ww2steel

Yeah, it's wierd! The front sight is mounted directly in the center on top of the barrel. The rear sight is mounted directly in the center of the receiver behind the feed tray. About an inch and a half up on the base of the mount the cast/ machining goes to a canted posture and the entire 10" tall rear sight is canted about 7 degrees to the LEFT (I said right earlier) when viewed from behind. I have seen this in several other DShKs and a guy from the DShK board scanned and emailed a copy of his Soviet manual that shows that is supposed to be this way. Why??? I'm looking more into gyroscopic forces. Mike

Wow, yeah, makes a point. Especially the counter and the funding of global hunger for 11 years!

My wife is pretty tolerant of my hobbies- even gets involved sometimes! From my website, her helping me to chisel about 100 pounds of concrete out of the bottom of my Bren/ Universal Carrier. There's another pic of her on the site with the DShK before I sent it off to be machined. She has her own Mauser, a '45 K98 (SWP code?) made in Czechoslovakia (she's Czech). She's a good shot, maybe a 7 inch group at 100 yards with open sights. Still trying to get her to shoot my new .50 BMG though. We went to Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot last weekend, took our Great Dane with us. (The Dane was fine except when the 90mm AT gun fired and she got kind of freaked out when we tried to leave!) As for the computer games I keep getting told to "turn that down" because she's trying to watch TV in the same room, and she's always wanting to play her games. We are going to need a second PC! Mike

I have asked this on the DShK forum as well without a good answer yet... The DShK (the big Soviet .50 cal) has a very tall real sight graduated to several thousand meters. When viewing it from the rear, you can see that it is canted just a few degrees- I think with the top to the right. It is actually machined this way about half way up on the sight mount. Is this to compensate fo gyroscopic forces on the spinning bullet as it accelerates down due to gravity? (Doesn't seem like it would be spinning that fast, but I guess after a couple thousand meters... ?) Something else? Three other Russian DShKMs I have seen are this way- can't speak for the 38 models or the Chinese. I know somebody on here will know the answer for sure!!! Mike

In the on topic realm of the East Front... who cares? I had hoped this was something about ballistics... oh well.

Thanks everybody, glad you like it! Mike

Just a small mod that turns the Panther D early into a Pantherturm for those once in a hundred years times when you want one. Made for when the vehicle is dug in in the scenario design. I included the originals, because obviously ur gonna want 'em. I prefer this mod to be distributed only on my website. Please don't send me mean messages that somebody's done it before or it's ugly, or whatever- I was just goofing around and wanted to share. See ya, Mike. The Combat Mission Portion of my site: http://www.ww2steel.com/Combatmission.html

The Grizzly Bear was a great weapon, especially once they gave it an MG. The problem was that by the time it was ready, they were no longer attacking fortified cites. Its combat history was limited by this. Mike

Cool story.. the CMBB version: We heard this whoosh, and all that was left was one guy with a BAR who paniced and ran off the map... all of the tank commanders were dead too. Mike

To add- some books say that they are depth charge launchers, some say they are U boat land assault mortars. Though it's less common, I tend to believe the latter, especially given the book I took it out of (Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WWII, a VERY good book that needs to be in any collection). Mike

Kettler- Cool, it's obvious that even to the very knowledgable writers of my books that knowledge of their combat use in the theaters they were known to be in is very limited. No doubt this round could be a 'tank flipper'! Mike

Okay, 18 of these wree converted from existing Tiger chassis from Aug - Dec '44. The weapon came from a 1943 attempt to make a mortar for U boats to attack land targets. KM dropped project, but Heer finished it for this function. 4.6km range. Issued to Sturmmorser companies 1001, 1002, 1003. "employed mainly in defense of the German homeland" (Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WWII) German Tanks of WWII: 6km range of a 761 pound projectile. Must be reloaded at zero elevation = very slow rate of fire. Four men, including the gunner, were required to load. "only useful employment ... was in the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, though seven were present during Operation 'Wacht am Rhein". ...further back in the same book it shows a 5.5km range. They used rebuilt battle damaged vehicles. In late '44 employed on East front and Italy. Dec'44 1000, 1001 companies (with their seven combined STigers) were to be used in Ardennes OFfensive, but could not keep up with front lines. The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles: shows 14 rounds carried, says they were only build because the navy had no ships to put the finished launchers into (though I personally doubt this). That should be enough info Mike

Hi, Wow, cool pic. It is debated if these are used in combat. If I remember correctly the only confirmed use of these was against an uprising of the Warsaw ghetto. Use in the game is just SOOOO gamey.. 'a whoosh, then suddenly every man within 150m is dead.' I'll see what else I can find, Mike

I've got a file that shows accuracy and rate of fire: http://www.ww2steel.com/Combatmission.html about halfway down on the page. I need to update it (much newer one on my HD), but this one covers all of the Soviet/ German tanks. Have fun, Mike

So rather than just having the unit not available at all, or limited availablility you guys would rather put in a request for a unit or specific type of unit (ie armor) that might not make it, but the request improves the probability that you would get that type of reenforcement. Interesting idea. I guess I could live with that. From my few programming classes I think this would be harder to implement, but I agreee the most realistic. Can we can all agree that in long engagements simply receiving scheduled reenforcements with no tactical basis should be improved to give the designer/ player more control / flexibility?

Thanks

Dorosh- what you described above would be awesome if they'd take the time to implement it. The way Close Combat did it (CC3 was best) was that rarity meant not that it too more points, but that it simply wasn't there to be chosen. There was a chance that those cherry units just simply wouldn't be available for an entire operation. The problem then is cherry picking of the common units, which of course I always did in CC3 and is unrealistic- but the fact that you simply couldn't just buy 4 King Tigers at once was good. Mike

Yes, I absolutely agree with what you are saying here. My only problem is the discrepancy between what is needed and what is provided in reenforcements. Granted, the better then scenario the designer, and larger the scenario is, the more minimal this problem is. If CMBB could somehow intelligently determine what reenforcements are helpful and could send them, that would be absolutely perfect for me. I agree that 'buying' units is goofy, but I feel that simply getting this certain equipment on this certain date (+- %age) with absolutely no respect to tactical requirements is even more goofy. I could at least make a request for whatever support would suit my needs in a real engagement. My superior may tell me to take a hike, but I could at least ask (hence buying = asking). Mike

Then don't vote! As I said, able to be set by the scenario designer. I would also like to see rarity have more effect to prevent cherry picking, which I suspect is what you're talking about... who can buy more Tiger tanks & earrly KV's etc. Mike

Purchasing: I brought this up. My idea was to alter the way that CMBB operational reenforcements are done in CMC. Instead of the scenario designer saying- you get a Tiger a PzIVH and a Pak40 on day 3 he says instead- you get 460 points that are used to purchase units just like in the scenario editor or a quick battle. Maybe both could be used, selected by the scenario designer- either X vehicles and/or Y # of points. That way a super historical battle would ONLY give you historical troops, but the designer could also give you a certain number (if any) of points to spend on a requisition screen. That make sense? Mike

...and BTW, the pakschütz (no 'c') didn't start to be installed until early 1940, and then not to all vehicles. Why point out a Polish campaign without it installed? “any packschütz?” ...um, no. The Russian front one- are we sure that is an original photo, a few things just don't look quite right. (The wheels, the side turret hatch looks a bit low, the way the guy on the left wears his belt, stowage mountings for tools, not to mention that most color photos from WWII Germany are very intricately posed- not just two random guys saying ‘Here’s me and Hans near Kiev.”) Looks like it might (might! not saying for sure it is.) be a reenactment photo. Mike, the remodder

Wake up? :mad: I didn't see it at cmmods, though I may have overlooked it. If you don't want my mod, just don't download it. Good grief. Thanks for the compliment zmoney. Mike

You wouldn't always want it removed, but I do, as all I generally play are quick battles and battles that are usually fairly obviously oriented. If you want to keep it don't use this mod. IMO it just messes up the picturesqe skyline. Mike

Some of the Close Combat series of games used a similar system that I liked a lot. The unavailable units would just be greyed out and a certain number of available units would be onhand for purchase.

This simple mod removes the (IMO) goofy 'north' indicator from the game. Just right click to download it from this page or visit all of my CMBB stuff at: http://www.ww2steel.com/Combatmission.html See ya, Mike