Dandelion

Stingray, Whatever you do, don't install the latest (43.45) driver. :eek: Well you could, it's a great driver for many games, but for CMBO, it drags frame rate down incredibly. You'll also have a few other issues. I use an older one, the 40.72, which is almost perfect for CMBO. Very fast, anyway, and rock stable. It's just a minor issue with TCP/IP interface with it. Perhaps even that will be avoided wiht an older driver than that. Cheerio Dandelion

So, that leaves you time to explain what a black guard is then Cheerio Dandelion

Hussar Englishmen don't actually eat ham with jam, do they? I know the English eat many strange things, but not ham with jam, right? Right? Regards Dandelion

Thanks all, I downloaded an older version of GeForce drivers, and most of the problem went away. Not all of it though. Playing TCP/IP I suddenly can't see a thing from the interface. I know where everything is by now, even using it blindly, so it's not at all the same level of annoyance. Still... And of course the performance of other games was reduced by having older drivers... Guess it all comes with the territory playing very old games like CMBO, on very new systems Regards Dandelion

Well I'll contribute with frustrating events. For five minutes enemy Stuarts have been rolling back and forth across my circa 600 meter frontage, at about 20-30 meter distance from the SS and Paras manning the line, and so far nobody has been bothered to fire a single faust or Schreck at any of them. I'm serious. The Stuarts are firing of course, but are hardly pinning the whole line. The men are of excellent quality and in command. I have StuGs in support of the line, but of course they are unable to target and fire, because the Stuarts dash by them too quickly. Back, forth, back, forth. One can but hope they'll run out of ammunition sometime soon. One can also not help but wonder why the Stuart was considered obsolete in 1943 already. I shudder at what had happened, had they had cannister rounds in CMBO. Regards Dandelion

"Cutaway is a slang term. Doublet is the wrong term altogether, you have it pictured correctly below. The Service Dress Jacket was worn, tailored, for wear with the kilt (or trews) but it was still a Service Dress Jacket. Cutaway was a colloquial term." Frightfully sorry about using slang and colloquial terms in a written inquiry. I was lured to such deplorable habits by a sentence of Mr Andrew Mollo's, the British military historian, in his explanation of a photograph from 1940, where he writes "As a member of a Highland regiment, this lance-corporal of the Black Watch wears the cut-away version of the service dress tunic which was called a doublet. [---]" The picture he is explaining displays a trooper wearing a jacket very much like the one I posted above, only coloured in khaki/drab and of heavier material (and no fance white or brass), with a stand-fall collar. The highlander in question is part of the 4th Infantry Division, BEF. I am still curious if this type of jacket, whatever it's called, remained in field use 44-45.

"No idea what you're talking about." - The cutaway, or doublet, is a service dress coat with rounded front as seen above. It has, in one version or other, been in British service since at least 1600, probably longer. It is still in use, but apparently only at ceremonial occasions. By 1940, it was used in the field, with a drab service dress variant with just such a rounded cut as in the picture above displays. Though no kilt, nor tartan trousers, at least in the field, just ordinary field trousers. The doublet service in the British and Commonwealth armies finds it's origin in the traditional Scottish (and to some extent Irish) dress, which also includes a doublet, alas in a more original form, as evident here: ...which in turn originates from 16th century jackets, as evident here: ...which in turn was heavily influenced by the appearance of the medieval brigand, the normal military jacket of the time, as evident here: "Divisions designated as assault troops" - Were the assault troops those divisions making assault landings exclusively? Was it issued divisionally or to smaller units? "You mean the pixie suit?" - I don't know. In pictures from 45 one can often see tankers (black berets) wearing one piece overalls. I have one on an American colour photograph (very few British colour photo's around) and it is yellowish-tanish. The overall has a large hood, and large pockets, two per leg. On the left breast, it looks like pen-holders sewn on. Material looks like water proof canvas, and it has what appears to be drab lining. At least I think so, one of the men has rolled up his sleeves some and it looks like drab lining. "scouts and snipers in infantry battalions." - Would the scouts be the troops in the designated carrier platoon exclusively?

Hi all, While my source material on British uniforms is fair up until 41, it is lacking beyond. I therefore have some questions: 1. The beret. It hardly appears at all in 1940 (not counting Tam O'Shanters), then appears as part of particularly new services (RTR, RAC, Commando, Parachute). But in 1945, British troops tend to wear berets on most pictures that I've seen, regardless of unit. As the pictures are black and white, I have no idea what colour these berets are in. Can anyone elucidate on the development of beret wearing in the British/CW armies 44-45? 2. The cut away verison of the service dress, I think it was called doublet, was it still in use in 44-45? 3. Did Canadian troops wear a more greenish shade of khaki than the British? Or do they simply look that way because of higher quality? 4. The new pattern British helmet, the less flat one - when was it issued and how common was it 44-45? 5. The UK one-piece tanker overall, the yellowish one with a hood, apparently (not sure) made of canvas - when did this appear? Did all units receive these? 6. The wool cap, popularly seen on the heads of commandos, particularly around 1941 - was this a standard issue headwear for all troops? 7. British troops appear in some pictures wearing armbands. They appear to be attached in some improvised manner, and tend to hang loose. They also seem to be two-colured, but of course I can't see which colours. No letters as far as I can see. What did these signify? 8. Was the Denison smock worn by any other units than parachutists? Was the specially cut helmet worn by paratroops worn by any other troops? 9. Did New Zeelanders wear "lemon squeezers", and South Africans "polo pattern" helmets in Italy? Regards Dandelion

...trying to capture depressing feeling in scenarios could be easy. Use anonymous units and names. Major Schmidt of the 733rd Infantry Regiment, Major Jakulev of Red Rifle Regiment 2098. Or simply discard the numbers altogether. You can discard names too, by explaining the player (commander) has not learned the names of all replacements yet, and don't much care to either, as all of his friends are dead. Make sure the players know that whatever the battle results in, it will have no effect in the scope of things. Make sure they know that it's ok if they all die, because they're just the first line and there are other units waiting behind them expecting them to die, ready to take their place. Make sure not to name whatever village or Kolchos they are fighting about, as it does not really matter anyway. Give geographic locations in navigational terms, longitude and latitude, and state it is because nothing of any significance lies within a hundred miles. State that it will be needless to write an AAR, as nobody cares what happends. Do not make an interesting landscape, just make a flat featureless steppe. Explain that the players have advanced/retreated on this steppe for weeks, and it has looked identical every single mile. And last year, they retreated/advanced the same stretch. Regards Dandelion

Andreas Yes, we have onesided accounts to rely on. That is, I do. Completely onesided in fact. But I am not sure it is this fact alone that explains the depressing quality that I feel. I regard the war much like a natural disatser, into which people were simply pulled regardless of who they were and what they thought. German accounts are - to say the least - depressing. Heartbreaking. I have always assumed Soviet equivalents must look exactly the same. I'll try put my finger on it, although walking a fine line as one is easily misunderstood. Come to think of it, even when correctly understood, I guess my opinion is a bit weird and embarrassing. The scale. Most of all it's the scale the gets me down. It's monstrous. The relative importance of everything is dwarfed to nothing, as all is counted in millions. Millions of lives, millions of acres. Offensives regularly involve more men that fought in the West as a whole and there is no equivalent to the company sized battles that really made a difference in the Ardennes. It all becomes beyond grasp, beyond comprehension and only makes one feel even smaller and more insignificant than wars quite generally do. What's a man in this? What's a Division, even? The terrain. Is depressing me. From Budapest to Stalingrad runs a virtually featureless steppe, a vast amount of crushing sameness, partially cultivated and in such cases of course for miles and miles and miles, in all lending no feeling of progress or regress. Had it not been for the huuuge rivers (Europe proper has no such rivers), that somehow seem much closer to eachother than they are, as there is nothing in between. The marshes in the North are larger than some European nations, with kilometer upon kilometer of swamp. Even today it's a hassle driving through the region. The roads actually sink in the swamp and dark clouds of mosquitos resembles a bizarre fog. And pineforests. All the border to Finland is pineforest, except for the tundra proper, but let's not talk of the tundra. Barren stretches of dense pineforest with crow and jackdaw as sole inhabitants, voicing their depressing caw. 6 of 12 months all is brown, 3 months all is yellow and the rest all is white. It is the very semblance of depression. The brutality, is depressing. Not the massacres and atrocities - those are not part of CM - but the complete disregard for human life displayed by military command on both sides. More than a million Soviets died to reclaim Stalingrad, and a quarter of a million men died trying to prevent it. That's not a battle, that's an epic, a gigantic clash of peoples. Was there anyone at all on either side that survived from day one to Stunde Null? I doubt it. The misery, is depressing. I'm not saying a 65% ruined Caen is a laugh either. Nor am I really voicing political opinion. It's merely depressing to encounter kilometer upon kilometer of impoverished, starving people living in shacks or hurdled together in a Kolchose, or Sowchose, or in nightmarish industryscapes. This is all personal bias of course. The Soviets saw promise and progress in what I regard as nightmarish industryscape, they saw wealth and end of hunger in the endless cultivated steppes I complain of. The Finns love their forests and lakes, giving this love poignant expression, and one can safely assume the Soviets did too. Born on the steppe, perhaps the coasts and mountains that I treasure so become depressing instead. And perhaps the endless grasslands makes their native people feel asphyxiated and claustrophobic travelling among the medieval villages of France. And maybe the loss felt in Soviet families, who also lost grandparents there, does not feel so completely void of meaning, as it does in mine. Still, that all changes nothing for me. I'm still depressed by the Eastern Front. Regards Dandelion

What's a centerfielder? Anyway, the number 7 is a lucky number in all christianity. That's why, e.g., we have seven "seas" although quite impossible to explain geographically. Any other number would have brought bad luck. So, 7 appears in folklore and popular superstition throughout the christian world, though not always with outspoken connection to the origin in religion. Wittman was highly superstitious. Like many tankers, pilots and modern athletes. He used ritualistic behaviour before battles and brought along items, totem-like or amulet-like, for good luck and protection. I have no idea if he got to choose his own organisational number. If he did have the option however, I am sure it would have been 7. Interestingly, the other German media ace of the war - the pilot Rudel - was not superstitious. He used no amulets or charms, no lucky numbers and he did not pray. His combat record is about as unreal as Wittmans, but he survived the war. And wrote a bad book about it afterwards too. Regards Dandelion

Actually, I believe Darknight completed the project. The insignia project. In a letter, he mentioned something about site space preventing publication, as the end result of his effort became quite huge. He was quite able to mail me insignias I needed though, of which some quite obscure. Very fine ones it was too. A sample is viewable in an in-game shot here. The screenshot does not however do justice to Andrews uniforms, as they are te,porarily mixed here with another mod, evident by the not-matching webbing (side and rear). But the point was the shoulderpatches. Regards Dandelion [ May 14, 2003, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

Yes Red, you really should. And distribute to those less fortunate who do not have access to History Channel. Regardless of the quality of the program, pictures are always interesting to study. Regards Dandelion

Blackhand Losing gracefully is a quality of immensely higher nobility, and greater rarity, than that of being a gracious victor. Conversely, a man capable of losing with grace will find it so much easier to crown victories with the glory of grace and generosity of mercy. Hat's off. I shall find inspiration in your example. I myself fence. It teaches me certain qualities of which I am by nature in deplorable want. It teaches humility, patience and perhaps most of all the quality of forgiving oneself for errs committed. I find that CMBO teaches the same qualities to those who wish to learn. And quite apparently, provides possibility for teaching for those who already own such qualities. Might I endeavour to solicit your acceptance of a challenge? You may of course choose scenario and side. If so, I shall use the adress given in your profile to send you mine. Regards Dandelion

Splatton I don't own CM:BB I'll not claim it is because I find CM:BO better than CM:BB. I wouldn't know. I've only played the Demo. My CM interested friends all have CM:BB and they're continually at me to discover it. They say it's much better. They mention all kinds of specific detail, especially those known to bug me in CM:BO. Such as non-functional optics, machineguns resembling large pistols and troops displaying more than a healthy contempt for death. Not to mention off board artillery. And so on. All is fixed in CM:BB, creating what must reasonably be quite a different feel to things. I believe them. CM:BB is probably much better ("better" meaning more realistic). It's just that... a) CM:BB does not represent the same kind of step that CM:BO did when arriving and the Eastern Front...it just does not inspire me. It rather depresses me. Can't explain it really. So, I'll just sit here and wait until what I can agree is the real CM2 is released. And - here goes - until such a time I'll grumpily form a vocal minority, nagging endlessly for a patch for CMBO fixing at least the optics and machinegun problem. I've never heard of anyone being thrown out of here for voicing critical opinion, in a serious honest manner. In fact, with no critical opinion there would be no CM:BO. That's how it was developed. Anyways, a critical voice answering your question would merely be saying they don't think product B is as good as product A, both sold by the same company. In bundle pack too these days:) Regards Dandelion

You guys sure know your SPR Cheerio Dandelion

Oxide Wouldn't know about SPR sounds specifically but you could always do some searching on the tips found here, here and here. The Medal of Honor game uses lots of features from SPR. Maybe it uses sounds as well? At any rate, after being tipped by a fellow gamer I imported som MOH sounds to the game. Wouldn't know if it sounds more realistic but it certainly sounds a lot more these days Sounds so much in fact I have to turn off the sound after 2130 hours. Regards Dandelion

Hussar When in the army, we had the Ox and Bucks as friend unit. Living in Buckinghamshire, you might reasonably feel affectionate about this unit? In spite of it being poor bloody infantry? Thus painting a 20mm figure from it? If you like painting models, you'll want to get a paint program for your computer and get to work on the 3D models in the game. It's really user-friendly, they use bmp files as "skins" in a readily accessable file catalogue. Don't worry about there being a lot of mods around, you see it's impossible to get it perfect and so modding will go on forever Regards Dandelion

There you go Sanman, here's the soulmate you were asking for, with a crush for huge battles. Yes, the allies used a lot of artillery. About 60% of structures were destroyed in the Normandy area during the fighting. Not all of it by allied artillery of course, but most. It's a majestic - or apocalyptic - rate of destruction. However, there is a slight complication in CMBO (of you're working with CMBB, they tell me this problem is already solved, so you can skip the rest below). The problem is the spotters themselves. The allies were on the attack for most of the time. You prepare an attack by bombardment and barrages, but once the troops are on the move, heavier artillery (Divisional calibres of 105 and 155) has very limited chance of intervening. Wireless sets (assaulting troops could not roll along wire) of the time were unreliable, cumbersome and short ranged. Contact was at best uncertain and could not be - and was not - relied upon. This is well illustrated in ASL rules, for example, but not in the CMBO engine (but apparently in CMBB). Artillery fire control systems were not what they are now and calling in unprepared strikes was an extremely dangerous business, with high risk of friendly casualties (which were actually quite frequent, even with well planned strikes). In fact, if an assault stranded on heavy opposition, and a heavy artillery strike was needed to get ahead, the entire assault would normally be halted, the troops ordered to retreat to safe distance, and wait. To stop an assault in motion was an arduous, confusing and risky business. Commanders had normally to be contacted by runners, and they in turn had to get their orders through to the troops, in the chaos of an advance, in such a manner that they all stopped and started to fall back. Yet the allies did it several times, with IMHO amazing rate of success AFAIK. They seem to have had superior command and control to German forces. But, normally they did not. Assaulting troops tended to rely on direct fire instead, using their battalion (mortar) and regimental (infantry guns and heavy mortar) support, units that were under the control of local command. They also used SP assault artillery, firing direct. Midway was the pre-planned barrage, that could be called in (or not called in) by local command. Such could typically not be redirected or altered, simply ordered. But they were also dangerous, as it was as uncertain to radio in a negative as a positive. The defender had another situation entirely, with artillerymen carefully mapping their surroundings and with reliable solid wire communication. Here the CMBO spotter - had he been immobile - becomes quite realistic.But of course the attacker might have succeeded to cut wirecommunications with his pre-bombardment (often a priority target), and then the defender was in the same situation as him. Both sides would fire harassing fire on rear areas to prevent movement and, in fact, to kill runners. Including runners with artilery fire missions. Defenders always tried to hit the attacker when most sensitive - i.e. in assembly areas and thus normally out of CMBO scope - if he knew when the attack was coming. Surprisingly often, he did. The Germans specialised in firing rocket salvoes at exactly Zero hour for an enemy attack, the rockets landing among the ranks of infantry packed tight and advancing. This hit the British/Canadians quite a few times during the Normandy fighting. So if you're designing scenarios, you might want to set the phase you are depicting to post-pre-bombardment, reducing the defender force to illustrate effect, rather than to hand out spotters to the attacker controlling above-Regimental support. Otherwise, the attacker will enjoy the benefits available at first to the Yanks in the Vietnam war, with Long Toms at the beck and call of individual company commanders, superior maps, superior fire control and 85% success rate in radio contact Don't worry though. They'll manage fine with regimental level support. You might also want ot reduce the attacker, illustrating defender strikes in assembly areas, if such have taken place. Rather than giving him heavy support via spotters. Especially if wires have been cut by heavy shelling. Regards Dandelion

Hey! That was most interesting, thanks Red. Knew I couldn't be the first one to be pondering these things Regards Dandelion

Looks like I'm going to have to help you kickstart my discussion Lee The game mixes experience (Green, Veteran) with employment forms (Conscript, Regular) and quality (Crack, Elite). The 12th SS Panzer Division in Normandy was composed of a core of handpicked veteran officers, many of which had performed to a level deserving the title "crack", and a large body of wholly inexperienced troops. Their training was what can reasonably be called elite level, and so was motivation. They were not conscripted or drafted, but volonteer regular personnel. What's the proper CMBO troop quality for this unit, and why? Cheerio Dandelion

You mean size limits for forces, when constructing scenarios? Regards Dandelion

Hi all Recent experiences and posts has made me curious about the concepts of troop quality. It seems there are many different interpretations of what it means. So I want to collect some input from the good gamers on this site. The CM manual gives only vague guidance, leaving gamers quite free to interpret. How would you like to flesh it out? Which units would you historically describe as conscript, green, regulars, veterans, crack or elite respectively? What would be the relevant criteria, in your opinion? Regards Dandelion

Ah here's the opponent. So what did you think when the Wasp drove back and forth without firing? Speaking frustration, I'm afraid an opponent of mine had to suffer what must have been slightly worse just the other day. He had a Baz team sneak through my lines, painstakingly crawl through bushes and avoiding not only pursuing patrols who were on his trail, but also an ambush that I at least thought really clever. For a while I thought he had turned back and slipped through to his own lines, but then he suddenly appears again, immediately behind my single StuG in the scenario. Quite a feat getting there, more than 400 meters behind my frontline! Naturally I panic and everyone nearby scramble to get him, but he is cleverly positioned and gets a full minute unmolested before being reached. I click him and Tab-1 to look over his shoulder, as he aims up the rear of my StuG at some 50 meter distance. He aims, he aims, he aims. In fact, for 40 seconds plus he aims. Then he fires, and misses by a mile. Within a few seconds, a whole platoon jumped down on him and he was history. One rarely feels sorry for an opponent trying to defeat you, but... Cheerio Dandelion

Actually I have a faint memory of scrounging being discussed by BTS in the making of CMBO. Can't seem to recall the how's and why's tho. But as individual fallen men are not registered, and the corpse marks the spot of only the last man falling, it's reasonable to assume it was excluded for resource-management reasons, to avoid having to track every wounded, fallen and permanently broken soldier on the map. Lot's of neat ideas had to be discarded due to the fact that the computers of that time could not handle it. Squad internal scrounging is in fact included, in the sense that the squads re-distribute ammo and weapons between the squaddies as needed. Squads will hold on to machineguns if at all possible, if the initial gunner is killed somebody else picks it up. Antitank teams will hold on to the PIAT/Schreck/Baz, even if the initial carrier takes a hit. That's a pretty neat feature, methinks. Cool pun, about being flamed :cool: Cheerio Dandelion