Hanns

I played Deus Ex compulsively for about a month until I beat it. It's one of the coolest games I've ever played (along with CM ) The story line is great, animation is top notch, all conversations are digital audio and the back story is incredible. The physics and damage for some weapons is off IMO but still a killer game. Quote J.C. Denton "Maybe I outta put a cap in his ass too" Gotta love that! Hanns

One of the guys I used to work with got into the WWII re-enactments. Looks like a lot of fun. Me, I prefer to get drunk and beat people with sticks (SCA). I've seen the local group put on demonstrations at Ft. Snelling, MN the last couple of years. I know they had to postpone one a few years back because the local National Guard troops help them out moving their big vehicles and the NG guys were deploying to Bosnia (hehe, the European Theatre just never ends). The guy I worked with, Andrew was in a local SS unit that owns the SPW 250/1 and a ton of full auto weapons. He was looking at getting a curio and relic license so he could buy a number matched StG45 :eek: Talk about pricey for an original though! Looks like a lot of fun in a politically incorrect way (esp. for the Germans) but way more pricey than what I do. I remember he had some cool videos of his unit ambushing some 82nd Airborne troops, they opened up with a MG42, 2 MG34s, 4 MP40s and a StG45 That was a cool video. Hanns

One subject that I haven't seen covered (OK, I haven't read all the posts) is that when a vehicle is "killed" in a non catastrophic manner the crew firing automatically knows it's "dead" and stops firing at it. To a PaK50 crew what are the obvious external differances between a "kill" shot and a "turret hit, internal flaking" shot? Until the gun crew sees the panicked crewmen bailing out of the vehicle I believe they should keep firing until they (the gun crew) think the vehicle is dead. It should be much easier for the gun crew to target the tank (or whatever) as they've already hit it so all they need to do is pull the cord again to fire an almost guaranteed hit. Also I took interest in the abandoned crew thread. I'd like to see an "Audy Murphy" type scenario where a lone member of a squad mounts a knocked out tank and utilizes the M2 HMG as a weapon. It shouldn't work well obviously but it should be possible in those very rare (Congressional Medal of Honor) one in a million odds chances It would also be interesting to be able to scavange weapons from dead squads or crews. Having your outgunned and decimated platoon leader group grab a StG44 and a couple of Panzerfausts off their dead comrades to make a heroic last stand against the Ami's would be welcome. Anyways, thanks for actually listening to my rambling posts. It's almost unheard of for a prominent game designer to even consider reading the posts of a SSN

When I was in the US Army in the early nineties, I got to participate in a Bn level sniper course. I was the guy who drove everyone out to the range so I always got to shoot and usually after everyone was gone, we'd burn up all the excess ammo Each company was issued one M24 sniper rifle (match grade Remington 700 bolt action with a 4x14 power scope). I'm not a insanely good shot but from a good sandbag rest I could consistantly hit a 600m target and managed to hit the 1200m target twice out of maybe 20 shots. Not a realistic range (targets were painted white to show up) or would I want to try it under combat conditions but definitely do-able by even me My old bolt action Mauser K98 (model 1940) was a superb deer rifle, such a good design that almost all modern bolt action deer rifles and sniper rifles are based on it. Something to be said about a 130 year old design that's still going strong and has seen only cosmetic improvement over the years. I've taken deer out to 200m with open ramp sights quite easily and the best ever was about 350m. The ramped sights went to 1200m but with a relatively crude ramp and post site this is only even to be considered on a company size level firing en masse at a group target. Still, very optimistic though!

Actually the direct descendant of the StG.45(M) is the CETME rifle followed by the excellant HK G3 rifle series. The designer of the StG.45 under Mauser later became the head engineer of the new Heckler&Koch facility on the same grounds of the old Mauser Werks plant in Oberndorf am Neckar. For more info check out http://www.hkpro.com/g3.htm

Hey you Limeys still owe us Yanks over a billion dollars for Lend-Lease equipment from WWI!!! Anyone want to figure out the compound interest on that one? Let's not even try to figure out how much is owed from WWII. The US saved your butts, what twice in the last century and you're still pissed that a bunch of fur hat wearing, whiskey drinking country boys whupped "the strongest Army in Europe" in 1814. C'mon, let past conflicts be forgot and buy me a nice round of Guinness as I'd rather drink my own urine than that swill called Budweiser