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Just in case any mod artists want to try this look- OD and black camo on 45th ID vehicles headed for the Med: http://www.45thdivision.org/Photo_Gallery/War_Time_Photos.htm It would look pretty good in the game I think!

Anyone up for a CMBN Commonwealth game? Any size battle if fine. I can do about a turn per day. Send me a PM.

Yes, one's opponent is always sending back rewrites of one's glorious scripts. Generally, any real-world tactic that depends on the opposing commander not always knowing the status of all his units, won't apply so well in CMBN. For example fast, deep, shock assaults- in real life the defending commander would never get the information needed to respond in instant coordinated detail, as we do in the game.

Well, a few suggestions on setting them up: Be aware that the game makes crazy things happen when setting up guns behind a wall or bocage- try to rotate them a bit and the gun may end up on the other side of the fence. So it might be worth setting them up in the open, say in keyholed positions. Use smoke and suppression to cover their movement and set-up. Put them where your other units have already been, so they are not the first to discover nasty surprises in the form of enemy fire. They could also be useful to throw HE accurately at enemy buildings from a considerable distance. That's a fun campaign. I got stopped on about the sixth battle, I think by the 'barbed wire bug', I hope some fix for that gets implemented.

Fair enough then.

Thanks for the links, wingedone. So it seems the Cromwell VII should not really have been included as such in CMBN, but will come in handy as a rare vehicle in any forthcoming scenarios set in 1945. -Maybe it could also stand in for other types of Cromwell with additional armor in Normandy, about which I've seen mention.

Hello all, Can anyone point to documentation of the Cromwell VII fighting in Normandy? And what units used it? I've not seen any such reference, but perhaps someone here has. The armor on that tank is...impressive!

'And no Birds Sang' by Farley Mowat. Memoir of a Canadian Infantry officer in Italy. Very good book, describes the exhaustion of prolonged fighting. 'Anzio, Epic of Bravery' by Fred Sheehan is a good history of the battle, by a participant. Zbigniew Lalak's ''4th armoured Regiment 'Skorpion'' is a good unit history for a Polish Sherman outfit in italy. Published by Pegaz-Biz. Also, though it's a memoir of the air war over Sicily, Steinhoff's 'Strait's of Messina' conveys the fatalism and hopelessness of the German situation at that time, like no other book I've read.

For the U.S.-Japanese side of the question, I recommend reading John Toland's 'The Rising Sun'. It covers the very complex negotiations between the two countries before the Japanese attack, and the issues involved in them. (Then it covers the whole Pacific war.) Note that Germany declared war on the U.S. after Pearl harbor, as their treaty with Japan required, not the other way around.

I second that emotion!

You also have to worry about WP rounds hitting tree branches on the way to the target, and exploding. This cost me a few men in the demo, within about 20 meters of the firing tank. But WP is great for covering movement, especially with several tanks cooperating, so you can suddenly 'reshape' the LOS environment. Move shoot and reverse while the covering AT assets are blinded. But note wind direction and how long it takes the smoke cloud to fully form.

When you split off the anti-tank team, did they have rifle grenades? I think a man with rifle grenades is sometimes designated in the squad as an 'anti-tank' man. If rifle grenades are less powerful than the Panzerfaust, they at least have longer range.

CM was a better game, CMBN is a better simulation. But I much prefer CMBN now because CM doesn't present new sights, new problems and new rewards.(As a game system I mean- sure CM will always have new scenarios and new opponents, but not new dynamics). Even the difficulties of CMBN which you've read about on the forums are at least interesting to try to work around to win the battle- and in the long run your opponents have to deal with them as much as you do. CMBN is harder to play, less smooth, presents more friction, and more stumbling blocks. Casualties are more dismaying. Trying to get enemy troops in your sights is more frustrating. But it's interesting in a different way. There's more to learn. It's good. There's no guarantee you'll like it, but if you can afford the price it would be a shame not to try it.

As long as he yelled, "Backblast area clear!" You are a 'go' at this station.

Hello all, Anyone up for a CM Normandy PBEM? I can do about one or two turns per day. Any battle, either side, would be fine, but preferably not a very large one, in terms of force size, just to keep turn-around time quick. I use dropbox. Send me a PM if interested!

Indeed I have read that the U.S. used quad .50 mounts to do indirect fire in Vietnam, to protect a firebase, and that it was effective. I doubt, though, that BFC is going to make a situation where every friendly HMG appears on a spotter's roster of available weapons.

All right, how do my engineers get permission to mark mines? They're sitting on a mine marker, in "OK" status, not moving, and the "mark mines" command button will not light up. They've got demo charges, if that's relevant. For several turns I've been trying to get them to do it but I'm stumped.

I just played the Brit battle in the demo and enjoyed it thoroughly- and not just because I like to see new and colorful shapes moving around my computer screen. One thing I like is the way grenades bounce. In one case, some British troops on top of a ridge were throwing grenades at Syrians a few metres below on the steep slope. The grenades kept hitting the slope and bouncing around, usually then falling past the target and exploding harmlessly. Very cool visually and seemed realistic. Finally one did explode on target and ended the engagement! Later, a British team was in a similar position, wanting to clear Syrians off the slope from above. This time the Syrians, without being visible, threw two grenades up the slope and killed off the whole team. Very interesting to be reminded that you can get killed even if the enemy doesn't seem to have a good shot at you with small arms. Especially after CMX1, where I can't recall ever losing a man to grenades.

Clavicula Nox- The method you describe for the scenario is roughly what I'm doing. I started by seizing two buildings with their own wall around them to be my own base within the airbase, while waiting for the rest of the company to arrive. Problem is, these buildings have nothing but balconies without railings. I should have stayed on the ground floor and used the little compound as merely a sheltered area, instead of hoping to use it as a base of fire of FO, sniper and MG's. Nicdain, your point about reflecting the real-life advantage of being in a tall building seems to me to be the essential point here. I think the game falls down in this respect, simply because the men won't stay off the balconies.

Thanks for your responses, guys. Yankee Dog, the solution you suggest sounds like a good one- if the game engine would allow it. Right now I'm playing the second battle of the Route Lightning Campaign (the Airfield), and trying to find every way I can to keep my forces from dying off before reaching all the objectives- thus my question. I hate it when my guys get killed without my permission.

I'm getting frustrated by the fact that I can't keep my men off the balcony of any floor they occupy. Even when I had them face a wall where there was no balcony, one man went out on the end of the balcony of the adjoining wall and naturally got killed. And this a three man sniper team so it's not like the room was too crowded. I suppose the game makes the men go where they can see best, but without regard to their own cover? Even when there's no railing or parapet they just run right out there and stand up waiting to get hit. Anyway, this bugs me so much I wish there were no balconies in the game. (Even though they look cool and are there in real life.) The only reason to go out on a balcony IRL, I think, would be to see a target that is low and close. Otherwise you'd be fine behind the cover of the main building wall. It's not always feasible to avoid floors with balconies either. Maybe I just have to make a bunch of maps of towns without balconies. Anyone else bugged by this?

Dr. Strangelove 2009 How about a blue on blue based on the scene in Dr. Strangelove where the Army has to take a SAC base from the renegade USAF commander? You could just beef up the forces a bit- or a lot- to make things lively. I like the stadium idea. All you need is a soccer goal net that explodes in flames when you crash into it, like in the Simpsons.

I just retried the search leaving out the word 'up', and it worked. Perhaps the system won't search for anything that includes a word with fewer than three letters in it. Not very clever.

Thanks, Ken Well, now I can quit giving the command and staring at the screen. The search function wouldn't search 'open up command' for me- it's my week for technical difficulties. Great game tho.

Hello all! I can't get my Stryker passengers to close their hatches. When I use the 'open up' command it merely makes the crew open (or close) their hatches, without affecting the passengers. This is the same whether I give the command to the passengers or to the vehicle. I tested it in We Go and in the scenario designer 'deploy' viewer. It's not supposed to be that way, right? I'm using the Marines module with the patch, if it makes a difference. Follow up question- If I uninstall and reinstall to see if it helps, do I need to unlicense the game first?