Emar

If you would like to see a huge op in action getting ready to upload Blut und Ehre for CMAK to the scenario depot. It takes place on an 8k by 4k map of Normandy near Caen. This campaign is 15 battles of 20+ turns each, and turns on my 2.4 Pentium computer take over a minute to process. As Soddball stated above the map is the hardest part and this one took several months to get right. Operations this big are an ambitious project and you should definately master creating some smaller ops first.

Gotta say I like the depot the way it is now. I think the reviews now are a lot more honest now that there is no motivation to either promote or demote scenarios to make the list. Would also think that a particualary good or bad scenario would tend to make the top 20 most reviewed list that is currently featured. Also I would have to think that now that you are required to log in and give out your e-mail address to post a review that trolling has pretty much dwindled off (have not seen much of Tommy Tiddlywinks or whatever his name was). Before it was entirely possible for anyone to make up a name and post a review and I think that this could be one of the reasons for less reviews now. Not sure that all folks would want to have to post a review in order to download another scenario. Sometimes I download a bunch but then only play the ones that appeal to me. Would think that this might lead to people posting bogus reviews just so they could download again. And as for the "best scenario" lists well one mans treasure is another ones trash. And most players only play a scenario once, even though anybody who thouroughly playtests a battle or op knows a CM scenario can play out a hundred different ways. At the CM level of combat balance of a scenario often depends on the success of one or two tanks or priority units. Score a lucky hit on a critical enemy unit and suddenly people are griping about how unbalanced your scenario is. I know from playtesting ops that if you play it 50 times you are likely to see a full spread of results, just as if you were rolling dice. Having said all that if you do decide to intitute a top 10 list perhaps the worst review or 2 could be ignored in the scoring (but not deleted). Another possibility is that when a review is posted it could be set up to not officially affect the scenario score until the author can reply to it. Then have it set up so the reviewer would have to reply again to confirm or change his review depending on their satisfaction of the authors explanation and rebuttal. Admiral I certainly appreciate and applaud your efforts for the CM community. There is no other site like yours

No access to fax machine till Monday and the boss frowns on personal use so just sent you a big e-mail. Probably have more stuff in other books. Hope it helps. Eric

I have in my collection a decent book by Otto Kumm "Prinz Eugen" which has a battle map of the general area for Rosselsprung(crude map but has force markers for both sides on it) along with 8 or 9 pages of descriptions of the operation "including both SS Gebirgs and SS Fallscirm aspects" along with original orders and reports from the battle. Would be happy to scan them and e-mail to you. If you are interested let me know. Taking the little woman out for the day but could probably get them to you before monday. Let me know Eric

Red dog I believe I remember a couple of battles made around this one. If I recall correctly one depicted action in taking and holding the drop zones for the SS paratroops. The other one I remember depicted the attempt at capturing Tito. Not sure of the names of either one but I beleive the Dropzone one might have been done by Andreas. Also pretty sure I saw both of them at the depot. Had been kicking around doing another CMBB op in the GP series based on this one myself as the grond contingent was made up of SS Gebirgs but I never got around to it.

Maybe going out on a limb here but it sounds a little like my "Greif" scenario depicting Skorzeny's attack on Malmedy during the bulge offensive. Maybe take a look and see if thats it. Good hunting.

This mod wiil go great with my Istibei operation (#8 from the Gebirgs series). I used French troops in place of the Greeks back when I initialy released it so after adding the Greek conversion mod the scenario will be ready to rock. Thanks Tom, keep up the great work.

Happens to all of us. Going back to your original query operation or battle size will give you a better estimate of what you are getting into when you choose a scenario than a point total will. Happy hunting.

Yes , battle and op "size" is determined by the number of units involved. This includes reinforcements in battles and ops. Learned this when I created my series of medium Gebirgs ops, many of which are exactly one unit short of being rated large. On the flip side an 8k by 8k map with a platoon on each side would be rated tiny.

I find it easier to judge battles and ops by size as this is a true indication of how much muscle power will be required by your computer processor. Since CM rates small, medium, huge ops etc. by the number of units in the scenario, (As this is the number of units it will have to process movement and combat options for) and not the point value of the units which as stated above can vary from a handful to a hundred.

Michael, will throw out another grog question since you seem to be the man to ask. I am currently working on 2 ops set in the Canadian sector of Normandy and some of my sources mention the use of AVRE tanks at Berniers and other battles as well as mentioning infantry support from Crocs. Could these then have been British manned tanks on loan or is the information in error (dont have the books in front of me but believe one of the sources was "fields of fire"). If the tanks don't belong in the Normandy ops then I want to leave them out to be accurate.

So how did things work out? Did you capture the city?

Has anyone done a mod for this uniform? Did not come across any at CMmods.

Perhaps the Jagdpanzer IV/70?

Most of what I have read seems to indicate that the M3 was a cheap and easy to work on vehicle with good reliability. The German HT's on the other hand are considered to have better off road ability (because of their longer tread length. It would be more realistic to consider them 3/4 tracks than 1/2 tracks.) but achieve this using a much more complex and difficult to manufacture steering system design. The open top HT proved too vulnerable to air attack and shell splinters. Towards the end of the war the Germans had a very modern looking replacement on the drawing boards. It used the the pzkpfw 38t chasis lengthened with an extra roadwheel and was fully enclosed with rear doors and a 20mm turret. However, as with most of Germany's late war projects, it became just a pipedream.

I have been working on a Normandy series of ops and got to wondering whether it would be possible to do a cornfield mod to replace the vineyard tile in CMAK? That way you could make maps with alternating wheat and corn fields like you see in all the aerial photos. Would imagine that the cover and concealment factor would be roughly the same and it sure would make the Normandy maps purty.

Dont know about other wargames but give my "Lemberg" op a try. It is available at the scenario depot and is a recreation of the drive on the city by Gebirgsjaeger in September 39 for CMAK.

The original halftrack was a modification made for the Czar of Russia to one of his cars. This was done by replacing the cars back wheels with a track and bogie assembly in order to allow travel in Russia's extreme winter conditions. The modifications were performed by a fellow named Kegresse, a French engineer who managed the Czar's personal fleet of automobiles. Interestingly the French, British and Americans all had Citreon-Kegresse halftracks in their inventory during the 20's and into the 30's but failed to exploit their military potential, with the British dropping the halftrack completely by the 30's. Also, as previously mentioned in the above posts many halftracks used a simple wheeled steering system. This however was not the case for the the Sdkfz 251 and 250 family of halftracks as well as the heavier gun tractors used by Germany. They instead used a much more complicated "cletrac" controlled differential transmission attached to individual drum steering brakes on the drive shaft. These slowed the tracks to variable speeds on which ever side of the vehicle the steering wheel was rotated towards in order to turn the vehicle in conjunction with the front tires. [ June 11, 2004, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

Once you get used to the idea that assault and advance ops are about gaining ground they are not all so bad. On the opposite end of the tactical defeat you recieved for 75% of the map conquered I have reached the end of the map when playtesting some of my ops with decimated forces but ahead of schedule and recieved total victory. If the designer allows just enough time to get the job done then these ops can be a balanced and fun challenge.

Although the factors you mentioned do count for your final score, the amount of battles it takes your forces to reach the end of the map in assault or advance ops is also a major scoring factor. The operation designer decides the number of battles for an assault or advance op and if you only made it 75% accross the map before the op ended it would likely be considered a defeat. This is why it is important for op designers to let you know in the breifing how many battles you have to reach the map end so you know how aggresive and possibly reckless you need to be with your forces. It is also helpful for the designer to inform the attacker of landmarks on the map which let the attacker know when they are nearing the far edge of the map. As for your other question I would venture a guess that your battle lines were not redrawn because you had just finished the last battle allowed by the op designer and were out of time. Therfore the final score was based on the location of your frontline in the last battle. [ June 06, 2004, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: Emar ]

Thanks Keith, musta skipped the caps button. That fixed that problem and I am registered but I can only access my CMBO and CMBB scenarios. No link to the CMAK stuff. Love the new look and the featured battles and ops section. Eric

Attempted to register myself on the new site and filled in all the fields and picked a password. i got the e-mail sent message but no e-mail came through. Tried again after awhile but got a user name already taken message.

Sounds great Keith, your hard work is well appreciated. Couple of quick questions for you. Will you automatically be transfering all of our old scenarios to the new site or will we have to reload them? Since authors can change and upgrade scenarios will they also have the ability to delete them? ie as in some of my older stuff that is not so great. I figure it would free up bandwidth (I can't be the only one who has a few lame ones binding up your website) Love all the great new features and wishing you luck on a smooth launch Eric

Leave Aberdeen proving grounds off your list. Lots of rare and unique WWII armour and equipment sitting outside unprotected and turning to rust. From what others have told me Bovington is the one to see