Mustang

Exactly Right, YD. The army managed to have sniper schools set up in France behind the lines in early 1945 (about 2 months after the Normandy Landings.) I am still reserching this. The USMC sniper school was in place in 1944, so, yes, they did see plenty of combat. I am still hunting down referances about the Army's sniper training programs (that got a later start, but still existed.) One last note: apologies for the harsh tone of my origanal post. The manner in which I was treated by the other forum members torqued me off enough that I am STILL mad about it.... but you are forgiven of course YD!

This exerpt has been taken out of the book: "One Shot, One Kill", by authors Charles W. Sasser and Craig Roberts (Copyright 1990) Published by First Pocket Books: A paragragh later: Gee..... Looks like there was at least one sniper school in the states, training snipers, during the Second World War. From what is written above, it sure looks like these men were 'true snipers', with the full subset of skills a true sniper has. THERE WERE SNIPERS IN WORLD WAR TWO! ************************************************ DISCLAIMER (IN EVENT OF HOT TOPIC FLAME WAR) ************************************************ *Yes, this is only out of one book. And no, I do *not have a goddamn degree in millitary history *from Harvard. But the evidence is there if you *want to dispute it. And no, I do not consider *myself a genius or "cock of the walk" but I *refuse to scrape and bow before any older *members of this forum. Respect, yes, but *worship, no. It is, after all, a game. These are *just some things to remember if this post *degenerates into a flame war like the last *related post. *************************************************

Good points all. US navy torpedos? Lol, yeah, I heard about that. I remember a row a while back about snipers, (or assault boats?) and somebody wanted them to be equipped with armor and torpedos. But if they were those famous dud Magnetic detonating torpedoes, it would be a moot point, wouldn't it? You really have to consider all angles of a problem. (Like sailors draining alchohol out of the torpedo's firing mechinism, straining it through bread to make "torpedo juice.") And, YD, exellent point about the cold weather fighting. The Russkies always let the Russian winter defeat the enemy, so Perhaps modeling that in to the russian campains would be very important. Did I just hear a programmer groan? (Large solvac man stands up. Mustang instantly regrets using the term "Russskie".) ****DISCLAIMER**** THE ABOVE HUMOR IS SELF-DEPRICATING AND IS MEANT TO CONVEY A SENSE OF HARMLESSNES ON THE PART OF THE AUTHOR OF THIS POST. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE AT ANYTHING POSTED ABOVE. BTW, SEE DISCLAIMER IN FIRST POST AND CONSIDER AS WELL ****DISCLAIMER****

Why do I never see dud rounds in combat mission? I know that a lot of german 88 shells ended up being duds. More than once, germans were killed when there potato mashers went off early. And sevral V-1's were found unexploded in britan becuase a certian cocking ring was installed backwards. Hmm... I seem to recall that Jewish forced labor was used to manufacture each of these weapons mentioned above... gee I wonder... But still... Is dud rounds modeled into the game and I am to stupid to see it? Or is it that it just isn't there? ****DISCLAIMER**** I in know way consider myself to be an expert in any matter discussed above. I have no extensive knowlage or collage degrees in European History, and all ideas and/or thoughts expressed above is made with the understanding that it is probably mostly wrong and incorrect. ****DISCLAIMER**** [ February 08, 2003, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: Mustang ]

Done. Just a sec- I wrote down all my questions about flamethrowers into a notepad file somewere...

Sound contacts are rather vauge. It means that your infantry boys heard some german swearing off in "That direction, sarge!" Often 'that direction' is more than 400 yards away. Go figure. It does show the general area of that unit that was heard, though. I like to drop mortar missions on multiple sound contats, if I have a lot of ammo. If I fire on a closer sound contact, I use at least 2 MG's, or and MG and a split squad (two half-squads plotting there own area fire line on either side of the MG's fire area for suppresion.)

Hmmm.... I thought that somebody would have some thoughts on this... I personnaly have some un-answered questions about flamethrowers.

Okay... just a little thing on flamethrowers and why they seem to not be very usefull. 1. Okay... we all know that flamethrowers draw fire like a dead cow draws flies. Why? Well lets look at the facts. CM is as closely modeled after RL as possible. Now in the pacific theatre, the japaneese forces were primarily dug-in. They also knew that the U.S. forces best chance of nailing them was flamethrowers. They also knew that a flamethrower had a VERY good chance of taking them out and in the process roasting them alive. Therefore they become priority targets. And every other unit sees the flamethrower and targets it outright becuse it is ususally the greatest threat to bunkers, ect. However it seems to be overmodeled, I.E. tanks switching fire from cromwells to FT's. 2. Flamethrowers are slow. So slow they can't keep up with the infantry advance, and so they get killed as they plod across open ground. The reason this wasn't a big problem in RL is that if you had a couple MG bunkers hosing down the area, you could wait for the flamethrower becuse the other option was to charge bravely into the spray of MG bullets, possibly take it out at great cost to human life and later your folks would get your meadal. So if the FT is not needed, the infantry proceeds without it. But in the pacific theatre with the enormous amounts of bunkers, you pretty much had no choice but to wait for a FT if you didn't want your command to get wiped out. And even though this is not the pacific theatre, a lot of this still applies. There is my theroy on FlameThrowers. *Disclaimer* I lay no claim to any expertise on this subject. My arguments are open to critisism and as a matter of fact I *hope* to recive some as to make a intresting informative thread. I rank as a 'buff' which means that I have a goodly load of knowlage on many subjects but I am not expert in any of them. *Disclaimer*

Yo All! I havent been around recently, but I LOOOVE chance encounter and play it whenever I can. The challange is diffrent for each side. The americans have good infantry but it's all to no avail when the SMG's get in close. They do have a lot of armor, though. The germans HQ's with morale bonus's are more than worth there weight in gold due to the german troops green and conscrip stats. Only having three assault guns against five real tanks is not helpfull either. I have won and lost this one multiple times from both sides. For the americans, I usually base my strategem on two basic ideas- take the corners of the field. That means taking the scattered treed hill in front of the church, and hanging on to that house at the corner of the cornfield. The real challange is that you have to accomplish diffucult terrain-taking tasks with little arty support- the germans have one 81mm spotter with only 30 rounds, or two turns worth of ammo. The allies really have to rely on there 3 60mm mortars, witch really shine in this role. The great thing about the 60mms is that although they don't move as fast as the infantry, (like 2 inchers) there greater range and blast allow them to tag along with the troops but hang back just a bit to keep out of the main part of the firefight and provide close support (i.e. targeting indivudual platoons, MG nests, ect.). But, they can also (I do this a lot) group all three of my mortars together, hook them up with a HQ and the 50 cal and pop them on the hill in front of the church. I set up the mortars in a HQ spotting-role and there combined firepower often can turn the tide of battle at a critical momnent. The 50 cal defends the hill and with a LOS to half the map makes jerries hit the dirt at ranges of 1000 meters. The firefight between the House/w orchard (scattered trees) next to the cornfield and the elevated woods at the left of the map is often intense but the AI tries to rush the position peicemeal and of course fails misribly. I pop a 30. cal into the upstairs and keep his head down for the most part becuse he gets suppresed pretty bad up there with enemnies hidden in the woods. I have-im pop up and murder them when they DO charge all at once. I also keep a reserve hidden happily head down (100% cover) behind the stone wall at the rear of the cornfield. When it's getting to hot in the farmhouse, I split the squads and have each of them plot an area fire line about 15 meters apart in a line at the heaviest area of enemny concentration. That saturation effect doesn't kill many but does a number on suppresion. Well, I'l post more on axis and stug tactics a little later. But I can say now that it does'nt pay to get to cocky with your shermans and with the stug-guns you have to be SAVVY.

Yeah, Yankee Dog, as Clarity showed, not even CM is perfect Okay, I admit it, I meant COMPANY HQ's have six men. I just thought it odd that they had as much ammo as a 12 man rifle squad, thanks for the info Yankee Dog. And I didn't know that they would never really run dry, thats intresting. I wonder what it means on the breifing screen with the 'Extra ammo' for HQ,s, though. BTS might be able to clear this up? Yeah, ammo re-supply ought to be a feture in the game. Perhaps CMBB might have it... who knows?

Also, if you want to place some units behind cover by a wall, order them to hide when they get there. The 'Hide' command also has the effect of making your troops hit the dirt, of course, and if you are close enough to the wall, than you are cowering behind it- just about impervious to rifle fire.

Now, I was running through the WAV files in my CM directory, thinking that the MG sounds would be wonderfull telemarketer deterrents (play them full volume on my computer when they call, LOL) when I ran across some with my men saying that they are out of ammo. But one said "I need more ammo!" Now that got me thinking... I have seen in the briefing screen, the HQ units are often labeled: (with extra ammo). And, since the biggest HQ unit is only 6 men, and most platoon HQ's have 4 men, I found it odd that they should have as much ammo as the 12 men squads had. So does this mean that my HQ's can re-supply ammo to my belegured infantry squads?

First Things First: Fion... Foin... Fionnn....Fion. When you do something deserving of my respect, I will spell your name correctly. Thank you for re-capping all that I origanally tried to point out. Listen up: Snipers were all over in the second World War. Most were chosen for there scores on the rifle range from Basic Training. Many did not recive detailed instruction, but nevertheless had the neccacary skills to give modern, trained snipers a run for there money. Twords the middle and end of the war, dedicated sniper schools were established in the states. As a matter of fact, there were trained and dedicated snipers ready (in very small numbers) before D-day! I have read hundreds of first-hand accounts written by snipers, and they WERE modled incorrectly by BTS. Like Pillar said, a sharpshooter was part of his platoon. As a matter of fact, a sharpshooter usually did not have a scoped rifle... it was just his G.I. issue rifle and he was good with it. As a rule, if you could not hit a target at 600 meters with a scoped rifle, you were not issued a sniper rifle. Most sniper rifles were genral issue rifles: A WW11 sprinfeild rifle with a scope, and even more common was a M1-D, a M-1 with scope, rubber cheekpad, flash suppressor, and a trigger tweaked to break cleanly. They were exellent firearms, they needed little more modifacation beyond a scope to make them dependable. Now, these snipers were all over during a firefight. If you were advancing through a city and a lone shot rang out, the call would go up: "SNIPER UP!" They were damned good enough to hit anything at 1000 meters. So, yes they were modled incorrectly. If you dissagree, go get a book called "One shot, One Kill." It has firsthand accounts from many WW11 snipers.

Jesus Christ. This went to hell in a hurry. I do feel guilty about this hole thing, becuse It stemmed off my post, but what to do? When Yankee Dog flamed me, I lost it and just flamed him right back. Now I go away for a little while and you all light into JasonC. KNOCK IT OFF!!! What I see is a bunch of idiot assholes squabbling over one word in the english language and making themselfs look like, well, assholes. Further enhancing this image is the fact that you all latched on to JasonC after I left for a little bit. This makes you all bullies, after a fasion. Now, to try and end this, I will clarify (goddamn, why did I have to name this thread Clarity?) what I meant in my origanal post. All over the forums, I have seen people say that snipers were (oh, jezus) really sharpshooters, not capable of very skillfull shots. Thus, in the fourums around here, "Sniper" came to be a title not worthy of the "sharpshooters", the semi-skillfull ones, modeled in the game. The game is modled, that is done. What I tried to say is that in the actuall war (Real Life, okay?) that snipers were indeed often quite skillfull. There, that is done and I hope it settles the argument. Now the problem at hand: Personally, I don't know what I put in my origanal post that incenced people to such a degree. Please tell me so I won't make this mistake again. But the real problem is that this was a flame war. A real flame war, and If this was the first one hereabouts, than I feel quite gilty for starting the thread, even though I should'nt, for this thread started off with an innocent enough post, but, like most flame wars, somebody made a honest mistake (in other words, Yankee Dog, I forgive you) I got rankled and fired back, than others just carried it away. The hostile attitude of the people in this thread is a bad indicator. I think part of it is becuse that many of you consider yourselfs (FION... AHEM!") Cock Of The Walk. I don't know what gave people the impression that I thought I was COTW in my first post, but the way others came down on me, like they knew everything, and there attitude seemed to speak: I am cock of the walk.... of course, I should not draw conclusins like this, becuse that is what (FION!) did. This entire fracas is like a hurricane: When the conditons are right for too long, a storm is an un-avoidable certantiy. So now I would like to stop this. Perhaps the forum admins might even see fit to delete this thread from the archives. It might be best. Well, I will bow out again and see if everybody can just calm down and let it rest. If not, I hope the forum admins can take more desisive action.

Thank you kindly, Jason. My dear fellow Yankee Dog, Why, thank you. The porpuse of my post is for the ones around here that do not have a deep knolage of the second world war, and play the game becuse of it's exellence. I thought that I might help give some perspective to these people, and underline some important facts. Also, I found it horrible that the misconceptions of of snipers in the second world war as mere sharpshooters was so widespread around here. Also for these relitivly un-WW11 educated pepole was the comment "WW11 buff". I also put that in to distinguish the fact that my topics were open to constructive criticisim, in other words, I make no claim to being an expert. Why, I am flattered. You suffer from the misconcepton that I consider myself a absolute athority on the second world war. I make no such claims. My sorce materieal on the matter, is actually many books I have read over the years, most of them with eye-wittnes accounts of vetrans that fought in the war. This is were I learned of the leathal nature of flamethrowers, and many marines commented that a flamethrower is a bullet magnet becuse the Japaneese bunker defenders had no wish to die a horrible painfull death. On the subject of snipers, I have read quite a few first-hand accounts from the second world war, and this is what gives me most of my information. Also, about CMBB, I think if any one of us here at Bfront forums were allowed to help with the new game, we all could make a diffrence. Any one of us, to ask reasonable questions and give constructive critisisim. This remark means that by charging bravely into the enemys MG fire, you will get killed and your parents will recive your meadal. If you did not understand this, than I am afraid you might not be as clever as you think. For one that seems so qualified to critisise another, one would think that you yourself would be at least slightly knolageable about the second world war. "There scores" refers to the rifle range in basic training. At the end of basic training, the recruits would go to the rifle range and fire there weapons at targets. I am sure you know all about rife ranges, so I shall not bore you with the details. There 'offical' scores went on record, and this record was of course part of there personal informatin, that of course wound up on the troops roster in HQ overseas. It was a minor detail, but when the demeand for snipers grew to alarming size, a sniper was chosen for his scores at the boot camp rifle range. "Importu" is in fact an Engilish word, that means 'makeshift", or "hasty". These schools solved the problem of not enough snipers on the front line by training new ones. Let me also add that later in the war, dedicated sniper training camps were established in the states, with much better training being provided than availiable at the overseas 'importu' camps. I am shocked. I would expect that one with such a wonderfull education would know this word. So, to conclude, your post YD seems to try to imply that I am a fool mucking around where I do not belong. A very intresting standpoint for one who leaves his own post so open to counterattack. It would seem by your remarks that you know even less than me, the lowly 'buff'. My post was not only meant to clear up some issues, but be a catalyst for more detailed discussion. Unfortanatly, somebody who will remain nameless apparantly thought he was clever enough to critizise my post and not recive the whiplash that fools so rightly deserve. Unless you come up with your own credentials, or proof of book sales, than I hardly think that you have the right to elevate yourself to the lofty post you have chosen for yourself. To Cortes: I am on the collage debate team. Possesion is nine tenths of the law. And with this, I respectfully bow out. I look forward to your rebuttal.