Bimmer

Nope, I found it messing around with a few things in the editor, then testing the scenario. I checked and the wooden ones have the same problem. There also seems to be some issue with the automatic mounting of a Breda MMG in the shelter bunkers. IIRC the German MGs mount automatically when an MG team occupies the bunker; the Italian MG teams do not mount their Breda upon entering, nor can they deploy it while inside.

It appears that Italian bunkers, at least the concrete ones, are stocked solely with German ammo: 9mm, 7.92, and 7.92K. This makes them somewhat less useful for the Italian units that will presumably be occupying them.

Unless I miss my guess, those 105s won't be coming. In all likelihood, you just got bitten by the now-infamous FO bug, wherein you now will have essentially no control over any battery the FO was controlling for the rest of the game. In CMBN the battery would go into an endless spotting round cycle, effectively removing it from play. I haven't heard or seen anything to indicate that this has changed in CMFI, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Did a little testing. The AA mount seems to have very limited (maybe 10-20 degrees) traverse. This seems very odd for an AA mount. Does anyone have any specific insight on this vehicle's design to confirm or deny that this was actually the way the mount worked?

*MILD SPOILER* Playing Beyond the Belice PBEM, I have the Italians. I've noticed that my AS42 (AA) seems to turn the entire vehicle in order to employ the 20mm AA gun. The gun appears to be on a 360 swivel mount; this makes sense, as it would be a pretty useless AA platform if the gun were fixed forward. Has anyone else seen this behavior? I should note that one of the crew was taken out, so it's down to three men. I can't imagine that this would be a factor, but I could be wrong.

For comparison, a contemporary photo of Palma di Montechiaro from the U.S. Army's official history. If anyone has any other photos of the town from that time period, or knows where to find them, I'd love to see them.

Quick update on forces: on the Italian side there is some conflicting information, but looking through some things I believe it was in fact the 171st CCNN (Blackshirt) Battalion, not the 177th Bersaglieri Regiment as noted above. The CCNN battalions were sometimes organized as mobile forces on the bersaglieri pattern; I believe this is the case here, as sources indicate the 171st was part of 28th (Aosta) Division, which in turn was part of XII Corps mobile forces. I will be using this formation in the scenario.

It is going to be messy to fight in there. I've spent more time than I care recall going in and making sure that there are no unintended movement paths through adjoining walls, so movement is very much restricted. I'm still finishing up the map, so I haven't started playtesting the scenario, but I'm guessing it's going to be a very bloody fight.

This scenario is based on the battle of Palma di Montechiaro, 11 July 1943. Modelling the entire battle in full scale is difficult, due both to the size of the town and lack of specific resources relating to the battle. I have chosen to model a small segment of the town (based primarily on modern sources) and a portion of the forces engaged - elements of the U.S. Army's 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry (part of 3rd Infantry Division), and the Italian 207th Coastal Infantry Division and 177th Bersaglieri Regiment. A little background from the U.S. Army's official history: The 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry (Lt. Col. John A. Heintges), led the advance on Palma di Montechiaro early on 11 July. Crossing the Palma River bridge without incident, the battalion encountered heavy fire from Italian troops who occupied strong positions along a line of low hills just south of the town. Deploying his troops, building up a base of fire, and using supporting weapons to excellent advantage, Heintges pushed slowly ahead and drove the Italians into the town itself. As the battalion prepared to push into Palma around 1100, numerous white flags appeared on buildings in the town. Colonel Heintges dispatched a small patrol to accept the surrender. Unfortunately, civilians, not soldiers, had displayed the white flags, and the small American patrol came under fire. Two men were killed, another two were wounded. Enraged, Heintges gathered together ten men and personally led them across an open field to a building which seemed to house the heaviest fire. They reached the building safely, planted demolitions on the lower floor, withdrew a short distance, and set off the explosives. The blast signaled start of the attack, and the battalion swept into town behind its commander. The Palma defenders had been reinforced by a task force that had moved down from the Naro River, and heavy fighting erupted up and down the main street. For two hours the battle raged from house to house. Around 1300, having had enough, the surviving Italians began pulling out westward along Highway 115. Quickly reorganizing his battalion, Heintges followed in close pursuit, rapidly cleared the hills on the south side of the highway, and dug in there to await the rest of the combat team.

Well, that's unfortunate. Here's the current link: Linky

If anyone's played this one, some feedback would be great. I'm working on some stuff for CMFI, and it would be nice to see how prior efforts have played out. Thanks.

If anyone's played this one, some feedback would be great. I'm working on some stuff for CMFI, and it would be nice to see how prior efforts have played out. Thanks.

I have to inform you that that was the final. It was always intended as a 4-round tournament; I added a second, separate bracket due to popular demand, but there was never an intent to have the bracket winners face off against each other. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Thanks for putting that together - I'm sure it was quite a lot of work, but the results are very good. I'm glad you enjoyed the tournament, and well done on your victory.

Ugh. I reported this bug quite some time ago. I had hoped it would have been squashed in v2.0, but apparently it's quite resilient.

Wreck, thanks for posting your AAR. It sounds like you had a good little fight there, even if the results were a bit lopsided. Speaking as a survivor of the infamous "Wreck's Bitches" group back in ROW something-or-other, you've proven yourself once again. I hope the other three finalists will follow the example and post their AARs here.

Now the the tournament is over, please feel free to discuss any aspects of the scenarios or the tournament in general. I know some of this has already occurred in other related threads, but more feedback is always better, so here we are.

This is the thread for the final round after-action reports.

OK, guys sorry for the delay in responding here - I was away. This was the last scenario, so the tournament is over. My thanks to everyone who joined in, and my congratulations to the winners. I hope you enjoyed the scenarios. I will start an AAR thread for Round 4; to those four players who participated in the final round, please try to put up an AAR for everyone else to read. I will also start a general comments/final wrap-up thread for everyone.

Will do. If I don't get a response you'll win by default. Thanks for your perseverance.

Thanks for the AAR!

Thanks for the kind words guys. I hope everyone enjoyed the experience, regardless of how far they got. As soon as the last game is completed (I do hope the players have communicated and gotten underway), I'll put up the Round 4 AAR thread, send the final scenario to the Repository, and put up another thread for overall assessments and general commentary on the tournament as a whole.

Congratulations to Odin for winning Bracket 2. I have heard nothing from Wreck to indicate a problem after we went with the modified version of this scenario. I will email him and see what's up.

Thanks for that detailed AAR, Wreck. Good read, great photos. It's really interesting to me to say the different ways the scenario played out.

Emails with passwords and attached turns (where applicable) have been sent. You may notice a few slight changes in the map - it has seen a lot of fighting over the last few months....