sburke

Same thing I was wondering, and you better look around and see if you are sitting on a TRP..oh wait you don't get to see those

You keep using that expression about honor minded Japanese. Don't get me wrong, I love going to Japan and spend time at least once a year with my wife's family, but I think in this case it is a misunderstanding of the culture and the concept. The die hards were not fighting out of any position of honor. Some of them were even prepared to attack the Emperor, a uniquely dishonorable thought within Japanese society (and this last is not just a possibility, they did attempt a coup, it simply failed). They were fighting for power and any "ceremonial" conditions were not what this was about. These guys were fundamentally unwilling to give up power and felt they still had enough cards on the table to play to keep it. If that cost a few hundred thousand or even a million Japanese, they didn't care. To give you some idea of how these guys thought, the expression for a new draftee was based on the cost of the postage on the draft letter.

Am I the only one noting a trend? Another squad for Airborne platoon ToE, tweaking of sniper fire on TCs, reviewing crew behavior in Tanks struck by AT fire.... what the? What happened to our defensive, these are not the issues you are looking for, don't look at the errors behind the curtain, refusing to admit to any issues troglodyte developers? Where does it all lead to? V1.02? Version 1.08? oh god the horror! What is a fanboy to do when even the developers will be flexible about changes? Steve has been replaced by a pod!!! Okay all ribbing aside, nice to see the folks at BFC keeping discussions focused and openly discussing behavior/items that may need to be modified. Not many things you can buy these days that's value increases after purchase. Thanks guys.

Got it. Gonna have to beg off this one for the moment otherwise I may tip my hand to my opponent. It may also just turn out my theory is a complete bust- stay tuned for "Secrets of the Bocage- a German memoir" or "What the heck were the Krauts thinking? by Band of Broadsword".

Cool pic, but in this case is the argument that the Hedgerows themselves aren't good enough or is it the interaction with other defensive constructions that isn't working? Surely every piece of hedgerow should not be treated as if it had a dugin bunker with double RR ties for a roof. Just trying to clarify what is being suggested.

Sorry, would let it go, but I have to ask as I am not actually sure of your answer to this question, actually questions. Is it your feeling the US could just have left the exisiting power structure in Japan in authority? Would you have also considered that an acceptable option in the war in Europe? No need to explain, just looking to see if my understanding of what you think the alternative would be is correct. Though if your answer to #1 is yes and #2 to no I guess I would like to understand why the difference.

I am under opsec regulations at the moment ( ), but I suspect that part of the perceived weakness of hederows is tactical. It might help this discussion if we delved into exactly how the Germans used the hedgerows. Not saying I know, but from what I have read it wasn't simply that they just dug in. If that theory is correct then the next question is can we emulate that behavior in CM. I have my own pet theory and am trying to apply it, but it is too early to say if it is effective.

As one currently engaged in a PBEM with Broadsword that I think might be on one of the maps referred to, I would have to agree. There are a few fields on the map that are completely sealed in. Both the Germans and the Allies are required to purchase engineers in order to take advantage of that space. For the Allies it becomes more difficult as you have to buy them or find your self limited to a few chokepoints. I suspect (though I don't know for sure yet) my opponent likely had to buy quite a few engineers. It may be that the author intended that, but in a QB setup that is kind of a skewed perspective. It will be interesting after the fact to see what impact that had on play balance. It is one thing to struggle with terrain layout to build a credible defense/offense. For those really into the immersion factor however one of the aspects of the new quick battle configuration we anticipated was a much better map selection than in CMx1. While they are definitely better, I think we are spoiled on how good they could be. Time and map makers will provide that. *edit - What was the expression you used Broadsword - Spatial Humanities? As to whether the Hedgerows are weaker than expected for defense. I am not sure I agree yet. Will have more commentary after we finish our current PBEM. How's that for psyops Broadsword? (says the guy who just lost an StuG when not realizing the action point I just set it to hunt to was on the OTHER side of the hedgerow..sigh.)

Yeah I have a copy of Guadalcanal and that was a very good read. I actually find events and the decision making process within the Japanese government and military fascinating. Watching the two (US and Japan) cultures interacting and completely mis reading one another so badly borders on Sci Fi. I am an afficionado of the work of C J Cherryh and this stuff almost seems like something she would dream up.

bad IMHO, bad. Go sit down. :-P Trying to summarize the argument of an article that is only a couple pages long and present a conclusion different than the authors is not really a summary. I would suggest folks read the article for themselves. Whatever your position on the subject, the more interesting aspect of the article is how we can assume we can extrapolate information and turn out to be totally wrong when not in full possession of the facts. Folks had assumed Truman was hiding information that would undermine his argument for bombing. Turns out he was hiding info, but for entirely different reasons and the info would actually have bolstered his argument. I for one am now even more interested to read Downfall than I was previously, good find Michael.

For those interested Richard Frank wrote an article for the Weekly Standard summarizing some of the debate and new intelligence uncovered on the 60th Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Pretty interesting reading. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp?page=3

Think CMBN has problems with waypoint plotting, try this http://autos.yahoo.com/news/million-dollar-fender-bender.html

Now that gentleman is what I call a good point to end on.

LOL "a bucketful of win". Probably the only funny way I have ever heard for a nuke to be described.

Laws of war apply to signatory Nations. Terrorism by individuals for political agendas whether they be left wing, right wing, religious fanatics etc fall under crimes. The legal gymnastics our gov't has gone through to justify "enemy combatants" notwithstanding, Al Qaeda is a criminal organization that should be processed through the courts just like that flake in Oslo. It is not protected under the Geneva convention, but falls rather under the rules of International law. It gets complicated when you have a foreign gov't providing secure bases whether that be the Taliban or Pakistan. But raising them to the level of soldiers with the protections inherent in the Geneva convention is far better than they deserve. The Allies did undoubtedly commit war crimes and we should not try to justify that behavior. Al Qaeda however did not commit an act of war deserving even of the label of war crime. They simply commited a horrendous criminal act.

I don't disagree with the gist of what you are saying however firebombing had I think already changed that equation. The losses from the fire bombing of Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg had already shown what could be done. The A bomb changed how quickly it could be done and with fewer resources once you had the technical capability to produce and deliver. Tokyo in particular had more immediate casualties than either of the nuclear bombings and competed in sheer horror. One of the reasons Hiroshima had been selected as a target was it had not been subjected to the same destructive raids as Toyama and Tokyo had been.

I found similar results but not consistently. Sometimes I end with PF in both teams. The only way to split an AT team and try recombining is with the PzGren Mtr squads. They are the only German squads that can split into 3 elements, but as you were looking for something specifically for PFs, it doesn't really apply. One oddity I did find. If I split a Pzshk off as an AT team from the PzGren Mtr squad the icon is just a team, not specifically an AT team. If I split the remaining squad into an Asslt element, the remaining team has an AT team icon even with no AT assets. Functionality is not impacted but if you are looking quickly at the icons to see where you moved your AT team, you are gonna be cussin a bit when the tank is in range...of a team with no AT assets while your Pzshk is on the opposite side of the field.

It isn't exactly the same, but you could split off the AT team first. What recombinations you might be able to make from there I honestly have no idea, but it sounds like something interesting enough that I may have to go try.

Actually there was an attempted coup when Hirohito was planning the surrender announcement. The hawks were not interested in surrender even if the Emperor himself was prepared to do so. Amazingly they planned to arrest the Emperor. (see references to the Kyujo incident). The Japanese miltary had a history of being led places leadership hadn't planned to go by lower ranking Field officers within the army. It is pretty interesting reading to see how disfunctional the Japanese Army had become. All else aside I would agree, the insistence on unconditional surrender was a pretty bad move. It effectively removed the ability of the allies to force cracks in the enemy camp. However considering the mistrust particularly between Stalin and Churchhill, it made a better framework for the allied command to work within. As to the original issue of going to war there is some fascinating stuff being published these days. For example The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley - illegal enouragement by the White House for Japanese expansion during the Sino Russian wars and Japanese perception of US betrayal of agreements at that time that laid a lot of the socio-political ground work for a deteriorating relationship between Japan and the US. There is also a distinct lag in Japanese perception about changes in the international scene that had them trailing the curve in the global change from blatant imperialistic occupation of other countries to a more "gentle" economic imperialism. A position from which they would feel "deprived" by the Western powers.

Well you can't say I didn't warn you away from using that comparison. On that note, I'm stepping away from this one. It's going into the oddly warm area of the swimming pool if you get my drift. If you need something more graphic think of Caddyshack.

Dang I'd hate to hear the cussin going on when that M10 is firing away with that MG and an StuG trundles up putting one through the turret while the gunner stands there looking at that .50 and muttering "oops".

Man I got to purchase me some ninja platoons.

Rather than try to get someone to man the .50, wouldn't it be more logical the crew would fire their 76mm gun from inside their much better protected compartment than try to play Eddie Murphy? Yeah yeah that was a joke.

well at least we haven't degenerated to talking about peanut butter and farm animals...oh wait..oops

Whoa, you are probably gonna start a firestorm comparing a war time act (no matter how callous) with 9/11. Actually the targets were selected for military industrial value. Nagasaki was actually a secondary target only bombed as the primary was overcast that day. Nagasaki was the launching shipyard for the Yamato class battleships though it's usefulness at this point in the war as a military base was questionable. The firebombing of Tokyo is a better example if you need one of an attack specifically targeting civilians. If the US wanted a gut check attack on Japan and really wanted to terrorize civilians, they would have hit Kyoto. As an attack on the Japanese psyche, it would have had a much bigger impact.