Burnin' Ern

What about my personal favorite, "There Goes a Burning T-34" ???

'Magic', like when your allied infantry squads have been decimated by a German armor push across an open, snow covered field. You have lost all your AT guns and survivors are either pinned or broken and running like hell the opposite dierction from a Panther G bent on reaching VL. A 'zook hauling, lead eating/shell ******* hero with 1 rocket left takes a shot nearly out of range and 'PAHH-TANG!' knocks it out saving the day. I believe the term is 'WOOT!'.

Gimmie gimmie gimmie... (please.) Hey nice work! I couldn't tell an A from a D anyhow, but this monster looks awesome!

My combined allied force was assaulting a village held by the Germans. I was coming in on three seperate prongs of attack, a couple of tanks supported by rifle squads/support teams. All was going well. The jerry's were taking a pounding with flanking shots due to my forces entering the village simutaneously from the different sides, when a King Tiger gets id'ed in a rear area sidestreet. F! OK, uhhhhh, use my rifle squad and zook team to move into the buildings in front, down the street of the monster to keep it's attention and maybe (with alot of luck) disable its tracks. Meanwhile (back at the ranch) the M4 is going to sprint down the parallel side street and pop out of an alley at < 10 meters to the KT's right side/a$$. Problem is the M4 has a German rifle squad keeping it occupied on the left. This means its turret will surley be pointing in the opposite direction when the moment of truth comes. So I set it to area target the street by the KT and click 'GO!'. The M$ fires an area target round off - crap!- then charges down the side street, ignoring the enemy small arms bouncing off its hull. It breaks the corner and righ in its face is the KT's left side. The M4 gunner lets another shell fly at the area target. I'm screaming at the PC "Reload you dumb f! It's right there! Hello! Screw the area target dumb a$$!" KT's turret swings around. The tanks bump into each other in the panic. "Shoot! Shoot! Reverse!" KT fires. M4 goes up like a Roman candle. Time for plan B.

I've got some sound mods I wanna push out to somebody's page for people to use. I've had some requests for them, but they don't compress worth a hoot (esp when there are several) so my email server denies me sending it till I make it smaller (pita). Anyone have an FTP address (or a better idea) that accepts mods for review/future posting? Thanks in adv. A fellow mod slut.

Yes, mods for graphics will overwrite the originals, but you can always recopy them off the game cd or back them up. The do not in any way alter gameplay. They do however GREATLY improve the look and feel of the 3d battlefield and units involved. I would highly recommend. Yes, I'm a mod slut.

Your sound mods are very good. I've been playing about 6mo's now. I am a die hard mod slut. I've taken a number of excellent sound effects for the game and done some tweaking. Now I certainly won't take any credit, as I was not the original creator. But in case anyone is interested, I'd email them or let the enhancements be placed somewhere for download. All sounds are modified from orig I believe. The fighting sounds much more realistic and ferrocious. Some of the rifle .wav's have different smg bursts intermixed. Not overly done. Most rifle squads have a soldier or 2 with smg/assault rifle/support weapon anyhow. Hand to hand also has firearms going off mixed with the bashing/screams. Many of the sound effects are from Saving Private Ryan, like the MG42, halftrack, .30 cal., 20mmAA, & others. They're mixed VERY well (again, I cannot take credit). Explosions rock! Let me know.

I've seen double kills a few times. Not to an excess. Several times I've seen armor get hit twice almost simultaneously from different guns. That is cool! Like both at guns let fly at the same time at the same bad guy, torching his junk. "Take that! Sit down and shut up!"

I thought it might be good to have a new thread dedicated to speeding up the learning curve for newbies - tactics/strategies that the hard core CM'ers employ of what-not-to-do/correct way to handle certain scenerios. I've been playing CM now for about 6mo's and although I am by no means an expert, I've taken my beatings at the hands of the AI and progressed since. Anyway, seeing as how I'm starting this, I guess I'll start this. This post probably won't offer anything useful to you pros- you probably know who you are by now. I'm trying to stay general here. Think of it as a 'master/young jedi' thread I guess. Spread the knowledge. I'm looking for some new ideas as well. Things I have found to work well for me through merciless poundings: 1)Whenever possible, advance armor with infantry support in front on the flanks. Helpful at avoiding AT ambushes. 2)Deploy AT guns with infantry squad cover. I actually like to use AT/MG teams together in a position of probable enemy advance. Helps to keep the AT gun from getting rushed/flanked by enemy infantry with its slow turning. 3)When scout vehicles are not avail, or if terrain is too conjested with forest & the like, I found using split squads and alot of sneak&hides works well for locating/identifing enemy threats. No matter how tempting, I try not to have the scout units engage, just tell me where the bad guys are and keep hidden. Not far behind these scouts I tend to have an FO so as soon as a large force gets identified, I can piss on his parade to soften him up before the close combat (is it ok to use those 2 words together here?) starts. 4)Use the terrain, use the terrain. Hull down position for armor is extremely important. Advance armor up to a ridge with hunt works best. Keep to the low ground as much as possible and move infantry through woods. 5)Move through open areas quickly and in staggered single file so no 'one gernade will get you all'. A big group moving through the open is a perfect target for a barrage. 6)Use armor together. Two tanks working as a team are much stronger than having them in seperate engagements. So they can support each other, but be wary of both of them stumbling into the same trap. I use an overwatch-type strategy. One will get hull down, the other moves to a new location, gets setup, the first moves past, ect. I guess an exception to this could be if your armor is setup up specifically for an ambush, but then I use interlocking fields of fire for ambushes anyway. 7)Speaking of ambushes, try to anticipate how the bad guy will react after the initial trap is sprung. When your ambushing TD/AT gun pops its first victim, what would you figure to be the bad guy's response? Come around this flank over here maybe. Have a nasty suprise hiding there as well. Just when he thinks he's got you flanked or he's safe, he gets hit again. The AI actually taught me this several times (D'oh!). I also try to set up AT guns so when they will most likely have side shots at the unsuspecting armor, like just after a turn in the road or off to the side of the break in the trees, not head on. So the bad guy comes through the choke point and 'blam!' gets it in the side before he can turn & face the gun with his front armor if he sees it. [This message has been edited by Burnin' Ern (edited 03-02-2001).]

IMHO, this game is a WWII enthusiast's dream come true. I can't get enough. Is there a planned update or version 2 in the works? If so, I would like to start a thread for new ideas and user requests. 1.I suggest a hot key that pulls up a list of all of your available units. When a unit is selected from the list, it is highlighted on the battlefield. 2.A higher end PC addon which shows more that the usual 3 men in a squad.