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Viewing 40 posts - 161 through 200 (of 342 total)
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  • in reply to: Miniature Wargames 418 #79819
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I’m fairly sure I still have a copy of Hell by Daylight. I only got to play then a few times, but they’re a good set.

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    in reply to: Miniature Wargames 418 #79686
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Are the Hell By Daylight rules the same ones that Jim had published way back when? Or have they been changed?

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    in reply to: Your mysteries of military history #79192
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    At Waterloo, why didn’t Napoleon just ignore Hougoumont?

    At least some histories seem to think that the attack on Hougoumont was only intended as a diversion. That seems to be debated, though, and I’ve never seen a definitive answer.

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    in reply to: Your mysteries of military history #79176
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Do other nationalities’ AFVs have the equivalent of the British boiling vessel (BV)?

    In WWII, I believe tanks often had telephones on the back to allow infantry to communicate with the crew. Do modern AFVs still have them, and if so, which ones?

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    in reply to: Paper armies? #78812
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Only occasionally. We used cardboard from cereal packets and referred to them as “Kellogian” figures. It was a long time ago, but I seem to recall we used Kellogian figures for Napoleonic artillery because we didn’t have enough models.

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    in reply to: What You Look Like #78552
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    This was from when I had a pony tail:

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    in reply to: News Articles – Traders #77779
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Yes. I got there by clicking the “Submit News” link in the left-hand bar.

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    in reply to: Tank Destroyers – Disappointing? #77301
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Operations Research conducted in the 1980s demonstrated that dedicated AT weapons (even those identical to tank mounts) are at least twice as effective as tank mounted weapons in destroying enemy armour. Yet NATO was sold the myth that the most effective AT weapon was another tank,

    I may be wrong, but I always thought the “best anti-tank weapon is another tank” thing was based on a more holistic view, rather than just the simple effectiveness against armour. A MILAN firing post might be more effective at killing T-64s than a Chieftain, but the Chieftain has other advantages: it’s more mobile, gives arguably better protection (I say arguably because it’s harder to hide a Chieftain 😉 ), and is generally useful, whereas the MILAN is only useful against armour.

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    in reply to: Tank Destroyers – Disappointing? #77096
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    As Tim says, if there is any disappointment, it was about US Tank Destroyer doctrine, largely as they were misused as tanks. Everybody else’s tank destroyers got on with destroying tanks. The doctrine is still in use today, albeit implemented by attack helicopters.

    Same with battle cruisers, heavy cruisers misused as battleships. When used in their intended role (Armoured cruiser killers) as at The Falklands, they worked very well.

    That was my understanding, although I was slightly confused for a moment as I couldn’t remember any battle cruisers being present at the Falklands in 1982 🙂 (It’s early, and I haven’t finished my first coffee yet).

    the concept was to be able to outgun anything smaller, and run away from battleships

    I seem to recall the German WWII pocket battleships had the same basic concept. They do say there is nothing new under the sun.

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    in reply to: Identifying Plastic Figures #75968
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Thanks everyone. I’ve got all of these identified now, and there’s a much better chance I’ll be able to identify the other figures that I’ve got.

    Now I just need to get around to painting them 😉

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    in reply to: Identifying Plastic Figures #75914
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Thank you both, that’s very helpful. William, don’t worry, I can get to the pages easily enough.

    I haven’t used plastics for many years. I didn’t even know about the Plastic Soldier Review website!

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    in reply to: How do you see me on TWW? #72722
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I used to use different browsers, but I’ve found profiles to be better. Still, it does the job, and seeing how the site works in different browsers is no bad thing.

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    in reply to: How do you see me on TWW? #72718
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    The only thing I can add is a tip re multiple logins: If you set up two profiles in your browser, you can have them both open at once. One logged in as Mike, one as AB.

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    in reply to: Is wargaming a sustainability-friendly hobby? #72665
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    could you picture yourself being content living in the sustainatopia described above, specifically in a way that entails a greater involvement in the wargaming hobby and/or other comparable hobbies, in exchange for quite severely curtailed purchasing power?

    I think I could, yes. My whole family (me, wife, two kids) play board games. We never seem to have enough time to play as many as we’d like, so more time to do so would be great. We have a collection of over 100 games, some of which we haven’t played yet, so I don’t think the reduction in money would be a huge issue, as long as we were still able to pay bills etc.

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    in reply to: Dear Mike, can we have a… #72334
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I am already a sponsoring member and I appreciate the trial…but it does seem to freeze the page for several seconds while it does its thing! Regardless of that hiccup, thank you!

    Interesting. It seems ok on my laptop but does indeed freeze my phone a treat. What are you on?

    It seems to take a while to do its thing on my work machine, too. Didn’t freeze it or anything, but it took several seconds to register the “like”.

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    in reply to: Dear Mike, can we have a… #72290
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Much better.

    I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to become a sponsoring member twice concurrently.

    Mike, would it be possible to set up several types of membership, with different costs? Even if they all had the same benefits, it would make it easy for idiots nice people like Rhoderic to give you more money.

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    in reply to: It Didn't Happen, Thankfully, But If It Had…? #70671
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I was a teenager in the 1980s. The conventional wisdom at the time seemed to be that Soviet soldiers wouldn’t be willing to fight a war of aggression, and NATO technology would win out over Warsaw Pact numbers. I wasn’t convinced by either of these arguments.

    For the first, I always assumed that if the Soviet Union did initiate a war, the Soviet people (and especially the soldiers) wouldn’t know that. Their media would be full of stories about how the Western Imperialists had attacked again, just as they had in 1941.

    Secondly, I saw parallels with the later years of the Second World War. German equipment and vehicles are generally considered superior to Allied equivalents, but the Allies had numerical superiority. There were other reasons for the Allied victory, of course, but that parallel made me uneasy.

    I still think the first point is one that many people don’t give enough consideration. My brother-in-law was convinced that the footage of the Tiananmen Square protests would lead to an uprising that would bring down the Chinese communist party. I pointed out that the Chinese would see very different news coverage. I don’t know why the uprising didn’t happen, but I’ll bet very few Chinese saw the iconic footage of the man that blocked tanks.

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    in reply to: Why you like TWW #70134
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    If you correctly and sensibly TAG a topic it can easily be found regardless of which forum it is in.

    Is there anywhere that all tags are listed, rather than just the most-used ones?

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    in reply to: What rules have you changed? #69411
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I’m currently using Pz8 for 3mm Cold War games.

    I’ve tweaked weapons to differentiate a little more because they were a little too generic for my taste.

    I’ve added rules for things not covered, like combat engineering. Pz8 is only two pages, so can’t cover everything.

    I’ve also re-written them to use hexes. That was mostly translating ranges.

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    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I believe one reason the Soviets used rockets in WWII was because it was relatively easy to set up manufacturing facilities after half the country got over-run by the Germans. During the Cold War, when Khrushchev was in charge, another reason was that it was easier to get funding/approval for development and manufacture of rockets and missiles. Khrushchev thought rockets and missiles were the future, so would back them over guns.

    As for rules, I’ve seen at least some rule sets give multiple rocket launchers a larger area of effect than standard tube artillery.

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    in reply to: Companies that talk #68887
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    It helps, but it’s one factor among many, so I’m not sure how much it influences my decisions.

    On the other hand, sometimes I go to a trader’s website because of how they act on forums etc, and am then disappointed to find they don’t cover periods/scales that I’m interested in :/

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    in reply to: I am a twonk #68366
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Look on the bright side: you’re still able to come here and tell us all about it. If you’d superglued all of your fingers together you wouldn’t be able to do that 🙂

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    in reply to: Miniature Wargames 412 #67293
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I’d not thought of it like that, but I can see what you mean.

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    in reply to: Miniature Wargames 412 #67169
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Very nice. I’ve never played the period, but I do like the look of the early Vickers light and medium tanks.

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    in reply to: Miniature Wargames 412 #67137
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Conrad’s piece sounds interesting (as it often is), and anything by Jim Webster is always worth a read.

    Is that a Vickers Medium Tank on the front cover?

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    in reply to: Why you like TWW #67006
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Also, from a trader’s perspective, I like the advertising and news options. I have access to stats about my adverts, I can submit news months in advance, and I can subscribe to news articles, so if someone comments, I can reply.

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    in reply to: Why you like TWW #66888
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    The friendly atmosphere.
    That it works on my phone just as well as it does on my laptop.
    No regular downtime (honestly, that should be a given these days).
    Being able to get email notifications of replies to forum threads.

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    in reply to: Signing In #66559
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Honestly, I can’t really remember the signing up process. That tends to suggest that it was fairly painless, though 🙂

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    in reply to: Opening links…. #65886
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Tip for when you’re on a computer: middle-click will open a link in a new tab (at least in Chrome and Firefox).

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    in reply to: A probably stupid question about tank destroyers #64863
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    It never comes up in games does it

    No, but there are probably lots of odd quirks of various weapon systems that are ignored or not directly handled in rules.

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    in reply to: A probably stupid question about tank destroyers #64809
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    And a possibly even stupider question, is the gun removed for rail transport?

    I’ve seen modern tanks with their turret rotated to the rear when on rail cars, probably because it’s easier to get on/off without a long gun sticking out the front. If you’re referring to tank destroyers without rotating turrets of course, that won’t be an option.

    I found this image of a Jagdtiger on a railway car, with gun in place:

    Source

    Also this (ISU-152?):

    Source

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    in reply to: Image Test Topic #64535
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Doesn’t work on the “Text” editor, which is my preferred option. Interestingly, the “Visual” editor has two buttons – the second one allows dimensions to be set.

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    in reply to: Modern WW2 battles #62851
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Would you use airdrops or switch it to airmobile forces?

    I’ve never got close enough to making it a reality to really consider that question. I’d probably have paratroopers at Arnhem and helicopter forces at the others.

    Russell

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    in reply to: Modern WW2 battles #62804
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Ooh, that’s an interesting question. Personally I’ve always wanted to do a Cold War-era Market Garden, with the Soviets attacking and Brits defending. I’ve never had anywhere near enough toys or space to do it justice, though.

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    in reply to: Playing with your Partner? #62422
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    My wife plays board games and RPGs. She has no interest in wargaming, but has played Memoir ’44 and Airfix Battles with me.

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    in reply to: Soviet SPG-9 #61898
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    The Anti-Tank Platoon of a Motor Rifle Battalion (BTR) had two of them, with each being allocated a BTR-60PB for transport.

    I think I knew that, and knowing they had a wheeled carriage, assumed they were towed rather than carried inside. Thanks, it’s always good to get better information.

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    in reply to: Soviet SPG-9 #61892
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I believe it was normally towed behind a BTR, with the gun crew inside. It had a two-wheel carriage for towing.

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    in reply to: April Sponsors Competition #60079
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    Rommel. I’m much more interested in WW2 than the other periods, and judging by the sample PDFs, it looks interesting.

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    in reply to: Are we starting to over weather our vehicles? #60055
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I find myself wondering if this began with GW. From what I remember of Warhammer 40K, rust and the like would be entirely fitting on at least some vehicles (orks, for instance, probably wouldn’t put much effort into vehicle maintenance).

    Mostly, though, I’m of the opinion that if the owner is happy, that’s all that really matters.

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    in reply to: Cheap and cheerful gaming mats at Lidl #60012
    Avatar photoRussell Phillips
    Participant

    I’ve been wanting a good gaming may for a while, but haven’t been able to justify paying for one 😀

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Viewing 40 posts - 161 through 200 (of 342 total)