Mies

And an excellent book if I may add. Mies

Wow, are people creating "Land of the Death" scenarios....

A picture is worth more than a thousand words and all..., although a thousand word AAR is fine as well. Mies

Ahhh...yes... I remember those days well...

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Is it *Bumping* time already? Mies

Or it's because CMBB is out a lot longer than CMAK, meaning that development on CMC started before CMAK was finished? Mies

Yes, "Donder & Bliksems"! Mies

Now this is something I will buy, looks great! Mies edit: I can't type.

My brain got eaten by a small virtual SLOD :confused: Mies

Point taken. What I was trying to say is that almost all the pictures of WWII you tend to see are black and white. Therefore if I see color photo's it looks less 'real'. A T34 in b&w just looks more impressive to me. That is not to say that to see the WWII hardware in real life in a museum etc. is a whole different story. Mies

I second that! Mies

Michael and Bigduke6, you are both probably right to be honest. Not being a native English speaker myself and only being accustomed to "nowadays English" these small language rarities did not strike me as being odd. However in hind side if I would literally translate it to Dutch it would stick out like a sore thumb in a 1944 naritive as well. The thing with Ambrose is that it reads easy, his books are easy to get a hold of and of course he did write Band of Brothers . Also I'd have to agree to some extend with what Michael said. I realize that tactics like described above weren't s.o.p., but more an in the spirit of the moment kind of thing. Only trying this (taking on an AT bunker with a 155 gun, at short enough a distance to be able to aim by looking through the barrel) in a CM game will show that it would be near suicide. The way these quotes are put down by Ambrose do make it look like at least some soldiers thought it was good practice to go about business like this. That is if one to some extend can put faith in what is written in books. I wasn't there, I'm only trying to get a picture and understanding of WWII by reading what I can get my hands on and have time for. And then getting trashed for walking into these "fox holes" with eyes wide open. I don't mind, I'm trying to profit from it. Mies

Michael, I know you "warned" me in another thread about Ambrose but I'm giving it another try. I realize this probably isn't a preferred way to take a go at an anti-tank bunker but more aimed towards the mg emplacement etc. Here is a little piece from "The Victors" by Stephen Ambrose taken from the chapter "The Rhineland Battles". A company, commanded by a certain captain Colby, is ordered to take out about a dozen pillboxes in the Siegfried Line when : "A self propelled 155 mm gun chugged and clanked up to us. A lieutenant dismounted and walked over. [...] The lieutenat pointed to a pillbox. The gunner lowered the muzzle of the howitzer, opened the gun's breech block, and peered through the barrel at the target. Satisfied with his aim, he told the loaders to stuff in a round. [...] When the breech was closed and all was ready, the gunner yanked the lanyard. [...] The shell struck the pillbox and covered it with a sheet of flame from the explosive charge it carried." Then a small conversation starts: "Scratch one pillbox," the lieutenant said. "It is still standing," Colby retorted. "Yep. But there ain't anyone left alive inside. If there is, his brains are scrambled." The piece ends when : "They fired a round or two at each pillbox out in front of us, then folded their equipment anc clanked away to another scene. When we moved up, we found only dead or dazed men inside the pillboxes." Mies

My Russian isn't all that, but photo's I do get. Very nice. Thanks for that. edit: Love the black and white's. They give the scene an additional, authentic, dimension. Mies [ September 27, 2005, 02:35 AM: Message edited by: Mies ]

Do you have any more pics? Mies

I remember that one too. Did a search and found the thread. Here is a link . Mies

Is that the one where the Space Lobsters are defending against the Mutant Camels attacking with methane cooled pyroclastic round square waffels? Mies

For a moment there I though you said "he may have been involved with the discovery of time" Mies Edit : Because a Space Lobster hit the "enter doom" button...

Are the hybrid nano driven fully transparent space elevators first introduced in 2157 during the 3rd Space Lobster Wars going to be modelled? Mies

Thanks, I've added that one to my wish list. Never hurts to get some more insights. Mies

No I'm not 100% sure actually. I'm just quoting what Ambrose said. It's dangerous to base statements on 1 source I know. It was a coincidence that I read this topic while just having read the passage in Ambroses book. However I never really read anything before on another motive for taking the Huertgen forest other then getting to the Rhine as quickly as possible in September '44. It never occured to me that the land behind the Huertgen made for ideal innudation (is that English?) / flooding country. Hence my surprise when I read about the Roer valley and the dams. I just voiced my eye opener here. Sorry about that, I translated that incorrectly, but you are right it should be the Roer and not the Ruhr. Mies

I remembered a thread on this a while back so I did a search. Here are the results, although not a lot more info : Thread 1 Thread 2 Mies

I'm currently reading Stephen Ambrose's The Victors, which has a part in there on an aspect of the Huertgen forest battle that I never realized. Behind the Hurtgen forest (German side) is the Ruhr river valley. During the battle the Germans commanded the dams up stream. Should the American First Army have broken through the forest they would have ended up in the valley, giving the Germans the opportunity to open the dams and swamp the Ruhr valley. This would have seriously hampered any attempt for the Allies to exploit a breakthrough and quickly get to the Rhine river. Ambrose therefore states that the Huergen forest as the sole objective of the offensive order by in that part of the line was a waste of time and resources (as JasonC perfectly demonstrated above). It would have made more sence to: a) Go after 2 objectives, the Huertgen forest and the Ruhr river dams or Bypass the Huertgen forest altogether and go for those dams in the first place. A small piece of this can be found here . Mies

What the ...., is it refresh monkey time already? Ahhh, those were the days! Mies