JRMC1879
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Posts posted by JRMC1879
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This was in a post made by Steve ...
To restate the obvious, we are still a few days away from our 6 week ESTIMATED release date for Gustav so it is obviously not "pushed back".
So I am wondering if the capitals are telling us something...
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So I was wrong (You like that, good). Really, now, when's the last time you admitted you were wrong? Some how I can't imagine you ever saying you are wrong either.
Erm ... 4.35pm Friday of last week.
The wife said - "so you've bought another freaking game" ?
"Yes dear, but its Combat Mission Gustav Line"
"Thats supposed to mean something ?"
"Oh c'mon ... its Combat Mission Gustav Line"
"The kids have to eat you know"
"We have cake - and .... its Combat Mission Gustav Line"
"I sometimes think you love your games more than me"
"But dear ... its Combat Mission Gustav Line"
At that point I ducked as the pointy edge of the bread knife singed my ear and apologised.
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Fair enough, but how is anyone to know that? We've got our share of all kinds here.
What - so you seriously thought I was saying I didnt want any actual girls here ?
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What happened got pushed back... again.
Seems if a game here is said it will be out in a month that means at least
2 or 3 even 6 months.
they are after all using the same engine and recycling the same map and location types from the previous module and a lot of the same equipment.
Its not like they are creating something wholly new like an eastern front campaign.
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What you think this is the Calvin and Hobbes treehouse? Personally I think that would probably be a good thing. Then maybe the few female players wouldn't have to hide their gender to avoid A**holes. And before you suggest there aren't any, perhaps you should reflect on above statement and wonder how you will ever know.
If Phil and Normal Dude aren't offended then I don't think any of the rest of us have any right to object.
Jesus man ... it was a joke FFS.
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+1...
Come on now lets give new members a chance here..
We should want to be considered an open and friendly community across wargaming circles..
Seems to me bad form for beta testers to jump in on new members aswell...your one of the faces of BFand this comes with responsibility and one of those really is to create a welcoming forum to new members. Maybe instead of jumping on them from a great height, explain why people can get abit annoyed when these questions are asked.
Just a thought.
Thats BS.
Read his post - was that polite and respectful ?. He was wrong - and if he had posted in a different way in the first place people wouldnt have jumped on him for it. Fact is he was not only verging on abusive and insulting, but he was factually wrong - then got called on it, and should've manned up and taken the flak instead of calling people teenagers and trolls.
As has been said here many many times - there are ways of asking ...
I would hate it if this forum turned into a place for girls ....
PS PaulT - I am a freaking Man Mountain who eats aircraft carriers for breakfast ....
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Will AAA reach CMBN with Arnhem release?
follow up question.... and AAA become available way back to D-Day?
Yeah - I am hoping they will appear in Arnhem - and therefore be available for use in normandy ...
I am presuming if they are in arnhem - then the only thing stopping their use in normandy would be something to do with availability dates - which obviously should not stop them appearing in normandy in any case.
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As a fan of soft vehicles in the game (I don't know why) I'm glad to see the Morris utility truck. It gives me hope of seeing a beep in a Battlepack some day. I doubt we'll ever see a seep or Schwimwagen though, as amphibious capability would be a lot of coding for two obscure vehicles.
DUkw, DD Tanks, LVT, Buffalo ....
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so whats the big deal about butt plates i would personally rather have a server browser... Most of my friends wont buy the game even though they like it simply since the online is a pain..
Which somewhat simplifies the issue doesnt it ? A server browser is fine - but there would have to be servers correct ? Hosted and run by battlefront ?
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I'm starting to get that tingly feeling that a much-awaited announcement is shortly due. If you are planning on a pre-order, you'd better get it in real quick.
Michael
Well I would - if they allowed pre orders for download only. No doubt I will have to suffer the usual agony of those playing it first who wanted it physical.:mad:
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I thought the front page had changed to Assault on Italy ....
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As I said in the OP, I am no stranger to CM and probably got CMBO* before the vast majority of people here - and I've also played and enjoyed similar games with graphical limitations (despite their age I think CC games with the top down 2d view are actually still visually appealing). I also own Advanced Squad Leader and a few other tactical board games, so I have a pretty good appreciation of simulating this level of conflict, the detailed mechanics that can go into it, and the design compromises that get made along the way.
Graphics aren't the be-all and end-all, but they are obviously important to a large part of the player base or there wouldn't be so many graphical mods and screenshot threads. For me, zoomed out views are more interesting than extreme closeups, which is why terrain is more important to me that seeing the SS insignia on a unit model's collar - but again, the content of screenshots and mods suggests that mine is a minority view.
In my OP I was mostly clarifying what I understood to be the case with the linear terrain features. I'm assuming that they don't have too much of an effect on game play.
And in terms of game play, from what I've seen in different demos and reviews, CMBN is by far the closest simulation and strikes the right command/control balance.
Maybe in future upgrades/overhauls of the engine the underlying grid will be made finer to allow for more natural looking terrain. Probably heresy to say it here, but I think CC makes the right compromise between displaying terrain (all hand drawn of course, and a lot more effort) and defining what this means on a very fine underlying grid - so you see nice curved roads, even though parts of them aren't actually road in the engine.
* interestingly, when I bought CMBO it failed to arrive, but an email to the guys sorted it out and they sent off another copy at no extra charge - this was in the days of CDs and big printed manuals, and I've always remembered that excellent customer service experience from a small company just starting out
No, what I am saying is seriously - what is so bad about this ?
Click the link ...
http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=109386&page=28
or this...
http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=109386&page=24
Its not that I dont understand you are a wargamer - its just that I dont understand what people think is so bad about the graphics in the game. As far as all other wargames out there it is streets and shoulders above everything else. Sure if you wanted to compare it to battlefield 3 or some other equally worthless comparison then its not as good but as far as wargames go - it is exceptional.
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Hi
I had the original CMBO and CMBB and really enjoyed them, although I eventually went back to CC and played that more through the mid-2000s.
I couple of years ago I was tossing up between the new CM and PCO, and ended up going with PCO, mainly because of scope and content.
But recently I've been going back to the CM demo and looking at other WW2 tactical games.
So what does this all have to do with terrain?
Well, the biggest hurdle for me are CM's terrain graphics - they looked ok a few years ago, especially stacked up against PCO, but they look really bad in comparison to other games like ToW. The bottom line is that the maps don't look natural, and I think this is mostly to do with the way it is created using linear features - roads and rivers in particular.
I've seen some good terrain improvements in the screenshot thread (eg Aris' HD terrain mods), but they still seem to be constrained by the linear feature problem - and I assume that this is too embedded to change?
I have never had any issues with the CM graphics - to me I dont understand what everyone complains about. You should realize that PCO has a very difficult map editor - one of the trade offs in being able to create limitless content with CM in a relatively easy way is it works that way. I cant really see the chasm like difference you refer to between CM and TOW.
Beyond that - I would say if a couple of non curvy roads or rivers put you off then likely you are missing the point of the game and its not for you.
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How many good Americans stood up to stop Bush from invading Iraq????
Well - two million people marched in London on one day in 2003 ? dont know about america. And beyond the fact that the politicians lied to us about the reasons for invading and they completely F******* up the aftermath of the war - I have no problem with the Iraq war so not entirely sure I see your point. Removing a tourturer of children and gasser of innocents was as much a just cause as removing hitler. If the peace had been succesful and not totally screwed up then the chorus of detractors now would have been as deafening as a mouse squeaking in an empty room. Personally - lying politicians aside - I always saw the protesters point of view as one of being more a selfish concern about the law and the treasure being spent than one of concern for fellow human beings continuing to live under a murdering sadist and a sanctions regime that did nothing to oust him but killed a lot of kids.
The practice was terrible - there was nothing wrong with the principle. Cant seriously beleive you are making the comparison to be honest. Iraq was hardly a sovereign state - it was the personal fiefdom of a sadistic gangster and torturer of children, nothing more.
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I don't think that is a widely accepted idea here, though I'm not entirely sure to be honest. I believe it is more accepted in Austria, though.
Here maybe not. Elsewhere it is definitely a trend I see.
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It wasn't and isn't my intent to be an apologist.
I'd prefer to see my view as humanist, in both the best and worst sense of rationalizing what people are capable of, and capable of becoming, given conditioning and circumstance.
Both the British and Americans only fought expeditionary wars against an enemy that hadn't been dehumanized the way combatants had been on other fronts and in other theaters during WWII.
Fighting in your own backyard changes the rules. Cultural, social, racial and historic animosity fueled hatred in a way that wasn't as evident in the conflict between the US and Germany.
Fighting in the Pacific took on a different tone, partially because it was easier to dehumanize an Asian enemy.
While my opinion smacks of being the apologist, to me, yours smacks of the very jingoism and moral superiority that causes nations like WWII Germany to feel entitled to invade a neighbour.
And how exactly is that jingoistic ? Not sure I have heard of anything more insulting to the veterans and those who died fighting hitler. My respect for those who did is "moral superiority" ? That causes nations like germany to invade half the world and slaughter millions ? And you say you are not an apologist !! you may not see it but Personally I am "rightly" proud of those who beat germany and it is a mark of the western allies that their first concern was of re-education and not revenge - as it so easily could have been. I see nothing jingoistic in that and if there is a sense of moral superiority then it is a well deserved one. Whilst you may try to "rationalize" it I prefer to see the very real and historically documented differences between the way the german army behaved and those of the western allies.
Even your point about japan only goes as far as the fighting - and was born mostly from what the japanese soldier did in reality than the soldiers gullability in accepting propoganda at face value. The inhumanity - if you can call it that - and I dont - from us soldiers in the pacific was borne from what they witnessed and not from indoctrination.
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Then "Schindler's List" was made for you.
Which is entirely my point. Truly good germans who stood against hitler (and schindler was a very debatable character from that point of view) could be counted on one hand. Sure some germans did some things on a moral basis but they were miniscule to the point of irrelevance. For a people that now attempts to describe themselves as victims of hitler the most remarkable thing about wartime germany was the almost complete lack of resistance to his rule. There is a reason it was so.
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Dehumanize your enemy, EVERYONE does it.
It's more easily achieved when racial and cultural divides are greater.
Easier still when their's a history of conflict between the parties.
Westerners do gloss over the atrocities commit by the Russians, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or because it was 'justified' as 'payback'.
Soldiers are trained to support their mates, no matter what and through anything.
It doesn't matter if it's Marines covering up murders of Civilians in Iraq to support their squadies, or soldiers destroying entire villages in Vietnam out of rage and frustration.
The majority of German soldiers turned a blind eye to the atrocities perpetrated by a minority who'd been enlivened and encouraged by an ethos of National and racial superiority because they were told to.
Very few people who know anything about the reality of war want to take part in one.
Fewer still want to kill people because of the colour of their skin or their cultural identity.
But it still happens, in civilian life, let alone war.
Put a uniform on *******s who've been indoctrinated to hate, give them a gun and tell them that they're being a patriot by killing human vermin. Some will do it, some will even enjoy it.
The majority will not, but they're caught in the machinery of the military, to decent is to break cohesion, cohesion is survival.
In the case of the Germans during WWII, the encouragement from the very top to perform 'dampnum', total war against both civilians and soldiers became more and more normalized as the military moved further into territories held by nationalities and cultures the Germans were able to dehumanize through social and racial divides.
As the casualties mounted for the Germans and the war became one of survival, rather than conquest, things deteriorated further.
There's no excuse for what happened, but it is understandable.
Statements like this highlight how it easy it is to dehumanize, even at a range of 70 years and from the comfort of home.
Its got nothing to do with de humanizing germans - they succeeded at that quite well enough on their own by their actions and more importantly the scale of them. Its simply about the original question with regard to films and sympathizing with the plight of the german soldier from the basis of what they were fighting for. Read or watch most memoirs from the german soldiers point of view there is an acceptance that they bought into hitlers view of untermenschen and jews and that was a feature of their war - ie it was idealogical in a way the western allies werent and why they accepted the atrocities around them and participated in them.
There is never any attempt to say they understood at the time what they were fighting for was wrong - it is always the reasoning thet they were duped into believing they were right.
And whilst all armies have their "bandits" nothing approaches the scale of how the germans behaved in every country they invaded.
To empathize with the german soldier as much as an allied one from any point of view does not show more humanity but a profoundly innacurate view of the differences in the motivations for fighting the war and what they were prepared to do in the war.
Had Hitler beaten the russians and british and america sat in their own continent and he ruled over europe for the last 70 years what fundamentally would have happened in germany - mass revolt on moral grounds ? How would he be viewed today in germany had he been successful instead of leading the country to destruction ?
Read any detailed study on the Nazi state and you will quickly see how dependent it was on the support of the people. And how careful it was to keep it.
The fact is whilst some in germany saw him for what he was - after the victories in europe the streets were filled with people who genuinely believed he was making germany what it should be irrespective of how he was doing it. The german people were complicit in what he did they were not victims.
The western allies did not treat the germans badly at all when they occupied their country. And that represents a fundamental difference in ethics and the people of the uk and us from those in russia and germany during the war and how they fought it.
your arguments to me just smack of apologist reasoning for a scale of involvement and complicity that goes well beyond a Mai Lai or more usual war atrocities.
Hitlers fundamental view was that germany was due greatness and conquest and fundamentally whilst he was successful most germans had no problem with it or how he went about it.
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I would really suggest you (or any person for that matter) to pick up Ordinary Men if you wish to understand better what might causes such behaviour patterns.
Also, if you happen to speak German you can find a highly interesting lecture here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-A6N-KyP8U
No subtitles unfortunately.
So much of human behaviour is just situational and dependent on what is considered normal by the society you live in which is also why you often find persons who commited such horrible acts can be loving husbands, caring fathers and really just good citizens without ever resorting to violence ever again afterwards.
Here you have another documentary on a particular case, unfortunately only in German again:
Its funny how perceptions are different. I have read ordinary men a couple of times. Probably one of the most difficult reads there is with some of the descriptions.
I seriously took a completely different meaning from what he wrote in that book and it was so much an illustration for me as to how much ordinary germans bought into the whole superiority thing. I didnt take at all he was suggesting peer pressure was what drove those men to do the things they did - quite the opposite in fact. Indeed it was for me all about the title - and how ordinary men put in the right situation will willingly commit barbarous acts with the knowledge they act with impunity. If anything ordinary mens most powerful point was the Lack of an adequete explanation as to why they did what they did and if anything he argues against peer pressure as an explanation. To me that was the salient point of the book.
The salutory lesson from the book is that most of us would like to think that any "ordinary" man would find something in himself when standing face to face with a ten year old hes about to put a bullet in the back of their head but even with the exit routes they had available, which didnt require any particular courage, they didnt.
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Well for me I try to see them as human beings just like me and everyone else. Compassion really. If I see poor Johan crack under heavy depth charge barrage in Das Boot I feel just as sorry for as I do for Adrien Brody in The Pianist after his family got sent to Treblinka.
Society is just too big for most individuals to resist really I think. Unless you are really an exceptional person how can you resist against living in and fighting for a violent and criminal regime.
So how can I condem an ordinary person for fullfiling the role the society he lives in has considered him for. I can't really. I can't condem a young German man in his early twenties at best for being ordered into an execution unit as I can't condem a young African boy in Liberia commiting the most heinous atrocities (just recently I watched a documentary about 90% of the Liberian population have eaten human flesh).
And honestly I think there is some sort of self-rightousness in most "Western" contries (i.e USA, Britain, Canada, etc.) that comes from "being the good guys" (which is right of course to some degree) which distorts the view on many events in history and also in present time.
Well, taking your example of the execution unit ... if you read widely on the subject you will find that much research has found that there was very little, if any, peer presure to be part of such units and official sanctions for refusing duty in those units virtually non existant. Again, it is revisionist history that suggests there was some kind of coercion and convenient for modern germany to forward that myth. The simple fact is - an awful lot of contempary germans believed in what hitler was saying and the majority of soldiers didnt find great moral objections to what they were doing. The german army simply wouldnt have fought as well as it did and for as long if they didnt. If germans turned against hitler it was when he began to lose the war not through any moral objections to what he was doing.
I am not sure where self righteousness comes into it - the western allies spent huge amounts of blood and treasure freeing europe from hitler and largely handed back those countries to democratic governments. And to me it is the role of the german people and forces and their complicity in hitlers rise to power and the war which is distorted these days not the other way round.
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Shouldn't be a problem for an open-minded person who's ability to feel empathy and compassion for fellow human beings is not blinded by patriotism and nationalism.
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That may sound a little more harsh than intended. I guess it's normal to feel more empathy with people you share the same language, culture, heritage with.
But that shouldn't exclude the same for persons who were enemies to other persons a long time ago.
And I generally don't like patriotism a lot.
Its got nothing to do with nationalism or culture or heritage or for that matter open mindedness.
Talking from a military rather than civilian point of view I am not sure where my empathy for german soldiers would come from considering what even the most reluctant of them were fighting for. I am not one of those who subscribe to the revisionist present day german view of things that they were as much helpless victims of hitler as anyone else - and especially not where their military were concerned - and that includes down to the level of ordinary soldiers.
Its simply the fact that I feel more for a US soldier fighting for freedom in the ardennes than a german soldier fighting to facilitate opression and genocide. I am not sure where that "empathy" you refer to would come from in that respect.
Those are just facts of history and not something a film is going to change and certainly not one that would distort facts of history to such an extent that it even had a chance to do so.
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Enemy at the Gates was awful...Stalingrad beats it hands down.
Yes - enemy at the gates was truly awful. Stalingrad was better - if you are comparing the two - but still a pretty dire movie.
The biggest problem a war film from the german pont of view faces is the attempt to elicit any sympathy for any of the german characters which for most watching will utterly fail. Unless you are german of course. Der untergang was the best german war film I have seen - but thats largely because it didnt rely on any emotional attachment to characters - it was more just a documentation of history. Band of Brothers worked so well not only because of the superb battle scenes but because people we cared about were heading into them.
It would likely be a cold day in hell before I felt the same for a german character as I did for an american or british one.
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If, hypothetically, the Chunnel had existed in July 1940 and the Wehrmacht could have simply marched under The Channel to Britain, it's certainly true they would have had no trouble dealing with the ground forces then available to defend the Home Islands.
But no matter how much advance planning and prescience on the part of the German High Command you assume, a July 1940 invasion was simply impossible. Bear in mind that the fighting around Dunkirk didn't end until about June 4, the Wehrmacht didn't enter Paris until June 14, and the Armistice with France was signed on June 22. By any standard, the Battle of France was a smashing success for the Wehrmacht, but the overall pace of the Operation put a lot of wear and tear on the invading formations, and especially the panzer divisions. The Wehrmacht needed at least some time to rest, refit, and repair. It also needed time to reorganize the invasion divisions, transport them to the Channel ports, get them briefed and trained on the invasion plan, get the men and equipment loaded onto invasion barges, etc. Logistical plans involving hundreds of thousands of men, thousands of vehicles and horses, and hundreds of boats and ships take time to execute. Even absent any interference from the Brits, turnaround time needed for the Wehrmacht between the Fall of France and the initiation of any hypothetical Sea Lion was weeks, not days.
Further, the Germans almost certainly needed execute the initial landings of Sea Lion on or near a spring high tide to make beach landings easier (especially considering the Germans lacked specialized beach landing boats like the Higgins Boat or the LST). The July 1940 spring high tides in SE Britain were on the 8-11th, and even if there were boats available to transport them across the Channel at this time (which there weren't), there was just no way the Wehrmacht was going to be ready to invade Britain just three weeks after the Fall of France. So this pushes the earliest "Perfect German Storm" date range for the invasion to the spring high tides of August 5-9. Practically speaking, even with the Battle of Britain etc. going perfectly for the Germans, etc., I think spring high tide cycle of Sept 2-7 is a much more reasonable "first possible" date range for Sea Lion.
As it was, considering the Wehrmacht had absolutely no institutional experience planning and mounting a large amphibious operation of any kind, I don't see how they even considered doing it in 1940 at all. Much of the Kriegsmarine high command, seems to been aware of this. I think it's pretty clear that Senior German Naval Officer knew a quick invasion of Britain just wasn't possible given what they had to work with in 1940, which is why they only halfheartedly participated in the the Sea Lion planning.
I agree with all this but of course the primary reason the germans never invaded or even attempted one was that Hitler had little to no interest in doing so. Whatever the logistics - had he had that desire it would have happened in one form or another. His decision to invade Russia was a far greater mistake than not invading the UK and cost infinitely more casualties than even a failed german invasion of britain would have yielded.
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Overlay Maker is the only other one I know of.
http://www.theoverlaymaker.com/
I'm sure I saw something similar for the iPad but I can't remember at the moment.
Jeez .. thats great - I had not heard of this. Been looking for something like it for yonks. Thanks.
There was also a great windows program I found years ago called SMA (Strategic Military Analysis) - you could load a background image and even define a full order of battle. What you could also then do is record the positions of various units at different times then play it back as a kind of overall view. It also had layers of hierarchy so on selecting would only show those units at that level (eg corps).
It had a few issues as it was unfinished but largely it worked. Lost the original files and now cant find it anywhere.
Release date estimation for GL
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
That was a different one