LongLeftFlank

Somebody speak up if you know different, but after the Americans, the Turks seem to be the most consistently victorious military power in the recorded history of human warfare, ahead of the Mongols (in fact Ain Jalut was the latter's first recorded major defeat). Pretty much everyone who has fought the Turks has regretted it (the Arab Revolt was a pure function of them being undermanned due to demands of other fronts). They gather to solve problems in a very 'Western' way, while retaining an 'Asiatic' tradition of uncomplaining toughness in the face of hardship.

In CMSF days, if a scenario designer places a building after they've placed vehicles on the map they will ignore the building. May still be true today. Solution is for the designer to delete, then re-place all units if he makes subsequent changes to buildings.

Ah yes, good old Thomas's. Of course, for 'nooks and crannies' read 'air'. Getting consumers to pay more for air instead of actual product is the Philosophers' Stone of confection.... This hides behind many 'low calorie' or 'crunchy' (puffed rice in your chocolate) formulations.

A few 'minor' American war films that are quite realistic and not over the top jingoist, plus some of whose actors had fought in the real deal: Battleground, Go For Broke, The Mountain Road.

Let me guess the punchline: Our Men Died In Vain. No They Didn't, They Defend Out Freedoms. Both sets of ideologues miss the point that the judgment of history is a constantly moving target Guess what? the tribal leaders -- the organic ruling class in Anbar since the domestication of wide-assed goats will turn on and shoot the ISIL nutjobs the moment they become inconvenient in putting Baghdad in its proper place. And America will have f*ck-all to do with that. Local homeboy Saddam Hussein knew all this, and used it to his advantage, but he was an aberration in Mesopotamian history and waxing nostalgic for him is like longing for Stalin. They're still finding mass graves dating from Saddam's rule. His successors have a long way to go to equal that flavour of evil. So these tribes are going to fight outside Authoritah until they see value coming from there. Uncle Sugar figured that out by 2006, just as he did in Korea and everywhere else where the dominoes didn't fall. Today's bribed warlords and generals are the fathers of tomorrow's mall developers and Hermes franchisees. Except when the self-haters back home pulled the plug too soon, which meant 25 more years of stasis (e.g. Vietnam) until the locals finally figure out how money is made again.

I dont have v2 or 3 so I don't know this: can units in ditch locked sunken trenches still see or fight out of them? If not, all you've created is a very badly dug air raid trench -- not even that, with 45 degree sides, more of a bomb crater -- not a proper fighting position. I do wish people would drop the sophistry that the CMx2 "entrenchments" are anything more than quick and dirty hacks Charles threw together to quiet the clamour for FOW entrenchments in CMBN. The reality as plain as day is that there has been no real evolution in hard cover modeling since early CMSF, and it is long overdue, as infantry combat at present is basically paintball (actually, I'm sure it is on occasion). To start, there are no embrasures or slits. All walls/banks/fortifications etc are perfect flat parapets like Charlie Brown's thinking wall, with men's upper torsos fully exposed to 360deg of fire as they prairie dog up and down randomly to spot, heedless of incoming, until they eventually catch a bullet or frag (or if they're luckier get Pinned). Hence there's no need to go over the top in WWI or Dienbienphu; just pump in enough lead from a distance and by the law of averages the 'dug in' defenders will melt away in a few minutes. Attacker wins, again. To compound the problem, Charles' quick hack was derived from the CMSF Bunker, which is for most game engine purposes an immobile vehicle. So these duds not only provide lousy cover they actually REDUCE concealment compared to non-entrenched units, the reverse of reality (unless you're somehow forced to entrench in open ground). The troops might as well be in a halftrack; oh wait, they are as far as the spotting engine is concerned. But I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell us that, no, this was all painstakingly researched, modeled and tested as realistically as can be with Ouija board input from the ghost of Pierre Vauban.

A-freekin-men!!!! BFC, please fix or sumfink!

As a hack, I replicated aerial (heliborne) observers in CMSF by sticking them atop a doorless walled off 8 story building in a corner of the map. If they came under suppressive ground small arms fire, well then so be it... helos and C-5s are vulnerable platforms. If enemy ordnance is a threat, schedule a reinforcement spotter to appear to replace the original.

"So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long they will remain a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel." TE Lawrence knew what he was talking about; loose confederation or small kingdom is the only nation state that works for most Sunni Arabs. While it's possible the collapse of Iraq and Syria might lead to a nominally independent "Sunnistan" confederation, it would be a weak, poor and unstable stew of internecine hatreds and nutjob ideologies, constantly subject to meddling by stronger neighbours. Afghanistan west. There will be no new Saddam; he himself was an accident of history, a street thug hijacking a dying wave of Arab nationalism and keeping himself in power using oil and Soviet sponsorship.

You and several others seem to have a very narrow and specific type of PTO combat in mind when you say the engine can't handle it. At a guess, probably involving a first wave of Marines and Beach Red. As someone who has actually developed and published a historical scenario -- a beach landing even! -- for PTO, I can assure you that blanket statement is false. Certain engine quirks like fortifications in concealment terrain being far too easily spotted (because they're considered vehicles for most game purposes) and, once spotted, units within being too easily eliminated by ranged small arms fire alone -- create problems, sure, but that's a problem for any theatre (except for uber armour fetishists who don't care about infantry). The core engine can handle PTO readily; the rest is up to the ingenuity of the modding community. I respect BFC's right to choose their own focus, while being grateful that they've left us a powerful sandbox.

**Sigh** See links in my sigline. One caution though: none of these PTO mods will work in v2.0 of CMBN. You are welcome to take on the challenge of upgrading them; I have no bandwidth

As to the threat of ISIS/AQFOTM* -- which media of all stripes love to play up because scary head-chopping fuzzy-wuzzies sell 'papers' --, they cannot hold territory outside Sunni areas. And within Anbar I predict they will eventually be crushed by less fanatical Sunnis. Iraqi clansmen are not Pushto tribesmen; they are well organized and their superior numbers will tell even against hardened fanatics who also cannot hide from the locals the way they might from an outsider. For interest I will cite this MEMRI piece, 2004 commentary by a jihadist who accurately predicted Zarqawi and his AQIZ would be rejected because of their fanaticism and brutality: Some of the operations of Al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq are extremely brutal: incidents of beheadings and boasting of them before the cameras in videos later distributed over the Internet, and car bombs killing dozens of civilians… These movements base themselves on a religious-theological dimension, disregarding the present reality and the nature of things. I believe that those who perpetrate this consider only themselves and do not consider the effect on those they want to address. They focus on their desire to affirm that they are strong and capable of taking revenge… This brings us back to the basic problem, namely, that there is a confusion of strategies … [that were developed by Islamist groups] in Egypt … for the struggle against the existing regime, which they considered illegitimate. This has been going on for at least thirty years in Arab countries and in effect has not succeeded in realizing its aims… This does not suit the reality in Iraq for a simple reason: that Iraq now needs to revert back to the stage of being liberated from colonialism, [a stage] which the Arab and African nations had entered after WWII… The logic of a war of liberation is totally different from the logic of a struggle against the existing regime in one's own country. * AQ Flavour of The Month

No, the peshmerga know exactly how to defend their own turf without bothering with MBTs. Nobody in Iraq, including Iranians, has the ability and resources to keep an armoured battalion operating more than a few miles from its base and workshops for more than a few days. A few tanks or APCs at a time, used as heavy gun platforms to support infantry, that's doable for as long as they run; then they're pillboxes. Gamer fantasies aside, this is not a tank war and won't be decided by armour. All these guys can do their dirty work without the inconvenience of heavy mech formations, whose designed purpose is to take apart conventional infantry fighting conventionally. Against an Uncon enemy whose doctrine is to go into guerrilla mode when faced with superior guns, they are a substandard choice -- swatting mosquitos with sledgehammers. Better to put those resources into infantry with plenty of Toyotas, ammo and mortars. The reason the Assad forces still do it is because they're so short on motivated infantry and their allies bankroll the logistics. They send shells not men and delude themselves they are winning when the enemy fades away. If Maliki's forces follow suit, it'll be because a superpower is backing them, not because it's tactically sound.

Well put. For the entire war they pretty much assumed they were still facing the 1941 enemy. The Air Force fighter wing was the only arm to try seriously to modernize at all (relying heavily on German fighter designs and radar sets brought in by U-boat, or is that a myth?), and by then they no longer had the pilots. I'd credit US submarines, dud torpedoes notwithstanding, well ahead of sea mines when it comes to the battle of the Marus; and in 1945, tactical airpower: "When they radioed for air cover only American planes showed up."

After spending a full year of cold turkey with no CM (I don't have a machine that runs it), I will return to my Le Carillon opus once CMBN 3.0 becomes available and the new generation Mac 36% issues are resolved.

Sorry to keep (shamelessly) self-bumping this topic, but I just noticed that the hard hit US regiments in my post above are none other than the poor old 134th and 137th Infantry of the 35th ID, the poor Kansas and Nebraska boys who had shed so much blood already in the battles above St. Lo (my alas unlikely to be finished Le Carillon series). I tried to get hold of the 137th Regimental history in 2012 via ILL but failed; there are very few copies available and none in digital form. And I find myself thinking what a crying shame it is that the courage of these prairie boys who seem to have drawn one of the shortest straws in Uncle Sam's roster, together with the ill fated 106th, the Italy meatground 34th and the 28th "Bloody Bucket" among others*, seem likely to vanish "like tears in the rain" as their few remaining frontline vets pass away. I wonder if Joe Balkoski could be persuaded to do for them what he did for the 29th ID (Blue-Gray) in "Beyond the Beachhead". * e.g. 1st and 30th IDs and 4th Armored saw a pile of brutal action and shed a lot of blood - God Rest - but also largely seem to have dished out a lot better than they got. So not candidates for "short straw" IMHO. Same for the Airborne and Marine divisions. 3rd ID ("Wiilie 'n Joe's" outfit) got the gears at Salerno and Anzio and is a borderline case.

The German infantry attacks in Foret de Gremecy (one of the Lorraine battles) sound like a pretty grim fight for the Yanks pre-Bulge; notice Patton had to countermand an order to withdraw by a shell-shocked command staff. But here too no rout at battalion or company scale... a company encircled and forced to break out, another platoon overrun. While the German attackers keep getting decimated by US arty. On 28 September German attacks hit all along the 35th Division front as more of Muehlen's infantry arrived in the sector. The bulk of the 559th was thrown against the 137th Infantry in a concentric assault from the east and north. Again the Germans reached Pettoncourt with a thrust from the east, and again they were stopped by the American artillery and infantry. Toward the end of the afternoon two enemy columns marched out of Chambrey to make a last assault to the west but they were spotted at once and broken up by American planes. On the northeastern edge of the forest the German infantry and tanks were more successful in their attack against the 137th left flank. The woods screened the attackers from direct artillery fire and made it difficult for the defenders to maintain their contact with neighboring units. Early in the morning the Germans broke into the forest under cover of a barrage laid down by field guns and mortars. As the day progressed small detachments of tank-supported infantry worked their way to the rear of the 3d Battalion line, which had been reinforced on the right by the 1st Battalion of the 320th Infantry. The situation grew steadily worse and about 1500 the battalion of the 320th, hard pressed by the enemy who had circled around its left, started a withdrawal that carried it back about a thousand yards. As the infantry fell back, General Baade took countermeasures. At 1545 C Company of the 737th Tank Battalion began a sortie to mop up the enemy who had pierced through the rear. This tank drive, reinforced by infantry from the divisional reserve and supported by tank destroyers from the 654th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was successful. Most of the lost ground was retaken and shortly after dark contact between the front-line companies had been restored. All during this action L Company of the 137th (1st Lt. Rex Hopper) had been engaged in a lone and desperate fight at Hill 282, which rose midway between the village of Fresnes and the Forêt de Grémecey and overlooked the road leading into the woods. The German attacks, launched by small assault detachments equipped with automatic pistols, failed to break L Company; but the Americans finally were forced to fall back to the tree line at the northeastern edge of the woods. ...By 1030 several enemy groups had worked around the left flank of the 2d Battalion, 137th, where a 700-yard gap had developed in the fog and confusion. They had wiped out a platoon of E Company and were moving south along the ravine in the middle of the forest. General Baade sent a tank platoon to aid E Company and then ordered the 133d Engineer Combat Battalion forward to occupy the high ground in the open north of Pettoncourt and seal off this penetration. But inside the woods the 35th Division continued to lose ground, and by midafternoon both the 137th and the 134th were fighting with extensive gaps in their lines. ....All three regimental commanders of the 35th were there, plus General Baade, General Sebree, and members of the 35th Division staff. The officers had just gathered in the building which housed the command post when shellfire struck in the yard where the aides and orderlies were waiting. Several in the yard were killed or wounded, including some who had been with General Eddy since his days in North Africa. ....The Third Army chief countermanded the order for the withdrawal of the 35th Division: "Counter-attack with the 6th Armored and take the thing. Go in right now with the 6th Armored, that is as soon as you can. Tell them [the 35th Division] to hang on." This order was passed on to General Baade at 1650. Then Patton gave the 4th Armored commander his instructions: "The 35th will stay and fight and you will not move back." ...3d Battalion, 137th Infantry, which had suffered most heavily during the four days battle, was relieved--marching out of the woods with only 484 men of the 900 or more who had begun the fight.

Agreed. But was that Germans attacking US positions, or just raining 81 and 7.92 hell on them as the poor doggies struggle to ford yet another narrow river defile?

My question was purely historical, not really about the game. So I suppose the relatively small number of decisive German offensive victories (post-Kasserine / pre-Bulge) says a lot about the limitations of the Germans at that stage in the war: as Jon suggests, the bulk of their attacks were counterattacks with limited objectives (retake key OP, stabilize the front) vs. aimed at annihilation of the enemy force. And where they did plan and execute a determined (counter)thrust: Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Arracourt, Mortain, Aachen, various Lorraine attacks Jason is so fond of, they either fizzled or withered under US arty -- Pyrrhic victories? Leaving only a handful of what we'd consider Total German Victory in game terms?

Just curious: in CM when attacking as Germans it is routine for me to utterly annihilate an entire US battalion+; I mean like even if I discount the game KIA tally (prisoner or fled) I have utterly routed them, destroyed their vehicles and taken their positions, hear the lamentation of their women etc. I am unaware however of a German tactical attack in the above timeframe (France, Holland, Italy) that actually resulted in this "total victory" outcome. There are a lot I can think of that went the other way (US annihilating German battalions in a couple of hours). Yes, sure, the Ranger fiasco at Anzio, Hurtgen, etc., but that's Yanks getting their asses handed to them by a skilled or lucky German **defender**. Not what I'm asking here. Thanks in advance.

Sure, quite doable given a will. Maybe the CMFI terrain sets would work better.... Plus snow and winter greatcoats. As to mock T34s, maybe British Cromwells? (reskinned)

Funny, someone asked for PTO anecdotes. I was just reading about this today. From the Army history of the battle for Guam: A bazooka man and a flame-thrower man became casualties in quick succession when they attempted to use their weapons against the tanks. Another soldier with a flame thrower moved up but bullets hit both him and his weapon. Some of the riflemen retreated in the face of the tank fire, but Pfc. Everett W. Hatch and Pfc. Joseph P. Koeberle, manning a light machine gun, held their ground. When the leading tank was within five yards of the men, they closed in and poured machine-gun fire into its 6- by 10-inch aperture. The two men kept up the fire until the machine-gun barrel burned out. There was no more sign of life within the tank. The Americans finally were able to put bazooka and rifle grenade fire on the second tank, knocking it out of action. A third tank pulled it away. Eighteen dead Japanese, including three officers, were found in the vicinity the next morning. The 3d Battalion's casualties were 6 killed and 16 wounded. And yes, these were the obsolete Type 39 (?) tankettes.

No, this is BFC's crass attempt to cash in on the blockbuster commercial success of "Goat Simulator" Also, Google "Arma II play as animals" and you get some bizarro vids.... my favorite is an endless herd of cattle falling off an office building. You just can't pay too much for that kind of quality entertainment.

Taking extra cranky pills lately, JC?

The Designers notes to the innovative AH cardgame UpFront mentioned that late war US infantry facing minimal opposition (snipers) used a primitive recon by fire tactic called "March Fire", enabled by their M1s and BARs. It basically meant hosing down possible enemy positions as they advanced, presumably in skirmish line. No idea of their source material, nor would I defend this practice, but I wasn't there..... Recon by fire in dense terrain, as well as poor marksmanship skills, were part of the impetus behind the introduction of the M16 to replace the M14, I have heard anecdotally. But there too, season those "facts" to taste....