Sakai007

This is what I have been waiting for, an AAR of a normal QB. This is they type of battle I will spend most of my time on, and I am very happy by what I see. Thank you so much for posting this AAR, just what I needed to keep the faith!

I always dismount my recce troops and have them advance on foot. I leap frog them, so the minimum is two teams. I will often send two teams up each flank. If there is a position where I can get an auto cannon armed AFV or Tank in a hull down position behind them I will so if they get into trouble I have a decent direct fire weapon to bail them out.

These men are outstanding examples of a Hero in war!!! Really, men like this are too often forgotten today, and it is a shame, a real shame. I am glad the people here, myself, and others like us are still remembering these men for their contributions and will be able to pass the stories along to others.

Fair enough, but multiple 7.62 rounds will, and from a whole squad of US infantry with a BAR and a ton of Garands, have fun with that, I will stick to my woodland ambushes It will take some getting used to, mainly the lack of uber great optics and communication gear. It has amazed me before, and probably will again, the things that REALLY make a difference in a CM game. It's not the weapons, it's the communications, and that's abstracted for the most part. But my confidence in CMBN has never been stronger. BF has a real hit on their hands this time, no doubt about it.

Depends if I know where the enemy is or not. If I know that point A to B is clear and the enemy is in this location, I will go to point B and dismount. Dismounting infantry are very vulnerable, so you don't want them getting out under direct fire. Plus, IFV and APCs are not very fire resistant, so a hit will often kill most if not all occupants. The thread Gibson linked to was me asking pretty much the same question you just did, and it helped me greatly, I hope it does for you as well.

The Wespe and Hummel are two of my favorite toys in CMx1. Nothing stops and infantry advance cold like 150mm and 105mm fire, nothing. Throw an MG42 or two in there to keep the infantry pinned while you blast em, even better.

The ground war during WWII was epic in not just deaths, but pure destruction. Imagine the undiagnosed cases of PTSD that resulted, no wonder these guys had nightmares for the rest of their lives. My grandfather was an American sailor in the Pacific, and while he was at numerous great battles, the battles for Saipan and Okinawa always stood out in his mind. Saipan due to the civilians he witnessed throwing them selves off of cliffs, and then looking for survivors after, and Okinawa for the insane kamikazi attacks his DesDiv (Destroyer Division) suffered. His ship was actually clipped by a Ki-61 Tony while of Radar Pickett duty. The wingtip of the fighter hit the main mast, but did only minor damage. What was bad was a man who forever after was known as "Okinawa George", who jumped from the bridge as the aircraft made it's run. The ship slowed to a crawl and turned around to get him, even while under constant Kamikazi attack. They retrieved him, and great risk to the rest of the crew, and earned a Silver Star in the process. This time and place was etched in his mind, during the a battle unique to WWII where the Navy suffered more casualties then the troops on the island, and he didn't shake the after effects for the rest of his life. I can not imagine what haunted the dreams of men who killed to survive in the Hedgerows of Normandy.

look at the optics on that Hamsterfaust, clearly superior to feline optics during this period.

On map mortars are what I am waiting for the most. Then the Wespe, I just love SPG's!!!! For the Americans, Infantry is what I am waiting for. I can't wait to see my Airborne hopping fences and moving through meadows. Really can't wait!!!

I use the Stuarts for one-way recon as well, but they are amazing for sneaking a round into the rear of a Panther or PzIV. At night, if you have a decent idea as to where enemy infantry AT and AT-Gun assets are, they are perfect for screaming into the rear of enemy Armor groups, and destroying them. The rate of fire is epic, and that gun is very accurate.

Hehe, this thread reminded me of a saying I read somewhere once, it went something like; The English fight for their Queen, The Russians fight for their motherland, The Japanese fight for their Emperor, and the Americans fight for souvenirs. LoL @MikeyD - That was one of the coolest features for me when I first got CMBB. I would set the reds with captured german equipment and the germans with captured soviet equipment. Entertaining to say the least. I have no clue, so if I am wrong let me know, but wouldn't all that would be involved would be to make some new skins for said equipment and slap em into the TO&E of various units???

And there I was thinking you got a hold of some of my 'Bathtub Gin" :cool: But after the studies, Tube Guy wandered off laughing to himself and all the rest of his platoon said they saw rainbow shermans, not a pink one to be found!!! ::Heading back to the bathroom...er....lab to perfect my recipe::

Or perhaps the use of a touch too much of the above mentioned product As they say, rule #7 of selling crack: Never get high on your own supply!!! LoL :eek::cool::confused:

If you look in the smart book that all US Infantry are issued upon arriving for basic training in this day and age, it shows you how to make booby traps out of grenades and claymore mines (lol, I would have said the M16 but the official claymore designation is just plain confusing since the M16 is obviously also a rifle). The next part tell the soldier to avoid picking up enemy weapons and 'trinkets' since they are most likely booby trapped. In basic, the Drills would always leave things around that were either obvious or not so obviously not supposed to be there, and the recruits job is to mark, and then report all things that seemed strange. The IED threat on the modern battlefield demands that soldiers not pick up enemy equipment, or even friendly equipment that you or your buddies didn't drop there at that very moment. Stupid kills!!!

Heh, since my new 'business opp' is a work from home deal, I AM SET!!! I will play a QB first, then maybe start a German campaign. Then I will be amazed!!! I really don't know, but I hope that the shock of being back in WWII with the CMSF engine may be too much for my heart, and I might die right there in my chair. A good death, but I want at least a few turns in before that happens.

There is gun camera footage from Rudel's Stuka available on YouTube. It is not of attacking tanks however, it is attacking barges the Soviets were using to ferry troops and equipment. These barges are not all that much larger then a T34, and he was very, very good with those guns. 37mm cannons don't leave large holes in a tank, and if I was riding along in my PzIV and saw a tank I would fire first and check to see if it was occupied second. Tanks knocked out or disabled by aircraft fire could very well be hit by a number of weapons before that guy that does reports for his unit gets a chance to inspect it, if he does at all. Do I think all his tank claims are legit? No. Do I think that he 'hit' a large number of armored vehicles? Yes. They may or may not have been knocked out, but I have no doubt he was making hits more often then the average pilot. The Hs-129 units in the Kuban had great success destroying tanks that had pierced the German line, and they were all confirmed.

The SPG in the pic is not an M7, it is an M8 HMC (Howitzer Motor Carriage) with the 75mm/L16 main gun. Your general HE chucker mounted on an M3 Stuart chassis. And might I add it looks B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!!! EDIT: My mistake, should read the whole post sometimes, eh? The first is the M8 as you identified, and the second is in fact the M7 as was mentioned, and they are both going to be married to me shortly after release, normally the Priest would officiate such an event but since she is one of the ones being married, Tube Guy ® will be doing the ceremony

Man, I love the modern setting, I really do, but I wouldn't pass up CM:BN if the fate of the world rested on it. I am more pumped for this game then I have been for any other. I could care less about IL2 CoD coming out cause CM:BN is almost here!!! And I am a flight sim nut! I am anxious for my modern day Germans to get their Panzerfausts tho, so I can really get into their campaign in NATO. Oh well, so much gaming goodness, so little time.

I had a feeling that the Panzerfaust would be at the top. They were prolific to say the least. I can't help but shudder when I think of the Normandy invasion taking place against a German Army that didn't have the Eastern Front to contend with. While there were more German divisions then Allied in the ETO (on paper) the Eastern Front was voracious in the appetite for men and machines. Had this not existed, the battle in western Europe would have been a slaughter of both sides, to say the least. I often wonder about such impossible things, like a similar situation with the Luftwaffe and the allied bombing offensive. Had Germany been able to bear all of her strength on the Allied Bomber offensive, would it have been as effective as it was? Would losses have been so severe that night bombing would be the only alternative? Heh, I am going to write a book one of these days

I am kind of curious to know which infantry anti-tank weapon killed the largest amount of tanks from Normandy forward. This would discount many AT rifles, but would include fan favorites like the Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck, and Bazooka. And of course things like hand held AT grenades and AT rifle grenades.

I play Red vs. Red quite often. I find it to be most evenly matched, and if you stretch your imagination a bit, you can run battles going back to the late 70s and early 80s with this method. The Red equipment list is long and varied, letting you have a lot of different options setting your forces up. If you want to be on the attack, setting an AI plan to defend is no hard task. I have even set no AI plan and let the TacAI run the battle and had great and memorable moments. If you want to try red, set up your own missions and enjoy. That is 70% of the fun I have with CMSF.

I played Steel Panthers III first, and enjoyed it very much. I was looking for something similar, and went to the Maine Mall to check out the game stores there (closest game store at the time) I found the Combat Mission Anthology, with CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK for $9.99 or something in the bargain bin. I said to myself, "self, three strategy games for ten bucks, company is called Battlefront, sounds cool, and it's only ten bucks". Well, I took it home, and it sat on the shelf for a couple months as I had a lot going at the time, and then I enlisted. Well, after all that good happy stuff, I came home and found the box and said, "well, lets give her a spin shall we". I was blown away, I couldn't believe all this gaming goodness had been just sitting on my shelf. Not a day has gone by where I haven't at least played a single scenario since. And I have also bought CMSF,Marines,NATO since and am anxiously awaiting my CMBfN. That's my CM story and i'm stickin to it!!!

Wow, great pics there. The guy in jeans and a t-shirt hanging off the side of a technical firing the 12.7 HMG is great. The uniform of the day is....not naked!!! All joking aside, those guys have got giant titanium alloy testicles to do what they are doing, and my prayers are with them, even if it's to a different god then theirs!!!

LOL, you guys are too much. I have been laughing like a crazy person and the wife and kids are looking at me funny. But it's ok, my shrink says so anyways. Thanks for all the responses, proving the point I made about the community as a whole. I think the fact that wargaming is not a twitch centric 12 year old fest has a lot to do with it. Plus many of us formerly or currently serve in the armed forces of our respective nations, and that instills a character all it's own. It's great to know things like this aren't as isolated as I thought, even furthering the warm feelings I hold for you folks.

I have been using the net for well over a decade now, and have been through the rise and fall of a great many sites. But in all that time, I have never seen such generosity between individuals. Yesterday I was whining (as usual) in the pre-order thread about being $23 short for the uber cool metal case and being a general pain in the rear. I was surprised when a fellow forum member (who will remain unknown) offered to send the money to my paypal since he felt generous this day. That is amazing, I am still in a bit of shock. I have twin girls, Faith Hope and Kyleigh Meadow, who were born on August 23rd of last year. Since then, things have been tight financially to say the least. Coming up with $50 for a new game is almost enough to cause a fight in this house, but $73 would be a meltdown of sorts. Plates would fly, drinks would too, a general mess. Due to this mans kindness, I will be able to enjoy printed CM manual goodness while bouncing Faith on one knee and using the force to play CM I really don't know what to say, besides a thousand times THANK YOU!!! You folks are great, and this community is closer knit then many I have seen in the world. I would also like to thank Steve, Moon, and the rest of the Battlefront folks for making all this possible. I am hard pressed to find similar examples of kindness to strangers outside of children's bed time stories in the world as we know it today. Things like this give me hope that all is not lost, and humans being human still exists, and there is fact hope for us all.