RockinHarry

The Hosingen map I did for Kohlenklau has cellars for just about every building. here is a screenshot from a test map I did before putting the cellars onto the real map. you can see the gi in the cellar, the 3 germans died. Ran some arty test on my test map and the cellars held up good until i tried the larger calibers, but any building can be knocked down with enough arty. I put a cellar door on just about every cellar too and for adjoing building i linked them inside with cellar doors to make interconnecting cellars. you could enter a cellar at one end of the block and go cellar to cellar then pop up at street level at the end of the block. 
 

Think it´s also similar to "normal" vehicles, that there´s a difference with "crew" and "riders". I think the first unit to occupy a pillbox is the actual "crew" and any unit entering, taking remaining seats (9 max), is treated somewhat differently. I seem to remember that at one time, at least the "riders" can be ordered to hide, although this was never presented visually? Personally I don´t like the way pillboxes are modelled in the game and just a limited amount of historical engagements involving fortifications, can be recreated halfway realistic. I keep voting for a "neutral" structure, like a hardenend building instead, usable by both opponents if occupied. Doesn´t need to replace the current vehicle pillboxes entirely, but could make at least a scenario maker object to toy with and see if it could work in general.

Now, I won't name any names yet, but 'this guy you all know' yet again came up with this neat new concept. New to CM, that is. The entire gaming world outside of CM has been saturated with it for years. What am I talking about? Achievements! Obviously for use in campaign games only.
Since I'm the go-to-guy for 'this person you all know' for this type of odd-job, I happily sank my modding teeth into this one.
 
I've been playing around with the idea for an evening. It's just a bit of fun, and nothing too serious. I just thought this was too cool not to share straight away:
 
 

Currently in game we have changing ground conditions based on rain, ie a damp battle field will become wet after certain amount of time has passed if it is raining.  I am wondering if the same will hold true for frost in the upcoming Bulge game. To be specific, will ground that is frozen and hard at 8 am gradually become soft and muddy at around 10 am as the sun warms up the ground?
 
This is something we count on happening in the late fall and early spring.  We farm some wet ground and just about every year we have a major rain storm in the fall and the ground becomes very wet and impossible to work or to harvest.  So we wait for the days when we get a good hard freeze over night and then head out to those fields early in the morning and work there until late morning and the frost is coming out of the ground and the fields become impassable again.  In the early spring, we use the early morning frost to help carry our equipment as we try and frost seed spring grains or to underseed clover into winter wheat.  There is usually a couple of hours each morning where the ground can carry the heavy farm equipment without making too many tracks.   As the sun warms up the ground we need to stop or risk making a mess. In the span of an hour, the ground conditions can go from leaving a light track to making deep ruts.
 
Given that the Bulge title is supposed to cover the war from October through to the end of the war, this is a weather feature the battalion commanders on the ground would have encountered.  I would expect to see many maps in the Bulge title loaded with muddy sections and areas of maps impassible to tanks.  As much as I don't like having my tanks get bogged down, I expect to see it happen with far greater frequency in the Bulge game. The tactical challenges of facing thawing ground will certainly be interesting.

Bailey Bridge Mod:
Some time ago someone on this forum asked for modders to create a "Bailey Bridge mod". Back then I looked into it and replied that I didn´t think it would be possible to mod one of the existing CM bridges into something resembling a Bailey Bridge. My main reasons for saying so was the shape of the existing bridges in CM. As you probably know we modders can only change the appearance - surface - of the vehicle, bridge etc. Not their actual shape.
 
But the idea must have been lurking in the back of my mind since then. And since then I have gained some experience in getting around the constraints that the game imposes on us modders. Mainly by creative use of alpha channels and making mods by using additional flavor objects. So I recently decided to give it a try.
Just gave it a quick stress test by sending a Crocodile across. As you can see, it didn´t collapse
 
 

 
 
What I have done is this:
Modded the "bridge-stone-2-lane" bridge to change its appeance from stone to steel. I´ve also used alpha channels to make parts of the original bridge transparent.
 
Used the hull of the sdkfz 251d-10 to create a new flavor object resembling a pontoon. The object is called hardcart3.
 
You create the illusion of a Bailey Bridge by placing a "Stone W" bridge ("Stone 56 W" is  probably best) on the map - along with some hardcart3 flavor object. In 3D Preview mode you then place the "pontoons" (sdkfz 251d-10 hulls) next to the bridge. There are some elevation requirements too, but I´ll get back to those later.
 

 
The result is not perfect: The alpha channels do not always create the intended tranparency and the shape of the bridge - and pontoons aren´t exactly like a real Bailey Bridge´s. But this is the closest I am able to get.
 
The mod is almost finished and ready for release, but I´ve decided to wait a bit in order to collect comments/advice/suggestions from you knowledgable forumites.
Perhaps there are some details that could be improved before release, though I don´t think it will be possible to change the actual shape of the bridge.
 

Hope that also some badly needed attention is given to develop new pillboxes and overhead covered foxholes/trenches, to make combat for fortified positions, particularly the Siegfried line, a more realistic experience, than it is now with V3.0 CMBN!

Honestly, ...the current pillboxes and shelter thingies, simply don´t work. We need neutral objects, that can be entered and used by all parties, until they´re blown up by lots of TNT. During the siegfried line campaign, countless hardened structures were engaged, captured, lost, recaptured and used, by both the western allies and germans. Can´t imagine to recreate any such battles and situations with the current immobile vehicle type oddities.

There´s no realistic Ardennes, or Hurtgen forest combat with entrenchements, that are death traps to tree and air bursts, as they are now. There was some good suggestion in the forum to vary entrenchement types by applying an "experience" soft factor to them. So a "veteran" foxhole type might have added some log and earth cover, to provide overhead protection against shrapnel and medium mortar direct hits, while "regular" and below means, it does have not.

Another overhaul for a new game family deserves heavy buildings to be treated as more massive and having basements, or half basements, to offer better protection vs artillery and bombs, as well as providing well covered fire positions (from half basements).

I´d also wish for more and larger types of trees, incl. fir trees that extend branches to close to above the ground. With the current assortment of trees (in CMBN V3.x), forestst are still too open and lack a realistically varied look.

These would be some new features that would make me interested to invest in the Bulge family. New vehicles and OOB´s of the period and autumn/winter textures ain´t enough for me.

Hi !

A general problem we have in CMx2 is that even after you are able to force enemy troops to retreat from a position they will just run back a few hundred meters or to the map edge, there they stay most of the time till the end of the battle if you dont kill them (which is easy because they mostly just lay in the open).
Units that have "broken" morale status for multiple turns and are x meter away from the map edge and have no friendly HQ unit near them should be removed from the map and counted as MIA (routed) in the AAR !
That would be more realistic and remove the "hey we are demoralized lets just lay in the open for the the last ten turns" units that you see everytime after reviewing the map.

If at all, it was rather an operational walkover, but on CM tactical scale, I could imagine many interesting engagements between 2 worthy opponents, that I wouldn´t suppose one sided. Not to forget dutch, belgian and BEF forces!

Hope that also some badly needed attention is given to develop new pillboxes and overhead covered foxholes/trenches, to make combat for fortified positions, particularly the Siegfried line, a more realistic experience, than it is now with V3.0 CMBN!

Honestly, ...the current pillboxes and shelter thingies, simply don´t work. We need neutral objects, that can be entered and used by all parties, until they´re blown up by lots of TNT. During the siegfried line campaign, countless hardened structures were engaged, captured, lost, recaptured and used, by both the western allies and germans. Can´t imagine to recreate any such battles and situations with the current immobile vehicle type oddities.

There´s no realistic Ardennes, or Hurtgen forest combat with entrenchements, that are death traps to tree and air bursts, as they are now. There was some good suggestion in the forum to vary entrenchement types by applying an "experience" soft factor to them. So a "veteran" foxhole type might have added some log and earth cover, to provide overhead protection against shrapnel and medium mortar direct hits, while "regular" and below means, it does have not.

Another overhaul for a new game family deserves heavy buildings to be treated as more massive and having basements, or half basements, to offer better protection vs artillery and bombs, as well as providing well covered fire positions (from half basements).

I´d also wish for more and larger types of trees, incl. fir trees that extend branches to close to above the ground. With the current assortment of trees (in CMBN V3.x), forestst are still too open and lack a realistically varied look.

These would be some new features that would make me interested to invest in the Bulge family. New vehicles and OOB´s of the period and autumn/winter textures ain´t enough for me.

Hope that also some badly needed attention is given to develop new pillboxes and overhead covered foxholes/trenches, to make combat for fortified positions, particularly the Siegfried line, a more realistic experience, than it is now with V3.0 CMBN!

Honestly, ...the current pillboxes and shelter thingies, simply don´t work. We need neutral objects, that can be entered and used by all parties, until they´re blown up by lots of TNT. During the siegfried line campaign, countless hardened structures were engaged, captured, lost, recaptured and used, by both the western allies and germans. Can´t imagine to recreate any such battles and situations with the current immobile vehicle type oddities.

There´s no realistic Ardennes, or Hurtgen forest combat with entrenchements, that are death traps to tree and air bursts, as they are now. There was some good suggestion in the forum to vary entrenchement types by applying an "experience" soft factor to them. So a "veteran" foxhole type might have added some log and earth cover, to provide overhead protection against shrapnel and medium mortar direct hits, while "regular" and below means, it does have not.

Another overhaul for a new game family deserves heavy buildings to be treated as more massive and having basements, or half basements, to offer better protection vs artillery and bombs, as well as providing well covered fire positions (from half basements).

I´d also wish for more and larger types of trees, incl. fir trees that extend branches to close to above the ground. With the current assortment of trees (in CMBN V3.x), forestst are still too open and lack a realistically varied look.

These would be some new features that would make me interested to invest in the Bulge family. New vehicles and OOB´s of the period and autumn/winter textures ain´t enough for me.

Dragon teeth would be nice to have, but BFC likely would make them non destructible by means of blasting during usual game time frames of 1-2 hours. From my readings it first required a secured part of area with DT, for engineers and bulldozers to start creating a single lane path for vehicle traversing. That´s at least a multi hour/half day affair with no german interference. On the opposite, the steel gates/barriers, closing gaps in the DT line (along roads) were blasted rather quickly with TNT, so this should be an option to be included in the game as well. Into the same category fall the various, more or less elaborately constructed tank obstacles (AT ditches excl.) the germans placed at town entries, along forest roads and such. Would like to see these included in Bulge too, beside the more generic hedgehog obstacles.

With regard to pillboxes and future, I could imagine pillboxes to be a new sort of hardened, modular buildings, with configurable apertures and doors, so that anything from single 8x8m to multi tile structures can be created. Off course there would be the issue with FOW, but unless something is more elaborately worked out for a V4.0 game engine, personally I would be satisfied with a pillbox type building, that works like the modular buildings in V3.0 and is visible to both game opponents, incl the AI. Opinions?

Hope that also some badly needed attention is given to develop new pillboxes and overhead covered foxholes/trenches, to make combat for fortified positions, particularly the Siegfried line, a more realistic experience, than it is now with V3.0 CMBN!

Honestly, ...the current pillboxes and shelter thingies, simply don´t work. We need neutral objects, that can be entered and used by all parties, until they´re blown up by lots of TNT. During the siegfried line campaign, countless hardened structures were engaged, captured, lost, recaptured and used, by both the western allies and germans. Can´t imagine to recreate any such battles and situations with the current immobile vehicle type oddities.

There´s no realistic Ardennes, or Hurtgen forest combat with entrenchements, that are death traps to tree and air bursts, as they are now. There was some good suggestion in the forum to vary entrenchement types by applying an "experience" soft factor to them. So a "veteran" foxhole type might have added some log and earth cover, to provide overhead protection against shrapnel and medium mortar direct hits, while "regular" and below means, it does have not.

Another overhaul for a new game family deserves heavy buildings to be treated as more massive and having basements, or half basements, to offer better protection vs artillery and bombs, as well as providing well covered fire positions (from half basements).

I´d also wish for more and larger types of trees, incl. fir trees that extend branches to close to above the ground. With the current assortment of trees (in CMBN V3.x), forestst are still too open and lack a realistically varied look.

These would be some new features that would make me interested to invest in the Bulge family. New vehicles and OOB´s of the period and autumn/winter textures ain´t enough for me.

Hope that also some badly needed attention is given to develop new pillboxes and overhead covered foxholes/trenches, to make combat for fortified positions, particularly the Siegfried line, a more realistic experience, than it is now with V3.0 CMBN!

Honestly, ...the current pillboxes and shelter thingies, simply don´t work. We need neutral objects, that can be entered and used by all parties, until they´re blown up by lots of TNT. During the siegfried line campaign, countless hardened structures were engaged, captured, lost, recaptured and used, by both the western allies and germans. Can´t imagine to recreate any such battles and situations with the current immobile vehicle type oddities.

There´s no realistic Ardennes, or Hurtgen forest combat with entrenchements, that are death traps to tree and air bursts, as they are now. There was some good suggestion in the forum to vary entrenchement types by applying an "experience" soft factor to them. So a "veteran" foxhole type might have added some log and earth cover, to provide overhead protection against shrapnel and medium mortar direct hits, while "regular" and below means, it does have not.

Another overhaul for a new game family deserves heavy buildings to be treated as more massive and having basements, or half basements, to offer better protection vs artillery and bombs, as well as providing well covered fire positions (from half basements).

I´d also wish for more and larger types of trees, incl. fir trees that extend branches to close to above the ground. With the current assortment of trees (in CMBN V3.x), forestst are still too open and lack a realistically varied look.

These would be some new features that would make me interested to invest in the Bulge family. New vehicles and OOB´s of the period and autumn/winter textures ain´t enough for me.

XXL size crater, or what!? ...after a P-47D dropping a single ANM-44 439kg piece.

After all there was a given procedure to "claim" kills of any sort, incl. tank/vehicle kills in the various nations air forces. The german army and those involved in promoting, as well as granting medals for combat performances had to made use of guidelines, regulations and procedures for their final decisions in the matter. They didn´t do promotions or granting awards without a good reason, not considering any secondary "morale raising" ones. Additionally it also was a matter of honor not to make unjustified claims, which could bring the false claimer before the court martial in many cases. Claiming "kills" did not had the (self-) purpose to raise a particular air force or army members ego and to grant him medals, it was rather part of the common after battle procedure to evaluate battle performances and combat results for the purpose to plan further (combat) actions.

What I mean to say, is that the numbers are not pure fantasy and pulled out of the hat light handedly just for propaganda reasons. Any of you know any of the procedures/regulations used for aknowledging "Kill claims"? I guess that individual "Claims" are multiple times higher just after any combat mission and that the "debriefing" procedures and staff/intelligence works lead to the final approved "claims" we see in those reports and biographies nowadays.

With regard to german army procedures and combat doctrines, I have no doubt that most figures reflect individual kill claims and combat performances pretty well. If some light would be shed on the matter (what is a "kill" and who decided it was credible?), I also think that Rudel´s claims would look less fantasy like even when considering that his person was heavily (mis-) used for Nazi propaganda. So were Erwin Rommel and other german peronalities who are known to be non-Nazis or involved in the resistance.

I also would be interested to know how individual tank/AC kill claims were handled in the soviet and western allied armies during WW2.

Now having read most the sources (internet links) in this thread, as well as digging a little bit myself I believe that the Ju-87 G was a capable tank killer in experienced hands, even if production numbers were comparatively low. Same counts for other dedicated (german) tank hunters. Having air supremacy or at least parity at many times on the eastern front surely helped much, since the majority of the kills/claims were made in the east.