Commanderski

The campaign/scenario currently has three recommended mods.  They have been tagged so will not show up in other scenarios. @benpark foliage helmets and @Fuser Aris Faces Mod CMRT.  Below are the links.
benpark helmets
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cmbn-infantry/cmrt-cmbn-benparks-german-field-foliage-helmet-mod/
Aris Faces
http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=483
The third mod just removes some of the German helmets so Aris Faces Mod is more obvious.  The downside is that all German helmet chin straps disappear.  So the end result is fewer, but better, German helmets and a more battle worn look for the hard pressed German troops.  I will post the “remove some helmets” mod at CMMODS IV closer to release.  Below are some screenshots of the three mods working together.  




     

WIP
 

 

According to the Companion to the Red Army book (which is basically the same book as the Guide to the Red Army) it said that the ZiS-2 was not really adequate to deal with the Panthers and Tigers. 
They used ZiS-3 more often to fight tanks.
They did have their own version of HVAP (hyper-velocity armour-piercing) shell and maybe that's modeled as a little too powerful.

I almost never see Air Assets in CMRT scenarios which might be tied to this not unproblematic air support system CMRT uses.
I recently played a mission with JU-87 being EN ROUTE PREPARING right from the beginning. Even after an hour there was no sight of them. So the appearance is completely randomized over the complete mission time? They could basically show up with the mission timer having one minute left?
I always had the impression that mission designers set areas for them while designing but now understand that they completely independent roam the battlefield. How in detail is the friendly fire danger? Is it tied to how enemy target rich the environment is? In a testing scenario I just placed some Opel Blitz and several German air elements and the first aircraft element that appeared after a minute or so immediately attacked the friendly Opel trucks. There were no enemy units present on the map. When air support is scheduled is it perhaps a good idea to wait and let them handle a target-rich environment to prevent that the air force pilots arrive don´t find enemy units, and thus instead start attacking friendly forces?
As concealed units under foliage might be harder to identify correctly as friendly is concealing my units from my own airforce making it worse or better 😂? 
Besides this it would be definitely great if this system sees change or improvement in the upcoming expansion.

According to the Companion to the Red Army book (which is basically the same book as the Guide to the Red Army) it said that the ZiS-2 was not really adequate to deal with the Panthers and Tigers. 
They used ZiS-3 more often to fight tanks.
They did have their own version of HVAP (hyper-velocity armour-piercing) shell and maybe that's modeled as a little too powerful.

+ 1 Barbarossa. The world will hold its breath and make no comment...

Under Photos, each thumbnail is a separate image category and has pages on pages of pics. Has movies, timeline, resources, even songs!

http://www.warsawuprising.com
Regards,
John Kettler

I've maintained that with Polish voice files already in CMBN and CMFI, at the very least I'd expect to see the First Polish Army

an  improved Maas V2 is very nearly there, running final play test atm. Will post on thefewgoodmen.
I've done a couple of Black Sea ones on a similarly large scale. Summer in the City and Korsun 2017.
Korsun you play as Russian v Ukraine with the USA arriving to prevent a breakthrough.
Summer you are Ukraine v Russians who are attempting a fighting withdrawal.
Next for me is a campaign, fewer forces but still large maps. Not sure if I'll base it on Maas or move further South, Marnach or Bastogne.

"I surrender!"
"No, I surrender!"
"No, I surrender!"
"I surrendered first!"
"Nuh uh!"

What about adding a "REPEAT" mission to artillery fire missions and registering fires on those target which have already been called in once? The arty in this game is very nicely done, even including the linear sheaf mission - so why not the "repeat" mission? Call for fires that are serviced normally result in that target be registered as well, so why not automatically insert a TRP onto every site in which artillery is called - like in the real thing? Maybe some nations were not up to doing this in the Second World War, but U.S. and British artillery certainly were - I assume the Wehrmacht was as well. Not sure if the Soviets used that capability.

+1 NICE!!!  I have the above unit crest on one of my old berets.  I spent most of my time in the 313th MI Bn. of the 82nd (the unit crest in my moniker).  But I also did a few months in the Division's HQ, HQ Company in the 1980s.  The above crest was worn by HQ Company.  Maybe a few other Division level units also wore it?  I don't remember now.  Of course we all wore the division shoulder patch except it was subdued on our BDUs.   Cool mod, thank you. 
 

Always welcome! 

Since backups came up in another thread I thought I would share my backup scripts. I thought I had done this in the past but I did a search and came up empty.
I wrote these scripts years ago and have been using them for scenario design, mod design and programming projects. The basic principal is to zip up a directory and copy it to a backup location (keeping old versions) and a second location. This lets me know I have the last 10 versions and the second copy allows me to move my work between computers. I used to use a USB stick (hence the command line option "portable") but now I use drop box. I hope others can benefit from these scripts feel free to modify and enhance them as you wish.
Dependencies:
Winzip and WinZip Command Line Helper. I currently use WinZip 20.0 and WinZip Command Line Helper 4.0. I have used older versions so my scripts do not need the latest but they do need those two things to be compatible. Changing to  use a different .zip utility would be a one line change for the command line and two other lines to make the batch variable name match a different tool.
With those in place you can unzip the backup command and an example usage from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifzujn77afk1ei3/BackupExample.zip?dl=0
In there are two .cmd files. The first is BackupToZip.cmd It is the generic backup utility that preserves the last 10 versions and optionally makes a second copy of the most recent backup. When you run it you see the following command line usage guide:
C:>p:\BackupToZip.cmd
BackupToZip zipname backuppath pattern [-portable path] [other zip options]
Press any key to continue . . .
zipname is the name of the file you want to create backuppath is where you want to place the backup copies pattern is what to backup portable path is an optional location to place a second copy other zip options lets you pass other command line options to winzip (or what ever other .zip utility you might swap in) these are passed as it to the winzip command Rather than typing a complex command line every time I want to backup my work I create a project specific backup .cmd file. An example of which is included in the above .zip file. This is the script I used while I was working on the Lanzerath ridge scenario:
@echo off
call P:\BackupToZip LanzerathRidge P:\Backups D:\Users\IanL\Documents\Battlefront\COMBAT~1\Bulge\GAMEFI~1\WorkInProgress\LanzerathRidge\*.* -portable D:\Users\IanL\Dropbox\ScenarioWork -x*.class
What that does is copy the entire (*.*) contents and sub folders of my WorkinProgress\LanzerathRidge folder to a .zip file named LanzerathRidge in a Backups directory (also saving the last 10 back up .zip files) and make a second copy on Dropbox under a folder named ScenarioWork. The -x*.class is a left over from a java project backup script that I copied to create my LanzerathRidge backup file. Oops my bad. Just ignore that. If you cannot ignore it here is the explanation: it serves as an example of passing additional zip command line options through. I never backup .class files in a Java project since those are the compiler's artifacts and there is no value in saving them since they are derived from the source files.
I create a WorkInProgress directory under the Game Files directory and under there I have a sub folder for each thing I'm working on. Then I create a Backup<ScenarioName> command line script to back it up. Under that sub directory I have all my notes, links, briefing text files and graphics files as well as the scenario itself.
You might have noticed that I am not using paths with spaces this is simply because I never did the work to support that. In my development projects I never use spaces in directory names and this backup script was initially created for backing up programming projects. There was just no need. When I moved to use it for Combat Mission purposes I just didn't spend any time changing that since I can just feed the scripts the old 8.3 directory names.
Yes, that looks sucky.
Yes, it means you have to do an additional step when you create your backup script
No, I'm not going to be changing that - but you could if you want
You can always find the 8.3 directory name by using these command line arguments with the dir command in any command shell:
dir /X

Spending all your time in bocage country is really not what happens in CMBN. CMBN + Commonwealth was my intro to CM in general, and I recall many battles that had no bocage at all. This only is more true if you buy the Market Garden add-on. There are over 900 maps if you buy the entire collection and while there are plenty of bocage maps to satisfy those who want to slog through the early days after d-day, there are even more that have no bocage at all. 

Close combat on Reno River (R2V):

Best possible use of a GoPro:
 

Count me in! What about Seelow Heights? Hope that one is covered.

Be a bummer if you guessed wrong though wouldn't it?

Music to my ears.

The tank riding, no prisoner taking, one eyed, Forward Observer.  
 

+1 to adding the ability to control air strikes during the setup phase. As things stand, I generally don't use air assets in CMRT as either player or designer because you never know when they are going to show up and the risk of attacking friendlies is so high. So, the feature is essentially useless. The only scenario I managed to get them in successfully was a vs-AI-only battle where the player had lots of time before he got any armor, a big map, lots of buildings to put his troops in, and the air assets were friendly Stuka specialized AT -- so they wouldn't attack his own infantry.
I'd love to add air to my current project for CMRT, but it's simply too risky unless it can be controlled -- at least during setup.
It seems to me the only real use for the current system would be to have some kind of attrition phase for a campaign, where the player's units would have to make it across a map and exit with enemy air in the skies -- but no assets on the ground, other than a hidden FO. But even then, the air might never show up.
Seems a shame to waste the feature. Setup phase control (with a guaranteed arrival time) would make it usable.

Howdy folks
The other day I realized that I had an almost complete mod set of commercial buildings that I´d never finished and released. So now I have brushed up the files and made it sort of ready for release. Mind you: The mod set is not as finished as I would like it to be - that is the reason why I didnt release it, when I made it three or four years ago. But I dont think I will ever get the time to fully complete it - so I have decided to release it as it is, rather than just letting it sit idle on my hard drive. 
I am going to make it temporarily available from Dropbox - but hopefully it will be on CMMODS IV soon and then I´ll remove them again.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f2tl7i0ntkw5r3u/AADyULTXZ40Ms5CDuaQ7B6b7a?dl=0

Here´s a bit of info on it:
Umlauts Commercial Buildings
This set of mods contains modded commercial buildings for CM Normandy.
I have added murals to the gables of some of the buildings and some extra storefronts.
According to my research they should all be typical of Normandy in 1944 – but I could be
wrong.
The mod set contains quite a few extra commercial buildings, compared to the base game:
Buildings 100: Base game = 2 sets – this mod = 3 sets
Buildings 101: Base game = 2 sets – this mod = 15 sets
Buildings 102: Base game = 2 sets – this mod = 2 sets
Buildings 103: Base game = 2 sets – this mod = 13 sets

Mirrored gables
Unfortunately, the game reuses the gable BMP´s for both gables of a house, so if a
commercial building isn´t accached to another buildong, then one of the murals will always
be inverted.
I have tried to fix this by adding two different versions of each gable – with the inverted
part on both sides. This means that you can place two commercial buildings next to each
other and cycle through the building layout (shift-left click), until the inverted gables are
hidden where the buildings meet.
Choosing the preferred layout
I highy recommend that you cycle through the building layout (shift-left click) of each
building to choose the one with the preferred layout. If you leave it to the game, the
building layouts are assigned ramdomly – and you will probably see a lot of inverted
gables and indentical buildings next to each other.
When you cycle through the layouts, remember that there are up to 15 different layouts for
some types. And if you click and nothing seems to change – then it is probably only the
layout of the gable that has changed, while the rest of the building stays the same.
Damage:
I have altered the damage files of the game to suit my tastes. The buildings with damage
showing the brick work through the plaster are modded to fit these damage files. To apply
damage, press shift-alt-leftclick.
Please remember that I do not consider this mod set completely finished. But I dont think I
will find the time to finish it anytime soon – if ever – so I´ve decided to release it as it is.
Enjoy
 
 

Current SITREP: So I am down to under 30 minutes left in the scenario. I tried to follow the guidelines for the scenario at first - leapfrogging companies toward the JELLALABAD Objective, while sending B Company to Objective Don. Very slow moving, but makes for some excitement when contact is made. After encountering two Panzer IVs and a platoon-plus of infantry on Obj JELLALABAD - as well as taking some heavy losses from arty en-route, I decided to use arty and smoke (in sequence) to suppress the enemy at JELLALABAD. The arty - full blast of 25 pounders - did a number on the infantry. Since I did not have my tanks yet, I tried to advance PIATS - using cover of smoke - to take out the Panzer IVs. This did not go well - although it did force the panzers back over the crest of the hill. They kept backing-up as my Tommies fired PIATs. The panzers are still there, however, and now I have less PIATs...
So I decided to avoid enemy strength and go for an indirect approach - sending my tanks, once they arrived, on an end-run over Objective DON (which I had already taken) towards Objective ACK, reinforcing B Company. I used smoke from 51mm mortars to get A Company across the stream to advance on Obj CHARLIE, while D Company (reinforced by the two remaining armored cars - mines!) exploited the woods to skirt the panzers to the east (right) - taking the Chateau (Obj BEER) - en route to Bois Jerome. I left C Co, the under-strength company, in a defensive / blocking position on JELLALABAD. Maybe it will be able to exploit forward as the situation develops.
In the meantime, I am fighting off a platoon-sized counterattack on Obj DON (maybe that is why I did not get the 90 points?).  My plan is to either leverage the panzers back off Obj JELLALABAD as I advance on both flanks and behind them, or attack them from all sides once I have them cut off - we'll see. I am suspecting that the enemy will get a vote on all of this as well. There is also the time factor. I have included the map image below to illustrate the situation.