Der Alte Fritz

Well there is the Korean War mod in which Germans (Koreans/Chinese) using captured Russian equipment take on Russians (UN) using Lend Lease equipment. There are even some scenarios that have been written for this.

The sideways firing AT gun protected from the front was the standard Russian method of deploying guns. Guns were sited so that adjacent gun positions fields of fire over lapped. So any tank attacking a gun position was fired upon by the two other gun positions to either side. A tank entering the area between positions could be fire on from the flank by the positions on either side. This ensured flank hits on the tank and rendered useless any over watch. In this context the Russian reliance on the 45mm AT gun well into 1944, does not look quite so daft even when backed up by the (fairly low velocity) 76mm divisional gun. So in games site your AT guns in fours, one pair firing right and the other left, with covering positions to either side.

As you know JasonC I agree with you about Tigers. But in the Melikhovo 5pm scenario it is a historic scenario and the Tigers were there. But the Russians have several opportunities to kill/immobilise Tigers in the early part of the scenario by 152mm guns, AT mines TH, a 20mm AA gun and a Pe2. They also have to exit off the board and it is a maximum size board so they have a lot of driving to do and a lot tend to get bogged. The idea of the Russian 'charge' is that once the Tigers have driven off north to exit, there is an opportunity for a T34 battalion to cross this large map quickly so that they can get in among the lighter tanks HT and assembled infantry and slaugther them. Start a long range duel and you get nowhere but by using the shoot and scoot tactic you can cross ground rapidly while getting "accurate" fire results and a braver sort of tank crew. The problem arises when the immobilised Tigers are left in the south in which case it would probably be better to leave your T34s at the starting point or use dead ground to avoid the Tigers and still kill soft targets.

Yes there was a Korean Police Action mod and we uploaded those files to the new GAJ cmmods site. The files are all prefaced by the word KOREA and AndrewTF did the infantry but I do not know who the other designers were.

Your wish is my command http://www.the-proving-grounds.com/scenario_details_link.html?sku=1615

The preference file should be in the CMBB top level folder and is pretty obvious. It is created by the programme when you first run it and it stores your screen resolution and things like that. So if you cannot find it, I would try re-installing or install another copy of CMBB in a different folder and see if you can see it then.

Try deleting the preference file (remember to back up elsewhere just in case) and the games will then create new ones.

This was the major problem with First World War tanks. Even machine gun fire hitting the outside of the tank would cause minute hot metal fragments to enter the tank via small gaps in the armour, vision ports, gun ports, etc. The tank crews sometimes wore chain mail face visors hanging from their helmets in an effort to avoid being hit in the face by these splinters. For a time around 1942 Russian tanks were made with lower quality steel which meant when they were hit, even if the round did not penetrate, fragments of armour plate or spall would fly off the inside face of the plate and hurtle around inside the tank injuring crew members. British Len Lease tanks such as the Matilda were appreciated because their armour did not do this. As the supply situation improved Russian armour improved in quality to its pre-war norms.

Of course if you do not like it after playing it twenty thousand times, there are mods that you can install to change the music and the other sounds of the user interface such as the drum roll. I have the theme from Red October installed which is more atmospheric I feel for the campaign

I like the Peipers Blowtorch Battalion series from Blowtorch scenarios http://www.blowtorchscenarios.com/

Infantry is more vulnerable to fire in CMBB so the main difference for me is that in CMAK I can rush forward to a position quite easily but in CMBB get pinned more. ON the other hand infnatry tends to die more easily in CMAK but tends to hang on a bit longer in CMBB.

A great result I think given the scenario. I know that it is virtually unwinnable but fun none the less. I think that the tactic has potential in the right situation but for the more historically minded of us, it is simply great to be able to get the game to allow us to use a tactic that the Russians used a lot and actually works in the right circumstances. You are going to have to use it in my next scenario Melikhovo 5pm so watch this space.

The authors have put about four CMSF files in the CMAK folder. That is because this folder is the default when uploading a mod and they do not notice you have to select the game folder you want your mod to appear in. cheers

In short you click on the file to start the update, choose the CMBB folder and press go. You need to make sure that the .exe file replaces the existing one. If you find it ends up somewhere else, just move into in the CMBB folder and it will over write the existing one. To check which version you are on start the game and the version number appears at the bottom right of the splash screen.

Hi Philippe My KV-1s are all warmed up and ready to charge forward (probably to get blown to smithereens!) at Orel.

There is a 76mm Winter gun by MikeyD and whitewashed by Uncle Tgt at http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/147/details or http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/241/details Green Elephants (not Ferdinands which are different) Dey http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/683/details MikeyD http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/1886/details Winter Dey http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/224/details All the mods from cmmods were transfered although we are having trouble with a small number. There are several idiots guides to modding, but it may be beyond your limited IT skills. Would it be easier if I just posted you a complete mod set for CMBB?

White 76mm gun - Mikey D does one. T34 - M41 MikeyD, M42 Pat M43 Uncle Tgt T60 - Uncle Tgt Flags, Foxholes and wooden fence - Juju Wire - Phillippe? Explosions - Malkovski SPI stands for Saving Private Ivan. It does not change the terrain that much but does adjust the brightness, contrast and gamma to give brighter feel.

The bmp for both sides of a turret are the same so the numbers appear backwards on one side. This is not solvable except if you choose numbers such as 1 that are more or less transposable. Probably a good plan is to start with the terrain and a quick fix is to download Nissuehs terrain series because it updates everything all at once. Then add is winter and vehicle mods as they appear in the scenarios you want to play. Look for some good generic series MikeyD, George McCs SPW, David I for all late war German vehicles. All the infantry mods, Uncle Tgt for Russian vehicles, Pat for terrain. Phillipe for flags Vossie for terrain. Want to spruce up your opening screens or user interface try Dark Steel by Tarkus (Der Alte Fritz) or DAFs or Uncle Tgts Mystery Vehicle Sound and get rid of that hideous grey elephant covered in question marks. If you are feeling adventurous try sound mods from GJK or Sonofthefather. You see a little blue button to press on the mod screen and it plays the clip for you! Need a help in seeing elevation in the terrain, try RocketMans gridded terrain or GreenAsJades HI Contrast Terrain. Some of the CMAK mods share the same bmp numbers so you can download GreenAsJades Light Snow and Snow from CMAK and use it when you need to see the ground better in snow conditions. Get Vossies' roads as well from CMAK. Fighting in the Crimea or the south? Try Eisenbaum's Operation Storfang for that authentic Crimean look.

We have been discussing an incident during the Battle of Kursk/Prolovska on the 12th July where the 32nd TB charges past the October State Farm over hill 252 through Peipers SPW battalion and Ribbentrops PzIVs on the other side but runs up against an AT ditch with a bridge over it. With Ribbentrops surviving tanks shooting them from behind and the other tanks of the battalion shooting them from in front while the 32nd tries to cross the bridge, all the T34s are killed. Blowtorch scenarios did one about this incident called Born again at Prokovska so this might be a good test bed of our 'charge and cannonade' technique.

Thanks Mfred66 that is absolutely correct but I will explain it another way so that Vark has two chances of getting started with mods. 1) Create a folder called CMBB mods in My Documents 2) Download your mods into this folder. You should have something like: My Documents/CMBB Mods/Tiger Camo. SPW 251 etc 3) Open McMMM 4) Select which game to mod. I assume your only have CMBB so there should only be one. 5) Select the directory you need: a) For your mod directory you want MyDocuments/CMBB Mods folder For you game directory you want the folder above the bmp folder. So something like: c:/programme files/cmbb. In this folder you should see folders and items such as bmp, wav, cmbb.exe, scenarios, saved games, PBEM. (Note if you are doing this in CMAK - this game has another level of folders before you see this lot.) You do not need to select the bmp folder itself. If you get any warning messages then you have not selected the right folder, so go up or down a level and you will be correct. If you could send me your email I could send you screen shots. I cannot post any on the forum at present because I cannot upload anything to Photobucket for some unexplained reason.

Hi You should always back up your original bmp folder to guard against disaster! Look here for full instructions and screen shots: http://www.gregories.net/McMMM/McMMM.htm Once you get it set up it is fairly easy to use but you may have to fiddle about with the some of the mods folders especially if they contain a number of alternate options. The programme likes a folder for each alternative option with the correct bmp number. So for instance a T34 mod might have the basic mod in the folder plus an alternative with a red star on the turret. Modders tend to lump them into one folder and then re-number the bmp numbers to 105626a (Red Star turret), 105626b (Guards badge on turret), etc. So what you have to do is create sub-folders with each option in it and then rename each file to the original bmp number. eg: T34 M43 57mm basic bmps sub folder/turret red star (105626) sub folder/Guards Badge (105626) The programme will recognise each of these so you can swap the basic T34 into your programme and then over write the turret with your star option of your choice. If you are struggling email me and I will send you screen shots. Really glad you liked the sorted scenarios as Phillippe took a lot of flak putting the together the packs as some designers wanted to have their permission asked first. With over 3,500 scenarios that would have been impossible. To give you an idea there are only just 1,000 on the Scenario Depot so a lot of scenarios were in danger of being lost as website close down or disappear. cheers

To install a mod is easy: Option1 step 1; back up your bmp folder in your game directory step 2; copy the mod bmp files into your bmp folder now your game uses the mod look rather than the standard look. Option 2 step 1; download McMM mod organiser from cmmods site step 2; install it and you can now safely move your mods in and out of the bmp folder at will. Which 'unit picture do yo want to change? The unit icons on the right hand side of the interface can be changed to the Dark Steel bac and white photographs with country flags and arm of service badges. The tank icons in the centre will change to new ones with a green background.

There have been reports on Windows 7 and using DX10 cards and they report none of the glitches found on Vista and everything runs a lot smoother and quicker. But depends on your rig set up

Can I ask -what were the T34s doing? If they were moving fast then the hit probabilty goes way down compared to if they were hunting or moving.

Go to the Scenario Depot and download the Sorted Scenario Packs for both CMBB and CMAK and that will give you around 2,500 scenarios to play with.