reinald@berlin.com

CC is a mixed bag. I thought it to be the most realistic non-hex-based game before CM came out. But if you're (like me) going for realism and historical accuracy and therefore like CM, you won't be satisfied. If you long for a little more real time action, it might be something for you. 5 titles were produced. Greatest setback of all was their extremely weak AI, which even got worse with later installments. Some say CC2 ('A Bridge too Far') had the best AI. IMHO CC4 and 5 ('Battle of the Bulge' and 'Invasion Normandy') had the weakest, infantry teams crawl into your fields of fire and simply die there while tanks love to present their ass to you. Conclusion: It is only good for online H2H gaming. H2H is where it shines. And you'll get lots of tongue-in-the-cheek action. Unfortunately CC5 came out prematurely and is extremely instable. I got pissed off having to restart 1 out of two battles due to crashes. CC4 is said to be extremely stable, but has other setbacks. Some weapons data is unbalanced and therefore German tanks and Schrecks are über which can lead to frustration. Also, force-pool dynamics are flawed, which means, the King-Tiger you manage to kill today magically reappears the next morning. CC3 was the most popular installment. A great mod for it, called 'Real Red', does away with any unrealism complaints one may have. It is a good game IMO that covers all 4 years on the Russian front. Only weakness is that the operational layer is weak. Ops are a string of battles on several maps with the winner either moving west or east on to the next map. CC2 has the coolest op layer and deals with 'Market Garden'. Allies have to break through in linked battles while the Germans have to hold as long as they can to win. Graphics are a little outdated and gameplay improvements CC3 brought are missed (direction arcs etc.). Kinda BO compared to BB. But on the other hand, some ppl e.g. still prefer BO due to the setting. Hope, this helps with buying decision. With some internet research it should still be possible to dig up demos for all 5 installments. [ August 16, 2003, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: reinald@berlin.com ]

Despite having paid hard earned money for the games I'm still grateful to them for having published such perfect products. BO and BB are the only computer games I play. Dropped Close Combat the very day I got my CMBO CD. I didn't like the strategy guide tho and consider it to be quite ****ty. Not only in writing style but also content-wise. Am furthermore kinda bothered with the concept of CMAK I have to admit. Looks like they take up others' bad habits of publishing something as a full game that isn't more than an add-on. Did anybody say Atomic? Multi-turreted tanks and dust clouds do not justify another 40 or so bucks IMHO. [edited: typo] [ August 14, 2003, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: reinald@berlin.com ]

Just my 2 €-Cents of knowledge: The 'Blacker Bombard' is a variat of the 290mm Petard spigot mortar that was on Churchill AVREs. Dunno if the Commonwealth forces had it though.

I always thought it is established fact that the Russians got bazookas via lend-lease. They didn't like them though and the weapon therefore did not see widespread use.

Füsiliere is one of the German IDs special-task bataillons. The F. mission is recon.

Andreas, to help you save a little (my incomplete collection of vol. 1-7 is a costly hobby): Vol. 4, "Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion", has also been published as a cheaper paperback. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Nr. 11008, ISBN 3-596-11008-4

5/1 to be specific. Vol. 5 was published in 2 parts. 5/1 gives superb overview over occupation policies and administration in western Europe, German war economics until winter 1941/42 and personnel ressources for Wehrmacht and economy until summer '42. I'm at the moment reading 5/2 which continues where 5/1 stops.

That I doubt as a general statement. May well be this or the other division enjoyed a break long enough to train their men, but others certainly had little time to do so. Why? 1. The procedure of "organic-halfing". New divisions were set up on old ones split in half. Anyone who's ever been in the military can gauge how long it must have taken to get things running smoothly again. Training Res II guys sure was a sideshow for these units. 2. In September 1940 300.000 men were released to work in the arms industry. Those were mostly Res II types for reasons stated in my post above. The soldiers were only called back May/June '41 with some 58.000 still remaining on leave on June 22. 3. The units transported from the channel back to barracks met 450.000 fresh recruits there who had been born in 1922 and also needed training. Barracks and training facilities were heavily overstacked and thorough training was hardly possible.

@ Michael: Allow me to answer your question about the Reserve II personnel: Those were men belonging to the "White cadres" who due to Versailles restrictions had no military training. They were between 38 and 26 years old in 1939. Due to lack of training facilities only a minority of them received 3 months of reserve training prior to the attack on Poland. They accounted for 6% of a 1. wave Infantry Division's men, 8% of a 2. wave ID, 46% of a 3. wave ID and another 46% of 4. wave IDs. Those that could not be included in the 3 months reserve training measures prior to WWII received on-the-job training in 1939 as they were called up. (Source: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 5/1, p. 708 f.)

My feeling (lacking any documented evidence) is that German ww2 personnel policy was for the best of each arm to go to the Panzer units, followed by the specialist's (radio, mechanics, technical trades, survey), field police, some supply areas (well the bright ones got themselves there!) infantry and arty (with a core of very bright people with mathematical bent). I'm using the excellent official post-war German history of WWII "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" (Vol. 5/1) as source. Contrary to modern armies individual fitness was disregarded by German military bureaucracy. Age was the prime indicator for assessing fitness. The post-WWI years' undernourishment produced a generation that was not as fit as it could have been. Besides that, the average level of physical endurance was higher than today since a majority of the personnel came from a manual working or agricultural background. Already as early as 1938 the manpower shortage of the Wehrmacht became critical. 3 reasons: 1. The generation that was from the age-perspective most fit for service suffered from low birth rates. 2. Due to Versailles-restrictions trained reserves were hard ot come by, so front line units had to fall back on WWI veterans, retired professional and reserve CO and NCOs. Reserve captains were up to 54 years of age and surely unfit for the mental and physical strain of modern warfare. 3. The person group that was most needed by panzer-forces, young skilled workers in metal and machinery related production, were also most needed by the arms industry and therefore mostly protected from being drafted into the Wehrmacht. Only from 1943 on the Heer began to draft more of these men due to huge personnel losses in the East. Conclusion: The Wehrmacht, especially the Heer, never had enough men to go round and so they couldn't elaborate much on whom placing where. They had to fill empty slots with the little Ersatz they got, no matter how ill trained or physically unfit. The Über-Landser beating back hords of Unter-Russians is a myth. IMO the reason why Germany held out so long against superior numbers is that its forces were operationally superiorly led.

CMAK will be available in Europe in retail through CDV (localized) around the time when we release later this year, but this time it will be a non-exclusive setup, i.e. we won't block anyone from ordering directly from us if they so prefer. Thank you for sparing us from having to deal with CDV! They should better concentrate on their usual stuff like this one (pic from the CDV website): since their wargaming line as a whole (except CM of course), their service and their translations suck. [ August 02, 2003, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: reinald@berlin.com ]

If halftracks weren't used to scout, what were they used for? Like modern APCs for ferrying troops in and out safely under arty or mortar fire.

Just to add my 2 cents to this interesting discussion. My teachers at NCO-school thought (and I myself agree) that the best setup for any combat unit is a 4-fold one. Mostly (today and historical) only a platoon leader has the luxury of having 4 complete combat detachments (his 4 rifle squads) available. As early as company level things get tricky. e.g. 3 rifle platoons + 1 heavy support platoon for an Austrian infantry coy. Why would commanders prefer to have 4 'line' combat units? Well, 3 abreast and 1 in reserve to deal with contingencies is a good setup. 2 abreast can't form a fully combat worthy center plus 2 fully combat worthy flanks plus a fully combat worthy reserve. And don't tell me the heavy platoon can fill the reserve role.

Sometimes there's LOS through abstract windows and tanks therefore occasionally can fire at each other desoite being on opposite sides of buildings. No bug, it's a feature.

Hi, I'd like to join. Put me whereever you choose. But I have to be considered a weak player since I got no H2H experience - so assigning me to a slot where lousy generalship is realistic would be ok (some minor Axis or partisans). E-mail: reinald@berlin.com Reinald

Hi, I'd like to join. Put me whereever you choose. But I have to be considered a weak player since I got no H2H experience - so assigning me to a slot where lousy generalship is realistic would be ok (some minor Axis or partisans). E-mail: reinald@berlin.com Reinald

Finally: Found a good source. Austro-Hungarian topographical maps in 1:200.000 from the French border till Kiev

Thx Kingfish, already had that one. The pop-ups don't work for me (404). All I get is a non-topographical roadmap. Do the pop-ups work for you? [ April 07, 2003, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: reinald@berlin.com ]

Hi, am looking for good map resources (non-pay sites)online in order to design ops. Momentarily mostly Hungarian maps of CM-fitting scope. Have done extensive search on the WWW and this forum, but found no more than a few crappy city-maps. Thx, any help appreciated!

Vienna, Austria

The answer is that bursts of 20-37mm (yes, autocannons fire bursts, hence the 'lone round' argument above is wrong) autocannon rounds create a huge amount of "secondary shrapnel", i.e. chunks of wood from trees they penetrate, slices of stone or walls they hit ... Much more impact and making trees splinter rather than MG bursts. An APC with a machine-cannon is the much more dangerous enemy to infantry in woods than a main battle tank.

This is actually a little weakness of the game engine. 20mm machine-cannons are the single most deadly guns that can be used on infantry. Why? Answer: More suppression and shrapnel per time interval than any tank or field direct-fire-gun.

Thx for the info on planes. Still puzzled about TRPs. In some scenarios they disappear, in some they don't. Is there a connection to the type of scenario? (i.e. static, advance, assault).

If designing a scenario, I put an aircraft "on the map", so it is there the first battle, will it be there on the next if weather permits or will it disappear like TRPs? :confused:

Thx Hub. I got a 64MB graphics card, so the graphics aren't the prob. Just the darn blue bar. I'll try defragging.