landser

Thanks. It was almost entirely airburst, but the few craters it made were the same size as my own 210 mm. This was some seriously deadly stuff, killing men more than 100 meters away. Completely shattered my fresh reserve platoon on the right flank, which I had held back to exploit a breakthrough. And then I ran them right in to that mess. Such is war.

That's the bastage that called in that barrage, though he didn't live long enough to see it. I should have used all of the 210mm like you did, because long delays like this slows the advance, and even more ironically, holds you in place to be hit by their barrage. But I had no idea a delay that long could even happen. And I tend to feel the need to keep some bullets in the chamber just in case. And I apologize to the TC for such a derailment of this thread.

I'm currently playing A Bloody Ride as well. I'm on the La Charlemenerie battle, and ironically enough just took serious casualties from an enemy barrage, but it was huge caliber stuff. Is there a way to know what caliber it was? I guess only by opening the battle in the editor? Good campaign anyway. And in this battle I experienced the longest delay time I've seen. Even using an F/O it was a 21 minute wait from some 210mm with a red circle . Good job on that mission, that should be Beau Guillot. It's a great mission because it puts a premium on covering/suppressive fire and urgent maneuver. When you first see all of that open ground you might be tempted to think, now how will I get all the way over there? But sounds like you did a good job of unlocking it. And while I am rambling off topic and you mentioned spacing... is there a mod that changes the spacing of individual soldiers within a squad? There isn't a whole lot I would like to change about CM, but combat spacing is surely one of them. Spread out!, or you'll get yourselves all killed. Seeing my pixeltruppen all lined up shoulder to shoulder waiting for a mortar round to drop among them is going to drive me loopy

Not at all. Combat Mission difficulty levels have less practical effect on gameplay than probably any game I can think of at the moment. It could be argued that Veteran is more difficult for the human player than Iron. And here's why... The only real effects it has in my view are the call-down time on artillery and air support, enemy unit info, and the time it takes for buddy aid. Ignoring the Basic Training level, which I have not played, in practical terms I find that playing Warrior or above, with the longer support delay, means it is easier to avoid getting caught in an AI artillery barrage. Of course your artillery takes as long, but in the vast majority of missions and especially campaigns, the player is in some form of attack. Your forces are on the move, the AI in defensive positions is not. I am sure that I would take more casualties due to enemy artillery in Veteran than I would in Warrior. You just simply have less time to move out from under the impending strike. To be fair, Battlefront doesn't call the various setting difficulty levels, but skill levels. And they aren't intended to make the game more difficult per se, but to limit the info the player has as to the enemy units he is in contact with. Even so, this has little practical effect in my opinion, especially if you click on the unit, or pay close attention. It's true you won't have detailed info on which individual soldiers in an enemy unit you have incapacitated, or instant identification of unit type, but in actual gameplay I find it really makes little difference. I currently have campaigns going in Warrior and Iron levels. The main difference in Iron is " Friendly units must be spotted, just like enemy units". Before I played my first Iron campaign I thought this would make it more challenging. Well, I really didn't know what it would do in terms of my decision making, tactics and so on. But having played a number of campaigns in Iron I've come to feel it really doesn't make any difference at all. For me, it's more a difference of how readily visible enemy unit info is, and less about how much info there is, though in strict terms there is less information in the higher settings. The question is, how much does this affect how you play? For me I tend to go with Warrior most of the time, but I believe there must be some sort of advantage to the player in Iron, I just haven't worked it out in practical terms. '

Yep, they will mark the mines, which I see as taping a path. You will see the color of the mine sign change from red to yellow? showing it is safer to move through them, but you should still use caution and move slowly through the area. As Raptor mentioned, the mines aren't cleared necessarily, just marked.

You mean at Bloody Gulch? Yes, quite right. I'm a BoB fan, but we all know that (seemingly) every tank was a Tiger, every gun was an 88 and every bullet wound caused by a sniper. This is a common theme among the men who were there, as I'm sure you know.

Agreed, I thought Battleground was a good film, especially considering it was made in the 40's. There have been many terrible WW2 films, and that's one of them. I might have to go with The Enemy Below myself.

Thanks for posting that. Though there isn't really anything new for me in the narrative, virtually all of the footage I have never seen, especially that on the eastern front and in Italy. The footage identified as being at Salerno was particularly interesting, showing just how exposed the Allied positions were, and how dominant the German view was, if indeed it was Salerno. And as much as I've read about Cassino, I don't know that I ever knew there had been a StuG on the summit. Is this true? I've long argued that the StuG was the most successful German armored fighting vehicle of the war, when viewed from a return on investment perspective. The StuG gets a bit of a bad rap sometimes, but in my view it's down to the fact that StuG units were asked to perform tasks they were not suited for, particularly mobile anti-tank work where the lack of a traversable turret was a serious handicap. Do you have any more stuff like this?

Get it here, thanks to Blazing 88's. He has been kind enough to leave it up for a month and a half, but it won't be up forever, so grab 'em while you can. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x89sqeiz1tdhfea/AABSKaaqd4R2-yQjMrW13me6a?dl=0

I don't think I would be of much help as I have no experience making scenarios. I would however like to offer my encouragement and would be willing to playtest. And I have Donald Burgett's books which I would think would be valuable source material, with 4 titles covering all of the 506th's campaigns. He served in A Co., 1st Battalion, 506th PIR. I would be happy to help with the research if needed, but that's the easiest part of the project. The books are -- Curahee! (Training and Normandy) -- The Road to Arnhem (Market Garden) -- Seven Roads to Hell (Bulge) -- Beyond the Rhine (Germany) Good luck, I will be following your progress and look forward to the campaign.

And I think many more G's were produced, so by extension making it more likely than not I suppose.

I don't know that it has more vehicles, it might. But it does have the most advanced vehicles in the series, like Jumbos and Jagdtigers that you won't find in other titles. I don't think you could go wrong with any of the games honestly. FB is full featured, but will take some time to percolate before it can match the content in CMBN with the big bundle. Bottom line is it won't matter which game you get if you don't end up liking Combat Mission. And if you do like Combat Mission you will get them all

I think this is the best advice. Normandy was my first CMx2 game, and I chose it based on 3 reasons -- Western Europe is my favorite theater, by the slimmest of margins as I am interested in everything WW2. -- Most user made content, especially campaigns -- Most in-game content, as I bought the big bundle I can't do better than Bulletpoint's advice, so I will only say +1, though I would change 'time period' to 'theater', or theatre if that's your bag. I don't feel there is any correlation to map size based on which game you buy. It's purely down to the mission designer. While again Bulletpoint's comment about the restricted nature of the bocage is a good one, and surely does influence the overall size of some scenario maps, you will find small and large maps in any of the games of the Combat Mission series.

This is the main point as far as I am concerned. I was a big 'early' CC fan, and I, like Steve, played the hell out of that game (released in '97 incidentally, CC1 would have been in early '96). Personally I hope the new game is good, and I hope I will like it and play it, but I don't see, even if I do, that it would mean I stopped playing CM. For me it will probably come down to the campaign/operational level, if it exists, provided the battlefield mechanics are sound. I admit I know little about their plans. All games have strengths and weaknesses, CM included. But in any field, competition is good for the end user, as it drives innovation, quality and content. I don't know that the success, or failure, of the new game would cause Battlefront to do anything differently, but a successful competitor can only be viewed as a good thing for us grunts that love these sorts of games.

Yes that's Hell in the Hedgerows. Just played this one a week or so back, and those bunkers were difficult as I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.

.Ecoqueneuville was the second mission (unless playing the revised campaign). It was an attack on a town, and the best way to describe it was it had a crossroads dead ahead of your starting positions with a well sited ATG firing down that road after it turns 90 degrees to the left. To the left were hedgerow-enclosed fields. Bah, that could be any of a dozen scenarios. Found a screen of the map. This battle also features 2/8 Infantry, not glider troops, and had no bunkers. http://blog-imgs-60.fc2.com/o/t/m/otmtt/CMBN2_15.jpg Hell in the Hedgerows might be the one you're referring to as it featured glider troops and several bunkers along the back edge of the map.

Hey I'm trying to ease the confusion! But then again, I started it. Here is a shot from Beau Guillot from another forum http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k264/niall_011/Road%20to%20Mountebourg%20Campaign/RMC7_zps90c83481.jpg~original And PT posted the mission list in this thread This is the first mission isn't it?, and has the bunker and minefield along the right flank which can be seen in the screenshot.

This mission is actually Beau Guillot, to avoid any possible confusion. It is the first battle in RtM as mentioned by Anthony P. And while I'm making corrections... that mission was leg units, not paratroopers. 2/8 Inf, 4th Division?

Now that I look at it.... using my very unscientific measurements, the man standing is about the same height as the vehicle. StuG IIIs were 7 ft high, That's a big bloke. And I also saw that the thread you posted in CMBN forum shows a Stug III and the crew look much smaller in relation. I won't say that pixeltruppen are too small

It could be. I guessed Ausf. F because it has no Shurzen, or Topfblende mantlet. And I suppose that most of the changes in the G were on the superstructure, which is hard to make out in this shot. Early G's had neither of these things so could be. What identifies it as a G?

Well, there were StuGs built on Mark III and Mark IV chassis. More StuG IIIs were produced making it somewhat more common. The StuG IV became operational in early '44.

Looks like a StuG to me. StuG III Ausf. F?

That should be 1919s I'm sure. About Hell in the Hedgerows... it was mentioned that MG effectiveness was changed in a patch. I got the game after that, what was changed? Does it have a significant effect on certain MG-heavy battles, or in missions like this one with several MG bunkers, that were created pre-patch? I imagine battles with a large amount of open terrain would feel balanced differently as well.

I've been playing a number of campaigns, and have come across bunkers a few times. This is just more anecdotal evidence of my experience. -- In one of the very early missions in Road to Montebourg you have roughly two paratroop companies that need to cross open ground and take entrenched positions held by maybe 2 platoons of Germans with a MG42 bunker and mines on the right. The name might have been Ecoqueneuville , but I can't recall with certainty. I was able to suppress the bunker and eventually cause moderate casualties using long range fire from tripod mounted M1917s. These guns were set up near the start positions, probably 300 meters and were effective, achieving many penetrations. So much so that I believe the crew abandoned the bunker before our close assault. -- Later in RtM, in the mission Hell in the Hedgerows there is a line at the back of the map with several bunkers that withstood over 30 minutes of continuous small arms and .30 cal MG fire with a total of 2 casualties, one in each of two bunkers and at no time noticed any level of suppression. Unable to overcome any of these bunkers with the weapons at hand I eventually took a minor defeat as it would have been too costly to assault and I felt the need to preserve the troops for subsequent missions. Not much can be learned from what I am writing. However, in each case it was the same type of bunker (wood), same type of troop, same weapons, same range, same version of CM (3.11). But in the former case the fire was very effective, and in the latter, not at all. I had concluded that perhaps it had something to do with the angle the fire was coming in on. For example if the shooter is slightly above, slightly below or level with the firing aperture of the bunker does it make a difference?

I agree, he made KG Engel, correct? That's been my favorite campaign I've played. Innovative missions like Tiger Poaching, Guardian Angel and Hunters in the Mist. I enjoyed it start to finish, even though Deliverance kicked my ass. Which final mission did you get? I know there was a defend mission also, but I got the attack mission and it was too difficult for me. My hat's off to anyone who managed a victory in that one. A few thoughts on The Outlaws. Your paratroops are crack. This makes the early missions sort of easy really. And quick. I played probably the first 4 battles in a single evening. Not only do crack troops deal devastating fire, I was amazed over and over as they survived situations that would have resulted in casualties with lesser troops. However, things turn more difficult with the mission D+1. A nice change of pace after dealing with troops that get rattled by the sound of their own artillery (like Scottish Corridor)