Calibration

Good question PM. By width I meant the full-width at half maximum which is of course just ~2.355 times the standard deviation for a normal distribution. My assumption is that the "theoretical" unbiased distribution would be normally distributed and have a FWHM close to the observed CMAK distribution as the latter is only mildly skewed. I generated a "theoretical" unbiased distribution with a mean of 50% and this FWHM. I then applied a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to the cumulative distribution functions of both this "theoretical" unbiased distribution and the observed CMAK distribution to derive the quoted probability. Not a method a statistician would be entirely happy with no doubt, but the end result will qualitatively be correct however you do it.

From GAJ's original graphs I estimate that The probability that the CMBN distribution has the same shape as the CMAK distribution is <1% The probability that the CMAK distribution is unbiased is <0.00001% !! In the latter case I compared the observed distribution with a theoretical distribution having a mean result of 50% and the same width as the observed. The second result is far more significant than the first because of the sample sizes involved. As this discussion shows, how you interpret these results is open to question. For example, does the Axis bias in CMAK indicate the bias is in the game engine or that stronger players tend to favour the Axis when they get the chance to pick sides for whatever reason? But anyway, this result is not in the least surprising as it would be almost impossible to devise a truly unbiased CM type game.

If you are interested in the details of the typical accuracy of US naval rifles up to WW2 see here. http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_BB-Gunnery_p1.htm Scroll down to the table in note 26 and you will see that expected salvo pattern sizes were in the region of ~1.4 to 3.4% as percentage of range in 1944.

Of course (as I'm sure you know the answer to your own question) the responsibility ultimately lay with the Army brass who needed to provide clear directions to the organisations responsible for supplying it with the military equipment it needed. Unfortunately there was no clear vision. The UK Tank Board went through 5 different chairman and numerous changes of members in four years. Such an environment does not lead to an efficient upgrade path. Of course, with hindsight, one can always point out how things could have been better and there were external circumstances at times which slowed the upgrade process down, such as the loss of equipment in 1940 which kept the 2-pdr in production longer than would have occured otherwise. The problem with the adoption of the 17-pdr is they tried to shoehorn it into available chassis without much success (Firefly excepted) and wasted a lot of design effort in the process. The decision to design a dedicated chassis to the gun, the A41 (Centurion) wasn't taken until late 1943 and over a year after the gun was first introduced. It is not unreasonable to say they could have had the tank earlier and in time to see action.

In 1944 a typical battleship main gun salvo pattern was about ~2% of range. e.g. at 10,000 yards you would expect the shells to land within 200 yards of each other. For a ship firing at a fixed distance towards a land target that's about the spread you would expect for successive salvos.

My steelbox arrived in Leicester fine and I didn't have to pay a penny extra I guess it was shipped on May 23rd or before. That's when I got the email.

Yes, that worked. Thanks.

Does not work for me either. I have applied the hotfix as per instructions and the game seems to accept my license key ok but then the game does not load nor quit unless I force a quit. When I force a quit and try to re-run the game it asks for my license key again. btw, the text still refers to "CMSF" when you click on CMBN in the command bar. Maybe I'm playing the wrong game

This is a summary of the actions of HMS Ramilllies which was typical... Her next action of note was as a fire support vessel for the Normandy landings on the 06th June 1944, here her first task was the 6” gun battery at Benneville, in this engagement she knocked out all six guns, In an ironic moment she had had all but eight of her secondary 6” guns removed, designed to repulse torpedo boat attacks which were judged no longer a risk she fired on two attacking German destroyers which fired five torpedoes at her, thankfully all missed. On the evening of the 06th June she returned to Portsmouth to restock her ammunition, she returned on the 08th and destroyed another gun battery Throughout June Ramillies provide fire support to troops ashore , usually radio directed, she hit concentration of enemy armour, troop concentrations and another attack by German torpedo boats On the 10th June she shelled a railway junction at Caen at her maximum gun range, on the 11th June she destroyed a large number of enemy tanks massing to counter-attack then returned to shelling Caen railway junction. On the 15th June she was shelled by a mobile artillery battery which hit her twice injuring one of her crew, she simply moved out of range and carried on with her many bombardment tasks during which she fired just over 1000 rounds of 15” – the highest number of heavy shells fired by an RN ship in a single duty. August 1944 saw her providing fire support to the allied landings in southern France, this time the German gun batteries at the port of Toulon were her target.

In 1944 a typical battleship main gun salvo pattern was about ~2% of range. e.g. at 10,000 yards you would expect the shells to land within 200 yards of each other (and about what you see in CMx1). So, it did indeed appear a bit tight. Pretty though....

I've actually seen two Apollo astronauts give talks in recent years. Buzz Aldrin himself and Charlie Duke from Apollo 16. After I saw Buzz talk I was at the reception afterwards, but I didn't have the guts to go up and talk to him. Both were looking very sprightly for their ages. Who knows where manned exploration beyond near earth orbit is going. The current US space policy is to do an asteroid mission by 2025 prior to an orbital only Mars mission. Such long term planning is unlikely to survive many administration changes. Lot's of reports suggest the Chinese are planning a manned lunar mission by 2025. I can see them doing it and good luck to them.

I'm not sure how much we spend on oceanographic research, but last year whilst I was swanning about at the taxpayers expensive at a conference on the East Coast of the US (and stuck there because of the volcano) I visited this place and did a tour. http://www.whoi.edu/ They do a lot of cool stuff there...btw, talking of the taxpayers expense, I'm off work at moment hence my posting here, just in case someone was wondering Well spotted sir! Decent prices. Going to order them both. Thanks for the link.

I've found that in the few posts I've made post I often log in, type the post, then get told I'm not logged in and have to log in again. Fortunately, without having to retype the post.

As a proportion of our GNP the West spends very little on space research. The last time I checked NASA's budget (proportionally one of the highest) was less than 1% of US Federal spending. Much of that money of course gets funnelled back into their high tech companies and University technology research programmes. They also spend a fair amount on public outreach programmes. I am involved in a European space-based astronomical telescope that has cost the participating member states about 2 Billion Euros in construction and running costs over the last 20 years. Sounds a lot until you consider that over the same period you could have built several of them on the money our youth has spent on mobile phone ring tones. The bottom line is that the money spent on space research is what the politicians and treasury officials feel the respective nations can afford. They only do this because of the tangible benefits gained from what is effectively a subsidy of high technology research. It is also a fact that in the UK space science in general and astronomy in particular are very popular options for students taking physics degrees. These are inspirational topics for getting young people to do science in the first place even if the vast majority do not go on to a career in these specific fields. The pursuit of scientific knowledge for it's own sake is a worthy goal in it's own right and there are numerous examples of areas of research which would have appeared "worthless" at the time to some people that later produced so-called tangible benefits. Practically of course research operates under many financial and societal constraints but if you attempt to be too constraining you will miss many potential opportunities. Here endeth the lesson

You going to rejoin the BoB when we start playing CM:BN ?