sburke

3rd Company was positioned to defend the central crossroads and the sunken road leading to the manor. 1st pltn would occupy the center position and act as the advance trip wire for the Co. They would be pulled into the fight for the center crossroads and suffer badly. Their AT unit however would account for the first Sherman kill by a Shrek team. 2nd Pltn would act as the company reserve 3rd pltn would carry primary responsibility for interdicting the center crossroads and would withstand an incredible amount of firepower stalling the Allied advance cold.

2nd Co was positioned on the right flank holding the Hamel manor itself. As it happened the Company was completely uninvolved in most of the battle and at one point was earmarked for a possible counterattack into the American right flank. This was cancelled when US units were spotted shifting over towards the Company positions. 1st Pltn was positioned as a reserve to reinforce 3rd Co if needed or it's parent Company. It would eventually move forward to support 1st Pltn 3rd Co and would get caught in a sudden American artillery barrage. Though hurt badly it would contribute to stopping the American attempt to flank 1st Pltn 3rd Co positions including accounting for a Stuart threatening to break into a positon weakened by that same artillery barrage. The Americans did not know it, but the position had been severly dislocated. Due to the efforts of this platoon, they were unable to capitalize on the moment. 2nd Pltn was to cover the roadway and wheatfield on the far right flank. 3rd Pltn was positioned as the advance unit covering 3rd Company's flank.

1st Co was given responsibility for just under half the Battalion's frontage. However it's half of the battlefield was accessible to all the PJ BN units. This would turn out to be very fortunate. 1st Pltn would be positioned with one squad in reserve on my far left flank oriented towards the left crossroads. When the American attack kicked off to their left it was essentially behind them. The two teams in the field with the Co sniper immediately displaced to re align behind the next hedgerow facing the unexpected attack. 2nd Platoon had the single most exposed position of any unit and would pay the price. The Platn HQ and forward units being virtually annihilated. It would however fight stubbornly from these positions almost singlehandedly holding up the entire initial American advance. 3rd Pltn would also play a critical role in disrupting the American advance. The team on hwy 91 would cause significant casualties to the advance units moving up on Hwy 91 before pulling back to join the rest of the platoon in what became essentially a fortified position stopping the Americans cold. One of it's AT units would lob a round into a Stuart as well deterring US armor units from moving forward. Eventually it would fallback to the next hedgerow aligning some of it's units to cover it's left flank catching the Americans advancing into the orchard between it and 2nd Platoon.

The battle is still raging so it is somewhat presumptive of me to discuss the deployment and it's effectiveness, but I thought it would be interesting to see my perceptions now versus what they might be by the time the battle is over. Hell my entire defense could collapse. To provide perspective though, our casualty threshold for the Germans is 35%, for the Americans it is 45%. My current casualty rate 45 minutes into the battle is approx. 22%. I do not know the American casualty rate but I have reason to believe it is quite high. I count probably a dozen tanks destroyed and the battlefield is littered with American casualties and those are only the ones I can see. KG Lang planned the defense focusing on the main fight taking place around Hamel Manor. With that in mind 1st Co was given a far larger share of frontage and in some of the worst terrain. In fact the inital attack would fall on their zone forcing 1st Co to carry far more than it's share of the fight and therefore casualties. I have cropped pictures to retain the details of the unit commanders. As you review the unit positions, note the condition of the units and C&C status. My radio net is functional however the platoons themselves are a different matter. Visibility issues and restrictive terrain would mean many units fighting relatively isolated. Despite this the defense has been surprisingly tough. The Battalion is well spread out and despite a very heavy bombardment, casualties at least from the preplanned bombardment were minimal. All units had hide orders and were in foxholes so they were pretty much eating dirt. The Battalion position was planned in depth with foxholes dug not just in initial positions but also fall back positions. Considering the state of the battalion it was fully expected we would be driven back and forces were positioned so that the Americans would constantly have to overcome fresh previously unspotted defensive positions. The MG sections of the heavy weapons company were my deep reserve and many of them would eventually be dispatched via my battle taxis (Kubelwagens and trucks) to bolster 1st Co. Note how deep the StuG BN units were for the most part positioned. Their role was to be a constantly moving reserve to hit the American armor whenever it threatened my infantry and to keep the American advance off balance. Also the AT guns were positioned to be so deep they would be outside the area of expected intial American bombardment and able to contribute to the late battle. The Marders are on my right as I expected them to be particularly vulnerable. Once spotted they could be taken out by artillery. My right side has more limited long range visibility from the American positions. As it wasn't till late that the Americans shifted to the right this was fortuitous. Major Lang, the Commander of KG Lang the morning of July 16th. Note the injury from the previous evenings bombardment. (gotta love our modders). Advance OP position 1/1/3rd Pltn. The center crossroads is out of the field of view to the left. This team would account for one of the many American TC casualties.

LOL BFC my ap shells aren't creating a shockwave path in the wheatfield! Fix or do sumfink!! As it is because we have our god view, JonS has been able to determine where approximately the fire is coming from. Unfortunately that hasn't helped him yet. BTW, who designed this scenario? Whomever it is, thank you. It is a really fluid battle. (In the Shadow of the Hill 8 30am)

Just to be really clear in case anyone else misses it. I really do appreciate that folks nitpick the game as I am sure BFC does. Who wouldn't want a mass of people to examine every minute particle of their product to help improve it (and for free ). It is more an issue that it seems that is all that is on the forum and a person new to the product is not going to necessarily understand that what it really reflects is a level of devotion to make it the best product it can be. We wanted to show those same folks just how damn good it is and why folks care so much.

Or the game does play out astoundingly accurately and shows how the German army was able to last so long before collapse. I think most of us would never consider trying to play this battle as a normal scenario as the German situation at first looks horrendously bad. But just as in real life, mortars (with trps), machine guns and a few well placed armored units prove to be a helluva a lot harder to defeat than the classic- "3-1 odds is the magic number" would have us believe. The terrain here has been a huge force multiplier. As to that engagement distance, well I'll let the battle speak for itself, but I think we can confidently say that this terrain showed some very unpredictable LOF and the line of smoke pyres sometimes deep in the allied position will speak volumes.

And don't even bring up the topic of Tigers with him. To JonS point, you can't just assume a Pak will achieve the same result in CM unless you set the conditions the same. This is where scale of map and terrain/visibility conditions come in to play. As I'd noted in response to a question about my Huertgen map, I decided to change the map to remain true to scale as altering the scale would alter how CM units performed. Too often our maps are too small. A blind person could figure out where a pak was at 300 m when it fired. A pack at 1000 meters concealed behind a wheatfield. Well that is a different matter.

This would be the left flank of the American attack and the scene of repeated thrusts by Infantry and armor trying to force the Germans back away from Hwy 91 and exposing the flank of the manor position. This view is from the American side. The dirt road leading down and away here would be the lair of another StuG which would maul the first attempts by American armor to suport the GIs trying to take this position. The inital defense of hwy 91 would be the responsibility of 3rd pltn 1st Co. positioned to the right of this view. When it eventually fell back responsibility for the crossroads would be assumed by 1st and 3rd platoons 3rd Co. View from the center crossroads. You can begin to see this is effectively the crest of a slope with observation down towards the wheatfield. Another view of the dirt road. Beyond that tree line is Hamel manor. View from Hamel manor towards the hotel. Note the crossroads and TRPs in the German defense zone. Our tour will be briefly delayed. Significant troop movements have been noted and it seems the axis of the American attack may change. That would require more map information for areas I was not expecting to cover. I will work at cleaning up the screenshots more. I was deliberately including the details of the units to show morale, C&C state etc and may still include that periodically, but I need to work on my cropping and get rid of the compass.

View from outpost position of 3rd Platoon 1st Co. into the Orchard on hill 108. This team would eliminate two separate American recon units making a major contribution to disrupting the American timetable, it would then execute a succesful withdrawal from it's exposed position and continue to contribute to a stubborn defense of the position on hwy 91. This platoon and an MG sect positioned behind the bloody orchard would end up forming a classic L ambush of an American force that would advance into the orchard to try to flank 2nd Platoon in the wheatfield. American view as they would enter the orchard. Note foxhole from one of 3rd platoons original positions. Also note the slope of the ground. The German defense was premised on holding Hamel manor. The manor and adjoining fields are on high ground overlooking the wheatfield. The loss of that position would compromise the entire German defense. For the Germans this fed expectation the Allied attack would originate on the right flank or center. Hwy 91 where it passes behind the bloody orchard and runs through the left crossroads. Again note the slope of the terrain. This section of Hwy 91 would become a bitter experience for the GIs of 35th Division. It would also be found to be shockingly vulnerable to the BN assault guns deep in the German defense line. The 3rd platoon team was postioned near where the wall along the road terminates. It would eliminate one recon unit in the orchard out of sight of this view and then crawl over to the wall to ambush another unit. They did use a bit of overkill launching a PF into the recon team. Still it was quite effective. Hill 108 orchard, where attacks into bloody orchard would originate from.

Views from hotel towards the wheatfield. The wheatfield contributed a much higher level of concealment for infantry than either of us expected. The elimination of units from 2nd platoon cut off by the American advance would contribute to the casualty count for both sides and provide some dramatic moments (one of which was documented in comic book style in the screenshot thread. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1357669&postcount=345) View from hill 108 Orchard to Wheatfield The German defense included a number of lightly manned foward OPs. This is the view from the position of 1st Co sniper Nell towards where the first American assault units will come into view. The US engineers would be held up here for a few critical turns while mortar harassment fire would be called down on one of the few TRPs located in the American zone. Meanwhile the first platoon units behind this position would be shifted out of what had now become a vulnerable position. It had not been expected that this would be the launching point of the American attack. Score one to the Americans for surprise.

The Wheatfield, the left road and crossroads and the orchard adjoining the left crossroads would be the scene of a vicious struggle that would involve 2nd and 3rd platoons of 1st Company. 2nd platoon would be decimated, but the stubborn defense would unhinge the initial allied battle plan. Late in the battle it was revealed that the allied plan was to have a rolling barrage with the infantry following closely behind. That plan was disrupted by my forward units slowing the American advance and causing it to lose the advantages of the bombardment. By the time US units had hit the German skirmish line, the landser had recovered and were waiting. In addition the StuGs of the PJ Bn announced their presence by beginning to take out allied tanks before they could even begin to join up with the infantry. This is a view from the approx location of 1st Co HQ towards hill 108. Note the road becomes an effective barrier to German unit lateral movement. Any reinforcement would have to be planned as coming from deep in the German rear area. As the fitness level of German units was rated as poor this meant making sure the Germans had a system to move men quickly to reinforce the defense. The trucks from the AT units and Co kubelwagens would play an important if not critical role in this battle. I normally use quick as a standard move order. In this battle that was basically denied me, they would simply become exhausted. Views from 1st Co HKL position into Wheatfield. This position was manned by elements of 1st platoon, and the CO MG sect. They would be joined by reinforcements from the HW company, the PJ BN and retreating elements of 2nd Platoon. Though the expectation was this would be a temporary position followed by a withdrawal back towards the manor and BN HQ, the defense here held better than expected. The field would be littered by dead and wounded from both sides and mulitple American tanks. View from the wheatfield to American position at Hotel on hill 108. This would be the view of the first StuG to join the defense. It would proceed to destroy 2 Stuarts almost immediately upon taking position. Eventually the Americans would force their way into the orchard to the left of this position cutting off 2nd platoon from being able to withdrawal.

Now into the actual map screenshots For orientation the American attack largely jumps off from the area in the top left corner of the map from the hotel over to the center crossroads. All of this area is covered in orchard and some locations have very good visibility down to the Wheatfield. Overhead view The German positions are roughly everything below hwy 91. If you look closely you can see the orange dots of the TRPs. The German defense is partly premised on being able to stall the allied advance along Hwy 91 long enough to hit the Americans with artillery while exposed in the confines of the roadway. Most of the hwy is bordered on both sides by hedgerow making it very difficult for an attacker to avoid getting momentarily stalled on the hwy while preparing to breach into the fields on the opposite side. The key for them is to maintain momentum, the key for me is to make them too cautious to use the Rhino fitted tanks in that manner. This is the view from the American jump off position at the hotel note visibility does not extend very far past the first field. This will become a factor in how well American armor can support the attack while not becoming victom to German AT guns. The German BN HQ was well to the rear in what was thought to be a likely stronghold fallback position when 1st Co was forced back. View from BN HQs Part of the difficulty for the German position is the lack of roadways for lateral movement. With no demo charges the German armor was forced to fight separate battles as there would be no shifting of units from one side to the other. View from Hamel Manor looking down hwy 91 This is a lateral view along hwy 91 from Hamel manor towards the hotel. Again note the TRP well within the German lines. The German FOs were not placed in the front lines. The inital battle would be covered using a number of TRPs. As the troops fell back they would retreat towards the FOs.

"Terrain, weather, trivialities – everything concerned with the period in which [a soldier] undergoes his baptism of fire – burns into his heart and brain, some things confusedly, some things graphically, but all things unforgettably..."To a vet of St. Lo a remembrance of juiceless unripe apples, abandoned combat packs, a jug of the white-lightning Calvados, a dead GI still standing behind a hedgerow, Spring onions plucked gingerly from a booby-trapped garden, a ransacked peasant’s bedroom, a bevy of bees kibitzing over a can of 10-in1 jelly, may cause the complete picture of Normandy to unreel in his mind. "Again he will see vividly the dense green foliage of the hedges; the bright petite fields and orchards checkering Purple Heart Hill [Hill 108]; the sunken roads, foxhole-ridden." From the same account quoted in the introduction For those interested in the mechanics of mapmaking Broadsword has provide the materials used including a google earth link. This is the actual Op layer battle from St Lo. Map with Google earth locator with game board map overlay to locate terrain Google earth overview of map area Topo map of battle area. Dropbox link for google earth locator http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30964082/Hamel%20Vallee%20Battle%20Area%20July%2016%2C%201944.kmz

"...What was most terrifying of all was the whistling shriek of the incoming freight. Its soundtrack, tapering like a set of rails, started as a small point of noise and roared down the roadbed always expanding and always headed straight for Joe, Joe holding his breath to see if it was this one that had his bill of lading and only knowing that it hadn’t when it wrecked itself in a crescendo of blast and shock, its acrid burnt powder filling his nostrils, its unbelievably great explosive power lingering in his memory and suggesting shattering annihilation. "Often...these freight trains poured in as if funneled through a Herculean fire hose containing all the tracks in the Chicago yards, all tracks headed for the hole where Joe pressed himself down harder and harder into the alien Norman earth." From an account Broadsword came across written by the CO of the US regiment in our current battle: http://www.thomy.us/320/storyofthe320thpdfs/320th%20booklet%20text.pdf July 16th 1944. GIs taking cover from German artillery fire near the Hamel Manor This is the beginning of an AAR which will likely be quite long. The battle is now about 45 minutes in and still raging. This scenario is based on an OP layer campaign run by Broadsword for CMBN using the St Lo boardgame. I have been gifted with the privilege to play the German side in any CM games that are generated as well as offering advice on German operational plans. We have had I think 4 battles in this campaign prior to this one most of which had to be called due to OOM issues, but with enough info that we generally knew the outcome. This one, The battle for Hamel Vallee, was the first under 1.10 and the performance was a whole lot better (thank you BFC!). This was very fortunate as it was the largest battle of the bunch and is the German's last stand before St Lo. It has ended up being a truly epic fight and seemed to be the perfect platform to show off CMBN in all it's glory. No whining about missing features allowed. This AAR is to to show for those of us tired of the nitpicking of issues on the forum that we wanted to showcase just how good this game is. Not that those folks are wrong or that we aren't extremely happy they are part of the community, we just feel those issues need to be seen in the context that the game rocks and while addressing those items may improve upon it, they certainly don't define it. The battle is still going, but our expectation is it should wrap up fairly soon as we have a threshold limit on casualties that once it kicks in determines the effect on the OP layer battle regardless of the actual situation at the CM level. (the interaction is a little more complicated than that but I'll leave that for Broadsword to explain the mechanics - I'm just here for the fight ) The German situation is not good. The briefing is as follows: Overview 0730 Hours, 16 July 1944 Weather: Clear, ground dry. Situation: Our battalion raced to the front yesterday to block an expected major attack by the US 320th Infantry toward our division HQ, SW in Le Mesnil-Rouxelin. Fortunately, our spotters to the south on Hill 122 directed highly effective artillery fire onto the US battalion as it moved onto Hill 108, and stopped them cold. But our artillery is needed elsewhere and they do not have the ammunition to keep the Americans suppressed any longer. The US force brought up assets and replacements overnight, and is expected to attack at any moment. The massive US bombardment that began last night and continued into this morning has disrupted our force, leaving communications and leadership seriously impaired. We must make a firm stand here, because any breakthrough theatens to encircle our Le Carillon line to the W and our line blocking the Saint Lo-Isigny highway to the E, and would leave the door open to Hill 122 (the key to the campaign for Saint-Lo). Objective Defend and hold our battalion positions -- an area roughly 280m x 280m W of the D-91 road -- for at least 4 hours. Friendly Forces Our primary force is the 518th Battalion/Grenadier-Regiment 916. Strength: 60% strength. Fitness: Tired and battleworn: 3rd Company weakened, 1st and 2nd companies unfit. Supply: Adequate. Motivation: Normal. Experience: Veteran Leadership is poor (-2), due to the disruptive effect of the US bombardment. Order of battle: *518 Battalion/Grenadier-Regiment 916/352nd Infantry Division *4th Company/AG Bn/Panzerjaeger-Abteilung 352 (3 platoons of Stug III) *3rd battery/I. Falschirmflak Regiment 352 ( 2 x 88mm AT) *Forward Observer Team *916th Artillery Battalion (12 x 105mm, offmap, ammo supply adequate) *Reinforcements: None. Enemy Forces *3rd Battalion, 320th Infantry, 35th "Santa Fe" Infantry Division. This unit is fully trained to "regular" experience, rested, and fully manned, giving them a 3:1 superiority in personnel. But the unit has never seen combat. They moved into our sector yesterday and are believed to be lightly entrenched. *Enemy assets participating in the attack will include an Engineer platoon, and mixed armor in company or more strength. They will no doubt continue to have massive amounts of off-map medium artillery to use throughout the battle. Plan *Defend and hold at all costs. Do not reveal positions until enemy main units are within 300 yards. Allow penetrations but channel these into prepared kill zones and terrain favorable to our defenses. Use multiple lines and defenses in depth to wear out and stall the enemy attack. Preserve the Stugs as a mobile counterattack force to ambush enemy armor, but beware of the Shermans' superior mobility and ability to traverse turrets. Use indirect artillery only against known and spotted targets. My infantry battalion has been rushed into the line to stop an American breakthrough. Upon arrival in it's position with no time to dig in properly it was promptly hit by a heavy American artillery barrage. As a result the unit has has been rated as poor in terms of fitness which seriously impacts the staying power of my infantry. The position itself is also not great, it is the reverse slope of a hill (108) with the Americans on top. The only upside is the hill slopes away behind my position offering concealed movement capability as I shift units. I have also been given badly needed armored support in the form of 7 StuGs, an StuH 42 and 4 Marder IIIs along with a couple AT guns and supporting artillery fire from battalion and regimental mortars as well as divisional 105 mm artillery. My FOs have also had time to at least register a number of trp locations to aid my defense. This is it, a stand and/or die defense. I love these desperation battles! As the battle has not yet concluded, a review of set up and defense plans is still to be determined. However the true star of this battle is the map. There are a handful of folks who are true "map grogs' and I have the good fortune to have one as an opponent. Different mappers have different concepts. Some like creating unique battle situations, some create them to fit the requirements of a fair HTH battle to put opponents on equal footing and some are what I consider the simulation mappers. They want to create historical battles as true as possible to actual conditions. Broadsword is one of those and as you will see, the maps are outstanding. I also have the good fortune to have an opponent who likes to play CM with the view that it is a simulation engine not just a game. We play it to try to appreciate and understand what it was like to be there. In a sense we are historians who use the game to better understand the history. As we have fought about a half dozen battles we have some appreciation for each others capabilites, but over the past year we have both adapted to each others play and learned new tactics. On a side note, we do not have any set rules but the briefing and intent precludes a set up zone bombardment and I never like them anyway. Too easy to waste valuable artillery. On the other hand I expect pre planned bombardments from the Americans. No attacker should have to forego the opportunity to suppress the defense, it is one of the few advantages they have at start. Note the briefing also defines this as a prepared assault and not a hasty attack. For those who haven't tried but think you may be interested in PBEM I have only this to say. Selecting a PBEM opponent is very important to how much you will enjoy the experience. If you are clear about what your own vision is of what you want to get out of it and find a like minded opponent I can't recommend it enough. My debt of gratitude to Broadsword continues to grow the longer we play. Personally I feel I got more than my money's worth in CMBN even without the modding community, but Broadsword has easily increased the value of this game for me 10 fold. Watching my opponent successfully employ real world tactics is an absolute pleasure. Defeating them by doing something gamey would likely bother me more than Broadsword. I would have deprived both of us of what we most desire to see in the game. End result, we don't define rules, we simply try to apply what we understand from what we have studied. One conclusion I have personally come to is, any game has to have some amount of trade off decisions by the developer. You can't simulate everything especially things that are pure chance or based on human emotional reactions. Those trade offs represent decisions that make the game behave in such a way that you believe they accurately represent the average result in a given situation. I can't say that the decisions BFC made are going to be the best options given any terrain conditions, force structure or battlefield but my experience in this battle is I think they did a really damn good job in their decision making in CMBN. I know some folks might disagree, but our units performed about as well as we'd have expected and from everything we have read, we felt this battle showed all the difficulties inherent in attacking in hedgerow country. Tactical issues that we have read about (for ex trying to maintain an attack tempo behind a rolling barrage) played out almost exactly as many of the stories we have read. Combined arms tactics worked when we were able to apply them, but we also learned how hard that skill can be to employ and how even a minor disruption for a planned attack can have serious consequences. My AT teams were able to function, I don't think we really noticed any uber spotting by tanks (if anything we found armor to be highly vulnerable on the attack), tank commanders were suicidal to remain exposed for long around infantry, fox holes did provide a high degree of survivability from artillery etc etc. In short, the game engine worked and worked well - thanks BFC. So sit back and enjoy the tale of a ferocious fight on the morning of July 16th on hill 108 in Normandy. Hopefully this AAR will provide you with even a small taste of how intense this battle was for us and for those of you on the fence about PBEM, some idea of what you might be missing. To begin let's take a battlefield tour.

Or we could just focus on the million things they got right instead of the couple things we think they got wrong...speaking of which -coming soon!! an AAR of a battle showcasing all the coolest s**t in CMBN. Should start going up tonight. The Battle for Hamel Vallee July 16th 1944.

No that was full time from spotting to firing. Overall it looked good until the very last second. If you are down in the weeds watching, visually it would be much better if there were a pause from laying the gun to firing even if it were only a second or two. Honestly I don't usually watch that action at that level all the time, but when I do it is noticable. Is it important to me? meh. But I'd agree it does detract a bit. There is something really sinister seeing that 88mm gun turning and targeting and that extra second is something that you just so intensly feel what someone on the receiving end is thinking.... oh s**t!

I timed a tiger in a current PBEM match making an approx 30 degree adjustment to target an enemy vehicle at approx 10 seconds.

There is only one that I know of that seems to really focus on this (the Command Ops game series at matrix) and it is only playable against the AI. Can you cite some others that you believe do make this work? Just curious as most I have seen either react like an ant colony to any sighting of your units or just have a set rigid plan.

I am not sure exactly where the "theme" of the MG module originated. I can't recall whether BFC just mentioned using that as the title or if it represents the actual content. My hope is the module is actually more of a filler of unit ToE changes and terrain/scenarios/campaigns to round out the Game to the fall of 1944 (and would therefore hopefully include some items to do Scheldt Estuary,Huertgen, Aachen and Lorraine battles)

Really? The command or the actual instruction for the AI?

In the CW module - see there is something in there for the money

I still issue commands based on real tactics. I don't seem to see the laser targeting some folks notice (I recently had a Tiger come up into a hull down position at close range to an enemy Churchill that fired twice and missed high both times). Maybe that will change when I have opportunity to use a KT.

That could be a long wait. As I understand it CMx2 is much more difficult to try and mod for that. That being said, I don't think anyone expected to see Marines and Japanese infantry anytime soon either. Our modder community is pretty dang creative. I know it is so far down the list of possibilites I may not ever see it, but I'd love to be able to do the battle for France 1940.

And have clear objectives. The battles in the Huertgen suffered from a lack of a clearly defined objective. Edward G Miller goes to great lengths to review how long it took the American leadership to understand and define the Roer river dams as the proper objective and focus. MG whatever other faults it may or may not have had did have a very clear goal. Get a bridge across the Rhine. Everybody knew the objective and what that meant for their specific task. Whether it was achievable or if all the units had the proper tools etc is a different issue.