Reincarnated

And yet for all of the combined knowledge of these people we don't have a single person of any reknown among us. Do you truly believe anyone with this much time on their hands (i.e. to waste the time it takes to write 10,000 or more posts) is somebody worthy of respect. No. Would a wise man behave in this manner? The truth is that these people know that they are a dime a dozen in the real world and choose to stay in here where it's safe. Sure, amongst us normal folk who view video games and such as passtimes (because that's what they are), these people may actually appear to know "a great deal", but of course, all of us would if we dedicated the kind of time to the cause that they do.

I'm on a roll tonight. Here's a list of books concerning Leningrad. http://www.onwar.com/shoppe/ww2/bandc/efront/leningrad/fleningrad.htm Cheers p.s. Now that I look at it, the sites got an amazing selection of books. It looks like a complete bibliography for WWII. [ October 23, 2003, 06:27 AM: Message edited by: Reincarnated ]

I found this website and thought you might like to have a look. There's no OOB's that I can see, but there is some detailed info you might find a use for. Dig around a bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad Oh, and these ones, too. I'm having a good Google night. 1)Third Reich Factbook-Lots of stuff here. Some pretty decent OOBs. http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/index.htm 2)Panzer War Archive-Basically a list of links to OnWar.com except for the Forum and the very nice list of Fuhrer directives. http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1084/index.html 3)And this is OnWar.com. The main attractions here are the tank sections and chronology. Pretty impressive stuff. www.onwar.com Cheers [ October 23, 2003, 03:50 AM: Message edited by: Reincarnated ]

I imagine you are refering to the Rick Atkinson book? Oh, that's too bad. And it looked so good. Well, better this way as I don't really have time to read it and it was threatening to distract me from more important projects. "The Army Air Forces in WWII (Vol.2)" is still an excellent source of information if you're interested.

Sorry, dood. I should have written that warning in big bold letters. Have you ever seen such a screwed up website? Oh, and I did find an interesting book if anyone's looking for what I believe to be an objective point of view on the whole mess that is not blatantly enamoured with German armour. Lots of stuff from the other side of the Dnieper. The Road to Stalingrad by John Erickson ISBN: 0-06-011141-0 Incidentally, I picked up a copy of "An Army at Dawn" by Rick Atkinson and it looks great. If I mix it with "The Army Air Forces in WWII" by Crate and Craven I think there would be little left to know about the whole North Africa thing.

Is someone gay? Whose gay? Not that there's anything wrong with it.

I'm sorry, did I give the impression that was my argument? Oh well, another failed attempt at expressing myself in writing. Sorry guys, you'll have to check out what the experts have to say on the subject. Cheers

Are you asking me on what exact date did a member of the Marine Corps first see a German dive bomber and find himself inspired to attempt to include a similar style aircraft into current projects? I'm sorry, I don't have that information. I wrote a paper on the subject a few years ago. What I remember is that the Marines already were experimenting with CAS in Central America and were so impressed by what they saw from Germany that they immediately ordered there own dive-bombers. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but if your interested you should check the sources I mentioned above. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help to you. Good luck on your research. Cheers

Well, I don't know about your theory, but I do know that discussions concerning CAS in this forum tend to degenerate in a hurry. Perhaps it has something to do with the topic. I do agree with you on the subjective nature of the material. I don't know what effect this has on the behaviour of forum residents, but I suspect it has little to do with it. Maybe the answer has more to do with how this forum is policed? I've never been on the Il-2 forum so I can't compare. Cheers

That's what I used to think as well, but here's why I changed my mind. The origins of CAS are a bit murky and in many cases it is hard to see who did what. In fact, both sides borrowed heavily from each other. The Marine Corps pursued their first dive bombers after seeing the first German attempts, but Ernst Udet fell in love with the result of the Americans efforts (ironically). IMO, it is here that the Germans turned the whole thing into an art form on the scale that we see in Poland and France. Of course this does not exclude the Marine Corps, as their struggle to find acceptance for their doctrine within their respective armed forces is not disimilar to that experienced by Von Richthofen in the early years of WWII and the Spanish Civil War. In other words, I think it was a pretty close race, but the Germans were the first to implement CAS on a wide scale and therefore the first to work out the major problems with logistics, tactics, friendly fire, etc. The Marine Corps followed closely behind, but it is hard to validate their work because they didn't do anything anywhere near the scale of what the Germans attempted. Anyway, it's a point of view. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the other branches of the US Army had paid attention to the Marines. I think the Americans would have had a much easier time in North Africa. Cheers

For me, the CAS system is lacking a bit in CM, but I believe BFC has stated they are going to overhaul it for CMX2. Unfortunately this ruins the fun a bit as none of us know what that game will look like, how long the battles will be, what force sizes will be available, what theatres will be included or even what kind of structure the game will take. If BFC follows industry trends (as well as their own statements) CMX2 should use a much more flexible engine than CM covering more than one theatre of the war. IMO, there is no way this could be done without a MUCH more advanced CAS component (especially if the PTO is included), but that's just my opinion. For some nice and detailed information (and I do mean detailed) anybody interested in the topic should check out "The Army Air Forces in WWII" by James Cate and Wesley Craven (not the guy responsible for Freddy Kruger). The series has a volume covering each of the major theatres. Volume two covers North Africa and I think volume 5 covers Italy (starting with Anzio) and the rest of 44 and 45. After you wade through these books you should have enough firepower to sustain any argument (pro or con). The real challenge, however, would be to find reliable information concerning German CAS starting in the Spanish Civil War and evolving through Poland, France and Russia. They are the ones who started the whole mess, really, but you never see anything written about it besides early war propaganda. Apparently, they even had FO's mounted in AFV's calling in the Stukas. Something which I think would be a great addition to CMX2 if for no other reason than to see what a flight of dive bombers could apparently do to massed infantry. One more thing, CAS undergoes a pretty extensive evolution during WWII. In order to do it well you would have to make this appparent in the game. This would be the hard part, I think. Cheers

Yeah, thanks Crowbar. I was meaning to come back and post a warning. The maps are run through with viruses. If you go to these sites don't download anything or click on any of the links (which, on second thought, sort of equates to a "don't go there at all").

I'll burn out on WWII when someone builds a time machine, zaps me back to 1944, lets me hit the beaches at Normandy, jump in the cockpit of a Stuka or roll over a hillcrest in a Sherman knowing there's a PZ IV hiding in that treeline. Maybe then, after I've actually seen the real thing, I'll burn out and retire to GTA: Vice City. Maybe. No, seriously, I'm actually planning on staying in this thing until someone gets it right. And by right I mean really nails it. WWII on a few CDs. Sounds crazy, I know, but there's a definite evolution going on and I want to see where it goes. I mean, compare Panzer General with Combat Mission and tell me you're not just a little bit interested in seeing what will be around in another 5 or 6 years. Sometimes I wish WWII would catch on even more like on the scale of the current FPS craze. Sure there would be a mountain of crap, but at the end of all the madness you know someone would step up and make something amazing. Compare Doom with the new Rainbow Six game. Now imagine the same quantum leap made starting with Combat Mission and ending with...who knows?

Well, IMO, this forum is nice in a sort of dictator/big brother way. Civility is maintained in most cases by the nature of the game and the passionate approach of the players, but those of us who have been around for any length of time know that things are not as nice as they look on the surface. The forum is MUCH better than most others but don't look in the basement or ask why the walls are freshly painted. Worse, watch out for the police. Be careful not to run afoul of any self-proclaimed enforcers. When they speak, politely nod your head and mumble something that ends with "comrade" as you shuffle along waiting for your bread for the month and staring at your worn shoes. Oh, and if you disagree with someone be sure to include several entries from the bibliography of the book you are citing as evidence. If you don't your best chance will be to take your own life.

Thanks for the ideas. I think I will have to make a number of concessions regarding exact details. I don't think it will be a huge problem because of two factors. First, the scale and scenario designer of CMBB are going to limit me to smaller actions. Second, the objective of my campaign is not to show what individual units did, but rather to show the type of battles that were taking place. So, if I know that a certain division was in a certain region, the basic TO&E of that division and it's command structure, what conditions it fought under and what kind of orders it was receiving that will be enough. From there I will design scenarios roughly based on actual battles to convey a sense of what was happening such that players see how war was fought on the East Front in 1941 and later. 62nd Army I would love to share the wealth with you, but you will have to wait for me to become a wealthy man. I've got a list of books a mile long that I need to track down through my local library, but I promise I'll post anything that I see for myself to be worth a read. As for playtesting, I'd love to see what you think of my scenarios. I'm a bit worried about how they're going to play because I'm making them with no regard to fairness, adequate cover, play balance, etc. I just make a map that looks like what I see of Belarus and let the player figure out how to approach the terrain. My goal to give the player an objective, a few core units and let him/her decide on the rest (including trying to get his/her hands on tools to do the job). Since every player will approach my maps in a different way I'm not too interested in balance. How about if I e-mail you and tell you a bit more about what I have in mind?

I'm designing a new campaign companion for CMBB that will follow the actions of certain elements of Army Group Center. What I need is detailed information on the movements of troops in the first few months of the campaign. Any ideas on books, websites or other resources that could give me a hand? What I'm really interested in are the movements of Guderian's panzer forces, infantry actions in the rear areas, the encirclement of Russian troops in Belarus, the crossings of the Bug and Dnieper Rivers and any details concerning the setup of smaller units (batallion down).