JerseyJohn
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Posts posted by JerseyJohn
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Exactly -- your thoughts on it are the same as mine -- haunting music, haunting scene -- the forgotten chess game, the man scratching his head -- the robust adults who suddenly join in and the ballad becoming a military march. One of the most perfect scenes ever filmed and the subject never dies.
[ November 20, 2002, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Exactly -- your thoughts on it are the same as mine -- haunting music, haunting scene -- the forgotten chess game, the man scratching his head -- the robust adults who suddenly join in and the ballad becoming a military march. One of the most perfect scenes ever filmed and the subject never dies.
[ November 20, 2002, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Originally posted by Amona:
"He is just an actor, and an overrated one at that. A clumsy circus clown pretending. . .. "
"But the Duke's my buddy --"
"In Show Business there are no buddies kid."
"Still, I don't want to --"
"Look kid, the Duke's just an actor and an overated one at that -- a clumsy circus clown pretending to be an actor, okay?"
"Yeah, I guess if you say so, hell, you're my agent."
"That's right kid, and people will be watching Robert Ryan movies long after they've completely forgotten about John Wayne."
[ November 20, 2002, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"Tomorrow Belongs -- Tomorrow Belongs -- Tomorrow Belongs to me!"
Scene (probably the best) from the movie "Cabaret"
[ November 20, 2002, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"Tomorrow Belongs -- Tomorrow Belongs -- Tomorrow Belongs to me!"
Scene (probably the best) from the movie "Cabaret"
[ November 20, 2002, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"I sent him some of our fine German hunting clothes and of all things he sends me one of those odd swords they used to use --"
"I believe they still use them, Hermann."
"OH! What strange little people the Japanese are after all -- traipsing around with swords in their hands and bullets flying about!"
"But tell me, Hermann, was anything said about their intentions regarding Russia?"
"Please, Adolf, not all at once -- give me a chance to know the man first."
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"This is the life, General Grant, just you and me and none of them preverts or little Japanese fellas who can't wear cowboy hats. -- Coulda sworn this here saddle woudda fit you when I bought it yesterday."
"Duke, you've been acting kind of strange lately."
"Well, Kitty, it's just these little Japanese fellas keep running up to me and saying they don't like my big white hat and they're gonna slice my head off and --"
"But you're the Duke, everyone loves you!"
"That's what I told 'em, but they wouldn't listen. -- Tell me the truth, do I really look ridiculous wearing a big white cowboy hat?"
"Aw Duke, ya big lug -- come on, let me light you a cigarette and pour you a drink."
"Little Japanese guys -- sure would like to know what I said that got them so rilled up."
"Probably nothing at all."
"One of them said he'd go to Fort Apache anytime he wanted and I could just try and stop him."
"What's that mean?"
"Beats me -- Fort Apache, why they don't even have plumbing in that stinking place."
[ November 21, 2002, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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I've found Russia either collapses or is a Royal Pain. If she's alone it doesn't matter, sooner or later Germany will conquer her. But if she enters early and Britain is okay it's a different story.
While looking for a Turkish photo I found dozens more entries for Turkey the bird than Turkey the nation. The nice thing about Forum humor is it's highs and lows often meet each other.
[ November 20, 2002, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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[should be a photo of Hitler and Goerring at a table.]
"I tell you, Hermann, I like this FlashGordon fellow -- he's nutsy!"
[ November 20, 2002, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"On my planet, uh, my former planet -- there are nine sexes and 14 genders, so I don't find this confusing at all. Now that I too am French, I notice that -- just as in my old home -- the people along the Seine have many genders and sexes. Variety is good. This planet would be perfect if it had more methane . . ..
"What I do find confusing is Eva Braun preparing Kosher food for Adolf Hitler! Sometimes I wonder if the information in this Forum is historically reliable."
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"Well Pilgrim, you can say what you will about variety in the sexes and people moving here from other planets and what have you, but to my way of seeing it your a bunch of dirty preverts or lousy commies or stinking nazis or even worse things, like whisky peddlars, and if I ever catch any of you near Fort Apache I'm liable to forget I'm an officer in the United States Cavalry, and a Gentleman, and I might be inclined to -- well, just don't ever let me catch any of you near Fort Apache, that's all."
[ November 21, 2002, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"Yes, it is about Wachtmeister and JerseyJohn
and their simple minded puns! -- Also, it would
be good if that ridiculous bird recieved a new
name. Do we ask for too much?"
[ November 20, 2002, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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-- Wachtmeister,
Sorry you couldn't even get a Turkey for thanksgiving.
It might just be a statistical quirk because I've played about the same number and have had Turkey enter at least three times. Twice I grew tired of waiting and had the -- by then --powerful Italians :eek: conquer the place.
I'm starting another Axis game on pbem and one against the AI; if Turkey enters again I'll post it -- hopefully it will enter for someone else first -- maybe it's because I use the Italians to conquer the Med instead of the Germans? :confused:
[ November 20, 2002, 11:36 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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KuniWorth --
James Coburn -- one of those people like Burt Lancaster and James Stewart who you feel like you know personally and whose death makes you sorrowful.
I got a glimpse of Stewart when he was an Air Force reserve officer and spent a couple of weeks at Loring AF base (SAC & ADC) in Maine. He was reviewing a line of troopers and as he passed guys would whisper, "Yeah, that's the actor Jimmy Stewart!" and he looked a bit embarrassed while a Lt. Colonel kept turning and glaring at all us A1-c's and buck sergeants --
There was nothing Stewart could have done about it and I felt a little sorry for him. When the big brass were out of earshot a chiefmaster sergeant called us a bunch of cretins, then said "dismissed" and tried not to let anyone see he was laughing himself.
[ November 20, 2002, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Churchill's accounts would have been considerably different if he were allowed to reveal all he knew about the Enigma secrets, but none of that was released to the public till a decade and a half after his death -- ditto for Eisenhower. Both men were holding back on their true knowledge of events.
Churchill does tend to be dry. Some of his other non-WW II works, "The River War" and "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" are probably better reading.
The Liddel Hart history is very good, it was released around ' 71, about the time of it's author's death, and I remember the big splash was he'd revealed the Patton/Montgomery conflict over the available fuel in France.
Another very good one volume history of both theatres is Len Deighton's "Blood, Tears and Folly"
Edwin P. Hoyt wrote many interesting works of varying quality, but one of his book's, "Hitler's War" is practically a love song to the Fuhrer. While it has much merit, there are whole chapters that practically extole the Fuhrer's basic humanity and explains how he was corrupted by evil sidekicks like Heydrich and Himmler. Read it and laugh, or weep, depending upon your mood.
"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is also great. I read it when it first appeard -- around 1960 when it was vaguely controversial for reasons I don't quite remember -- read it again in 1980 and again last year and each time I've been amazed at how excellent it is. I particularly like some of the footnote remarks. The part about the Warsaw uprising, for example, mentions an SS general who wrote a "journal that survives to this day*" and the footnote reads, "*But he hasn't . . .(explaining the man's trial and execution)."
A later William Shirer tome, "Decline and Fall of the Third Republic" is also great, though harder reading. And his "Berlin Diary" is also very interesting.
[ November 20, 2002, 05:52 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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[Above should be a Flash Gordon comic strip of the usual suspects shackled together in an arena while the evil Ming looks on and gloats.]
"Stuck in the 29th Century, at Ming's mercy and doomed unless Mannerheim shows up pronto!"
[ November 20, 2002, 05:34 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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IrishGuards -- After reading all the different experiences we've had, I suspect there are various conditions that lead to the entry of Axis and Allied minor countries. I think an element of unpredictability is good for gameplay.
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ZapsSweden,
Also agreed. My strategy has never been to give Italy anything that should historically have been Germany's. As a rule of thumb I allot everything conquered north of Yugoslavia to Germany and everything Mediteranean oriented to Italy. Though Germany has better HQs, it has a limited number of them. If Italy is developed properly she helps augment Germany when things are stretched tight.
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JayJay_H
Fine point about middle-England; as shown on the map there's London, then wastelands east and north, then civilization picks up again at Manchester!
Rockets, in SC, are pretty much a luxury. It would seem that they should have longer ranges, though I think the Germans, despite sending V-2's nearly into space, never targetted them for farther than 200 miles from the launch point.
[next two photos should be the American Robert H. Goddard whose work, though little appreciated in his own land was openly acknowledged by the German rocket scientists, and Werner von Bruan]
Regarding Ports:
It just seems odd that Portugal and Spain had huge maritime empires for hundreds of years without having any ports! :confused:
[ November 20, 2002, 04:11 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Originally posted by Carl Von Mannerheim:
"I hate France."
"As do I, for though it is my adapted home, it lacks a good, healthy methane atmosphere."
[ November 20, 2002, 03:11 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Originally posted by FLASH GORDON
-- ". . . Also, the Germans were initially greeted as liberators in many of the Soviet Republics, due to Stalin's repressive anti-nationalist policies. However, native "appreciation" quickly gave way to hatred when the Germans quickly made it obvious that they weren't liberators at all. A less heavy handed policy might have yielded many more anti-Soviet volunteers and manpower . . .."
Great points by both Flash and BriantheWise.
In many previous forums I talked around Germany's racial insanity for fear of needlessly offending anyone, but the truth is, more than anything else it lost the war for Germany.
First, as Flash points out, by not only depriving themselves of manpower but of also turning much of that manpower into a hostile force! Madness!
In 1918 -- when Imperial Germany had helped cause the downfall of Czarist Russia and was in the process of defeating the Bolsheiviks -- they were very careful in signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, to create semi-autonamous dependancies such as "Ukrania." In that manner they effectively controled the Ukrane west of Rostov and most of European Russia and the Baltic States without having incurring the hostility of occupying them.
Those independent states fought against the Bolsheviks even after Germany's unexpected defeat and were not fully absorbed into the U.S.S.R till the mid-20s, sometimes with the aid of maverick German Freikorps troops. In 1941 the Russians assumed Germany would ressurrect it's earlier policy, but, as Flash says, we all know what happened.
Second, The Hollocaust. What an insane waste. Aside from the humanitarian issues it deprived Germany of much specialized talent -- bankers and others from families like the Rothschilds who had specialized in finances since Mideival times because traditionally, Jews had been excluded from other, more "Christian" professions throughout much of eastern Europe.
Beyond that, the sheer resources required for "The Final Solution" in personnel and rolling stock, all given top priority after Heydrich's Wansee Conference of January 1942, overburdened an already strained transport and labor structure and caused shortages of troops and supplies all along the Eastern Front in addition to the totally unnecessary disruption of war production by these pointless transports. Concentration camp labor was not cost effective and only made fortunes for a few SS Lords and industrialists reaping the rewards of plunder and working slaves to death.
Those same workers would have been much more productive in a civilian environment without a death sentence hanging over their heads, working in whatever field they were actually skilled at.
Third, it produced a decadent mentality within the Reich itself -- the state dictated who was inferrior and from there other quacks took it even further -- if you were tall and blonde and blue-eyed you were a warrior, if you were more squat and dark eyed and black haired you were, though still a German, a farmer, and so on. There was no end to that sort of idiocy.
What I'd like to know is which prominent Nazis, other than Heydrich, looked even remotely like the so called "Ideal Nordic?" Hittler! Himmler! Goering! Goebbles! Hess! Borman! Where are these magnificent Nordic Types?
The reasons can go on, but why bother.
Despite the Holocaust many German naval officers were part Jewish and Goering's right hand man, Erhard Milch, openly half Jewish, was elevated to the rank of Fieldmarshal. When confronted about this Goering said, "It is I who say who is and who isn't a Jew!"
Above is Luftwaffe Administrator, and non-aryan, Erhard Milch.
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Below is all-round rabid nazi, Reichsprotector of Chechoslovakia, etc., former naval officer turned SS-General, Reinhard Heydrich, author of "The Final Solution" among other things. Also the only top nazi who looks Aryan.
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There's an outstanding HBO movie about the Wansee Conference, "Conspiracy" available on DVD.
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-- Compassion
The Soviets made great use of cavalry and mounted infantry attached to T-34 attack groups operating in lightly defended areas. They used hit and run tactics and helped seperate German sectors during major Soviet offensives. Long into the Cold War there were Soviet mounted units, there is film footage of these soldiers and their horses outfitted with gas masks -- no kidding, the horses are also rigged up! There's no doubt that, untill recently and maybe not even then, mounted troops would have been useful in terrain too broken or rough or soft for wheeled or tracked vehicles. The Russians realized that better than most others.
As was said earlier, the Poles were not imbeciles, their falling back on cavalry attacks was sparked by desperation, not a delusion that men on horseback could defeat tanks or machine guns in open battle. What is often overlooked is the fact Poland and the U.S.S.R. both used cavalry effectively in the forgotten eastern European wars that followed WW I. That was only two decades prior to Germany's assault on Poland -- they had every right to be doctrinally behind and, in any case, Poland -- unlike her larger neighbors -- could have fielded neither a modern air force nor large tank formations. When all you can afford is horses, that's what you go with.
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[ November 20, 2002, 05:37 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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"Yes General Billote, leave and survive. On Planet Stkriingt a similar philosphy was adapted and now I too am French."
[ November 19, 2002, 06:36 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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JayJay_H
The Iberian Penninsula has the same quirk as Ireland, no port -- units can land but can't be taken out by sea! I think it should be changed in both cases. In SC Spain is a weird case, if it won't enter till Britain is already beaten, then how valuable is it to the Axis? Of course it boosts the available MPPs, but it would be of much greater use if it entered earlier.
I, too, love zonking things with rockets!
-- General Billote,
Good Luck in your struggle against the Bosch, and of course, your trans Spanish strategy is worthy of a Wellington -- oops, sorry -- a Napoleon!
[ November 19, 2002, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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I played games against COS where, as the Axis, I suddenly saw Russian infantry units become Air Units and, as the Allies, saw German infantry corps do the same thing, become airfleets -- another time I surrounded and destroyed Montgomery in Spain, meaning he couldn't return for a full year and at full price, and saw the AI resurrect him the very next turn.
That sort of thing may not be cheating. On the other hand, if it isn't cheating, what is it?
I also like the political facet, at least it's got some choice factor. Here too, as the Axis it's very hard for the human to get Spain to join and impossible to get Turkey, yet the AI, as Axis, seems to have no trouble at all.
I think the designers want to give the computer a little handicap, but went too far. Which is not to say the computer isn't beatable, it is. Also, I understand now that if you ignore the messages, you can play the game indefinitely as long as neither side has actually filled it's victory conditions.
[ November 19, 2002, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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-- Flash --
I almost forgot how aggravating COS could be -- not only would the weakest airfleet respond, it would often drop dead from the effort!
In COS -- Lost warships can't be replaced and once you've built the ones you're allowed that's it -- if, after building them, the Germans lose Bismark and Tirpitz they have no other BBs to build! Lost transports can be rebuilt but that's about it for naval builds.
COS also has a lot of good features. But the AI seems to cheat at times. At first I thought I was going nuts, then I noticed units it shouldn't have been able to build were suddenly appearing, etc..
It needed an overhaul but I think the move from DOS to Windows caught it's designers by surprise. Unless it's designers are the guys who made SC, in which case they should come out of the woodwork and enlighten those who enjoy both games, and there are quite a few of us.
I also agree that the SC issues we're talking about here should be easily implemented -- standing orders, etc., and it would give a more realistic feel to the game.
[ November 19, 2002, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Makes sense to me after Bill's explanation -- glad he offered it. I can't imagine being able to play pbem with the interception choice. If the intercept choice were ever developed it would have to be disabled for Human v. Human.
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The lack of control must be a carry over from COS. In that game you not only couldn't control interception, if you ordered an air strike you clicked on the enemy unit and didn't know which of your own air units would be carrying it out!
"Free French" AAR: Discussion Forum
in Strategic Command 1
Posted
In the forties and fifties he was a macho sort of actor and during the war he, and a third actor named Sterling Heyden, were in a lot of the same war movies with John Wayne.
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And Getting back to the Epic of the FreeFrench.
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"This is London, Edward R. Murrow reporting.
"Even amid the heartwrending ruins of this world renowned metropolis, a few glimmers of hope and optimism have begun to appear. Nazi air strikes have diminished in intensity and, of late, have been limited to regular, though less devastating, night raids.
"For the first time in months the battleworn citizens of this city have been allowed some degree of rest.
"And, even amid the countinuing destruction, the herculean task of clearing London's ruins and rebuilding has already begun.
"R.A.F. Bomber Command, though not as powerful as the Luftwaffe, has returned Goerring's message of death and destruction in kind to a formerly unscathed Germany.
"Events unfolding as I speak -- representatives of the Japanese Empire have signed a pact with Berlin and Rome. Specific details have not, as yet, been announced and the role of the Soviet Union in all this is not yet known.
[ November 21, 2002, 11:25 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]