Dr.Juzzy

The first picture looks like it was taken looking east from the Westerbouwing Heights. The second looks like the polder area south of Lutheran Church in Lower Oosterbeek - lovely photos. I had the pleasure of walking the battlefield last year and took some similar pictures. Your dad has done you proud.

Outstanding committment to service, well done chaps and what a number of downloads!

I wouldn't. IMHO you'd be better off with Cornelius Ryan's 'Berlin'. I found that Beevor can't decide whether his book is military or social history. His narrative is confused and confusing and he's not turned up many new sources, manybe only 5, and these don't really change our conceptions of what took place. Some of the personal accounts are quite interesting, but thats it. As an eminent grog put it, 'I havn't seen it offered for full price anywhere'.

Could anyone post me a copy of 613 BMP contained in Magua's Normandy road mod.? Its the straight piece. I've gone and lost mine to an inferior mod. Many thanks in advance!

Nice link mate, I'll remember it. I wwas thinking of doing a little game in Holland and this could be very useful. Cheers! Justin.

A Dutch title? Excellent, I might well adjust it and pester Keither some more. Seriously, thanks for the review, much appreciated. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'll be posting another one soon called Joe's Bridge. Its got Irish Guards in it, so any useful Irish words or phrases would be gratefully apprecaited! Top of the morning to you (and other sad cliches).

Oh and by the by its a historical not fictional scenario, slip of the tongue at Keith's end (he's a busy man don't you know).

Hello chaps and many thanks for your kind comments. der hexenkessel one word? Aahhhh...now that might also be like the Welsh town of: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch I'll be there Friday if I can!

Is this true? Could someone help us out here, German never did come easily to me

Hello everyone - Admiral Keith has kindly posted my new historical scenario 'der Hexen Kessel' at the Scenario Depot. If you fancy defending lower Oosterbeek during Operation MARKET GARDEN then give it a whirl: Lining the road south from The Hague, the residents of Rijswijk clutched their little orange flags expectantly as the administrative personnel of the German Armed Forces Command and members of the NSB (the Dutch National Socialist Party), seizing bicycles and lorries and loading their possessions into handcarts or baby carriages, fled the Netherlands in panic. Precipitated by the Allied seizure of Antwerp only 20 miles from the Dutch border, the events of Tuesday September 5th 1944 or - as it would later be called 'Dolle Dinsdag' ('Mad Tuesday') - would mark the highpoint of the German retreat in the West. From the suburbs of Rijswijk in the West to the leafy boulevards of Arnhem in the East, Liberation would remain a distant hope. Despite suffering catastrophic loses during their French odyssey, the Westheer would rally as the Allied advance stalled. By the 13th of September, under the command of 'the Führer's fireman Generalfeldmarschell Model, German forces would be in a position to hold a defensive line in-depth south from Antwerp along the Albert and Meuse-Escaut canals to Maastricht. The War would go on. As the shattered remnants of the German Seventh Army retreated eastwards from the debacle of the Falaise Gap, so the Allies accelerated away from their supply depots in Normandy. Whilst 1st Canadian Army cleared the vital ports of Le Havre, Boulogne, Calais and Ostend, the British 2nd Army with the US 1st and 3rd Armies swung east liberating Paris on the 24th August, Brussels on the 3rd September and Antwerp on the 4th September. Ceding command to General Dwight D. Eisenhower on the 1st September, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery stubbornly reiterated his advocacy of a single-thrust into Germany through Belgium and into Holland, arguing that logistical supplies could not be sustained for all three army groups over a distance of over three hundred miles. Preferring his 'broad-front policy' but facing growing political pressure from home and abroad as well as the impending supply crisis, Eisenhower compromised and placed Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton's First Allied Airborne Army at Montgomery's disposal. On the 10th September Montgomery issued orders for Operation 'MARKET-GARDEN'. MARKET-GARDEN required 1st Allied Airborne Army to assist British 2nd Army in a rapid advance from the Meuse-Escault Canal on the Beglian-Dutch border to Nunspeet on the Zuider-Zee before turning east into the Ruhr, industrial heartland of Germany itself. Operation 'MARKET' entailed the dropping 3 airborne divisions - the British 1st and the US 101st and 82nd - in an airborne 'carpet' capturing the canal and river crossings between Eindhoven in the south and Arnhem in the north. Of these, Maj. Gen. Roy E. Urquhart's 1st Airborne Division and Gen. Stanislav Sosabowski's 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade would get the prize, the final road and railway bridges over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem. With this accomplished it was hoped that the War could be over by Christmas. On a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon 7 days later, elements of the British 1st Airborne Division dropped onto its Landing Zones on Renkum Heath, 6 miles west of Arnhem. Of the three battalions of the 1st Parachute Brigade that set off along code-named LEOPARD, TIGER and LION routes east, only Col. John Frost's 2nd Battalion would successfully reach their ultimate objective, the road bridge over the lower Rhine at Arnhem. Repeated attempts to relieve Front's beleaguered force by the 1st and 3rd Battalions, reinforced by the 2nd South Staffordshires and the newly arrived 11th Battalion, were met with fierce and skilful German resistance as ad hoc formations were slotted into an effective blocking line on the principal routes into Arnhem, the Utrechtesweg and the Onderlings. The arrival of Major Kurt Kuehne's Sturmegeschütz-Brigade 280 on Tuesday, 19th September effectively ended any further hopes of a British advance. Losing 1 fifth of its total strength in the streets on the banks of the Rhine, the remnants of 1st Airborne Division fell back on the relative calm of the wealthy suburbs of Oosterbeek, now the centre of 1 Airborne's Divisional HQ. Battered and bewildered, the men of South Staffs and 1, 3 and 11 Para fell back along the lower road in an 'orderly disorder' to the positions of the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment Royal Artillery in western Oosterbeek. Rallied by the Light Regiment's commander, Col. Sherriff Thompson, the airborne soldiers turned to face their pursuers. Attacked from all sides, Urquhart desperately improvised a finger-shaped defensive perimeter around the 1st Airborne's HQ in the grounds of the Hartenstein Hotel. If they could only hold here, then XXX Corps may still be able to force a crossing of the Rhine and MARKET GARDEN might not have been in vain. As these weary men moved into the Divisional area and dug themselves in to the sandy soil and gardens of what was fast becoming the eastern side of the perimeter they strained their ears for the clank of tank tracks, the Germans would not be long coming. If you download it, review it As always, all feedback greatly appreciated! Enjoy, Justin

Post it my way, I've walked the battlefield in this area so I'd love to see it. I'll be releasing an Oosterbeek game soon and a collaegue at der Kessel will be releasing a Westerbouwing game too. With Airborne Assault on the brew and a bevy of CM scenarios are we developing a theme? Anyone for Holland this Easter?

Lovely little article and post, its things like this that sustain the interest in playing CM. You learn a new thing every day. Nice one.

I see, very interesting. I shall do that and see what happens. As it happens, when I play the game without the the fog of war it doesn't seem too bad. But it would be interesting to set up the forces and see what happens. I'm concerned that too many are getting shot up on the move as it were. As you say, a new problem developes with the arrival of reinforcements when experience is set too high. When I set no improvement, the AI still retained reinforcements to the rear. I'll work on this and let you all know. Personally, I don't like it when a designer allows Reinforcement to suddly appear on the map (I prefer them to enter via the table edge), but I can now see why this occurs. Thanks for responding .

I read with interest WBW comments in the previous post and all parties make some good points. Having spent a while designing a new scenario, based on the fighting in Lower Oosterbeek during MARKET-GARDEN, I've tried to get as near to a 'historical' scenario as possible. Having walked the battlefield and used the relevant maps I'm quite happy with the map I've made and my OOBs accord with all the documents I could lay my hands on. My problem remains the A.I. Can anyone give me an idea how the A.I. manages troop deployment and movement. I appreciate that there is a relationship between deployment and VLs, but there all rationale seems to end. Allowing the A.I. to deploy freely results in a chaotic distribution (to say the least) which the A.I. then goes on to modify (in often hilarious fashion). If I limit the A.I. to Stick to Scenario default (where troops are clustered around the VLs) the A.I. still moves some units about after the game has started. The amount of movement and the aggressivness (read pile as many chaps over 'there' as possible)seem to be dictated by toggling the level of 'Computer Experience', i.e. +1 +2 +3. How does 'Computer Experience' influence the A.I.'s behaviour? I need the A.I. to model an aggressive Axis attack or a solid Allied defense in depth. I'm currently working with a number of small VL flags with some fixed units. This is OK, but I'm wondering whether the collective experience assmebled here could help me out. Any suggestions?

Thanks chaps, that what it is JUJU has hit the nail on the head. A warning to us all: Always make a back up - that ws weeks of work down the pan. :eek:

you know how it is. You spend weeks on a new battle and you're just on the brink of finishing: the map is complete, the units are perfected and you've play tested it. Then when you're about to add the final touches the battle editor refuses to open it. What's going on! Can someone help? I can play my scenario as a saved game, but when I go to edit it in the scenario editor it won't open. The file reads a 17KB but only appears as a blank map which should be 2KB. Why can't I open it? AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhh :mad:

When I downloaded them they ran really slowly. Its a bit off putting when some one cries out and it sounds...all...sloooowwwww. Any suggestions? :confused:

Thanks

If you are short of a map or two of southwestern Holland, particularly the area of Hell's Highway, I've found an 'interesting' source of 1:75,000 maps from 1868. http://www.kuijsten.net/atlas/nb/ Now, I'm hoping some Dutch chaps could tell me whether Holland had changed much between 1868 and 1944 (doh!).

£0 doh!

Hello chaps - I don't suppose anyone could point me in the direction of a 1:25,000 scale map of the area between Son and Veghel, particularly the area around Koevering, Holland? It's just that I would like to put together a game based on KG. Jungwirth's attack on Hell's Highway 24 - 26 Sept. 1944. ALl the best - oh - and Happy Christmas.

You can buy it in the UK mate. TRy any big bookshop like Waterstones or Blackwells or even Amazon.co.uk

Would it be possible for me to have a copy of the water mods. They are very nice. Thanks.

AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, cheese. Yes, I really should do more (puff) exercise (gasp), working out (whew) on this keyboard (sweat) is doing me in (pant). I must be getting old. So, we now have three CM players in spitting distance of each other, any more and we'll be sitting on top of each other.

Slice and dice, shame. Walk? From Waterloo East? Are you some health food / fitness fanatic? I shall tube it eating cheeseburgers along the way.