LongLeftFlank

He played a really good Howard Hughes too IMHO although "The Aviator" was an uneven film in other respects. I suppose diCaprio's own career is "outlier" enough (huge success very young) he could relate to HH.

Agreed. Self-hatred and idealization of other cultures, particularly "primitive" ones, has been a unique and recurring characteristic of Western civilization for going on 3000 years. No, really, read Herodotus. It's all the same laments: Alas! how corrupt and petty our religious rites and civil life are here in Greece. Consider instead how much more wise, morally pure, attuned to nature and "sustainable" they are in (choose one): Egypt / Persia / Hyperborea / Aethiopia. This self-critical instinct, however annoying, childish and self-centered it may seem at times, derives from the same healthy vive la difference individualism that has allowed the West repeatedly to evolve beyond status-quo-perpetuating "institutions" like the Inquisition, the Divine Right of Kings, slavery and Stalinism. Often at bitter cost. Contrast pretty much all other human civilizations where it's Good to Be Da King and everybody else pretty much arrays themselves in terms of their relationship to the god-ruler. Until barbarians invade or the climate changes, or both, then everyone is pretty much screwed until the next God King overcomes the other warlords and ascends to the throne of Heaven.

Ask and ye shall receive.! 16 foot bridge atop Shallow Ford tiles makes a stand-in for the tank lighters (LCMs), grounding on the edge of the lagoon reef to discharge their tanks. And before Mr Picky arrives to tell me that LCMs carried only one tank apiece, not two, I need to limit the number of pathways ashore and therefore am doubling up.

1040. 5 inch destroyer guns continue to unleash hell on Butaritari as the first wave, mounted in "Alligators", rolls through unexpectedly shallow water atop the broad reef some 200 yards from the beach.

This reminds me, as you can see in the below screenie, the square Modular buildings only allow their rooflines to orient east-west (or SW-NE if diagonal), regardless of which way the "front" is facing. This is a fairly minor visual annoyance of course, with no gameplay effect whatever. With Holland, it would be nice to model THESE kinds of rowhouses running N-S. You could, of course, do that using lengthwise rectangular buildings only.

I have other theatres that interest me more, but I'd think the CMFI Italian Bersagliere, with their greatcoats, relative absence of submachineguns, plus a modded helmet, would make reasonable stand-ins for poilus if you're desperate. Many of the requisite .wav voice files already exist in CMBO. Machine guns are a bit different, yes, but ah well. The Renault tanks are also there of course, together with the more frequent direct fire support weapons: light mortars and infantry guns for both them and the Germans. Reading Knappe, Guderian, et al., I get the sense that in spite of being the banner year for blitzkrieg, 1940 combat was a lot less "combined arms" at the tactical level than later. The poor bloody infantry was left to its own resources a lot more. OBA was a lot less coordinated except in front of fortified lines. And I also suspect a lot of hype around the vaunted German CAS coordination; overenthused Stuka pilots racked up a number of own-goals....

Well with the exceptions of (1) flamethrowers (2) treetop sniper platforms (3) some kind of "banzai charge" TacAI trigger in Fanatic units (4) caves, all the tools are already there. Even amphib assaults can be reasonably simulated right now; you just need shallow Ford "channels" for the vehicles to follow inshore.

Since this is a wharf, not an esplanade, I used "gapped" Wire Fence segments. That also gives an interesting "slab" texture to the wall that I like. The fence posts look like pilings. Kudos and thanks, JonS!

Locking the Water tiles at 5m (2 metre difference, per Pete) didn't change the angle of my Makin embankment (45deg). I suspect upping the difference to 3m would indeed increase the angle though, but that would mess up the beach grade on the rest of the map, and we can't have that Running a (cobbled) road along the edge produces this funky effect, in conjunction with the adjacent buildings. It does look like some seawalls, but isn't what I'm looking for.

From my La Meauffe - Le Carillon map, the watermill and weir. This uses the Cobblestone terrain type, which eliminates that "algae growth" you see above on the Pavement type. I did get some strange pointy "spires" in the pavement (foreground) as I increased height above water and combined it with right angled corners and nearby buildings. This was an experimental screenie from a map I didn't save. As you can see, increasing the height of the land tile relative to the default water height steepens the angle of the embankment to near vertical.

I started a separate thread on the topic of manmade seawalls and embankments. As you will see, straight near vertical paved embankments are indeed possible!

There was some discussion in the Arnhem thread on how best to represent vertical seawalls and river embankments in CMBN. I thought I'd start a separate thread that would be more searchable in future. Please feel free to upload your own wisdom on this topic here, including screenies and links to other threads. I need to run to a kid's party, but the attached screenies show some of my findings on this topic. They are from my Makin Atoll PTO map, but the stuff in these shots uses unmodded base game textures. Ground tiles locked at Level 7 with "Paved 1" pavement, adjacent to Deep Ford (foreground) and Water (background). Locking the water tiles at level 7 doesn't change the height of the water but it seems to help keep the edge straight and manmade looking. I wanted the seawall to gradually give way to a beach, which is what the foreground is. Front of the same quay. I believe having buildings in the next adjacent square helps sharpen the edge of the embankment, as the footprint of squares containing buildings is always flat. I haven't figured out how to remove that "crinkle" in the corner.

Great work, sir! When it comes to building an embankment for the bridge, note that if you use Paved or Cobblestone ground type, it seems to create a sharper embankment.

That, sir, is why I play only this amazing game - as a 3d augment to reading history. Some of the brutal hedgerow and urban fighting in Europe resulted in a similar no quarter mentality (why don't those bastards give up?). With lasting ill feeling. (Witness that Red Devil vet kicking the sh*t out of some SS guys in 1985 mentioned in the Arnhem thread). But once you add the racism factor, plus the pestilential and alien combat environment, you can definitely see why most PTO combat vets openly confess hatred today and will not be reconciled with their former enemies. Sad -- the Japanese people, especially servicemen, paid a heavy price for their behaviour -- but understandable. Some wounds run too deep.

I've got to confess, as I playtest platoon-sized actions on my PTO test map, I am starting to understand the extreme hatred the two sides felt for each other in that conflict. Unlike Normandy, the fight isn't ultimately won by ranging in heavy weapons; the terrain simply doesn't allow that. You can't shoot the enemy out of his holes at range. There is just one way to kill him -- slowly and systematically, with small arms and grenades at close range. My GIs hit the beach in thinly armoured vehicles (I'm using Universal Carriers for Alligators, although I'm also playing with halftracks) and all hell breaks loose as they come under heavy fire; vehicles bog, stop, retreat, dumping men out into open spaces. 5 minutes in, virtually every fire team has taken a casualty and is Rattled or Shaken. All semblance of unit order is lost; groups of 3-4 GIs crawl forward on their bellies into the jungle, seeking vantage points to fire into the "Jap" positions; the incoming doesn't seem to let up. They just don't seem to stop shooting until they're killed. 15 minutes in, finally! enough rifles and -- critically! -- BARs are on target that the fire superiority balance tips in my favour. But sniper and Nambu rounds keep snapping in, friendly casualties continue to mount, and occasionally a fire team simply breaks and bugs out. However, a few guys have now managed to crawl into grenade range of the holes and the retributive massacre now begins. I find myself taking a grim satisfaction at killing every last one of those f&&kers. I wiped out the 35 Japanese defenders at a cost of 5 KIA and 15WIA. btw, I'm not huge proponent of adding blood and gore to CM, but whenever we do get flamethrowers, I feel it's going to have to have a slightly nastier impact; perhaps the victims simply roll over and turn black (dead, of course). Well, I wanted to be in the boots of the guys on the beach. Can't wait to try this out on Makin, which is a lot flatter and more densely vegetated.

Yeah, this is definitely the time of year to be in Vancouver. Just beautiful out there when the sun's out.

Wow, excellent. I haven't read it in many years, but my recollection is that Hagen's writing, particularly his observations on men under fire, is the closest Allied-side analog I can think of to Guy Sajer's work. (Fred Cederberg's Canadian-Italy memoir comes close). Really fascinating but under-known.... although perhaps not for much longer now that it has been republished! Oh, and it will settle once and for all the "were PIATs fired from upper floors" debate. He and an officer held off an assault gun firing from a tiny attic.

I dunno -- sound mods ain't my thing, but I would love to get a M249 SAW with "chatter" like in 6:46 of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1vsOplqr3U.

I used to have a copy of Louis Hagen's amazing foxhole-level soldier's memoir "The Arnhem Lift" (now long out of print, and my mum tossed my copy, alas). Hagen was a German Jew (was in Torgau KZ) who escaped to Britain and joined the Paras in time for OMG. He describes one sequence in which German prisoners refuse even to dig latrines for themselves until a captured officer arrives and upbraids them, using their captors as examples of disciplined soldierly behaviour to emulate. That said, viewing the photos above leaves troubling questions in my mind. Arnhem was stoutly built in stone and brick; how could entire blocks be so completely destroyed? Was that primarily a consequence of (a) the fighting being truly "house to house", requiring demolition of each British strongpoint in turn? ( Germans following Nazi SOP regarding harsh treatment of civilian populations who dared to "take part" (i.e. "partisan") in support of the enemy force? © subsequent German bombardment (V2 or conventional artillery?) of the Allied held south bank after the battle? (d) All of the above?

Ach, so! "Flak as a field weapon"*, as featured in minute 1:12 of this classic from "American Pop" (some of Ralph Bakshi's greatest work, IMHO. But whose pasties mod is he rotoscoping?). And BFC, take note -- at least THESE Nazi machine gunners actually prop up their MG34s on the sandbags while shooting * Cajus Bekker's "Luftwaffe War Diaries". See "Night of Ilza" for a textbook example.

Under the TacAI programming, both your own and computer-controlled units will fire upon the primary threat within range, and will pop smoke and attempt to break LOS once fired upon by major threats. They'll also give buddy aid to casualties in their location. That's about it really for "reactive" activity. If not under threat units without orders just sit there. All other actions are based on Orders either issued by you or the clock-driven scenario designer AI program

Thanks! While flattery won't get you everywhere, at least it will get you some new screenies. 1. Low res pano of the entire Yellow Beach landing zone, looking west from the Kings Wharf observation tower. The sand spit in the foreground is thought to be the location of the "Jap" garrison HQ, and is being heavily bombarded -- see detail shot below. 3. Higher res shot, also looking west, giving you an idea of the jungle density. The buildings are all pretty much placed. Now time to work on the Japanese defensive positions (other than the Tank Barrier, which is done). But since I'm out of town again this coming week, it'll have to wait. Sorry guys. P.S. That bridge in the water in the foreground of the first shot is actually a wrecked H8K flying boat. Like the boat hulks, it too was a Japanese sniper position.

Finally getting a little time for Makin. I'm posting these shots of the battlefield for my own reference -- tree and jungle density, mainly. The west central portion of the landing zone, with fuel dumps ablaze and Alligator trails The east central sector of the landing zone, showing Company E (165th) sectors.

....Die in droves once the Axis figures it out and ranges some mortars in there? Don't see much hard cover.

Good answer, thanks.