Kingfish

You would have to increase the scale above the single vehicle representation in CM to something more akin to TacOps or HPS simulation, where platoon and company size units are generally the norm. Otherwise you would have to zoom out so far that important divisional elements like forward recon screens would get lost in the ground clutter.

The quality of the opposition needs to be also taken into account. Look at the losses Das reich inflicted on 5th Guards tank at Prokhovrovka, and IIRC they had fewer than 25 tanks deployed between the Psel and RR embankment.

CM has a limit to the number of units purchased. I know the number is 256, but can't remember if that is max number of vehicles or total units. In any event it falls short of a brigade, let along a division. You might want to take a look at my scenario 'Dueling Sledgehammers'. Thanks to the help of JonS I was able to depict a fictional meeting engagement between Halpenny Force and Kampfgruppe Wunsche. The Canadian OOB is as historical as CMAK allows, and although it only features a combined arms force of two reinforced battalions (one each tank & Infantry + AT, ENG, etc) it is one honkin' big resource hog. You might want to open the scenario in the editor and delete the German units except for one just to keep the game active, then reopen the battle and plot the various groupings across the map just to get a feel for what a taskforce or combat command looks like when moving cross country. As Erwin says, you may want to try this on a Cray II.

One problem - this assumes a commander had access to real time status reports from forces locked in combat, a state of affairs that just didn't exist circa '39-'45. Not saying that your suggestion wouldn't help with regards to the overly aggressive games, it would. It's just not realistic, that's all.

The game continues as normal until the second player activates the ceasefire command. As an example, you could secretly activate ceasefire on turn 1, and as long as your opponent does not activate his CF command, you could play as normal all the way to the scenario's time limit. The moment he activates his CF the game ends. The only exception to this rule is if the computer activates the automatic ceasefire, but this is only done when it determines both sides have spent their forces and neither can alter the remaining game with what they have left.

Cease fire takes into effect the moment the other side agrees to it, so any moves (or fire missions) plotted or in progress do not count.

Tactics for CMBO/CMBB/CMAK/all other wargames 1) Destroy everything 2) Plant your flag 3) Pop open a beer

I'm looking for the following CMBO scenarios: Cintheaux Totalize 49th Reccee Taskforce Baker Anything from Wild Bill It would also be great if someone has the Desert Fox's map pack, which includes Villers-Bocage and the surrounding area if you have these please e-mail them to: sc112265 @ comcast .net Thanks in advance Edit: I forgot a couple of more. Both are by Moon, both are Ops, and unfortunately both I forgot what they were called. One covers the 10th Para's fight in the outskirts of Arnhem - title begins with an 'O' The other depicts a late-war Canadian attack in either the Netherlands or Northern Germany - title is something, something road

Speaking of epic battles, I recently finished playing your Foy-Noville scenario. Without question a blast of a battle. I actually tried it several times, each one having a different withdrawal strategy. To date the best option, for me at least, is to send the entire force down the road that runs between Foy and Recogne, blast your way thru the contested crossroad, and then swing behind both towns to take them from the rear. The combination of advance under fire and rearguard action made for one very challenging fight. If you ever plan on converting this to CMAK, and it appears to be a suitable candidate, I would suggest swapping the SS troops for Wermacht, as there weren't any SS around the Bastogne area that early in the campaign.

Best to use them as StuGs, positioned in Ambush locations (as in your example) with keyhole LOS to select parts of the map. The reasons being the 50mm turret front - woefully inadequate in '42, let alone by the time the T34/85 showed up - and with the J model the electrical turret traverse (as opposed to hydraulics on the H and earlier models), which accounts for a slower traverse speed.

The CMAK remake of 'Cintheaux-Totalize' with vehicles turned off

For historical quality I would highly recommend 'Little Stalingrad'.

Trying to d/l the 1.12 patch for CMBO, but get a '530 access denied' error message after I type in my username and password. Any suggestions, or can someone send it to me? sc112265 - @ - CFL. - RR. - Com Thanks

Speaking of die hard jeep crews... I just finished up a play test of 'First Impressions', and in the opening moments of the first turn a jeep MG is confronted by 10 Pz IIIs. The jeep gunner is killed almost immediately, but the driver and jeep somehow manage to survive a full turn's worth of MG hail fire and over a half dozen direct hits from 50mm guns.

Mayor Daley

This is not solely an American problem. The Germans continued to field Marders in their OOB well into '44 (maybe beyond), as did the Russians with the SU-76 and British with the Archer. All were lightly armored, open topped and far more vulnerable than the American counterpart due to their fixed gun design.

Are we talking about complete write offs as a direct result of ground combat?

Try this: http://www.the-scenario-depot.com/

John, There are two scenarios (that I know of) with the title "To the last Man". One is the Wild Bill version we played in CMBO, and I later converted to CMAK. That one covers the battle for Lion-sir-Mer. The CMAK battle is contained within the scenario pack I mentioned. I have no idea where the CMBO Version would be, or if it survived at all. The other is by Andreas and covers the St. Lambert battle. As with the Wild Bill scenario there is a CMBO and CMAK version. Same name, different battles. As for substituting the 14", the best I could come up with is a 7.2" spotter (the largest in the Commonwealth inventory) with increased ammo load to compensate for the reduced blast effect. If you are lucky, and the rounds land fairly close to one another, you can still obliterate the better part of a city block. That said, it certainly is not as awe-inspiring as the "Hand of God" that is a 14" round.

There are two types of artillery spotters - radio and wire. The former can embark on any vehicle capable of transport. They represent the arty support normally associated with mobile formations such as armored divisions. The latter represents a spotter whose form of communication with its designated battery is a communication wire. These can not load on vehicles but can still move around the battlefield by walking. Click on the spotter in question and hit enter. If the unit designation does not have (Radio) in the title then it is the wire variant.

Yes, that's it. Great fun that was. Andrea's scenario covers the battle for St. Lambert-sur-Dives. You need to download the sorted scenario pack that covers the Normandy campaign to find the one I converted.

The scenario John is referring to is "To the last man" by Wild Bill. I believe it is coming up on 10 years since we played that game, and to this day I still rate is as the best CMBO PBEM match I've played. Two sequences from that game still stand out in my mind. My last Panzershrek, down to one man and one round, navigates clear across the town, rounds the last corner, squares up with the Croc and blows it away a milllisecond before he is cut down. The other is the company commander sent forward to rally a platoon that has lost its HQ. The CO runs down from the upper story of a large building, takes one step into the street, and cops a 14" round squarely on his forehead. The CMAK remake is available at the scenario depot. Do a search under my user name.

Nothing really. The transition from minor to 4-alarm blaze, while instantaneous in CM, would actually take long enough in real life to allow a unit to exit with little to no effect. Of course, leaving the burning tile might actually be more lethal than staying, as Murphy's law will dictate the exiting unit would run headlong into a minefield covered by interlocking MG fire.

Assault boats in CM are not coded for multiple lifts, a fact you will soon find out if you haven't already. As mentioned, in order to move them they require a unit to be on board at all times, even though their own unit screen lists a crew. The other thing is that they do not have a reverse option. This, coupled with the fact that the boats needs to be grounded in order to unload (units will not disembark when the boats is in the water) means the boats will have to first turn 180 degrees around while still on land before you can send them back to the far shore. You will be lucky if you can complete the turn around / cross / embark / turn around again and cross again process in under 10 turns.

The problem with that Op is the vast number of craters, which (IIRC) tends to slow down processing. You can run the same exact battle w/o craters a lot faster, although it would still be a monstrous resource hog.