Kim Beazley MP Ma

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: In addition to Germanboy's points, there is also the fact that BTS simply did not have time to include every vehicle in the ETO. Plus, bridging vehicles and the like would have required special coding to work properly. [ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maybe so but they included a lot of stuff which according to my sources was a lot rarer than the funnies - the Puppchen for example. The Jumbo Sherman for another.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: Despite what you saw in a training movie, I somehow doubt that the bridge-layers and fascine carriers were used extensively in a CMBO setting, I'll go and check my copy of 'Churchill's secret weapons' again though. The one I miss most is the Sherman flail. Then again, defenders don't have trenches, and mine-fields are not as common, so hey. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'd suggest that the RTR would have portrayed accurated how they intended their equipment to be utilised in a film they were showing to their own troops/commanders. Showing your own troops/commanders fantaties tends to have bad results in the end. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> While fascines were used to get across anti-tank ditches, and bridgelayers to get across small streams, one should remember that there are no ditches and small streams (the CMBO water tile is 20m, the Valentine bridgelayer could bridge 18m, IIRC), so it could be argued that you don't need them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How representational is that, though? Like the Bren on a tripod, the 25 Pdr ROF and other things, it appears yet once more the British/Commonwealth are not being portrayed historically. Such obstacles did exist - be it a canal or a stream or an anti-tank ditch they were more common across most of NW Europe than I believe the game's designers really realise. More often than not, they could be crossed relatively easily but upon occasion the steepness of the banks, the depth of the water, etc., precluded crossing. I'd suggest that the mere fact you can only make only water obstacles which are uncrossable (except by infantry, if you use the ford tile to represent a shallow stream!), except at bridges, is a bit artificial IMO. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Pre-assault bombardment - you can do this in prebuilt scenarios, I have started to experiment with it, and a combo of briefing nudges, green/conscript FOOs and TRPs should induce players to use them in that way.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I look forwar to their release then. I'm surprised that they were not included in the game anyway, as part of the preparation phase. Another problem I have is the way so many of the scenarios simply lump all the units into a all to often tiny form-up area and then the first few turns I find all too often I'm sorting out units into proper formations. As the location of many of the units are locked, this has to happen at the start of the battle rather than before it, as it should.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: Christ! Not another Ozzie politician! Quick, Henry, the Flit! It's an infestation! Well, I suppose as long as they manage to come up with intelligent posts (how does a politician pull this one off? oh, that's right, he's in the opposition) we can stand it. Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Pity you cannot do similar in the other thread devoted to the question of the missing funnies. [ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: Kim Beazley MP Ma ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by panzerwerfer42: The standard answer is they are out of the games scope. They were generally used before an attack to get closer to an objective. CM deals with the actual assault, not the approach.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Errr, I'd have suggested that in fact they facilitate the assault and were, according to all the accounts in many cases used during it. I have seen British Army training films (most notably a very rare title called "Men in Armour" produced in 1945) which detailed the way in which the funnies were utilised, including film of training exercises conducted by the RTR. Fascines and Bridging tanks were definitly intended to be utilised in the assault. BTW, anybody who believes that fascine carriers approached obstacles and halted before dropping their fascines is sadly mistaken. As shown in that particular film, the driver of the fascine carrier approached an anti-tank ditch at the highest speed possible, blew the restraints, touched his brakes and then pushed the fascine into the ditch and crossed it, without pause. If the game is intended to dipict the assult, then why doesn't it allow for the possiblity of outflanking marches and pre-assault bombardments?

I was surprised to find that only two of Percy Hobart's funnies are included in the game CMBO - the AVRE and the Crocodile. Where'd all the others go? Indeed, perhaps the one most sadly missed are the variously bridging tanks and the fascine carrier. Without them, the Commonwealth (and by extension the US Army, who were unable to develop their own and relied up 79 Armoured Div. for support) are extremely limited in what they could and did do about obstacles. With the fascine carrier, most ditches, streams and other such obstacles could be outflanked and crossed. With the bridging vehicles, larger streams and rivers, as well as large craters no longer present the same obstacles they could/did. So, why no funnies?

I'd suggest that there are perhaps several different albeit interconnected factors which determine whether or not a ford could be crossed by either infantry or vehicles. They would be depth, speed of flow and footing. Other factors which affect vehicles, in addition would be approaches - the steeper they are, the less likely a vehicle would attempt such a ford.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: (An early experiment with SP 47mm AT proved not much of an improvement). [ 09-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> On what do you base that assertion? All my reading has indicated that the JagdPanzer I was in fact actually quite a successful little vehicle, equipped with quite a hard hitting weapon for the early war period - superior to the equivalent German weapon which was the Pak-36 3.7cm AT gun. Indeed, the Czech 47mm remained marginally useful until 1944, several being encountered in Normandy.