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Bogdan

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Posts posted by Bogdan

    *Help please !* Playing CMBB on a mac OS X, an impossible dream ?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Hi gentlemen,

    I was absent since a long time on this forum and, recently, just discovered the new layout of the whole thing. Probably due to my lack of perseverance, but I didn't manage to make the "search" function running well with me...

    So here is my situation, and questions.

    I just upgrade my home computer to a new Imac G5 (20 inches model, intel core 2 duo processor) with the "Leopard" mac OS X system.

    Questions :

    1/ Is there some players here that have managed to play CMBB (or CMAK) on this kind of computer ? How did they managed to do that ?

    2/ The mac version of CMBB is not supported on mac OS X. Is there a solution to run this game version on mac OS X ?

    3/ Finally, I wonder if the solution is to install Windows on the mac (via "Bootcamp" or a virtualization software like "VMWare"), and play a PC version on CMBB this way ?

    Any help ?

    Thanks for your advices and experiences !

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    "Could not initialize 3D graphics"

    in Combat Mission - Tech Support

    Posted

    Hi all,

    I'm very surprised today when trying to launch CMBB ! When double-clicking on the shortcut, the screen goes black, asking to me my resolution preferences.

    It's all the more strange that I've installed and patched CMBB (and CMAK too) almost a year ago and I have ran both games without any problem before that very day !

    So now, the computer wants me to select a resolution preference in "Software Mode" with a screen resolution of 640 x 480 (or something). I've only got the choice between 3 resolutions, with only a difference about Hz frequency.

    2 things possible here :

    1/ I choose a resolution and click "Ok". Then the screen goes black again and I can heard the intro music. And by pressing the spacebar, I've got an error message.

    2/ I skip to the other choice, and after the 3 possibility, I come back to the desktop with a "Could not initialize 3D graphics" error box.

    Here are my specs :

    HP Compaq nx8220

    Win XP Pro with SP2

    ATI Mobility Radeon X600 (driver 6.14.10.6512)

    Everything ran smoothly before. I suspect my installation of a webcam to corrupt something :confused:

    PS : same problem for CMAK.

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    **MikeyD THREE SUPER-MEGA Panther mods!**

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by MikeyD:

    Yeh, I included one Panther side with 'POLAND' and an alt. without. You also got an alt without the painted-on skirt plate. That's supposed to represent the captured Panther that wasn't photographed... that nobody knows about... that maybe perhaps didn't even exist! But it looks cool anyway. :rolleyes:

    Hi MikeyD, wonderfull job, as usual ! It was a long time since I downloaded something at cmmos.com. Now, I know what to do !

    About the polish captured version marking, shouldn't it be "Polska" instead of "Poland" ? I wonder if those courageous Poles wrote the name of their country in english rather than in their native language...? :confused:

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    Map size choice

    in Combat Mission Campaigns

    Posted

    Originally posted by Bigduke6:

    Besides the obvious limitations in Google's ability to depict minor relief, here here is a list of some of the stuff simply not invisible on the sattelite photographs, that really bust up LOS on the ground:

    1. The larger roads are raised like a RR right of way, and for practical purposes can serve in most places as a tank berm.

    2. Manmade vegetation - Trees are planted along pretty much all roads, major and minor. It's almost absolute law, the Ukrainians will cultivate just about any spot of open ground. Often trees lining a road are thick enough to prevent easy passage of armor. One must qualify here: there certainly were less roads in the SU than in modern Ukraine. But that brings me to point 4.

    3. Natural vegetation - Yes there are forests, especially roughly speaking inbetween Khmenitsky and Zhitomir. Again, this ain't steppe, it ain't even close to steppe. But it is in the hearland of some of the most intense armor fighting of the entire East Front.

    3. Agriculture - Private garden agriculture is alive and well all along this route. Within walking distance of pretty much any inhabited location there are networks of small fields tilled by the locals for their own use. (This based on my experience in the region, rather than checking every town along the way.)

    This was the case pretty much for all of the SU except than the worst days of collectivization. More imporantly, the Ukrainian population in the wartime years was roughly 2/3 rural-dwelling. All those millions of people growing corn and planting orchards and building stuff for the local kholhoz had an impact on LOS. It still does today, and today only 1/3 of the population is rural.

    I will note that nowhere did I see any 8 km fields. 1.5 to 3 km., very roughly was the norm.

    4. Drainage - The region I rode through, as is most of right bank Ukraine and generally East Europe, has been intensively tilled for millenia. That means ditches, vegetation by the ditches, garden plots taking advantage of the water, buildings for equipment for the gardens, yada yada yada.

    5. Visibility - This isn't a LOS issue per se but still I think bears on my contention. In the mornings from about 0500 - 0800 (yes I was up that early) there was thick icky fog, and when I got back to Kiev it was drizzling. This reminded me that, by US standards, the weather sucks in East Europe, usually by means of fog or rain or snow, and almost always when the weather sucks LOS is reduced.

    All you reading this can take these impressions or leave them.

    I don't post so often , but I really want to thank Bigduke for these precious informations.

    That is the kind of things I'm always looking for ! Of course, I use Google Earth software and consult topographic maps when creating an accurate map for a scenario. But I always prefer when I can also gather some informations from photos and people who live near the site I'm trying to recreate in CM !

    Keep up please smile.gif

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    Interesting maps of Ukraine, Russia and Bielorussia !

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by JasonC:

    Useful. Google Earth is also useful, particularly to see things like the size of the fields and the elevations (scanning over the map you get a readout of the height).

    Yes, GoogleEarth could be very useful too. I've recently noticed that they "upgraded" their database with high-resolution portions of Ukraine. Including area like Kiev, Zhitomir, Donetsk region and the Kharkov and Bielgorod zone.

    Unfortunatelly, the high resolution terrain just stops a few kilometers south of Prokhorowka :mad:

    Is there someone here who have a scanned version of the topographic map "M-37-38" (scale 1:100.000) of the sector of Prokhorovka ? Thanks.

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    Mapping Mission - how the "Load Terrain From Bitmap File" feature works ?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Hi Gentlemen,

    Just one question about the fantastic Mapping Mission software in general, and about the "Load Terrain From Bitmap File" feature in particular.

    Load Terrain From Bitmap File This popup menu contains several related commands. All of these commands prompt the user to select a bitmap (*.bmp) image file. The file can be of any color depth. The bitmap file will be opened and read by Mapping Mission, and the current map will be modified so that tiles corresponding to pixels in the bitmap that are not “white” will be changed to the appropriate terrain type. (“White” in this case is defined as having the sum of the red, green and blue intensity values greater than or equal to 750.) Tiles corresponding to white pixels in the bitmap will be unchanged. The Load Elevations From Bitmap File command works slightly differently: each pixel is examined and its brightness is used to set the tile’s elevation value (from 0 to 255). Note that this elevation value is in levels, not meters. To determine the brightness required to set a given elevation in meters, divide the elevation in meters by 1.25 and round to the nearest integer. Then set the pixel so that the red, green and blue intensity values all equal this value. IMPORTANT NOTE: Mapping Mission inspects only one pixel for each tile in the map; adjacent pixels are not inspected. The specific pixel inspected depends on the width (height) of the bitmap in pixels compared to the width (height) of the map in tiles. For example, if the current map is 50 tiles wide and the source bitmap is 100 pixels wide, Mapping Mission will examine every other pixel when assigning tiles.
    Is anyone here kind enough to explain to my tired brain how this really works, with examples ? I never tried this and wonder how can I use this specificity.

    Thanks smile.gif

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    "Nazi Fan Boy" Scenarios

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Rob Ross:

    Sorry, but I'm tired of seeing this 'moral equivalancy' Nazi apology bull****. The USSR was NOT genocidal. Look up genocide in a dictionary, then tell me where Stalin was intent on murdering every man, woman and child of a particular racial or religious group.

    Calm down.

    Be safe, I'm not a nazi : I'm not yelling "Heil Hitler" each time I press the "Go" button. So don't expect me to make any apologies about any dictatorial regime. If my message may appear doubtfull by this point of view, or I wasn't direct and explicit enough, or you misunderstood it.

    Now, if you want to play with words, you can advance that Stalin's regime wasn't genocidal. If it makes your day. But this is at least controversial as it depends how you define a genocide : is it a mass-extermination only motivated by racist and/or religious criterias ?

    Soviet genocide http://www.answers.com/topic/soviet-genocide

    Soviet Genocide is a controversial term referring to deaths of millions of civilians before, during and after World War II as designed to eliminate domestic opposition to the Soviet Union.

    While it is indisputable that Soviet Union brought deaths and suffering to millions of its population, some consider the term "genocide" as inappropriate, claiming that Soviet repressions were based on the notions of social class and class struggle ideology only, rather than on racist or nationalist motivation. Nevertheless the term is indiscriminately used in emotional and politically motivated texts. This usage is often motivated by the fact that, e.g., ethnicity-targeted population transfer in the Soviet Union, while arguably lacking genocidal purposes, has effectively led to considerable numbers of deaths due to inflicted hardships.

    The problem, then, is how to define de mass-deportation of the entire Tatar population of Crimea by the soviets in 1944 ? Regardless of their age, sex, activities, political ideas, these poor people were deported because they were Tatars, like Gypsies were deported because their were gypsies. No class-discrimination here. Needless to say that their condition of deportation were absolutelly horrible and a vast proportion of deported people died during the journey or soon after it. This is another way of extermination.

    "And this must be remembered !"

    Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing of the Crimean Tatars

    and their Struggle for Rehabilitation, 1944-1985.

    The Stalin regime began planning the deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population to special settlements in Uzbekistan immediately after the retreat of the German Wehrmacht from the Crimea. On 11 May 1944, the Soviet army recaptured the last pockets of the peninsula. The very same day the GKO (State Defense Committee) issued resolution 5859ss, “On Crimean Tatars” signed by Joseph Stalin.[8] This decree accused the Crimean Tatars of massive collaboration with the German occupiers of the Crimea and collective treason against the USSR.

    In the period of the Fatherland War many Crimean Tatars betrayed the Motherland, deserted from units of the Red Army defending the Crimea, and turned over the country to the enemy, joined German formed voluntary Tatar military units to fight against the Red Army in the period of the occupation of the Crimea by German-Fascist troops and participated in German punitive detachments. Crimean Tatars were particularly noted for their brutal reprisals towards Soviet partisans, and also assisted the German occupiers in organizing the forcible sending of Soviet people to German slavery and mass destruction.

    Crimean Tatars actively collaborated with the German occupying powers, participating in the so called “Tatar National Committees” organized by German intelligence and were extensively used by the Germans to infiltrate the rear of the Red Army with spies and diversionists. “Tatar National Committees,” in which the leading role was played by White Guard-Tatar émigrés, with the support of the Crimean Tatars directed their activity at the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of the Crimea and conducted work in preparation for the forcible separation of the Crimea from the Soviet Union with the assistance of the German armed forces.

    These improbable charges formed the basis for the punishment of the entire Crimean Tatar population. The decree’s first operative clause reads, “All Tatars are to be exiled from the territory of the Crimea and settled permanently as special settlers in regions of the Uzbek SSR.” Thus the decree not only punished members of German formed self-defense battalions, but women, children, the elderly and invalids as well. It made no exceptions for veterans of the Red Army, members of the Communist Party, Komsomolists or even NKVD agents.

    What could be unaffordable is to say that, for example, the planned massive starvation in Ukraine, 1930, is far from a genocide. Those millions people were just killed by starvation for a political reason. By this point, I can agree with you : this is not a racist motivation...

    ...but the result is the really same.

    So telling soviet regime is not genocidal is "technically correct" if you want to play with your dictionnary. But the whole idea sounds immoral, and irrespectfull in front of these millions of victims.

    The Great Famine-Genocide in Soviet Ukraine (Holodomor)

    Collectivization's roots begin with Stalin's belief that NEP must be ended and that to accomplish this required "the liquidation of the Kulaks as a class." By the end of 1929, nearly one million Kulak families, a vague appellation of shifting political meaning, "were deprived of their farms and property and sent into exile or forced labor." It was during this phase that Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago began to receive its massive population.

    The remaining peasants were encouraged to collectivize. This too was a disaster of epic proportions. The peasantry was required to produce artificially inflated quantities of grain of which the state claimed the first and greatest share, leaving the peasants with the remainder, which in the majority of cases amounted to nothing. The state's grain quotas were brutally enforced. Theft from the state even in piddling measure was punished with death. Stalin then cut off the rural areas from the rest of Russia. The result was a calculated and artificial famine.

    United Human Rights Council - Stalin's Forced Famine - 1932-1933 - 7,000,000 Deaths

    A good starting list for an overview of eastern european genocides :

    Genocides and Ethnic Cleansings of Central and East Europe, the Former USSR, the Caucasus and Adjacent Middle East -- 1890 - 2005

    Sad picture of a young ukrainian boy.

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    "Nazi Fan Boy" Scenarios

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by MeatEtr:

    I know of a pro-nazi scenario where the briefing states you must give the nazi salute at the end of your orders briefing. Then, right before you click "GO" you must sign off a loud "heil hitler". :rolleyes::D

    Just imagining a poor d*ckhead yelling "Heil Hitler" in front of his computer screen each turn makes laugh to tears ! LOL :D
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    "Nazi Fan Boy" Scenarios

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Billy Prior:

    Personally, I'm uncomfortable about ever playing as the Axis (and this is not to say that I shouldn't feel uncomfortable about playing as the Soviets given the character of Stalin's regime), and haven't modified my edition of CMBB (or CMAK) to display swastikas for this very reason.

    Oh come on, that's a really old story, isn't it ?

    Are you a nazi-fanboy just by picking the german side in our quick battles ? Are you a communist enthusiast when playing the soviets in Ukraine '43 ? Please stop : I consider people here to be mature enough and play CMBB without any political "feeling" behind.

    Or this forum is full of NKVD lovers and NSDAP nostalgics ! Tell me then...

    You cannot play this game with this kind of "morale preference" : both sides fought for a dictatorial regime and genocidal politics. War on the eastern front has nothing in common with war western allies fought in north Africa nor in western Europe : it was a war of annihilation, a war of complete destruction of populations, soldiers, equipments, industries, cultural references, languages, religions, identities. For example : Nazi program for the eastern territories was to destroy and control population by starvation, and then repopulate the "empty spaces" with german colons. On the other hand, Stalin has drastically modified the eastern european boundaries and this resulted in massive moves of population (eastern Poland, former east Prussia, etc.). Then the "empty spaces" were repopulated...

    Occidental people cannot really imagine how fierce and merciless was this war : did germans burnt every norman villages they left, did allied troops shot every captured german soldiers they found. No. Or maybe in some rare occasions. It was more than normal in the east : burned villages, pillages, starved to death prisonners, shootings, rapes, etc.

    So you're not choosing the "good" side by picking the soviets in CMBB ! Forget about that !

    It's the same idea about the swastika : if this flag represents a totalitarian and genocidal regime, why not then replace the soviet flag with something else too ? Stalinism was a totalitarian and genocidal regime too. So pick up an historical flag mod and forget about the rest, or quit CMBB.

    Finally, if some players here design some scenarii with a whole uber-Tiger-abteilung and a bunch of fanatic elite SS grenadiers, against some obsolete 30's guns and conscript T34s... ...well... let them play alone. If this could make them happy ! The problem would be that those designers make this battle to vehicle real nazi ideas or "admiration". But first, we should let them explain their motivations and listen to them objectivelly. We cannot judge them as "Nazi-fanboy" without any defence.

    By the way, if these scenarii are really bad, uninteresting, then let the vast population of players and playtesters give an opinion about. We will be fixed soon.

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    **A hvy building mod that LOOKS like a hvy building!!**

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Beorix:

    I really doubt your ability to understand the situation in our country, as well during the war as currently.

    This is guys like you who lead to animosity between peoples and it seems that you have really many things to learn, obviously, and not only about France...

    As being french too (no one is perfect, ah ah) I'm agree with you Beorix.

    A souvenir day spent with french WW2 veterans (as my grandfather, wounded in winter 1944 somewhere in Alsace) would be an interesting therapy :(

    This kind of futile agressivity is an obvious insult to anyone who fought a war or was a victim of military operations. Did someone see me insulting german, english or american people that way ? Come on, how old are you, EM ? You're surelly very tired or stressed to post that kind of signature.

    Feel so sorry for you :(:rolleyes:

    Edit : by the way, EM could feel agressed by my OWN signature, LOL :D:D

    [ December 21, 2005, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: Bogdan ]

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    PZ4 F2 and early G

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Mace:

    The F2 was almost identical to the F1 but featured a longer 75mm (L43 c/w L24) and minor changes to ammunition storage.

    However, some of the vision ports from the turret sides and the vision port on the loader's side of the turret front were dropped in the G version.

    So the differences between the F2 and G are noticeable.

    Mmmh... ...'got a different version here :

    Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F2 and Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G

    The Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F2 and Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G were not seperate vehicles, but merely different designations for the same vehicle. The Ausf.F2 designation appeared in two manuals before the designation was changed to Ausf.G, and thus the designation made it into post-war litterature as being a seperate vehicle.

    From Panzerworld.net
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    To MODders: Subtitles

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Philippe:

    The only other thing that I can think of is that when bullets strike the ground they sometime cause little tufts of dirt to fly around. I'm not sure which bmp it is that is affected (two or three very small ones, I think).

    AFAIK (please correct me if I'm wrong), those tufts are hardcoded and then unmoddable, like the shell splinters :(
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