Roach

Here at last - just downloaded it from Amazon.co.uk

I'd like to see my GIs wearing the correct packs - haversacks for infantry and musettes for paratroopers, and not as it is at the moment with both infantry and paratroopers wearing a mix of both. However I believe that they are assigned randomly so I can't see a way to make it happen - there, that sounds like a challenge to someone if ever I heard one!

Excellent. Grabbed it from the repository and the water (and everything else) is already looking decidely choppy! As a matter of interest, are you planning on releasing individual maps from the campaign? The only (vaguely serious) attempt I've made at making a historical map myself is Le Carrefour and I'd quite like to compare - but somehow, what with my level of expertise or lack thereof, it's going to take me quite a while to get anywhere near those crossroads! Many thanks.

I think it would look awfully nice on a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 - especially if it was mine that it was looking awfully nice on!

No musettes on the beach, just assault vests and haversacks. Talking of which, I wonder if anybody is game enough to take on modding an aasault vest or if in fact it is actually possible? I suspect that it might not be - or at least not convincingly anyway.

I had a stab at removing the musette packs to at least reduce the instance of them appearing on my infantrymen by simply editing out the musette from the us-gear.bmp. This did remove the musette bag well enough from my troops so that the few men that I had wearing packs (about 2 per squad, tops) were at least wearing haversacks. However that left the M3 knife/scabbard floating in midair where it was intended to be attached to the musette. * So the next step was to remove the M3knife/scabbard image from the us-musette-bag-shovel.bmp which I thought had worked until I noticed that there was still a grey M3-shaped image floating in position. I can’t see a separate image of an M3 anywhere in the US bitmaps so I'm not sure what is causing the ghostly M3 to still be there. Then again, I am only tinkering and not in any way a competent modder (I know nothing about masks and alpha channels!!) so I dare say that one of the talented chaps on here can sort it out. Still doesn’t solve my "haversacks for all!" campaign though! I did try faffing with the mdr files again to achieve this but to no avail. I did manage to get a second haversack hanging from the waist which suggests to me that I really ought to be able to replace the musette with the haversack with the right combination of mdr files but, again, it's all a little beyond me. I am such a quitter! Bah humbug. * Incidentally, in real life there is no attachment for any equipment on a musette bag on the side (very late war and post war versions had an attachment on the back flap) so this is somewhat inaccurate in the first place. The haversack does have the attachment for the bayonet in the same place that the musette erroneously has it but I don't think I've seen a bayonet in that position on the haversack, always on the belt - I could very probably be wrong though! Regardless, it seems that the setup of the US packs are a little a about f. Still a minor quibble though, obviously, although I should probably get some counselling about my haversack fixation...

I think that depends on the situation and it's probably true in some cases. But I wasn't looking to get rid of the packs completely, I merely want my infantry to be wearing infantry haversacks, rather than wearing musette packs which were pretty much a paratrooper 'thang' - a paratrooper certainly wouldn't be seen dead in an infantry haversack! The US had uniform regulations too so they weren't really an optional style choice but, again, it's only a minor quibble to see my boys heading for certain death in the bocage weighed down with musette packs although, oh, how that quibble itches!

I guess that means no takers, then? No matter. After messing about with the .mdr files for haversacks and musettes I did manage to replace the musette bag with an E-Tool but didn't achieve much else other than replace the E-Tool slung at the waist with another musette bag - not quite the effect I was after. But I figure that switching the right .mdr file ought (well, might!) cause the musette bag to be replaced with the haversack. Unfortunately I just haven't managed to do it - maybe I haven't hit on the right .mdr file or maybe it can't be done. This would be a shame as I'm quite fed up now of my infantrymen looking like paratroopers; it is an admittedly very minor quibble but I can't find anything else about the game to quibble about! Curiously, the actual BMP file for the haversack is labelled as a musette bag, so that just confused me a little bit more - and it doesn't take much in the first place. Still, if anybody has any ideas to rid me of the musette bags in favour of the haversacks, do feel free to jump in. Thanks.

I was just wondering if there is any way to replace the musette bag with the haversack on the US infantry or are they assigned randomly to the models and there isn't anything that can be done about it? Obviously it's hardly the end of the world but I'd just like to see my infantry running about in infantry haversacks looking like infantry instead of running around looking like those airborne fellas! :-D Thanks.

That would be the 2/115 who were involved in the incident at Le Carrefour. There isn't really a lot of information about it on the web, almost none in fact - it seems to have been largely glossed over in the history books. It does get a mention in Glover Johns' Clay Pigeons and the 29th Div History - although the latter is simply a quote from Clay Pigeons - and that account has become the definitive one. I can’t remember if Joe Balkoski mentions it in his books but I'd be stunned and amazed if he doesn't; I just haven't read any of them for a ling time but it's got to be in Beyond the Beachhead. Anyway… Where it is mentioned (other than in the above), it's often referred to as an ambush but essentially, amid the general confusion and chaos, it was more a case of the 2/115 getting ahead of the German forces retreating from the invasion area so that when they holed up for the night at Le Carrefour they were suddenly surprised by a fairly large enemy force of mixed odd and sods (including some armour) heading south to a new defensive line, and coming right up behind them along pretty much the same route they had just travelled themselves. Initially, in the dark, they mistook the German activity (vehicle noises, etc.) behind them as being friendly forces. In Clay Pigeons it states how the 2/115 made no defensive provisions at all when they halted because they were so exhausted but just went to sleep in the field - something that 2/115 vets hotly dispute - so that when the German force hit them they were totally unprepared and, essentially, they went to pieces and fled. Again, the 2/115 vets hotly dispute this and they put the exaggerated stories about the incident stemming from Gerhardt jumping to conclusions before he had all the facts. The battalion became admittedly somewhat disorganised during the action but they certainly hadn’t fled en masse with their tales between their legs - if they had they wouldn’t have left the significant number of 'dead' pieces of German armour on the battlefield that they did. So not exactly the debacle that Gerhardt's immediate reaction indicated that it was. Not to mention that the battalion was back in the saddle the next day or there and thereabouts (with a new CO, the previous one having been killed in heroic circumstances during the battle). Again, I have no links to the above but I do know that quite a few years back a lot of 2/115 vets at a 29th Convention got together and thrashed out the whole incident to put the record straight once and for all, having become just a little bit fed up with how the action had been depicted and perpetuated in various books and, naturally enough, how that reflected on them. I recall a 1/115 vet amongst a group we were ferrying around Normandy saying that he didn't mind missing the memorial ceremony at Le Carrefour because it was just a ceremony for a bunch of guys who went to sleep in a field! I think that it was that kind of reaction from their own contemporaries that made some of the 2nd battalion guys want to get the true story out there. In an attempt to get a balanced picture of the incident, there was also, I believe, a certain amount of research done regarding the composition of the German forces that attacked them; all the results were published in an article in the 29th Division Association newsletter some years ago And of course, naturally enough, now that I actually need it, I cannot find the beggar! There ends my virtually monotonous monologue. Meanwhile, back on topic, I don’t think it's the same field. Now, back to lurking...

Another no additional charge UK delivery. Splendid.

Hi snake eye, No problem. If you think it's wrong, you think it's wrong, so fair enough. Personally, I don't have your expertise so cannot give any useful opinion either way. All I can say is that the camo belongs to guys who did/do had/have many years of experience collecting GI cast offs at the usual great expense (I'm still trying to fathom what makes a sane man do that?!!) and I'd be amazed if they'd offered up hookey gear as originals for prime examples for photo work, so really, I have no reason to doubt them. But on the other hand nobody is infallible and as I'm no expert I'm happy to bow to superior judgement and if that superior judgement is yours then so be it. :-)

Hi snake_eye, Yes, the picture I posted was staged for the book in about 92, 93 (my aging memory is not precise about the dates!), but I just wanted to clarify that the uniforms are not reproductions. As I recall we had about two or three sets of the army camo in nice condition for the photo shoot. It was pooled by different collectors but for the photos they were mixed and matched to make up complete, better matched suits due to some colour differences; this was either due to fading through wear and tear or maybe just differences in manufacture. I can assure you though that the camo suits, both jackets and pants, as well as everything else (again, as with your picture, barring the guys, obviously!) were original - the chaps were very picky about that sort of thing! :-D Hi Michael, When I was collecting GI 'stuff' in the early 80s there was apparently a commercial range of camo either being produced or, more probably, had been produced (can't remember which - as I said, age is very bad for my memory!) in the US after the war and which was very similar to the WW2 Army pattern so maybe that was what you had? I never had any myself, never saw any for that matter, and never had any original camo either - my pockets weren't deep enough! :-D

A pretty picture of WW2 US Army Camo: http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc478/Alfred_Jones_Jnr/WW2%20Camo/USArmyWW2Camo01.jpg From the book, The World War 2 GI in Color Photographs

Yes, mine mysteriously returned to normal yesterday as well. I knew patience would triumph eventually :-)