gunnergoz

If your tank armor is indifferent, hull down at least minimizes what can be seen of your vehicle and thus decreases your odds of being hit. It makes no sense to expose more of your vehicle if your armor is indifferent everywhere including the mantlet.

Don't get it, doesn't seem to translate so what's the joke?

I can't say as I fathom the idea of a panther mantlet as a "bulb unconnected to the gun mechanism." It is a very wide squarish shield with a semi-circular cross section that extends across the entire forward face of the turret. The Pz IV shield covers a smaller portion of the turret front than does the panther's. In any hit to a gun mantlet, one has to consider that the amount of kinetic energy transferred to the mantlet, will in turn be conveyed to the gun trunnion. Damage to the trunnion could have some possibly very negative effects, such as throwing the gun mount out of alignment, damaging the trunnion's bearings or jamming the elevation machinery. Not to mention that the optics could well be jarred out of alignment if not broken in the process.

Rankorian, friend, Monty Python is not a reputable source for military history. :D

I'd have to say patches. They play the game too.

Funny, mine looks like that too but they're all StuG's and SpW's.

There is an apocryphal story from Korea which my dad related years ago that an M40 managed to get up on a ridge line and for a while made the Chinese very unhappy when it was used as a really big sniper rifle, driving them to the dark reverse slopes of the nearby hills and depriving them of what little warm sunlight Korea offers at that time of year.

Don't have the weasel any more, Steve? I haven't seen one in years. PS The "significant game benefit" of the Dodges is that people like me stop whining about them.

Sealschwimmentruppen mitt schnorkelwaffentuben.

I have Vista and have to use Fraps, which works fine and best of all is free...well, the free version meets my needs, at least. Don't know if it works on Macs though.

Spoilsport. I'd pay for an action pack DLC module with it and there are probably others too. BFC, are you listening?

OK thanks for clarifying that. I don't follow the modern stuff as close as I probably should. What would you propose for a Stryker fire support vehicle?

Not sure what's going on there but it sure looks friendly!

Yes, I'm hoping for both the 3/4 and 1-1/2 ton Dodge's to be in one module or the other as ammo trucks. The 3/4 ton truck was commonly referred to as the "weapons carrier" in the Old Army that I grew up in in the '50's. Tells you how they were used, pretty much.

Yes, I see the coax doing a lot of whacking in CMN, even in the lowly M8 recon car. Handy it was and is, the coax. And our friend the Maus even had a 75mm gun for a coax, taking a good thing to the supremely over the top extreme. Maybe our uberpanzer buddies can get to play with one in some later module.

Could you please elaborate? If you are speaking of the Stryker gun system, it has a high velocity 105mm gun, does it not? That can fire HE, maybe even HEAT or some multipurpose round like it? The problem I see with the WW2 105mm HEAT round issued to howitzers and M7's was (1) that it was never issued in quantity to them and (2) that it was very low velocity and thus could only accurately be lobbed at a target close by. That's fine for final protective fire but not much help if the target stands off far enough to nail you with his own weapon. No question that artillery assets with HEAT can defend themselves under the right circumstances but it is still a pretty desperate situation when it happens.

Setting charges takes time and if you are under fire, it might be quicker and less risky to look for an alternative entrance...unless, of course, this is the only option open to you.

Command Mission: Total War?

Can anyone confirm that a save game file uses only the mods you started the save with and will not pick up new mods you might add later?

No the vane was to help the commander lay the turret close enough for the gunner's limited view aiming scope to be able to pick up the target. Unless you were really close, I doubt you could get a hit using the vane by itself. Here's a picture of one on a Jumbo being uncrated at the ordnance shops:

Rankorian - I think you may be underestimating the amount of training that most US troops had in the workup to Normandy. Replacements coming in later might have had less, that is true, but the units designated to go in on D-Day and in the follow up had lots of training in the US and England at all levels. Those guys knew what a scouting order meant and how to go about it because it had been practiced, just as we do today.

Shermans with the split commander's hatch had a rotating ring that the hatch was built into and that held the MG mount, so the MG could be rotated to any position. Later, when they went to a one piece commander's cupola, the MG was mounded on a fixed pedestal on the turret top. Sometimes there was a pedestal aft, sometimes two including one forward of the commanders hatch.

Shermans had a commander's vane sight in at least some versions.

I usually can get them to enter through the side I want by making sure that the command movement line intersects the side of the building they are to go through. If they are at an odd angle to the building, it may require a two or even three step movement order, but they do follow it.

I too find that in this game, it is usually best to let the units pick their own targets. When I add cover arcs or specify targets is when I get the most undesirable result. Exceptions: I will use 360 arcs to limit firing from units that I want to stay uncommitted or unseen and I will use targeted area fire to suppress suspected or known enemy locations.