PIATpunk

Some news: work is going on very well 👍
Part 1 of the "Five Bridges Campaign" is running its test as betaversion and the whole campaign will start its final testrun within the next 3 weeks.
Special thanks to all testers 🙏
 
Regards 
Mr.X

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cmbn-other/jujus-ui-mod-v6-unification-mod/

Bootie has the updated package. Should be on CMMODS sometime soon. Easiest way to update is replace the whole file and click "replace all". Only needed for CMBN and CMFI.

NIne out of possible twelve scenarios almost completed. Two might be dropped due to lack of interesting subject matter. Had to modify a few scenarios based on newly acquired information. Spending last few days writing and rewriting a complex AI script for a large and long German attack on a complex map. The thought came to me today that scripting a large AI plan is like creating the coreography for a theatrical production. Every new impulse demands another play test to check the timing and effect.

I have a fix but need to get it to Bootie. Enough bmps to cover the new version of the button and old.

@BFCElvis Declan, you really should be advising people about installing VC Redist x86.  Particularly when they have a Win11 machine.
Mr Bean: no idea.  But the redist was usually pre-installed in Win10 (I think) so for most people the games just worked.  Not present in Win11 though.
Well my dear boy, I did advise you about 3 weeks ago to try this 😉

I believe the Visual C Redistributables (x86) are necessary for any of the games that now have PBEM++ feature.

so Mr Bean, did you download and run the MS Visual library?  https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe

@BFCElvis Declan, you really should be advising people about installing VC Redist x86.  Particularly when they have a Win11 machine.
Mr Bean: no idea.  But the redist was usually pre-installed in Win10 (I think) so for most people the games just worked.  Not present in Win11 though.
Well my dear boy, I did advise you about 3 weeks ago to try this 😉

so Mr Bean, did you download and run the MS Visual library?  https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe

German tank gunners training had em firing at targets at around 1200-2000m - guns sighted for up to 1200m which means, all things considered the round when fired will travel a flat trajectory for 1200m. At ranges sub 1200m they were trained not to bother acquisition firing i.e. getting the range but to fire for effect, if the round missed then the target was greater than 1200m then they would adjust accordingly. Training also was done against a target moving across their LOF at same range - to learn and practice leading the target. In each case they around 4-3 rounds - exercise stopped when a/ they hit the target or b/ fire all the rounds.
Combat would be a different thing though, vehicle movement, IDing targets, smoke, dust, barrel wear, damage to optics etc would all impact on this. But all things considered anything below 1200m that is IDed and engaged would most likely be hit. In game various crew soft factors impact on this.
Combat engagement ranges do seem to vary. Even on the Eastern Front its seldom totally flat. Rolling terrain, fields, trees etc would impact on LOS and LOF.
One event that stands out for long range engagements between German armour (Tigers and Panthers) would be Targu Frumos with ranges in excess of the 1200m and up to around 2000m. 
I'm pretty sure that who fires first will win mainly held true for WWII- though obvs that assumes that the target you are firing at can be penetrated. The game would be not engaging from the front but tackling (ambushing) from the flanks. Off course if you are a Tiger I in 1943 you are pretty confident that taking on T-34/76s at around 1200m will see you kill em whilst they won't be able to kill you. That changes once T-34/85s and IS-IIs come along...
In CM the AI has no advantage - it plays with the same game mechanics as the human player. There is no advantage and that's been stated multiple times over the years.

More from the Benouville Map...

The first 2 Horsas to land in Normandy...

The glider pilots land so close to the bridge...

Troops arrive from 7th Para Battalion and start to move over the bridge...

The Piat is quite effective at close range...

...and even against the PzKw IV.
 
 
 

This is Part 1 of a short series giving a summary and overview of the tactical fundamentals and principles behind WWII German and Soviet armoured unit tactical drills and combat formations commonly used in 1944 using examples from Combat Mission Red Thunder to illustrate key points.
Part 1: What is the difference between formations, drills, principles and tactics?
This video defines these terms and may also help the viewer differentiate between a potentially bewildering array of terms and puts them into context with German armoured doctrine.

Ben Mayne - @BattlefieldBen on Twitter is posting a whole series of tweets covering the actions on Operation Charwood, with annotated GE maps/photos and film clips from the IWM
https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpCharnwood?src=hashtag_click
Well worth checking out if you are on the mess that is currently twitter
 
P

What's everyone been up to?  CMRT released on Steam!  Here's some inspiration for any newcomers.  
More scene's from @Mr.X upcoming Tiger Trail campaign!


Firefight!

On the move.

Los los los!

A wee something I put together.
This video showcases content from the Combat Mission Red Thunder Battlepack 1 released by Battlefront.com.
It's a brief overview of each scenario, what it's about and the main intent; it also covers the campaigns (including a brief summary of the main campaign branches).
There are NO spoilers in the video chapters.
https://youtu.be/wyrRX4bP2mM
 

"Night at the Opera" changes (both sides) involve giving extra to the carry-over percentage for the AI side. If you wiped them out previously, you wiped them out. The new one should offer a more active fight now in the second half (from either side, as is the concept).
Axis AI plans adapted accordingly, with a few extra tweaks in the AI plans here and there that I'll leave for you all to uncover while you are storming the castle in Berlin.
You could always back up your current versions if you liked the strict carry-over "short-term, single area of front-line campaign" STSAFLC (pronounced "STSALFC") concept for this battle, or want a slightly easier variant if you find it tough from either side.

Short Update: 
This weekend, the Mapwork for the Partisan-Campaign and for the „Into Hell“-Campaign will be finished. 10 maps, a huge amount of work 🙏🏻
Next week, the „Five Bridges“-Campaign will be worked on: 1 Mastermap is finished, 5 maps are in good progress and 4 maps (mostly small ones) exist only on paper right now. May be, during the next 3-4 weeks, I will call again for some testing vomunteers 😎
Regards 
Mr.X

Thanks guys this got my games up and working!!

I decided to create a new topic for this because "tool to set elevation in the editor" is no longer really a good description. Finally (from my perspective 😉) I managed to release version 2.0.0 of CMAutoEditor.

https://github.com/DerButschi/CMAutoEditor
Woah, Butschi, wait a minute CMAutoWhat? What the hell are you talking about? CMAutoEditor is a tool that takes "external" data, like elevation, and automates clicking in the CM scenario editor. This way it kind of works around "missing features" in the editor. Wouldn't it be nice to import something like a heat map instead of clicking elevations in the editor? Of course I can't change the editor but by letting CMAutoEditor do the clicking it does something similar.

 
Version 2 is really a major update as it now includes importing data from OpenStreetMap. This way you can basically use CMAutoEditor to create a whole map for you.
Still, feature creep and being overly ambitious is certain to kill such a small project so I had to triage what makes it into this release and what (maybe, provided there is enough interest on your side and enough time on my side) gets postponed to a later update.

The cut affecting most of you is that for this release only CMCW is really supported. The reason is that there are differences in what is in the scenario editor for each CM title. That means not only are there buttons at different positions but there are also different buildings, roads, flavour objects etc. which need to be programmed as a "profile". I intend to modify CMAutoEditor in a way that the community can help with that but I am not yet sure how best to do it. So, for now CMCW only. CMBS should work for everything but flavour objects.

Another thing I had to cut is support for Windows version older than Windows 10. I know, there are quite a few of you around who still field Windows 7. However, python is only supported up to version 3.7 on Windows 7 and a few of the libraries CMAutoEditor depends on require python 3.10. In addition, I don't have a farm of PCs idling at home where I can test different Windows version so I can really only develop for Windows 10. Sorry for that but maybe this doubles as a friendly reminder that nowadays Windows 7 is a security liability and you should upgrade to Windows 10 or 11. 😉
There is of course a long list of things I'd like to improve eventually and given that this is a rather complex piece of code the chances that it is free of bugs is close to zero. So, feel free to contact me here or on github if you find something!

Now, with all the caveats out of the way let's move on to the more pleasant stuff. 🙂 What's new in version 2? Well, of course OpenStreetMap data. You can import forests, rivers, roads, streams, railways, farmland, grassland, bushes, buildings and even bus stops, wayside crosses and much more. I improved the tools to import DGM data so that now arbitrary rectangles can be extracted. The information from this can be loaded into the OSM data converter so that you don't have to manually enter bounding boxes. (The geotiff tool is unfortunately among the things that didn't make it for this release so you are left with the previous capabilites). CMAutoEditor itself is now also much faster. Please note, that it may be too fast for what your PC can handle. If you experience "holes", e.g. when setting the elevation, that means the CM Editor is not responsive enough. I will make the parameters that determines the rate of clicking selectable from the GUI in a later update. Last but certainly not least there is a GUI for all the tools, so no more going to that evil shell, typing commands - kudos to @Dawntaker for supporting me with GUI making!

One more thing. I won't repeat the mistake and not have a manual or tutorial video ready at release: Since my previous tutorial video is now totally deprecated I am doing a new one. This time, instead of just telling you what the different features do, I'll do a step-by-step tutorial in four parts where I will create an actual map. This way I will certainly miss a few features but you should get a better feeling of how to actually use the tools in reality. Part 1 is finished already and it covers "installing" (i.e. downloading the .exe files) CMAutoEditor, installing other necessary tools, selecting a location for the map in map.army, finding and downloading elevation data, downloading OpenStreetMap data and getting historical aerial imagery and working with it. So, basically the boring stuff, some of you might say, but possibly the most important part. 😉
In the future I'd like to adapt CMAutoEditor to one of the WW2 titles, I think CMFB or CMRT would be best. Obviously present-day OpenStreetMap won't do for that. So, instead I'd like to make another tutorial showing how to use and old map or aerial image to make "OpenStreetMap data" from scratch and feed it into the CM scenario editor. Drawing polygons and tagging them is still - in my view - much more comfortable than clicking in the editor with some semi transparent overlay. So, if you have good material, go ahead and make a suggestion here. 😉
I hope you enjoy this new version of CMAutoEditor and the tutorial video(s)!

Same here...Installed Micro Visual C++2015-2022 Redistribution (x86) and CMBN is working again. I also went ahead from AMD 15.20 Drivers to 22.6.1.
Thanks for the fix @PIATpunk & @wolfgang500 🙂

Yes I have also now installed Microsoft Visual C++ 2015- 2022 Redistributable (x86) and all looks good 
Thanks for the fix

Short update: 
Work is still in good progress 👍🏻
Today I have been able to almost finish a mastermap of 3x2,5 km of wooded and wild landscape in the region north of Witebsk. 
 
In total, there will be 35 to 36 single missions to be played through the 4 campaigns. 
 
Regards
Mr.X

@Aragorn: Working is in progress 👍 Soon, I will show some new impressions of the growing campaigns...plenty of Infantry fighting 😎

now go and blow stuff up 😄  One of the best if not the best in the series.  Cheers