Keith

What probably happened is that the artillery immobilized many of the tanks by shredding their tracks. The crew then bailed. This is entirely realistic.

I also recommend the scenarios "Foggy Morning in the Garden" by Matt Herbold and "Assault on the Merville Battery" by Freightman. The "Foggy Moring" scenario is historical-fiction that is a good for a PBEM or against the AI and the "Merville" scenario is good against the AI.

Maastrictian, thanks for the kind and fair review of my scenario, "Indian Fighting". It is a historical, small but intense fight. I would be happy to review your scenario and provide you suggestions. In fact I downloaded it last night. I have a new historical scenario called "Bloody Causeway" that is being playtested by others that is very challenging and will send it your way. -Kieth

I have just completed a medium sized scenario, which I have tested many times against the A/I. I am looking for a few people to play it and give me constructive criticism such as force balance, playability, time limit, etc. It is a historic battle featuring the 82nd Airborne in Normandy. I will test others scenarios in exchange. Please mail me at kschur@erols.com if you are interested.

I disagree with your request for a new feature. The behavior that you described can be commanded by the player through the proper timing of movement commands. Bounding movement, also known as fire and movement, can be achieved by alternating the movement of squads and platoons. Such planning marks the difference between a good player and an average player. In short, the behavior you want is currently in the system.

Just thought I would throw in my .02. I prefer to use the sneak command in dense woods, ESPECIALLY if contact is immenent. I have found Sneaking soldiers are much likely to stop and shoot. Also you potentially have the element of suprise. Use move or run in the woods when you need to get somewhere quicly.

It is also quite obvious that in many scenarios the author did absolutely no or little play testing. This is very irritating. Some of the scenarios are no more than "shoot em ups" against the attacker with endless amounts of mines, bunkers, and AT assets with no room for maneuver. I tend to stay away from scenarios where the author has no/poor briefings and the quality of the map is low. This is a good indication that the scenario is of low quality. Also everybody vote on the scenarios! Also no voting for your own ("Five stars my ass!" has escaped from my lips more than a few times).

In scenarios where digging in tanks is allowed you can do so during the setup phase. Simply select the tank and hit "I" on the keyboard (I think this is the key -check the appendix of your manual that details the various commands). Note that dug-in tanks are immobile for the duration of the scenario.

There should be absolutely no Easy 8's in your scenarios as they were not really fielded with operational units at this point in time. I believe the Jumbo's started appearing around the time of the Cobra breakout, which occured in August.

From my readings it seems that the Volkstrum infantry platoons modeled in CM are very well equipped compared to their historical counterparts. As you may know most of these guys were equiped with old bolt action rifles captured from Italy and France. I am sure not every squad had a MG42, although panzerfaust were in much abundance at the time. In fact many of the infantrymen did not have rifles at all (poor bastards). I would like to suggest reducing the firepower of the volkstrum units, especially in the number of support weapons.

Historically snipers were placed well in front of the MLR.

With all do respect I disagree with your assements. While it is true that the Squad Leader game makes scenarios based on historical facts, the original scenario designers most certainly took liberties to achieve game balance and playability. Do you really believe the scenario designers had such exact unit information available? Even the U.S. Army "Green Books" (which I own) don't provide this level of detail (except in documented Small Unit Actions). In addition the terrain maps provided by the SL game are contrived in order to make interesting gaming situations. There is absolutey nothing historic about these maps at all and are in fact very generic. That said I see no reason why someone can try to adjust elements of an original SL scenario as long as he/she seeks to achieve the spirit of the scenario and strives for historical accuracy. Most importantly, however, is that the game should be ENJOYABLE and FUN. In anycase, if you don't like someone's ASL conversion, feel free to post your own.

Select a given unit and you can see incoming (yellow) fire and outgoing fire (orange). Simply put, if you have more incoming than outgoing it may be an indication that you are being out gunned. If this is the case, you should consider withdrawing your units, one unit at a time (I like to use the Crawl command), while your other units provide cover fire and smoke, if available. Of course if the **** really hits the fan, the use the WITHDRAW command to bug out quickly. Another point to make is always keep your men in command control with leaders. Units out of command control break easier and take longer to move, which might be long enough to cost you the unit.

I would just like to add to all of this great advice that you should try to concentrate your armour assets in order to multiply your firepower. Engaging enemy armor in ones and twos is a great way to loose tanks. Also use over watch tactics. By this I mean dividing your tanks into two groups with one group assuming hull down positions while your second group advances. Then you leapfrog them and repeat.

During Operation Norwind the Germans commited a number of second rate Volksgrenadier divisions, the rebuilt yet inept 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, and an Elite Mountain regiment from Norway. In addition the Germans committed a number of the new Jadgtigers. Opposing the Germans were a mixture of veteran American formations who were holding defensive postions which were far greater than normal. This was due to the fact that many of the 7th Army's divisions were supporting the elimination of the Bulge. To compensate for this the Americans were forced to attach "American Volksgrenadier" regiments to the more experienced divisions. These regiments were very green units that only recently arrived in the ETO and were not at all climatized to situation when the Germans struck. The odds were even in many respects. And in the end the Americans kicked the crap out of the Germans. The green American regiments defeated the elite SS Mountain troops. The SS Panzer Grenadier Division was wiped out because of inept leadership. In many cases the Germans conducted human wave assaults, trying to make up for fighting skill with fanaticism. This fight illustrated the bankruptcy of the German training and leadership during this period of the war. Granted the German war machine of 44 was vastly different from the German war machine in 41 (thanks to the USSR). But durining this particular time and battle, when the odds were indeed even, the Allies proved the better man.

First of all, "When The Odds Were Even" is clearly formated a thesis paper. The facts are EXTREMELY well researched and are in fact fairly presented. To imply that the author somehow cooked the facts to suit his theory is disingenuous. The author, a serving infantry officer stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, compares the training and doctrine of the US and German armies and their commanders. I find the author's conclusions compelling and fair.

Sneak is an offensive move to contact type of command. Your troops are moving stealthily until the enemy is sighted at which time your troops open fire. I use this command whenever I am moving into an area where I know there are bad guys and the bad guys (hopefully) don't know I am there. Crawl is a defensive command. I use this command when I am trying to move troops into or out of a hot situation where they are taking direct fire. Of course it is usually a good idea to have other squads providing covering fire for the crawling squad.

During the historic Villars Bocage battle the British vehicles were parked nose to tail along the road, with many of the crews having a "brew up" of tea outside their vehicles (a wee bit arrogant). Throw in the general shock and panic of vehicles milling about, desperately trying to get out of the way, and you can see how Witmann had a field day. Historically Witmann went down the farm road on the right and worked his way down the British column.

I have a small, historic scenario titled "Indian Fighting" featuring the heroic stand of a platoon of American Airborne troops, which held back a reinforced company of German troops on June 6th, 1944. The American platoon was commanded by a Native American lieutenant nicknamed "Chief" Turnbull. I have tested the scenario against the AI from either side and found the game to be very challenging. If anybody is interested in being a "test bunny" and playing the scenario for me and sending me commements, I would greatly appreciate it. I would be happy to reciprocate with anybody that would like one of their own scenarios tested. You can probably play the scenario in an hour of time. Email me at kschur@erols.com if you are interested. -Keith

When designing Destroy operations where the entire map is viewable, it would nice to be able to specify which map edge reinforcements will arrive from. This would allow for operations that have flank attacks or encirclement battles. As far as on-map objective flags are concerned, I think this a bad idea. As someone posted earlier, it is really up to the player to pick objectives. If there is a commanding hill that the attacking player fails to capture, then that player will suffer the consequences if it is used by his opponent. On the other hand I know that the AI uses the objective flags for its strategy, so the computer may not defend a tactically important piece of real estate adequately without an objective flag.

The 90th Infantry Division during Normandy was the worst division in the ETO. It was a National Guard Unit that had its commanding officer changed three times in less than a month. At one point Bradely seriously considered disbanding the unit and using the men as replacements. Eventually the unit shaped up (after sacking almost all senior officers) and become one of the finest units in the ETO, becoming an integral part of Patton's "Ghost Corps".

As someone already mentioned in this thread, I think the best strategy is to aquire targets unbuttoned. After you engage a hard target and the AP starts flying, button up. When the target is KO'd or out of sight, shift positions and unbutton while manuvering. Also it is extremely easy for infantry to succesfully close assault buttoned tanks. I have done this several times in scenaros I have played using the 'sneak' command.

You need to remember that the more "stuff" you add and the bigger your maps, the more computer memory you consume. Eventually you reach a point where the game is unplayable in the sense that the computer is constantly swapping info into and out of memory, severly slowing game play. This of course makes it frusterating for the player. I would strongly recommend you cut back on the scope of your scenario. Think small. I myself am used to designing multi-battalion scenarios for other games, so I had to adjust my thinking. Perhaps you can focus on a segment of the battle?

This is a perfectly legitimate and realistic tactic. The Germans typically deployed snipers in the "no-mans land" for that express purpose. In fact, I have read that during the Cobra operation, after the American troops withdrew for the air bombardment, German snipers immediately occupied the vacated space and laid hasty mines. These actions in addition to the short bombings played havoc with the Americans initial assualt for operation Cobra.

Since you mentioned the Arnheim operation, I would like give a couple of suggestions for you, Wild Bill. I was playing the Brits, and at the end of the first battle I controlled all of the town on the south of the bridge. The A/I then proceeded to execute a series of Grabner-esque suicide rides down the bridge, for every battle thereafter. This of course lead to a very lopsided battle. As you may know, Col. Frost position was overrun from the SOUTH (from you map) by heavy German forces, including King Tiger tanks. I recommend that the operation start with the Brits in possesion of the bridge and a perimeter in the town around the southern span. Initially have the Grabner force attack from the North. Subsequent battles should have the Germans attacking from the South, trying to penetrate the perimeter. Each turn the Germans should have more and more forces, including the Tigers. That would make for a more exciting and balanced operation. BTW, I seem to remember the Brits having some 6-pounders with them. Keep of the good work! You scenarios are a lot of fun.