Jackal

Patience young Jedi! The wait will be well rewarded soon enough. Patience being the issue, go download all of the mods and updates.!!!!

Jackal was given to me while serving in the US Army with the CAV. I was with a LRRS team and found my calling at sneakin' and peakin'. I trully loved my job to the point of going to whatever means necessary to sneak up on the "enemy". Four years of eating mud gave me this name. A Jackal is a fendish (spelling?) animal with no respect for any other creature. Their nasty, low-down, and are down-right mean bastards that will stoop to any level to get what it wants.

I was playing Elfsdorf and was advancing nicely into the city with minimal losses to my forces. Earlier (2 minutes to be exact) I had targeted the very portion of the city that I was to advance through with 155mm arty (I believe it was 155). At the very moment that I had advanced my armor into the city, successfully hiding my armor behind the houses and moving my infantry into the houses to scout ahead. . .the arty falls in right on top of my troops. I lost an M8, a Sherman, another tank, an infantry platoon with its bazooka support, as well as my mortar. Talk about poor planning. . . .

I am a supply sergeant for Military Intelligence Company and have already ordered everyone's berets to be issued in April. The mixed emotions about the beret is heavy throughout the army. Forever and a day the black beret represented a challenging military aspect that only the best could achieve. The whole black beret stood out as their symbol and for the military to take their symbol and give it to ever tom, dick, and harry is completely wrong and against all historical aspects the military offers. The military is based on history and breeds that mentality throughout, yet here it is taking one of the more prestigious (spelling?) visible aspects of a unit and handing it out like candy. There are plenty of other colors that could have been used. . .This is only a personal opinion on the issue - but listening at the table proves my thoughts on the subject.

1990-1994 active service U.S. Army Scout: 2 yrs with 3-4 CAV, 3rd ID in Schweinfurt, GE (great place) remaining two years with 2-16 Infantry Bn, 1st ID at Ft Riley, KS. Rank of Corporal. 1994-present Tenn. Army National Guard, Full-time Supply SGT for a Military Intelligence Company supporting the 278th ACR. Gotta Love the CAV! HUA! (Everyone knows the meaning here i suppose) Air Assault qualified as well. . .of all of the aspects of military training I miss the Air Assualt missions the most. Especially when it allowed for air insertions for the purpose of reconnaissance! Stay alert, Stay Alive!!!

Interesting points of views. . .thanks for all of your responses. I do feel that the combat engineers could be improved for combat support missions in CM. While on the offense and defense when in the Army I trully respected the engineers for their work. . .

Under the current means of PBEM, TCP/IP and QB generation, etc. . .What would be a recommended or acceptable means of defining the Enemy Situation? Possible enemy troop composition, strength's, etc. I noticed that everyone talks about tactics and the battles but what about the pre-battle planning? Operation orders, etc. Question: What could each player provide across the table as to possible enemy compositions, enemy intent, etc. Possibly a percentage type offering? A Generic 12th U.S. Armored Division offered and the opponent must then fabricate the enemy order of battle? Your thoughts.

Thanks.

I hate to post this, but I am a complete idiot on this search engine. Where can I find Fionn's (spelling?) rules??? thanks.

Glad to see you coming on board. Flamethrowers. . .slow at getting to the target and a hassle to keep alive until they get into range. Placed as a passenger on one of the vehicles may help mobility of these fine weapons, but they are still targets none-the-less. Engineers. . .locating and removing mines is the only purpose that I have found. I have used them to take out bunkers and pill boxes as well. At any rate. Glad you are on board.

There has been talk about using arty/mortars to blowing up bridges. Why can I not instruct my engineers to rig a bridge to blow in "x" number of minutes? Or a building for that matter. -Blowing a crater in a road to assist with defensive wire and mines or to slow an enemy's advance. -What are the possibilities of setting a wire obstacle/mine field during game play? -Assisting a tank in preparing a hull down position when on the defense. -Assist with helping a tank that is bogged down to get out. thinking out loud I suppose, but what are your thoughts on this?

thanks for your responses. Actually I was referring to BCT-Brigade Combat Team. It uses real-world maps with no 3-D terrain, showing full contours and the works. great, fast-paced game with alot of cool in's/out's. CM is a superb game by all measures, such as reported by all the players and most of these "suggestions" are personal wants. The LOS Fan on BCT allows for you to select a point on the map and then arrays a LOS FAN 360 degrees around that point, or unit in this case. Of course this LOS Fan shows what can be seen for eternity until it hits an elevation higher than the point selected, BUT, the unit will only be able to observe and engage units up to its maximum potential. . . thinking out loud I suppose.

I have seen a couple of war games that showed a LOS FAN for the selected unit showing good/bad LOS for the primary weapon. The fan was colored such that red and green or whatever represented good LOS or otherwise. Similar to what is currently used but somewhat more efficient as far as quickly obtaining LOS. Thoughts?????

as a scout calling for and observing fire for arty and mortars, both are capable of hitting anywhere. After the spotting round hits the FO calls to adjust fire in a bracket situation. i.e. first round hits long, or beyond the target. FO would adjust fire by saying something like, "Left 100m, drop 100m"; second round hits, FO adjusts fire, "Right 50m, Add 50m, Fire for effect." This would tell the arty/mortar to fire a full salvo at the target. hope this helped a little.

I have had this to happen in both scenario and QB with different vehicles. Personally, shouldn't the gunner make a decision on the possibility of firing a round might hit the building and damage/destroy the vehicle???

Is it possible to load CM onto my second computer, having the disk in my first computer, and play head to head of hotseat games??

again, read the thread "killing a hetzer" My respect for this vehicle is pretty high at the moment. In the above thread, I had four M4A3(75)W Shermans and one M8 Greyhound manuevering and fighting against one Hetzer. My assets fired a total of 21 AP rounds from the shermans and another 7 AP rounds from the M8 with nothing more to show than a damaged track hit on the hetzer just before he killed my last sherman. Pretty damn tough if you ask me.

Seeing that you are defending with the german's a couple of hetzers would help your defense alot (seeing that I just got my ass handed to me by only one hetzer) Read the thread "killing a hetzer" and you'll understand. Their flanks are weak but you can devise a plan to protect their flanks. working in pairs is good from what I have heard as well. Keep a reserve force hidden somewhere so that you can remain fluid through out the battle. veteran troops will help but keep in mind that you should decide what is the base combat element of your defense and purchase support units to plan the defense in depth. He will probably utilize his speed, so look at the kill areas were you can place long-range fires on him. also, even on the defense I will purchase two sharpshooters or split a squad (not preferred) to scout forward and try to locate his forces before he gets to your main defensive belt, also allowing you to get your reserve ready. keep the scouts slow and under cover at all times so they will help your defense as long as possible. Expect his arty to be placed on the VL's and all visible defendable areas. So when placing troops keep this in mind. On your setup, split all of your squads and place team where you want their permanent fighting position to be and set the second team in a secondary defense position. Once you hit go, each team will have a foxhole. move your secondary teams forward to rejoin the main defense belt. Use your long-range assets to their fullest. Position them with overlapping fields of fire, staggered positions, etc. Anyone else?????

yea, we could have the CO Commander's riding in on an old tractor or maybe a mule; we could have the entire Hee Haw cast out there. instead of sharpshooters we could Double Aught (spelling?) spies and such. Maybe even have the images on the bottom of the screen with dips in the mouths or missing teeth and such. . .straw hats??? the artillery could were overalls and the infantry could be shown with fiddles and guitars strapped to their backs in the event a good ole shin dig ever kicked up!!! hhahaha

Refer to the thread "Killing a Hezter" it pretty much sums up the ass kicking that I received from one. My appreciation for the hetzer is pretty high at the moment.

Something that I have read time and again as well as have happen to me is a zook team in hiding fire upon a passing infantry squad instead of waiting for the armor. Something that I would like to see but am unsure as to its possibilities, would the addition of a Priority Target in the menu options for each combat element. Such that when I place my armor in a hull down position or a zook in ambush that I can tell him NOT to fire at this element and open up on that element. Am I explaining this clear enough?? I understand the ambush criteria and that crews/squads will open fire for whatever reason. BUT, this option would place more emphasis on higher priority targets. Any input on this welcomed.

I agree that the M2 is under-rated in CM, but not by much I don't think. Its ROF may be low as well.

Very much so Iron Duke. Come to find out I had purchased M4A3(75)W Shermans instead of the 76er's Big disappointment. Also, I stated this was done in seven turns. . . Big illusion. The hetzer disposed of my tin cans in only 5 turns. . . .taking a small break on turn 3 to move up slightly, while my tanks continue to hit in front of him. Also for your laughing pleasure. Between the four Shermans they had fired a total of 21 AP rounds at the hetzer - in addition to -the M8 Greyhound firing 7 AP rounds. Unbelievable. Unless my intelligence is wrong, Iron Duke might have had something to do with the sabotaging of my shermans. . . . Upon close observation of the map around the hetzer, i found that 90% of the fired shots had fell short of the hetzer!!! A sad day for my men.

Does this board have a means of indicating who is on the board at any given time??? Would be nice I think.

two zooks in a mediocre ambush site on the second floor of a building. Both zooks had the same ambush site at roughly 75m, or close to one another. The terrain made the armor pass the ambush sites. The oncoming german armor, a stug IIRC, closes in on the ambush markers and BAM! one of the zooks fires. Then one by one, alternating firing, the zooks fire at the tank. After expending all 16 rounds the tank still stood their ready to pounce