LongLeftFlank

Apples and oranges, John. You haven't refuted Womble's assertion that, to borrow JasonC's expression, when advancing against a MG across a pool table (i.e. ceteris paribus), we would expect vets and greens to be equally dead. All you're saying above amounts to "well vets wouldn't enter the pool table in the first place", which is also true but not really relevant to the discussion of CM mechanics.... It's more a TacAI topic.

An add to the Big Someday Wish List: bunkers and dugouts equipped with (static) field phones.

As the owner of a SMLE, I can tell you the penetrating power of a WWII battle rifle is considerable. While yes, the halftracks were supposed to be armoured to resist small arms, they also have open tops, driver vision slits, rivets(?) and spots where the "armour" isn't very thick at all, especially on the flanks and rear. As I'm sure you're aware, these were not APCs. And in my experience they do repel the majority of bullets, at least frontally. Just not all.

Spritz! Spritz! Spritz! [spray bottle] Bad dog! PS Erwin - no rush on Makin. I can't make changes anyway right now. Finish what you got going here... as long as it's fun

Not to mention redundant when I already said "redundant" Wow, I AM on a roll.... how many Forum members can this normally meek and polite Canuck annoy in one day? OK, this time I'm *really* done here.....

Glad you're still modding CMSF, Mord. I actually felt like resuming my Baba Amr game with SBurke, but my CM PC is hors de combat. One nit: if Syria is a guide, most army deserters (e.g. vehicle crews) seem to keep their uniforms, even if they've dispensed with the webgear and helmets. A lot of them mask their faces for fear of the shabiha. The full civvie clothes seem to be worn by neighbourhood fighters. I know your Mixed mod includes army tunics worn with jeans.

John, while I'm beating on people, a little less redundant footnoting of other people's posts on your part might be helpful. I mean, erudition is all very nice, but footnote your own views. ISTR the Philosopher in question once called it "spamming with links". OK, that's it. Never shall see Herald more (on this thread).

Agree with Belenko, Erwin. Let's not go there. This thread is likely already on the edge of being shut down for beating on a community member who can't respond here.

Oh, I'm not playing. I get so much of where Michael is coming from -- I use CM almost purely as a tool to better understand military history, and like others here frequently beat my head against design issues that occasionally seem to fly in the face of that even if they don't affect the gaming experience for most. But I neither expect most BFC customers to share that degree of interest, nor do I expect BFC to cater to me. In any complex occupation you can find exceptionally intelligent people whose sense of self gets so wrapped up in their own inimitable expertise that they'd rather be Right than successful. They actually become resistant to change, because if they aren't in charge of it it threatens their core belief that Nobody Can Truly Understand This But Someone Who Has Walked My Path. And once they frustrate enough supervisors their careers top out and they find themselves surpassed by "amateurs" and dilettantes, so they become even more bitter and resentful and convinced they are surrounded by idiots. But those wounds are self-inflicted. I know that amounts to cheap shot psychoanalysis of a person I have never met, but I have encountered it many a time in professional life and have myself stared into the abyss of self-marginalization. Many a brilliant religious reformer who wound up burnt at the stake was in this mold, initially admired for singular clarity of vision but unable to compromise and eventually put down like a mad dog. Savonarola for example won private audiences to preach to the Medici; even the Pope made excuses for his vitriolic abuse for a surprisingly long time. But the genius didn't know how to stop. The stuff of Ayn Rand novels.... but of course she only painted half the picture.

.... And he promised Steve a heart (well a watch really that sped up the timing of releases), Moon the patience to deal with whiners and Charles.... umm, well, everything else except a brain.

Thank you, thank you, too kind. It was either that or Milton, as quoted by Khan (Montalban): "Better it is to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." But like Lucifer (presumably - I'll be sure to ask when we meet), it seems to me Michael sincerely believes that it is BFC who fell from grace, not him. Just for the record, I'm a huge Dorosh fan not just on Canadian military history but on wargaming history in general. And while he certainly has a right to express his negative opinion, I am sad he's persisted in this gadfly crusade against BFC 5* out of 10? Really? So you personally prefer 50% of all other games out there to CM2 in blindfold taste tests? Or are you saying it's ~50% of the wargame CM1 was? Or is this relative to some other Platonic Form of the Ideal Tactical Wargame whose characteristics we may divine only after lengthy immersion in the wargaming Tao of Dorosh. Which I'd be happy to do -- like I say, the guy's hypersmart -- but sadly his general publications and blog posts have dwindled to near nothingness. * In fairness, he may have given the original CMBN a grudging 6; I can't be bothered to look.

Celebrity has made Tufte quite the shill though; I went (on the company dime) to one of his daylong seminars back in 2006 expecting an intimate classroom-sized audience at $600 a head (30). Wrong. Try 400 people crammed into the hotel's biggest ballroom. $240k for 7 hours of lecturing which mostly involved paging through his Holy Books (at least a boxed set wasincluded in the tuition). Minimal Q&A -- he basically punted any extended conversation to his website forum (which is quite worthwhile btw). To quote Sinatra: nice work if you can get it. In case you're wondering how he affords that sculpture garden on his Connecticut estate on a professor's salary. He's the Suze Orman of the academic world. No disrespect to the relevance of his teachings though.

Fiery, the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.

Yup, I remember discussing that with you and others a while ago; as a scenario designer do your player the courtesy of providing a suggested setup that is appropriate to the situation and to the experience of the troops involved. Assume that most of your players just want to get into the action and only a small minority want to spend an hour scrutinizing LOS and fields of fire. IMHO, it's bad form though to suggest a setup and then screw them over with horrific ambushes that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't taken the suggestion. If you're dealing with large formations, per NewLife's suggestion above, it's a nice courtesy to have them in their echelons slightly off the access roads under tree cover (those Jabos, you know) to minimize traffic jams. And if certain troops start the game already under fire, be sure to make that crystal clear in the briefing and/or provide an Prior Intel level >0% (unless you INTEND to have them wiped out in an ambush within the first 30 seconds, which is fair game -- just make sure the scenario is still winnable with the remaining forces). Also you rightly observed during the Ramadi playtest, WeGo players must live with the consequences of whatever movement orders they give at Setup for at least 60 seconds, so be sure to playtest both ways.

Nice! Get busy with that vintage comic book effect again, Broadsword! full story Budda budda budda!

Just one suggestion from the Lorax here (I speak for the trees!).... That dense vineyard could use a windbreak of trees (poplars, maybe?) along their western edge -- maybe the other side of the road -- if you don't have one already (I assume we're looking North and the vines have a southern exposure). Sicily does get the Scirocco and other seasonal winds, and they can be severe. [/vinicultural groggery]. That close to town you'd at least want a wall to keep livestock (goats and donkeys) out, which you do have.

....umm, I'd playtest for you too Pandur if my CM were working. Trying to get an ubergeek friend to see of my motherboard can be saved. *Sob!* Can't We All Just Get Along?

PzKw, it does seem like the review in the OP could have been written by any number of grog posters here, (and possibly was). As I haven't read the book, it's unclear to me whether this reviewer is accurately summarizing the author's thesis here or cherry-picking to push his own particular pet theories. I'm prsonally dubious about the practicality of conducting a world war by focusing on one front at a time once you've started one. The schwerpunkt analogy is misplaced at a grand strategic scale. Not that Hitler didn't waste resources on marginal causes; he surely did. But I don't find this to be the Rosetta stone for a "Lost victory" (and I'm not suggesting you do either, of course :-)

For the record, Erwin has been one of my most reliable playtesters and I greatly appreciate the feedback he's given, even if I don't accept all of it either. As to bedside manner, he's not the only guy who can get a bit cranky on this board. Let's all follow Pandur (the thread owner) and stand down.

Yeah, it took me a while to recover from the brain muscle I pulled trying to lay out a defense for that Le Hamel nightmare map! I think that's what drove me to put bocage aside for a bit.

But when you're a scenario designer setting up a fortified position, or a player deploying forces in a setup zone, it would be very useful, even if it's too calc intensive to be usable during play.

It and the subsequent comments are comic dialogue from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Not relevant to the OP - just banter.

Yeah, you're right, I was just thinking that I overstated it but you beat me to the edit -- there is some difference. I am CM-less these days so I can't run your test, but I would still recommend even more muffling effect in soft ground and water.

I'll say it again -- it really isn't the accuracy of mortars that's the problem, it's their hideously lethal effects on infantry who are (a) artificially clustered around Action Spots ( don't hit the dirt and stay there when their RL counterparts would have.

Figure out what the main potential enemy advance routes will be, and estimate how long it will take a cautious or a reckless player to arrive in force at the place along each route you want to hit him (the "kill zones"). Divide the PC controlled forces into two groups: static and mobile if you're defending and fixing and flanking if you're attacking. In both cases, the first group's job is to make sure most of the player's force doesn't leave the kill zone(s) for a lengthy period and ideally, has to commit his reserves by engaging him there.....ambush, obstacles, ranged weapons, artillery. The second (mobile) group is deployed in hiding at one of the lateral ends of the map or appears as reinforcement. It commences a big sweep across the enemy direction of the advance, so that it hits one killzone after another in sequence from a covered flank. For this force, you want to use units which have the best close-range firepower and resilience (make sure the infantry dismounts from their transports before going in harms way). The idea is to get close and maul units that the enemy would have preferred to stand off with. And if the enemy has divided his forces, he risks defeat in detail unless he redirects his main effort away from the terrain objectives. Even if it doesn't work, you're giving the player his money's worth with some great "oh sh*t!" moments. In my experience, TacAI controlled units will react nicely and give as good as they get once they get close in; it's when they get caught at range during their timed moves that they get mowed down like zombies. Anyway, that's how I cope with AI units that only move on the clock.