Doodlebug

Oooooohhh. That is a bit nice. "Super". "Great!". "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a good mod when I see it" "Thank you CJ"

Can I be first to congratulate you. Well fifth. Thanks.

JasonC posts are always worth a read. Makes sense to me. Admittedly I've not had a problem yet but seems like some folk are. Is there an official line on this one?

Thank you for that Jason. Now to put it into practice in my current game

Great photos and thanks for posting them but, Michael, you look pale in them. You haven't been overdoing it again?

Hehe, those blokes aren't holding it, they're just guiding it, so the cranedriver won't make the shell's detonator hit the side of the Brummbär's armor a bit too rough. (But seriously, I really haven't got a clue if that will make the shell explode)</font>

That's so bad it's almost ....no.....it's an appalling review. They can't even have taken it out of the packaging. I do quite like the phrase "bad men in tanks" although it conjours more of an image of Jesse James in chain mail than anything else!

That is about the best review I've ever read for any game let alone CMBB. Good breadth of coverage and clearly the reviewer know what he is talking about. A self confessed fan of both games I don't think it influences him overly. It's obvious he's installed and scrutinised the game at some depth rather than just take a cursory overview. I hope this review gets read by the uninitiated and a few more fans are created as a result. Good one.

Thanks for those links. Haven't really had more than a quick dip into each but it certainly looks promising. Appreciated.

It is my understanding in the widest sense that "strange" calibre sizes have historical roots going back centuries. In the days of black powder and muzzle loading cannons pretty much everything was judged by weight of cannon ball. Cannons could be typically 4lb,6lb,8 or 9lb or the big 12lb of French Napoleonic and ACW fame. Calibre was not so important. Naval guns were likewise measured but much bigger, 24lb or 36lb. The British AT guns, 2,6 and 17lb,and the 18lb of WW1 and 25lb field guns are hang overs in terminology. As gun technology developed in the 19th century it was only then that calibre rather than weight of shell was used to measure the piece more often. Often it was the navies of the World that were most interested in the latest/largest developments and because they had facilities set up to produce barrels the armies frequently followed where they lead. Field pieces are therefore modifications of older existing naval calibres which in turn derive from old inch calibre sized pieces or are pitched to deliver a shell of a certain poundage. Over time the boundaries have become blurred slightly so that the size and shell weight have varied but "types" still exist clustered around certain sizes eg. 37-40mm(1.5 inch or 2lb shot), 57mm(6lb),88mm(25lb),105mm(4inch-ish old naval calibre) and so on. That's my understanding for the reason behind the strange calibres when measured in mm. Could be wrong though. Anyone? [ January 04, 2003, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: Doodlebug ]

That is simply fantastic. Makes you dream of playing the early war Brits at some point in the future. Thank you for your efforts.

Fair comment but what about the fact that troops constantly on the highest state of alert pretty quickly aren't? There is a law of diminishing return working here. One alert and people behave correctly. 100 and "it's just a false alarm". I think that troops like most people want the quiet life and get sloppy in the procedures. just because there's a doctrine doesn't mean it will be followed. I think that there's a genuinely good point buried in here somewhere and that an option of padlocking the defence till attacked is a possibility to recreate certian situations.

Anyone see a moderator drive past in a Delorean? Perhaps that's the answer

I think I see the point of the suggested command. The defender can be up and running, and across, the battlefield just as quickly as the attacker. To be fair attacks were made without warning the defenders in the sector to be ready to repel an attack but as players we know who's attacking and who's defending and even the start time of the engagement and the rough length of the action. I can see the reality of padlocking the defenders until something is spotted and then releasing them to move to meet the threat. As for limiting players who play active defences that seems reasonable. Are you saying that they conduct all those active sweeps and patrols day in and day out on their sector or rather strangely crank up the troops just at the right time? The defence actually has a massive advantage in this respect. In reality the first inkling of trouble might be assault troops hitting the gun lines and HQ's after infiltrating the front line. Edited for bad speling and punctuatio.n [ January 01, 2003, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: Doodlebug ]

Fantastic and thank you very much for your efforts but is there any chance of an Ent or two?

Fantastic looking beast. Thank you so much for your work.

While we're on the subject I'd appreciate a little info on whether solid AP shot (with no HE content what so ever)is included in the game and if so whether it is treated favourably or unfavorably compared to APHE in terms of "knockoutability" after a penetration is achieved. My gut feeling is that solid shot being just a plain old lump of metal ought to be "denser" (when weight v cross section is compared) than shell and therefore less likely to break up on impact. I would have thought also that a shell could fail to detonate for any number of reasons (faulty fuse, fuse damaged on impact, faulty explosive filling etc etc) and that ought to degrade the performance of APHE at the receiving end. I can imagine that the initial reponse of readers to this question will be that an exploding HE shell is clearly better inside a tank than solid shot. My final observation therefore is this. We have all seen the gruesome effect on the human body that a bullet can have and how it can penetrate one man and strike another. How bad would it be if an oversized bullet (solid AP shot) having penetrated the armour of the tank and then being unable to penetrate the opposite side of the vehicle and exit then proceeded to ricochet around inside smashing equipment and liquidising the occupants? Grogs please start your motors.

I'll second that. It's a fantastic new look. Really adds to the game for me. Much appreciated and I like your title screens too. Hi Schoerner

Thanks for that. A smashing looking mod that I adored in CMBO and was hoping for in the East too.

Hill 312 Spoiler. ] ] ] ] ] ] ] Does everyone take Hill 312 from the wooded German left? I took it on from the road on the right. Nailed the bunkers from the flank with one platoon then introduced a reserve platoon to finish the job.

Isn't Rob Murray just a badly spelt anagram of Master Goodale ?

Italians! I'm not even going there

The side boxes are just that. Storage boxes outside the hull. Any hits there are going to trash the contents but do nothing to the operability of the vehicle. Only the triangular portions of the sections you indicated represent hull front and they're pretty small compared to the drivers position. I think you need to put this vehicle into the right context. It's the follow on vehicle to the Matilda. British infantry tanks were slow but solid. Look at the performance of the Churchill in CMBO and think of Arras 1940. The only thinhs to stop the tanks there were Stukas and 88's. Pretty much everything else bounced.

"The background music provides a nice effect, which lets you concentrate on the game." What background music? Perhaps it's drowned out by my men laughing. " Some units are heavily armored in some areas and bare in others. Your goal is to shoot them in the area where they are bare, to more effectively get rid of it."

That's a foul mental picture but how in God's name did they know where to go?