It sure does test real world stories much better than the old engine.

[slysniper]

One thing I have always loved about the CM games is to take stories I read or see about WWII, recreate them in the game and see if I can generate a similar result.

There is the series on TV ,Greatest tank Battles, I was watching the show and a GI was telling how he and a his unit, which consisted of (2) 57 MM AT guns had ambushed four Tigers from a flanking position and knocked them out, stating it was at 900 yards.

I thought to myself, no way, there is a GI that has enlarged his feats of what happened in the war. I also know many GI's would mistake Pz IV's for Tigers during the war, thus their reports of seeing Tigers were many times wrong.

Anyway I tried it in the game, let alone is it almost impossible to even take out one or two tigers, 4 would never happen, I even moved the guns to within 150 meters and still could not get good results. One time i did manage to damage two tanks and of of them the crew decide to bail.

But to prove to myself the guy was not crazy, I ran 4 mk IV's down the road and watched one 57 gun take all 4 out at the 900 yards with ease.

I would say that is what happened in the real event and it is just fun to prove where fact and fiction might be in much of the stuff that is out there about the war. No the game is not perfect results to real life, but it continues to get closer and closer to the real thing as far as I am concerned.

[finalcut]

That's it,the game must be fundamentally flawed.Everyone knows a Soldier would never exagerate his exploits from his combat experience.

[MikeyD]

Just last night I was reading a memoir by a former Churchill TC about being fired on by a distant "88". 'Sure,' I thought, 'it was an 88 and my car's a Lamborghini.' But sure enough, they sent infantry forward and he later passed an 88 flak pointing straight down the road with the gun barrel peeled back like a skinned banana. First time I ever read of an "88" in a memoir actually confirmed to be an "88"!

[gunnergoz]

My dad was an NCO in the postwar US army from 1950 on to 1970 but even in the 1950's the Tiger and the 88 were still legendary grist for soldier stories among the ranks. Probably had a lot to do with WW2 vets stories getting passed around, and around, and...you get the idea. Some things take on a life of their own after a while.

[Michael Emrys]

If all the Tiger reportings were true, the Germans would have had to produce 100,000 of them.

Michael

[BloodyBucket]

I don't think these guys are, or were, exaggerating their exploits in combat, at least not in the "My car is a Lamborghini" kind of way.

I do think think the average gamer grog here probably knows a Hell of a lot more about tech specs and TO/E than the average footslogging dogface or tank jockey ever did. I think the generically exaggerated descriptions are a combination of human nature seeing a mortal threat as big, a general lack of interest beyond making the threat go away, and that ol' Devil time fogging up the details.

When somebody is shooting at you, he's a sniper. When a big ass tank is trying to kill you, it's a Tiger. When the building you're in starts coming down around your ears, it's an "88" that's doing the dirty deed.

I recall interviewing my dad, after I'd gotten him loosened up with some booze, about his WWII experiences. At one point, I let my inner grog geek out, and told him that the 40MM gun on the German halftrack he was describing was probably really a 20MM. His response was something along the lines of "whatever, it really splattered two of my buddies all over me and that hill, so I guess it had enough millimeters, whatever it was."

I didn't do much "correcting" after that.

[gunnergoz]

Boodybucket - Thank your dad for his service if he is still with us.

Sometimes I think its a good idea to remember that we - collectively - are gamers, not combat veterans (with very few exceptions) and not even professional historians. We're just overgrown kids with enough interest, time and bread to spend it on these past times. We brawl and argue over minutiae and tend to forget what it is all really about - images like your dad tried to forget, evidently. Sometimes a little perspective and respect is called for but I don't always see it, even here.

PS was he in the 28th ID - that were your moniker comes from?

[BloodyBucket]

Yeah, he was 28th ID, 110th Rgt, 2ND Bn, "E" Co. He was a BAR gunner, and landed shortly after D-Day and became a guest of the German government on or about Dec 19th, 1944. I tracked him down to his Platoon commander in a couple books.

He passed on almost seven years ago, but I managed to get him to talk about the war on video tape at one point (that's where the interview came from). He often maintained that every year he got after "The War" was bonus time.

I got him to take a look at CMBO when it came out. I showed him a Bulge scenario that featured his regiment, and he was amused that he had been made "into a cartoon". He thought it was an amazing simulation but was lacking in certain visceral details.

[Chek]

I recall interviewing my dad, after I'd gotten him loosened up with some booze, about his WWII experiences. At one point, I let my inner grog geek out, and told him that the 40MM gun on the German halftrack he was describing was probably really a 20MM. His response was something along the lines of "whatever, it really splattered two of my buddies all over me and that hill, so I guess it had enough millimeters, whatever it was."

I didn't do much "correcting" after that.

Kinda puts it all into perspective really

[nachinus]

At one point, I let my inner grog geek out, and told him that the 40MM gun on the German halftrack he was describing was probably really a 20MM. His response was something along the lines of "whatever, it really splattered two of my buddies all over me and that hill, so I guess it had enough millimeters, whatever it was."

I didn't do much "correcting" after that.

Bloody brilliant quote. I'll never forget it.

It must be a honor to have a ww2 veteran as dad, btw.

[goodwood]

Bloodybucket, I amazed you so much out of your dad, my dad died in a 1993. He was a veteran of Syria, The Western Desert and PNG and a member of the famed 2/14 Inf Bn 2nd AIF. The only things I ever got out of my father from WW2 was that he learnt to hate the desert the jungle and rice!

[slysniper]

Yes, I did not think the fellow was not telling the story as he remembers, I just figured he had the misunderstanding what a tiger was. I am sure the only tiger they saw was pencil sketches during training and when in the heat of the moment and at that kind of distance, he thought they were tigers. But like the grog I like to pretent to be, I had to prove they were like Mk IVs.

As for War Stories, My dad has a few he has shared with me, many times, but he was in the Navy during the war, and he was in the engine room of his ship, so his perspective was much different than that of a foot soilder.

I was in the USMC, and during my time as a ground pounder and a sniper I can say, there is a reason the new game is much better, it is the sighting and all them ? as to where is the enemy. In the real situations, it is very hard to figure out, where and what is shooting at you. The fog of war is very real, and situational awarenesss is very hard to understand without possible getting killed. So communication with other troops and units is a big factor as to what you understand is going on out on the battlefield

[Sakai007]

My Grandfather was also aboard a ship during WWII. The U.S.S. Ingersoll, DD-652, Fletcher Class Destroyer. He told me many stories during my life, as he and my grandmother raised me. His time in the Pacific was from a certain perspective, as mentioned above, being in the loading area of the 5" Gun. He did get to watch a few battles top side since US Navy ships hot bunk to keep someone on station at all times during this period. The latter part of the war had a different element to it, he said, with the Japanese suicide attacks on the fleet. He would always remind me that, for all the hell and violence that was the land battle for Okinawa, there were more sailors then soldiers killed during that battle. His ship was hit by a Ki-61 Tony on a suicide mission. The aircraft clipped the radio tower and went into the water. A man on the bridge, certain he would die, jumped before the impact. Breaking many rules of a ship in combat, the captain turned the ship around and picked the guy up, while under air attack. I can't imagine what war was like for these men. They were truly the greatest generation of americans YET! I hold out hope that this or future generations will have the same qualities.

[Loaf]

My grandfather served as a platoon leader in the Canadian army in Normandy... He was wounded by shrapnel from a German tank. When I was a boy I asked him what kind of tank it was, and he said "A Tiger - that's the only kind of German tank I ever saw."

From a distance a Tiger I and a Mk IV would be easy to mistake for each other, and WWII soldiers hadn't spent decades studying photos of German tanks like most of us have!

[Holman]

My dad's father was in WW2, but he didn't see action. He died before my interest in the war was mature enough to wonder which unit was his, because he didn't have any combat stories. (My mother's father was older, and had actually joined the U.S. Navy in 1917 when he was 16 years old.)

I do know that dad's dad's uniform shirt bore the patch that you can see here as "U.S. Army Forces in Middle East," and he also had the patch you can see on that page as "European Theater of Operations." I've never known what those indicated. They aren't division insignia. Service corps? If anyone knows about them, I'd love more information.

His unit went to Tunisia, France, and eventually Germany. After the war, he was there long enough and in the right place to be in the gallery for some of the Nuremberg trials. This was quite a lot for a boy who'd never left Alabama and Mississippi.

[slysniper]

My best experence with this issue as to what troops understood was talking to a old co-worker when I was young.

He had served in Patton's 3rd armor. He was some type of scout recon type of unit. His stories normally were about riding in a jeep and just driving until they found the enemy and trying not to get killed so they could get back, report their location and verify conditions of routes as to advancing to that location.

He had stories about night recon on foot behind enemy lines, also about being fired on by friendly 90MM guns coming back to friendly lines and so forth.

He could remember roads and map locations like he had a photographic memory, he had a exceptional memory.

During his stories he mentioned dealing with a enemy tank once, also a armored car on another occasion. I did what most of you would do,I asked what type of tank was it, same with the armored car. He looked at me, like what in the *** are you asking about. He had no clue for sure what it had been, other than it was trying to kill him and he was glad to have managed to get out of there alive. The truth of it was, he could hardly discuss anything about the enemies equipment, because he really did not know much about it from his war expearence. Remember, this guy had a great memory. So I doubt they were ever given much information as to what enemy equipment really was. Thus maybe that fact, every German tank somehow turned into aTiger from many stories.

[Charlie Marlow]

In my days in the service, the Army spent some resources on identify friend/foe materials (playing cards, models, booklets). Except for hardware nerds like me, it was about all most could do to tell USSR from US equipment. Relatively few could tell a T55 from a T72.

[Black Max]

Thanks for the stories guys. Always interesting to hear about WWII veteran stories. Even if the original circumstances have been escalated somewhat.

[Vark]

Got talking to a rather drunk para, during a train journey home, who had served in the Falklands. When he returned from the conflict, his grandfather took him to the pub, sat him down and talked for hours about his experiences at Arnhem. When the para asked why he was telling him now his grandad replied, along the lines of ' I can tell you, you've been there, you'll understand them now. The para did.