George MC

I designed that scenario and it runs fine on my PC using XP and with 2Gb RAM - you want to send me the file you are trying to open and I'll see if I can issue orders and save it? Cheers fur noo George

Short video taken from me playtesting armoured assault which is on the Brits module.

Nor me - there appears to be an issue with other mods and scenarios as well. I tried to download M1A1s AAV vehcile mod and got the same error - page not found.

Very nicely done Spoilers # # # # # # Interesting to see how you play the Screen Part 1 and 2. I must admit I made these two. What I find interesting is how you play Part 1. When we playtested this everyone moved up very slowly, took up overwatch etc far short of PL Charlie. There were no problems with the Syrian armoured force spawning on top of you. It was not till the game was released that there were complaints about the enmy spawning on top of the US force. That's when it dawned on me players werre horsing up to PL Charlie... Bit of a learning point for me with designing CMSF scenarios. Now I actually charge everything up to the end of the map just to see if it can be done when testing them during the design stage Both these scenarios I must confess are very early ones, looking at em now I hope my design skills have come on a bit! The other issue I think is that we were constrained by map size at the time due to issues with PC specs etc. Now that people seem to have more powerful PCs and that Charles tweaked the game code with large maps, if I were doing these two again the maps would be about four to six times as big! Your summation about what the Screen Part 1 is based on is correct - I took the idea from the Gulf War and the Marines in combat against Saddam's armoured units, The Screen Part 2 is taken from a tactical problem given in the armoured magazine. Looks like you dealt with Part 2 in text book style. Yup you don't have enough dismounts which is why you have to do your best to support em with your AFVs, which you appear to do very well. Look forward to seeing more of these - they are great fun to watch. Cheers fur noo George

As past patches tended to tweak the game code, TOE and various other stuff I think it would be unlikely that any future patches would not be tweaking similar areas of the game - end result is save games and PBEMs would not work if saved under an older version. Worth checking the read me before patching your game if playing PBEMs or resuming a game from a save game. If I mind with the elicence thing you can install two versions of the game on the same PC so gives you an option to patch one and play old PBEMs etc with an older version of the game? http://www.battlefront.com/helpdesk/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=view&parentcategoryid=2&pcid=0&nav=0

Sometimes scenarios can take a while to load - although with 1.20 this load time should be shorter. Have you patched your game to 1.20? In earlier patches the game could take a while to load a scenario. I'd suggest if you are already patched to 1.20 to load up the new scenario go make a brew and come back in ten minutes - reckon you'l find it's loaded. Worth noting if you have patched your game to 1.20 then previous save games from earlier version will not load under the new patched version. So if you have any save games currently on-going with earlier patches you might want to hang fire patching till they are done. Cheers fur noo George

I think he meant the UK Vehicle Recovery scenario that comes on the British Forces module. There is one that comes before, Operation Hammersmith which covers the actual fighting in which the British AFVs are immobilised in. Glad these scenarios are proving to be such good and challenging fights. Cheers fur noo George

Sergei has come out of the closet!

Did you patch your base game (i.e. CMSF Strykers and Marines) to 1.10 or 1.11 before installing either the 1.20 patch or the British module? Also from the notes re Windows 7 "... and Windows 7 users, we recommend that you RIGHT-CLICK the installer file and select the 'Run as Administrator' option. This should help resolve any user-rights issues that could occur."

Ha! Elmar speaks the truth - the Brits module is already patched to 1.20 so no need to install the 1.20 patch as a seperate item. Check the read me notes that come with the downloads and double check what you are doing is as per the instrcutions. Another point - your base game is a BFC version and not another version?

Have you tried to download the modules again and install your new download? You say in your first post that the download is the problem but don't appear to have tried to download the modules again and re-install the new download? Also make sure you remove any mods you have installed in your z folder in the data folder (assuming you use mods). Cheers fur noo George

Why? You goona poke him wi a sharp stick? Twas Mark Ezra if I mind.

You would hope that basic idea of the enemies strength and positions would be known so an atttack against a large position would involved more units. Assuming it's a platoon attack then it would be part of a company attack i.e. the platoon is the tip of the company spear therefore the rest of the company would be in support? If the intel was wrong then you break off the attack or go to ground and request supporting fire/smoke etc to either suppress the other enemy positions or break contact?

I think first off you have to accept you will lose units in such an attack. Trick is I guess to ensure that the enemy loses more, faster, than you do. Key is having enough stuff in overwatch so if and when an enemy unit unmasks itself you can engage. Now this overwatch could be arty/mortar spotters or armoured units - key is that they can bring fire to bear quickly on the ID'd enemy unit. Next thing is what do you move forward with? In open terrain you'll want to move armoured units across the ground fast from cover to cover (known as tactical bounds). As they move others should be overwatching - armour works well here due to it's heavier armour and firepower. You could have units periodically pop smoke as they go but this not only masks it masks the enemy as well. So key is there is no movement without fire or fire without movement. I guess there are lot's of ways to use smoke - so one approach would be to smoke known enemy positions to allow armoured infantry units to fast move into cover that is close by, then have the infantry dismount and use your dismounts to close with the enemy. Again you would still have overwatch units ready to support your advance unit. So there ya go - one recipe for attacking. I'm sure others will post their own

What about the AI Plan? When the clock stops running on that all the AI units stay put. No big deal I guess in urban combat but a deal breaker on more open maps. Sit still, wait till the clock overruns then go mop up the stationary AI units Hey! If I did that I'd win far more than I do

The map is based on the actual landscape using a Soviet 1:100 000 scale map. We created the CMBB map at half the scale - basically the map in CMBB should twice the size. Still the features and what have you are as the actual battlefield. Also used lot's of photos from Agte's biography of Peiper to get the feel for the landscape. OOB for the Germans is spot on - based on actual unit retruns for the day. We've also got lot's of eyewitness accounts of how this action played out, so the scenario concept is true to life. Of course there are limitations with the CMBB game engine but I hope, think the scenario captures the feel of the actual action. Soviet OOB is a good guess based on Soviet OOB, and returns from both German and Soviet sources. Ideally we would have liekd to have the same amount of detail re the Soviet OOB as we had for the Germans but there is just not the same amount of info. Shame as the Soviets fought very hard during these operations - all kudos to them. Stugs are a tad overmodelled in CMBB but as you say on this scale of map it is easy for them to be outflanked (even an anti-tank rifle can take em out at close range from the flank or rear with several shots). Glad you are enjoying it

I don't want to give too much away - you have your orders but they give you a framework to work within There is an old saying that he who defends everything defends nothing so take that into account. One of the advantages with the SPW supported by the Stugs is you can mount a flexible defence so I would use that to your advantage. As you are playing the AI I would pull back units to your lines to avoid having the AI set-up right next to them. Might mean giving up flags but you can always retake em Cheers fur noo George

Hi Glad you are enjoying it. re your comments above - ammo is an issue so be careful with how you manage it. re set-up zones. This is one of the issues with operations when playing the AI. I explain what happens in the opening brief for the scenario. How the lines are drawn in operations does depend on a variety of variables - main ones appear to be how far you or the enemy have pushed across a wide front and the size of that force. This means units can be in your deploy zone. Now if playing H2H there are ways to manage this but if playing the AI I would suggest you pull any advance units back to your lines. Not very accurate but the AI will deploy right next to these units. So best to pull stuff back to your lines and have em in cover. Two if the AI has pushed units forward and into your lines you'll find sections of your set-up zone ringed by your set-up zone colur. this means enemy units have pushed into there. I think in such a case the AI will not set-up it's units in these zones but will pull all it's stuff back it's own lines. As i said I attempt to expalin how the AI sets up after battles in each operation in the opening brief. This is one of the limitations of operations in the CMX1 game engine but I must admit I can live with it. best bet is make sure you save your set-up battle then when you start it looks like the AI has done odd stuff you can always re-start without to major a re-deploy. Keep us posted Cheers fur noo George

Hi Cheers for playing Chariots. If I mind the brief tells ya where the Soviets are coming from - but basically assume that they could come from any direction so set-up accordingly. For this op I strongly recommend you read the brief (and use the attached command map) it'll make your life a tad easier Good luck With the SPW mod there are several threads about installing mods that go into the subject in great detail on this forum. Do a quick search and you should find em. Simplist and easiets option is to unzip the mod file, copy all the enclosed BMP files in the folder and copy em to your BMP file in your CMBB install. This will copy over any other similarly numbered files. Note: this means that all your SPW used in winter will be Blowtorch SPW. Other and better option is to install a Mod manager (see threads) and use this to manage your mods. It's a slippery slope though modding Cheers fur noo George

If you have patched the game I don't think you can load any save games from an earlier version of the patch - although I'm not 100% sure - I've found myself unable to load any save games myself after installing the Brit module.

You can still load up from your save game? I've found that you might get the crash when loading from one campaign game to the next, but you can load from the save game OK.

For the chap who is getting the 'out of memory' responses. Could you post exactly what you are getting an when you are getting it so I can check it out please? Cheers fur noo George

A few of you have posted comments about the scenario in the repository. Due to a limit in the number of posts you can make I can't reply - so I'll do that here.

I see DAF answered your first question - pretty much nail on the head. You can also play about with flags etc to use em to craete a sort of breadcrumb trail - mind and chnage thes etting to either meeting engagement/assault/attack etc for the AI to actually move. Re above - Dubno is an operation therefore you'll need to open the operations section in the game - you'll find the scenario in the menu list there. Hope this helps. Cheers fur noo George

I tend to put em in reverse slope key holed positions - take yer point about CMX1 but doing the above does mean they can be nasty surprises. Reading a lot of accounts reverse slope fighting positions was something the Russians used a great deal.