LongLeftFlank
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Posts posted by LongLeftFlank
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A poignant shot here; 2 IJA squads pinned and outflanked in a muddy depression and then systematically massacred by grenades. It took 20 minutes and a dozen US casualties out of a platoon to achieve this bloody victory; all the US units were Rattled or Broken by the end of the fight and ammo was gone.
Regrettably, the TacAI doesn't provoke Fanatic units in such a hopeless position into a last ditch Banzai charge; they just slug it out and die in place.
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The West Tank Barrier.
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View NNW from the Japanese construction barracks toward the lagoon shore road and the On Chong wharf buildings. The opening barrage should pound this stuff to matchwood.
Hat tip to Permanent666 for his wooden bungalow on "stilts" mod visible in foreground. I sank these buildings 1m down into the earth.
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Paul Carrell's "Barbarossa" (Hitler Moves East) and "Scorched Earth" sounds like it could be right up your alley, although keep in mind the guy was a Nazi propagandist turned postwar apologist. His bias is gigantic, including perpetuation of nonsensical conspiracy theories (e.g. Zitadelle failed mainly due to its betrayal by a Soviet agent in OKW known as "Werther") and outright fabrications.
But he writes an entertaining mix of strategic context, operational detail and frontline anecdote, not matched by anyone to my knowledge except Beevor.
EDIT: Oops, didn't notice pages 2 or 3 of this thread that mention Carrell numerous times. Oh well, too late.
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I'm nearing completion on a simple CMBN Makin Atoll map, but it may end up being recreated for the Italy game, since it looks like the Italians make a much better analog to the Japanese IJA than do the British or Canadians.
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We have no immediate plans for multi-multi-player. There's a lot of deep discussions about this in the Normandy and Shock Force forums for those who are up for a bit of research. In theory we would like to do it, in reality it's a huge investment and we're not so sure about the return. For now we think adding dozens of other requested features is a better use of the time it would take to make what we have like to call CoPlay.
Level of effort depends on what kind of CoPlay functionality you want to add. I absolutely agree that supporting RT CoPlay would be pretty hairy. But I'm pretty sure the majority CM multiplayer is PBEM WeGo.
At the present moment, I think it is theoretically possible for multiple players per side to email a saved PBEM game back and forth in the Orders phase, with each player assigning commands to a specific agreed subset of forces and perhaps even observing an Iron mode honour system not to click on friendly units he doesn't command to preserve own-side FOW.
Replays can similarly be shared; it's just a matter of file naming. How hard would it be to write a set of subroutines or even a separate file sharing/naming program that automates the process, together with creating some text files that allow limited communications among allied commanders.
I agree that even with PBEM you could easily go down the rabbit hole of overcomplexity, trying to address contingencies relating to multiple layers of command, HQ/C3 disruptions, bad radio atmospherics, and yadayada. But it doesn't have to be that way.
In a related vein, you might also consider allowing some (or even all) units on both sides to be computer / AI controlled (assuming the designer programs this in), allowing players to command a small (and more manageable) force in a larger operation. That same functionality could also support CoPlay where only specific units are controllable/ clickable by a given player (password guarded), while the rest are not.
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I like "O Solo Mio"
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It's not a particularly silly walk, is it?
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Do the Turkish Phantoms also pack Vietnam-era HARM missiles? A little "Wild Weasel" action might be in order. Of course, the Syrian SAM guys are likely used to this from the good old days playing footsie with Israel in the Bekaa valley.
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Ayyyyyy!!! Joey has "the place for ribs", so why should we gainsay him?
And ISTR that in spite of miserable logistics, leadership, mobility, tactical doctrine and increasingly, morale, the Italian infantry had a rep for being quite dogged in close quarter battle, both on defense and offense. A hard won legacy of the Isonzo front campaigns of WWI. You didn't want to go to sleep at night in the front line opposing them. Lots of grenades and infiltration.
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God, that must have been tedious! I tried to a less naked version of that when trying to make decent looking vineyards for spd's Italian mod. But see, I waited, and good things came!
No, it's really quite simple; there are 2 files, boccage and boccage2. Replacing the former with a blank (transparent) tile randomly removes either the bottom, both top and bottom or neither from a given bocage segment (3 segments in a given Bocage tile except where there's a gap or an X/Y shape), leaving only the bare "sticks"
I'm concerned that it now looks too bare and will mislead players who'll think that they can now spot or move through ungapped Bocage. But so far I haven't been able to add a thinner layer of leaves or vines to the transparent tile using Photoshop Elements. I may try Gimp, which is on my laptop.
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Thanks Mord. It now seems conceivable that BFC will see the light and realize that the PTO may be an attractive submarket, with a scale of tactical infantry action quite well-suited to the engine. And that creating a quality CM:Pacific game does not in fact require creating a massive new terrain set... caves, maybe. And some kind of treetop sniping platform.
In the meantime we can play around.
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Just want to make a plug for gullies here, for those now busily working on scenarios!
Gullies are the bocage of Sicily (or any arid terrain) in that they're key tactical avenues of advance (and defense), as well as hindering AFV movement. The volcanic surface of Sicily is heavily cut with these things.
Gullies, gullies and more gullies, both barren and brush/tree-filled; they'd mostly be dry at the time of the invasion. Excessive reliance on aerial imagery (Google as well as period) can cause them to be left out, or be made so shallow-sided as to be of negligible tactical value. One disappointment in CMBN is that very few designers put in small streams and their embankments; it was generally either larger streams or nothing.
They're not easy to build in the editor as you need to lock the adjacent banks. Also, be sure to fill them with Light Forest so that infantry will follow them and gain the cover benefit instead of wandering in and out!
Caves would be nice too, but would be a new feature and aren't urgently needed.
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Still messing around with terrain. Removing the lower level of the high bocage makes a very pleasing understory of tropical trees, or a mangrove swamp as shown here (165th Infantry assault on Buna, anyone?). Only downside is that LOS and navigability looks better than it actually is.
Also, put an "x" shaped bocage tile at the foot of a single Type C deciduous tree and you've got a banyan tree (vinelike roots dangling down).
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Hmm, CM:PTO may just have found a new base army to use for the Japanese....
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Somewhere in Calgary, a Canadian grog long banished from these forums is dusting off a whole load of Ortona research..... Look forward to that one, as I had relatives who left quite a bit of blood there.
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Body proportions seem OK, but the men all look fairly jacked to me -- maybe CMSF Marines should look that way, but the majority of kids who fought WWII were kind of scrawny (growing up in the Depression), which got worse the longer they were in the field; their helmets, uniforms and gear looked baggy on them more often than not. The SS-HJ gorilla second nearest the camera in this shot is an exception; he's virtually too big for his helmet!
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I should give you La Meauffe too, since it's pretty much photo-exact.
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Sorry, one look at that map screenie and I call BS on "greater realism".
Not one car in sight, first of all. High-res houses and walls look very nice, fine, but there are absolutely no hedges or other vegetation other than big mature trees -- yes this friggin well matters, because all that clutter restricts LOS and can make a suburb like this a real b**ch to fight through in high summer. As it is now, you're either in a building, in a street or in a yard, and whoever has the big uber tank(s) or the infinite ammo chaingun strapped to his waist or whatever sweeps all before him within moments of the enemy opening fire. No "tactics" required. From a pure tactical standpoint, not really much evolution from the Battlezone arcade game I used to play as a teen 30 years ago.
True, a lot of CMBN maps also suffer from a lot of these same issues, but it is clear to me that a game engine derived from some real estate CAD program doesn't do much from a "realism" standpoint to compensate for slipshod map design.
All that said, I do agree that CMx2 is quite a resource hog for what you get visually. There are good reasons for that though, and at day end, frankly, I'll take CMSF / CMBN over anything else on the market any day of the week.
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Not abandoned, just temporarily tabled in favour of a couple smaller projects... And a whole load of RL.
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... move around much on D-Day so AI programming shouldn't be too hard.
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Thanks to your dad for his courage; rest easy. The famous photo above actually shows the first wave, "Force Z" of the 105th that preceded the 165th and secured the wharfs flanking Yellow beach. Wading 250 yards over submerged coral, with no cover whatsoever except a few thin-skinned Alligators must have been the stiff of nightmares (they miscalculated the water depth); although enemy fire turned out to be mercifully light.
I am going to try to make this a short project, at least by my standards. The Japanese force on Makin didn't
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The "distant ground" (ocean) tile could be lightened a bit, true, although its shading needs to be uniform because it "tiles" as opposed to being a single image like the skybox.
Re the eucalyptus leaves, note that there are both "wet" and "dry" jungle environments, often occurring on opposite sides (windward/leeward) of the same island or mountain. Deciduous trees in the wetter areas tend to have massive trunks (banyan, eucalyptus) and feature dangling vines and creepers. But feel free to do your own tweaks if you like. I don't pretend to have anything like the modding skills (or free time) of others on this board.
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First screenie from my WIP 1600x720 map of Yellow Beach, on the north (lagoon) shore of the central fortified zone of Butaritari Island, Makin Atoll. Unmoved by the terrific Yankee air and naval prep bombardment, two intrepid rikusentai sharpshooters of the Sasebo force wade out to a hulk rusting in the shallows near the shattered On Chong Wharf and await the blue-eyed invaders whose barges are now massing in the lagoon.
CMBN Pacific: Makin Atoll
in CM Normandy Maps and Mods
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