Big Jim

Surely bullets would only show when tracer rounds were being used, as the projectiles are extremely small and fast. Again, would it depend upon muzzle velocity how visible tank shells were? I only see mine when they bounce off enemy armour!

The British voices are definitely different from the 'Colonials'. The Aussies, New Zealanders and South African voices sound to be the same, and I'm pretty sure the Canadians share with the Americans. Trust me, an Aussie wouldn't be happy if you confused him with one of us Pommies.

Get CMAK (not CDV version- I won't even begin to rant about that again..) and get some desert warfare going- it's got all the refinements as standard. You can always download the patch at a later date- but you won't worry about that for a while when you get playing the latest and greatest!

Isn't it just the best? A few years ago I found the game 'Eastern Front' and then 'Western Front' by Talonsoft, which I thought at the time was amazing- and then CMBO came along. The CM series is, like another poster has in their quote- "like real sex, anything else is just porn", or something like that. PBEM is a pretty new thing for me, and seriously get started because even a crap human opponent is MUCH more fun than the AI (and more satisfying to drub into the ground... or be drubbed by in my case!)

To quote John Keegan's 'The Second World War', concerning the preperation for El Alamein: "Montgomery conceived his offensive in a style altogether different from his predecessors, who had been consistently tempted by the freedom of manoeuvre ... in the hope of achieving a Panzer-style Blitzkrieg. Montgomery rightly judged that the British armoured divisions lacked the flair to out-German the Germans". It took us Brits a while to learn that particular lesson!

Great site Mark, thanks for the mods and scenarios- sorted out CMBB and CMAK in no time! Keep up the good work.

Out of curiosity Seanachai, do you have the battlefront or CDV version?

After playing CMBB for many many hours, and now having owned CMAK for two months, i seem to have noticed that the Axis and Allies (ie. USA, UK, etc.) in CMAK surrender to one another in combat much more readily that in CMBB (ie. Soviets). Is this just me, or have the BFC team tweaked the way lone units surrender? If so, was it on purpose to reflect the less 'bitter' struggle on the Western Front, or did it just need changing?

It is rather annoying how all other countries in Europe get lumped in with Germany however, I know its not a major issue like gameplay, but for a purportedly historically accurate game, it ruins the effect a little. And what is a 'waffengrenadier'- an armed grenadier? Presumably as opposed to the deadly unarmed grenadiers... I appreciate the need perhaps for the law in Germany, but its not the case in the UK, for the obvious reasons that we never even contemplated 'batting for the other side'. CM is the greatest game ive ever owned, but please get it sorted, maybe in a patch or CM*2.

Just finished this scrap today as italians, bloody good scrap as well! Keeping the advancing Italians out of sight until all but the troops in the really narrow valley were in place and softening up with the 65mm (about as likely to kill entrenched crack soldiers as a water pistol) was the order of the day until about turn 15. Then, after bringing one platoon from each company to the ridge to engage the enemy in a bit of a shoot out and get their heads down and landing some 75mm shells (much more like it!), got two platoons from each company to advance, along with the Panzerchens. The French did a good job of popping a few Italians, but with veteran status they held out in the simultaneous charge, and took the outer foxholes. By turn 27 or so, the Foreign Legion surrendered en masse at the beginning of the turn to my bemusement. 80-20 final score, Italian 477 ok, 78 casualties, 20 kia. French 0 ok, 99 casualties, 23 kia, 28 captured. I loved this scenario, it had a really colonial feel to it, which the fighting in East Africa at the start of the war essentially was. Wouldnt fancy being the French against a human opponent though- last stand of the Foreign Legion! Vive la france!

For CMx2, I think modern warfare (cold war becomes hot...) would be superb- and the infantry would be much happier packing stinger missiles and Carl Gustav's against the heavies. Real battles are more fun to simulate though... maybe Iraq, Falklands, Vietnam etc. I've got faith the designer types will make a stonker though- they've already made CM series, which speaks for itself in quality.