Affentitten

OK, I get the message. I guess I'm just pissed off that a tank with a damaged gun gets abandoned rather than withdrawn and returned for a later battle.

Speaking of funny pods mounted on wings, check this baby out, the Bell XFM-1 Airacuda. In front of each of the nacelles for the pusher props was a 37mm gun position. The cannon were remotely aimed and fired from the cockpit, but each of those stations was crewed by a loader who could also take over and fire the guns manually. In the event of damage, the gunners would have had to bail out in front of the props! It was designed in the early 40's when America was worrying about having to defend the USA and maybe Britain from huge waves of Axis bombers.

So it's just as logical for the crew to say "Our gun is damaged. Let's just lock her up and walk back to base."?

Goddam it! What's with vehicles being written off as "abandoned" in an operation just becuase they were bogged on the battle before? I can understand it if the things are way out in the middle of no-man's land, but I've got vehicles bogged well behind the front skirmish line and not even in LOS of the enemy and they're still being written off between battles. They should at least be capable of operating as pillboxes if the need arises. The same with tanks that have a gun damaged. They get left to rot between battles too. If they can still move and fire their MG's, I should be able to use them.

The asymetrical Bv 141 actually flew very well, and out-performed its competitors during tender for the recon aircraft contract. It was sheer prejudice against its looks that saw it shelved. Interesting considering the slightly similar gondola on the FW 189, which was also produced in a ground attack version: That prejudice against unusual airframes was thrown out the window in later years though. My personal favourite is the Ba 349 "Gnatte" (Gnat). The idea was that this rocket would blast upwards to meet incoming bomber formations. On the way up through the bombers, the pilot would trigger the spray of rockets in the nose cone, hopefully nailing a B-17. The Gnatte would then pass above the formation, where its fuel would cut out. The pilot was then to aim the craft back down at the bombers, lining up for a ramming attack. He was supposed to bail out just before impact. I'm sure the Luftwaffe cadets were queueing up for a chance to fly this baby.

Well let's keep it to the worst looking stuff. If we're talking planes, I vote for this French effort, the Amiot 143. Though you've got to admit, a joy ride in that gondala would have been pretty cool.

Well for Ukraine you could start with a battlefield map about 2 kms by 2 and then cover it with grass tiles. And, err, that's it.

I think it's all well and good to dream about single man Rambo units, but I mean, that's not what the game is really designed for. It's a battlefield simulation, not a first person shooter. There are plenty of other WW2 commando games where you can parachute into Colditz or whatever.

But hey, at least your men did something. In Close Combat your men would have hit the deck, crawled 5 meters towards the enemy, 5 meters to the left, 2 meters back, one meter forward and so on until dead, all the time ignoring the tree cover 9 meters away.

Well I was going to say the same thing about the length of the tracks being impossible, but whatI like the most is the MG on top of the big turret. Now that's what I call defensive armament!

I'm not sure which Doctor. It must have been one of the post-Baker ones, since the details are hazy to me. I know all the Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee ones by heart, but stopped really watching it when Baker left.

Just to show my nerd status, there is a Dr Who episode that deals with this! It concerns two space armadas, one in control of the cybermen (computer-based cyborgs) and some other similar race. Both battle fleets are controlled by identical computers who make their decisions based solely on logic. The two fleets have ended up at a stand-off for centuries without a shot being fired, since when one side makes a logical offensive move, the other side immediately takes the logical counter-move, negating the original advantage that the attacking AI saw and thus aborting the offensive manouver. I think the cybermen kidnap Dr Who because they want a non-logical humanoid to make a silly move and break the deadlock, thus kicking off the biggest space war in history.

There were a number of German parachute drops in the latter years of the war, especially in Greece and the Balkans. But all of them were purely tactical operations involving a handful of planes and men. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> Oh! And also was the airborne operation in the Ardennes ofensive, an absolute fiasco, with paratroopers who never jumped before, pilots that never worked with paratroopers, navigators that never found those f***g bridges, etc.<hr></blockquote> Sounds exactly like the Allied airborne invasion of Sicily. Just throw in "massed casualties from friendly fire" as well.

Also, as early as 1935, the Russians had slung pallet-borne T-37 tanks under TB-3 bombers. Imagine landing that biatch!

I liked Gotterdammerung, especially since I used to work in Cologne just over from the cathedral. Only drawback was that that crappy McDonalds where they always gave me cold fries wasn't included in the model. I was looking forward to blowing the hell out of that place and that one bitch of a manager. :cool: Also, it's a big city map with a hell of a lot of burning buildings, so if your processor is a bit flaky like mine, it can be a very laggy experience, even with all the graphic effects turned low.

Buit as I said, they were never used to actually land armour in combat. There was also the He-111Z "Zwillinge", made from 2 He-111's stuck together which was used to tow the Gigant. But there was never sufficient numbers to mount anything on the scale of a British or American airlanding assault. Lack of air superiority has its drawbacks. I'm also not sure that the Locust tank was ever actually landed in combat, since the Yanks didn't have a glider to do it with. Maybe they might have had Hamilcars seconded from the Brits though.

After the invasion of Crete, there were no major German airdrops. The vast majority of German paratroops in 44/45 would have never made a combat drop. There just wasn't the aircraft or the strategic situation to permit it. The Germans had no ability to airland armour. Their standard glider in the early days (Eben Emael) was the DFS 230 which could hold 12 -15 men in cramped conditions. In the later part of the war there was the twin-boomed Go 244, which could load a kubelwagen or a gun. There was also the Me 321 "gigant", more commonly seen as the powered Me 323. Whilst it could take a load of about 16 tons, I think there were balance issues with it packing a whole AFV in one place, and it required 3 Me 110's towing it simultaneously under such a load; an incredibly dangerous undertaking. Anyway, by the end of the North African campaign most of those fat lumberers had been turkey shot out of the sky. The only combat airlanding of armour that took place in WW2 was via the big British Hamilcar gliders, which could transport a light Tetrach tank or a 17 lber AT gun.

I got mine in about 6 days, and I live in Australia.

I am actually trying to find out for you. I've asked a veteran of the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA. But he only checks his email about once a week, so don't hold your breath.

And just to add more grist to the mill, what about those sub-regiments that were created specifically to accompany the airborne divisions. Like the Airlanding Light Regiments of the Royal Artillery, the Ailanding Light Anti-tank regiments?

On the origin of saluting, one thing that counts agianst the theory of knights tipping their visors is the fact that most helmets didn't have pivoted visors. That's mainly a Hollywood thing. Also, it would have been the knights getting saluted, rather than them slauting others. I think the tradition is more to do with the practice of showing an unarmed hand to a dignatary, just like the Red Indian "how". Of course, the Arabs also have their "salaam", touching the breast, lips and forhead to signify a true heart, a mouth free of insult and a mind free of treacherous thoughts. On Pommie saluting: I believe that the Royal Navy uses the plam down salute as opposed to the palm out Army version.

In true Aussie war-time style: I don't know what I'm signing up for exactly, but it sounds like a grand adventure! mat@beyondonline.com.au Sydney.

Well can you imagine sitting there with your mortar tube perfectly vertical and sticking shells in it? What fun.

There was a similar mortar bomb throwing incident in Italy, for which the man involved was also reccommended for the CMH. But when it got up to the review board, nobody believed that it could actually be done. They actually went to the trouble of testing whether mortar rounds could be armed and detonated in such a way. Can you imagine the poor schmuck at Yuma Proving Ground or wherever who had to do the testing? "Here private, bang this live round on the ground really hard and see if it goes off. I'll be waiting in the bunker over there to observe the results."

I've also read stories of squaddies trying to brace 81mm mortars in the boggy ground of the Falklands by standing on the base plate. Broken ankles were the usual result.