Der Alte Fritz

Lost all but 4 of the SPW (basically all the heavy weapons group survived.) From the Russian side, the initial gun battle was down to sure bad luck and most of the PzIV group should have died. A more keyholed position for the gun at the rear would have helped. Reinforcements for the balka arrived too late and so never got into trenches and died under tank fire in the brush. Had two decent attempts to drop 8" fire on TRPs but the Tiger group were through the TRP zone so fast - once spotted, fire was moved onto the nearest TRP but that move the Tigers moved from their start point to the TRP, the next move they were well past it and by the fire actually landed, were out of damage range. Tried to walk fire backwards but with five minute delay this meant that fire only reached just outside the wire of the village position by the end of the scenario. Pioneers start too far back to get into decent position in time and both sections were spotted early before they could throw their satchel charges and wiped out by mass return tank fire.

I really enjoyed these - do you plan to do any more? What was the mod for your T34s?

Results of my H2H run through. Minor Allied Vistory. By the end the Germans had 2 Tigers, 2 PzIIIN, 2 PzIV and 1 PzIIIJ inside the village and a platoon of infantry gradually clearing out the trenches. One PzIIIJ went up the hill and had started to eliminate the over watch position back up by HMG and mortars from the balka fire support group. German attack never really faltered once the reinforcing Tigers arrived, just drove forward while the infantry had a harder time dodging the mortar and MG fire but did get the Tiger platoon up to the wire and another platoon from the balka group into the village. Might have got a draw but a FT killed a PzIIIN in the last move. Never really bothered by the 8" guns, one salvo fell on the original attack group as they advanced, another fell on the balka trench position - in both cases we had just moved through the spot a minute before - another took a swipe at the Tigers but was out by 50m as the Tigers stayed away from the road and then moved fast up to the wire. Fire was 'walked' around but the 5 minute delay was too long. Another two TRP outside the village position would probably have made all the difference. cheers

Why are you installing the VISTA patch when you are running Windows 7 may I ask? CMBB and CMAK run fine just as v1.03 with Windows 7. Your ATI card will give some graphics problems but only in as far as some of the text will look a bit weird. Screen resolution is max at 1200 x ?. Try deleting your CMAK pref file and try again.

Yes CMBB and CMAK run fine with Windows 7. Your new graphic card may cause you problems esp. if an ATI card. Give it a go, if all else fails they run great on most laptops.

OK send me a setup to the email address in my profile and I will give it another run through.

Runs of my high spec laptop with Windows 7 with no problems but an NVIDIA card.

I think you also have to bear in mind in the Russian service the unit that the tank comes from. Tank/Mech Corps tanks assigned to Tank Armies were top priority and got preferential treatment for their deep penetration battles. Tank Brigades/Corps/Regiments/Separate Regiments assigned to Combined Arms Armies were expected to provide infantry support and probably had different ammo loads/priorities. Likewise the Front made a difference in the priority. An active Front would receive ammo but an inactive one might not. This was certainly the case with artillery where the Russians have a lot of guns in place but they only supplied the ones that were on the offensive. It made up for the lack of transport lift by the need to only move the ammunition and not the whole battery. Apply this to tanks and you get some units getting all the ammo and others relatively poorly off.

To save yourself some hard work there is an experimental CMAK WW1 scenario at the SCenario Depot here: http://www.the-scenario-depot.com/scenario_details.html?command=search&db=scenarios.db&eqskudatarq=449

Have had an initial run through up to move 15 H2H. Looked at the Terrain and thought long and hard about it and the only solution seems to be - take the gully first and then use it for an attack on the village. So did a rapid SS style attack on the gully before waiting for the support. Sent dismounted infantry forwards as a skirmish line but they were stopped by MG and mortar fire but they now had the trenches in view. So did a mounted attack with the SPW and tanks while the PzIII force also did a rapid attack on the other side. Force crested the gully and ran into AT gun fire which took out 2 PzIV and 2 SPW for the loss of 3 ATGs. By end of move 15 we had taken the gully position. [Germans moved too fast to be caught by 203mm fire and the Russian reinforcements at back of gully were caught in the middle of a firefight as they arrived and died in short order.] Would like to see the map extended away from the gully and the Germans given an alternative line of covered approach along the 'river line' across the back of the map. Would help centre fighting on the village and the main road rather than on the gully. Scenario works pretty well and this could go either way depending on how the dice roll. I was lucky to kill the rear 76mm so quickly and he could have taken out the rest of the PzIV force with ease, leaving the rest of the attack as sitting ducks.

Sounds like you need some basic tactical training. Try www.blowtorchscenarios.com and look for the 3 Panzer training scenarios and the Russian training scenarios.

Well I tried starting up the various settings on my 8800 for it only to develop a serious twitch. Run anything with graphics and it 'crashed' the whole computer with a message about cpu over-heating. Finally tamed it by turning off all the features, but still no convinced it is entirely safe. 7XXX cards are now pretty cheap so picked up one on Amazon for £35 an installed it instead of the 8800 to see what the difference is but have not had time to experiment yet. Was disappointed to see that I still had the 'twinkling trees' effect - when you fly over them , they seem to sparkle. Was using Strontium Dogs Hi-res trees, so collected together all the tree mods, sorted them out and found some good hi-res ones that do not twinkle. Pat had some and Nisseuh has SD trees but has toned them down a couple of notches which seemed to reduce the shine a lot. So will have a go with the settings on Monday or Tuesday.

Tried this on the tech forum but got nothing. Since my NVIDIA card went phuptt, I have now got a new 7600 GT NVIDIA card. What are the best settings to use on this sort of card?

Going away for a couple of days but I will take this with me and give it a good run through. Many thanks for this JasonC, good to see you are still around on the forums. cheers

Cuirassier - files emailed today. Thanks to both of you - if you are ever short of a PBEM game let me know cheers DAF

Since my NVIDIA card went phuptt, I have now got a new 7600 GT NVIDIA card. What are the best settings to use on this sort of card?

Here is a list of the scenarios - PC Recon - Dawn on 5 July, a German advance guard drives in outpost positions of the Russian 81st Rifle division. PC Break In - Later in the morning of 5 July, the main assault begins. First full sized scenario. PC Second Line - Dusk of the first day, the Germans have advanced as far as the reserve positions of the 81st Rifle division. PC Into Ponyri - Second day of the offensive, the Germans cross the last fields to seize a foothold in the northern outskirts of the town of Ponyri, along the rail line south to Kursk. The opponents are now from the 307th Rifle division, the second line division in the 29th Rifle Corps. PC Struggle for Ponyri - Over the next couple days, the Germans fought 307th Rifle division for the heart of the town. The focus of the struggle here is the railway station, which the Germans must take. PC Little Stalingrad - With the 307th fought out, the Russians send elements of the 18th Guards Rifle corps to counterattack inside Ponyri, trying to retake the train station. Checked here, the German offensive in the north stalled. Germans dubbed Ponyri "little Stalingrad".

There are several mentions of this battle and the tank battle preceding it (by 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps at Rogan railway station). The German force was: KG Baum: Totenkopf PzGr Regt 1/SS Pz Regt 3 SS Aufl. Bn 3 Assault Guns in support IV/SS Art Regt 3 the force sent to Rogan was the flank guard of this force and consisted of III/Totenkopf Regt and 1/SS Pz Regt 3 supported by the artillery while the rest of the force attacked the river crossing to the north. Mentions on page 312, 317 and 318 of Nipes book Last Victory in Russia

See this thread http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=91085&page=2 about the decline of quality publishing.

I emailed him about it but it bounced back.

Not sure about this one, may just be a chapter from his Forgotten Battles series re-released. Helion did this with his book about the operations after Stalingrad. Description: At dawn on 10 July 1941, massed tanks and motorized infantry of German Army Group Center's Second and Third Panzer Groups crossed the Dnepr and Western Dvina Rivers, beginning what Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany's Third Reich, and most German officers and soldiers believed would be a triumphal march on Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. Less than three weeks before, on 22 June Hitler had unleashed his Wehrmacht's massive invasion of the Soviet Union code-named Operation Barbarossa, which sought to defeat the Soviet Union's Red Army, conquer the country, and unseat its Communist ruler, Josef Stalin. Between 22 June and 10 July, the Wehrmacht advanced up to 500 kilometers into Soviet territory, killed or captured up to one million Red Army soldiers, and reached the western banks of the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, by doing so satisfying the premier assumption of Plan Barbarossa that the Third Reich would emerge victorious if it could defeat and destroy the bulk of the Red Army before it withdrew to safely behind those two rivers. With the Red Army now shattered, Hitler and most Germans expected total victory in a matter of weeks. The ensuing battles in the Smolensk region frustrated German hopes for quick victory. Once across the Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, a surprised Wehrmacht encountered five fresh Soviet armies. Despite destroying two of these armies outright, severely damaging two others, and encircling the remnants of three of these armies in the Smolensk region, quick victory eluded the Germans. Instead, Soviet forces encircled in Mogilev and Smolensk stubbornly refused to surrender, and while they fought on, during July, August, and into early September, first five and then a total of seven newly-mobilized Soviet armies struck back viciously at the advancing Germans, conducting multiple counterattacks and counterstrokes, capped by two major counteroffensives that sapped German strength and will. Despite immense losses in men and materiel, these desperate Soviet actions derailed Operation Barbarossa. Smarting from countless wounds inflicted on his vaunted Wehrmacht, even before the fighting ended in the Smolensk region, Hitler postponed his march on Moscow and instead turned his forces southward to engage 'softer targets' in the Kiev region. The 'derailment' of the Wehrmacht at Smolensk ultimately became the crucial turning point in Operation Barbarossa. This study exploits a wealth of Soviet and German archival materials, including the combat orders and operational of the German OKW, OKH, army groups, and armies and of the Soviet Stavka, General Staff, Western Direction Command, Western and Central Front's, and their subordinate armies, to present a detailed mosaic and definitive account of what took place, why, and how during the prolonged and complex battles in the Smolensk region from 11 July through early September 1941. Its structure is designed specifically to appeal to both general readers and specialists, by including a detailed chronological narrative of the course of operations, accompanied by an extensive collection of specific orders and reports translated verbatim from German and Russian, which were prepared and issued by German and Soviet headquarters and forces that planned and conducted the operations. Finally, the study includes and extensive collection of archival or archival based maps detailing every stage of the battle.

Hello I had a look for it this afternoon but cannot find it! Which was very annoying as I was convinced that I had all of JasonC's scenarios on file as a taken. If you do get it, please send me a copy. Apologies again. DAF

Yes I do - drop me an email and I will send it to you. But I am sure that all JasonC's scenarios are at the Proving Grounds - he just never translates them up to the Scenario Depot

Last Victory in Russia 1943: The SS-Panzerkorps and Manstein's Kharkov Counteroffensive - February-March 1943 (Schiffer Military History Book) George M. Nipe http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0764311867/ref=oss_product Just released.

I think alot of us are going to have to consider a dedicated CM1 setup as a permanent solution to playing an old game for years to come. My guess is for about $500.00 you could patch together a system using older parts found very cheap online that would run CM1 perfectly forever. Of course, finding the office space to house a 2nd tower can be a pain, as well as explaining to our wives why there are 2x computers where there was 1. CMXX series seem to run very well on laptops since they do not have huge graphics requirements that are easily met by the integrated graphics on laptop motherboards. They are now powerful enough to run even the biggest CMXX scenario and could help avoid that embarrassing conversation. If you need a bigger screen then plug the feed into your existing one.