Bud Backer

Of course they won't put .7 Armatas in a plane. They need to leave room for the Sharks with Laser Beams. Your lack of vision is disturbing.

I've bought both your Kathusha books and loved them. What a pleasure to read. I'm eagerly anticipating the third! Well done!

Uh, yeah, that was what I meant, but from the subsequent post, I'm barking up the wrong tree anyway.

Hahaha! First time I ever saw a German antitank weapon round. Cool!

In PBEM files will only be visible if they have the .ema extension. You might check and see that the file doesn't have a .btt extension, which will not show in game (ie: invisible). If it has the .btt extension then the game is working correctly, as your opponent has not finished his turn. He needs to load that turn and click the end turn button and let the game autosave. If the file has the .ema extension then you need a helpdesk ticket.

If you missed the Big Bad Cat for all those reasons, I must be doing something right! Thank you, you have no idea how nice that was to read.

Thanks, Heinrich. Getting a good screenshot is something I'm still learning to do. Making sure there is enough situational awareness for the reader, as well as some dramatic scenes and pleasing vistas requires a lot of replays but when you put it together I think it looks pretty decent. A panther is VERY bad news. As bad as chainsaw in a bare knuckle brawl... When I played the AI in this map (my first game as the Russians; this fight is my second! Eeek!) it chose a StuG, which was no match for my T34. Kohl must have thought I had it too easy. I think he overcompensated.

That's not a comparable situation. An IFV and an aircraft carrier represent very different impacts on a country's capabilities and finances, and different choices would be made for either. Clearly the designers of these IFVs chose to not implement 360 degree APS for IFVs even when they could have done so, as demonstrated by them doing it with MBTs. I can't debate with you in an informed manner your argument about ATGM impact fragments being equally lethal. I've not seen the result of that, only APS. It may be that ATGMs will knock out the vehicle with less fragment scatter outside the vehicle itself as the blast from it is directed inward, but the APS system by its very nature has to scatter fragments outside the vehicle. You (and I) may not agree with their choices, but they made them all the same.

I thought about this as well. I'm no expert, but what I have seen in tests and demonstrations suggests that the blast from the APS system is not localized to just right at the vehicle, but some distance from it, and would kill people likely 20 or more feet away. So, yes, you may lose the vehicle but save the squad. I think it's a question of losing money and a few men or saving money and losing more men. If that's the logic, I think valuing human life is not a bad thing.

Well, that rules me out! Not that I'd have a chance at any rate.

Thank you I wanted to make the two sides more clearly delineated in terms of dialogue and the two simplest things are to actually use proper language, and to use different colours - with my Russians' the text balloons having a decidedly crimson hue. As I develop my own style for this, I've had to make my own graphics from scratch as well - so the "Whizz" onomatopoeia is something I devised for this comic. And yes, Combat Mission is a great inspiration - if you like telling stories, you can certainly find them in the game.

Thanks, guys! See below!

I read that to mean Arena has 360 degree protection on tanks, but not on BMPs. I believe the reason is they don't want it killing disembarking troops, and the doors are at the rear.

Unfortunately, the wheat field does not extend south of the barn toward German lines, only north towards ours. So we can get there, but not easily pass it. You can see that here, where the cratered yellow field east and north is what Dima and Sasha will be running through. South and west is grass. Still, Dima doesn't need to get any closer. He can hit a target easily at 200m And yes, I wanted this to be a CAAR that is more a story, with a principal character to follow through a part of the war in the east. Kohl is already cooking up cool ideas to torture poor Dmitry with!

I like JonS' solution to the problem. I really would not have thought of making arrival times variable rather than location. Each has their advantages, but given the limitations of the system (which honestly is a pretty good system, after all) it's a logical and effective solution.

Same here. I see it inline in IanL's post.

Haha I have a friend that just saves everything to the desktop. Drives me crazy when he asks for co purer help and I try to find anything. My own desktop has nothing on it at all.

*shudders* You've captured the terror that thing had to induce very nicely, Heinrich. And your enhancements to the screenshots are getting better and better. Nicely done!

It always takes me several battles to get my head wrapped around a new country TO&E and equipment. I would have had the same problem in your shoes.