panzersaurkrautwerfer

Think if we see a Gotterdammerung module with Volkstrum most of the German stuff you posted is likely. Johnston LMG or rifle seems a bit less likely simply because of the limited circulation (both were virtually unknown outside of the FSSF and very limited USMC issue).

Dunno man. A lot depends on the Russians being honest in what they do or do not have on the ground, and frankly expecting that after the last few years would be foolish. Some of the kit is awful specialized too. It's an interesting point of data in an otherwise fairly dark area.

1LTs are generally: Company/Troop Executive Officers Junior Staff (usually the lowest man in the Operations section's Officer pool) Senior Platoon Leaders (there's no training or magic event that makes you transition, for most 1LT just happens because you're in the army long enough) Specialty Platoon Leaders (Battalion Scouts, Mortars, or many of the historic small units that were not part of line companies were generally lead by seasoned 1LTs vs new 2LTs) That said in World War Two: Losses generally meant a wide range in actual Platoon leadership, ranging from the nominal platoon sergeant, to simply the smartest, most capable remaining squad leader. A lot of Company level organizations seemed to wind up with 1LTs in charge, likely either the former XO, or the most capable surviving Platoon leader. In practice given an organization at 100% fitness, it should be lead by a 2LT however. Random caveat: It might be neat to tie the rank of the leader to the fitness/experience level for that organization. A veteran reduced fitness level might have an E-6 Platoon leader, while a green high fitness unit might have the 2LT. Not really practical. I've just read enough history that seems to start off with "1st Platoon, lead by Staff Sergeant Warmonger...." or "Charlie Company, with it's Commander 1LT Knifehand in the lead..." that the variety might be fun. On topic: Speaking of fun, M36s are just that. Getting them in position can be hard, and keeping them alive when the enemy figures out where they're at is challenging, but it's sorta awesome to see tanks that were usually a moment of figuring out how I'm going to over the course of the next few minutes get a flank shot in go down from a 90 MM round through the frontal armor.

I believe they were indeed offered. The US Army also experimented extensively with camels in the years prior to the civil war as a a replacement for various pack animals in the American west. While the Civil War itself cut the experiment short, rogue camels that had escaped were being spotted in the Southwest almost into the 20th century.

Honestly if I could have gotten away with it, I would have. It's a neat capability presented in a very marginal system. The new lower profile RWS ought to help a little though. Of course in regards to SMAs, the real kicker is when you use the MICLIC rockets to propel one of them literally into the enemy ranks. Rocket Apes FTW.

Totally did. And Putler's law will be just one of the things that will justify the dropping of weaponized primates on downtown Moscow. While future generations will recoil at the destruction of one of the world's great cities by murderous laser equipped chimps, it will simply be accepted as the natural conclusion to Putin's reckless posturing without a shirt on.

Way to take a really stupid joke and turn it into a reminder of what Russia is doing to the Ukraine.

When in doubt, ask but one question: What would Brian Boitano do?

I'm worried about some idiot who's declared himself to be an ISIS super soldier after a weekend blowing his mind on meth showing up to my armory and taking potshots to appease his internet friends. It's not frightening in the sense of I expect a well coordinated ISIS squad sized element to attack, but the less information some knucklehead has to go on, the better. Frankly if it wasn't ISIS, it'd be some other idiot extremist group to worry about.

You won't laugh when they're using their massive simian strength to pull open BMDs to devour the delicious troops within.

Certainly not with the Murder Apes we've deployed there.

A big part of "information operations" is message crafting. Which is in so many words, figuring out what information you are going to present overtly and disseminate widely, what you're going to hold close, and having a task and purpose to both of those things. Dragoon Ride, and that we publicly announce Eastern European deployments is part of the first category. The publicity serves three basic purposes 1. Reassure regional allies of US commitment to their defense, and present a positive face of US forces in Europe ("hey! I'm an American and I'm here to help! You want to take a look at my sweet ride/here, have the candy from my MRE I wasn't going to eat it anyway!") 2. Demonstrate clear resolve to a country that couldn't POSSIBLY be secretly invading Ukraine on the installment plan, and undermine that nation's messaging. 3. Provide a clear, "transparent" counter action to the other unnamed state actor in Eastern Europe. So in that regard, yes, look at our Strykers. They're really neat. Hey, here are some tanks and US troops to protect you. Etc. But there might be other things going on. I won't do actual conjecture for fear of accidentally violating OPSEC, but there's a lot of events we could do in conjunction with local elected governments and military powers to bolster their ability to counter a "green man" event that we don't want Russians to know about until genetically altered super-chimps* who can sense excessive Russian nationalism are swooping down to messily kill and devour the first wave of Russian nationalist biker gangs who were on their way to set up a phony revolution in Latvia or something. So in that regard, one leaking point of data might lead to uncovering the super-chimps before their due time if you get my drift. *They're actually mountain gorillas with lasers, and DU talons, and will only attack people who hate freedom, like Putinbots.

It really wasn't designed with tanks in mind. I think half the reason we wound up with them is a few thousand were ordered for mounting on HMMWVs and that never became as common as planned. If we're really not being super snarky at all, if there's an email tied to his account we could work backwards to his social media, and then to his real online presence, which when used with all the other leaks can paint a picture of what the status of what his unit is up to or located, which then feeds other collection efforts. One dude is not important, but intelligence is about collecting points of data, and this was indeed a point of data (granted one of limited value thanks to the public nature of the deployment). I mean as a US Army we've done all sorts of nasty stuff based on what allauhsnackbar007 posts on idiotterrorists.com. We've also doubtlessly collected a LOT of information on Russia, Russian equipment, where certain Russians that are not actually in Russia are etc thanks to their own issues with junior enlisted online. It's impossible to stop all leaks, but it's a good practice to deny intelligence dudes low hanging fruit (like everything I write on here is stuff that comes up with a google search, or is specifically discussed in public release friendly documents).

Oh I'm sure. I'm just saying that it someone wants to build a few scenarios or a QB with more 76 MM Shermans per platoon it's not at all ahistorical.

I think the AI is indeed a bit better. I had a Panther that refused to die. I set up a QB with one platoon minus of Panthers, one platoon+ company HQ of Panzer IVs just for fun in a meeting engagement. The first platoon I contacted was the Panthers, and in a hail of 76 and 75 MM gunfire they went down, one after the other. Then the last tank pops off one more shot disabling one of my Shermans before popping smoke and backing up. Then the remainder of the company comes into contact, and I'm shooting them up too, and then the Panther shows up again, shooting and forcing my company commander to bail from his tank (which I had remount, the shot killed the assistant driver and walking wounded the commander and gunner). Then as shots starting striking home again, smoke and the Panther withdrew. I finally assaulted to finish the battle, and as I rolled out the Panther opted to make itself known and the Panther did indeed go down hit from several different directions, but I can't recall any other CM that had a tank disengage several times, and then recommit elsewhere. Was surprisingly human behavior for sure.

The tree is just there to ensure the Stug does not harm anything before it is properly put to bed. In all seriousness the trees do feel a bit less terrible this time around, although they are quite frustrating when they do opt to be terrible.

From my recollection: There were a few different models of Sherman 76 MM guns, but none of them were longer. The big difference is the introduction of threads for a muzzle brake and then the muzzle brake itself. In regards to how common they were, it varied. Going into the Bulge generally "older" units that had fought in Normandy had fairly few, with a large number of M4s, and M4A1s still floating around, while some of the newer divisions had nothing but M4A3 76 W type tanks. As the Bulge and counter-offensive wore on it sort of averaged out. Old units received major injections of new equipment, newer units received some reinforcements from old stock or even Commonwealth variants by some accounts, but it became increasingly common to see tank platoons with 2-3 76 MM tanks, or even completely 76 MM units again.

If there's a Panzersaurkrautwerfer "favorite wargaming period" for World War Two, it basically starts at Arracourt and ends at the Elbe, and rolls in Olive Drabby tanks. Needless to say I'm loving CMFB, and will go nuts if/hopefully when they announce the "over the Rhine" expansion with Pershings and somesuch.

The commonwealth expansion will be interesting. Late war CW forces: 1. Had gained a lot of combat experience, and were very well blooded. 2. Did not change as much in regards to equipment. The Comet is a notable exception, but most of the stuff on hand will be familiar to CMBN players. 3. While British forces were more experienced, there's some definite war wariness coming into play in various formations the UK had less to give. A lot of the Veteran formations were understandably burned out, and there was a major problem in finding replacement soldiers for combat losses. 4. The late war campaigns will still be very interesting, expect to see a lot of flamethrowers and windmills. Also with amphibious vehicles in the game I imagine there might be some Rhine crossing to do.

1. There's a series of planned expansions. The ones that are very likely are: a. USMC b. Some other NATO countries (might or might not be rolled up in a NATO expansion, or released as individual countries, historically it's been a bit of both) c. Likely VDV and Russian Naval Infantry d. Some sort of unconventional forces, likely both Ukrainian and Russian Nothing has been announced. However the last modern Combat mission included USMC, UK, and NATO expansions, and each of those also included updates to the base game's forces. 2. There's a "quick battle" option that lets you choose the map, weather conditions, time of day, and specific forces down to the squad and individual vehicle level. It also lets you do any force vs any force (US vs Ukraine, Russia vs Russia, US vs US etc). 3. It does urban combat pretty well. You can open breaches in walls with properly equipped squads, or shoot holes in walls with tanks. Troops will hop fences, and assaulting buildings is simulated (although building interiors are abstracted, so it's not like you're guiding squads room to room or something). 4. There's no unconventional forces yet. However you can do a reasonable job using Russian and Ukrainian forces to simulate rebel forces vs rebel forces.

Depends. Like I flew into Korea in civilian clothes, but only stopped at USAF bases after I left my starting point in a US Airport, but I deployed passing through several civilian European airports in uniform. Also I think in regards to OPSEC it's one of those things we're drilled just not to do regardless of how harmless it might be, like how you look both ways before you cross a totally deserted street. Which is frankly delicious. Wish they'd do it more often/we found a way to make a Predator Drone "follow" people on twitter and attack in real time.

Totally does. The tanks still aren't quite like having a mess of Panthers on your side, but the HVAP makes German armor operations a lot riskier, and the Jumbos are more fun than they should be. It's one of the reasons why I was so excited for FB, the US Army of Fall 44-Spring 45 was an entirely different beast than the summer fighting.

Veteran's accounts will always be tricky, simply given the limited perspective+time+frailties of human memory. Like I'm not sure which post I was at for my first deployment any more. Like I could show you where it was on a map, tell you about how it was laid out, but I can't remember the name (it was basically two large houses with a perimiter wall, not a big FOB or something). If in 2040 or so I sat down and wrote out my less than illustrious career, it's doubtless someone would question if I was "really" there simply because in reality it turns out Ghaz Main was the callsign for the post vs Ghaz I which was the actual name, or it was actually Ghaz II but because it was the HQ for our unit it was called Ghaz Main etc, etc. There's a lot of minutia that falls to the side simply because even though you're still caught up in historic events, you're still thinking more about getting real food/how long until you get some downtime/your local sports team and it's really not that relevant in the moment if you had an M16 or an M4 simply that your rifle was in your possession at that moment. Always take first hand accounts with a grain of salt. They're simply not going to be scholarly well researched writings with 100% accuracy (again, look at the difference between "A Time for Trumpets" and "Company Commander," same author, same battles, totally different perspectives). I think Forgotten Soldier is a mess of reality, a little fiction and some poor memory. It jives okay enough with history to be at least illuminating in the absence of not-Tiger or Stuka pilot writings. The D-Day book sounds like rubbish though.

Apparently quite a few crews: a. Simply did not mount the weapon at all, either leaving it behind at the assembly area, or clipped to the back of the tank. b. Improvised forward facing mounts (namely welding available .50 or .30 cal tripods in front of the commander's station. Tangent: Perhaps there's room in the future for some of the more elaborate improvised armor/weapons setups on Shermans? They seem particularly prone to modification, and there's a lot of documentation of armor plate scavenged from wrecked tanks, improvised .50 cal mounts (or .50 cals mounted in lieu of the .30 cal coax). Seems like a shoe-in for the inevitable "To the Rhine!" expansion.

Yeah. It's something that's generally best to say less vs more. It might not even be Putinpirates or something, but some ISIS tard puts enough information together to shoot up buses going to the airport or something.