ASL Veteran

I feel that this topic is probably a waste of time to discuss, but I'm going to toss some stuff out there anyway even though this entire thing is pretty subjective.  Basically what a gamer's expectations for spotting are might differ from how the game handles spotting and no amount of discussion is probably going to sway them.  With respect to the video of the IS2 - I'm not bothered by that in the slightest.  For one thing in game perspective is probably different from real world perspective in that items that are twenty yards away in game in a forest might look like they are on top of each other, but when seen in real like really aren't that close to each other.  Each action spot is essentially 8 meters square and that vehicle appears to be at least several action spots from the soldiers when they spot it - it looks close in game but go ahead and stand on an American football field and see how far twenty or thirty yards is and it might change your opinion of how close something is.  Another thing to consider is that 'real' vehicles might have a considerable amount of foliage tied to it perhaps even including full on branches and other stuff.  The vehicle models are all identical for any particular type and such foliage or additional things attached will not be represented for a variety of business or practical reasons.  You will just have to use your imagination for that.  Similarly all the trees of a specific type are identical in the game.  A map maker can change things up a bit by mixing different tree types but that doesn't alter the fact that every birch tree will look identical in game.  Anyone who has spent time on Earth and seen a tree will know that trees don't generally look identical in real life, so there might very well be 'branches in the way' but you just can't see them because the differences between individual trees aren't represented.  The ground the trees are sitting on are probably either light woods or heavy woods which adds some bush art to the bases of the trees - once again an abstraction.  I know that this probably isn't going to sway anyone, but if the spotting just doesn't work for you in this game then I'm not sure what anyone can say about it since it's not going to be changing any time soon, if ever, and contrary to popular belief military personnel and vehicles are not 'automatically spotted' as soon as they are in someone's LOS because - well it's part of life or death for them to try and avoid being spotted so troops actively attempt to conceal themselves on an active battlefield.  Those that can't conceal themselves don't usually have a long lifespan in a combat zone.

No.  Nice job of deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote though.  Thirty meters away in game looks like something is very close when thirty meters in reality isn't necessarily as close as you might think.  That's especially true if you are looking through thirty meters of forest.  So you see, the distance is the same in game and in reality, but because of perspective that same distance might look different between the game and reality if you are someone who doesn't necessarily have a good grasp on how those distances actually translate to reality from the game.  However, I'm not going to waste my time on a discussion when you aren't actually looking for an explanation but rather are simply interested in grinding an axe because you don't like something.  There are a lot of gamers who don't like the way spotting works in the game and you aren't the first one to complain about it.  At this point in time though, since it's almost a guarantee that it will never change, you can either choose to grit your teeth and play through it or you can quit the game and play something else.  Belly aching on the forum isn't going to accomplish a single thing except perhaps to get like minded individuals to pat you on the back and say 'I agree'.  I suppose maybe that might make you feel better about how much you dislike the spotting in the game, but it's not going to accomplish anything meaningful in terms of how the game plays if choose to play it.

I feel that this topic is probably a waste of time to discuss, but I'm going to toss some stuff out there anyway even though this entire thing is pretty subjective.  Basically what a gamer's expectations for spotting are might differ from how the game handles spotting and no amount of discussion is probably going to sway them.  With respect to the video of the IS2 - I'm not bothered by that in the slightest.  For one thing in game perspective is probably different from real world perspective in that items that are twenty yards away in game in a forest might look like they are on top of each other, but when seen in real like really aren't that close to each other.  Each action spot is essentially 8 meters square and that vehicle appears to be at least several action spots from the soldiers when they spot it - it looks close in game but go ahead and stand on an American football field and see how far twenty or thirty yards is and it might change your opinion of how close something is.  Another thing to consider is that 'real' vehicles might have a considerable amount of foliage tied to it perhaps even including full on branches and other stuff.  The vehicle models are all identical for any particular type and such foliage or additional things attached will not be represented for a variety of business or practical reasons.  You will just have to use your imagination for that.  Similarly all the trees of a specific type are identical in the game.  A map maker can change things up a bit by mixing different tree types but that doesn't alter the fact that every birch tree will look identical in game.  Anyone who has spent time on Earth and seen a tree will know that trees don't generally look identical in real life, so there might very well be 'branches in the way' but you just can't see them because the differences between individual trees aren't represented.  The ground the trees are sitting on are probably either light woods or heavy woods which adds some bush art to the bases of the trees - once again an abstraction.  I know that this probably isn't going to sway anyone, but if the spotting just doesn't work for you in this game then I'm not sure what anyone can say about it since it's not going to be changing any time soon, if ever, and contrary to popular belief military personnel and vehicles are not 'automatically spotted' as soon as they are in someone's LOS because - well it's part of life or death for them to try and avoid being spotted so troops actively attempt to conceal themselves on an active battlefield.  Those that can't conceal themselves don't usually have a long lifespan in a combat zone.

I feel that this topic is probably a waste of time to discuss, but I'm going to toss some stuff out there anyway even though this entire thing is pretty subjective.  Basically what a gamer's expectations for spotting are might differ from how the game handles spotting and no amount of discussion is probably going to sway them.  With respect to the video of the IS2 - I'm not bothered by that in the slightest.  For one thing in game perspective is probably different from real world perspective in that items that are twenty yards away in game in a forest might look like they are on top of each other, but when seen in real like really aren't that close to each other.  Each action spot is essentially 8 meters square and that vehicle appears to be at least several action spots from the soldiers when they spot it - it looks close in game but go ahead and stand on an American football field and see how far twenty or thirty yards is and it might change your opinion of how close something is.  Another thing to consider is that 'real' vehicles might have a considerable amount of foliage tied to it perhaps even including full on branches and other stuff.  The vehicle models are all identical for any particular type and such foliage or additional things attached will not be represented for a variety of business or practical reasons.  You will just have to use your imagination for that.  Similarly all the trees of a specific type are identical in the game.  A map maker can change things up a bit by mixing different tree types but that doesn't alter the fact that every birch tree will look identical in game.  Anyone who has spent time on Earth and seen a tree will know that trees don't generally look identical in real life, so there might very well be 'branches in the way' but you just can't see them because the differences between individual trees aren't represented.  The ground the trees are sitting on are probably either light woods or heavy woods which adds some bush art to the bases of the trees - once again an abstraction.  I know that this probably isn't going to sway anyone, but if the spotting just doesn't work for you in this game then I'm not sure what anyone can say about it since it's not going to be changing any time soon, if ever, and contrary to popular belief military personnel and vehicles are not 'automatically spotted' as soon as they are in someone's LOS because - well it's part of life or death for them to try and avoid being spotted so troops actively attempt to conceal themselves on an active battlefield.  Those that can't conceal themselves don't usually have a long lifespan in a combat zone.

I feel that this topic is probably a waste of time to discuss, but I'm going to toss some stuff out there anyway even though this entire thing is pretty subjective.  Basically what a gamer's expectations for spotting are might differ from how the game handles spotting and no amount of discussion is probably going to sway them.  With respect to the video of the IS2 - I'm not bothered by that in the slightest.  For one thing in game perspective is probably different from real world perspective in that items that are twenty yards away in game in a forest might look like they are on top of each other, but when seen in real like really aren't that close to each other.  Each action spot is essentially 8 meters square and that vehicle appears to be at least several action spots from the soldiers when they spot it - it looks close in game but go ahead and stand on an American football field and see how far twenty or thirty yards is and it might change your opinion of how close something is.  Another thing to consider is that 'real' vehicles might have a considerable amount of foliage tied to it perhaps even including full on branches and other stuff.  The vehicle models are all identical for any particular type and such foliage or additional things attached will not be represented for a variety of business or practical reasons.  You will just have to use your imagination for that.  Similarly all the trees of a specific type are identical in the game.  A map maker can change things up a bit by mixing different tree types but that doesn't alter the fact that every birch tree will look identical in game.  Anyone who has spent time on Earth and seen a tree will know that trees don't generally look identical in real life, so there might very well be 'branches in the way' but you just can't see them because the differences between individual trees aren't represented.  The ground the trees are sitting on are probably either light woods or heavy woods which adds some bush art to the bases of the trees - once again an abstraction.  I know that this probably isn't going to sway anyone, but if the spotting just doesn't work for you in this game then I'm not sure what anyone can say about it since it's not going to be changing any time soon, if ever, and contrary to popular belief military personnel and vehicles are not 'automatically spotted' as soon as they are in someone's LOS because - well it's part of life or death for them to try and avoid being spotted so troops actively attempt to conceal themselves on an active battlefield.  Those that can't conceal themselves don't usually have a long lifespan in a combat zone.

For something this specific it would probably be easier to figure out which units were in the geographical area that you are looking at and then try to find out what vehicles were in those units.  The 233rd Reserve Panzer 'Division' was located at Horsens in Denmark from August 1943 until the end of the war.  It only had 34 tanks and was used as a training unit so I doubt that any Panthers were present in the unit, but you never can be sure without finding more details about the unit.

For something this specific it would probably be easier to figure out which units were in the geographical area that you are looking at and then try to find out what vehicles were in those units.  The 233rd Reserve Panzer 'Division' was located at Horsens in Denmark from August 1943 until the end of the war.  It only had 34 tanks and was used as a training unit so I doubt that any Panthers were present in the unit, but you never can be sure without finding more details about the unit.

For something this specific it would probably be easier to figure out which units were in the geographical area that you are looking at and then try to find out what vehicles were in those units.  The 233rd Reserve Panzer 'Division' was located at Horsens in Denmark from August 1943 until the end of the war.  It only had 34 tanks and was used as a training unit so I doubt that any Panthers were present in the unit, but you never can be sure without finding more details about the unit.

For something this specific it would probably be easier to figure out which units were in the geographical area that you are looking at and then try to find out what vehicles were in those units.  The 233rd Reserve Panzer 'Division' was located at Horsens in Denmark from August 1943 until the end of the war.  It only had 34 tanks and was used as a training unit so I doubt that any Panthers were present in the unit, but you never can be sure without finding more details about the unit.

Making a scenario in CMBB is a completely different animal than making one in CMRT.  It takes a lot more work and requires a lot more detail.  You can probably make three or four scenarios in CMBB in the time it takes to make one in CMRT and the design challenges and limitations are different.  If someone doesn't understand those limitations then that can lead to nonsensical statements if those statements are based on the way the old game works or are made without knowledge of the limitations of how the current editor works.  I'm sure Jason means well, but he isn't really giving any useful feedback.  What he is doing is saying that everything that ships with the game is historically inaccurate or is not representative of reality (no matter how well researched apparently).  He then proceeds to tell us all the 'correct' way to make scenarios because nothing anyone makes seems to meet his standards or perception of what is 'correct' in his view.  Well that isn't helping anyone because designers can't design scenarios that please everyone.  That is an impossible task.  Each release comes with scenarios designed by several different people who each has their own style and he can't seem to find any that suit his tastes.  If he can't find any designers who make something that he likes then rather than spending his energy telling everyone about their failures in his eyes he could spend his time in a more productive way by creating stuff for the community. 
There are several scenarios in the release that even have a listing of references included in the designers notes so when someone comes on here and says that nothing is accurate in spite of the research that went into the creation process it shouldn't be surprising if that rubs some the wrong way. 

If there are problems with the patch then we do need to know about them, but in order for something to be fixed it usually needs to be happening on a consistent basis and / or reproduceable by Charles because if he can't find the part of the code that's causing the problem then he can't fix it.  That's assuming there even is a problem with the code to begin with.  Sometimes game behavior can simply seem odd because we, as players, assign our own logic to what the pixeltruppen should be doing at any particular point in time but the game has its own logic and sometimes those two things come into conflict in unusual situations.

Well, that and 'map fire' was notoriously inaccurate during WW2.  For one thing, especially on the Eastern Front, the maps that a unit might be using could date from surveys done in the previous century (assuming a unit could obtain a map at all).  I have even read accounts where units were using tourist maps with no grid instead of actual survey maps in order to figure out where they were.  German units frequently complained that their maps had almost no bearing to what they were actually seeing with their own eyes either because the surveying wasn't done as well as it could have been done or because the area in question had changed over the course of the fifty or one hundred years that the map was originally made.  You combine bad maps for the calling unit with bad maps for the artillery unit and your map fire mission could be falling almost anywhere.  

This isn't a bug.  It has always been this way.  When you are playing a scenario against the AI in any mode, AI controlled passengers will not show up as separate icons even in scenario author test mode.  You can't select a passenger when it is controlled by the AI, you can only select the vehicle they are riding in.  Now if you are playing as that side and the passengers aren't selectable well then you have a problem, but since AI passengers only dismount when the AI orders tell them to dismount then there is no need for the passengers to be selectable.  Obviously in other modes showing the passengers would be a major fog of war issue.  That isn't an issue in Scenario Author Test mode obviously, but I'm going to guess that it would have taken special 'override' coding of some sort in order to make the passengers show up in that mode and since you can't manually dismount them when they are AI controlled then really, what's the point?

This isn't a bug.  It has always been this way.  When you are playing a scenario against the AI in any mode, AI controlled passengers will not show up as separate icons even in scenario author test mode.  You can't select a passenger when it is controlled by the AI, you can only select the vehicle they are riding in.  Now if you are playing as that side and the passengers aren't selectable well then you have a problem, but since AI passengers only dismount when the AI orders tell them to dismount then there is no need for the passengers to be selectable.  Obviously in other modes showing the passengers would be a major fog of war issue.  That isn't an issue in Scenario Author Test mode obviously, but I'm going to guess that it would have taken special 'override' coding of some sort in order to make the passengers show up in that mode and since you can't manually dismount them when they are AI controlled then really, what's the point?

I don't know if I would go so far as to say 'much of the scenario designs in much of the CMx2 series.'  These issues crop up but I don't know that they are prevalent or necessarily common.  I also think that in some cases what you are attributing to 'scripting' may be something else entirely.  One of the first things that a scenario designer has to do is figure out the dimensions of their map as well as what to include and what to exclude.  Therefore the designer must, by necessity, have some idea as to how the scenario is likely to develop, how much room the player needs, and what pieces of terrain or map locations are likely to be relevant or important.  Without that knowledge in advance the scenario designer doesn't know what his map dimensions will be or even where the map needs to be centered.  This decision is a very important one because in many cases the actual lay of the terrain does not necessarily become apparent until the scenario designer has recreated their map in 3D in the game.  I can't tell you how many times I've taken aerial photos, paper maps, or Google Earth locations, put them into the game in 3D and only then realized why the historical course of the battle likely took the path that it did.  Making a map is also not a trivial thing.  This is especially true for larger maps.  A designer may have spent a week or more on a map only to find that perhaps they didn't center it as well as maybe they could have or perhaps they might have misjudged the distance between terrain features and either made the map too small or excluded an important feature.  The game itself makes it difficult to add map to an existing map because it only extends a certain distance in each direction and if you only extended the map one direction and that's the direction you need the extra space you might be stuck without the ability to extend the map any further that direction.  You also need to account for the size of your overlay because the map dimensions in game should map the Google Earth dimensions for your overlay.  Once your map is extended you then need to create a new overlay and of course your overlay dimensions must match your new map dimensions perfectly or it won't work.  In other words, your map dimension and what to include are one of the first things that a designer needs to figure out and if he makes a mistake he may be faced with the choice of either redoing the entire thing or working with what they've got.
Having said all that, I think there are some designers who use time and space in a deliberate effort to make a scenario more difficult than it necessarily could be.  Perhaps some even do attempt to push the player into a script, most likely because it makes designing an AI plan easier if you know exactly what the player is going to do.  So I think that the time and scripting issue is probably more prevalent in the campaigns than they are in the free standing scenarios and perhaps more prevalent in the earlier versions of the game.  I would guess that a designer may also be influenced by the types of games they like to play.  If a designer enjoys playing games like, say first person shooters with well scripted 'levels' and uses that as their inspiration for scenario design then that's what you are going to get more often than not from that designer.  

Victory conditions can be tied to a scenario in such a way that the forces don't need to be balanced in order for the overmatched side to achieve victory.  I am not familiar with the scenario in question, but if, for example, the German side achieved Total Victory through holding one building then if the Germans manage to have a single team left alive in the building and the Americans haven't gained entry then the Germans win regardless as to what type of punishment the German forces took through the course of the game.

There actually is another time factor that some may consider.  For players who prefer to play head to head games most players seem to prefer playing scenarios with shorter time lengths to scenarios with longer time lengths.  I assume that's because of how long it takes to complete a game head to head and so the longer the scenario length is the fewer people will tend to play it head to head.  Other players who play against the AI may also prefer shorter length scenarios because they simply don't have the time available to play something for two hours or more.  So the designer may think that four hours is the perfect amount of time for the scenario that they are designing, but when players see that four hour time limit they immediately think 'nope, too long' and skip it because the length of time given is a factor in whether or not players choose to play something.  Number of units is another factor of course, and many of the longer scenarios are also some of the larger ones in terms of forces involved, but that isn't always the case.  In most cases the map size should probably dictate the game length and if a WW2 infantry soldier can't walk to every objective area with a few minutes for fighting tossed in then the scenario length is too short.  Modern scenarios can have shorter time lengths than the WW2 ones since everyone is typically vehicle mounted and vehicles shrink map sizes for access purposes.  
Now some players who choose the shorter time length scenario may wish that they had more time when they are in the middle of playing said scenario, but at the same time those same players may have been using that shorter time as a basis for choosing that scenario in the first place.  That's why I have only exceeded two hours one time for any scenario I've ever created.  Longer times will scare players off from even looking at something in many cases simply because of the perceived investment of time the player thinks he has to make in order to play the scenario even though a longer length scenario doesn't necessarily need to 'go the distance' in order for a winner to be decided.

Like I mentioned, the performance for Nordwind could be described as uneven and the descriptions I mentioned were for the initial attacks on New Year's Day with specific Volksgrenadier units.  You also can't draw much of a conclusion from total casualty figures since those would include a lot of non combat related casualties and there were phases of the operation where both sides were attacking and defending at different times.  Hatten, for example, was an intense city fight for more than a week before the Americans elected to voluntarily withdraw several miles behind a river to shorten their lines.  The Germans were so battered and bruised from that battle that they didn't even follow up the American withdrawal for something like twelve hours if I remember right (scenario Hot Time in Hatten and Breaking the Line).  The US twelfth armored division also launched a division level counterattack on the German bridgehead over the Rhine and was annihilated (scenario: A War Without Mercy and Last Man Out).  On the approach march to Wingen sur Moder the Nord battalions almost wiped out an entire American company in prepared defensive positions and followed that up by capturing or killing several HQ and supply units in the town itself without suffering very many casualties in the process (scenario Wax Museum and Drive them Out).  Troops out in winter conditions with WW2 era equipment for extended lengths of time would also suffer a lot of frostbite and sickness related losses.  So basically quoting Operation level casualty figures tells you nothing of value with regard to how the units fought tactically.  In order to know what happened tactically at the squad and platoon level you have to read first hand accounts.

Perhaps the number of scenarios skews away from the depiction of the war as a whole, but certainly no specific individual scenario can be described as an inaccurate description of any particular tactical situation that is created based upon the available documentation.  Much of the source material available tends to discuss Tigers, Panthers, SS, etcetera in more detail than the other stuff.  Perhaps that wasn't always the case, but many books that were written in the fifties and sixties aren't necessarily available anymore.  I think every US division had a divisional history that was published shortly after the war, but most of those books aren't available and those that are typically aren't detailed enough to be useable as a primary source for scenario creation.  If you look over what's available on Amazon in terms of unit histories, the ones that are available in English anyway, are going to be Panzer Divisions, SS Divisions, and some American divisions.  Even divisional histories of Commonwealth units are relatively difficult to come by, at least on Amazon in America.  Battle histories in general will be done about fighting that was 'important' or 'interesting' from either an operational or strategic perspective and, yes, many if not most of those actions involved German Panzer Divisions or SS Divisions since those were the types of units that were generally present where the action was the hottest or the most important.  There are a few very good divisional histories of standard divisions where some 'common' battle types can be pulled from, but those types of books are probably on the more uncommon side of things.   
So a scenario designer who is making something 'historical' is restricted in the reference material that is available.  The designer also wants to create something that's interesting.  What makes a scenario interesting probably falls into two categories.  A scenario can be interesting if it uses interesting units or equipment or a scenario can be interesting by depicting a certain tactical situation.  Who wants to play ten scenarios that all depict the same tactical situation with the same standard units?  Maybe for players who prefer quick battles I suppose there might be some interest in that, although the player is choosing his own force under those circumstances so the force is personalized to the player who is selecting it.  A scenario needs to strive for more in order to grab the average player's attention and make for an interesting gaming experience. 

Perhaps the number of scenarios skews away from the depiction of the war as a whole, but certainly no specific individual scenario can be described as an inaccurate description of any particular tactical situation that is created based upon the available documentation.  Much of the source material available tends to discuss Tigers, Panthers, SS, etcetera in more detail than the other stuff.  Perhaps that wasn't always the case, but many books that were written in the fifties and sixties aren't necessarily available anymore.  I think every US division had a divisional history that was published shortly after the war, but most of those books aren't available and those that are typically aren't detailed enough to be useable as a primary source for scenario creation.  If you look over what's available on Amazon in terms of unit histories, the ones that are available in English anyway, are going to be Panzer Divisions, SS Divisions, and some American divisions.  Even divisional histories of Commonwealth units are relatively difficult to come by, at least on Amazon in America.  Battle histories in general will be done about fighting that was 'important' or 'interesting' from either an operational or strategic perspective and, yes, many if not most of those actions involved German Panzer Divisions or SS Divisions since those were the types of units that were generally present where the action was the hottest or the most important.  There are a few very good divisional histories of standard divisions where some 'common' battle types can be pulled from, but those types of books are probably on the more uncommon side of things.   
So a scenario designer who is making something 'historical' is restricted in the reference material that is available.  The designer also wants to create something that's interesting.  What makes a scenario interesting probably falls into two categories.  A scenario can be interesting if it uses interesting units or equipment or a scenario can be interesting by depicting a certain tactical situation.  Who wants to play ten scenarios that all depict the same tactical situation with the same standard units?  Maybe for players who prefer quick battles I suppose there might be some interest in that, although the player is choosing his own force under those circumstances so the force is personalized to the player who is selecting it.  A scenario needs to strive for more in order to grab the average player's attention and make for an interesting gaming experience. 

The problem with any discussion of OBs or TO&E's for any scenario, especially for the WW2 era, is that there is seldom any clarity as to what exactly was present at any particular location at any particular time.  On the Eastern Front in particular, even identifying the correct participants down to the battalion level is typically an impossible task because the documentation simply doesn't exist.  Even in France or Italy where Western Allied and German records are typically much better there are still a lot of unknowns.  The Germans had a lot of ad hoc units where it can be virtually impossible to know what equipment was present or not present and even standardized TO&Es are not so standard once you have first hand accounts or unit specific equipment descriptions available.  I seem to recall that the Hermann Goering Division had one support unit in Italy that was supposed to be an engineer battalion, but only one company was actual engineers.  The other two companies were self propelled artillery and a recon company or something - I don't remember the specifics off hand.  Suffice to say that if you were using a standard TO&E for that unit for a scenario you would be inaccurate in your depiction of the forces involved.  Aside from unit strengths in quiet sectors just before a major attack, virtually no unit on the Eastern Front was ever at full strength with most German and Soviet units being somewhere around 50 percent strength on the high end.  Strength returns for most German battalions were typically much lower than 50 percent, but if a designer chops 50 percent strength off their battalion they are more likely than not to be in the ball park of what might have been present if the exact figure is not known.
I seem to recall Jason complaining about King Tigers, Panthers, and other German tanks being too common in scenarios and I think it can serve as a good example of the problem with that kind of argument.  If I have a book about the 505th Tiger battalion and from that book I manage to find enough material to create four scenarios all with Tigers in them, well then those scenarios are historically accurate.  At least as accurate as I can make them given the reference material that I have available to me.  Saying that out of twenty scenarios there are four scenarios with Tigers in them and that's inaccurate is a faulty argument on its face.  If I recreated four scenarios with Tigers in them and I used reference material from four actual battles that took place that had Tigers in them, the fact that there are four scenarios with Tigers in them doesn't make those scenarios inaccurate.  That's just a ridiculous position to take.
There are so many battles in WW2 that took place and accurate information down to the battalion level that includes specific equipment strength figures is so hard to come by, it is without a doubt more difficult to prove that something is inaccurate since any battle that any designer chooses to create could theoretically have taken place on the battlefield at some point in time during WW2.  With regards to the Red Thunder campaign I think a fair question to ask would be whether anyone can prove that the situation depicted in the first scenario never took place.  There are literally thousands of miles of frontlines to peruse and for someone to sit there and say with any level of confidence that the situation in the scenario is absolutely a false depiction of events is going way out on a limb no matter what 'facts' they are basing their objections upon.

The problem with any discussion of OBs or TO&E's for any scenario, especially for the WW2 era, is that there is seldom any clarity as to what exactly was present at any particular location at any particular time.  On the Eastern Front in particular, even identifying the correct participants down to the battalion level is typically an impossible task because the documentation simply doesn't exist.  Even in France or Italy where Western Allied and German records are typically much better there are still a lot of unknowns.  The Germans had a lot of ad hoc units where it can be virtually impossible to know what equipment was present or not present and even standardized TO&Es are not so standard once you have first hand accounts or unit specific equipment descriptions available.  I seem to recall that the Hermann Goering Division had one support unit in Italy that was supposed to be an engineer battalion, but only one company was actual engineers.  The other two companies were self propelled artillery and a recon company or something - I don't remember the specifics off hand.  Suffice to say that if you were using a standard TO&E for that unit for a scenario you would be inaccurate in your depiction of the forces involved.  Aside from unit strengths in quiet sectors just before a major attack, virtually no unit on the Eastern Front was ever at full strength with most German and Soviet units being somewhere around 50 percent strength on the high end.  Strength returns for most German battalions were typically much lower than 50 percent, but if a designer chops 50 percent strength off their battalion they are more likely than not to be in the ball park of what might have been present if the exact figure is not known.
I seem to recall Jason complaining about King Tigers, Panthers, and other German tanks being too common in scenarios and I think it can serve as a good example of the problem with that kind of argument.  If I have a book about the 505th Tiger battalion and from that book I manage to find enough material to create four scenarios all with Tigers in them, well then those scenarios are historically accurate.  At least as accurate as I can make them given the reference material that I have available to me.  Saying that out of twenty scenarios there are four scenarios with Tigers in them and that's inaccurate is a faulty argument on its face.  If I recreated four scenarios with Tigers in them and I used reference material from four actual battles that took place that had Tigers in them, the fact that there are four scenarios with Tigers in them doesn't make those scenarios inaccurate.  That's just a ridiculous position to take.
There are so many battles in WW2 that took place and accurate information down to the battalion level that includes specific equipment strength figures is so hard to come by, it is without a doubt more difficult to prove that something is inaccurate since any battle that any designer chooses to create could theoretically have taken place on the battlefield at some point in time during WW2.  With regards to the Red Thunder campaign I think a fair question to ask would be whether anyone can prove that the situation depicted in the first scenario never took place.  There are literally thousands of miles of frontlines to peruse and for someone to sit there and say with any level of confidence that the situation in the scenario is absolutely a false depiction of events is going way out on a limb no matter what 'facts' they are basing their objections upon.

The problem with any discussion of OBs or TO&E's for any scenario, especially for the WW2 era, is that there is seldom any clarity as to what exactly was present at any particular location at any particular time.  On the Eastern Front in particular, even identifying the correct participants down to the battalion level is typically an impossible task because the documentation simply doesn't exist.  Even in France or Italy where Western Allied and German records are typically much better there are still a lot of unknowns.  The Germans had a lot of ad hoc units where it can be virtually impossible to know what equipment was present or not present and even standardized TO&Es are not so standard once you have first hand accounts or unit specific equipment descriptions available.  I seem to recall that the Hermann Goering Division had one support unit in Italy that was supposed to be an engineer battalion, but only one company was actual engineers.  The other two companies were self propelled artillery and a recon company or something - I don't remember the specifics off hand.  Suffice to say that if you were using a standard TO&E for that unit for a scenario you would be inaccurate in your depiction of the forces involved.  Aside from unit strengths in quiet sectors just before a major attack, virtually no unit on the Eastern Front was ever at full strength with most German and Soviet units being somewhere around 50 percent strength on the high end.  Strength returns for most German battalions were typically much lower than 50 percent, but if a designer chops 50 percent strength off their battalion they are more likely than not to be in the ball park of what might have been present if the exact figure is not known.
I seem to recall Jason complaining about King Tigers, Panthers, and other German tanks being too common in scenarios and I think it can serve as a good example of the problem with that kind of argument.  If I have a book about the 505th Tiger battalion and from that book I manage to find enough material to create four scenarios all with Tigers in them, well then those scenarios are historically accurate.  At least as accurate as I can make them given the reference material that I have available to me.  Saying that out of twenty scenarios there are four scenarios with Tigers in them and that's inaccurate is a faulty argument on its face.  If I recreated four scenarios with Tigers in them and I used reference material from four actual battles that took place that had Tigers in them, the fact that there are four scenarios with Tigers in them doesn't make those scenarios inaccurate.  That's just a ridiculous position to take.
There are so many battles in WW2 that took place and accurate information down to the battalion level that includes specific equipment strength figures is so hard to come by, it is without a doubt more difficult to prove that something is inaccurate since any battle that any designer chooses to create could theoretically have taken place on the battlefield at some point in time during WW2.  With regards to the Red Thunder campaign I think a fair question to ask would be whether anyone can prove that the situation depicted in the first scenario never took place.  There are literally thousands of miles of frontlines to peruse and for someone to sit there and say with any level of confidence that the situation in the scenario is absolutely a false depiction of events is going way out on a limb no matter what 'facts' they are basing their objections upon.

The problem with any discussion of OBs or TO&E's for any scenario, especially for the WW2 era, is that there is seldom any clarity as to what exactly was present at any particular location at any particular time.  On the Eastern Front in particular, even identifying the correct participants down to the battalion level is typically an impossible task because the documentation simply doesn't exist.  Even in France or Italy where Western Allied and German records are typically much better there are still a lot of unknowns.  The Germans had a lot of ad hoc units where it can be virtually impossible to know what equipment was present or not present and even standardized TO&Es are not so standard once you have first hand accounts or unit specific equipment descriptions available.  I seem to recall that the Hermann Goering Division had one support unit in Italy that was supposed to be an engineer battalion, but only one company was actual engineers.  The other two companies were self propelled artillery and a recon company or something - I don't remember the specifics off hand.  Suffice to say that if you were using a standard TO&E for that unit for a scenario you would be inaccurate in your depiction of the forces involved.  Aside from unit strengths in quiet sectors just before a major attack, virtually no unit on the Eastern Front was ever at full strength with most German and Soviet units being somewhere around 50 percent strength on the high end.  Strength returns for most German battalions were typically much lower than 50 percent, but if a designer chops 50 percent strength off their battalion they are more likely than not to be in the ball park of what might have been present if the exact figure is not known.
I seem to recall Jason complaining about King Tigers, Panthers, and other German tanks being too common in scenarios and I think it can serve as a good example of the problem with that kind of argument.  If I have a book about the 505th Tiger battalion and from that book I manage to find enough material to create four scenarios all with Tigers in them, well then those scenarios are historically accurate.  At least as accurate as I can make them given the reference material that I have available to me.  Saying that out of twenty scenarios there are four scenarios with Tigers in them and that's inaccurate is a faulty argument on its face.  If I recreated four scenarios with Tigers in them and I used reference material from four actual battles that took place that had Tigers in them, the fact that there are four scenarios with Tigers in them doesn't make those scenarios inaccurate.  That's just a ridiculous position to take.
There are so many battles in WW2 that took place and accurate information down to the battalion level that includes specific equipment strength figures is so hard to come by, it is without a doubt more difficult to prove that something is inaccurate since any battle that any designer chooses to create could theoretically have taken place on the battlefield at some point in time during WW2.  With regards to the Red Thunder campaign I think a fair question to ask would be whether anyone can prove that the situation depicted in the first scenario never took place.  There are literally thousands of miles of frontlines to peruse and for someone to sit there and say with any level of confidence that the situation in the scenario is absolutely a false depiction of events is going way out on a limb no matter what 'facts' they are basing their objections upon.

The problem with any discussion of OBs or TO&E's for any scenario, especially for the WW2 era, is that there is seldom any clarity as to what exactly was present at any particular location at any particular time.  On the Eastern Front in particular, even identifying the correct participants down to the battalion level is typically an impossible task because the documentation simply doesn't exist.  Even in France or Italy where Western Allied and German records are typically much better there are still a lot of unknowns.  The Germans had a lot of ad hoc units where it can be virtually impossible to know what equipment was present or not present and even standardized TO&Es are not so standard once you have first hand accounts or unit specific equipment descriptions available.  I seem to recall that the Hermann Goering Division had one support unit in Italy that was supposed to be an engineer battalion, but only one company was actual engineers.  The other two companies were self propelled artillery and a recon company or something - I don't remember the specifics off hand.  Suffice to say that if you were using a standard TO&E for that unit for a scenario you would be inaccurate in your depiction of the forces involved.  Aside from unit strengths in quiet sectors just before a major attack, virtually no unit on the Eastern Front was ever at full strength with most German and Soviet units being somewhere around 50 percent strength on the high end.  Strength returns for most German battalions were typically much lower than 50 percent, but if a designer chops 50 percent strength off their battalion they are more likely than not to be in the ball park of what might have been present if the exact figure is not known.
I seem to recall Jason complaining about King Tigers, Panthers, and other German tanks being too common in scenarios and I think it can serve as a good example of the problem with that kind of argument.  If I have a book about the 505th Tiger battalion and from that book I manage to find enough material to create four scenarios all with Tigers in them, well then those scenarios are historically accurate.  At least as accurate as I can make them given the reference material that I have available to me.  Saying that out of twenty scenarios there are four scenarios with Tigers in them and that's inaccurate is a faulty argument on its face.  If I recreated four scenarios with Tigers in them and I used reference material from four actual battles that took place that had Tigers in them, the fact that there are four scenarios with Tigers in them doesn't make those scenarios inaccurate.  That's just a ridiculous position to take.
There are so many battles in WW2 that took place and accurate information down to the battalion level that includes specific equipment strength figures is so hard to come by, it is without a doubt more difficult to prove that something is inaccurate since any battle that any designer chooses to create could theoretically have taken place on the battlefield at some point in time during WW2.  With regards to the Red Thunder campaign I think a fair question to ask would be whether anyone can prove that the situation depicted in the first scenario never took place.  There are literally thousands of miles of frontlines to peruse and for someone to sit there and say with any level of confidence that the situation in the scenario is absolutely a false depiction of events is going way out on a limb no matter what 'facts' they are basing their objections upon.