76mm

Perhaps, although he never dropped down to fire the gun, he just stayed up in the hatch.

Broadsword basically proposes using a boardgame via cyberboard/vassal. I want to use an actual computer wargame that will do things like handle movement, combat, and yes, even provide an AI. I don't think having an AI is a problem--the human player decides which battles to fight at the op level and which at the tac level.

It's a pretty short list, so almost none of them provide the functionality that allows to modify saved games, which is pretty much necessary. Other than Panzer Campaigns, the only one I've seen is also from John Tiller (his Campaign Series, which is much smaller scale). As far as I can tell this was not an intentional feature on his part, it's just a relic of their rather dated game engines... Agreed, having an op layer that cannot resolve battles at that level would be a waste. Depending on the size of the op layer, etc., just creating all the maps to play out the tac battles could become completely impracticable. No, but you can edit a plain text file for casualties, etc., and better, simply rename a saved game file as a scenario and edit it with the scenario editor, so you can move units around, eliminate them, inflict casualties, etc, all based on how things turned out at the tac level. The best thing about the two changes I requested is that it would allow people to create whatever type of op layer they wanted. Frankly, as interested as I am in an op layer, I would probably not be very interested in something featuring only a battalion, etc. And other people probably wouldn't be very interested in whatever type of op layer I wanted. While I mentioned that being able to use saved game files to create scenarios would be a key feature, maybe being able to do the same for campaign files would be even better--you could keep all of both sides' units in a master file and select maps as necessary. Obviously, being able to save and reuse maps with battle damage would also be fairly important.

But can you issue a target command if the gun doesn't have LOS? Doesn't really make sense...

That's the thing, you don't need access to any game files to create an operational campaign--all you need are: 1) a separate file format that allows you to create scenarios from saved game files; and 2) a function within CM to import/export unit data before/after each battle. With these functions, the community could come up with any number of operational campaign variants. While I'm not suggesting that these features are trivial to program, they are certainly far, far, easier to do than a whole op layer. While I understand your preference for Cyberboard/Vassal, I tried with with CMx1 and this time want MOAR!

You might be right, although I'm not sure that I understand what this is supposed to represent--a fat tree trunk sitting right in front of the gunner's sight? Doesn't it seem like the TC, who had just seen the Panther from the hatch, would rotate the turret back and forth a bit until he found it? Just seems odd...

All of the crew members were "spotting", not cycling with anything else that I noticed. Also, as soon as the Panther retreated out of LoS, the TC buttoned up!

I still haven't played CMRT as much as I would like, have been kinda busy. Anyway, I fired up a scenario this morning, brilliantly maneuvered my T34/85 into a flank firing position against a Panther, gave the "Target" command, and waited...and waited...and waited... Ultimately nothing happened...after about 2 1/2 minutes, the Panther decided it had better things to do, and casually pulled back, exposing its rear to my tank...still no shot. Here are some screenshots. Note that the Panther was spotted by my vehicle, I could give a Target command to fire on the Panther, my tank had ammo, gun was not damaged, etc. The TC was even unbuttoned... There are a few trees around, but the tank was spotted and I got a targetting line, so... Any rational explanation would be helpful, because these kind of situations are very demoralizing... My tank after 2 minutes: My tank after about 2 1/2 minutes, when the Panther pulls back:

Thanks, will add these to my map database...

Obviously a backup would have been useful, but I am almost constantly tweaking the hotkey so always plan to back it up "next time"... Also, why would Battlefront have to change any hotkeys?

I was away for a few weeks, and installed the patch a few days ago. I went to fire up a game and found that all of my custom hotkey mapping is gone. This is really irritating, because I spent A LOT of time tweaking the hotkeys to my liking. The file is now gone from the folder where it used to be. Would Battlefront please refrain from overwriting custom hotkey files in future patches?

I made my own operational layer for CMx1, but want something more satisfying for CMx2. That said, while I am not looking for Battlefront to create an operational level, they could take a few seemingly simple steps to make it much easier for players to create an operational layer. The most important feature would be to create a special type of file that allows players to modify saved game files in the editor (even better, to allow players to modify campaign files). Second in terms of usefulness would be the ability to export game data (I will look at the file in the repository shortly). The other problem is that you need these same features in the operational level game that you want to use. Personally, I want to use a full-fledged computer game for this, not a Cyberboard/Vassal version, and I've looked at pretty much every computer game out there for suitability. So far the only one I've seen which fits the bill is the Panzer Campaigns series, which not only has a large selection of battles, but allows players to modify saved game files. I've been trying to come with with a program to import/export data for some time, but am not a programmer, so it is going *very* slowly. I've seen Noob's system for CMBN, but it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

The four that spring to mind are: Hell's Gate (Korsun) Barbarossa Unleashed Island of Fire (Stalingrad) Enemy at the Gates (Stalingrad) All are chock full of personal reminisces. For strategic level stuff, I really recommend John Erickson's books, they are very well written, if a bit dated by now.

In addition to Vanir's suggestions: Books I've read: Red Road from Stalingrad 800 Days on the Eastern Front Penalty Strike: The Memiors of a Red Army Penal Company Commander Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught Bloody Triangle Barbarossa Through Soviet Eyes Stalin's Folly: The first 10 days of WWII on the Eastern Front The Viaz'ma Castatrophe Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army Russia at War Have not yet read: Love and War v1 Love and War v2 Through the Maelstrom The reviews on Amazon should provide a decent understanding of what's in the books, but for the books I've read I can try to answer any questions that you have. The "Love and War" books look interesting, the memiors of an American who served in a Red Army tank unit. To be frank, most of these books are not great writing, but many of them are pretty interesting for someone interested in the Soviet perspective. Several (most?) of the memoirs spend a fair bit of time talking about non-military stuff, such as how the author met their future wife at the front, etc.--the war was by far the biggest event in these guys' lives--not just a few years of their life but a defining experience. Others talk about JasonC's favorite topic, potatoes, etc.--I guess this might be boring to some, but for me most accounts of their experiences are interesting to some extent. I've also read many books that I've not listed above because I thought they were bad--if you're thinking about buying something, you can ask here. Finally, I'm not sure that any of the books fall into the "Longest Day", etc. category. Check out the books about Stalingrad and Viazma abvove, they are probably closest. Finally, I've left out some excellent books that are more from the German perspective, which I understand is not really what you're look for. Let us know if you'd in fact be interested in those as well.

I'm trying to post some suggestions, but how to I insert a link with a descriptive name rather than the URL??

What's going on with this one, when I click on the link above, I get: "Fatal error - attempt to access unpublished file by non-admin user"

I don't think terrain and buildings would change very much, why do you think so? Sure, the np maps would be different, but most could be created with the existing terrain/building types.

If you want to create a scenario but don't know which map to use, I posted a map database on the scenario subforum, could be helpful.

Hmmm I thought they'd made their general plans fairly clear, but not the sequnce. I'd expect the first module for CMRT, then maybe bulge, then maybe on to Kursk? I'd like to see A CMRT module soon.

Are you saying this is some sort of official capacity? If so it is very disappointing, I don't see why we can't have points in the scenario editor?

huh?? I'm not dissembling ("disassembling away"?), but its hard to have an intelligent conversation when people don't use words precisely. As I mentioned, my previous comment was in the context of the T34 being developed to match German tanks. While I'm no expert in the history of tank design, the fact is that Russians took a very different approach to tank design (and use) than the Germans and it is hard to see any German tanks serving as the inspiration for the T34's revolutionary design. If you are somehow reading this as "the Soviets came up with weapon designs in a vacuum", more power to you I guess.

I don't recall ever saying that weapons are developed in a vacuum, and the previous discussion was specifically about whether the T34 was developed to "match" (ie, equal) German tanks. We could be arguing about the meaning of the word "match", which in my dictionary means "to produce or procure an equal to". Therefore, I don't understand how the T34 can be said to have been developed to "match" the PAK 36 when in fact the T34 completely and totally "over-matched" it, to the point that the PAK 36 could do little more than scratch its paint. It's like saying that Lamborghinis are designed to "match" the Yugo... If you want to say that the T34 was developed to totally outclass then-existing anti-tank weapons in reaction to the ineffectiveness of other Soviet tank designs, I'd agree with that, although I wouldn't call the purpose of that exercise to "match" anything.

Sounds like there is a very interesting story there...

:confused::confused:

I meant to raise a few other points from Vladimirky's account: 1) He says that most bridges on the border weren't mined because the border was the NKVD's responsibility, and they wouldn't let the army mine them. 2) While there was a plan for mining other bridges, away from the border, the demolition charges were stored in central locations--not pre-emplaced on the bridges--and in the chaos of the invasion most of the demo charges were never placed. 3) A key defect of Soviet defensive planning was that all plans were timed not to the beginning of war itself, but from the order to move to war footing. Soviet units anticipated that they'd be ordered to war footing at least a few days before the beginning of hostilities, and chaos resulted when this didn't happen. Troops could not occupy their defensive positions, bridges not mined, etc. To make things worse, the Sovs only had one defensive plan--defend on the border after proper mobilization--and did not have any contingencies to deal with the surprise attack which actually occurred.