Dook

Guys, I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me that some additional information is needed to get definitive answers to your questions regarding how much the perimeter increased for each mile of advance. The most obvious bits of info lacking is the width of the beachhead and the width of the advance. If you assume the beachhead is 1 mile wide (picked for mathematical convenience) and the initial advance is straight inland from the center of the beachhead, you could think of the perimeter as a triangle with a base of 1 mile and a height of 1 mile. The length of one side of the triange would be the square roote of two (1.414). The perimeter, not including the beach behind you, would be 2 x 1.414 = 2.828, or pretty close to three. Things get a lot more complicated after that depending on the width of the frontage and the evenness of advance.

I have a table that someone calculated for CMBO and put up on the web. It has since been removed I think. Not sure if a similar table exists for CMBB.

Bump to point out that Panzerman seems to be having a different but related problem in this thread. We both could use some help.

In that case... The AI doesn't attack well, so it's best if you attack and let the AI defend. Keep it small at first - 7-800 pts is enough to buy an inf. company, some artillery, and a few AFVs. As I said earlier, mud and snow can be a pain, but not every day is sunny in RL. Save the night fights until you get some experience - they can be brutal. Otherwise, experiment with different dates, forces, and conditions. One of the great things about CM is the endless variety possible.

The most important thing, IMHO, is to find an opponent against whom you enjoy playing. If the competition is good but friendly, the parameters don't matter so much. That said, mud and snow can be real PITA.

Those test results do not seem unreasonable to me. As other posters have said, you should suffer a morale penalty for retreating under fire even though casualties will be less. Withdrawing is not a death wish - it causes lower casualties than advancing and your troops stand a better chance of making it to the cover-providing rubble behind you than with other commands headed away from the enemy. The price is a greater possibility of panic/rout.

Some, but not all, of the CMBO scenarios in my scenarios file are listed as CMBB demo documents. Scenarios I have created are among those that exhibit this quirk. It doesn't affect my ability to play them - they still show up in the scenario list - but someone else is having problems loading a scenario I created. He gets a message telling him he must update, although we are both using v. 1.12. Suggestions? P.S. I am using a Mac.

Is this possible with CMBB? If not, is it feasible for CMAK or CMX? I play CMBO PBEM fairly regularly with a buddy who lives some distance away. When we see each other, we are often in the middle of a PBEM game. It would be nice to be able to pick up that game from where it stands and complete it TCP/IP.

No problem, although the Proving Ground is a worthy endeavor that could use the support of interested playtesters. Will e-mail it to you this evening.

Some screenshots of the scenario The ground 2d Battalion, 175th Regiment must cover: The village of Bourheim the Germans must defend: [Edit: Pictures aren't displaying, so here are the URLs:] US view German view [ July 18, 2003, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Dook ]

What hath Disney (and GE, Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, etc.) wrought? Excuse me while I go take a swim in my cement pond...

Most southerners probably wouldn't mind being called Americans, it was the Confederate States of America, after all. Die-hard Southerners might prefer to be called Texans, Virginians, Georgians, etc. Hillbilly is not a term that will win friends or influence people.

Thanks Gary. I remembered on the way to work today that I forgot to include the link.

Now available for playtesting at the Proving Grounds: Road to Julich. Title: Road to Jülich Location: Roer Plain, Germany Date: 22 November 1944 Time: Day Weather: Overcast, Mud Type: Allied attack Length: 35 turns Accuracy: Semi-Historical Best played as: Two player or Allies against AI (stick to default setup) By November 1944, the Allied Ninth Army had begun planning for an offensive intended to drive deep into the heart of Germany. The XIX Corps, consisting of the 2nd Armored, the 29th, and the 30th Divisions, would make Ninth Army's main effort to seize a crossing of the Roer River, the last water obstacle before the Rhine. Their target - the town of Jülich. Two obstacles stood in the path of XIX Corps. The first was the weather. Rain fell on every day but two in November, turning the ground to mud and limiting the cross-country maneuvering ability of the Allied tanks. The second impediment was the defensive scheme of the German army. The Germans combined the villages west of the Roer into a series of defensive arcs protecting Jülich. Defenders in each village constructed defensive positions in built-up areas, laid mines, and converted dominant terrain features into strongpoints consisting of foxholes, machine gun nests, and anti-tank positions. When the offensive began on 16 November, Maj. Gen. Charles Gerhardt, the commander of the 29th Division, planned to exploit what he believed to be the defensive system's weak point by sticking to open terrain and isolating the villages in his sector. Gerhardt's hopes were soon crushed. The open country of the Roer Plain and the poor ground conditions made advancing across exposed ground deadly. The villages surrounding Jülich would have to be taken, one by one. After a slow start attributable to the ill-conceived initial strategy and a reluctance to employ armor due to the muddy conditions, the 29th Division began to roll on 18 November. Over the next four days, troops of the 29th Division penetrated the outer two rings of the German defenses and reduced the 246th Volks Grenadier Division to tatters. By 21 November, the Division was only a mile and a half from the Roer. Gerhardt urged his regiments to push on to the river, expecting a German withdrawal. War, like life in general, does not always live up to expectations. This scenario depicts an attack by elements of the 29th Division against a village on the Roer plain in November 1944. The map is based on a map in a 12th Army Group Intelligence Summary depicting German plans for the defense of the villages protecting Jülich. The units involved are historically accurate, although the exact numbers and deployment are historically-informed guesses. Constructive criticism welcome. E-mail in profile.

1. No. You cannot use the enemy's abandoned tanks or guns. 2. Each "soldier" in CM is an abstraction that represents anywhere from 1-8 real soldiers spread out over one 20 by 20 m tile. Thus, when a shell or MG fire hits a CM "soldier," it may or may not do any damage to the actual soldiers. 3. Tanks don't show damage until they are knocked out or abandoned [Not even when gun damaged or immobilized, I think] 4. Not sure on this one. 5. You can destroy buildings. It's easiest with direct fire from high explosive shells. Trees can't be destroyed but, depending on conditions, can be set on fire by flamethrowers, malfunctioning shells, etc. 6. Hard-working designers who listen to their customers, a very knowledgeable and active customer base that contributes to forums like this, and good karma.

As dalem notes, An Army at Dawn is the first in a planned trilogy examining the role of the US Army in the European theater (including N. Africa) during WWII. The next book will focus on Sicily and Italy and the third on Normandy and the drive into Germany. The books are not intended to cover the entire Allied effort (although Atkinson does devote sig. space to the Brits and the Kiwis in Army at Dawn) or even the entire American effort - the Navy and the USAAF play only bit parts in Army at Dawn. Atkinson's prose can occasionally be a bit overwrought and he is sometimes a little heavy-handed in his attempts to lay the ground work for volumes 2 & 3 and push his argument that the N. Africa campaign was the beginning of the US Army's "coming of age," but the book is well worth the read.

1. No. You cannot tell FOs to fire a certain number of rounds. You can, with practice, adjust the timing of the first shell fall so that it occurs toward the end of a turn and then cancel the order during the next turn. 2. Hull down takes a lot of practice and an eye for terrain that comes with experience. Some people find that a gridded terrain mod provides more info on elevation and thus helps them achieve hull down. 3. Half tracks are vulnerable and were not usually taken into combat in WW II. On large maps, they are very helpful for shifting heavy weapons groups around or moving reserves rapidly to the front. They can be used quite effectively in mop-up duty (especially the Allied M3A1 with its .50 cal)- chasing down fleeing enemy infantry. 4. In CMBO, the only on-board artillery units that can fire indirectly are man-portable mortars. In CMBB, mortar halftracks can too. Given the scale of most CMBO maps, I don't think indirect fire from 105 mm guns is realistic [open to correction on this one]. 5. Platoon HQs control the squads of their platoon and any nearby weapons teams (HMGs, mortars, ATGs, schrecks, zooks, etc.). Company HQs control any infantry squad, including ones from other companies, and any nearby weapons platoon. Battalion HQs do the same thing but have eight men instead of six. [Hmm, I guess I need to improve my typing speed] [ July 08, 2003, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Dook ]

The 29th Infantry Division was a National Guard Division from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. I would imagine there were quite a few Baltimoreans in the Division, even as late as 1944.

Somebody posted a possible solution to the problem of advance knowledge of the opponent's point budget in QBs a while back. See this thread. The basic idea is that players don't have to spend to their limits and in exchange don't have to capture as many flags. Of course, you would still know the maximum budget of your opponent, meaning that if you saw 3 Ferdinands, he couldn't have much more.

Demo scenarios were Chance Encounter and Valley of Trouble. One of the best urban fighting scenarios is To the Last Man. See also my 3 Churches. Available at the Depot. Remember to review them, please.

Chris Hare's CM Database tables have lots of info on the various units available. You can find them here.

Thanks for the prompt replies. So if I'm trying to portray a VG regiment's 13th company in a CMBO scenario (yes, there is someone still making CMBO scenarios), would it be more appropriate to use 4 75 mm infantry guns or a 75 mm FO?

A quick question for all the grognards out there: were the 75 mm guns in a Volksgrenadier Regimental Gun Company infantry guns or anti-tank guns? The Britwar site says ATGs but another source says infantry guns. Thanks in advance for your help.

For reliably good scenarios, my favorite source was Der Kessel. Unfortunately, their site is no longer active and the scenarios are (for the moment) unavailable for download. Many of the best ones were included in CMBO SE. I think Andreas, one of the Der Kessel designers, is working on a zip of all of his CMBO scenarios that he hopes to make available for download. P.S. You might also try my "3 Churches" scenario at the Scenario Depot - it can be a pretty tense fight. Best played PBEM. If playing against the AI, you should play the Allies.

Dandelion, Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I, too, am holding out. Maybe it's because I'm a historian by trade and thus tend to think older things are inherently more interesting? Anyway, if you feel like a PBEM and can tolerate one turn/day, I'd welcome a game. My e-mail is in the profile.