juan_gigante

Well, count me in.

Also, it might be nice to have more categories than just messed-with and not. Maybe "Action Shot", with the demo charge the Pioneers just threw caught in flight towards the Tiger Tank, and "Landscape", wherein it's a dramatic shot of a beautiful Italian village nustled away in the forest, or "Tanks In Action" and "Infantry In Action" catagories, maybe a "Winter" one. I'd say it depends on the number of submissions. If it's 5 - 15, just a few catagories would do it. But many more than that, and I think multiple catagories would be good. Or at least have the extras as honorable mention things. "Well, you didn't win, but that was a great shot of those tanks firing, so you get a consolation prize." Remember, here in America if anyone every loses anything it destroys their self-esteem forever, so everybody has to win somehow...

A way to do the vote would be to just have everyone e-mail their vote to one central person (I'd be happy to do it if you & your friend don't, John) who makes sure that all the e-mails arrived in the proper time window (no late voting), and do some cursory ballot-box-stuffing prevention (probably not a huge threat) and could if necessary, tabulate the votes. Easier than posting votes to the forum, and keeps it anonymous. Also, probably better than a single judge, impartial and full taste though you are, John.

It is very possible that Bidermann did not actually "knock out" the KVs, or at least all of them. Perhaps he merely damaged the gun and/or immoblized the tank, and the crew felt they should abandon it. I remember in at least one of the KV kills he mentions aiming right down the KV's barrel and pretty much shredding that. Plus, if he were up against an inexperienced/otherwise-bad tank crew, I can see how they might abandon after one penetration, regardless of the effects. And Jason, I sent you an email with it. I'll be interested to see your take on what I feel is a fairly difficult scenario.

I would imagine that in the campaign, the most SF we would see would be a platoon attached to our unit. Maybe there could be an entire SF module with all sorts of special SF units and equipment, so as to really do it right and flesh them out.

"jiggly gungun"? Come on, even the Justicar did better with my name than that. "juan_gigante"... it's a name with almost unlimited potential for humorous mangling, and you come up with "jiggly gungun"?

One thing that might hurt CM:SF sales is if they are only through the website. Let's face it - for Joe Average, the local Best Buy is a lot more accesible that the site, and in stores you pick up a lot more impulse sales. "Oh, I remember seeing a review of that game. They said it was good. I guess I'll get it." would likely happen more than somebody randomly visiting the site on a whim and deciding to make a purchase. Anyways, I hope for BFC's sake they get some kind of distribution deal, preferably a better one than with CDV.

Yeah, I guess. Finished 320 with a total victory. It was kind of fun being on the other side from the 200s. I thought it dragged itself too long, but I guess that's what happens. I killed the all the enemy vehicles around turn 6, and from there on, it was just pinging at distant enemy infantry, keeping their heads down. I had to retreat my guys from that front trench after they ran out of ammo, but only took 2 casualities, so I guess it worked out fine.

I had an idea to make 315 fair for H2H. Give the Germans another platoon so they'll have enough troops to do anything, but make all the Soviet troops Pioneers. It seems fair to me, as that means that any Soviet squad has good AT capacity, but the Germans have the numbers a bit fairer. Just finished 316. I felt that in the city, I was able to move around my forces inside of defensive perimeter a lot better. Unfortunately, I lost my T-34 the first turn, and one of my T-70s around turn 5, so I had to rely heavily on Pioneers to kill tanks. I was very impressed with the AT rifles - each one got a halftrack. Ended up with an AI auto-surrender and a major victory. Of all the training scenarios I've played so far, I think that was the one that was the most balanced and the most like a "real" scenario.

I know the scenario you mean. I can't remember the name, but it's hard. In fact, the scenario is easier than Bidermann had it in real life, because he was up against KVs. The scenario designer decided to switch them to T-34s because with CM's penetration system, 37mm guns are essentially unable to penetrate KV armor, no matter the range, and only single-digit percentages at the side. Honestly, I wish I could help you, but I can't. Found the scenario. It's from the Small Battles series, so it's named Small Battles - Bidermann's Gun.

Finished 312 and 315. 312 was an absolute bloodbath on both sides. I got a major victory, but it seemed like at any given point in time, 1/3rd of my force was pinned, and the ambushes the AI was throwing at me caused heavy morale damage. 2 SMG platoons advancing, one enemy squad popped up, pins one platoon, other platoon kills him, and advance forward. The problem is that if you use move to contact, your troops are "moving" when they take fire, and hit the dirt very easily. But if you use advance, they will often continue moving when the enemy pops up, so they are less effective because they are up and walking around as opposed to just firing. I think that a decent human could win this as German. Maybe I'll give it a try. 315 went down all right. I was hurt by a horrible setup on my part. I spread my forces out waaaaay too much, and I set several key AT ambushes with the Rifle squads rather than Pioneer squads. I killed the AC with a standard "hiding Pioneers" ambush, but I had a much harder time with the others. I revealed enough of my right flank killing the AC and the enemy infantry that the AI sent two of the Panzers over to the left, where Pioneers got them. For the last two tanks, though, I was nearly out of Pioneer squads (the ones I had nearby were either out of demo packs or shattered by HE), so I was reduced to trying to get them with Rifle squads while a few squads I had a ways off came over to reinforce. Eventually I got them, but not after fairly heavy casualties. I think if I tried it again, I could do much better. Still, a victory is a victory, right? Going to hit up the 320s this evening, hopefully.

We never joke about the Finns. We are deadly serious about the Finns.

I think that 7.62 looks cooler. The way the diagonal line in the seven and the curve on the left side of the six kind of go up together has always caught my eye. Plus, 5.56 has all those fives. I mean, come on!

Finished 311. Definately more of a challenge than 310. Still got a total victory after an enemy auto-surrender, but it took some effort, and I pushed my troops to the absolute limit. 3 lessons learned/thoughts thought: With your enemies in foxholes, you couldn't always rely on that "instant break" from 900 incoming firepower points. A single squad in a foxhole could hold up a full SMG platoon for a turn if it got the drop on them. If the enemy had a real MLR in the woods just to the right of the woods, I would really have had to change my strategy to crack it. Or I would go around. Ski troops are awful fast on skis. But I think in my desire to keep their skis on, I kept on using "move" and "fast" for too long. Snow tires. I usually don't play winter scenarios, and especially coming out of 310 where I was able to make slashing, quick moves with my SMG units, my forces found exhaustion to be their worst foe. This was even worse when a unit broke or replotted moves to avoid fire, because those 50 meter sneaks the TacAI adds are killers. It seemed the whole time that my main force would advance for a turn, rest a turn, repeat. Lesson: make the enemy move, not you. Also, those mortars really helped. I underestimated the effectiveness of treebursts against foxholes going into this.

Got back into these after a little time off, and just polished off 310. It was a fun little firefight, if a bit easy, but one thing really irritated me: the German plane. All 4 of my casualties were from it, and it broke/routed an entire platoon of rifles. Granted, I didn't need them, but still, it was a little frustarating.

How about those Seahawks, that's the thought at hand. Second best in the NFL, and people are still saying that it's luck. Can anybody else wait until the Indy-Seahawks game?

My 100th post hit the forum at a high enough velocity that it penetrated right through, and didn't get a chance to tumble.

Although to be fair, if we called the invasion of Iraq "Operation Overlord", a few people might take that the wrong way.

Also - does anybody else miss the days when operations had cool cryptic names like "Market - Garden". I guess "Anaconda" was all right, but operation names like "Enduring Freedom" and "Iraqi Freedom" just leave me cold. And the whole "Silent Hammer" genre is kind of silly as well. I want American operations to have those old-school WWII type names again.

It was kind of dusty... there was this building to the right... you know the one I'm talking about?

I can't remember who, but somebody once mentioned that the US Army does not fight wars - it moves men and material. While it is not exactly accurate, the US Armed Forces are largely a beauracracy, one that often makes decisions that are not linked to conditions on the ground. Rather than look at what the US Army is doing to judge what is the best weapon, I would look at the Special Forces units. These are guys whose speciality is fighting. They have no (or at least fewer) concerns for logistical issues, the military-industrial complex, money, patronage, and all that jazz that too often rules decision-making at the Pentagon. They want the best equipment available. And they are clamoring for larger calibur weapons. Disregard, even, the SCAR in 6.8mm; the HK SOCOM is .45 instead of 9mm (at special request), and the special forces are getting old M14s far faster than the regular Army guys are. When the best soldiers in the world get a choice between small and large caliburs, they seem to be voting nearly overwhelming for larger calibur weapons. And this isn't new. As far back as Vietnam, Special Forces units (who generally have more control over their equipment loadout than regular Army) often chose AK-47s over M16s (although to be fair, early M16s shouldn't really count against 5.56mm). I will close with a quote from a Navy SEAL in Vietnam: "Happiness is 3 kills and a warm AK-47 before breakfast."

Hmmm... I'd love to participate, but it means a few sleepless nights at CMMODS, updating everything... CMAK or CMBB okay?

My grandfather's next door neighbor got a Silver Star with the 75th Infantry in the Hurtgen. He wrote a memoir later, and I was going to make a scenario of the engagement for which he got the medal, but reading the memoir, I realized that it would be kind of a lame scenario. (Note: His company was pinned down by a Tiger tank and a pair of HMG-42s. Neighbor sent two guys out to see if it was possible to flank the nests, and they both got hit. He ran out, grabbed them, carried them back, then went back and destroyed the MG-42 nests. The Tiger then decided it had better things to do, and took off.) Most of the memoir was about occupying Italy after the war ended and establishing cross-cutural relations with local ladies of the night.

Yeah... did you see the part where they blew the tank up? That was impressive.

Cpl Steiner: Why not just have a roadblock like we do in CMx1? Does it matter who built it? It's there, right? Are you saying that CMx2 should show civilians building roadblocks during scenarios? Why not, then, have troops did new foxholes during scenarios? Most of the effects civilians would have on the battle are on really on the scale of the tactical level. It would be absurd for the Syrian leader to have constant updates on the positions of every US unit, but civilian HumInt can be represented by a message in the briefing for the Syrian player like "Civilian OPs have reported about a half a dozen Strykers coming down Al-Amouk street." And the player's setup zone is on Al-Amouk street. I think this is more realistic and easier.