Brian Smith

Guys, tracked down some tree bmps to identify what files they were (thanks Juardis for pointing me to DD's) and restored low-res trees and bases. Played a few turns of a tree-rich scenario that had been whiting out, last night, with no ill-effects. Will play longer with scenarios that have been problems before and will report back. Smith out.

Great observations, jeff I will give them a try, but how will I find out which bmps are the trees (I am using low-res grass)? Anybody know, or will I have to look at all the bmps one at a time?

Tankersley Yes, I had a on-map 3 inch mortar and you are also right, I didn't even think of smoke! D'oh. I could have smothered the guns with smoke and close assaulted them! Double d'oh! Thanks for tips.

Looking for a report from anyone with a Voodoo3 3000 who might be using the new unsupported drivers. Thanks.

Thanks for the great comments and feedback - I appreciate it. Re the sharpshooters, I have to say I'm in two minds about them. I found them useful in defence in a small scenario I played, because they could surgically take out things like panzerschreck teams, but I agree they weren't much use in the attack I played. I assumed they would be stealthy and hence useful for scouting. Not sure how I would have gone without the artillery - I learned lots about being on the receiving end of it with those poor devils in the pines! Jason, I will take your advice on my next QB and try a real combined force. Thanks again guys.

I played my first Quick Battle last night (I’m a CM newbie) and just wanted to get some comments on my tactics, and better ways to deal with this sort of situation. It was a combined arms, 750 point British attacking versus Germans defending a village, and once I had spent a while working out how to select forces within the points limit, I ended up with essentially an infantry force (2 vet platoons and 1 regular), with support from a 3 inch mortar, Vickers gun, a couple of veteran sharpshooters and a 25 pounder FO. It was lucky that I didn’t choose any armour, because the resulting map was like a big bowl, with my forces on one side, pretty much in the open, while the Germans were perched in the village on the other side of the bowl and down to the bottom. The left and right flanks were similarly elevated, with the result that the Germans could pretty much see every move I made on the advance! I decided to probe forward on both flanks with my sharpshooters to see what the Germans had I had actually intended to use this QB to practice reconn, but the layout didn’t really suit), follow that up with my veteran platoons and keep the regulars as a reserve, hidden in some scattered woods in the setup area. On one elevated corner of the map the Germans had dug in an infantry gun and an AT gun, with beautiful lines of sight to the only road coming into the town (which had a roadblock on it). They would have butchered any armour I had. The right flank was protected by a minefield and some barbed wire. The Germans in the village were mostly in heavy buildings with wonderful interlocking fields of fire – my probes up the left flank were harassed not only by the infantry and AT guns on my left, but also by troops on my right flank, firing across the ‘bowl’ and a half-track mounted with some sort of AA gun in the centre. The left flank, with the exception of the guns, appeared to be the weakest, so I decided I needed to silence the guns and the half track and make a left hook. This meant suppressing the troops on my right flank, or at least getting them to focus to their front. I had some reasonable luck, with my 3 inch mortar knocking out the halftrack reasonably quickly, but it took about 6 turns before the 25 pounder battery knocked out the guns on the heights. This would allow me (I thought) to move more freely on the left and I moved some squads forward into some buildings on this flank. On the right, my veteran platoon moved onto the far flank to engage a body of troops that the sharpshooter identified before he got killed. They moved from scattered woods to a patch of tall pines over on the left and from here were keeping the Germans on this side engaged. However, the enemy unleashed a massive 88 bombardment onto these guys and, while I had them hide, they lost 50 percent of their strength in shelling that lasted three turns. So now, my plan to make a left hook was in trouble, as my left flank was still exposed to fire from the unsuppressed German left – I couldn’t even move my FO into a better line of sight position to shell those positions, so any arty support was several turns away and the clock was ticking. I decided to change my plan to attack along my right (thinking that maybe his FO had used up most of his arty). I committed my reserve by running them down the exposed slope into a little cover in the bottom of the bowl in the centre, and then hopefully moving them to the right unseen. They took a couple of casualties from MG fire, but once in the scattered woods they moved to the right and a short artillery barrage landed on thin air behind them. The rest of the battle comprised an assault against the enemy positions in tall pines on my right, that took the form of a charge across open ground. It was a pretty nasty attack with too many friendly casualties and the fighting here was close (<8 metres) and teetering in the balance until the remnants of the veteran platoon prevailed and the enemy broke and ran. The German’s last move was to send forward a hidden halftrack armed with an MG, but two of my Piats (whom I had sent running into a house on the flank of the attack) knocked it out before it could be decisive. I won with a major victory, but my casualties were much higher than the enemys (who had a much smaller infantry force) and I felt that my attack was rushed and messy. My aim to use my artillery to soften up enemy positions while the infantry waited didn’t really come off, because while the enemy had great lines of sight, I didn’t, so pauses for arty were like 4 minutes. If I waited for artillery, I would run out of time to win the battle. Any hints on what to do when your advance is very exposed like that would be appreciated.

I run a Voodoo3 3000 and had no problems with the white screen (V1.05) until after I loaded the V1.1 update. Around this time I also installed lots of mods (both Mad Dog packs and Magua's buildings). Not sure if I'm going crazy but it seems to only happen in winter settings. I gave DX7.0a and last official 3DFX driver. Anyone seen any developments on this issue?

Same as Terrence. Nice site, but the music got old real quick. Cheers, Smith

In the VoT scenario I saw a certain German armor asset button and move deeper into scattered trees to get away from a 105 barrage.

Gremlin, Sadly, I'm fresh outta arty. I used smoke to cover the guys when I ran them from their initial position to the hill they are now being slaughtered on. The FO I used had heaps of ammo, so I thought I would use some smoke for one move, then switch targets with HE. However, because he was a veteran FO, he shot off *all* his remaining ammo (which was a lot) in that one move! Lots of smoke, but now the cupboard is bare. Learnt a valuable lesson from that. I have two 50mm mortars and an MG42 almost in position, so I might have a chance of getting my guys out of poo creek....if the Brits don't counter-attack in the woods...

Any scenarios with the big, big guns in em please? I just got the game and would love to try out some really big artillery.

Guess I need to avoid hilltops with open ground... Now my guys are stuck up there I'm in real trouble in this game - my guys on the right flank have done some good work in the woods, but don't look like they have the grunt to push on. Looks like I will lose this one...

Thanks all for your replies. Gremlin, what you are saying seems to make sense and I guess that's what happened. The squad that crawled to the ridge top ended up in more of a 'hull-down' position, which is what I was hoping for. Thanks again.

Folks Just got CM and am playing the Grafenwohr infantry training mission, but I have some infantry doing weird things - I would love some advice please. I ran a platoon of German infantry, under cover of smoke, to a nice reverse slope position. They were well protected and out of sight of the enemy. To coordinate with an attack I was launching on the other flank, I wanted to get these guys to climb the slope to the top and engage enemy troops about 250 metres away. I gave one squad the crawl command ending at the crest of the hill (I did all this from camera position 1 to be as accurate as possible), but I gave the three other squads sneak commands to the crest line (as I thought the crawl would be slower and I wanted some guys firing fairly soon). The squad with the crawl command did everything right - crawled to the crest, spotted the enemy and started firing. However, the other squads advanced *over* the crest about 30 metres into open ground or scattered trees, and were left exposed to enemy fire. On the next move, horrified, I tried to get them to go back over the crest to safety, as this was not going how I wanted it to. One squad turned back, took fire and broke and are now cowering in trees to the rear of the position. The other two squads went some way back, but then, under fire, turned about and returned to their exposed positions and are trying to hide. I think they are pinned and shaken. What did I do wrong? I guess I should have given them all crawl commands, but why did the squads move well beyond the point I told them to sneak to? Can I get them back to safety? And with the broken squad, would moving the platoon commander over to them retrieve them? Thanks for any advice. Smith

I got my copy on the 5th January and it was version 1.03! had to download the 1.05 patch.

I'm fairly new here - I found out about CM from reading CSim's review of the latest Close Combat. At the end it said that CM was still the best and provided a link to their review. I read it, downloaded the demo, bought the game and here I am!

For you Aussies out there interested in delivery times for CM, I got mine today. Ordered it 22 December 2000, dispatched by BTS 27 December 2000, arrived in Sydney Parcel Centre 3 January 2001, delivered to my desk 4 January 2001. Total 13 days (not bad for Xmas period!). For those interested, the game does not come boxed. It arrived in an A4 sized thick paper envelope. Inside was the game manual (173 pp), with the game CD slipped inside the cover. For those with home mailboxes, the package is too large to fit in most (so you would get the dreaded pick-up slip). I sent mine to my office. Thanks BTS!

Seimherst Yes, the Panther is like a dose of salts, isn't it? Really well constructed scenario, that one. Ash, lucky I had subtitles on....

LOL! First Master, show me how to fit more hours in the day.....

Folks Completed VoT as the Yanks with a major Allied victory last night and it had me on the edge of my seat! The damned Panther had appeared, had clobbered my last 105 Sherman and was starting to fire at advancing infantry. I had some 105mm and 81mm ammo left and quickly targeted it onto its position and got any MG with line of sight to aim at it to get it buttoned. I also gave a hunt command to a 76 Sherman with a possible flank firing option. The Sherman came forward, the Panther fired, but a lucky ricochet saved the Shermie. He popped smoke and backed off, saving himself. Then, the Panther was distracted by a bazooka guy I had creeping around the German right. Next move the arty started falling around the Panther and he had to reverse further right and button up, but seemed unable to manoeuvre cleanly, so he kept a side-on attitude to my Sherman. Then began an amazing gun duel. The Sherman moved forward on his hunt command and stopped of his own accord with a brilliant hull-down position 220 yards away. His first shot hit the turret for a slight penetration at a weak point and the Panther and Sherman then traded about 4 shots in the minute, with the Sherman getting hits on the turret, but without much effect. The Panther kept missing the Sherman (shaken by the bombardment and the penetration?) until, in the final second of the move, the Sherman got a gun hit on the Panther. All through the move I was urging my Sherman on and at the 'money' shot, I let out a big "Yes!", waking my girlfriend. I then bored her rigid by showing her the replay. Next move saw the Panther finally brewed up by the Sherman and the crew ply swift knees off the map. After that it was only 1 or 2 moves before the Germans surrendered. I felt a bit cheated as I had not yet entered the town and was about to start working from house to house - still had plenty of moves left. Now it's all I can do to wait for my copy to turn up in the mew year.....

Ordered it just before Xmas! My Chance Encounter game ended 2 moves after my first posting with a German surrender. I think I had 9 casualties (and lost a tank to an AT team) while the Chermans got creamed! I started straight away on Valley of Trouble and things seemed to be going well for me (a tank got the 75mm pillbox right through the slit nice and early), with an attack up the left side of the map, supported by arty, clearing out the German defenders there, until the Panther arrived! Bang, one dead 105 Sherman and bang, the other 105 got immobilised and toasted by a panzerschreck! Now looking like a very different kettle of fish. Cheers! Smith

G'Day everyone, I downloaded the CM gold demo a few days ago after reading a Combatsim review and I have been having a blast playing the Chance Encounter scenario. I am playing as the Allies and at present I am up to move 16 or something (playing when I have free time). I started by sending my tanks straight down the road to the crossroads and then deploying them left and right, dropping off infantry units (including the 50 cal) into the church and occupying other buildings in front of the wooded hill. I sent one platoon with a machine gun team to the left. I was lucky in that just as my tanks reached the crossroads they spotted the enemy and by about move 3, all of the German Stugs were destroyed without losing any Shermans. The tanks have since been busy on the large numbers of German infantry in the trees on the hill on their right. The church is such a strongpoint and from the upper level the 50 cal can smash up any counterattacks developing and suppress anti-tank teams. I pushed the left platoons all the way around the left of the wooded hill and now they are poised to take the Germans in the flank. Some reinforcements arrived on the map a couple of moves ago and I moved them up the road to strengthen the centre. This was lucky, because I underestimated the number of German troops on that hill. There had been a steady firefight facing the wheat field or whatever it is for a while, but when it seemed to be slackening I sent forward a squad to put some more pressure on, but the Germans made a determined sortie and routed them! The German attack got broken by the combined fire of two tanks, the 50 cal and a mortar that I placed on the first flagged hill on the right. By now I have managed to destroy the German Battalion headquarters and a veteran sub-machine gun platoon in the trees and I think there is only a few moves left before they surrender. German reinforcements coming onto the map walked right into a withering fire from two tanks and some infantry and many seemed to run straight back off the map again. In addition, a group of Volksgrenadiers on the German left, that I subjected to some suppressing machine gun and area tank fire in their general direction to cover an approach by an infantry squad, seemed to just bail out and disappear off the map. This a fabulous game and I am definitely ordering a copy (how long will it take to get to Australia?). Any general hints you all can give me, or links to strategy guides, would be welcomed.

Chaps - Rowan's url for Battle of Britain is http://www.empireinteractive.com/BOB/ I have the demo and it is highly susceptible to graphics settings. If you want to try it out with minimum frustrations, I would suggest heading over to SimHq's or Combatsim's Battle of Britain forums where there are good tips on getting the most out of the game. The full game is already out in the UK and is set for early 2001 release in the States. No sign of it in Oz yet. BTW, I have just started playing the Combat Mission demo after reading an excellent review on Combatsim, and I'm having a blast. This forum is also very useful.