Erik Springelkamp

I noticed the same thing, and I even heard the Americans saying: "Hey, we are spotting enemy vehicles" But they didn't do nothing about it.

I am experimenting with the scenario editor, and made a simple scenario with a Stryker platoon and just some Syrian spies to look what will happen with the plan. I gave the Strykers - all in one group - 1 plan with 4 phases, each an area along a road. Then I fired up the scenario from the Syrian side to look what happened: Nothing happened. At all. I did put some time constraints in each phase, and gave them an active to agressive attitude. What obvious thing am I forgetting to make them move?

I have seen some guidelines for Quick Battle purchases that are meant to prevent picking ueber tanks in certain periods. JasonC wrote some of those guidelines. I saved them on a network drive but that disk crashed some time ago and I have no backup. I have been trying to search for them in the forum, but didn't succeed. Does anybody know where I can find them?

You can go up and down the command chain. Up in the bottom left, down in the middle, in the unit or formation tab. Especially during setup I find that the most convenient way. After that it pays to remember some of the order of units to quickly use the + and - keys. I also like the F12 key.

unfortunately it doesn't work when forces are placed outside a setup area by a buggy quick battle generator.

Quick Battle, Tiny, Random, PBEM Syrian units at setup are positioned outside their setup zone, so they cannot be placed inside. They start right in the middle of the US setup, but nobody starts shooting. American soldiers say: "Hey, we are spotting enemy vehicles" and they are standing right next to them but they do nothing. That is actually funny.

The hotkeys for the common commands do open their tabs, so they can also be used as tab-selecting keys

I started my training in basic training mode, and taking the village actually succeeded the first time, while I was thinking: let's see how fast these Strykers blow up, and just ran them upto the village. I try to dismount a MG team into a building, but they were shot to pieces pretty fast. A squad was mostly lost while trying to enter a second building, but after a long firefight with just the Strykers a squad succeeded in crossing open ground to a building and shortly afterwards the Syrians - the only two remaining that is - surrendered. So I won by eliminating the enemy, while hardly taking any ground. No javelins involved. Probably all because of the basic training level.

I have played the Fruhlingswind scenario once as US against a human German player, and won it without much finesse. I kept the two groups of Grants together as much as possible, the left group between the trees. The massed firepower defeated the German tanks, who probably entered the duel with too little coordination. The Grants tended to flee after beeing hit by bouncing rounds, and I had to continually order them back into the firing line. Reasoning that having many firing guns together is their best defence. In the end the German tanks were defeated rather badly, although it took many hits to KO them. I don't think I lost more than one Grant in the long range duel. I used the halftrack mounted guns in shoot and scoot. Their fire was very effective, but it was very dangerous, as they drew a lot of counter fire. I lost them both, but they gave the Grants more firing time. Not a nice thing to do to their crews though. When the long range duel was decided I charged the remaining German tanks with my Grants and that was not very smart, (but it was fun). It cost me more Grants than there were German tanks left. The German infantry never made it beyond their starting ridge.

I recommend Paul Watkins novel "Night over day over night" New York, Knopf (1988). How can a Brit, raised in the USA, born in 1964, write credibly about the SS? Read it. I also read the memoirs of a Dutch boy who joined the SS, and Paul's novel resembles what is written in these memoirs, it is just much more powerfull literature. Paul Watkins 'hero' is a loner who has to join the German armed forces after he graduates from school. The SS-poster says: "Your Comrades wait for you at the Waffen-SS" It is this slogan that pulls him, lonely boy, without any ideology, towards the SS. Then the book tells how he is drawn into a ruthless world of killing and destruction, and it ends as bleak as the title.

I played the 1st scenario yesterday against a human opponent. ======= spoilers ============================ I enjoyed it, but probably because I played the Hungarians. The attack went smooth, too smooth. Why are the Russian crippled in their setup? The maxims are locked in place in positions where they only cover small angles, and they are vulnerable to the Hungarian AFV's. The front row of houses is off limit for the Russians, facilitating the initial advance for the Hungarian infantery considerably. The only Russian AT asset, the gun, is also locked in place, and can be avoided by the tanks until it is destroyed. I think by unlocking the Russians and slightly expanding their setup area the fight is much more challenging.

What I learned about the Cossacks from a biography of Peter the Great is that they were the people living in the border areas between the Golden Horde and the Slavic kingdoms. As the Golden Horde didn't have a regular administration in these lands, they collected their tax in the form of yearly pillaging expeditions. It takes a very mobile and military way of life to survive under those conditions. A region cannot exist from robbery alone: there must be someone to rob from, and that could hardly have been the well-administrated parts of the Mongols or Russians/Ukrainians. So the Cossack community must have produced food for itself. There was a constant influx from escaped serfs from the Slav kingdoms, as this was freebooter country. Peter the Great started pacifying these regions by protecting them from raids from the Golden Horde. In this light the blame on the rough lifestyle of the Cossacks cannot be put entirely on themselves. But maybe my picture is wrong?

When the Cossacks of the Russian Army liberated the Netherlands in 1813 they behaved very well towards the Dutch citizens.

A few days ago German TV showed a documentary about the remains of a Cossack unit - including their families - in Austria that was about to be handed over to Stalin by the Brits. A lot of them fled into the mountains and hid in caves, slaughtering their horses for food; others, women and children jumped into the river to kill themselves. Cossacks have often chosen the wrong masters in the hope of gaining some freedom for themselves.

Nobody reacts for a day? Then I volunteer. I would be honoured to be analysed to pieces I can do a few turns every evening at GMT+1. What is the format, where do I start?

I needed 4 runs of the original scenario before I won it, and I don't feel the drive to return to it in more difficult conditions. I think I profited especially from the 'forward sneak' effect to reach the craters with my first squad. But I think I learned the lesson in general, and for the time beeing I am content with an 80% technical handling ability.

And where is this license kept? What prevents it from beeing used it in different readers, and how does that combine with a harddisk failure and a backup? Just curious.

So, how does this work? Can I move my pdf around, but not copy it? Can I make a backup, or is it lost when my harddisk breaks?

Could it be possible to hand the game to a neutral third player who has both passwords, and who starts a new game with the savegame of the last turn with no change of setup? This could only work when you know on which turn the scenario ends (no variable turns).

I have read the faq, and there is something I don't understand: It says that it is only meant for scenario's under developement. But don't we have the Proving Grounds for that? And wasn't the Scenario Depot 1 the place to find information on _all_ scenario's, including the scenario's that were in the game already? When I started playing I used the SD1 to find scenario's in a certain setting, or to read after action reports when I had played them myself. This seems a different goal then a second Proving Grounds site.

Yes!!, That's it.

Clear. This brings up another question which that I wondered about several times: how far away do I put covered arcs for infantery defenders when the terrain itself doesn't give a direct clue? Now I take about 100m for squads and a zone close around my frontline squads for HQ's, but this is more a wild guess, putting the tresshold at about 50% maximum firepower. I am sure there are more scientific ways of choosing these distances

Sorry, I don't understand what the 20m means?

That was more or less the approach my opponent took, but when he assembled in the treeline, my 3 81mm mortars took out a lot of the attackers immediately. And there was still some flanking fire from my center HMG and PaK. After that the attack should have been executed more carefully then it was, and in the end my platoon in the woods defeated the remainder of the attacking company. However, if he would have used artillery on the wood, he would have succeeded. In this approach there isn't much use for tanks I think. Better to use an extra company of infantery.

I have been babbling around the point I think: it is the sun I am missing. In the upper one I can imagine the sun shining (with a bit of fantasy), in the lower one I get the impression of overcast. (or is that the effect of the background picture).