Corvidae

try playing ''the bitter end'' as axis, give allies a 100% bonus, prepare to think,, i've done it,, its fun,

I dont alow them to cross either,, they were in cover,, and safe,, i wanted them to move along the gully, remaining in cover,, i asigned waypoints, to move along the gully, one platoon at a time,, well spaced, keeping in cover, and i hit go,,,,, and they all ran out from cover to the hill,,, even the units that had no move orders at all,,, and after that, they ignored all move orders to go back to cover,, the orders spontaniously switched from the ones i gave, to the new run or sneak orders,, and this always happened,,, after i surendered i looked at the map, the enemy had no los to the gully, the gully was as safe as i had assumed it was,,, , i explored the gully, it was deep, wide and passable, full of scattered trees and spots of forest,,,, but my units abandoned it, for no reason, and went strait to the hill, nice bare hill, fully exposed, even my arty spoters ran up and died,, worse yet, the only platoon that didnt do this,, was a conscript comand squad with zero bonuses, leading 3 squads of green infantry, they stayed in cover, the rest of my forces rushed to the hill and got slaughtered, i didnt order them to go there,,,,,,,,,,, When i do send troops across open ground,, i spread them out and use smoke,,,

Its a problem i have seen over and over in the game,, When units independently dash from cover to a very exposed position, and then sneak in that position, Squad upon squad will pile into a small area of maximum exposure, and they will be slaughtered,, Once it starts,, no order will cause them to return to cover,, I call it deathpile,, they start out running,, untill they reach the point of extermination,, and then they sneak back and forth in a tiny patern of 'sneak' waypoints,, This goes untill they become paniced and broken,, and then continues untill they are whiped out,,,, Its almost funny to watch the whrithing mass of squads as they sneak in the same spot,, Has it ever happened to you??

ok,, a movie about kursk might not sell, But a movie about an interesting character who just happens to fight at kursk??? This gets my sick and twisted mind working,, Someone mentioned female tank crews?? Lets avoid the cheesy propaganda film angle, Lets think about a character, Believable and ordinary,, and yes female,,, Opening scene,, new poster praising the non agression pact of 39 goes up on a wall, female student walking past, stops and looks at the poster, says 'Bull****' and walks on by, Anna Kamnyencho, first year student at university of kursk, age 18, attends kursk school of engineering, ,,,, fast forward to 41, Anna is evacuated from kursk,, arives in moscow, enlists , and joins a new tank regiment, some minor combat in battle of moscow, sent east for more training,, etc etc,,,,, untill actual battle of kursk,, lots of carnage and military depravity, battle ends,, Anna is still alive,, fast forward to today,, old woman , ww2 vetran beaten to death by neonazi skin heads in kursk, haunting question,,, have the nazis finaly gotten what they wanted after all?? Would this movie sell???

sergi,,,, my spelling and punctuation are bad,, and are unlikely to improve any time soon, it works better after the reader has had a few pints,

given that the modern tanks you mentioned have only been used against poorly trained peasant conscripts, hastily raised bands of freedom fighters, and illiterate tribesmen,, and still have been showen to be vulnerable,, i would say that the heer could stop them easily enough, any coordinated counter attack, no mater how poorly armed, can find a weakness in the attackers forces,

This is june of 44 we are talking about,, the russians were still in russia, poland was still safely within german hands, and there is a river called the vitsula,, runs from south to north in poland,, dig in on both sides, about say 10 km deep on each side, thats 20 km deep plus the river width,,,, mine the bridges in advance,, and create hidden submerged bridges in areas that can be easily covered from the west bank, clear out all civilian population from the area,, establish amo factorys,, small ones,, easily hidden behind the zone, , At the same time,, build an identical line along the russia/poland border, also 20 km deep,, build up a mobile PzGren force in poland, and train them hard,, untill they know the landscape intimately,, By the time the russians reach poland,( sept or oct of 44) you are ready for them, can you cook bratwurst on a burning T34?? lets find out

hi, non christian here,, will ask the goddess to watch over the kid, am lighting incence and candles for prayers now,, blessed be

i just go by tone, when my troops are up for a good fight,, they sound enthusiastic,,,, when they are walking along a road with no enemy contact, they sound bored, ,,,,, when they are being pounded into the dirt by airstrikes, they sound terrified,,, ,,, and if they are ukranian motorized cavalry, they sound drunk,, if you are axis , and you hear a loud cry of ''UHRAAAHHHHH!!!!!'',, that means the russians are going to kill you,, you dont need to know the exact meanings of the words,, although you will pick up the general meanings, apply common sense,, when your troops are fleeing in panic, what words are they saying,,, these are fear words,, figure it out from there

with or without the facists in berlin,, the war would have happened anyway, If the comunists had won the 33 election, the peoples republic of germany would have gone against the traitor stalin to liberate russia, If the christian democrats had won the election, they would have invaded russia to end godless comunism, If hindenbergs military faction had won the election,they would have built a european aliance against russia,, If the monarchists had won,, they would have been honour bound to restore the czar,,, war between russia and germany was inevitable,, the only question was when and how,,

I am reminded of a story told to me by an old german named henrich, His battalion had arived in a pro german town in russia, they were driving through when one truck sudenly turned and everybody bailed out, it then burst into flame and then exploded, A freak electrical short had ignited the fuel pump and the fire spread to the fuel tank, a few boxes of ammo only made it a bigger mess, no casualtys, but a very embarassed head mechanic,,,

I could be wrong, but i suspect that the german failure to set up their economy for arms production may have been the mistake that cost them the war, that and stalingrad destroyed their offensive capabilitys, Also the failure to exploit manufacruring capabilitys in occupied russia, All this, combined with their failure to even attempt to win over the people of russia, made the eastern war a fiasco, Add political interference in military planing and you get disasters, ******************* in the spring of 41, the germans were still focusing on the production of civilian consumer goods, Arms manufacture was a poor second, this continued untill 43,,, German soldiers were being deprived of essential equipment, so that german houswives could have cosmetics, This was a recipe for failure, The luftwaft had no long range OR heavy bombers, and was therefore unable to hit hard enough to truely knock out the enemys economy, The reich's failure to respond inteligently to churchills deccision to make civilians a target for air attack, a potential propaganda victory,, wasted by the decision to respond in kind, thus sacrificing any moral high ground they might have otherwise been able to claim,,(and refocusing the war from a purely military exercise, to a terror campaign)... Chancelor Adolf Hitlers personal obsession with the city of stalingrad, ,, and the usual assortment of racial ideology and religious lunacy that squandered the german reich's opportunitys and resources, All these factors plus the german armys poor long range attack capabilitys, cost them the war in the east, The actual timing of the barbarosa offensive, was only a small part of the problem.

best, panzer 5 tiger, it could kill anything at long range, had great armor, and was fairly reliable, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, favorite late war panzer 2, it was useless true, but it was sooo cute, like a little lost puppy,

"...and why is it that in MG crews only the gunner fires? What are the ammo bearers doing? Twidling their thumbs in a firefight!" ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the gunner fires the gun, the ammo bearer feeds the gun, the spotters look for fresh targets,

Amedeo, It was my understanding that penal units were composed of a mix, some purged officers and soldiers, and some assorted people dredged from regular prisons, plus, a few political dissidents, i suppose that some units would have trained personel, but penal units were also seen a a usefull way of emptying prisons, ,

"Reinforcements are en-route", one of the greatest lies ever told, belongs along side of "the cheque is in the mail", and "If elected, i will____", ,,, The harsh reality is that your reinforcements got spoted by a sturmovic, the survivors are hiding in a brothel,

Hey Oberst, Look, I'm close to the enemy gun emplacement,,, Hey Oberst, look, I'm dead,,

Ummmm,,, russian tanks are not as good as german tanks??? no way, lol, that is the whole story of the war, Crappy russian tanks beat superior german tanks by learning to get close without being spoted, and doing so in large numbers, use terrain to your advantage, flank them, ambush them, or avoid them, the only thing the russians had was the K V's, a KV could survive a sluging match, but a T34 was doomed if it was spoted by anything biger than a 37mm pz3,

STu.G in a skirt, kinda like Pz 4 in a bra???

Although the mission designer said not to do it,I am nevertheless playing this mission from the german side, I am having a wonderfull time, i'm getting slaughtered, but its ok, I find that the ai is truely predictable in its use of off-map artilery, , I am counterattacking, I am outgunned, outnumbered, worn out, my troops are weak and short of ammo, It feels like home

Soviet Penal Troops recieved almost no training, They were cannon fodder, Soviet militia and irregular troops(partisans), recieved little formal training Soviet regular infantry normaly recieved extencive drill training, but little musketry training, (during the early war period,41/42, a lot of regular infantry were rushed to the front with little or no training) Soviet cavalry, recon, and guards, were very highly trained, Soviet naval troops were very highly trained, Quality of training varied, a heavily purged unit generaly had few good training sargents left, An unpurged unit had all its training personel, and so could better train recruits, There was also the matter of officer corruption and incompetence, this had an effect on training quality as well,,,

Mike,, he (Henrich) wasnt my grandfather, just a farmer i worked for over a few summers, I have no photos, but i can try to remember his storys, the bad news is that........... A) he was a bit of a drunk, so his storys were garbled to begin with, it was over a decade ago, C) i wasnt exactly mr sobriety myself at the time ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but yes, he was a good freind, and his storys were probably true, although blured by time and alcohol, i'll try to get them down and pass them on to you

Old Henrich had a farm, i worked for him for a summer, he was a heavy drinker and his accent was awfull, one day he showed me his old medals, a veteran of both wars, he had a lot of the things, he told me that he was one of the last men evacuated from stalingrad, it was january, it was snowing, Henrich was ordered to stop deserters from boarding the planes, he was standing on the ladder at the door of the tri-motor, using a russian schmiser to beat terrified men away from the plane, , a panicy officer shot him while trying to sneak on board, he fell into the plane, and then the pilot reved the engines and they were running, Henrich was watching as dozens of terrified germans tryed to hold the landing gear of the plane, they all fell, they all died, Henrich lived, untill 1993, , he was 98 yrs old, i do recall the day we went to toronto to meet his granddaughter, a gang of skinheads was harrassing a jamacan woman at the airport, they were shouting about the arian race and other crap, Henrich walked up to them and said," i've gutted better men than you at stalingrad", he then let fly with his cane, he beat the skinheads into the ground, i think he would have killed them if airport security hadn't stopped him, ,, the skinheads were taken to hospital, Henrich was arrested, in court Henrich talked about the war a great deal, he talked about how the nazis had led germany to hell, the judge declared Henrich's actions justifiable, he was sent home with a stern warning to seek anger management help, i miss the old bastard, a proud and stuborn old veteran, and a fanatical anti facist,

your depleted squad went to get beer and sausages, on the way he was stopped by a cute blond with a problem, they are fixing the problem, he wont be back,,,,

dont do it, the withdraw command not only turns your troops into a broken rabble, it also opens a door to another universe in which the rolling stones dont suck