ASL Veteran

I think the Italian squad is already split in game. What you are referring to as Italian 'squads' are really Italian 'teams'. So what you appear to be asking for is to be allowed to split Italian 'teams' into sub teams or even smaller teams. I'm not certain that's what you are intending to say, but that's how I'm interpreting it because what you see in game is an Italian squad that is already split into it's component sub teams. If you allowed the teams to be split further then that wouldn't be supported by the command structure within the squad since there aren't any 'sub team leaders'. It would be helpful if everyone used the same terminology in this discussion since the loose usage of 'teams' and 'squads' can lead to a lot of misunderstandings.

What windows version are you using? You shouldn't have to alter the default path, which should be Program Files (x86) for the game and other stuff that goes into my documents. The CMFI install is going to be different than the CMBN / CW install because Microsoft requires the specified path in order for the game to work (if I remember correctly). Don't alter the default installation path and it should work just fine. I don't think there is a separate unlicensing anymore. You just uninstall and I think the game takes care of the rest. Even for CMSF modules if you just uninstalled the unlicensing seemed to happen automatically with a brief prompt as I recall. Moon will be the expert with this stuff though so you may want to post something in the tech support forum

Fernando - we are just going to have to agree to disagree my friend because it's just not worth my time to go around in circles with you.

Hot Mustard is probably ... no .... definitely the biggest scenario in CMFI. It's about as big as the biggest Commonwealth scenarios as well (Colossal Crack etc) but with lots of trees for all the orchards so the terrain is probably more complex. You might try something a little smaller first to see if you can run the smaller stuff any smoother - then perhaps you can identify where your performance 'break point' probably is. Once you've nailed that down you might post something so Phil can read it. Perhaps he may be able to help once your performance issues can be narrowed down a bit.

That's nice, but don't forget that the HG panzer division had a full Stug battalion on the island and I'm sure some of them got transported off of Sicily. By far the largest armored contingent was the HG Panzer Division. Probably less than fifty tanks and assault guns were German Army.

Only one StuG company for the 29th PzGr Division was deployed to Sicily. The rest of the battalion was left on the mainland for coastal defence. The division commander for the 15th PzGr Division indicated that they only had 32 tanks in Pz Abt 215 so more than likely the Pz III were not operational (your maintenance units would give priority to the Pz IVs since it's the superior tank)

It sounds to me that you are making an assumption that CMx1 is an accurate data point to base a comparison upon. I'm not sure I can share that view. For firing through smoke - why shouldn't an MG fire through smoke? Smoke isn't going to block bullets. It just conceals troops behind it. For HMGs and LMGs, if you play enough CMBN you will notice that at longer ranges the fire from an LMG is less accurate than that of an HMG. With an HMG you can follow the bullet arc and it's basically a steady stream from the firing weapon to the target. With an LMG you can see significant bullet scatter as the bullet stream that begins at the firing weapon actually splits up into three or four streams at the target point because of the scatter of the bullets. At longer distances it takes a longer time to acquire a target in order to fire upon it. Every minor adjustment you make to the weapon will have a larger scattering effect at the end point the farther away from you the target is. It's perfectly normal for a weapon to be fired less frequently at longer ranges than at closer ranges. Infantry combat feels natural to me in CMBN as it is now.

I just want to point out that communism doesn't exactly have a stellar track record on the environment. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-socialism-causes-pollution/ The key is private property. When someone owns the land / house / building they tend to take care of it because it is an asset. When someone doesn't own it they tend to destroy or abuse it because it doesn't matter to them. This concept can easily be seen with public housing here in the U.S. The other thing I would like to point out is that the reasons as to whether or not a corporation is causing damage to the environment isn't necessarily a simple matter. The government often skews motivations for certain activities through laws or regulations which make it advantageous to do certain things. The ironic thing about this is that many times this behavior is caused by laws or regulations that start out with good intentions but have unintended or unforseen consequences. I don't want to turn this thread into a huge political debate so I'll leave it there.

Actually the side of the wall they deploy on is consistent as well. Well, mostly consistent. It is fixed though so the facing of the troops as placed by the designer won't affect which side of the wall the truppen will deploy on. Once you find out which side of the wall the AI will place the truppen though you can adapt so that they will always be on the correct side. It's easier with the diagonal sections though. If any deploy on the wrong side of the wall and the wall is diagonal then you have to either deploy the truppen in the actual action spot where the wall is located or in the action spot between the wall action spots. If you do either consistently once you find out which way the walls are going to work out you can consistently get your truppen on the correct side of the walls. In some cases with the non diagonal walls that means that the walls are unusable by the AI because the AI won't put them on the correct side. You can always get them on the correct side of diagonals depending upon which action spot you use. You just have to figure out which is the correct action spot to use.

95% correct. If a truppen is deployed anywhere within the Set Up Zone the truppen will be deployed within the AI start zone as long as the AI start zone is located within the force Set Up Zone. I know you know that already, but your explanation could be construed that a truppen within the Set Up Zone but not within the AI Start Zone would not be moved to within the AI start zone. The only time truppen would not be moved to within the AI Start Zone is if they were not deployed within the Set Up Zone (or if the AI start zone is not located within the Set Up Zone of course). I do this all the time so that the player doesn't know where my AI truppen will necessarily be by firing up the scenario and peeking before they start or if they have already played the scenario as one side or the other. It also helps when making multiple AI plans because you can always start each AI group in an entirely different location as long as everything is located within the Set Up Zone. I should also add that the truppen and vehicles will always retain their facing according to how you originally deployed them. So you can control their facing to some extent as long as all possible deployment spots that you want them placed will be consistent with their facing as originally deployed by you in the editor.

My Master of Orion 3 and Wizardry 8 games no longer work on my computer since I've switched to Windows 7. I'm not even sure that my Lords of the Realm 2 will work anymore even though I got an updated version from Great Old Games (GOG). Somebody fix or do sumfink!!

HMGs will deploy automatically, but they have to be sitting in one spot for a while. In other words it will need to either be their last move, or you will have to give them an Exit After time and have them sit for a while. If they are advancing continuously they will not deploy their weapons.

Operating from memory, at some point I believe they were organized into AT battalions that had nothing but Shrek teams in them. The battalions were then split up and distributed as higher organization assets to sub units as specialist teams. So I'm thinking that the shrek teams were specialist teams that received specialized training rather than just having a squad leader say 'hey, Johann, your the shrek man now' because the squad happens to have a loose Panzershrek laying around. I don't know if that's what you were asking specifically though. Just because they were specialist troops wouldn't necessarily mean that all Panzershrek men were veterans with high morale or something. I'm sure that they just took whatever men were available and assigned them to the special training courses. From June of 1944 until the end of the war I don't think the Germans could be all that picky about who they put into the ranks. All it means is that the man using the Panzershrek was trained in it's use.

It's not too big of a stretch since they participated in Operation Nordwind I think it was called. They were also involved in the fighting after the Rhine was crossed. I sure hope they get in anyway.

I'm mostly a scenario maker. It's a bit easier to make an AI plan with a scenario because you can tailor the plan to the specific forces in the scenario.

Generally speaking, QB maps do need some form of primitive AI plan just in case someone wants to play a QB against the AI. The AI plan must be more generic though because you don't know what forces will be assigned to each AI group by the very nature of it being a QB and the players are purchasing their own forces.

I'm just passing through, but I just wanted to mention that I've used Halftracks in game quite a bit and there are certainly ways to use them to get the most out of them. First, the weapon system is an HMG on a fixed mount so it's going to be accurate out to long distances. Second, as the OP pointed out, the guy behind the MG is pretty vulnerable but I would say it's manageable. Generally speaking you want to use your Halftracks for long range fire support ... you want to ideally be between 500 and 1000 meters out when engaging enemy infantry. The weapon system is on a fixed mount so you get very good suppression on enemy troops out to 1000 meters or even a bit farther and the distance to the enemy reduces the vulnerability of the gunner. You also have plenty of ammo in the vehicle so you can keep blasting away for quite a while. Keep the front of the HT towards the enemy of course and be wary of any tanks that may be in the area. 500 meters also keeps you out of bazooka or panzershrek range and also reduces your vulnerability to enemy HMG fire. One or two Halftracks firing at infantry at 700 meters can completely bog down a platoon sized or even larger infantry attack - I've done it fairly often and believe me the other guy hates it. Since you are mounted you can also rapidly change firing positions if necessary. If you have to be under 500 meters using a halftrack MG then expect to die often.

I highly recommend "Hell's Gate" by Douglas Nash. That is, hands down, the best operational level eastern front book that I have ever seen. It has an excellent mix ranging from the personal to the operational and he seamlessly moves from one level to the other. He also gives full OB and command information for both the Germans and Soviets so it's as balanced a study as you will find. It also has excellent and numerous maps and photographs. I think that his book should be the template for the way all military books should be written - no joke.

So I take it you are in the 'no time limits' camp? There will always be time limits for battles in games so you might as well be complaining about the sun rising every morning. The part you are missing is that your little battalion or company command isn't the only unit on the battlefield. Attacks generally kicked off at specific times so that all units involved can coordinate their efforts and if you aren't keeping up then neighboring units could be taking heavy casualties because you are out of position. Military history is replete with examples where a main attack can't kick off before 'enemy position X' is taken because that position dominates the rest of the battlefield. You can easily find examples of time pressure on attacking troops going all the way back to the days of Alexander the Great. In fact, the precise timing of Alexander's heavy cavalry charges against the Persians were key to his great victories. Wait too long and the moment is lost. Strike to early and the attack will fail. You seriously don't think there is any time pressure involved in battle?

It's not strange as German TO&Es are probably pretty complicated unless you are just taking a standard TO&E and applying it across the board. If someone just goes by what a standard battalion would look like then you aren't going to be right 100% of the time. There is no chance that Stugs were in that particular battalion on June 6th as each vehicle was custom built from French chassis by the battalion commander in his French workshops before the invasion. They aren't even really Marders and Wespe either - they just resemble them the closest.

If I'm understanding your question correctly, then I would assume that in the board game every step would be the equivalent of a company. If that's the case, then yes, it would be a CMBN Stug battalion less one company. Except that Stug Abt 200 has four batteries and each battery would have six marder equivalents (they are actually French chassis with a 75mm gun on it) and four Wespe equivalents (once again, a French chassis with a 105mm gun on it).

Mystery solved then. According to "German Order of Battle volume 3" by Samuel W Mitcham Jr, the 233rd Panzer division: Established as a special purposes motorized division on May 15, 1942. It's mission was to control motorized replacement and training units in the III military district. It was reorganized as a reserve panzer grenadier division on July 7, 1942. On August 10, 1943 it became the 233rd Reserve Panzer Division. It was sent to central Jutland shortly therafter. It remained in Denmark, headquartered at Horsens training panzer crews and motorized troops until the end of the war. Although it officially became a panzer division on Feb 22, 1945 it never saw combat. It had only 34 tanks in any case. Max Fremerey took command on June 7, 1944 and remained in command until the war's end.

Is there any Barbed Wire in Le Desert? I don't remember if there is or not, but I've heard that there is a bug with scenarios that have barbed wire that crashes the game like how you described. You may need to either go into the editor and remove the barbed wire or try a different scenario until the next patch comes out.

It would be a lot easier to solve your mystery if we knew what unit the tank belonged to. As it is, all we have to go on is 'there was a tank in Denmark in 1944'. There could be any number of plausible reasons for a tank to be in Denmark in 1944 - a unit rebuilding, a unit transferring, a unit training, etc. Do you have a video or photograph of the tank in question or can you describe the unit markings that are identifiable on the vehicle?

If you are using Windows Vista then it can be difficult to find the file because there is a set of hidden folders that it might get downloaded into. The game is located in both the regular Program Files and also in the ... like shadow file system. I forget the path or file names at the moment, but it was frustrating as heck when I had a Vista machine (I have since moved to Windows 7 which is much better than Vista's horribly confusing file scheme).