Carl Puppchen

Hmmmm I designed my own scenario and it is possible I reversed the map edge. That may be the answer as far as crawling the wrong way...

Here is how the results of our random battles went: Khamsin - Allied victory. The dumb axis (me) received reins early and pushed on the far flags with guns behind trucks / halftracks. However, I couldn't get them setup and unlimbered in time and Allied reinforcements overwhelmed me and slaughtered that attackers. Some of my reins hit unsuppressed Allied infantry and received a very rude shock. In all these random games when you are the attacker and you try to push to take the far objectives you are faced with the fact that it takes a looooong time for your attackers to cross the map while enemy reinforcements pop up relatively close to their objectives. This is the key mechanism that "self corrects" the play balance. Another thing that made Khamsin difficult for the Axis was the tough time that the Matilda gave the Germans when they only have the III H with short barrelled 50mm and the occasional marder. The matilda really creamed my guys even when I was fighting from hull down or flanking positions - I even hit a matilda in the rear with a skulking marder and it just bounced off, leaving the marder as toast immediately afterwards. I would say that Khamsin is pretty well balanced, given the forces at the time. Heavy Traffic - draw (almost an Axis victory) - in this game the Axis (me) received a bunch of reins early and pushed hard on the enemy. However, some oddball reins came in for the Allies (105mm guns on halftracks) and made meat of my advancing PZ IV tanks. By the time I was able to regroup on the far objective there was a literal tank park guarding the objective. The Axis (me) also assumed I could cake-walk an objective near my reins which in fact was in play until the last turn (my men got a bloody nose). Probably here the Axis should have won given that they received more reins, faster, but they pushed too hard in the wrong places and not hard enough in others. A Bridge Too Far - this game is totally nuts. We were saying that this was the most time consuming game to plot since "our backs to the volga". There is fighting everywhere, right away, as the green german infantry w/tank support (oddballs) try to pry the US engineers (veterans) out of the town. Then reins pour in and start mixing it up house to house. The Allies were able to take out my Elephant with a zook which really slowed the german assault, since the shermans and M10's match up well with the remaining armor. We don't know how this one will turn out but I have never seen a scenario that has more action than this one, right from turn 1. The action is due to the fact that I put a "blocking" force of germans between allied positions and these guys eventually get eradicated but they delay a link up for a few crucial turns. Then the reins come in and all heck breaks loose. We are playing "take the abbey" and it is crazy, too. We aren't all the way through it so I can't say if it is balanced or not but it sure feels like a good, even match. This one also has action right away from turn 1. Unlike the original Cassino game in this one the Allies have a good chance to get right to the top of the Abbey. We will probably tweak the forces a bit when we are done, and I will add some more arty / TRP's to the allied side. We didn't play bloody beach yet - that one is kooky since it has random reinforcements AND dynamic flags. Any comments on that are welcome. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the catch. I threw the 1.03 patch up there, too.

Hello everyone. I am running and maintaining a small site dedicated to CMAK. Go to www.carlstumpf.com and click on the CMAK picture (actually it is from CMBO, but I won't tell ). This will bring you to the CMAK area of my site. Of course, it is all free, no pop-ups or junk like that. Specifically, I am focusing on the "random reinforcement" games that I am building (not historical) balanced for PBEM play. I have had a lot of fun building and testing these scenarios against my usual opponent (I always play the Axis, he always plays the Allies) and the scenarios are posted up there for anyone to download and comments are welcome. I have a few other CMAK articles that I created along with some articles from my dedicated Allied opponent (for balance ). I decided to focus on this tiny niche in the CMAK eco-system because there are lots of grogs that are better with historical scenarios and others with more artistic talents who create better maps. One thing about these games is that they are a lot of fun - they have the "fog of war" characteristic in that you really don't know what type of forces that your opponent has at any point in time. This forces you to guess when to advance and when to consolidate. I will put other of the random reinforcement scenarios up there as I build them. Hope you like the site. Oh and I got the original idea for these types of scenarios from "A Thousand Ways to Die" - thanks for getting me started!

Thanks for the thumbs up! Hope you like the site or random scenarios. I don't get too many comments, so I will take what I can get.

If you are doing a QB in a city I wouldn't count on the light mortars attached with the squad. The usual method of using these mortars is to have a section or company HQ in cover terrain spotting and the mortar safely out of return fire line of sight (LOS). However, in the city the LOS angles are usually poor (remember, your opponent is coming in from the other side) and you probably won't be able to use them very much unless your opponent pushes your forces to the close edge in which case you have probably lost the objective anyways. Also, the on board arty spotters aren't super useful in the city, either, because the LOS angles aren't great and you don't want to risk losing your spotter in the battle as you bring him into the buildings to try to see the enemies directly. One way to use the arty spotter is to pre-register on the objective, figuring the opponent will get there first, with like a 10 turn delay, and then slam him at the objective and attack as he is suppressed / dazed after the barrage. Of course, it is probably easier to get to the objective first than to extricate the enemy. In general, you can't rely on arty in the city, you need direct HE fire, or flame throwers. One thing about bringing wasps or the italian flame throwing vehicles - those things are vulnerable even to ATR's, much less to zooks or shrecks. The tactical AI gives flame throwers the highest priority and unless you are shooting from ambush it is rare to get off more than 1-2 shots before your opponent takes you out. Direct HE of course is the king, as axis there is the 150mm brummbaur which makes meat of everything, for the allies there is the sexton or the priest, although the priest is highly vulnerable to direct fire of any sort. If the axis believes they have tank superiority they can use the wespe or hummel in direct fire roles, as well (once they kill off the shermans or other 75mm type gun armed tanks). http://www.carlstumpf.com/combat%20mission/CMAK_New/cmbb_street_fighting.htm Here is a link I wrote about street fighting from CMBB - most of it applies to CMAK, as well. [ November 30, 2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Carl Puppchen ]

I looked under downloads on this site and the cmak 1.02 patch is still up. If we aren't supposed to use that someone probably should take it down. Then the cmak 1.01 patch needs to be put back up so people who have to reload 1.00 and then install the 1.01 patch to play PBEM can get back to playing.

It shouldn't matter if you are in the middle of PBEM games... I just saved my games, installed the patch, and sent them out as 1.02 versions (now my usual opponent needs to install). Of course you probably know that... I guess you don't want to change a game mid stream. Thanks to battlefront for the patch! I am looking forward to the new fixes.

I have been following this thread and would like to say a few things: - first, thanks to the admiral for all of the hard work he put into the site! We all appreciate it a lot - second, thanks to all the designers that spend their time creating scenarios just for others to have fun with. That is a good thing too with the above said, I think that reviews are nice but they won't always occur. When I first started I was kind of intimidated by the community - obviously you have people jumping in threads like Jason or Michael that seem to know everything - so people don't want to stick their toe out in the water until they really know what they are doing. There are other forums where the point of the forum is to playtest, such as the proving ground. Part of the beauty of the depot is that they give you scenarios and you can play them or not play them at your leisure. Sometimes I like to download them just to look at the map or the briefing, or to learn something about a particular historical situation. I think that the people that download these scenarios are generally "good" people who aren't trying to "game" the system. Maybe I am wrong, but this is my opinion. Given the above items, I would recommend the following: - put back up the "frequently downloaded" scenarios. It does tell information, even if it is not perfect, and it is objective information. maybe a friend is telling a friend, or they just think that the author writes excellent scenarios, but it is real data. - put something on the main page site that expressly requests feedback and says that it is important so that authors can do better in the future if people take the time to create reviews. say that it is not required, but it is strongly recommended that people take the time to review scenarios - perhaps send an email periodically to people on the list asking them to review scenarios that they have played - kind of a friendly reminder - this was suggested above Just my opinion.

My opponent in CMAK (I played the Axis) got in the habit of driving over my guns because his early war british tanks don't have much in the way of HE and whenever possible I put the guns in the trench to make them especially difficult to root out. It definitely causes the troops to panic a lot and abandon the guns and is a pretty good tactic. Of course it didn't help my cause that I had a lot of the 37mm AT guns or 47mm Italian AT guns which weren't exactly big tank killers if the British brought Matildas or Valentines This tactic of course becomes more and more suicidal late war when most infantry has organic AT weapons and team weapons like zooks and schrecks are common; you are better off "standing off" and smashing the position with HE. But in the early war you need to work with what you have...

I don't understand the casual reference to statistics... in fact I understand statistics very well. My specific comment is that it is unrealistic, in my opinion, for infantry that is broken to rout out of excellent cover terrain (trenches) for comparatively poorer cover, ESPECIALLY when it involves moving closer to the enemy. I don't think this happened very frequently AT ALL. Now if the infantry can rout out of one location to another covered location (i.e. a building) that is a totally different deal, especially if the distance between the trench and the building is short. But in my opinion the current moves are unrealistic.

If this applied to WW1 we would have mobs of soldiers jumping out of their fortified trenches under fire for the cover of a couple of bushes in no-mans-land We all know this didn't happen Thanks for the thoughts so far...

Hello. I am posting here because it seems less crazy than the main CMAK area. I try not to gripe about many things because I enjoy CMAK and it is well made but one thing drives me crazy - infantry leaving TRENCHES for poorer cover when under fire. I am playing a scenario now that is a variant on cassino and due to the rough terrain I have to setup trenches in open ground. The enemy fire is intense and when my units break they leave the comparative safety of the trench for rough or rocky terrain. I have seen troops leave trenches in open desert for brush and other crummy terrain, too. Of course from a combat mission perspective this is insane. As any regular player knows, trenches provide AWESOME cover for soldiers - if anything, they may be over-modeled against Artillery (another thread I started a while back that got a ton of interesting posts). My understanding of the tac AI is that when they break the soldiers go to better cover. In many instances I have seen the soldiers crawl out of their happy trench home TOWARDS the enemy for some brush or other crummy hiding place. Thus this urge to flee must even be overcoming the fact that fleeing soldiers are generally unlikely to move towards the enemy. I don't know if this is considered 1) a bug 2) a feature and I am just dumb 3) a possible historical anomaly. Any thoughts?

I moved to PBEM vs a standard opponent. We play 2-3 games depending on size and always get turns back and forth every day - him in the morning, me at night. The PBEM games allow you to replay the movie several times and really think about your orders. I started creating my own "random reinforcement" scenarios based on the thosand ways to die thread and posting them on the scenario depot and my home site at www.carlstumpf.com (go to my site from the main page and then you can see the CMAK stuff). I have played a lot of scenarios that other people sweated to create so I am trying to give something back. My maps aren't as nice as the pros, though, I lack artistic talent I usually only play QB's when it is late at night and my wife is asleep and I've had a couple beers - a lot of the time the computer smokes me if I am on the attack because I get sloppy. Every few months or so we get together and have a LAN party and play head to head for 3-5 games. In those games we play RANDOM QB's which are a lot of fun if you are having a few beers.

This email is going out to "twodogs" from the scenario depot. He created the awesome map for the scenario "Cassino, third battle". I would like to borrow the part of the map for the Abbey for a smaller scenario I am creating but I don't want to do something that he might not approve of. I was just going to post the scenario at the scenario depot for others to enjoy. It takes the map and adds a bit of "random" reinforcements so it is interesting for face to face or PBEM play. I can forward the scenario to you for your review if you'd like. My email is in the profile. twodogs is from Australia NSW so if any of the Australians on this board know him please forward it on to him. His email address wasn't in his profile or I'd sent it to him directly. A bit of a plug - I have scenarios out at the depot that are "random" - the reinforcements come in randomly which makes the scnearios more fun, in my opinion. Look under Carl Puppchen to see them. All CMAK scenarios.

One question - if you face the pillbox sideways, they must be targeting an area that the enemy has to take, else they will just bypass the pillbox entirely. The best way to deal with a pillbox is to avoid its covered arc entirely, especially if it is a 75mm AT gun or the dreaded 88mm AT gun. The 88mm gun is a serious killer of AFV's, and if you are on the attack often it is difficult to drag forward the 20mm cannons that are so effective against them. A dangerous opponent will also "keyhole" the pillbox so that you have to battle them but you can't shoot it with all of your weapons from far away (a reverse slope defense also accomplishes this). It is true that there are armored cars with 20mm guns or even the grey hound with 37mm guns that can "ping" the boxes but in general those types of vehicles are "rolling, on fire" if they drive into a hotbed of AT weaponry typically found near an 88mm AT gun pillbox (i.e. I am assuming no one would leave such a lynchpin of the defense unsupported).

One thing to consider w/regards to air support is that if you think your opponent has it, you should spread out your forces. I have had multiple kills when a plane comes over and drops bombs and / or strafes a column advancing in a relatively compact group. This happens to me when I am getting ready for an attack on a reverse slope defense and need to go "over the top" at once coincident with my artillery hitting the enemy. I wasn't aware of the "trucks" idea - leave them some targets that they can hit - but it sounds like a good idea. Basically air cover is a random variable - what you can do is have some AA assets on the board just in case (20mm guns are very cheap) and try to keep your assets spread out and under cover to the extent possible. Or you can just hope he attacks the friendlies

I don't know if this is the right forum but I like to post over here because it is a bit slower paced than the more manic main CMAK forum. I am playing CMAK 1.01 and one of my infantry squads persistently targets an enemy far off board. Given the low ammo that the german para squads start with at the beginning this is a bad thing. I have to set a covered arc even though there are no potential targets nearby to try to get him to stop this. It isn't a plane (even though I am not aware of infantry shooting at a plane). Is this something people are aware of? I have a screen shot if anyone is wondering about that.

We had a great time with the Op. I played the Germans. The big problem was that my "start line" was always waaaayyy far back, so I was forced to leave guys up front, locked, w/out resupply or drag them way back and then move forward again. This was partially offset by the fact that 1/2 of the turns were night turns where it is pretty easy to drive up reinforcements. The carnage in this game was intense... I don't think too many of my original infantry survived in any form and certainly none of my original vehicles made it. By the end my opponent was literally wiped out - he had maybe 5 infantry left and no vehicles at all. It was completely brutal. Don't want to put spoilers in but had great success w/the rocket spotter - got lucky in that the shells were on target and made mincemeat out of the defenders a couple of times.

My usual opponent and I played the Desobry operation in CMAK all the way to the bitter end via PBEM... 6 games of 15 turns each. At the end of the 6th game we both did a cease fire on turn 15. The final page that said I was a victor did not show the usual stats of kills, casualties, vehicles, guns, etc... It only showed men remaining and the final victory. Why did this happen? Was it because we did a cease rather than waiting for the + turns to finish? Or is that a "feature" of operations that span multiple battles... would have loved to see the total casualties because dead vehicles literally were everywhere. Dead vehicles stay throughout the operations (it was static so the map didn't move) but only the most recent infantry from the last game are "on hand" to review as far as kills. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for everyone's input. I started this thread and went home and switched sides and it worked great! I was able to "group select" by HQ and "corral" a large # of units with the mouse and drag them to different areas on the map, for both allies and axis (I could always do this for the axis, not for the allies). I still have to move each unit individually but not as far as before. This is good for my hand which gets tired quickly, moving individual allied guys all the way across a big map...

I realize that this is the CMBB thread and we are focusing on the East. What people tend to take for granted is that the burden of the allied alliance for a long time was supported by Winston Churchill, in my opinion one of the greatest men if not the greatest man in the 20th century. Mr. Churchill had a heart attack at one point and if he had died and / or been forced out of power it is very possible that the English could have gone w/a negotiated peace. It took a lot of guts to stand up to Hitler the way he did in a nation that was tired of conflict after WW1 and could have collapsed the same way France did in 1940. It was a VERY near run thing from that perspective... People look back in history and things seem clear. In general, it was nuts for Hitler to take on the Soviets since they had numbers, territory and in many cases equipment on their side. But by God he almost pulled it off. If Stalin hadn't liquidated almost everyone maybe a coup could have happened - the Russians negotiated a peace in 1917, remember. It was a near run thing any way you slice it. As far as Hitler being a lunatic, of course he was a lunatic! Who else starts a war of conquest? Stalin, too, was a paranoid lunatic whose purges and terrible orders (the deployment of his army in 1941 greatly increased his losses to encirclement) as well as commisars also impacted their ability to fight effectively. I think that anyone who expects a dictator starting an aggressive war to behave rationally is crazy. The only question is HOW irrationally do they behave...

I have never seen a tank placed INSIDE a building. Not that it hasn't happened, I just haven't seen it. Actually the computer is usually pretty good with dropping units in kind of a "convoy" formation, with infantry loaded on tanks and supporting weapons being towed by trucks. I am pretty familiar with reinforcements because the non-historical scenarios I set up have tons of random reinforcements coming in at all kinds of different locations. Usually the computer seems to do a decent job with placement. Of course if I put them in an obvious place or somewhere where they will be instantly fired upon, that is my fault as a designer.

Thanks a lot for the \ tip. I will try it tonight! Sounds like not a big deal to some but when you are working with a couple US companies it really adds up!

I have designed a few scenarios in CMAK. I posted them in the scenario depot and they are head-to-head PBEM matches with lots of random reinforcements. In any case, the point of this thread is that when I pick the units for the axis and allies in the scenario editor and then go into the map preview mode to place them in the different setup areas, I get strange behaviors with the allies. With the axis, I can do the "double click" on a platoon HQ and the whole platoon will get activated and then I can drag them across the map with one fell swoop. Or I can just drag the mouse over a bunch of them, activate them, and then put them where I want them. Since the axis always show up on one map edge and the allies on the other, basically you need to move all of the units somewhere every time. With the allies, however, I CANNOT seem to "sweep" a bunch of guys. If I double click on a platoon and activate them and then I use the "move" command, only the HQ moves. The rest of the platoon stays there, stuck. And I can't drag a bunch of guys, either. Am I going crazy or do other people have this same behavior? I have difficulties w/my hand and it is painful to do tons of repetitive moves (that is why I play combat mission rather than first person shooters like call of duty, because there is less mouse action and more contemplation) so I dread moving all the allies across a big board.