Dandelion

Nobel. His name was Alfred Nobel. The prize need not break out, nor be broken out, since it consists of money, which can be digitally transferred these days. You also get to shake the hand of the King of Sweden I believe, and eat fish in Stockholm. You mentioned a M16. Who gave you this weapon? Dandelion

Fine. In that case, do you think we might trouble you to stop bleating on about it? I am really not disposed to indulge your childish attention-seeking behaviour any more. If you genuinely believe, on the strength of your having fired a different weapon with a different cartridge at different ranges, that you really and truly know more about the performance of the Sten than the people who ran the tests at the School of Infantry at Barnard Castle, go ahead and believe it. But please don't bore us all by going on and on about it over and over again. You aren't going to convince anyone else simply by repeating your unsupported opinion, even interspersed with random googlings and displays of hysterical bigotry against the Commonwealth. You are, however, going to bore people to tears. You are clearly a most remarkably monotonous, dull, tedious and sleep-provoking person. Really quite catalepsy-inducingly, balls-achingly uninteresting; unrelievedly boring to a degree that surpasses even Des O'Connor. Do shut up, there's a lambkin, before you induce narcolepsy on a pan-continental scale. John. </font>

Ok. Clicked the link. And I have now seen some Arizona horsefolk and some gargoyles, the third rainbow believe it or not, and not least that "other" horseboard. Disturbingly, there was a section for classifieds on the "Equine" web - I dared not venture there since that sort of stuff is illegal in Europe. On the plus side, Mevis has some really good deals for ranches and farms. Jon, is this the point where you go "Haarrrhahahaha you gullible worm!"? Cheerio Dandelion

Diesel, what is Mozilla? Cheers Dandelion

Interesting that you feel that it has to do with everything Oren. I was under the erronous impression that you failed completely to see the similarities between what others have done to you in the past and what you do to others today. Other genocides to be remembered April and May: - Armenians murdered by Ottomans - Greeks murdered by Ottomans - Muslims murdered by Russians, Bulgarians and Serbs. - Siebenbürger Saxons murdered by Romanians. - Hungarians murdered by Serbs. - Bohemian Germans murdered by Czechs - Czechs murdered by Bohemian Germans - Germans murdered by Poles - Poles murdered by Germans - Latvians murdred by the Soviet Union. Well, deported to Siberia seems to be the issue. Hey that's even the very same date of remembrance as you have Oren! Well that seems to be the list of them for april-may, as far as I can see in the calendar. Remember we still don't recognise genocides such as the Belgian in Congo or the American in Vietnam, and I can't find Australian aboriginies or even American natives in the list here. Anyone else have any ancient hatreds or foul deeds that they wish to pass down generations and maybe even make a buck from? No Gypsys from Eastern Europe in here? No Kurds in here who'd like to talk about mustard gas? Nobody from Tibet, not one? No Soviet minority mass deported during Stalin? How about the millions of African victims of centuries of European and Arabic slave trade? Noone here? Well, I guess you just have to get in line Oren. We're looking at a narrow channel of supply for issuing victim legitimacy to people vaguely related to people murdered in history here, and every man and his dog is part of one Remember the Genocide organisation or other nowadays you know. Oh and yes, I forget - Hi mom. And hi Moon. D

Language fight! Projectile noun 1. A fired, thrown, or otherwise propelled object, such as a bullet, having no capacity for self-propulsion. (=Your choice) 2. A self-propelled missile, such as a rocket. adjective 1. Capable of being impelled or hurled forward. 2. Driving forward; impelling: a projectile force. 3. Zoology. Capable of being thrust outward; protrusile. Shell noun 1. The usually hard outer covering that encases certain organisms, such as mollusks, insects, and turtles; the carapace. 2. A similar outer covering on an egg, fruit, or nut. 3. The material that constitutes such a covering. Something resembling or having the form of a shell, especially: 4. An external, usually hard, protective or enclosing case or cover. 5. A framework or exterior, as of a building. 6. A thin layer of pastry. 7. The external part of the ear. 8. The hull of a ship. 9. A light, long, narrow racing boat propelled by rowers. 10. A small glass for beer. 11. An artillery projectile containing an explosive charge. (=my choice) 12. A metal or cardboard case containing the charge and primer for a piece of firearms ammunition, especially one also containing shot and fired from a shotgun. 13. An attitude or a manner adopted to mask one's true feelings or to protect one from perceived or real danger. 14. Any of the set of hypothetical spherical surfaces centered on the nucleus of an atom that contain the orbitals of electrons having the same principal quantum number. 15. An analogous pattern of protons and neutrons within a nucleus. 16. A usually sleeveless and collarless, typically knit blouse, often worn under another top. 17. The outermost layer of a lined garment such as a coat or jacket: a parka with a waterproof shell. 18. A program that works with the operating system as a command processor, used to enter commands and initiate their execution. 19. A company or corporation with few or no assets or independent operations that is acquired by another company in order to allow the acquiring company to conduct business under the acquired company's legitimate legal standing. ---- Now, Mr Iamanativeenglishspeaker, which of these choices would you describe as the most precise for describing what I just described? I am German. Precision - as impossible as it is to achieve with your adorable but regrettably inaccurate tongue - is the meaning of life. Cheerio Dandelion PS - just edited away a typo that I just know you would have spotted and hit like a tonne of bricks.

So how did it end?

There aren't any German semiautomatic rifles in the game. The MP44 seems to be illustrated as always in fully automatic considering the firepower ratings given (fp and ranges resembling the Thompson smg rather than the Garand). One can imagine that the sharpshooters use G41 or 43 The game does not reveal if they do or not. Cheerio Dandelion

The maximum rate of fire is the rapid fire count of a weapon. An apparent problem in CM is wether or not to give weapons their sustained fire count or their rapid fire count. With corresponding effect for both firepower and ammunition. I note that the latter is generally chosen, though IRL weapons would not be perpetually rapid firing as they are in the game. One would have liked to see these rapid fire modes limited by crew- and in some cases weapon-fatigue in some manner. One would have also liked to be able to use normal sustained fire rates, if for no other reason than to conserve ammunition. But nothing such as far as I know. IIRC the US 155mm howitzer in Vietnam - no idea if it is the same model as used in WWII - had a maximum rate of fire of 4 rounds per minute, and a sustained rate of fire of 1 round per minute. 4 rounds seems a handsome feat to me. A 155mm shell weighs around 45 kg (100some pounds) as far as I know? All pieces of it weighed together I mean. In the game the 105mm M2A1 is given a cycle of some 10-12 seconds between discharges. Which lands at a standard of 5 rounds per minute. Don't know the piece myself but it sounds generous. It sounds like rapid fire. I say that because I do know the 105mm lFH 18, which boasted 6 to 8 rounds per minute in rapid fire. Whereas the sFH 18 could achieve only 4 - 5 rounds per minute in spite of a 12 man crew. Very much like the US 155 in Vietnam thus. Such a rate is described as very laborious. A shell weighed 43.5 kg, all pieces together. They couldn't keep it up for long. Sustained fire rate was 1 round per minute. 20 rounds per minute as described for the Pak 40 here must be a typo. It leaves 3 seconds for a cycle of discharge, recoil and reload. It is twice the rapid fire rate demanded of crews of an antitank rifle in German infantry training, and indeed twice that of soldiers equipped with a bolt action rifle. Cheerio Dandelion

As for the Pak 40, 20 rounds per minute would be a feat of olympic proportions. Crews were initially expected to manage 12 rounds per minute but standards were lowered during the war and crews making 10 were graduated. The figure in general use in most literature is thus 10. Remember that this is a static target figure and only takes reload time into account - against live moving targets at varying ranges, rate of fire was lower. You can look the Pak 40 up here if you wish some more background. I have tried to include the more orthodox facts from the sources at hand, and left out any disputed or controversial issues that I have been able to identify as such. As for the Soviets, I have no source that would help out here. Cheerio Dandelion

Warstories. Playtesting a scenario against a human opponent. Normandy setting, rolling hills and forest, two roads meandering through the landscape. The enemy launched an assault all along the MLR, which soon focused into three separated battles over a crossroad, an orchard and a hill. The battle for the hill, an irregular hill with several hillocks and patches of forest and brush, became the most memorable. It offered several covered routes of redeployment, which was to characterise the battle. A reinforced platoon managed to hurl back two dedicated assaults, enemy infantry supported by Priests and halftracks. The first assault pretty much stopped dead in its tracks when hitting a reverse slope defense. I seemed rather untouched. The second assault was persuaded to leave only with great effort. The enemy repeatedly tried to flank the position and needed to be chased off with repeated counterattacks. At times the platoon fired in three separate directions and I was totally tied down, unable to act. Prospects seemed grim. But the enemy faded away rather surprisingly and regrouped. I regrouped myself to the rearmost defendable resistance nest offered by the hill. By the third attempt, few in the platoon were still alive, no AT rounds were left and hardly any ammo left either, and so the line collapsed very rapidly under his two-pronged shock assault supported by a Priest. One squad from another platoon had been held back in reserve, veterans with high firepower. I launched it as a flanking attack, hitting the enemy line from the right rear, rather imemdiately after the collapse of my defense. I didn't really believe it was a prudent measure but I was out of options. The squad assaulted across (and rear of) the enemy frontage and enemy squad after enemy squad turned and routed, or surrendered. I was rather stunned. My opponent later told me that most commanders had been lost by then, few men had any ammunition left and the remaining squads were severely depleted. It had been the same company assaulting all three times. With a victory of sorts, the feeling was more one of exhaustion and relief than of triumph. I know it probably sounds very vanilla, but it remains my most interesting and intense infantry combat experience in CM. Though forces were small, each turn took me a good hour, as every single decision was decisive. Cheerio Dandelion

...sorry, former brigadier, nowadays Lt Gen Dallaire....

Ah, frame of reference collision. I forget that you colonials still apply the original French concept of liberals being the people sitting on the left and conservatives sitting on the right. In Europe however we have developed two new interesting ideologies these last few centuries, socialism and fascism. Placing these to extreme left and right automatically transforms liberals and conservatives to middle-of-the-road over here. So, by calling you a Canadian liberal, I meant no reference to any specific party in Canada, merely that you will be a moderate and reasonable chap, as compared to Stalin. Ah yes indeed, indeed he can and did. "Bambi" Blair. I'd say Blair is the one politician who actually had a inter-European cult following him, including other European leaders. Well him and Anthony Giddens. I believed in them too, at the time, sincerely and devotedly. Seems so surreal today but I dare say the two might have won the election of any Western European country save France and Germany at the time, haven't seen his like in European popularity since Churchill. Another Englishman - is there a pattern? But Blair is Labour, thus a socialist. It's that Scottish fellow who is the liberal leader. I think. He sounds very Scottish. I am not drifting off topic here am I? Mr Blair needs votes and thus cuddles with miners, not minors. Wasn't Mr Jackson was it? Nah seriously. There is a streak of generosity in people that make people teach. Be it formally or via a personal relation. I'm glad you met this guy who encouraged your interest in the war, if you hadn't you wouldn't be here contributing. As for heros, I actually have a person who I feel I could call a hero in a boyish sense, even in the face of adult realisation that nobody is ever more than human. I mention it not least as he happends to be a Canadian, your Brigadier Roméo A. Dallaire. Maybe I should follow Big Reds example and write him as much. I think I will actually. Cheers Dandelion

Come now Michael. We all appreciate this comrades tireless work for the community. Had he not had the fibre, staunch and endurance of a true teacher, you would actually have been put to work around here. Remember the "I like man like Dorosh" thread? That was back in the days when you liked helping Noobs out. You get no more of those threads from just surfing around and being Canadian, you have to put hard labour into it. Like JC does. A post-Stalinist Marxist expression from a liberal Canadian. That I should live to see the day. Must be collateral from the Big Brother debate. It wasn't JC was it? I think Big Red is a respectable and fine character to publicly express his gratitude. If there is admiration in his tone, then it will be because he sees it fit. Too few men express these things in our cynical times. JC will feel encouraged and fuelled up for his future labours. The community stays alive and might even multiply. Where do I, and you come along too now Michael, sign up as a fanboys? Cheers Dandelion

Big Brother? I dropped off the cart there. IIRC the society in Big Brother is exactly one of half-educated people who know much enough to feel they know everything and be dead certain about everything, but little enough to easily fall prey to distortions and manipulation. Whereas those who know nothing at all pose a serious threat to Big Brother since the halftruths and veils spread by the Truth Ministry mean nothing to them anyway. They know only face value and common sense. The fact that those who know much form part of the etablishment seems only to reinforce JCs point on knowing more not being the same as knowing better. The book is mentioned in it's truest context though. An excellent point of Mr Orwell in that book is that history is a thing created, not a documentation of the past. History changes every day and there is no such thing as objectivity in historical studies, it is not a science with repeatable experiments. And it is of course created for a purpouse. So I for one much prefer people with no knowledge of history to those with little knowledge. In the first category I place academics as well, since any study of history will at the end land you in a realisation of how painfully little you know, and make you deeply uncertain about everything. Another one mans opinion. Big Red, this thread isn't developing quite the way you had imagined, right? Cheers Dandelion

...and to read the stickys in the tech forum, as this is a familiar problem. Good luck Dandelion

...and to read the stickys in the tech forum, as this is a familiar problem. Good luck Dandelion

Well, in your text there they claim to belong to the 3d Mountain division of the "former German army". I guess they mean the army of the Third Reich, but that would highlight that it was a Austro-German army, something few Austrians like to talk about, since they prefer to feel they were victims and not perpetrators in WWII. This is a very well known and documented division ("Narvik"). The problem is that there was no battallion in that division with 22 army snipers in it as far as can be seen in Kalteneggers works. So I assumed they were reassigned at some point (the text says "the battallion" only). They might have ended up in some army level battallion, I pondered. Even if these men were accused of a crime or belonged to a unit accused of one, I have never heard of the KGB kidnapping any Austrian warcriminal abroad (the Soviets left Austria in 55 and this was written in the mid 60s as I understand it). No other foreign service either - I only know of the Mossad doing that, and they only hunted high-rankers. As for stigmas, Austria is hardly a nation were membership in the SS - any branch - was or is socially damaging. Other than in Ottakring perhaps Rather the contrary. In 1970 four of eleven members of the Austrian government were ex-NSDAP, and we all remember Waldheim in the eighties. Regrettably, none of these people were snatched by the KGB. Though several of the Gebirgsjäger divisions (1st, 5th, 7th SS, 188th) accumulated sentences for warcrimes well in excess of the better known of the Waffen SS division (such as the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 9th, 10th and 12th), the 3rd did not. The division is conspicously absent from the otherwise commonplace accounts of Gebirgsjäger atrocities in the Balkans and Italy. The 3rd seems to be clean. So I really can't see them being afraid to talk. You wouldn't have the original German text? Curious about what words they use in it for marksman and sniper, group and indeed battallion. Maybe the oddities are merely "lost in translation" thingies. Cheerio Dandelion

COG Orders and jokes already. That's a warrior of a wife you have there. I hope her second life becomes less interesting than her first was And I hope I shall equal her bravery should I ever have to face the same situation. And of course, your tireless services to this community has long since warranted a vacation, even without such a trauma. You take your time. You know us. We'll still be here when you get back Cheerio Dandelion

I feel uncertain if this is political satire about the US administration and electorial system, some sort of attempted fraud, an attack on American fascism or a declaration of love adressed to Martin of the BFC. Puzzled Dandelion

I feel uncertain if this is political satire about the US administration and electorial system, some sort of attempted fraud, an attack on American fascism or a declaration of love adressed to Martin of the BFC. Puzzled Dandelion

Nah those are just the bugs that Michael fixed. He is not hollering in pain, he is hollering that these are Canadian bugs biting him badly on his bald brain. Chop chop Dandelion

That's very true I think. Though perhaps more so with modern scope with illumination enhancement? Deer hunters not infatuated with scopes as such seem to prefer low power, high illumination scopes. Even though fogging becomes a problem with those. Well, that's the general impression I get anyway, no statstics to support it. Maybe it is just an issue of costs. Another advantage of the low power scope versus power scope is (an advantage open sights also does not have) - again just an opinion with no basis in science - that you see figures rather than small fragments of animals (or people I guess). Easier to aim at a spot of choice on a moving target, easier to predict movement. To have just a brown spot of fur all over the sights does not really help locating the spot on a moving beast. Well. Doesn't help me that is. Then again I never was no sniper Queer lot, the Finns. Cheerio Dandelion

This is not an Austrian title. Looks... I don't know, like a drunk person from Vorarlberg at best. What units did these men serve in? One of them claims he had a trained sniper group of 22 men in a battallion. I am interested in what battallion this was. Infantry battallions were only issued with 9-12 scopes of 2.5x. For use by the corps of marksmen, who were specially trained platoon level functions and not hasty replacements for army level snipers. So this must be some specialist battallion and obscure units interest me greatly. Any reference to this in the book? One of the guys claims to have used 1.5x scopes. Very brave is it not? Great field of vision but not a lot of zoom, is it now. Maybe he knifed them But seriously - the unit, I do want to know. Regards Dandelion

I quite agree. And more painful in my opinion, it does not allow us to use them in a historical role. Cheers Dandelion