Diceman

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Thanks, I appreciate the positive feedback. I have much more determination and perseverance than talent, but I think I can feel good about these models, and I must confess I enjoy sharing my work. If you look at the photos from an oldest to latest point of view, I think you can see a definite defining, and improvement of style, and technique. In order of creation: PZIII, JSII, Tiger 1, Panther, Tiger II, Ferdinand. Cheers Eric

That should of fixed the problem. Cheers Eric [ February 14, 2002, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Diceman ]

O.K. here they are. I created another quick web page to show these inputs. They should show up without monkeying around with links now. That's it for now. I'll be finishing up my PzKpfw 38T, T34/76, and T34/85 in the next couple of weeks. How's everyone else coming along? I'd love to see the pics. [ February 14, 2002, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: Diceman ]

Hey, I had to go to page four to find this thing! Well I started to go about the task of photopraphing these models, not without a bit of complaining, when my wife suddenly caves in to the idea of getting a digital camera. Won it on e-bay Sunday, got it today. Of course, I imediately put it to work. The following are in the mail: Panther A late, Tamiya PZIIIL, Tamiya JSII Early, DML Tiger 1 Late, Tamiya Tiger 2 Late, Tamiya Ferdinand, DML. If all is not well, please let me know. Thanks Eric

I have a love/hate relationship with individual track links. I hate the enormous amount of time they consume, and the tediousness of cleaning and assembling them, but I love the way they look compared to vinyl tracks.

With the exception of the Tiger II (i'm still waiting for Dullcoat to come in the mail) the decals were applied with Micro Set, and dull coated. The problem is the uneven surface caused by zimmeriting the tanks. I couldn't get the decals to lay flat, so I thought I'd see if the dullcoat would do it's work in spite of that. Under ordinary light the decals don't look bad, but under bright light, and camera flash, the reflection of the underlying surface shows off the decals. I really need to get my hands on some stencils and redo them, but I'm afraid they're impossible to remove now. Live and learn. BTW the Ferdinand is finished. I'm giving up on the idea of borrowing a digital cammera and will be shooting them using slide film today.

Urgh!!! Try Missing Lynx, and failing that drop me a line and I'll be happy to offer some advice. Mace</font>

Ohh baby! Can you say mirrored quick battles?

I've gone ahead and ordered the ZIS-30, but we'll just have to see if it comes in. The people I order from keep almost nothing in stock, so we'll just have to see if any of their distributers have it on hand - pretty rare that one.

Puurdee tank yoose got thair Marco. You've once again treated Michigan Steel with the artistic respect it deserves, pluse a big helping of love on top of it. Keep up the wonderful work.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Panzer Leader: Diceman: Good lookin' Panther! I will be happy to set mine aside. My personal suggestion would be to build up that Ferdinand! I love Ferdinands. Is it the new Dragon model?<hr></blockquote> It's the DML 6133 kit: pre-overhaul, i.e. battle of Kursk model. Very nice kit by the looks of it.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by 109 Gustav: Why then? When you're buying a T34, wouldn't it be a lot more fun if you didn't know if it's going to be a top quality tank lovingly crafted by skilled machinists, or something slapped together by a bunch of drunken yahoos on the night shift trying to meet the quota to make the boss happy?<hr></blockquote> Exactly! I was assuming that if a specific vehicle was coded up more than once to allow a choice of quality facters for the scenario designer they would be named in such a way as to tell the purchaser what he was getting: T34-1942 42mm front glasis as an arbitrary example. But the scenario player should not automatically know his T34 doesn't meet design specs. Such details should only be visible at the battle construction level, not on the battlefield.

Panzer Leader I have a reasonably good Panther A if you're worried about duplicating effort. The decal glares a bit, but that can be fixed with a good paint program. http://diceman20762.tripod.com/outofthebox/id3.html I'll be submitting this as soon as I can reshoot the shots that didn't focus, along with my Tiger II, JS II early, Tiger I late, and PZIIIL. Here's what's on the bench: PZ38t that just needs painting. In the box: Ferdinand, Stug III G late, Panther F, T-35 (too bad it's not on the list), Jagdtiger, Puma, PZIVH, T34-76 '43, KV-1C, SU-76M, JS-III, T34/85, and Valentine III. I can produce a quality model in two weeks time, but which two? Any empty slots I can fill Kwazydog? [ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: Diceman ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software: The short answer is yes... armor quality for certain Soviet tank models will suffer. The T-34 family was not the only one IIRC. I don't have any figures off the top of my head, but some plates were perhaps 10% thinner than the spec sheets required. Obviously this makes a huge difference on the battlefield. And obviously it presentes a huge problem for us because the CM engine was not coded to handle such case by case things. We are also not sure how widespread thinner armor was. The worst period of time was late 1941 through 1943. This was due to relocation, massive losses, shortages of materials, and tremendous pressure to produce as many vehicles in the shortest period of time. I suspect thin armor was the result of the foundery only have x amount of materials and y orders for finished product. With a 10% reduction of thickness you get one more plate for every nine made. I'm not exactly sure what Charles plans on doing to at least take a stab at this vexing issue, but we are definitely aware of it. Thanks, Steve<hr></blockquote> Perhaps you could have multiple tank codes for each vehicle; for instance, have three (or whatever necessary or practical) T34/1942s coded up, each with different quality factors. This would be great for scenario designers, although I admit it might not add that much dimension to user select quick battles. Not knowing whether this would be mostly a cut and paste job, or a huge multiplication of coding labor, I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but it seams plausible on the surface. Now if it could be done in a way where you can only tell the difference between the high and low quality tanks on the purchasing screen, that would add a certain dimension to scenario play.

Congratulations. Best wishes in the new job!

I'm on the case (check your e-mail. Quick question: when you say BT-8 am I correct in that that vehicle was also called the BT-7A, i.e. BT-7 with short 76mm gun?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by mrcitizenkane: Oh you think Im one of those! Sure jump on me and thinking Im talking about German armor being invincilbe your WRONGE!! I was speaking of a 88mm not taking out a Sherman V with one shot at almost any range! <hr></blockquote> Welcome to the board Mrcitizenkane. As you've already noticed some nerves have been worn rather raw on the modeling of German armor issue. You see, we've had a few big cat idolaters virtually vandalize the board because the big cats just don't quite hold up to the high pedestal these idolaters insist the big cats must be perched upon. Some of the people that post on this board just have not been able to get over the fact that by late 44 through 45 the western allies had done much to bridge the tank/anti tank gap that they suffered from mid 43 through early 44. I hope you can understand and forgive any impatience demonstrated to your initial post. Now regarding 88s vs. Shermans. The 88 can and will take out the most commonly configured Shermans at almost any range; however, not at any angle. CMBO does a great job of modeling the effects of slope of armor, and angle of impact. CMBO does not however do an outstanding job of modeling long range combat. CMBO was built with combat ranges of 800 meters or less in mind. This design decision was deemed adequate due to the shorter ranges of combat on the western front. Nor does CMBO model prepared defenses such as pre-sighted and pre-ranged antitank gun ambushes. I'm hopeful that CMBB addresses these issues. I'd love to be able to set up an antitank ambush where the gun knew the range, and could therefore get that infamous one shot kill.

Thanks, yes that helped a great deal. Oh BTW Jason, I took the liberty of saving this information in a word document for future reference. Did you know you just wrote a three and a half page report? Thanks again. Cheers Eric [ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Diceman ]</p>

Can anyone tell me the GDPS of the major combatants of WWII?

I did a quick test in CMBO using all the available troop skill levels. Ran several platoons of American troops over with PZIVs. If grunts are not too suppressed they will stay in their foxholes even when tanks run over them. It'll be interesting to see how CMBB will handle close assault anti tank weapons under such circumstances. [ 01-17-2002: Message edited by: Diceman ]</p>

Nice weathering on the PZIV. Beutiful.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Splinty: You can get stencils for both the Balkenkreuz and the unit numbers from Verlinden Products.<hr></blockquote> That's the way I should have gone. Live and learn. They wouldn't hug the zimmerite surface in spite of applying them with micro set. I thought dullcoat would minimize the problem, and it does somewhat under average light conditions, but under bright light and the eye of the camera, well you get the picture. [ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: Diceman ]</p>

Typical free-hosting problem. You can click on the image hosted by Tripod icon, select properties, copy the URL and input it to your browser and hit enter. This will cause it to show up in the thread. Or just go directly to here: http://diceman20762.tripod.com/outofthebox/index.html The site isn't much but It's a rough start.

See my future inputs to the contest here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=023044 and here: http://diceman20762.tripod.com/outofthebox/index.html Cheers Eric [ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: Diceman ]</p>