Pak40

I have the same book and remember reading that a long time ago. It's not true, the the 76mm gun was 76.2mm and the 75mm gun was a true 75mm. IIRC, The 3" guns (used for M10s) were also 76.2mm but couldn't use the same ammo as the 76mm guns, so to avoid confusion they called them 3" guns.

DasMorbo, I think you've got a good point for artillery. If a 105mm can leave a big crater in the ground then it will sure as hell leave a big hole in the roof. but, you have to understand that the building damage in CMBN is abstracted. Even though the damage isn't showing, the damage is still there. Once it gets to a certain level of damage then the in-game graphic will show to reflect that. I think eventually CM games will evolve to a point where there's a lot less abstraction, but I don't think it will happen for CMx2 engine.

Thanks, I'll try that technique

So are you saying they used their demos and failed or didn't use their demos at all? Try the same test with the pioneer on the 1st floor.

Odd angles are certainly a pain since it doesn't preview what it's going to do before you place the second point. However, most of what I have to go back and redraw are the intersections of two or more lines. It doesn't seem to know how to connect the pieces. Anyway, it's still a time saving tool over the single tile placement method.

Not sure if this will help pbem players or not, but it's an option.

Nah, I think it's good where it is. I've played it twice: first when CMBN first came out, then again in 2.01 when I had forgotten some of the details such as the wire and where the German defenders were exactly. I thought both times that it was challenging but winnable without losing too many men.

Yea, but you have to admit, this is an awfully intimidating first scenario for a campaign - running across several hundred meters of open ground with almost no cover or concealment in front of bunkers and possibly other MG42s knowing that the enemy has pre-sighted artillery on every meter of beach. The first time I played this and loaded the setup phase I thought to myself "How in the hell am I going to do this without killing half the company?". Then I remembered my history books and the low number of recorded casualties on UTAH beach - I knew then that the battle couldn't be too hard. But you still have to work at it to preserve your men - use sound tactics and every bit of artillery and MG ammo in your arsenal... and smoke.

How bout I just send you my Save files?

That's a Bingo!

This is exactly what I did for a mosaic of the Son area. It took a bit of adjusting to get the aerial to line up correctly. Also, make sure the options for the overlay specify that it fits to the ground instead of hovering over the ground. I made that mistake and then had to resize it some more once I corrected the setting. When you're finished you can save the result as a KML. I'd like to share my result to the public but I'm not sure about the copyright issues with the site that I downloaded the aerials from.

Some 1944 aerials in the Arnhem area: http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/worldwide/TheNetherlands.php?PHPSESSID=l0v7mc5n41inc3h8at517baaa4 Click on Netherlands, then click on Gelderland. The easiest way to find what you're looking for is to click on the "View in Google Earth". Obviously you'll want Google Earth installed if you don't already have it.

It slowed progress a little. I had to shift those squads towards the middle, but the hedgerows were basically neutralized by 81mm at this point and the squads can be shifted safely in the ditch. I lost some men definitely. Most were scouts, MG crew and a few squad members as they dashed forward. However, the bunkers were overall neutralized by constant MG fire (area fire). I also had a small 81 barrage fall on the middle bunker - it wasn't knocked out but the occupants were definitely suppressed from that point on (I forgot to mention this in my first post). Keeping the MGs on that left bunker after the 81 barrage kept up the suppression. The right bunker didn't come into play much because it was so far over. BTW, early on a few half squads took casualties and were basically pinned. Fortunately a couple of other units had smoke. Popping the smoke definitely got at least two of these half squads out of a jam - I was able to get them to the safety of the ditch. Partly suppression of the bunkers but mostly effective use of the smoke. I used the wind to my advantage to get the most out of the smoke. IIRC, the wind blew inland and to the left. One mortar would usually make enough smoke for 2 turns. With the hedgerow neutralized by 81mm and the bunkers screen by smoke, there was no opposition when I ran my squads from the ditch to the hedgerow. Yea, that's basically my assaulting tactic too. I never worried about this. If you look at the Victory Points in the briefing, you'd see that the Beau Gulliot and field is all you need to secure a win. In order to win that you'd have to kill at least half the enemy units on the map anyway.

I recently replayed the first few missions of RtoM 2.0. I have not had much of a problem with them so far. For the replay of Beau Guillot itself, I suffered a few more casualties than the first time that I had played it when CMBN was first released, Here was my battle plan: **SPOILERS** Having previously played it, I knew that there were bunkers in the woods and that mines were also in that area. Since there are no mission objectives to capture the woods, I simply setup the bulk of my force to go down the middle and left flank, nobody going down the right flank in front of the bunkers. The plan is leap frog whole platoons up to the ditches that provide cover, lay doown 81mm fire along the hedgerow, then charge the hedgerow with a few units. In detail, this is how I accomplished this: Setup: 3 platoons evenly spread from the left flank to the middle of the map. 1. move MGs to overwatch positions where they can provide suppression on any enemy that opens up. 2. at the same time, break off two separate two man scouting teams to start moving forward. This will draw enemy fire so I can start spotting enemies. 3. The MGs have plenty of ammo - I keep them firing at any ? or visible enemy. I don't really expect to kill enemy at such extreme ranges but I hope to keep their heads down for the next steps: 4. Start moving platoons or whole squads up in leap frog fashion (quick or fast move). MGs seem to do a good job suppressing bunkers. However there are some inevitable casualties. 5. crawl my Company CO up to where he has a good view of the hedgerow. Actually, this isn't needed because I've set the TRPs to cover this area. Anyway, I set a LINE barrage on the hedgerow. I try to time it so that the FFO falls as my units are approaching the ditches. It does a good job killing or routing the few units on the hedgerow. 6. Lay smoke in the middle of the map so that the bunkers have little or no chance of effecting the charge on the other side of the map. Use the wind to your advantage to get the most out of the smoke. 7. Split squads and start charging the hedgerow when the smoke is optimal. I actually had very few casualties during the final charge to the hedgerow, almost all opposition was already neutralized or screen by smoke. Squads that don't charge should be able to provide covering fire along with the MGs. 60mm mortars can pin point suspected enemy spots with direct fire. 8. Once you get your squads to the hedgerow you have pretty much won the battle. There are a few remaining half-squads to clear out but you'll soon have the whole Manor and field under control. Looking back at a saved game, I had 13 killed and 13 wounded by the time I got the entire manor and field under my control. I didn't even bother clearing the woods and pill boxes, it's not needed and will only kill your men.

Question: Using the blast command doesn't harm any friendlies - will it harm enemies?

I've learned this by trial and error also. I don't usually risk more than a 2 man team to assault a building and I pour as much overwatch/supression fire as I can into the building before sending the team to assault it.

Nope. At least you don't have to do much on defense.

I used to play around with a similar program in the early 90s called VistaPro. It's long distinct product but for that day and age it produced stunning quality images. You could import actual real world DEM files into it and recreate stunning landscapes like Yosemite Valley.

He is specifically talking about road/wall/river terrain that is created using linear features: Having roads, wall, hedgerows that can only be N/S or E/W or 45 degrees increments from that really look horrible especially when your trying to simulate European towns and landscapes. If this were CMMW (Combat Mission Mid-West USA) then these limitations would be fine, but trying to get European towns to look like they're supposed to is a major pain in the ass and in some cases impossible.

I don't think a finer grid will give you what you're seeking. The answer is to get away from a grid tile map system and design the editor to use vector objects. Roads stretches can be drawn with two simple clicks, then use an arc tool to draw the curves of the road. Basically any Medieval street layout can be replicated with this sort of vector based line/curve combo. Years ago, before CMSF, I was hoping CMx2 would have changed to vector but I realized that BF just didn't have the time and resources to develop a system that radical to what they were used to. Recently, the premier mapping company in the world ESRI released a software called CityEngine. Just imagine if Combat Mission's editor could do vector drawing like this:

CMBN:2112 PCO:Oops... I Did it Again For those of you that get it, congrads.

There is no target arc command, however, you can set the distance for units to open up in the AI Plan, IIRC. Not sure about the acquire command.

The girls have never complained about my penetration data.

I wonder why having replay over TCP/IP would cause that much more development time?

Well, it's not the proper solution to the problem but the designer can just have a extra mortar teams come on as reinforcements. But I agree with you, scenario designers should have the ability to place whatever kinds of ammo into "supply" trucks to resupply front line troops for those extra long scenarios. This was generally the case IRL.