Dandelion

Hi Lee, You're short-circuiting the seniority penal system. You're supposed to learn this the hard way and award your fellow players the odd sensation of victory before you excel them Difficult to think of any real tricks. Here's what springs to mind regarding infantry, I wouldn't know about cheap, as I don't play QB, but I always use halfsquads as scouts. They advance some 100 meters ahead of the main body of troops. Or one minute. Because it takes about a minute to advance 100 meters under combat conditions. I use the half that gets the machinegun and panzerfaust, if any. If it is a really big map, I devote an entire platoon if I can to go - in half squad teams - scouting at depth and remain behind enemy lines monitoring. Due to few numbers and morale loss upon partition, these patrols are unfit for combat, except wiping the odd sniper , and must be kept out of harms way. When the scouts advancing one minute ahead detects the enemy, they simply await the arrival of main body and reunite. Or buggers off and reunites some way rear. I get comments from many players, who are surprised I use half teams. They feel half teams become too weak to use. I've already mentioned advancing in frog-jumps with one squad covering at all times, alternating. I use either a stationary squad and moving two, or alternate between sneak and fast commands. When advancing, I usually advance with one up and two rear (squads and platoons). That way, when I enter contact, I only have one squad/platoon committed and can use the others to flank/reinforce/serve as fallback as I please. But if the enemy is obviously close, I pull two up as I'll want firepower but still some freedom of choice. In combat, all three go up. I use fireteams and believe in concentrated fire in attack, thus never spread a platoon more than 50 meters and always fire all three abreast. Never commit less than three squads to a firefight if I can help it. Waste of ammo. Defense is another issue altogether, platoons can be thinned out to 100 meters if need be. I practically always deploy for defense in a triangle, with two corners in the obvious enemy direction and one rear, because I always meet these guys who like to flank me, and a triangle is equally strong in all directions. If pressure mounts, the not-committed squad/platoon can always rush to and deploy between corners anyway. Platoon triangles need to be about 50 meters or more in radius, so as to lessen effectively casualties from incoming artillery. I rarely use surpressive spraying fire at supposed enemy positions. I rarely have to, as I scout a lot and tend to know where they are. Machineguns advancing ahead? Sounds really weird. I use them rear of the flanks of the company. There they can be committed when needed, protecting flanks and actually serving a little as a drill function for advancing elements. They keep the flanks of the enemy position pinned and chase away any escapees from the focal centre. Well lets see what else is there? Yes, defensive deployment of course. You deploy according to firepower. If you are superior you stay high, inferior stays low. You deploy on reverse slopes and in positions that cannot be reached with direct fire from the front. He'll only gun you out with heavy barrels from a distance. Interlocking fields of fire, meaning you put squads that cannot fire forward but at 45 degree angle left and right nextto eachother, and they form a network of fields of fire in front of your psoition that cannot be passed. As your fire will be coming in from his flank, only suppressions and craters will be effective cover for him. Also, he will be unable to engage any of your squads without exposing himself to fire from several others this way. Deploy where you can change positions to another position at least 50 meters - but rather 100 meters - away but equally good in defensive purposes. His artillery might become unbearable where you initially deploy. Deploy sqauds a bit into forests and buidlings, so that they can barely see out. There is no real point in having a wide arc of fire if you can't dominate it. You then only create a wide arc of incoming fire. Keep arc of fires manageable. Deploy in defense with at least two lines, of which the first is formed by resistance nests (triangles as above) and the second much thinner and holding your support weapons, such as mortars. You'll find it useful to have AT guns there too if facing armoured assault. The support line catches enemy penetrations and serves and fallback position for breaking defenders. And protects the support units. Even when advancing, I use a support line (Aufnahmelinie), usually about 300 meters or so rear of the advance. It is good also for catching enemy recon, and the area between lines, or between the line and the advancing troops, I screen with patrols to perpetually clear it from infiltration. I usually find all kinds of funny stuff in the bushes. Snipers, bazooka teams, machineguns, M8's, you name it. hmmmm....what more? Sound. Is a pest in CMBO. If you advance with men or vehicles, they make sounds that the enemy can hear. You can use it to fool him also. A single Kübelwagen actually sounds dangerous when going round and round a house. If the enemy can't see, but hear it. Also, men who receive many orders make many sounds, so small units running round and round a house can sound like a massive incoming assault to a listener. And if his scouts are watching, he'll still be confused about what the h_ you're doing running and driving around that house. Area fire can be used to confuse the enemy also. Just tell your men to fire at some house or something. Sounds like battle. Snipers I use very little. Mostly for trying to take out enemy armoured crews or key people like bazooka teams. Not very original I know. And usually not all that successful either. In buildings, I never deploy combat troops upstairs. Too exposed and too inflexible, and they never manage to get out if the buidling collapses or starts to burn. So everyone is downstairs, except spotters and such. The Ambush function is there to be used. It is highly efficient and I use it a lot. It's not really so much ambush as coordinated fire effort for defensive purposes. But of course, the odd actual ambush will succeed. If the enemy fire is too heavy, or if you are being pinned while he is obviously about to assault you, use the "withdraw" function to extract. It's dangerous, but better than staying. Some players use this functuion a lot, but I only at these occasions. Well that's about it for now, I'll stop here and spy what the others write, so I can defeat them Regards Dandelion

Lee, You did not misunderstand about odds versus loss ratio You two are merely speaking of two different things. The good Major speaks of tanker tactics, and you of statistics, and I recognise both statements. The 4-1 loss ratio - in the meaning it costed 4 Shermans to knock out a Tiger - was first spread by a journalist accompanying US forces in Normandy. He wrote it was so in a contemporary article, and that anyone arguing against it would contradict every tanker in Normandy that he had met. This was at a time when the allies had not yet broken out of Normandy and was suffering appalling casualties, and was therefore under general attack from the media in USA and UK. It was also in a time when practically all sightings of German tanks were labelled "Tigers". The term "Tiger" was a major marketing success, as not only is this an admired and feared beast, the name is about the same in all European language families. No sane and sober Englishspeaker can pronounce "Panzerkampfwagen Ausführung IVH", but they can all say Tiger. It caught on. His ratio has been widely qouoted ever since, but statistically the truth behind it is impossible to verify. Tank battles were violent and completely unpredictable. You have the example above, when 7 PzKpfw V were lost to no Canadian. During operation Totalise, the Poles lost 24 tanks in a few minutes, to German PzKpfw IV's and JgdPz IV's who suffered zero casualties. This was an all out assault situation. In a chance clash - the one that revealed the German counterattack against the Canadians advancing from the beaches - a platoon of Sherbrooke Shermans ran into a platoon of SS PzKpfw IV, with immediate mutual fire. The Germans (veterans) lost two vehicles, the Canadians (Green) none, as both sides withdrew in shock. In fact, it appears that tank quality did not influence battles very much during the Normandy fighting. Ranges were generally short and clashes generally either an ambush or a mutual surprise. We suffer still from contemporary mythology, and thus hold especially the cats in unjustified awe. How many new players have been coming in here shocked at how their Tigers and Panthers have been knocked out by measly "Bronsons"? While there were spectacular cases, like the hussar raid of Mr Wittman, the British testimony from that event stated that Cromwells fired at point blank (2 meters) into the side of his Tiger with no effect but a bounce, and repeatedly so, which simply is physically impossible. These statements - all published in contemporary media amazingly - also omit the fact that he was not alone at all, but had his platoon there with him. On all counts his achievement was legendary, he was the tanker ace of all time, but it was also the source for making the Tiger legendary in a way she did not really deserve. The image of allied tanks bouncing off the plates of an invincible Tiger is still alive in our minds 50 years later. The power of this Wittman - that, just like Rommel, not only the Nazi media but indeed the allied media created - was such, that when he died, Canadians, British, Poles and the RAF all claim to have killed him. Just like the Red Baron. To this day, no one can tell for sure who it was. In the Ardenne battles, we see the "real" Tiger situations. Here the Kingtigers did in fact parade in front of Shermans and, seemingly not even annoyed, had scores of hits just bouncing off them. The Jagdpanthers displayed similar capacity of taking punishment. But here the allied troops are hardened and more experienced, less prone to panic (very much less so, as I certainly would have panicked very much) and creating myths about their enemy. So the cat-scare is not even remotely as evident. In spite of the fact that they had better reason for it. So. I agree with Combined Arms, on every point that he makes in fact, and wish to add that not only the CMBO QB battlefield situation is slightly abnormal, but also the situation where tankers are aware of eachother and fighting actual duel-type battles head to head, rather than ambushes, surprise clashes or running battles. See now Lee, I gave you not only one but several more stories But I do think you should try the 4-1 idea. Personally, I can enjoy playing miniature maps with just one tank facing three or four enemy tanks, forcing myself to use level 1 and 2 vision only. It's fun. And playing against the AI, I even win sometimes. Regards Dandelion

Ron, you'll find the "Lee" debate on infantry movement more elucidated in his "What do most of you do" thread. As for the situation he describes, I still cannot really see a solution. Lee writes: 1. There are three enemy tanks, not one, overlooking the objective area and approaches to the same. He says there is no possibility of covert flanking movement on the map. His attempts to blind the tanks by buttoning them have failed, so the tanks can observe his every move in the open. The terrain is described as naked. In fact as a 400 meter open stretch of land. 2. Enemy troops are holding the objective area, thus the enemy has no reason to move either from this place or from the hill. 3. Lee has no artillery, thus the absence of suggestions of smoke. Lee has one Baz team left as antitank asset. Given these parameters, I cannot really see how the fire and movement basics of his infantry will solve this situation regardless of nationality. But I guess Lee could send you the file so you could show him how Regards Dandelion

Indeed Ron, bask away. :cool: It's an attitude thing really, leading the British. I think I just havent found the right attitude to succeed yet. Considering the fact that they won in the end, I find it amazing to study the number of desperate actions, defeats and near-defeats that brought the British to Berlin. They actually manage to win and still appear the underdogs. One gets the feeling that they advanced by a series of heroic last stands. There was a catchy popsong on this theme recently wasn't there? "We'll be singing, when we're winning :I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down..." Regards Dandelion

Could anyone bare with me and explain what banned means? Can one get banned as in disallowed to post? (Well obviously not, as the banned person here posted). Why would one get banned? Does one receive warning? Is there a list of words that are generally considered curses and bad words in American English on the internet? I only have British English dictionaries at hand here. Concerned Dandelion

All of my fat drunk and stupid friends are happy, while the skinny, sober and smart ones are perpetually depressed and have complicated lives. I am now working very hard to join the former, after a life in complete misery with the latter. It is never too late. You too can be saved. Regards Dandelion

Lee, Instead of stopping playing Americans, you should play some scenarios Pbem I reason that historical scenarios will (try to) depict historical situations, and historically, you'd probably not be ordered to attack a flag dominated by a nearby hill defended by german armour. Unless you play Brit. Brits are at the sad end of fate at all times. That's why they are so loveable. I've tried them, because I so want them to win, but it's quite a challenge. Infantry firepower is the worst in the game. Historical scenarios don't help, as the British high command somewhat resembled your average gathering of patients at a geriatric clinic and will perpetually come up with plans even worse than a really really really bad QB. So do play Americans, in historical scenarios. You'll love it. Regards Dandelion

Lee, I'll give you such a report then On June 9th, the 12th SS Panzer Division made her third assault on Norrey-en-Bessin. They had already hurled an SS Panzergrenadier battalion (I./SSPD12) at this small town but been thrown back. They then hurled a whole SS Panzer battalion (12./SSPD12) supported by a recon company (15./25/SSPD12) and a Wespe company (2.12./SSPD12) at it. This they did at nighttime, since allied tankers refused to fight after dark (!) and the infantry would be left fending for themselves. Nonetheless, again they were beaten back, after a very bloody fight that took the Germans all the way to the Canadian CP, and the heart of the small town (which, as always in Normandie, was a church). Defending the village was primarily D Company, Regina Rifles, supported by a handful of guns of the 3rd Antitank Rgt, RCA, firing the brand new discarding sabot munitions with great effect. But it was the PIATs that took most of the Panthers out, apparently about ten were lost that night. But the Panzer fight that you lacked took place during the third attack. The third charge was performed by a company of Panthers alone, namely 3./12./SSPD12 commanded by SS-Hstf Lüddemann, with a complete set of 12 Panthers. They advanced in line abreast at top speed over open plain against the village. It was noon and for some reason - as the Germans knew - there were no JaBos up at that time. What the Germans didn't know whas that the Reginas had received their desperately awaited armoured support since that morning (the tankers arrived at first light, which was about 0500 hours). The Canadians are not overly enthusiastic about War Diaries, and sadly copy the stiff upper lip manners of the British in their reporting, leaving us with very laconic and bland notes. But it appears that the tanks arriving was a platoon of Shermans from the 1st Hussars. In a very brief and very violent exchange of fire, seven Panthers were knocked out and the rest departed hurriedly. The Canadians lost no tanks at all. Antitank guns participated in the fight, and so it was not a purely armoured affaire. Max Wünsche, commander of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, was apparently white with rage and close to tears when he heard the news. Now you can't say you've seen no reports of Shermans taking out Panthers frontally and without being in vastly superior numbers Try playing the German side equipped with Panthers a few times. As long as you keep facing these cats, you will retain your awe of them. Using them, you will get to know them. They won't appear half as deadly once you do. I promise. Regards Dandelion

...also, I'd like to chime in on the "how do ppl use VT incorrectly" question above.

Tricky one Lee. Sounds like time to disengage and extract. Not even if you did have Shermans left would it have been advisable to actually duel with Panthers frontally. He's just laagering on the hill? No way of luring him down then? Couldn't crawl up to the Flag area and seize it under his nose, forcing him to engage? One can crawl undetected quite close to the enemy, especially buttoned up armour, and especially with small teams such as antitank teams. Regards Dandelion

Lee, This I find is one of the finest qualities of CMBO - the reflection of squad weaponry composition and use in combat. Most German squads appearing in scenarios are of the type dominated by rifles. At ranges of 250 and beyond, all rifles (except of course the M1 Carbine) perform identically, whereas the Lee Enfield and M1 Garand will outgun the 98k at shorter ranges. The MP40 is portrayed as superior to both Thompson and Sten in CMBO, even considerably so. Squads with liberal amounts of them - Füsiliere, VG SMG, Gebirgsjäger (which is quite unhistorical btw), Fallschirmjäger and Sturm - have no serious competitors in point blank firepower. There's of course the MP44. Above all it grants the owning squads a boost of firepower at ranges 250 and below, closing a gap so to speak. The MG42 is effective all the way up to 300 meters (and not ineffective beyond) and much superior to Bren and BAR. With this setup the Germans are capable of delivering credible firepower at any range really. But in my humble opinion, they are far from generally superior. The squads most frequently appearing in scenarios (as they constituted a vast majority of the German land forces) are rifle, motorised, pioniere and volksgrenadier. Of these, the pioniere have abysmal firepower, quite unable to face any allied squad one on one. The rifle (Heer or SS) squads are on par with their UK counterparts but much inferior to their US such and the exact same is true for volksgrenadiere (except SMG squads and Füsiliere). Only the motorised squads slightly excel the US squads (in the case of SS motorised, they excel even US airborne). So normally, speaking infantry, in a US vs German scenario you will in fact be inferior as German, not superior, unless you are actually fielding motorised SS or Paras. The Americans increase firepower partly by having more men to each squad and partly by doubling the amount of machineguns, there being 24(!) of them to a battalion as compared to the 12 of a German equivalent. They also use 9 instead of (the German) 6 mortars per battalion. While the German 81mm packs more punch than the US 60mm, it is anyones pick if this outweighs the mobility handicap. Personally, I don't feel it does. Obviously the Germans thought it did. Of course, all of this creates more rapid munitions depletion, as has already been mentioned. But as depletion is merely the delivery of firepower onto the head of the enemy, it is generally better to be able to do this quicker than your enemy if efficiency can be maintained equal to his slower rate of delivery anyway - which it can in this case. The British have a much tougher situation. But they do have their knee mortars at the scale of 12 per battalion. In my humble opinion they offer their platoons very valuable edge with capacity to surpress (they'll have to use it quickly, as they have very little ammo and extreme rate of fire as we all know). All of this speaking strictly infantry of course. Regards Dandelion

He might mean the opponent finder site. I can't get the link to function, so perhaps this is what he means. Or maybe it's just some temp problem with the link. Regards D

What does "banned" mean in this context? Regards Dandelion

Lee, My method would be quite similar to the Hornets. If possible and prudent, I'd use a scout team to do the run first and secure the forest on the oppoisite side, ensuring there is not an enemy platoon lying in wait there. If they get hit, at least it's not the main body of troops caught in the open. Of course, this won't always be possible. And not always interesting either. When alternating between sneak and run, it's usually a good thing to make sure to use uneven tempo between squads, so that one squad in the platoon is always sneaking while the others are running, then changing. I think that's what Hornet meant too. It works real well. Enemies popping up are engaged almost immediately. The bad part is that you might get a situation where all squads are in sneak and engaging, thus none continuing. While it is unrealistic to have troops advancing against enemy fire indifferent to personal safety, one still has the "escaping towards the enemy" phenonema. If troops are caught out in the open, running, and are met with fire, they can react by running even faster toward the enemy positions. This was cynically utilised quite a lot by high commands on both sides during WWI. Regards Dandelion

...it strikes me now as I sit and ponder, that in reality, paras must be considered swampers. Pegasus bridge, Ste-Mere-Eglise, Arnhem. They all rushed the objective quite oblivious to casualties (in fact they estimated 80% casualty rates in at least one of these cases). The job was to hold the objective a few hours. If everyone died doing it, or drowned in marshes trying to get there, well then that was just too bad. So there you have it. The 101st, 82nd, 1st and 6th were all a bunch of gamey swampers Regards Dandelion

Yes Vesku, house rules were gentlemens agreements, sometimes published on the sites of ladder clubs. Clubs such as those found here http://www.rugged-defense.nl/cm/cm.htm and here http://www.tournamenthouse.com/CM/ for example. Note btw that the No 1 guy in the latter club calls himself "Swamp". Even the somewhat recent Proving Grounds at http://www.garykrockover.com/ has at least one such rule, namely about flak trucks. One of the most savage rulewriter of those times was this Fionn Kelly fellow, a controversial kid in so many ways. He wrote these http://www.rugged-defense.nl/cm/Fionn/FionnKellyBFRules.htm But hey now everyone, Bizarrely, I feel I have reintroduced an old "gamey" debate and thus in a way have launched the idea that it is gamey to rush the flag. I just want to make it clear that I do not personally have an opinion on this, really. You go right ahead and swamp away there Lee Your all Dandelion

Well, the basic situation after a sawmping is that he is in cover defending and you are out in the open, attacking him with a force that in firepower is in no way superior to his. Pretty bleak odds. 1500 points will get you a battallion of regulars. Some nationalities will have to dispense with support elements, but a force of some 400 men is quite feasible even without exchanging support teams for squads or lowering experience (I seem to recall that elite and crack was often disallowed, a house rule I rather agreed with too, given the explanations given in the CM manual). The idea with swamping was of course to use high firepower infantry, meaning Gebirgsjäger, paras or Volksgrenadier for Germans (as Sturm was often disallowed) and paratroops for allies. I've never heard of anybody swamping someone with English line infantry. That would be sort of cool :cool: To shift a determined such force one will normally have to reduce it by at least 40%. That's AI - a human opponent will in fact be able to hold on though suffering up to 85% casualties, and he will fight to the last man by that flag, not regrouping to anywhere. That's about 160-350 men that need to be killed or otherwise taken out of action. Can also be expressed as 6-11 dead men every minute, assuming fighting starts at turn 1 and ends in turn 30. The enemy will be in covered terrain, heavy buildings if available. He will be keeping low and conserving ammunition. You will be advancing on him. I'd say it's a feat to keep up such a casualty rate without suffering equal amounts oneself, given that situation. But of course, if you say it's not normally a problem, it probably isn't As I understand it QB opponents started using swamping on both sides, meaning an olympic run to the objective and then a gory clash in the middle between two heavy infantry opponents. It would then be decided - just like Mr Vesku writes above - by who had the shortest distance/easiest terrain to the objective, and thus able to become defender. btw, the sentence "have you met many..." of mine, above, was not intended to insinuate inexperience, but to highlight the fact that most players still rush objectives in QB ME. Regards Dandelion

Sorry if it offended you or your gaming style. But please don't drag me into any "gamey" debate. I was just informing this upset player here that he is not all alone in his dissatisfaction. Things repeat themselves, as you write, and this was just such a repitition that I recognised. I first heard about swamping some years ago, don't remember exactly. It's not one of those things you note in your diary. But I remember clearly that it was well known and disallowed in several ladder groups at the time (there were quite a few such groups back then), and accusations of this hailed back and forth over pbem. Back then everyone seemed to have their personal rules that they tried to enforce on everybody else. It included variuous vehicles, units and whatnots. Sopme wrote these things down actually, and some sets of rules were used by various ladder groups. They'd be very upset if anybody broke their rules. Especially if they lost the game. I'm not sure if swamping was discussed in this particular forum, under that name or any other. Personally, I'm not really into "gamey" debates. In fact I don't care for them at all. I think QB are ultimately gamey in themselves. Whether or not players "buys" infantry or Churchill tanks, or if they use their crews in combat or their machinguns as scouts, is really indifferent to me. If the game allows it, and your not going to be historical anyway, why not? But it certainly works. Swamping. ATG or no ATG. Regardless of your armoured firepower, you won't have time to blow the infantry mass away. Try it out. And do you know very many QB players who do not rush objectives? It would have worked in reality too. If commanders were oblivious to casualties and needed to hold a flag in a village for 20 minutes at a cost of a few hundred ordinary lives. All the best Dandelion

>"The Wessex Wyvern came out of CMMC2 with head held high" ...High enough to look around and see all of your dead mates lying about? Speaking of which, the CMMC saw the heaviest fighting I've ever experienced in CMBO. I was heading to have a chat with Standartenführer Stadler at Raum La Vacherie when a battle erupted there. I got to watch it. Some 70+ enemy tanks with infantry rumbled down on us. I was petrified (I had denied Stadler reinforcements from Korps...). What a scene it was! Salvoes of 40+ tank guns ripping the whole place apart. Stadler did great but would not have made it if Carisius hadn't appeared with his handful of Panthers. At the end of the day, some 70 enemy vehicles were non operational on the field and there were piles of dead. The British commander seemed oblivious to casualties. Both me and Stadler were in a kind of shock. It was an early battle and gave us a very dangerous sense of superiority, for which we were later to pay a price. You into the CMBO CMMC now? I dropped out myself. Too taxing. Mattias visited two times? He only told me about the one time. He had one of those evenings you know when he'd invite you over and then sans forewarning bore you to death with photo's It was the Bovington affaire. In his words the tank-trip. He has a sardonic sense of poetry. Regards Dandleion

This used to be called "swamping". Suddenly, players stopped buying the formerly so popular "übertanks" - in fact they stopped buying tanks at all. Instead, they bought masses of infantry - the more the better, but quality was also a factor. At the start of a game they'd run like hell, disregard casualties completely and secure objectives. After that, there is simply no way of removing them within the timeframe of a ME. Over a period one encountered this a lot. But then word was out and it was considered very gamey. I think the ME setup dropped drastically in popularity. If swampers bug you, buy halftracks or armoured cars. Run them toward the objective and somewhat beyond at the very beginning of a game. There you'll find the swamper masses running in the open - his infantry will never be quicker than your wheels. Voila, gun him down and rout the rest. Works every time. Fun? Nope. Personally, I find the concept of a meeting engagement focused on a VP flag confusing. Forces that meet, both in advance, are heading somewhere else no? So logically, they would want to either break through or at least stop the enemy advance. To me, that sounds like exit points and casualty count. Not flags. The concept of trying to secure an objective in order to force the opponent into the attacking role is natural enough tho. Germans defined offensive as the securing of froward defensive positions, upon which the enemy counterattacks would be shattered. If this position could be taken by a rush, they would probably not have minded. I must as always recommend premade scenario's ) Regards Dandelion

Dear John, >"I believe it was Queen Victoria who said of Naval Officers that "they are not gentlemen" - Harsh dealings. To think that she would say that about national heros such as Nelson. Still, a gentleman cannot back down on his word. This story provides fascinating contrast to the popular image - thus the one I too carried in this case - probably best embodied by the late Admiral Beatty. That of the gallant womanising yacht-club type of gentleman. Mrs Tuchmann also gives a story of some contrast in her book "The First Salute", in which one is given a very grim picture of the Royal Navy indeed. The men either press-ganged or dragged out of jail, the officers ferociously grumpy and greedy brutes with an intense hatred for primarily eachother. And yet she loved the English, especially a certain naval officer named Rodney. Another gallant, womanising yacht-club type gentleman. And in fact the officer in Vienna fit that description also. >"particular strain of Cornish separatism" - I saw a television interview with a Cornish gentleman referring to another gentleman as being a "fellow countryman, Cornish". (In the context it would have made more sense to say fellow Englishman). I found that amusing and have everafter made frequent reference to the Cornish as a supressed nationality with separatist undercurrents. I suppose they might have a separate celtic identity as opposed to the rest of the germannic Englishmen, but I've never really heard of any separatists there since the Anglo-Saxon-Jute invasion myself. Speaking of which, I read in Mr Weintraubs wonderful book "Silent Night" that British and German Saxons expressed kinship as late as WWI. Fellow countrymen, in a distant but yet tangible sense. I wonder if the people from Kent feel kinship with the now Danish Jutes? >"quite a lot of English English speakers do that" - Is it regional or a general English lingustic trait? Or is it a class marker? >"The King over the water". - The King of France? The Scotsmen toasted the King of France? Ah well. Like Ho-Chi-Minh, I find it too much to ask of a man not to love France, and too much to ask of a man to love the French. Maybe the Scotsmen reasoned likewise. Hm. I am forced to display my ignorance further here. Are the Scotsmen catholic? Regards Dandelion

Hey thanks King, there are several there that I was unaware of. I'll store them for a suitable Pbem opponent Regards Dandelion

Ok Jon. So why is this? Is the Queen not the formal c-in-c of the British (and NZ?) Armed Forces? Logically, that would make the Army Royal? And why are not all regiments called "Royal"? Of course, I've tried this logic business before with the Anglo-Saxons, without much success. But there must be some story behind this, some reason why it is not called the Royal Army. A demotion? Or just a development? Incidentally, what's the difference between "The Kings" and "The Kings Own"? Regards Dandelion

Ah there you are Mattias, yes. Last I heard he was just about to leave that tremendously beautiful house he lived in in central Stockholm - a second home for me every night I was too...happy to find a commuter train. He and this woman went to live somewhere a bit South. I warned him not to do it, but he didn't listen to me. He never does. He was particular about there being broadband where he moved, so I presumed he'd get right back online. But he didn't even ask me to help carry his furniture. He always does that, I've carried it more than ten times through the years. I lost contact, he does not answer mail on his old address, nor calls to his old cellular. If I really wanted to chase him down, I'd go through his grannie, or mother. But. Considering I have known him off and on for 18 years now, I am not worried. He does this from time to time, disappears for a few years. I guess he has something he needs to do now. He'll be back. Glad to hear about Peter. Yet another talent not killed in the dotcom massacre. Very pleasing. In fact your mere appearance here eradicates that feeling of abandonment I had there for a while. And take my head off the wall right now, this is completely unworthy! :mad: Saw that you fielded a whole division in CMMC. A whole enemy division to be precise. Even more specifically a whole division on the losing side. Well. I'm not the kind of highly annoying person who keeps saying I told you so... :cool: Regards Dandelion bzw Gen. Krafft bzw SS-Ogrf. Königsmarck

It was the Naval officer who denied them the title Royal. Although in a sense he was a marine form of life in many ways that evening, he was still particular about being a gentleman of the Navy. He fit the role too I must say. Grey eyes and he spoke the Queens English and all. Plus a peculiar "r" that he seemed to add whenever words ended with a vowel. I looked some of those words up when I got back to my flat and there is no "r" at the end of them. Maybe it's a Navy thing. The army really isn't Royal? How come? Did it rebel in the Civil war? And a few hundred years is no time to forgive? What is it if not Royal? Parlimentary? Secretly Republican? Cornish separatist? Cromwellian? Seriously, I really finally want to understand this joke (at the time I just smiled back at him as if I understood perfectly - it seemed the social thing to do). Regards Dandelion