ASL Veteran

As I recall, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler had the extra stuff in it. All the other SS units were as you described.

As far as I know, every scenario that comes with the CD has AI plans for both sides. Some plans are more challenging than others but that's going to be dependent upon the skill level of the designer.

It's only a cop out if it's not true. Maybe there is a scenario designer out there who actually can make scenarios challenging for both the defender and the attacker. If you don't try any of them then you will never know. Why don't you try any of the scenarios that don't indicate which way is best to play and then play it once against the AI from both sides. Let us know how it goes. Otherwise you are just wasting our time speculating and pontificating. All it will cost you is a couple hours of gameplay - and possibly a 'ruined' scenario because you can't play it head to head now that you've played it once. Of course, since you aren't playing any of them anyway that shouldn't be much of a loss. At least you will know if you might be interested in some of the others rather than just trembling with fear that you will end up in an unbalanced head to head game.

Even if the designer puts 'good for head to head play' in the subject line that doesn't mean it's going to be balanced for you and your preferred opponent. Some players play hyper aggressive. Some players play hyper cautious. So really, putting that in the subject line without extensive testing is just a guess by the designer. If you assume that just because a designer labels the scenario 'good for head to head' means perfectly balanced then you are making a huge assumption. The only way to be certain is through repeated playings, and like I said, there is no way the beta testers are going to be able to do that - especially considering that there is no TCP/IP We Go or Pausable Real Time. So I would say that listing a scenario as balanced for head to head play through guessing is going to lead to just as much criticism about the balance as saying that a scenario is good to play however you want to play it. If a scenario is designed such that it can be played vs the AI from either side, then there should be an assumption that there is 'some' level of balance for head to head play since the designer can't use the typical tricks (force stacking and terrain massaging) that scenarios designed specifically for "attacker vs AI only" can do.

The scenarios with no guidelines listed can be played as either side vs the AI or head to head. In other words you can play it however you want to. As to the balance .... you aren't going to get an indicator of the level of balance that you are seeking from a module scenario on the day the module is released. That would require hundreds of play throughs by players who then record their results on some website that tracks scenario results. In other words "The Flowers of the Forest" was played 100 times and the British won 60% of the time. You are simply not going to get that level of balance accuracy right out of the box because there is just no way for the beta testers to run through a scenario head to head often enough to get the results that you seek. So, my advice would be to just grab a scenario, play it against someone, and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe you end up on the short end of an unbalanced scenario but at least you can make an effort to overcome the imbalance and score an improbable victory against an over confident opponent. If you lose - so what? Try to have a little fun.

Sorry, no new pics for the loading screens

That almost always happens whenever you upgrade and continue a current PBEM game. The sound will fade away during your next minute of play.

If the soldiers are on the tank, then the vegetation that the troops are wearing would serve to camoflage the tank while they are riding on it .

Another thing about tank riders is that they would require special animations. All passengers currenly in CMBN are sitting rigidly upright with their knees together. It would look mighty odd if tank riders were assuming the standard passenger pose currently in the game. Tank riders are going to be hanging on to objects on the tank with their arms and legs in various positions to assist in keeping the soldier from falling off. At the same time you couldn't have truck passengers sprawled about on the interior of a truck using the same poses as tank riders so the game would have to know somehow whether a passenger was a tank rider or a non tank rider. The game would have to differentiate between two categories of passenger and correctly use the right animation when passengers loaded a vehicle. I suspect those difficulties have more of an impact with why tank riders haven't made an appearance yet than some of the other reasons offered so far.

Now that we've established the characteristics of the 'primitive human', I'm a bit curious about the 'non primitive' or 'ideal' human. What are the characteristics of the 'superior' human and what sort of a society does he or she reside in? I think I definitely fit the characteristics of the 'primitive human' by the way. Especially number 7 . I'm also a greedy Wall Street type so there's probably no place for me in the 'New Society' or whatever they end up calling it .... .

Compared to what indeed. Once you understand that then you will fully understand what he's on about. Although my original remark was to suggest that perhaps Diesel is a Reptoid, his last sentence is entirely consistent with the political views he holds. Not only consistent, but maybe even essential. However, I didn't ask you to interpret Diesel's context. I am now asking you if you agree with his view that humans are primitive. If so then why? Do you include yourself as one of the primitives or not? I am asking this because I know that you hold political views that are similar in many respects to those of Diesel and I suspect that you are inclined to agree with his views more often than not.

So do you agree with Diesel that Humans are primitive? If so, are you including yourself as primitive or are you just referring to 'others' as primitive?

Hey Diesel, I figured someone should probably warn you. If you say that kind of stuff around John Kettler too often you might get your cover blown.

If it makes you feel any better, I have read an actual personal account of a member of the 12th SS who viewed one of his comrades killing himself while using a Panzerfaust in a foxhole. Apparently he didn't raise the back end of the Panzerfaust up high enough and when he fired it off he was killed by the backblast.

Nothing is repaired between missions. The maps are entirely independent of each other and no damage in one mission is carried over to the next.

1st Company of the 503rd Tiger Battalion commanded by Oberleutnant Oemler was equipped with the King Tiger in Normandy. The King Tigers had the Porsche turret. Their first action in Normandy was in a counterattack on the left flank of Operation Goodwood. Oberleutnant Oemler's King Tiger immobilized itself in a bomb crater, Tiger 111 and Tiger 101 were both knocked out. King Tiger 112 was rammed and knocked out by Lieutenant Gorman of the Irish Guards. All the King Tigers were lost in the retreat to the Seine River in August.

It probably doesn't hurt to bring it up every once in a while, but I'm pretty confident that it's discussed internally as well. I think there are a few beta testers who are either current or former artillerymen and I'm sure they would like the artillery system to be improved. It's probably more a matter of resources than anything else. It probably works 'well enough' so that a revamp gets pushed towards the lower half of the 'to do' list.

From what Steve has said in the past, the Bulge is going to be the start of a new game series. So think of everything from December 1944 until April 1945 as being in a different game series (Bulge, Rhineland, Ruhr Pocket, Nordwind, etc). Some things that are within the time frame of Market Garden would be ... Canadian campaign in the Sheldt, Americans capturing the port of Brest, the channel ports, and fighting around Aachen etc. Sorting everything out so that there is enough of a separation in content between releases will be the tricky part of course. I'm sure that Steve has a master plan for all that though .

I'm not sure if this is what you mean by the Germans were not where you had put them, but when you are deploying American troops on the map the German troops will not appear. In other words, only the forces for the side you are deploying will appear on the map when you are placing them. The other side's forces will not appear at the same time. The only time you can see both sides at the same time is when you are playing the battle in scenario author test mode.

Did you look at the damage levels for your vehicles? Did you look to see if your halftracks have any wheel damage from not passing through those rubbled wall sections? If your wheels or tracks are yellow or orange damage status then your vehicles are going to move at a snails pace even down the center of a paved road. Vehicles with a big red X over the wheels or tracks in the damaged section are immobilized but there are several in between states where the vehicle is not yet immobilized but the movement rate is reduced.

It's a little difficult to tell, but it appears that you have a big pile of halftracks attempting to pass through / over a wall. Halftracks don't go over walls (even destroyed ones) as far as I know, so all your vehicles are going to either just sit there or seek another path around the wall. If no other path exists then yeah, they'll just sit there because they can't leave their enclosure. Even if the gaps in the wall are passable, then your halftracks are going to just pile up in a giant traffic jam trying to cram 30 vehicles through a one vehicle gap. Anyone who has tried driving into New York City through the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour knows what happens during that situation. I'm going to guess that your movement issue is possibly related to bad map / scenario design. Not sure about the bazooka teams. There isn't enough info in the screen shots to really tell what's going on with any precision. Probably need to see the game file itself to understand that one.

Let's not exaggerate here. Sure, if a man is standing stock straight and isn't wearing camouflage he can be seen at 300 meters. Modern infantry moving in a tactical manner or staying in cover could be difficult to see without optics at 300 meters though. We have to assume that modern infantry are going to be making an effort to not be seen rather than marching forward in line of battle like the French Imperial Guard at Waterloo. Here is a nice quote from the Artilleriest's Manual of 1839 - 1859 "Good eyesight recognizes masses of troops at 1700 yards: beyond this distance the glitter of arms may be observed. At 1300 yards infantry may be distinguished from cavalry, and the movement of troops may be seens; the horses of cavalry are not, however, quite distinct but that the men are on horseback is clear. A single individual detached from the rest of the corps may be seen at 1000 yards but his head does not appear as a round ball until he has approached up to 700 yards at which distance white crossbelts and white trousers may be seen. At 500 yards the face may be observed as a light colored spot; the head body, arms, and their movements, as well as the uniform and the firelock (when bright barrels) can be made out. At between 200 and 250 yards all parts of the body are clearly visible, the details of the uniform are tolerably clear, and the officers may be distinguished from the men."

I'm guessing that you could also probably take the PDF file on a CD over to a professional print / copy place and they can do a professional looking print job for you for a small fee.

That's okay. If someone gets some use out of my ramblings then I've contributed to the community.

Playing good defense requires a great deal of skill and experience. I think it's much more difficult than playing offense. First you have to know your fields of fire. Second you have to keep your defensive forces repositioning - almost constantly. Third, you have to keep the attacker offbalance. You keep the attacker off balance by keeping some troops hidden who have a LOS to a kill zone and leave other troops to fire on the kill zone. Once the attacker has identified and positioned himself to engage the troops actively firing into the killzone, you reposition those and open up with the previously hidden troops. This way you constantly keep your killzones under fire and you are repositioning troops before the enemy can bring overpowering fire to bear. I generally think of my AT weapons as the 'skeleton' of the defense. Because enemy tanks are the biggest threat to your defense, your defensive dispositions have to be able to deal with them first and foremost. So the entire defense has to revolve around your AT assets. Second your heavy anti infantry weapons get deployed. HMG and mortar teams etc. These weapons are a little more difficult to redeploy when it gets too hot so they have to be sited with more care. Last your infantry squads get deployed. They are just there to distract the enemy mostly and to cover areas where your heavy weapons can't cover. You also put them in the most exposed positions because they can be repositioned very easily. Have back up defensive positions spotted for future use and don't hesitate to fall back to a second or third line of defense. If your squads are getting pinned by enemy fire it's (past) time to redeploy. It you keep your squads moving from position to position it also leaves lots of 'spotted' markers on the map so the attacker is never quite sure where your defenders are and that cuts down on area fire. Constant repositioning also reduces the effects of enemy artillery. Sometimes I'll even keep smallish forward forces to engage an advancing enemy and I'll keep most of my forces back. Once I've determined the main avenue of attack I'll send my reserve forces to concentrate there. The main rule of thumb for me is 'fire superiority'. If I don't have it I reposition. If I do have it I stay until the attack is defeated. The more the enemy outnumbers me the more I have to reposition. An aggressive attacker can frequently be lured into deadly ambushes. A cautious attacker will become even more cautious and chew up more time due to his uncertainty as to the composition of your defenses. In the case of a cautious attacker it may eventually be possible to hold up his entire advance with a couple of rifle squads while the rest of your force sits around eating K rations.