Pete Wenman

Just as a teaser then (given that's what these AAR are all about)

This is from an in game scenario, so will be available for all to enjoy
Yes he is, and there is not much cover on the slope. His only other option would have been down through the wooded area, with the risks inherent with that.
Warren was forced through a bottleneck earlier in the game and now it is Bil's turn.
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Cheers @Pete Wenman
From Bil's last post it sounds he's getting second thoughts about his maneuver.

Just as a teaser then (given that's what these AAR are all about)

This is from an in game scenario, so will be available for all to enjoy
Yes he is, and there is not much cover on the slope. His only other option would have been down through the wooded area, with the risks inherent with that.
Warren was forced through a bottleneck earlier in the game and now it is Bil's turn.
P

Just as a teaser then (given that's what these AAR are all about)

This is from an in game scenario, so will be available for all to enjoy
Yes he is, and there is not much cover on the slope. His only other option would have been down through the wooded area, with the risks inherent with that.
Warren was forced through a bottleneck earlier in the game and now it is Bil's turn.
P

Just as a teaser then (given that's what these AAR are all about)

This is from an in game scenario, so will be available for all to enjoy
Yes he is, and there is not much cover on the slope. His only other option would have been down through the wooded area, with the risks inherent with that.
Warren was forced through a bottleneck earlier in the game and now it is Bil's turn.
P

I hope Bil doesn't mind but the evolution of the Dollbach map. Note the map image predates the autobahn and bridge. It also gives an overview of the battlefield for those that like that kind of detail

P
 

@slippy The maximum map size was at one stage larger than is currently allowed and post earlier is this thread include Steve's comments on this . The largest maps that are out there were made before the restriction was put in place.
As you say maps are now capped at 18.1 kilometers squared (4.254k x 4.254k or any combination thereof)
My advice is don't make a map any bigger than it needs to be. Creating large maps is a time consuming task.
The maps I have made for the US Cold War campaign by my reckoning total 90.6 square kilometres which if my maths is correct equals 1,415625 x 8m action squares. Given the repeat clicks seen when making maps I reckon these must have taken at least 2 million mouse clicks to create. 
No doubt some will complain they are not big enough 😉
P
 

HAHAHAHAHA

@slippy The maximum map size was at one stage larger than is currently allowed and post earlier is this thread include Steve's comments on this . The largest maps that are out there were made before the restriction was put in place.
As you say maps are now capped at 18.1 kilometers squared (4.254k x 4.254k or any combination thereof)
My advice is don't make a map any bigger than it needs to be. Creating large maps is a time consuming task.
The maps I have made for the US Cold War campaign by my reckoning total 90.6 square kilometres which if my maths is correct equals 1,415625 x 8m action squares. Given the repeat clicks seen when making maps I reckon these must have taken at least 2 million mouse clicks to create. 
No doubt some will complain they are not big enough 😉
P
 

March to Glorious Victory - Post #6  "The Devil's Red Right Hand" (12-15)
First off I apologize for the long return on this one, beyond Bil's glacial return pace, the main reason is that nothing really happened on the Soviet side of this thing.  I am sure Bil is doing a frame-by-frame Warren Commission-esque analysis (because that is what int nerds do) but frankly he has already missed his early victory boat.
When I left you we were discussing options and landed on the least suicidal of the bunch given the somewhat less-than-optimal starting position.
The only question left is "what will Bil do?".  I have thoughts on this but let's leave them til the end (someone remind me if I forget).
So the only interesting thing to happen before the big push was the loss of another T64

This little fella bought in on my left, which was unfortunate but I also observed something interesting before the kill.  

These two T64s soaked up over a dozen hits between them from those M60s on the ridge.  Clearly not bullet proof but from the front these beast are very hard to kill.  This also speaks well for the Plan, as I would rather Bils tanks pinging off my T64s rather than killing my BMPs and T-62s. 
So here was ol Bil's shot to end this thing about 13-14 mins in:

You can see here we are all bunched up moving into position for the slot.  If Bil had DPICM'd this traffic jam, that pretty much would  have been it.  The bridge may have saved a couple but it would have been a bloody massacre.
But he missed that boat.

Turn 14 and I can start to breathe, the troops moving up the slot saw no direct fire.  Bil is lobbing shells into the area but frankly the steel soldiers of mother Russia give exactly zero F's about artillery.

All that arty has about 2-3 casualties on me so far but I am sure it makes the old man - sitting in a faded bathrobe, the one from the 70s, his old-lady slippers, old man underwear with the torn waistband - feel better.   By end of Turn 15, we are about 1/3 through.

So on the far side of the slot we have pretty much a tank pl and 3 x BMP.  In turn 16 I should be at 50%.  The dismounted pl on my left is looking good and pretty much unmolested.  They are going to link up with that scout pl and be my hands.  You can see on my left I have a screen in place of 2 x T64s and about 4 BMPs, that is a very good position in case Bil gets frisky on my left, which based on that smoke I am guessing is a possibility.  The biggest threat now is a DPICM strike but I am less worried about it now as my Tank Coy and BMPS are spread out and moving fast, so at worst I may take a few casualties.  Main concern now is getting that inf platoon on my right into those buildings.  The HQ and squad did get pinned so I need them to get going.
And let's not forget the Eyes on my Right.

 So I have 2 x T64s on the right with good LOS (I just noticed one got immobilized, which is a pain but it is in a solid position).  That little BMP in the little clump of woods nails another M150.  These guys on my right can actually cover the ridgeline and the left, so pretty happy with that for now.  I am very happy at nailing the M150s.  It may seem odd to a bunch of tank nerds but these thing are actually more dangerous right now.  They have TI, so can see through smoke and those TOW are not going to take 6 hits to kill me.
So now what?  Well finish moving through the Slot and then we spread out and start the knife fight in the woods.  So what is Bil going to do?  Well my bet is he is looking longingly at my left flank, two or three columns of smoke are singing sweetly to him do doubt...I welcome him to try.
Next he could focus on the village and do a center push but in about 120 seconds I am going to have 2 x Inf platoons at near 100% with options for tank and BMP support.  Bil has ACR scout teams, M113 which are basically halftracks and a bunch of M60s who will not do well in an urban fight. 
So that leaves the woods on my right.  Here he has better approaches but if thing go even half decently I will have a another Soviet infantry pl back up by a lot of armor for this little dance against Scout teams, who are not really designed for this sort of thing.  So all in all, I am liking my odds...but...and there is always a but....the next 120-180 second have to go well.  That and I know that Bil has Cobras...so this thing is not over yet.
 

It has nothing to do with postcards or street view. It depends on the location. If you drive up these hill at 500m and 2.5km distance in your pic, how far could you see? Hard to tell. Depends on the landscape and the features in it in a particular direction, atmospheric conditions etc. It also has nothing to do if you are on a road or a field. Just drive some kilometers on a rural road in central Germany. The view distances change constantly in all direction. If it leads you up over hills or plateaus you can have far reaching panroamic views for some time and then it goes down in a valley again und you can see maybe 100m or 200m.

A great place to start is First Clash by Kenneth Macksey. An easy read, but very informative, having been commissioned as a manual for the Canadian Armed Forces in the early 80's
Team Yankee is in a similar vein but written as an out and out novel and so offers slightly less detail re TOE and weapons systems than First Clash
P
 

Well, except without the speed, small size, decent optics and, of course, toilet and tea-brewing facilities.

Thank you, but this is more than just my idea... @The_Capt has been working with me since the beginning on this project and it was our brainchild, not mine, ours. 
In addition @IICptMillerII has been a boon since he joined the core team, managing scenario development and doing a ton of research and testing.  There are also a few special people like @George MC, @Pete Wenman, @Combatintman to name just a few that have contributed some serious content, from campaign, scenarios, maps, quick battle map development, etc. to this project.  
Cheers, Bil

I grew up just 8 km from the inner-german border and never felt any fear or such - today I think that is strange.
Just the opposite, there are many nice memories concerning the military of that time. We often had the 16/5th Queens Royal Lancers on exercise at the farm of my father. They were stationed at the town of Wolfenbüttel nearby and everybody loved to see them, my mother because we talked english all day, the soldiers because they had warm places to sleep and a shower, and my father because he had an agreement to get a bottle of Famous Grouse for each day of their stay. We did things you never get elswhere, driving a Ferret Mk1 (I called it armored Dune Buggy), a Scorpion tank and even firing a Sten SMG on the meadow behind the barn. Once my father and me visited their barracks for some claybird shooting and the officers invited us to the officers mess. Wow, never saw so many silver cups and a living tradition like that.
When I served at PzAufklBtl 1 (Armored Recon) from '79 to '83 (just the proper time for this game) we were not even allowed to keep our battalion coat of arms, it was from the Black Hussars from Brunswick who fought with the British against Napoleon, but was too similar to the SS sign. That happens to military traditions when you loose your wars.
At that time I met kind guys from the 2nd Armored Division on Reforger exercise near Brunswick and found some nice friends there (Cpt. Hutto somewhere around here?).
And I served as contactperson for the team of 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards during the Boeselager Cup, an international competition among reconaissance forces. Still remember the 'Biwak' on the last evening.
One day I heard the sound of a Huey helicopter nearby and it did not disappear. So I looked for the source and found some thee or four Huey Cobra hovering directly at the outskirts of the village. I immediatly fetched my brothers and we tried to follow them with my Renault R4. Tough job, soon they were gone. But suddenly they reappeared one after the other over a ridgeline and took my car as a training target. Oh, man, that was exciting. I tried to make their job as difficult as I could but these helis were really fast and agile. I would love to ride one of those, must be like a flying Kawasaki.
I think Germany really lost something important with all these kind soldiers who are gone now and with them the BFBS radio and the British Wargamers Association with which I had so nice times at Rheindahlen and elsewhere.
And, by the way, a german Recon Btl was a complete all arms force in '79, ideal for a Bundeswehr expansion one day. There was a ground surveillance radar plt, two companies with Luchs and Leopard1, and a heavy company with grenadier plt (on Schützenpanzer kurz, later Fuchs), engineer plt, and 120 mm mortar plt.
And now I am here, working as an engineer on military simulation and looking forward to my retirement next year being excited to have all the time necessary to play my favorite game then, CM:CW.
 
 

Literally never heard of this game until i saw it on Steam last year and i scoffed at the price at first.
5 months later I have purchased every single game and module except for CMFI, im going to buy it but my wallet lol
Massive respect to the developers for creating something amazing, that seems tailored for me personally.  I've been trying to get my friends to play but they arent tactical
Sorry if this is a boring post but I heard a podcast with a gentleman from BF and he mentioned they were testing Steam out and just wanted to provide this feedback
Stoked for F&T and CW
 

That's some large maps! Looking forward to playing them!

I meant to add in my previous post that this map is one of the eight I completed for the US campaign. It is 2k wide and 2.5k deep, so not large, and  in fact the smallest of the 8 maps. Bil and Warren do have an awful lot of heavy kit in quite a small place on this one. Knife fight could well be an understatement !
As tease I can confirm for the US campaign that the average map size is over eleven square kilometres and so this one is less than half the average size.
P

I meant to add in my previous post that this map is one of the eight I completed for the US campaign. It is 2k wide and 2.5k deep, so not large, and  in fact the smallest of the 8 maps. Bil and Warren do have an awful lot of heavy kit in quite a small place on this one. Knife fight could well be an understatement !
As tease I can confirm for the US campaign that the average map size is over eleven square kilometres and so this one is less than half the average size.
P

I meant to add in my previous post that this map is one of the eight I completed for the US campaign. It is 2k wide and 2.5k deep, so not large, and  in fact the smallest of the 8 maps. Bil and Warren do have an awful lot of heavy kit in quite a small place on this one. Knife fight could well be an understatement !
As tease I can confirm for the US campaign that the average map size is over eleven square kilometres and so this one is less than half the average size.
P

I meant to add in my previous post that this map is one of the eight I completed for the US campaign. It is 2k wide and 2.5k deep, so not large, and  in fact the smallest of the 8 maps. Bil and Warren do have an awful lot of heavy kit in quite a small place on this one. Knife fight could well be an understatement !
As tease I can confirm for the US campaign that the average map size is over eleven square kilometres and so this one is less than half the average size.
P

You could very well be right regarding the SBF positions. However I'd expect Bil not to target his artillery on a hunch, also not sure about the call in time or how the cluster artillery even works exactly. 
What we do know is that both are indeed looking at the same flank, while Capt plans to advance (through the open?) and Bil seems to be preparing for an enemy push there. Or, at least he seems to be setting up some TOW M113s against that flank, has some tanks already in place there and ordered the second tank platoon to the same flank but out of sight. 
So I'm not sure he will be surprised if Capt pushes full strength there, he's sort of expecting it it seems to me. 
I'll guess for the outcome of the armour fight, a lot depends on artillery; Capt has ordered strikes on the crest while I suspect Bil wil also try to use his own (he's quite a lot). 
Not too worried about the infantry, if Soviet squads are 6men each like CMBS / Syrian CMSF2, I'm not sure how big of the difference is regarding infantry strength. Plus Bil has enough artillery to barrage the town. 
I think the winner of the armour enagement will decide who has the upperhand with infantry fighting for the town. 
But, I think it's difficult to be accurate without having seen the map in CM for ourselves. 

Lol - you could be right though
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I too like others think the lack of infantry will hurt Bil.
Yes if his tanks can survive they can have a go at destroying them, but once you have the infantry in buildings away from the edges of the village then it gets a lot harder as you then risk your vehicles to hand held AT.
The Capt seems to be prepared to walk infantry spread out down to the village?
I am looking forward to learning about the effects of DPICM on armour and that will only work if you can get it on target, often easier said than done.
My first understanding of this period of conflict was playing in the 80's with micro armour and using the WRG rules on table top.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargames_Research_Group
And just recently I played World at War Storming the Gap 85
https://store.lnlpublishing.com/world-at-war-85-series
This was being taught on TTS and allowed me to play the game with the designer. Excellent Table Top game and reminded me how the first M1 was no super tank as my tanks got taken out....
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2141595623
Really glad that times have changed and this period has now become fashionable and hence a market for folk to spend money on.
I think it is in part down to folk like me who were kids in that age, computer literate and with disposable income to relive their childhoods. Just seeing the number of people saying how they served in Germany and are up for this shows the demand I think (hope)...
🙂
 
 
 

Cheers Mate - While I'm probably biased I think some of the maps in game (and not just mine) are top notch, and on the large side.
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