Doctor Sinister

That's me! Dr. S. [ August 17, 2004, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: Doctor Sinister ]

Hey Claus B - I'm not seeing things am I? That's a King Tiger driving around in your photo? Where was that picture taken? I know they have King Tigers in France and Russia - is that the French one? Flamingknives - interesting that the display said the track was metal. When I was there, the chap who gave the 13:00 "Tiger Talk" certainly said that the replacement track was made of resin - and it didn't look like metal to me. Apart from anything else, it didn't seem to "hang" right on the front. Then again, this bloke clearly wasn't 100% sure of all of his facts - so maybe you are right. I agree that the Tiger isn't what I would call "pretty" but I also concur with the previous posting - it looks a hell of a lot more formiddable than the stuff it was going up against. Personally I hate Sherman Tanks - they just look too wimpy. But then, looks aren't everything I guess!

The replacement track on the front is actually a resin replica - unfortunately that's pretty obvious when you see it "in the flesh" so to speak. It just doesn't look quite right. Nice touch though. Re' the engine, yes I agree, and I'm sure they would have preferred to use an idential engine as the original one that broke, however as someone else has stated here, where would you get one?

Was it fully loaded? I have no idea what was on board. Probably just a small amount of fuel (since it ran out of petrol when they drove it in) and just enough oil and water for when they want to crank it up again. I doubt that there's any ammunition of any type in there - not even any dummy stuff, it's not like you can see inside it right now or anything like that. Obviously no food or consumables are kept on board, but I don't think they'd add significantly to the weight anyway. Here are two more pictures that show the Tiger from the side - as you can see, there's not THAT much room between the upper body and the top of the tracks as it is. Let's face it, the thing weighs 57 tons already, Personally I don't see the addition of a crew or supplies causing it to lower much more, if at all. The impression I get is that the torsion bar suspension would only really significantly move when the vehicle was moving, but I'm not an expert, so perhaps someone else might want to comment on that. Perhaps you could compare these "unladen" pictures with some pix taken of Tigers during the war and compare the distances between the tracks/wheels and the upper body? If you ask me, the Tiger just cries out to be sat beneath an overhead all-round gantry and for those hatches to be open so people can see inside. I tried to get some pictures showing the top of the engine deck and the hatches and they came out OK, but although I'm 6 foot 6 inches tall, I couldn't-just-quite get a picture showing the top of the turret.

Actually, I was under the impression the original Maybach was beyond repair, and that the one currently inside the Tiger I is actually from a King Tiger? I seem to recall reading this on the Bovington site a few months ago - they had to do some alterations inside the Tiger to get the replacement engine in, because it wouldn't quite fit. I'm open to correction however, I might not be fully up to date with the info' on this.

Personally I didn't find that to be the case. I can see where you are coming from, but it didn't take much for me to imagine the terror some of these things must have invoked in the enemy as they came rolling towards them. It's the enormous mass of these things that gets me. They are just so massive and heavy - huge great slabs of metal welded and riveted together. The tracks on the King Tiger must be two feet wide, each. imagine that running over your foot. I think it goes without saying that I'd rather meet a tank in a museum any day than have to go and fight one!

First, sorry again for starting the same conversation on two separate forums - oh the shame... Yes, it's the Bovington Tiger. I went to see it today with a friend of mine. Got lots of nice pictures but no room to put them up anywhere (my site is nearly full of other stuff). They also have a Panther and King Tiger there. The Panther was somewhat cramped and surrounded by lots of other stuff - so I couldn't really get a good long-range look at it unfortunately. The King Tiger is one of those with the non-standard turret. Again, it's difficult to get the same sense of awe from the King Tiger as with the Tiger I because currently it's just sat in a row with other tanks and AFVs. The Tiger I is in its own display area and you can walk all around it - not so with the King Tiger and I just wasn't as impressed with it as I thought I would be. Bloody big gun though!!

I didn't know whether to post this in the General Forum or here, so I did both. I suppose, strictly speaking, it's off-topic, but it's also relevant here, in a way. Sorry for the duplication... Pictures of the last remaining operational Tiger Mk I in the world - yes, it actually runs. 1) View down the barrel - had to really reach up high with the camera to get this shot: 2) Yours truly with the beast:

Is there any demand out there for scenarios that are totally *TOTALLY* fictional - right down to completely changing the history of the war itself? I've just knocked up a new multi-Battalion sized scenario in CMAK called the "Battle of Basingstoke". I was just wondering if it was worth uploading it anywhere or if anyone wanted to test it for me - because I've no idea if it's any good or not!? I got the inspiration from an alternative history book I was reading about the German invasion of England. The scenario deals with a fictional battle between German and British troops in southern England on the GHQ line at the town of Basingstoke (where I happen to live these days) in an effort to break through and capture London. In order to achieve what I thought would be the the "right" mix of forces (i.e. as historically accurate as I could get them), I've had to steal ("time-warp") British troops from North Africa in 1940, and German troops from North Africa in 1941 (they were the earliest I could find). Although the scenario details state that the battle is taking place in Italy, September 1944, the battle is in fact taking place in England, September 1940, which would have been the optimal time for Hitler to launch Operation Sea Lion following the defeat of the British Expeditionary Force and the Dunkirk evacuations. Anyway, just thought I'd post here and ramble on a bit to see if anyone was interested. Like I say, I make no guarantees re' the quality of the scenario, but it should be quite exciting. I mainly just knock up scenarios for my friend and he seems to enjoy them. If this battle in England is any good, I had visions of doing an entire “campaign” starting with the invasion itself. Probably been done already though… I'll shut up now.

How about a "Clinic" area where losers like me could upload saved games mid-way through a battle when things are going REALLY badly? Then other players can load up the game and get out of the mess that the original player has got themselves into with as few casualties as possible and post a reply with tactics/solutions? just a thought. I'll shut up now.

Well, it's not CMBB, but this is one experience I had in CMAK when I was playing as Germans against the British in Italy. There was a massive firefight going on in a town which involved a small amount of armour and loads of Infantry. We each held about half of the town and we were slugging it out. The situation was prety much stalemated at the time, but the British were moving up some tanks into the town centre. Then I heard a plane circling overhead. Fortunately, I had deployed some 20mm Flak cannon on one side of a river which divided the town. The guns were busy enjoying themselves, knocking out light armour as the plane arrived. When the plane started on its attack run, my Flak guns turned and opened up on the Spitfire and apparently distracted the pilot just enough so that he ended up dropping his bomb load right smack bang onto a Sherman tank on the British front line. The Sherman had been supporting a renewed push against my own troops, and as it exploded, it took out a squad of enemy Infantry that had just vacated a building, intent on rushing me. This single event pretty much tilted the balance of the game in my favour, and although the plane strafed me a few more times, the fact that the British had lost one of their tanks, and the initiative in the town centre, won me the battle. Thank God for the RAF!

It's the DVD style boxes that I really like and that was why I bought the second copy. They look so nice on my games shelf - I used to get really annoyed about overpackaging of PC games years ago, now they are all uniform. I feel that it fits in with the natural order of things. I could have simply used an empty DVD box that contained a cover disc from a magazine, but that would have meant printing a decent cover for it. I actually toyed with the idea (for about ten seconds) of posting a request on here for a scan of the box - but decided against that as I knew I would get short-shrift!! I'm just a sucker for packaging and marketing I guess. I'll never learn. But I've got my nice box to go with the other versions of CM and now I'm happy.

I live in the UK and ordered the US copy of CM:AK over the net' - didn't want any of that censored rubbish. When I got it, was a little disappointed that it didn't come in a box. It actually arrived with the quickie manual in a brown envelope. I went out this lunchtime and spent twenty quid on the UK/European version (CDV) just for the box. I'm happy now. Was this a terribly sad thing to do?

Has it already been done then? I somehow thought it might have been but couldn't find any mention in this forum. Where can I get a copy of this other version? Just to see how bad my own one is?! Thanks for all the responses.

Hello everyone. First posting, new person here, been playing all three versions of CM for just a few weeks now after my friend finally persuaded me to get into it. We play CMAK over the net and I'm pleased to say I've beaten him a couple of times, but the last time he totally creamed me. I always play as the Germans. He has a fetish for playing as the US. I digress... I'm trying to create a very small scenario based on the scene in the 1993 film "Stalingrad" where some German Stormtroopers are facing off against 6 T-34s and some Russian Infantry. The Germans are dug in and have a 50mm ATG (I think, difficult to tell precisely) and the Tanks are advancing through a small chokepoint bordered by trees. In the film, the Germans destroy all 6 tanks with a combination of magnetic mines, Molotov cocktails and fire from their ATG. I have no idea how realistic this is - perhaps if you've seen the film you'll know which bit I'm talking about. I have deliberately weakened the Germans to reflect the position in the film - 2 split squads with heavy weapons sections (Anti-Tank) at the front, support sections to the rear and 50mm gun right at the back with the Platoon HQ in command range of everyone in the middle in a sort of triangular formation - all dug in. Basically, my SOLE aim is to recreate as precisely as possible the scene in the film. Sad isn't it? Trouble is, it's impossible to win! My gun sometimes knocks out a couple of the enemy tanks, but then gets blown up itself. The main problem is that I can't get the troops to stay put long enough to use their Anti-Tank weapons, they leg it as soon as they can - not that I blame them mind you, but I shall have stern words with them when we get out of this. Erm, I'm sorry, I wandered off there for a moment. In order to buy the Germans a little more time, I placed a small rise in the chokepoint so that the Russian tanks couldn't simply bombard the troops from afar - i.e. to try and recreate the close quarters combat in the film and get them all mixed in together - but despite being in range more often than not, the troops still won't use their Anti-Tank weapons. So, my question is, how can I "persuade" them to do this? Any ideas or is it just a case of them using what they want to use, when they feel like it? Regards, Dr. S.