BFCElvis

Wankers...

When I got as many units as I could at the foot of Hill 144 I saw that I could put together a beaten up but battle effective group of Pioneers. That is probably when I saw the best way into the Alamo.

No offense taken. 60% is very high. I should be referring to myself as the Butcher of Bois rather than Lt Dyke. Not the norm though. No, having it in the settings does not just penalize the player after the fact. Assuming it is in the scenario briefing (please take that to heart scenario makers) the player will normally play with that guideline in mind. I keep referencing the NATO German campaign because anyone who has NATO can see what it's like if they haven't already. In that when I had to keep casualties in the 10% or 15% range a large part of my play was being extremely careful with my troops. Often the point of it being the only scenario objective I cared about. I think most people will like the way the morale plays out in CMBN. A large portion of which is how C2 works. It is really the same as in CMSF but because of the better means of communication it was close to invisible for me. Not so with CMBN. I believe most people will.

Yes. The Eastern Front is in the future for the CMx2 engine.

If for no other reason I would like it for the ability to have the game pause. Right now once it starts I sure hope you have an empty bladder and full beer.

Some did. I each situation of the DAR that I had men throw their arms up there were others in their unit who retreated rather than surrender. The tank crew had 4 men, of which one surrendered. The squad that ran onto Hill 144 had 9 men and 4 threw their arms up and all ended up being rescued. The squad on the cart path had 6 men and 2 surrendered. Surrender is not a unit-wide thing that happens.

You have misinterpreted what Steve said (even after he explained it). What he was saying was that they can't please everyone and if it is you that is pleased someone else will probably not be pleased and "pack their bags". Either way someone is packing up. I can see how you might have read his original quote to mean something like "if you don't like it pack up your bags and get out and if not I'll get someone to pack them for you" but as he pointed out in the follow up quoted above that isn't what he said or meant.

Correct. The engine and victory point system allows for exactly what Jason is putting forth. If the scenario had been made to give me more points for conservation of units than for territory to be taken my plans would have been very different. As they are/were in the NATO German campaign battles I have mentioned. The game has the flexibility to cater to both tastes in war game play. It is not a function of the engine itself but of the parameters set forth by the scenario designer. Do you prefer chocolate or rocky road ice cream? Or both? You've come to the right ice cream shop because you have both and many other in between.

I'm coming to this thread very late and forgive me if this has already been brought up..... I am someone who loved the CMx1 style operations but have no idea how they would work with the CMx1 engine even if BFC were inclined to do it. The strategic AI is completely different in the 2 engines. The flexability system in CMx2 that gives more varied experiences during solo play wouldn't. Work with a system that moved a map and front line from battle to battle. Without scripting the CMx2 AI would simply sit in place doing nothing when the game began. Head to head would be OK I suppose but then you're really narrowing the amount of interested player, in my opinion.

The arty? There were three main times I used artillery. The initial advance up Hill 154 I used linear fire along the tree line from the center going West. It landed right where I ordered it. For that I called 3 on map 60mm mortars using indirect fire. I also called in a short mission of off map 105mm artillery. You can see the tree bursts in some of those screen shots. I have no idea if any of this had an effect. It was covering fire for the advance and did it's job of preventing fire from there...assuming there was anyone to even fire. The next concentrated mission I called in was using just on map 60mm mortars to come in on Hill 144. They may be what ended up giving the breathing space to finally knock out the sniper. I can't be 100% sure. Jon may have a better idea. The last main arty usage was on the Villa. I had gotten into a position where I could target most of the Western side of the Villa. At this point in the game I was no longer concerned with preserving the 105mm for later and felt it was more important to level the Villa. Unfortunately those rounds did not land where targeted and most fell in front. However, in conversations with Jon later he did let me know that the arty was effective in rattling his cage. One thing that was hard to tell at times when the indirect fire of the on map mortars was going on was whether or not all of it was coming down on target. There were times that it seemed arty was falling all over the place and very often in my area of operation but no where near my men. So I was never sure if some was errant fire on my part or German artillery.

Rocky, there things I could have done to dealt with the situation better. However, when I attacked I didn't think for a second he would have men set up that deep in the woods. Never occurred to me. I assumed he would be set up with an LOS to any approach I had. If I had stopped and then issued Hunt orders I believe I would have been more successful. Also, if I had issued a area fire order 10-15-20m in front of my men and issued a Move order I may have done better. The thing is that in this case I really believed I was running to safety...not a buzzsaw.

To rescue a man you need to have a healthy unit in it's area. And the enemy threat has to be neutralized or the friendly units have to have overwhelming numbers around the surrendering guy(s). But there is no command in the menu to do it. It is similar to buddy aid in that way. The TacAI will take care of it. Yes. Your rescuers have a much greater chance of success when they are healthy of mind and body and in C2. They can have lower morale and be out of C2 but the cause of the surrender may be a greater force.

A funny thing just happened. I was doing some chores and trying to remember what orders I gave my troops when they reached the woods on 154. And I am pretty sure I gave them the "Quick" order to run them into the safety of the woods!!!! When I came back to the computer to post about it Jon asked me the same question!!

I think in CMSF you that more because of how much easier it is for Allied forces to remain in C2. Once that breaks down for the Syrians (or the US and German forces in our AAR) you start to have problems.....especially if your troops get beat up on too.

Nobody has asked a question about this but I do want to post a thought or 2 about my initial assault on Hill 154. That was one of the most fun combined arms things I have ever done in 30+ years of playing war games. Two things ultimately doomed it. When I reached the woods edge I should have stopped and regrouped at once. I didn't I thought I was going deeper into the woods for safety and it was anything but. The other was the timing. Had been able to make the move 2 or 3 turns earlier I may have also been able to set up a stronger position in the trees. I wasn't able to do that because I had planned to assault when my artillery began to fall. But organizing the covering fire for the advance, setting the arty to arrive near the edge, getting the Shermans in place to cover the entire field with smoke and putting the troops in place to launch the move. It was fantastic fun. And watching it come together so perfectly that I committed a second platoon, 4 Shermans and the field guns to the advance was exhilarating. Watching it all fall apart in the kill zones of those woods was a serious bummer.

He called me a gamey bastige when he saw my jeep driver doing recon on Hill 144. The tank crews were not used as scouts on Hill 154. They were mostly hiding and at times moved along the woods edge to be human tripwires in case he sent infantry toward my remaining Sherman on the hill. But I don't remember ordering them to advance into the woods looking for Germans. By that point I knew finding them would be a death sentence and needed all the bodies I could get on that hill.

Force preservation is very much an available victory condition. It is up to the scenario designer to include it or not. I believe every German campaign battle in NATO had a thresholds of 10% and 15% friendly casualties. Imagine how I struggled with that! But it is a percentage that can be set in the battle parameters. I actually wish Jon had used that rather than what he chose for casualties.

I didn't notice him ever firing a MG into Hill 154. It had no effect (how could hear it over the exploding potato mashers). The MG on Hill 148 did suppress my infantry advances across the open fields on either side of the main road into the Villa. As Jon says it may not have resulted in many kills but it slow down my advance. And you may have noticed that as soon as I felt all the major AT assets had been silenced I went right after that MG on Hill 148. And it didn't take long once I did. Ditto the MG on Hill 144 when he started popping off again.

No. The rifle squads rarely got a clean look at the sniper. Perhaps if we had been playing RT I would have had a better chance. While watching the "movie" of the turn sometimes the sniper would appear in my LOS but by the time the movie was over he'd be gone again. Because of that all I could do was use area fire to target the spot where he had been seen. Because of the condition of the troops when fired on they would cower, very briefly most of the time, and that would break the area fire command.

I think you may be misreading Jons comment. When I first read it I thought he was talking about this battle in particular, not scores in more general terms. He knows there were flaws in how he set up the victory points in the battle we played and doesn't want people to get too hung up on that. I am only speaking for him because he'll be sleeping for a while still I have noticed a few comments on his comment and thought I would right things before they went astray. And, of course, if I am the one who misread his comment then he'll be along to set me straight. I don't doubt that no one can understand a word he says. Being a Kiwi, by the time English made it to his part of the world it was barely recognizable.

Hey Zeus. I go to sleep for a few hours and wake up to the thread and it's already 3 pages long. I was very shocked at how little he had left on Hill 144. It looks like he still had plenty of Hill 154 but I had been picturing forces of that size on both hills. In case it hasn't been said enough or apparent in the screen shots, the woods were extremely dense. Visibility was only 10-15m most of the time. If he set up with a hiding with a close fire arc he could tear me apart before my men even knew he was there. And each time one of these exchanges happened he seemed to disappear into the woods. I would then stumble across men in a different location. Looking at it now they could very well have been the same units. No matter how small the advance I made through the woods it felt like I immediately ran into SMG and grenade fire. It got to the point where I didn't even bother advancing through the woods at all. If you think back to the 4 doomed Shermans on Hill 154, they couldn't see anything and they were right in the woods. 20m from where all the killing was going on. So even after I knocked out the 2 AT guns and the JPz IVs there was little reason to risk bringing the remaining tanks up to the hills to work on eliminating infantry. There is an old football expression that only 3 things can happen when you pass the ball and 2 of them are bad. I had that feeling about chasing infantry in the woods toward the end. I'd either kill nothing, get hit with a schreck or faust or knock off a few more Germans. 2 of them were bad.

Und wir sind dann Helden. Für einen tag Unlike Jon I did not have too many obvious heroes. Most units with kills had 1 or 2 but they added up. One of my heroes was the Sherman that exited and I didn't know until seeing Jons comments that I could still pull him up before making these screen shots. I'll see if I can find him later because I believe he'll have a pretty good kill stats. But my friend on Hill 144 did pretty well for himself with 24 causalities under his belt. Full size My little miracle tank that remanned itself did OK Full size Even my knocked out guys did some damage before their ill fated endings. Full size (It's nice to see the dead sniper team from turn 1 again in this shot) Full size I couldn't end this without checking in with our new friend. How did our boy Tube Guy make out? Full size

Sorry to change it for the 3rd time but Jon has just given me the official text for my sig line...

I just remembered that I got the agreed on sig line wrong..it has been fixed.

As the loser I agreed to change my sig line......