Thermopylae

I'm really quite green to CM and come to think of it low level warfare (always played stalingrad, afrika corps, waterloo, etc. as compared to ambush, Squad leader, etc.) howvere i'll take whoever responds. Thanks, write to whycheese@mail.com, famhodge@aol.com or post here. thankss.

Westchester County...still haven't gotten a PBEM game though...

Never saw U-571? You mean you missed the chance to see an entire Gemran submarine cleared out by 8 crewmen tih SMGs? (semi-plausibles, its damned cramped) A super sub stand up to about 20 depth charge attacks, and a direct hit by a 5 inch gun? Nuclear tipped topredoes that made the evil nazi destroyer explode like a 1980's video game? My god, what have you missed...

A shot at over 400m with WWII rifles is a pretty difficult feat. I've gotten to fire a mauser 98k , at a nice 8X6 in coleman fuel can (empty) at the 250 mark, and it took 2 open sighted shots to hit the thing, and the second shot was an outside glance, not in the center. (later, wehn I got to use an M-14 {civilian} my shooting was remarkably better ) The fuel can is probably about the size of a bent over soldier at 500m, and seeing as how hitting it posed problems for a half-way decent marksman on a range, I'd imagine a sniper trying to accomodate hsi cover to his shot, wincing from stray bullets, aiming at a moving target in real world terrain, would have a hell of a shot if he manged to hit.

I don't think its the physics. Any explosive shell carrying 12.5 lbs of explosive detonating on a panther's top kills it, end of story. Its the fact that most WWII artillery use was not in the fire mission style of CM but in bombardments. When you are trying to drop shells all over a 5 mi sq box, its understandable that not many tanks are hit by shells that fall very unlikelyly onto their tops. Even bombardments againt armored positions did not tend to do much. However when a shell did make a diect hit, it almost always killed the tank. (modern example: The israeli armor on the Heights in the six days war suffered badly from arab artillery, much of which dated back to only slightly post WWII, mainly due to the small target area they had large forces operating in) In CM, you are condensing about 10-15 shells per minute into a relatively small box. This high ROF and small target area make it more likely that a shell will come and blow up on the top of a tank. I do however agree that a 60mm mortar round, (about the same explosive power as a hand grenade and a half) would not penetrate anything but the light vehicles and tanks.

Thanks...that was most informative. I guess i'll have to stick to more modern weapons when rendirng my expert advice

Weight of numbers and firepower is not gamey in the least. Indeed, most US attacks consisted of simply shooting the enemy off the ground with massed air, arty, tank, machinegun, and infantry fire. As for CM, a lemming attak is thwarted by hiding. Simply let the enemy approach within 50-60 meters in the open and letem have it.SMGs and rifles will level their squads in a turn or two, and if you keep an MG concealed you can see multiple teams go down. if being backed by tanks, a well concealed AT Gun usually can cut down their numbers. In stalingrad it is said that the Germans simply poured more blood onto the streets in hopes of taking them, and we all know how well that offensive worked.

If your Russian, simply conscript 500,000 men, only equip half of them with rifles, and have the unarmed ones walk over the mine field.

Yep, the swords were dull. After marching/riding a few weeks/months/years throughout the terrain, any large iron blade was likely to dull, no matter how well taken care of. It was estimated that in a battle, a fresh blade could only be swung 10-20 times before it lost its edge. This often lead to battles where the wieght of the sword counted more for cracking bones or armor than dull blade did for cleaving flesh.

For naval battles, as far as i'm concerned, no game yet has beat Carrier Strike, an early 90's game. The graphics aren't much, and theres only 5 scenarios, but there is a random deployment generator and campaign game. That and the actions are realistic and varied. Much like real carrier actions in WWII after the initial strikes are over, the forces are relatively battered though, which may make the last 30-40 turns kind of skirmishy as compared to the earlier waves of 60 dive bombers...It has a really cool and nesion building flak method by the way... Fighting Steel is an alright surface battle game.