sburke

Actually that isn't what he said. Once again we are trying to parse a statement, read into it what we want and figure out a release date. All Steve said was check tomorrow (because odds are they aren't open now unless you do it online) and then make a decision. No reference whatsoever that you need to do anything by X date though obviously if you want to cancel the sooner the better just in case it is released. Sorry if that is a downer but I have yet to see anything remoely resembling an actual release is imminent statement, though I do keep hoping for it. Edit: hhmmm perhaps I have to eat my words....... It doesn't quite say imminent, but it does imply it is very close.

Honestly I think this is just begging for a best caption thread. "What the hell do you mean you think you wrapped your lunch in the assembly instructions. You stupid git!"

CAD fight! CAD fight!! Sorry I just couldn't resist.

Hence the development of the M3A1 stepladder.

See this is how myths get started - I saw this tank. This pic was actually taken in East LA. If you look from the side you'll see the blocks they left it on after stealing the bogie wheels.

Now that was funny!

I resemble that remark

When you say revision, it isn't clear what you are directing that at. I think actually no one so far has disagreed with the above and no one has said the Germans shrugged off the air offensive (or maybe I missed that). I think the only disagreement is the impact directly on armored vehicles has been found to be very overstated. The overall impact on German operations however I think all would agree was severe. Everything from transport and supply columns, artillery batteries, supply dumps, HQ units, bridges, crossroad towns etc was at the mercy of TAC AIR.

KFOG in San Francisco plays it every Thanksgiving. Even my Japanese wife now marks the season with it. But that's not what I came to tell you about.

While I am from the school of "air power has been over rated in it's attacks on armor" I do not for one moment underestimate their capability to disrupt operations nor to inflict serious harm to the soft logistical tail. An out of fuel tank is as good a kill as any. I see that however as a task accomplished prior to a CMBN battle (the logistical tail part). The disruption is something I think we will still see in CMBN and something to take advantage of if possible (immobilizations, damaged optic, radios etc) while halftracks, trucks etc should be very vulnerable. In terms of Falaise I certainly believe the air attacks were devastating to German columns. but hitting the transport columns is still devastating to a modern army. Artillery was also a major contributing factor as the Poles fought tooth and nail with the Wehrmacht for Hill 262 as an observation point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_pocket

Probably - "if you haven't heard anything it is because you are on the list of the damned. For a small contribution we can have your case revisited." Meanwhile I hope to be too busy with CMBN to notice. besides none of my friends will have heard anything either.

I understand actually that judgement day is May 21st of this year and the end of the world is October 21st so you may not even get the base game. Unless of course this was the plan all along and heaven is playing CMBN.... http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/may21/

What??!!!! Are you suggesting we don't read your stuff and instead just jump to our own conclusions or worse just figure "why read, I can just ask what it is I want to know"??!! by the way when is the game coming out. :-P

As we say in my company any time we discuss the French office and getting anything done... "eeet eeez nawt posseebuul". Seemed to be the general reply I got to anything while working there.

LOL the update Friday wasn't enough? C'mon we can't keep asking for an update every single workday. Well maybe we can, but odds are we would just slow the product.

Ahh I still fondly remember flipping across news channels in Italy one night and seeing a report on a fashion show and there goes Cindy Crawford down the runway with a blouse that only covered half her chest. That is a news channel I could enjoy watching as opposed to now where I only watch Comedy Central.

Don't worry, now that you have a product with some market share you won't have to feel left out much longer http://www.i4u.com/46451/mac-malware-sign-apples-success

You aren't supposed to admit this until AFTER the game is released. :-P

I was thinking from the thread title that there was an option to make a career of CMBN. Darn

This is the old timers thread remember? Most of us either can't remember what was on a previous page of posts or our eyesight is so bad we can't read it and won't admit it.

I think the experience with the Waffen SS has been described earlier. Their own history of executing prisoners going back as far as May 26th 1940 on the western front and the 12th SS was executing prisoners already on June 7th probably had a lot to do with their chances of survival upon surrender. The 17th SS and the 266th ID were both suspect in the murder of Americans POWS from the 501st and 507th Airborne regiments at Graignes. As to the FJ if we are speaking of the area around St Lo, they were committed to some very intense hedgerow fighting. I don't know of any official orders of any type, but with the nature of the fighting, the sniping of medics etc it would be disingenuous to expect the GIs didn't retaliate.

There is apparently one official order from the HQ 328th Inf Reg in response to the Malmedy massacre. I would assume it included paratroopers due to the presence of the 3rd FJ Division with 1st SS. That is the only incident I have come across and the logic of why the FJ are included is self evident. Thus Fragmentary Order 27, issued by Headquarters, 328th Infantry, on 21 December for the attack scheduled the following day says: “No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoners but will be shot on sight.” -page 264 US Army offical history The Ardennes:Battle of the Bulge by Hugh Cole.

Well first off the Seal team didn't "get themselves compromised" the statement is inflammatory and serves no purpose other than to try and portray them as inept. Second, despite the risk that they were almost certainly releasing guys who would report their presence, they did so anyway. Note they also said whatever the decision it would have to be reported is pretty incredible. They could simply have said let's kill em and not say a word. However these men knew they had a difficult life threatening decision to make and they were not going to try and hide it. In retrospect it was a bad decision, but they made it and I love them for it. Were there alternatives? Maybe, but not having any other details I don't know that there were. As to it being so hard to win hearts and minds .. well they made this decision it cost them their lives and yet they still get disparaged like this. If this incident doesn't earn them something then perhaps the whole argument about winning hearts and minds is simply so much smoke. I don't believe that it is, but whatever your feelings about others comments on the thread these guys deserve better.

I would agree that our troops deserve better than a flip response on a thread. There is usually more to the story than any of us know. However the point of the mission those Seals were on was to defend exactly that, the right of people to say things we might not necessarily agree with. As an American I do not believe it helps our cause when we assume civilians are acceptable casualties to accomplish a mission. However I think the grey line here is in irregular warfare, the insurgent deliberately blurs the line between combatant and civilian. There is a certain relationship of trust here. If we are going to put our troops in these impossible situations then we all own responsibility for the decision issues they are forced to confront and the consequences. If we can't live with that, then we should not be asking them to be there. I don't think anyone here has gone so far with any issue to call for closing the thread. Yes it has gone off topic, but the subject matter is definitely of interest. I would in fact argue that the this debate over the Seals reflects exactly what Burnett was getting at. We have this unrealistic expectation of the tidiness of combat based on a incorrect assessment of what combat in WW 2 was like. Once you cross the line of normal civil discourse and accept you have no alternative but to go to war, the lines become a lot less clear. Would I prefer the Seals not kill some poor goat herder in some far off country, hell yeah. Am I willing to say I know for sure that is the right decision, hell no. I do not know that the individual is an "innocent", for all I know he could be a Taliban militant and his AK is 40 meters away hidden in a copse. That the Seal team risked their lives on that decision not to kill them is why I can in fact take so much pride in them and mourn their loss all that much more. If you look back at what the Soviets were capable of doing in that same country 30 years ago, yes we are being held to a higher standard. That is a good thing.

Perhaps it had to do with the way the strikes were called in. I would have targeted the halftracks rather than the tanks and would actually have been disappointed if the airstrikes had taken out multiple tanks. I don't believe in reality they would have been quite that effective. However the suppression effect shouldn't be underrated. Imagine having any knd of AT assets available once those panzers had buttoned up, had a bit of dust around them and possibly suffered some damage to optics etc.