danfrodo

Mord, best summary of genre fantasy I've every seen . Occasionally one will be good. Lies of Locke Lamora is great. Martin will never finish GOT, I'll watch HBO just to see how it all shakes out.

whoa, that's super cool!

That John Oliver bit is great, especially the Churchillian speech at the end. So maybe BFC will bring out Barbarossa for the 80th anniversary. June 22, 2021. Until then I'll take the occasional short break from CM to play barbarossa in Operational Art of War.

I wonder if Brexit means that UK & France can start fighting again, like in the good old days. Actually, whatever is left of the UK after N. Ireland and Scotland leave over their anger on Brexit. Though Neither May nor Marcon seems ready to fill the shoes of the likes of Napoleon or Wellington.

that's a clause in Brexit, I think. All non-English words are to be forbidden unless royalties are paid to the contributing language originator. Oh, wait, English is basically a pidgin of Germanic & Latin languages (french, et al), so I guess they'll have to pay for every word used. That should shorten speeches. But does that mean no more BBC shows for me? Maybe just more brooding to save on word count.

Hear hear Aragorn2002! Well said. Great WW2 books from newer historians who are not just repeating stories from other books, they are doing research and greatly enlightening us and challenging myths we've grown up with.

I think wargamers mostly would love Barbarossa. What's not to love? Not all want this, but most I am sure. Great, epic battles of encirclement and desperate counterattacks, hopeless defensive struggles where all you can do is try to take as many germans with you as possible and delay them. It's not all a walkover by the germans -- the stand in front of Smolensk in July that brought the germans to a halt. Lots of great battles w lots of goofy gear -- the semi-obsolete masses of russian tanks, the czech T35 T38, silly little pz1 and pz2. And the shock of meeting a KV tank for the first time and having nothing that can penetrate its armor. Great stuff. Lots of maneuver (well, for the germans).

Anyone ever read A World Undone, by Meyer? Great single volume work on WW1, reads like a novel it was so engaging. Kaiser in that comes across as a man out of his depth and somewhat emotionally stunted by his upbringing & physical disability. Too bad he didn't have the strength/courage to end the pointless slaughter; would've been a brave and selfless stand but could've saved a lot of lives, tragedy, treasure. Unfortunately lunatic Ludendorff able to run roughshod over the country's direction.

I see that two of Werth's books are available. More to add to the list, thanks y'all

Someone just recommended Castles of Steel & Dreadnought to me, thanks for reminding me. I think I'll need to check those out. Heirloom-Tomato mentioned We Die Alone -- I gotta second that one! was great. And speaking of Canadians, I am currently reading Mark Zuehlke's Canadian's in WW2 series. I started with Juno & now Holding Juno. Must reads for all Normandy/WW2 buffs. Well written, good narrative style (meaning not just someone rambling off facts & stats). Lots of first person pieces included. The attacks by 12SS panzer are terrifying as the canadians lose men, run low on ammo, and find themselves cut off. Currently fighing operational level Normandy campaign in Operational Art of War game, but nearly done & then back to Combat Mission where I am going to fight every Canadian battle they've got! On audio did Caesar by Goldsworthy, very very good. I've also done both of his historical fiction series (on kindle), Vindolanda (Romans in Britain) series and his Napoleonic series, both quite good. I looked up Island of Fire as suggested above, but it's $100 used. ouch. Looks like a good one but that's gonna have to wait. Bummer. on the GOT thread, I read all the books. First 3 were an absolute joy. Book 4 was a dreadful, mostly pointless slog. book 5 was OK. I'd suggest reading 1st three. And HBO writers are some pretty sick dudes in the first couple seasons, with so much gratiuituos (sp?) violence and porn, but the story was just sooooooo good.

Yeah, I hear you. The lack of troops really hits home as this goes on. Oh, hey, just like the actual campaign. Peiper was short on men and especially on supplies. And my lovely panthers, with all their wonderful sloped armor, were often getting main gun damage from sherman 75s also 57mm AT guns, rendering them relatively useless. I had several like this in my Stoumont attack. And the american artillery really becomes tough to get through also. In 2nd stavelot battle I had two of my armored vehicles knocked out by direct hits. Again, like nasty real life in that campaign.

Those T34-85s with the enormous turrets are terrifying. Glad I didn't have to fight them as an infantryman.

wow, that was great. I wish more stuff like that would get made. More military/historical 'adventure' and less comic book superheroes is my vote.

I played this campaign in December, great fun. I chose the non-historical 'go faster' option. In the end, then allies retook Stavelot and I couldn't retake it, at least not w/o replaying it again now that I know where the enemy is. I might do that sometime, it's very tough. In real life Peiper was doomed and so I was expecting things to get worse & worse after the initial battles.

Glad to hear it Ridaz

Ridaz, I hope you keep having fun. One thing I did when I started was to give myself an edge in some of the battles. It's very easy to add units to an existing scenario, usually by just adding some pieces of units that were not turned on. Note you might need to go to 'deploy' in editor to make sure then are where you want them. Be sure to save the game to a modified name, because later you might want to go back and fight the original battle, as I have now done often. It helped me enjoy battles a bit more while I was learning, since I could have a better chance of success despite my lack of skill.

I second that, 76mm. Now that we have so much more data from the Soviet side, things look a lot different. Post-1941, I do not see how Germans could've won ('won' meaning topple Soviet regime and all eliminate all large-scale organized resistance). Germans were still very powerful, but could they actually end the war w/o negotiated settlement? Negotiated settlement in the east was certainly what US & Brits feared,perhaps more than anything else.

Thanks for the tips, Gundolf, I've been looking for some good new stuff. I really liked Peaky Blinders on Netflix. Birmingham after WW1, some brothers return from war and decide to make better criminals of themselves than they were before. Cillian Murphy is brilliant as the top dog brother, supporting cast also fantastic, as is the writing, sets, etc

SBURKE, thanks you saved me a lot of typing. We get to make specific choices about who we honor & for what. That doesn't mean we have to destroy every statue every made. That doesn't mean that just because some folks don't like someone that we do this. It's a specific choice for a specific case. And Robert E Lee is only honored for doing the wrong thing. I admire Lee greatly as a military leader. I admire Rommel and many other German generals. But their only claim to fame is fighting rather well for a cause that was downright wrong and being complicit in that wrong cause.

Erwin, very good point. Very good indeed. I guess along with the question of "why is this person honored with a statue?" it must also be asked "and why does this person wish to remove it?"

Completely agree. It's just that historical scholarship requires no public statues. I am not condemning Lee, nor soldiers that fought in the south. I do not condemn soldiers doing what they perceive to be their duty, they are caught up in larger tides than themselves. I don't want to tread any farther into a subject that could get folks upset. Meanwhile, I am quite stuck in Stoumont and my troops really do require my attention so I should go do that. With the poor progress and losses inflicted on me so far by the Americans I can be quite sure I'll never see a statue for my military prowess.

Good Heavens SBurke, but how I do prattle on. Yes, you are right. I'll shut up.

Removing confederate statues has been contentious. But we have to ask why were we honoring these men? One could say that Jefferson and Washington were slavers but we honor them for what they did despite being slavers. When we honor Gen Lee, we honor him ONLY for fighting to uphold slavery. There's no other notable thing he ever that would merit a public statue. And if one's ancestors were slaves and if Lee had his way more generationswould have been slaves, it is unconscionable that these statues should be tolerated. It's like putting up statues of the foremost torries from the American Revolution -- worse, actually for descendents of slaves, which make up over 10% of the population in once-confederate states. So unless one has a reason to honor the Lee & friends OTHER than trying to keep folks enslaved, they might actually have a case for a statue.

adding to Nik-Mond's earlier post: worst riots in american history were the 1863 draft riots, New York City. (mainly) Irish NY men did not want to go fight in the war they didn't want and feared freeing slaves would cause more competition for their already meager jobs. South succeeded based on North's antipathy toward slavery, and the election of Lincoln was considered the final straw in that ongoing argument. And no, Lincoln did NOT engage fighting with the south to free all the slaves. He fought to preserve the union, meaning the United States of America. We have a letter written by Lincoln that he would very much end the war WITHOUT ending slavery if he could, then slavery fight could go back to being legislative bickering to be settled at some future time. As Nik-Mond said, after Gettysburg, Lincoln made ending slavery an absolute outcome of the war.

worst riots in american history were the July 1863 draft riots, New York City. (mainly) Irish NY men did not want to go fight in the war they didn't want and feared freeing slaves would cause more competition for their already meager jobs. South succeeded based on North's antipathy toward slavery, and the election of Lincoln was considered the final straw in that ongoing argument. And no, Lincoln did NOT engage fighting with the south to free all the slaves. He fought to preserve the union, meaning the United States of America (always odd when I see a vehicle w a confederate and a US flag on the same bumper). We have a letter written by Lincoln that he would very much end the war WITHOUT ending slavery if he could, then slavery fight could go back to being legislative bickering to be settled at some future time. As Nik-Mond said, after Gettysburg, Lincoln made ending slavery an absolute outcome of the war. Civil war is complex but it was all driven by the slavery issue -- the south was economically addicted to it and the north was against it. For decades there had been a vicious legislative and propaganda war going on. Any given soldier had own reason for fighting - duty, patriotism, profit, coercion, but slavery was the cause of the war. Look at the memoirs of Germans who were fighting in Normandy for a "united europe", not understanding why US/Brits wouldn't just join them in this altruistic quest. That's the power of brainwashing via propaganda -- actually pretty impressive job of it I must admit. Yes, have sidetracked this thread. Going back to russia, I am not a Stalin fan but I sure like playing Red Thunder as the Russians. every soldier has his own reasons.