Cessna

Oops, sorry. "Bidermann's Gun." Like the thread title.

There is a scenario in the game (on the bonus CD and in Scenario Depot) that depicts a small action that is described in Gottlob Bidermann's book, "In Deadly Combat." Two 37mm Paks and a platoon of infantry defend a villiage against several T-34s. I've played the scenario a few times - always as the Germans - and I can NOT seem to win. What's the secret? I've tried all sorts of defenses, and always seem to stop a few T-34s - only to get slaughtered in response...

Absolutely. Believe it or not, I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that hitting a target at 500 yards is not exactly an "olympian" feat...

Hardly. When I was in the Marines we trained to hit torso-sized targets at 500 yards with open-sight M-16A2s. If you couldn't hit the target as a matter of routine, you would be in BIG trouble. A WWII bolt-action has comparable - maybe even slightly better - accuracy. With that said, the gun cres with the gun shield - well, they had more protection than the average rifleman...?

Tanks are actually relatively fragile - I don't have a problem with them getting stuck as often as they do in the game. Especially if you're dealing with relatively inexperienced drivers. Drive on gravel, take a tight turn, and you might throw track. I can't see railroad tracks breaking a drift pin or otherwise damaging a suspension, but I would certainly slow down before crossing them if I could. I've seen tanks immobilized by comm wire - a thin communications wire. It can get wrapped around a drive sprocket, shred the seal, and cause the final drive to sieze up. NOT fun. BUT - while I think the frequency that tanks get immobilized in the game isn't extraordinarily unrealistic, I DO think it makes the game - which is a game, first and foremost - a bit too reliant on luck...

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I could be wrong, but could it be a casemate?

SPI's Sniper - Lord, we played the hell out of that. Specificly the TSR redux. It was the only wargame I could get ahold of during a long overseas deployment with the USMC - we completely wore out our copy...

I can certainly believe that a KV tank blocked a road intersection for several hours. Hell, Audie Murphy, a single infantryman, blocked "6 tanks and waves of infantry" for a while. It's the "days" angle that I don't believe. The report above doesn't say "days," but several versions of it do - I can't help but believe that's the "urban legend" factor creeping in...

I started at roughly age 10 with PanzerBlitz. And I've never looked back...

The Marines look very good! I especially like the "duck hunter camo" helmets...

I know it's impossible, but I can dream about it... Wouldn't it be great if all of the CM games were compatible? If you could use AK units in BB? Or Overlord maps? *sigh*

I'll add: Operation: Flashpoint Battlefield: Vietnam

I must admit, I'm sceptical. 1. For one thing, I've seen this story tell of a KV-1 and of a KV-2. Which one was it? 2. How much ammunition does a KV hold? I've got a couple different numbers from different sources, but most say around 110 rounds for a KV-1, and the KV-2 carried far less ammo. That's more than enough to put up a good fight, but to hold out for days? 3. This took place at the beginning of the war, when the Germans had air superiority. If it was blocking such a critical road intersection, why didn't the Germans have it bombed? They had days to do so. I could believe that they tried to bomb it and failed, but the fact that bombing isn't even mentioned strikes me as strange. 4. The same goes for heavy caliber indirect fire artillery. Hit it with 150mm+ for a while, and you'll certainly at least give the crew concussions...? 5. Tanks are relatively blind, especially at night. Why didn't the Germans try sending in engineers with demolition charges at night? I'm not going to say it is a fairy tale, but there are a number of reasons why I am suspicious... [ May 01, 2004, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: Cessna ]

Whoops - found them over at the Scenario Depot. Sorry about the waste of bandwidth, folks. http://ns9.super-hosts.com/%7Edragonlair.net/combatmission/

Does anyone remember this old board wargame from the late 70's? It was a very detailed Avalon Hill game about small-unit combat in the Galaza battles. Has anyone converted the scenarios to CMAK?

Oh, yes - I downloaded them and played them all. Good fun, those!

Yeah, "Army Men." It was fun, years ago...

Absolutely. When I look back at all of the cardboard-and-hex wargames I played for decades, I appreciate the CM series even more. I'm in the middle of two games of CMBB. I'm playing one game against a guy from Finland who I will probably never meet in real life, and another against a friend from my USMC days as an excuse to keep in touch. I can send a turn any time I have a spare ten minutes. My cat can't knock over the board between games. I don't have to wait for the post office to return their moves. There are no rules disputes - either the game will let me do something or it won't. There's no arguing over line-of-sight. I can't mis-interpret a rule by mistake. I will never forget to apply a die-roll modifier. All of the "bugs" of old wargaming have been solved. There's limited "S-2," intelligence. I don't have total control over my units - sometimes they panic and shoot too soon, revealing their positions. They retreat when they get shot up, as real troops do. My units are 3D models, with lovingly rendered paint jobs, who "move" when I click them. I can pick which camo scheme I want them to have before each battle. I'll never lose a single counter or spill coffee on a map. The little infantry "run" into position, and my opponent's troops yell in real Finnish or German when I shoot them. Yes, the social interaction of old wargames is missing, even though we send friendly e-mails. But I'm playing a game against an opponent I never would have met otherwise, and keeping in touch with a fellow USMC vet. I'm wearing out my CMBB CD, as Panzerblitz gathers dust in my basement. We've got it good, people. But can you blame us for wanting even more? [ April 28, 2004, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: Cessna ]

I'd love to see a hypothetical WW3 game, set in Western Europe during the Cold War. At the beginning of the scenario, you pick the year. Was the war started in 1945, immediately after WW2? Or did it start over the Berlin Wall Crisis in 1961 or the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? Or is it the mid-80's? Setup and equipment are obviously different in each... I realize this will never happen, but I'd like to see it...

Oh, absolutely - but the mind-set is that the minefield is protecting a weakness that can be attacked. Better to attack through the minefield that is lightly defended than into a more heavily defended area...

If the crew bails out, it's for a good reason - the vehicle is on fire or somesuch. They're not just going to get back in it...

One thing about minefields - they're meant to channel enemies into traps. If you're defending, you put mines where you don't want the enemy to go. If you've found a minefield, you know you've found a potential weak point in the enemy's defenses. It might be less costly in the long run to try to drive through that minefield rather than blundering into a trap...

I don't think it will happen. They've moved on to Afrika Corps, and I have no idea what will happen after that. Too bad, really. The CM series are the best wargames I've ever played on a PC. I'd love to see them stick around for a long time...

Don't mock the I-16 - it's surprisingly scrappy. The thing can turn on a dime and has good machineguns. It can hold its own - I've shot down a few planes with one. I think that could be good! I'd prefer to do a mission, if we could, rather than a free-for-all. I've found that random shoot-'em-ups get old pretty fast...