Kurt Bullard

Ditto on the insights this book provides into CMBB. Koschorrek spent his entire career on the Eastern Front. He started the war as a replacement at Stalingrad, was part of one of the 24th Pz Div units to escape, held the line west of Stalingrad, and was eventually overrun. There are a couple of great scenarios in there, too. Kurt

In SC 1.06, your likelihood of tech research advancements is based, in part, on the "... relationship with enemy research levels to represent captured equipment, spying, etc." I thought you might find this information from the "etc." category of interest. It comes from "The Last Year of the Luftwaffe: May 1944 to May 1945", by Alfred Price. The German night fighter force reached its peak effectiveness in early 1944, "... culminating on 30-31 March when 94 bombers were shot down during an attack on Nuremburg." In SC terms, this a single strength point lost on a single raid. "The technical improvement in the night fighter force hinged on the development and introduction of three new electronic devices into its aircraft, and in keeping the RAF ignorant of their existence. The most important of these was the SN-2 airborne interception radar...." At this point, the Germans had at least one Tech Level advantage. Then, "During the early morning darkness on 13 July a fully equipped Junkers 88G night fighter landed at the RAF airfield at Woodbridge in Suffolk. Its inexperienced pilot had been ordered to fly the night fighter from its base in Holland to Germany for engineering work but had inadvertently steered a reciprocal compass course and arrived in England by mistake. Examining the windfall the next day, Royal Air Force intelligence officers found ... the SN-2 radar." Kurt

Convinced that the war is won or lost in Russia, I tended to be too "non-strategic" as the Allies in 1939-41. I attacked some ports here and bombarded units there, but not toward a strategic end. While I still believe Russia is key, Hubert demonstrates a subtle point: the Western Front can have important long-term affects on Barbarossa. My two cents: - It may seem obvious, but don't invest a single MPP in Poland under normal circumstances. The sad strategic reality is that Poland is a goner and MPPs spent there simply give the Axis an opportunity for easy experience. In fact, I prefer to *attack* if there's any opportunity to inflict losses. - As I found out the first time, contesting Norway requires advance planning. If the Axis takes Norway in a single turn from Sweden, Bergen definitely will be garrisoned the next and a contested invasion will fail. - Norway also offers the British the option of "going big early". The prospect of a substantial British force in Norway under Montgomery will force the Axis to make a tough strategic decision -- just about the time Barbarossa is supposed to start. - I still prefer an HQ in France, especially if your objective is to destroy at least one German unit. That makes it harder, though, to establish a solid line. Given a choice, leave the coast open. If the Axis takes the bait, use your naval units. Kurt

I'm with I/O on the best defense of Russia. Fall back! Put up a token defense of cities and resource centers. Preserve your resources for the day when you can get leadership and mount a local offensive. But don't go on the offensive too early. You'll eventually make a stand somewhere in the East. Someone put it well when they said your goal should be simple survival. Time is on your side *only* if you survive. Put another way, Russia is the only place where you can trade space for time, and that approach seems to have served the Russians well through several centuries of warfare. The forward defense of Russia doesn't work for me in SC because: - You make Russia a training ground for the Wehrmacht. They get *tons* of experience from easy victories against weak units. They can't get experience from what they can't attack. - The "480 MPP/turn" math breaks down once you start losing cities and resources centers. Things get ugly when you have, say, 350 MPPs/turn. - You *will* lose resource centers against a competent human. Let us know what does work for you! Kurt

I did a search on "ultra". There were a couple of posts back in May on the importance of strategic intelligence, particularly as it related to Africa. Any new ideas on how to simulate this Allied advantage in SC? A couple of thoughts off the top of my head: - warn the Allies of major shifts in troops; for example, "Troop strength on the Western Front doubled in the last turn." - occasional insight into Axis R&D spending. - possible of notification of Axis naval movement. - warning of ungarrisoned cities that might be ripe for an easy assault. Kurt

Although there were some errors on my part, I was defeated in the USSR in February 43 by a low-quality, armor-heavy force executing the "Southern Gambit" (drive first to the map edge east of Stalingrad, cutting off the southern USSR resources). Think hordes of Level 1 Tank groups. In fact, I don't think my opponent had a single air fleet in the east until mid-1942. What made this effective was the range of the armored units and their ability to threaten cities and resources deep in the USSR. The standard 3-4 Corps simply weren't enough to cover everything. Even if you could re-take the resources, their destruction from "Scorched Earth" offered minimal incentive to counterattack. The end result was a slow downward spiral of declining MPPs which even the Siberian Army couldn't stop. I think I can do better next time, but it was overwhelming the first time (and didn't rely on Tech advances to succeed). Kurt

One other minor thing worth checking... (Hope this isn't redundant.) I had the problem where SC would disappear after entering my correct password. It turns out something -- probably my anti-virus software -- was setting the .sav file to be "read-only". When I unchecked "read-only", it worked great. Kurt P.S. - The key clue came from the temporary fix that produces "exception_trace.log". It showed lots of "I/O Errors".

Still experimenting and trying to find the best way to take Norway as the Axis. The Norwegian forces seem too strong to "blitz", so the best I can do is land several Corps' and eventually take Oslo with a combination of air attacks, attacks from Corps' with no supply, and a fresh Corps landed that turn. All while fending off the British Navy! Is there a better way? Does an HQ help? Kurt

I'd be interested in both the rules and the scenarios to solar33@earthlink.net. Thanks, Kurt

An opponent and I were playing the "Singling Shootout" scenario. His Sherman 105 was near the center of the map next to one of the small buildings along the road. In an effort to flush out/suppress suspected enemy units to his front, the Sherman 105 area targeted a building to his front. The area targeting line was clearly shown. During execution, the Sherman 105 put four HE rounds into the small building right next to him! (To my opponents dismay, bringing it down on an American infantry squad and artillery spotter inside.) Any idea what happened? :confused: Is this a possible bug? Our thinking was that the AI could certainly make a mistake and put a round or two in the way wrong place--especially if it was peeking around a corner. But four rounds smacks of gross negligence! Thanks, Kurt