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Loving the 1.1 Turret/Hull rotation


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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If the enemy is advancing to flank you, he is going to keep on until he achieves his purpose unless you stop him. So if you don't want him flanking you, you have to do something about it. If you don't, then you shouldn't complain about him being there, because you shouldn't have let him do it. Simple as that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But it's not that simple. Was not complaining about the enemy being there. Read further: I had infantry over on that side of the map to handle the enemy infantry. I was not flanked. Most of the time you do not have a position that will allow you to set up in a straight line across the map. You use whichever terrain gives the best defensive options, and 99.9% of the time it's not all going to work out into a straight line across the map, where something that comes through either end is considered as flanking you. I gave my tank move orders forward to a ridgeline where opposite sits some enemy armor, etc. that I want it to engage next turn or two. The turn starts and my tank begins to creep forward (move command), only to turn it's turrent backwards to engage an infantry unit(not crew) in the woods 498 meters away. This doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough. It does not mean I've been flanked, only that the tac ai has made a poor decision, esp when you're working with a slow turrent. I think there may be a problem where the fix for tanks targeting infantry less, patched in 1.04 or 1.05, may not be working correctly, at least in regards to infantry at long ranges.

It's certainly not a big time problem and it's one that can be lived with.

I do not agree with what some people's notion of being flanked is.

Tiger

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>JH wrote:

Last night I saw something that I thought was fixed back in the 1.03 patch. I lost a Panther that, despite my orders to rotate forward, insisted on engaging a infantry target 350m away to its side, ignoring the vast numbers of (momentarily unspotted) enemy tanks to its front. So it swung the entire vehicle 90 degrees to the right. Of course a Sherman parked a round through its side armor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I forgot to mention earlier a possible solution to your above example which you may or may not be aware of, take it for what it's worth. In the past I have ordered tanks to area fire, sans main gun, the general location of the enemy armour. It served to 'focus' my tank in that direction. The tank would quickly break the area fire if the enemy armour popped back into view. I'm not sure how viable this is with 1.1 but may be worth exploring.

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Again, a request for a more micro-managing command. And BTS doesn't want this. They've said it from day one. The current balance of commands have been labored over for quite some time and deemed sufficient, any more and the micro-managing get's outta hand. You've got to realize that the way it currently stands *ALLOWS* each unit to have it's own personality. Which I think is cool, personally. You start adding all this micro-management stuff into the game and you start defeating the purpose of the Tac-AI, then you might as well go play Ground Control or somefink. wink.gif

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You start adding all this micro-management stuff into the game and you start defeating the purpose of the Tac-AI, then you might as well go play Ground Control or somefink. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I understand your POV, but giving a unit a "personality" is not a substitute for proper player control.

Of course, a tank should reverse out of trouble in many instances, but if a player uses a 'Hull Face' command, then that should be taken notice of.

Like the Withdraw command, it is not something which would be used all the time but there are instances when a player needs to depend on his tank not to mess it up.

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Tiger said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Most of the time you do not have a position that will allow you to set up in a straight line across the map.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You shouldn't want only a straight line across the map. This allows the enemy to concentrate superior force at his point of attack, break through, and be rampaging about in your rear before your units at the other end of your line can do anything to stop him.

What you want is defense in depth. At CM's scale, this usually means strongpoints forward, mobile reserves behind. Of course, your strongpoints will have open flanks that the enemy will try to exploit by flanking maneuvers. But you know this, which is why you have mobile reserves. Their job is to come up and smash the enemy attempting to flank your forward positions. And if this isn't possible, these reserves should at least enable you to extricate your forward units before they get totally enveloped and destroyed in place. At least that's the goal smile.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I gave my tank move orders forward to a ridgeline where opposite sits some enemy armor, etc. that I want it to engage next turn or two. The turn starts and my tank begins to creep forward (move command), only to turn it's turrent backwards to engage an infantry unit(not crew) in the woods 498 meters away.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, this can be annoying. But what would have been the difference if your tank had been using Hunt orders instead of Move?

If you give a tank the Hunt, it seems that it keeps its attention focused better in the direction it's moving. Also, the tank moves faster than with the Move command. And when it does spot a target, according to the 1.1 README, it will stop and use the hull rotation thingy. Seems like BTS has built into this command the assumption that the enemy is in the direction moved, and that fighting him is more important than moving to the next waypoint.

OTOH, if you use Move orders, everything is different. It's like the Move command assumes the enemy is either anywhere or nowhere, but moving is more important that fighting. So Moving tanks don't stop to shoot, don't rotate the hull to the target, and are more likely to aim in a different direction than they are going.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

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I said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It's all a question of geometry. The ONLY way it's AT ALL possible to turn away from something on your front to something on your flank is if you have something on your flank to begin with...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jeff Heidman said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This is utter BS. You clearly no nothing about real world tactics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I dunno 'bout that. I managed to fight a real war, live through it, not kill any of my troops, and win, which is a lot more than I can say for the badguys I met. I also "no" how to spell "know" biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The idea that all battlefields are so neat and pat that anytime you get flanked its your fault, and then we can excuse terrible decisions making on the part of the TacAI is total crap.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I guess you're doomed to a life of utter frustration due to the sheer inability to recognize the possibility of your own mistakes. Oh well, not my problem.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The battlefield is not a perfect place. There are no absolutes, and it is very common to do exactly the right thing and still have bad things happen.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mostly true. But there ARE absolutes. One of which is this: bad things are minimized if you don't make mistakes. Letting the enemy get or remain on your flank is a mistake. You'd be amazed how much better you do, hull rotation or not, if you don't let the enemy get on your flank smile.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I cannot say it any more clearly. In the example I cited I did *precisely the correct thing*.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Unfortunately, the above-mentioned epiphany seems unlikely for you given this conceit.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The tank that turned and got itself killed was in the van of my attack. His job was to drive ahead and engage targets in front of him. This was *classic* combined arms tactics. His flanks were extremely secure. Secure enough that I could guarantee that the bad guys did not have infantry half a click away? No. But secure enough that I could guarantee him that any bad guys trying to flank would never get close enough to engage him.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Let's see if I understand you correctly: you were advancing in separate elements. You pushed your center element, containing the doomed tank, forward somewhat of the flank element 500m away. IOW, your whole force was rather analogous to a grunt platoon in wedge formation with the doomed tank in the "squad" on point. Right?

OK, I guess you don't understand the reason for adopting a wedge formation. You do this so if you meet the enemy on either flank and a bit ahead, you can bring the point unit and the unit on the flank to bear on him in a crossfire. So if you were in a wedge formation and the AI made it function like this when an enemy was encountered on the flank, then you shouldn't be surprised. Instead, you should think the AI was performing realistically.

Had you instead been in a V formation, which is what I was describing in my post, things would have been different for you, no?

Or is all this talk about formations above one such as I, who "nose" nothing of real tactics? biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I hate it when people try to blame the craftsmen because his tools are broken. At least *think* for a moment about what is being discussed, and do not just assume that the game is perfect, and any problem MUST be with the player.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure, the game isn't perfect. But given that combat is so complex, as you have taken some pains to emphasize, it is much more likely that the player misread the situation (especially given the FOW) than that there is some basic, fundamental, and utterly damning problem with a game of CM's track record.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

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I said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>OTOH, if the potential flanking positions are too far to the side to actually walk grunts through without unduly diluting your schwerepunkt, you should use a smokescreen to block all distant LOS to your exposed flank.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jeff Heidman said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Oh, so now we should drop kilometer long smokescreens to screen off all potential enemy forces ffrom our own stupid troops who are too dumb to let the flank security deal with the flanks?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm, I seem to recall such smokescreens being done in real life, in several different wars, including the one I fought. But if you don't have that much smoke available, then pick a different avenue of approach with less-exposed flanks. If even this isn't possible, at least don't cross the open ground in a formation that is intended to focus your firepower on your flanks if that's not what you want.

In any case, all these things are within your control. They are perfectly sound tactics from the real world and by using them, you are not only playing realistically and well, but are also protecting yourself from both gamey hull rotation exploitation and any lack of fire sector discipline inherent in the AI. If you fail to use these tools, don't complain when your tanks die.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This is ridiculous. You do not just randomly start dropping smoke liek that because you are concnerned that if you do not your vanguard might decide to turn his hull perpendicular to the spot where he knows there are enenmy AT assets.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, you drop "random" smoke because FOW prevents you from knowing with absolute certainty, until you actually have somebody walk over the ground, that there are no real threats on your flank, and you know your enemy would love to flank you.

Oh wait, I forgot. You always do everything "*perfectly correct*" so it doesn't matter if there are threats there or not biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You are contriving some fantasy-land field manual situation and then demanding that anyone who cannot fulfill those criteria is a poor tactician and deserves whatever ridiculous result the TacAI hands him.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's more realistic than approaching the battle with an "I am perfect" attitude like you seem to do.

I said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If you are on the defense, you should certainly know that the main tactic of the attacker is the envelopment...You have 2 main options to defeat this tactic: smash the flanking force BEFORE it reaches your flank, or fall back to your alternate position BEFORE you are enveloped.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jeff Heidman said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Not even REMOTELY!!!! The very best tactic is to set an ambush, let the flamking force close in, and wipe it out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmm, I think I said one of your options is to "smash the flanking force BEFORE it reaches your flank." But maybe I didn't. I better check the above quoted paragraph, the time you quoted it yourself, and my original post...

(later) Yup, that's what I said. I guess reading comprehension is another of your weak areas. So field manuals, whether "fantasy-land" or not, won't do you any good. Oh well, not my problem biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I suggest you go spend some more time playing and less time reading the Idiots Guide to Small Unit Tactics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I suggest you look at our respective results. My tanks don't die like yours do. Hmmm, so who needs to read "Idiots (sic) Guide to Small Unit Tactics"? Oh wait, you can't comprehend what you read. Oh well... biggrin.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You cannot possible determine that tactically validity of any action based on some pat little forumla.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny, but that's exactly what all the great generals and the military writers they learn from have been doing for thousands of years. Seems to work for them. But if you want to buck the system, go right ahead biggrin.gif

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus:

Fellas,

I really think that everybody "against" this new fix is really reading to much into it and also putting their units into predicaments that even the best AI would have a problem with.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From this statement alone it si obvious that you have not even bothered to read this thread.

The problem has nothing to do with bad tactics. It has to do with the AI doing things that would never happen in real life. Things that do not make sense, no matter how very hard people try to crush the real world into Combat Missions and make sure that CM is never, ever the problem.

Jeff Heidman

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Originally posted by Maximus:

And Jeff H., in your example, your Panther engaged what *it* could see--not what *you* could see. Big difference.

/quote]

So what? That is exactly the problem. The AI that you guys keep telling everyone is so outstanding is too stupid to remember that there was tank in front of it 2 seconds ago. I know that is somehow my fault for being so tactically inept, but there it is.

The fact remains. The AI is not competent to deal with these situations. You can try to blame it on my stupidity, but that only reflects on yourself and those who are incapable of looking at this in an uibiased manner.

Ladtly, whether or not the player is an idiot or not is irrelevant anyway. The TacAI should not act in a manner that is grossly out of whack with reality no matter how stupid the player is.

There is no way you can tell me in the example I gave that that Panterh commander would actuallya ct in that manner. Period. There is no possibility that seeing several tanks in front of him, he would blithely turn his entire vehicle 90 degress to the side and forget they exist simply because they popped some smoke and some enemy infantry appeared damn near half a kilometer away to the other side.

Jeff Heidman

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Bullethead, I wrote "you won't be able to make a straight line defensive position" meant just that. I assumed you're thinking that whenever an enemy unit got past any irregular part of your line that means your flanked, hence I shouldn't have had my tank "so far forward that it would fire at enemy infantry on its flank." Utter non-sense. Enemy units that may be on the "flank" of a certain part of your "line", depending on the irregular shape of your attacking or defensive elements, does not automatically mean all of your units at another section of your "line" are flanked. My tank turning and firing at enemy infantry behind it at 225 degrees (assume 0 degrees is the front of the tank), does not indicate it's been flanked, hence it's my fault my tank turned its turrent to fire at them 498m away. Not when my "line" is intact and that part of the field is covered by my other units. If the enemy were to turn and try to take my tank in its "flank", which it didn't, it would have been mauled by my units in front of them. If they had tried this my tank simply would have turned to face them anyway.

When you issue a move command, your unit is supposed to execute that move, without actively looking for targets (i.e. to the sides and rear). The hunt command is used to have your unit move in the direction you indicate, actively searching for something to shoot at, I assume at any angle to its advance.

My opinion is not that the hull rotation is bad or not working right, I like the new hull rotation; but that tanks are still turning their turrents backwards to shoot at distant infantry targets, while moving forward, not hunting forward. If they were hunting forward I would expect it to engage a target even behind/to the side of it, even infantry, when no other immediate threats are observed.

Hope this is clear enugh tongue.gif

Tiger

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Bullethead, you are full of it. You can sit there and lie and say I said things I did not, and then take other things out of context in some effort to make yourself look brilliant if you like, but it is obvious and clearly bull****. If you are going to quote me and then refute what I say, at least show a little intellectual honesty and try to refute all my points, instead of picking and choosing a couple you cna quote out of context and attack.

I made no claim of perfection, I said IN THIS CASE my force was in a perfect position. The net result of this engagement was a loss to the attempting flanker of an entire company of infantry, and less than a squad of my own, not counting th stupid tank. So apparently I did something right.

Maybe your problem is you think we ar etalking about the Gulf War where your oppoenents are grossly outmatched, and you have massive dominance of the battlefield out to ranges that did not exist in WW2.

My force was advancing in basic line, with infantry screening. The enemy infantry moved up on my right side, and were wiped out to man by my screen on that side supported by several SP guns further back. That is classic defense of an advancing flank. Read "Infantry in the Attack" by Rommel.

You can pretend to be Sun Tzu, Rommel, and Lee all rolled up into one all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is that tanks should not rotate to engage infantry that is not threatening them when there is armor that is threatening them to their front. You can insult everyone else and call them stupid if you like. You can pretend to be Mr. Professor of war with the perfect answer to every situation, but the end result is the same. There is no way you can give me a credible reason why this should happen, regardless of how amazingly stupid I might be for wiping out an entire company of enemy troops.

The funniest thing about this entire thing is that the scneario in question starts off with the player already in position to be flanked. I guess it is still the stupidity of the player at fault though. If only we were all as perfect of taticians as Bullethead.

Jeff Heidman

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Guest Michael emrys

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bullethead:

To those who dislike the hull rotation thingy of 1.1....

All I can say is, it's a very poor workman who blames his tools.

[snip excellent advice]

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As is often the case, BH has got it exactly right. Those who ignore his advice here deserve to get their butts shot off (including yours truly biggrin.gif).

wink.gif

Michael

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys:

As is often the case, BH has got it exactly right. Those who ignore his advice here deserve to get their butts shot off (including yours truly biggrin.gif).

wink.gif

Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nope, he got it exactly wrong.

People who blame the workman for thign sout of his control deserve to get shown to be as wrong as they are.

Jeff

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Tiger said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Bullethead, I wrote "you won't be able to make a straight line defensive position" meant just that. I assumed you're thinking that whenever an enemy unit got past any irregular part of your line that means your flanked, hence I shouldn't have had my tank "so far forward that it would fire at enemy infantry on its flank."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, we weren't on the same page. Gotcha now.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>When you issue a move command, your unit is supposed to execute that move, without actively looking for targets (i.e. to the sides and rear). The hunt command is used to have your unit move in the direction you indicate, actively searching for something to shoot at, I assume at any angle to its advance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was also my original understanding. However, just based on game observations over the last few versions (i.e., after I'd become familiar enough with CM to look for this sort of thing), it does seem to me that these commands actually work as I described in my last post. That is, tanks are more likely to ignore things that aren't more or less in front of them when you give them Hunt as opposed to Move.

Thus I've been using Hunt to help keep tanks and turrets pointed the way I want to for some time, when I have doubts that they will do so otherwise. Besides, Hunt covers ground faster than Move, and I like that smile.gif But I haven't made a test scenario to see if there's really the difference I think there is. So your mileage may vary.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

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JH, I did read your post. Please, don't make assumptions.

The reason I said "it is not reproducible" is because I did not see the AI rotate the hull systematically. Sometimes it does, some other it does not. The AI must decide on many variables and come out with some 'judgement' on the situation.

I would have not liked to see a tank forget about a fatal threat in any situation but the AI does not do the same thing in the same situation all the time.

It is already the 9th game with 1.1 and I did not see *nasty* behaviors up to now. I also seen turrets turning with no hull involved. It looks like the AI does most of the time the right thing and I am pretty confident that if we put the AI in the same situation over and over we would see a whole pletora of diferent behavior.

Who fear about *gamey* tactics should start to feel reassured the more games with 1.1 they play.

Something I must have missed in all the posts: what was the experience level of the TC?

TCs do different things with different exp level. The greenier they are the dumbest things they do.

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The described behavior sounds like a dumb decision by the AI. The difficulty is in figuring out how the AI ought to act, so as to take into account such situations, and particularly how to do so without leaving itself open to other errors or exploitable weaknesses caused by predictability. None of which means the AI must be expected to be super smart.

It seems to me the issue is memory and a threat picture. There are some things that should obviously override past events or current orders, but others are a murkier bit of middle ground. And part of the problem is obviously the timeliness of actions vs. delay and memory, related issues.

When a unit has an enemy unit in sight *that is dangerous to itself*, it is proper for it to *pick one*, commit to it, and engage that unit the best it can. The point of "commit" is to avoid AI errors based on wavering.

When, on the other hand, a unit has an enemy in sight that is not dangerous to itself, but only to other friendly units, the procedure needs to be a bit more complicated than the above. Simply passing to the "next most dangerous unit" allows the sort of distraction mistake Jeff evidently encountered.

Instead, the unit ought to have some sort of internally remembered threat picture. Units that it cannot see that are dangerous to it need to be handled with some care, even if not currently sighted. The rule might be, remember units dangerous to yourself for 2 minutes after seeing them, unless you see them destroyed yourself / confirmed.

Then the facing rule is - dangerous to self plus in sight plus currently committed to, then dangerous to self plus in sight, then dangerous to self and remembered. Next, dangerous to others but not self and in sight, etc. When in doubt, default to player orders - focus on the unit or direction closest to the line of the last rotate or move command the player gave.

The difficulty is to see just where it becomes necessary to override player orders and react to new information. The idea of what I am suggesting above, is that the criteria essentially be current or recent danger to self.

Essentially, the idea is that a small delay until the next orders phase is an acceptable delay, for engaging a target that is dangerous only to other friendly troops, not to the unit itself. This *will* mean a loss of some degree of coordination between units, between phases. But that may be realistic anyway.

If memory of threats is too difficult for the AI to handle, given the number of units and the possible complexities of the different "threat pictures" (any angle, some units dangerous from some angles or ranges but not others, etc, etc), then an alternate solution might be - do not depart more than say 30 degrees from the direction of movement or rotation or fire the player last selected (whichever he ordered last), unless in response to a seen threat that is dangerous to self.

Just some suggestions, for whatever they are worth...

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

Then the facing rule is - dangerous to self plus in sight plus currently committed to, then dangerous to self plus in sight, then dangerous to self and remembered. Next, dangerous to others but not self and in sight, etc. When in doubt, default to player orders - focus on the unit or direction closest to the line of the last rotate or move command the player gave.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The basic question is: do we play this game by ourselves, or do we watch a computer simulation? If the AI did nothing of this, if it relied just on the human instructions, then the game would be just fine. But we probably want some AI control... the balance between a full computer simulation and a game, that is the problem.

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That was my question Fuerte. It was what I posed a few days ago, about the rotate button, and today with the question; "where does the AI leave off, and the player come in?" I would say, there isn't a good consensus on that question, and that might just mean a clear process for change inclusions in CM/2/3 would be beneficial. Particularly to BTS, who seems to sit in the unenviable position of watching the shells fly overhead, (with a few landing short now and then). smile.gif

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"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 01-13-2001).]

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