ryddle

Can anyone remember the name of the German Col. in SL who actually provided a negative benefit (a 6 + 1 perhaps?). It would be interesting to see those HQ leaders who were political placements who might negatively impact their platoon's performance. Wouldn't you be pissed in a small QB where you got your one COY commander with negative ratings. Of course, we would end up sending that guy out scouting w/o any backup at the first opportunity... Still, it would be humorous. -R

I don't know how you guys could manage the time with ASL... I had time for SL in the mid 80's while in high school. In post-secondary I moved around a bit and was only able to play it once sine '85. One year, someone mentioned that they were interested in trying it out... so I passed them a rule book saying "read this a few times... just the beginning... infantry only". Yea right. When we got together and he brushed if off thinking I could teach it to him as we played, like Risk. "What's morale" he asked? Then I got married, "good by Squad Leader", *sniff* The good thing is, however, that I have a bunch of unmarried friends and we have been playing "empires in arms" over the last couple of years, so I'm still getting my cardboard chit & rules lawyering fix. Now 7 guys getting together and trying to out diplo each other is certainly a fun show. -R

I'm on a PC and I regularly play Mac guys. If you are both on brodband stick to uncompressed files. I've played dozens of games vs. Mac users and have had only one or two corrupt files. If the guy is on a modem you may want to compress the lager files. I personally like having the files uncompressed b/c i'm on broadband and it's another step in the PBEM exchange that can be a nuisiance when you are trying to get through 7 or 8 concurrent games. On occasion, I have a similar problem as Graff Spee mentioned (corrupt file). Probably 1 time in 200 and, for me, it doesn't seem to relate to compression issues. (although we could be experiencing completely different issues.) HTH, Ryddle

I would expect that here would be a huge difference in sound between a tracked and non-tracked vehcile. Although WW2 armour would be slightly different than contemporary tracked vehicles (ie. heavy equipment), from what I've seen they go by the same principle. i.e. Tracked vehicles have a series of pads that are held onto a chain. It's this chain that the main drive (think 'sprocket') uses to force the rotaion of the track. It looks very much like a bycicle chain. The thing is, it isn't lubricated at all and screams/screeches and groans constantly. Snap, crackle, pop... fwiw, -R

Sounds interesting, but I would need a bit more information before I could commit. If this is a discussion better taken off-line, please drop me a note at reade@ryddle.com Thanks! -R

Looks like Peavvy and I posted at the same time... kinda like when 2 tanks fire at the same time and kill each other.

Defense = American way of spelling defence.

I've been playing at Rugged-Defense in their ladder. I've played roughly 10 games there and I have never really run across anyone who goes the gamey selection route. For most, I found that when you approach them for a game, you spend several days via e-mail hashing through the force selection params. (i.e. Short-75, single branch of armed forces, no flakwagons, etc.) http://www.rugged-defense.nl/cm/cm.htm For myself, I'm not sure what makes a force selection a-historical, I usually like to buy the larger organic units (e.g. batallions) and augment with armour and arty. fwiw, -R

Wow, some of the comment mentioned about working the cold sure have brought back memories. I'm a cannucker and I've "done time" in the far north working on and around heavy equipment. Once it gets around -20 things start acting weird with equipment. Everything has to be babied. No hope at all about chipping off the ice from around the rollers at that temperature. If you leave them frozen you will actually square off your rollers from the friction of the chain dragging across them. We ended up taking old parachutes and draping them over the dozer's and let the propane torches go for the night. At minus 40 or thereabouts things start leaking in odd spots and seals crack. One location we worked in only had 18 frost-free days a year. Yuck. I'm sure that many of the inconvenient aspects of working with tracked vehicles will be abstracted in combat mission, but one thing that I always found surprising was how tracked vehicles behaved on ice. I've never seen a pad from a tank, but on 'dozers they frequently have a raised bar (grouser) that runs along the width of the pad (perpendicular to the direction of motion). Excellent traction in normal conditions. Once you are on ice, however, you have one of these grousers for each pad on the ice pointing perpendicular to the direction you want to go. So what happens when you put a 40 tonne tank on skates? Yup, big iron just SLLLLLIIIIDDEEESSS uncontrollably on almost any slope. Any angle that you don't approach head on will send you sliding faster and faster to the stumps, rocks, whatever. Nice way to immoblise yourself very quickly and dammage your track. Even going up a moderate slope head on can cause much greif. One track has to slip just a bit and you start spinning down the hill. If tanks didn't have grousers... they wouldn't be able to do much. (perhaps they welded knobbies on or something?) Anyone know what they used for ice? So, what would be interesting? It would be cool if BTS would put in a slope calculation to dramatically increase the chance of a pnzr loosing control. A game of 'spin the tank' anyone? Anyone trying to get a nice 'hulled-down' position would just as likely have their panzer spin 90-degrees and sit at the bottom of a gully with nothing to shoot at. fwiw, -R

I'm playing against a guy who has at least 2 of the 30mm variety a good distance from my lines. btw, we specifically agreed that we could use them... even knowing the complaints about them. I made sure that I had roughly 3 60mm mortars per flack vehicle and they each go down. fairly quickly. Of course I might change my opinion if he's still hiding some and I run out of mortar rounds. One thing that might have made a difference is that he was in scattered trees so perhaps a treeburst help take them out? It would be interesting to see how effective they are if the opponent moves them about so you can't track them (if you are using HQ supplied LOS to your crews). FWIW, -R

Cool. Ok, I feel less cheated then. Thanks for the reply. -R

Hmmm... I did a quick toodle through my troops listed (every squad in a number of platoons) and I didn't have any icons show up that indicated grenades or that sort of thing. These guys had not even been in the battle yet... (unless they have been trying to frag their platoon HQ) *shrug* I'll try some solo-QB's and re-confirm when I get off of work. Cheers, -R

I ran some simple tests and found that the 40mm bofor (sp?) worked like a hot-damn at busting pillboxes. The only problem is being able to deploy these suckers without getting capped in the process. -R

Hi, did a quick search and was unable to find an answer to the following. Why the French units don't seem to have any... what's the technical term... "small-things-carry-on-person-throw-at-enemy-they-go-BOOM"? Ok, grenades/gammon bombs, etc. I thought I would play a QB as French so I picked up at least 1 infantry company (must obscure facts in case my opponent is reading this. Fate, stop reading now ) and none of them had any grenades. Will this mean that it will be harder for me to bust open a Pillbox, etc? This would decrease their effectiveness in close combat situations. So for the same price, why buy French over the Americans? (execpt for the OUTRAGEOUS accents, of course) thanks! -Ryddle

If you're going to include some Fr. Cdn voices, don't forget to include "tabernac!" -R

Shoot! I knew I shouldn't have ignored all those PENG threads. I could never get past the "SOUND OFF AS THOUGH YOU GOT A PAIR!". Now I have an awful lot of reading to do to figure out how I can get a little bit closer to some of that yummie S. African wine. Mmmmmmm..... wine. (yea, yea, wine and beer will get me out of lurking) -R

<lurking off> Heck, I would like to see a full scen movie w/o any fog of war. T'would be cool to view a battle from all sides seeing when your opponent responds to your actions. Cheers, -R <lurking on>