sand digger

Having studied military history for years, including many first hand accounts, but having little gaming experience, I think the game is good, really good. It feels so right. Just started playing it and so far I have no complaints about the game play at all. MG's not effective enough? Hmmmm, they seem OK to me from a historical viewpoint. Tank HE against troops is perhaps a bit too effective though. Don't know about chess comparisons, but if you get a CMBO battle near right the synergy kicks in, as it can do in an actual battle. Similarly, one bad decision, one bad bit of luck, can have you in trouble.

Thanks muchly, with a bit of messing around swapping between the CDROM and the hard drive the saved games are now showing. They were there, they just didn't show. Fingers crossed.

The game saving procedure set out in the manual is not working for me. The response is there when I go through the saving procedure but the 'saved' game does not appear next time. Checked the archives but nothing relevant there. To access the game I go My Computer and then to D drive and double click on the CMBO icon, because nothing happens when the CD is inserted. The game CD is new btw, everything else seems to be working. Thanks if you can help. [ January 17, 2003, 03:09 AM: Message edited by: sand digger ]

Steel Rain - Waffen SS Battles in the West 1944-45, Tim Ripley, Brown Partworks, 2001, is worth a look but can't recall the battle you mentioned. Obviously the book only covers Waffen SS doings, there are probably more complete books around.

A big 17pdr Panzer tank ambush actually happened in NA. Can't think of the location off hand, but it was somewhere around the Libya/Tunisia border, Jan/Feb 43. Rommel's armour did a charge and ran straight into a nest of prepared AT.

Does having the infantry out in front of your armour make any difference? There is also the point that perhaps you should be pushing recce forward to check out likely lurking places for AT, man portable or not.

From El Alamein on to the end in NA would be of interest here. Plenty for the Yanks, and the Brits and Commonwealth participants too. A much neglected area which has the advantage of varying terrain, lots of actual encounters, plus you start to get better Allied weapons and so gain some heavy weapon parity with the Germans. Ambushing Rommel's over confident armour with 17pdrs would be most satisfying.

Thanks for that, Gremlin. It is also reassuring to know that CMBO factors the points mentioned into the game, I being one who has just ordered it.

Lots of food for thought here. Having just placed my game order, I'll be looking at using defensive arrangements similar to Morshead's Tobruk '41 and Rommel's El Alamein '42. For those not familiar with those arrangements, there are basic similarities. Both were defences in depth using minefields to channel armour into killing grounds, both used static defence strongpoints with mobile reserves, mainly armour, held back to plug threatened breakthroughs and counter-attack where practical. Has anyone else used such historically modelled defensive arrangements? From what has been said here, it appears that such static defensive strongpoints may be a bit vulnerable. Historically, such strongpoints would be manned by infantry, usually with AT and artillery support but rarely with armoured support initially. I realise that the game covers a later period than '42 and consequently a lot of the equipment is different, particularly that hand-held AT weapons were essentially not available in '42.