RockinHarry

'PAINTABLE' GROUNDCONDITIONS...
A feature that could allow for more then one groundcondition/scenario that we are currently limited to. The scenario designer now have the option to set the groundcondition in his scenario
to different things like dry, damp, snow, deep snow etc. These are nice options to have but as the designer you are limited to only one option.
If you choose DEEP SNOW for example then the entire map will be exactelly that...DEEP SNOW. If you choose MUDDY then the entire map will be...MUDDY.

Maybe it would be a good thing if the scenario designer could set a 'basic' ground condition...like we do now and then 'add in' different types of ground conditions at specific areas of the map to add a bit of varaity. 

What i had in mind would work something like painting setup-zones does now. You have your 'basic' groundcondition that is the default for the entire map and then you could choose from the differrent groundconditions and paint the specific areas of the map that you would like to have a different type of groundcondition.
Sort of like a 'groundcondition overlay' of the map. Simular to set-up zones.
 
- On a summermap the day after a rainy night. Set the basic groundcondition to WET. Paint the crest/some slopes of ridges/hills to DRY and perhaps specific areas to BOGGY/MUDDY..
- On a wintermap. Set the basic ground condition to LIGHT SNOW and paint other areas to DEEP SNOW. Along recently plowed roads for example. Specific areas of the map that the wind have blown snow into.
- On a spring/fall map with melting snow. Set the basic groundcondition to LIGHT SNOW. Paint some areas WET (no snow) and some areas to MUDDY (no snow) and maybe some to DEEP SNOW
Something like this would allow for some more varaity on the maps and not have the entire thing set to a single option.

I usually get rid of the observer from the sniper team with the 50% casualty option.

Early War (Poland, France and Balkans campaigns). Mainly for the reason I find desert terrain & maps quite boring and giving too little variation.

Early War (Poland, France and Balkans campaigns). Mainly for the reason I find desert terrain & maps quite boring and giving too little variation.

it´s not bad. I just hate the usual approach that certain terms from US sources are taken literally. Also counts for SPR. That would be every german tank is a "Tiger", every gun an "88" and so forth. Also if I see "sandbag positions" to present "typical" WW2 infantry combat positiions, I usually start to get mad.  

Mainly general behaviors, tactics and "story telling". Gear is mostly in order (though I wonder what this Luger wielding german offiver guy is meant to present), since actors appear to be hired from local german reenactor group I think. Though I´ve seen some way more professional UK and US groups who at least mastered the basic drills of the time. These films look simply like some youngsters playing war in the park. I lack time (and interest) to go deeper into detail with these short films, but considering this young group of filming students is not specialised in making WW2 films (they do various other topics as well), one does not need to take it all that serious.
https://www.paralightworx.de/

Agreed.  Yet Scenario Design remains an arcane art.  There are several very experienced designers who are very good at scenario design.  Maybe someday, an articulate, analytical, well qualified freelance writer could produce a BFC vetted scenario design document, much like Jon Sowden's "The Sheriff of Oosterbeek" design DAR/AAR with greater focus on programming the AI which might also incorporate the tips and tricks learned by the wizards of this craft. 
 

It's not about AI, because there is no AI.
At least there is no AI that moves troops around.
It's about scenario design.
To me, it looks like the scenario designer gave a move order to a group of vehicles, but only gave them ONE square to move to. That means all the vehicles will try to move into that one 8x8m square, but there's not enough room for all of them. So they bunch up.
In the end, the designer needs to understand the tools he has to work with.

Mixed feelings about that. Technically not the worst I´ve seen from some reenactor wannabe film producers, yet suffering from the usual lack of realism and detail. I have my doubts about their true motivations making such films, but oh well...

Very interesting. No fat re-enactors this time. Thanks!

It's really important people don't get hung up on the deceptively named Assault order. It really isn't for assaulting onto a hard objective. It's for moving during the assault phase of the battle, when you want bounding overwatch by elements smaller than a squad and can't spare the time to manage split squads. Even if they have a slightly increased chance of throwing grenades while they're static, splitting squads is still more effective if you absolutely have to enter a defended location. The biggest factor I've found is how many grenades the element has.

Thanks, Bil! Nice variation of the grenade throwing variant across obstacles. Got to try that! Reminds me of some battle action written in:
Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations, from CGSC Press
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/BlockByBlock_TheChallengesOfUrbanOperations.pdf
"On 13 October the reduction of Aachen began, with the two battalions moving out in simultaneous but separate attacks. The first obstacle that confronted the 2/26 was a railroad embankment, fifteen to thirty feet high, that ran from southwest to northeast along the battalion front. Three artillery battalions delivered a 23-minute preparatory fire on the far side of the embankment, followed by a “grenade barrage,” in which every man of the two lead companies tossed grenades over the obstacle. At 0930 the troops clambered over the embankment, only to find that the area behind was undefended."
Nice to figure out that some these actions are basically possible in CMX2, which speaks for the game engine!
Excellent Blog, btw.

I got the situation above (battle of Aachen) nicely recreated. So hand grenade salvoes across railroad embankments are doable, although not in quite so spectacular fashion as in the battle action example. (Another battle account mentiones about 1000 men doing that hand grenade salvoe simultaneously across the length of the embankment). Neat.

Very clever!!
I've done a couple different things in the past to get contour lines:
1.  Capture the map images from the editor, ensuring the topo lines are somewhat visible, stitch them together in Photoshop (if required, usually is for large maps), then I apply different filters until I get the look, contour clarity that I am looking for.. add a grid, and presto, a great map for planning:
From CMBS BETA AAR:
2.  In the CMFI BETA AAR Eye of the Elefant I overlaid (in Photoshop) the map I used as a basis for the map in CM onto a screenshot of the map from the game, again added a grid.. this was the most effective.  

So maybe I am not wasting my time posting here.  If this had been done before I am sure I would have seen it/heard about it by now.
I guess I feel compelled now to reveal my newly discovered competitive advantage to the rest of the CM world. Damn!
In a nutshell, create a single image of the entire map area as displayed within the Scenario Editor/Map/Elevation screen (zoom level 3), stitching together multiple screenshots as will most likely be the case.  Use an image manipulation program to select all the elevation numbers (a one click process) which will then allow for the creation/transformation in to a simple two tone image.  Import image in to an OCR program to convert to a data file, import this in to a spreadsheet program that can create 2D surface plots.  Depending on the size of the map and if you know what you are doing this whole process can take maybe 5-20 min.
Adding the buildings, trees and roads is an additional step but it is all 100% accurate and again quite simple.
I am happy to take requests and create these maps for any scenario out there as further proof of just how easy and effective the process can be.
I'm not sure what you are talking about there.  If BFC want to remain secretive/funny about what they are planning, fine, the rest of us will go on what we do know. If a user goes searching the forums, they will find that there seems to be no evidence of plans for BFC to ever consider/implement some kind of topographical/contour line map/overlay.  Maybe after seeing how easy it was to generate what I did from what they already have in the game, and how effective/useful these maps are they may re-evaluate their position.
I certainly hope they realise that if they are incapable of implementing something directly in to the game, then perhaps they can do something to facilitate the process I outlined above which allows players to externally generate the kinds of topographical/contour line maps I have been able to create.  Specifically a delimited text file EXPORT function of the tile elevations within the Scenario Editor that could then be easily imported in to a spreadsheet program to then generate 2D surface plots.  That would eliminate the screenshot taking/stitching/manipulation and OCR steps completely and save players 80% of the time needed to create these maps. In fact, if they were ever going down that path, they may as well also implement an IMPORT text file function to generate maps from text files.  A simple EXPORT/IMPORT functionality like that would be an incredibly useful addition to the game for both players and scenario designers alike.

Yes, Harry's method works well, also great for tossing grenades over a ridgeline... I have used it many times for that, one opponent sent me an email wondering what I was firing on his team with and from where.  
I outlined the procedure (loosely) in my Platoon Scouts Blog post (look for the Cresting a Rise section).

Here´s that mini CMBN scenario file I used for testing all the reported stuff from today (play any side): https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lrzzn8kddbqleu/!0Grenade-Wall Test.btt?dl=0
Best results with hand grenades vs. walls & buildings can be achieved generally, if the attacking infantry is either directly positioned at the wall, or 2 AS away, when targeting area fire. I usually area fire directly at the wall geometry (for wall breaching), or in case of buildings, at a window of a particular story, from ground view (1 - key). Area fire across walls works best in birdseye view. The game then selects an appropiate AS which sometimes looks odd, but at last gets the grenades fly where you want. A normal infantry squad will burn about 50-70 % of it´s grenades for this purpose, mostly in a single turn, so you can do this mostly just once in a game, when the squad still has its full load. After that and with what is left of the grenades, the game then uses these sparingly.
I wonder if we have this particular area fire feature since long time, or if this was added since V3.x maybe?  

Here´s that mini CMBN scenario file I used for testing all the reported stuff from today (play any side): https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lrzzn8kddbqleu/!0Grenade-Wall Test.btt?dl=0
Best results with hand grenades vs. walls & buildings can be achieved generally, if the attacking infantry is either directly positioned at the wall, or 2 AS away, when targeting area fire. I usually area fire directly at the wall geometry (for wall breaching), or in case of buildings, at a window of a particular story, from ground view (1 - key). Area fire across walls works best in birdseye view. The game then selects an appropiate AS which sometimes looks odd, but at last gets the grenades fly where you want. A normal infantry squad will burn about 50-70 % of it´s grenades for this purpose, mostly in a single turn, so you can do this mostly just once in a game, when the squad still has its full load. After that and with what is left of the grenades, the game then uses these sparingly.
I wonder if we have this particular area fire feature since long time, or if this was added since V3.x maybe?  

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting units soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t and short range area fire game mechanic cyles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you can´t start a full volley of grenades, but need to wait til the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Didn´t know it is possible until I just made this particular test.  
Edit: Made another test, this time with a full german squad and a HQ section at the wall. Area fire beyond the wall got these throwing 8 grenades over the wall in 30 seconds and another 4 til the turn ended. The US teams just beyond the wall, were all killed during this 1 minute turn this way and my little test mission ended prematurely. My first test was just with a scout and breach team, but already showed it works, although with far less grenades thrown over the wall.

While at the topic, I´ve made a couple more findings related to area fire and walls maybe not known to everybody yet:
Area firing "at" a wall from within grenade range (30m), enables some expedient wall breaching (high brick wall tested), although the target line sticks not at the wall itself, but in the same AS. The infantry squad (german one tested with stick grenades) expends a whole lot of ammo overall, but at last about half a dozen grenades made the breach. Bits of self suppression occured as well, but no injuries.
Bouncing shots at walls to suppress and kill enemy troopers otherwise not targetable by direct fire. Area fire directed in flat angles (150-180°, incoming + outgoing angle) at a wall enables this, although ammo expenditure will be high again.
Grenades can be thrown into a building by area fire as well, if the attacker is directly at the building (<= 1 AS). You can aim area fire that includes grenades upto 3rd or 4th story, although the area where grenades land are a bit random and it could even happen that a grenade might pass through a building and explode at the backside. Appears to work more reliably (with grenades) from 1st to 2nd story of a building. Door and window configurations of a particular building might have an effect, but that´s hard to evaluate, as area fire covers always more of the targeted AS, even if one can select a particular story of a building.
 

Yap, although it takes a couple of hits on a wall to make the breach with zooks. But it´s better than wasting ammo loads of everything in an infantry squads arsenal to make such a breach. From my testing it appears germans have slight a bit of an advantage with the offensive type stick grenades to breach walls. Hard to tell, as there could also be some net effect involved, where all that lead put on a wall could add to the damage.
You could aim the area fire high on a building, but the higher you aim, the more there is a random distributuion of fire on the vertical axis of the building as well. No bounce back for grenades seen so far. It´s a rough method and I wouldn´t likely try to area fire and want grenades used on stories higher than 2.

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting units soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t and short range area fire game mechanic cyles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you can´t start a full volley of grenades, but need to wait til the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Didn´t know it is possible until I just made this particular test.  
Edit: Made another test, this time with a full german squad and a HQ section at the wall. Area fire beyond the wall got these throwing 8 grenades over the wall in 30 seconds and another 4 til the turn ended. The US teams just beyond the wall, were all killed during this 1 minute turn this way and my little test mission ended prematurely. My first test was just with a scout and breach team, but already showed it works, although with far less grenades thrown over the wall.

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting units soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t and short range area fire game mechanic cyles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you can´t start a full volley of grenades, but need to wait til the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Didn´t know it is possible until I just made this particular test.  
Edit: Made another test, this time with a full german squad and a HQ section at the wall. Area fire beyond the wall got these throwing 8 grenades over the wall in 30 seconds and another 4 til the turn ended. The US teams just beyond the wall, were all killed during this 1 minute turn this way and my little test mission ended prematurely. My first test was just with a scout and breach team, but already showed it works, although with far less grenades thrown over the wall.

Made a quick test and figured you can actually get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting units soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t and short range area fire game mechanic cyles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you can´t start a full volley of grenades, but need to wait til the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Didn´t know it is possible until I just made this particular test.  
Edit: Made another test, this time with a full german squad and a HQ section at the wall. Area fire beyond the wall got these throwing 8 grenades over the wall in 30 seconds and another 4 til the turn ended. The US teams just beyond the wall, were all killed during this 1 minute turn this way and my little test mission ended prematurely. My first test was just with a scout and breach team, but already showed it works, although with far less grenades thrown over the wall.

I second that, was about to post the exact same thing.
Also, we need more maps that are not "puzzle maps". Try to design the map first, making it look and feel like a real place, then set up the defenders. I hate maps where the designer forces me down some path, using hedgerows, walls, etc to make sure I can't do anything else than what he had in mind.