Myles Keogh

Thanks for info and the explanation. As stated, it's been awhile since I last played CM. So, it could be a memory mistake that led me to believe I could use the company HQ in this manner. I do remember being able to do it, but maybe I'm forgetting other factors involved such as having a radio jeep present.

Ok, now I am confused. Armored infantry platoons do have radios! (It's been a while since I played CM and remembered (or misremembered) when CM initially changed the TO&E for armored infantry by having their platoon HQs embedded in the 1st squad that they didn't have radios. So, either my memory is faulty (a possibility) or something was changed by patch or upgrade?) Anyway, I took a closer look at my current saved game and every armored infantry platoon HQ has a radio. (I also have a company of engineers whose platoon HQs don't have radios which probably added to my confusion.) So, my platoon HQs are able to stay in C&C with distant company HQs. So, it's now doubly confusing why armored infantry platoon mortars when out of C&C with their platoon HQ won't "attach" to their company HQs so I can use them as on-call arty assets like one can with a regular US infantry company.

Thanks for the reply and explanation. That's most likely the reason: armored infantry platoon HQs don't have radios enabling them to keep in contact with company HQ. However, that raises another issue. Why don't US armored infantry platoon HQs have radios? Steven Zaloga stated that each armored infantry company had seven SCR-536 "handie-talkie" radios specifically for dismounted combat purposes with three being located with the company HQ and each platoon having one. So, either Zaloga or BF is incorrect. Having to keep the 60mm mortar tied to platoon HQ does limit its flexibility.

I am playing a scenario with several companies of American armored infantry in which every platoon has a 60mm mortar. When playing with regular American infantry, I usually take the 60mm mortars away from their platoons and place them near their company commander well to the rear. Once the platoon commanders are out-of-contact/sight, the mortars become "attached" to their company commander which enables them to always be on-call for arty requests. Yet, trying the above with an armored infantry company doesn't seem to work. Once the armored infantry platoon commanders were out-of-sight/contact then the mortars remained out-of-command & control regardless of how close they were to their company commander. Is this working as designed that the company commander of armored infantry company cannot exert C&C upon a mortar that is out-out-of-contact with its platoon HQ?

I'm looking forward to us one day receiving some actual info on this module. BF has been stating that 2018 is shaping-up to be a big year for them as to new releases. So, hopefully, the wait won't be too long now. However, I'm really looking forward to the promised patches to fix the issues that were introduced by the 4.0 upgrade: namely the TacAI's highly questionable behavior when under artillery/mortar fire and the Brens and BARs being reduced to single-shot weapons when fired past a certain range. The 4.0 upgrade came out over a year ago, and a fix for these issues is well past due.

The "follow the leader" or convoy command has been a much requested (and IMO a much needed) feature since the CMx1 days. It was mentioned as being on the drawing board for inclusion in the 4.0 upgrade, but somewhere between that upgrade's inception and its release it was dropped. Like ammo sharing between vehicles, it appears that BF couldn't get it to work within their code. Sadly, it's being dropped from the 4.0 upgrade does not forebode well that it'll ever be part of CMx2. If that's the case then it's unfortunate because one of the most tiresome things about CMx2 is plotting the road movements for numerous vehicles. It's just so much micromanagement with all the waypoint setting and use of the pause command.

Those are probably mods made with CMBN 1.0. If you've upgraded the game then no uniform mod made prior to the 2.0 upgrade will work. That 2nd Ranger uniform mod was one of the earliest CMBN uniform mods and was most likely made with 1.0. The 2.0 upgrade changed how uniform .bmps were named. So, the game will not recognize .bmps using the 1.0 naming system. You can get some older uniform mods to work by renaming their .bmps to coincide with the 2.0 naming system. However, the 2.0 upgrade added additional uniforms such as for NCOs and officers that 1.0 uniform mods do not recognize. Thus, if you simply rename a mod's .bmps then you may still get your pixeltruppen wearing a combination of modded and vanilla uniforms. (This latter issue is the most likely reason why some 1.0 uniform mods have never been updated because they would require a lot of additional work.) There are quite a few uniform mods that were made specifically for the 2.0 version such Vein's and EZ's, but any CMBN uniform mod made prior to December 2012, which is when the 2.0 upgrade was released, will not work.

I bought Operation Star nearly two years ago when it was on sale for $7. It didn't last long on my hard-drive. I found its UI almost inexplicable. (Trying to figure it out, I felt like Krusty the Clown watching the eastern European cartoon, "Worker and Parasite," and saying "What the hell was that!?!?" at the end. However, the biggest reason why I quickly deleted it was that its tactical combat is strictly real-time with no replay feature. What's the point of playing with these pixelated toy soldiers and tanks when one can't sit back and enjoy watching them in action. Despite the raves about Graviteam's graphics, you can't really enjoy them because you're too busy trying to manage everything in real-time. (It doesn't even have a post-battle replay feature like the Total War series.) I did try a few other times to overcome the learning curve, but each time I'd end-up using the "remove program" feature on my control panel. Eventually, I recognized I needed help and followed some tutorial youtube videos by one of its dedicated fans. That did help open my eyes to some of the good parts of this game such as its operational map, but still the real-time combat with no replay (I was notified that I lost a tank, but have no way of figuring out how I lost it) and its very clunky UI do not make me see it as viable competition to CMx2 on my PC. Maybe Mius Front and the upcoming Tunisian game are (will be) better, but I doubt that I'll take another plunge with Graviteam.

CMBN won the 2011 Charles S. Roberts Award for "Best 20th Century Era - Modern Computer Wargame."

It works. I've been using Mord/DC's CMBN portrait mods with Juju's interface since CMFB's release. Unfortunately, Mord has been MIA from these boards for almost a year and thus there isn't a CMFB specific portrait mod. This is something I bemoaned in another thread due my being a huge fan of the Mord/DC portrait mods and there being gaps in the American OOB because the CMBN mod doesn't include the divisions that arrived in the ETO after October 1944. So, a CMFB specific portrait mod is sorely missed. Wonder what happened to Mord? Here that other thread on this same subject which is still on the first page:

This is great news. New player-made, historically-based scenarios are always welcome. Plus, I read Zaloga's book last year on the Arracourt battles and CMBN's paucity of scenarios on that fight was disappointing. So, it's terrific that the biggest tank battle the U.S. Army fought before the Bulge will finally get some love in CMBN world. This project reminds me of the one various player scenario designers did for CMBB in which they made and released a Stalingrad scenario/operations pack which featured fights from that epic campaign: intense city fighting, the Soviet armored assault upon the Romanians, and Manstein's desperate relief effort in the snow. It really was a neat idea and that pack had some great scenarios/operations. SPOILERS: I did try out the single player test version of Duel in the Mist. Loved the map and the overall design, but the scenario author was right that the American player won't have too much trouble. However, a little bit of trouble would have been nice. I stopped after 40 minutes when it appeared that I was already in mop-up territory. Due to the scenario length, I took my sweet-time. Since I saw no reason to rush any objectives, I just sat my armor back in company lines and slowly developed the German defenses. A German armored counter-attack blundered right into the sights of an entire company of Shermans and was blasted to kingdom come. They lost seven tanks in less than two minutes and only managed to damage one of mine. [Yeah, the veteran 4th Armored (it did earn its nickname "Patton's Best" for good reasons) really got a twist on green German panzer units in the Arracourt battles so it's probably pretty reflective of the actual battle.] Further, the 4.0 upgrade appears to have made things a bit tougher for the defense. Harassing artillery fire upon Ley had the Germans abandoning their positions. I caught numerous German teams out in the open. Other players have noticed this behavior as well with the 4.0 TacAI maybe prematurely displacing from good defensive cover and running into the view (and sights) of the enemy. If this really is an issue with the 4.0 TacAI then it's troubling for single players and it certainly undermined this scenario's challenge.

I do use the Flag Patch (the divisional insignia with national flag background) ones from the CMBN version in CMFB where they're applicable such as 4th Armored Division in the Courage Conquers campaign and other scenarios or the 30th Infantry ("Old Hickory") in Kampfgruppe Peiper, but as set forth in my initial post there are gaps in the American OOB in the CMBN version such as no 99th Infantry, 12th Armored, 84th Infantry or 42nd Infantry all of which are featured in CMFB scenarios.

Sadly, no portrait mod for CMFB has been made and Mord hasn't been on these boards in almost a year. Mord's and DC's portrait mods for CMBN, CMFI, and CMRT rank among my very favorites right up there with Aris' vehicles, JuJu's interface, Vein's special effects, and EZ's uniforms. So, it's a shame that there isn't one for CMFB. I did take a shot at making my own portrait mod for 99th Infantry Division due to it featuring prominently in a number of CMFB scenarios, but it doesn't look anywhere near as polished or as good as Mord's/DC's work. My "talent" with Microsoft Paint is rather limited to say the least.

Juju's UI mod appears to work fine with the 4.0 upgrade. (It was surprising to see how the new Hull Down command appear as if Juju had already integrated it into his mod. It blends seamlessly into it. Plus, it functions properly.) All my other mods seem to be working fine with all three of my newly upgraded games (CMBN, CMRT, and CMFB.) I did switch-out Vein's muzzle flash and tracer mods to see if I liked the new stock ones better. I'm still on the fence about them- the new ones although an improvement over the old stock graphics are maybe still a bit too "Hollywood" for my taste. I don't use the animated text mod which apparently is a mod that always needs to be updated in order for it to work with any new upgrade or patch. So, it appears that unless you use an animated text mod then you should be good to go with any other sound/graphical mods.

Ammo sharing between tanks was supposed to be a feature included in the 3.0 upgrade, but Battlefront admitted they couldn't get it to work properly so it got scrapped. Obviously, it's a feature they know players would like, but so far it's eluded their abilities to code it into the game.

I'm a huge fan of the SOW series. Although when I initially bought Scourge of War: Gettysburg, it sat in hard-drive relatively unused for a couple years. It seemed like a good game, but I've played too many birds-eye view/God-like control tactical wargames for it to truly hold my interest. It wasn't until I started playing with its "Headquarters-in-the-Saddle" (HITS) mode that my opinion changed from it being a good game to a brilliant one. HITS mode transforms those games from games into simulations. With HITS, you can only see the battlefield from the viewpoint of your character-commander. In order to get a different view then you've got to ride. Also, you can only give out direct orders to troops within shouting distance, but otherwise you've got to rely upon horseback couriers who may or may not reach their destination. Plus, you've got to figure in the delay in relaying orders. HITS also really levels the playing field with the AI because you too are stuck having deal with sometimes lackluster AI subordinates controlling your troops. I have fantasized about having something similar for the Combat Mission games. The player takes on the role of a platoon/company/battalion/battlegroup commander and your view is restricted to that of your character-commander. You can give out "shouted" orders or by radio/runner. You have to rely upon reports from subordinates and/or the sounds of combat to determine what's going on. Glover Johns' and Charles MacDonald's descriptions of listening to a battle to judge its "pulse" always leap out while reading their combat memoirs: Johns' "The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo" and MacDonald's "Company Commander." Of course, I think programming an AI to handle such a game would probably be very difficult because the player would be so heavily reliant upon AI subordinates not being completely hapless. Also, the appeal of such a game would be very limited. The Combat Mission games are niche now and having a HITS mode which severely limits the player's control and battlefield information would make them ridiculously so. How many people would want to play such a game? I doubt there are many. Plus, 19th century combat with its close formations and open fields lends itself better to such a game. In SOW, even in HITS mode, the panorama of 19th century warfare can be visually stunning. But the WW2 battlefield? As Major Johns put it: "One seldom sees much on a modern battlefield." So, it would be a very tough sell. Yet, one can dream.

Benpark: Thanks a lot for answering question as to the OOB. I knew it had to be something other than just an oversight because the overall quality of campaign. Admittedly, I didn't read the designer notes because they sometimes give a bit too much information. I like to approach a new scenario/campaign with just the info from the briefing and not risk any "spoilers" that could be in the designer notes. So, I don't know if the OOB info is in designer notes or not.

I necro-bumped this thread because I didn't want to start a new thread on the Aachen campaign. I played through the first scenario and it was fun. Although those multi-connected buildings that are supposed to represent large industrial buildings could be very disorienting once your troops enter them. The toughest part of the battle for me was weeding-out a German HQ unit from one of the inner buildings. Anyway, I'm curious about the American OOB. The briefing states that you're commanding the 3rd Battalion/26th Regiment/1st Infantry Division ("the Big Red One"); and the 3rd Battalion HQ is on the map. Yet, the first scenario has you commanding F Co./26th Infantry. And the second scenario has D Co. and G Co. under 3rd Battalion command. I know it's being pedantic, but wasn't the usual company breakdown within the battalions of a U.S. Army infantry regiment the following: 1st Bn: A, B, C, D 2nd Bn: E, F, G, H 3rd Bn: I, K, L, M So, what's the deal with this campaign where you have the 3rd Battalion HQ, but its commanding companies that are usually part of the 1st and 2nd Battalions? Was the 26th Infantry so short of infantry that it cannibalized its battalions? Again, I know this is being pedantic, but just curious as to the seemingly odd American OOB.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised if we get another CMx2 base game. However, I think that BF's plans for CMx2's future consists of adding modules/packs/upgrades to its existing games and that any venture into different subject matters would be saved for CMx3. If by chance BF does have another CMx2 base game up their sleeves then I'd love to see it address: WW2 North Africa, early Blitzkrieg, and Russia ('41, '42 or '43). I'd also love to see an early Pacific game: Philippines/Guadalcanal/Malaysia/Kokoda/China-Burma-India. I know BF has made it clear over the years that they have no interest in doing a Pacific game, but if we're just dreaming then I think the early Pacific or the CBI would work better for CM than the mid-to-late years when things really became lopsided and hopeless for the Japanese. (Although Kohima-Imphal/Burma Road game might work for a later war subject. ) Overall, I'd purchase anything WW2 related that they release. I would also grab a Korean War game if they made it, but that's not happening. Vietnam? Despite my Dad and two of my uncles being Vietnam vets, I have no interest in that subject. I'd skip it if they made it. Hypothetical Fulda Gap or similar subjects? Not interested. Never purchased CMSF or CMBS. I just don't care for hypotheticals.

Well said, but when the 4.0 upgrade is released these forums will still see a number of posts by individuals rendering their garments and gnashing their teeth over BF's decision to: "Charge us for a patch!!!!! Arrgghhhh!" We saw it with the 2.0 upgrade, we saw it again for the 3.0 upgrade, and we'll see it again with the 4.0 upgrade. It's as certain as the turning of the earth.

I won a minor victory on my first play through. (Playing WeGo Elite). Frankly, I got pretty lazy on this scenario. I started it weeks ago. Played about 25 minutes and then shelved it until yesterday. The scenario scoring being very generous is how I won a victory. In the first twenty-five minutes, I took my time and played it seriously. I managed to knock-out all but two of the M7s and secured the "screen" objective. However, upon my return to it I just started screwing around. It looked like such a tough nut to crack that I just didn't feel like putting much effort into winning it. I pretty much left my infantry in the rear and advanced my armor assets (King Tigers, the Panther, and the Stummels) to shoot at whatever popped-up. The Panther was pummeled by AT guns and immobilized, but that exposed those AT guns to counter-fire. The Stummels were all damaged or lost to arty/mortar barrages, but the King Tigers roamed at will. One Tiger was sent hunting along the RR tracks above the town and the other I sent into the town itself. The two knocked-out a number of infantry and MG nests. Realizing that I could capture another objective, I rushed a single platoon of panzergrenadiers into the town. Before the scenario ended, I advanced a Tiger into the intersection objective just to deny its possession to the Americans. When the scenario ended, I thought for sure it was going to be a loss and end the campaign. However, I won a minor victory- the capture of just two objective locations and destroying just enough M7s and other American assets allowed me to squeak by to the next scenario. Considering the troubles other players have had with it, I feel sort of bad that I won it on my first go around by only half-seriously playing it. However, ignoring my infantry and other thin-skinned vehicles actually helped me win because it avoided them becoming easy points for the Americans.

Another scandal of "Citizen Soldiers" was that Dr. Ambrose "borrowed" passages from Joseph Balkoski's "Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy" without proper attribution. Ambrose was later "requested" to write a forward for a re-issue of Balkoski's book as a way to avoid an ugly lawsuit. As typical with most plagiarists, if you're "borrowing" the work of other historians and writers for one book then it's more than likely you did so in other books. And so it was with Dr. Ambrose- it was revealed that he had made it a habit of being "sloppy" as to citing his sources throughout his writing career. His latter books are particularly shoddy due to his relying on his adult children to do almost all his research in order to churn-out books more quickly and keep the gravy train rolling. The plagiarism scandals didn't really hurt Dr. Ambrose's reputation among the general public. By the time it became news, he was already ensconced as "America's historian" with fame and fortune. And then he died before it really started gaining traction. As for "Band of Brothers," I agree with another poster that Ambrose's hero worship was in overdrive when he wrote that pulpish opus. It's essentially "the cool kids' table" version of WW2. It's about a clique within E Coy, 506th and anyone who wasn't part of that little group is pretty much denigrated or ignored. I used to be a big fan of the miniseries (never cared for the book), but over the years the chest-puffing of its "heroes" at the expense others and their petty axe-grinding against guys they didn't like has rubbed me the wrong way. It irks me that most of the guys Ambrose's sources chose to take shots at were dead and thus conveniently unable to respond to the slurs against their courage, competence and professionalism. Ambrose was supposedly a professional historian, but he seemingly took everything told to him by the select group of vets he chose to interview at face value. He made no attempt to verify those old soldiers' stories as to accuracy or veracity. Or even attempt to get other opinions as to persons or events outside of the clique he was interviewing. Over a decade ago, WW2 vets of the 3rd Infantry Division (Audie Murphy's old outfit) felt compelled to commemorate a plaque at Berchtesgaden honoring the Rock of the Marne as the U.S division that arrived there first. Why? It's because "Band of Brothers" in both the book and the miniseries had lauded it far and wide that it was the 101st that had achieved that honor. A quick check of a few primary sources would have put that falsehood to rest, but Ambrose didn't deal with primary sources. So, here was this shrinking group of 3rd ID vets trying to protect their unit's honor from a plagiaristic hack who was more interested in concocting heroic tales in order to sell books to Baby Boomers nostalgic about their parents' dying generation than doing his job as a professional historian.

Those mods by Darknight Canuck that had all the insignia for Commonwealth vehicles and uniforms were made with CMx2 1.0. Thus, it's out-of-date if one has upgraded. The vehicle part of those mods will still work, but none of the uniforms will appear due to changes made by the 2.0 upgrade. One could re-label all DC's uniform .bmp's to get them to conformity with 2.0, but that would require a lot of work. Plus, the mod would still be incomplete because the 2.0 upgrade added in additional uniforms for officers and NCOs that DC's mod didn't have. (Change the name of DC's .bmps and put them in your mods folder and you'll get British platoons/squads with a mixture of modded and vanilla uniforms.) DC has mentioned he'd like to update his mod someday, but the amount of time and effort that would require has understandably kept that from happening. As for as I know, there is no working uniform mod for the 15th Scottish Division that is complete and compatible with the 2.0 upgrade. [Vein's uniform mod, which works with 2.0 and is a nice upgrade over the vanilla uniforms, has his British pixeltruppen bearing the insignia of the 43rd Wessex Division.] [One more thing: if one really want to see the Red Lion of the 15th Scottish Division while playing The Scottish Corridor then check-out Mord's and DC's portrait mod. It has portraits showing the insignia of virtually every formation that saw action in the Normandy campaign. It's not a uniform mod, but if one is looking for a little historical flavor while playing CMBN then I highly recommend it.]

That was a feature that was on the drawing board to be included in the 3.0 upgrade, but BFC couldn't get it to work so it was dropped.

Since CMx2 mods almost only effect cosmetic things such as graphics and sound, what is a "must have" just boils down to personal taste. Personally, my own "must have" mods for CMFI are: Juju's TweakedUI for CMFI v5- just a massive improvement over the vanilla UI Vein's special effects (tracers, fire, muzzle flash, explosions)- this works for all CMx2 games and is also an improvement over the vanilla graphics, but less "Hollywood" than other effects mods Mord's & DC's Gustav Portraits Mod- I love this mod and use it in conjunction with JuJu's UI mod. It features portraits that show the divisional/formation/branch insignia of most of the units that fought in Italy. As a history geek, I love seeing the correct divisional patch when playing the Allies in any historical/semi-historical scenario or campaign. (I keep hoping Mord and DC will do a version for CMFB, but Mord hasn't been on these boards in months.) mjkerner's patched American uniforms- places the divisional patch on the shoulders/helmets of the American pixeltruppen. It's neat to see Audie Murphy's 3rd Infantry Division flashing its blue-and-white patch in Sicily and Anzio. (Like Mord's and DC's portraits- you have to take the time to switch in the particular uniform you want.) Vein's uniforms- Germans (I mixed-in elements of Aris' uniforms into this as well), Commonwealth, and Italians. Great stuff. Eliminate_Red_Cross- removes the gamey (and rather cheesy looking) "red cross" graphic when casualties occur. I think this is Mord's mod, but not sure. It also works for all CMx2 games.