Slapdragon

Seen it, but a lot of times I think it is the "dumb as a tank" routine. Where it really became obvious was in playtesting a scenario. An M4A3 crested the hill and came face to face with 2 Panthers moveing onto a bridge, rear quarter shots. The M4A3 (A Veteran) was in hunt mode, so it slammed on the brakes, then it just sat there. The Panthers were able to pivot 95 degrees, aquire, and fire two shots each (the fourth shot imolating the A3) and the A3 did not fire one, although after the third shot it "aquired" with a red line. I don't know if the A3 was stuck because it "broke" when even faced with 2 Panthers, or what, but now I keep A3s away from Panthers even when I have a point blank rear shot in a melee.

Although many people consider it a problem with small games, the edge issue I think is very realistic. The issue is the amount of room a unit has to manuever versus its mission. In tactics class, they teach you to always attack from the flank, but that assumes a flank to be found and an endless battlefield, plus a well defended end zone of your own so that you don't yin/yang each other. In reality issues like friendly fire, road congestion, defence of the rear echelon, and poor terrain often force an attack that is less than optimal, and you cannot swing around without messing someone elses attack up, or runn afoul of friendly fire. The best thing you can say about edge hugging is that it is an iffy tactic that can be useful. Where you get clobbered is when you get "pinned" with no room to manuever against the edge, or when units decide that they are heading off board.

More realistic buildings: What we have was a good compromise, but it is really hard to map a village with the limited options for buildings. Realistic water modeling. Right now, you have ford or noford, but water could be given levels of depth, with depth allowing fording. Streams and gullies. Their are ways to sim this now, but an actual stream of wash tile would be nice. Tiaga- Russian Tiaga has little undergrowth, being like a "pine desert". Vehicles can move through Tiaga. 3D crops. Wheat is a 3D object 1 level high, as is corn. Civilian peices that can be programmed (ie. Run around like freaks, hide in buildings, run away from fighting). Not so much for the Eastern Front, were civilian casualties were not worried about, but for the western front where both sides got concerned by civilians. Foot paths- Give forests actual foot paths.

Gran paginación Paco! Me plazco ver una paginación española de la misión del combate. Estoy traduciendo todo mi trabajo al español, francés, y portugeuse, pero toma un tiempo largo. Congratualtions en el tuyo!

The first Seven-Six-One scenario is finished and needs play testing. This is a historically accurate fight between the 761st Tank Battalion and 559th Volksgrenadier Division, that occurred on 7 November, 1944 at Vic-Sur-Seille in the Lorraine, France. I would like to find two German players and two US players to help me make it a little less historically accurate, and a little more competitive between the two sides. E-mail me at 761tank@goathead.org if you need a scenario to kick around. Thanks!

I speak from actual experience, and it is not egocentric americanism. When I was 6 I was crawling around my grandpas stuff and I found a sword and a clipping book. I brought it out and showed it to Grandpa. He said that his grandfather was an officer with the 2nd Virginia, a slave holder, and a proud man. "Old Man" Jackson as grampa called him did not try to mince words like they do today, he was fighting to keep his slaves. Then my grandfather explained that "old man" was in the grey, and he thought he was fighting for the correct things, but he was not, and today Virginia is part of the United States, but we are the heirs of an evil legacy. Grandpa Jackson, now long dead, was a wise man, but all that went right over my head, it was too complex. Now I read Grandpa's writing and I realize he should have simplified it for me. My forbear was not a dupe, he was not a poor reservist caught up against his will. He was a slave holder and he was proud of his holding slaves. He was also fighting for the wrong cause, and as a child I needed that spelled out for me.

El receptor de papel le agradece mucho. Soy su estudiante en esta materia.

You know, I always have to wonder what they were thinking in setting up an ASP server in TGN, or at least using ASP pages rather than simple html. Pound for pound Microsoft ASP is the clunkiest protocol, and it has a huge problem of handing out complete pages. TGN is a great place, but it is like having someone deliver Enclyopedia Britannica in a 76 Pinto. You have to feel sorry for them - they probably bough the thing and now they are stuck.

I think tank ramming is a mistake. First off, your tank insurance if going to go through the ceiling for your battalion if your tankers try to ram other guys tanks. Second, your units will get stalled as those damn French Gendarmie argue over who gets the ticket. Then, I am not sure I would trust the American tank crew not to fake a back unjury and sue you! Finally, you spend all that time waxing the thing, and then you go and ding the paint. Sounds like more trouble than it is worth.

Muchimos gracias Fernando! You are truly a gentleman and a scholar. (I am not sure if the Spanish use caballaro as a compliment or if it is an insult like some places in America del sur, and the word erudito sounds wrong, so I will stick to english with that!)

J'espérais également trouver quelqu'un qui a eu des images des villes. l'anglais: I also wanted to see if someone had vacationed in those towns and maybe had a picture of themselves standing on the Seille bridge. I know, to much to ask.

Merci beaucoup. Les Français ne sont pas ce mauvais, au moins ils font le bon vin. My poor French, it use to be I was just a little off with it, and had a bad vocabulary -but was understandable. Then I spent 5 years learning Spanish and lost my French, then I married a Brazillian wife who speaks German and Portuguese and last week I spoke in Spanish to a friend and he laughed! I now say Merki bow-cup and cannot read the label of the wine bottles I buy (is Chateau Vol-Merde any good?)

Excusez mon mauvais français. J'ai besoin de l'information de quelqu'un qui a voyagé en Lorraine. Vous savez obtenir une carte détaillée de Vic-sur-Seille, de Chateau-Salins, et de Morville-les-Vic. I posséder plusieurs cartes de l'allumage 1:25000, mais aucuns plans de ville. Est-ce que n'importe qui a été à ces villes? Quelque chose que vous savez aidera. J'ai l'espagnol, l'portugeuse, l'anglais, et du français (très peu), ainsi sentez-vous libre pour utiliser le langage que vous préférez votre réponse. Merci de votre aide. Steve Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina

As a scientist you should read the research on violence, children, and games. Most normally adjusted children do not suffer from contact with violent games or tough ideas if they have an adult to help them draw lessons from material they see. The damaging material seems to be a situation where he or she cannot take control of their destiny, like a hack and slash horror movie. Detailed video games in fact are usually very positive for children's learning, just as wargames were 20 years ago. Keep him or her away from Friday the 13th and turn them onto games, as long as you explain the ethical factors around the game. Later, when he or she is older, you can introduce them to concepts like the holocaust and they will be able to understand it. One thing, be careful glorifying the Nazi elements of the game. Let your child know that they are "bad men" and that the green guys are "good guys". If he is up to it, then you can explain that the "bad men" were serving an evil master, but now are "good me" and you have a little morality lesson.

One problem I am having with the CM engine is the designation of "fanatic" units. By any measure 761 was fanatic, but they served regular (or veteran in the case of the 29th) units. When you designate a side as having a chance of being fanatic everyone gets a chance unless you make some of them green. The infantry they served with were by no means bad, but they were not on the same level as the 761 in terms of never breaking -- some of the 761's worst moments came when their infantry called it a day before the tanks could extract themselves. It would be useful in the CM engine if you could designate individual subunits as being possible fanatics rather than the entire side.

I used to have a great deal of fun with the historical accuracy when I played squad leader, down to scanning on my work scanner (no one owned their own scanner in those days) topo maps and printing them on a plotter using sticky transparency, then pasting them on grid boards. I know we would have endless fun choosing and fighting historical units and battles, often shooting each others research down very vocally. The first thing is that some people are very sensitive to what is called a Munchkin gamer. If you choose to have a dozen M26 Pershings in 1944, it may make tactical sense and be a "good" hand, but people will rebel because no one actually used that tank until 1945, and then not many were used. Munchkinitis can infuriate even the calmest gamers, but often they go overboard and accuse the people who just don't know with it. All you have to say is "please help" and people will calm down (mostly). Next there is the history buffs who like to argue if the kummaloff device was used in July of 1944 by Tiger tank crews and should they get a bonus for using it. Here, you can have someone say, "you ignorant idiot to you" and they are just in the mood for the argument, not really against you, and they are expecting you to counter attack with citations, facts, and speculation, and maybe they will say, hmmm, maybe it wasn't until August afterall. Here you may just want to say, "hell, I couldn't telll a Panther G from a Panther A if it urinated on my tent", then get on with the game. So, throw in with Pawbroon, and in a few months you will be expounding about the number of rivits on the Tiger II and the smoke making capacity of an American Engineer squad like the rest of them.

Thanks Aacooper!. It does sound like several different units engaged 761 / 26ID since 761 faced Panthers at Chateau-Salin and Guebling but faced leg based antitank units supported by Infantry at Morville-les-Vic and Stugs at Vic-sur-Seille. Of course the german leg units could of has Panthers attached, but more likely it sounds in the histories as if this "12th Panzer" was actually the 11th (probably a transcribing type which I have made in my own oral histories).

I should also post that the Morville battle where 761 troopers from destroyed tanks charged a battery of 88s on foot is more likely an exception rather than the rule. I think most tankers who lost their vehicles withdrew if they could rather than become infantry. Everthing I am reading says that the 761 was an unusual unit in many ways, from its acceptance of "unusual" characters to its absolute intolerence to certain behavior (an almost apocryphal story has the unit "executing" some of its own men rather than turning them over to 3rd Army to be tried for crimes). As an example of the opposite is the 712th Tank Battalion at hill 122 which faced danger bravely but folded in the towel when their tanks were blown up in the bocage (mostly from tactical mishandling). I think it would be very rare to have 30 tankers charge the enemy dismounted.

Yes, Jackie Robinson was a member of the unit. As a officer and an incredible athlete he was one of their best, but he never made it over seas. While travelling through Alabama in the US several members of the unit went into a diner, which refused to serve them. As they were leaving, a group of German POWs headed for a POW camp in Louisiana came in the the tankers noticed that not only did the owner serve the Germans, but he gave them free desert. Many of the soldier became mad, and the account was eventually published in Stars and Stripes A couple of weeks later, Robinson entered a bus and sat down in the front. The bus driver told him to get off, go around to the back, and sit at the rear. Jackie said hell with that, he was a soldier in the US Army and soldiers in the US Army did not ride in the back of the bus for anyone. An enlisted MP came and told him, using racial epithets, to get on the back. Jackie said no way, so the MPs drug him back to base. He was court martialled for talking disrespectfully to an MP and missed shipping out with 761. He was cleared of the charges later but by that time it was to late for him to make it to Europe, and troubles with the Chicago mutiny made the Army wary of sending "trouble makers" to Europe. Many of the people in 761, just like their WWI counterparts, were fighting to prove something to white America, and they did. The actions of 761, of the 99th Pursuit, and of the integrated units that rose in 1945 as a result of Bulge casualties led to the 1948 integration of the United States military. Something else interesting about those 183 days in constant contact with the enemy. The Army never did figure out how to provide replacements for casualties for 761, so they had to fight those 183 days with only the people they started with and a few people "picked up" along the way.

Mucho gusto Fernando! Esto me ayuda hacia fuera mucho. Apresadumbrado sobre mi español pobre. Mi esposa hable portugeuse y he perdido mi español de la niñez. And I have no idea how to say "order of battle" (perhaps orden de la batalla?) but your order of battle is a great help. Steve Jackson

They had to of had 76 Shermans and maybe even E8s. Three hours ago I found a photo in an African-American photo archive of a tank crossing what looks like the Seille River dated November 1944 and the lead tank has a black tank commander in it. The Tank is a 76mm armed 76(W). Then I picked up a book written on oral histories that I do not have access to by Joe Wilson from interlibrary loan. One photograph is interesting in the extreme, since it shows 4 knocked out Panther tanks, and behind them is the 761 Tank which got them, an E8 (The E8 killed the 4 Panthers after the Panthers killed the lead A3, then was itself killed by a 5th Panther). The ID on the photo is firm: 761 Tank casualties from November 1944. What is likely is that the oral history represents the impression that the 76mm M4s were hard to come by and tended to be horded by the "named" divisions, EXCEPT Patton was well known for demanding and getting the most of the best tanks and equipment (although he in fact opposed the 76mm because he did not want his tanks fighting other tanks). The 3rd Army, which originally got 761, may have assured a supply of the better tanks, that then dried up when they went to the Ninth Army. At least it puts some things in perspective, the 761st was known for its ability to come out on top against Panthers (they hated the Tiger IIs more) but they had at least some 76mm armed tanks, and in fact lost one in the second week of November.

I have a G4/500 with Voodoo 5 that performs perfectly -- the Voodoo 3 though never had as much effort put into writing drivers for it as the 4 and 5 (or the 2 for that matter). 3DFX is doing a great job writing drivers now. Your solution may be to back off to the installed G3 card. BTW- We test a lot of Mac configs here, and I threw the demo CM on several. The IMAC works great except for the oldest 233 machine, which needs some streamlining or it gets overwhelmed by the graphics. Our Dells though choke on the CM demo and I cannot figure why, they generate a GPF error when you try to go from main screen to scenario screen. While not needed on the Macs, I do know that we have been burnings all our PC hard drives down every couple of months and reloading everything back, and they are running much better, even games.

Sure it is gamey! They did it in real life though. Imagine a battery of 88 guns blowing sunlight through your tanks, your infantry withdraws, and it looks like the whole company is doomed. So, this one Sergeant starts kicking tankers in the butt, they grab subguns, and they charge the 88s, knocking several out and diverting attention from the A3s, given them time to back pedal out and call in artillery. The battle was Morville-Les-Vic. [This message has been edited by Slapdragon (edited 09-06-2000).]

Thank your Germanboy, doctoral types need to stick together.

Thanks Nick, I don't have that book. I do, however, have the topos for the entire Sielle area 761 fought in. If you want to collaborate we can split the scenarios or you could do a second set at the Siegfried Line.