danfrodo

I think it's in the interest of the health & safety of people all over the world that this is released ASAP. It would guarantee that at least the CMRT community would happily abide by any quarantine. I'd certainly be happy in my basement w my computer for several weeks.

Interesting that we are all at the funeral of our still living friend. It's his 50th birthday, he aint dead. Yeah, he definitely could be better in 1000 ways, and all BF needs is a lot more money and people, which they don't have, to make that happen as fast as we want it to happen. And why does this always have to degenerate into personal criticisms or conspiracy theories? They are a small team and simply can't do it all. Are there actually people here that never worked on teams that had limited resources and had to prioritize? Had to choose what to do and what to delay?

Well, I only said I am not going to throw tantrums about this. I do throw lots of tantrums. I threw a couple on this forum the first time I did a campaign. Later I realized it was just that I sucked at CM and had to play better and should stop wetting my pants on the forum. Others are free to do what they wish, though I prefer it when folks talk about our digital toy soldiers and military history books & such. Speaking of toy soldiers, I am ready for pre-order, just say the word. Can't wait for Hungary, Berlin, Oder, Seelow! Masses of SMG-toting soviet troops and T34-85s trying to punch through german defenses, that's epic.

So the British Ministry of Defense is subsidizing me playing w my toy soliders & tanks? And all I have to do for this is wait a little longer for the new release? I am considering this a win for all of us CM gamers. So maybe I'll not throw temper tantrums and wet my pants over not getting my toy immediately.

wow, that is impressive, thanks for sharing

Fortunately we play at the "amateur" level, dealing only w tactics. Which is really fun. What I find interesting is that despite Stalin doing just about everything possible to lose in the first summer, the Germans were still unable to win. Which speaks to just how much more resilient the soviet empire was than anyone expected, despite it's murderous lunatic dictator. So while I love to "what if" to think how the Germans could have won, a more plausible "what if" is around the Soviet side: What if Stalin had been even marginally competent and had a defense in depth and had allowed retreats? It was too late for Stalin to undo his massacre of the officer corps, but he still could have allowed basic military common sense once he was attacked. He could have allowed his staff time to develop proper counterattacks instead of forcing them to throw units at the Germans piecemeal, unprepared, and uncoordinated. If he had done the most basic rational things the Germans might not have gotten much farther than Smolensk. So what I suggest is that it was much more likely for the Russians to have done much better than for the Germans to have done much better -- though no one at the time knew this.

y'all have seen The Chieftain's video on US armor in WW2, correct? He has some very interesting and surprising insights, much of it directly from US army archives and not just some mythology that we've all grown up with.

Command Opps 2 -- I will google that ASAP, thanks Aragorn2002

Whether Market Garden was a doomed or not doomed is really irrelevant to me as a gamer. As an operational game (like in Operation Art or War) is really fun, though I have never won it. And in CMBN it's great fun, with the mix of light airborne, mechanized & armored troops, offense & defense, brits & US. I am actually replaying Nijmegan campaign now. I played it when I first started back up w CM like 5 years ago, and didn't do very well because I was so new to the game. It's really really fun.

The problem w Market Garden is that is was a great idea but was a terrible, ridiculous plan. Growing wings and flying to work is a great idea. It's not a very good plan. With proper time to do that planning perhaps it could've worked, but there was no time because they believed they had to hit fast before weather worsened and german's got more organized. Proper planning would've had 30 corps using every road in the network to get north, not being stranded along the main road, for example. And better air support of the the Brit paras. Of course, if they had taken more time for planning they also would've realized there were serious german forces in the area, which probably would have caused the cancellation of the whole operation.

Barbarossa. And winter 41-42. And summer 42. and Stalingrad. And winter 43. and summer 43. and winter 43-44. So one base game and six modules. Can I pre-order as a bundle, with delivery in early 2022?

That's very interesting SimpleSimon. I have never heard that. I read Beevor's Arnhem book last year and he puts it all on Monty. Very interesting.

and I have to ask about whether these german generals were actually paid? Why could they not afford a proper set of eyeglasses? It seems they could only afford one piece of glass & no frame.

well, it certainly seems we agree on way more than we don't . I also really like Alexander. How have I never heard of Von Sauken before? Thanks for the link.

Hang on my friend Aragorn2002, I have plenty of disdain for american leaders also and praise for other brits (Air Chief Tedder was brilliant!). Monty is intelligent and skilled, like you said, but he was also impossible to work with and in September 44 made one of the great military blunders of the war. Having said that, there's plenty of americans I hate more than Monty -- the air force general who refused to bomb parallel to the beaches in normandy and in operation cobra is one (what was his name?). MacArthur I detest, though mostly for his insanity in Korea. Admiral King's refusal to use convoys? And Ike did slap down Patton for a while. But point well taken, it's easy for me to take shots at Monty while ignoring his big, solid victories.

Rommel and Churchill are both rather complicated historically/militarily. Making them out as either gods to be worshipped or dogs to be kicked is silly. Sometimes Churchill was brilliant -- history-changing brilliant. Lots of other times he was a meddling, micromanaging, narcissistic, incompetent toy-soldier general. Rommel was sometimes brilliant, sometimes really lucky, and sometimes a foolhardy and reckless gambler. But Montgomery's insane egotistical tirades -- how did Eisenhower punch knock his teeth out?

Super cool Erwin I wonder if they make replica ones, an original is sure expensive. I actually went to a site that supplies re-enactors, they had some great stuff. US paras, Germans, not much commonwealth.

Back to 1917 movie, I think it's great that Sam Mendes took a story from his grandfather in WW1, fictionalized and expanded it, and made it into a movie. A movie that will make a lot of folks google "WW1". That's good, folks learning some history hopefully because some fiction got them interested. And the amount of detail he put into the uniforms & weapons was fabulous. I would've paid just to see that. I want one of those sleeveless leather vests some of the brits wore.

There's definitely a dumbing down, but I don't think that's a new thing, I think it's an ongoing process. Folks 50 and 100 years ago believed lies, today people believe lies. Folks 50 and 100 years ago were ignorant of basic history, like folks today. Were war movies more historically accurate 50 years ago? NO -- look at Battle of the Bulge. Some of the old movies were better but most were not, like now. This forum tends to have folks that know history better than the average person I suspect, considering sometimes there's threads about crazy things called 'books'.

jeebus, it's just an action/adventure movie set in WW1. Why try to read so much into it? And it a really good action movie.

circling back to our old pal Stalin -- did y'all know he even murdered the genius that designed the diesel engine for the T34? I mean, he was killing everyone

Very good points, Bluecher

yeah, that does sound familiar

And then Stalin did everything possible to wreck that huge military. Killed all the officers. Forced them to defend dense, highly vulnerable forward lines. Continually gave idiot "no retreat" and "attack at once" orders with no idea what he was doing. So Soviet Union should have been ready for war, but losing 3.3 million men in three months rather says something different. If Stalin hadn't killed most of his officers and if the armed forces were used with even marginal competence, then Germany would've been lucky to get to Smolensk. The Russians had numbers but were controlled by an utterly anti-competent lunatic.