Lorgath

Ooops! I am, indeed, an idiot.

Hmm. An official history published, not very long after the event. I distrust it on principle!

Anthony Beevor also wrote "Stalingrad" which is a detailed account a long running battle in a certain city. I seem to recall he gets the right balance between operational detail and the personal accounts of those who fought. "Downfall" is more of the same, but about the fall of Berlin. You may also wish to try "Russia's War" by Richard Overy, which covers the whole WW2 period from the Russian point of view.

Do you have to maintain C2 with telephone wires too?

Well, I tried out the demos today. Shock Force and Afghanistan do look interesting, but there are some nasty glitches on my laptop. Graphics look great on various settings (except for the ubiquitous shadow issues everyone seems to have), but for whatever reason the sound doesn't play right. I can hear it fine in the menus, but when I'm in game it's like radio static. Multi-core issue maybe? It's a shame, as I hadn't realised the Afghanistan game was about the Soviet war there not our modern military escapades. Russian history is one of my particular interests! Normandy worked beautifully on the other hand. Messed around with a couple of scenarios, didn't do massively well in them. Highlights: 1) Went SQUEE over Daimler Dingos then got them blown up. 2) Completely cocked up a smoke barrage and ended up blocking my LOS, rather than cunningly cover an infantry advance. 3) Went SQUEE over a Lynx then got it blown up by a Daimler Dingo. 4) As the Yanks, I executed a perfect set of bocage clearing, with smoke on the corners and everything. It was against an Ear and Stomach batallion(or was it one of the conscripted prisoner formations?) so it probably doesn't count. I'm buying Normandy anyway. I can end up with the best of both worlds as I also found a copy of Shock Force for sale on Amazon for £5. Cheers for the help guys, I'm sure you'll see me around here some more Edit: $20 for sending a couple of dvd cases to Europe? Are you serious?

MikeyD: You've pretty much just summed up my thoughts. Argh! The indecision! Whilst both new games and new cars smell really good, new games are much more likely to crash. The Italians do look like a laugh, but will the game simulate the sandbags to keep the doors closed? Ranger33: I'd like the upgraded features sooner rather than later, but I think I can wait. I am more than a little bit worried about paying for what looks like little more than a big patch in the near(ish) future though. I know quite a bit about Normandy, and it's certainly a setting I'm happy to play in - provided it does something new with it. Or at least gets the feel right, if you know what I mean. However, I think the theatre is rediculously over represented. I know next to nothing about what went on in Italy. I'd have to go out and buy more books... As for Shock Force, I've heard nothing but bad things about it previously, but I'll definitely hunt down more information. Thanks for the idea! Mord: Again, great ideas. Trouble is, I don't have a job at the moment. Nor can I in the forseeable future because of a long term illness. I think you're probably right though, I might well be able to scrimp and save until I get enough money for both. --- At the moment I'm swinging more towards Normandy, but I'll certainly do a bit more thinking first!

Hi all, So I'd like to get into Combat Mission. I'm an ASL player who really doesn't get to game as much as I would like to as the person I would play with lives miles away from me (and the games I do get play last forever because we're too busy being fat, lazy, and/or drunk). Anyway, the hunt has been on for a PC wargame that scratches my panzer itch without making me want to vomit all over it. I think I found it with CM:BN! I have the CMx1 anthology in a cupboard somewhere, and it occasionally resurfaces. Somehow though, there was something about them that fell a bit flat for me (despite the fact they swallowed up small portion of my life). I managed to miss out on CM:BN when it was released, and have been kicking myself ever since - I think you really need a print manual for this sort of thing, for important things like learning to play the bloody game or for toilet reading. It looks like a great game and everything, and I'm really pleased to see that there's an awful lot more of it to come. However, my main problem is that I'm really rather strapped for cash. In the forseeable future (like, the rest of the bleedin' year) I can only really afford the CM:BN bundle OR preorder the new Italy game. What would people suggest?