Carl Puppchen

I have found that smaller battles (meeting engagements) are better for TCP/IP and leave the long, involved games for PBEM. Usually when we play head to head lots of alcohol is involved so the games are fun but I wouldn't exactly try to play something that involved lots of subtle moves. Also you want to play something w/action for both sides that is kind of short, don't want one side sitting around for 20 turns while the enemy closes in doing nothing. Also don't forget to taunt the opponent throughout the battle!

I didn't think through that the leader bonuses were already taking into account the effectiveness of the leader in terms of class (vet vs. green). Hmmm.... given that, should they all just be random? What would the potential mods be? I agree on the ammo loads for FO. I tend to give both sides, even the attacker, TRP's (sometimes I "lock" them on the objective for the attacker) and probably need to give them more ammo to simulate the usual late war Allied preponderance of material. Sometimes I really reduce the German ammo load on FO to give them some arty capability so the Allies don't get too cocky but with a few well placed TRP's even a dozen 105mm shells can definitely cause a delay.

I can't speak on the technical aspects of killing guns but I frequently use the tactic of shooting guns by using the area fire command right next to (a few meters away) from a position where I can't see the gun directly and the gun can't directly see me. This is a pretty effective tactic from a game perspective. As far as the "snap" effect when you try to target a gun, it is annoying, but you just have to carefully plot your fire using maybe a view "5" above and spend some time to pick a target as close as possible to the gun itself and start shooting. This will usually make the gun cower almost immediately and you can bring other forces to bear to finish it off. For me the gun direct fire issue is linked to the fact that I usually put the gun in a trench to protect it from arty fire (because a trench gives you awesome protection from arty fire, you are practically invulnerable except for the heaviest calibers) but then the trench itself, as we all know, is spotted almost immediately by the enemy and subject to MG and direct fire HE. I can't say all in all if this results in guns being killed more often in CMAK than they would be in regular life. I will leave that to the stone grogs on this site

I agree on the historical accuracy point of CW forces not having MG's, but it puts them at a big disadvantage in my not-too historical games because the German MG's really tear 'em up and they can't reply. The fanatical item is a good one to consider, except fanatical kind of goes too far making them invulnerable. I guess that is why there is the % fanatical selector. Maybe 25% is a good idea. I agree on trench spotting... I will probably suffer from that on my current scenario - but they are so helpful vs. arty fire... Any other items out there that people change?

Using bazookas against buildings is not gamey. It happened in real life when there weren't other assets around. Just hope an enemy AFV doesn't show up after you have shot your last round

I have about a dozen scenarios posted up at the depot. Mine are all fictional 'random reinforcement' scenarios where I try to pack a lot of fun and action into a small time frame. I have been trying to learn new tricks with scenario development. I typically change values using the editor to make things more interesting (to me, at least). Here is what I usually do: 1) I give infantry more ammo, especially late war with SMG's. The German SMG's can go to low ammo in a single turn of heavy fighting. Thus I usually give them more ammo than the standard allottment 2) I increase the # of demo charges - a lot of times it is 1-2, I do 2-3 3) I tweak the experience - if I pick regulars I might make 1 guy veteran and 1 guy green, put some variety in there 4) I make the leadership values match the squad - if a leader is veteran or crack, I will make the values "2" or "1" for everything. If the leader is green (I try not to have conscript leaders, for some reason that doesn't sound right to me) I will make it mostly "0" and maybe a "1" 5) I increase the # of AT weapons - especially for tank hunters and for squads, they might have 1 I will move this to 2-3 and maybe 4 if it is 1945 6) for vehicles, I change the mix of ammo - since we like to use cannister (it is COOL in the game with the "blast" of shotgun) I usually raise the # of cannister shells and reduce something else 7) for the 2 inch mortar, I give them 30 shells, and I give the 50mm mortar maybe 35-40 shells 8) I add MG's to the British - a lot of the British formations don't have much in the way of MG's, so I add a few 9) If there are a lot of support weapons, I will add a platoon and delete all of the squads so that there is an extra leader in the mix to put them in command radius 10) If a vehicle is coming in alone, I will often throw in an LMG or a Bren or tank hunter so that there is SOME scouting ability for the vehicle as it moves towards the battle 11) I usually throw TRP's on the objective for the attacker and "lock" them there. I think that since the attack is for an objective the attacker would know where they are on the map so I give them a TRP. This makes arty more effective 12) if terrain is open, I might add an onboard mortar with just smoke shells 13) sometimes I go "out of period" to pick something like assault boats and then I will retroactively change the date (the axis don't have assault boats or planes in a lot of the months, for example) 14) I will often give anti-AA capacity to the defender, but "lock" the guns at the back of the board so that they can't be used as impromptu AT assets 15) I usually give the defender a trench for each of their AT assets - this gives guns a fighting chance against "borg spotting" Any thoughts, tips or tricks?

Panther Commander - thanks a lot ! That is a nice map. It is fine for my relatively simple "random reinforcements" scenarios. I am going to make it a bit smaller and have an attack across open ground into the town...

If you look under "Carl Puppchen" at the scenario depot all of my scenarios are built for head to head PBEM. Fun ones with random reins are "forest frenzy" and "our backs to the tiber" as well as "heavy traffic". Enjoy!

I am a stone grog for thirty years The reason I am asking for a US CIty is that I saw a post for "the most realistic scenario ever" and I wanted to respond with "the LEAST realistic scenario ever". I was going to take the Italians and Germans and give them huge air support for a battle on US soil. The way to bring the italians is to set the date for mid 1943 and pick em' in the editor then change the date further back

Hmmm I don't have CMBO any more... I guess I could look for it and reinstall it. I do have cmbb around (just for this purpose) - did anyone convert the paris map to cmbb or cmak?

I was trying to do some alternate universe type maps and wondered if anyone had any US city maps converted to CMAK or any ideas about that. Failing that, is there a London or Paris? I checked at the Depot and didn't see any...

I found out about exactly what you said in one of the scenarios that came w/original CMAK where there is a night attack by the British in El Alamein battle - my German 150mm IG was panicked and couldn't be moved from the original setup...

It is painful watching the AI attack... I assume it must have been like this for the Germans against the early war Russians...

There are a lot of towed guns on the offensive in my KHAMSIN scenario up at SD. They are a pain to work with and you need to be careful about how long it takes to set up a gun - some take only a minute, some take a few minutes. I think the British 2 pounder was pretty complex vs the typical 37mm gun used by most of the other armies so it took longer to set up and was thus used in the portee mode, as well. The infantry guns are quick setup guns. But the best advice is to get behind something and then push it in place. I would also try to keep key guns under leadership HQ which reduces their delay in moving and also helps their performance on the attack w/command bonuses. In addition I think that guns setup when the scenario starts get bonuses on concealment that don't apply to guns that move during the scenario. Guns also don't take advantage of TRP's if they have been moved, as well.

I was going to say "no problem" with taking my scenarios but I noticed that they weren't even included in the pack By the way, I downloaded everything and set it up last night and it LOOKS GREAT! I am very excited about playing ETO scenarios again, I was getting kind of bothered by the vaguely middle eastern look of my bombed out towns in France and Germany. Thanks again for all the hard work. I hope your bandwidth doesn't run out on your server - I was getting a pretty good download time.

This is an excellent post. I find it most useful. In the "real war" the Germans stopped numerous assaults like this when Russians were trapped in pockets, because they didn't follow the tactics that Jason outlines, which really involve depth of assault, proper use of overwatch fire, patience in the assault, and distribution of forces to avoid massive casualties if arty fire falls on the choke points. The point I am taking away is the relative unimportance of cover vs. spreading out the attack and taking your time. I tend to get too focused on cover which causes my attacks to peter out.

I agree that as a player I'd feel cheated or misled if I didn't know they were dynamic flags. I would also expect forces to be "balanced" differently if the attacker knew which flags were "real" and the defender didn't since that is a big factor. I do think that games are more fun with dynamic flags because they allow for fients and subtler strategy than you usually get in an assault game.

If you are designing a scenario and want to simulate paratroopers you might want to show them as "cautious" or "pinned" immediately upon arrival. This at least makes them vulnerable for some period of time to simulate the effect of a paradrop. Unfortunately if you have a platoon as a reinforcement it will drop in a relatively compact area so it is harder to simulate dispersion. You might also have the reins land "randomly" to simulate the fact that paras don't always land when you expect them to land. On my "to do" list is to make a crete scenario where the German reins arrive on the runway in a dispersed state and if you haven't cleared the covering guns away first they are likely to be massacred.

Yes rockets in a meeting engagement is very difficult because they cost a lot of points and have such a long lead time. To boot, they are not accurate so when you launch them you need to be very careful to ensure 1) your LOS to the target is NEVER blocked by smoke or obstructions for the whole 7 minutes or the rockets will land off target 2) even if they land "on target" - this is only a relative concept for rockets since they disperse a lot and 214mm hits can REALLY cause a lot of damage to anything, even big tanks. So not only do you need to 1) put in a 7 minute lead 2) make sure your observer has clean LOS throughout you also need to make sure your forces are FAR away from the target or they may get nasty friendly fire. Giving someone 214mm rockets in a meeting engagement is pretty much throwing a lot of points away, unless you are willing to take big chances (like shoot them near your advancing troops and hope for the best). But they are GREAT with TRP's and pre-planned barrages when on the attack or defense, especially if you use the + concept to add minutes so the rockets land 2-3 minutes before your troops get to that exact spot and you can smash the dazed, damaged survivors.

I haven't made as many scenarios as other posters, but I have made a bunch, and I do disclose when dynamic flags are in use. As creator if I am using dynamic flags I give the defender proportionally more forces because they are essentially spreading their forces to defend useless objectives while the attacker, on the other hand, knows which ones are real. The game does play differently. The attacker usually seems to push for all of the flags, waits for the defender to commit, and then goes after the "real" flag right near the end of the game. I agree that it is more realistic to not know if flags are dynamic or not but since the game plays so much differently I disclose it to the players. I guess I could give the defender even "more" forces (proportionally) and not tell the defender, because knowing that dynamic flags are in use can definitely be worth hundreds of cmak "points".

It sounds ugly but you need to figure out if you really can STOP the enemy or if you are just going to wound him and they are going to take the objective with some casualties. In some scenario the main constraint is time and each of these "roadblock" type situations holds up his advance for a couple of turns while the AFV's turn to face the ATG weapon and / or back up if the TAC AI chickens out. If you really think that you are going to STOP the enemy then you need to let the light tanks go by and try to smash their most dangerous weapons FIRST and then mop up on the smaller vehicles. Even if the smaller vehicles manage to "squat" at the objective you will be able to push them off if you have AT assets left after killing the big guys. By shooting at the "scout" tanks you played into your enemy's hands, assuming that you have more than token defensive forces. Note that this might mean that you need to wait for flank or rear shots on the bigger tanks and this is harrowing so it isn't a covered arc but more of a 'hide' situation, and a good attacker will scout with infantry that might stumble across your assets, so it is a nail-biting situation. I can't say that I usually can pull this off myself... I usually get trigger happy and feel happy blowing up a few of the enemy's tanks from an ambush but then they eradicate my main defenders and mop up at the objective - but this is the way you probably ought to do it if you want to KILL, not WOUND. Just my opinion.

You need to switch sides in the editor. I think it is the "/" key - look in hotkeys to see. Sometimes you have to be clicked on a unit to make this work. This drove me nuts, too, until someone helped me. Then you can "sweep" up a bunch of allies.

A key element in your defensive setup is the "keyhole" effect and reverse slope defense. You don't want to open up with a defensive weapon and have the entire weight of the offensive force zero in on you. You want to shoot from the flank and / or pick off an exposed enemy and duck under cover. Reverse slope is great for concentrating defensive fire on the mass of attackers at their weakest point, right as they cross into your LOS. It is keyhole in reverse. But I have had terrible luck with retreating in CMAK. Usually a few panicked survivors with the dreaded "!" on them like a scarlet letter is all that gets away. I plan on most of my defenders to fight to the death, especially if they occupy territory like a trench. Your ruthless attacker will concentrate everything on you as you bug out and are at your weakest. The only luck I have with retreating is when I use TD's and they "shoot and scoot" and then drive away before the barrage hits or the enemy concentrates their assets. I find that infantry is too exposed to get away unless the terrain is extremely dense (i.e. deep forest) and even then it is difficult to get away without huge casualties. I do "bug out" when I see a barrage coming when I am in the trees and not in a trench if I can. But usually guys setup in trees without a covered retreat approach are dead, anyways. I think retreating under fire with infantry and anything but pretty heavily armored TD's is more of a theory than something I can pull off in practice against a human, such as fighting with Marders on defense

As far as how CMAK actually works, independent of the theory - doesn't each weapon independently target through the Tac AI? And don't they pick the "highest value" target in their LOS? So if there is a wide LOS lots of tanks may gang up on the same target. This also brings up the thread that the tac AI targets platoon leaders because they have a higher point value. All this assumes that the Tac AI wants to fight at all - sometimes they retreat if they think they don't have any chance at a kill (as an axis player I get this a lot with the Matilda). Back to the original thread - the Allied tank attacks were suicidal because they didn't follow combined arms tactics - a mistake that I often make in CMAK because I am too aggressive and can't wait for everything to "form up" properly. Even in the 1967 and 1973 wars the Israelis fell into this problem when they pushed too hard on the "all armor" tactics and had to go back to combined arms. Very interesting posts... and don't learn from my desert armor tactics, they aren't very good

Are you talking about meeting engagements? If the Germans are on the defense then the 88 makes for some difficult times for the allies anywhere in the desert up to the time when the allies have some tanks capable of chucking 75mm HE, about the time of the Grant. But I agree that the Matlida is damn near unstoppable in a QB (it is pretty crazy to pick an 88mm in a QB because if the initial siting zone doesn't have a view to the flags or enemy likely course of attack than those points are wasted). Of course the Allies can counter with the 75mm free french gun or the 25 pounder on defense.