dieseltaylor

WOOOWWWWW! Never if you ever saw a project more ripe for development this must be it. With an actual model to work from a good computer simulation could tell if it would really work. I take speed as one thing it probably had but I can only speculate as to its aerobatic skill. Incidentally in the UK the first mainline steam loco to be manufactured for about 50 years is getting ready for passenger service. All the money raised by private donations for a good cause - I think £3m http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7810296.stm

Wahooka, Congratulations on getting into CM - even if it is the least developed of the series it is still great fun. I think if you know nothing at all about WW2 weaponry it is a drawback but if you quickly play a few games you will certainly lose but that is your learning curve. The game AI is not very clever and any human with a little practice will win. The important information is obtained by clicking on enter when you have say a tank highlighted. If you read say the details of a Sherman - armour, gun penetration figures and compare them say to a MkIV or a Tiger* you will appreciate exactly why some tanks were very much feared and some seen as easy meat. If your gun can nail any other tank at 1000metres and they need to get within a couple of hundred you can afford to be confident! My strong personal opinion is that the CM series is generally excellent on tanks and that the infantry, artillery, and support weapons allow you to play a good combined arms game. I avoid infantry heavy games as infantry I find the least satisfying module. However each to their own : ) Have great fun. *Funny you should mention Patton - he told the troops that Shermans could take Tigers when they landed in Normandy - he was so lying/wrong

Hallo Ironblood, Congratulations on being smart enough to buy the finest WW2 game available. The lack of a manual is a biggish problem but given that enormous amounts of the game were not explicitly told to players don't feel its the end of the world. BF felt people should learn gradually ... alternatively the manual would have had to been huge to cover everything in the game : ) Searching the archives is very useful for particular points as often you would have answer/discussions that could run for 11 pages. Fortunately some are answered simply! http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=85414 Is a very very recent thread by another noobie Incidentally if you put your location - which I guess is N. America you may have a friendly player in the same city who would show you the ropes. Not likely but possible - I know a small Australian city with 5 very active players who meet up as an example of all things being possible. Here in the UK we are more reserved and need a proper introduction : ) I will repeat what I said in the thread I refer to. Expect to lose plenty. Play fast just to get the experience. See if you can cotton on whats happening - some of it will be blindingly obvious as it will be like RL. Make a note of the funny things and have a quick search of the archive. But have fun.

What a superb resource. Thanks Joachim

Jeez, when I have a nice car I like to take it out and drive it - but I suppose they are rare over in the US. : )

Ditto .......

Welcome back to cyberland. useful to know re the obsolence built-in. I am glad I keep all my old PC's - bar my 386 of 1991.

One of 17 built a Bugatti Atalante, and left in a garage! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7807210.stm

The joy of CM is that in real games against humans you will have to consider whether there is an ATG ready for your cunning ruse. It is the uncertainty that makes CM so good.

Its nice to see even Europeans have a grasp of early US history : )

You may remember the barking mad judge who wanted $54M for his trousers - the case lives on as a reference for tort reform: http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2008/12/will_tort_reformers_attack_thi.html Seems to me that if legal fees were capped by an actual amount rather than a percentage then lawyers would stop this stupidity earlier and go for a realistic figure. As a further constraint perhaps for this case the court system should get a percentage of the award once it goes beyond say a few weeks !

On reflection I suppose Texan history is suitable for 6th Grade, proper history is for higher grades : )

The top and bottom bands are resistance to mines and top hits I believe. You will note tanks with open tops are a little bereft in the colour band department. The colour also is a function not only of thickness but the slope of the armour. I think also the breaks in the verticals are also an indication of what percentage of the tank is covered by that sort of armour. This is moot as I have no idea whether the concept is actually coded into the game. I think the double bottom band might also relate to ease of track hits causing damage - but I am guessing. I have never used them probably because: a] I know most tanks etc but if it were new I would look it up to see what its real life armour was like and the angle it was sloped at b] the colour surely must be relative to something - but as I do not know what it is a little daft. Is the colour relative to the commonest enemy gun of the time - 2pdr in 1941, 75mm in 1943 or what? c] There is no point in getting precious about where a shell will hit your tank - there is very little you can do about it anyway. And given terrain elevation also delivers the complications of rising and falling shot why worry - spend your energy on thinking of the things you can affect. Therefore I learn what tanks are dangerous to my tanks - and vice versa. Its really not very difficult. You can see longer calibre and bigger bore make better killing machines and this happens throughout the war. The Panther L/70* being I think the longest barrel to create the highest possible velocity. So that is 70 times 7.5cm equivalent very roughly to 5.25metres of barrel. *There are two possible couple of exceptions but I cannot be bothered to check : ) Of course when you have learned that bit of knowledge I should mention HC ammunition which meant even low velocity guns like L/17's could actually still hurt tanks. Here again its a matter of learning which tanks can have it, when it comes in, and whether the units get allocated much of it. Ammo load outs for tanks and guns can vary widely even within the same platoon or battery. Lucky you - a whole raft of things to learn and enjoy : )

I could not believe anyone had such a name especially as the connection was a flaky history puff, but it is indeed true [and the son has the same name] however whilst researching I came across this: http://www.eldritchpress.org/cdv/rel.htm Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America quite a story - and I have only read the introduction.

I never took you for a pussy lover .... my cat is envious.

I almost added that bit about different platoons as in the early war you can get a dozen tanks or so. The Germans have HC in December 1941 so Matilda's are not safe - so at that stage you could have two or three types of tank. Late war the tanks are much more expensive so one platoon is a big chunk of budget for the Axis. I see no reason to ban cats in 45, and in '43 the UK player could supplement his tanks with a Carrier 6pdr combo so that even the woods become dangerous for expensive German armour.

Not mentioned in the posts is the matter of troop quality. However as you have read the manual then you will know that the quality of troops means the better the quality the more robust they are. Consider your friends success and see if his successful units were veteran. Also you will have seen how officers attributes help their men, and the different command ranges. BF have actually helped the game I think by leaving everything slightly fuzzy with no rules to follow as how to accomplish this that and the other. Experience by fighting the game and knowledge from war accounts all help to make it immersive. I think it is a game of combined arms and should be played as such. As a purely infantryman emulator it sucks but add mortars, HMG's, artillery, light armour, tanks etc and the game is the better for it. It is a brilliant game but it does have flaws so if you think something sucks - you may be right : ) but there are many many excellent parts. Added this may be of interest: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=85186&highlight=infantry+tactics

In terms of realism armour only sucks mightily but for fun they rate higher. To raise the fun level you could throw in vehicles also - getting a Wasp to fry a Tiger would make a game in itself : ) 1945 seems no problem for balance as the Allies have plenty of choice for tank-killers. 1943 is tricky. The Allies have to be British if they want tanks that can kill cats at range. That is using the 6pdr [57mm] armed Churchill or Valentine and the Germans can field a platoon of either cat plus some infantry. Allies would have nine or ten tanks plus similar infantry. In December they have a little more tungsten , average .75 per tank!, so that helps to keep the Germans more honest. A lot therefore comes down to the terrain. Wider map helps the Allies, narrow the Axis. Basically I think 1943 possibly favours the Germans but not by very much against the Brits - against 75mm US Shermans the Germans would be slightly better off. 1941: loads of tanks that can kill each other and even the Matilda is not safe. Quite an amusing battle I would think.

I like the query - "Do I need an adaptor if I go abroad? " : )

So the next question is why was it built : ) Wiki provides - and someone has done the game ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caminito_del_Rey

Well CMBB and CMAK have been released : ) I am sure you will like them.

Actually the link was about human gayness and the guesstimates as to % of population.

Humm! Mr Blair was the choice of a mere 35% of the UK population last time, previous election 40% - or roughly what the Conservatives polled this time - so I think we can fairly safely say that the democracy we laud to all and sundry sucks. Mr Bush did slightly better in 2000 getting only fractionally less than his opponent Al Gore in the popular vote. If you think Ralph Nader's votes were really natural Democrats then the 2.74% he polled would have given Gore an absolute majority rather than simply being the most popular candidate. So the people as a whole voted against both warmongerers in both countries - so what more "say" were you talking about? ; ) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005

Actually your message suddenly reminded me off an experiment reported a decade or so ago that when rat population density increased more homosexual behaviour was observed. Is there a self-limiting mechanism at work ? http://www.avert.org/hsexu1.htm Obviously not all will be childless but it is an interesting conjecture how many of these will pass on their genes.

Given my gut feeling that Bush and Blair dragged the West into a war knowing they had used loads of duff information to hornswoggle fellow legislators and the public I would be very happy to seem them up on war crimes at the Hague. Throwing a shoe - to get upset over that after what they did. Joke! Incidentally I think Blair has made $15m on the speaking circuit so who says crime does not pay? Makes me sick that two men have done so much damage to the world and will get away scot-free.