MB VRAM (ATI Rage Pro) under OS 8.6. The battle was going great, a regular slugfest, but when I got to the Go button for Turn 13 of 30, the slider bar filled, followed immediately by a system crash and a type 12 error message. Every single time I reran the saved turn, the same thing happened. Rebooting didn't cure the problem either. It still crashes. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The same thing happened to me with the first public beta. Elsdorf, turn 12. The computer thinks about its turn, the "slider bar" takes a series of steps forward, then a slight step back and then the game crashes to the desktop. Ill email you the turn and the error report.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Steve Clark: ...but consistent standards are much, much better.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you say so, Comrade Clark. May I point out, in the interests of argumentative hyperbole, that the cars in the Soviet Union were uniformly bad, as were their computers and television sets. (just kidding. It took CM to get me to buy a 3d card, and the MAIN REASON I couldn't figure out which one to buy before then was this exact standards problem.I figured buying a card might exclude me from other differently coded card requiring games, later on) [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 12-15-2000).]

hey, I am pleased with the BTS compromise, while I agree with Wild Bill. Someone asked another Wild Bill --Bill Mauldin -- once what the United States learned from the Second World War, and he said "We learned how much blood can come out of a human body." I'm happy the human element is taken into consideration, but I wouldn't want to see blood at the expense of other things - more units, additional ai programming, dynamic lighting, etc.

Well, I just voted, bringing Other to 234, which is second lowest, so the deviants from the Peng Thread had better scheme up some way to vote an entire legion of hampstertruppen, plus the hampstertruppen cemetary. Get on it. [This message has been edited by Terence (edited 12-15-2000).]

Well, whatever. Personally, I don't care about any the suggestions offered in the first post-- if none of them happen, I won't lsoe sleep. I'm not playing the game to be entertained by eye candy and it never occurred to me to change the graphics. (although, really, kudos to you mod guys. some really amazing work, and when I get more computer than I have now, Ill install some just for ****s and giggles.) If you guys want to grab that newbie poster by the short/curlys and then beat him like a rented mule, hey -- knock yourselves out. But I for one am _gratified_ by the appearance of this post. It means that one more person has seen the site, and downloaded the demo, which could mean that the (drumroll) audience is expanding. Since BTS (rightly) doesn't share their financials with us, we don't have that many ways to judge the soundness of their business, and since Im hoping it succeeds and continues to grow I'll take any evidence I can get. If that includes dumb posts from newbies or pissed off delegates from the "twitch crowd" so what. I'm just happy to know that more people are seeing, buying or playing the game, even if they can't chime in with an informed comment on the velocity of the Panther's 88mm gun. If this guy hated it, well, maybe he'll pass it on to his brother or his friend who will love it. That way, yin and yang stay balanced, and the world will not explode. **Sigh** I know the damn panther doesn't have an 88 mm gun, ok.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Samhain: I've been preaching the Wirbelwind (and Ostwind) anti-infantry gospel for some time based on frequent experience with them in CM and just wanted to second (or I guess third or fourth in this case ) their incredible utility in breaking up massed infantry advances and taking out lighter AFV's at the same time. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> amen, brother -- I finished that battle last night. Germans 2 KIA and 8 injured loss of 1 Ostwind. The allies took 54 injured 37 KIA, which proportionally seems like a high number of dead. The Ostwinds, were primarily responsible for this, suppressing and destroying everything they saw. And they took out 3 or four halftracks, 3 AT guns, two trucks and two M8s and some jeeps as well. You know, when faced with a tank, a halftrack will 99 percent of the time back up and hide out of sight. But Im not sure they were all that interested in hiding from the Ostwinds. Anyone else seen the HT AI treat the Ostwind as if it was not as much of a threat as it seems to be?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Forever Babra: One word: Swarowski. Best optics in the world, then and now. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ok, not to be irritating, but why were they the best optics? surely the US and the British and the Soviets all had equal incentive to produce good tank optics. Why were the Swarowski optics so good? Why weren't they bettered or equalled by equally rich creative nations?

By 1940, I don't think anyone talked much about Zinovev and Kamenev, except maybe some terrified old Leningradskii Oblast Party members, mumbling in the dark. IN those days it wasnt't "kak vui zhivete," but "kak!! Vui zhivete???