kevsharr

I placed my order for cmbb at 7:20 eastern time on the night of the 16th, my confirmation order did'nt mention anything about a backorder.Does this mean I got one of the last?I had to wait awhile to get unneeded fund's to spend on it and to have to wait longer is a bummer,I guess timing is everything

I believe the remote mg and the standard mg are operated by the loader.I'll have to look in a few book's to see if there ever was a aa mg perse [ December 10, 2002, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

According to Speilberger's book on the Panther it had a hydraulic drive that operated independent of engine rpm and would take 60 second's for a full rotation.I believe the Pzkw IV also used hydraulic's until the J version where the drive was removed and extra fuel storage was incorporated to increase range

Try reading "Soldier's of Destruction"I can't remember the author off-hand but it is an excellent book.I like how the surviving veteran's really despised Himmler for allowing the div. to be almost destroyed in the Demyansk pocket

The first non-board wargame I played was Panzer General on the original playstation almost six year's ago.But then again a 486 166+ computer with 16 meg's of ram and 1.6 gig harddrive was cutting edge technology way back then so the pixelation did'nt bother me one bit!

I remember reading a book written by a russian right after the fall of the soviet union in one chapter he discusses penal batt.When you were convicted of what ever crime you were given a choice between a ground or air assignment,In ground unit's you usually led assault's and you were indeed lightly armed and you could get shot from either direction.In a air assignment you were to make ten mission's chained into the rear gunner position of a IL-2,if you completed the ten mission's you would be considered rehabilitated.Unfortunatly after eight or nine mission's the unit doctor would report you as unfit for flying operation's and send you to a ground penal unit.I don't know how much truth is in this story but the russian's were'nt the kindest of people back then toward's the german's or their own people.

Evidently the computer has the same problem,in a recent battle a marderIII suddenly appeared with a clear shot at the flank of one of my sherman's that I had just given a movement order to at less than a hundred yard's,but instead of making it toast it chose to shot at a 60mm mortar that was closer three times giving a bazooka team time to run up and knock it out.I bet the computer was banging it's virtual keyboard

Quote: Lucas (another of those grain of salt types) Not to belabor the point but how does one get on this grain of salt list?Lucas's biblioghraphies in his book's look reputable enough,it's doese'nt look like he's making up all that he has written.David Mcollugh[i know I misspelled his name but I'm not at home]made a mistake in his book "john Adam's"when he quoted him as saying that Jefferson was a paragon of democracy or something of that nature[i tried to find the passage but was unsuccessful,have to try again]does that mean that it goes into the trash because he might have made a lot of mistake's and thereby distort's history? John,I did a google search after I posted last and found the site you refer to and yes it's in german and no I don't speak it.I also found a review of Carell's book Hitler moves East the only problem the reviewer had was the fact that the book consisted of material gathered in interview's of german soldier's which he concedes is the rage today but is not to his liking

Here's an interesting site that includes info on the Brandeberg ihttp://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/3351/index.html

James Lucas's book"Kommando-german special forces in world war II"cover's the brandenberg and it's operation's quite extensively.here is some info. #1 company was made up of men who could speak Estonian,Latvian,Lithuanian,Finnish and russian.#2 comp.was made up of men who had lived in the former German african colonies,and who were proficient not only in the native languages and dialect's of those area's,but also in english and Portugease.The Volksdeutche of #3 comp.were from czechoslovakia and spoke the languages and dialect's of that country.In #4 comp.the men had been drawn from eartern europe and had command of Polsh,West Russian,Ukrainian and Ruthenian as well as the local dialect's peculiar to those region's. The wide variety of tongues spoken and understood in the 1st battalion could be matched by the men of other battalion's and somewhere in the Regiment,or so it was claimed,could be found at least one soldier with the knowledge of such rare langueges as Tibetan or Pushtu." I believe this book has been re-released and is recommended. [ December 03, 2002, 08:55 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

As for the effect's of the nebelwerfer [that Carell also mention's]I turn to James Lucas from his book War on the Eastern Front.. "There were several very interesting and apocryphal stories concerning the Nebewerfer.One of these was that the rocket's used in the first month's of the waragainst the Soviet Union had been charged with liquid oxygen explosive.The presence of so many dead showing no external sign's of injury seemed to support that theory.The truth was more prosaic.The rapid and succesive detonation's produced during a Nebelwerfer barrage produced such rapid variation's in air pressure within the bombarded zone that many victim's suffered extensive damage to their lung's which killed them." I guess Carell was right about one thing in his extensive but inaccurate writing's.

So Paul Carell is famous for his inaccuracies could you direct me to a site that verifies this?Most of his book's are made up of anecdotal information and if there all lies he's got a pretty good imagination

Or take the famous[maybe mythical] incident of the german's tying a rope across a road and no one was willing to risk crossing or cutting it.I believe it was Patton who cut it and told his men to get their a***s in gear

Take the story about a Panther commander[i believe it was Barkman]who came upon a column of parked Sherman's.At the first sight of the Panther the crew's dismounted and ran,leaving seven or eight Sherman's sitting there idling.As far as human nature is concerned anything is possible.

The Brandenberger's were indeed commando's.They were mostly Volkdeutsch[men of german descent living outside of the reich].They wore enemy uniform's until battle was joined then they removed them to reveal the german uniform's underneath,this was supposed to be allowed under the Geneva Convention but if the russian's caught you you'd probably be shot anyway. Most stug's were organized into independent sturmgeshutz brigade's and were usually at the disposal of Korp headquarter's.

Paul Carell in his book "Hitler moves East"[which by the way is an outstanding book,a must read]relates this episode and it was caused by the concussive effect of the nebelwerfer

Panzer-regiment 39 consisted of panzerabtielung's 51 and 52.Pz.ab.51 was formed from the II/Panzerregiment 33 of the 9th panzer div.The 52nd was formed from the I/panzerregiment 15 of the 11th panzer div.Together with Panzerregiment "Grossdeutschland" they were to form PanzerBrigade 10.They fielded 184 Panther's at the start of Zitadelle on 5 July,when the attack was called off after the landing's on Sicily on 18 July the Panzerbrigade could field just 44 Panther's. According to my information Wiking was serving as part of 26th panzer corp along with the 17th panzer div. as a reserve force behind Armeeabtielung Kempf and did not see action in zitadelle.....Since all the Panther's were thus serving in the Grossdeutschland sector I don't think any Panther's fought at Prokohorvka [ November 30, 2002, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

Here is a report of Hermann Bix's encounter with a ISU-152"It had just become light on the morning of May 6th,when oberfeldwebel Bix saw thru his binoc.that the russians were felling tree's for a barricade. "What are they planning now"?he asked Schawafferts. "Surely they don'nt intend to dig in now,"replied Schawaffert Suddenly they heard engine noise's.Then a cloud of blue smoke rose into the air behind the barricade.A pair of russian's appeared and pulled the branches of the fallen tree's to the side,and Bix saw the muzzle of a giant gun with a muzzle brake. "That can't be a tank,"he observed."Load armor-piercing.Range four hundred!" His gunner had the target in sight.Bix checked his sight once more to ensure it was adjusted properly.Then he gave the order to fire.As it fired,the area around the Jagdpanther,which had gone into cover behind some fir tree's,was shrouded in fumes and smoke.Needles showered down on the tank,blocking the crew's view of the target.Also,there was no spurt of flame which would have indicated a direct hit. When Bix could see again,he saw that the enemy was still there.They fired a second and a third time,but the enemy gun showed no ill effects.The soviet's now opened fire.The first shot struck the ground about three metre's in front of the Jagdpanther.Smoke and flames were forced into the fighting compartment. The second shot from the enemies giant cannon raced past a few metre's above the roof of the tank-destroyer,but the third was on target.Bix noticed that the recoil guard of his own cannon rose backward's and felt the blow of the impacting shell.The fearfull crash of the impact left him deaf.Thus he could not hear his gunner report that he could no longer see,as the optic's port had been shattered. Bix tried to open the cannon's breach in order to peer down the barrel and aim in that way.But he found that the recoil guard was up to the edge of compartment on the inner armor.Now he knew that the gun mantlet had been sprung from it's trunnion's and that the end was near for them. "Back up!"he ordered the driver,and the tank roared to life and began to move. "Chief to Hofknecht,"called Bix to the Feldwebel commanding the second vehicle in the dunes.He had heard the order and likewise began to back up. Bix then called batt.,Leutnant Pintelmann,who had been at the bay,came roaring up just in time to see Bix backing away. "Carefull,carefull!"Bix warned the Leutnant.But it was already to late. The mighty cannon again spat a tongue of flame.The Leut.tank was also hit on the gun mantlet and disabled.He was forced to give the order to withdraw. Feldw.Hofknecht reached a side road and saw the "Battering Ram",as they had named the heavy assault gun,had begun to roll forward slowly.When he had the entire broadside of the newest and heaviest russian assault gun in his sight's he fired two ap round's into it's flank.The crew climbed out and surrendered to the feldw. Hofknecht saw that the three shot's from Bix's cannon had struck the center of the bow of the assault gun and had penetrated about ten centemeter's.They had been unable to penatrate the thick frontal armor. That's pretty good armor performance given the range!

Gamespy has reviewed cmbb and gave it a[94-outstanding]rating

stuffit 7.0 is a very good compression and expanding program and the evaluation version is FREE. I believe you can get it at www.stuffit.com [ November 30, 2002, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

I don't know if this is out of the context of this topic but on the topic of irrational behavior I read in Eric Hammel's 72 hour's about the battle for Betio in the Tarawa atoll of five marines in a foxehole that was under fire from a sniper,one by one they each stuck their head's up only to be killed,certainly the action's of victim #5 has to border on the irrational if any action warrent's such a discription.I would'nt have stuck my head up after seeing my four comrades each die in consequitive order,not till I got some support at least!

I think Steve hit the nail on the head when he dicussed the range versus penatration.From day one of playing this game I came to the conclussion that given the relativly short ranges encountered in cmbo[all I have at the moment]all tank's are equal the one to target and get off the first shot usually win's.Like the tactic's the russian's used at the real battle of Prohkahorvka getting in close negated the armor and gun performance of the Tiger and Panther's.Like I said atleast in cmbo I have rarily had a map that was truly wide-opened enough for 1.000-1.500 yard engagement's that is with a reallistic map,even the lowly M-4 with the origanal 75 has a chance at the realativly short cm ranges [ November 29, 2002, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

I have read somewhere that Pz IV's were used to fire air burst's over the Normandy beachead's,is this direct fire or indirect?And Stug's were erzsatz tank's large number's of them being employed by panzer regiment's,evidently because of the large number's produced[over 25.000]so realisticaly as the allies you would expect to encounter these more often than just about any german afv.Also the 88 had indirect firing sight's also so they would be triple purpose artillery pieces,talk about versatility [ November 29, 2002, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

I don't know about the hammer story but I know that the early T-34's had some really cobby transmission's.I have photo's of T-34's with extra trannies chained to their engine deck's!

As to tank's firing indirect I have a photo book on the Italian campaign that not only show's sherman's firing indirect but quite a few m-10's doing the same thing,rolled up onto dirt ramp's to increase elevation,it seem's that tank's were'nt as effective in their normal role given the generally rugged terrain and every gun tube was needed in the wwI type fighting that the it.camp degenerated into so frequently. I also believe that all type's of gun's are artillery like AAA-anti-aircraft artillery,anti-tank artillery so on...even tank gun's are a form of artillery [ November 27, 2002, 09:35 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]