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Pershing-Panther comparison...

At the very end of the war we finally got the Pershing. Finally something that was comparable to the German behemoths. If you saw the classic movie "Battle of the Bulge" Pershings were the tanks used to represent the German Tigers. Guess there were not many spare Tigers floating around back then when the movie was made.

Here are some comparison pics of the M-18 Hellcat. Fast like a sports car and armed with a high velocity 76mm with some silver bullets. Not much armor to speak of and probably not pleasant for some of the crew if airburst shells went off overhead. I think most were assigned to tank destroyer units, which most considered a flawed concept.

Die cast T-34/76? I've found one that is around $100, but the ones that are painted in Soviet colors is sold out. There are only captured T-34 with a German cross left the last time I checked and no die cast SU/85/122/152 that I could find in 1/32-1/35

Its called the TV Tray Grass Mod. I was going to delete the pics and re-post via photobucket, but I can't see the edit commands :confused: I'll post more later as well as some Eastern Front stuff. The early German tanks compared to T-34's and KV1's is shocking. Easy to see why there was an armored tank arms race on the Eastern Front and why the American intelligence failure to comprehend what was going on and how it would relate to the Western Front in 44.

I check the board just about daily. I think a lot other do too. I've been a gamer for years, but I play CM exclusively these days. I've been a Total War junkie for years, but can't seem to get into it anymore. Rome Total War 2 with the latest patch is decent, but pales to CM-especially when you play another human. I play h2h just about everyday and if I could only have one game it would be CM and SF. Combat Mission will never be mainstream, which may be a good thing. Would you want the World of Warcraft or Company of Hero's crowd flooding the gates?

The Hetzer which looks cool, but was not very comfortable to operate as its pretty cramped...

Here's the trusty Sturmgeschütz which was part of the Artillery branch and the British Firefly which had a 17 pounder that was very dangerous. Germans were told to target the long barreled Shermans first...

Here's a MarkIV and Jadgpanzer as well as an 88mm. You can see just how big the 88mm is..

Have a lot more as well as some Russian and British stuff, but don't want to hog all the space on BF's servers. I don't think you can really get a sense of scale by looking at a computer screen. When I look at my tank models I really get a sense of just how inferior one must have felt when facing the German monsters. On the other hand when I compare some of the early German stuff to the Russian stuff it feels like a Yugo vs a semi rig... The T-34/85 however compares pretty well. If anyone knows where I can get 1/32 scale SU-85's, SU-122/152 and T-34/76 I'm interested. Not easy to find...

Tiger I comparison

Here is a comparison to a King Tiger

The tank that won the war in the West. Mechnacially reliable. Easy to produce but not really respected. Here are some comparison pictures that give an idea of what they were against. You not only get an idea of the size difference, but you can really see why many Sherman tankers would comment on German tanks with gun barrels as long as telephone poles.... Here is a Sherman compared to a Panther.

Speaking of Cold Weather Release and December this might make a good storyline for a module. http://www.businessinsider.com/marines-have-hundreds-of-vehicles-in-a-cave-in-norway-2014-8 A 1940 module for CMBN would also be nice

I recently watched Crude Awakening. No commentary on the thesis, but the comment on what people will pay for a cup of coffee, a bottle of water and a gallon of gasoline is applicable to this discussion.

Honestly the 3.0 upgrade doesn't really excite me all that much. I'll eventually get to it, but not until I finish h2h games. Some have said AT guns were tweaked in RT. If so then that may be one worthwhile change. Personally I would have preferred to see a 3.0 update for Shock Force and Afghanistan. A target briefly and graphics upgrade for SF would have been completely worth it-even if Black Sea eventually makes an appearance.

You know the Germans. They always liked to supersize things.

That's no recon car. Its an Elephant tank

They just released patch 14-beta for Rome Total War 2. The initial feedback is sieges which has been broken since release is on its way to being fixed. The C4 like torches apparently are gone and the AI actually uses siege equipment and appears to have something of a brain. The feedback is promising. They hired a new AI programmer recently. Not sure if they fired the old one, but looks like the new person knows what he's doing. I still won't pre-order from SEGA after this fiasco, but I did reload RTW2 and will try it out.

British/CW infantry have a few redeeming qualities. The Lee Endfield doesn't put out firepower like the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, but the don't run out of ammo as quickly either. Whether they live long enough to take advantage is another story... The 2 man sniper teams if you get them can be effective. The light mortars are very useful for creating smokescreens. The HE capability can be useful too. I'm still trying to figure out whet the golden distance is where you can fire the limited HE ammo and be sure of a good chance of hitting or getting close to targets like MG's which require pinpoint accuracy. I'm finding my self using 2 man scout teams to recon and draw fire. Once I determine enemy locations, I'm using Bren carriers to suppress with bren guns, if I don't have tank support and I don't think there is armor or AT guns that pose a threat to the Bren carriers. Overall I find CW/British forces suffer a lot of abuse in the Combat Mission world-period. This is h2h and playing battles against the AI. In the Italy/Gustav line they are often pitted against German Paras who are not only good quality, but carry lots of automatic weapons. Usually doesn't end well for the CW side. Some say many of the battles in Italy/and Gustav line from the CW perspective are meant to be experienced, not won. In Market Garden the paras are superb and tote lots of automatic firepower in the form of Stens, but the odds are so stacked against them, that in the end they often get butchered. This Campaign appears to carry on the tradition... I do recall from the book, Six Armies in Normandy, the CW took quite a beating in the battle for Normandy.

Just finished the third mission with a major victory. When I saw the 2 Tigers and what I had to fight with initially, I thought it would be a ball buster, but I managed to kill both with PIATs so when the cavalry appeared it was basically a mopping up operation. The Germans managed to occupy Grettle, but I had plenty of artillery so I just pummeled it until nothing was left. Had I not been able to kill the 2 Tigers with my infantry it would have been a different story.