Firefly

I downloaded the 27.10 version as that was the one mentioned by BTS, so far I've had no problems, touch wood. I did it a couple of hours after receiving my new PC on Monday. I don't know if you noticed, but Win XP gives you the option of rolling back drivers if the new ones cause problems.

I managed to download them from Guru3d yesterday afternoon GMT (probably yesterday morning BTS time). Perhaps the site was just temporarily down when you tried.

49, hitting the big five-oh next October, and be warned people I expect prezzies.

Daimler - since two days ago when one took out a Panther .

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: The nice thing about Pawboon is you can read his posts 4 times and still not figure out what the hell he is saying, but still like the guy because he really does try hard. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Good god, Slappy, it's Pawbroon. Don't you know anything about Scottish comic strips? BTW did anyone see the article in PC Strategy Games that described the mad Frenchman as a genius, because of his Austin Powers mod for the Universal Carrier?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gunnergoz: Of course, if I'd read the original post more carefully, I'd have noticed that the issue was about terrain standards and not necessarily about a Norman snow variant! [ 07-08-2001: Message edited by: gunnergoz ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ah, confusion reigns (or snows) all round .

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gunnergoz: I don't recall that it even snows much in the Normandy area, even in deep winter. Anyone have some solid info on this?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think you'll find that by winter the war had moved along a little from Normandy .

Rune also did one called Battle of the Bulge based on the movie rather than the real battle. I tried playing it on my PII 450, but gave up after I was able to have a telephone conversation with my mother while the machine calculated the second turn.

Just a question for you ICQers before we get moved to the general frounm . I've always been put off it by reports of the security issues, have any of you had any problems in that regard?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HRM JeffRoi: $0.02 on Monty: I agree that Monty is NOT one of the worst. I am very much of the camp that he wasn't one of the best, and that relieving Auchinleck was a big mistake. The second battle of el-Alamein was not a pushover, but it is worth noting that Monty built up until he had *twice* the force that Auchinleck requested to press the attack. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Auchinleck had to go, after the Gazala battles and the loss of Tobruk; his troops had lost all confidence in him and were severely demoralised. Whatever Monty did later he restored the morale of his troops and insisting on a 2 - 1 advantage in an attack is hardly a crime, I believe Zhukov would often insist on a 4 - 1 advantage before attacking. If Auchinleck had pressed the attack on his terms he would probably have lost and the Germans would have taken Egypt and the Suez canal. I agree with you about Market Garden, although plenty of other people made cock-ups in that operation. Urqhart for instance chose the drop zone for the British paras, Horrocks has been blamed for not pressing hard enough with XXX Corps and so forth. My comment about Montgomery being in danger of becoming underated was a reference to some of the people in this thread who think he is the worst general of the war, i.e worse than your own nomination of Graziano or mine of Perceval and the Italian general in Greece, (whose name escapes me began with a B I think), which is totally ridiculous. Monty wasn't the great general that he and some of his supporters claim, but he was one of the better Allied generals who on the whole understood the strengths and weaknesses of his troops. The best of the British generals I would argue was Bill Slim in Burma, but that's another topic.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by machineman: Certainly not the worst, but probably one of the most overrated.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Agreed, particularly by himself. However the pendulum has swung so far the other way in some quarters that he's in danger of becoming the most underrated.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Richard Morgan: 3) I will not defend Monty - or anyone else against their refusal to heed Dutch advice when planning Market Garden. However, this was due to Monty being very much a product of his time. Arrogant Xenophobia was (and continues to be)one of Great Britain's very worst faults. However, one must take into account that this is a fault in which America is fully our equal: I think it is safe to say that you inherited it directly from us in the first place!!! I cannot envisage any American Commander of the time taking any more notice of the "Goddam Dutch" than we did of "Johnny Foreigner." One final point about Market Garden - even with its flawed inception and all the cock-ups, it came within a single whisker of total success: more favourable weather - radios that worked - moving earlier: any of these could have tipped the balance. I personally think that the potential gains made it worth the attempt and one has to remember that the planners did not have the benefit of hindsight. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually there were very good reasons for not believing the reports of the Dutch resistance at the time, they had been thouroughly infiltrated by the Abwehr and were being used to feed misinformation to the Allies, a fact of which Allied intelligence were fully aware. As for Monty being the worst general of the war, it's such a ludicrous statement that I doubt the originator of the claim was serious. Monty had plenty of faults, but was he worse than the Italian generals in their invasion of Greece, or General Perceval who surrendered Singapore to the Japanese without a fight, or Mark Clark throwing away his troops lives to further his political ambitions?

Up to 4% now, still a long way to go to catch BG2. I've never heard of half of these games. BG2 was an RPG, quite a good one if you like that sort of thing. [ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: Firefly ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: The point about Fireflies in Cromwell platoons is new to me, and well taken. I thought the recon-oriented armor formations did not have them. Was it only the 7th AD, or was it a general practice to mix Firefly Shermans with Cromwell? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> From my reading, which was about 11th Armoured, which is why I edited my post, the division had a recon regiment which had only Cromwells, with the HQ troop of each squadron having a Cromwell CS tank with the 95mm gun. The rest of the regiments in the division had troops of 3 Cromwells and a Firefly, with the Firefly being replaced by a CS tank in the HQ troops. Someone did a good post a few months ago on the organisation of British Armoured divisons, but I don't have the link. It was in a thread about the organisation of American ADs, if anyone feels like doing a search. As I said I like your general idea of dicing for armour support type and will try to use it soon.

OK Jason I take your point about tanks dying, however in the British anrmy post June 44, replacement crews were more of s problem than replacement tanks. It would be more likely for the squadron or regiment to reorganise so it was short of a troop or even a squadron rather than sending in understrength troops. As for Challengers, they were certanly not enough to go round, but Fireflies were used instead even in formations that were equipped with Cromwells, such as 11th Armoured Div. in Normandy. Thus a troop of 3 Cromwells and a Firefly was quite normal. [ 06-02-2001: Message edited by: Firefly ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: Firefly chance is a bit over one out of four, which means the chance of getting at least one with four tanks bought is around 3/4. The chance of Cromwells getting a Challenger early on is considerably less, more like 1/4 for a typical platoon. Late, with Comets available too, the chance of an upgunned tank in the platoon is the same as for Fireflies. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I like your idea of dicing for type of armoured units, it would be a fun idea if you play with someone you trust. I do however have a problem with dicing for types of tanks in a platoon, particularly for the Brits/Canadians/Poles. If we ignore the division that had all Firefly troops, it was standard TOE to have one Firefly in each troop (and later one Challenger per Cromwell troop), dicing could theoretically give an ahistorical troop make-up such as 2 75mm Shermans with 2 Fireflies. [ 06-02-2001: Message edited by: Firefly ]

I'll repeat my normal warnig . If you decide to go for a Geforce, check your motherboard spec carefully. The Geforce cards normally require AGP version 2.0. I have a similar system to yours and the AGP slot is only version 1.0. Personally I'm happy with my 32mb Creative TNT2.

I just tried the first scenario and got a British surrender on turn 29. Unlike most people it was actually the Hotchkisses that did most damge for me, the Stugs died cheaply. One H-39 took out a Cromwell with a side shot before being nailed by the other, which fell to the panzerschreck. The second H-39 then turned into the Hotchkiss of Doom, killing the Stuart, 2 White Scout cars, 2 carriers and a bundle of infantry. The halftracks did a good job of mopping up the British infantry after my own had taken a bad mauling. It got a bit tough in the middle game though. Good work, Fred. I'm looking forward to the rest of the scenarios.

Probably a doctrine thing. The Churchill was an infantry suppport tank. Its job wasn't tank killing; that was the job of the crusiers - Shermans and Cromwells at this stage of the war.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fred: These 'Peng' threads are pure nonsense, but liked by BTS (for whatever reason). It has nothing to do with CMBO, and is obviously for people that think that they share some certain type of 'humour'. It adds nothing to the game, but, even if off-topic, is obviously tolerated. Just ignore it. Fred<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So if it's nothing to do with CMBO, what game do you think they are playing? I don't participate, but I enjoy reading them. Some days they are the only thing worth reading. Then again I like that sort of humour - the funny sort .

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan: They still had the WWI mindset so that their tanks plodded along at the speed of a wounded puppy. American armor wasn't much better, especially the early stuff, but at least American tanks had the advantage of speed. The Churchills are pretty thick skinned though and I enjoy using them. I can't wait for the desert verion of CM so we can use the Matilda II. It sounds like it was invincible until the 88mm came along.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well the Brits had some pretty fast tanks, the Cromwell IV is probably the fastest medium tank in the game. British doctrine called for fast cruiser tanks whose job was to kill enemy tanks (Crusaders, Cromwells, Comets and Challengers) and slow heavily armoured infantry support tanks (Matildas anf Churchills) which only had to keep up with the footsloggers. One reason why the Firefly/Churchill combo is pretty ahistorical.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Welcome back Sgt Steiner; haven't seen you in awhile. Or maybe I'm just terribly unobservant?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> He's been too busy kicking my boys around NW Europe .

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Noba: There is a little freeware program that can fix that problem. It's called Filesplitter. http://members.nbci.com/mbjorklu/file_splitter/ I hope the link is ok. Both players will need it of course.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My email/news client (Turnpike) offers me this facility every time I post with an attachment over 64K. Doesn't Outlook Excess have a similar facility?

On the other hand they might get some sales out of people who think the game is a TV tie-in . Who Wants to be a Millionaire is the top selling title in the UK - sometimes I worry about my fellow countrymen.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rommel22: The NKVD did fight in several battles actually. Kerch penninsula, The NKVD landed there with regular red army troops and some Naval troops. They also fought in the Lenningrad region. Lake Ilmen and Lake Lagoda. There were others, but don't remember the rest.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They also fought at Stalingrad, I'm not sure if they were supposed to or just got stuck on the west bank and had to. Evidently they fought quite well although one or two broke and ran and faced the same consequences from their erstwhile comrades as the regulars did.