ScottDT

Steve Jackson Games is still around, still publishing Ogre material too! Steve Jackson Games

I need a clarification: did I read correctly that there is going to be infantry squads in this game? If so, I am VERY pleased. I've been playing the demo and I miss the presence of infantry---even if they are strictly bot controlled. There really isn't much of a point for mortar vehicles if there aren't any grunts to pound! Also, I am becoming very intriqued by the OGRE / GEV possibilities with this game and, as you no doubt know, that game does have powered infantry for OGRE fodder. LOL! So, is there going to be infantry too? EDIT: I found the older posts on this topic so now I know that, yes, there will be infantry! Awesome! Which leads me to the next logical question: How long before the game is ready to be released?!? LOL! BTW: Can you elaborate on the OGRE scenario? That is the one that really has my blood up, so to speak. Is it just a multi-player scenario, or can it be played solo as well (ideally both, but I'll take the latter ). [ April 26, 2006, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: ScottDT ]

Sounds great! I'll probably pre-order this one.

Anybody care to share a detailed preview with us poor 56K people? Is this the Hammer's Slammers wargame we've all been waiting for?

Great deabte! I look forward to whatever game Battlefront releases in the CM series. In my opinion, CM is the Holy Grail of wargaming. The perfect combination of realism, tactics, and turn-based/PBEM gaming. Heck, I've had at least one CM PBEM game in progress for the last three years straight! Besides chess, no other game has come close to matching that record of continued enjoyment. Now I enjoy WWII as much as the next wargamer, but I agree that I would love to see some fresh material. WWII is starting to get done to death. Therefore, I would love a modern, post-WWII CM series. I think a CM with all the modern units one finds in Steel Panthers: MBT would be absolutely great! The ability to use the excellent CM engine to model any modern battlefield would be awesome. And, of course,this would also allow the Cold Warriors to wage WWIII to their hearts content (as a former WWIII enthusiast, I sympathize with them, but since the Cold War ended, it sort of became a moot point for me---this is the reason why I have yet to buy Dangerous Waters). I would love to see a sci-fi verson of CM as well, either based upon Hammer's Slammers, WH40K, or OGRE. DROPSHIP sounds interesting, but I think it is already clear that it is not going to rival CM. It's RTS, not PBEM-capable (boo!), and the multiplayer requires broadband. Initially, I was excited, but these drawbacks have tempered my enthusiasm. My point is this: I would love the next-gen CM to be capable of handling all of the above. If it could, that would seal CM as the ultimate wargame...EVER! But that probably is just a dream, so if I had to pick, I would say: 1)Post-WWII warfare 2)name-brand sci-fi warfare (i.e., OGRE, WH40K, etc) 3)WWII (last because I have been using CM for WWII for how many years already?!?)

I am currently in a PBEM game of CMBB and we are playing the scenario that deals with the initial Soviet probe into Budapest (Danube Blues). I was intriqued by the scenario notes and did a little research which led to an excellent article on the whole affair: Siege of Budapest by Peter Zwack I found this WWII battle to be one of the most interesting I have come across in a long time. It reminded me greatly of Stalingrad, except I think Obergruppenfuhrer Karl von Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of the 9th SS Mountain Corps and responsible for the defense of Budapest, showed himself to be more able than von Paulus. So I was wondering: can anyone recommend any good books on this battle or on Pfeffer? :confused: Websites would be of interest as well. Thanks!

I have no playability concerns about the scenario, I just found it very tough. Tough & enjoyable, mind you. Having done the scenario once, I have some ideas how I would have done it differently. My first and biggest mistake was to divide my forces into three prongs: one up the center road, one swinging to the left, and one swinging to the right. I expected tough resistance at the flags, but I figured I would use my weak middle prong to scout the enemy, and then hit 'em in the flanks with the stronger flank prongs. I never expected to have *so* many soviet tanks appear on my flanks like that! Needless to say, my flanking thrusts were individually isolated and destroyed in detail. We did inflict heavy loses (I think we killed over 35 enemy tanks), but it didn't make a difference in the end. What I would do differently is keep all my armor together, swing left of the road (sorry, I forget the directional layout of the map) and just decimate everything I came across and maybe even take the flags from behind (if I could swing wide enough given the time I needed). One thing is clear: never get caught between those two powerful tank formations that appear on the flanks to cut you off and hit you in the rear. What a nightmare. I really don't know how the Wehrmacht stayed alive. A true testament to their fighting ability. Thanks for making the scenario!

Has anyone tried the scenario CSDT B21 Slugfest at Senno? What a difficult scenario as the German player! Soviet tanks swarm from all sides! Historically, the Wehrmacht managed to hold on for a tactica win, but I really don't see how they did it when the odds were so far against them. I played the scenario as a PBEM game and was decimated. Has anyone else tried this scenario? How did you fare?

I finally achieved a total victory in CMBO! In fact, I sustained ZERO casualties and ZERO damaged vehicles while inflicting the following losses on my PBEM opponent who was playing the British: 51 casualties (15 KIA) 99 captured 5 mortars destroyed 3 vehicles knocked out Men okay: 11 Score:1 My Axis troops: Men okay: 194 (100%) Score: 99 :eek: To be fair to my opponent, terrain was a big factor. As soon as I saw the map, I knew that I had a fantastic chance of controlling the battle. My men could approach the single victory flag under complete tree cover THE ENTIRE WAY! He, on the other hand, had only broken coverage on the way to the flag with an open field the needed to be crossed to reach it. Also, the flag was significantly closer to me, allowing my troops plenty of time to get there and set-up the weapons. This, I knew, would be a huge advantage. I only feared that he would blast the area with heavy arty. But, even if he did, I had kept a reserve platoon to the rear to fill in any weakened positions. Fortunately, he didn't. I think I killed his arty spotter before he had a chance to use him. I also feared that he might attempt an attack on my right flank, dislodging me from the VP flag. For that reason, I put 2 SPWs and a PSW to guard that flank, along with an MG42 team. If he had attacked from that position, I probably would have been unable to stop him completely as the main body of my forces were oriented West and not North. He did seem to move a few troops in this direction, but my MG42 and PSW seemed to keep them from making a serious attack from this direction. He also tried using a tall hill in the left center of the map as a way of bringing suppressive fire down upon me from his Daimler AC combat cars---that was a good plan. But when he crested the hill, he presented himself as a perfect target for my single PSW which killed two of the ACs in short order. When all was said and done, we had completely routed his infantry and killed all vehicles in short order. He surrendered shortly after. Now THAT is a victory to warm the heart of this hard-luck wargamer. [ June 07, 2004, 01:57 AM: Message edited by: ScottDT ]

When I installed CMAK, I noticed it created a Battlefront folder on my Win XP's START menu program list. Is there a way to move my CMBO and CMBB folders into the Battlefront folder? I could do that with Win98, but I noticed that Win XP doesn't allow dragging & dropping one program folder into another. Anyway around this?

No, never even knew such programs existed.

I am in a game of CMBO (1.12) with a PBEM opponent and have encountered an unusual problem. It seems that my opponent never gets to see the combat movie. When I get the file from him, it works fine, but when I send the file to him, he never gets to see it---every file is an order file. Going through my old PBEM files, he noticed that ALL the files are the small order files, and not the large movie files. Could it be that CMBO is not generating a movie file for my opponent? Why would this be? I never had this problem before. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for your reply. It did help clarify matters! ---Scott

Greetings, My TACOPS opponent happened to mention that the US Army no longer uses the AirLand Battle Doctrine. In particular, he said: "but then >>>I read Leonhard's "the art of manuver" Where he pretty much ripped the >>>doctorine to shreds, saying that the US had gotten away from the things >>>which make manuver warfare so effective. Other articles I'v read have >>>said that it was just a speedy way to defend the Fulda(sp) Gap from the >>>Soviets with depth in defense, so I made the assumption it was not used >>>anymore. I know heavy revisions to Army FM's were done by TRADOC >>>following Gulf War I, but whether they were a complete teardown of >>>AirLand, or just revisions, I'm not sure" Can anyone clarify this issue? :confused: Any info is appreciated. ---Scott

My copy of TACOPS has arrived! Now I need some help: 1)What are some good TACOPS web pages for scenarios, tactics, etc.? 2)Is there a recommended order to the scenarios---i.e., easiest to hardest? Any other TACOPS info would also be gladly accepted. Thanks!