George MC

Oh! Oh! Look! Look! A rare example of Oenothera deltoides, under this Larrea tridentata. How fascinating.

Hi FS! Glad you enjoyed it. I must admit it's one of these wee fights that I found addicitve myself. First few times I played it I lost both tanks. After I played it a few times I came up with other ways in whcih I could have lost the tanks, hence the variety of AI plans. Good effort on winning it and glad you enjoyed it so much Cheers fur noo George

Can you send me a save game file to my email at the address in my sig please? FWIW these AAVs contain a whole heap of ammo. If they thing ingites it can keep cooking off for ages - or catastrophically explode. In RL vehicles cooking off can do so for a long time. Cheers fur noo George ps: the log entries below are from Vietnam but it details how two APCs were hit and set on fire. Over an hour latter the ammo cooking off from one of the APCs is thought to have hit and brought down an aircraft taking off. 2:40 pm. 1440 hours. Radio transmission from MASTER SERGEANT Maurstead to SERGEANT FIRST CLASS Peterson; at ZA082713, 2-8 while escorting a resupply convoy received a large volume of B-40 rocket fire and automatic weapons from the west side of the road. Two Armored Personnel Carriers were struck and began burning. 2:45 pm. 1445 hours. 81mm mortars and Arty being worked up and gunships called for. 3:00 pm. 1500 hours. Enemy moved to WEST, near Blue Line. (Infantry) 3:05 pm. 1505 hours. Two COBRA helicopters making first pass and reported on target. 3:20 pm. 1520 hours. Still receiving fire and call for DUSTOFF (MEDICAL EVACUATION) made. 3:25 pm. 1525 hours. Cobras out of Ammo. 81mm mortars and Artillery going in. 3:40 pm. 1540 hours. DUSTOFF (medical evacuation), BLACKJACK 400, hit by B-40 rocket, down and burning. More GUNSHIPS called for. 3:45 pm. 1545 hours. 2-8 to sweep area, to work behind gunships. 3:46 pm. 1546 hours. 4th Aviation BLACKJACK helicopter attempting a DUSTOFF (medical evacuation) was hit by B-40 rocket and destroyed. 52nd CAB Slick landed to pick up wounded and was hit and exploded when it lifted off. May have been hit by a round cooking off in the burning Armored Personnel Carriers as no one heard a B-40 fired at that moment. Four WOUNDED IN ACTION from 52CAB. Gunships and artillery supported.

Ahh... Errmmm... Oh look up there a skylark! <slinks of into the shadows>

No easy way - what I do is switch the elevations on in the map tab (click E), mark the spot with your finger on the screen, then switch views to the mission tab and place your objective. Crude but effective Guess the other way is to use an out of place terrain feature to mark the exact spot, just have to mind and remove it after - hence I like my approach cos you don't forget to remove anything. Cheers fur noo George

Hi Dan He! Nice one! Spoilers ahead... # # # # # # # # # # # # I put the ROE in there so to at least give players a similar dilemma that a commander in RL would have. Guess it comes down to a judgement call at the end of the day, and yes one you would all in all probability I suspect have to account for. I think using the small arms fire and the 40mm grenades does the job it's just achieving that fire supremacy as quick as you can. Another top tip is to establish that cordon around the tanks as soon as possible - although that tactic can lead to heavy infantry casualties if you are not careful. It does look like you managed the balance. I reckon you'd get of with targetting the buildings. From the sound of things you were taking fire from them all. Good job Cheers fur noo George

Hi Chelco If I mind the brief says no firing on buildings unless you receive hostile fire and positively ID the shooters. I think if you use 60mm mortars you can use em to get anti-personel airbursts which helps keep the baddies heads down. Cheers fur noo George

To Ambush or Not To Ambush is based on a Marine Tactical Decision exercise. You can see more of them at this link: http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/tdgpdf.asp Cheers fur noo George

Hi Chelco Glad you like it It is possible to keep the tanks alive. I've only managed to keep one intact but some of the other testers when we were playing around with this managed to keep al their stuff intact. The varying AI plans means you can never gurantee when you reboot the scenario that the attack will take the same form and direction. Cheers fur noo George

There are a few AI Plans in this all rather differant - depending on what you've got the action can play out fast and furious, die down then boil up again or fade out. How long have you been playing for? Mind your orders are to clear that place Cheers fur noo George

Hi Cpl Steiner Have you read: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ambush-Alley-Most-Extraordinary-Battle/dp/0891418814 First hand accounts of the actual fighting and a gripping read. Has maps and all sorts. Cheers fur noo George

The original CMBB/CMAK (don't have CMBO) never had the ability to turn of the time limit when in game. You played with what the time scale the designer gave you (lack of time was abeef from playesr in CMX1 as well ) . Only option you to chnage the time limit was to open the game up in the editor and change the turn limits. You can do this with standalone CMSF scenarios by opening them up in the editor as well to adjust the time limit. HOWEVER - you should mind that the designer might have designed the AI plan only to cover the timescale they have allowed. Although as already stated you can't adjust the times for individual battles in a campaign once they are all made into a campaign file. Cheers fur noo George

If the optics were damaged then surely the main gun cannot see/sight on a target therefore cannot fire? Care to send your save files to me - address in my sig. Cheers fur noo George

Some of the scenarios do have the maximum time limit. Others are shorter but as PT says extending the time to the max for all the scenarios would make many of them way to easy. FWIW I like to have the maximum amount of time myself but I can also see why scenario designers give a time limit. Another issue is the AI plans for the strat AI might not run for two full hours, so the Strat AI would evntually come to a halt. In that respect the human player has the advantage as you could sit tight wait till the AI plan stops then go in and take em out. Hope that makes sense - does in my head

In CMSF both forms of play WEGO or RT the Strat AI plan is done by the scenario designer therefore the Strat AI doe snot react as such to what the other (human) player does. In that respects the AI if there is no created AI plan by the designer will not move units unless they see a threat then react (usually a defensive or aggressive posture). In that respects the Tac AI is the one that reacts to the situation but only on a macro level i.e. tank pops smoke and reverses; infantry take cover and enagage enemy target. So your asumption 1 is partly correct in that the Tac AI carries out the already scenario designed AI plan. Your assumption 2 is incorrect as the Strat AI is following the same scenario designer designed AI plan i.e. the AI uses the same AI Plan regradless of wether you play WEGO or RT. The main difference between WEGO and RT is the time the human player has to plot their moves. With lot's of units in RT this can get a bit frenetic (even with pause) for some player's tastes. It's nothing to do with the Strat AI and it's ability to plot moves or react. Hope this helps. Cheers fur noo George

The AAVs are pretty much tin cans with a lot of firepower. Doctrine, as with most APC/IFVs, is if you suspect unsupressed AT weapon systems dismount and walk the grunts in, under overwatch from your AAVs. Course the trick is to get the AAVs/IFVs into an overwatch position such they don't expose themselves to enemy AT fire... They do have a lot of smoke so so you can use that to your advantage if you are bumped. Cheers fur noo George

When you say no units can you be more precise - nothing at all on the map or some stuff but not from the core unit file?

Drop me an email and I'll email you some actual manuals - got some great info about real world tactics which work in CMSF. Cheers fur noo George

Nae bother

No way to get rid of the HQ but you can make the HQ a reinforcement that comes on way after the battle has ended. Of course this only works if your time limit for the battle is less than two hours. Some HQs you can delete only when you remove a unit they have responsibility for. If it's a platoon HQ then you are stuck with it unless you do the above. Cheers fur noo George

Check out the link in my sig

What was the problem in the end RommL?

Could you elaborate on what the problem is please? Just having a quick scan of your script the first thing that strikes me is after the Le Quartier residential what happens if the player loses? There is no entry in that. In saying that I'm guessing here as I've no idea what the problem is :confused: Cheers fur noo George

The units you are setting up in the scenarios - did you buy them from the core units file?

Some more numbers but again the info details that latter period, still might help. According to Jentz in November 43 25th Pz Div had only the II Abteilung in it's Pz Rgt 9 - four compnaies equipped with 93 PzIV and 8 command tanks. No indication what it had before. Jentz appears to have no info on 3rd SS Pz Div. Pz ABt 5 is sent to the front at this time and in Oct 43 had 42 Stug, 3 command AFVs organised into three compnaies. Pz Abt 7 and 8 appear in NOv43 both with 42 Stug in three compnaies in each.