Triumvir

Well... to nitpick a bit, Andreas; 1) The T-34 used last week was probably a 1940s design; the 1930's design was, of course, the 76mm gun and I don't think that any T-34s other than T-34/85s are still in use, even in brushwars. 2) The Panther was phased out of French service by 1951 and was used in lieu of a native design (though apparently at one point the Israelis wanted to build a modernized Panther in the early 1950s) 3) Shermans and Stuarts in use today are almost invariably upgunned and refurbished; Chile's Shermans were once Israeli. No active Sherman still uses the same configuration as it did when it came out of the factory doors. This kinda bangs up against your statement that having only the chassis being used post-1944 versus other designs being used today renders the Valentine a useless tank. Those designs used today are using only the chassis too. Of course, the Valentine _was_ a crap tank, but that's beside the point for a pendant. 8)

Nothing else withstanding in this argument, the Allies did have better tanks than the Germans. The T-34 certainly outperformed its equivalents. Or does Allies only mean Anglo-American?

Interesting... doesn't that make resupply a gigantic bitch and a half? It's bad enough dealing with two standard calibres, but if you use East-Bloc weapons, there's another two there. What happens when you run out of RPG-7 rounds?

Speaking about dirty gas regulators reminds me that I have actually fired an LMG like a bolt-action rifle. Blanks are evil carbon-making bastards, and in one night-firing exercise, I was given a really filthy SAW to fire. In the rundowns with blanks, everything went fine, but when we went to live rounds, the freaking gas regulator was so jammed that I had to work the action by hand throughout. I know I emptied just under two 30rd magazines, but that was over about 5 minutes of fire and movement. It's surprisingly easy when you get the hang of it...

Virtual Stupidity -- unlike all the other Beavis and Butthead games -- was actually quite enjoyable. And it sold like hotcakes to nongamers. As for Halflife, if you're doubting the power of a game that is still being played 3 whole years after release, and shows no sign of stopping, you're not that familiar with the gaming industry. Trust me, 50 is an _incredible_ ranking for CM, given its scope and target audience

Virtual Stupidity -- unlike all the other Beavis and Butthead games -- was actually quite enjoyable. And it sold like hotcakes to nongamers. As for Halflife, if you're doubting the power of a game that is still being played 3 whole years after release, and shows no sign of stopping, you're not that familiar with the gaming industry. Trust me, 50 is an _incredible_ ranking for CM, given its scope and target audience

Another factor may be the amount of ammunition carried by a Sherman. If I remember correctly, the ammo loadout is about 1.5 times that of a Pz IV, giving that many more chances for a cookoff.

LCM, well now you've seen the light... 8P Then again, don't forget that under some really bright moonlit nights, you can see further than 50 yards (not much, but some.) The first night movement I did in basic took about 45 minutes, feeling our way through a _marked_ trail. The next day, we covered it in about 10. It's amazing how fast you can move when you can _see_ the big-ass thorn spikes waiting for you at eye-level.

Just to interject; throwing a track isn't bogging. Throwing a track is immobilising. I've seen APCs reset tracks before and it's not an easy task at the best of times, and certainly not something to be done under fire.

The IDF uses AK-47s? In regular units? I thought that they'd all standardized on M-16s.

Uh. He lifted it off the tripod. To engage an aircraft. Holding it with his bare hands. It musta been firing MILES, cause the first live round's recoil would have smashed his ribcage.

Brian's a good bloke, but he's right; Seppos are too easy to rile. I disagree with those who say that sight picture is lost with a bolt-action rifle; if you lose sight picture, you're not firing it properly. As for the inherent values of a weapon, the Enfield clearly loses out to the Garand in sheer statistics; its rate of fire will be, ceteris paribus and in the long run, inferior to a Garand. But in the short run, even with ceteris paribus, it is on par with a Garand. I wonder what the firepower of a crack British squad is versus that of a regular American squad; since I'm at work, I can't check in the engine. Anyone?

You're kidding me, right? CM has been out for just over a year, and it's already in the top 50 games ever made. Just _look_ at the games listed. Are you seriously suggesting that CM is moer influential than the Sims, or Civ2 -- or even Rainbow Six? Wargamers are a marginalized community at best because there are so few gamers -- note that Panzer General is the only other "wargame" on the list, and only because it could buy into mainstream support. Think a bit about context before you jump on "brainless twitch games." These are the most influential games since the mid 80s -- and, while not disparaging Steve and Charles in any way, if you think that CM's contribution to the corpus of gaming is greater than Doom, Quake, Everquest or Fallout, you need to re-examine your beliefs.

You're kidding me, right? CM has been out for just over a year, and it's already in the top 50 games ever made. Just _look_ at the games listed. Are you seriously suggesting that CM is moer influential than the Sims, or Civ2 -- or even Rainbow Six? Wargamers are a marginalized community at best because there are so few gamers -- note that Panzer General is the only other "wargame" on the list, and only because it could buy into mainstream support. Think a bit about context before you jump on "brainless twitch games." These are the most influential games since the mid 80s -- and, while not disparaging Steve and Charles in any way, if you think that CM's contribution to the corpus of gaming is greater than Doom, Quake, Everquest or Fallout, you need to re-examine your beliefs.

Oh, _yeah_. Check out that firing range! I know how that guy on top felt when the round went off and every cell in his body felt like it moved one millimeter left at the same time... The M50 had the same gun as the AMX-13; from what I remember, the AMX-13s that weren't sold to Singapore had their guns removed and fitted to the M50s, and then were remounted with Soltam 155s. I've sat in those AMX-13s (but never when they were running) and it must have been hell for the Israelis. Not only do they not have fans, they're _really_ cramped. Babra, were the M50s fitted with the same autoloader as the AMX-13? Imagine a Panther with that autoloader -- 24 rounds in one minute! (And another five minutes reloading, but who's counting, eh?)

lcm, I was in the army but not the US army. I do know what engineers do and you would not believe how thankful I was and am not to be one -- I sure as hell don't envy you. The castle may be strong, but it takes a ****load of sweat to put it up. I had a friend in my batch who was drafted into the engineers, and when I saw him after our sergeants course, he was obscenely built. He told me it was from building Bailey bridges... fun fun fun! And congrats on making it through Vietnam. It can't have been easy or fun. I hope your experiment goes well, but honestly; it'd be better if you _didn't_ take a friend, and just had the friend show up whenever he liked. Because you'll definitely be more likely to ID him if you know that he's going to be there; whereas if you don't know if he's showing up or not, it'll be a bit harder to do an ID. Me, I still vividly remember being raided at night by a "friendly" infantry unit in the neighbourhood that was supposed to simulate the enemy. We were using blanks, and lemme tell you, I'd been over every inch of that deployment ground the in the past six months; and I still couldn't tell where the heck targets were moving if we hadn't seen the muzzle flashes. By the by, it really did feel like being back on the qualifying range, with the muzzle flashes everywhere and only being able to spot a target by the flashes. If I hadn't known exactly where each of the guns was deployed and where our perimeter MGs were, I'd have been blazing all over the place at the nearest muzzle flash.

Hell yeah, it looks neat. I've picked up scale modelling in the past couple of months, and one of the first things I did on getting the Sherman kit was slap the 115mm gun on the T-62 kit I've made up against the turret. WAAAAAY too long for the turret. Incidentally, it's surprising how big the Sherman is compared to the T-34.

Treeburst, I'm not talking about HTML etc. I'm talking about an application server that does all the work that you're talking about in maintaining user lists, sending emails, etc and handling payments. In a pinch, I could help out with writing the software for this. As for Paypal as a method of payment, Paypal does not play well with non-US customers. To receive money, you must have a checking account domiciled in the US -- which kind of defeats the purpose. What you should consider is keeping a tab, and handling payments through a US based but international bank, like Citi. There are Citi branches in at least Germany (I saw them in Frankfurt!) and probably most other Western European countries; and there are no charges for writing/cashing a check drawn on a Citi account in another country. There would be absolutely _no_ point in trying to make force-restrictions; buyer must beware when playing. Min maxing would be the king, and historicism would go straight out the door (not that there's anything wrong with that in this context.) Much like deathmatching in Quake, the learning curve will be steep and expensive.

As for upgunning problems, the IDF had a lot of fun with their M50 and M51s, expecially the M51s. Not only did it mount an extremely low recoil GIAT 105mm, they had to snip off about 10 calibres worth to reduce recoil. Incidentally, the 76mm on the Walker Bulldog is, if I'm not mistaken, the same as that on the 76mm Shermans, and there's a sabot round for it that has 1433m/s muzzle velocity! In any case, calibre isn't king; the classic example is the Russian 85mm, which underperformed the 75mm Panther -- or the 88 Flak 36, which also underperformed the 75L70. (And on a side note, the same Panther 75L70 gun, mounted on AMX-13s, had a good day with T-54s in the Sinai.)

I dunno about the others, but I would. There's already a framework for something like this being developed for FPS and RTS games, so I'm more than happy to do it for CM too.

lcm1947, with all due respect, what were you doing in Vietnam? If you were an infantryman and you could spot and identify enemies between 100 to 200m in the field, you're a _far_ better infantryman than I ever was. On a moonlit night, with people stumbling about in the open, maybe. When they're moving tactically -- ie actually using vegetation for concealment, not for convenient pitstops -- all I can say is good luck trying to tell if they're friendly or not. As for a sergeant being in command of a squad, if the sergeant decides they're enemy, what then?

Vanir, what we disagree on is that two people should crew an LMG. It may be the norm, but it is not optimal. One is the minimum, two is normal, three is pretty much optimal. As for the topic; I got sidetracked. Mea culpa. 8) As for fire discipline, I do know that throughout my entire conscription, I was never allowed to use auto fire on my M-16. The only time that was allowed was during FIBUA or trench clearing, and that was what the infantry was for (I was artillery.) I don't think that categorizing most American units as having poor fire discipline is particularly helpful, especially when it was doctrine to have massive suppressive fire. It's different doctrine from Commonwealth pattern armies, and is bearable because of the incredibly lavish supply train that the US Army has. Amateurs may scoff at the teeth to tail ratio, but if infantry is the queen of battle and artillery the king, logistics is the chessboard; and if you can keep a unit supplied, then by all means, that unit should use as much ammo as it wants. If it can't be supplied though...

Vanir, I disagree. Two men is the norm, and the minimum necessary for any kind of sustained fire. But ideally, you want a third person to do spotting for targets. The GPMG section in the platoon organization I was in was a three man section, even when no tripod was deployed. Also... I don't think that the Brits and the Amis thought that the rifleman was the main killer; rather, instead of concentrating on infantry, they concentrated on artillery and the logistics to support it. At the infantry level, MGs and grenades do killing, but at the army level, it's always the artillery.

lcm1947, if you can see a guy moving tactically at 80m, I take my hat off to you. I've been out there in the field; I've done night exercises, and it is an utter _bitch_ trying to keep track of your own section, let alone the platoon around you. Start factoring trees in, and visibility drops down to the nearest tree. Now add in adrenaline, deafening from the weapons going off all around you and fatigue because you haven't slept since you dug your firetrench... When we did our night firing in basic, it was at 100m range. At 100m, on a normal night over a cleared firing range without any illumination, a man sized Figure 11 target can only be seen because of little blinking lights that simulate muzzle flashes. I've done this stuff, practicing for the real thing. Jason has, and I'm pretty sure that Babra has; have you? It's not as easy as you make it out to be.

Incidentally, detailed armour hits aren't, at least not once you pass the 1000m mark. I've seen that in a firing gallery scenario, after 1000m, internal spalling is made known to the player whose tank it was that spalled, but not to his opponent.