danfrodo

I think we should start a 12 step program for this, we are clearly all addicts.  "My name is Dan, and I am a wargamer-aholic"

I think we should start a 12 step program for this, we are clearly all addicts.  "My name is Dan, and I am a wargamer-aholic"

my wife is visiting college kid in Montana Friday thru Monday.  So Thursday or Friday release would be quite lovely.

and if you paint the shark mouth they look terrific

Air war is very different from tank war. In both experience and training are vitally important though. Numbers and position are also important. Chosing between a Bf109K, a Tempest, a Fw 190D, a Ta 152, a Spitfire XIV or a Yak-3, is almost impossible, since in an air fight  so much depends on other factors than for example speed and firepower.
I keep saying that few authors really take the time to do proper research. 
Or as Sherlock Holmes puts it:
“Data! Data! Data!” he cried impatiently. “I can't make bricks without clay.” 

what a fun discussion for tank nerds. 
The problem is the definition of 'best'.  For some it simply means the best combo of firepower and armor, so it's the tiger.  Others like to throw in mobility and say it's the panther.  For me every tank is a trade-off of reliability, cost, weight, mobility, fuel consumption, firepower, first-shot capability (optics, turret traverse), crew factors, maintenence difficulty, and the biggest of all perhaps -- availability when it matters. 
Panther is great if available and working, but fails because unreliability which made it unavailable when it was most needed, at Kursk.  I've read that it was unreliable mainly because it was designed for ~35 tonnes and hitler wanted more armor w/o understanding the engineering cost of the added 10 tons on the drive train.  Any idiot can say "more armor and bigger gun is better!" without understanding the tradeoffs -- and next thing you know Porsche is designing worthless land battleships.  Like transporting the tiger which required changing tracks so it could go on train, then changing again when offloaded. 
Of course in any given engagement I would rather have a panther or tiger than a T34-85, but I'd also rather have 5-10 T34-85s than one or two working panther/tigers, and that was reality.
I vote for the T34-85 also.  Great trade-off combo of all the big factors and had good enough firepower.  And the soviets got it onto the battefield in time to make an actual difference.

At the end of the day, I'd rather be in a Sherman, on the fields of Europe. They were made in better staffed, equipped, and stocked factories, which were safe from occupation and bombing. US and Canada had the luxury of time for quality control in both design and production.
US and Canada had ocean travel to consider. When shipping costs are paid in blood, tanks couldn't constantly be replaced. That's why the M3 and Ram were produced, before the M4. Knowing that a large batch of early production vehicles guaranteed trouble.
What if I'm in Stalingrad, though? I don't have aircraft engines, radios or the luxury of time. I don't have tankers -- only tractor drivers. I face better led, trained and equipped infantry and pioneers, in a tight urban setting. I don't need a Sherman, I need a T-34 -- a couple of mortars and a howitzer!

The Pz V also burned remarkably easy when hit, except from the front and was more difficult to bail out. The Allies were on the offensive and had to leave cover and face the high quality German guns and optics. But every time the Germans went on the attack in Normandy or the Ardennes they also suffered heavy losses in tanks and crew. 
I'm not sure whether the Ronson reputation of the Sherman was entirely deserved. Besides if the casualty rate of the Sherman crews was indeed low, than I would much rather be in a burning Sherman, than a burning Panther. Well, you know what I mean. 😀

The largest advantage the Sherman had was mass production. 
Ronson (cigarette lighter) was the M4 Sherman tank's nickname. The British called it this because it "lights up the first time, every time" when hit. Other nicknames included "the burning grave" and "Tommycooker" (Germans referred to British soldiers as "Tommys"). The United States mass produced the cheaper Shermans rather than more expensive tanks.
Here is a link to an article about the Sherman. https://archives.library.illinois.edu/blog/poor-defense-sherman-tanks-ww2/
 

What was great about the T-34 is that the Russians were able to produce so many, but with the trade-off that they were poorly made due to the (brilliant) strategic decision/realization that the T-34 wasn't expected to survive more than 2 or 3 months.  In the early war, it arguably saved the Soviets from defeat as (at the time) the Germans had little that could defeat it.  
I don't know how much credence to give Grigsby's War in the East game, but it seemed that in his game one got a lot more "bang for the buck" by building KV's rather than T-34's.  

With the best trained crews, let's not forget that. Compare the training of German tank crews and British and American tank crews before Normandy or the Ardennes in driving and shooting hours. That's also part of the success of the Sherman tank. Especially the British marksmenship, both on tank guns and anti-tank guns was exceptionally good. With an endless supply of fuel, ammo and training time they were much better than the largely and relatively undertrained German tank crews. You can compare it with the inequality in training hours between Allied and German fighter pilots in 1944/45. 
Training is all.

Thank you, @Aragorn2002, this is a very interesting press article! I had the same intellectual approach as you!
Even without taking into account the logistics aspect, reliability etc. I am always amazed by the good behavior of a 76 sherman facing the big German cats on CM
After the war France hesitated to resume the production of the Panther or its clone and it did not do so and besides no nation does it.
The Stug and other Pz iv continued their career but not the Panther.
The latest version of the Sherman of Tsahal with 105mm French  have continued to prove their reliability until 73
In short it is in my opinion him the Sherman the best tank of the second world war

I found an interesting article.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/best-tank-part-1-t-34.html
I still think the T-34/85 was the best tank of the war, which isn't disputed by the author of this article. 
 

I think the late variant Shermans still had the edge, but much less of one than vs. the T-34/76. Having a two-man turret eliminates the earlier T-34s from being considered in the running IMO.
Over the years I've gone from thinking the Germans had the best tanks, to the T-34, to the realization that the much-maligned Sherman was the best tank by a pretty wide margin. By "best" I mean operationally and strategically. Ease of production, reliability, parts standardization and supply, ease of transport (could and did go anywhere by whatever), adaptability and ability to upgrade, crew situational awareness and comm equipment, ergonomics and crew fatigue, ease of bail-out and ability to survive (astonishingly low fatality rates compared to the other tanks of the war across the board), etc. The T-34 K/D ratios were appallingly bad and, unlike the Sherman where on average four guys survived to apply lessons learned, you had just one for the T-34.
The Sherman was truly a war-winning tank in every sense of the term. Sure, it might be in trouble in certain tactical situations vs. certain opponents, but those don't outweigh its strengths and performance in macro.

I agree that the best tank is not necessarily the best armoured or heaviest gunned tank, but the best all round one.
Interesting to hear the Sherman had low fatality rates. Can you name a source for that? Not doubting it, just interested.
Personally I think the Germans better could have concentrated on their own Sherman, the Pz IV. Although completly outgunned and outclassed by the end of the war, it would have enabled the Germans to keep their tank divisions up to an acceptable strength. The higher losses in combat compared to the Panther or Tiger would have been (more than) compensated by the lower losses due to maintenance problems. Better a tank battalion with 40 running Pz IV than with 20 partly immobile Panthers. On the other hands there also was the problem with fuel and trained crews. 
The Panther and Tiger were a nightmare for the German tank industry and repair units. On the other hand the Germans could only dream of the Allied tank numbers and had to gamble on quality vs. quantity. That they failed on both quality and quantity is also a fact.

I've got almost all of his books and like them a lot, especially Ortona and the Juno series. I don't think the British tried to sacrifice the Canadians. They were among the best units and gave everything when they fought. Never understood Dieppe, that must be said. 
Hills book looks good too!

You bunch of slackers got nothing better to do? I got chores to hand out for some CMRT MODs.
YOU! Mod me a Romanian tank!
YOU! Record some George Enescu and save in 1411 bps for "music end of battle". 
YOU! Make some coffee, this is an all nighter. The wife is out of town....er..add a shot of Jameson. Thanks.

The scenarios are all built to be challenging, so when I was new to the game I would often go into the scenario editor and add some extra units -- I was using quantity to overcome my low leadership quality.  This is a very easy process and makes the game more fun while you are learning because you can have more success.  Just add some tanks, or artillery, or infantry in the units section. Then go to deploy panel and place them.  Save it to a modified name and then play.   If, for example, they gave you 3 sherman, just add a few more.  Winning is hard when you are new so give yourself a little help if you get frustrated. 
I don't do this anymore but it definitely helped me back when I was even more clueless than I am now.

that is too funny!  I did the exact same thing.  I thought I had them beat and launched infantry assault that went very badly -- so went back to save to try more cautious approach.  So even after ~5 years I didn't do any better than you did. 
I agree w mjkerner -- get the full Normandy bundle.  There's tons of great British/commonwealth content, mostly not in bocage.  There's a Bourgebous Ridge scenario that is an absolutely epic tank battle.  There's Canadian battles, also some user campaigns & scenarios.  This one purchase could keep you busy for a very very very long time.  I haven't played it all yet, not even close, and I bought it first.  Plus lots of mods to make the terrain & foliage and lighting look amazing.
 

Hi Zaybz, I haven't played this one but just loaded it up and looks like I should play it.  Your intel says San Pietro is unoccupied as of last night.  If so, you've got a great spot from which to direct fire from your 81mm off map mortar. 
The right side has really good views of the objective area so I'd at least move some recon over there.   You have a little time before your reinforcements arrive and you have a full hour to work with.  I'd say don't commit too much until you've had a look around w those scout cars and some infantry scouts.  You know how to split off 2 man scout teams from your infantry squads?
You can deploy your initial units anywhere along your edge of the map, so try not to get too biased by the initial set up.  You need information ASAP and then can make a better plan.  San Pietro looks great but the germans know that also and may have put some outposts there in those tough stone walled building.
 

and remember you have smoke from you little 51mm mortars.  If you have some evil-doer blocking your advance you can blind him long enough for your units to get into some advantageous position.  or drop some of the 51mm HE on him.  It's the secret power of the british rifle platoon for knocking out german MG positions.

Well, now that I am into the heat of this little battle I only have one question:  why would Battlefront put this on the demo? -- it's actually a very nasty fight.  The AI (germans) have a ton of firepower relative to the Brits.  An experienced player can win this, but it is not a very good battle for a new person.  Germans have multiple infantry guns, lots of MGs, and an AA wagon, plus a nice reverse slope for dug in defense.  The brits have some crappy little armored cars and a company of infantry with some 81mm mortars. This would be a good demo if the Brits at least had more arty or some light tanks.
Having said that it's a really good battle.  Unfortunately I could see a new person getting really frustrated with it.

I've pre-ordered F&R and cannot wait  CM:BB was my first CM game (at 15 years old) and served as my introduction to combat sims and/or war-games.  I haven't played in years and kinda forgot about the games, but Covid gave me time to dig through all old favorites and I remembered CM.  Glad to see it's still in such active development.
Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but I feel like folks here need a bit of an update on Steam.
Steam is the largest PC game distribution platform and marketplace.  Steam was released in 2004 as part of Valve's Half Life 2 release.  I have had it since then and I have over 400 games on Steam.  I also use GOG Galaxy which has better support for classic games, including CM1 games BO, BB, and AK.  
Steam manages updates.  Everyday I have 3-5 game updates that download in the background.  You have controls to tell it when you want updates to download/be applied etc.
Steam provides cloud saves (mutli-platform support for saves too) so I can pick up right where I left off on my laptop from my desktop while I'm traveling.
Steam provides a social networking and multiplayer frameworks so developers can tap into that for multiplayer matchmaking.  It could make it easier to find CM online opponents and I can only imagine how using cloud saves with PBEM it could make the experience SO MUCH BETTER!  Any friends that I have that game we pretty much all meet up and organize stuff on Steam, however for voice chat we tend to prefer Discord (Does CM have a Discord server yet?)
Steam provides rich community mod frameworks and modding warehouse.  Instead of having to manage Z folders, I can find a mod on Steam and immediately "install" it and use it in a game -with one click, and with a fancy UI to manage which mods I want on or off when I start a game.  No filesystem management required.  No need to worry about mod websites going down. It's all hosted by Steam / Valve.  If a modder updates the mod it will auto-update just like game updates, so mod updates are managed seamlessly in the background.
Steam makes it easy to backup games and to migrate games between hard drives. A personal favorite of mine, since I like upgrading my NVME SSDs and I dislike having to uninstall CM and reinstall it and going through support for activation.
Steam is cross-platform.  I'm using it on my MacBook Pro right now.  From what I can tell, CM and Slitherine are only enabling Windows on Steam currently.
All of this is to say, from the end user/customer experience of Steam is amazing.  I do not know about the Developer/backend Steam experience.  I don't know if those Frameworks have good API and code samples to build from.  I don't know what Steam's sales cut is.  I don't know how the Steam approval process works or if they'd want German military insignias modified.  For a small developer like Battlefront Steam may not make sense.  I have no insight into the cons.
If Battlefront does decide to adopt Steam, I recommend really taking the time to utilize the modding, matchmaking, cloud saving, Multiplatform, and updating experiences, because they are pretty awesome for your users.

I've also been watching CM AARs instead of war movies.  The AARs are just better. 

I just wish the Soviet squads didn't have all sub machinguns and run out of ammo in five turns.