manchildstein (ii)

yes, you break down the reinforcements into smaller groups, such as 1 or 2 units...

my guess is that most people are reaching it ok... again, if you are having a problem, you can reach me at andythomas0@hotmail.com and i'll send it over to you...

one way to make up for their lack of quality in a designed scenario is to provide quantity instead... disregard point values and have as many as needed to be effective...

have uploaded version 2... fixes a problem with the defensive 'fortifications'... better 'rounds out' the russian force with the addition of more atr units and some 45mm guns... also trades in the 82mm mortar FOs for 120mm... slight terrain modifications... 'done'

sometimes people have problems accessing that tripod.com site ....i tried to send it to patricklucero@mac.com but it bounced back to me... if you want me to send it through email, send me an email at andythomas0@hotmail.com thanks for your interest...

well if it's a rip-off don't buy it... personally i think being able to model early italian and british desert battles is going to be 'flavorful' enough that just that alone will be worth $35 to some people... for me it would have been a slam dunk with the inclusion of yugoslavs and greeks... even as is i'll probably pony up...

sounds like an 'audie murphy' platoon hq...

Available through the Scenario Depot: http://ns9.super-hosts.com/~dragonlair.net/combatmission/ Storming the 78th Play as Allies against Axis AI Default Computer Setup Version 1 2400 length x 800 width, ~10,000 Points per side 24 June, 1944 Central, Day, Hot, Dry, Still Crack Soviet Guards versus Veteran German Sturm Operation Bagration began yesterday. Since then, in this sector of woods south of the Moscow-Smolensk Highway, elements of the Soviet 16th Guards Rifle Division have been pushing their way forward against units of the German 78th Sturm Division; this against heavy losses. Despite the slow progress on the day of the 23rd and the loss of many AFVs, the 16th Guards have forced the 78th to abandon the first line of defense. While the 78th has fallen back to their 2nd line of defense, the 16th Guards have re-organized their remaining units and on the morning of the 24th prepare to press forward in an attempt to further increase their gains. As a Russian "Regimental" commander, here you have an amalgam leftover from the fighting of the 23rd; 3 fresh Companies of infantry (Recon, Pioneer, SMG); numerous AFVs including IS-2 tanks, KV-8 flame tanks, ISU-152s, and SU-76 (captured stugs refitted with 76mm guns). You've also been given a large amount of pre-planned artillery and decent on-call 82mm and 120mm mortar support. As a whole, your "16th Guards Division Vanguard" of 24 of June is thus: 1 Recon Company 1 SMG Company 1 Pioneer Company 7 Sharpshooter 5 LMG 3 ATR 3 82mm FO 2 120mm FO 7 IS-2 4 KV8 8 SU-76(i) 11 ISU-152 2 M-17 "Meatchopper" 5 M-5 Haltrack Pre-planned Artillery: 4 152mm (4-tube) 4 300mm Rocket (72-tube) You are set to attack along a narrow road running through forest and marsh. There is 'plenty' of time (90 turns) and there are no victory flags. This is an exit scenario but none of your units are exit elegible. The objective is to get as far as you can before you sustain too high of losses or run out of ammo; or if you're completely successful, this stretch of road is 'clear.' The main point of the scenario is to attempt to illustrate at least somewhat how the fighting might have been in this area and time of the legendary Bagration Offensive. If nothing else, the total of 288, 300mm rockets - capable of all being fired simultaneously - is fairly spectacular. The German minefields are known and marked as landmarks. Every building-type structure is a potential fortification.

real quickly... a couple of major points i've come across: artillery spotters (FOs): 1) if you want a turn 1 pre-planned barrage called in by an AI spotter, make sure that the spotter will somehow be within LOS of the human player's units. this can even mean setting up the FO within the human player's setup zones. 2) if you want an FO to call in fire on a later turn, make it a reinforcement set for 100% chance of arrival on turn 2... this will prevent the FO from calling in turn 1 fire. keeping AI units in place: 1) make the scenario an exit scenario for the human player (attacker) with no flags flags: 1) the thing with flags appears to be that, once the human player takes just one, the ai sends everything it has at that same flag in a haphazard counterattack. in designing a scenario you can use this 'feature' to hit the human player with counterattacks. simply put an innocent-looking flag out there and set up ai-controlled units around it such that, when the human player takes it according to plan (yeah right), the ai counterattack commences 2) if you want the ai to attack the human player from the get-go, put the human in control of a flag at the start... just a few thoughts...

also, you can put a 'rotate' command at the end of a move so the afv rotates in the desired direction at the end...

on the topic of 'becoming an officer instead of an nco,' hopefully the 'standard operating procedures' (sops) of the new game will create just that effect... i'm thinking that with sops, the 'operational' level that some of us have strived for in cmbo/b will then be within easier grasp... in other words it will be possible to have less micromanagement - aside from setting up the sops 'beforehand' - and thus command more units... admittedly, in cmbb the 'battalion-level' (and beyond) stuff can be a 'bit much' when trying to manage all of the units... so the new game will hopefully allow micromanagement but at the same time allow reliance upon sops 'instead'...

about the buildings... the one thing i would recommend would be basements... beyond that, being able to edit the 'strength' as to how quickly they rubble and/or how well they protect from various types of incoming fire.... edit: i mean add basements as optional... then for buildings in general be able to edit their strength (and 'ideally,' dimensions) [ August 16, 2003, 11:30 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

another high priority issue might be the modelling of small arms, particularly the 'fire lanes' of the machineguns... instead of 'point to point' between firer and target, checking all points in between (and beyond if necessary)...

The Panzer divisions and maybe the motorized divisions. The infantry divisions, which formed the great bulk of the Heer, did not get them. Michael </font>

i would rather have kubelwagens with mgs... but in 1941 the germans were using motorcycles... by 1942 the leibstandarte for instance had gone over to kubelwagens in their recon battalion... if the motorcycles had been better, they probably wouldn't have switched to kubelwagens... so my own argument in favor of motorcycles is not so much that they would be 'better' but that - in 1941 and earlier at least - they were 'more common' to the recon elements as for 'each division having a motorcycle battalion' as i'd earlier stated... well that's probably in actuality not true but i'll bet each division - even infantry - at least had a motorcycle company in 1941 and earlier...

there was a website about the u.s. cavalry squadrons (battalions) of wwii, where jeeps were integral to recon and special 3-man crews were trained to drive forward and abandon their jeep, fighting on foot when they came under fire. i would also think that motorcycles came into direct contact with the enemy, every bit as much as trucks did. the german 1941 'to&e' has motorcycle battalions integral to most if not all of the division-sized formations... i think those would be a good addition to a later version of cm... also for the west front it would be great to have the u.s. recon jeeps with their 3-man crews laden with mines, radio gear, and rifles (bars?)... the main thing i would like to see terrain-wise would be an easier-to-use editor with a 'user-settable' granularity as far as tile size ... it would also be great if every building on the map could be custom-designed within an overall set of allowable parameters... same with bunkers...

the heavy weapons are important. these include machineguns, mortars, cannons (art, at, aa), and the afv (armored fighting vehicle) weapons. if i have panzergrenadier squads i'll split each platoon's squads then put the sections with smgs out front and keep the mg sections back. the platoon hqs will stay with the 3mg sections of their respective platoons. the heavy weapons will be set up further back. so from front to back the formation is basically: --------will move forward: half squads with smgs company hq half squads with lmgs platoon hqs --------will overwatch: heavy weapons afvs then the squads' smgs will go forward and if they make contact, hopefully the other units behind them can 'get the drop' on whatever units your opponent has firing. regarding the squads with 2-mg sections; the 3 of these per platoon represent 6 mgs. combined these can put up over 300 firepower in the right circumstances - each section still has 2 mgs and all of the 3 sections are inside 100 meters or so. these squad-level lmgs can project about 50 firepower apiece out to several hundred meters. ideally the smg half-squads will close to within 30 meters while the mg half-squads stay outside of 40 meters; and on top of that will be the fire of the heavy weapons from their - hopefully well chosen - overwatch positions. however you carry out your attack, with half squads or full, you may need to bring your heavy weapons forward. once you have won a piece of ground with your squads, that same ground overwatched by your heavy weapons and with no incoming hostile fire; move the heavy weapons forward to roughly the same positions as the leading infantry. then from there you set up your heavy weapons in new overwatch positions and send your squads out to take over another piece of ground. the movement of infantry platoons forward; taking some ground; then waiting while the heavy weapons move up; then the infantry platoons moving foward to take some ground again is, overall sort of like an 'inchworm' movement. an actual 'bounding' occurs between the squads or sections of the manuever elements (infantry platoons). i find that even with split squads, the squad mg sections often find themselves in the lead. ideally though the smg half-squads stay in the lead and close to within 30 meters while the mg half-squads stay outside of 40 meters; and on top of that is the supporting fire of the heavy weapons from their - hopefully well chosen - overwatch positions. when a lead infantry 'squad' platoon makes contact, having an mg or other heavy weapon in good position to participate in ensuing firefight is a lot better than having to move the thing and suffer through the chance of being hit while changing position, and the penalty of having to set-up the weapon in its new position. so having the heavy weapons in good positions at the start of each firefight is a good thing. from out front the infantry squads - even with 2 lmgs - need the firepower of the heavy weapons behind them. another reason for this is that the squad elements will run out of ammo more quickly than the heavy weapons. it's often the heavy weapons which decide the outcome. the lead (squad) elements are simply out front finding targets for the heavy weapons in overwatch. one thing to watch out for when attacking is concentrating your units too closely together. this can result in getting hit with some nasty artillery barrages. depending on your opponent's artillery plan, you might only be able to occupy a given area for a few minutes before needing to move again. so the main thing is to, as you attack forward 'get the drop' on whatever the defense throws at you in the way of 'direct fire.' if you can 'win' each engagement within the greater battle and still have ammo to spare, and avoid getting hit by disastrous artillery barrages, you can have a successful attack.

if memory serves, 'hammers with eggshells' was jasonc's way of describing a lot of the armored combat in nw europe in 1944-45. the basic idea was that most afvs had a sufficient gun or 'hammer' to smash the armor or 'eggshell' of another afv. by the same token, most afvs had themselves had an insufficient 'eggshell' to withstand the fire of the 'hammers' of enemy afvs. extrapolating this concept to 1941 in the east, we see that the soviet t26 and bt tanks, and the german wheeled armored cars and pzjg I tank destroyers are further examples of vehicles capable of scoring kills, but not withstanding any kind of hostile fire. the reason i bring this up is that, for me as a cm player it is 'sheer joy' to score a kill with a vehicle which itself is incapable of taking return fire. this kind of kill means that i have completed a successful manuever. and manuever itself is perhaps the most important access of a successful engagement. in short, i enjoy employing the 'thin-skinned' vehicles of either side. and one of the greatest challenges is that of gaining success with light armor in 1941, for such vehicles as those listed above a vulnerable even to machinegun fire, let alone cannons.

bump this one now tries to depict a rolling barrage by 7 FOs (representing two battalions)... 7 FOs in triplicate (21 total) so you can lay down 3 pre-planned levels of barrages, turn 01, turn 11, and turn 21...

try looking under 'gutshot'... that was his name (one of many if memory serves) here... he went by 'poor old spike' on rugged defense

m3 and m5 the 'same' - 'stuart' - tank: http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/usa/nv33.htm back to your regular programming

isn't the m3 really a different tank than the m5 stuart? i mean they both have a 37mm "long" and - if memory serves - the same running gear but isn't the mg loadout or armored protection slightly different or somefink?...

if memory serves, while the panther and pziv were produced in relatively equal numbers in the 1944 period, the majority of panthers were sent to the west. it may have been in zaloga's 'operation bagration' book where i read this... edit: yes i took a look and in the zaloga book it mentioned that from nov of '43 the majority of panthers were sent west. [ July 26, 2003, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

assuming this is an 'integrated' video chipset, if you have an agp slot on the computer you can buy a separate video card and install it. remember to make the switch (from onboard to video card) in the 'cmos setup' which is usually 'press del to enter setup' at the very start of the boot... if you have no agp slot you might still be able to use a pci card.......

assuming this is an 'integrated' video chipset, if you have an agp slot on the computer you can buy a separate video card and install it. remember to make the switch (from onboard to video card) in the 'cmos setup' which is usually 'press del to enter setup' at the very start of the boot... if you have no agp slot you might still be able to use a pci card.......