Merkin Muffley

There's the rub: I can't check at present but it wouldn't take much of a test to find out. But I would go on a limb and say that a tank suffering a catastrophic hit with no survivors is not generating *that* many more points than a tank that's hit with 4 out of 5 crew escaping to the undergrowth.

A TC is worth the points the tank cost devided by the amount of crewmembers... when the tank itself remains alive (i.e. he's been topped by a sniper or aircraft etc.) If you've already killed the tank, you've got most (all?) of your points and culling the remaining crew is mostly being neat and depriving opponent of extra info

I bet you are secretly relieved that you won't be experiencing threads along the lines of "Of course everyone knows that the plasma bolt gun wasn't actually deployed by space lobsters until after the 3rd Interregnum, so its gamey that the Space Artichokes have it on Planet BiteMe". More seriously, massively impressed that it is very cross-platform. Not that it affects me directly insofar as I am Windows based, but I would take it as an indication of professionalism that bodes well for overall code quality. Also, I suspect that the apparently minor point about using standard map file formats will turn out to be one of the most significant things and is something that I hope sets a precedent. Congratulations.

Maybe they helped decide where to put mines. You know: "Shall we put it here? Shall we put it there? No, I disagree, we should put it over there." It was called Mine Kampf.

Note that the Resistance had been quite successful with Piat d'Or, which could be used against tanks - but also against infantry. By making them drink it.

I haven't got a definitive reply on this yet, so I won't name the exact map, but I am in a battle at the moment which is a CMBO map imported or recreated in CMAK. Which is a great map, but because of the geographical quirks of the North Africa of CMAK and the Europe of CMBO, you can be in the bizarre position of your rattled troops trying to get out of harms way by advancing towards the enemy. Always. Which is horrid if you are defending, as your defending troops rush out of their prepared positions to hide in the arms of the enemy, and his rattled attacking troops just keep on coming - the more rattled, the faster they come. See threads on PyeWacket's Map Converter which addresses this amongst other issues. I think I'm right in saying that the friendly edges defined in the map are over-ruled by the theatre geography of the game. Which is fixed by swapping North and South. But since I only came across this yesterday I am quite expecting to be corrected. But it really really affects a battle!

Lots and lots going on here. It seems that the crux of the main discussion is about the propensity to bog - some saying it is too high, others that it is OK. For those that perceive it to be a problem there is the secondary discussion about how to deal with it - user-controlled parameters, etc. I must admit I start in the so-what camp and don't perceive it to be a problem based on my own experience. So, driving fast across any terrain falls into the same things-to-avoid category as buying aircraft and hoping they won't kill your own men, likewise rocket artillery, etc. But I do admit to being surprised at the apparent degree to which they do appear to bog (shown by Walapurgis's tests and my own more limited ones), even when driven moderately. But then, I have no idea of what the "true" or realistic figure should be, so I just lump it in the same way as I lump the other easily-checked vagaries of CM - like ammo mix on tanks and the varied leadership skillset that platoon commanders get. I can see bogging being an issue in small battles where there may only be one or two tanks per side, but presumably that can only be resolved if bogging is removed completely? But I wonder for these types of game why other issues aren't raised too - such as the leadership skills already referred to. Surely these impact even more on small games? My very quick checks on buying Briitish infantry companies showed that a favoured company had 18 extra leadership attributes across the 4 officers, whereas the runt company had 6 extra attributes. Surely that would impact greatly, even if the player was oblivious of the attributes? Of course this could be easily resolved, even without user parameters. I propose each company would have two 2nd Lt Bishops, 1 Lt Knight and a Capt King. Lt Knight would be recognisable by his funny gait. Back to bogging - is the issue to reduce it from whatever current% to current%/2 or eliminate it altogether, or perhaps eliminate it altogether when on flat surfaces travelling in straight lines at medium speed for tanks with no known tendency to have dodgy running gear? Are all these different factors going to be user selectable, so the no-boggers might play the 1%-boggers on non-road terrain, but wouldn't dream of playing the 2.5%-boggers on any-terrain, especially tanks with > 13psi? I have a particularly good way of preventing bogging being an issue which players might want to try and which invariably works for me. I get my tanks shot up before they move very far.

Try also Restormel Castle and/or Tintagel castle. The former is quite an interesting design.

I'd chase up your PS_GS game if I were you...no turns and 2.1Mb!!! What on earth is that?

I seem to recall (no doubt incorrectly) that the Stuart didn't have the ability to turn on the spot (tracks going different ways) and therefore would describe a tight arc when doing 180 degree turns rather than a pivot. If so, that would be nice to see.

Maybe they hoped for a popular Cornish uprising if they promised no more tourists. Still, the paucity of communications works both ways - assuming they had somehow persuaded the RN to bugger off because of air and submarine threat. Seems very unlikely though.

No objection. In fact, compulsory for opponent to have split squads when playing 2000 point combined arms ... TCP/IP and 2 minute turns

Perhaps you should add a car battery at the same time as your clothes to avoid the imbalance in the first place.

I found your work great and very creative so I will be waiting for the next one. Spartan1 </font>

Oh wonderful. You cannot watch it without laughing. And then watching it again.

Without a UK distraction, would not Barbarossa have kicked off earlier because there would be no British mishief making in the Balkans? Would that have secured Leningrad and Moscow that were so tantilisingly close to capture even in reality? Would the USSR have retained its cohesion with the loss of those cities - politically?. Would it have retained a significant economic capability with the loss of the c&c infrastructure and the loss of Moscow as the transport hub? Would Germany have bothered declaring war on the US if it wasn't actively assisting the UK? Would the US ever have contemplated declaring war on the German anti-communist bulwark? All these huge geo-political issues, but of course, its far more important to argue the toss over the LL proportion of Russian armour. For what its worth, at a CMBB level, I know the 6pdr Valentines are a sodding menace. If you are a tank. And almost completely harmless if you are not.

Before electric tanks there'll be electric SP guns. They'll come in batteries.

Soddball - Barnes Wallis designed the Grand Slam bomb and at 22,000lb it was the largest WWII bomb which I suspect means it was the largest bomb used in action ever. It would reach supersonic speed on its descent and penetrate 30+ ft of reinforced concrete or 100+ ft of earth before exploding - obviously with an "earthquake" effect, but also creating a huge subterranean cavern that might cause structures above to collapse. Beats a 2" mortar then.