Andrew H.

Fed Ex is expensive. For a standard overnight package weighing between 8 oz. and 1 lb (CMBO plus manual weighed 10.4 oz.) shipped within the US, the cost is about $21 (it varies depending on the distance the package has to travel; it would be more expensive to ship it to Calif, and less expensive to ship it to a neighboring state). If the package is delivered to a residence, there is an additional $1.35 charge. So, assuming that of the $7 BTS charges for shipping, $5 of it is "handling" and $2 is for "shipping", overnight delivery of CMBB via fed ex would run about $27-28, with some people paying as much as $30. This assumes, of course, that BTS's order fulfillment people are set up to do fed ex shipping without an additional charge. And of course the speed that you get the package also depends on how quickly CM** gets out of the warehouse - I think that at least some of the delay in getting the product is a warehouse delay. USPS looks pretty good to me.

While far from perfect, CM's AI is pretty good, and certainly the best that I've seen in any game. From (what I understand from) earlier BTS posts on this topic, part of the AI's shortcoming in CM is not due to problems with the AI program itself, but is based on other engine limitations that limit the amount of information used by the AI, leading to "dumber" results. For example, AI controlled tanks "forget about" units that are no longer in their LOS, which leads to predictably bad results such as the AI's tank getting nailed by the Tiger behind the hill that no human would have ignored. Fixing the forgetting problem would automatically make the AI smarter. Similarly, some other AI problems could be ameliorated by coding to make troops stay in closer C&C and not lead off attacks with the HQ. I don't mean to suggest that this kind of coding is non-trivial, but it doesn't require nobel prize level improvements in AI theory, either. (Although if there were a nobel prize for gaming, Charles would be a very strong candidate). At the strat AI level, it would be nice if there were some sort of simplified scripting language for scenario designers where you could, say, select an element of a force and give it general directions like: "Cautious advance"; "aggressive advance"; "delay 5 turns, then cautious advance"; "delay 20 turns, then flag rush", etc. Maybe with route markers, too.

Resistance was futile. Especially for $25.

Hi Jeff, Here's what John Kettler wrote in the SO Cal preview thread:

As a weapon, gas - even the nerve gasses developed by the Germans - is not an ueberwaffe. Gas can affect your own troops, and the wind direction has a lot to do with the effectiveness of a particular gas attack. As a terror weapon, however, especially when used against civilians, it is very powerful. Given that the allies were prepared to retaliate for the use of gas, and that they could bomb Germany at will by 1944, the use of gas by the germans would probably have been counterproductive. Despite the weaknesses that gas has as a military weapon, it occurs to me that it would probably be very effective if used against beachheads, which are, of course, smallish areas with a high concentration of troops. If gas had been used at, say, Anzio, it may have been terribly effective. Of course, there's still the retaliatory danger.

I'm not sure about the amount of time German tanks spent being repaired, but all accounts talk about the extreme reliability of the Sherman. This wasn't accidental,and there are a couple of reasons for this. First, the US started mobilizing its industry for war in as early as 1940, although of course it cranked things up a notch once it was at war. Germany didn't start real industrial mobilization until 1942. Second, the US was very focused on streamlining production of the tanks it decided to produce. Third, although sort of related to the other issues, the US put already existing engines into its tanks. I've forgotten which tank had what, now, but I think one Sherm had 4 cadillac engines tied together; another had two bus engines (I think that was the m4a2 diesel), one had an airplane engine (M4 or M4A1?) and there may have been some other modification. I'm sure that connecting four engines together and then making them run a tank is pretty complicated, but you eliminate the vast majority of the teething problems that you get with a new engine, since the engines are already proven. The Panther had this problem, of course, but so did the Pershing.

I can't wait for the detailed hits: Internal damage: spalling. Driver hit in right leg by 30 gram metallic fragment @ 1500 deg. C. Right leg broken. Right femoral artery lacerated. Laceration partially cauterized by hot fragment. Radio operator observes wound. Radio operator accesses first aid kit. Radio operator applies direct pressure. Bleeding stopped. Radio operator applies sulfa. Radio operator applies two gauze pads and 2 ' of adhesive tape. Driver stabilized. Remaining first aid supplies: 2 units of sulfa, 3 gauze pads, 10' of adhesive tape. Tank mobility impaired due to driver leg injury. Temporary C&C penalty due to radio operator distraction.

This is a sort of common misconception. Allied tactics called on them to use 5 shermans to defeat big German cats. They did not lose five shermans to take out a German cat. German and Allied tank losses were approximately equal.

You could always put a video camera in front of the screen and tape it that way. That could even be replayed on your TV! Seriously, I agree with barrold713 on this - it would have been a nice feature to have, but given how well the MG covered arc thing works, and how cool it seems based on Jason's AAR, BTS definitely chose to focus on the right enhancements.

The Turan looks cool! Did you see that the TC is wearing glasses! And look at the bow MGs!. BTS probably took down the screenshot because of a problem with the rear idler - at least on my screen, the rear part of the track (on the left) seems bent outwards. I would imagine that they will fix that and then repost.

I wouldn't examine the "30" too closely. I just pulled it out of my ass. Seriously, though, I think it is probably on the high side as well. I just took the number of people on the forum who said it was a deal breaker, added another one for good measure, and multiplied that number by 10, figuring that I at least wouldn't undercount that way.

I read the topic of this thread as being about "excitable" units, and I was trying to figure out what an excitable unit was. I had about convinced my self that it was a new CMBB category (fitness, experience, composure) when I realized that the topic concerned units that could exit the map. Not excite the map. Carry on with your regularly scheduled thread.

It's only "charity" if you're not going to play the game at all. And of course you shouldn't buy CMBB if you won't play it; no one should. I doubt that the absence of OSX support will noticeably affect the sales of CMBB, since I suspect there are, at most, 30 people for whom this is a deal breaker. And while I'm sure that BFC would like to have this extra $1,500, this amount of money won't come close to making up for the six extra months and ten of thousands of extra dollars that making an OSX version for CM would cost. This is probably the same reason that there is not a Linux version of CM.

I'll play either side, but I'm particularly looking forward to playing the soviets in the early part of the war. Not only to they have cool vehicles, but it will be nice see what I can do with the (mostly) poorly trained troops at my disposal against the fascist invaders.

Hey Jason, your post is useful as always. It's certainly true, if you read accounts of the Bulge, that support personnel (truck drivers, cooks, etc.) were put into the line as riflemen on very many occasions, although it's not really clear what weapons they used. It does make sense that many of them would use the carbines or SMGs that were issued to them, though. Modeling these guys as green paratroopers might not be unrealistic. Do you have any idea whether the use of non-standard TOEs became more common later in the war, or varied depending on the experience level of troops, or both? It seems reasonable that troops who have only been in training would tend to stick with the official TOE (which is probably what they are trained on), while troops with some experience might recognize that in some instances, they'd rather have an SMG, even if they were supposed to be carrying a Garand.

Actually, Germans used trains from the beginning - the idea being that you use the trains for long distance (i.e. "strategic") movements and supply, and horses to bring supplies the last couple of miles to the battle. (The infantry walk). This was, essentially, the WWI model of supply. But the problem with trains is that the tracks are never as close as you want them to be, and so things can get difficult. But I'm not sure that the lack of trucks had a decisive effect on *supply* - I think it was much more limiting in a tactical way, as it was more difficult to quickly move troops around. Given the gasoline shortage that Germany had in the last part of the war - they barely had enough for their tanks - I think that a truck-based supply system would have made them even more vulnerable.

It makes a lot of sense to have a maximum radio range of about 600 meters; even if the radios had a longer range, they would probably be pretty useless because the terrain would be different. I.e.: "Move behind that hill" "What hill?" "The one with the burned out house." "I don't see a burned out house" "Next to the highway?" "What highway?" This also suggests the importance of being unbuttoned, even if you have radios.

CM is so successful because Maine is so similar to Finland.

Here's what I have: AMD XP 1800+ CPU w/266FSB ASUS A7V266 Socket-A ATX Motherboard 256MB PC2100 DDR RAM 80GB UltraATA/100 HardDrive 7200RPM 16X DVD-ROM 16X/10X/40X CD-RW 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive GeForce 4 Ti 4400 AGP Graphics Accelerator Card Ambient 56K PCI Data/Fax V.90 Modem On-Board PCI Sound System 2-Serial / 1-Parallel / 2-USB Ports Deluxe ATX Mid Tower Case w/ 300W Power Supply The Ti 4400 is new as of yesterday; it works very well, although the installation instructions in the manual did not work at all.

That's right. Does your copy of Wing Commander III really need to be preserved for posterity in its jewel case?

The green troops that Fussel is describing are the "green" paratroopers of the 101st Airborne. I don't think that they would be modelled as "green" in CM... But *most* US infantry troops in the first several months following D-Day probably should be modeled as green. First, because they were, and second, because CM battles with green US attackers look a lot like the real thing. Of course, if you're attacking with green troops, you probably need to use vaguely historical tactics - suppression, artillery, coordination. Rushing green troops into hand-to-hand combat vs. unsuppressed entrenched troops will not work. (Although your greenies will probably break after taking just a few casualties, so they may be useful in a few more turns).

Here's what Steve said in January 2001:

This isn't uncommon - the muzzle velocity of a Sherman's shell (the only one I happen to know right now) is about 600 m/s. That means if you fire at a tank 1000 meters away, the shell will take almost 2 seconds to hit the enemy tank.

I think that's just a fancy way to talk about Cannae... FWIW, I dont' think that this forum is a "shark tank." The forum is, however, full of people who are easily capable of understanding and digesting scholarly military history. Several people here have scholarly publications of their own in the field of military history. I'm not a military historian, but I have worked as an editor of a (non-military) scholarly journal, and I have my own (non-military) publication in a scholarly journal. So I'm fairly confident in my ability to understand scholarly material, even if it's in a different field than mine. And I have much less knowledge of WWII military history than many people on this forum, most of whom, by the way, are also in their mid-30's. Given the background of many people on this forum, it's no wonder that P-51D's posts came off as vaguely insulting, with its intimation that people here did not understand either military history or the concept of journals not in the public domain. I don't think that P-51D intended to be insulting, though; I think he wanted to be helpful. Unfortunately, though, his later postings (in response to particular questions)did across as somewhat insulting, particularly with his "argument from authority." But once again, I don't think that was his intent. I will also point out that straight military history is not the only lens through which the Wittmann question can be viewed. I'm not a forensic pathologist (although I am CPR certified ), but I have worked professionally on more than 100 murders (murder cases, not the actual murders), and so I'm somewhat familiar with how the cause of death is determined. My first thought when reading about the condition of Wittmann's body was that the fact that it may have been burned by a Typhoon strike did not mean that the death was caused by a Typhoon strike. So there may be some value in a straight forensic approach. (Although it can be hard to determine the cause of death after several weeks, in some cases, so 60 years may be too far out). It's also likely that no detailed forensic analysis was done - Wittmann wasn't murdered, and most people don't have a burning interest in knowing who killed him. Present company excepted, of course.

I didn't find Malta that hard to take - I used two air fleets (one German, one Italian), plus three Italian warships. The warships surrounded it and bombarded, while the airfleets just bombarded. I don't mean to say that it was easy - it took a lot of the game to get to this point - but it wasn't impossible. I had a transport nearby ready to land after the airfleet was finally destroyed.