benpark

You also have rivers at right angles to the bridges. You could try to offset that by moving the river tile at the right angle over one tile. That can "pinch" the terrain.
If this map is from a historical source, check that the right angle river-course, as it could be better served by using a stream tile. Those look most realistic (generally) by placing the stream tiles, then pushing the stream tiles down one level from the surrounding terrain. You could also add a mix of mud/marsh/tall grass for the denser areas under the stream tile, which also provides cover.
The secondary thing to think about when making maps is how the AI will use them. Bridges challenge the path-finding if they are surrounded by other choices, or explicit blockages. If the terrain gets to where you have it now, I may place a vehicle on the map, and run a pathing test for the bridges and waterways. That's part of the design challenge, to get the tools to all work together. That takes testing the thing fairly often if it gets complex.

You are welcome.  And for those that want to really get into the deep end:
https://www.iwp.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Strategy-of-Subversion-Manipulating-the-Politics-of-Other-Nations-by-Paul-W-Blackstock.pdf
Really is a lost art in the West, and one we will likely need to re-learn

I would use the same height ("15") as the road/rail alongside it in the three squares alongside the riverbank, on each side. The two alongside are a "14" height, currently. That may level the rail a little better, as that looks like the terrain is getting pinched by having the two adjoining tiles at a lower level (auto-set, as there isn't a tile height indicated by you).

Artillery in the Urban environment, by two serving U.S. officers who have observed Ukraine as closely as is possible without resigning and joining the Ukrainian military. My nominee for podcast of the year. If anybody has a handy way to do voice to text it would be worth the time.

I would-
-Place defensive positions in sensible terrain, with a retreat position situated behind, with some cover between the two positions. The fall-back position should have a few HMGs and mortars set up, if this is an existing position and not hastily put together.
-Split your forces into two basic forces: "Cover, then Retreat" (AI 1) and "Retreat First" (AI 2). Both are in the initial defensive position. These forces have Ambush to a set distance, dictated by the terrain, and the following factor...
-Place a Trigger at the distance (generally a line the length of the map to punish edge dodgers) at which things will be impossible to retreat out of if the enemy is getting the upper hand. Your defensive fire should kick in at around double this for the AI to have any chance of retreat.
-Connect your Trigger to AI 2, and make an order to move (I generally use Assault) to the fall-back positions. Use a Withdraw Facing (it's used by holding down CNTL or ALT, I forget - but it should be pink) with the end-point of this order. The Assault will have the AI group use bounding movement. To simulate a break-down of cohesion, you could have them all tumble out of their positions at Fast or Quick. Less chance of survival that way. The Withdraw order will allow the use of smoke in the direction placed, and will also dictate that the retreated units will face the enemy on arrival.
The remaining force can be ordered to do the same with a closer trigger to the defensive lines. Or they could both be placed further out.
Fine tuning is done in Scenario Author Mode, Turn-Based. Just blast through, and watch for issues. Tweak. repeat, until the result is looking good.

Those antifa folks are the worst.
I mean, imagine being opposed to fascism. The nerve of some people.
 

I have to say I am in awe of Ukraine.
They have done brilliantly on the battlefield both relatively and absolutely.  They have been both student and teacher.
Their president has been masterful at gaining international support and staying in the fray.
They are very good with opsec and consistent messaging
I think they have no equal when it comes to trolling.  This trans border raid is brilliant.  The sinking of the Moskva on the day the snake island stamp gets released.  The constant, truly funny and well done jabs.
The incredible people of Ukraine who are true patriots -your bravery is amazing but needed in this existential threat.

I would-
-Place defensive positions in sensible terrain, with a retreat position situated behind, with some cover between the two positions. The fall-back position should have a few HMGs and mortars set up, if this is an existing position and not hastily put together.
-Split your forces into two basic forces: "Cover, then Retreat" (AI 1) and "Retreat First" (AI 2). Both are in the initial defensive position. These forces have Ambush to a set distance, dictated by the terrain, and the following factor...
-Place a Trigger at the distance (generally a line the length of the map to punish edge dodgers) at which things will be impossible to retreat out of if the enemy is getting the upper hand. Your defensive fire should kick in at around double this for the AI to have any chance of retreat.
-Connect your Trigger to AI 2, and make an order to move (I generally use Assault) to the fall-back positions. Use a Withdraw Facing (it's used by holding down CNTL or ALT, I forget - but it should be pink) with the end-point of this order. The Assault will have the AI group use bounding movement. To simulate a break-down of cohesion, you could have them all tumble out of their positions at Fast or Quick. Less chance of survival that way. The Withdraw order will allow the use of smoke in the direction placed, and will also dictate that the retreated units will face the enemy on arrival.
The remaining force can be ordered to do the same with a closer trigger to the defensive lines. Or they could both be placed further out.
Fine tuning is done in Scenario Author Mode, Turn-Based. Just blast through, and watch for issues. Tweak. repeat, until the result is looking good.

What Centurian52 said. 
WEGO also facilitates the learning process.  In real time you will often miss something that happened on the map.  2nd Platoon lost two tanks while you were concentrating on 3rd Platoon.  With WEGO you can rewind and observe every platoon for their minute of action. The turn can be replayed until you hopefully understand why/how those two tanks were destroyed. Then with that lesson learned you adjust your tactics and play on. 
Also replay facilitates screenshots. Replay, change the angle, zoom in until you get a cool screenshot of the action. 
A screenshot from each game since, as a CM addict, your going to eventually get them all.....😎 
CM Battle for Normandy

CM Red Thunder

CM Afghanistan 

CM Shock Force 2
 
CM Fortress Italy

 CM Final Blitzkrieg 

CM Cold War

CM Black Sea
 
Goood luck!  

I would-
-Place defensive positions in sensible terrain, with a retreat position situated behind, with some cover between the two positions. The fall-back position should have a few HMGs and mortars set up, if this is an existing position and not hastily put together.
-Split your forces into two basic forces: "Cover, then Retreat" (AI 1) and "Retreat First" (AI 2). Both are in the initial defensive position. These forces have Ambush to a set distance, dictated by the terrain, and the following factor...
-Place a Trigger at the distance (generally a line the length of the map to punish edge dodgers) at which things will be impossible to retreat out of if the enemy is getting the upper hand. Your defensive fire should kick in at around double this for the AI to have any chance of retreat.
-Connect your Trigger to AI 2, and make an order to move (I generally use Assault) to the fall-back positions. Use a Withdraw Facing (it's used by holding down CNTL or ALT, I forget - but it should be pink) with the end-point of this order. The Assault will have the AI group use bounding movement. To simulate a break-down of cohesion, you could have them all tumble out of their positions at Fast or Quick. Less chance of survival that way. The Withdraw order will allow the use of smoke in the direction placed, and will also dictate that the retreated units will face the enemy on arrival.
The remaining force can be ordered to do the same with a closer trigger to the defensive lines. Or they could both be placed further out.
Fine tuning is done in Scenario Author Mode, Turn-Based. Just blast through, and watch for issues. Tweak. repeat, until the result is looking good.

I would-
-Place defensive positions in sensible terrain, with a retreat position situated behind, with some cover between the two positions. The fall-back position should have a few HMGs and mortars set up, if this is an existing position and not hastily put together.
-Split your forces into two basic forces: "Cover, then Retreat" (AI 1) and "Retreat First" (AI 2). Both are in the initial defensive position. These forces have Ambush to a set distance, dictated by the terrain, and the following factor...
-Place a Trigger at the distance (generally a line the length of the map to punish edge dodgers) at which things will be impossible to retreat out of if the enemy is getting the upper hand. Your defensive fire should kick in at around double this for the AI to have any chance of retreat.
-Connect your Trigger to AI 2, and make an order to move (I generally use Assault) to the fall-back positions. Use a Withdraw Facing (it's used by holding down CNTL or ALT, I forget - but it should be pink) with the end-point of this order. The Assault will have the AI group use bounding movement. To simulate a break-down of cohesion, you could have them all tumble out of their positions at Fast or Quick. Less chance of survival that way. The Withdraw order will allow the use of smoke in the direction placed, and will also dictate that the retreated units will face the enemy on arrival.
The remaining force can be ordered to do the same with a closer trigger to the defensive lines. Or they could both be placed further out.
Fine tuning is done in Scenario Author Mode, Turn-Based. Just blast through, and watch for issues. Tweak. repeat, until the result is looking good.

All great suggestions, lots in common.
I'd add a few things that occur to me from time to time in the Editor, off the top of my head.
-A toggle to an AI Group to set it for "foot" or "wheel/track". That would only allow binary selection of movement types, so you don't have plans with guys hauling it 4k to the end order.
-See all AI orders at once in the AI Plan UI, on map (color coded by Group, even better). I have a Photoshop tool I use for this that I'll release after the RT module is out, but this would be better.
-Conditional Triggers for presence/time. "If no enemy is present in area 'X', then move/don't move". Group casualty would be another big one, already mentioned above. Omniscient, but incredibly useful for making the AI react in ways that seem human. The AI can't counterattack if it doesn't know it needs to!
-LoS Triggers. Units must be in LoS for Trigger to operate, with the standard Trigger operations offered. Solves any AI omniscient powers, but much harder to program. Mixing LoS Triggers with standard ones could create interesting results. A unit that has LoS to fellow units that have taken heavy casualties could have a Trigger to do a given action, while a larger narrative thing is happening with the other Triggers.
-A "Hold in place for 'X' amount of time" order for the AI. No more counting from the start/end times! Things like Area Fire would be available, and easier to plan for. A "when you are in this location, hang around for 'X' amount of time, and hammer that building with for the duration". rather than the current "Maybe there will be some time for that, but we gotta head for the next location, buddy! No time for fighting!".
-A method to deal with vehicle transports, in particular remounts.
-Ability for the AI to "Move", rather than run everywhere. In fact, the full set of movement abilities would be ideal.
-Ability to save multiple hand-placed AI set-ups.
-Ability to view AI plans in 3D view/ Scenario Editor mode.
 

Hi All, 
First post here, I'm a 44-year gamer who plays a bit of everything but my main interest is anything WW2. I've been playing Gary Grigbsy War in the East, Steel Division, Panzer Corp, Hell Let Loose, and pretty much anything related to WW2.
Took me until 2 weeks ago to actually hear about Combat Mission (probably did but never took note). I took the plunge and picked up Battle for Normandy and have already clocked up 120 hours and barely seemed to have scratched the surface. 
I am so amazed at how low profile this game is considering how addictive and rewarding it appears. I am already installing mods and now pay little interest in graphics, UI, and presentation. It really takes me back to a golden age when you actually bought a good game, book, or film and indulged yourself in it, and keep going back to it! 

After downloading the scant Open Street Map data for the area, I've placed it as a layer in QGIS and I've also loaded the 1:50,000 map that was used by the Allied troops at the time. I've found that once I had it properly placed, it's not very accurate; especially the roads, but it's handy for showing the extent of the buildings compared to modern times. I adjusted the railway to match it but I don't think it's accurate either. It was realigned after the war so while you can see traces of the old path on Google Earth it's unclear where how far the top of the S went and where the bottom straight section was. I've ordered a couple of RAF aerial reconnaissance photos taken in Nov. 1943  from the Italian archives and I hope they'll be clear enough to make out those and other period details.

I thought I'd carry on with tracing the buildings that I'm pretty certain were there in 1943 like the school (big green polygon) and houses near it.

I decided to run a test using the autoeditor and see how it generated the roads and buildings. The result wasn't great:

The school, especially, is just a hodgepodge of houses due to the orientation of the map. The streets aren't great either. When you generate the elevations, one of the things that is also generated is the actual grid that will be used in the CM map editor. You can load it up as a layer in QGIS and it will give you good idea on how things are orientated. Looking at this, I think I'll reorient the map in a more anti-clockwise direction so that the school and street are on the north-south axis as that whole area saw some nasty street fighting and I want it looking good.

So my next task is to rerun the autoeditor and try and get the map lined up. Hopefully by then, the aerial photos will be ready too.

It was created by Prig. Girkinites severely criticize him for squandering RU resources on the unimportant town. So Prig came up with the cause: sucking in and crushing UKR reserves.
 
I presume these are sacrifice troops (including Wagnerites). I believe the majority of RU regulars are well behind (behind the Seversky Donets River). There are speculations that the RU High Command intends to hold the front with as few men as possible, leaving the bulk of regular forces intact for a counter-attack once UKR penetration is foiled by massed artillery and air attacks (a lesson learned from the Izum debacle). This, I believe, is the origin of Prig's antics: he is upset that Wagnerites function have simply to be destroyed in order to preserve the rest of the RU army.
Obviously, UKR command is aware of RU plans. Instead of making a big breakthrough directly into the RU trap, UKR are undertaking several tactical assaults to wear RU frontline troops down and eventually trigger either the destruction of RU reserves or tactical disintegration of RU defenses. The RU command is currently in a pickle: either watch their front line crumble or commit and lose reserves.
And it appears that both are taking place. The RU command does send forces to fend off UKR assaults, but the front line is also trembling. There are rumors that the RU defense at Mariynka is also trembling.

Buttoned up.
Why do you think this is odd? It's really more like a too small sample size. I'm not claiming that what I say is exactly true - in fact, back at university I'd have been flogged for making such bold statements with so little data. I did a "simulation", meaning, "made a dice roll", i.e. I generated a random number, repeatedly, until it was < 0.01 or 0.02, respectively. That is about the order of magnitude (very roughly! I don't know the exact values!) for the spotting probability in the scenario I described (0.02, or 2% for the "simulated" M60). I repeated this 50 times for each "tank". The result looked like this:

Different histogram but same phenomenon. Long tail for orange and seemingly no tail for blue. Now, exactly same parameters and setup but 5000 "experiments" for each tank.

Here you see that both have long tails, and if I were to repeat the experiment a million times each, you would probably see that both get events out to 700. Only that orange gets way, way, way more of them. Just by having 1% instead of 2% probability for each dice roll.
Wish I was the statistics expert, I'm a particle physicist and some statistical data analysis was part of my PhD and later in my job. But in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, I guess. 😉 What you describe may be unlikely (though that depends on what the actual parameters governing this situation are) but remember this: There are thousands of players out there making thousand upon thousands of dice rolls each day. The probability that someone observes such a situation (and then makes a frustrated post on the forums) is actually not that small.

Super image. To get maximum distance with your grenade throws, lengthen your neck as you release 🙂

Where it gets really into the depths of true insanity is when you think it may be useful to trigger other units' triggers. I've probably seen Time fold in on itself in Scenario Author mode doing this, but it might just be because I'm on the Steve Sleep Plan.

I generally switch from 2D to 3D when I finish with a "zone" that I have completed in the 2D view. There's no demarcation of this, it's based on what I can remember doing - complex areas get lots of 2D/3D switching.
When I get to the point where I'm going to forget if I placed a church or a building, I switch over. Or when I complete part of a town or any complex terrain area, where the textures need to be considered for any realism reason, but also for visual patterns that aren't looking correct, or are distracting to the viewer. It takes switching fairly often to get slight dips in terrain that may be present in period photographs, etc.
There's only so much anyone can stand clicking all of those windows, textures, and balconies in 3D view (cities, in particular), so that limits my time there. It's set by what the one's capacity is in memory between the two views of reality. I try to flip between the two fairly often to check the 3D, even with longer load times.
Yes, often times they do. An example is when we added "Germany" to RTFR -  that also covers things like Flavor Objects. This is done by a "Mod Tag", which may be used to swap in an alternate model or texture when that Mod Tag is active. That's done by the game (like adding Germany, which is a Mod Tag in itself, but coded in), or by a modder. These can be added using new or existing Mod Tags. Cracking the BRZ's open is the best way to see how this operates in the filenames.

Something I've wondered about a bit is what those berm-enclosed spaces are for in the Ukrainian farm fields, like in the the picture that I left in the quote.  There was one near the battle of of the T, too.   They don't look like they're used as a divider between fields - the tree strips seem to serve that function. They look a bit like they could be seasonal reservoirs, but they don't have obvious inlets and outlets, or indications that they have variable water levels.  
They do break up lines of sight and make somewhat natural defensive positions in the open spaces.  
So does anybody know what they are/what they're called?

It really seems like Russia has decided to speed run the Japanese strategy in the Pacific, and that the Ukranians have learned well from the American counter-strategy. The Russian strategy at Bakhmut mirrors the Japanese in the Solomons (a brutal attritional campaign for territory that was of very limited strategic value once the idea of a blitz was off the table), and the Ukranians, like the Americans, held on while simultaneously developing a second fighting force off the line.
The recent actions perhaps portend something like the Battle of the Philippine Sea, where the results of American corrosive warfare (both in the Solomons and the underwater blockade) became obvious for the first time.
In particular, the battle revealed the different first derivatives of pilot training and quality. It also revealed the effects of American ISR dominance, which increased the second derivative of the difference in pilot training and quality.
That battle collapsed the Japanese perception of their own option space, as it revealed the inability of their naval air arm to effect any strategic results. As the Americans realized this, the Big Gray Ball was free to maneuver strategically and force the sort of hard choices about dislocation on the Japanese that the Ukranians seem to be forcing on the Russians.

"It is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not that it is done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” 

When I watch footage like this I have to remind myself that this is not a war movie. It is incredible real life heroism.

We'll hang tomorrow... Unless an announcement comes;