busboy

That multi-baffled muzzle break looks distinctly Russian, and the carriage looks exactly like what I remember from a picture taken by the 6th Armored I believe. I have those two books on Patton's campeigns, Patton: D-day to Victory and Patton's Tank Drive. The text details the campeigns of the 3rd Amry but the pictures show LOTS of great unit pictures, and that is where I'm recalling that one gun from. I loaned those books out though, I can't look it up. Be nice if someone with the game would confirm it.

That looks like a Soviet 122mm field piece, captured and put into German service. The Western allies ran into some of those in the west actually.

BT-7. With a radio and better AP ammo, the BT series would have been the best tanks in the world in their day before Barbarossa.

I think the rifle noise came straight out of Close Combat 3. Don't get me wrong, the guy CAN'T act, but I think that is exactly how the guy behaves in real life, thats my arguement.

From hell's "hot?" I am pretty sure the line is "heart." Thats Shakespere, is it not? Hamlet? I know Ricardo Montablan quotes that in Star Trek II.

No, the guy was not an actor, but he was playing himself. Some people DO talk/act that way. If I had heard professional, Shakespearian eloquence spoken in iambic pentamiter comming from 3rd Lt. Ruskie there, I'd have lost all sense of disbelief.

I think the purpose of the cleaning ladies was to show how out of connection with reality our grog was. Rather than deal with the real world, he hides. It costs him, but its the price he pays to stay in his fantasy. Thats how I took it. Only a serious grog would find that funny...I did. I most certianly think that way in my wargames, but I rarely vocalize it. Also, alcohol doesn't lead to out and out halucinations of a conquering foe. Great piece.

Probably make some quick battle just to watch heavies beat the hell out of each other...that always sooths me. As for a real scenario, probably early war German advance.

Folks, doodads are eyecandy, nothing more. Nothing that you see on the screen effects the computer's spotting ability. If your unit is in a steppe square, its partially concealed by tall grass. If you turn doodads on, sprites of tall grass will appear in that steppe square, but the concealment of that unit has not changed. Remember that what you see on the screen on CM is only an aproximation of the action, its not like Close Combat. So, when a unit is in tall pines, it gets a, say, 75% concealment bonus whether or not you have trees turned on or off. Doodads are just trees for the ground, thats all. They are not a terrain in themselves.

To specifically interpret that, being in "tall grass" will reduce your visability, yes. Doodads just make it LOOK like you're actually in tall grass, and not just on the "tile." MGs: Yes. Rear turret MGs will work like hull MGs, automatically worked.

Same thing, update to 9.2.2 and everything is hunkie dorie.

Line? Colomn? Boys, that is a HORDE. The last command they heard was GO THATAWAY and KILL!

Even with a fairly poor unit placement, loss of 75% of my AT rifle/tank hunter teams at the beginning, and the loss of both my KV-1s's without even scoring a hit, I still managed a major victory with extreme fog of war the first time I played. In the end the krauts had only two tanks left alive, both with damaged guns. My idea was to cluster the AT guns. Spoiler allert, just in case (by now I'd be shocked...) . . . . . . . . . . Nothing much. My idea was to put most of the guns in the valley and then take out the kraut tanks as the crested the last hill (massed fire as they one by one silluette themselves against the hill.) To spread out the fire, I placed 4 guns on the far right flank, 3 on the reverse side of that clump of trees on the left, and 2 by the road. Well, it turned out that the enemy didn't do a broad line advance, or flank to my right as I thought, so my 4 right flank guns, almost half my strength, was stuck with mostly long range shots for the battle. When the krauts passed the forrest, my three on the reverse side got some good licks in, but they were KOed. Then, just as the krauts went to press the attack, they'd run into the fire of my two center guns...and they'd bite it fast. Things almost got sticky when one gun ran out of AP ammo, but it actually managed to immobalize/gun damage their last functional tank when it tried to bypass the last useful AT guns I had. KV-1s bought it early...instead of suprising the krauts as they crested the hill with two waiting 76mm monsters, the tanks ended up getting nialed by hull down PzKw IVs. If they had survived, I could have counterattacked and finished off the last 2 panzers that were too chicken to press on with only machine guns active. While I accomplished the mission against the odds, I was most dissatisfied with my performance. A human opponent probably would have eaten me. This battle is pretty good though, as if you play for Russia multiple times you really don't get any unfair atvantage other than additional insight on where to put stuff.

God bless you sir. It is wonderful that something so "trivial" as a game can help to bring people closer together and make life a better place in general. <salute> Don't fear for your friend though, I have it from my sources that God gets the first round shipment of CMBB up there (perhaps he's in the Beta?) I'm quite sure that if CMBB would be part of your friend's paradise, he won't be without it. Unfortunately my PBEM lines to Valhala aren't quite up to snuff, and my tech support of bloody awful. I'm reading the manuel cover to cover too, just finished 2nd Kings, and still nothing! I guess they need a "Bibile for Dummies."

Neat. So was this IS-IV a serious production vehicle? At what point did the IS line become the T-10?

Really any larger caliber gun without a muzzle break suffers from the blast kick up (I think modern tanks don't have such a problem because of the nature of their fume extractors perhaps?) Anyhoo, I seem to recall the T-34/85 being notorious for blast kickup. As for the question of M4A3E8s and M24s and M26/46s vs. "IS-IVs" (I'm pretty certian you mean the "T-10" which was an IS-III with an extra road wheel, and some other stuff if I recall.) As the European theater shows, even powerful tanks can be overcome by more mobile and numerically superior forces. The terrian in Korea was just not suited for much tank warfare. I take this to mean that if such armored engagements did take place, they'd occur at shorter ranges with reduced lines of sight in hard terrian. The T-10 has a slow turret, 2 piece ammo and a cramped turret for VERY SLOW rate of fire (2 rounds a minuite with a good crew.) Slow turret rotation, slow tank, ect. The T-10 would be pretty all powerful in a standoff against American tanks, but in standard tank warfare, it would be slaughtered. (And it WAS designed for stand off, to be used as a break-through tank, and then the T-34s took over) You can look at some of the Arab Isralii conflicts where IS-IIIs came up against M-47s and M-48s. In a desert environment, the IS-III should have done well. They were out fought, though. Part of this was inferior crews, I'm sure, but I do believe the IS-III is an inferior tank.

The U.S. submarine force suffered the heaviest percentage of casualties out of American forces in WWII, the German U-boat crews suffering the highest casualty rates out of all services in WWII. One thing that the 85mm gun on the T-34/85 was superior in compared to the Sherman's guns was HE power, however tank guns make for poor field pieces and are best used for supression so infantry can get up and clobber the enemy, or atleast allow the tank to get close enough to use its machine guns. While not totally accurate, it must be considered that when it comes to comparing HE rounds on standard combat tanks, then a HE round is an HE round.

That is really, really good. I managed a total Russian victory with only 5 casualties, 2 KIA.

Sure it was a failed design...it worked, but using it, as you said, was so hazardus that something better was needed. As you said, they made numerous other explosive toys, made an 88mm bazooka copy, and eventually made their excellent panzerfaust. But lots of those toys just didn't exist in the early war. As a German infantryman, I'd want any weapon I could get my hands on that would stand a chance of damaging a tank.

I can see the first runaway hit scenario, the one all the PBEM junkies rave about... "GOOD HUMOR!"

Makes sense, same reason those vehicles were left out of CMBO too. I assue this will include Russian amphibious tanks. I'm just curious, not griping.

The thought just crossed my head, will CMBB feature any mine-roller tanks? I haven't seen any word on it.

Except for a few die hards, most German defenders were knocking themselves out to surrender to the Anglo-American forces instead of the Russians. Berlin would have been captured by the Americans with minimal casualties had we gone after it. And if we did, it would have saved a lot of trouble in the Cold War. The fact is that we asked the Soviets before the Normandy invasion to take Berlin (i.e. not expect any Anglo-American help) as we didn't think we'd even be into Germany by the winter of 45. Churchill asked Ike to tell the Russians that Berlin was theirs, so he did. Then, it turns out that we get into Germany a full year ahead of what we had expected, and only the Battle of the Bulge and supply issues causing a real problem. Suddenly, Churchill sees that the Western Allies can take Berlin, and Churchill, knowing the Cold War is fast approaching, asks Ike if he can take it. Ike says no because: -It would cost too many lives to advance that far that fast. -It would cost too many lives to take the city itself. -We promised it to the Russians -If we did take it, we'd have to just give it back. Plans were drawn up to take Berlin. The 101st airborn was, in fact, preparing to drop into the area. Patton was just waiting for the word to swing north toward the Baltic instead of continuing to Czechoslovokia, but Bradley wasn't keen on taking Berlin either. Even Montgomery thought he could and should beat the Russians to Berlin. As I have mentioned, by March of 45, any non-fanatical German was putting up only token resistance to the Anglo-Americans. They were hoping against all hopes that they could ssurrender to the Americans, or that their lands would fall under Anglo-American occupation. The German troops in the East kept fighting as hard as they could in the hopes that the Western allies would advance farther. Even the citizens in Berlin were preying that it would be the Americans or British who took the capitol, not the Russians. Would it have cost lives to get to and take Berlin? Yes. As many as Ike thought? Certianly not. (Ike and Bradley were estimating 500,000 casualties.) Would the losses have been justified? If we didn't turn Berlin over to the Russians afterward, then yes, it would have. I think it is a great tragedy that we stopped and let the Russians swallow up Eastern Europe, thus condemning millions to suffering under Communist oppression. We could have occupied so much land and saved those people without starting WWIII. Instead, we decided to stick to the agreements made during the war, and all we did was make for a longer, more hostile, and more deadly Cold War.

You don't think that they could get lost, have a cave in, or run into enemy troops already down there? And what about that eyeball thing from the trash compactor scene from Star Wars?

Don't forget that Everquest 25 year old loser who killed himself because someone stole all of his stuff. Mom thought it was funny that little 25 year old, jobless, morbidly obese, Brian hadn't come up from his basement to get more pork rinds and a diet coke and she found him dead. She filed a lawsuit against the makers of Everquest, saying that their game is addicting and a warning label should be placed on the side. I'm not making that up. I wish I still had the news link. Wackos with their lawsuits are real.