Wicky

I imagine it's just a matter of Ctrl+C from an undamaged model and then Ctrl+V.  Experienced operators can have that fixed right up.  

I've seen it all now from Johnny - a thousand-word essay on why emoticons are evil.     

A reason why he's been running amok posting here is that he's desperate to prove himself as somekind of world renowned expert (with super secret sources ) from his bedsit assisted with a wonky mac and google. As he's been linking from his own woo website to threads here on the battlefront forum so he gets some relected glory from this site's good web reputation to enhance his own and uses them as backing for his super secret Kettlerlian conspiracy theories.  JK is simply a bore.

A reason why he's been running amok posting here is that he's desperate to prove himself as somekind of world renowned expert (with super secret sources ) from his bedsit assisted with a wonky mac and google. As he's been linking from his own woo website to threads here on the battlefront forum so he gets some relected glory from this site's good web reputation to enhance his own and uses them as backing for his super secret Kettlerlian conspiracy theories.  JK is simply a bore.

Everyone,
 
The purpose of this thread is to provide a central location into which I can put information and the like which I deem significant and worth knowing about, as well as my own observations and opinions, subject to the usual BFC rules, as well as certain request and strictures coming from BFC. In this way, there should be no further thread proliferation and "real post" ranking issues. Other members are, of course, welcome to participate in what I post, but I ask that you be respectful. Argue against the ideas I present; don't attack me. As some may have noted, I have formal requests in to the Mods to kill two separate threads. If they choose to do so, that should further alleviate matters on the CMBS Forum as a whole.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler
 
 

A reason why he's been running amok posting here is that he's desperate to prove himself as somekind of world renowned expert (with super secret sources ) from his bedsit assisted with a wonky mac and google. As he's been linking from his own woo website to threads here on the battlefront forum so he gets some relected glory from this site's good web reputation to enhance his own and uses them as backing for his super secret Kettlerlian conspiracy theories.  JK is simply a bore.

A reason why he's been running amok posting here is that he's desperate to prove himself as somekind of world renowned expert (with super secret sources ) from his bedsit assisted with a wonky mac and google. As he's been linking from his own woo website to threads here on the battlefront forum so he gets some relected glory from this site's good web reputation to enhance his own and uses them as backing for his super secret Kettlerlian conspiracy theories.  JK is simply a bore.

I've read everything you all have said and respond as follows:
 
Mods,
 
I hereby formally request that you delete both the YT alarm thread and this one, which I believe has also served its purpose.
 
RabidOtters,
 
I directly stated, and you quoted it, that I had been deselecting emoticons, but because it has to be done manually, so far as I know, every time, I missed doing that just once and wound up with an unexpected emoticon when all I wanted was text. My view is that text ought to be the default, with emoticons the user selectable aspect, but, as they say, it's not going over well. I'm still getting used to the way the new Forums operate from a technical standpoint. In the earlier one, you had to enable emoticons. In this one, it's the reverse, and it's a pain to have to be ever vigilant.  Frankly, given my various issues, it's hard enough to get out coherent posts which don't have typos, strange word breaks, repeated phrases and such. There was a time in my life where such matters were radically uncommon for me, but I've been through a lot, and it shows.
 
Michael Emrys,
 
Point taken. The trick there, though, lies in remembering to do it when either exhausted, not in good shape or both apply. 
 
agusto,
 
I tried the biggrin link, but it didn't work. I've been having major internet data rate and connectivity issues, though, so maybe that's the explanation? I do have AdBlock installed and operational. This must be so, for various sites keep noticing it and advising me to turn it off. It's possible what you suggest may be in there, but I had no idea, didn't know I needed it and never looked for it. My focus lay in getting it, installing it and, with the help of a Mac Power User, properly configuring the settings.
 
LukeFF,
 
I've asked you very nicely and on several-numerous occasions to please stop sniping at me. You never ever have anything positive to say if it involves me, seem to have no self-censorship setting when it comes to me and what I have to say, but being de facto Moriarty from "Kelly's Heroes" with me isn't the way you operate on the Forums in your interactions with other members. Consequently, it's quite clear to me that you are conducting an ongoing ad hominem attack, for you are doing considerably more than challenging my ideas. You are being rude, insulting  and doing everything you can to put me down and minimize me as a person. You are a grown man who has borne and doubtless bears considerable responsibility. Given that, I'm sure you can manage to restrain your online poisonous tongue in your interactions with me. Please do so. Also, for someone who publicly stated he had me on Ignore, you sure seem have a lot to say about the person you're ignoring!
 
Additional Discussion & Summation
 
I get that we are in what academics call a Post Literate society. I grew up in a Literate one in which you communicated with words, not something more nearly resembling  hieroglyphs, let alone the dancing variety. I understand that a lot of the commonly used expressions in text and subsequently online are the result of the formerly dreadfully expensive per character cell phone data transmission rates (as seen in the girl who texted her family into a $20,000 phone bill), and the desire to set the users of leetspeak apart. Let me be candid. I have a really bad time with taking in and processing, for example, the handle of LOckAndLOad. Things like that short out my brain, and the handle is hard to type, too. For someone who's not all that dexterous to begin with, is recovering from a brain injury and frequently has days in which what's intended to be said comes out not exactly that way, the net effect of leetspeak is like trying to hear and work through variable intensity jamming. Bright, attention getting emoticons add to that jamming intensity/brain processing load because they draw my eyes away from the text. But what really worries me are the animated ones, with that Gatling gun in #17 above being especially apposite. It's distinctive, cool and clever, but it is my bane, precisely because it has all the attributes which make it impossible to ignore in the first place: big, bright, visually and positionally changing. When it's in my FOV, even peripherally, it is not merely distracting but directly interferes with my ability to take in the primary information I'm reading. I fervently hope they're going to be few and far between, particularly if that size.
 
Finally, I'd like to offer a related thought I heard expressed on the show "Royal Pains" regarding adults in our Post Literate society. In one episode, Evan R. Lawson, the brother of the show's main character, Hank Lawson, Jr., was at an outdoor chi chi community event in the Hamptons. Evan is a very stylish and trendy guy, who's maybe 30 or a bit less, and when he heard there'd be a gathering later at a restaurant of some young adults and high school seniors, up he piped (am doing this phonetically) "Text me the deets." At this point, he got the arched brow of disapproval from his spouse, Paige, the highly intelligent, beautiful, poised daughter of a general and to the manor born, as it were. When he said to her in response "It's short for the "details." That's how all the kids say it," to which she replied, gently but with wifely bite "They do; you don't."

I find it odd, given the average age here, that grown men are using, though fortunately to a much lesser degree, the same means of expression as kids are in elementary school. Evidently, I need to go find leetspeak, eMoteekons & emOgeez 4 duMeez™ #Rumeedial essmezz so I can get with the program! Writing those was painful, for it runs entirely against a lifetime of being meticulous going the other direction.

Regards,

John Kettler 

One can never tell what might happen to a thread started by John Kettler   (Sorry John, I know you hate emoticons)

panzersaurkrautwerfer,
 
I previously explained why I thought the Ainet was more dangerous to the tank than the Krasnopol. The kind of airburst I'm talking about is way closer than the typical VT HOB. The Ainet type engagement is more akin to a contact detonation, with the shell lying on the tank roof, than it is to they typical VT shoot. Full marks for Jabul Al Kettlar. That was so arch (had to say it) funny and unexpected I had a very nice laugh out of it. Was unaware of IEDs on the underside of underpasses. Of what did they consist, and what was the standoff range? If you're talking about, say, a 122 howitzer shell going off directly above the tank with maybe 2 meter clearance between IED and the tank roof, and the tank emerging largely unscathed, then maybe my idea flat out won't work. If it's something else altogether, such as a weapon mostly blast producing, then it may not tell us much regarding the situation under discussion here.
 
Stagler,
 
 I'm not sure whom you're characterizing as "backseat quarterbacks," but I was deeply involved (11 years and change) in a whole series of military programs, many specifically geared toward killing tanks: Maverick, WASP, TOW and Assault Breaker, among others.
  Russia not only has begun thinking about APS, it has fielded one such response, the RPG-30. I strongly suspect there are other goodies, of the guided sort, likely to have similar features. It's a good thing miniaturization has progressed the way it has, for we're now seeing the PENAID emerge as an important tool in beating, or at least degrading, APS.
 
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2008/11/20/rpg-30-unveiled-the-m1-abrams-killer/
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Thewood1,
 
Sometimes I go on a bit of a tear, but other days I'm wrecked and post nothing. I do take your point and shall see what I can do about it. If you keep track of such things, you'll see I've been quite active in many threads which are highly pertinent to the game, not least the one on Russian spotting, as well as the extensive A-10 thread. If you're going to ding me on one end, please acknowledge my contributions on the other.
 
Also, I think we disagree over what is and isn't relevant. If a full T-90 documentary isn't relevant to CMBS, then what is? Yours is the only complaint I've had on that score. How can you complain that I put in material on the XM25, considering it's featured (check the manual if you don't believe me) in the game for the US? And I happen to believe a Grad bombardment is relevant when Mariupol has been in the news, was and remains under attack, and very much remains an objective for Putin's proxies. And that's without considering Grad weapon effects. Smashed Ukrainian armor and softskins shown worldwide after a kind of Grad ambush tell a tale. After the fact. But the video I provided shows the mechanism, in action, of what created such a result.
 
As I said, I'll see what I can do. Were the GDF active the way it used  to be, I would've put the YT alarm there, but let's face it, the eyes are here. If you recall, I specifically asked the Mods to kill the whole YT thread. What they do or don't do thereafter is not within my control at all. 
 
Update
 
I count 6 threads of mine of 21 total. There'd be 5, but the combat training ground post has risen from the dead after being a page or more back.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler 

Could I ask you to put all of your semi-game related topics into one general modern equipment, Youtube videos, tank porn, and random links thread.  The first six threads are yours, and 7 of the threads on the first page of the forum are yours.  Some good threads that are directly game related are getting pushed off the first page.  At the pace you are going, all the threads on the first page will be yours and have only a passing connection to discussing the game.
 
Or move them to general discussion.

No, it does not. It comes down to BOTH of those arguments. The airspace would be lethal for both the A-10 and the Su-25. Nevertheless it is likely that Russia would still be using the Su-25 and would pitch them into the battle in lieu of any better options. The US has better options and so would use them.
 
You are pigheadedly trying to apply reasoning that is only valid for one side as if it were equally valid for both. It isn't. Different nations have different motivations, assets, and options - go figure!
 
Local air superiority or just local air parity. Even the Germans in 1944 occasionally managed to create pockets of time and space in which their beaten airforce could conduct CAS missions.
 
Pnzr, one final point: whenever you find yourself in a position where Kettler is your most vocal support, you really, desperately need to re-examine your assumptions.

Rocketman,
 
Very good scenario. Am still regrowing my nails, and I played it months ago. Pucker factor is high, and though I won a Canadian Tactical Victory, possibly my best CM store ever, as the Paras, they'll need more recruits at Ft. Benning, Ringway or CFB Shiloh as a result. My AAR--SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!-- is here. Battle coverage begins at my #265.

Rinaldi,
 
This scenario is well worth your time. No extra charge if a casualty gets stuck halfway through a house wall, as happened to me, when there was neither a window nor a door.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Alexey K,
 
Confound it! You've just revealed BFC's deep black CMBSOS. Combat Mission Black Sea: Operational-Strategic. Stratfor paid a fortune for it on a private commission to BFC, but with a secrecy clause, and now Steve is going to have to return his yacht and Charles is no longer going to have that exquisite Waterford crystal brain jar he's just gotten used to. But fear not, Wikileaks will soon have all the juicy details for us. Look what happened the last time it looked into Stratfor.  The link is real. Shall have to read the Stratfor gaming article. Looks pretty interesting.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

FWIW, The cat retired to the Caribbean, and now helps imported Detective Inspectors solve murders (Death in Paradise).
 
As to being as good, l always found the entire Red Dwarf series to be so bad, it was good*.  The series was/is not for everyone. Much like the movie Strange Brew ("Take Off, Eh!"). Or Father Ted (DRINK! FECK! ARSE! GIRLS!).
 
* although the scenes following the one when Kryton detached his hand to summon help, was outright hilarious on any level.

Michael Emrys,

The sum total of what I've read on WW II tank warfare says you're wrong. In battle, it was common for tanks to be hit and the crew be none the wiser until after the battle ended. And I'm talking main gun hits, not MG strikes. I've read recently in Taming The Panzers of multiple instances in which a tank was disabled, but this was only found when it was time to shift positions. I've read statements from crews in which they realized they'd been hit (not perforated) by tank cannon and SPG rounds during the battle only by the scars on their armor after the shooting stopped.

Regards,

John Kettler

I have no idea whether this is possible by swapping things from CMBN into CMRT, but it's simply too amazing not to share.

In reading Bradley Smith's most informative Sharing Secrets with Stalin, I came across a Grade One bombshell. On September 28, 1941 Stalin specifically requested the British send several divisions to Russia to fight alongside the Red Army. Britain wanted to be in the Caucasus Front, so as to be positioned to wreck the oilfields should it come to that. Stalin said there was no war there; that Britain should instead go to the Ukraine Front--where there was a war.

On December 8, 1941, Stalin tried again, this time proposing the British troops he sought be sent to the Leningrad Front. When the British failed to jump, he instead proposed placing them on the Estonian Front, which he thought they'd find more congenial.

Britain obviously never took up the offer, but Bradley Smith deems this was a truly significant fork in the course of East-West relations, arguing that had Britain really put up and shared even a part of the direct combat burden, Stalin would've had a considerably different take then and post-war on Britain and, by extension, the Allies en bloc. I emphatically agree.

Be these as they may, my notion is straightforward but may well be utterly impractical. The idea is to port British forces into CMRT from CMBN and use them to create a whole new range of Op Bagration gaming possibilities, scenarios based on a British troop commitment to Russia circa 1942 which would then be projected forward in time, yielding , by the most convenient of circumstances, the very TO&Es which CMBN and CW have for the CW forces. Were such a thing doable, I believe it would be thrilling for the CW player to be freed of the terrain constraints bedeviling ops in both Normandy and Holland. Long range DF gunnery would become important, and artillery would perform more closely to historical levels, thanks to much greater map sizes. Tacair would become more effective because of the great openness of the land, making hiding from it harder and AA accordingly more important. AA Crusaders could actually do AA work. Of course, someone else will have to sort out the vexed Bren AA tripod mount business!

Regards,

John Kettler

Word of advice: be very, very, very skeptical of anything John Kettler writes. 

panzersaurkrautwerfer,
 
I was the Soviet Threat Analyst for the OA (Operations Analysis) department of Hughes MSG (Missile Systems Group), Canoga Park, California from February 14, 1978-September 12, 1984.  We did weapon effectiveness, countermeasures, force on force modeling, established performance requirements, developed lateral and new applications of existing weapons for an array of tactical missiles and related weapons, many of which were antitank and other categories of strike. I was also involved in a strategic program. Did I design the warheads? No. Was I intimately involved? Absolutely. Did I have access to warhead performance data? Yes. I worked independently and in teams on the systems I named. I was privy to the results of classified warhead tests for a bunch of antitank weapons from Maverick through the Skeet submunition on Assault Breaker. I've spent time in JMEM when it consisted of a huge stack of giant orange binders, most classified, including the one which meticulously analyzed (wonderful pics) tank kill causation in the 1967 War. I've studied the WSEG (Weapon System Evaluation Group) report on the Yom Kippur War. I've pored over analyses of all sorts of attacks, including reviewing and assessing strike video before any analysis was readily available. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to kill various Russian targets. All at once or piecemeal by beating down individual weapon systems on a strike cruiser absent a big enough weapon to do the job. I've also worked DAS issues for US AFVs. Laser guided AS-9 and AS-10 were very scary in their time, and M113s were quite killable even from a near miss.  Additionally, I used to personally and privately consult for Dr. Hans Mauer, who was CTO for MSG, ex- Paperclip scientist and technical genius. One such discussion ultimately resulted in TOW 2B Aero. I've worked in all of the following weapon areas: antitank, air-to-air, air-to-ground, antiship, runway attack and rapid repair, SAM, DEW, Deep Strike, Spec Ops, anti SUAWACS and more.  
 
As I said before, I've never served; I have spent, all told, a few hours in operational tanks in the field; haven't been shot at, been mined or broken track in a swamp. I'm perfectly happy to learn from those lie you who've been in combat, including my now retired brother George, who have years of experience. Indeed, I relish and appreciate getting the insider perspective of the BTDT crowd, whether still serving or retired. I am a lifelong student of weapons and war. I freely grant my knowledge base is badly out of date in places, but a great deal of what I learned is still quite useful. I'm glad I made the suggestion I did, for it's taught me a great deal in the process. If it's not operationally viable in real world terms, therefore even theoretically in game terms, I'm fine with that.
 
If my memory of underpass height is correct, then I'd say that a static detonated 122 from above is a bit high as far as my estimated Ainet HOB (1-2 m), but certainly should give at least some sense of what to expect. Igloo thanks the insurgents for increasing cooler sales via KBR!
 
LukeFF,
 
I do wish you'd stop confusing your unit motto with acceptable social behavior--which yours isn't.  Your compulsive need to snipe at me indicates insecurity on your part and doesn't reflect well on you. 
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

GAZ NZ,
 
Though I haven't the faintest idea whether I'm reading fact or fiction, there is no doubt in my mind that I'm reading serious military analysis. It's exactly the same as the sorts of things I used to read in translation while wearing the Red Hat as a Threat Analyst during the Cold War. I'm about halfway presently between Map 3 and Map 4, for want of a better quick reference. In terms of polemic, compared to what I used to read in the official Russian military literature, his blog is practically free of it. For which I'm grateful. Thanks for sharing this.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

The old hands here have been asking for flares since CMx1's CMBO (2000), yet 15 years later we still don't have them. Given the proliferation of night vision devices both image intensifying and thermal, I'm less concerned with the use of flares for illumination in CMBS than I am with their signaling applications, which go back to at least WW II. Colored flares were used to warn of tank attack, air attack, call down protective barrages, signal attacks and retreats, etc.
 
Ironically, in a game in which we have voice radio, digital encrypted voice comms, even secure PDAs which don't use voice at all, we don't have the all time great backup communication option. The one which is near instantaneous, totally immune to even the worst jamming (which we now do have) and has high WX immunity, too. It's a known fact that during the Cold War the Russians also used flares to warn of nuclear, gas and biological attack--while carrying on with the same sorts of uses as during the GPW. Consequently, unless proven wrong, I'm of the considered opinion that both UKR and RUS still use them, but I can't speak to the US, where my info base on that is nil.
 
Would the military/ex-military members from UKR, RUS, POL et al. please discuss this to me very important issue as it applies to "broken back" and EMCON comm situations?
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

On the other had what was the alternative. By he late 1980s the old Soviet system was dying on its' feet and was locked into the Cold War which, on several occasions threatened to become a very real hot war that in turn might jhave become a civilzation endng nuclear exchange. Since Brezhnev the Soviet Union had a succession ofgeriatricleaders (Andropov, Chernenko) Clearly that siuation could not continue. As wee see it in the West Gorbachev took a series of measures through the glasnost and perestroika policies. 
 
He probably realised that the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were likely to collapse soon and tried to mange the declne to give he softest landing possible. In many ways he was successful. Just consider what could have happened in the late 1980s. A Third World War beaking out as the Warsaw Pact collapsed. Or a Second Russian Civil War following the August 1991 coup. With military units in Moscow there might easiy have been a situation where Red Army troops supporting the two different sides began firing on each other - and that could havebeen the first battle of a Second Russian Civil War. It is fortunate that events in August 1991 turned out in the way that they did
 
Maybe there are thngs that could have been done bwetter under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. However, like Britain and many other European nations after WW2 Russia in 1991 had to accept the end of empire. I don;t think Russians have managed to accept tha even now. Much like Germans after 1918 failed to accept the end of their Second Reich. The result of that was Hitler, the 3rd Reich and World War 2 in which Russia herself suffered terribly. I think Russians would do well to accept that they won't be a Superpower gain. But they can remain a Great Power among equals and be respected for making positive contributions on the international stage.
 
Peter the Great wanted his "Window on the West" o learn from the rest of Europe and for Russia to become more like Western European nations. Obviously the road hs been longer and harder than your great Tsar could have ever imagined. But, if Russia chooses the right path, that of peaceful diplomacy respecting the rights of neighbours and of trade Russia can still do very well for herswelf. She has an abundance of natural resources and an educated population for a start so she can be a prosperous and well respected counry. The route that Russia is going down now under Ptin can only end in disaster.

Pelican Pal,

I never heard about CM. Instead, you might say it drove headlong into my life. I used to be an active member of the PEDG (Panzer Elite Development Group), a bunch of people (including our own Jeff Duquette) devoted to correctly depicting the characteristics and performance of tanks and other weapons in the game. There I was minding my own business when my eye was drawn to this onrush of German armor ("The enemy is attacking!" it proclaimed) in an animated banner across the top of the page I was on. I clicked on that, DLed the Beta Demo and proceeded to lose my wargaming mind. I fully expect this condition to be terminal.

I called the game Micro Armour™ That Moves and was completely blown away when I watched a StuG III deal with a crossing Sherman, even traversing the gun in the casemate before firing. Fairly sure the gun recoiled, too. Not only did the tiny AFV model do all that--to my utter wonderment--but the Sherman took the hit through the upper left hull, didn't explode and rolled to a stop! That sold me then and there. Thereafter, it was being on what used to be the only Forum here for CM, playing the two scenarios (Last Defense and Rieseberg) to death, endless waiting, then brief relief when we got one more demo, Valley of Trouble, in the CM Gold Demo.

By doing this, BTS narrowly avoided a wargamer insurrection. Barely. Great were the rumblings of discontent, and it was feared the desperate tactical wargaming masses might storm the state of Vermont were something not done to placate them.

One fine day, after whatever takes longer than aeons, CMBO was released. The disk it came on had both Mac (on which CM was developed) and PC versions. My world has never been quite the same. As you can see from my sig, I have played CMBO a bit.

Thanks for a chance to share some very happy memories and describe the period known as the Time When CMx2 Didn't Exist.

Regards,

John Kettler

Childress,

Unless I fundamentally misunderstood Steve, BFC has NOT implemented neutral steering in the game, even for those AFVs which could do so. Additionally, Steve made quite the point of describing how huge the turn radius was on the Sherman, a gripe historically recorded by the crews of same. Given these factors, I fail to see how neutral steer can be in the game, never mind in the game across the board. My understanding is that the rotation in place rates were nerfed from the get was to prevent the unholy combination of player SA, ability to react instantaneously (in RT; atypically fast in WEGO) to developments and squash threats with wild abandon. My argument is that since tank SA, especially buttoned tank SA, has been dramatically (?) degraded, then maybe now the rates can be made either historically accurate or at least improved somewhat.

Regards,

John Kettler