jrrich0000

As a former Tank Commander, I take exception to your remark, Sergei. Sabers at dawn?

Yes it did.

I agree with Yankee Dog.

An addition: spalling is caused by kinetic energy from the impact (or detonation in the case of HESH) causing the armor plating to fracture along the crystallization lines in its structure. Harder steel in general has greater crystallization, so harder steel in general causes more spalling. The Army calls it spalling whether the round penetrates or not.

The thread topic was, I belive, derogatory terms for Frenchmen. I think we exhausted that one rather rapidly. It was in fact Martyr who hijacked the thread by bringing up German nicknames, and then again by bringing up regimental structures. In fact, he has been the engine of one of the most interesting threads in months in my humble opinion. So you see the thread is a bit of a better box of chocolates, there's a little juicy something for everyone's taste Cheerup Dandelion </font>

Why don't you start another thread about UK/Canadian unit organization and history and stop hijacking this one? I am curious about German nicknames for their equipment, but I don't want to have to wade through all the uninteresting (to me) off topic minutia and hair splitting to read about it!

HALLELUIA Brother, and AMEN!

You have a point there. But the whole idea of the game is to have fun. If I ran into the kind of situation you describe above, I would resign, let my opponent know exactly why I did resign, and not play him or her again. On the other hand, I would also object to your house rules for much the same reasons. Blanket rules like that take some of the fun out of the game for me; it seems like you, my opponent, is dictating my choices for me. I would much rather my oponent explain up front what you did in your post. Then we could mutually decide on guidelines. After all, the game is in some ways secondary to the interaction between the players.

I'm new to this game, but an ex-Armor Officer. I have to say 'guns must be towed' is in itself gamey as far as I am concerned. Tactical use of AT/towed arty guns on the offense would be to cover advancing forces; that is at the essence of what one uses an AT/towed arty gun FOR. That's doctrine. Catch me moving forward without covering fire? Not likely! Also, a ME does NOT mean that the two forces do not know there is an enemy approaching, not if the commander and higher headquarters are doing their jobs. An ME takes place where forces know enemy is in the vicinity but have not localized them, and there is an objective to be seized. Otherwise, proper tactics would be to halt and form a Hasty Defence and send out patrols/scouts.

Avalon Hill's Africa Korps was my first too. Now I have a jones on to go and play a few games... those were definitely simpler days.

Gee... Didn't expect this much reaction to my post... OK, how about this? That little window that shows the geographic area of the battle is useless... I mean I know I'm fighting in Italy for gosh sakes. Why not use that space for a topo map of the battlefield with widely spaced contour lines that would give an overall impression of the terrain? That would be perfect for me.

You are operating under a mistaken assumption here I think. Very very few deserts are actually sand; most are arid rocky terrain and the terrain features, at least the prominent ones, do not change. I point you to Fort Irwin near the Mojave for an example. Maps there are perfectly serviceable.

OK, maybe I should have amplified on this a bit more in my original post. I don't want contour lines for nitty-gritty LOS computations and they don't necessarily have to be super accurate nor closely spaced. My problem is that it is nearly impossible to get the feel for a map's general terrain from a distant zoom. I find myself trying to apply the lessons I learned at OCS and Armor School about estimating terrain, and it is nearly impossible. I don't want to micro-analyze the terrain, but a couple of times I have found myself in trouble during a game because I missed a terrain feature that in 'REAL LIFE' would have been obvious.

I take the opportunity to rebut: Yes, it is true that as a soldier you do not see contour lines on the ground in front of you. But you do carry a map which has that information and you plot avenues of advance, defensive positions and etc. on the map before you place them. Even just during the unit placement phase, contour lines would greatly improve the playing experience for me.

This game desparately needs some kind of contour line system to differentiate elevations!