[Normandy Bone]

Looking at the screen shots again, I find myself needing to ask,

"Whose grass mod are you using?"

Ah, those long lost days of innocence when CMBO was young and a new world (and years of great gaming) were just opening up before us. Perhaps when the Normady Demo is about to released we can have a night a "night of the refreshing monkeys" as a commemoration.

[Visiting London This Year?]

Andreas,

I have had some Brits dry run already and what I really need is some people who don't know London and, preferably, have another language as their first.

That said, for a Gentleman like yourself, why not? If you want to give a walk a test the offer is open on the same terms as described above.

When did you have in mind? I am due to go off on a family holiday this week, but will be back ont the 31st. Let me know when would be convenient for you.

[Visiting London This Year?]

Blucher,

Great, as things stand I am around on every day in the period you mention. If you want to go ahead with it just let me know, here or on an email or private message.

I think I can promise you an interesting walk and as much beer in one of the oldest pubs int the UK as you can drink, maybe even a decent curry, if your tastes run that way.

[Visiting London This Year?]

Are you a history buff and visting London in the next few months?

I am preparing a series of self-guided walks which take you along a carefully chosen route with detailed notes about the, often hidden, history of the places that you visit or pass through that I would like to market for a modest sum. I need a few visitors from overseas to test one or two of the walks.

The deal would be I would meet you and provide the necessary paperwork and maps, probably the afternoon/evening before. Then I would would meet you at the end of the walk and buy the beer, or beverage of your choice, while you tell me what bits you liked, what you liked less, and what problems you had.

Each walk is timed to take a couple of hours, plus the time you spend in the historic pubs and other places of interest en route.

If you might be interested I would be happy to provide a sample up front.

Any takers?

[Official System Requirements]

2.6 Ghz? Dang! No point in carrying on following this games development.

Good luck with it, guys

[Squad and Crew Management]

Originally posted by stone75:

Experienced guys needed to show new guys the ropes...i agree, thats why a battered division would often send experienced crews back to the training divisions for refiting of the division. These men would then help bring rookies up to scratch and often form crews with them. This way you have a crew that have trained together for a few months ready to fight. I just dont feel this is in the scale of the game.

Steve,

In which army and in which campaign? It certainly wasn't done like taht by the allies in NE Europe.

Cheers

Phil

[Squad and Crew Management]

Originally posted by stone75:

I agree with RMC, it is gamey. Crews worked together and became familiar with one another almost knowing what the others are thinking through living in the same steel box for many months...

That may have been true in some armies in some theatres, but by no means all. If you read Ken TOUT's books about his experiences as a British Tanker in Normandy and beyond you'll see plenty of examples where crew members were moved from tank to tank. Primarily, it would seem, to keep some sort of balance in crew quality after taking casualties. BOSCOWEN mentions the same sort of thing going on in the Guards Armoured Division in the same campaigns.

It would seem that, at least in British armour in NE Europe '44-45, it was very rare if not unheard of for crews to be together for very long.

Cheers

[A New AAR!]

Andreas,

An interesting article, thank you.

I am not sure why the actions of the Totenkopf Division should be excluded from the battle as they were part of the same German plan. To hold that the battle was just the assault of the Russian armour seems somewhat arbitrary, but no matter.

In terms of who won; well neither side wholly achieved their objectives, but the German army did not take the village or significantly expand their bridgehead over the Psel. As they had to do both to achieve any progress for the overall offensive, they failed. Therefore, I would respectfully suggest that what happened was a Soviet phyrric victory. They stopped the Germans but at huge cost. Given the Soviet attitudes to losses, I can understand why they claim Prokhorvka as a significant victory.

The article does mention that their were high losses on both sides. So I am not sure how significant the claim that Das Reich and Leibstandarte lost only three tanks as total write offs actually is. They may have been able to drag more off for repair/cannibalisation, but if they didn't have the strength left on the field to take ground that really doesn't matter.

I suppose the key question might be, if Citadel had not been called off on the 13th would the II SS Panzer Corps have been able to continue with the offensive with any real prospect of success? On the information available about actual German losses on the day there seems no way of knowing.

The Soviets, of course, took back all the ground they had lost during Kursk quite soon afterwards, thus probably converting many of the claimed German mobility kills into TWOs and many of their own TWOs into mobility kills.

Thanks again for an interesting article.

Cheers

[A New AAR!]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Ah yes, the heroic Soviet tanker ramming a Tiger in his burning T-34. How could I forget.

BTW - the figures from Töppel, who has used German and Soviet unit records, and uses a restrictive count of who was actually present at Prokhorovka, say maximum 3 German and ca. 200 Soviet TWOs at Prokhorovka. I believe the problem of Zetterling/Frankson is that they count in losses of units that were not actually involved in the battle.

All the best

Andreas

Andreas,

Some clarification please. Are you saying that at the battle for Prokhorvka on the 12th July 1943 the Germans lost only 3 tanks?

Now, I might be wrong, and if I am I am sure you will correct me, I thought the German attack was made by the II SS Panzer Corps, consisting of three SS Panzer Divisions (Totenkopf, Das Reich and Leibstandarte). That corps must have fielded about 600 tanks/assault guns. Are you saying that of that enormous strength they lost but three tanks?

In which case why didn't they take the objective? With a loss ratio of 1:66 in their favour and as they only lost about 0.5% of their armoured strength, I fail to see why the Germans should actually have lost the battle, or at least have failed to take the village which, perhaps, is the same thing.

Definately lost and confused at this end.

Cheers

[CMBO vs CMBB demo - poor scenarios]

Originally posted by Andreas:

....how many threads here are griping about something, in many cases absolutely piddling nonsense, that can be modded in a flash (the interface, and the shockwaves come to mind). How many threads are actually saying - yes, I don't like all aspects of CMBB, but fundamentally this game rocks and you should be congratulated for it......

A good point, Andreas, and since I have included what could be construed as a couple of criticsms of the demo sceanrios (though one was with tongue very firmly in cheek) let me try and redress the balance.

When I first saw CMBO I was stunned - it was what I had dreamt computer wargames should be ever since I first got my first machine back in the late seventies. CMBO is by far and away the best computer game I have ever played. It is so good that in fifteen months I haven't played anything else, until I downloaded the CMBB demo.

From what I have seen so far CMBB is an order of magnitude better than CMBO. A truly brilliant game that will occupy all too much of my time for a long while to come. My thanks to all at BFC and the beta testers for putting together a game which I cannot imagine being bettered given current technology.

[How do the angles work?]

In general this would tend to mean that flat-fronted Allied tanks should attack uphill when possible and that steeply sloped Axis vehicles should avoid firing downhill. If a sloped Axis vehicle fires uphill, does it get even more of a bonus?

If you would just care to move your Churchills and Cromwells forward a tad you will find your answer!

Cheers

[Bias in CMBO?]

Jason,

Never mind my friend you have taught me a thing or two about selecting units for an effective defence.

Many thanks.

[Bias in CMBO?]

"We have all had the same problem with our old board game/wargame buddies who seem to universally feel the german tanks are unpowered, under-armoured, under represented or someway just not up to their usual "unbertank" performance in OTHER wargames." And with that aka_tom_w neatly enacpsulates my problem.

Thanks one and all to those who have posted helpful replies.

[Bias in CMBO?]

A chum of mine against whom I have been playing PBEM for about a year insists that the game is biased against the German side.

This is contrary to my experience (having been beaten as the Allied and Axis player in equal measure). However, I cannot convince him that his theory is false.

Does anybody have any convincing objective evidence I can use?

Cheers

[The U.S. lobby in 'Combat Mission']

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jshandorf:

..... I believe, if my memory serves me right, that not a single allied ship made it into the port of Malta while the luftwaffe patroled that area..........

Jeff<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Umm, no. That isn't actually true.

Whilst things did get pretty damn desperate on the island, ships did get through.

The most famous example would be Operation Pedestal which was an very heavily guarded convoy from Gibraltar. The convoy had seven bells knocked out of it by the luftwaffe et al but, whilst it took severe losses, some ships did get make it. Most famously of course was the tanker which limped in some days after everyone. From memory the tanker was American by the name of the "Ohio" but I could swear to it.

Cheers

[out of curiousity--what do you use?]

"Does anyone out there like to play pre-existing scenarios PBEM? Maybe I should give that a try."

Yup, and for me this is the best way to enjoy the game. Dop me a line if you fancy giving it a go.

Cheers

[ardennes team DeSobry problem]

The same thing happened to me.

What was worse, in the second battle (which if I recall was a night fight) I advanced into the town and re-took it kicking the axis hard in the process, but come the third my start lines were once again back on the hill behind the town.

Don't know why - but then I never have figured out the logic behind operation start lines.

Cheers

[Why i the AI so stupid]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Strat:

.... The current AI is useless.

Strat<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The AI still whips my bottom (I don't think I am allowed to say the other word in this forum) on some scenarios and operations that I play for the first time.

I always thought I was pretty poor at the game, but now I know the AI is useless I must be more terrible than I ever imagined.

Cheers

P.S. PBEM anyone?

[ 07-10-2001: Message edited by: Blackcat ]

[British TOE. Nobody uses it. Why?]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The majority of firepower in a Commonwealth squad came from the Bren and Sten guns - see the earlier threads on this subject - search for "SLA Marshall".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not the Sten gun surely. The Sten was a very cheap easy to produce SMG that was designed and implemented on the rush post Dunkirk. It had a very short range, an even shorter effective range (after all it fired a pistol round), was very unreliable and was not a standard infantry squad weapon. Airborne, Commando and specialist units (combat pioneers & the like) did carry stens in some numbers but not line infantry where its use was limited to senior commanders & HQ troops as a last ditch self defense weapon.

The standard ten man squad would have one man with a bren gun and the rest armed with the excellent long Lee Enfield (pretty much the same weapon that shot Greman assaults flat in 1914). In 1945 in the 14th army the section Corporal was issued with a Thompson SMG to give greater firepower to the squad but my reading says that this was not popular with the troops not terribly effective in practice.

As a fine point of interest the Austrailians produced their own version of the Sten called the Owen-Stanley which was a much better weapon and was still carried by some Royal Marine Commando units into the late '50s.

The British replaced the sten with the Sterling, a more honest and better produced weapon which was issued to Armoured & HQ troops as personal weapon well into the seventies. However, although all infantry men were trained on it, it was still not carried in a line infantry section. In fact in my time (1970's) the infantry section still had one LMG (the lovely GPMG in bipod mode) and everyone else carried a rifle - the SLR (Self Loading Rifle, 7.62 version of the Belgian FN), a superb if somewhat heavy weapon - especially compared to the heap of junk they have to use now.

Cheers

[Stalingrad and bioweapons: any info?]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scipio:

This is the first time I heard about it.

My only informations about bioweapons in WWII was Churchills plan to bomb Germany with Anthrax, but war was over before they start - thanx god, cause I'm German :eek: !<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Really? Do you have a source for this?

Cheers