It's Presidents' Day, and time to get this issue wrapped up and off to GDW. The bathtub "Late, Great (Unfought) War" looks like it will take up several thousand pages, and there are a number of other goodies enclosed that I hope will see the light of day. CPQ is back from the printer and in the mail even as I write this, and so the cycle starts allover again. Next issue (CPQ 10) we will be in Sicily, after which there will be a "normal" CPQ, whatever that is supposed to be. Upcoming Items There are two CD2 items that may see the light of day later this year. The first is the Best of the CP, the predecessor of this journal. There are a number of articles and scenarios in that work that need to be reprinted, including the supplement on the Korean War. We are thinking of printing it as a special issue so those who have it don't have to purchase it, and those that don't have it can purchase it. Second, and a drum-roll here please, Frank wants to publish Armies of WWII, Vol. II later this year. This will concentrate on the non-divisional assets for the major powers. No word on the release date yet, but I have a good idea of what I will be spending my summer doing. Thoughts on Gaming and NAMWAR On December 17, 1994, I played in a CD2 game run by Tom Harris and John Holtz based on the St. Vith battle. It was a well-run game, with good players, excellent figures and terrain, and no rules questions---except from Frank. I commanded a Volksgrenadier battalion whose clock was cleaned by the American Combat Command that I had the misfortune to run into. At the end of the game my reformed Volksgrenadier company was attempting to slog back to the front through the mud for one more try. I have several thoughts on what made this game an enjoyable time. First, due to the game setup, my frantic antics were not in vain. There was a major battle going on over past St. Vith, and the longer I could keep the American Combat Command facing me, the greater the chances of our winning the battle. Thus, I was the soak off in the battle, but I understood my job. Second (and only realized after the game), the failure of the German attack was due to the failure of the German command structure, including myself. The Volksgrenadier battalions on my front fought as separate battalions, and we never really got our act together. Assets were wasted, and coordination was lacking. By contrast, our American counterparts worked together in a joint command. It was a case of getting what we poor Germans deserved. Last, I need to point out that the gamemasters set up a grand game, and players were wonderful. People knew the rules, but were not rules lawyers. Our American counterparts thrashed us Germans, but did it as gentlemen. It truly was a great game. THE ANSWER TO LAST ISSUE'S QUESTION QUESTION: Who wrote the following passages? "I certainly don't see any stars in prospect for me but one can aways try. Sometimes I think I don't try as hard as I ought but probably I do...I would give a lot to have you consol [sic] me and tell me that I amounted to a lot even when I know I don't." "I don't feel that I am doing my best some way. I never do. If I ever do feel that I am earning my pay I may really begin to get somewhere." ANSWER: This unsure and troubled junior officer was one Captain, then Major, George Smith Patton, Jr., who would eventually succeed beyond or up to his wildest expectations, depending upon which portion of his complex personality you pay attention to. The first passage was written in July of 1917 to his wife Beatrice, while he was serving as General John J. Pershing's aide-de-camp in Paris. In Paris Patton was described by British C-in-C Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (a fellow cavalryman) as "a fire-eater." Characteristically, when comparing himself to Haig, Patton wrote that Haig "was more of a charger than I am." The second was written in late 1917 immediately after he had been appointed as the director (and creator) of the US Army's brandnew tank school, to be established in France. From such humble beginnings... THIS ISSUE'S QUESTION QUESTION: World War II trivia buffs know who Sergeant Culin was and what his invention was. However, Culin was not the actual inventor of the device that bore his name. It was invented by a different unit, for a different purpose. Name the division in which the device was first used and its actual purpose. Over to you, Digital Dave! DIGITAL DAVE'S CLEVER COVERAGE OF WHITE PAPER WITH BLACK INK If Greg's anwer to the trivia question is what I think it's going to be, I think I might have a slight disagreement, but we'll gore that ox in issue 10. First a quick note on format. Due to the length of the Gazala Battles, Part I, and the supplement, we have gone to a more compact three-column format for these features. In my opinion, this is ugly as a great big, wet, hairy dog, and we do not plan to use it again unless we have to. Another casualty of length this issue is the Kiowa Warrior article by Captain Tom Burgess, which had been scheduled for this issue. It will appear next issue (#10), I promise. As a refinement to Greg's remarks, Best of the Command Post will not be appearing as a special issue of CPQ, but as the first of a new line of Command Decision products: the Command Decision Compendium #1. Further volumes of the CDC will include Armies of the Cold War, and perhaps the compiled Desert Storm material (updated again, of course) and the Armor 21 adjunct. And now, without further ado, it's time for: FURTHER SECRETS OF THE AGES REVEALED (WOO WOO!) CPQ 9 contained the coveted formulae for the conversion of armor value, penetration, and movement from real world to CD2 terms. This still leaves a number of other issues undefined, such as ammunition capacity. Ammunition capacity varies by type of weapon: large caliber rounds (basically any non-autocannon round; this includes all tank main guns and tube artillery rounds), autocannon rounds, antitank guided missiles (ATGMs), and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The conversions for these are as follows: Large caliber rounds: Real world ammunition capacity+4 (usually drop fractions, but not always) = CD ammunition. Autocannon rounds: Real world ammunition capacity+40 (drop fractions) = CD ammunition. ATGMs: Real world ammunition capacity+2 (usually drop fractions) = CD ammunition. Note that in cases where a single weapon fires large caliber rounds and ATGMs (such as the former-Soviet tanks in CPQ 7), the ammunition capacity of the two types of rounds is figured separately based on their respective systems. SAMs: This is based on missile size. For missiles below 200mm in diameter, CD ammunition is Real world capacity+2, for missiles 200mmin diameter and greater, CD ammunition is equal to the Real world number of missiles carried.. Back to Table of Contents -- Command Post Quarterly # 9 To Command Post Quarterly List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by Greg Novak. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com