sburke

Still the Americans keep coming, Kaumeier and his HQ team allow them to get a little closer. Now! The preferred weapons for close combat, an SMG and grenades The Americans go to ground faced with the unexpect fury of the defense Finally Hpt Kaumeier is hit. At this point only his radio operator and XO survive and promptly surrender. They are the only uninjured survivors of the last defence of La Compagne. On Hill 145 19 surviving members of 6th Kp have congregated for a last ditch stand. They have no artillery or AT weapons and no contact with higher command. The really intense portion of this scene was after this turn. While these men were surrendering I still had visibility in the woods. They are surrounded by GIs calling for them to surrender while the radio chatter from the now inaccessible batteries continued. You could almost imagine them calling "Hpt Kaumeier, come in! What is your situation? Have you held the Americans? Hpt Kaumeier?!". This game has just way too much depth to explain in a review. I kind of get BFC being pretty unconcerned about how many reviews they get, even the good ones just don't get how rich this game is. You just have to play it.

Aggressive to the point of being fanatic, the desperation of a last ditch defence and the chaos of battle is so intensely evident here, and these are not elite troops, but the battered remnants of 352nd Infantry division. In this, my second defense of La Compagne I am finding myself intensely attached to this unit. They acquitted themselves well in the first battle, but in this one they fought like lions possessed. Meanwhile in the orchard itself, 6th Kp HQ and a handful of men prepare to meet the Americans coming down from hill 146. Previously they had been preparing to launch an assault under cover of a smoke screen to try and gain the safety of the woods. The FO had been hit a few minutes ago and now all contact with the artillery batteries is gone. Once again the grenades are flying and the MG team is hit hard. Hpt Kaumeier with no time to consider other options prepares to make a last attempt to turn the Americans back not realizing the villa behind him is already being over run.

Meanwhile in the rear of the Villa, more of the pitifully few men remaining attempt to hold off an assault from the hay paddock. Notice that PF, there? Too bad that guy isn't with us much longer. The Americans are spotted just as the team gets into position under fire. Did I mention we were out of AT weapons? The bloody exchange of casualties continues as 6th Kp refuses to relinquish the Villa while capable of resisting. Even facing enemy armor, they are determined to push back the infantry assault.

The sounds of artillery and gunfire have quieted again at Bois de Baugin though the cries of the wounded can still be heard as the Americans clean up the battlefield they now own. Hats off to Von Kliest for a very well played, brutal and exciting game. We finally ceasefired with 3 minutes to go as he was busy shelling the last hill and would not likely be able to put in a ground assault before the timer expired. It likely would not have much impacted the results anyway. He has a major victory, but no way either of us was going to alter the VP stats enough to change that. That being said, I have to say I have become very attached to Hpt Kaumeier and the men of 6th Kp. Though they suffered defeat in this battle, I am in no way disappointed at their efforts. These troops fought with a tenacity totally unexpected considering their overall experience, morale and leadership ratings. The final moments of their struggle are documented below. Here we see the battered but determined Americans in the final assault on the Villa Compagne. The intensity of the fighting is evident in it's near destruction. 2nd Pltn commander Liebig enters the building from the rear for a last ditch stand as the Americans enter from the front. The MP 40 is deadly in close combat fighting Bazooka man and Bar gunner down, but Liebig is on his own, the squad meant to reinforce him is confronting Americans at the back of the Villa. Unfortunately reloading takes just a bit too long as more Americans pour into the building.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head (feel free to add that to your SIG, but don't for a moment think there is any such thing as a free feel) The German army had the good fortune, if you can't call it that, to initially confront one enemy direction at a time building the actual combat experience of their army whilst always confronting an enemy generally unprepared for the advances in combat capability and technology. That lasted up to Barbarossa. Even within that period they didn't have it all their own way as the Poles, French, British and Russians can all point to specific battles where their forces were able to give the Wehrmacht a run for it's money. By the winter of 42 however the tide had shifted and the over extended German army now had to pay the piper. It's enemies had not been overcome and they were gradually building up their own experience with combined arms tactics. So now the experienced German army had to fight a defensive battle against enemies now learning to apply modern offensive tactics. The point is at no time is there really an apples to apples comparison of army preparedness and experience on the strategic level. You can cite individual battles to try and highlight allied defensive capability in 1944, but generally there are proportionally fewer instances to draw conclusions from and the same for trying to evaluate comparable behavior for the Axis on the offensive. BUT if one really wants to go there, the US defense of St Vith provides plenty of material to say the Allied armies were getting better and the Germans worse at that stage whether they be SS, Fallschirmjager or whatever. 2nd Infantry division at Krinkelt-Rocherath executing a withdrawal while in contact etc. I am trying to find the reference, but so far no luck about the US division specifically trained for night fighting tacics and committed around Aachen. I believe it was the 104th, but don't quote me on that. Regarding offensive capability. Granted they aren't infantry but the 4th Armored performance in combat was even lauded by German commanders.

You know there are some severely twisted designers out there. Ya just gotta love it! I am gonna have to go get this one now as someday I might have a moment or two when I am not playing CMBN.

not to beat it to death, but fraps really is your best friend here. All you do is hit F10 and keep going and you can hit it as often as you like. Then you go and sort through your shots later. If you are working on an AAR or trying to fool a scene sequence to post, it makes all the difference betwen a laborious process that risks an out of memory issue and a simple button click.

My advice for what it's worth. - Let it be. Is it really worth giving up time you could spend doing anything else you enjoy to try and understand what is apparently not a very happy story no matter what? Life is too short. Reviewers no matter what have their own perspective of what is or isn't important and in this case their own desires that are making them less objective about the game than I think they should be. Yes SS and Fallschirmjager are not in this module, but BFC has always been upfront about that and has already demonstrated the module concept and how they intend to add additional material with the CMSF series. The only possible criticism is of the module system itself which then implies no game should ever be created with the idea of any follow on material. It is simply an absurd position which undermines the reviews authenticity. The game is what it is and has what it has, the relative importance of things they left out is very subjective and puts too much weight (IMHO) on rarity items. Yeah we are missing DD tanks for example, but they were really important on only 1 day (and not even all day). Now BFC may add them in in another module or not, but really items for 1 day in a 90 day campaign and nothing floats in the game so why have a DD tank at all? Just because you want to SEE a DD tank. That to me is just looking for nit picking items. Now if they had said it is a shame that water itself isn't modelled better so we could actually use assault boats (thinking Market Garden here) or have water flow down hill, that to me carries a bit more weight that you aren't simply trying to be negative but are looking for things that may be really difficult to include, but have a wider application. You can write things that are "negative" about the game AND true AND things that are a shame aren't part of it. You don't have to stoop to misrepresentations and distortions or having to look at things that are ridiculously rare. That for me tells whether the reviewer is trying to be "fair and balanced" or simply has an axe to grind.

Windows 7 was his idea.

now that's funny. Do they have hedgerows in farmville?

A sim without compromises would end up with most of us very very bored. Personally I'll stick with the sim I can play in my living room where my greatest discomfort is trying to time my bathroom break with all the compromises that immediately implies. If folks really want the ultimate in realism, they are free to sign up with the army. (No disrespect to those players who have or are serving.) As it is this is one of those "the glass is half full" issues. Von Kleist and I are winding down our Bois de Baugin PBEM and I think we are both intensely impressed with how the game has functioned. Yeah I had an AT gunner waste a few rounds hitting the same tree, but heck he was firing from an orchard at a target fairly distant. This is not an unexpected result. As one can tell from my posts in the screenshot thread, every single turn in this battle produced yet another fairly stunning vignette. If this game had only come packaged with the Bois de Baugin scenario I have already gotten well over 100 hours of very intense game play time. Meanwhile Broadsword and I have launched into a game with an OP layer and map that is frankly stunning. The play time/game cost value chart curve is going up at an extremely sharp angle and is only getting better. The point of all this? I could care less what anyone says in a review good or bad. I'm too busy enjoying this game like I have no other.

I thought it was a cocktail down at the VFW.

Do you have any specific colors or tattoos to declare membership? I heard it was going to be feature in a Gangland episode. Right after Hell's Grannies.

ahh the fog lifts momentarily....like I said the blatantly obvious.....I need a nap.

No it isn't and no they did not, however unfortunately that has no bearing on how frustrating this is if in your situation it is occurring. Genuinely hope you are able to work through this as it must be very major pain in the a** and the game is well worth being patient for.

Been a really really long day and my brain is fairly fried, but I am not sure what this is in reference to. Help a senile tired old geezer and kindly point out the obvious that I am likely missing.

I'd say that is jumping to an awfully quick conclusion with no data. I won't profess to speak for MikeyD, but what I got out of his comment was simply that the creation of the WeGo turn itself from the underlying data can suffer some synchronization. I don't believe that in itself means it has anything to do with RT considerations. It simply means the engine has to build a turn from all the considerations of what happens to each unit moment by moment interacting with every other unit then turn that into a file to present in a compiled format. That compilation process of the video may be out of sync with the underlying data so the guns moment of firing is just a hair ahead of the video clips presentation of it. Ya gotta admit, there is nothing else like it and it is no mean feat to accomplish. All in all I have far many more moments of being awestruck with the scenes created than moments of "Hmm that don't look right".

Just an FYI, Broadsword cut most of the unneeded portion of the master map and with the same forces and detailed area of the map we are now running on a 20+meg file.

Paperless archive is currently (actually it seems perpetually) running a discount on a 4 dvd set for $99. That may seem like a lot, but it is the entire US army history of WW 2 and includes the entire Green book US army history along with quite a bunch of other related material. And it takes up no space on your bookshelf.

Can I go back to my room and misbehave? Hmm maybe I should rephrase that....

LOL funny but yeah I have to agree. (Especially about Marlene Dietrich) Hearing those voices in German really adds to the immersion for me. Having it sound like Hogan's Heroes, while funny and easier to understand would detract. Then again I am one of those people who prefers subtitles in movies over dubbing. It is worth the effort for me to read the translations posted for German voice files. Between those and Mord's Immersive Voice file the audio portion of the game is as good as the graphic mods.

Dang all this from a Steve Martin clip

recockulous, yeah that's about right. In my map the base file for the 2x4 km and 4 battalions of infantry prior to moves was about 30meg. It jumps to 50+ even without any units spotting one another on the first move turn. (It seems to drop to 40 meg the second turn, but I'd have to run a lot more tests to really confirm what all is affecting the file size.) My suspicion is GaJ may be partly right in that normally this would just be a matter of load time assuming your CPU can handle it, but we may also be seeing some issue with the file itself. Maybe there is something about the map that is impacting the file creation. Too early to say yet. Broadsword is going to edit the battle to slice off unneeded portions of the master map, then we will see what happens to file size and our ability to have a go at this battle.

In our case I don't think we have even generated the first turn that would require spotting or ballistics. As to the actual unit quantity, we actually are only dealing in company + strength. I have another test run that has 4 battalions in a 2x4 km map that seems to be okay so far.

The game 004 save file definitely isn't loading for either of us and I have another one with a 50+ meg size that doesn't seem to have an issue. Whether that is file size or possibly something within the file that is creating a problem is not clear.