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costard

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Posts posted by costard

    Russian Tanks Invade Georgia

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    An observation: Russia seems to be the only party behaving rationally in this. Bush really does seem a second rate politician when compared to Putin, with far less moral and intellectual discipline.

    What chance a more thoughtful set of Russian neighbours for a little while?

    From what I've read, most cannibalism took place in geographic locations where there was limited access to digestable protein. What better way to celebrate a victory in battle than with a BBQ? Mmm, long pork.

    Lets throw some more fuel on this fire....

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    Worthwhile discussion - comments

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    quote BD6: "You would think after Vietnam they would have learned the lesson..."

    The lesson was learnt - and then ignored, forgotten and unlearnt.

    Much the same thing with the financial management of a modern society - half-smart, ignorant or just plain stupid: we haven't had many competent leaders in the last decade.

    Really enjoying the writing, by the way.

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    Worthwhile discussion - comments

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    The Army hasn't prevented the publication of the photo - it has, however managed the consequences.

    To expect the surviving unit members to do a good job of protecting and helping the embedded reporter, when they are grieving and the images do nothing to allay that grief (in fact, quite the reverse), when the knowledge of the sale of the images benefits only the reporter, the media owner and the "social masturbators" (nice one SSgt Viljuri) - the reporter is far safer out of the country.

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    Worthwhile discussion - comments

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    quote “Mr. Miller’s complete lack of respect to these marines, their friends, and families is shameful,” Captain Vickers said. “How do we explain to their children or families these disturbing pictures just days after it happened?”

    "Mr Miller's complete lack of respect" is a value judgement made by Captain Vickers, who I'm certain would have difficulty explaining to children and relatives the worth of the sacrifice made by the dead soldiers. I'm happy for the good Captain to feel ashamed, I don't believe it is the fact of the published photos he should be feeling ashamed about.

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    Good early war armour game match ups?

    in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps

    Posted

    Hi Harry

    My experience is that the biggest factor in the early war armour fight is the differing quality of available crews. The Soviets have real problems with all armour skills, the quality of their gear (T34 and heavier) sometimes making up for this.

    I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of crack BT-7 platoons up against a regular T-38 platoon. A big map with sparse tree cover and a couple of hills. hmm...

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    Variable turns and static flags?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    CMBB manual p42 -

    flag changes hands somewhen near the end of the battle, turns extended by up to 25% or ten turns, whichever is lesser.

    So the attacker cannot just jump at the last and grab the points, s/he has to fight for them. Adds to the uncertainty (and hence the realism) of the outcome - IMHO.

    It's worth noting that the default value for the dynamic flag is 900 points - you can change this value in the scenario editor.

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    Variable turns and static flags?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Variable turns takes away the immediate end to a battle that might leave you one minute away from a good victory. This gives you a little more leeway in planning advances and modifying the plans to suit circumstances. For instance, if your 25pdr spotter gets snotted by enemy artilllery (because some fool sent him to the top of the building when there was no need) and your prep barrage for the final assault goes awol thereby, you can use the extra time to gather and suppress the defenders. Con, if you are the defender and things are getting desperate, you could feel robbed by the game going on.

    Static flags? Dynamic flags means either the attacker gets to choose which flag is worth points, the others being "bogus", or the one valid flag is determined randomly. Either way, the defender doesn't know which flag is the real one.

    CMBO manual p126

    hope this helps.

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    The German military tradition

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Jason -nonsense nothing. You are describing the evolution of the selection for ability in the military profession (in Germany). To say that Frederick had the resources to build the latter form of the process in his time is nonsense. Result before progression? - that's cart before the horse stuff. I agree entirely that the system used in Fred's time was less than perfect, I'd strongly agree that the current selection methods (still not adopted by some political systems around today) on merit delivers a far higher quality of officer - but I'd also have to say that I doubt that any modern military achieves perfection.

    The regiment was the largest unit gathered in times of peace. The infrastructure for barracks and maintenance of that unit required fortresses - castles, in turn supported by towns and county. With the fragmented nature of German politics (the very definable differences in culture between Prussia and Bavaria, for example, and the existence of some twenty other principalities not welded together until Bismarck) it was natural for the regiments to be based around groups of families - fuedal structures of leige ownership. How these structures were grouped into divisions and armies in time of need depended on the historical narrative of allegiancies between the city-states - the duchies. The definition of a state historically relies upon the presence of a state military - those that go without really go without, sooner or later. The lack of effective communications technology delimits the effective radius of activity of an indepedent command, giving you areas of land (usually defined by geographical features) under the control of a titular head of the military, the owner of the castle and other infrastructure, a capital resource either inherited or won in battle.

    The church is a different kettlerian fish altogether, it is the rise of the corporate structure, where the need for mental capability is addressed as a matter of corporate survival - the deliberate expansion of the resource base through the building of a state funded education system - where the science of philosophy is required to produce results; the better ordering of events in the quest for quantitative predictability.

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    The German military tradition

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Hi Jason. Taking you up on the invitation to comment - thanks for taking the time to write this stuff.

    This produced a closed military caste, most of whose

    capital was tied up in the value of their commissions, which were effectively bond-like

    claims on the state.

    There wasn't the slightest possibility of rigorously selecting for raw intellectual talent

    in this set up.

    The probability of capable intellects arising from this selection process is actually quite high if you contrast it with the other available method - selecting from the entire population, but with the knowledge that 95% percent of the additional resource (intellectual capital) is entirely uneducated, 99.9% if you require the education to have a basis in military history (beyond a familiarity with culturally relevant items - painting, music, architecture, etc). To train a mind to critical analysis requires a great deal of time and invested capital in the form of records and documents maintained for perusal, in the skills and people required to do the training, and the infrastructure required to maintain all this. Sure, education was a commodity more readily available to a growing middle class (certainly in stark contrast with most of the rest of the globe), but the the effects of concentration of capital work in education, too - so universities specialised, they specialised to meet market requirements, and many were financed by the military industrial complex of the time. [Lots more waffle deleted]

    with officers keeping half or all of their men's pay in time of peace, or hiring them out

    as unskilled labor like a contractor.

    This bit of info is interesting - the system drives peace if the officer has the ability to control his troops (i.e. leads well), this most easily achieved by only keeping half the pay of his non-coms. Of course, it may be that the state only sees fit to pay it's soldiers when it requires them to fight (sound familiar?), the officer class, with family investments tied up in state industries (of which military supply remains the most jealously guarded) recognises the need for their self-sacrifice - not in times of war, when the industries they invest in as a class are fully funded by the state, but in times of peace, when their class has to "sit tight", coping with a reduced income stream so that their family has the opportunity of capitalising on the next war.
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    BT7: Penetration data?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Steiner14 - you're welcome.

    And for the second part of your question, there does seem to be a discrepancy between the T70 gun and the BT-7 (1mm of penetration at 500m range against 30 degree sloped armour). Given that the two tanks purchased for the same battle have the same penetration characteristics, I would assume that something else is being calculated for - Jason let the cat out of the bag.

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    Out of the Dust III - Official tread

    in Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord

    Posted

    Hoots.

    Keith and mntineer, my ISP is fixed. We lost ten days play - all three games are at turn 60. So still a fair way to travel. Shells is in good contact. :D

    Kudos once again to Kingfish for the detail in the scenarios and their playability.

    edit: noob error. about turn 20 for each battle, not turn 60

    [ April 14, 2008, 11:37 PM: Message edited by: costard ]

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    OOB request

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    JasonC -could the discrepancy be seen in light of air attacks on rail, centres and viaducts (thinking of a Tall-boy dropped by 617 squadron). Production centres still putting out the units, big parks of vehicles going nowhere for lack of transport?

    Or a lack of trained crews and a strategic allowance for losses of hulls? I must confess ignorance of the stats for employment of able bodied men in the Reich, but I suspect the maximum number were being sent to the mill, otherwise, at some point, there would have been no numerical advantage accruing to the Soviets.

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