LongLeftFlank Posted September 9, 2012 Author Share Posted September 9, 2012 Thanks, Heinrich et al. Bunker complex hidden in taro pit (I thumbed the rez up all the way). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 10, 2012 Author Share Posted September 10, 2012 Yo, JK's pimpin' me around.... Not only are there lots of mods and battles, even campaigns, available now for CMBN, but LongLeftFlank's finishing up Makin Atoll, which looks incredible, after which he's returning to the bocage with new scenarios for the regular CMBN. Regards, John Kettler But for the most part, Dad, the only time we see Japs is after they're dead. And we prefer it that way. I am playtesting in "Designer" mode, so FOW is off. I just watched a pair of Japanese snipers crawl 20 yards (no AI orders) along a thicket (hedgerow) and then open up on a US squad that was Hunting 30m away past their flank, pinning the squad and hitting one GI. There is no doubt these men will be killed in the next 2 minutes, but not before they render one or possibly 2 previously unblooded US squads Shaken or perhaps Rattled. And after enough of these bumps, the American commander runs out of fresh troops to press home his attack. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 10, 2012 Author Share Posted September 10, 2012 As the action moves inland, I'm really getting a feel for that "union road crew" dynamic you see in most PTO combat footage. After the initial scramble ashore, the terrain breaks up the frontage into dozens of isolated firefights, often starting with a Yank taking a bullet. The GIs, many seeing their first combat, become edgy, paranoid and reluctant to move; the command structure is basically non-functional. infantry-armour cooperation is nil even in spots tanks can get to. Artillery is similarly useless and hindered by trees. So the assault is carried forward by noncoms, Wignam's "gutful men" who also do most of the actual killing: sergeants and leaders of weapons teams (including BAR gunners), with the mass of each squad following cautiously behind, at best providing covering fire, but really just spectators. I must say, the game represents these dynamics very nicely indeed. With each squad spread across multiple squares, it is seldom that more than a few men can bring their weapons to bear at once. And the Green troops need to be husbanded very carefully indeed, with an eye to both their Morale and Exhaustion levels, which erode rapidly. This scenario will eat impatient players alive, even though you outnumber the enemy over 3:1 and have 30 AFVs to his none. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 MJ, I think I just found your Dad; he's lightly wounded. He was walking point when his half squad discovered a complex of buried dugouts just behind the beach, in the smouldering ruins of a barracks adjacent to a coconut grove. The occupants are about 70 shell-shocked and half-clothed Jap and Korean construction workers, but a few are armed with rifles and are using them. They fled the first bunker, but another two behind it caught the flanking element by surprise, taking down 4 Yanks. The platoon leader who was directing the attack has vanished in the confusion. Even the combined direct fire of a tank and an Alligator .50 at point blank hasn't exterminated these sonsabitches. The Company CO has now come forward, and is ordering your dad's battered unit back into the breach to cover a bazooka team. Their ugly job is to systematically kill everyone in those bunkers, whether they're fighting or not. Just in case you ever wondered why your Dad never talked much about the war..... Art imitates more than you can imagine, LLF. (I should preface this by saying Dad did talk alot about wartime...his buddies, his training, shipping out, stopover at Pearl Harbor, etc., just not much about combat. And interestingly, he said more about that when we were young...he got more quiet as he got older.) Anyway, one of my Dad's first cousins was in the Signal Corps on Saipan, and there was a fellow in the 4th Marine Division from his home town who was there as well. Later, a Red Cross nurse also from his hometown was stationed there--post battle. So, I am not certain any more which of these people I heard the following story from, but I know it was from two of them, and I heard it more than once over the years...always out of earshot of Dad (this action took place on Saipan): Dad and his assistant gunner were on the flank of his squad moving more or less in line sweeping an area, mopping up. Dad and his AG got a little ahead of the line, when an unseen log+dirt pillbox opened up on the squad and hit a couple of guys. Dad and the AG were to the flank and behind the PB. His squad leader hollered to him to take it out. I'm not sure who's idea it was, but there was an abandoned truck nearby (one of the people telling me the story said it was a bulldozer, but this wasn't close to the airstrip, so who knows). Dad and the AG either drained the gas tank into a container, or found a 5 gallon gas can on the vehicle...anyway, they worked their way to the rear of the bunker, and for whatever reason (being the gunner I don't know why he wasn't providing the covering fire instead of the other way around) Dad carried the can to the top of it, poured the contents down the roof vent, and dropped a grenade in. One occupant ran out the back, which the AG nailed. End of pillbox. Amnd he was wounded slightly later on at Saipan. This one is funny because as a kid---he told me this when I was about 7--I managed to get things all garbled up. He had brought a Japanese bayonet home along with some other items and we kids used to play with them (the bayonet had to stay sheathed...but still, can you imagine that today?). Anyhoo, he or Ma mentioned once that he was lightly wounded in the side jumping into a hole for cover. My brain naturally put the two together and I was under the understanding that he got bayonetted in the side during the large (largest in the war, actually) banzai charge near the end of the hostilities on the island, in which he was unlucky enough to participate. When I mentioned this to him some years later in my teens or early 20's, he started laughing...he got injured jumping into hole avoiding retaliation for some prank he played on a buddy after the island was secure. He impaled himself on a piece of farming equipment! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 10, 2012 Author Share Posted September 10, 2012 Terrific story! thanks for sharing. Sounds like Mr. Kerner senior was a classic BAR gunner -- the reliable "squared away" guy in the squad entrusted with the best weapon. At age 23, he would have been a "senior citizen" by infantry standards, I'd guess, so that extra maturity might have helped too (kids grew up quicker back then). Probably also why he was the one climbing on top of the pillbox handling the gas can. Per my last post, it's guys like him who seem to do the bulk of the "work" in this kind of slow, remorseless combat. No doubt the rest of the squad was watching from a safe distance. It's kind of a pity that "The Pacific" never really showed that stuff (maybe the Iwo episode did, which I haven't seen), even though I'm sure Sledge and the other advisers would have showed them if they'd asked; it was all just one giant Spielberg "mad minute" shoulder-to-shoulder epic shootout after another. Yes, that stuff happened too (and generally wasn't captured on camera since the cameramen were busy not being killed), but it was by far the exception. I have an old buddy, an American, who is a psychologist and does a lot of work doing PTSD interviews for the VA; basically, since veterans and their widows get extra money for it, a lot of WWII, Korea and Vietnam vets have come out of the woodwork to confess their nightmares, usually prefacing it with "I've never told a living soul, and always expected I would take this story to my grave." Doc-Patient confidentiality prevents him from sharing, but I've been able to fill him in on a little history here and there, for context -- the Ramadi campaign in Iraq created quite a few clients, for example. I still have my granddad's trench knife (unused AFAIK); he was an RFC aircraftsman in the Great War. He was lucky; most of his mates from London went to the trenches and many never returned. He said nothing about his war, just left a few fading photos my Mum now has. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Terrific story, thanks for sharing. Sounds like Mr. Kerner senior was a classic BAR gunner -- the reliable "squared away" guy in the squad entrusted with the best weapon. Probably also why he was the one climbing on top of the pillbox handling the gas can. Per my last post, it's guys like him who seem to do the bulk of the "work" in this kind of combat. No doubt the rest of the squad was watching from a safe distance. It's kind of a pity that "The Pacific" never really showed that kind of combat (maybe the Iwo episode did, which I haven't seen), even though I'm sure Sledge and the other advisers would have showed them if they'd asked; it was all just one giant Spielberg "mad minute" shoulder-to-shoulder epic shootout after another. Yes, that stuff happened too (and generally wasn't captured on camera since the cameramen were busy not being killed), but it was by far the exception Thanks, but as he would be the first to acknowledge, he was just a dogface stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that bastard Howlin' Mad Smith would have (well, did) ridiculed him and his mates for being just unmotivated, incompetent 27th Div slack offs. But the truth has long since come out on that score. And by the way, there was a similar scene in The Pacific where they have to take out a bunker on Peleliu, and Sledge's mortar team leader (my favorite character in the series--can't remember the name) goes to get a Sherman while the rest attack it with grenades and rifles. Great choreography in the way that scene plays out; it's my favorite sequence of all the epidsodes. Finally...to do him justice, my Dad's name was Francis "Sandy" Saunders. (obviously, my forum name is an alias) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 10, 2012 Author Share Posted September 10, 2012 Jeez, I had no idea! What an asshat! Reading this stuff gives me -- again -- the broad sense that the "bulge bracket" of US generals -- the division and corps commanders who had spent their careers in the interwar Army -- were a bunch of posturing clowns. (Oh, and our own generals were much the same, by the way, although maybe a touch less press hungry). No wonder the fighting men liked their top generals -- the guys who made sure they went into combat with superior numbers and firepower and piles and piles of gear -- but largely despised their field commanders as vain, incompetent and out of touch. In contrast, it seems like the guys who started the war as majors, colonels and brigadiers and then moved up, were a better class of leader, especially men like Ridgeway, Gavin, MacAuliffe, Cota and Buckner, who actually spent time in the front lines and knew the strengths and weaknesses of their forces and their enemies. P.S. "Death Valley", Saipan. Yeah, what a bunch of slackers for not just waltzing through this paradise.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 Just noticed somebody rated this thread "1 star" (Terrible). First sir, let me apologize for the valuable time you so clearly totally wasted reading my tripe. And second, what may I do to improve your customer service experience in the future? EDIT: If you are perchance offended by my occasional use of the derogatory term "Jap", I am sincerely trying to be sparing in its usage (when I use it, it's usually a quote reflecting the hatreds of that time, just as "Kraut" was an equally dehumanizing term aimed at a blond-haired enemy). And in my scenario design I am also striving to give the young Imperial Navyrikusentai, underequipped, underfed and sent to die, the respect of their historical capabilities, as opposed to cardboard enemies for the US to slaughter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boche Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Wait...you can rate posts? never knew... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Me neither lol. Now we can have some fun... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 Burn in hell, Yankee swine! One thing the Fleet didn't leave us short of was explosives, and we Navy Pioneers don't depend on cowardly tanks to deliver them! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 Playtest DJ pick for tonight: a proto-punk classic! Green troops advance into the jungle. One grenade could kill the lot of them. My earlier prediction comes all too true! 4 GIs down to one well-thrown grenade. 2 squads -- the entire right wing of my envelopment -- are routed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 But on the good side, the thread now has 4 Stars! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Yes, this thing gets better and better. (And I never was interested in Pacific War.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 (Do not cry for us, insects of the grass). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 12, 2012 Author Share Posted September 12, 2012 The going is painfully slow, even crossing this relatively flat, narrow island. Watch your step, brother: the enemy can be anywhere. Crouching with a grenade ready behind a dense bank of sand and matted tree roots. Lying in brackish muck at the bottom of a taro pit. And in the groves of swaying coconut palm, it's snipers. In the trees, or behind 'em. Those trunks'll deflect a bullet. But you won't, soldier. At this point, the US is facing Tactical Defeat, having exceeded 10% casualties. Eliminating all 4 remaining cement bunkers will eke out a Minor win. But they haven't been located yet. And to win bigger, the US needs to eliminate 80% of the defenders -- about 4 times the number killed up to now. Without losing more than about 50 more men. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 21, 2012 Author Share Posted September 21, 2012 The motherboard on my elderly HP Pavilion crashed today, having given its life in the service of CM. Fortunately, I had just uploaded a final version of my Makin scenario and a .brz file containing all necessary Pacific mods to a convenient Dropbox folder. :-) Many thanks to Broadsword56 and SBurke for helping avert what might have been a loss to all CM humanity. So with all further CMing temporarily curtailed until I buy a new rig that runs CMBN, I am now releasing the scenario as is, together with 3 mod packs: 1. LVT Alligator, available in CMBN:CW Vehicles 2. Japanese Forces, available in CMBN:CW Uniforms 3. Pacific Terrain, available in CMBN:CW root folder It should all be uploaded shortly onto both the Repository and GreenAsJade's site. Please note that this scenario has not been playtested by anybody except me, and I didn't finish. However, I hope it gives you the flavour of leading a reinforced US battalion in a moderately opposed beach landing (or, in H2H, of playing a Japanese SNLF force conducting a gallant but doomed defense). I hope you enjoy playing this as much as I did making it. Please post any comments or screenies in this thread, marked Spoiler if appropriate. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Just amazing work. Congrats! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patboy Posted June 15, 2013 Share Posted June 15, 2013 Nobody thought to convert this mod to CMFI, Italian as Japannese versus Brits & American! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
permanent666 Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 Nobody thought to convert this mod to CMFI, Italian as Japannese versus Brits & American! llf thought about it but i think the italians would make crap japanese island defenders because of the unsplitable squads. I stopped playing cmbn for now but recently I bought risingstorm which is really good. and they have a lot of sounds and textures - maybe there is someone who could port them for cmbn 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila-SmartWargames Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 (edited) Can somebody provide me please a copy or a link of the scenario and the required mods: 1. LVT Alligator 2. Japanese Forces 3. Pacific Terrain Thanks in advance Edited June 9, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM Stuff Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 (edited) I can send what I have, prepare me a place of dropbox or tell me how and you will recieve it..i am busy to check if all is complete ! Note that is the CMSF 1 Mod non compatible with the new CMSF2 ? Or the best is contact @LongLeftFlank JM Edited June 9, 2020 by 3j2m7 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila-SmartWargames Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 2 hours ago, 3j2m7 said: I can send what I have, prepare me a place of dropbox or tell me how and you will recieve it..i am busy to check if all is complete ! Note that is the CMSF 1 Mod non compatible with the new CMSF2 ? Or the best is contact @LongLeftFlank JM Isn´t it CMBN? I´ve already contacted him. https://wetransfer.com/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM Stuff Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said: Isn´t it CMBN? I´ve already contacted him. https://wetransfer.com/ Ok let me some min to come back... and starting the computer and I will try to linked it ! Sorry yes I make a mistake is from CMBN ! Edited June 9, 2020 by 3j2m7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila-SmartWargames Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 I got it, this is even more than I expected, even with Japanese sounds 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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