dieseltaylor

The UK analysts thought the threat was bogus but the leading expert became, as far as I am concerned, the first British casualty of the war. " Kelly and Gilligan had pointed up an open rift between the government and substantial sections of the security services over the advisability of going to war against Iraq and the use of unsubstantiated claims to justify this. Not only was such a schism embarrassing in itself, but also it focussed attention on the campaign of lies and misinformation employed by the government to steamroller overwhelming popular opposition to the war and defy all legal norms in launching unprovoked military aggression against a largely defenceless country." http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/hutt-a23.shtml It is quite shaming to have a warmongerer like Blair roaming free. Regardless of what one thinks of Saddam democracies should be ultra careful if they are going to go to war that it is unavoidable. I would feel the same way whatever political party the Prime Minster represented- sexing up, and outright misinformation given to garner support is totally beyond what is allowable. Politicians should be held accountable for their acts.

vark - Tigers do take gradual attrition. Hail fire works against all tanks and is the tactic the Russians used. The most potent weapon for the buck [in game] is the 20mm AA. Most tank crews will bail if immobilised and hail fire will get that quite quickly. SO if someone goes Tiger heavy normally I am quite pleased even if I am playing with 76's and ValentineIX's. BTw my most successful recent 20mm event was immobilising a Tiger and winning a game long duel with a 150mm infantry gun at about 1550 metres. A very resonable return on a small investment. However I do play on the largest maps. On a small map the chances of remaing unidentified as an AA gun or getting flanking shots as a tank diminishes hugely. I do have a big problem with the concept of small maps as though miraculously the rest of the world disappears. My preferred answer is you may have small points and limited flags to go for but situate that within a very large map will still mean players gravitate to the flag but they have to consider there are no rigid sides to defend them - a tad more RL I think.

I have used the same tacticin a game with a couple of bridges and a ford or two - it really worked well. Smoke is of course the correct counter : )

http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/chinese-submarine-fleet-growing-analysts-t54821.html Worldwide sub fleets have been decreasing ever since WW2 as counter-measures are seen to be pretty effective. The cost of a high-tech sub is about $2billion or half the cost of a super carrier so they are incredibly expensive in their later incarnations and the idea of having such a vessel chasing transports seems funny.

Subs effective since WW2? Possibly, possibly not as we have not had a war since then pitting high tech navies against subs. As for subs being faster than convoys it did really rely on convoys moving at the speed of the slowest ship in WW2. The RMS Queen Mary would travel too fast for a submarine and would lift a division at a time and occasionally travel without escorts. As did the RMS Queen Elizabeth. As for not simply using U boat tactics: Which comes back to my contention that weapon systems over a span of 150 years is too long a period as weapon systems have been effective for short periods of time until counters arrive. Trying to replicate that cycle within such a long period is tricky. The U boat scourge was really only for a very short period in WW2 in comparison to 150 years so trying to model them as highly effective for the whole period is daft. However subs lying deep could be useful for recon .... however a certain degree of technology would be required to get messages back to base - particularly if you wish to remain hidden/alive.

This outlined from Gizmag outlines a few interesting features: But what about 3D abilities?

Regarding subs. The original use where they were hidden but fairly useless as attackers may well have been the best arrangement. They were hidden information gatherers - quite a useful role. Seems like a bit of baby out with the bathwater given the perpetual tweaking. Incidentally the capabiity of a unit like a sub to do high speeds underwater is complete variance with remaining undetected. Is it possibly that at some near date surface ships will have air-dropped homing anti-submarine torpedoes .... oops Perhaps to help makes subs useful there should be killer/attack subs , and also subs designed to be as stealthy and undetectable as possible.

Long barrelled PzIII's can kill Matildas - rather the same method as mobbing Tigers. In the final month of NA a platoon of Tigers vets costs 1171 points. Veteran platoons of Churchill's or M10s are around the 480 mark so going for Tigers would seem high risk. Some of the Churchill's will probably have some tungsten : ) Tigers may in theory die to the Allied tanks but its not a foregone conclusion as the smaller rounds do not necessarily kill a Tiger straight off and if they are in pairs you may never get to fire the killing shot. : )

I was trying to establish how much of a player you were. I have played 100 plus games of both CMBB and CMAK so knowing my way around the parameter screen grows on one. I even had a spreadsheet showing me the precise points allocated to each arm per side.* First off the primary parameter screens are a load of crock - as you rightly observe the combined arms is basically the same percentage repeated throughout the war regardless of the change in firepowers. It is true of all those parameters. I am surprised in my thousands of postings the matter has not turned up in your search. Basically playing the "standard" parameters seems to be trying to make a chess-like balanced game. You seem upset at not being able to buy the same number of tanks - you may find with rarity off it is not such a big problem. BF in their wisdom decided on some percentages for certain types of battles and either you play their terms or you decide on unrestricted and /or casualties both of which loosen the parameters up so you can have a decent force. Rarity off is not a very subtle alteration in itself. I made the point about the terrain as in some terrain I would willingly take the German side even if you did have 3 T34/85's. A force is only good or bad once you see the map. Random weather - how good is a T34/85 in dense fog? * If one wishes to be ahistorical and also be gamey you can count your opponents troops and work out the bits of his force you have yet to meet. Not 100% efficient but given in a 1500 combined arms regular troops there are certain choices which are no-brainers .... Of course I am not gamey and I like having FoW in a game so I go for random casualties. PS: Ocassionally I come across people who feel that warfare is only correctly played on symmetrical boards with as similar forces as they conjure up. I despair as from my studies warfare is all about trying to do the most damage to the opponent as you can. Sending copies of your force total and meeting on a particular piece of land seems unreal.

Tell me do you have rarity on? Is the terrain random? Is weather random? Are casualties random or applies or ignored? There are many thinks to unbalance battles so I always play unrestricted with casualties. Any other way is contrived more than necessary or even historically. It is only a game but you can diminish some of the problems in CMBB. A 1500 point game is probably nowhere near as good as a 3000 pointer as you never seem to be able to afford a decent force mix IMHO.

Playing against the AI as a single player it is actually rather boring as with the almost guaranteed wins against cities all one needs to do is build infantry, transports, a few destroyers and the odd Zeppelin. In a current game, played at roughly 24 turns per hour average up to turn 90 my infantry pairs have failed twice in taking 18 cities. I did have a single unit take out a 5 city. Three times I actually used three units on 10+ cities. So 23 cities total production. The AI I reckon can be crushed with all sea assets grabbed on turn 100. I have seen a biplane so wjhether it gets used will be interesting! Expanding the economy as fast as possible is the important part of the game and the quicker a city is captured and in production produces a snowball effect. Now whether the occasional failed capture is mathematically significant depends really how early in your expansion it happens. : ) I will gamble because it is a significant production bonus by turn 10 when you will have I guess 5 infantry and a mostly built army. The Zepp has found the nearest land and your transport can have sailed around and picked up your hopefully victorious on turn 3 or 4 to drop them off. Transport returns and collects the other two armies for a new piece of land. With two new chunks of land to play with you should be well ahead on the production stakes. The chances of being attacked early are nil so a defence is not required. Elements of risk sure but the odds are with the you.

The vast majority of people don't know what the official line is! Let alone have the commonsense or indeed interest to think about it. You need a good repressive dictactorship to get people thinking - or be French. Bread and circuses works well as it ever did. : (

Under 8471 My opening move of marching two infantry to the 10 city on the islands given was: 20% lost both 50% lost none 30% lost one that was in ten tests. As it seems to be Brits idea to give "fair" starts, and given how crucial early building is I would recommend that an island with two cities be allocated to each player. I actually quite like "unfair" starts but if Brit wants fair then so be it - but lets make it meaningful as losing 2 infantry is going to screw you for some time. The odds suggest you ought to go for the early attack as from turn three you are building 100% faster than in Null's preferred start.

My opening move of marching two infantry to the 10 city on the islands given was: 10% lost both 30% lost none 60% lost one that was in ten tests. I have now finally seen what the resign screen looks like : ) That was with the original game. Militia seem pussycats so perhaps Brit was given duff info? G'night

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Tibet_%281950%E2%80%931951%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_during_the_Ming_Dynasty Those Chinese sure play a long long game then to get the minerals. You have to admire the thousands of years of foresight I had missed out on the mineral discoveries - sadly. I expect the 67$billion is only an approximate figure based on the currentish high mineral prices and I wonder what the transport costs will do to the price. Incidentally with a population of 1.3m in 1953 and an area of roughly of 1.3M sq km it was hardly a great country to be fighting over in terms of sovereignty - especially as the US record on the same subject would have looked decidely weak. The chances of India going to war with China even for the minerals in Tibet are extremely unlikely. The Himalayas are a bit of an obstacle : ) I was looking at a list of tibetan towns and the lowest was 1900 metres so that is not far of altitude sickness territory. !!! I have decided to cross it off my holiday list as altitude sickness is to risky to contemplate : )

Sounds a good idea.

I have no wish for you to crack the game code but if you are going to quote figures then please add some context so we can see if they are good. At first sight your %'s seem confusing. Out of 100 times 60 times you lose both your troops,and 80 times you lose one unit. However out of 100 times that cannot be. Are you saying that 40% of the time you win. Of those 40% wins you lose one unit 50% of the time. And 60% of the time you fail to capture the city.? In any event I think the size of a city is relevant and in the early turns when technologies are equal I have taken a 5 city with a single unit, virtually always with a couple of units. Rarely would I feel confident taking on a 8-10 city with only two infantry. And a technological edge makes a difference. However I have better things to do than repeatedly play the beta to establish matters. Statistics really help to get a handle on subjective feelings - and if this information is never published what an edge you might have in online battles. : ) It cannot be too dificult to keep a scrap of paper and record all your city attacks and even if you do not wish to provide the details you would at least be able to say "I have carried out 50 or 100 opening attacks and this is what I think" The lose use of figures is a huge scandal in politics and the news so it is not personal about you - I admire your effort - but the misuse of percentages is so widespread its criminal.

Null - your report would be more useful if it contained facts. I have not been keeping records as I am not taking it seriously but I can tell you for free that my impression is small cities are easy to take and once you get towards 10 you really really need three infantry units. Also my impression is that the stength of the militia is linked to a general tech level so taking cities becomes progessively harder unless it is you with the very latest technology. I make an assumption that the independent cities buy arms from all players and do not remain in the dark ages through the game. A good design decision. : )

Writing for an American audience no doubt. Its this kind of crap that got the US into the Iraq war which has done more to damage the US and UK' stature in the world than anything else one could conceive of. You cannot buck facts and to even consider that the a population of 300 million was destined to have primacy for more than a limited time is sheer hubris. And for actually thinking that any one Eurasian country is likely to reach that position in the near,medium and possibly distant future is also a rather large jump of the imagination designed to bolster the threat in his message. It is if anything a shining example of the quality of the ruling class and its unelected advisors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2D9gW9bYRk MkV's in movement Its nice to know that the MkIV was the most common German used tank in both wars, and the MkV the best tank in both wars : ) Who says there are no lessons from history.

As for fighting over Tibet. Why? Short of them finding major oil who would want to fight there. The only alternative reason would be seriously rising sea levels : )

Thatcher was a conservative. Entirely understandable for her to prize stability over "democracy" arriving suddenly acoss the cental European states and potential chaos, corruption, and potential US meddling. Of course she could have simply been being duplicitous : ) If the report is true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

45 - I do worse than I thought. Though a couple of words I thought I had typed in appeared : ( But that would not have got me to Bugged's level [normally a downward move but in this case .....] Affy - still wondering where you will end up! It is quite disturbing to the spirit I think.

Some is sad and some is good. And this was funny to: I hope it had national coverage in the US