LongLeftFlank

Been playing around with different kinds of leaves for the bocage but nothing actually gives as good an effect of dense jungle undergrowth as the original, paired with my modified heavy forest tile.

The JonS post Jason seems to be referring to is here. (Just to save people the trouble) Re the OP, I feel artillery is very well modeled; as I've said before (though not for a while) it is infantry's response to artillery, and incoming fire of all kinds, that still needs some work in the game. CMBN infantry can only be in one of 3 basic poses: prone, kneeling, standing. This posture determines its vulnerability, but also its own LOS. I'd guess that in response to tester complaints about prone units who can't see a damn thing, even at close range, Charles tweaked things to make the pixeltroops stay "up" a lot longer than their real life counterparts would do under severe fire (that's also why they fire MGs from the shoulder so much, bizarrely). This, paired with a ballistics model that tracks every bullet (and fragment), results in units sustaining high casualty rates for extended periods throughout the firefight rather than the "diminishing returns to fire" that should obtain as men rapidly put solid terra firma between them and the identified sources of danger. The solution I suggest to this is for the men to have a "hit the dirt" reflex to different kinds of incoming. Of course, that might then create visual oddities similar to the "whack a mole" phenomenon you see with, e.g., halftrack gunners popping in and out of their AFVs. Imagine a dozen squaddies prairie-dogging up and down in their foxholes....

Finally getting back to a little CM. The British Lloyd carriers make satisfactory LVT Alligators, albeit without the .50cal mounts and a vastly smaller passenger capacity.

Scribd.com is a file sharing archive that contains pdfs on various topics, including military. Assuming Rexford has passed, the title is long out of print and didn't provide a significant income stream to his heirs, and the copyright owners are unlikely to pursue their rights vigorously, then it should be fair game to upload there for private use (not for profit purposes).

Ah yes, the Oliver Stone "Imaginary Friend" theory of the Missile Crisis.

No, it's totally real. See, I have a link from the Interwebs that proves it! I am starting to think John's "highly placed government source is this guy. I remember seeing these things in NYC in the 1980s. He too just "had to get the Truth out, man" and followed the voices in his head.

The Syrian "FSA" has not fielded significant "main force" units a la the Taliban or the Viet Cong, so I deny that it is overly subject to disruption by regime airpower; the gunships can certainly kill smugglers, refugees and innocent goatherds aplenty, but smuggling and evasion of government authority has been an art form in these lands for about 4000 years now. There is simply no way to stop that; even the Israelis have had to build a Berlin Wall. The FSA formations are a loose agglomeration of local militias, bolstered by army defectors and an as-yet small number of foreign volunteers (AQ and other). Typically these units are based in more densely populated areas; the hills and hinterlands are supply lines, not zones of operations. FSA tactics resemble more closely those used by the Iraqi resistance against the US in Anbar than they do Taliban tactics; sniping, rapidly increasing mine/IED warfare and the periodic overrunning of isolated government positions. Since being pushed out of Baba Amr, the FSA has not attempted to create "liberated zones", other than briefly for propaganda purposes. Their objective is not to hold ground but to survive, bleed the oppressors, sap their morale and make it clear to the people that the regime's writ does not run beyond the range of its weapons. While the Syrian army isn't nearly as casualty sensitive as the Western forces, a steady stream of Alawite boys heading home in coffins and wheelchairs will become as corrosive to support as the Russian body counts in A'stan and Chechnya. Neither side can deliver a knockout blow, but the regime's strength and credibility will ebb during the stalemate. Eventually local FSA warlords will start to make side deals with local commanders and that might be the beginning of the end for the regime. This was already happening in 2010-2011 until the Assads cracked down, but again, their core of support is concentrated in the 2 heavy armoured divisions plus the SF/Airborne and Air Force. Half these forces are needed to keep Damascus and Aleppo locked down, but the others will bleed and bleed whenever they move around to tamp down the hot spots. Also, who said anything about the Chinese government selling missiles to the FSA? If there's a buck to be made, there will be a huaqiao arms trader happily diverting a few cases of Norinco arms from Bangladesh to Beirut.... and Chinese government policy will have no real say in the matter. Anyway, there's no oil here; unlike the Russians (maybe), the Chinese don't truly give a sh*t about Syria at the end of the day except inasmuch as they can screw around with us white boys.

It's OK, we have an undersea city of non-Euclidean geometry that breeds enormous swarms of batlike creatures to absorb the blasts of the alien laser cannon if we make the requisite blood sacrifices to Cthulhu. Dick Cheney is his high priest on earth.

This is a guerrilla war; the rebels are most active where the regime's hold is weakest -- at present that is in the hilly country around Hama. The regime has concentrated heavy forces in the area around Homs, so the rebels have obligingly shifted their efforts north. The moment the boot comes off the neck of Homs it will erupt in rebellion again. And time is not on the regime's side; the rebels are rapidly importing IED knowhow and materials from Iraq. Those impressive looking mechanized forces are going to start becoming tracked coffins before long, as will the large numbers of supply vehicles needed to sustain those forces. The US Army had a hard enough time with these tactics; the Syrian army, corrupt, inefficient and poorly motivated, is going to lose its mobility and with it, control of most of the country. The 1982 rebellion was led by a locally based group of clerics and clansmen. The current rebellion is far more broad-based, and its grievances are largely economic, not religious even though religious fanatics are present. There is no useful analog here. The Alawites are about 10% of the population, and are shrinking demographically and aging, as are the Christians and other wealthier non-Sunni minorities. I have no doubt you are right that they face a grim future at the hands of the long repressed Sunni majority, but these people have made their bed over the last 50 years and must now lie in it. Their best bet is to kill the Assads now and hope that they can broker some kind of multisectarian "government of national reconciliation" that will at least protect some minority rights even if it is Sunni dominated. The longer this drags on, the less likely that becomes. Big picture, guys: Like it or not, the ancient Levantine Syria, crossroads of cultures and sects, like much of the rest of the Middle East, is drowning in a demographic sea of undereducated Sunnis flocking into cities and towns from the hinterlands, wanting education and jobs and cars and everything else they see on TV. This tide cannot be reversed except through the most brutal form of genocide; and would the group that enacted such measures be worth "saving"? As for Russian gunships and missiles, I feel like this is a red herring. The world has come a long way since the 1980s-1990s. Chinese dealers will gleefully supply effective SA-18 / Stinger knockoffs to anyone with the cash. Also, there's a lot of mythology floating around about the devastating impact of Hind gunships in A'stan, Chechnya and 1991 Iraq; while they are useful tools, especially in patrolling mountainous terrain, they will not eliminate a popular insurgency on their own. It's not like NATO has been PWNing the Taliban with Apaches.

I say again, the inevitable appearance of Al Qaeda branded Salafists and their mad bomber tactics on the anti-government side does not delegitimize the wider armed rebellion. Nor does it suddenly make the Assad regime "the lesser of two evils" as so many people on this board seem to think. The pre-2010 status quo (a nominally secular Alawite dominated Ba'athist welfare state) could not be sustained; demographics and economics are both against it. Furthermore, due to the regime's violent action against moderate reformers as well as its panicky playing of the secular strife card, it is now impossible to put that toothpaste back in the tube. Do-or-die fighters (not all of them religious fanatics) now dominate the armed opposition and a negotiated settlement is fundamentally unthinkable, for all the delusions of Kofi Annan. The best that can be hoped for now is the prompt overthrow of the Assad family and its closest associates by elements within the regime itself, most reliably via the assassination or incapacitation of both Bashir and Maher Assad (anonymously Hellfire that bastard, please!). That way, SOME semblance of existing institutions can open a internationally-brokered dialogue with the rebels and try to restore some kind of pluralistic government and eventually expel the foreign nutjobs. Otherwise, as the conflict drags on, the economy disintegrates and moderates become casualties, you will get a brutal Iraq style civil war (with no Western army to tamp it down), horrific ethnic cleansing, and the eventual and inevitable displacement of the regime and all existing institutions by a hardened group of Sunni Arab supremacists. A lot of that may happen anyway, sure, but there is NO option that lets anybody turn back the clock.

Any new developments, CoonDog?

Oh yes you can, you just need to design your own content to go with the various PTO mods that have been uploaded / are in process.

Yes, some other things are pressing on my mind at the moment, like earning a living, but hope I can get back to this at some point.

Umm, John, have you actually READ the Miami Herald? They cannot be trusted on any matter relating to Cuba. And why might that be? (Something to do with the reporting and editorial staff not wanting their cars exploding when they start, maybe?) John, you're a bright, curious guy and I for one enjoy your contributions to the forum. But I'd say you're just a touch credulous when it comes to Big Conspiracy Theories. And that goes for your vaunted In The Know Contacts In the National Security Apparatus too.... and come to think of it, why haven't They warned you to keep your mouth shut especially on Internet chat boards? (or else your car might just blow up too) Sure, sure, life eventually teaches us all that the way Winners and Losers are chosen in the world usually doesn't have much to do with the virtues they teach you in church, Civics class or MBA school. But even if Star Chambers of Wise Mandarins / Illuminati / Koch Brothers do get together in remote secure locations and dream up Thousand Year Plans to Rule the Universe (Bwahahahaaha), they really aren't any better than the rest of us at actually sticking to them. At the end of the day, even Bilderbergers need to pull down their pants to take a dump (or jump hotel maids, as the case may be). The banality of evil, all that. One man*'s opinion. * Not sure at this point whether he is one of the Winners or Losers. Stay tuned.

Yes, the LeMay story was true and verified from multiple sources. The big guy had lost his marbles by that time -- too many cigars interfering with the purity of his precious bodily fluids maybe. As for the other stuff you reference, it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever click on a link called "cubanet.org".

Absolutely. An expeditionary corps consisting of 10th Mountain Div, 82nd Airborne and various NatGuard formations has held thinly disguised exercises for swiftly occupying Quebec (both with and without the cooperation of Anglophone Canada). btw 82nd AB is an interesting division, as it's the one regular division trained to conduct military operations within the US should that become necessary and the National Guard prove either insufficient or unreliable (e.g. Little Rock schools). And it is also no coincidence that Fort Bragg is the closest division home base to the US capital.* Although American checks and balances being what they are, please note that MCB Camp Lejeune isn't much farther away. So the next Bonus Army can look forward to being dispersed by 82nd Airborne or 2nd Marines. * Yes, AP Hill, Dix and Quantico are all closer, but there are no combat divisions based there.

John, I know you have a defense research background and family in the military, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the military infrastructure needed to support 200 deployable tactical nuclear weapons, even if the majority are aerial bombs or battlefield rockets, should realize that the above statement is.... just a tad exaggerated. And is simply not supportable by the physical Soviet infrastructure in place on Cuba, which was largely still under construction in October 1962. Like I said before, a lot of US careers -- civilian and military -- were made based on exaggerating the gravity of the Threat once it had passed. So yes, rumours got around. But that's all they were. The Russians, as it turned out, didn't originally think it was that big a deal given Turkey and the DEW line and all that, and were actually quite surprised at the visceral and highly public US reaction. As I noted before, they thought JFK was going to be the one to press the button, which is why they folded their tents fast and got the hell out.

Thanks for the endorsement. Been searching for a new job lately, so not much time for CM or the miseries of others these days. That should change soon, insh'allah.

It usually happens when you place forces first, then subsequently add a building. This has been true since CMSF days, although it doesn't always happen. The only cure is to delete and then re-add the units. Basically, it's a bad idea to change the map once you've deployed forces on it.

Nice! Have you figured out how to make their webgear appear? Has something to do with using the German wireframe but I couldn't do it.

I need to head out of town for a week, so I'll probably upload these mods in their current form clearly marked as "Rev 1", so any PTO map designers can use them as an indicative. I am also noodling around: 1. retexturing the haystack to resemble some kind of barrel bush or harvested cane grass 2. how to transform Tall Bocage into a bamboo thicket or at least some dangling jungle vines but those will need some more advanced alpha channel work and will likely have to wait for the next iteration. EDIT: OK, v1 is posted at the Repository and GreenAsJade's site. Enjoy! Feedback welcome.

PTO vegetation screenies Bush A Screw pine Bush B - broadleaf "rubber tree" Bush C Codiaeum Tree A Eucalyptus Tree B is the palm from CMSF Tree C is unchanged Tree D. Jacaranda. Notice also I've added banana leaves to the forest floor tile Tree E is unchanged.

Remember, the CW armies share a number of wireframes so while I agree in principle with using the Poles or Canucks as a base, you'll be forced to make certain choices (e.g. IJA holding SMLEs).

I was just reading up on the Battle of Makin Atoll -- the Yellow Beach assault (famous photo below) and subsequent taking of the West Tank Barrier appears quite suitable for the CM scale; the island was only about 150 yards wide in spots. Alligators are the key missing item here; flamethrowers apparently weren't available on D-Day. Oh, and it looks like the medium tanks were Grants, not Shermans.

Very nice work on the Angaur map, although it does tax my 2004 vintage HP. I was just reading up on the Battle of Makin Atoll -- the Yellow Beach assault appears quite suitable for the CM scale; the island was only about 150 yards wide in spots. Alligators are the key missing item here... I may also see if I can mod up the haystack objects into some reasonable looking banana trees or bushy screw pines. EDIT: Makin Atoll stuff moved to separate thread