jasoncawley@ameritech.net

OK, I've got an idea. Some are saying that 2 weeks per game is itself too fast, PBEM turn around times being what they are. So I suggest the following tourament lay out. A 6-round Swiss match to determine the final four. A 3-round round robin among the final four to determine the championship match. And a 1-round shoot out for the CM heavyweight championship of the world! The games to be timed to a re-creation scheme. The first 3 rounds of the Swiss recreate the late war fighting in small actions, meeting engagements or hasty defenses. Allied artillery, German mines and panzerfausts, small unit actions, limited vehicles in most, but one of the three more armor-oriented by still small. These rounds are played in February, March, and April, and the scenarios are set in those months of 1945. One game per month. May is a "bye" month, to rest and recooperate and determine if you are still married and employed. This celebrates the war's end. Then the second half of the Swiss starts. The first half should have sorted the player list and "seed" positions reasonably well, so in the upper half of the tourament the competition should be more fierce in the second 3 rounds of the Swiss. The settings are Normandy and the breakout battles, and somewhat larger, more involved scenarios. In June, an airborne scenario. In July, the British on the attack with armor at Caen. In August, the Germans on the counterattack with armor at Mortain (trying to cut off the breakout), against dug in U.S. troops with strong fire support. The highest 4 players by win-loss record from those 6 rounds, with cumulative VPs deciding draws by record, advance to the semi-finals. They then play each other in a round robin in three scenarios. The first in September is taken from Operation Market-Garden - Red Devils (Brit 1st Airborne) at Arnhem, attacked by German armor. The second pits U.S. vets of the 3rd army with armor, attacking fortified in Germans in the mud of Lorraine. And the third sees the rival infantries clashing in the midst of the Hurtgen forest. These scenarios will try the players abilities to defend against armor without armor of their own, and to fight where armor can't go. The best two records out of the semi-finals meet for their rematch to determine the CM world champion, in a combined arms meeting engagement in the snow of the Ardennes, German Panzer spearheads against U.S. armored division counterattackers. Such players as are eliminated by their record in the Swiss 6-round preliminaries, can of course play the later scenarios if they like. If there is enough interest, they will be organized into a seperate, four-round Swiss for the "field", playing the same scenarios as the leaders, just not against leading commanders. Naturally, they are still out of the running for the championship, but you might get an honorable mention for the best W-L outside the final four or whatever. And if players are willing, I propose the champion gets the rest of us to spring for his copy of CM2 when it comes out. Strictly on a voluntary basis, of course. It is a tiny thing, but will be meaningful to the winner because of how he worked for it. The scenarios should be short and small, especially the first 3 rounds. The remaining ones can be a bit more involved, and the last can be longer in turns. But they should all be small enough that getting through them in a month will not be a problem. Some balance will be provided by the variety of forces commanded and roles involved. The Germans will be on the defense more often, but they will get to attack in the Mortain and Arnhem scenarios. The Brits are represented by Caen and Arnhem - perhaps one of the late-war meeting engagements should be Brits vs. Germans too, so they get one scenario in each round and one of each type. Does this sound feasible? Interesting?

Actually, 1/10th of a second intervals are standard on timed fuses today, in the U.S. field artillery (where I did my time). The 88 Flak, though, might be calibrated somewhat differently. The fuses they would be using would be the AA ones, which were meant to specify a particular altitude. As in, you can dial in 18000 feet or 19000 feet. I do not know the fineness they actually had, but from general air combat things I think FLAK without 500 foot adjustments, if not 100 foot adjustments, would have been pretty useless (the planes would just fly between the levels). If you assume the adjustments are 500 feet, what does that mean in terms of time, at an altitude of 20000 feet? A first approximation ignores air resistence and just uses the parabola - rising 20,000 feet in the air is 6154 meters (about). A little quadratic with 773 initial gives a time of 8.42 seconds. Increase the height to 20,500 or 6308 meters gives 8.64 seconds, or .22 difference. OK, so the shell is moving slow enough at that altitude, a 1/10th second gradation is adequate to discriminate the altitude in about 250-foot intervals. For FLAK use that may have been enough, or they may have had 1/20th of a second or 1/5th, but they had to have at least that much fineness or their would not have been any bombers going down, which there were. In flat trajectory fire, if they had 1/20th of a second fineness they could have hit a target to 40 meter discrimination, and if they only had 1/10th of a second, to 80 meter discrimination. So you try it. If it is in the wrong place by 10 meters, you move the gun a litte. No problem...

I take much, much longer for moves, especially in the early going. If everything is going according to plan, or during the resolution of a multi-minute firefight, the turns will be faster - the speed you mentioned or less. But when figuring out where everybody is going to go, I can easily spend 30 minutes a move - and sometimes as long as you take on a move, on the playback LOL.

The 88 AA had timed fuses to set for a certain altitude, when firing in the AA role. The normal use was to have the shell burst at 18000 feet or 20000 feet, etc. Since those worked by how long the shell had been traveling, it was possible to dial in an "altitude" setting that would explode the shell during flight, exactly like a flak burst, at some predetermined distance. They would probably have to test-fire to get the right distance to altitude adjustment. But with a few rounds of testing, they could indeed have bore-sighted an 88 AA at a crossroads, with the shell timed to go off in the air above it. First I've heard of it actually being done, but it would have been possible. Only, though, in defensive situations where the defender had time to set up a combination "ambush marker" and TRP, and only for an 88mm FLAK, not the anti-tank guns. The German tube artillery, by the way, did not have the VT fuse, which was invented by the U.S. during the war. The FLAK fuses were a specific time, whereas the VT adjusted the time of explosion based on detecting the target with a tiny radar cone in the nose of the shell (hence "variable" time). What the Germans might be able to elaborately plan and prepare with an AA gun only, the Americans could do on the fly at any target of opportunity with the real tube artillery.

Against troops with overhead cover, like log bunkers or buildings, the best was (and still is, more or less) regular tube artillery (not mortars) firing with "delay" fuses, to allow time for the round to penetrate before going off. Against troops without overhead cover, in the open or in foxholes or trenches, the best is the VT, which will airburst over them. In woods, the best is a quick fuse or a mortar (also quick), because it will go off on hitting the trees and airburst that way, while VT might explode too far above the tree-tops. I don't know if that is the way CM models them, but that is the way it really works. The choices are to go off before the hit (VT), at the hit (quick), or after the hit (delay). While "at the hit" was the usual or standard setting, it was only the most effective against men in the woods. The VT fuse was originally designed for anti-aircraft fire, to make it easier to hit a small, fast moving target. But it was soon found it could mimic the treeburst effect against men in the open or in foxholes, not in the woods.

The idea of a tourney strikes me as a great idea, but the mechanics seem a bit daunting. 2-4 turns of CM PBEM per day for nearly a year? It seems to me this length arises from the finalists playing 22 seperate games. There does not seem to me to be a need to play 22 games to determine winners out of a field of 40 entrants. I recommend instead, for your consideration obviously, using the so called Swiss tourney system, often used in chess matches. The idea is that in each round there is a top half and a bottom half (in the first round it can be random and does not matter). In the first round, 1 plays 21, 2 plays 22, etc. Afterward you have winners and losers. The winners are now the top half, the losers are the bottom half. The winners play each other, with the same top to bottom split - new 1 plays new 11, new 2 plays new 12, etc. Meanwhile, the first round losers continue playing, against each other this time. At each round of the match, the players are ranked by their total win-loss record to date, simple sum of won games. Ties are decided by VPs for each rounds rankings. The ranking determines who plays who. A Swiss with 32 players can usually be decided in 5 rounds, meaning 5 games, but some overkill is better. 6 or 8 would probably serve. The more overkill, the easier it is to climb back from the bottom after a loss or two. You could have the finalists play the round, each against the others, in the "final four", and the last two play the same scenario twice as you planned. But getting to the final four could be the top records in a 6 or 8 round Swiss. That would cut the number of games the finalists would play in half, and allow the whole to be completed in 5-6 months. And 5 of those games would be finalists only, so people in the first part of the match would have a 3-4 month time commitment. To clarify, the "candidates" match would wind up being a series of 6-8 games, with the players with the best records facing players with progressively more stand-out records as the match proceeds. Those who lose a game in that "heat" fall back away from the top "seed" position, where the "heat" is presumably somewhat less, among players with less standout records to date. Compared to your proposal, the big time saver is just that each player only has to play one game in one of your rounds, instead of playing one each against all the players he is "foured" off with. The final four would be players with 8-0, 7-1, 7-1, and the best 6-2 record or whatever (best on VPs). Only those would round-robin as you have it now for each round. It is just a suggestion, but I think it might be more manageable to expect 3-4 months of play out of the "field". Coordinations of 40 people for 10 months do not work terribly well in my experience. I've had extensive experience in long-running PBEMs with up to 16 players lasting up to a year and change, and one generally finds that real life impacts some of them over that kind of time scale, and makes holes. Others are willing to continue but face temporary delays. Etc. It is just much more practical for a large number of people to keep the decks basically clear for 3 months, when things are mostly foreseeable, rather than 10 months where they are not. Use or discard as you see fit...

Combat essentials of a U.S. infantryman in WW II. Don't leave camp without it. rifle 2 extra ammo clips, loaded 200 rounds, boxed or in bandoliers helmet bayonet shovel 2-3 hand grenades 1 full canteen of water bandage pack and of course, the coat, clothes, boots, and whatever weather gear you are standing up in. In the case of a bazooka man, he might dispense with the rifle and ammo, or more likely get his loader to carry an extra M-1 carbine for him. Or he might pack a 45 instead. "Aw, what do you need a shovel for?" So the artillery doesn't kill you in the morning. Your new foxhole is going to be wherever the front is after this fight. No waiting, you dig in every night. "Aw, what do you need a full canteen for?" There aren't any drinking fountains in combat. You'll sweat enough to soak your shirt, even in the winter. As Kipling put it "if it comes to slaughter you will do your work on water - and you'll lick the blooming boots of him that's got it". And it has to be a full canteen, because a half-empty one will make sloshing noises. That is why everyone drinks from the same one until it is dry - every canteen is either dry or full. "Aw, what do you really need that helmet for?" The mortar round it will save you from. "Aw, what do you need a bayonet for? Old hat, never used". It is your utility knife, wire cutter, commo-wire stripper, hacksaw, all in one. You may also have to probe for mines with it. You need the bandage pack in case you or your loader's ass gets shot off, unless you'd rather bleed to death. You need the hand grenades to kill people who get too close to you, often out of sight and throwing the things at you, and one of them (if you are lucky) might be the smoke grenade that gets you out of Dodge alive. And you need the coat or you will freeze in the Ardennes, and you will probably get trenchfoot anyway, but who cares the Germans are going to kill you before then anyway. Then unless you are lugging a 15 lb bazooka, you will get some other useful job, because the above is not enough for one infanrtyman to carry into combat. Like, you can carry a bunch of bazooka rounds. Or a bunch of 60mm mortar rounds (the verticle version). Or a spare MMG barrel. Or part of its tripod. Or boxes of belted MG ammo. Or a box of grenades. Or if you are really lucky, the baseplate of a 60mm mortar, a solid slab of iron the size of the small of your back. Or a strap-on radio, that incidentally makes you a sniper-magnet. That is essentials. No comforts of home involved. If you want a couple of chocolate bars for energy or a pack of smokes, that is your own affair. If you aren't in a location nobody can get to at the end of the day, and if they find you, some rear echelon youknowwhatever will bring you your bedroll, socks, and canned rations by, say, 8 AM the next day, when it will do you loads of good. And what did the men say to each other about all of the above? "What more could you possibly want?"

Reply to Jeff's interesting post - It is interesting that the 8 rounds to kill figure is smack in the middle of the range I got by an entirely different estimation process, based almost exclusively on doctrines used, and cross checked with nothing more than some crude unit history report estimates on the back of an envelope. I also used a hits per kill range of 1.2 to 2.0 based on nothing more than my sense of such things from the unit histories, and you give British figures from detailed studies that have the Pz IV at the low end of that, the Sherman smack in the middle of it, and the Panther slightly above it. Not bad for the back of an envelope and some reasoning from doctrine, it seems to me. As for the Panther's excess, that is obviously its front armor superiority to the short 75, and in covered terrain, down narrow roads, etc. There weren't all that many Tigers in Normandy, but there certainly were some, and the higher number of hits to kill them is testimony to their superior side armor. Those ~2-3 hits on the dead Panthers were probably 1-2 front and one lethal one from the side. With the Tigers, obviously the side hits didn't get them so easily, even at such short ranges. (Flat side hits, it should have been possible even for the non-Fireflies that close, but at any angle to the side, tougher). As for the idea that the hits per kill probably went up after Normandy, I am not so sure about that. Yes, the engagement ranges certainly increased (although they also tended to the low in the Bulge, for woods - but not hedgerow low. The Brits were exactly in the hedgerows around Caen, though, either - but those are quibbles). But there are countervailing tendencies - 76 Shermans, improve TDs, and much more experienced U.S. tankers. That ought to have meant more flank shots and fewer frontal bounces from the heavier German makes. The hits to kill each Sherman or Pz. IV I doubt changed all that much. What longer ranges would do more readily, is reduce the hits per round. If the shots in the Normandy fighting were above average chance to hit for the war, which seems likely, then those may have seen 4 shots per kill rather than 8. That would mean roughly 30-50% hit chances really achieved. Considering some longer range shots, shooting through hedgerows, and above all cases of moving shooter and moving target, that does not seem at all absurd to me. On repeated firing into a tank to brew it up, I do not doubt it was done, but disagree entirely with the suggested motive. The tankers weren't trying to put the tank out of the war for good, in glorious fufillment of the 5 year plan from the great patriotic motherland. They were trying to make sure the bastard was dead, so it was not going to kill them, which they could not easily tell unless it was burning. But within limits. If they had other targets, they would not bother. And they'd rather recover the wrecks than burn them. They just didn't have time to worry about those sorts of things in combat. "Is it dead? Not sure, shoot it. Sure? You are sure it is dead?" "Yes I am bleeding well sure goddammit, now let's get the hell out of here!" But those rounds certainly got counted by the Brits in their hit to kill survey. They were not taking after action reports on when tank A ceased firing, but looking at the number of scars or holes in the wrecks. Incidentally, that is probably part of the reason the Shermans have more than 1 1/2 holes in them on average. I doubt the non-kill penetrations were any more common for the Shermans than the Pz IVs, considering the guns that were hitting them. I find the 8 rounds per kill figure highly plausible for all sorts of reasons. And I think it means the hit probability of most of the shots actually taken was in the range of 15-25%. In Normandy the hit chances were higher because the shot were closer, undoubtedly. Your comments were quite useful by the way, thanks for them.

"must include some out-and-out mistakes" Excess out and out mistakes at short range? That is easy. Not pausing to level the bubbles. A tank's gun is laid on the target by dialing in the proper range and elevation settings into the sight (while looking at the target of course, through the sight). So far so good. After that is done, the gunner has to move the barrel itself to match the direction his sight is pointing. The way that is done is by elevating and deflection screws or hydraulics, depending on the tank. Again, simple enough. But the way the match up between barrel and sight is measured as exact, is there are bubbles in tubes, like on a carpenter's level. When the bubble goes too far to one side, you move the barrel back the other way, and vice versa, until both bubbles, for deflection and elevation, are simultaneously centered in view in the center (marked) part of the tubes. But this is a time consuming and relatively tedious process. It is easy to see when the barrel is more or less aligned, as when you've dialed up the elevation enough that the bubble slides from one "side out" to the other "side out". Now, it seems to me with an enemy tank at 500 yards, this is the sort of thing a gunner would do in rather a bit of a hurry. Just a little, there. He is effectively counting on not needing to point so straight, and trading that for a few seconds on the speed of the shot. It is also a common error to align the sight, and think that doing so has put the gun on the target, or to adjust only the elevation or the deflection on the gun, after adjusting both on the sight. When I say "common error", I mean even today under training conditions with plenty of time and no threat. The commander catches such things, sometimes with a checklist or with a sign-song back and forth of orders given and responses called out when a task is finished and the next can begin. In training he does, most of the time, that is. At 500 meters, live or die by who fires next? I'd bet not leveling the bubbles was more common than leveling them.

Comment on the original question first - US tank platoons. I agree with other's comments, that there was no uniformity and the organization was ad hoc. The process is the tankers trying to get better tanks and keeping whatever they get, and supplimenting it with whatever tanks they can recover, while losing whatever they happen to lose. To understand the case of mixed vehicles 9as opposed to types of Shermans), it may help to know the layout of an armored division and its usually attached armor. It included 3 tank battalions, a TD battalion, and an armored recon battalion (in addition to mech infantry, arty, etc). The tank battalions had 3 companies of Shermans each, and usually 1 company of Stuarts as well. Sometimes one of these was attached to the armored recon battalion, sometimes the Stuarts and the recon battalion were parceled out to task forces. The TD battalion was usually used as an additional tank battalion. So, there are 150 odd Shermans in the TOE, plus 50 Stuarts, 36 tank destroyers, and 24 M-8s or so. They were usually under TOE but sometimes actually above it, because of recovered tanks they hadn't been authorized. It would not be terribly surprising, therefore, to see 1-2 TDs substituted for tanks, or an attached pair of Stuarts for local scouting, or 4 tanks or 6. Not because of doctrine, just because units effectively "owned" their tanks and gathered what they could. On the quality of tank crews and unit qualities generally, I have a few comments. The first is that in the west the quality of the German forces in general was much less uniform than the quality of the Allies, not the other way around. The reason is simple - Germany was scrapping the bottom the manpower barrel in the last year of the war. They had 60 year old men with old rifles in the Volksturm, and Polish and Russian POW levies in the static infantry divisions, and 15 and 16 year old kids in the Volksgrenadiers. Many of these were conscripts in the CM sense of the term - men who were civilians within a week of their first battle or had about that much training, physical stamina, or motivation. The youngsters typically gave a reasonable account of themselves, however, and they should usually be considered Green. And such recruits were by no means restricted only to the non "prestige" formations. The little brother brigade of the Gross Deutchland division was committed during the U.S. counterattack in the battle of the bulge, for example. They had fine tanks, a mixed battalion of IVs and Panthers, plenty of halftracks, automatic weapons. The troops were kids. They had been trained, but they were committed piecemeal during a crisis in the battle, their CO was killed by artillery shortly after they came into the line, and they rapidly got disheartened and performed poorly. Green at best. Many, probably most, of the soldiers who fought in the west had never attacked in their lives. They had generally good officers but also lots of crazy overhead red tape and infighting between services and branches, much worse than inter-Allied cooperation. Many formations had good cadres - veteran privates or NCOs who became the sergeants of rebuilt formations and led the raw recruits. In the good cases, these stiffened them enough to make them into regulars after first seeing some action. This was true of the SS formations too, which were not the elites people often mistakenly consider them. They were given good equipment for political reasons, certainly. And the physical health of the men was fine, unlike some of the Volksgrenadiers. But they were not selected for military ability and often refused to learn anything from the vastly more experienced regular army officers. They were given high profile missions with lots of the best material, and proceeded to take disproportionately high losses in combat. The best formations in the army were the panzer, panzergrenadier, and motorized infantry divisions of the regular army, often identified by their "old" army division numbers (2 digits, not the 3xx VG ones). These were regular to veteran, with the lower designations only merited in the case of divisions gutted by combat and recently rebuilt. Their cadres were outstanding and generally so were their junior officers. They plugged the holes. To their number should be added the German parachute infantry, all picked men in good physical condition and well led. The story of the Brits is a regular army with some veteran units, unable to replace losses anymore. Over the course of the campaign, the result was the army became more veteran but also more understrength compared to its TOE. Other than the first few weeks after D-Day and Indian units fighting in Italy, none of them are green. They were somewhat hampered in practice by less than inspired generalship, which was in part a function of the extreme reluctance of the politicians to tolerate additional losses. Both for its own sake, and also because they knew Britain could not replace them and its role and bargaining position after the war depended on the size of its army then. Many individual units, like the airborne, the all-volunteer Canadian force, and some others, were veteran to crack by late 44. The U.S. varied more than the Brits but much less than the Germans. The reason is that it was feeding in a continuous stream of replacements, but these were still high quality men in their prime and had decent training, and their cadres were getting better at integrating them into the force. Some of the units were veterans before D-Day, notable the 1st Infantry division. The airborne divisions had also been blooded and were high quality men, but probably only regulars on D-Day. They were vets by the time of Market-Garden and the Bulge. Most of the army was green in Normandy through invasion and St. Lo battles, but became regulars in the Normandy fighting. They became veterans, many of them, in the fight at the west wall, in Hurtgen and the Lorraine. But other formations were being bled enough to remain just regulars. The U.S. had the flexibility to rotate units off the line or to quieter parts of it to rebuild after losses. Units in the midst of this process are the only ones in the army in late '44 that deserve the "green" designation. That includes many of the formations hit in the Bulge, of course. They are certainly not "conscripts". In the counterattack stage of the Bulge, both the 3rd army from the south and the men attacking from the west were veterans, especially in the armored divisions. After the Bulge, the army is regular to veteran pretty much across the board for the rest of the war. One man's opinions...

"I cleared ¾ of the map" And killed, I bet, 3/4 or more of the defending force in the process. You think it is a successfully unbloody fight but you are only looking at one side of it. Losing ~3/4 of an infanry company, if the defender's core force for the operation is that infantry company, is the end of that operation. And the defender did in your example, I'll bet. There is nothing stopping you from playing at the same pace in operations games of 30 turns. Because that is only .4 times as long as you took, you probably would have cleared only 30% of the map in the process. As a result, the defenders probably would have taken only 25-33% casualties. You'd take some ground, and you'd keep your losses low, and he'd lose something more serious, and that would be a victory. In the next fight for the same city blocks, you would not be signicantly weaker and he would be. But what would not happen is the defenders sitting there to be ground to sawdust without either pulling out or calling up reserves. It might be after the bloody nose you gave them, they wouldn't feel the least bit interested in making you expend another 40 careful minutes on the next several blocks, killing them in the process. They might prefer to high-tail it to the high ground outside the city and call in Hans the British armor specialist to shore up their crumbling front. The net result of your 40 extra turns was not to enable care on your part, because you could have played just as carefully for less time with good effect. The result of the extra turns was to turn your local success and a 25-33% lose of a limb for the defenders, into an entire body crush of the enemy force, which magically did not have any choice but to stand and die, because you put a turn counter at 70 (or didn't limit it, whatever). Operations are not one sided things.

If the "we" question was asked of me, I meant by it we gamers, we modern armchair tacticians, we designers, historians, modern vets wondering what the old days were like before guidance systems, and the whole sick crew. As for the other fellow's comments on saving crew stuff for later, I do not look at it that way at all. We know the misses occurred, as an absolute fact. The entire detective story is what caused them, and the reason to pin that down is to get right things like how accuracy decreases with range as opposed to crew quality or environmental conditions, etc. The analysis many of you are focused on basically starts from physics and perfection and goes forward. I mentioned a number of the factors involved there in my last. But my overall approach is not to speculate on crew psychology, but to establish the historical benchmark of fact from other known facts (besides physics) and from doctrine. I think I can get pretty good estimates for overall accuracies and even break them down by ranges that way, roughly. I will illustrate the matter more below. But the point is that it is not necessary to isolate the particular physical factors that caused each miss, if one has a decent estimate of the overall rate of them from all causes. I start from the simple observation of the ammo loads the sides bothered to supply to their tanks. 30 to 50 AP rounds was standard. Why? Not because they expected each tank to despatch 30 to 50 of the enemy, certainly. They would plan for "runs", of luck or skill or positioning, certainly. Imagine extremely crudely that which tank wins a duel is a coin toss. Then 1/8 can be expected to win 3 duels in a row, and so on. Beyond 4 or 5 such "heads", the chances are so small that it will have little impact on how well the whole army does, what happens in those cases. Similarly, doctrinal tank platoon sizes are an obvious ammo-load "target" level, again 4-5 tanks. If a well situated tank of yours can despatch an entire platoon of the enemy's if it gets lucky, that is "enough". So, it is reasonable to assume that 30-50 rounds were expected to be able to destroy 4-5 tanks. That puts the number of shots expected per kill at 6-12, it being understood that a quite optimistic case of the lucky tank winning its duels is involved. Then there should be a correction factor for the expected number of hits to knock a vehicle out. An upper bound on that is probably 2 hits, and a lower bound might expect 1/5 hits to be non-lethal. Then 3-10 shots are expected per hit. Thus, we can derive as a best case or upper bound of what the historical participants expected or planned for, that hit probabilities for individual shots would usually, or in good cases, be in the 10-33% range. At what distance? The maximum effective range the Germans expected from their tanks was about 2.5 kilometers, and in the early war and the Allies, often expected ranges in the 1-1.5 kilometer range. From these bounds, it is relatively easy to guess that a typical regular crew would average about 33% hit probability at 1000 yards, with 10-15% typical for 2000 yards (in the case of guns meant for that range). 20-25% might be expected at ~1500 yards. Between 1000 yards and 500, the hit probability would certainly rise - it might double. Between 500 and point blank, it would rise sharply to almost 100%. These higher lethality ranges would be comparatively rare, expect in environmental conditions that depress the accuracies again (fog, night), precisely because the men would not relish the greater danger involved. That is going to be about the right answer, in terms of the level of lethality of the weapons. It would apply for a non-moving shooter, a non-moving target, a regular crew not in any panic or shocked state, unbuttoned, average tank-sized target, with an averagely accurate gun. Gun improvements would raise the figures perhaps 5-10%, not more, because gun ballistics are probably not the cause of most of the misses. Poor guns would detract by equal amounts, perhaps a bit more, especially at ranges that are far for the gun in question. Target motion would cut the figures in half. Firing motion would eliminate the hit chances altogether beyond 500 yards without gyros, and beyond 1000 yards even with them, and cut them in half in the remaining cases. Hull down would reduce the hit chances 1/3 to 1/2, and the target size would affect it roughly proportional to the target cross section. Crew states would halve the figures or eliminate fire altogether, except perhaps under 500 meters at a threat. Being buttoned would have a modest effect, 5-10% (its real effect is on spotting in the first place). Crew qualities would have fixed size 5-10% effects, with the result that they would make a large proportional difference in range shots while making relatively little (proportional) difference in short range ones. Crew quality would also effect rate of fire, obviously. So a standard gun able to hit at 2000 yards - say a Panther's - might have only a 10% hit chance at that range. But a crack crew might make that 15% - a very large relative improvement at that range. At a moving target, though, the hit chance would fall to ~1/13, and some might not be kills. A platoon of Panthers firing at range would still be knocking out approaching T-34s, out of range, every couple of minutes. About right. Now, that is already a reasonable set of approximate hit chances, which could easily be adapted to every sort of gun with minor changes. Without needing much in the way of physics, just common sense and awareness of doctrine and unit history historical realities, and some familiarity with trying to get guns to hit targets these days. System design is not about physical engineering. The purpose is not to establish some particular thesis about the cause of missed tank-round shots in WW II. The purpose is to provide accurate enough average hit chances varying correctly with range, to match the known tactical and doctrinal facts of the period, and the real events we know happened. And in case nobody gets it yet, we know that average crews did not hit almost all of the time in shots at ~1 kilometer range. There would never have been any live tanker vets otherwise, given the number of shells we know they fired at each other. I hope this is helpful.

Actually, the standard US squads do have more firepower than the standard German ones. It is special German squads with high numbers of SMGs that are more effective in close combat. Those squad types are reasonably common, it is true. The ones with 2 MG42s in them also have good ranged firepower, but the others are worse than the U.S. standard squads at longer range (200 meters e.g.). CM players probably overestimate the number of troops with the high SMG weapon mix and undoubtedly buy them more often than their historical counterparts could field them. Over the war as a whole, the Germans fielded about 12 million rifles and less than 1.5 million SMGs of all types. MGs were even less common. For the whole-war average, 60 German infantry would by armed with 2 MGs, 6 SMGs, and 52 rifles. In CM, one often sees platoons of 40 men with up to 7 MGs and up to 25 SMGs, which is roughly 6 times as many automatic weapons per man as the German average over the whole war. The portion armed with automatic weapons certainly rose over time, and special SMG heavy units were fielded with way more than their share. But even for the date, CM players are probably taking forces equipped with 2-3 times the average number of automatic weapons the German army actually had at that stage of the war. If you want to see more realistic results and the players agree beforehand, allow the German player to buy the heavy-auto infantry types, but only with say 25% of his overall points. If he uses a vehicle heavy force, he will be able to do that with mostly automatic weapon infantry. In an infantry heavy force, he will have to use some portion of rifle armed units. The Volksgrenadiers have rifle squad types as well as the SMG ones, and the other types can use the standard 44 and 45 rifle squads. German practice was to use automatic armed platoons or companies in a counterattack role, so some units equipped that way is perfectly historical. It is only CM players never taking anything else that strains credulity and gets old after a while.

Gravity and range estimate is one source of error that gets progressively tougher with range. Another issue is target motion. In the examples given, the guns has a flight time to the 500m target of .56 to .71 seconds, right? Well, if the target is moving laterally 6m/sec, that is a 10-13 foot miss (3-4 meters) - turrets are smaller than that, but it is a hull-down issue probably. Or if the gunner leads that much and the tank stops. At 2 kilometers, the flight time may be 2 seconds, and the distance the target covers during the flight of the projectile will typically be greater than its length. In addition, at distances over 1 mile, target motion usually is often not evident (think of highways and you will see this is true - optics help but the speeds are also lower than cars on a highway). Next there is the error in the dialed in deflection and range. Those will often be off by a "mil", sometimes by two. That matters more for artillery dispersion - the distances covered by direct fire weapons is short enough that the pointing problem is not all that hard. An error term of a few meters will nevertheless creep in here. In addition, there will be small alignment errors, the optical sights not being perfectly aligned with the tube (especially after many shots and the accompanying recoils, or long travel cross country, etc). Again a few meters. Then there is the dispersion of shot from the gun itself, just from its ballistics. That varies from gun to gun, obviously. Last, there is the tendency to fire rapidly rather than to calmly ensure the gun is fully laid on the target before firing, a "heat of battle" effect that will result in shots with the gunner thinking the range or deflection is "close enough" rather than perfect. I think 90% at 500 meters as a maximum accuracy for a crack crew would be quite generous. Regulars at 1000 meters, I think more like 50% is a better ballpark to be in. Here is another way to think about it. The rival combatants built and deployed 50,000 (German) to 200,000 AFVs (roughly 1/2 Russian and 1/2 American-made), loaded them with 30-50 AP shot apiece in a single combat load, then smashed them against each other repeatedly and in the process expended several times the combat load of each tank in ammo. And the victors had tens of thousands of AFVs left intact (or recovered, to be sure) at the end. That implies an enourmous portion of the AP rounds fired, were fired at ranges (or other battlefield conditions - smoke, concealment, etc) producing a hit probability in single digits, or the low double digits at most. Otherwise none of the tanks would have driven off the field, or the basic ammo loads would have lasted the whole war. Another item - in a 3 month period in Russia, the Germans confirmed around 5000 tank kills. Only about 500 of these were scored with the infantry weapons of all types, most of those infantry kills by Panzerfaust. But the Germans deployed 7.4 million Panzerfausts against a total of around 200,000 Allied tanks and tank destroyers. Most of them obviously were not fired at tanks - probably were not fired at all - many of those that were fired were probably fired at houses or bunkers, despite being relatively unsuited to it. It was certainly not the case that each deployed Panzerfaust translated into even a 3% chance of a dead enemy tank, or there wouldn't have been any Allied tanks left. The proper percentage was probably about 0.2%. Some of that will reflect use on other targets, perhaps enough to raise it into the 0.5%-1% range. And a large portion will reflect Fausts that just never got close enough to be fired. But the hit chances for the shots that were taken were probably in the 5-10% range, not the 50% range. There is a general tendency in wargames to model weapon lethality based on abstract ideas of physical effectiveness. In practice, one sees that lethality is far lower, and is puzzled as to why. In some cases, it will reflect people not using their weapons at all (as Marshall famously found). But in most, the cause is probably that men in combat are far less willing to expose themselves to extreme danger than wargame designers - or generals for that matter - expect them to be. And that means many more shots are taken at extreme ranges, in low probability situations. The participants seek safety in many low probability shots themselves, to disable an enemy long before they themselves are exposed to a high probability of a return "kill" from a single shot. Otherwise put, the historical participants did not mash themselves together as aggressively as we do. And they missed a lot more than we sometimes think, in part because it it. The proof is in the ammo expended vs. the targets it was expended at, many of which came through unscathed.

"a little hole in thin armor of Nashorn, goes through and exits to open air behind it. So i still can not see how Nashorn can explode." How is it even possible? That easy. Ammo. The part of the armor that used to be where that little hole now is, is flying bits molten metal spraying back into the gun. The working area around the gun is full of 88mm shells. 2 + 2 = bye bye. But I tend to agree with you that the lethality of low caliber rounds that successfully penetrate is too high in CM generally. There should be more successful penetrations that result in shock, a crew casualty, or the gun disabled (optics go e.g.), plus a number of "abandoned" results (recoverable between operation battles that is) - and fewer brew up, total losses. As for the accuracy of the M-8 fire, on the move they should not hit much. Stopped, it is an accurate gun with a high ROF. But 1 kilometer (+) is indeed near its rated effective range, so its accuracy should degrade somewhat. By comparison, the 88 is in easy distance with its ballistics and optics. Compared to shooting T-34s on the steppe, the target is smaller and was probably moving around the same speed or faster, but the range was considerably lower than most such engagements. That should make the shot easier, I agree (although a closer shot at a moving target does mean a faster angle change to track it). The main problem using truly long range AT weapons historically in CM is that the battlefields are not large enough to show their true role, shooting from a couple of miles behind the front line. Used up close (nearly everything in CM is "up close" in these terms), they have to be used with "keyhole" sighting to survive.

The beastie is essentially an 88 on a flat-bed chassis. Think of them as artillery pieces, not tanks. They are however able to move themselves around, and have thin armor to stop small arms fire (like MGs, nothing more). They are also huge. The targets you were shooting at were very small things and probably moving rather fast. Hitting a small target moving rather fast is not what these things are best at. They are best at punching very large holes in the side of big things sitting still at long range. The ideal target for your guns is a stationary tank. Naturally, you will not always get ideal targets. But those M-8s you targeted are bait more than anything, and you rose to it. With thinly armored, overgunned and under-protected weapons, like these and other TDs and SP AT guns (Marder, Allied Jackson or Achilles, etc), it is best to site them in places that the whole enemy force cannot see. The way such weapons protect themselves, is that pick out only a small portion of the enemy force by a restricted line of sight, then out-shoot everything along that restricted line of sight. The idea is to reduce the incoming, return fire. So you do not want them in places were each of them sees everything, and everything sees them (once they fire I mean). Then wait for targets that are worth it, big targets (or close if they are small), and preferably not moving. The same ambush principles apply with towed anti-tank guns. Your problem was probably trying to use them like tanks. That doesn't work because they are not armored like tanks, as you quickly learned.

I don't see any reason for you not to have the option, but I can tell you that and why it will not work as you imagine. The truth of the matter is all CM players are bloody and reckless by real historical terms, for the obvious reason that they are playing with bits, not facing death before nightfall. In long scenarios, the entire force on the map will generally kill or be killed. There will thus rarely be a next time, and this not for historical reasons of the deadliness of weapons or anything of the kind, but simply because CM players do not face anything remotely like the same reluctance to press in and get killed that the historical commanders did, in longer battles. You could put it this way - rally is too easy and to complete in CM game terms. That works fine for battles of a certain scale. But stretch a battle to an hour and the game system is going way outside the parameters it was designed for, and realism will go down as a result. In single scenarios, this doesn't matter very much because the game is going to be over with a winner at the end of the scenario. If overkill results or sides do not tire or become cautious as rapidly as they actually would, so what? It makes little difference to the overall outome. But half the point of operations instead of single fight scenarios, is to put the proper level of emphasis on force preservation. Historical fights were in general much less bloody than CM simulations of them - something that is true BTW for just about every simulation. The instinct for self-preservation is always less than it was in reality. If you make 1 hour battles and string 6-8 of them together, what will happen is that force preservation will quickly become an entirely impossible task for whichever side weakens first. The side winning will have unrealistically long to pursue its edge with unrealistically high aggressiveness. It will take higher than historical losses doing so, but the other side will feel the effect even more strongly, and be effectively wiped out sometime in the second half of one of the middle battles. Virtually all of your operations will end in that fashion, one way or the other. But that is not at all what actually happened historically. The average loser of a battle of the scale of an operation in CM terms, lost less than half of their total force, with the rest living to fight another day, even if they lost the operation in question pretty decisively. So, I do not see any reason for you not to have the control-knob to dial as you wish, but I predict that you will see from it just what the designers saw in their testing. That dialing it past 30 reduces realism in operational scale fights, rather than increasing it. One man's opinion.

I thought people might be interested in a thread on sample units. The idea is not purism about historical TOEs, nor game effectiveness in CM terms, but something between the two. More like the first, but some adaptation to CM point costs and effective groups. An example was the question about U.S. armored infantry formations a fellow asked about on another thread. The idea is to have people suggest forces for different scales in terms of points and different arms of the different countries. To start, I provide some U.S. cavalry-recon sample forces. They are meant to represent the front line forces of a typical U.S. armored cavalry battalion, like those attached to most U.S. divisions, at the scale of CM fights. They might be added to other units in larger battles, too, attached (especially for the smaller units). The costs given assume regulars and 1945 squads. U.S. Armored recon platoon - 400 points 2xM-8 scout cars 5xM-20 scout cars 1xplatoon HQ 2xrifle squad (split 'em) 2xbazooka team For a 500-point battle alone, replace one of the M-20s with a single Tank Destroyer - M-10, M-18, or M-36. If you pick the M-10 you can add another bazooka team or sharpshooter. U.S. cavary troop - The basic idea is 3x the above, then add 1x105mm artillery FO 1xCompany HQ 2xM-20 scout cars Cost 1500 points. In a 2000 point battle alone, add a TD platoon of 4 M-10s, M-18s, or M-36s, and add a couple of mortar carriers if you take cheaper TDs. They will be more flexible in the smaller unit in CM terms. 1500-2000 points on scouts is overkill in the CM game scale, but if you want to see how such a battle would go you could try it. Lots of lightly armored, mobile 50 cal firepower, with infantry "eyes" and ambushers, and a few more serious AT weapons. The 500 point force is a reasonable addition to many other U.S. force types.

I agree with the last comment. The sandbags probably made no difference whatever vs. high velocity AP shells. But HEAT rounds depend on a detonation a certain distance from the armor plate, and the nose-cone of a Panzerfaust or Schreck shell was specifically designed to have the right distance for maximum penetration. (The explosive in the warheads is some distance from the front of the shell with those). An added 6 inches of distance between detonating HEAT round and the armor would reduce the focus of the explosion. And sand is lousy at stopping an AP round, but quite useful to dissipate an explosive jet of hot gas (it is heat-resistent, it "gives", etc). I bet the tankers knew quite well from the hedgerow experiences what Panzerfausts could do and what sandbags could do against them. Remember, in the Normandy fighting, the U.S. was attacking through the bocage and getting ambushed by fausts at very close range regularly. It was the Brits that face most of the German armor. But the Americans were the ones that went whole hog for sandbags. The game effect ought to be to reduce the effectiveness of HEAT rounds only - at a cost in mobility, ground pressure, and acceleration (hp/ton). Whether the CM engine can handle that, I don't know.

Realistically, the mortar guys have 1xSMG, 2xCarbine, 3xM-1, and the MG crews have 1xSMG, 1xCarbine, 2xM-1. Half-squads without BARs, or the FP of a HQ unit more or less. And yes, historically they did fight with those arms after running out of their mortar ammo, but not always. What is often really going on, though, is that half of the team is not actually where the weapon is, both for mortar teams and for MG teams. They are on a hump carrying ammo forward or hiking to the rear to get more. The mortar or MG itself can be run by 2 men, and there is a sergeant in the team who would usually be directing the fire. The others are out getting stuff, like as not, and sometimes the sergeant is with them. It is not too unrealistic, therefore, to show them unarmed for close combat. The reality is they could defend themselves and sometimes turned into an added half-squad, but if they were represented that way players would *always* use them that way, have every man present, etc, which would be less realistic not more so. The time when the current system is annoyingly unrealistic is when the weapons teams are not being misused, but get rushed by enemy infantry after their ammo is gone or their MG is jammed, since they do not defend themselves at all. In reality, they would, at least the ~1/2 of the men actually present, with light small arms and grenades. As for tank crews, there was always 1 SMG and a number of grenades available to a tank crew, as well as the pistols. And certainly, the men often armed themselves with carbines or SMGs. But they also were not trained infantrymen, and almost never took a serious part in a battle after bailing out. Again, the only unrealistic situation is how easily they get wiped out in close assault by line enemy infantry squads. But probably many in that situation surrendered. IN CM, the right way to handle a bailed tank crew or mortar team out of ammo, is just to keep them safe and move them to the rear and out of the battle when that can safely be done. They are enemy VPs on the hoof. Occasionally a crew should hide instead and "pass on" sighting reports ("by runner" I suppose - not entirely realistic but what hey). Don't try to use them in a gamey fashion and you are less likely to get them killed. To actually protect e.g. a mortar platoon position, though, it is best to tell off one line infantry squad to cover them, broken into half-squads to cross-fire their front, or assisting a nearby MG position to accomplish the same thing. Realistically the mortarmen should be able to provide that level of security themselves, but in CM they do not, so you have to adapt practices to fill the need.

On the history, light AA was regularly pressed into a front-line role. With the allies, that was because of lack of air targets, and often they were mounted on halftracks or even the backs of trucks. Quad 50 cal and 40mm Bofors were both used this way. Each U.S. armored division usually had a light AAA battalion attached to it, and so could parcel out these guns to every mobile column, with some to spare for reserve or HQ/Supply AA protection just in case. With the Germans it is a somewhat different story. They made lots of light AA, most of it 20mm single mounts, some larger guns or multiple mounts. Very few of those were the actual purpose-built Ostwind and Whirlewind on the fully tracked chassis. Those were assigned to armor divisions, and typically meant to provide air defense to the forward columns. Much more common were ad hoc SP AA versions made out of halftracks or trucks, in the mobile divisions. These protected the supply columns, and the rest of the forces besides the armored spearheads. They were certainly pressed into a firefight support role, especially on defense. The line infantry generally could not afford to use up its vehicles that way. But they did have light AA gun mounts - they were supposed to be assigned 12 single 20mm and 4 heavier or multiple mounts in a division, as its light Flak battalion. But that means a front line battalion-level fight might have 2 20mm AA guns, not 10 of the things. On the eastern front in particular, the Germans pressed light artillery of every description into the forward combat role, to try to hold off more numerous Russian infantry attacks in particular. It is not uncommon to read of fights in Russia with the Germans defending, with the line infantry supported by infantry guns, anti-tank guns, light AA, and mortars, with 2-4 of each type sometimes, supporting a single understrength infantry company. More commonly, 1-2 types with 2-4 guns of each type. To understand why, each of those items was present in battalion strength (3 4-gun batteries or thereabouts) in a typical infantry division. The guns tended to live while the infantry took higher losses, because of the range differences. The guns would keep firing until the Russians got reasonably close (500-1000 yards), then pull out and survive, while the infantry often did not manage to pull out. As a result, after a while a division in heavy action would be 1/2 or 1/3 rated strength in infantry, it would be more like 2/3rd or 3/4s of its rated strength in the light artillery. The thing to avoid over expoiting in CM QB terms is purchases of more cheap items than a force of a given size could actually be expected to have. 4 guns of any type in the game is perfectly reasonable, as a regular battery. In larger fights, 4 each of two types might happen. Not counting mortars, which might be present in numbers up to 6, or might be represented by an FO. Taking more guns than that for a battalion-sized battle is not realistic. Naturally, if people like no-holds barred QB fights, that is their preference and their own affair and fine. But if you are after some degree of realism, then put some mutually-agreed limits on buying tons of cheap effective units, by purchasing them in realistic numbers for the overall size of the battle. As for how to actually deal with the light AA guns, the most effective way to suppress them is artillery or mortar fire. Being indirect, that can be delivered by something they can't shoot back at. Next is to shell them with real tanks that are facing them and buttoned - Shermans not M-8s or Stuarts or M-10s. The front armor on a Sherman is quite completely proof against actual penetration by 20mm rounds, although exterior damage is certainly possible. There is nothing proof about an AA gun vs. 75mm HE. Third best is to suppress the crew with MG fire, especially 50 cal fire, from numerous sources and different directions. They can fire back at you then, certainly, but both sides are vunerable in that kind of shoot-out. For what it is worth...

Well, if you want a formula for it, you could use this - 2 Jeeps 20 M3 Halftracks 6 MMG (5 man) 6 Bazooka team 6 60mm Mortar (* see below) 8-9 rifle squad 4 platoon HQ 1 company HQ 1 105mm FO * - *or* replace 3 M3s and all the 60mm Mortar teams with 3 Mortar Carrier HTs, saves 51 points (fewer but bigger mortars, mounted). Cost as regulars, 1944 squad types - 1657 points (1606 with Mortar Carrier variant). The 1945 types are only a few points more, and those work better split into half squads because then each gets a squad automatic weapon. Optional attached Engineer Platoon - Add 3 trucks, 3 engineer squads, 1 platoon HQ, 1 Jeep - 220 points extra. A company of armored infantry like that, regulars, winds up costing about the same as a tank company with 15 plain vanilla Shermans, or a TD company with 4 M8 Scout Cars and 12 M10 Tank Destroyers, or a straight-leg foot infantry battalion with 81mm mortar support but no vehicles. If you "attrite" any of those units a little you can get them down to the 1500 point level, or you can pad them up to 2000 points with room for a few supporting forces (some sort of vehicle support for the leg infantry, tanks for the armored infantry, some leg guys for scouting and close defense with the armored companies, whatever). About half the cost of the armored infantry is the vehicles, so if you dismount them for defense and add perhaps 3x50 cal. + 3x30 cal MGs additional to reflect MGs deployed off of the HTs, you can get a cheaper but less mobile force. Might make the MMG teams 3 man in that case too, to reflect the personnel needed to man the extra MGs. Keeping the 105mm arty support, that works for a 1000 point battle. You will have tons of weapons teams in that case, and relatively few line squads, so you may wind up using half squads a lot. But dug in, on the defense, the MG firepower would be pretty awesome in open country for just a company-sized force. An armored combined arms task force would be a mounted armored infantry company with its engineer platoon attached, a company of 15 Shermans, the 105mm support FO with the armored infantry, and a platoon of Stuarts or M-8s for scouting up ahead. That would run 4000 points all told (more if you try to buy upgraded Shermans), a huge force - ~40 armored vehicles and 5 soft-skin ones. In reality, there would be more soft-skin trucks and jeeps in the tail of the unit, too. An armored "combat command" was 3 of those puppies, and an armored division 3 combat commands.

"Hide", as I understand the command, is used exactly to exercise fire discipline. It means an order not to fire, to wait for the enemy to get closer, so as not to give away the location of the hiding unit. When the enemy is close enough and you want to engage him, give the order to "stop hiding" and the bushwhacker lying in wait will open up. An ambush marker may have a similar effect. Understand, if hide did not have this effect then nothing else would. There is no other way to tell a unit *not* to fire, so as not to give itself away yet. In the example given, the guns were obviously hiding pretty darn well, to not be spotted until they were 25 yards away! But the CO involved should have told them to open up at 200 meters or whatever, by changing their order to "stop hiding", etc

The described behavior sounds like a dumb decision by the AI. The difficulty is in figuring out how the AI ought to act, so as to take into account such situations, and particularly how to do so without leaving itself open to other errors or exploitable weaknesses caused by predictability. None of which means the AI must be expected to be super smart. It seems to me the issue is memory and a threat picture. There are some things that should obviously override past events or current orders, but others are a murkier bit of middle ground. And part of the problem is obviously the timeliness of actions vs. delay and memory, related issues. When a unit has an enemy unit in sight *that is dangerous to itself*, it is proper for it to *pick one*, commit to it, and engage that unit the best it can. The point of "commit" is to avoid AI errors based on wavering. When, on the other hand, a unit has an enemy in sight that is not dangerous to itself, but only to other friendly units, the procedure needs to be a bit more complicated than the above. Simply passing to the "next most dangerous unit" allows the sort of distraction mistake Jeff evidently encountered. Instead, the unit ought to have some sort of internally remembered threat picture. Units that it cannot see that are dangerous to it need to be handled with some care, even if not currently sighted. The rule might be, remember units dangerous to yourself for 2 minutes after seeing them, unless you see them destroyed yourself / confirmed. Then the facing rule is - dangerous to self plus in sight plus currently committed to, then dangerous to self plus in sight, then dangerous to self and remembered. Next, dangerous to others but not self and in sight, etc. When in doubt, default to player orders - focus on the unit or direction closest to the line of the last rotate or move command the player gave. The difficulty is to see just where it becomes necessary to override player orders and react to new information. The idea of what I am suggesting above, is that the criteria essentially be current or recent danger to self. Essentially, the idea is that a small delay until the next orders phase is an acceptable delay, for engaging a target that is dangerous only to other friendly troops, not to the unit itself. This *will* mean a loss of some degree of coordination between units, between phases. But that may be realistic anyway. If memory of threats is too difficult for the AI to handle, given the number of units and the possible complexities of the different "threat pictures" (any angle, some units dangerous from some angles or ranges but not others, etc, etc), then an alternate solution might be - do not depart more than say 30 degrees from the direction of movement or rotation or fire the player last selected (whichever he ordered last), unless in response to a seen threat that is dangerous to self. Just some suggestions, for whatever they are worth...

"the "world according to jasoncawley@ameritech.net routine"." Right, what do I know, I was only in the artillery...