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Jim - it's the very nice blue and red light buttons under the portrait (although perhaps the blue 'in contact' light would have been more intuitive if it was green). Can I just add another WOW for effect as well. Top job Tarkus.

Computer Ambush roolzed! Seriously. Now then, who remembers Dnepr River Line?

The first nine chapters of Ball Of Fire are well worth a read if you're interested in East Africa. [Edit] Ignore - the book seems to have been taken offline.

Mainly posting because I think that model is too damn cute. Googling a few websites leaves an overwhelmingly favourable impression of the Archer. Even the Egyptians and Jordanians who used it against Israel in 1956 liked it. All say the same, that the low silhouette was a major asset. Unfortunately we don't get to see this aspect in CM, hiding AFVs is a lost cause. Because it served on for so long after the war my guess FWIW is that it was probably a decent piece of kit. PS. That's an impressive 47mm gun J2D

Speaking of duelling references MikeyD, Ian Hogg also has different opinions in 'Tank Hunters'. He describes them as reliable, manoeuverable, easy to hide, and as doing just as must execution as M10s and M36s. One anti-tank officer said 'We were given the Archer before D-Day...the idea was that 6-pounders and Archers formed the front line anti-tank defence, and the 17-pounders, which took half a day to dig into a good defensive position, acted as the backstop for anything that got past the front line...the Archer was nippy and easy to hide...one shot generally did the business, two if need be and then it was time to get out of it...'

Nah, he would have used his U2 against them.

Flummoxed Wellington with an unexpected one man rendition of 'Love Shack' ?

Heh, like the shambolic escape by some shattered German formations from Falaise was a big deal. A perspective: Around 24 tanks and 20,000 Germans escaped out of the Falaise pocket, with pretty much just the clothes on their backs. Estimated German casualties in Normandy: 1,500 tanks, 3,500 guns, 20,000 vehicles, and 450,000 men killed/wounded/captured. Normandy was a shattering Allied victory. Compare those German casualties against Allied casualties of 210,000 men and 28,000 aircrew. The German armies which faced the Allies after the liberation of France were almost entirely fresh armies, not Normandy veterans. It's amazing what you learn if you read Max Hastings... [Edit] For extra Devils (Allies?) Advocate'iness. Discuss [ January 22, 2005, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: Pheasant Plucker ]

The Cromwell was fairly heavily armoured compared to the previous Cruisers. However this only put it up to a similar standard of protection as a Sherman, so it was vulnerable to most things. People liked using them back in the CMBO days, especially the variant equipped with the short 95mm gun. It was very fast, and the 95mm could kill just about anything with its HC rounds. This is why we sometimes see people lamenting their abscence in CMAK.

The Cromwell was part of the Cruiser family and not a Medium tank. As such it was supposed to exploit after other forces had broken through, and therefore it had a very high top speed, but only a modest gun and armour. I don't think the crews liked it much, which isn't suprising because by 1944 (when it appeared) the cruiser doctrine had been well and truly debunked. I think the general opinion was that it was a good recon tank, and a crap battle tank, but we may be enlightened otherwise in due course... [Edit] I hope I answered your second question, the Cromwell was in theory supposed to have a different role to a medium tank such as a Sherman. However in practice it ended up often doing much the same job. [ January 20, 2005, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: Pheasant Plucker ]

Yay, I've now also finished the Brit light tanks and close support tanks. Just the medium tanks to go. Hmm, just how many exciting ways to describe 10 models of Sherman are there. Ah well it won't stop me, excitement hasn't been an outstanding feature of my unit waffles anyway. Dandelion, I'm amazed by the amount of historical detail you get into your comments, it's brilliant stuff. It certainly makes my gameplay only guff seem lightweight.

Started 1788 - ended 1868. An entirely unnecessary proceedure caused totally by American ill-grace after 1776 when they decided to stop being a convict dumping ground themselves

OK I'm going to play devils advocate here as well, but I must preface it by saying that CMAK has been a gaming bargain and has given hours of fun. However statements like 'our historical research is the best out there' are a bit too much. There were and remain some absolute howlers in CMAK which a cursory understanding of the theatre or modest attention to detail would have picked up. For example those godawful mountains glowering down around the map in North Africa, or the fogs which prevail in howling gales. Scenarios such as Beda Fomm which ship with the game are complete historical claptrap, the British TOE is flawed, with no mixed tank platoons (AT/CS), infantry battalion availability dates are all over the shop and those silly flamethrowers inflate their price and don't belong. Early war scenarios have been radically unbalanced because the Cruiser series have all been given the 'burns easily' trait for no valid reason. The 25pdr doesn't work as historically, ATR carriers are missing a pintle mounted Bren MG, and some odd ammo loadouts especially MG ammo loadouts in tanks are there. That's a few off the top of my head, and all of these have been flagged and pooh-poohed or ignored as are some very well informed board members. That is a very disappointing but understandable trend. However, this remains a fine game, all time top ten, extremely worthwhile etc. As BFC have washed their hands of the engine, any chance that a large scale Mod project could get cracking at the code to satisfy all of us whingers (ala Rome Total War Realism)?

It's out of the time period but those French armoured cars carrying the ludicrously big guns such as the AMX 10 and the ERC 90 crack me up.

Yeah....if he's fit then for about 15 seconds, then he gets tired and starts to walk.

Some probably obvious information for CDV users - If your system (like mine) defaults to a CMAK\Run\ New Folder directory structure when you click on the Run part during patch installation, you need to delete the \New Folder appendage. For everyone else especially MD look what's finally here: After all this time we don't get one Bren on a tripod - we get two

J2D - click on upload screenshot and pictures can be loaded straight from your PC onto folke's site, you don't need a URL

QB against a regular opponent once or twice a week via TCP. We tend to pick historical forces and after a million games have arrived at our own quite convoluted and probably entirely unnecessary house rules. Still like to kick the AI around if I have a spare hour. Any totally random battle with the AI purchasing everything and with a 25% bonus for it can still be a lot of fun and quite suprising sometimes. Realistic it 'aint though.

W00t, by throwing in the odd half hour inbetween Dominions turns and RL, I've finally finished commenting all the British Infantry, Cruiser, Tank Destroyer and Cruiser CS tanks. Next up are the Brit Light and Medium tanks. Who wants to take bribes to have a go at one of them? Bribes will be in the form of barfworthy flattery with one post on this forum per week in perpetuity by yours truly. Ah go on, go on, go on, go on... Anyway, if you ever decide to take way your excellent site folke, first of all don't, and secondly can you let me have a copy of the information. The eventual selfish aim is to have a full aide memoir which I alt-tab to view while I'm on the QB purchase screen.

Ju-feckin-ly? You've got to be kidding us right? If it's going to be another nine months then I'm going to start shouting for the ahistorical (and early war game crippling) 'Burns Easily' trait to be removed from the British Cruiser and Crusader series. At the current rate of work I should think that deleting a line of code might just about be achieved by next July :mad:

Unfortunately I only have a couple of the ORS reports by themselves so have very little to offer in the way of background. My understanding is that the ORS were a British scientific team who collected data in the field for the top brass after actions in Normandy. I would guess that the sites were examined within days at the most to avoid data and site contamination, but I have no supporting evidence or background, just some bald faced tables of data. I'm pretty sure that those 'brew up' tables were collected during the break-out phase of the Normandy operation (i.e. Cobra-Falaise) but I haven't got the tables to hand at the moment and will post back here tomorrow when I have them.

Thanks guys. I've pretty much concluded that BFC are in error marking all British cruisers with the 'burns easily' flag myself. I can't find any historical justification so far as to why they should be more likely to explode than other models. Unfortunately this has a decisive effect in the game for early war scenarios. A penetration of a cruiser is likely to kill it, while they usually have to penetrate even the lowly M13 repeated times to achieve a KO. So the the Brits either field exploding tanks or uber-tanks (Matilda) which doesn't make for much fun. It's a shame it can't be added to the forthcoming patch, but it's probably too far advanced after all this time to have any new requests added . On a related note, a forum member kindly forwarded me official report No 17 from the ORS part of which relates to brew ups in Normandy. Here's some of it, and it shows some different results as to what might be expected regarding the propensity of tanks to brew up when penetrated: I post this to relate to Elmar's thoughts that tanks which 'burn easily' are something of a myth. After all it seems that a Pz IV is as likely to brew up as a notorious 'tommy cooker' once penetrated. So then, who wants to start the lobbying for the 'burns easily' trait to be dropped altogether for CMX2? I don't know what makes Panthers less likely to brew up than the other types, any guesses? This report also shows what deathtraps PzIVs were by this time, requiring less hits per brew up than even a Sherman. I know it's a fairly small survey so if there's anything better out there I'd be interested.

I was looking at the CMAK cruisers (A9-A15 series) yesterday, and have realised after all this time that every single model has been given the 'burns easily' trait. I've read a resonable amount but IIRC I can't recall anyone complaining that every model of cruiser tank made brewed up any more often than other models (such as Stuarts or Valentines). The main complaint I do recall about them - apart from the crappy armour and gun of course - was that they were unreliable. If anyone can educate me as to what the problems were with all of the cruiser tanks series which caused this phenomenon I'd be grateful.

Whoa - what's going on with your site Folke? Is someone playing silly buggers?