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JulianJ

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Everything posted by JulianJ

  1. Thanks Vacillator. I've actually found yet another rogue copy on my HD. I'm going to consolidate everything into one version in the right place and get rid of the rest. I will check in the z folder too! Don't want to lose any mods.
  2. Slightly dim question here. I have two copies of SF2 on two different drives of my main gaming and graphics computer. I can't tell which one I am using when I play, I launch them from the start menu or shortcuts. I want to delete the obsolete one.
  3. Ah! Thanks Capt. I'm just on my laptop so I just clicked on a small scenario that wouldn't tax me or the computer to play. Makes more sense now you have explained it.
  4. Hi all, I'm back. I've been playing other games (sooo sorry! :-)), plus building a flight sim rig, so have not been CMing. I'm now travelling, so only have CMCW on my laptop and decided to give They Own The Night a spin. It was very easy: the russians have nowhere near enough forces to even make the yanks break a sweat, so it felt unsatisfactory. I enjoyed it somewhat but it was not the best fun.
  5. In one of the books I read during lockdown - a tank commander memoir (Brit Normandy) can't remember what it was titled, he said that you didn't stick your head out all the time, but bobbed up and down so sniper didn't have a chance to get a good bead on you but you got the situational awareness of having your head up. I also agree that the Sherman Jumbo and StuG III Saukopf mantlets ought to be hard to penetrate. Both are a lot of metal to go through and the Saukopf is going to deflect a lot of shots.
  6. @kevinkin I think many of us are frustrated by the limitations of BFC, who are a tiny company. Yes, lots of air/naval sim would be great! However Ian Easton says that the Taiwanese high command recognises that they can't defeat the Chinese on the sea and have prepared for a Stalingrad-like defence of the island. They don't expect to win, just to hold out till the Chinese ground forces are decimated, and political/economic pressures bear down on them. So CM Taiwan would involve lots of brutal urban combat.
  7. @Erwin Firstly, this is politics, and we avoid it here, so let's not go there. But you started it. Secondly, you couldn't be more wrong. The whole point about Chinese civilisation (and this is somewhat nationalistic) is that it is only applicable to China, and nowhere else. They aren't remotely interested in any sort of hegemony, and if you read any of the thinking of the CPC or previous Chinese philosophers going back a long time you would know this is the case. China has made no secret they want a multi-polar world, where everyone goes their own way. That does threaten the West, but not in the way you think.
  8. What an interesting discussion. Firstly, I think some sort of Far Eastern Modern War would be great fun! I'm wearing my Attila the Hun hat here. I have enjoyed playing all sorts of murderous games for 6 decades and supporting rulers/organisations/nations that I would never do in real life. Some* of my non-gamer friends find this difficult to understand, but I hope most people here will. That said, my views on invading Taiwan have turned 180 degrees since I read the Ian Easton book. He may not have the whole view but he makes it clear, based on factual research, that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is really, really difficult, because of the weather, the mere 14 landing beaches (all heavily fortified) and the population, who may well be ready to fight stubbornly. The Taiwanese strategy doesn't rest on submarines, but brutally sucking the Chinese invasion forces into cauldron battles on the TRP beachheads where they get massacred. Logistics over the strait is a bastard. So, in summary, awful in real life, hope it never happens. Would make a fascinating game. BTW, the US forces, at the top of their game in 1945, planned an invasion of Formosa (Taiwan) then held by the Japanese, and decided it would cause so many casualties that it was best to bypass it. *actually funkin' all of them.
  9. Just took a brief look, excellent pix, many I hadn't seen before, thanks @kohlenklau
  10. BTW yesterday I thought that China's overwhelming numerical and economic superiority would win, especially if they stop short of an invasion of Taiwan and blockade/threaten it to force a surrender to "One Country Two Systems". Now I am not so sure. The Taiwanese are prepared. Easton writes about the difficulties of overwhelming the immensely fortified islands. Pratas is of no real value and could be shrugged off. Incidentally the Chinese tried twice to invade Kinmen in the 1950s and were repulsed with horrendous casualties.
  11. This is very odd...past few days I've just been thinking about what would happen in a Taiwan invasion scenario. Today I bought the kindle of Ian Easton's 'The Chinese Invasion Threat' which looks like the most comprehensive Western book on the subject. I start wondering about a CM game. The book's a bit heavy so I come here for some light relief and you are all right on the button! . From my reading so far, invading Taiwan would be a huge, huge gamble, and potentially go wrong in so many ways. Would make a fantastic game though, with air, sea and ground components, so not all is negative.
  12. @Holien - I'm in the crowd there somewhere! I did go to a lecture by Oliver - the guy who restored the Ha Go and talked to him at length later. It is actually quite nimble as a tank, and made for jungles, narrow tracks, and China - which didn't really have any tanks. One of the rivets on the back is actually a bell push - so accompanying infantry could get the tank crew's attention!
  13. Yes, thanks, really enjoyed it. Am going to post some pix, but have to catch up with work first.
  14. I am going to TankFest at the Bovington Tank Museum on the coming weekend, Fri 17th Saturday 18th Sept. I wondered if any of the CM community would also be going and perhaps meet up for a chat? cheers Julian https://tankmuseum.org/events/tankfest/
  15. @MikeyD I know you are close to the management, so I hope you can convey what I intended (and I think Erwin did too - though I can't speak for him) was that the game would be better if some of the anomalies could be attended too. If they can't because of technical issues, then I think we would understand if we were told, but to be ignored is frusrating, especially as CM has one of the most loyal and supportive player communities.
  16. Thanks Erwin for bringing up some of these issues. I don't know how hard they are to correct, I'm not a programmer. I love CM, but I often seethe as things seem not to be realistic at all. You mention many spotting issues, which do really bug me. There's nothing like spending minutes micromanaging a sniper or ATGM team into the ideal position , to find they can't see anything. It makes no sense. The lack of communication between teams sharing the same Action Sq is very annoying. I find 19 and 23 particularly annoying, On 19 there is a very long thread somewhere which presents very good research that HE is damaging to armoured vehicles, and that near misses can cause a lot of damage. I've absolutely pounded vehicle areas with everything, inc. 122mm-155mm to negligible apparent effect, including direct hits. 23: even today, we get smartphone camera footage from Jihadis which looks like they were hiding (or possibly not!) within 100-200 m of tanks with thermal imagers and not detected. Obviously in WW2 tanks were blind. I've been in a couple in museums and looked through the commander's periscopes. The vision is very limited, and that's in a well-lighted area. Goodness knows what you would see when bumping around with smoke and dust everywhere. I know no game can be perfect, and we have many disagreements, particularly where information is contested, like WW2, but I find it very frustrating when things that are so obviously wrong destroy the suspension of disbelief and reduce the enjoyment of the game. Erwin concentrates a lot on the LOS stuff. I don't know how difficult it is to model but I was on one of my walks in southern Britain a while ago and I crested a rise with a town below. With my binoculars I could see everything for 1-2 km around. I imagined calling in artillery and air strikes on particular locations. CM doesn't seem to model this correctly. Given the huge depth of expertise of the combined "membership" it is rather irritating to me that Steve and Charles don't seem to take much notice of this. I feel they could say: OK we can work on X but we can't fix Y, sorry. I think we would accept that approach.
  17. I think it comes from the stage version of Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall. But if anyone knows better please post.
  18. Hmmm....CM Taiwan does seem to follow in the tradition of SF and CMBS....although for the poor Taiwaese sake, BF's horrible record of prediction doesn't come to fruition in this case!
  19. Yes, surely. There's a whole load of hypothetical militarist mayhem we should be testing out, in a purely imaginary manner. I love the smell of Alternative History in the Morning!
  20. I am open minded about Pacific War CM. A few months ago if you'd said, "How about CM CW?" I'd have replied, "Well, I'm not really bothered. I doubt I'll buy it." Build it and they will come. But I did and I am really enjoying it. I think CM PacWar would have takers and interest. I don't expect battlefront to be interested, but it does have all sorts of tactical challenges, and of course there are both Japanese and US tanks participating in quite a lot of battles. Never say never, huh?
  21. I'd have to tick: "All of the Above". There don't seem to be too many westerns made nowadays. What was the one with Aragorn in? That was good. You know who I mean, but it's been a long day and I can't be bothered to google it, sorry.
  22. The Shane clip is fantastic. "You ain't going to drink that in here." "You guessed it." Smack.
  23. I clicked on this as a new YT tank vid. Bit of mil porn...it was worth it for the laughs. It's clickbait. Nearly every line has something egregiously wrong. I'm sure many of you will spot stupidity I missed. Highlights: random footage of Leopards instead of the appropriate vehicle. Which tank should be competing in F1 instead of warfare?
  24. Funnily enough, like Simple Simon, I was going to pick the Sherman too. Since reading Zaloga and hearing the Chieftain/Nicholas Moran I have come round to the idea that it was a pretty decent and survivable tank for WW2 (that is with the various upgrades, expecially ammo stowage).
  25. I'd like to add this to the list: it's on Youtube for free - the 2019 Russian Film "Tankers". It's not a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it. I think you have to suspend your "military geekness" and not mind the Pz IVs are not 1942 variants (they seem to be full size vismods, not cleverly-done 1/6 R/C tanks, which I thought at first). I won't say anything about the plot for the sake of spoilers, but I thought the characters are well-drawn; because there is a female Russian tank repair engineer there is a romantic element which adds some light and shade to the often all-male war film type. The main tank is a real KV1. Loved that. It seems surprisingly roomy inside . Lots of T34s. There's a lot of the mundane aspect of tank warfare: bogging down in a stream and mechanical issues which make a change from many other films. Several scenes take place while the crew are re-ammunitioning the tank which I found a clever use of drama and realism.
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