Sgt Joch

That is the kind of immature attitude I would expect on a kiddie forum like ubisoft. No one bothers to discuss features or advance arguments anymore. If someone does not agree with your every whim, dismiss him as a "fanboi".

That must be a new record, first post at 4:11 am, tears off shirt and leaves for good at 9:01 am. Everyone is in such a hurry these days. In the old days, one would let the tension build up for days or weeks and over multiple threads before the final public meltdown. I must be getting old.

for the US side, a good starter is "Beyond the Beachhead:the 29th infantry division in Normandy" by Joseph Balkoski. It follows the US 29th division from Omaha beach to Mortain, with a focus on company sized battles, but also gives you a good overview of the challenges faced by both sides in the Bocage. for the CW, I would recommend Terry Copp's "Fields of Fire" on the Canadian Army in normandy.

I dont know if someone mentioned this, but the US developped the FIDO acoustic torpedo which homed in on the sound of a submerged submarine and sank 37 in WW2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_Mine There is also the HVAR, High Velocity Aircraft Rocket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVAR

re: Nam, I think BFC is softening on the issue, although it may just be wishful thiking on my part.

so when do we get to playtest this baby....

Its not on the drawing board now, but I am hoping we will eventually get North Africa 1940-43. It did not work very well in CMAK, mostly because of borg spotting, but would be great under the CMx2 system.

google maps has a "terrain" setting which you can use to see contours. I find it more useful than Google Earth for that aspect. Draw the general elevations and then fine tune it up or down, even small differences in elevation can be very effective in game. nice map so far.

You have various gaming clubs around the web, such as the Blitz, WeBoB, FGM, WaW, etc, where players play the various CM games and have various stats (i.e. games played, win/losses, ranking, etc.) recorded. That record is referred to as a ladder. Many competitive players in these clubs like to play QBs since it is easier to create a balanced scenarios with QBs due to the standardised maps and fixed force levels. Of course, ladder players are not the only ones who play QBs and not everyone in clubs only play QBs.

..."special" is an understatement...

according to BFC, most of the customers who purchase CM games of all ilk play mostly or exclusively against the AI. I do not have access to those statistics, so take their word for it, although if you compare the total sales to the number of players who belong to gaming clubs or play multiplayer, it makes sense. regarding QBs, every one has their own opinion and personal preference. QBs exist to allow players to setup a quick game using pre-made/random maps with arbitrary point totals. They do what they achieve, but I never saw one that was anywhere as good as a well designed hand crafted scenario. agreed. The QB system is being revamped for CMN to be closer to the CMx1 system.

maybe the story is not that clear, the Think Geek website came out with "canned unicorn" as an april fool's joke with the slogan "the new white meat". The pork marketing board had its lawyers send a 12 page "cease and desist" letter to Think Geek. No one at the Board or the law firm realized it was a joke even though it seems pretty obvious when you read the ad.

priceless: http://www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2010/06/officially-our-bestever-cease.html apparently, the pork marketing board and their lawyers have no sense of humour...or common sense.

right now, I would say diamond in the rough... ...but we are doing a lot of polishing.

well it's not quite that much fun, but CMN is shaping up very nicely...

It could be. I did not work on the TF campaign and never played past a couple missions. I did work on the USMC and British campaign and helped to playtest many of the missions. The missions I did look at were well crafted and entertaining. Most of the maps were modeled on real world locations. We had a couple of serving marines and British army vets who provided useful tips. Elvis, as I recall, I thought the only issue with the USMC campaign was in the victory point calculations for a few scenarios, which was easily fixed. After 3 years, we now have very talented campaign designers in the community, such as Paper Tiger who whipped up a brand new USMC campaign in a few weeks. The current Beta team includes talented scenario and campaign designers, many of which worked on the CMSF modules, as well WW2 grogs. I have no doubt that they can turn out as good a campaign as any other group.

Did you just come here to insult people Redwolf? The Army campaign was the first effort. How is it broken, I thought many players had played it through? I have not heard players complain about the USMC or British campaign or the many user created campaigns. you call 200 plus tiny? How many have you played? you don't think there will be more user scenarios for WW2? what exactly do you think is missing from the CMx2 scenario editor that was in the CMx1 editor? you want to have a real debate on this, now is your chance.

I am not sure what you are referring to. The CMSF scenario editor is more powerful and flexible than the one which shipped with CMx1. Community members have created hundreds of scenarios for CMSF. I don't see why it would be different with CMN. you are of course entitled to your opinion, which I disagree with, but which campaign did you play and why did you not like it? If you don't like the official campaigns, there are many community created campaigns which have been released.

1. In terms of bug fixes, CMN is being built using the CMSF 1.21 code, which has been worked on and improved for the 3 years since release. It is stable and very bug free for a commercial game, so we are already far ahead of the original release of CMx2. 2. since the majority of customers only play single player mode, you need a number of scenarios and campaigns to keep their interest, so both are also required in the retail release. 3. even for the minority that enjoys multiplayer, you need a number of historical/semi-historical scenarios for players who do not enjoy gamey, artificial QBs. 4. finally, you will have cherry-picking QBs for the ladder PBEM players. so, there is not really anything that can be cut from the initial release of CMN.

I would bet there may be damage to the optics, smoke launchers and the MGs on top. Let us know.

second, regarding "Bocage Busting", this may also be of interest: http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/doubler/doubler.asp 1. typical german "Bocage" defence: 2. typical US "Bocage" attack scenario: both of these already work quite well in CMN...

the 70% statistic for mortar/artillery was also based on british/canadian medical reports from field hospitals. Artillery was the big infantry killer in normandy and it is not hard to figure out why. one, there were a lot of guns. In 21 Army group, there were more gunners than infantrymen. I believe 24% and 21% respectively. two, both sides doctrine made extensive use of artillery. On offence, the CW forces used prelim artillery barrages to kill/suppress defenders and once they had captured the objective, they would quickly move in FOs to register artillery on likely german counterattack routes. German counterattacks were often beaten off with artillery fire alone. The Germans had less artillery and ammo, but used it efficiently, pre-registering on all possible targets and calling down artillery on their own positions as soon as they were captured by the allies, even if their front line troops were still there. plus there was the inevitable harassment and interdiction fire, since artillery was available 24/7, day or night, good weather or bad. Both sides liked to lob shells behind ridges at likely enemy positions or based on sound bearings. Air attacks were much less of a problem for the infantry. The Luftwaffe was a negligible factor. They had 1,000 aircraft in france a few days after D-Day, but most sorties were made against the invasion fleet. On the Allied side, the Heavy Bombers were seldom used and usually had such a huge safety zone built in that most of their bombs usually dropped well behind the front lines on rear support areas. Fighter-bombers were available more frequently, but at that time, there was no practical way for troops on the ground to communicate with flights overhead. Most FB missions were pre-planned against a specific target or location. FBs also had a very difficult time spotting camouflaged troops and vehicles and suffered heavy losses from ground/AA fire. For that reason, most air commanders preferred to use their FBs on interdiction missions well behind the front lines shooting up trains and vehicles on roads.

Halsey was in command of the Fleet and sailed it through the Typhoon, although I seem to dimly recall part of the problem was that the fleet meteorologist came up with a wrong prediction for the path of the storm.

I found that in Terry Copp's "Field of Fire" about the Canadian Army in Normandy. It was definitely just mortar/artillery. I dont remember if it was just the commonwealth forces or both, I will try to look it up.

I can also recommend Franko's "Tank Warning" if you like tank battles (kursk, 1943). I am on the last battle of the "Magnuszew" op PBEM. That is also a good one, good mix of tank/infantry fighting. If you exapnd to CMAK, Franko's "Rush of Joust" OP about Anzio is also excellent. Lots of nasty infantry combat.