LongLeftFlank

Never thrown a hand grenade or seen one detonated, but I always wondered whether one was really powerful enough to sever a track link or disable a road wheel. It's fairly clear that it isn't the fragmentation that does that; is it a thermal or blast effect or what?

Ah another of those lofty moralists who would have died of tick typhus and starvation in a KZ had the Nazis won. Hindsight makes everything crystal clear.

'Course you're assuming the very first notice the Sherman crew had was the shell whistling by. But that said, most folks here generally agree that tanks are preternaturally aware of their surroundings.

Not a bad idea if it's indeed simple. Although I rather doubt it would materially boost sales.

Go visit Normandy in Google Maps sometime and drag the little person icon onto one of the back roads. They've ripped down most of the bocage, but there's still enough of it around and it hasn't changed much since '44. In the foreground, you can readily see what I mean. Portions of this section are impenetrable, but move a few yards and you can find a spot to wheel a tank up a bank and poke a gun through. Believe me, that's typical. You will rarely get more than 20 yards without some kind of gap. Don't get me wrong; I'm be all in favour of more varied terrain, but I'd vote for a dense LOS-blocking thicket of young trees -- a ubiquitous and sorely needed feature -- before I added another flavour of bocage.

First, remember that not all High Bocage is in fact 6-8 foot earthen mounds topped with a solid wall of impenetrable hedge, like some kind of maze. It's vegetation and there are gaps and irregularities aplenty; stuff dies or gets damaged by shells. Note that doesn't contradict any of the accounts of the hedgerow fighting -- even an imperfect wall makes it bloody difficult for units to cross or fight through. The holes that exist are known and covered. Yes, the game engine might be a little simplistic; you'd expect that even if there was a gap, the field of fire of a tank gun poking through would be pretty poor (e.g. gray target line?). But if BFC needs to choose between "no LOS at all" and a little too much, I prefer the latter. One man's opinion

But not both... Uhh, at least she looked 18, but really, how can you tell, you know? I mean, I swear to you, I thought the schoolgirl uniform was just for show! (beads of sweat appear)

Whose Sophia-Loren-in-a-bustier mod are you using?

If I recall my Cajus Bekker correctly (season to taste), there was a communications failure at multiple levels -- the two waves of bombers were supposed to have been called off. That said, the centre of Rotterdam was very much a legitimate military target by the standards of the day, with active port facilities and key road and rail bridges. The fact that it had been isolated by the advance of German ground forces and that was now militarily untenable wasn't necessarily readily evident. The notoriety of the bombing was because it was the first time Western Europe had seen a city severely bombed, although Warsaw and Guernica had put everyone on alert for that. What everyone was really worried about was poison gas, of course. Seem to recall a few Whitleys dumped some bombs into the center of Freiburg during the sitzkrieg period and Goebbels made a lot of froth about the "murdered children", swore revenge, etc. So the stage was set.

I dunno, I'd personally vote for more spurious sound contacts, not fewer. More FOW, concealment, etc. = better, at least on higher settings. You almost can't have enough IMHO.

Well this reminds me of the old story of the preacher and the farmer (basically "bringing a tank to a knife fight), but hey, if it keeps you away from the flying saucer stuff John, go ahead. I guess I lean more towards the empirical test: "what would you need to believe for the shell to hit trees 40m away" but if you can dig up a manual then rock on! Bonus points if it contains cartoons with naked chix....

Certainly true, but platitudes like "war is hell and all warriors to some extent become war criminals" get used to support the noxious revisionist agendas of certain people along the lines of "well yes, Hitler was evil and a madman (he lost) but frankly we Germans have had enough of this collective guilt thing because (a) the scale of Nazi crimes has been greatly exaggerated ("denialism") and ( we Germans didn't do anything the Allied powers wouldn't have done in our place, and © here's some distorted made up allegations to support that like shelling German towns into ruins for a single sniper, depriving Germans of food postwar (delaying the Marshall Plan), systematic looting, torturing and/or executing prisoners or starving them to death en masse, starving the entire population of Bengal in 1944, Nisei concentration camps, lynching black soldiers, blah blah blah. Oh, and that whole thing we've been discussing around "Terror Bombing" Which is why anyone who cares about history or our shared civilization and humanity, regardless of what uniform his ancestors wore, must speak out and say, no it wasn't the same at all. A great civilization (Germany) simply went mad in the 20th century, and it needs to be a cautionary tale to all of us, but especially to them. To quote Martin Amis, that is what the Holocaust demands of us.

Reluctant to wade back into this, but in the 1939-42 period Hitler and the Nazi leadership had been making extravagant public promises to the German populace that the war would not significantly affect the civilian economy, bombing included -- "You can call me Meier!" etc. Considering their willingness to murder any and all political opponents, real or imagined, the Nazis were strangely sensitive to popular opinion, and this did not go unnoticed in Britain. Also, Hamburg is the closest major German city to England; it was a comparatively easy target for a large raid, and easy to find on a river at night -- you didn't need Pathfinders, OBOE, etc. That said, I think there were also "thousand bomber raids" in 1943 on Cologne and Berlin IIRC, maybe others too.

I resemble that remark!

For those who can't follow John or me, basic geometry would suggest you wouldn't hit trees 40m out (assuming those trees aren't taller than about 130 feet, which is a pretty tall tree) if your gun elevation is 45deg (right triangle) or greater. So the question becomes, do these variable charges John speaks of mean that fire against targets 400m distant is on a flattish trajectory (<45) or an extremely high trajectory (plunging fire) that determines the minimum indirect fire range of the gun?

So John, what's the verdict? Would a Lg18 with 73deg max elevation repeatedly smack trees (not redwoods) 40m downrange while shooting at a target 450m away?

Keep in mind too that there's a fair sized Russian audience for this game and they want to play with their good toys too: 85mm, Stalins, etc., as opposed to being faceless bolshevik hordes for German fanbois to mow down. Pushing it back to '43 or '42 gives you less gear, not more.

Nah, I also participate in some Asia-focused investment blogs. Some people there go instantly nuclear when you dare voice the slightest criticism of their sacred nation or values. They basically go on a dorky crusade to shut you down using any stupid channel they can. Forget trolling -- this guy's like Gollum following the Ring. As soon as he decided I fit his stereotype of a racist Japan-hater (ironically, he's likely an unreconstructed admirer of the Co-Prosperity Sphere), he decided to start pecking. If I get anything worse than this, the moderators will hear it.

Good question; you'd think the Arsenal of Democracy could've added it to the Lend Lease heap. But then, the Germans never knocked the Garand either the way they did the bazooka. Maybe by 1943-44 it was pretty clear that MGs were dominant and semiauto didn't add that much more punch to squad FP to justify the conversion problems. Assault rifles capable of full auto, on the other hand....

Hee hee! And there's my little fren' with his drive by 1 star rating again. Where you been, buddy? Do you even own the game?

Yes, installing antivirus is like supporting a military coup d'etat. The added "security" isn't worth the other problems, not least the massive resource hogging.

Hmm. Disappointing box office for my baby on its opening weekend: 16 DLs on the Repo and 7 at GaJ. Are people just preoccupied with the CMFI demo, or what? Or maybe there really IS very little gamer interest in playing PTO, even for free. Or maybe I shoulda pandered to Commonwealth module buyers by doing Kohima or Arakan or sumfink.... Well we'll see if it ramps up.

Yeah, it's a little kludgy but you can get some very nifty results.

Screenz pleez! (I am in CM withdrawal, with my desktop PC being kaput)

Yeah, I could kvetch about IG indirect fire shots at minimum range targets (e.g. needing *higher* gun elevation -- play a little Angry Birds if you're unclear on this concept) smacking into trees 40m+ downrange of the gun. But I won't.... Oops, maybe I should do some basic geometry before mouthing off about that. (hint: max elevation of the LG18 is 73deg)