costard

Great screen shot GAJ. As a request, could you please identify new turns with their turn number? I'm having to switch to Bil's thread to maintain some sense of coherency. Cheers.

Got a giggle out of that. Thanks for the blurb on 7RTR too - a description of men of character. I find it interesting that they were both kept on and that the Lt-Col was promoted further along the track.

We're probably still better off with 50% bad results than with 85% bad results. Depending on the level of affect of the decisions made with bad results backing the process. It sorts itself out, eventually, one way or another. Proof by inspection is slow, but it happens.

GaJ - what's the ammo loadout for the M16? Can we get some idea of ROF?

Thanks Argus Eye - I was wondering how you could define a continuous function as made up of reals, then use this to prove a cardinality that it manifestly isn't. In my opinion, if that is a crayon version, it's the sort of work that hangs in the Louvre (and can't be seen under good light unless you are important enough for the museum to sacrifice some of the life span of the pigments). Thanks again.

Ugh, how to defend the indefensible argument (with a hangover). Or, chasing down the red herrings to show you that they're actually maroon. The twenty year time-frame came out of a simple, quick and rough guesstimate of when the power establishment in the US stopped working for the general populace and shifted it's focus to the benefit of themselves - divide and conquer applied to their own nation. I suspect the rot actually arose on both sides of the Atlantic and in some ways was facilitated by the lack of mission that came about when the Curtain fell. Diesel - I think the simple scale of the US achievements in the post-war period is manifestly unmatched in any period of recorded history by any other civilisation (for example, it has held together in face of self-engineered disasters at least as well as the Roman Empire, all the time maintaining and extending a technological lead over its competitors). The value and free dissemination of US management systems developed during WW2 has meant that other countries have benefited from applying the lessons, the particular philosophical bent and requirements of those various nations leading to modifications that, in some instances, have promoted relative superiority in results. The complexity of the systems that underlie that success require superior management, in their design and in their maintenance. Where the competency in management skills was selected from a very broad base during the war (a breakdown of class distinctions and a recognition of both the fact of exploitable competency being available in the lower classes and a need to exploit those competencies), it is now being made from a diminishing resource, a club of monied interests that has very little claim on moral or intellectual integrity (which lack denies them moral and intellectual authority and therefore, a justifiable claim on leadership status). For sure, the requirements of highly skilled leaders are partly met by the quality of the methods and metrics brought to bear in analysing the problems the leadership is required to solve, and I'd argue the the US was streets ahead in this regard during and just after WW2.

Mk VI - I meant Mk VI. doh

Sublime, decline doesn't mean you've hit a point where you're worse than anyone else. It might mean that there is a trend that needs to be reversed. I believe the US has such an enormous resource in it's populace that it still has about half a generation (15 years) to go before it exhausts it (and with so little being put back into the infrastructure and systems that husband that resource...) - but on the current trend it'll get there soon enough and we'll be lucky if we're left with stagnation as a result. To go to decline from such an outstanding success? I think that if we have a look at our myths we'll find that there has been a creep into the grey area - natural behaviour for the curious, those that are most likely to lend novel observations to the sum of human experience - and a discovery of the "wrong". WW2 was supported in the US by a populace that watched newsreels for a glimpse of their relatives, that saw the death of their relatives. The populace supported that war even though they were informed of the reality of the outcome (for many). The modern populace is so far removed from that understanding of the costs of waging war (with the unhappy exception of the Yugoslav, Bosnian, Yemeni, Sri Lankan, Chechen, Egyptian, Israeli - the list just goes on and on) - how the **** can this be gauged as a "success"? If the time-line for success is as negotiable as "how about this then?", why don't we consider the possibility that the populace can respond to the idea that "globalisation means that you're competing with an Indian (that lower caste, black skinned, hungry, energetic and, above all, capable dude) for the wage that presently buys your food and shelter and clothing". I don't see that the average US citizen has benefitted from the strategies imposed by their leadership over the last twenty years, I don't believe that husbanding disaster is a way to avoid it.

Not drunk thne, am drnumk now. Michael, I always thought of merlot as a young drinking wine but I've had a few recently as old as '92 and very good. With your cheapo bottle, does it get good as it ages - you say you open it and sup at it over a few days? Don't change tyhe subvject. Oh, and send me a setup, forthwith.

Thanks for your work GaJ. I'm looking forward to seeing the quads in action. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end and I'll be watching to see how Bil's troops react. HTs become armoured colanders, I reckon: Swiss cheese.

Thanks for all the work Bil. Great stuff. The war movie lighting is a good one.

Jon, isn't "how forces are used" a function of leadership? Leadership problems in the US forces were addressed following the North Africa campaign (i.e the President toured and sacked). The Brits were keen to hang their hat on anything remotely successful (which is how they got Monty) and Stalin had the purges of the 30's and the follow-up to Barbarossa to prune. Hitler, on the other hand, had a force that was committed by their oath and pragmatic in their dealings with the party (the un-pragmatic were soon done away with, and not to mention the level of feeling within the officer corps that led to multiple assassination attempts). It is interesting that the US came out of WW2 with management skills that are still to be matched elsewhere in the world (and on the decline for twenty years now).

Is dust only ever dry? Is coral only ever wet? Does the inversion of the image through a shimmering haze let us sense the movement and shape of a column of air?

Yep, I reckon they got two of the four. That 88 looks like it might be mounted on a Mk V chassis.

"...command of the language" forsooth. Doesn't play the game against meat opponents, doesn't play real-time.

If you're still using your att address you'll have somewhere to reply to. Otherwise PM me and I'll follow it up.

Deal - send us a setup.

G'day Boo. Still playing, still looking forward to the next iteration of Charles' genius. I have a lot less time to spend unfortunately, what with kids and starting a business and all. The critters haven't got me yet: you should come down to the arse end of the world and coach them to do the job right. It'd give me a laugh, anyway. How's life on planet Radley? Now that snow shovelling season is almost over you'd be looking for another way to be worthy of Rose's attentions - I know! Go and busk as as street mime! Prove your bravery and artistic soul at the same time. Gotta go - Piss Weak World has held the kidlings' attention for ninety minutes now. Time for a cuppa.

"Buried alive, and there's someone bangin' on your grave."

Oh dear, Emrys got it wrong! For Bugged - try "The Crystal Cave" by Mary Stewart. Her prose is like a rich soup, nourishing and warm.

Broken gun - stuck pin? Tough way to find out about it.

That's a good call Womble - see if it pans out. All this, and more! They set the bar higher, yeah? (Caveat, they delivered with CMBN and CMFI).

It meant that the US and Britain didn't have to fight the USSR for control of the Mediterranean, particularly when Turkey was Natoed. Suez and oil. Doesn't get much bigger than that for importance in the result.

I'm grabbing CMSF2 when it comes out. Before it comes out. Look for a holiday price in 2015. CMFI came out unpolished - CMBN worked, first up. Yes, there were areas to be worked on and around, but I had no problems getting in and involved, well involved in the game. I found the game was a hard master, teaching harsh lessons. Holding fewer preconceptions gives you a lot when something new comes along, but many of us had exposure to CM1 and that learning curve had no doubt conditioned our expectations. CMBN was superb work, and the follow up work to the release was most of the best of it. CMFI was buggy when it first came out. But it gave me armour arcs. I'd say that the communication out there about the game, in the base that bought CMBN, was true to this. So many in the base customer repurchase (if this idea of CMFI sales being a tank were true, after all) were communicating accurate criticisms to their peers. Peers were choosing not to buy - because money is tighter, mostly. You can now buy unbuggy CMFI, and because of that fact, armour arcs (and heaps of other stuff) in CMBN, and all this building to the (stable) base of the next game in the series (as I understand Charle's designing). The game now has the same stability and enjoyment as the first release CMBN I received, but more playing features, all adding to the enjoyment. These features have been available for all of one month? Holiday price - man, give the man fair Vig. Please. It's Christmas - the only time a you can count on a whim purchase needing to be important, and therefore representing a fair profit. Particularly these days. You can't beg from Santa, you just can't.

He did. Thanks Means. Oh, and you raise a valid point... Michael, I apologise profusely and sincerely for misinterpreting your mangled prose, and attacking you on the basis of a misconception arising therefrom. I trust this abject apology gives you satisfaction for an unjust action on my (dimwitted) part.