Sequoia

Wow, Steve usually doesn't have this much time to post before a upcoming release. This must mean things with Red Thunder are going really well.

One Force that IIRC was not even in CMBB are Soviet Airborne troops. I think their last significant drop was near Kanev in 1943 but I'm not well read on the subject.

Did you know much of the Soviet Heavy Armor in Panzerblitz was given overrated armor protection because there was no hard data available in the West when the game was created in 1971?

It's possible we might see Schwimmwagens and Seeps in the CM:BN Battlepack but we probably won't have amphibious function until say version 5.0. I don't think I'd want to do an amphibious crossing in a Schwimmwagen in real life.

I was thinking some more about what else might be in the first Battlepack and one thing that came to mind was captured vehicles. This would be in addition to the French Vehicles the Germans used that have already been mentioned in this thread. I don't recall that CMBO had any captured vehicles. CMBB had plenty and I was wondering how wide spread the use of captured vehicles was on the Western Front. I know some were used and the off the top of my head assumption would be the Allies captured more German vehicles than the Germans captured Allied. However again my assumption would be is the Western Allies would be less likely to use captured German AFVs than the other way around. I certainly can see the Allies putting any captured transport to good use however.

Over 50,000 Scwimmwagens were made? Are you sure that wasn't Kubelwagens?

What was the weapon from CMBB that was sort of a Molotov Cocktail launcher? I would suppose it was a weapon of desperation too and again would not be approriate for the Bagration time period.

BFC has always said CMBO sold better than CMBB even though CMBB was a bigger and better game. I would assume and I bet they are too the same will hold true for East front vs West in CMX2. To address some points. Many thought the Market-Garden module wouldn't have enough in it to warrent a purchase until after they saw everything that would be included in it. I think that will hold true for the Bulge Family but it could also hold true for additional Eastfront '44-45 material. What I mean is each of the following would have enough in it to justify a module: Army Group South: SS, Luftwaffe and Fallschirmjaegers, Lendlease vehicles for the Soviets. Other Axis: Finns, Hungarians and Romanians. Partisans January '45 offensive: Winter warfare on the Eastern Frint. Later war vehicles and Poles. Late War South; Budapest, Spring Awakening and into Austria. Battle for Berlin Battlepacks Now I really don't think we'll get all these, but I would say that theoretically it would not be overkill.

Realistic deep snow fighting. Perhaps not Donnor Party deep but deep enough to make winter fighting significantly different then what we've seen in CM:FI so far.

When Steve says TO&E has changed, does he mean in the way the Engine handles TO&E? Since we're staying with 2008 actual force structure wouldn't be changing.

I was considering the scope of the last year of the War in the East and the fact that the equivalant in the West is going to take two Families: Normany and Bulge. Will one Family be enough for the Easterns front's last year? I understand that an Eastfront game will probably not sell as well as the Western Front games and perhaps for some, one game Family with the Soviets having overwhelming operational superiority over the Germans is enough, but there is just so MUCH happening on the Eastern front on such a scale I think that if Battlefront wanted to there's certainly enough material for two families.

Offhand my take would be making the 0.8 to 1.0 point difference would be desirable. I would think at least 20% of seriously wounded men could at some time return to front line duty. I know of no army that would prefer its men dead to seriously wounded despite the medical attention that must be spent on them.

I thought for sure buddy aid means it is less likely the casualty will become KIA and thus fewer points to the enemy.

Not sure what you mean. Elefant does not equal Jagdtiger.

I would think Viet Nam would be interesting but the list of subjects BFC have said they are doing, would do, or are more likely to do the Viet Nam include: Normandy Battlepacks Italy Battlepacks East Front '44-45 Modern Ukraine Massive upgrade of CMSF Bulge and Westfront '45 Eastfront '43 Eastfront '42 Eastfront' '41 North Africa France '40 And even WWII Pacific and Korea because of the carry over from other games. So in other words I'm afraid I wouldn't count on it ever happening.

I know there's no location as famous in the west as Nijmegen or Arnhem but I thought I'd ask.

I agree it doesn't sound like Steve or Charles. Their position has been if it wasn't there it won't be in the game though I think they gave us the T-90 in CMSF for game play reasons as I think the evidence Syria had them in 2008 was dubious. Still they drew the line at the T-80.

That has to be some sort of small artillery tractor.

Thanks for the info Chris. The discussion in this thread makes me wonder if we might see Ukrainian insurgents in the game.

Rather than continue the JS III vs Hetzer discussion in the German aar I thought I'd bring it to this thread just to comment that Steve once mentioned the possibility of doing what if vehicles in some future module (perhaps with the Bulge family so we're talking a long way down the road). The JSIII did not see action in the war but I think it would be a better candidate for inclusion as one of the "what if" vehicles than the Maus or E-100 which were mentioned by Steve. I just don't think the Maus or E-100 really had a serious chance of entering production. They are totally impracticle AFVs. Other good what if choices would be Centurions and maybe the Panther II. Any other good choices or do you just love the Maus no matter what?

I think we'd see Nazi propaganda posters rather than Commie as we're moving into German held territory. Rail signals would be great. I bet we could find a WWII eastern Front Railroad grog because Railroad grogs are just as obsessed as Tank grogs. I don't think we'll see rolling stock for the same reasons we won't see civilian vehicles yet on any front. Dan Olding said they won't do them until they can change from a relatively undamaged state to a blown up and burnt out state. I noticed the cabbage patch however. Interesting. We'll need a cabbage grog however to let us know what times a year we'd have full grown cabbages. Off the top of my head I think June is just about right.

If they are added eventually however don't expect them to have horses. It's a long running joke on these forums to ask for horses but the serious answer is they would take an enormous amount of time to code to work in the game properly.

It'll be interesting to see what BFC comes up with for a backstory, not that a realistic one would be critical for enjoying the game but it would help me at least with the immersion. I wonder if some one in the inner circle will at least tell us if they put a lot of thought into the backstory. The CMSF story, although unlikely, at least seemed operationally credible to me.

I thought Hetzer translated as Bushwacker. Anyway I went over the list of German vehicles for RT and the following along with the Hetzer will be entirely new to CMX2: STUH 42 Late 251/16/d Flamethrower halftrack And the following other halftracks. Market-Garden gave us the C ausfalle for these. I don't know what the difference is. 251/1/d 251/2/d 251/3/d 251/7/d 251/10/d 251/9/d

Interesting, but could you see an intial Russian drive into the Ukraine being halted along the Dneiper and/or Crimean Isthmus for a time being and the US commitiing Airborne and Marine MEUs into the line as token forces more for political reasons rather than military until the US/NATO completes it's build up where ever that may be a counter offensive?