Holien

The Other Battle of France.
Despite having spent over 70 years studying the border, Italian Generals and military minds proved remarkably unimaginative over their plans for an invasion of south France. Most plans settled on an attack through the passes through the Corniche and Colle di Tenda and advancing to establish a line on the Rhone river, but few details more specific than those items were considered. Nothing at all was considered after reaching the Rhone. In 1928 the French had begun work on the Ligne Maginot Alpine series of fortifications along the border. These fortifications were much less dense than those on the Maginot Line proper, but were well concealed. The French had guessed the potential invasion routes correctly and consequently much of the defense was oriented at the routes the Italians planned on invading through. 
In March 1940 Graziani posted general order PR 12, which noted the possibility of offensive action through the Alps toward Albertville and Annecy, but mainly emphasized a defensive stance. 4th Army HQ considered but never followed through with a request for the Bersagliari to study an attack through the Piccolo san Bernardino pass. At the end of May Graziani put PR 12 into effect and Mussolini added up his personal command that Army Group West (consisting of 1st and 4th Armies) remain on the defensive and not push the border under any circumstances. Yet Army Commanders were also asked to study potential offensive plans "under favorable circumstances" from increasingly confusing communiques from Rome. 
1st Army HQ produced a plan for an attack Colle della Maddalena which was very conventional in design, but Graziani preferred the plan drawn up by 4th Army HQ for an attack through the San Bernarndino pass north, especially since it emphasized speed and maneuver which was closer to Fascist preference. Wildly optimistic assumptions were made about moving motorized and armored divisions through a cart track and that the Regia Aeronautica would have trouble knocking out the forts at Bourg-en-Bresse that guarded the pass. 
On June 10th Italy declared war on France. While German troops entered Paris a few days later and the Third Republic began to collapse, Italian troops were told to begin conducting small unit-action attacks against French positions on the frontier. General Roatta was instructed to take on deployments necessary for advances through the Colle della Maddalena and Piccolo San Bernardino passes, now fully jettisoning the defensive-elements of PR 12. French patrols were spotted probing the Italian side of the border and in some retaliations some prisoners were taken by the Italians. When Marshall Petain became leader and began agitating for a for an armistice Mussolini interpreted this as the sign of total capitulation he'd been hoping for and pushed Graziani to go on the offensive-which he was enthusiastically agreed to. 
Furious that Germany might agree to cease hostilities with France before he had been able to cleave anything for himself, Mussolini disregarded warnings about the challenges his troops faced attacking through the Alps. On June 23rd, just as the Italian offensive was getting underway-Mussolini was invited by Hitler to attend a conference discussing French surrender terms. Mussolini showed up at Munich with a huge wish list of items Hitler was completely unwilling to grant any of. They included items such as Italian occupation of the French naval base in Oran (Mers-el-Kebir), Casablanca, Corsica, Tunisia, and the handover of the French Fleet.
Hitler was not prepared to entertain any of these demands, worried that putting too much pressure on Marshall Petain would lead to his government fleeing to North Africa. Ciano got the impression that Germany was looking for a peaceful settlement with England, and began to realize that there unlikely to be joint German-Italian negotiations with the French. When informed Mussolini only got more greedy. Now he wanted all of Algeria and Egypt to become Italian client states too. 
As the Offensive against France got underway the Italian's strategy rapidly collapsed into chaos. Roatta received calls from both Army's HQs that neither one of them would be ready to conduct their advances on time, with Guzzoni stating he also needed an armored division and an engineer battalion. Mussolini was informed of this and briefly considered allowing Army Group West to delay, but once he heard the Germans had reach Lyon he changed his mind again and commanded them forward. 
Petain had ordered French troops to stop fighting, but the local French Commanders decided to disobey the Marshall's orders and agreed to stand and fight. The remaining elements of the French Army were enraged by the Italian stab-in-the-back and had no intention of giving up an inch of French territory to Mussolini's vulturine dash for easy conquests. The German force in Lyon delayed its own advance on the French Alpine positions-but failed to notify Badoglio's HQ of this, and he ordered Army Group West forward into the San Bernardino pass after a 39 aircraft bombardment on suspected French positions by Regia Aeronautica.
The bombardments missed the French mostly and with minimal knowledge of where French emplacements were Italian columns rapidly became pinned down by French battery fire. It began to snow heavily and Italian columns were ambushed on their flanks by French Ski and Alpine troops. The bad weather crippled Regia Aeronautica, and in the confusion some Italian troops were bombed and attacked by their own airplanes. A few days after the initial advance began a 2nd advance bogged down for all the same reasons-unchallenged French artillery fire, unknown French bunker positions, and bad weather. Only now the Italian's artillery participated in bombardments of their own troops. By the 23rd Mussolini phoned Badoglio and admitted that he wasn't interested in any territorial occupation of France tating that "Hitler might accuse me of having upset the armistice". 
Fortunately for the Italians, by June 24th French General Charles Huntziger had agreed to an armistice and the four day Franco-Italian war came to an end. The Italians lost 642 men KIA, 2631 wounded, and 616 missing. Over 2,100 got frostbite. The binaria Divisions had done awfully, with their two Regiments frequently becoming exhausted and pinned down along parallel but isolated routs of advance. Without a 3rd Regiment Italian commanders did not have sufficient manpower to rotate exhausted units into reserve, and their men had to stand and fight without respite. Mussolini personally visited the scene of the action at the Piccolo San Bernardino, but convinced himself the episode was a a triumph, boasting to Clara Petacci that "our soldiers overcame very strong resistance". 
Next time, Graziani goes on (a very slow) one-time-only tour in Africa! Italo Balbo meets an unfortunate fate, and a pair of palm trees are confused for a battleship. Find out next time on Mussolini's Mediterranean Misadventures...

i pretty nice video about the Carl Gustav..
 

History repeats itself again and again because humans are basically the same throughout History. The same motivation and desires just re-spun with different words. The technology changes but humans remain the constant. 

Correct and don't hold your breath. I bring it up every now and then as it is my most wanted feature. Steve has said the number of people who want it is a vanishingly small portion of the player population.
The majority of people only play against the AI. Of those that play PBEM many of those avoid long scenarios because it can take months or years to play them. Playing a campaign H2H via PBEM would take n times longer. So, the number of people who want to play H2H campaigns may be all the people on this thread and no one else.

Bear in mind that not all of those scenarios will have been designed for HtH play. Solo play requires different design choices to H2H. So you or your opposition will have to get used to the imbalance. Perhaps get the stronger player to take the weaker side.

Friday afternoon and finally off video conference calls.  Gawd I both love Zoom and hate it.
There are lots of reasons for delay and for those of us who have been around a while it is a constant joke on Steve's ability to wildly overestimate when a product will be out.  We love ya steve but I always double or triple your estimates.    Covid has impacted all of us and I really appreciate Combatintman's concerns.  My wife and I both have aging mother's that are very vulnerable.  In my case I can't visit her because of the risk, my wife is unable to even assume risk, she is simply prohibited.  Despite all the fluff from the orange man, a vaccine is a ways off and even then we are looking at manufacturing and distribution - and a possible mutation.  From a work perspective my job has gotten extremely time consuming and difficult and I barely even have time to play CM much less beta test it. For Steve etal sure they had requirements for their other contracts as well as trying to patch all the titles for various issues continue work on modules and deal with their personal lives.  Right now if anything we should all be giving each other leeway to deal with a difficult time.  Freakin sky is at least not yellow here today with smoke forcing everyone indoors.  I have a bottle of wine, some sashimi grade seafood was just delivered, my wife is healthy and it is the weekend.  I'll take it.

Poland and Baltic states. Four B-52 were in the sky.

Russia is recognized by Ukraine and international community as agressor and occupant of Crimea.
According to Geneva Convention of 1949 all responsibility for population supply on occupied territory lies on the state-occupant.
Malta, for example, almost hasn't own water, it imported from outside. Russia has grabed Crimea? Well, let now carry the water in the buckets through their bridge - this is already not our problem. Only so impudent state like Russia can grab foreign territory and think that country victim of agression must continue to supply occupied territory as if nothing happened! 
Crimea will receive the water only after it will turn back to Ukraine. Else, if Russia will not solve this problem, Crimea turned out into steppe desert like it was before 1954. But Russia can't do that. Pro-Russian Crimean said in 2014 "What further? Let even rocks from the heaven! We are in Russia now!" Ok. Rocks switched on.

Dominic C (Boris's brain) shaking up the whole status quo. Lot's of establishment in his sights.
Mind you by using CM it might be shown that tanks are still required if they want to protect our allies.
Hmm I have just realised we don't count the Europeans as allies any more...
🙄
If I were being really cynical perhaps Russia is our new friends after the help they gave Boris...

Just a cultural difference between nations, I wouldn't take offence. You meant well.
I spent time being educated at an American High school and while I had a great time it was a real eye opener on how different the American patriotism level is compared to the UK. For example standing up every morning being "brainwashed"(btw me being cheeky) going ra ra for the flag was very alien was just part of how kids are indoctrinated. I can see the reasons for it as America has to meld different folks into citizens. 
The love from America towards the UK is not really reciprocated and our desire for recognition is very different to the American approach. The UK military is deeply grounded and having an American actor say how great they are will be deemed a be a bit annoying. 

Wargamer has a short interview with Steve up:
https://www.wargamer.com/articles/combat-mission-shock-force-2-steam-interview/

MOUT operations in CMx2 titles have always been pretty bloody if not executed without exceptional care. I can not make a statement regarding your specific situation, but what i ve observed in the couple of years playing CMx2 is that clearing a building occupied by hostile forces is
Best avoided if possible If avoiding clearing the building is impossible, destroy the building or its occupants using heavy fire power (tanks, aircraft artillery, what ever you' ve got). If destroying the building or it's occupants using heavy fire power is not possible, prepare it for infantry clearing by first spending a couple of turns suppressing it's occupants using at least a 3:1 force ratio and the target or target light command. RPGs and the like are wonderful tools for convincing an enemy in a building to leave it. After preparing the building for assault, keep suppressing it with a target-light command and a 2:1 force ratio an send a 1:1 force ratio troop into the building, carefully. Use the pause command and suppress each room with the assault element using target-briefly for at least 10 seconds before entering (this also leads to some grenade throwing, etc). If possible, send the assault element into the building using demo charges by blowing in a wall that has no windows and from the top most floor possible (because hand grenades work best if thrown from an upper to a lower floor). If heavy resistance is encountered in a room, retreat and try to destroy or at least suppress the enemy using your over-watch element from the outside. Using above listed steps, MOUT against an inferior force as the Syrians in CMSF2 can usually be done relative casualty free. Fighting an equal enemy such as the Russians in CMBS, on the other hand, will always cause you some losses, there is no way around it. Just accept it and keep pushing forward towards your mission objectives.

It can be viewed at this link
I'll critique Chris's play once I get a chance to watch it myself.   
 

Good news, albeit long overdue.  I've never understood the meta on these forums that there is a "typical Steam user" when there are games like Scourge of War Waterloo - less accessible than CM and with graphics performance that makes CM look like it's on speed - that are rated Mostly Positive on Steam.
Anyway, aside from hoping that the vastly increased exposure through Steam will lead to significant future investment in the titles, for me one of the biggest windfalls from this partnership would be if CM integrated with Slitherine's PBEM system.  If you are a regular player of Field of Glory 2 or similar you will already know what a boon this is to quickly getting multiple games going with randoms or friends.

The Houthis seem to be the Vietnamese de nos jours - highly ingenious and adaptable - ever seen an AA missile repurposed as a SAM on a technical (yes the range is reduced).
The Houthi Art of War: Why They Keep Winning in Yemen
 
 

The world is all about people, when two good people meet good things can happen I am glad the right people at both companies have put this agreement in place. 
I hope it works out as planned. Really pleased for both companies. 
Congratulations. 

Intense

By priority:
1. Blitzkrieg 39-40 with horses  
11. European conventional conflict "sandbox", based on CMBS (+Ukraine with UNCONs, +Baltic states, +Poland, +СMSF2 NATO countries) maybe on CMx3 engine
       Turkey and France modules to CMSF2
7. Fulda Gap
5. Arab-Israeli 1973
12. Korea
 

7. "Fulda Gap": 1970-90
Europe WWIII

1. Blitzkrieg: 1939-40 
WWII Early war
Poland
France
(also Finland)

I find that a strange thing to say. If there's anything left of this society in 100 years, I feel sure that Hitler will be as vilified as he is today: a murderous fascist.

A man sat behind a computer screen with a beer belly in his underwear is not very photogenic! 
😉

A quick tour of Rotterdam. Arnhem and US graveyard by Dutch biker lass Itchyboots 
 

You mean the guy who back stabbed the Kurds?

This is the first time I've seen a 251/17 engage an enemy aircraft. At first i wondered what it was shooting at. For context this is the opening stage of an assault on one of my 'occupy' objectives. As I'm very light on infantry the poor defenders had been subject to shelling and mortaring and now direct fire from my various HE chuckers that had LOF to the area.

SPW and their rides moving up.

Aussteigen!

Running forward to take up firing positions. No sign of any surviving opposition, but I'm not taking any chances... Lot's of suppressing fire from their accompanying SPW as well as fire from other supporting units.