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Nice and all but....


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The German war machine was highly successful due to superior strategy and tactics, while the French army was mired in inflexible tradition. As I understand it that is something that's hard to model in, at least on the CM scale, so the player on German side would often have a hard time achieving the expected result.

Easy to fix: Just let the french side be controlled by the CM1 AI ;-)

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Sounds 'do-able'. I recommend the script writers and crew behind the film U571 be involved in the making of this all time war classic. Don't forget casting David Lee Roth in the lead role!

Regards

KR

Oh yea gods, no.

Jack Black is the lead.

A Polish writer and decorated veteran of the 1920s war against Russia.

Has lived with his mother ever since his wife and son died in a car accident in the early '30s.

Called up in July of '39 because his old platoon commander (now a regimental colonel) wants him for his ability to inspire troops.

He makes sargent, and gets assigned to lead a squad of misfits and rejects.

Main figures of his squad:

The ethnic german who looks so german it hurts... but he's deeply polish.

The angry gypsy with a personal grudge against germans.

The Krakow rabinical student who thinks he's better than the "gentiles".

The minor Warsaw gangmember who enlisted to avoid prison.

The weezy shopclerk who failed the health tests, and bribed the doctor to let him enlist anyway.

The illiterate peasant farmer who is still smarter than the average provost.

The pathetic drunk who can sniff out a bottle anywhere.

The nobleman's son trying to pass as a commoner.

And 2 or 3 others....

They do a training session, then get thrown in to stop a breakthrough.

Classic fighting retreat to Warsaw...

Gripping portrayal of a city under siege...

The evacuation of the heros by air...

fade to black.

Monologue about the poles continuing to fight under every flag of every allied nation... and then being abandoned to Russian occupation.

Final scene. 1959. The last survivor of the squad is reunited with his family at the brandenberg gate. Then they all go live in Seattle.

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I'll be the first to admit to not being an early war grog, but I don't imagine there were many tactical instances of French, Dutch, Belgian, or Polish units not getting steamrollered by the Germans.

Then you might well be mistaken. There were many instances of those forces (except maybe the Dutch; I haven't read anything yet that claims they put up any especially stout defenses) putting up a pretty good fight. After Poland, for instance, the Germans re-evaluated some of their operational techniques as well as force structures, feeling that the army hadn't performed as well as it should have at times. And it was the Belgian army that was the main defender of the Dunkerque bridgehead at the end. Some French divisions gave a good account of themselves.

On a tactical level, which is after all what CM is concerned with, the two sides were sometimes pretty evenly matched, all in all. It was mostly at the operational level that the Germans had it all over their enemies, especially when it came to responding to developing situations. The Allied command structures were sluggish, so Allied forces were often not in the right place in the right strength at the right time, so there wasn't much to stop the Germans. But when they were, they could often give the Germans a bloody nose. Except of course when they couldn't.

:)

Michael

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JonS, some minor revisions

a) There must be a vampire in the squad with a grudge against the Germans, perhaps his ancestral home was bombed and he lost the love of his life

B) There must be an ethnic participant, you pick the race, but I suggest a martial arts eastern monk, full of wise sayings for the start/climax of every encounter or a sassy Hispanic, who has invented a novel way of singing (i.e rap). Why they are in Poland could be the spin off TV series!

c) The story should allude to modern politics, especially the 'dangerous adventurism' of recent years and indirect references to OIF must litter the script. So yes Jack Black to lead and perhaps Matt DAHHHMOOOHN to star along with Ben Aflek.

d) Following on from c) there must be several "we are no better than them, in the end speeches.

e) I suugest the Commonwealth presence is represented by a grotesque stereotype, drinking tea at inappropriate moments, bad teeth (the US teeth are so bright they use the glow to help them see in the sewers of Warsaw) and kitted out with an array of Heath Robinsonesque contraptions (which normally backfire until the vital last encounter).

f) The enviromental cost of war must be mentioned with nods to the future about Global warming and reducing carbon footprints.

What would the other two films be about?

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What would the other two films be about?

After they are run out of Poland, they are brought to Washington where they are given a high level briefing on the Manhattan Project (that it was not set into motion historically until quite some time later is irrelevant; who's going to know?), then they are told they have been formed into a special unit that is to be parachuted into Germany with the task of hunting down and assassinating all the German scientists working on their bomb. After the paradrop, Matt Damon becomes separated from the rest of the unit and tries to carry on his part of the mission alone. He is aided in this by a breathtakingly beautiful German girl is in the anti-Hitler underground and who becomes his lover. As they are closing in on their target, Werner Heisenberg, they are discovered by the Gestapo, and in the ensuing shootout, the girl takes one for the team and dies in his arms. But it's okay because she has an even more beautiful sister who is willing to step in and fill the gap. In the last shot we see Damon drawing a bead on Heisenberg and the screen goes black.

This sets up the audience to go see the next film in the series, in which Damon's gun misfires but Heisenberg explains that he has been secretly sabotaging the bomb project all along, and in fact that very day he is having a meeting with Nazi bigwigs to explain to them why a bomb is impractical and the project should be abandoned.

Damon, who by this time has lost twenty pounds due to excess sexual activity, exfiltrates back to London in time to take part in Operation Torch, where he is reunited with the rest of his gang and they go on to win the war and get very, very drunk.

Michael

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And it was the Belgian army that was the main defender of the Dunkerque bridgehead at the end.

I'm not having a pop at the Belgians or the thrust of your point, but the Belgians surrendered on 28th May which was some few days before the evacuation at Dunkirk was complete. The French and British were there in much greater numbers, so I'm not entirely persuaded that the Belgians featured so pivotally at Dunkirk as you suggest.

That's obviously not to say that there weren't heroic defences at other locations.

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Just a fantasy, but wouldn't be amazing to have a game series that could enable us to play any era between 1940 and 1945 with just about every nationality and the hundreds of varieties of infantry and vehicles from those dates?

I know it's not ever going to happen. :(

Oh, wait a minute...

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...the Belgians surrendered on 28th May which was some few days before the evacuation at Dunkirk was complete.

Officially, yes. However, the Belgian forces in the bridgehead continued fighting beside their allies.

The French and British were there in much greater numbers, so I'm not entirely persuaded that the Belgians featured so pivotally at Dunkirk as you suggest.

At the end, after most of the British and French had gotten away, it was mostly Belgians remaining. When it was clear that nothing more was to be gained by continued resistance, they surrendered.

Michael

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Didn't Theatre of War start out with France '40? They were able to market that! I think all those early tanks would make a great game, especially when tactics overcame inferiority in numbers and quality.

Yes, but ToW covered the entire period of 1939-1945. If they just covered Poland '39-France '40 and were able to sell as well as they did, I'd be impressed. ;)

I don't think too many people bought ToW just to play France '40.

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