Bimmer

Since I apparently screwed up and there's no short description given above, here's the readme: Inspired by years of playing tabletop wargames, where the repeated use of map boards is a necessity, this pack of four missions are all built on the very same map. Some of the credit must also go to the tactical decision game format, popular for training junior military leaders. They are small missions, and short (30 minutes each). Each one presents a unique tactical situation to both sides, and they have been designed to ensure that play is not unnecessarily repetitive. There are no AI plans; they are strictly intended for head-to-head play. They have not been tested in real-time play, but they are quite small and should lend themselves well to it should players so desire. Enjoy!

Not just W7; one of my PBEM opponents is on XP and has the same problem, and another has seen it both on a Vista desktop and W7 laptop.

Update: After 25 turns, including 18 in which spotting rounds were dropped without any response from the FO, the battery just called FFE (which was verbally acknowledged by someone, perhaps the ghost of the dead FO). So perhaps it's not a bug, but just an inordinately long time for the battery to figure out that something's gone awry, followed by sending the mission anyway. This seems a little off on several counts. - Should the FO team be able to at least call off a mission if the FO is killed before FFE? How about the team's higher headquarters? - Should the battery drop spotting rounds for so long without any communication from the FO? - Should the battery fire the mission in spite of the lack of communication with the FO? (As noted above, an "emergency" mission would seem to be the only case where this would make sense.) I'm glad it's not a real bug, but I do hope the behavior can be tweaked to make things a bit more reasonable.

It's been mentioned in the tech support forum. I haven't had it, but two of my regular PBEM opponents have had it happen regularly.

On the way. EDIT: Zip is too big to email. I'll send you a d/l link.

I have all the turns for this game. PM me with info on what you want and where to send it and I'll get it to you ASAP.

Nope. As noted above, it was a Linear/Heavy/Long fire mission. That, plus the fact that the battery still lists its status as "Spotting".

You can make the argument for or against the remainder of the team being allowed to call artillery if the FO is eliminated, but that's of secondary concern IMHO. Any HQ unit with C2 can call artillery (well, at least the more common stuff), so getting support shouldn't be a major issue in most cases; it just might be delayed, which I would consider reasonable. Having an off-map asset go into zombie spotting fire mode as described above, however, makes them useless to everyone.

I could see the mission going through without final communication if it was called in as "Emergency" - FPF and the like - but not likely otherwise, as you say. This was a Linear/Heavy/Long mission.

It's in v1.01.

I think I may have discovered an issue that, in very specific instances (as described below), can be a major pain. In a current PBEM game (QB), one of my two FO teams called in a 105mm fire mission; delay time was 7 minutes. At T-2 minutes (i.e., 5 minutes after the mission was called), the FO was killed; the remaining two members of the team were uninjured, and the radio remained intact. From this point forward, the 105 battery in question became completely inaccessible to any units capable of calling artillery, listed as "Denied" for the original FO team and "Busy" for everyone else. It proceeded to begin dropping spotting rounds as scheduled. Now here's the problem. It has been dropping spotting rounds for the last 16 minutes with no sign of stopping, and I can't cancel the mission, since the FO is dead. The manual indicated that a battery may cease fire on its own if it fails to get a response from the FO (p.106), but I think that since the FO himself was killed but the team remains as a unit, the battery is not ceasing fire. 16 minutes of no response from the FO seems a pretty long time to go without the battery commander calling off the mission, and in any case, it would seem reasonable that the FO team's radio operator would be able to yell "cease fire!" into the radio. As it stands, I've got 50 rounds of 105mm HE that I can't use to stem the tide of Germans. I'm all for not allowing the FO team in question to spot once the FO is killed, but having the battery stuck in an endless loop of spotting rounds for more than a few (5? even 10? how long should they keep waiting for a response before they give up?) minutes just seems silly. It also makes me wonder if the FO team's superior (in this case a company HQ) should be able to cancel the mission, but this might be beyond reasonable coding.

These look really good in game. I'm not a uniform grog either, but it seems that these mix Heer and SS patterns (correct me if I'm wrong on this, please). I'm also completely ignorant of how prevalent camouflage was among Heer units in Normandy, but my impression was that it was not in regular use (and mostly tunics and smocks, not trousers), with feldgrau still being the dominant uniform. I wonder if it would be possible to make up a pack with mostly feldgrau mixed with a few tunics/smocks in Sumpftarnmuster and Splittermuster (these were exclusively Heer patterns, I think; were there others in widespread use in summer 1944?). That would be most excellent.

Pretty much what I figured. Here's hoping it's on the list for the next patch (this doesn't mean I'd be averse to hearing a definitive yay or nay from the Powers That Be).

It's been mentioned before; I submitted a ticket on it weeks ago. Haven't checked to see if it's fixed in v1.01. EDIT: Fixed in v1.01.

Disappointingly, it appears that no adjustment has been made to the firing times for on-board mortars that are in direct voice and visual communication range with the spotter. Thus the situation remains that a mortar that can "direct" fire in under a minute (fire with a Target order rather than using the indirect fire interface) still takes several minutes to put rounds downrange when employing a spotter only a few feet away when using "indirect" fire. The delays in artillery called through the comms net are perfectly understandable, but when spotter and tubes are in direct voice and visual communication, they seem excessive. I know this has been tossed around on the forum; anyone in the know want to share their thoughts on possible adjustments in future patches?

These are definitely a big step in the right direction; the brick is particularly nice. If I may be permitted to offer a bit of constructive criticism on the stone walls, especially the high wall: the walls in Normandy do not seem to have gaps as large as those depicted, and they rarely seem to have the level of uniform vegetation growth in the spaces between stones. Instead, they are usually made up of fairly tightly fitted stones of fairly uniform color and with little vegetation. Sometimes you will see a mustard-yellow lichen growing on the vertical surfaces and a black-green variety on the top. I've probably got some other photos around, but this was the only one I could come up with right now. Note the wall along the road in the lower portion of the photo, and the detail of the top surface in the left foreground.

Yep, M2 Ball is just what the military called .30-'06.

Having participated in the last thread on this, I won't recapitulate my suggestion here, but an additional thought comes to mind: I wonder if phones could be utilized similarly to TRPs. Purchase "Field Phone Locations" as fortifications, place them where you like, and units within a radius of the point would then have access to the phone net. May not be feasible in the code, but seems like it might be a flexible way to implement this very important feature if it is.

I had the same thing in the Vierville scenario. I filed a ticket with BF, so hopefully it's on the formal list of things to be addressed.

The "Split Teams" command is your friend.

It would be interesting to see results from troops of different experience levels. When the fighting gets up close and personal, I'd expect the ROF to go up considerably more than this test shows, but I also wonder if more experienced troops would increase their aimed fire under such circumstances, while green troops might be expected to cower more readily in close proximity to the enemy (and thus reduce their rate of fire) or fire wildly (reducing their accuracy). I know there are factors mentioned here that are not included in the testing - I'm just thinking aloud.

More photos:

OK, I was just in Normandy (20-25 June) and, being rather, um, not quite right in the head, I was snapping lots of pictures of otherwise really boring subjects on the chance that they might prove useful in creating more accurate scenarios for CMBN. My girlfriend was most tolerant. Anyway, here are several photos of crops in the fields. Some are properly framed shots, while others were just blasted out the car window. Most of the fields are pasture occupied by cows or sheep; crops occupy maybe 15% of fields, more as you move east toward Caen, fewer as you move west around Carentan. All the crops are quite low at this point in the growing season. I saw no freshly plowed fields that I can recall.

Huh...I guess I missed that when I looked through the repository. Downloading now, but from the screenshot it looks like exactly what I was hoping for. Once again, I am behind the curve. Thanks.

I'm not sure if it's even possible, but I would love to see the modern muzzle flash shapes replaced by more period-correct ones. For those unaware, the issue is that the current muzzle flash simulates a weapon equipped with a flash suppressor or muzzle brake; the exhaust gases are directed through ports perpendicular to the axis of fire, resulting in a star-shaped flash with a small forward flash. Most WW2-era weapons did not have such devices. Rifles and sub-machine guns were generally devoid of any muzzle devices, and only some machine guns and a few carbines had relatively simple unported flash suppressors. The flash of weapons without brakes or suppressors is more a cloud of flame, the size of which is dependent upon the amount of unburnt powder at the point when the projectile exits the barrel. I'd really like to see the muzzle flashes updated (or rather backdated) to the style appropriate for the period, if it can even be done as a mod (versus hard-coded). If anyone's willing to tackle it, I'd be very appreciative.