LongLeftFlank

That's a bridge section. It does odd things to infantry movement so it may not be used in the final map.

Certain Norman church towers have a "tented" roof shape, per the photo. Since that screenie, I reverted to the dense walled cathedral and Sauron tower for tactical reasons (yeah, that topic ).

Ok, enough history, what's going on with the map? First objective: La Meauffe. Vermanoir and Eglise St Martin, linchpin of the German left. The thick-walled sandstone church and cemetery "bristled with firepower and atop the bell tower was a German machine gun nest that commanded the approaches to the area. Close behind the church was a chateau, another thick-walled building with excellent facilities for fortification.... A labor battalion of impressed Russians had been forced to build heavy reinforcements and a bomb shelter of concrete with walls three feet thick." Moreover "every house and shop had been converted by the Germans into individual pillboxes." .

Some more history and context. On 13 July, the two attacking regiments of the 35th Division again scored only limited gains. The principal reason, not realized until later advance had cleared the ground, was a German defensive system described by XIX Corps G-2 as representing a "school solution" for the enemy's problem of stopping our attack. Just west of the hamlet of le Carillon (Map 16) the Germans had organized on a north-south nose of higher ground, between two small creeks, in a fashion not matched elsewhere on the division front. Using every advantage offered by the hedgerow terrain, they followed the principle of defense in depth. The main enemy positions began 500 yards from the northern end of the nose, on the line le Carillon-la Mare; from here, for 1000 yards to the south, the rising ground was organized as a defensive base. From it, small combat groups worked out to the north and on both flanks to prepared outpost positions; if pressed, they could retire easily to the base. The nose was only 50 to 100 feet higher than the low ground on the approaches from the north, and less than that above the draws to either side, but this was high enough to afford good observation, and enemy automatic weapons and mortars were sited to deliver effective harassing fires over a wider radius. Heavy hedgerow dikes and a few sunken roads gave the Germans opportunity for movement under cover from American artillery fire. Enemy forces in this area were estimated at about a battalion.... The problem of cracking this German strong-point was never really solved; success on other parts of the front settled the issue during the next few days. Buckley, The Normandy Campaign 1944: Sixty Years On On 11 and 12 July the 35th Division assaulted a most elaborate defensive position at Le Carillon. The 2/137 found the armoured support provided [3 tank platoons of the 737th Tank Battalion and 654th TD Battalion] entirely ineffective. The tank destroyers were wrecked by mines and mortars, and of four tanks sent in, one was blown up on a mine and two became bogged in the mud. These misadventures reflect the German policy of always separating enemy armour from infantry where they could do so. The 2/137 was more successful in changing tactical organisation and procedures for the infantry and their own and attached fire support weapons. Colonel O'Connell decentralised his forces, attaching a platoon of heavy machineguns and a section of 81mm mortars to each company. The rifle companies were ordered to abandon conventional formation and create attack groups of four or five men. O'Connell remarked, "The best tactic was to first place very heavy concentrations of mortar fire on all suspected enemy lines and then to follow this up with a liberal use of grenade launchers and hand grenades." And here are some foxhole level memoirs: .

Work and computer power permitting, I am going to resume work on this long shelved BN base game campaign, which includes a 2 x 3 km master map of the east bank of the Vire River above Pont Hebert, from la Meauffe to the German fortified heights at le Carillon.... Below are a few key snips from the old thread... La Meauffe had been the front line since mid June, when 175th Infantry occupied it, then withdrew (under fire) to higher ground further north. So I did some more research online and was gratified to find a French chronology of La Meauffe's war. And it turns out the elusive "Gestapo château" which anchored "Purple Heart Corner" is the Chateau Fors, commanding the key T junction and railway crossing at the south end of La Meauffe. Many historians place it wrongly at St Gilles, which was the LXXXIV Corps HQ, rocketed by Typhoons on D-Day and also heavily fortified. So at long last I have confidence in the start lines and the July 11th objectives for 1/137.

It'd be nice if the CMSF2 VBIED skin could match the regular Uncon taxi skin. In (unmodded) SF1, the moment you see a blue sedan, you know instantly what it is.

Simple, just swap out Alfred's "doody hat" for a powdered wig and Bob's yer uncle. I may blow the dust off my le Carillon work. It will keep me out of mischief here, to the relief of not a few. I tried to day trip from Paris out to the battlefield last June, but... "action contre l'industrie" stopped the trains to St Lô. Worse than Jabos.

Hmm, why do I feel like the lead in "A Man for All Seasons", with my old friend SB in the role of Norwich chiding me that my obstinate purism will cost me my head? And you will seek my thousands of posts in vain for a "CM totally sucks", either stated or implied. Not guilty, m'lud. My particular wargaming interests are highly specialized and in the distinct minority (although I'm also not the only one). So I hardly expect my views to matter much to BFC as a commercial matter. I hope and expect most SF1 players will greatly enjoy the upgrade. But I am not required to alter my interests to match theirs. And the step change improvement over SF1 is not yet self evident on the criteria that matter to me. No amount of belittlement or strawmanning (not you, others) is going to alter that. Time will tell.

Apologies Ian, for my misapplication of "kludge" for the sake of a lame bon mot. Should know better with the tech Jedi. MikeyD, that's 100% your own opinion, and other infantry MOUT enthusiasts are in no way required to share or endorse it. We can argue what's 'doing very well' in terms of tactical properties of buildings for hundreds of pages if you like. (Also, peaked roofs are in fact widespread in the parts of Syria that get rain, though not in the desert plains adjoining Iraq. But let's put that aside) How does this become a "fantasy expectation", when water, bridges, on map mortars, etc., which weren't part of SF1 either, are not? One more time for selective listeners: independent buildings appear in *every single title* after CMSF1. Somehow the effort to include them there was not Herculean. But now somehow it is. I accept (with some puzzlement) that some Work was involved re peak roofs etc. But I will NOT be talked down to here, or contemptuously tossed onto the Island of Fantasy Expectations. Ian gave a perfectly reasonable response below that would have sufficed to close this out. You didn't need to put the boot in.

As noted in the OP, CMSF1 featured only a single relatively thin-walled building type displaying no visual damage until walls or the entire structure is demolished. All subsequent CM titles added certain "independent" structures, some of which (churches) have dense, thick walls (better cover and far less prone to collapse under HE) - natural strongpoints, in the absence of another game option to fortify buildings. Other building types (barns, sheds) offered less than average hard cover to occupants, but higher profiles and LOS blocks. Both these variants add valuable granularity and resilience to towns, cities and industrial areas. Even without RoE limitations, populated areas are critical battlespaces for RED, especially Uncons, who haven't a prayer of engaging most BLUE forces in the open. In my view, CMSF2 is taking a [minor?] step back (and increasing BLUE uberness still more) by omitting what by now seemed to be a standard game feature, but it evidently was not a straightforward effort to include them in CMSF2. This seems counterintuitive, but we must accept their word that it was a kludge too far.

If it is any consolation to anyone, Leonardo left behind a huge backlog of unfinished (and never begun) works, and constantly reproached himself for this fault in his journals. Christopher Hitchens relates (perhaps apocryphally) that 'whenever [Leonardo] tested a new quill, he would scrawl the same unhappy inquiry: “Dimmi, dimmi se mai fu fatta cosa alcuna” (Tell me, tell me if anything ever got done).'

Yeah, Canada has produced some good journalism. I remember Barbara, Alan and the 1970s "As It Happens" crew, long distance dialing the palace of (entirely mad) Idi Amin or the occupied Tehran embassy. Back when Canada was still viewed as a neutral country. (This thread has really gone off topic into current affairs at this point btw. I am one of the guilty.)

You can work up a variety of decent looking modern office buildings using the long window facade with no balconies. The doors to nowhere won't function.

Well, the spotting ability of AFVs in general in the game has always been uncanny, that's been the subject of long debate, WWII to modern. But in terms of relative capability, consider this recent post over on CMBS "Russians Underpowered" thread. Voice of experience here. And that's just obsolescence issues. Now imagine a set of those sights that's never had a proper teardown and rebuild (stores were sold off for cash by the spivs in Division supply), in the custody of an underfed 20 year old Sunni conscript with an 8th grade education (whose pay is also getting skimmed by the Battalion CO).

...retrofitted with new axle-free bogies, providing the Pillo-soft luxury of Hush-O-Matic Miracle Ride I bow down before the genius of fellow Canuck Bruce McCall (pbuh).

I think the cease fire is appropriate, Bil. Unless you have one hell of a lot of arty or can mass zerg rush the Leos somehow, the next guys to stick their noses up seem pretty likely to get the same medicine. I was suprised at Ian having liberty to set up so far forward and have his tanks' right flank semi-shielded by the map edge. It made for a very 'tight' battleground in spite of the map size. To me, it had a Prokhorovka feel, i.e. the moment you crest out of your starting positions and get eyes on you're already in deep kaka. Recon by death doesn't benefit you if you don't then have the hammer to hurt him. And that's typical of the "damned if you do/don't" conundrum the Syrian mech always faces on the attack. A meeting engagement, forcing both sides to scramble and deploy, might have made for a more even match.

Yup, I have a rule in dinner conversation: first one to mention the T word buys the drinks. Keeps it civil.

'Tis the silly season.

http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/11/doctors-close-to-butthurt-cure

We haz met the New Belligerents and they iz us. Let's move on.

Just saw this, and it is Most Excellent!!! 1. But this is a One Percenter playground! Mass transit in America is strictly for the unwashed. While the property manager provides employee minibus transport for 2 hours each way to Mopetown, the pickup point is on a back road out of sight, by the dumpsters. Look for all the cigarette butts and opioid foil packets. 2. The "hospital" is actually the corporate offices of a health insurance provider (although largely vacant since most back office functions were outsourced to Hyderabad).

... Hey, you know, just spitballing some more, if we riff on @MikeyD's legendary "Lone Star Shopping Mall" scenario from CMSF1, we can readily achieve LOS to CM: MAGA, aka CM:DRAINTHESWAMP.... July 21st, 2021, Manassas, VA. Month 10 of the 2020 election crisis. Following the successful relief of Quantico, the left hook of 2nd MEF, skirting the Occoquan reservoir along route 234, ran head on into a FEMA mechanised unit backed by 82nd Airborne paratroopers hastily airlifted into Dulles. With all nav systems still disabled by the EMPs that followed the 12th Recount and the Republican evacuation of Washington, both forces struggled to flank each other through the subdivisions that threaded the rocky hollows of Bull Run.... Whose Deplorables mod are you using?

Here again, I think folks are getting jumpy and starting to stomp all over criticisms and "demands" that just ain't there. I personally am just spitballing. And it seems like S2 is just in the space of "woulden it be nice?" too (I'll let him speak for hisself). Those dam' Kraut infiltrators are everywhere! Quick, get that baseball trivia going to flush 'em out! Or to paraphrase the great Walt Kelly: We haz met the CMSF2 New Belligerents and they iz us!

Good stuff, guys. Just some harmless jawing here while we wait, but S2 what's the backstory and objective of this Turkish border crossing? 1. an incursion or raid to kill or capture specific Kurds enemies, or is it 2. to ethnically cleanse secure a longer term buffer zone? If a town or city fight is involved, as you imply, in the former case, you're in for a very risky coup de main/VIP snatch-or-kill type operation, a la my 2012 Baba Amr scenario. In the latter case, isn't it better to bypass and seal off the towns at first, securing the countryside and then figuring out how best to root/starve out the urban holdouts? I believe negotiated safe conduct has been the preferred resolution, even with ISIS. Either way, about the last thing you'd want is a Pyrrhic mini-Mosul, leveling block after block for weeks, plus bereaved Turkish mums (and generals) cursing the Great Hetman. This is just for friendly discussion, not criticising (people here seem a tad prickly of late).

Of course not, how silly of me.