Dook

Two new scenarios set in Italy have been posted at the Scenario Depot for your perusal: Wherefore Art Thou? and Cecina Counterattack. Both are 1500 pts per side or less and intended primarily for two player action. If you're looking for a battle against the AI, Wherefore Art Thou? as the Allies is your best bet.

Not quite correct. AP minefields can be detected before someone trips a mine if a unit is close to the minefield for a period of time.

Although I said "leaving aside the wisdom of the initial advance" in my original post, I think that was the crux of the problem. The two squads were too close together and once they were pinned, they were too close to the enemy and too far from cover to the rear to withdraw. In retrospect, I should have sent the one depleted squad from the platoon across the open ground and held the other two (the ones that got schwacked in the game) back to provide suppressive fire.

Is it my imagination, or has the number of volumes available on the NZ Electronic Test Center expanded significantly? I seem to recall only a few volumes available.

Two regular Russian SMG squads, in command of a regular leader +2 morale, +1 for the other bonuses, advancing approximately 40 m on the back side of a hill from scattered trees across open ground into woods. They began receiving fire about 10 m. from their destination and when they were about 5 m away a German squad lobbed a grenade in between them, pinning both squads. The turn ended with both squads pinned but only 1 casualty in each squad. I left the advance order in place for the next turn. The squads made pathetic attempts to reach their destination but were all gunned down in the open ground by the single opposing German squad (exact type unidentified). Leaving aside the wisdom of the initial advance, should I have canceled the advance order when the squads became pinned in the hope that they would fight it out from the open ground?

Note to self - hitting the back button may cause a double post. Sorry. [ May 15, 2004, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Dook ]

Thanks for all the help so far. I'm working on a scenario/operation portraying the 3rd Royal Bn/12th Frontier Force Regiment's attack on 24 July 1944. I have a fairly detailed OOB for the Indians and a sketch map, but nothing on the Germans other than a rough count of men and approximate number of MGs.

Does anyone know which German units were defending the village of Campriano, Italy, in late July 1944? Campriano is in Tuscany, south of Siena and Arezzo. Thanks for any help in advance. Dook

On the subject of kill ratios for Tiger tanks, I would recommend looking at "Swinging the Sledgehammer: The Combate Effectiveness of German Heavy Tank Battalions in World War II" by Christopher Wilbeck. He calculates combat kill ratios for Tigers of 12.2 to 1. He calculates the ratio when measured against all Tigers lost, regardless of reason, as 5.4 to 1.

Does anyone know what caliber guns the 3rd and 5th Batteries, 11th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, attached to the 4th Indian Division, would have been firing in July 1944? Thanks. Dook

It was VADM William S. Pye who recalled the relief expedition to Wake island. The expedition was 200 nm from the island, so I doubt the lookouts could see it. The relief expedition might have succeeded in holding the island in the short term, but given the string of Japanese successes in Dec. 1941 and the presence of Japanese land-based air nearby, it is unclear whether the US could have held the island for long. Moreover, Pye thought, perhaps understandably, that risking the loss of a US carrier at that stage of the war wasn't worth it.

Could someone please confirm that when an objective on a British map during World War II (specifically in Italy) was named Point 547 (or 430 or some other number) the number was the elevation of the objective? Thanks in advance for the help. Dook

There is a limit to the number of scenarios that will display on the list. Unfortunately, I don't know what the limit is.If you have a lot of scenarios in your folder, you might try moving some scenarios out to get the ones you want to display.

Burning vehicles? I was not aware that it was possible to place them on the map. Could you please post how to do it? Thanks.

I had similar problems converting a CMBO map to CMAK. In my case, however, the marsh tiles were causing the problem. Like the water tiles in CMAK, they stay flat at the lowest elevation. No sloped marshes. It makes sense, I guess, but it took me a while to get the map looking the way I wanted. I eventually used soft ground. Soft ground may work as a substitute for water tiles in your case too.

Sergei, Another example of two scenarios depicting the same engagement is Knifefight at Cecina on the CMAK CD and my own Cecina Counterattack at the Proving Grounds. Same battle, very similar OOBs, but substantially different maps. I'm still looking for a few player comments on mine before submitting it to the depot, if you're interested.

Julian, I had the same initial impression of CMBB as you. After time, however, my opinion of the game has changed. I had been playing CMBO for three plus years and had become quite accustomed to the bravery of my little pixel warriors. The change to the more realistic behavior of CMBB troops thus came as quite a shock. The behavior is, however, much more realistic. In real life, very few troops willingly run long distances across open ground in the face of heavy machine gun fire without getting scared witless or tired, as they do in CMBO. I now prefer CMBB and CMAK to CMBO. What prompted the change? First, it took time and some trial and error to understand what my troops could/would and couldn't/wouldn't do in CMBB. Second, the recognition that it takes longer in CMBB than in CMBO to do the same thing helped. I extended the length of the games I play, reducing the time pressure and thus the need to take unrealistic risks just because the scenario was going to end. Third, the upgrade to v. 1.03 (which took me a long time to do b/c of the size of the patches and my slow dial-up connection) greatly improved things. There is still some behavior under fire that irks me, but it's not nearly as bad. So, give it time, take more time, and upgrade to v. 1.03 if you haven't done so already. Hope this helps. Dook P.S. For Iron Roadblock, use speed, maneuver, and numbers (hail fire) to get close and force abandonment of the KV-1.

I just wanted to put in a plug for the scenarios based on the new CMAK companion book. I've played three so far, Armored Perambulators, Chianti Country, and a third - the name of which escapes me (Canadians v. Germans near Ortona). All of the scenarios are small or tiny and so far, very well done. It's nice to see the emphasis on small scenarios after what seemed like a shift to larger ones when CMBB came out.

I've experienced the same problem and found that the best solution if I know I'm going to be away from the computer for some time and it's likely to go to sleep is to hit <Esc> and let it go to sleep from the desktop. For whateever reason, the problems don't seem to occur if I remember to do that. Running a G3 350 mhz with 128 mb of RAM and 1 MB VRAM.

Rune, the book John K. mentioned, Victory in Italy, is available at Northwestern University's library, if that helps. That's the closest location to Chicago.

For those interested in the fight at Cecina, might I suggest my scenario Cecina Counterattack available at the Proving Grounds. It too was inspired by the account of the action at the 752d Tank Battalion website. It portrays the same action as the CD scenario "Knifefight at Cecina" created by WWB and mentioned earlier. However, the map is more accurate since it is based on maps included in the After the Battle magazine article Bob and an Italian co-author wrote. Bob, if you have detailed information on the OOBs of the German and the American sides at Cecina, I would be very interested.

Two more sources from the Army's Command and General Staff College. The first has a number of interesting articles on WWII by respected historians such as Glantz and Doubler. The second has PDFs of operational documents from WWII, including several from North Africa and Sicily. Combat Studies Institute Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library

In CMBO, the final "casualty inflicted" tally for the individual units reflects only confirmed casualties, i.e. those that the unit was able to actually see. As a result, the displayed number of casualties inflicted by each unit may not be accurate. This is especially true for artillery FO, who are usually some distance from the impact area of the guns they direct. CMBB and CMAK show accurate casualty inflicted tallies after the game is over. During the game, the situation is the same as in CMBO.

Michael, You mentioned that tunnels were used in the defense of Ortona. Had you planned to use sewer movement to simulate this? Did the lack of sewer movement in CMAK change your plans? Just curious. Dook

Here is the JasonC post I mentioned above.