4TheFront

CA and Holien,

You made certain unfortunate scenario specific references in your post, references I noticed and will be affected by, since I read them before grokking what they were about. Please either revise your post or place prominent spoiler warnings in front of it. Technically, if I understood what I read correctly, there has been no discussion authorization issued, even for the Scenario board.

As for coastal forts, I live in U.S. coastal fort paradise, only miles from one of the best preserved coastal forts in the country, Ft. MacArthur (www.ftmac.org) in San Pedro, California guarding Los Angeles harbor. The site has quite a bit of information, plus a wealth of resources on seacoast defense and the like. See also www.military-info.com for some goodies.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ October 17, 2002, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

MikeyD,
 
Understood, but what's BFC's policy on accepting Groupie Coupons?! Seems to me that's an important question!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

This source introduces Mao and Trotsky as potential sources for the quote we're discussing.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/89f08886-a091-11e3-8557-00144feab7de.html#axzz3LC8MKevC

Regards,

John Kettler

Duplicate post.

Fate has chimed in; I've issued my orders in reply.

Regards,

John Kettler

Tero and Boris have been heard from and replied to.
Order phases in both.

Regards,

John Kettler

Check your E-mail, Boris, and you'll learn that what you're seeing is routine rabbit abatement.

Everyone sent me a turn and was just E-mailed one in reply. Fate and I are vying with one another for the military ineptitude award, Boris and I are barely in contact, and Tero and I are shooting each other when and where the opportunity presents itself. Pretty underwhelming so far, though.

Regards,

John Kettler

Boris's troops are now taking another kind of leak--the bleeding and dying sort.

Tero seems to have found an even larger toolbox. One of the devices in use seems to be a reamer.

Have replied to both.

Regards,

John Kettler

Cpl Carrot,

Yes, a rifle grenade can pierce the side of a Tiger I. I did it in the CMBO Beta Demo. I believe the battle was Last Defense, but I could be wrong.
Suffice it to say that my opponent was shocked and horrified when that M-9 AT grenade burned a neat little hole into the turret side of his about to triumph mighty cat, stopping the dread feline dead in its tracks.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ October 04, 2002, 10:02 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

Stalin's Organ,

Thanks for the info! Anyone else care to comment?

Regards,

John Kettler

Boris's men have apparently decided they want Hassenpfeffer for dinner, thus have stopped to gather the freshly abated ones.

Tero and I continue to hammer each other, but I fear that his hammer's rather more effective than mine at present. I intend to correct this as soon as possible.

Regards,

John Kettler

Bumping this engrossing thread while pleading for further contributions!

Regards,

John Kettler

Bump! More AARs please!

Regards,

John Kettler

Bumping this, with a plea for more AARs, whether here or in the RoW II AAR thread.

Regards,

John Kettler

Bumping this with a plea for more AARs, either here or in the various scenario specific threads. I renew my particular request for Michael Dorosh's Fire on the Mountain AAR.

Regards,

John Kettler

Stixx,

If I'd had Marders, my armor losses would've been even worse. Marders don't button worth a hoot! His 60mm mortars would've eaten me alive.

Ostketten fur dem Engine Rewrite!

Regards,

John Kettler

Heavy Drop,

That was quite an AAR. I found your initial tactical appreciation to be downright disturbing, even intimidating. How did you do the tactical
graphics? I really wish pictures didn't cause the text to overflow screen width, a real reading hassle.

Cuzn,

Thanks for providing the other side of the fight.

Holien,

Why couldn't you have won some other scenario by big margins? I very nearly had the top score as the Poles unil you came along. Grr.

Juha,

A most engrossing AAR, which I read with considerable interest.

General comment

I know CMBB is out and all, but I am still surprised that the stream of AARs, either in scenario specific or the RoW II AAR thread, has dried up so thoroughly that even this thread is on page 2. What we have is great, but surely there must be more AARs which could be posted?

Regards,

John Kettler

Voxman,

Neither the mortars nor the HQ may be in Hide. HQ must have LOS to desired piece of ground, but the actual target line will be drawn from each mortar firing to the ground in LOS of the spotting HQ. If the target line won't stick, you haven't aimed at the right patch of ground. Be sure that your target is within normal range limits for the mortars, too.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John Kettler

Madmatt,

Impressive, but I believe your crater text (pg. 53) has a glitch, to wit:

"...which type of crater you are faxing."

Unless I'm badly off, I believe you meant for "facing" to appear in place of the "faxing" shown?
The current version confused me before I sorted out what was really being said.

Regards,

John Kettler

Received turns from and replied to Tero and Boris.
Tero's doing evil things, while Boris's men apparently will be cooking dinner later and were really on coffee break. They've returned to the fray.

Regards,

John Kettler

Thank you one and all for the information, kind thoughts, encouragement, words of caution, and the donation offer, which I'll be gratefully exercising shortly. russellmz, your ideas are fine, but somewhat moot, in that having ordered the game, I really don't need to go through the drills specified, at least some of which can be done on the Mac. The point of that part of my post was to conserve the ink of those yet to order. I see no reason why a receipt should gobble up many full page equivalents of ink.

Regards,

John Kettler

tero,

Since the aliens have apparently deigned to return you to Earth, would you please send me a turn so I can finish the RoW II Finals before RoW III starts?
Boris and I are done, save the accounting, and Fate and I have fewer than five turns left. Thanks!

Regards,

John Kettler

Hi fellas. On the phone for several hours. neighbors, police, churches, apartment manager, etc.
The bad news is he was reported to have been injured in some type of motor vehicle accident back around March the officer said.
Then he went to a convalescent hospital but they are unable to tell me anything other than "not listed as a resident at this time"...
Good news: property manager finally answered my 2nd call and she says he is doing well and she'll give him my number to call me.

Maybe I'm misreading posts, but I seem to keep encountering 82mm Katyushas. Was under the impression that the "standard" Katyusha rocket started out as 122mm, was redesignated 132mm at Stalin's direct order following a fiasco in which 122mm howitzer ammo was delivered to the proving ground for the demo before Stalin (anecdote from Viktor Suvorov, nom de plume for 1980s GRU defector Vladimir Rezun), and subsequently grew to actually measure 132mm in diameter.

Kirk & Young's GREAT WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II (pp. 272, 275) and Isby's WEAPONS AND TACTICS OF THE SOVIET ARMY (p.287) both list the rocket diameter as 132mm. Granted that there were several other types produced, available imagery strongly suggests that the dominant version was the 132mm rocket. If so, why am I not reading agonized reports of maulings by these rockets, instead of the relatively piddly 82mm variety? I don't recall seeing even one.

Regards,

John Kettler

Finally got to the bookstore after months of missed attempts. Three things stood out in the time I had:

HISTORY OF ARTILLERY by Hans Halberstadt

Has great illustrations, data and photos of artillery through the ages, including some wonderful stuff on WW II, including a dug-in Wespe battery, recoilless weapons from several nations, and some juicy rocket launchers. TACOPS fans will drool over the modern artillery section, especially the new Russian MRL photos, things even DoD's Soviet Military Power had as art if at all.

PANZERS ON THE EASTERN FRONT by General Raus, wartime commander of 6th Panzer Division. This appears to be a reissue of earlier U.S. government sponsored memoirs, but what makes this book especially drool worthy is the
large section of German combat art.

ENEMY AT THE GATES (hardback reissue of 1973? edition; no apparent update from newly declassified material).

Also noted but didn't get to look at Beevor's Battle of Berlin book and some inexpensive references on Allied and Axis aircraft of WW II.

Had to leave because I was in danger of losing my sanity. Wanted almost everything in the WW II area.

Regards,

John Kettler