xwormwood

Read. Read more. Reading is sooooo important, Baldrick, ah, sorry, i ment: dear friend sirocco. You couldn't be more wrong. Sir Jersey is NOT john_j_rambo, which you would surely know if you would have taken some time to read in this forum.

And all this after it were those german Handels-Uboote (merchant-subs) who opened the seas in the first for comerce and trading again (arriving at Baltimore and New London). At the early stage of WW1 germany earned some sympathy in the US with those kind of ships. Here a picture of the "Deutschland" in New London:

Ahem, what exactly was saved from what in WW1? You can't compare WW1 with WW2. Anyway, WW1 and WW2 were decided by the war entry of the USA. This is a fact. Ha! Wearing helmets and armor isn't heroic either. Fair enough to say, that in the end it doens't matter which sports you are watching, as long as you can hang out with good friend, have some cold beer (Beck's, please) and things like that. After all we are even watching all those olympic sports like hurdles, swimming and even sailing every four years. All we need is a good show, or am i wrong?

Poland.

As far as i know the effect was pretty low. The industry in the ruhr got their water from some other sources, Krupps or Hoeschs machines didn't even have to stop even a single day. Within 8 weeks the holes were repaired. Appr. 2000 civilians died, at least 700 of them were ukrainian famale slave-laborers, imprisoned in a camp near by. Rgarding the losses (half of the bombers didn't made it back) and the proposed target (give the german war industry a decisive blow to end the war) it was only a heroic attack of some brave pilots, but in the end more something like a war crime than a well done attack to shorten the war.

It would have brought Germany the atomic bomb. So thank God for this stupid usage of the ME-262. Strategic Bombing: I wonder what would have happend if those efforts to bomb civilians back to stone age would have directed to fight the german army. As far as i know the gains out of strategic bombing were very small compared to what was spent on it. From many german soldiers is known that they fought desperatly because thay knew that at home everyone was dead, everything was in ashes etc.

There were many europeans volunteers fighting for the germans as well. Free units should be no problem when russia grabbs for turkey or romania.

I googled a bit about Percival: quote from 'Defence Plan for Singapore, Media Master's WW2 Battle Guide: "the Chief Engineer of Malaya Command, Brigadier General Ivan Simson tries to persuade Percival to begin constructing defence positions in Singapore before it's too late. Percival, seemingly over burdened by the awesome resposibilities of the northern campaign that is going so badly for him, is incapable of comprehending the gravity of Simson's urgings. The engineer argues that he has been sent to Malaya Command for the precise purpose of ensuring that adequate defence works are undertaken. He points out that whatever static defences there are - arbed wire beach entaglements, minefields, concrete machine-gun pill-boxes, gun emplacements and the like - are all guarding against a long percieved Japanese seaborne invasion from the south. Clearly this is a major miscalculation that needs rectifying. Simson talks of a crash programme to introduce beach defences along the islands's northern coastline combined with patterns of fixed positions in depth at points considered the most likely targets for Japanese assaults across the Straits of Johore. Amazingly, Percival is unmoved. Simson refers to fallacious but still widely held views in Britain of "Fortress Singapore" being somehow impregnable [much like today everybody holds 'Fortress England' to have been impregnable in 1940]. He remarks that a fortress without defences represents a dangerous contradiction in terms. Percival's eventual reply stuns his Chief Engineer: " Defences are bad for morale - for booth troops and civilians." So Singapore is deprived of its northern defences. The defence of Singapore was poorly conceived and conducted. Despite clear indications that the Japanese would concentrate their attack on the island's north west, the British commander Lieutenant General Percival, sought to defend the entire coastline leaving him with little depth and an inadequate reserve. The 8th Australian Division, considerably weakened after the fighting in Malaya, was allocated the vital north-western sector. When the Japanese attacked on the night of 8 February 1942 it was too weak and dispersed to hold them back, initiating a disorganised retreat towards the centre of the island. In succeeding days Percival's reluctance to commit reserves from other parts of the island, and a virtual command breakdown in the 8th Division, lead to the British Commonwealth forces being pushed back into a steadily decreasing perimeter around Singapore city. It was an untenable position. Over 1 million civilians remained in the city, the Japanese had captured its main water supply, and their aircraft were free to bomb at will. At 8.30pm on 15 February 1942 over 130,000 troops, including 15,000 Australians, were surrendered to the Japanese. 1,789 Australians had been killed since the 8th Division had entered the fray in Malaya in mid-January and 7,000 of those captured would die before the war's end. Japanese General Tomoyuki Yama****a: "My attack on Singapore was a bluff - a bluff that worked. I had 30,000 men and was outnumbered by more than three to one. I knew if I had to fight long for Singapore, then I would be beaten. That was why the surrender had to be arranged at once. I was very frightened all the time that the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting. When the message came of the enemy surrender, I was very cautious, I was afraid it was a trick" Yama****a did not know that Percival's intelligence about the Japanese was so poor it could virtually be discounted. Yama****a later spoke of the surrender meeting: "I realise now that the British Army had about 100,000 men against my three divisions of 30,000 men. They also had many more bullets and other munitions than I had. I did not know how long we could carry on with our munitions very low. I was preparing for an all-out last attack when their surrender offer came, it was a great surprise. In my heart, I was afraid that they would discover that our forces were much less than theirs and that was why I decided I must use all means to make them surrender without terms"

Off Topic: U.S. II Corps Commander Major General Lloyd Fredendall Short Question: What happened to him after Kasserine?

... but i am not sure if was not my computers fault. The last weeks my system crashed nearly every day. Usualy i got messages like 0E:0028:010207A0 or OE:0028:C001AADC. I formated my hardisk c: and installed Windows ME at least 2 times. Unfortunaly this brought no help. Today i played SC when the game suddenly stopped. A small dos-box appeard with the following lines in it: "SC.exe: dumping core to generate debuging information SC.exe: panic cascade: unexpected harmful signal -- giving up SC.exe: Final panic: cannot reclaim Eiffel objects -- giving up" Question: is this a RAM problem? Any idea? Would be helpful because this might be a big hint what kind of problem my computer is suffering under (ram/harddisk/vga-card/sound). Or did this only happen because i declared war against all neutral countries

Sorry, but when Hitler "appointed himself the new commander-in-chief of the German military, and personally commanded the daily war management" he acted surely like a general, or not? And when Liam writes that Hitler as a former WW1 corporal was the worst general in WW2, where is the point in crying out "no general / no general rank"? Do YOU honestly think that Liam don't know all this?

Ok, the british in 1812 & and the independance war? Granted. But not impressive if i use these j_j_rambo standards here. Korea & Pacific War: far away from equal enemies. But that was really not my point. I wrote this nonsense as a reaction of the weekly "Euro-Farmers" issue. Isn't it utter disrespect against those none-US citizen in WW2 (fighting against axis-powers or suffering under axis-powers) when someone writes "The spirit of the American people won WW-2" or "sleeping farmers"? Ok, i fired my shots, i have cooled down, and i am really sorry if i have insulted someone with my scribblings. I simply can't read all this without reaction. My fault.

JerseyJohn: Sorry if my limited language knowledges causes some troubles here and there. I am far away from being upset or angry or sad when i write questions like "what do you celebrat blabla". It is a bit trickery to find the correct words or to construct the rigth sentences. Would be fun to talk direct with you and some of the other guys here instead of writing short entries. Damned tower of babel!

@Col.Gen.Guderian: read and learn: Hitler, Generals and stuff "in December 19, 1941, Hitler, the German dictator and a former WWI corporal, appointed himself the new commander-in-chief of the German military, and personally commanded the daily war management since then. He no longer trusted his gifted generals, the dedicated highly professional leaders of the world's most effective military machine, to win the war for him. He thought he can succeed where they failed, and ignored most of their advices since. He totally forbid any more retreats, a limiting constraint that cost the german military almost a third of its manpower in Russia before the end of the winter. General Halder wrote "Hitler's constant underestimation of the enemy is becoming grotesque". And please stop insulting honorable forum members like Liam or Comrade Trapp. Thanks.

An odd twist of fate, part II: The Nazis never liked the Reichstag, and this building is far away from being some kind of nazi-building. So what do you celebrate when you storm a building which represented the "free" pre-nazi germany?

I think Churchill made mistakes as well. One of the biggest was probably to agree with Arthur Harris (strategic bombing against civilians will win the war --> proven wrong) @j_j_rambo: I agree with your spirit statement, but i would change it to "The Nazi-spirit slowly poisend the minds of many german people, pushed them into WW2 and was the reason why the evil 3rd Reich lost WW-2." --- Hitler is overrated, ok. But those misguided german soldiers fought against the strongest enemies of the entire world. USSR, USA, UK, France. And even though they had to do this with HITLER giving way too many goofed and mad orders, they were (unfortunatly) able to fight until mid 1945. Do you have any proofs that the USA defeated some "real", "equal" or "strong" opponents on their own? Iraq? No. Vietnam? No. Korea? No. WW2? No. WW1? No. So where is the pride in all this farmer-boy talking? [ May 21, 2004, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

"...the us is NOT, never has been and NEVER WILL BE AN IMPERIAL NATION..." @GeneralMarks: Learn your own history before calling other people idiots. Little example needed? Read and learn: This was America's first true colonial war as a world power. After defeating Spain in Cuba and in the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. purchased the Philippines, Puerto Rico and several other islands from the Spanish. However, the Filipinos had been fighting a bloody revolution against Spain since 1896, and had no intention of becoming a colony of another imperialist power. In February of 1899, fighting broke out between the occupying American Army and the Filipino forces.

gives the USA & USSR a BIG push toward declaration of war, so it might not be the best idea for a french campaign

Archibald & JerseyJohn, you both know how to tell a story right. Thanks for all your efforts. Your AAR broght me back to the SC forum each and every day. Great fun. Winning or losing doesn't matter as long as someone still plays for fun. Good played games or bad one doesn't matter as well, because THIS are the games we all will remember. And to all the other AAR-Player: Read this one before starting your own thread, and pleeeease: watch & learn.

I! WANT! MORE! Excellent to read, thanks to both of you.

50 obsolete four-pipers WW1-destroyers in return for 99-year lease of several British bases in the Western Hemisphere

Is there any chance that there will be an option to change the sides while playing against the AI? In CoS it was possible to change sides (in SC1 not, if i remember correct in this case). When playing (and winning) against the CoS-AI it was always fun to switch the sides, giving the AI your own strong positions and try to save the helpless country, which the AI ruined with lousy gameplay since 1939. Something like "now there are only three generals in the whole world who can turn this tide: me, myself and I".

WRONG. The response would have been: "we hate jews & christians, too where can we help? ..." Islam Under the Swastika

I really agree from the bottom of my heart!!

Agreed, just my thoughts when i saw them. Looks like the whole map / units were created with the Civ II-Editor. I am very sure that SC II would be selling better with hex-system, because we, the wargamers, expect, know and love hexes. We are not seeking fancy 3D graphics, we want playability. The "normal" customers who don't know any real wargame won't buy this game anyway, because even the new tile-set is looking so oldfashioned compared to "Call of Duty" or "Panzers". [ April 18, 2004, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]