Desert Dave

Well, the thing is, YOU are not running this forum. If you don't like what I or anyone else writes, don't read it. Simple, yes? Use your little mouse, and just click on by. Since you apparently can't discriminate and determine what I have said (... I said that you were IMITATING those two ciphers, NOT that YOU were a radio-punk or a chicken-hawk, do you understand now?), or am saying, let's just do this: you stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours. [ November 16, 2002, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: Immer Etwas ]

You got me CvM. My Shakespeare is deficient as all get out. Then again, I don't actually know all that much, it's just that I have lived for a long, long time. Seen a lot of interesting things. At the rate you're going, you will completely catch up in 2 or 3 years, yes?

rambo junior: I knew a guy who bragged around like you way back in my Army days. He lasted two weeks. If you will only quit imitating a gutter-mouthed radio punk, and/or some muscle-bound cretin who ducked service in Vietnam, I might know who I'm talking to? One day, when you decide who you really are, let me know, we can start all over, yes?

Hmmm, what to do on a Friday night? :confused: Couple good flicks on the cable, Alice's Restaurant and The Blues Brothers ... nah, think I'll read a little History... (CvM? Something? Not to do with light sabers?) Nah, think I'll go to Official Monitor training school, the World sure needs more of those, sure! we can all watch each other -- what we say, what we imagine, what we do -- ALL THE TIME... or... Just maybe, hey - go to the forum and see my old and new friends... we can talk about this and that, SC, about the game, and there are other things we can share! to get to know each other better. Yeah, that will be FUN!

Mabel was a very patient woman. She had to be, she'd been in this confounded wheelchair since... November, 1963. The doctors didn't know, Ha Ha, and how! they fumed and muttered about her so-called hysterical reaction... to the Assassination. Mabel laughed loud. They ALL may just as well be idiot consorts to Hippocrates, who had speculated that wombs would move around in a woman's body! Hysteria they called it way back in the Classical Age, why... isn't that exactly like the men, oh, that's just hysterical!. But, she knew. She knew... that awful American day, there had been... an opening. The tiniest of... cracks... in the Sky, letting in... oh, mea culpa, God forgive us... and Mabel shuddered... These were her secret thoughts. No need to tell anyone, not even... Maxwell. He would only worry needlessly. Max was a decent man. Many thought him merely... some Gad-fly of a Hollywood agent, A-party to A-party, but she knew better. He had an inside light... that he... mistrusted, and even... despised. Like most men, he denied his aesthetic sense, covering it over with bluster and... a panic resembling unreasoned fear. She sat near the window and looked out and noticed now a squirrel poised on a tree-limb, working its front paws furiously... then, she noticed the neighbor's cat... it was in the grass just below, watching intently. It's agile ebon back rippling sinuous in the morning sun. Sure, this is how the World works. In the here and now. And, back then... when Spartan Hoplites came trudging so thunderous -- shoulder-to-shoulder, across the rocky Attic plain, their red tunics like unfurled flags alight in an unholy fire. Mabel sighed. She was worried for Maxwell. Just before leaving on his trip -- but why would he need to go to the Desert? He wouldn't say, no matter how she tried to coax it out of him, and now, she was anxious once again. She reached for her vial of medicine, and gulped one of the small blue pills. The night before he left he'd been dreaming, and had woken her, thrashing & yelling about... Belmondo. Some guy named Belmondo riding around in a Ford rag-top?... whatever that meant. She watched, apprehensive but resigned, as the cat inched... ever closer to the base of the tree. Mabel bowed her head to pray. It was her way. Ever since the days of Great Awakening, this was how her Kind would summon the strength to get through. The California sun streamed clean & pure through the kitchen window, highlighting the scarlet ribbon tied quite delicately, in her long, silver-blonde hair. No one would ever suspect, seeing her now, that once! O those were the halcyon days! she had been a gallant surfer, riding the Santa Monica waves and laughing like some frenzied Bacchante -- tearing Pentheus limb from limb, while Brian Wilson -- how she loved that man, a true American genius... and The Beach Boys played & played... Everybody's gone surfing, surfing USA! Mabel raised her head and felt some slight relief. The squirrel, with high-toned and sassing chatter, had finally spied the cat, revealed at last in all its pretty foolishness. The squirrel seemed unconcerned, even... disdainful. If only she could feel the same way. She was worried about Maxwell... the pill was making her sleepy... she dozed... ... she saw a tall, dark-haired man with striking blue eyes... he pulled a key out of his pocket, a skeleton key it was, and... got into his car... a black '57 Ford with a gold-slash splashed along the side... and he whirled away, but not before saying... softly... "Mabel, (... she started, there in her wheel-chair, yet asleep, and wondered even while she dreamed... how could he know my name!) oh golden surf-girl, it's all right, don't you fret your red-ribbon'd head... ... there are things I have to do. And Max can help. I won't keep him long. The damned War is going badly, the Insanity is relentless and immense, and we are obliged to do what we can, Max and I... and a few others -- can you, will you, allow that? Sleep Mabel, like a mermaid far out to Sea, floating and lost in a dream... it's those soothing Pacific waves... put you to sleep, child... deep asleep... ... FADE ...

Well, I just posted a post, only the striking bit of wit just... disappeared. It's not here, where I intended it. It's not on my work-desk, here handy to my right hand, where I keep the Z-files. No. It's nowhere. And I looked. :eek: That's probably a good thing, however, as I made further comments about Dresden and... hell, it's pretty late, better not to get so far into that kind of... strange insanity. Say, maybe the post will show up one fine whistle-away day, and... well, cheese & crackers, it wouldn't REALLY matter if it did, or did not, true? Enough. It's late. I apologize. For what I don't know. Something. Anything. I am...

Not such an insignificant thing. Well, sort through the idealogical BS and then figure out what YOU stand for, and then decide to be a bodhisattva after all, which, really ANYONE can do if they mean to, and help prevent them happening in the first instance, yes? :cool: Dresden was madness, plain and simple, no studiously rendered rationale can change that. Ever. Never. OF COURSE there are biological imperatives. OF COURSE there are rogue nations states, with deranged leaders. (... I can think of several existant right now, East AND West) BUT, human nature is not immutable. It is capable of ... ANYTHING... and that includes solving the lack of elbow-room, scarcity of food and water, and apparent lack of creative insights. Reason has got us mired. Intuition and what surfaces out-of-heart WILL un-mire us. Until then, we can do innocuous but helpful things (as catharsis)... like playing war GAMES. Though, some Chicken-hawks, East and West, don't seem to know the difference, alas it's true.

Then, you could be an Historian. Like Herodotus. Spengler. Stephen Speilberg. ALL the rest. They make up things too, though, you'd never get that impression just by going to beginning or finishing school, or, reading opinions on a forum... ALL we have... are educated guesses. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Which will make it a unique and very playable game, no matter what is changed or included. EVERYTHING is a result of everything else. Very precious little occurs in a vacuum. We build upon all other existing thoughts, ideas, imaginings, and only lately -- published materials. Good example is most of the architecture in Washington DC... hmmmm, think I've seen those Doric & Ionian columns somewhere before. I played COS for awhile, back when my platform would support it, and you know what? I put it away. After a short while, I just stopped playing it. Why? It was pretty good, but it was flawed and there was NO WAY to get ahold of whoever made it, and suggest tweaks & fixes. It was what it was forever, and no future in sight. That is not true of SC, and there are many reasons for that, the primary one being -- the personal interest and public commentary & committment of the designer. Here, you are involved in the ongoing creation of what may well turn out to be the finest WW2 grand strategy game ever created. Already it is very good. Can you stand it if it becomes the very best? Hubert may or may not decide to continue. I sincerely hope that he does. But IF he does, then everyone on this board will have some input and influence, and so, just how often does that happen -- since we seem to have quite a few aloof and mostly know-it-all game designers? Visit some other sites and forums. Tell me how often the designer descends from Valhalla or Olympia and truly shares AND solicits opinions?

Note: I cannot post in the Free French thread for the simple reason that I am continually kicked out... I get this error message: URLMON.dll. If anyone knows what that means, let me know. Perhaps due to picture-insertion code? Who knows, it never happened before, but the only difference I can discern is the inclusion of pictures. Hi Ho! and so pluck-the-lit-Git anyhow, this latest piece of the puzzle was ...discovered just recently in a very decrepit sailor trunk... but see, the thing of it is, you have to have... the skeleton key... * * * * * * * * * The Famed Hollywood Agent -- Maxwell Terkel, hey, his friends -- and he had quite a few, let him remind you, just called him... Max... well, he couldn't help it, He just stood and stared. :cool: He'd heard tell of these Southwest sunsets, sure enough, but this was his first. Oh my, he thought. My my my my, Socrates-the-raddled Gad-fly, my. A swirling riot of reds & oranges and clouds tipped & spilling fiery liquids like precious porcelein tea cups... in the hands of a New Disbeliever... and the tea, uh huh, had come all the way from... China... ... it was... a Circus sort of sight, as though ol' Picasso had stuck the Family Saltimbanques high in the sky with whole hands-full! of beglowing red rubies and wicked white diamonds too! and they'd strewn them a-bout... ah, rather indolently, indeed... {... where did that come from, Maxwell wondered? He rubbed at his eyes. He felt... a little beside himself, and should a Jungian scholar be juxtaposed, shoulder to collar, he'd likely say -- a Classic case-study of... collective ekstasos... But... who was this... Pistachio fellow? And then the ground rose nauseous up! beneath his Hollywood-handsome feet and a bell sound! suddenly swelled... be damned! If it wasn't... The Beach Boys... loud and clear, as though he was holding a mermaid-shaped sea-shell... right close to his ear... ...Well, I feel so broke up, I want to go home... The first mate he got drunk, Broke in the Captain's trunk, The constable had to come And take him away, Sheriff John Sloan, Why don't you leave me alone, Yeah, yeah... So hoist up the John-B sail! See how the mainsail sets, Call for the Captain ashore, Let me go home... Why don't they let me go home? ...this is the worst trip I've ever been on... ... Max shuddered -- Mabel had warned him, bless her little wheel-chair heart, she did, many the times she had distinctly said -- you better! quit that Jack Daniels-habit so late into night, oh mercy on yer Black-Bart soul... ...and sure it was, the Famed Cinema Editor, an odd duck but a wizened pro, who was favored by DeNiro -- rumor had it that he'd worked day & night for a year! to get that hackle-raising mirror-scene in Taxi Driver just right, but got no credit, none! no, of course not, that's how they do you -- out there in La-La Land, ha ha, uh huh... ... anyway, he'd tracked the old goat down, and this is where he'd been told to go... cost him a sawbuck or two, that pack-away rat! ... out onto the antigodlin' desert! and nothin' but little turqoise-tailed lizards scurrying and air so clean & tight that he could hardly breathe quite right... WHAT THE HELL... was happening here...} And then he saw it. Rather, it... just... appeared. A ramshackle lean-to perched perilous on the Edge, plywood door partly askew, and the sail-away sounds came dreamily, Trismegistus-like... from... far inside... ... FADE ...

Belmondo stands alone. He flings the Camel-end into a bitterly weeping Rain 'n wind. There is Iconoclastin this midst, I just know it is so. Sure he does, He knows it in the same way Rick once knew That the Bosche wore gray, And not black, and not blue, When the skies obliterated that careless day In a terrible, taunting outrage. He knew. Hell, where does... anything ...go? When it is this and nothing much more, But, the end Of long-prophesied war, O The end of Farben and Ford, and dank swords Broken anymore - into plowshares - Ha Ha, who? Could claim Moloch - Moloch as dreamed-for! In such an ugly, ungainly, and banal way? There is Iconoclastin this groveling mist, And nobody knows... that I ...know it. Belmondo shrugs, searches out the precious, Sought-for key; almost angrily, he Lights a fire in a pit-chamber of Hell. The '57 Ford rag-top rockets off Into a dank, mushrooming night, And all you can see, should you be Abandoned there in embitter lamplight, Is rank upon rank of doleful soldiers, Dwindling and Tiny in the rain - like fast fizzling Match-heads.

It was a falling down Motel just off of Sunset Boulevard, and The Hot Shot Agent wondered why he even bothered. He shrugs, knocks, and notices a crookedly striped cat peering up at him. The stray creature is under a withered rose-bush near the door. No answer. That is how it is these days, he thinks. No response-ability. Some say God in Heaven treats the faithless species that way. Finally he just pushes on in. The Writer is sitting in a lumpen chair beneath a floor lamp that shines around all oddly. He is smoking a loosely-rolled cigarette. He doesn't seem startled in the least. -Hey! It is I, the famed Hollywood Agent! The Writer looks up, then away. Look here, I've been... I need to speak with you about this... script of yours. -All right. -See, the thing is, you can't write a World War II movie and... do it this way, it just isn't done. Think of Speilberg. Think of John Ford, the Duke, Cavalry with flags unfurled, you know, pretty panorama like that. The Writer stares. -Can you talk? -Too much talk. Not enough of the other. Besides, I was thinking more along the lines of... The Bicycle Thief. -Look, you just CAN'T have Jean Paul Belmondo in this movie. Why, I don't even think he's alive! -Then go to Cherchez La Femme Cemetary, and dig him on up. The famed Agent does a double take. He has been around the true artists, like Burt Reynolds, so he can ham it up with the best of them. -Ha ha, you are a real piece of work, an out and out flake, you know that? Ha ha. Anyway, I was thinking... Tom Hanks could play that part... ah, what am I doing, falling into your awful woeful Web, ahem, that so-called part is... NOT part of the desired discussion, and so NOT allowed. -I see. But, Belmondo is IN, or... no script. The famed Hollywood Agent is still standing in the middle of the room. The carpet is tattered. The paint flaking away from the water-streaked walls. -Geez Marie, how can you live like this? A long, long pause. -This is Jim Morrison's old room. Every morning, I hear this clear and defiant cry: WAKE UP! ... FADE ...

Well, quite a debut. :cool: Galouise-end to the mistral wind and Marilyn coy-hoyden too! One doesn't know whether to act aghast... or give it over and fair savor the Continental charm, right down to the fauvian follicles. Say... did Mr Raymond Chandler serve his adopted nation in WW2, and here someone has discovered in a crevice in The Rock -- one of his old, discarded Cinema Verite scripts? Or, was it claimed in 1958 or thereabouts by Jean Paul Belmondo -- from a mont-de-piete, hard by the Seine at night when the City of Lights is ... sur-real looking-glass for the riverine dreams of the screaming Masses of the day? (... I got the part, I got the part! I'll be driving this blown open '57 Ford rag-top with see-you-later-Ace fender-fins, and the blue-nose Coppers, ha ha, don't know a bean-tin about whereat to start O hahahahahahahah... ) Ahem, discarded by whom you may ask? :confused: {pinky... justextended... the Tea come all the way from China via the opium trade route; the crumpets salvaged out of a crumpled package addressed: Mr Dickens is utterly moribund, so my word, this may just as well go to... YOU} His wife peeked in, on Med holiday she was, ah, and sure! Monsieur Renoir, it's that Existentialist conceit, and little more, but... of course!

As example, if we do indeed get the new research limitations as already proposed by Hubert, then you are going to see some MAJOR changes in strategy. Consider this: if you no longer can rely on high tech units, nor a great number of units (as all those corps in Russia), then you WILL have to be more exacting in game play. You WILL have to be more careful in planning and executing your tactics and long range strategy. No longer can you simply overwhelm the opponent with sheer numbers, or merely superior units. This next patch should prove to be the greatest change we've yet experienced in SC! :cool: Also, I would like to remind everyone once again, especially those new to the forum, that ANY area of SC is open for re-evaluation and discussion.

Post Note, From out in the American Desert... ... and when you have voted (... well, if not this time -- then next!) please remember the following: it is the politician who is the steer, reckless and callow and bawling, not you, and also -- very important! it is YOU who sits in the saddle, (in the desert wind gritted and howling) and... it is YOU, the round-em-up Citizen, who holds... the Rodeo rope.

I have noticed from time to time that someone will respond in a thread by apologizing for introducing an old idea or topic. I am thinking... NO NEED FOR THAT. The game is evolving. There are revisions. New ways to look at the old ideas are always possible, especially since we all have fresh ideas gleaned from playing human opponents, either PBEM or TCP/IP. One could search back through every single solitary topic that has already been discussed, but, why should anyone necessarily have to do that? They might. It would help them to understand some of the issues involved. But, IMHO, it is NEVER inappropriate to express concerns or questions or suggestions or comments, no matter how often they have been previously explored. And, on a more personal note, and hey! it's just me, but I don't care for this "newbie" business. I didn't like it when I first started, and I think it somewhat condescending now. Surely there are better ways to "kid around" than that? If someone can find this site, and take the time to write out their opinion or comment, then they have been alive exactly long enough to have earned the SAME rights as anyone else. Besides, wisdom or insight isn't merely a function of age or longevity, either in terms of day-to-day life, or wargaming experience, yes?

Just a note, And no -- most don't need any reminder, But, get out today -- and vote! (... all who are Veterans, living and dead, thank you, and thank you kindly. )

Well, it was a a sound and imaginative ploy, but I would disagree that the defense (... which might have been handled a bit better, but this was the first time I had seen this, so I was caught unawares) was ...a shambles? :eek: As I remember it, your pincer movement caused the fall of Paris in early August, and France capitulated with 3 full strength French corps right next to Paris, and so the surrender struck me as a mite premature. Nonetheless, your point is a good one. In general, I would recommend that NO Foreign Legion units be moved from starting colonies at all, unless of course you should WANT Italy involved sooner. There may be instances when you would PREFER an early entry -- for example, if you have the French navy positioned just south of Taranto so that they might help RN destroy the Italian fleet. In that instance, you may need more time to complete the job (...OTOH, an alert Axis player will have deployed Air Fleets to protect the Italian navy, and so -- whee! 'round & 'round the strategy wheel we go!). Playing TCP/IP is surely different than playing the AI, and there are many old and partially ingrained habits that must be reevaluated and readjusted. With PBEM you have extended periods in which you may re-play the various tactics in your mind, and more time to consider and reconsider various options. But, TCP/IP makes for a more rousing and satisfying game for that very reason. It more closely resembles the sturm & drang of actual battlefield decision-making. Those of you who haven't tried it as of yet, I would surely recommend it!

IMO, it is a very good idea to replace the units in the Maginot with corps. You are going to be bypassed in any event, so better to have the Armies placed in the area of German blitzkreig. They do little good if they remain in Maginot, and all the while the Germans are attacking through the Ardennes. Finally, they will be easily blocked from moving west to reinforce the Paris area by a competent Axis player. Keep in mind that you wish to buy TIME so that the Brits might reinforce the Med before Italy enters, and also inflict as many casualties on the Germans as is possible. Essentially, that's ALL you can do. Great if you can completely destroy a unit, since we appreciate that the cost is much higher to build a brand new unit. The French Armies can effectively do that if they have 2 or 3 hex attacking capability, and if they are supported by a HQ. No matter, if the AI persists in attacking the Maginot line, then that causes more casualites and costs the Germans more MPPs. A human opponent will rarely resort to such useless attacks, so moving north and west is a good idea, and even better if you can do it early so to get the entrenchment bonus. Also, IF you use the carriers to air assault a German unit that has strayed out along the north-most coast, then be sure that you have enough land-based air support, AND watch out for the Germans re-basing Air Fleets closer to the front, in the vicinity of Low Countries, yes?

I am sure that CvM has done many interesting things in his brief and exuberant life; however, saving the forum is probably not one of them. I would like to commend all three active participants in this, these lively and quite creative role playing WW2 adventures. The writing is superb, and many of the pictures a pleasure to see. :cool: Some enjoy this kind of thing; others are less interested. Some forums provide a separate stage, so to speak, but here, so far, we are privileged to enjoy such inspired and creative endeavors without searching over hill & dale and around and about. I suppose it is akin to almost anything else; each has a skill, and each has a preferred Gestalt. When the Artist breaks through my perception (... who else's should you or I have?), then I am thrilled. IMHO, alas it is true, in this day and age, that is become very much rarer. A startling trueness of collective insight, deftly rendered, I mean. However, the SC forum does offer OTHER items of interest, very few of which have culminated in untold or untoward bickering and various sorts of freewheeling ill-will. For instance: There are historical perspectives, some of which are preposterous, some of which are fanciful, but most of which I have found most interesting to read and consider. There are issues of game mechanics. There are strategies acclaimed as tried and true and more than one, or a few, denounced and scoffed over. There are speculations as to future changes, and musings as to possible mods. There are (... and this is my very own favorite! ) mindless banter and off-topic whims & fancies, that only adds technicolor and some relief from what is, arguably, a bleak area for general discussion, what with all the techno-outrageous bloodlet & mayhem unleashed by ALL participants. And, the occasional joke I have enjoyed, and the idle reveries occasionally eliciting outright guffaws!! :cool: Not to mention the honest and communal exchanges of pleasantries. A brotherliness, sort of. The bravado and machismo? Well, gee whiz, please tell me of any place you have been, in however long you have lived, wherein more than several males (... I AM absolutely certain that there are many, many females who enjoy SC as well, but, ahem, allow me, here I make a general point) have gathered -- in anyone's name or their incredibly short fame, and continually and lovingly got -- swelly! along. I know of no such place, and I am old enough to remember when hula hoops first came out (... myself, I kind of liked that Davey Crocket cap; anyway old snapshots suggest this... ). So. CvM is an enthusiastic and inventive player on the board. But, out & out -- saved it? ... Nah.

Well, now everyone that you play will have to be alert to your infamous Med strategy, yes? Not to fret, Mr Bill, this can actually work to your advantage! :cool: Your opponent must now be prepared for what is just maybe... POSSIBLE, in the event you unleash various (... though, not specifically named, nor where and how they deploy -- I shall save that for myself) forces, BUT, then again... you may not. Which will surely create a certain and debilitating hesitation and confusion amongst your wily foes, yes? :confused: (... ahem, but not for me, I am hereby hip to your nefarious and strange manuevers :eek: ) Thus, the burning question remains... will he? or won't he unveil -- the mysterious Med ploy? And if he does, will the unsuspecting opponent learn from prior tactical errors? Indeed, we shall sooner or later see.

Good stuff JJ. One doesn't know whether to laugh, or... cry. It is an Opera Bouffe that appropriately depicts the Chaplinesque lunacy of those two stupidly strutting stooges, yet... ...and anyway, they are surely drifting currently in the fiery foul waters way down there in Dante's 9 Circles of Hell... 'round & around and up & down, ad nauseum, ad infinitum, true? O whereat -- the Glory that was -- Rome! Too bad they didn't have a stoic statesman along the lines of the brilliant and literate Marcus Aurelius, eh? But, as to the strategic possibilities of Italy actually becoming a major player in the Med, I don't know -- an alert British opponent could carefully (... best if the Germans do not notice TOO MUCH Med activity... and unfortunately, I didn't -- when Bill Macon did this to me in a game just recently) insert another BB and a Carrier or two and maybe also a HQ and an Air Fleet and a Bomber and BEF and Canadian mounted Army, and next thing you know... ...that tattered, blood-bespattered Black Shirt is hanging storm-blown forlorn on a pitiful little stick -- stuck in the slowly shifting sands in the vicinity of old Cyrenaica, and there are so many large and ungainly carrion birds patiently circling -- you can't hardly tell... that -- once it was... ...so flamboyantly worn! by the descendents of laurel-adorned, Homer mourning, old Roman born nobility -- yes?

This should never happen, this quagmire. And, I do mean NEVER. I don't care if you disband the French navy, and the one Air Fleet, AND bring the 2 corps over from Afrika, AND put BEF Army in Flanders, AND support the coastal regions with British Spitfires and carrier-based fighters, AND Germany gets exactly -- ZERO! tech advances, AND you mysteriously summon many more corps. I don't care. I mean... NEVER.

Very true. I also have had more than a few games where U-boats have "turned the tide," so to speak, but it very much depends on research gains, as you have suggested. And, a willingness to trust that subs will ultimately prove beneficial. Which highlights one of the BEST aspects of SC, and that is -- your overall strategy can be dictated by WHAT tech advances you get, and WHEN. I say "best" aspects, because this prevents every game from being too similar to any other. When you factor in the varied and unpredictable playing styles of each unique opponent in PBEM or TCP/IP, then you are realizing a dream that could rarely come true in most other games, either board or computer. Not only is the game itself extremely fun to play, but there are a tremendous number of possible, and variant outcomes. Many times I have started with a certain strategy, but then (... maybe, just that one!! little chit in advanced subs, or LR Air or Strat Bombers) an unexpected tech advance has pointed me in a slightly different direction. :cool: This would also argue for spreading your chits around, so that you are not LIMITING your own possible strategies by focusing too heavily on Air or Tanks, etc. This does not mean that the Battle of the Atlantic could not be improved, and I think it will, perhaps even for this version of SC, but it does mean that there can be quite devastating uses for those lightly regarded U-boats. Something similar happened when many were too quickly, it turns out, dismissing Strat Bombers. These units have specific and effective strengths, and have helped make all the difference in a couple PBEM games I have played. So too with the subs -- at L3 or higher, the Allies MUST research sonar, else they will have tremendous difficulties in containing raids and wolfpack break-outs. I would agree with those who have said that the Sub is TOO OFFENSIVE against surface ships, and should primarily be capable of intercepting and setting fire to merchant convoys. This might be alleviated by reducing their fire power against surface ships (with a corresponding increase in dive % and one less hex for spotting range for ALL units, naval or air), and somehow increasing their effectiveness against the Allied economy. The German player, if he is intent on preventing any (... or reduced) landings in France, might also research long-range air, which would provide more than ample umbrella-protection for the subs, especially as they return to sub-pens with supply level zero. If things are going fairly well, I have even built the Kreigsmarine into a formidable force, with carrier Graf Zeppelin and dreadnaught Bismark. Along with Air support, this effectively ends any early -- and, again, depending on tech advances, even -- later invasions of Fortress Europa. If the Allied player is just a little careless, you can also augment the Axis fleet in the Atlantic with those ships from the Baltic, which usually have no difficulty in obliterating the hapless Russian fleet. Britain cannot do both -- supplement RN fleet in the Med -- in order to deal a death blow to Italian fleet, AND protect her own very vulnerable shores. It is only to discover where Britain will risk her limited forces. Strat bombers, carefully placed, can help determine this. All in all, SC allows so many what-if possibilities, that most, if not ALL of the pet strategies CAN be overcome, and I do mean ALL supposed -- invincible strategies.

**Author's Note: This is a bit of Esoterica between two apparent admirers of iconographic America. Hence, any who prefer merely nuts & bolts for breakfast, please disregard. Myself, I enjoy the rare but aesthetically satisfying spread of Belgian blueberry waffles with a tiny rind of butcher-cut bacon lolling on the side! I heartily apologize right up front for this, the very occasional digression from your typical fare. JJ: Jack Kerouac, the Canuck-American who quite literally changed the way post WW2 America youth (... along with Brando in "The Wild Ones" and James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause") thought about the torporous, Self satisfied "Establishment," did indeed revert back to his conservative Catholic roots once he became less the "roaming Pic," and more the "staid & settled Burgher." There is the famous story of when prankster and literary gadfly -- Ken Kesey, along with Neal Cassady (... driving the band of Merry Pranksters in a day-glo bus aptly named -- "Further") stopped by Jack's pad in NY City. One of the bemused & benumbed "hippies" had the terrific temerity to sit on the American flag (... sewn on the back of his jeans). Jack didn't care for that blatant and ignorant act of disrespect, and threw everybody out -- post haste, on their keister. I likely would have done the same. Jack Kerouac was a rollicking roughneck choirboy deep down in his solitary soul, and since he was also, eventually, a renegade sot, his later years were (sadly enough) lived in a state of vast confusion, and ever incipient paranoia. :eek: To answer your question quite specifically, I simply said that YOUR statement resembled something any of the Beats might have said, NOT -- that the Beats themselves resembled Germany's wayward youth. Obviously and apparently impossible, yes? I stress again -- there were very few places for any -- youth or adult, to go and find work during that perilous time in Germany. As a corollary, if you recall, it took FDR's government intervention during the Great Depression to get the many 10s of millions of hungry men off of America's mean streets. Good for us that it involved public improvement programs such as TVA & CCC and the glorious Writers/Artists (the great Jackson Pollock was one beneficiary) workshops. Bad for Germans, true as all get out, that it mostly involved rigorous "militia" activity (... though, then and now, we have more than our share of that kind of thing as well, yes?).