Steiner14

Scirocco, it's not a fraud! The source is israeli, not palestine. @others I expect you to be as tolerant yourself, as you demand and can expect it from others. You may not like my quote, that is your good right, but it is not offending, because it attacks no one and if the quote would be from a German, Russian, Finnish or US politician, or from the pope, no one would even came on the idea, to force people to hide and ban it. IMO your behaviour torwards me is unacceptable and, in oposition to my sig, is really offending and maybe it's time to leave, if a few, but even louder intolerant inquisitors here take the right to define, what other people are allowed to say and what not and try even to misuse and force moderators to join their inquisition tribunals.

I like this idea very much! Here my 2ct: as long as the unit stays out of LOS or HQ-range, only sound-contacts other friendly units receive, are reported ('there's some infantry shooting over there', 'hMG fire'). This would mean finally losing contact to friendly units with all (positive) consequences for realism and gameplay! If the unit comes back into LOS only, you get a bit more info (think of handsigns) about the contact and the info could be displayed in a different color than usual. In case the unit comes back into range of a HQ, you receive all information the unit had collected (for spotting crewmembers of radio-equipped vehicles, this could be the case, when they are within a certain radius of the vehicle). I would really appreciate the possibility to lose any contact to friendly units and that only friendly units can make them appear and receive orders again. Therefore a new kind of emergency-order would be helpful, the unit can receive, before it is sent away. i.e. after a certain amount of time the TacAI tries to move the unit along the given path (or direction).

Martyr, please stop highjacking the thread with your intolerant inquisitionary behaviour.

Here's another idea for a probably much better grid-overlay: the grid overlay's color should change according to the elevation level of the terrain, instead of showing only a constant color.

Sure. Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP News) An acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign Minister Shimon Peres during which Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying "don't worry about American pressure, we control America." According the Israeli Hebrew radio, Col Yisrael Wednesday, Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and turn the US against us. At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me American will do this and will do that…I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it." The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us a public relations disaster." I hope this will find the acceptance of the inquisition tribunal and we can continue with more or less useful opinions about the topic. [ December 26, 2004, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Sirocco, although i don't think, i have to justify my signature, i can tell you, that this quote is from a dialogue with Shimon Peres, who lamented, that Sharon may be risking problems with the USA and Israel may lose the support of the USA, if they continue with their politics and Sharon answered, that all those being afraid about consequences from the USA, forget that...[sig] In this dialogue 'Americans' doesn't mean the people, but the politicians, if that confused you. [ December 26, 2004, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Excellent. Seems that adress works.

The reason, how the Soviet propaganda was shaped, had nothing to do with a good or bad Hitler, nor with Devils and Angels. That is schoolbook history, but if you are really interested in understanding history, i can suggest you first to learn how to identify and seperate moralizing propaganda phrases from rational facts and arguments. The reason why the Soviet propaganda was how it was, was because of clear rational facts and conclusions and not because Hitler 'wanted to enslave the soviet population'.

Would you mind to remove the spoiler, because we play double-blind and my oponent is around here, too? Yes ground conditions are tricky but i can't say anything, without announcing things to my oponent. Feind hört mit! I can only recommend to never post your email explicitly in a forum, if you don't want to be bombed with 200+ spam emails/per day! At least use the word AT instead of the @. Strange, the adress i have seems to be correct. I immediately receive a following message: This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to all of its recipients. The following address(es) failed: chilson.polites AT verizon.net retry time not reached for any host after a long failure period Do you have another adress?

@RCHRD: What is with my sig? @Zveroboy: Guilt is always and only a personal category. Therefore only single persons and not groups can be held responsible for their actions and not persons for the actions of others. Your supporting of clan-liability and most awful crimes is not ok. Additionally i want to remark, if you claim, the Russian soldiers became mass-rapists because for payback, you imply nothing else, that the Nazi-propaganda were right, because then they indeed were Untermenschen (following the strange 'logic': what the Germans did to them was that awful, that they turned into mass-rapists). No normal mental healthy soldier will ever become a rapist, because for 'payback' and this 'argument' is a most primitive and an easy to refute propaganda-trick of the Soviets, to excuse the raging of the soldiers against helpless female civilians, and that the completely honor-free propaganda they used, which had been used never before in such a quality by any army, was the reason. The Russians are a way to civilized culture-nation, that this awful denouncement would be justified. They did what they did, because this omnipresent and unbelievable most primitive Ehrenburg-hate-propaganda waked and supported the lowest instincts (when we will be in Germany, take their wifes and children, take what they have, then it will be yours, kill the fascist creatures wherever you meet them!) every army tries to suppress and only this criminal propaganda put the Soviet soldier in this extraordinary psychic state. And not because Russians were animals and rape women for payback! I'm asking myself why i discuss with someone, who doesn't even know the difference between W-SS and certain single SS police-commandos. [ December 26, 2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Why is it not possible to search for 2player or battles against AI? Or did i miss something?

Alkiviadis, thanks for the hint. 'Opening Moment' is excatly what i'm playing right now! But only by random, because my oponent suggested it and i have to say, i'm really impressed. This is one of the battles that allows a realistical approach and, what i appreciate even more, because of it's size, it allows the useage of armor, with all the real possibilities from slow and careful to real Blitz. The map's size is also how it much more often should be IMO. That is excellent, that you exclusively play the Commies, because i play exclusively the Germans! The rest via private mail, Towarisch! ps: is your email correct? - i recieved an error-mail [ December 26, 2004, 03:36 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Zveroboy, as i already said, people like you (torturing & mass-raping = payback) will not understand the preciousness of authentic 1st hand accounts at all. Stay with your politically correct literature.

Elefant, i recently finished Will Fey's 'Panzerkampf im Bild', which is probably the same, but the big-format version with lots of pictures. Yes, it's one of the best books dealing objectively with the slandered Waffen-SS and also contains interesting unknown or withheld info (what really happened at Malmedy, the end of Martin Bormann, Michael Wittmann, the private letter from the US-chief prosecuting-attorney to Jochen Peiper after the war,...). What makes this book IMO so precious, are the uncensored and authentic, without political glasses and political correctness 1st hand accounts of the tank-commanders. A real relief among all the politically inspired worthless books. But readers like Zveroboy ('Carius has indeed a tendency to forget that Germany was the aggressor in this war.'), who expect even from the single soldier's first hand accounts a politically correct and instrumentalized winner-history, being glad of losing the war and about the dying of the comrades and the suffering of the civilians, will be disappointed. Authentic history is never onedimensional. Very impressive to me in general was not only the obvious mental strenght, discipline and comradeship, but even more the neutral and factual style of the accounts, especially torwards the end in the east, where the martyrdom of the german population is only touched insofar, as it is necessary to understand the fighting to the last bullet. That also not a single bitching word from a commander is lost against Wehrmacht units or that theyself stood where they were put, while all others left and afterwards were not honored but even were denounced from the own people, gives an impression of the character of this true elite in this book. This book can't be compared to books from Glantz, Carell or Kurovski, which only are interpreted history. This book does not collect, interpret and summarize like the historian does, it simply tells how the writers saw the action. It is 1st hand history. Because of it's authenticity and the rare objective look from the 'other side', i can only highly recommend the german book 'Panzerkampf im Bild' by Will Fey. [ December 25, 2004, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Ah, Dave, now i understand, why you don't send your next turn! And i thought it were my devastating Nebelwerfer barrage. ps: take the time you need to recover from the shock! [ December 25, 2004, 05:00 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

One of the problems i see now: mostly unrealistical short battle-times, that put the attacker under time-pressure, but don't allow realistical maneuvering, especially of tank forces. The alternative now, to use long enough durations that allow maneuvering and realistical tactics, but sometimes take the time pressure of the attacker completely away, which favors him too much, isn't good, too. So what about a battle-type, that considers the speed of the success in the result? Say you have to take an area and the battle ends, until you have reached your target and/or you weakened the enemy to a certain amount (morale) and not at a certain time? The time needed to take the area is taken additionally into the battle's result (how much, ofcourse should stay a free decision of the scenario-designers). If countdown-timers for certain aspects should or should not inform the player, how well he follows the timeplan, could be an option. This battletype could be combined with the possibility, to call for additional support (think of artillery-reserves or a platoon of tanks partially repaired and 15 minutes away, only for the extreme emergency), which ofcourse would have a negative effect on the overall points. [ December 25, 2004, 04:42 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

But this only works, if the gun's position isn't more or less identified, which was usually the case. Memories of the Tiger tank-commanders of schwere Panzerabteilungen state, that in most cases they saw, if the gun was knocked out (shield hit, gun showing into the air, ammo-exlosion). Sadly most scenario timeframes are still way to short, to allow realistical tank maneuvering, with withdrawing, searching a better position, even some hundred meters away if there is the better terrain and pushing forward somewhere else, if a weak spot in the enemy lines was found. The usual 30 minutes may be adequate for RedArmy rushes, where the own soldier's life had no worth, but for German and WAs attacks, the timeframes are IMO totally unrealistically and are nothing else than planned massacres with the target to pack the action into the smallest possible duration. What indeed seems to be modelled quite good in CM, is the survival of AT-guns. Usually one, max. two shots of a Tiger were enough. Sure, but therefore Tigers usually lead the attack and PzIIIs keep the flies away (protection against inf.)...

Elefant, the OKW had planned and already started with the preparations to take Malta. Hitler clearly knew about the importance of Malta. The reason why the already running operation was cancelled, was Rommels unexpeted success at Tobruk, which indeed opened fantastic possibilities, if everything was put on one card and that as fast as possible (this is one of the big ironys of history, that it was Rommels success, that led to the wrong decision about Malta). Rommel was always good for taking high risks and Hitler even more. Nevertheless Hitler wanted to take Malta first and feared, that things would develop how they developed later. Hitler was initially right with his arguments but in the end, Hitler had the last word and he decided to follow Rommel. If you see it that way, it is right, it was in the end Hitler's wrong decision. [ December 24, 2004, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Immobilizing works always. Without infantry-cover, then it is almost dead.

@Elefant: Your quote is only describing theoretical contra-arguments, which were correct and need to be made always. This has nothing to say about the fallen decisions. And in this quote there is not a date, nor named units, taken measures or cancelled measures. 'After'?! What does 'after' mean? Ofcourse after and not before. Without any date or a better temporal context, there is the most fundamental info missing. Maybe Rommel already had reached the cancelling of the operation? I will have a look in my books for my source later.

I want to remark, that Rommels plan only sounds good at the first sight: 1. It would have meant to give initiative freely away to the enemy for months! 2. No matter how much guns, there would have been not a single Landser more available. For a plan like this to work, there would have been much more infantry necessary. And not only that: AT-guns need to be manned, too. 3. Only the highly mobile tank-forces made it even possible to hold the thin lines (Schwerpunktbildung) when an attack or breakthough took place. Additionally i want to remark, that Rommel also made a severe mistake, that led causally to the disaster in NA: Hitler had already decided to take Malta, and the necessary things were already in progress (Luftflotte 1 Kesselring had already started to bomb the docks), but Rommel pledged to let him advance after the fall of Tobruk. And Hitler believed his promises and cancelled the taking away of Malta, which was decisive to lose the war in NA and maybe even the whole war. So it is completely wrong, if everything that Rommel suggested is rated as right and superb, while the OKW were dumb. Rommel made the success in NA possible, sure - but he also made it fail in the end. To me as layman the plan with a more or less static defense without highly mobile forces in the endless areas of the USSR, even more with an army which power came not from the quantity, but only from gaining initiative even in hopeless situations, sounds absolutely not convincing.

@Wisbech You're obviously a very profound conneussoirs of Third Reich's economy, aren't you? How about facts, instead of fantasizing like MikeyD about the US laborers fighting for glorious Bolshevism? I'm thrilled to hear now some facts about Germany's (and maybe in comparison the capitalistic states') economical data of that time: I'm interested in the development of public and private debts, development of the number of unemployed, development of the Germans income, inflation, price level for rents and goods, budget for armament, social welfare, crime stats, development of trade...

LOL! Take a look at Germany after Hitler took power: 90% of the laborers were won within months! In Italy almost the same, but not that rapidly. I don't know why you're spreading here bolshevistic propaganda, but it is a ridiculous myth, that the laborers all over the world, were supporting the Bolsheviks. The jews all over the world and the communists were doing so. But not the average laborer. And when the average laborer saw, how the laborers were living in the 'laborer's paradise' in the USSR, and they looked at their own either fascistic or nationalsocialistic country, their income and the social system, the decision wasn't really that hard. BTW: did you know, that civilian german KDF-ships already in 1937 weren't allowed to anchor at British harbors? Guess why. [ December 09, 2004, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Please name some facts instead of stereotypes. In what way was german artillery less precise? In what way was german artillery less effective? In what way was german artillery less flexible? In what way was german artillery less responsive? In what way was german artillery worse in supporting tactical measures? In what way were the WAs artillery officers better? You seem to confuse quantity with quality.