Sunray

I agree too. CMAK is enjoyable(especially the N African ops/scenarios)but not as much as CMBB imho. I think the "look" is important too. In particular the CM engine does not seem to model the Commonwealth or US vehicles as effectively as the Axis or Soviet vehicles. The German/soviet vehicles are, I think, hardcoded with more "knobbly bits" such as fuel tanks, spare bogies,add on armour etc etc which help create that 3D illusion. There are some glorious exceptions on the allied ( Brit/ US) side such as the Valentines/Crusaders but the sad thing is that the Sherman/M4 series lets the side down and these babies appear all the time in CMAK. These vehicles are just slab sided and despite the epic work by many(MikeyD, Aristotles special mention)that "3d effect" does'nt happen. It's not the modder's fault it's the raw material. Also the Brit/US soldiers somehow don't look as good. In particular the Brit helmets (both versions)are, well, poor and the US one looks too much like the Russian because that's what it probably is. Even the great AndrewTF can't work his magic on indifferent programming. Do you modder's have views on this? Cheers

Hi Vincere, AAC were good guys and always helped us out, but glad you got some proper training! We had a few fatalities in our Battalion too but they were spread out in time over the tour of duty. Worst Green Jacket single incident death toll was in London, not Northern Ireland, when the IRA put a bomb under the bandstand in Regents Park when one of the battalion bands were playing there. Seven killed July 1982. Ironic when you think that Bandsmen in wartime are stretcher bearers/medics but there you go. I never thought NI a walk in the park but we never had suicide bombers to contend with and most people were content to have us there. Not sure it's the case in Iraq, there are not nearly enough troops to do the job. Potentially very dangerous imho. Cheers

British Army 1970-74. Platoon Commander N Ireland 1971-73.Regiment Royal Green Jackets. No fatalities(thank God),two of my riflemen wounded by gunfire, many injured in riots. Compared to what is happening in Iraq now, N Ireland was probably a walk in the park, but at the time each "incident" seemed scary enough, at least to me. I was privileged to have in my unit some very brave men. One of my Section Commanders(Section=Squad in US I think)won a Military Medal. I do not know what the US equivalent bravery medal would be but this was one of only two awarded in my Battalion while I was in it.I am today(33 years later)still stunned by what he did. Relevance of above to CM? not much - too micro scale. On the other hand if somebody pops up on the forum having been a Centurion tank gunner on the Golan Heights in 1973 then we all should be listening very hard indeed. It is very interesting to read about everyone else's experiences. What of course does not come out in CM but is clear as day in the posts is the humour in military life. Cheers

Looks great: I think your vs AI scenarios are among the very best and recommend them to all players Cheers

I'm kind of interested by CM:SF but not yet in drool mode. I guess it's going to be a sort of 3D supercharged version of TaCops? Had it been exactly that (the cold war getting hot)then you would have experienced what I believe all BB/AK players feel when they play those WW2 games. This feeling is that they are "taking part" in a titanic struggle, the outcome of which is in doubt. That's what makes it so exciting, quite apart from the incredibly accurate gaming engine care of Battlefront. With great respect to the near future armed forces of Syria, a punch up between them and a near future US Army is not my idea of a titanic struggle unless you unrealistically rig the dice in favour of the Syrians.The problem is I don't want to play unrealistic scenarios - "Stryker platoon meets T80 battalion, but all US Aircraft and helos are grounded by sandstorm blah blah".Also how will the game deal with the increased "distance" in modern warfare? Tacops handles it by keeping the graphics primitive as hell but these days US tanks kill other tanks out to 5km so I'm going to need a 42 inch screen unless everything is reduced to dots on a map! The urban terrain stuff(which I feel was the AK/BB achilles heel)might be very interesting on the other hand because the US tech edge will be realistically less overwhelming so "fair" fights can be simulated. Maybe Battlefront will deliver the goods,and if not we will wait the WW2 module. Final point yes please to other friendly forces - the Brits have an army which fights now and then I believe(and quite well),ditto the IDF but maybe we are getting a bit political.... Cheers

Congratulations on your PZ marathon. Your work is amazing and we are lucky to be able to share it. If you were thinking of looking for new challenges why not have a crack at some of the many still completely unmodded/hardly touched allied vehicles in CMAK, particularly the Italian campaign versions eg Churchills(all) and Stuarts( recce and Kangaroo), Achilles, Wloverine, Priest etc etc Yours in hope

Excellent job as always Cheers

Sorry to hear you are having difficulties. I thank you for your outstanding contribution to the CM modding movement. Despite what you are saying I hope to see you back on these boards before too long. With all best wishes Cheers

Many congratulations! Cheers

For Wisbech_lad, Percival arrived May 1941: interesting bio summary on him at http://www.onpedia.com/encyclopedia/arthur-ernest-percival Cheers

Wisbech_lad I agree with you absolutely. It was not as if Percival had arrived in theatre at the last minute and had no time to change things. He was appointed to the post in the spring of 1941 and it was not until December that the Japanese attacked. During this period no real attempt was made to come up with realistic(Matador not realistic)plan to defend the Malaya Pennisular. Compare the actions of his contemporary, Montgomery, who arrived in the Middle East in August 1942,immediately "gripped" the 8th Army and was able to launch the Battle of El Alamein in October. Cheers

A number of you have mentioned in passing Lt Gen AE Percival who was C-in-C British Forces Malaya 1941-1942. I believe he comes very high on the list and deserves a bit of airtime. He presided over what was/is still considered to be one of the British Army's worst defeats EVER(imho comparable to Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown to a certain G Washington and friends in 1781). At the end of a 70 day campaign, well fought by a Japanese army only marginally larger than the British forces arrayed against them, Percival's poor and hesitant command resulted in the fall of the Malayan penninsular and Singapore and the the passing into ghastly Japanese captivity of around 130,000 Indian British and Australian troops. To be sure Percival had a number of problems not all of his making such as the incredibly flawed British central strategy that "Fortress Singapore" would be attacked from the sea. Needless to say the Japanese did not oblige and attacked from the "impassable" jungles of mainland Malaya. What made the whole affair even more shaming was that British casualties were under 10,000. Many of Percival's soldiers had to surrender without being getting into action at all because Percival had spread them out all over the place. Compare Stalingrad where although 91,000 Germans were taken prisoner, 110,000 were killed in the fighting. Quite apart from the military defeat Percival's failure had significant political implications as it marked the beginning of the end of the European colonial empires. Within two decades of the fall of Singapore all of them(British, French, Dutch)were gone.

Thanks Mikeyd for yet another clutch of excellent mods. The level of detail you manage to bring out is quite mind boggling. I look forward to the other Shermans rolling off your production line when you have the time. Slowly but surely you guys are working through the Italian front allied vehicles. Please don't stop as there is plenty to do! For instance could somebody have a crack at all those Churchills? maybe the universal carriers too as both these vehicle types appear in a good number of scenarios and the base art is pretty lame when compared to the kind of stuff now available at cmmods. Cheers

Thank you for these excellent mods. You make a very good point about the CM defaults being poor by comparison but then again if they have compelled you(and many others)to produce some outstanding enhancements(which you have)I ain't complaining! Cheers

This is really a message for AndrewTF - did you manage to find the time to upload those plain dunkelgelb 251s to CMMODS? I can't seem to find them, they are very good and it's great fun to be able to mix up colours of the 251 fleet between camo and plain yellow etc etc. If the dunkelgelb ones are up on CMMODS pl would someone please point me in the right direction? Thx.

Good point MikeyD. IMHO Ultimate German fantasy waste of time weapon was the V2 rocket. Required a huge investment of resources and was never going to alter the course of the war. Was'nt even used properly, should have been targetted on the Channel ports to interdict allied supply lines rather than kill a small number of Londoners. Dey, your mention of the Centurion and the Pershing makes me sad because it reminds me of the fact that the US and the Brits lagged the Russians and the Germans by such a huge degree in tank design until the war's end when the outcome was not in doubt. At least the Pershing saw action but the Centurion did not.Ironically the Centurion would then go on to qualify as one the best cold war era tanks but that would be little comfort to the many many dead and injured Sherman/Cromwell crew members. I believe an upgunned/uparmoured version of the Cromwell, called the Comet( appears in CMBO), was sort of Panther comparable(happy to be proved wrong) and they were deployed in small numbers in early 1945. What is amazing is that the powers that be knew about the armour mismatch in 1943 and went for quantity rather than quality in order to be ready for D-Day. Sorry seem to have wandered off topic Regards

Sorry MikeyD for not mentioning your excellent Brit Desert mods. Patboy, I like your Stummel v much. Since initial post (end May) there have been 14 CMAK vehicle mods uploaded to CMMODS, of which 6 were Allied (all Brit, none were US). Thanks to all with Mention in Despatches for Aristoteles. There is still work to be done on that list though as only one of 'em was was N African, the Rolls Royce M1920 AC. In the meantime I will pray for bad weather thus keeping the modding community chained to their keyboards. Regards

I definitely have the right patch. The programme does not ask for a "path" but for a "folder" - However I'll try what you suggest when I get home this evening Cheers

Could I ask for some assistance? I own the CDV version of CMAK (V 1.01)and use Win XP Home. I have d/l the appropriate 1.03 patch but when I run it I get message "The publisher could not be verified. Do you want to run this software?" When I then continue, the programme asks me to select the destination folder. The reason(I guess)is that the prog can't now install the patch automatically so I've got to do it manually. Which is the correct "destination folder"? Also is that all you need do if doing a manual install or do have to literally overwrite each file ( patch has six files - bmp,wav, 103 readme (no probs with them I think) but what about the other three? unins000( dat file), unins000(uninstaller)and CM Afrika Korps? Thanks in advance for any help.

Would some kind soul(s) please turn their modding talents to the Allied cause in North Africa. Alot of allied vehicles have yet to receive "the treatment". US vehicles needing mods are M3 Lee late, all the Stuarts( 4 variants) and the truck. As for the Brits it's worse, the following need doing - all the Cruisers(7 variants), all the Crusaders(5 variants),the Matildas* all the Churchills(3 variants)all the Stuarts( 4 variants), M3 Lee, Sherman II*and III* M7 Priest, 75mm SP, Humber II Armoured Car, Stuart Recce, Stuart Kangaroo. Those marked * have mods on them posted on the combatmission site but there is nothing up at cmmods as yet. I think every Afrika Korps vehicle(except for SPW 251/9 Stummel) has been modded at least once so Aristoteles, Gautrek, Heinzbaby, MikeyD et al please do your duty! Cheers

All best wishes to your wife for a full and speedy recovery. It must have been a terrible period for you both and I hope you can now look forward to happier times.

Very good work - big improvement on existing possibilities at CMMODS

I don't have many revolutionary thoughts and maybe those I do have are already mentioned by other posters but here goes anyway: Gameplay: - some form of "graduated" borg spotting eg only units in los within 100m can fire same turn at spotted enemy - ability to create mixed vehicle platoons/troops eg Brit Sherman/firefly combo with endless Axis variation particularly as that's what they did - more user friendly group/follow my leader commands eg waypoints, stock formations(wedge, column etc) auto intervals - we all know the problem - both for inf and vehicles - contoured/gridded terrain with on/off toggle - applicable on board arty( eg inf support but not anti-tank)to have indirect fire capability - new campaigns eg far east to cover Burma and Pacific and the 1940 campaign in France - a smarter AI(or somefink) - flares for night battles Graphics: - if Battlefront was able to upgrade the whole environment(terrain, buildings, vehicles, troops animations etc etc) to match(or exceed) that provided by say CDV's Codename Panzers and be moddable to boot then we'll getting somewhere! I don't know if that would be too processor hungry as a whole package so if not my individual wish list for an improved (not new) graphics engine would include - variety of individual colour/damage schemes for vehicles within SAME unit - eg take tools4fools' jgdpanzers in cmmos and have that amount of variety per INDIVIDUAL platoon vehicle - also vehicles should be individually numberable(not just the dreaded 808!) - greater variety of uniforms for infantry, again within same unit eg overcoats for some, white parkas for others within a single platoon - let's SEE those aircraft! - vehicles leaving tracks/tire marks - gunsight view available in planning and movement phases - improved animations for vehicle events eg destroyed(flying turret!)damaged(takes damage), track hit(loses track) - improved animations for infantry(these REALLY need a going over)eg variety of positions/poses within squads, rag doll physics for casualties - less matchstick men more Call of Duty in miniature - off board artillery firing animation with on/off toggle That's enough! Cheers

Slysniper and Piggdogg, as a mere 20 wargamer (first game was Avalon's Hunt the Bismarck)I feel humbled by your experience. Your posts about command and control are very interesting. A long time ago I was in the British Army and spent about half my 4 years service in Northern Ireland, acting as an infantry platoon commander. This was in the early 1970s which was an active period. I was in charge of 3 sections( squads in US speak)plus a HQ element(total 30-35 riflemen). My company commander was in charge of 3 platoons plus a HQ element(100-120).He might also have attached to him say an armoured vehicle troop and/or an engineer platoon depending on the nature of the operation. The Battalion commander (aka God)would have four rifle companies plus a HQ company and an Admin company(650-750). The Brigade commander typically would be in charge of 3 or 4 battalions(2500-3000)plus various support elements eg engineers, bomb disposal teams(these men were the bravest of the lot), military police, light armour etc. While I am describing an internal security type set up during the last century(!) the point I am trying to make is that although people (apart fom me) were commanding quite large numbers they would be broken down along the command chain into a manageable number of units, say half a dozen or so. In the heat of combat(when lots of things go wrong)I do not think it's possible physically/mentally to effectively control much more than this. Of course the advent of technology in the 30 years since I left the armed forces may have enabled commanders to command more and I'd be interested to hear from anyone on this. The CM series is by far most satisfying ww2 land warfare computer gaming experience I have ever played for combining the right blend of realism and enjoyment. Ok the graphics are not top notch but the modding community has vastly improved the stock bmps. I think the game is at its very best when the number of units per side is not so great (say 1500 - 2000 points)otherwise you are micro managing too many bits and pieces and per the earlier part of this post the game loses "realism" imho. Slysniper, you wondered if CM or someone could provide a similar modern warfare experience. Have you tried Battlefront's Tacops? It'a a great game but you will understand the problem in trying to portray modern land warfare on a computer, which is distance. CM just about gets away with it in WW2 but how do you portray Abrams and T80s slugging it out at ranges of 2 miles without reducing the units to blobs on your screen? I think Tacops does it very well btw but CM it ain't! Regards

Well done mchlstrt even though my dentures fall out every time I try to pronounce yr login name. These mods are v high quality. Have you ever thought of winterising them? That would perfect seeing as how they feature heavily in the Russo -Finnish conflict. Cheers