murphus

Somebody mentioned small arms mods, by Juju. But I can't find any small arms on cmmmods. I'd love to have a mod for the Maxim MG, so it has the real wheels and the pathetic little shield. Any hints on where to get small-arms mods?

I've just seen the film you refer to, but I would say, despite the tracks, there is plenty of recoil, when fired it jumps back about three feet. It would sure be nice to have a beast like that in the game, so I second the call to include these guns as on-map pieces in the next version of the game.

As a dedicated Red army man, I love Pavlov's Red Army interface, with the Red Star Hammer & Sickle flying over the Reichstag. I'd like to try these sky mods you all recommend, and I'm on my way over to CMMMODS now to get them.

I've held flags with crews, also with anti-tank rifles out of ammo, section chiefs and all that other riff-raff. Regarding victory: you should definitely think in terms of kill ratios to achieve solid victory. Just look at the AAR screen, where units killed/captured count for many more points than flags.

I would like to ask those who have tried other games what they think, particularly with regard to: Codename: Panzers D-Day Battleground 1942 (??? - maybe Battlefront...) and others. Personally, I like the opportunity to plan my moves and not be continually stabbing at the mouse like a demented experimental subject in a stress study. Close Combat was too fast for me. I think games should reflect the fact that human intelligence (i.e., the player's) is substituting for the lack of AI intelligence. What I mean is that if I plan a platoon's movement in detail in CM, I am substituting for the platoon commander by giving those orders in detail. If I could trust the AI to do the right thing, I would simply say "go there". Real-time type games don't let the individual units do more than act as rather stupid puppets. Any thoughts?

I'm overawed by the level of scholarship going on here. You guys are researchers of the highest calibre (excuse the pun!). My take on the artillery issue is not so much the inclusion of higher-powered guns in the DF role (which I'm sure was exceptional), but rather the way that scenario designers tend to skimp on Soviet artillery. With a few exceptions ("The Bitter End" comes immediately to mind), the USSR is stuck with inadequate arty resources in almost every scenario, leaving the Soviet grunts almost unsupported. I would like to appeal to all scenario designers to take heed of the historical literature and pack the Soviet ranks with spotters of every kind, even at the cost of infantry, particularly late war. This implies a more detailed approach to the scenario briefing, and/or the beautiful and elegant hint I picked up from The Mad Russian in TPG, which is to place the enemy trenches and wires as "friendly" trenches and wires, so that they are seen in the setup screen. This simulates the kind of detailed knowledge of enemy lines (though not troop positions) which you would get from detailed recon. To sum up: more Soviet artillery, fewer grunts, try the enemy trenches and wires as "friendly placements", to allow a certain amount of transparency.

I'm overawed by the level of scholarship going on here. You guys are researchers of the highest calibre (excuse the pun!). My take on the artillery issue is not so much the inclusion of higher-powered guns in the DF role (which I'm sure was exceptional), but rather the way that scenario designers tend to skimp on Soviet artillery. With a few exceptions ("The Bitter End" comes immediately to mind), the USSR is stuck with inadequate arty resources in almost every scenario, leaving the Soviet grunts almost unsupported. I would like to appeal to all scenario designers to take heed of the historical literature and pack the Soviet ranks with spotters of every kind, even at the cost of infantry, particularly late war. This implies a more detailed approach to the scenario briefing, and/or the beautiful and elegant hint I picked up from The Mad Russian in TPG, which is to place the enemy trenches and wires as "friendly" trenches and wires, so that they are seen in the setup screen. This simulates the kind of detailed knowledge of enemy lines (though not troop positions) which you would get from detailed recon. To sum up: more Soviet artillery, fewer grunts, try the enemy trenches and wires as "friendly placements", to allow a certain amount of transparency.

I saw this too, and I must say it looked very pretty, the way it rained down on enemy positions like metal hailstones. But of course it couldn't have done much damage.