gunnergoz

Admittedly, he was writing about elite units (airborne) but one would do well to read Steven Ambrose' Band of Brothers as well as his other works. It was clear to me upon reading Ambrose descriptions of paratrooper's war experiences that most if not all of these elite troops found time to fire their weapons. It was also clear that some were far more effective and deadly at it than others. This was apparently also true of U.S. Marines, certainly an elite force by most standards, and true as well of Rangers and similar commando units like the 1st Special Service Force. Elite units, filled with extraordinary and motivated individuals, give non-standard results. My reading of WW2 history leads me to conclude that regular US infantry was somewhat less "gung ho" but given the right circumstances and leadership, most units rose to the occasion. Perhaps not every GI would fire their weapon, but enough did to get the job done. When there were failures of morale and leadership, units broke and fled and certainly not many of these men were inclined to stick around to fire their weapons. I suspect that there is much, much more to the issue of who fires their weapon in combat than can be summarized in a sort of "SLA Marshall was Right" versus "SLA Marshall was exaggerating or making it all up" debate. Marshall was a complex man. His son's autobiography touches upon some of the issues that made the father quirky and also brilliant. One must also consider that many pre-war Regular Army officers tended to sneer at and look down upon the mass of citizen soldiers that they had to take to war. To them, these drafted civilians were unkempt, undisciplined and insubordinate. Such officers could not abide an army filled to the brim with amateurs who were not careerists. I suspect that Marshall had a bit of this element in his thinking, even if at an unconscious level. Certainly this army of civilians rankled the likes of Patton, as many of us know. Even our favorite pet flogging horse, the film Saving Private Ryan attempts to portray this failure to perform under fire when it depicts the soldier who froze and could not bring his weapon to bear against an enemy only inches away. I suspect things like this occasionally did happen. I also applaud Spielberg for "redeeming" the soldier later in the film by having him take action against the enemy, admittedly under unusual circumstances. I vote with Speilberg and personally believe that the tendencies of individual soldiers to engage the enemy in fire combat, varied greatly and depended upon circumstance and context. This view defies easy categorization of the phenomenon, because it is such an individualized experience. My personal suspicion is that many weapons went unfired at times on the battlefield, and that this was not exclusively a US experience. I also believe that under the right circumstances, most men would find the time and means to use their weapons, the circumstances and context varying with the individual. Statistically, we know that most infantry casualties were caused by artillery, especially mortars. We also know that prodigious amounts of infantry weapon ammo was expended in order to produce the enemy casualties that are now known to have been caused by light arms. Somewhere in between these truths lies our deceptive and sought-after generalization. Did men fire their weapons? Yes, sometimes. Did they have an effect? Again, yes, sometimes. Can this phenomenon and effect be quantified for game purposes? There, my answer would have to be...somewhat. The variables are just too great to have pat formulas that would replicate history, and that would please all of us. So I say keep it simple. Keep playing CM and see if the outcomes appear reasonable. And at the same time, accept that: 1) We'll never know for sure what all the facts were in each historical situation that we model, and 2) We'd probably never all come to agree upon a given formula to calculate this "non-firing factor." Grogs being grogs, I'm sure that we'll go on for ages debating stuff like this because the truth is elusive and grows more difficult to pin down with the passage of time. So all we're left with in the end is our interpretation of what we've read or been told by others who supposedly have "seen the elephant." My point: stay flexible, keep an open mind, continue to probe your subject and never expect that you've got the whole explanation for anything. Oh, yes, be highly suspicious of those who have the right, correct and final answer or analysis to any given topic in the area of history. They are either ignorantly biased, incompletely informed or propagating their pet views and agendas.

Hi Bigmac, The bases are also mine and can be downloaded at The Last Defense site. One of them (the dense one) is derived from JuJu's excellent base. Yeah, I like the undergrowth look myself.

OK, I can see how folks might get confused by all this "grass mania." I've put out three basic grasses, and one of the three grass varieties has extra versions for spring, fall and winter. 1. Speckled grass. This has the original flavor, spring, fall and winter varieties. Compared to the newer varieties below, it looks plainer. It has some variation but not as much as the later ones, but it has the advantage of being the only one at present with seasonal variations.(I'll add the variations to the newer ones soon). 2. Bushygrass. This was my second type of grass and it looks a bit brown mixed in with the green. If you look at it closely, you'll see "fronds" in the pattern and hence its name. It looks natural but has more limited altitude differentiation. I'd use it on flatter terrain scenarios. 3. Realgrass. This is the one illustrated here. It looks like real grass, or so some think (well, I do at least) and it will be my permanent personal pick. I'll soon come up with seasonal variations on this, as well as new bases to better match it. Please note that all of these grasses are hi-res and are only replacing .bmp files #1550 through 1569 in your BMP folder. I want to do lo-res versions for you guys with the more limited video, but I have to ask you to be patient, they are MUCH tougher do do right without looking blocky or runny. Thanks for your interest and kind words!

Hmmm, I sympathize with your obviously genuine anguish, Rommel22 but could it be...(whispers)...your username that sets you up like this? Just wondering.

Sheeesh, I'm soooo bored with the "wait till my King Tiger gets ahold of that cheezy...(insert name of relevant puny Allied tank)" type of comment. Proponents of the UberTank School of Supposed Battlefield Supremacy are invited to hang out at http://history.vif2.ru/library/archives/weapons/weapons7.html a little bit and see things from a decidedly different perspective. Sure, they were big, mean and gnarly but dude, they were just never there when you needed them! My money's on the decidedly unglamorous but deadly functional (and reliable) JSU's and their ilk.

Awwww, let the kid have his fun. I recall my own brief infatuation with the Whermacht and like comic books, I outgrew it. Tell a person not to do something and that practically guarantees they'll go on and do it...we are perverse critters! Anyway, if he does his research over time, he'll get the creeps about this stuff like most of us did and will develop a healthy balanced view. Just don't ask me for the keys to the SdKfz 7, OK kid?

OK, OK so you're sick already of my damn grass. Maybe I should change my username to "Grassmaster" (oops, that was a porn flick, wasn't it?) Anyway, here's a couple more images of what should be on The Last Defense tomorrow:

No Sweat, Griffin, when it comes down to it, we're ALL CM bitches!

Email sent to you directly, Griffin, but the long and short of it is OK, please feel free to mirror the mod. Mod should be at The Last Defense quite soon, then Griffin can mirror this. I'm working through Saturday nite, but perhaps Sunday I can get out matching bases. Here's another teaser:

Actually, Simon, they're "anti-gamey" because I've been so enamored of making mods lately that I've played relatively few games (sigh). So Many Mods, So Little Time...

No problem, I'd be pleased. I'll contact you via email to set it up.

OK, OK, nothing exceeds like excess, right? Here's "realgrass" the latest mod out of my fevered brow. Hi res and this one shows both detail and terrain elevation quite well. This one stays on my HD guys! Look for in at The Last Defense soon. [This message has been edited by gunnergoz (edited 03-28-2001).]

Thanks Agua! I've got another grass pattern in the works that you'll like even more, I think. Stay posted and a few days I plan to knock your socks off!

Wrong or not, he survived the war so he must have gotten something "right." An "academic theory" vs "gritty reality" debate, anyone? [This message has been edited by gunnergoz (edited 03-28-2001).]

Thanks for the kind words, guys, I appreciate them and the feedback very much. As I mentioned earlier, the brightness of a couple of the photos is a function of the photo imaging process at Photopoint.com and is not representative of the final terrain. This grass is a bit more varied than you might think, especially where there major elevation differences on the map. I'm working on finding a grass with the right blend of realistic variation and pattern, yet which will stll give us a good elevation indication. Be patient, I'll get there and will let you know when the critter finally gets birthed!

It's been sent to The Last Defense web site at http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/TheLastDefense/index.html Should be up soon. Thanks for your interest and support! Ed

These files have been uploaded to The Last Defense, http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/TheLastDefense/index.html if anybody is interested, and should be available soon.

Super job Manx, we all owe you tall, cool one (does anyone know any available scandanavian women we can introduce to him?)

I've been using a Kensington Expert Mouse for several years. It has really been better for me than a conventional mouse--takes up less space, always where you need it to be, less fuss cleaning it, etc. Be mindful that the trackball will tend to keep your hand and wrist in the same spot and angle than a mouse might, so you must give yourself frequent stretch breaks.

IS-3's did not see combat during WW2. As it turned out, the design's execution had serious defects: the enormous welds holding together the hull nose glacis plates tended to crack in service. IS-3's were sidelined for a long time while repairs and fixes were devised. The tank, though beautiful and sinister-looking as hell, never had performance to match, except in the area of armor toughness once the weld problems were licked. It's only known combat service was with the Egyptians, in particular during the 1973 war. The Israelis found out that their Pattons and Centurions had a difficult time with the IS-3's thick frontal armor. Their infantry AT weapons were also inadequate. The solution was made after the Israeli's discovered how ponderous the IS-3 was attempting to manouver on the battlefield and also that it's turret was very slow to traverse. The Israeli's manouvered their speedier MBT's for flank shots and took out the IS-3's that way. BTW, Stalin had an IS-3 armed tank corps ready to intervene in the Korean War on the side of the Chinese Communists. Only the threat of a nuclear counterpunch from the US deterred Stalin. Still, it would be interesting to see how US armor (then composed of M-26's and M-46's in Korea and M-47's coming into service in Europe) would have fared against a Soviet tank corps. My guess is that the severely constricted mountainous terrain of Korea would have canalized the Soviet armor into massive kill zones for US airpower. If any reached the front lines, however, we'd have had hell to pay trying to knock the IS-3's out frontally if we couldn't manouver due to the terrain.

The brightness is not the grass, it is a function of Photopoint.com's "color adjustment" process. The actual grass is darker and more closely resembles the other two photos.

Hello, Doc Brian, Here's some URL's for mods that I use a lot: http://www.combatmission.com/ http://www.afv-uk.net/cmoutpost/ http://www.combat-missions.net/ And there are many other excellent sites. My mods are carried by the kind fellow who is at: http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/TheLastDefense/index.html Enjoy! BTW, these files total 15MB and so are too large to email out to individuals...sorry! Check out the above sites for lots of other terrain mods, including the trees and bases (my own and from other modders) hinted at in my screen shots. [This message has been edited by gunnergoz (edited 03-26-2001).]

Hello, all Here is the latest grass variant to arise out of my modding maddness, I call it "bushy grass" due to the pattern. This is a high-res grass and is best suited to systems that can handle the texture load. If the feedback is sufficiently positive, I'll ask The Last Defense to host it. 2nd of 4 images: 3rd of 4 images: 4th of 4 images [This message has been edited by gunnergoz (edited 03-26-2001).]

Very, very nice indeed! I'll nab 'em and they'll be a nice change of pace. Thanks!

If the U.S. Army and its procurement experts (sic) got ahold of CMBO it would: - Come on 724 5 1/4 inch floppy disks - Be programmed for the Exidy Sorcerer (remember that one?) - Have a classification so compartmented that only 5 US generals and 2 Russian moles could have access to it - Run once then require that you clean sand out of your CD drive - Require 2.3 factory tech reps to boot - Be issued in an improved version in Israel before our own troops had it - Come in a puppet show version for Marines - Cost $2,500,750,000 per copy - Have to be produced in the home state of the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee