sburke

Thanks, seems someone hit a nerve there questioning the veracity of the statement. One item that does kind of make one wonder is the info at Achtung Panzer which apparently accepts Barkmann's version as accurate. In that one he recites the incident to his comrades after escaping on foot to Avranches on August 5th. This was after he had already rejoined his company for 2 days (July 28th to July 30th) If true, the reporting of the incident becomes more distant from the actual event with one would assume less eyewitness evidence as I can't find anything citing who were the actual infantry that he teamed up with.

nope - 13-20 days!!! Oh wait that still means not today...sigh. Guess I'll have to go work on the new range hood ventilation pipe this weekend.

Came across an entry in Osprey's Operation Cobra 1944 "The incident was wildly exaggerated by German propaganda and has acquired mythic status in recent accounts of the Normandy Campaign.." Wikipedia also seems to note some discrepancies depending on who you take as a source "Barkmann claims he inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing Americans and halted a major armoured advance near Le Neufbourg. This conflicts with US accounts for the area that mention an action with the Unit protecting the flank of the main US advance on Marigny (Troop A, 4th Cavalry Squadron)where 2 M5 tanks, 2 M8 AC and 6 GP were destroyed." Anyone know of any other sources or have any other information to shed some light on what might be the real story here?

LOL this should come as an inclusion to the commonwealth module when a UK unit sees an enemy unit break.

I think that had more to do with throwing manpower as fast as possible at the Germans. The intent was that when the guy next to you with the rifle died, you were supposed to pick up his. You could leave his shovel for someone else who didn't even get that. :-P

Hedgehogs ARE something to be feared. Doug and Dinsdale Piranha were born, on probation, in the slums of London, in 1929. Doug was born in February that year, and Dinsdale two weeks later, and again the week after that. Their father, Arthur Piranha, was a TV quizmaster and scrapmetal dealer who was well known to the police and a devout Catholic, who in January 1928 had married Kitty Malone, an upcoming East End boxer. Dinsdale was deeply afraid of Spiny Norman, an (apparently) imaginary hedgehog who, he believed, lived in a hangar at Luton Airport and who "was wont to be about twelve feet from "snout to tail", (one version states "about twelve feet from "tip of his snout to his anus"); when Dinsdale was depressed, Norman could be anything up to eight hundred yards long."

well now that you mention, pretty much except you need to have an occasional motorist passing the scene and yelling obscenities out the window.

BUT he has successfully allowed us to kill just a bit more time waiting for the release. It's like standing in line waiting for tickets to a dead show (remember those days when we stood in line?) and listening to the stoned out (purportedly profound) musings of just another pot head, shaking your head and laughing as the conversation went way off the deep end. There is nothing that obligates any of us to respond. However again it's like standing in line, what else have we got to do. :-P

Honestly I think the idea in and of itself isn't necessarily generating the response but more the tone of how it was presented by the subject line. One thing that seems to be a recurring phenomena is the posts trying to compare CMBN (always unfavorably and usually in a pretty antagonistic manner towards the BFC team) to some other product that isn't remotely like it and I expect more than a few of us are a bit tired of it. I think perhaps the Op meant the subject line somewhat tongue in cheek, but it probably wasn't the best idea what with some of the other recent posts. Given that, the idea of fog of war on the map is inherently going to have similar issues as a previous discussion about morale of units and situational awareness. Units being aware of the state of other units they are out of contact wouldn't be particularly realistic. In the same way any FOW of the map would have all units (because there is only one controller) instantly aware of any terrain feature any unit sees. How realistic is it that a unit that hasn't seen an avenue for a covered approach immediately runs for it because a sniper from another company happened to go up that route 20 minutes ago. It might make for a different style of game play particularly in the early game (as you had previously noted), but are you looking for a different style of play or "a more realistic game". The OP had posited that this was a question of realism however unless you are playing a first person shooter and can only see what you actually see yourself, I am not sure how the idea is really workable and realistic at the same time. About the closest I can see to any interaction of the map to FOW working is setting up a quick battle and picking your force without knowing the actual map you will use. In that sense the combat force you chose may be completely inappropriate for the terrain. Beyond that it is what it is - we are the Borg, we know and see everything that any one of us sees- you will be assimilated.

I'm betting that getting to play the game is in his eyes more than adequate. :-D

Hey Lt, here are your orders. Go west young man and here is your magical michelin map. It is all dark but as you walk forward it will tell you what you now already know.... no you needn't thank me, just doing my job. Oh and the guys in cartography section said something about "payback is a b****"

*standing* Hi my name is sburke and I am a Chris "Tyrspawn" Krause fanboy. I think I started viewing AAR videos just a few days ago and I am now hooked. I can't seem to spend more than a few minutes away from my computer. Any announcement that another video is going to be posted causes these inexplicable feelings of joy. My family and work life are suffering but I can't seem to find any reason to care. I believe my only chance at a cure is for BFC to release CMBN, but I suspect that is only replacing one addiction with another. Oh and thanks Chris, you're a great guy even if you are my "pusher man".

And who among us would knowingly pass on the "whoa, get back in front of the house moment" with the AT team. Heck I prefer we-go, but that was just about as good as the Tank team shoot out in the other AAR.

True enough but what else do we have to do until CMBN is out except rewatch the vid over and over and..? I feel like a kid who just got the latest Disney vid from my parents to shut me up. Heck I even stuck my neck out there on the Monty issue even knowing all my sources (and probably all sources out there) are biased one way or the other and usually second hand at best. What can I say, my boredom got the upper hand. As to Huertgen I might have tried to defend it just to spark a thread, but that dog just don't hunt. As to the Bulge, well the offensive itself kind of proved the point of why it achieved surprise. It was a phenomenally bad idea. The Germans were able to keep it hidden from Ultra sources which probably also had a good part to do with it. SHAEF had a treasure trove and it is fairly human to expect when your source is that good and it shows nothing to disbelieve other sources. Look how long it took for them to release that the battle of Mons was initiated from a Ultra data.

Forumites...I always forget, are those the ones that calculate from the ground up or from the ceiling down? :-P

Ahh Hah! So you have not modeled your knickers well enough to get them in a twist?!!! How about the German knickers? Seriously thanks for the vid. It'll preoccupy us for a few more days of waiting. Kind of like sneaking in to your parents room and peaking at your presents before they get them wrapped. You can look, you just can't touch. Nice to see it and it looks hot.

LOl I think we may just have to agree to disagree here. Though you have sparked my interest in taking a look at the 1940 campaign. For what it's worth, this isn't reflective of an opinion of the British army, just Montgomery.

Well that seems to be something Monty didn't get in N Africa. He didn't have the instinct to go for the throat when he had Rommel on the ropes and instead let him slip away back to Tunisia. Nor was he able to match Patton's speed in Sicily despite taking over routes that had been assigned to the American command. Not to make too much of Patton, his ego in Sicily likely cost more lives of his soldiers than was necessary and his performance in front of Metz was surely lacking. However not too many commanders could have pulled off the shift that Third Army made in December 1944. With his history of "tidying his front" the odds that he would have thrust as many divisions as Patton (and more so his commander Bradley) did down a single road without regard to what the Germans might do just doesn't sound likely.

I can only speak for myself, but Montgomery pretty much seems to have become THE MAN after he was appointed to N African command and implemented a plan already in motion. Victory became it's own Mantra and after that Monty could do no wrong with Churchill's backing. He then proceeded to allow Rommel to retreat all the way back to Tunis His constant stoking of his own legend through Normandy, taking credit for American success in the Ardennes and his ignoring of a strategic goal of getting Antwerp open as a supply source for the Allies probably prolonging the war, they just add up to a poor review. He just adds up to me as mostly being the guy in the right place at the right time, but not necessarily the right guy. (The bit about the Ardennes was a real public media fiasco and so bad that not only did Monty finally have to apologize, but so did Churchill to prevent it harming the Allied Alliance. That kind of says it all about how out of whack he was to the allied situation.) The Germans aren't likely to be the best judge of Allied Commanders, but their lack of regard for Monty speaks volumes. An unimaginative commander will spend a lot of his soldiers lives unnecessarily. Monty was far from the only commander to fit that bill, but he certainly contributed his share. His ego was unbearable even to many of his British compatriots. Not that Patton didn't have an ego, if anything it was likely worse, but Patton was a different type commander and probably rose to the pinnacle of his capability. Monty as head of an Army Group and from his own view the rightful theater commander was well past his. Contrast that to Omar Bradley as his peer. He understood the chain of command and what he should or shouldn't be saying in front of the media. He did his job as he was asked and he did it well. He understood his commander's intent and did his best to accomplish the mission as decided instead of constantly trying to undermine his commander. Monty just seemed to create more issues than he was worth. If it hadn't been for his favor amongst the British population who needed a winning leader after years of reversals I expect he would have been sacked. Okay that last bit is purely my own opinion on what should have been. :-P

Interesting alternative history considering he 1 was never sacked and in fact was highly regarded by Eisenhower and 2 he became the FIRST Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949. Surely a strange promotion for a sacked commander.

And the honest British, probably the Germans and maybe even a few of the allied commanders (not Americans) serving under him. >:-D Yeah I know I am probably biased, but I don't think that is purely about being American. I have some of the same regard for Patton, but at least Patton understand the role of speed in modern combat.

True but as I noted it isn't just a generic point of aircraft, but when and where. The hedgerows were bad enough for Infantry to see who was shooting at them. For aircraft, direct ground support was extremely difficult. I am reading of one incident on the drive to St Lo where the infantry was asked to put out red and white markers for the aircraft....which they didn't of course have. :-P Using CMAK as an example doesn't quite reflect the same conditions. Now when we get to the period of the battles in Lorraine, that may be a different story and perhaps by the then BFC will have determined how they want to model this. Ha "my greater knowledge? Sorry I have to admit to none. I am just trying to understand what it would mean for them to try and include and suggesting that before decrying their lack of forethought that you may want to try and reason out what effort it MIGHT take to do this. Personally after reading the threads on ballistics modeling in the recent Shermans vs MkIV AAR I would hate to be in their shoes when they do model this. All true and from your postings one can understand your passion for the game which is not at all a bad thing. Just perhaps it might be best to review your post a few times and edit the superlatives some before posting. It can only help your cause.

All of that may be true, but I would have left off the Monty quote. I never use as my reference on a resume anyone that folks are gonna look at and say "well how the heck would that guy know?" :-P

The subject may be ridiculous, but I think there are many different opinions here of which subject it is that we are referring to as being ridiculous. In CMBO, all my AA did was give away their positions when aircraft came along. I can't really say they had much success. In terms of the effectiveness of AA in the sources previously discussed. I can't say those numbers 1 sound very quantitatively impressive and 2 don't note aircraft type. How successful do we think they really were against P51s and P47s as opposed to recon lightweight, slow aircraft and level bombers? As one noted example in "Dying for St Lo" they talk about an allied air strike against the St Lo train station witnessed by a Frenchman and his comments were that basically the German AA was humiliatingly ineffective. I raised this subject on another post about friendly fire and the response I got was basically beware of using air power. Danger close is just about anywhere at the game scale. So yes the allies have air strikes, but honestly it doesn't seem to be something BFC wants to focus on at this scale and carries risk for both sides. I think your perspective is being driven by your desire to fight at an operational tempo using a tactical wargame and you have to ask yourself does that necessarily jive with what BFC is trying to produce? Though the game is capable of doing large scale battles, I don't think that they intended that to be it's focus as opposed to a capability. All of this gets pretty subjective, but as you are the one raising the question as to who would want what- personally I think BFC got it right. Allied ship borne artillery is a much bigger potential impact than aircaft at the tactical level for the specific period of this module. And the first designer who wanted to build a scenario for Omaha beach would be just as flipped out about the lack of naval firepower as you are about German AA. As to trading one unit type for another, I think you missed the point. To do AA fire you don't just build a unit, you have to model the AA fire. Now considering the effort for ballistics modeling that BFC has put into the product do you think they (or anyone else including yourself) isn't going to be spending thread after thread about whether or not they got that right. "but my wirbelwind has a turn capability of 30 degrees in 2 seconds firing 150 rounds per second of ......" Before you go off about how dumb their focus is or lack of capability think about what you are saying and ask yourself this- Are you prepared to wait another year to play ANY scenario just to be able to shoot back rather ineffectively? On a personal note, no offense but calm the theatrics. Some of us have a few years behind us and a few less hairs except for what is growing in our ears. Throwing a fit because of a single item that you want but is inherently going to complicate the game puts people like myself off. It will in the end run hurt your chances of involving folks in the campaign game you want to do simply because we don't want have to deal with that kind of behavior. Reasoned thought out discussion is very appealing, if I want to hear a fit I just listen for my neighbors kid to fall off his swing.

It might be worth your time to look at the TCS game series for some ideas. Do a search on tcs gamers and you should find a link to the archive. In there is a copy of the 4.0 series rules. They have their own concepts on how to account for command cycles and morale. The key issue for you is your map. If you have that (even if it is hand drawn) you can use it to create CMBN maps. The players only need the Operational map to draw up plans and you use that to create the individual battles. Just a thought that may allow you to do this without too much overhead on the operational layer and not be limited by the scale of either maps or OoB of any single game out there.