LongLeftFlank
-
Posts
5,415 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
15
Posts posted by LongLeftFlank
-
-
You know, I had indeed seen this map before, and forgotten about it. That and the Carillon sheet, plus the postwar aerial imagery and the current Google Maps (you can still see craters in some of the fields!) should be all I need.
The Internet is truly an amazing resource (in spite of the "signal to noise" ratio) -- last night I tracked down the daily AARs and logs for the tank (737th) and TD (654th) battalions that supported 137th IR in these fights.
Cheers!
-
I opened an earlier thread on this topic, but decided to restart it here in the appropriate subforum. Please refer to that thread for additional information.
Roughly, this campaign will depict the series of bloody (and often fruitless) attacks through heavily fortified villes and hedgerows north of St Lo from 11-14 July 1944 by the green troops of 3/137th Infantry, 35th ID ("Santa Fe").
Those familiar with my CMSF work on Ramadi will know that I go extremely "deep" into the historical research, with the intent of trying to put the player "in the boots" of the men on the ground as much as possible, facing the real world tactical dilemmas and powerfully incented to use real world tactics. That is, once I understand them myself....
I also go to ridiculous lengths to try to get the ground itself absolutely right. So don't expect this project to be completed anytime soon -- in fact, you may all be through Holland by the time I finish up. In which case it will make an interesting return for you.
Anyway, below is the area I intend to map out to create a large "master" map for the campaign (it will be a 3 x4 km rectangle of course, but I won't do much in the area outside the jagged border). I will then carve out smaller submaps for the campaign scenarios.
The general purpose of this thread is to share screenies, lessons learned, and other updates. Input welcome.
-
Thanks. I just found that too. The US 35th ID histories report prisoners only from the 897th and 899th, which makes sense. They simply confused Grenadier with PG; forgivable since the prisoners were largely Bohemians, Czechs and Poles...
PS In case you're in touch with the folks at AHF or Feldgrau, feel free to point out the following information which is missing from the unit entries:
The 897th and 899th Grenadier regiments saw heavy action north of St Lo during mid July '44 and seem to have been heavily depleted even before that fight; POW reports state that they were also organized as "KG Kempner". In spite of seemingly being heavily comprised of levies from the old Austro-Hungarian empire (Czechs and Poles -- prisoners told their captors that the officers had to keep close watch on their men at night to stop them surrendering), they gave a very good account of themselves in the stubborn defense of the La Meauffe - St Gilles road ("Purple Heart Corner") as well as the "textbook" fortification and defense of the "Carillon Nose" which is shown in that famous map of hedgerow defenses from the St Lo Green Book.
And I will now sign off from the forums for a bit to work on my campaign map of the above area. It looks like about 1200m x 1200m will do for size, with submaps "carved out" for the various vicious fight....
-
Which division(s) did the 897, 898 and 899th Panzergrenadierregiments report to? These units fought north of St Lo in July. I dont think they're 352nd ID but could be wrong.
Also, were the battalions comprising each Wehrmacht regiment invariably numbered 1-3+?
EDIT: thanks for the link - it shows 697-699 PG regiments comprising 342 ID, but no 897-899. And if it's a typo in the intel reports and histories, 342 ID was not in France after 1941. Mysterious....
-
Try playing with the FACE command at the end of the move, changing their alignment to 45 deg along the wall/row in either direction. If that doesnt help try 90 (facing along the wall). They should assume the desired position and side, then automatically turn to face the threat.
It can be counterintuituve at first, but I've rarely found it impossible to get infantry to do what I intend, even in WeGo. But it can create some AUGHHH!!!! moments if you click wrong. This will need some further tweaking... In CMSF there were no walls that allowed LOS but not movement.
-
So who's getting busy building out the Greater St. Lo Commercial District?
Lovely this time of year....
-
So who's getting busy building out the Greater St. Lo Commercial District?
(Don't look at me, I'm already busy on the vicious Le Meauffe - Le Carillon battles July 11-14 just north of there. I'm MOUTed out for a while)
-
-
Silently doffs hat in reverent silence....
-
Excellent! What are your other maps?
-
Be sure to check out the "Pleasantly Shaded Woodland" scenario: gorgeous and detailed bocage map, including sunken lanes....
I've just started with the editor myself, but here's my own rendition of a sunken lane...
-
I am already working on the 137th Infantry attacks 11-14 July between Le Meauffe and Le Carillon, east of the Vire.
-
Hell yes. But after taking very high casualties in the demo, and feeling both awful and resentful about it, I realized that I, not the game, was the problem (the same thing happened in CMSF).
I am being a "gamer", and trying to rush things along impatiently. The doggies need to do a lot more SLOW or FAST (dashing) once they make contact, and keep their heads down behind the berms (hedgerows) until they can create enough mass to dominate the firefight. Otherwise the Kraut MGs make dogmeat of them.... creating the ahistorical casualty rates we were discussing a while back.
Of course, festina lente raises the ugly question of: how long before the enemy mortars range in on my crawling men?
And that, in a nutshell, is the basic RL tactical problem in attacking dug-in Germans.
EDIT: Now, whether the scenario designers have allowed me enough time to use those RL tactics remains to be seen....
-
Bummer.
And I suppose you/Snowball wouldn't consider selling downloads of the various CMSF unit sets/TOEs to CM:A owners (buyers)?
That would at least bootstrap the engine to the CMA level. No unique content would be required, we could take care of all that and it would cheaply expand the scope of the game for the cadre modern warfare enthusiasts for the x years until CMSF2 Temperate came out.... That Helmand project, so on.
Monetizing existing IC is not a terrible idea. And it would boost sales of CMA too.
-
Are you SURE grenades don't cause friendly casualties? I'm pretty sure I took a few fairly recently.
-
Guess...
"Just give me the aspirin. I already got a Purple Heart."
-
Interesting!
Is this you Erwin, or someone you're helping out? I have.... different contact info for you.
Oh, and OT, I've become increasingly fascinated by Arma2 videos on YouTube even though I'll never own a rig that can run this game. Ramadi pales in comparison to the level of detail in
Althoughdoesn't have anything like the right building density.... Hmm, maybe there's a future for me in Arma2 maps.But all that notwithstanding, the MMORPG players (and their AI NPCs) largely behave just like ancient warriors right out of the Iliad except with MMGs and body armour. No tactical drill or unit cohesion whatsoever except occasionally in small teams.
-
No rush - enjoy WWII. But eventually, you'll be back. And the RPGs will be waiting....
-
Quite possibly throwing a track in the process and finding yourself immobilized in the enemy defensive line? No. Yes, it was done, especially by the Russians. Did it make good tactical or risk sense for the armour? Also no. I don't personally want this feature; maybe for the Russia games.
-
I had an incident where a squad was Assaulting and the covering element all Cowered when the lead element took some casualties. Thought that had been addressed.
-
Thanks, guys. And that's the "boring" end of my Ramadi map. I will definitely be back to this once I have my fill of Normandy... figure on late summer.
-
Watch out shooting over those low hedgerows though! I just had a nasty FF incident where my Sherman was Area Firing an enemy beyond the hedgerow. The Target tool showed LOS, but it was from the AAMG. The main gun undershoots about one shot in 5 and hit the nearby hedgerow, and got 3 doggies.
Again, I'd rather the low hedgerows be uncrossable than crossable too easily by AFVs. You can always slot in an embankment topped with a hedge if you want to enable a crossing point without an outright gap.
-
To add insult to injury, that Freemason's headstone also has a Latin inscription that translates roughly "To the stars riding on a pig".
Are you proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Was that not in the plan?
-
GibsonM did a scenario design manual for CMSF that will get you started.
The Carillon Nose (137th Infantry) - Campaign In Progress
in CM Normandy Maps and Mods
Posted
Bwahahahaha!!!!
You're talking to the man who mapped a 1 x 2km densely built up strip of downtown Ramadi (estimate 8,000 separate buildings plus an equal number of flavour objects) on 2 6 year old PCs. And never crashed once, although it DID get a little poky sometimes.
My philosophy in building Brobdignagian "master" maps is that (a) you can always carve them up into small submaps -- easier to delete details than add them; (
it encourages you to look at the map "as it is" as opposed to trying to build a little game-specific maze for your players; © PC power grows every year and someday they will develop a PC that can confound even Charles! 
So someday we will all be able to play full regiment-sized CM H2H actions online on monster maps with full CoPlay. While wearing shiny silver clothing and eating meals in pill form in our hover cars.