Dave H

<font size=5>Good Morning Waffles!!</font> Better, Axe? Today is my supervisor's last day here at the Census Bureau. Gayle has worked here for the last 27 years and is retiring tomorrow. She selected me for this job seven years ago and I hate to see her leave. She's smart as a whip, has an almost photographic memory, is totally blunt and obscene, and to top it off she's hilarious. At her retirement reception yesterday we figured she had told every one of us to go to hell many, many, many times. Awww, did we make an Olde One sad? Don't worry, I'm sure some of your <font size=1>penguin</font> wankers will act like fools to cheer you up. Maybe you could draw and quarter a few of the Australians. That's always good for a laugh. PS Start with that non-turn-sending Mace.

Becket, are you one of those uber-German fanboys who gets a thrill from playing the opening of Barbarossa over and over and over again? I've known guys who played the first few turns of Third Reich so often they knew it by heart. As far as I know they never finished a game. By the time things slowed down for Germany, they had lost interest.

Is he Sicilian? "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" You may want to think this situation over a little longer. He may be in the federal witness protection program. :eek: :eek:

I thought Australia WAS other people's (Pommies') mess. What are you going to do about that, huh? Huh?</font>

Then am I correct in making a second layman's translation: Wartgamer is saying that rounds that don't hit what he is aiming at will surely not hit something else? Isn't Jason saying that for every 25-30 shells fired one will normally land close enough to somebody to cause a casualty? Differences in the density of the enemy soldiers within the impact area would not appear to have an effect on the rate of casualties. If the enemy soldiers are spread uniformly through the area, a single shell may miss completely, or only land close enough to affect a single soldier. If the enemy soldiers are concentrated in part of the impact area, more of the shells will miss completely, but any shells that hit the area of concentration may cause multiple casualties. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Wholesale killing with artillery is neither very romantic nor very heroic, is it?

Snarker and I just finished a very enjoyable armor-only desert scenario. My panzers crushed his American armor like so many beer cans. We overran his entire defense with the loss of only 7 AFVs and 7 casualties. His remaining crews finally wised up and surrendered before more of them were machine gunned by my advancing uber-tanks. It was not an auspicious start for American armor in the desert!

You beg in the streets?</font>

Not even in his dreams. I have to admit, that line does make it look like I knew what I was talking about, doesn't it? After working for two federal government departments (Defense and Commerce) and co-existing with the Internal Revenue Service, I live in a world of acronyms.

No doubt. My daily emails to Moon, weekly upside-down fruitcakes to Madmatt and the occasional fine, hand-stitched Peruvian suit to Kwazy still have not got you banned....but I hold out hope yet. :mad: :mad: :mad: </font>

Sorry, I just had a most disconcerting experience. I was slumming through the <font size=1>penguin</font> thread to see what idiocy they were up to today. One of them had posted pictures of Seanachai and Berli, and stupidly enough I opened the photos. <font size=5 font color=red>MY EYES, MY EYES!!!!</font> I'm telling you, it was traumatic. It will take weeks for those horrific images to fade. I haven't experienced this kind of sick feeling in the pit of my stomach since "The Crying Game". :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

You're not too far off. Actually there are two kinds of people in the world: the brain dead people who think the Guinness "Celebrate St. Patrick's Day" commercials are hilarious, and the rest of us who think the same commercials are a painful exercise in stupidity and hypocrisy. (Drink responsibly. Right. ) Sadly, they always hit the airwaves at NCAA tournament time. Thank God for remote controls!

Oops, my mistake. The post I remembered was from a completely different maggot: Okay, then I think Paula should immediately kill both Axe and Snarker. They both have lots of room for improvement in their next incarnations. Even better, maybe there won't be any rebirth for either one of them.

You're still Canadian, you're still a wargaming geek, you're still a Red Sox fan, and you still drink Guinness. Rebirth doesn't seem to have improved you any. Paula, I vote that you try killing him again and see how he turns out next time. Keep repeating until the results show some improvement.

Extremely happy, mainly because of this... I'm now looking for barricades to keep the door from swinging open again. Where's that no-good MasterGoodale (the maggot) when there's a job he can handle, like impersonating a doorstop?

Did anyone else feel a massive blast of Southern hot air a few minutes ago? I can't believe any real denizen of the Deep South left out college football!! What kind of degenerate are you? I remember spending two weeks in Oak Ridge, Tennessee one December and being completely unable to find any college or professional basketball scores in the newspaper. Every sportswriter was going on and on about the upcoming bowl games. I seem to recall there were plenty of articles about spring football practice, too. :eek: :eek: :mad: :mad:

So you want me to pick the theme for the few survivors among your Stuart crews? How about Bruce Springsteen and "Born to Run"?

You know, playing CMx2 against the AI is beginning to look better already. I may have been on the wrong side of the "save PBEM" argument.

<font size=5 font color=blue>Good Friday Morning, Waffles!!</font> I'm back after a couple of harrowing days spent in the CMx2 PBEM Poll thread. There were some pretty scary characters over there, believe me. It kind of reminded me of the glory days of the Political Forum, before BFC pulled the plug on that particular piece of work. Ahhh, for the old days of a year ago. Anyway, Mace is apparently too busy to bother sending me any turns. His probe may be the slowest attack I've seen since my last game with the maggot MasterGoodale. I sent the last turn to both your home and your work e-mail addresses, so at least let me know if you received it. I owe Snarker a turn in our North Africa battle. His Stuarts have taken a bludgeoning from my panzers, and a few more targets just appeared. Since this was apparently a real battle, I can't be accused of mike the wino-esque gaminess in pitting 37 mm armed Stuarts against 75 mm armed Pz IVs. I suspect the real American tank crews thought this was a horribly unfair battle. I think they were right!

No doubt it would if it were to happen. But the alternative is far worse... driving a wedge between a good game and a fantastic one before we even know if PBEM is not possible. In other words, it is either we pursue a vastly better game and simulation OR we sacrifice the vastly better game for a single feature that adds nothing to the game itself. As tough as it might be to someday say "we can't support PBEM", the decision to pursue the best game possible at the risk of losing PBEM is not a tough choice at all. It is the only sensible one for us to make. Steve</font>

Sorry, but let me make another annoying post. As an example, let's take Mike in New Zealand and me as two wargaming geeks who enjoy playing CM against each other. Hotseat doesn't look like a promising option for us. Since we're on opposite sides of the planet, we're not exactly on the same time schedule for online play. Losing PBEM's time flexibility without a viable replacement means I will never play Mike in CMx2. You guys at BFC have created wargames so engrossing, so far ahead of anything else available that a world-wide community formed around them. These forums show that pretty eloquently. I appreciate what you've done and congratulate you for your success. Any of us can play Combat Mission with somebody half a world away, at our own pace, with no scheduling conflicts for distractions like family, work, or sleep. In my opinion, eliminating PBEM play (or a substitute of some kind) in future CM games drives a huge wedge into that global community. I perceive the "personal choice" you mentioned above as: 1. I give up my overseas CMBB/CMAK friends as future CMx2 opponents, or 2. We reschedule our lives to play CMx2 online. Please let me know if I've overlooked something here.

B Until BFC improves the AI enough to carry on conversations about the battles, or discuss things happening out in the real world, or post here on the forums, or even send me a case of wine, I'll stick with human opponents. PBEM is the only system I know of that allows me to play against other people without introducing the time pressure of a "real time" game, which CM is not. No more speculating on CMx2 for me. It doesn't accomplish anything, so when BFC is ready to unveil their next game I'll be around to see what it is.

Becket, you might as well get ready for Stuka attacks and lots of German AT guns. MTW can't help but make gamey picks for QBs. He always has and he always will.

Ever played MULE, sonny boy? :eek: How about Diplomacy? :cool: I'm pretty good at Reversi/Othello, too. Or are you still trying to figure out how to count the petals on the rose from the GF?

I suppose that means if I have a single T-34 that you will have a couple of T-72 companies. Maybe M1A1s. Possibly Apaches or A-10s. That's just based on your gamey history of gamey unit selections for gamey QBs.

Well, that pretty well says it all right there.