user38

Thank you Frenchy for mentioning Blue Max. However, I have to give you all a big "shame on you" for not mentioning Gettysburg (although arguably it is more properly identified in the "over acting" genre). If we are branching out into the Civil War then Glory rates a mention. Starship Troopers of course, and the Desert Fox was a solid effort, albeit lacking in realism (it is a bit jarring to see Rommel prancing about the desert without his signature skin lesion). There are lots more (Zulu anyone?) but in my opinon the single most important element in any war movie is the presence of Jürgen Prochnow. Given that Das Boot has already been taken, I vote for The Keep.

It is actually shark country: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/flood-shark-sightings-have-residents-on-edge-20110113-19ozp.html If you are interested in the Brisbane flood, the Bribane City Council convinced NearMap to make high a resolution photo map of Bribane at the height of the flood (it's like Google Earth on steroids): http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.468907,153.025475&z=14&t=h Stephen

And some people say romance is dead.

I foolishly bought the guide for $14.95 from Direct2Drive a few minutes ago. It is a fairly painless process if you have a paypal account. However, what you receive is a link that can only be opened in Adobe Digital Editions. Adobe Digital Editions is a well featured ebook reader. It is not as flexible as Calibre so I uninstalled it months ago. Well, I reinstalled it, opened the link in Digital Editions and downloaded the book. What I got was an encrypted PDF file that can only be read in Adobe Digital Editions. I am not happy about that. I guess the question is how desperately do you want the guide. Digital Editions isn't a bad ebook reader. But it isn't as good for PDF files as a dedicated PDF reader like Evince or Nitro (or even, god forbid, Adobe).

On one of the DAR threads I made some comments about the realism of the battle with respect to the casualties suffered by Elvis. (I recall Elvis replied that, in a real battle, he would probably have been court martialled over the losses.) My perspective was as an ex-army reserve soldier who had taken part in military exercises. In real life war is not fun because sleeping three hours a night is not fun and digging holes all day is not fun and being rained on is not fun and eating army rations and pooping in a hole is not fun. For us grunts the only fun part was the simulated combat, although I recall being simulated killed several times so I guess in a real war that part would have been not fun as well. We are all familiar with the Battle of Gettysburg and I think most would agree that a significant factor in the Union victory (possibly the decisive factor) was that most of the Union forces marched like madmen to get to the battlefield on time. Re-fighting Gettysburg is fun, but you couldn’t pay me to play a game that simulated the miseries suffered by those soldiers on the march. JasonC makes some good points about the realism of the game. But the point of a game is to be a game. It’s supposed to be fun. So simulation games don’t simulate the unfun bits and simulate the “fun” bits so that they actually are fun. I have often thought about game design and what it is that make confilct simulation games fun. My job is inherently competitive. I work as a litigator for a large government department and sometimes my job is extremely fun. The “fun” comes from defeating a tricky opponent through skillful cross examination and the presentation of evidence to tell a compelling story. But on those occasions I think the emotion I am feeling is not joy but relief. It is akin to the feeling one has after alphabetising a large CD collection. In real life conflicts with uncertain outcomes are stressful and the “fun” that comes on the successful resolution of the conflict results from the absence of that stress. And the intensity of the feeling does not arise merely from besting an opponent, but from the release of tension built up over hours and days and sometimes months of meticulous preparation and planning. My job has its fun bits, but mostly it’s work, and if I wasn’t paid to do it I’d spend all of my time playing video games. So of course Combat Missions is not a “realistic” wargame, and thank god for that. Because if it was too realistic it would suck, and no one would buy it and no one would play it.

Thanks YankeeDog. In Australia the state company codes were Ferderalised in 2001 and company law in Austraila is now governed by the Corporations Act 2001. However, even prior to 2001 the state Attorneys General would cooperate to ensure the state company codes were, for all intents and purposes, identical. Over here all companies are required to disclose to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) significant events such as changes in directorship and shareholding. ASIC maintains this information on a public database. I figured that was the default position all over the world. A few years ago I had a case involving two Vanuatu companies. When I read the Vaunatu corporations act I was shocked to find that not only is this information not available to the public, it is a criminal offense to even make enquiries as to the directors or shareholders of a company (punishable by fines and jail time). I assumed this bizzare law arose out of Vanuatu's status as a tax haven. It never occured to me that the shareholding of a company might be a privacy issue. As an Australian I have often wondered about the difference between Australian law and US law. Both Australia and the US are common law countries and the law operating in the colonies was British law. But following the news on Fox and MSNBC it seems that Australians and Americans have widely differing views on the role of the law and of government in society. In Australia we like laws and we like the government. We see it as the government's role to provide essential services and regulate relations between human beings. I find it odd that there is even a debate over government health care (on the basis that it is the government's job to take care of its citizens). I had open heart surgery a few years ago. My out of pocket costs were $15 for the cab fare. (I even saved money because the hospital fed me for a week.) And I am glad that, over here, psycopaths and schizophrenics (and belligerant arseholes) aren't allowed to carry guns in public. Anyway, I am glad that I live in Australia with our user friendly laws, our intrusive government and our socialised health care system (even if America is the greates nation in the world).

I have often had arguments with a chap at work over the turning point in WWII. His view is that Stalingrad was the turning point. My view is that it was the Battle of Britain. I had forgotten about the Dunkirk debacle and Goering's stupid boast that he could destroy the British Expeditionary Force with his airforce alone. And of course Stanlingrad would not have been the disaster it was without Goering's assurance that he could supply the entire 6th Army by air (do they not teach elementary mathematics in Germany?). I have revised my position. I am now of the view that the turning point in WWII came in 1922 when Goering first met Hitler and joined the Nazi party.

I am finding this all very odd. In Australia the directorship and shareholding of all companies has to be reported to a government authority and is public information. And if shares are held beneficially that has to be disclosed in the publicly available company reports. I have never understood US TV shows where the DA can't determine the ultimate owner of a asset because it is owned by a company with a "complex corporate structure". Is it the case in the US that private companies are not required to disclose their shareholders and directors?

I disagree. I think the reason for allied air supremacy was Hermann Goering.

Everyone wants a place in history.

You are right (once again). In Vietnam "frontline" and "rear" were metaphorical rather than geographical descriptions. What the cooking instructor actually told me was that the base had three rings of pickets and the cooks picketed in the third ring (which I believe was inside the base). Theoretically the cooks were never supposed to go anywhere near the enemy.

Elvis I was making a joke when I when I referred to your troops as being in the quartermaster corp. In my military career I spent some time in the catering platoon. I don't understand why, but I was sent on a cooking course at the Army Cooking School. I heard lots of stories about cooks in the Vietnam war. I was told all the rear echolon personel (including the cooks) were issued with rifles and were expected to do picket duty (albeit in the rear). Of course, they wouldn't have been sent to the front line.

Elvis Don't take this the wrong way, but I have been thinking about you and JonS quite a bit these last few weeks. Like a lot of people here I have been riveted by this DAR. And I would like to thank you (and JonS) for the time and thought that has gone into your detailed descriptions and explanation, and the care you have both taken to illustrate the action with screen shots. What I have especially like is seeing the action from both points of view. It is like those works of fiction with two protagonists who are both first person narrators and who have imperfect knowledge of the other protagonist’s actions. And what I have been thinking is how unfair it is that you are missing this aspect of the DAR. It would be fascinating to hear both your reactions when the battle is over and you find out what actually happened on the other side. On behalf of myself (and I assume many other forum members) I beg both you and JonS not to end the DAR with the final shot being fired but to add as a postscript some subjective analysis of your plans, assumptions and performance in light of the plans, assumptions and actions of the other side.

After considering Michael's reply to my post, I have to concede he is quite correct.

Regarding board wargames, the realistic ones were complex, nonintuitive and time consuming. And as I had (and still have) only one friend who shares my interest in military matters, most of my board wargaming was solo. The only real option is computer wargames as I have found the computer to be adequately gratifying in relation to solo pursuits. I have now bought all the Combat Mission games (except Afghanistan) and I was trying to figure out which one to start on. Thanks for the tip - I will give Beyond Barbarossa a whirl. Regarding the scenario, I accept it is a game and is necessarily contrived. There are circumstances where the strategic situation dictates an objective is taken at all costs. (As I was writing my post I was thinking of E Company’s assault on Carentan.) One can also assume good intelligence of enemy forces in regards to forces on the field, reinforcements, etc. I guess my point was that I have been a soldier on exercise, and even before then tried to imagine what it must have been like to be involved in combat. When I see excellent war dramas like Band of Brothers I am not so much struck by the heroism as by the tragedy. Sometimes a frontal assault is preferred over manoeuvrer because there isn’t time to go around. But good gosh, Elvis has lost a lot of men to get to this point on the battlefield. I don’t envy him the task of writing virtual letter to the virtual mothers of his fallen soldiers. Elvis Thanks for being so understanding. For some reason I have always preferred the Germans (they had such cool uniforms) and, being such a softy, I think I am more temperamentally suited to the defence. I think if I were Eisenhower I would have fired Patton for being reckless. Stephen in Brisbane

Elvis I am a newbie. I have been interested in military history and wargaming since I was young and I am not young anymore. As a teenager I played tabletop wargames. I tried playing some of the board wargames like Avlon Hill’s Gettysburg and Squad leader, but the games were too rules driven and abstract for my tastes. I lived on a farm for a while and I remember wandering the adjacent fields imagining Napoleonic battles over the rolling hills, through the bushland and across the creeks. At University I joined the Australian Army Reserve. I engaged in platoon and company level exercises and I learned small unit tactics. What I didn’t learn from my reading and from war movies is how miserable life is for a grunt on the line. You are tired all the time. As soon as you stop moving you dig a hole. You are woken up several times during the night to go on patrol or on picket duty. You are lucky to get four hours sleep a night. You can’t bathe and after a week in the bush you smell like a vagabond. You have to poo in a hole and you are expected to dig the hole yourself and fill it in afterwards. The real horror is that the one man ration packs issued in the 80s contained several thousand of calories in the form of fats, protein and simple carbohydrates, but only one sheet of toilet paper. (As William Tecumseh Sherman said “war is hell”.) Fortunately, the ration packs included few complex carbohydrates and no fibre whatsoever. The number two problem didn’t arise for me on exercise very frequently. Indeed, the most heroic and strenuous things I did as a soldier occurred in the company ablutions block after the exercises had finished. On top of all these miseries, if I had been a soldier in a real war my tour of duty would have lasted months rather than weeks and complete strangers would have been trying to kill me. I have drifted from my point (I guess after all these years I am still affected by my military service). I wanted to make two points. Firstly, I only discovered this game about a month ago. I tried some of the real time computer war games and they didn’t work for me. For several years I have been looking for a turn based computer war game that recreated the visual realism of the table top wargames but also properly simulated small unit tactics. I found the web site for Combat Missions Battle for Normandy late last year and wasted about four hours tying to find the link to add it to my cart (don’t these people want to make money on this game?). I felt pretty stupid when I realised the game was still in development. Nevertheless, I am very excited by this game and I think the designers have been very clever in incorporating morale factors and the uncertainties of combat. It is gratifying to see the game characters appearing to act as real humans rather than robotic plastic soldiers. The second point is more delicate. You should know that I believe you be an excellent fellow, and as a simulated officer in the US Army I acknowledge your cause is just. But I have to advise that I am rooting for the Germans to win. So with that in mind I offer the following criticism relating to the issue of realism. Your current predicament is that you have suffered horrendous losses to your armour and your infantry forces are so depleted your final assault is being mounted by the quartermaster corps. It occurs to me that in a real situation you would be unaware of the forces remaining on the field and whether the enemy might be expecting reinforcements. If you took the objective it seems you might not have sufficient forces to retain it against a counter attack. Also, your posture appears to be entirely offensive. Your disposition of forces appears to leave you vulnerable to an attack from an unexpected angle. Given these losses one would expect a prudent commander would have broken off the attack long ago and tried another approach. I understand this is a game and the object of the game is to engage in combat. And I will be buying this game on the first day it is released. It just seems to me that you have paid too high a price given the (apparent) strategic significance of the objective. Having said that I don’t think I would have done a better job myself. (I was not, after all, a very good soldier). I understand your current tactics are dictated by the scenario design which does not appear to account for the necessity to preserve forces for future actions and seems to assume secure flanks and a maximum level of enemy forces. I have enjoyed your DAR very much. And while I hope you lose, I wish you the best of luck in doing so. Stephen in Brisbane

I've always wondered whether Dyke was as useless as he was portrayed. I saw the mini series of course. I read the Stephen Ambrose book “Band of Brothers” and then I read the Dick Winters book “Beyond Band of Brothers”. And then I started wondering what the other 13 million soldiers, sailors and marines were doing while Easy company was winning the war. So I used the google machine and guess what? There are a lot of people out there who consider Stephen Ambrose to be a hack (you have to love the internet). It’s interesting how the book came to be written. Stephen Ambrose had finished a book on Market Garden was looking for a small project. Dick Winters suggested he write a book on Easy company. So Ambrose sent some researchers to an Easy company reunion. The researches taped several hours of interviews. The stories were great: full of heroism and dare doing. The sort of stories you would expect to hear at a veterans’ 40 year reunion. Only Ambrose turned it into a book. Apparently he got a lot of it wrong. See http://www.101airborneww2.com/bandofbrothers.html. I found the website while trying to find out what happened to Albert Blythe. Blythe was portrayed as a poor soldier who was shot in the neck and died of his wounds. Ambrose didn’t even get his name right. Albert Blithe was not a bad soldier. He was shot in the shoulder and recovered. Indeed he reenlisted after the war and fought in Korea, attained the rank of Master Sargent, completed 600 jumps and received several commendations including the 82nd Airborne Division 1958 Trooper of the Year. See: http://www.506infantry.org/his2ndbnwwiiphoto24.html I didn’t research Lt Dyke but, given Amborse’s over reliance on anecdotal evidence and sloppy fact checking, I find it hard to believe Dyke was as inept as he was portrayed. Or would this post be classified as “off topic”?