Kingfish

You can also see this in "Brits at Anzio". Its due to a bug in the building orientation that was fixed a patch or two ago. Before the patch the buildings in pavement all faced one way on the map regardless of whatever orientation you chose in the editor, and apparently this scenario was designed during that time. When the patch came out the buildings orientated themselves to the proper facing, but all the units placed on the top floors were left suspended in mid-air.

Looking for 1:25,000 scale maps of Normandy, particularly the Villers Bocage / hill 112 / Baron area. I'm thinking there are a few old timers here who no longer play / design for CM, and have used IGN Blue series maps laying around. E-mail me if you want to unload them.

The internet mentions [cheesy English accent] bugger all [/cheesy English accent] about this. No surprise really, given it never got past the planning stage. Jon, Only if you just happen to be ferreting them out for other reasons. Like you said, the info is probably no more detailed than John Salt's. I may have to just wing this one. One thing I do find interesting is the DZs being concentrated more to the west, with anticipated linkups between 7th Armored and 1st Airborne. For some reason I was thinking more of a 51H/1Ab linkup, and south of Caen.

Sometime during the first weeks of the Normandy campaign Monty had talked about enveloping Caen from both sides, with 7th Armored coming in from the west via Villers-Bocage (Operation Perch), and 51st Highland passing thru the 6th Airborne's bridgehead over the Orne and hooking up with the Brit 1st Airborne, who themselves were to have been dropped to the south of Caen. Does anyone have any info on this proposed operation? Name of Op? Possible units involved / available? Possible drop zones / attack routes?

If there are no survivors, how do they report their findings.... </font>

Ah, good point.

Field Marshal Model "In the Russian campaign from 1941 until 1944 he served in succession as a division, corps, and army commander. In January 1944 Model was assigned as commander in chief of Army Group North on the Eastern Front."

I highly recommend installing Google Earth. Free, and super easy to use. You can find just about anyplace in the world, zoom in and then tilt the screen to get a 3-D image of the topography. An excellent tool for the scenario designer.

First thing you need to do is open up MS Explorer, since this seems to be the only browser it works on. Firefox guys like myself just have to hold their nose while doing it OK, now copy and paste this link to your address bar and open it: http://www.pcn.minambiente.it/pcn/default.htm Click on "cartografia" The box with the map of italy has the words "Nuova Versione", and below it has "Vecchia versione". Click on Vercchia versione. Click "OK" Click "Accetto" Click on any of the regions on the map, or choose from scrolling menu (Concord, for your scenario you should choose the region "Lazio") You now have a choice of several map types. Scroll down to the "IGM 1:25000" map and click You can now manuever around the map of Lazio, using the buttons above the map to either pan, zoom out or in. It takes a while for the map to refresh with every change either in scale or location, but with a little patience you can get excellent Topos of anywhere in Lazio (or other regions) down to 1:15000 scale or better. Concord, On the left hand side of the map is a box marked "Scala 1:" Type in 15000 and hit enter Now go to the coordinate section and type in the following coordinates: Coordinate top left X - 399066.6 Y - 4574479.5 Coordinate bottom right X - 403225.8 Y - 4570907.7 Castelforte should be right in the center. One drawback to this system is you can't download the map. I've been using a 30- day trial version of Snagit, which is a screen capture utility. Feel free to ask if you have any questions

True, but Stuarts don't kill Tigers with one shot in CMAK

Send me the scenario when it is ready for testing.

The 11BR may be 11th Brigade of which the East Surreys were part of. IIRC, the initial drive on Tunis comprised 3 battlegroups - Blade force, the 11th brigade group and I believe the 36th Brigade group.

Just an educated guess based on maps of the front line prior to the German withdrawal behind the Volturno and back into the Winter line. The 3rd PzGr is right in the middle of the 34th ID's area of operations, and I haven't found anything to suggest they were withdrawn during that time. The 103. Pz recon is a battalion sized formation, with 3x Reconnaissance Companies plus armored cars, etc. Depends on where in the line you are referring to. Field Marshal Kesselring's goal was to hold the Volturno until October, which he did, and then withdraw into the relative saefty of the Winter line, where the moutains and approaching winter weather would delay or even halt the allies. Therefore, the river crossing Ops probably encountered rear guards and scattered mines/demolitions, plus heavy arty barrages. The real fighting came when the US VI and British X Corp began climbing the mountains to try and force the Mignano gap. The Villas of Tuscany and Strada in Chianti, both now at the SDII. I have a third that is smaller, and based on the battle for San Michele, but am doing a complete redesign of the map based on new research info.

I highly recommend visiting this site when it comes time to design your map. You can get 1:25000 scale topos of any area in Italy. A bit tricky to navigate, but if you are interested drop me a line and I can walk you thru it. Oh, and its free Correct, the 'II' that is above the military unit symbol represents a battalion size force, while 'I' is a company and 'III' is a full regiment. The number to the right of the symbol tells what regiment that unit is from, while the number to the left is the actual unit number. Referring to this map, the southernmost elements of the 34th division that crossed on Nov 3rd were the 3rd and 1st battalion, both from the 133rd regiment, and the independent 100th battalion. As for the German units defending the area, a check of the other maps shows the most likely candidate as being the 3rd Panzergrenadier division. A veteran of the recent Salerno battles, its units should be depleted due to losses, but still in relatively good shape. My guess would be at 80% strength for the front line formations, but strong in artillery. Here is the OOB for the division. Depends on the amount of time and effort you put into it. A well designed scenario will sell itself, and may prompt those who normally don't play the bigger games to give it a try. One thing you should know, though, is that the bigger the scenario, the less feedback you will get. Lately I've been on a 'battle for Florence' kick, and have designed 2 huge, multi-battalion scenarios. The maps were drawn from the 1:25000 scale topos I mentioned above, and took me a month to create (an hour here, 10 minutes there, etc.). In the end I was very pleased with the results, and that is all the mattered to me. If others play it and enjoy it thats icing on the cake. If there is one thing I would highly recommend you do is take your time on the map, as that is the 'Hook' that snags the players. More than anything a well designed map is key.

The 168th crossed on a two battalion front, with the 2nd and 3rd crossing at 2400 hours on Nov 3rd, and the 1st following behind the next day. Further downstream the 133rd launched a full regimental attack with 3 battalions crossing at the same time, and it appears on a 2km front. Here are a few more sites: The Italian Campaign The Irish Guards in WW2 Salerno to the Volturno river Naples-Foggia Northern Apennines Sicily Po Valley Rangers in WW2 [ January 23, 2006, 06:20 PM: Message edited by: Kingfish ]

They were reinforced with Matildas and Australian infantry coming in from the west.

From the Volturno to the Winter line The Winter line campaign Anzio The New Zealanders in WW2 I have a few more saved on my home computer, so I'll add to this list later today [ January 23, 2006, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Kingfish ]

Bless Winecape for making wine Come to think of it, I think I'll add put Charl into one of the Petoria Shermans in "Strada in Chianti".

What you witnessed is the crew deploying the emergency TC, much like the emergency auto-pilot in "Airplane". This was an experimental feature first tried out in Tunisia. The early models consisted of an inflatable figure, complete with intercom, but they were soon replaced with a wooden head and upper torso mounted on a pole. Every once in a great while you will see one being sold on E-bay. Richie is the scenairo designer for "Tiger Valley". I suggest you e-mail him and ask if he has either the inflatable or wooden E-TC feature added to the scenario.

E-mail sent to Charl. He is personally stomping the grapes for you.

Many of the static German divisions in the west had 1 or 2 Ost battalions, and these were a mix of ex-Polish and Russian POWs.

The limited routes of advance cuts both ways, and may actually present the German player with a slight advantage if he plays his cards right. Consider that on the allied side only the M10s stand a good chance at popping the Panthers, while every German tank or gun-armed vehicle can kill any allied tank. And the limited routes means you will be facing the Panthers head on with almost no chance at flanking them. Plus the M10s, whom themselves are restricted to the roads just like the German tanks, are very vunerable to airbursts. A well placed arty strike can eliminate the allies only effective counter to the Panthers, leaving him with few options.

The ratio was nearly 1:1, with the Germans fielding 3512 points to the American's 3399. The breakdown of infantry / support / vehicles / armor and artillery is 792-256-525-1677-262 for the Germans, and 1028-310-136-1092-833 for the Americans. So the Americans have a marked majority in infantry and big advantage in artillery, while the Germans have the upper hand in armor and vehicles.

I don't think any of these reasons will make a tank drive off on its own. The only time I've seen one do so is if they are panicked and in direct LOS to an enemy that can kill it.

Not too late I agree. One of the things I will be concentrating on is replayability, and a larger setup zone will go a long way towards achieving that goal. The Germans too will profit from a larger setup. Just so I am clear on your suggestion, are you referring to the 'Y' crossroad, where the two main German held roads meet and then continues on to Asten, or the smaller 'T' intersection further up the road, between the 'Y' and Asten? The latter is what I was referring to. This will require a bit of a compromise, since the Brits did provide artillery support and I'm big on keeping things historical. Besides there is nothing in the US inventory that comes close to the 25 pdrs blast rating (59). The US 75mm has a 39 BR - too small - while the next sizes up (4.2" and 105mm) both have 77 BR - too big. What I can do is switch the 25pdrs for Brit 4.2" mortars (47 BR), which are far more responsive and have a quicker ROF.