Fetchez la Vache

A petrol tank? :-) I would like to have burning houses myself. Not going to lose sleep over it though.

I think there's a big difference between swearing and dead pixeltruppen. Swearing is "real". Dead pixeltruppen are just "pretend". Playing Cowboys and Indians was okay when you were a kid, wasn't it? Did you get smacked when you said s**t? Kid do learn naughty words at school and they remain "naughty" for them, because they are not approved of by mummy/daddy. Whereas if they hear bad language on mainstream tv/video games/every-day talking then that aura of "naughty" wears off and they start using such words more and more in everyday conversation. So bad language should stay in the schoolyard and stay "naughty". That's my theory. :-) Saying that, my 5 year old said "nutbags" to me yesterday*. I thought it was hilarious until my wife pointed out that he'd picked it up from me and I hadn't even realised I say it! But then again, that's still better than my wife having to explain that daddy is in fact saying "truck" and "trucker" to that silly man in the other car who just cut him up... the joys of Middle East driving. * It's a fact that any swear word said by a toddler is funny. Unless they repeat it. In front of grandparents. Repeatedly.

He's holding it correct for a PLX-4... ;-)

Go outside and get some fresh air. :-)

Well this discussion reinforces to me, once again, the principle that there is very little in this world that can be described in purely black-white terms. SS massacre GI's in Malmedy. Canadians use AT grenades on sleeping Germans. Tactically a SEAL team should have killed goat herders. There's a line between them somewhere, but it's damn hard to find in my opinion. The Banality of Evil...

For battlefield illumination, I recommend rolling one of those big zippo lighter thingies towards the enemy. A Sherman, that's the name.

Frankly I'm amazed they manage to shoot anyone with a Sten. Edit: Actually that reads a bit flippant, apologies. I'm shocked whenever I hear accounts of surrending soldiers being shot. For me, the most harrowing bit in Saving Private Ryan is when the GI's shoot the German prisoners after storming the Omaha beach defenses... although funnily enough not when Upham shoots the chap at the end.

Johnny Reb on the Spectrum 48k, probably 1984?

Anyway, this thing would be much more effective against Preskooltruppen...

Well quite. A dozen assumes that probably only 2-3 will actually do what you ask them to do.

A dozen 5 year olds would have that thing taken apart in 30 secs flat.

I'm still not convinced about the PF not being useable from within a building. Jet blast definitely an issue, I have no doubt about that, but it's manageable with a bit of care. Flying debris could be an issue but I'm not convinced that alone prevents the use indoors. The only thing I'm really unsure about is the overpressure effect which I can find little evidence online. The PF30 (which would have been used in the timeframe of CMBN) has 97g of black powder propellant. This would produce 26 litres of gas at standard temp/pressure, so probably in the order of 260 litres at the higher temperatures in the jet blast (waggles hand). I currently don't have the engineering knowledge to translate into meaningful overpressures but given that 260 litres is an increase of under 2% volume in typical 3*3*2.5m room (no I didn't factor in furniture...) it's not as if we're talking massive increases in volume here. Yes I know rate of change of pressure is all important, but I don't currently have the physics at my fingertips to make that computation and anyway the PF ignition does not appear to be comparable to, say, TNT denotation speeds. Also I still that some level of abstraction might be helpful to say, for example, allow the shooting of PF from ground floors (firer pops outside to take quick shot) or partially ruined buildings (less restriction). I won't lose sleep over it though. :-)

I read 'somewhere' that the IS-3 might have seen some action right at the end in Berlin. They were certainly wheeled out for the victory parade to scare the pants off the Western Allies... sexy turrets, no? IS-3 > IS-2 Let the great schism begin!

Looks like I'm on my own in Oman. *sniff*

I have to disagree abou the map knowledge causing troop concentration. I think it's a combination of: perfect coordination of troops; no decision delays for the commander/player; and overall because the commander/player is more willing to gamble on a single push because it's a game. If you're playing someone who you suspect is going to try a "tank rush", why not create a purposely weak spot and set up a kill zone behind your forward positions. That would be pretty historical in itself wouldn't it?

Funnily enough I've got CMSF. Funnily enough I've hardly played it. :-)

Okay, now I see where you're coming from and I think it's a good point. However your original post was simply not clear, to me at least and I'm certainly not of the tweet-generation (and I think most people are not either). I wish I was. *sigh* :-) In terms of 'space' I think Combat Mission certainly is simulating the more concentrated aspects of tactical warfare and in that respect may well be 'unrepresentative' of combat as a whole. However I'm not entirely convinced that massing armour close in is an assured way of winning. The VAAR on Barkmann's Corner showed that simply pushing two platoons down the road got nowhere (okay against the AI at least). Sure a real human player would have realised that the left flank was weak and second push with only 2-3 tanks would have rolled up that side, but I don't think that would be gamey in anyway. I am not very widely read on Normandy armour battles, but a few books I've got do mention a few times that tanks within the same troop were often within 50m of each other, and sometimes following each other nose-to-tail in low light. Engagement distances are the biggest issue with me. Too often we have tanks trading blows at extremely short distances. I live with that for Normandy, but an Eastern Front game would need work. Bottom line for me is that 'space' issues are not too much of an issue. Now 'time is interesting. I think the problems you are referring to are more to do with the inherently omnipotent aggressive nature of armchair computer gamers. In real life combat and maneuvering would have taken much more time since there were real people in the firing line and confusion would have been the order of the day. Playing games such as Combat Mission we, the players, are the most unrealistic aspect of the entire set up in my opinion. All we can do is limit ourselves with such rules as Franko's to make things tougher since I think coding that sort of stuff into the program is very tricky - but it would be nice if it could be done. What can BFC do? I don't know to be honest. I think they are going to provide an excellent mechanical tool for us to play with and I'm not sure how they can easily add 'realistic' FoW etc on top of this. One simple thing might be to have an option to limit elevation and camera position (does CMSF do this, I can't remember?). Let's see what CMBN is like when we get our hands on it. Then I think we can have a much better discussion and maybe come up with a new generation of Iron Rules?

Mmmmm. Men of War visuals with CM mechanics. Mmmmm. Company of Heroes is a game, like chess. Abstracted but pretty. Combat Mission is more a simulation. Less pretty but less abstracted. Horses for courses. No point arguing about in my opinion. :-)

That's exactly what I was thinking about. *shudder*

If it really is such a big deal to the OP, then maybe just try self-limiting yourself to what you can see on the map by sticking to eye-level point of views of your units. Or duct tape on the monitor. :-)

CMBN is a Tactical game and therefore I don't see that a FoW is needed to hide local terrain. Recon should be important but only to suss out the position of the enemy prior to full engagement. At an Operational level game it might be more important. Also I would say that is the level (and higher) that the principle of 'schwerpunkt' is applied and not down to the level of individual soldiers and vehicles (?).

Yes, good job that man. Although I'm never going to play him. Anyone who can use phrases such as MSR and OrBat without skipping a beat is someone to avoid in my book...

You shouldn't be able to see all the terrain. Sometimes more is less.

I am happy man. Don't care when it's out, just care that it's coming to a Mac near me.

Not particularly to be honest. More like an overwhelming sense of pity for that proportion of the human race which uses the internet and might be watching me first thing in the morning. The horror. The. Horror.