Kingfish

Feel free to modify as you see fit. My HD died last weekend and with it went everything I worked on and/or saved for the last 4 years. Those scenarios are now yours.

Actually, I find the reverse to be true. Because it is a game, with no consequence whatsoever for failure, we tend to play a little too loosely, and my experience is the larger the force the more reckless we play. While we would sweat every detail with only a couple of platoons and one tank to use, we would also not bat an eye over losing three tanks from a much larger pool if it meant locating the enemy's MLR.

Guns I'm not too sure about. I do know that the game treats the gun as inoperable once the crew leaves, even if they were only scared off by a sharpshooter. If there is a recovery feature for guns built into the game (and to be honest i've never noticed) then I would assume it functions the same way as vehicles. BTW, 9-1/2 years and only 24 posts!

Makes sense if you think about it. Even though Ops are broken up into individual battles, with clear starts and stops, the reality is that both sides would be in constant contact and even combat. Only when night came around would most battles taper off, and that is when both side's recovery teams would venture out to drag what they could back to the depot.

Playtest of Shootout at Schotterey. First turn, German flak 88 takes out M4/76 creeping around the corner of a house. Range - 2357 meters. Next turn, same 88 takes out a Greyhound in scattered trees. Range - 2297 meters.

Vehicles are recovered during night turns and returned to front line service the next day, assuming of course the crew survived and the parameters are set for recovery of vehicles. The exception to this rule is if the vehicle catches fire. Nothing will bring these back. That's a good trick to remember during your next Op game. If you knock out an opponent's AFV, but it didn't catch fire, continue to fire at it until it does. This isn't a gamey bug but a historical fact. Fire creates so much damage to the internals of a vehicle that both sides would simply write it off rather than attempt recovery. BTW, DO NOT exit your crew from the map edge. Find a safe place and have them hunker down until the battle ends. Even if your crew has taken casualties they will return (again, assuming the vehicle returns) at full strength.

50 to 75 acres seems waaaay too big. Was he averaging the size for all of Normandy, or just the US sector? I know the British sector was more open, with some stretches south of Caen as wide open as a Kansas prairie. Still, the Wiki link you posted lists the universally agreed upon size of an acre as just shy of a US football field, and Ambrose is saying the average was 50 times that? I dunno. In the first photo I posted I don't see one field that comes anywhere close to that.

No doubt the Crocs were a horrifying weapon to face, but Le Havre is not the bocage. The countryside is far more open: http://www.dday04.com/photo-1214.php The link is of a modern-day aerial view of Cricquville en Auge, which is just slightly inland and midway between Sword Beach and Le Havre, which you can just barely make out in the far left distance. The terrain would have been similar in '44.

They certainly would have helped at Omaha, assuming of course they could have landed a sufficient number to make a difference. However, once past the beaches I would see their usefulness taper off. Each 'funny' variant was built for specific tasks in mind, but all centered around helping establish and secure the invasion beaches and perhaps a ways inland. They certainly weren't made or expected to 'drive on Caen / St. Lo'. But AFAIK, the British inventory of Crocs was limited to one regiment (141st?). Assuming 50-odd tanks, how long do you think that number of runners would last in the close confines of the bocage? Keep in mind that apart from the flame weapon the Croc wasn't that radical a departure from the Sherman in terms of firepower, and the US lost quite a lot in the bocage. Given that the Crocs were so specialized I suspect the turn around of damaged vehicles would have been slow. One other thing to consider, the flame weapon is a great tool to use for suppressing a position you don't plan on entering anytime soon. Not many at all. I remember reading somewhere that the 105s were available in sufficient numbers until September, and even then were regulated to the assault gun platoon of the combat command HQ. Prior to that the smaller M8 GMC served in that capacity, but they were no more effective than the standard M4s.

No problem at all. Family first. Right, because the prey they were designed to take down was immobile; i.e, bunkers, pillboxes, the like. Suppressive area fire was not the AVRE's strong suit. The Croc would have been better suited for the role, but there were too few of these and the Germans would have certainly made them priority one on their hit list. In any event, it wouldn't have mattered much if the Brits had fielded a full brigade of Crocs. The bocage was busted by a combined arms team approach, but one heavily weighted in infantry, something the commonwealth was running short of by the summer of '44.

What makes you think the Germans wouldn't have a riposte available? The 75/L38 certainly had a greater range and accuracy than either the Croc's flame or AVRE's Petard, but the Americans still lost scores of Shermans in the bocage.

There is no standard size

I'm not sure of any data available online, but as an alternative you could compare the FP rating of the tripod-mounted infantry MGs. For instance, the US and Free French AFVs use .50 cal HMGs and .30 cal MMGs. Early war Brit and Commonwealth use Vickers or Brens, with the later war lend-lease vehicles using the US guns. German vehicles start off with the MG34s, and some models progress to the MG42s while other retain the '34s throughout. Italian AFVs are a mix of Breda M30 and M37 MGs.

Does your scenario feature assault boats? The AI cannot control assault boats so you lose the option of playing against the computer.

Ah well, send them my regards

Thanks for the info. I thought I had followed it as instructed but apparently I must have missed something along the way. At second thought I'm not sure joining is worth all the trouble. I am just looking for a forum to discuss topics of interest, maybe pass on a few tricks, that sort of thing. I rarely play anymore, and when I do its to test a scenario in solo mode. Most of my CM time is spent designing, a process I drag out for months on end, so I am hardly the ideal opponent for a game. This site is slowly fading, at least for CM1, and it appears that BoB still has some life in it, hence the interest. But the whole application process, getting a sponsor, registering a game...eh. Does BoB offer limited membership for those who only want to kick back and shoot the bull?

So what's the trick to signing up? I created a Yuku account under my username, no problem, and when I open the BoB site I see my username in the 'who's online' list. So far so good, except when I try to reply I instead get sent to a screen asking to confirm my account. So I get the confimation e-mail sent (again) to my home address, click on the link as instructed - and I am told my account is already active. WTF?

I have a couple of small ones at the scenario depot. TBC II - The Chateau TBC II - Parame Both are based on the fighting in and around the city of St. Malo.

All I got was the map, which I assumed it was a scan from Portale Cartographico.

Perry, I got your PM about Termoli. Yes, I am game. Please send over everything you have about the battle. I still have access to the Portale Cartographico Nazionale website, with maps down to 1:2000 scale.

Thanks John, but I already have the briefings and PWs for ROW IV. I've lost my CD for CMBO so couldn't access the scenarios anyway.

If I could only find my CD, i'd still be designing for it. Old classics never grow old.

*Thanks* "Jason" *that* "was" *very" *helpful*.

I am assuming what you mean by 'Battlefront's own original' is what came with the CD, and not just the demo scenarios. If that is the case, only Aachen falls in that catergory. I do remember seeing CMAK conversions of the demo scenario and the Alpha battle floating around on the web, but where (or if they are still around) I don't know. There is this web site: http://members.iinet.net.au/~mudansha/maps.html