HarryInk

I'm reading about the early days and I'm starting to think: after CMAK, will BTS go just that little bit further and give us the 1939 & 1940 campaigns? Oh...all them Frenchie tanks...and the funny English ones...And don't them Dutch soldiers wear weird helmets. Why, you could even enjoy Polish cavalry charging Panzers!!?!

Or this one...from a current PBEM of mine. I've got a Hetzer doing a sterling job as my only tank killer on the map. Poor bugger has to keep switching from one side of a wooded hill to the other to ward off the depredations of the Amerikaner filth. Unfortunately, on two separate occasions I have had to plot the little TD to hunt-reverse-hunt-reverse its way up the slope crabwise (so as to avoid showing flank to the Shermans it's trying to pop). Was I plotting just a little too fast while fending off my 2 1/2 y.o. daughter? Is that why I continued to hit U instead of alternating with R? So, on two separate turns (I should have learnt, d'oh!), the Hetzer has hunted, turned to bare its arse, toddled away 20m, turned again... *sigh* Still, it has survived so far (T20) and has a proud score of 3 Shermans and 2 Greyhounds. :cool:

PPS. When will CM go on retail in Australia? I think you've got it retailing in Europe and the US now? Ain't there no one to carry the stock in Oz?

Dear Ares/Mars, We thank thee for all the newbies who are about to flood our forums and chatsite(s) looking for enlightenment in the ways of the Combat Mission. Hallelujah in de highest!! It'll make all the pain of these last few years well worth it. :eek: PS. Did BTS fix the prisoner bug or are we going to have our joys somewhat spiked?

A QB where a Greyhound comes screaming along a road, through a gully and up the otherside to take my German inf in the rear...he's hurtling along...the full 55mph...until the 60th second...when all CM vehicles mysteriously freeze...and that's just when Private Snotwurst pulls the trigger on his Panzerfaust. At second 60+0.5 the speeding/now frozen Greyhound goes boom! Ah...we'd all like to think Pte Snotwurst deserved the Iron Cross 3rd class, but really, it was just that mysterious bug that CM has about vehicles being able to do 55mph..then 0..then spring back next turn to the full 55mph. Strange but true!

hehehe..Well, being the ScottTD's evil victory stealer in the Aachen scenario I'd just like to pipe in with a couple: 1. Yep..them flags lie to ya, Scott. You think you've got 'em and you waltz your inf. over only to discover some filthy enemy squad's sitting under 'em waiting for ya with SMGs. I learnt this the bloody way. Don't trust 'em 'til everything in the area is d e a d. 2. The percentages for victory are calculated on casualties along with the flags...so too the global morale, I believe. I find it strange when someone lets me pick off their biggest and best units...e.g. a Panther in a recent small QB...without realising that this is going to make the rest of their forces that much more fragile. By the end game, they're running around like height-adjusted chooks. In our fight, the nifty panzerschrek shot that took out your Sherman therefore counted for a lot in the long run of such a short scenario. Alas, if only my Sicherung squad had been faster with their Fausts at the arse of your Priest! *sigh* Although Aachen doesn't really allow for heavy casualties, at a certain point I believe that heavy casualties render flags almost irrelevant. There's an article about the scoring system at Tournament House's (I presume almost dead?) CM site: http://thforums.com/CMBO/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=58 You might enjoy it. Too many numbers for me to properly understand. (God bless BTS for intuitive wargames, I say!) You'll be better with 'em, I'm sure. I manage kids, you manage stock. Now...where's your move in the revenge of the Republicans QB??!!

You might find Rommel's little memoir entitled "Attack!" rather than 'infantry tactics'. It's nifty, but the maps make sense of it...Did some twit really publish it without his little doodles?!! One thing it shows... Rommel spent a goodly portion of WW1 with Gebirgsjaegers. With that fire power, no wonder he found attacking was usually the best option!! Especially against Roumanian peasants.

So yes, Yunfat, this is just passing time til CMAK comes out, but here's another feature I'd like (sorry if it's been covered): Being able to click/activate a unit and the map will colour itself into the areas the unit can see and the areas it can't (say...shaded). This would make setting up a defence much quicker. It's a feature you find in games like Sid Meier's Gettysburg and similar series. Cheers

I absolutely agree that it's crap that one can only plot a single waypoint for a whole platoon (for example) before having to collapse into individual squad plotting. It does collapse the argument offered by Moon: ie. if they didn't want that sort of game feature, why is even a single waypointing option there?! I would love to be able to move platoons across ground by just plotting a series waypoints for the whole lot. Quite often I have to bring reserves forward toward the firing line via a covered route, not 'as the crow flies' (which would bring them under fire). So now I have to plot to the first turn, then TEDIOUSLY plot each squad (perhaps of a whole company) up the trail. How much better to just click the lot through the trail with say five waypoints. I can't see the feature being much used in the firing line. It's not its function. It's the sort of thing that takes the tedium out of the rear areas. Like other writers above, I've got kids and time demands on me other than CM, and time savers like this would be ace. The game would be more playable for the likes of us who have only slices of time available. (and yes...I do enjoy too toooo tooooo much of my time with it already *LOL*)

Thanks Soren, ace information. I devoured Hassell when I was a young teenager. I remember rolling around in tears of laughter at some of the tall stories told by the characters. But it is interesting to know that the author was a ratbag. And also to know that the various illegal activities of his characters were probably drawn from 'Hassell's' own experiences/those of his fellow felons as much as the supposed war stories were probably just wild fiction based on yarns told by veterans. I eventually left off Hassell when I started to feel that his stuff was kind of a pornography of violence. Maybe I should revisit it for old times sake?

Zimorodok.. I LOVE your start up screen. I'll need it too when CMBB turns up for my enjoyment!! Is it hosted on any MOD site??

PS. And when is someone going to do a Napoleonic version of CM??!! There's 23 years of good fighting in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars, not just the 6 years of catastrophe in WW2!

Oh dear, I was going to say grid toggle and an UNDO command...but V/Jester has thrown me right off course..... I get frustrated when I've stuffed up a plot and can't delete the last bit without deleting the entire plot (yes yes...I do like plotting a LONG way ahead). I'm so used to being able to back out of actions in Word that it seems unnatural not to have that option in other applications!... PS. Would tank tracks across the countryside really need a new engine?? I was thinking how craters/shell holes get dumped all over the terrain during battles...too difficult to do that with tracks? Ah well...next time.

OK. Here's my two pennies worth: 1. Multiplayer (ie. more than just 1vs1). Can't wait for a game to allow me to get more frustrated by the guys on my side than my enemy! It was one of the best aspects of old multi-player figures battles... You had to contend not only with your enemy's skills, but with the various skills of your friends. FOW on your own side to would be very fine, but also being able to see all your own side, even what you don't control, would be ok. 1.2 Being able to watch other people playing, maybe even with spoken commentary from them! Does TACOPs have something like this option? If so, couldn't it be tacked onto CMAK etc....or will that add another 436MB to the program? 2. Visual wishlist: tank tracks! Probably not a really possibility, but look at all those old photos of tanks going cross country: parallel lines of crushed grass and mud. It'd be a neat visual feature. 2.2 Definitely being able to watch battles with the moves stiched together as an integral part of the game. This is the feature I hear everyone pleading for. 3. Group control...mentioned in an earlier mail. In larger battles it'd be so useful to order a platoon to move from A to B in column, or echelon left refused, and for the AI to do the work of sneaking/running/whatever the troops forward just as it does for its own troops. This sort of feature would give the game a double level kind of feel...a real new twist. You could play games at the usual micro-management level we're all addicted to, or try a game at a level where you give orders not to squads or half-squads but to platoons. 4. Changing weather. I know it's easier to code a stable weather mode for an entire battle, but the arrival of rain, or its cessation, made big differences to combat. Maybe 'showers' as a weather option? 5. The terrain in CMBO has always been nice but more or less gamey...each side gets a little cover to start with; the hills roll prettily, if not in any geologically sensible way. I'd like to see ridges with spurs radiating out of them. Hills that make geological sense. Maybe creeks that don't affect movement or cover, but which do indicate the bottoms of gullies. Plenty of times I've seen swamps half-way up hill sides!!?? Badly written is the above, but I'd like to see terrain that makes less game sense and more 'real sense', if you get what I mean. Well, at that standard of english, it's time for me to go to bed! Ciao

Some other ideas: GUN: "Flee!!" or "This will kill you!" LIGHT ARMOR: "Not another M8?!" TANK: "F*** Off scarey tank"

ace work Wolfe! Thx

I enclose a short excerpt from recent correspondance with an opponent (occasioned by me receiving a few choice rounds across the map from a 155mm[?] IG). Please note that, in the interests of non-Australians who might be squeamish about my language, I've censored my expleatives: "*L* You know, on screen, it just says 'gun' when one of your bangers appears from nowhere to blast me. I think it should say "F***ing big gun"! HH And his helpful reply (similarly censored): "We should request a labelling MOD to take care of that. "Big F***ing Gun", "Big assed Tank", "Tiny Assed Tank", "SOB mortar crew", etc. ; )" So, the discussion is open. Can we inspire an MOD masters out there to enhance and colour CMBO's vernacular into more authentically soldierish terminology? I remember my grandfather -- a WW1 veteran -- had an inspiring grasp of technicolour language gained as a 16 y.o. recruit to the Australian Imperial Forces which he still employed at choice moments in his late 70s. It'd be nice to have what I personally would think of as the 'Ralph Harrison Memorial MOD' full of foul situationally-appropriate language. Some humble suggestions might be: Light armor: "Pathetic crawler"; "Tin Coffin"; "Tin Foil tank"; ".50cal fodder". Gun: "Penis enhancement"; "Penile compensator"; "Big bone", er...think I'll stop there and revert to the original "FBG" [ie. F***ing Big Gun] Light gun: "Irritant"; "Bang bang", "whizz bang" [an authentic name for the WW1 German 75mm]; "Don't laugh too hard", etc. etc. Mortar?: "Kill these guys"; "SOBs" Anyway...I'm sure others can improve on these first suggestions..... Cheers HarryInk

PS. Why rush tanks about so early on? The comment that armor waits to handle what the resilient infantry can't overcome is a good maxim. See how the s'kicker's go for a while before starting a derby and giving away clues to your enemy.

Nice pic and a cool idea. Looking forward to more discussion and the progress of the game. I'd be going with Kelly, etc.. I'd probably throw a single platoon over the entire front in 1/2 squads to test the waters and approach the serious work in waves, having deployed them in rally points along my expected routes of attack. But then again, I haven't played BB seriously yet and don't know the new power of HMGs. maybe a strung out platoon would be ratsh@# as recon and just end up suppressed? Still, if they picked the position of the HMGs, you could then use the tank HE to open up the can o' worms.

I'm running an identical iMac to that above, by the sound of it (233mhz 2mb vid chip) and am getting no joy whatsoever trying to kick up CMBB. Like John, it doesn't have the processing omphf to run CMBO at anything but low res. Am I right to believe that 2MB just ain't gonna get it over the CMBB line? Any way at all (beside new puter) to adjust this/compensate for it/win the favour of insensate gods?

PS. I DID do a few SEARCHes before I posted my inane question! *blush*

It's a boring newbie's question! What are the Rules sets that I see on mods download pages? Do they actually change the mechanics by which CMBO works? What effect do they have? Thanks for any answers.... HarryInk

JasonC. I have read and used your ace article on German close defence and its twin on turning that defence, which appears and reappears in the newbie posts digest. Now you offer me A1 advice on using TRPs. Tell me Jason, has anyone volunteered to have your babies yet? *grin*

It looks like it's a PC program. Any idea if it will work on iMac, or if there's a mac version available?