General Jack Ripper

Quite a few missing in action. I hope everyone's just busy.

I enjoyed Blueprint for Armageddon, but I was extremely impressed with The American Peril. Covered a period of time I have overlooked in my own studies.

So long as the next one tones things down a bit, I'd love to buy another one. That OP Linnet battle is so huge my computer gets the flu and vomits when I'm trying to open it.

I've been meaning to play this. I'll see about taking some time this weekend.

I've been meaning to give this a try, but I just haven't had the motivation lately. I'll try giving it a shot this weekend, maybe shoot some video.

Well, whenever I'm making videos, I hit record, hit play, record the turn video I want, stop recording, then trim the bits with the text off of each clip in movie maker. There's no wizardry, just simple cut and paste video editing.

NICE! That is all...

I notice you've extended the map quite a bit.

Work on Part Three - "The Infantry Company" has started. This will be slightly delayed because I have to do a bit more research than normal. I'll try putting together an Appendix on Supporting Weapons in the meantime.

Or I could smoke a cigar and drink some booze the next time I'm narrating. Maybe that will fix it...

The best advice I can give is to heavily restrict your use of target commands at ranges of 250 meters or less, unless you're deliberately assaulting a position, in which case your SMGs should be in your maneuver team, not your base of fire team.

Yeah, that's kind of like the Close Combat method. They just had a weapon labeled "Melee" which had a range of 0 and an accuracy of 50%, modified by the "Strength" and "Stamina" stat of the attacker and defender. Unit experience also counted, which is why Super Elite Snipers could ninja-chop whole squads at once.

You're exactly right here. If you are constantly running out of ammo, you're doing it wrong. Yes, I think the basic loadout of SMG ammo is criminally small, which is why I endeavor to pass out an extra 100 rounds or so to every squad that has one.

You clear a house by throwing grenades into it, not by rushing in and stabbing the defenders.

If the .50 was a useless weapon, Sherman crews wouldn't have been fitting them as replacement coax machineguns at the close of the war in Europe. According to Steven Zaloga, crews would remount the .50 as a coax weapon so they could still use it without having to get out of the tank, or open the hatches. There are also numerous examples of crews remounting the AA .50's from the rear of the turret to the front, such as mounting it in front of the loaders hatch. Yes, the weapon was intended for use as anti-aircraft protection during the march, but like all wars throughout history, if you put weapons into the hands of your soldiers, they'll figure out how to use them.

How many knife wounds were there in World War Two? 10? 20? 100? Probably less than 1000? Point us to a statistically significant amount of hand to hand combat, and then you might have an argument. Until then, you're effectively arguing for (to use Steve's own example): Tactical Cow Herds.

Well, if you have enough lying around to give every squad 1000 rounds, then ammo is not an issue

If you are playing multiplayer, then the idea has already been addressed. If you are playing single-player, be wary of using all your arty in the initial barrage. I find most scenario makers have the enemy force arrive in stages. So, no matter how much you smash the enemy setup zone, you'll only hit a fraction of the force at one time.

As a rule of thumb, any time you have access to vehicles with ammunition, pass out a bunch of the ammo, especially SMG ammo, during the setup phase. It's better to have too much, than not enough.

Yes, but Jon there is a very big difference between 'marked' minefields (green sign) and 'cleared' minefields (green sign with white X). The minefields in question were not marked, they were cleared as in, "There are no mines in this spot, guaranteed or your money back!" The TacAI needs to be instructed as to the difference between the two, and treat 'cleared' minefield as a zero-threat.

Test it by clearing with a Crab. I'm having a thought that the infantry might not be responsible for what happened, but I can't test until this weekend. Something about the minefields being marked as cleared before the crab detonates the mines. Hard to think now, talk later.

Now isn't that a pretty sight. A whole line of M1's ready to spit lead.

Here is the next installment of the new TTP videos: Yes, I sound like a robot. No, I will not be re-recording it. Screwing up the narration is what caused this in the first place. The next video will be an unscripted Appendix about supporting weapons.

That's how it looked to me as well. The AI seemed to say to itself, "There were mines here, stay away!" I will add the scenario file to the Dropbox folder. Done. If you play the scenario, enter the wheat field to the left of the starting position, and advance directly towards the farm complex, and you'll run right into it. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8x8dj1ydxmlx31f/AABctJ0_DjZpTvRQKH8qbxvda?dl=0 The first crossing used a Quick Command, with the waypoints placed in the action spot before the cleared minefields, and in the action spot on the other side. The cleared minefields formed a path one action spot wide two spots deep, and the squad leader walked off the path and stepped on a mine. However, I expected this behavior to occur given the new infantry spacing. <- That's not the one I'm complaining about... The second crossing also used the Quick command, with the waypoints placed on the short diagonal across the cleared lane, now being two action spots wide. The Team decided to deviate from the placed path, and ran around the outside edge of the cleared lane, suffering another casualty. <- That's when I noticed things were a bit strange. The final crossing used the Assault Command, with the waypoints being placed before and behind the central cleared minefields of the lane, now being three action spots wide. The first team skirted around the cleared zone on the right, miraculously not suffering a casualty. The second team avoided the cleared area on the left, losing one man, and the third team detoured around the cleared area far to the right, losing one man as well. <- This is when it became obvious something was wrong.

Every time I widened the gap, teams deliberately moved even further to the side in order to run around the cleared section. Watch the video, the behavior is blatantly displayed. The minefields in the neighboring spots had not been detected. I started with a lane 1 action spot wide, because I had only detected one minefield. After detecting the next one, I widened the lane another action spot. After detecting the next minefield, and still having guys run around the cleared lane, I widened it even further. A lane 3 action spots wide is as wide as an interstate highway. There's no reason troops should run all the way around the edges of the zone as opposed to running straight through it. Especially since the movement order was only as long as the lane itself. It's not like the movement through the minefield was part of a long move order. I literally parked them at one end, and told them to move directly to the other side.