Josey Wales

They are mainly from dutch origin. We all like to mangle your language. To revenge the Boer war and the Dutch-English wars at sea.

Minute 1:00: Orders
Most of my troops are not moving right away. Here is a shot of the force in their jump off positions.


 
Armoured recon moving towards the bridge. The recon units will take up positions in the forest along the rise and the tanks will stay on the road ready to react as needed.


 
Infantry recon moving towards the ford. A troop of tanks are attached to provide support as needed.


 

METT-T: Troops
Order of battle
1 Battalion Pretoria Regiment, 6th Armoured Division: Comandant Litson
2IC: Major Hooker
A Squadron: Major Fry
3 Troop: Lieutenant Smit
4 Troop: Lieutenant Rassau
5 Troop: Lieutenant Liebenberg
6 Troop: Lieutenant Black
Headquarters Squadron: Major Erasmus
Recon Troop: Lieutenant White
2 Troop (Assault gun): Lieutenant Long
 

 
24th Battalion Sikh Regiment: Lt. Col Ram Singh
2IC: Thakur Singh
FO: Capt. Shabeg Singh
Support Company: Major Chanda Singh
Mortar Platoon: Lt. Balak Singh
Carrier Platoon: Lt. Sahib Singh
Pioneer Platoon: Lt. Ultar Singh
A Company:
1 Platoon: Lt. Bhola Singh
2 Platoon: Lt. Bal Singh
3 Platoon: Lt. Gurmucky Singh
B Company:
4 Platoon: Lt. Shagwan Singh
5 Platoon: Lt. Buta Singh
6 Platoon: Lt. Nand Singh
 
 
2nd Independent Field Squadron: Major Ghafoor
2IC: Capt. Kahn
Flamethrower Section: Lance Corporal Jamil
1 Platoon: Lt. Jabbar

 
 
 
METT-T: Time
That battle is 1 hour long. I am sure we will end the battle before that due to casualties.
 

Churchill found Smuts to be a rather nice Afrikaaner.
 
and us English 'soutpiel' South Africans speak perfectly good English thank you very much. Unlike most Brits.....

That isn't a surprise. Have you heard the way the Soud Efrikans mangle our language? 

METT-T: Terrain
The map is about a km squared. There are some flat plateaus but also a lot of hill and valleys as well. My forces start off in the South East corner near KT1. The path to the hill top KT7 will be over the river at KT1 and KT2 adn then over the ridge line between KT3 and KT4. There is a road from the bridge KT2 leading to town KT6 and a trail leading from KT1 to KT5 just East of KT3.

 
Some views of the terrain follow as indicated by the green triangles.

 
Map View #1

 
Map View #2

 
Map View #3

 
Map View #4

 
Map View #5

 
Map View #6

 
Map View #7

 

Planning
METT-T: Mission
The real mission is to show off the Rome to Victory Beta and give you guys something to drool over;-)
The mission of the SA and Indian armies is the keep up the pressure on the German forces in the area and take away the high ground in the area to prevent any possible German counter attacks into the valley below.
Objectives:
The main objective is the high ground with its multi story building that has an excellent view of a wide area. To succeed in capturing that objective we need to cross a small river and capture a bridge as well as the town below the high point and another small village near by.
Bridge – There is a single bridge and three fords over the river. Given the wet ground conditions using the fords will be risky. We will need to capture this bridge.
Hamlet – This is probably the least important objective but it is on the route from the fords and attacking the down without nutralizing forces in this village will be foolish.
Lower Town, Mid Town, Upper Town – With three separate equally important objectives in the down for the scenario this is the most important area of the map.
Hill Top – The true objective of the scenario. All other objectives service taking the observation post on this hill top.
Tasks:
The Germans have been fortifying the area and are likely to have AT guns in the area along with some armour elements as well. The first task will be to get observation on the ridge line and village near our jumping off point.
After which we will need to capture a river crossing and gain a view onto the plateau and the hill beyond.
Cross the river – We will need to cross the river at KT1 (fords) and or KT2 (bridge)
Gain the ridge line – In order to assault the town and the hill above we will next need to take the ridge line between KT3 and KT4.
Neutralize forces in the Hamlet – assaulting the town will be difficult if my forces are taking fire across the plateau KT5.
Assault the town KT6 – To make it to the hill top we will not be able to ignore the town
Take the hill top KT7 – With the above tasks accomplished this will be the last step to Victory

Initial situation
This AAR is being played using a custom scenario borrowing a map from one of the scenarios that will be in the final game. Bud and I replaced the forces with some specific choices to show off new formations and gear.
It is now March 1945 the Germans have been pushed far to the North in Italy. The area is defended by some low experience Luftwaffe ground forces and very tough Gebirgsjaegers. The forces available to push the Germans back in this area are South African and Indian. A force of a squadron plus of tanks from 1 Battalion Pretoria Regiment of the 6th South African armour division and two companies of the 24th Battalion Sikh Regiment supported by the elements of 2nd Independent Field Squadron of Indian Engineers.
The weather is clear but with the snow having recently melted the ground is wet.
Comandant Litson climbed back into his tank reflecting on his first meeting with the CO of the infantry he was tasked with supporting. The whole thing went better than expected. Lt. Col Ram Singh spoke better English that he did. Turns out the Indian officer had spent years in England before the war. His concerns about communications problems were curtailed. While there might still be problems, he now felt that he and is 2IC could contact Lt. Col Ram Singh and his staff and they would be able to straightening things out. In fact, since they were not under a time crunch, they had spent a little time over tea. The Indians seemed genuinely pleased to be working with he and his men. He got the feeling that they had similar uncomfortable experiences in the past working with British officers.
Comandant Litson, like everyone else, knew the war was in its final days but until hostilities actually ended his men were not out of danger. The best way to protect his men and those of his allies was to prevent the Germans from regrouping and causing havoc on their terms. This was the time for his men to take the fight into their control.
 

Welcome back @Pascucci I remember you from a thread in Fortress Italy.  Also some good news for you.  Battlefront does not charge for patches.  Patches are completely FREE!!!  Sorry if someone mislead you or maybe you just mis-remembered.  Also Battlefront has the new all in one installer now that greatly improves downloading and installing a game with multiple modules etc.  The hassle of installing multiple games and modules and packs on a new computer was a valid complaint back in the day.  But as Battlefront continues to be responsive to the community and make improvements they have taken care of that problem.  So when you buy CMFI R2V it should install very easily.     
 
IMO there is some validity to this point.  I think the reason we are disappointed with late releases is because we like the games so much we can't wait to get our hands on them.  There are probably many reasons for later than anticipated releases of some games, modules & packs.  I like to think one of the main reasons is that Battlefront is trying to get the best product they can out the door.  I am also frustrated with the wait at times and think there is room for improvement here.
 
More good news for you on this front.  @BFCElvis is now assisting with communications with the community.  So this has also improved.  He also works the help desk and continues to keep BFC as one of the best product support companies in PC gaming.  In fact there is a thread around here about Elvis providing customer support on his laptop from a hospital room.  Not to mention on holidays.  So while your eating turkey on Thanksgiving Battlefront will be there to support you holiday missions................  
 
I hope you didn't take my reply in anyway as being hostile because it was only meant to be friendly and informative.  And in the interest of being friendly I'll completely ignore when you told me where I should not stick my head  .  Now that you are better informed on a few of your concerns I hope you will eagerly follow developments for CMFI R2V.  This is looking to be a really great release with new nationalities, TOE, equipment etc.  It will take the CMFI game from July 1943 to the end of the war.  Very cool game.  I look forward to playing a PBEM with you after the release, my friend.   
 
 +1.  Don't be annoyed my friend.  Look on it as an opportunity to point out all the positive aspects of the game.  You are always at an advantage in this regard because the positives out way the negatives by a significant amount. 
 
 +1  Hold my beer ..............   
Now I have to go eat turkey while @BFCElvis handles the support desk . 

I've been playing Combat Mission equally as long, and I think it's an amazing outfit with wonderful support - I never got so much escapism in my life before. CMSF2 was incredible - a huge leap forward from SF1. R2V sounds fabulous. I'm super impatient - I check the site multiple times a day - but I'm still playing all the other games. None of them have got stale.
Given that Combat Mission is a boutique game produced to a high standard, and that what they've provided is so good, the griping really annoys me.

CM is very flexible in this regard.  Any building (or group of buildings) can be made a preserve objective.  This is probably most often done with Mosques in CMSF2 but can be done with any building in any CM title.  So all a scenario designer has to do is say in the briefing that the ROE does not allow for the destruction of the apartment buildings on the north edge of town and assign them as preserve objectives.  The player can ignore the ROE and shoot them up but will suffer the loss of VP points.   

Guys
This thread will be used for me to advise you of updates and latest uploads to the aforementioned areas.
Its an ongoing process that Im working through but a quick update for this first post is....
The Scenario Depot III : Ive totally redesigned this and am working on fixing thumbnails so that the grid format looks good.  When uploading scenarios be sure to use a square image (any size) for your featured image.

The CM Mod Warehouse : A huge task that Im still plodding away at. Im tidying up all the downloads from the previous site and have also got a HDD full of mods from the mists of time that will eventually all get uploaded also.
The Proving Grounds II : This site is dead but I am going to work on it to turn TPGII into something new... possibly a challenge site or something along those lines... still to be decided.
Any updates I carry out or content uploaded you will be notified about in this thread.  
Thats all for now.
Thanks
Bootie

Welcome back to the game. 
Split your squads into fireteams and scout teams. Use the scouts to find the enemy locations. Basically they'll get shot at and hopefully you'll gain a contact location when that happens. 
Amass firepower on the enemy locations as quickly as possible. Engagements are won by the side that can bring the largest amount of firepower to bear quicker than the other side can both in terms of volume and caliber. 
Get to know the terrain. Each type of terrain has advantages for some units and disadvantages for others. Locate areas which give good cover & concealment and offer good lines of site towards the enemy. These areas can be considered key terrain. 
Be patient! It's easy to get carried away in the moment to try and build on a gain, but there will be another enemy nearby that you haven't seen yet who will make you pay for being too hasty. 

It's a really hard game, but don't be intimidated, and don't be afraid to fail. When you lose or do poorly, think critically about why and how you can fix your mistakes next time.
Also, the biggest single advice I can give you is to never save and reload to correct your mistakes.
If your most important tank gets blown up or gets stuck in the mud because you made a mistake, continue playing till the end and see how well you can do without it.

I acquired Fortress Italy and I share with you my first impression.

Maniac CMBN player, it's almost with disdain that I watched this battlefront game on the forgotten front.

It was on the enthusiastic advice of some and the next arrival of the module containing exotic troops like the French of the General Juin that I decided to make the purchase.

I used to fighting in hedgerow, trained to face the panzer with thick skin and fanatical troops of the Waffen SS, it's confident that I engaged my Gi and Tommy face Italian troops under equipped and their ridiculous R35 and Semovente

My research on strategy and tactics led me to read Zun Tsu, Carl Guderian, von Clausewitz and Bil Hardenberger whose entire work was read and re-read and all of whose tutti were played and replayed until keyboard wear.

So it's very confident that I started the game

  I, who, a few days ago, contemplated with a knowing smile, the bust of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, imagining me as a digital alter ego, the return to reality was violent ... especially for my pixeltruppen.

It's painful that I learn the war in 3D

The pronounced relief, long and complicated LOS and LOF loses all my knowledge and my certainties

I, who thought I had learned a tactical logic, discovered with bitterness that I was just replicating reaction routines with relatively identical patterns,

In the hedges, the game consists of solving a succession of tactical problems one after the other, each problem generally corresponding to the field facing your troop so having a limited resolution key number.

With the opening of the LOS and LOF and the relief, the number of combination increases enormously.

The, the serious things really start

  It's exciting and totally new, which does not spoil anything I find the game rather successful visually

W italia

I do agree that tanks are overpowered, but everything else is overpowered too IMO. I don't think this is an issue with tanks alone. Foxholes don't provide that much cover from even small arms fire. There is not enough fog of war in the game. For one thing, they never managed to replicate what they did in the CMx1 engine, where the game would deliberately mislead you about where enemy units are. If an enemy unit was firing at you at long range, a little 3D soldier model named "sound contact" would appear somewhere, but it might appear dozens of meters away from where the actual unit really is. So if you were taking long range MG fire from a cluster of buildings off in the distance, you would not be able to tell which building they are firing from. You can try plastering the location of the sound contact with HE fire from tanks and artillery, but once you get closer, you might find that the enemy unit is in a slightly different location completely untouched.
In CMx2, if an enemy sniper fires just one single shot, you can pinpoint his exact location easily and order every single one of your units to mass fire on that exact spot in the next turn. Real life wars on the other hand seem awfully boring and confusing most of the time, with firefights consisting of hours of ineffectual and mindless shooting in the general direction of the enemy, with the outcomes decided more by morale than anything else. Both sides will put on a big display of noise and shooting until one side cracks, thinks they are going to lose, and then they run away. In CM, units are not allowed to rout off the map, and every battle is a brutal fight to the death with enormous casualties. Battles in CM are decided more by fire superiority and destroying the enemy as completely as you can. 
I think the tank issue can be solved if the game just had more mystery to it. Enemy locations and unit types need to be much more vague. You should not be able to tell that an enemy unit 1000m away is an HQ team located in that one precise action spot. You should only have a general idea that there is enemy infantry "over there" somewhere. That way, battles would be decided by throwing suppressing fire over a large area and then assaulting up close, instead of pinpointing the exact action spot the enemy is located in and then just hammering it with HE fire from tanks and artillery until everyone is dead.

I've always wanted stinging nettles in the game. 
"Uncle Arthur, I can't go in there it's full of nettles."
"What did he say, Wilson?"
"Mavis, I mean Mrs Pike, won't let Frank go anywhere near stinging nettles, they bring him out in a rather nasty rash you see."
"Stupid boy".

Ah, the details ...... .  First to define scouts.  Game mechanic definition: Scouts are obtained by the administrative command split for scouts that split off a two man rifle team or the three man purchase screen of scouts that generally have three dudes with SMGs. 
These above defined "scouts" generally have lighter equipment than the remainder of their squad.  The rest of the squad has LMGs, AT weapons, etc. that they are the prime movers for.  So the difference in equipment carried may have resulted in different fatigue states.  That would be my first guess. 
Below are some notes I have that I thought you might find interesting.  Most of the below notes came from some experiments run by @Josey Wales who looking at the four soft factors (Experience, Fitness, Motivation & Leadership). 
Fatigue states best to worst are;
Rested > Ready > Tiring > Tired > Fatigued > Exhausted
Keeping troops stationary recovers their fatigue relatively quickly. Hiding troops has no additional benefit.
Troops will recover fatigue whilst at the Move but it is at a slower rate.
Experience, Leadership and Motivation do not effect Fatigue states or recovery times.
Fatigue has no effect on Morale either persistent or temporary.
Fatigue has no effect on accuracy nor the range at which targets are engaged at. 
Fatigue will affect your movement options:
Tired troops cannot Fast Move.
Fatigued troops cannot Fast, Assault or Hunt Move.
Exhausted troops cannot Fast, Assault, Hunt or Quick Move.
 

Fatigue has no effect on a units accuracy or on its morale state regardless if the current morale state is as a result from either Combat Stress or Combat Shock or a combination of both.
Fatigue will only affect your movement options;
Tired troops cannot Fast Move.

Fatigued troops cannot Fast, Assault or Hunt Move.

Exhausted troops cannot Fast, Assault, Hunt or Quick Move.
 
Maintaining a C2 link with a Plt HQ for example provides that squad with a resistance to Combat Shock  i.e. its morale state will not drop as low under incoming fire as it would if it was out of C2 link.
Whether you want to maintain the C2 link is up to you as a player. Well trained, led and motivated units have a built in resistance to Combat Shock  whereas poorly trained, led and motivated units are more susceptible to its effects. You could make a case that its more important to keep the C2 link with lower quality troops when they are in contact, however even good quality troops get worn down and will benefit from maintaining the link when taking incoming fire especially if they have taken casualties and are suffering an additional impact on their morale state from Combat Stress.

Don't know. But yeah, his accent really makes it work. Though at this point I hate the original sound files LOL.
 
No matter how long it took them and regardless of the hell it put them through to code, the hit decals are pound for pound one of the greatest things they did for the series. There's more immersion in that one pic than 20 games of CM1 could produce — no small feat.
 
Mord.

The danger of having a split squad is that each individual team will Rattle, Shake and Panic quicker when taking casualties than a combined squad. This is due to the percentages. 1 man KIA in a 4 man team is a 25% casualty rate, whereas 1 man KIA in a 12 man squad is...well you do the maths!
There is a case to be made for keeping a squad intact for certain specific tasks. Although this increases the risk of higher casualties from explosives, it can be useful when you want that extra bit of punch and resilience.
I will use a combined squad against a weakened position that I want gone but have no other means of getting it done other than to send in the grunts, and am confident that the position has been isolated.
Additionally splitting teams in a green or conscript squad is the best way to ensure everyone runs away at the first sign of trouble. Also if you split a squad that is Nervous (when not under suppression), you will have 1 or 2 of the teams become Rattled when split.
To add my 2 cents into the 'Fire and Manoeuvre' debate, I think that the concept would be clearer if the drill were renamed 'Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire & Manoeuvre'. The reason that this drill fails in game is typically because equal weight is given to each component. That is to say that a typical way of interpreting 'Fire and Manoeuvre' is to have 1st squad firing and 2nd squad manoeuvring (or 1 team firing and 1 team manoeuvring)
If the 80/20 rule is used, then Fire and Manoeuvre becomes much more successful.
Therefore;   'Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire & Manoeuvre'