dieseltaylor

Agree muchly.

http://www.alternet.org/story/155864/does_your_doctor_have_a_fake_degree_the_billion-dollar_industry_that_has_sold_over_a_million_fake_diplomas? Seems to be a problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly Discusses usage and gives battle examples. Amusingly:

Given the three other Shermans in the first picture I think that in fact he was aiming more likely at the Sherman nearest the building and its an overshoot. However the result with the rocket travelling through several roofs without exploding or deflecting is bizarre.

Reading JasonC's piece and particularly noting: As the CM series have dealt with battles in short time spans the argument as to what is effective over the entire war is perhaps not very relevant and the view of the 1940-45 infantry officer is more valid to the short time spans they operated in. As I mused over the claimed 70% of casualties for the artillery and I wondered if in fact it is a matter of special cases. After all nobody surrenders to a flying shell but hundreds of thousands, if not millions surrendered to infantry and tank formations. And if they had not surrendered then perhaps the claimed ratio for artillery would be less. I was also struck by how relevant German artillery must have been in Crete in throwing the Commonwealth out. As I understand it the campaign was very much brutal infantry fighting and movement and very little to do with artillery.

Incidentally there were many Marder 1, on different chassis, but this is the commonest on the Lorraine chassis. Seems spotting from a Marder 1 should be very good but the amount of traverse and the length of the gun/hull would make it painful to position. However compared to a Stug ....... There is a marked likeness to the Marder IIIM so I would not have thought there should be any difference in tactical use. Though the IIIM was a better fighting vehicle compared to the earlier Marders

Cattle would never have wooden fences. Sorry I should have made that clear. Horses I understand don't lean on fences so wood works for them.

In the UK the grammar school system creamed off the supposed top 5-10% of pupils at age eleven. They would take O and A levels and if you could master A' you were in the top 5% academically and went to University - for free. What we have now is the expectation that 50% of the school population will go on to university or equivalent education. And can the country afford the expense, and the ludicrously inflated expectations of the people who go on to further education.

Whilst I admire your imagining of fences it seems to indicate that you are not familiar with Normandy fencing/hedging. Firstly wooden fences would actually be rare in comparison to bank and hedge, or for that matter stone. Both last considerably longer, as in many decades/centuries, than wood and are more robust. If you kept multiple horses then perhaps some wooden fence but generally it was rare stuff - and not in any way likely to defeat even a 1930's car ... well possibly an Austin 7, or a Topolino, Peugeot 201 ....

How a "war" between hedge funds and JP Morgan sends bad signals through the economy, and can affect a firms funding costs. Rather a horrific insight into what can happen when people with vast amounts of "money" play the systems. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/14/uk-jpmorgan-trades-idUKBRE85D05O20120614?feedType=nl&feedName=ukdailyinvestor I think the OP here is interesting. My conviction is that we need to realise re-trenchment at a personal level affects both local tradesmen and industry. However I am not necessarily scared of the concept because we know that most people are fairly wasteful and if they adjust their lifestyle they could have happy declining years. This may mean co-habiting, no foreign holidays etc etc but in terms of happiness the people of 1950's Britain were as happy or happier than todays folk. SO are material posessions that important? Health and companionship are very highly rated as you age. Lastly health. Of course we can devote unlimited resource to increasing the worlds population and the average lifespan but would it be wiser to examine the concepts of getting old people to live longer. Perhaps it is not actually beneficial for society to have large numbers of senile and physically incapable pensioners being semi-hospitalised until the drugs/treatments are finally beaten. A friends father is being given a new prostate cancer drug as he lapses deeper into senility, and very lengthy sleeps, and blood tranfusions fortnightly. At 93 I am not clear what he is being kept alive for - other than for nursing home fees and drug fees. Sorry to go off tangent slightly but if we are looking at declining incomes/purchasing power then some good thinking outside the box might help realise better ways of living.

I suppose this is better on a CMBN discussion board .....

Charming as ever Jon.

A proper! printable/storable results page. Knowing what squads/tanks did in terms of damage is actually interesting. I played in CMx1 against humans about 600 games and perhaps 100 scenarios. And do I have any reasonable way of referencing to that? And if anything CMx2 gives less information.

Actually its probably part of this type of thing: http://ww2.richmondsuniversity.net/ And that comes from a tediously long article that explains how the fake universities will help fool potential employers. http://www.naturalnews.com/036076_Aajonus_Vonderplanitz_doctorate_nutrition.html Really quite shocking how inept a system is when fake degrees can be used. http://www.naturalnews.com/036087_diploma_mills_fake_degrees_doctorate.html

The question that arises in my mind from this is whether there is a difference in modelling wire fences/obstacles and various tracked vehicles. Tiger II down to Universal carrier. Secondly, anyone straddled a wire fence and driven down its length to flatten it. I was being kind to my infantry but it was less successful than it should have been. But that was V1.

Good stuff JK

I thought it would be nice to get some letters after my name : ) http://www.ool.co.uk/

Thats 13mm at 30 degrees at 100metres. So closer and better angle will all make a difference. Penetration at 500metres is till a respectable 8mm at 30 degrees so remember how little armour half-tracks have. Hull Front, Upper 16 mm, 5/8", 0.625"@0°4 Hull Front, Lower 19 mm, 0.75" Hull Sides, Upper 9 mm, 3/8", 0.375"@0°4 Hull Sides, Lower 9 mm, 3/8" Hull Rear 9 mm, 3/8", 0.375"@0°4 Hull Top 6 mm, 0.25" Hull Bottom 3 mm, 1/8-1/4" Turret Front 19 mm, 0.75", 0.875"@0°4 Turret Sides 19 mm, 0.75", 0.75"@0°4 Turret Rear 19 mm, 0.75"

MG more effective than a shell for area fire. There is only so much HE so why waste it.

Hull top 6mm Bottom 3mm Side 9mm Bouncing off the road then : ) Actually it was open-topped so if on a slight elevation you might get richochets in the turret. In game given bodies vapourise in game and crew move to new positions it may be possible. But actually not impossible anyway according to this: http://www.panzerworld.net/armourpenetration

Given the difficulty for players, especially noobies - and myself, in establishing why its not happening is there any hope of BF [or anyone] doing an interactive pop-up or something? It may be we put all these wrinkles on the Wikia in my sig but it would be nice to have without needing an internet connection.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-06-11/ch7.htm Deals extensively with penetration effects but of course is dealing with current weapons. However it is fairly categoric regarding dense stone. It also covers blind spots for current US tanks d. Wall Penetration. Continued and concentrated machine gun fire can breach most typical urban walls. Such fire cannot breach thick reinforced concrete structures or dense natural stone walls. Internal walls, partitions, plaster, floors, ceilings, common office furniture, home appliances, and bedding can be easily penetrated by both 7.62-mm and caliber .50 rounds (Tables 7-5 and 7-6).

I think the problem with CMBN and buildings protective value has maybe been sorted. I imagine granite also bounces more shots fired at an angle than concrete block so its swings and roundabouts. Also the concrete block reinforcement is only 90mm which is very thin if you are building in stone. In the days before science a stone wall for a building would be 500-600mm. With science: Thickness Of Walls 97. A very good rule to fix the thickness of stone foundation walls is, that they shall be at least 8 inches thicker than the wall next above them, for a depth of 12 feet below grade or curb level; and for every additional 10 feet or part thereof in depth, they should be increased 4 inches in thickness. Thus, if the first-story walls are 12 inches thick, the stone foundation walls would have to be 20 inches thick for 12 feet in depth, and 24 inches thick if the depth is increased beyond 12 feet. When of stone, the wall should not be less than 16 inches thick, as a thinner wall than this does not bond well, only small stones can be used, and it cannot be carried to any height. The thickness of foundation walls in all the large cities is controlled by the building laws. Where there are no existing laws, Table 2 will serve as a guide: http://chestofbooks.com/architecture/Building-Construction-V2/Thickness-Of-Walls.html

I think there was , particularly in V1, a game where results against people in buildings seemed high and there was quite a thread on it. Peoples views still seem tinged with Middle East or North American construction techniques and therefore we have a mismatch in expectations. This seems very useful: http://www.claybrick.ca/pdf/cmri_bulletproof_project.pdf Perhaps the most interesting result is the resistance of grouted brick walls to Browning 0.5" bearing in mind at right angles and at 25metres thats not really very long range. Allowances for improved bullet technology might also need to be accounted for against what bullets were available in 1944. And of course the old-fashioned building methods.

More useful information : ) Thanks.