Gopblin

Don't forget about the rocket weapons guys... That was tried in the 70s and use small rockets has its advantages - notably no recoil, long range and very large projectile. The problems back then included faulty ammo and the fact that a rocket needs space to speed up - so shooting point-blank is ineffective. However, the possibility of a fullauto .50 cal pistol with no recoil that can punch through walls at 200m using explosive ammo... Best wishes, Daniel.

My experience with this scenario: 1) First played as Germans, with AI +25% troops. Killed off ALL the russian armor with properly positioned Tigers, lost 1 tiger and most AT guns. Then an IL blew up two more tigers, but it didn't matter by then - I won. 2) Then played as Russians, +25% AI. Armor spread evenly around the front, with initial force going right & center and reinforcements going left & center. German AT guns were traded more or less one-for-one with SUs - I outnumbered&surrounded them, and they are way too easy to kill by chucking HE near them from out of their LOS. Tigers fell victim to a SU-122 platoon rush on the left - I got there when they were still moving to position and killed 3 out of 4, losing all SU's. The last Tiger was finished by a lone SU rushing behind that platoon. BTW, if that failed, I would have just kept shooting HE near Tigers from out of their LOS - with a 152 it has a good chance of KO. The Stugs decimated my platoon of 152s on the right, losing just one Stug. They later moved left and traded shots with the force in the center, KO'ed two more Su's and disabled two, but were all KO'ed or disabled themselves since my SU's were spread over the center and fired from multiple directions. After that the remaining couple of SU platoons + all infantry + artillery finished off the Germans in the town and took it, think it was a Total Victory, or maybe Tactical. Best wishes, Daniel.

2tecumseh: I totally agree . History books both in US and Russia give a one-sided picture. Some more WWII atmosphere: (these are stories by my classmate's grandpa's - my own army relatives were either executed before WWII or didn't survive it). I only give the general theme of the story since obviously I don't remember this stuff word for word. 1) ...So one winter we were storming a farm-stead on a hill, and the Krauts built an MG bunker there. (for some reason they had no tanks or arty) Repeated attacks across an open plain. We had to retreat each time. Entire squads were wiped out. After losing a huge number of men, we were still attacking when the MG went silent. Upon taking the farm, we found out that the gunner went mad... 2) (this one was a driver on a SU) About Kursk? I'll tell you about Kursk. We're driving to the battle, no Germans in sight, then suddenly I hear a WHAM! and my commander's legs fall on me. 3) (this one I saw online) A young leutenant was commanding some light arty in one of the Eastern European city fights. He was pretty miserable because the street in front of them was blocked by German MG's and the tank he requested three days to clear them out still didn't come. Plus he had diarrhea. Not to be embarassed in front of his men, he went pretty far down the street before taking a dump behind remains of a wall, which covered him from the Germans. The wall falling apart just couple of yards away literally caught him with pants down. He saw a tank rolling over it and at first cheered up thinking it to be the requested T-34, but almost immediately realized it was a Tiger which somehow wandered into the Soviet sector. Instantly going into shock, the leutenant nonetheless grabbed the Molotov he was issued, lit the matches and threw it right under the turret, as he was taught. The Tiger crew were either inexperienced or plain scared by this point, and bailed right away. Despite not being a good shot (especially with no pants on), the leutenant handled his PPSH pretty decently this time, and soon the Tiger had five corpses near it. Decades later he became a kolkhoz chairman, and when he was sitting in john and someone called him, his usual answer would be something like "A Tiger didn't stop me from crapping and neither will the county chairman!". Best wishes, Daniel.

I'll try and see if that forum supports Russian... Я только раз видала рукопашный... Раз наяву - и тысячу во сне. Кто говорит, что на войне не страшно, Тот ничего не знает о войне. Best wishes, Daniel.

PTO II (Pacific Theater of Operations II). Very good, although old, game. Pretty realistic, too. Basically is about US and Japan beating the crap out of each other in the pacific. The focus is on naval warfare, but all the other stuff is present too. Get it from the Underdogs. Best wishes, Daniel. [ March 17, 2005, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Gopblin ]

One more, one of the most popular Russian short poems about war. Written by a woman, I don't remember the name now: --- I've only seen hand-to-hand once. Since then I see it every night. Those who say that at war you are not scared Know nothing about war. --- That's some PTSD... Sorry for the not-so-beautiful translation but I'm not going to spent hours on it "just because" . Best wishes, Daniel.

I just found this WWII russian song and for some reason decided to translate it. After spending 10 minutes doing this, I decided to post it somewhere. The author is unknown (which is not surprising given the text). It’s cold in the trenches, evil wind is howling, Their shells are falling short on the plain ahead. I know I will die and I’ll be buried, Right on this hill next to the machine-gun. Right on this hill next to the machine-gun. And another worker will answer the call and stand here instead, Near my favorite tree, And I think he will be wounded and die, And also sleep in this icy bed. And also sleep in this icy bed. And I also know that are not dying in vain – Other people will be born. And peaceful life will grow for them out of the seeds We’re sowing into this red field. We’re sowing into this red field. It’s cold in the trenches, evil wind is howling, Their shells are falling short on the plain ahead. I know I will die and I’ll be buried, Right on this hill next to the machine-gun. Right on this hill next to the machine-gun. Best wishes, Daniel.

Good time of day! 1) That's what I thought. Actually, AI doesn't go completely zombie since, for example, those T-34s didn't go into a possible ambush even though it was on the way to the flag. They flanked it. 2) I'll try not to spoil scenarios for anyone. Thanks for telling me. 3) Ok, I emailed you. Best wishes, Daniel.

This has been probably brought up already... I was playing the "Danube Blues" as Germans with +25% Allied and +1 AI experience. Due to my mistakes with asessing the effects of weather and the density of enemy armor I almost lost (10 German AFV's destroyed by turn 15 while killing 4 T-34/85s). However, in the scouting/flanking move at the start of the battle, one of my armoured cars captured the Russian "start flag" (a small flag, probably representing the road to other Russian troops). I noticed that some enemy infantry was heading there and managed to get an AA halftrack there too (triple machinegun worked very nicely on infantry in the open). This turned into a massive assault with at least two platoons of infantry and several T-34s coming in couple of turns (my last mobile Tiger creeping on T-34s from behind met a column of five tanks head on - they were heading back; that looked painful). Obviously, my two light AFV's were burning very quickly, but the time that was needed to pull back Soviet infantry and T-34s and then start the attack rolling again let me regroup and hold almost the whole city, turning probable "TOTAL DEFEAT" into a "DRAW". As far as I understand, AI somehow confused that little flag with the main objective and turned its Juggernauts around. Questions are: Does this always happen, meaning I shouldn't touch the start flag when against the AI? Is there any way to fix this? Anybody willing to play? (err... that's probaly for the "opponents needed" forums). I played against AI a lot, but almost no human. CMBB, any conditions, below 2000 pts. PS. That is also a "hello guys" post, so.. A bit of info about myself: I've been playing a lot, period, almost anything you can think of. That includes many different wargames, both tabletop and computer. I also studied WWII quite a lot since: 1) That's where grandma's brothers died (I'm Russian) 2) I had nothing to do in the summers anyway This led to me playing CMBB from time to time for a couple of years now, and that's why I'm here. Thank you for your time in reading and replying to this. Best wishes, Daniel.