Sgt.Squarehead

Not for either of the tanks in this scenario (M60A1 & T-72 'Ural').....Both relied on optical rangefinding.

Anyone? 
 

I seem to remember reading that Challengers were available at the time of the landings, but something, possibly their length made Fireflies a better bet for AFVs in the initial waves.
PS - Quick check on Wiki reveals the issue:
"No provision was made for deep wading, before the design went into production; as a result, the A30 could not be landed in the initial phase of the Allied invasion of Normandy. Challenger crews had to wait until July 1944, when Mulberry harbours were operational and ports had been captured."
PPS - This:
"The 10 issued to the 11th Armoured Division appear to have finally caught up with the division in late July or early August 1944 and were initially issued to the 2nd Northamptonshire Yeomanry Divisional Armoured Recce Regiment, then to the replacement 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars from August 17th 1944. In service, they proved popular and their crews preferred them to the Firefly for their speed and agility. It is also worth noting that for all the Challenger had a very high turret, overall the Firefly was about the same height."

I seem to remember reading that Challengers were available at the time of the landings, but something, possibly their length made Fireflies a better bet for AFVs in the initial waves.
PS - Quick check on Wiki reveals the issue:
"No provision was made for deep wading, before the design went into production; as a result, the A30 could not be landed in the initial phase of the Allied invasion of Normandy. Challenger crews had to wait until July 1944, when Mulberry harbours were operational and ports had been captured."
PPS - This:
"The 10 issued to the 11th Armoured Division appear to have finally caught up with the division in late July or early August 1944 and were initially issued to the 2nd Northamptonshire Yeomanry Divisional Armoured Recce Regiment, then to the replacement 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars from August 17th 1944. In service, they proved popular and their crews preferred them to the Firefly for their speed and agility. It is also worth noting that for all the Challenger had a very high turret, overall the Firefly was about the same height."

T-90SA & BMP-3 would make a very reasonable alternative force for this battle, it's what the Iraqi 9th Armoured replaced their older gear (& some of the Abrams) with:


Glad you enjoyed the scenario, you have encouraged me to do a full remake for CM:SF2 at some point in the not too distant future. 

T-90SA & BMP-3 would make a very reasonable alternative force for this battle, it's what the Iraqi 9th Armoured replaced their older gear (& some of the Abrams) with:


Glad you enjoyed the scenario, you have encouraged me to do a full remake for CM:SF2 at some point in the not too distant future. 

I just finished playing Sgt Squarehead's excellent Ashsh al-Dababir AKA the Hornets Nest scenario this morning. Up until now I've avoided scenarios that featured urban combat as I suck at it and I get a bunch of crunchies killed and lose supporting armor like crazy. I've read various write up on the forums and watched Youtube videos but it just never clicked. 
 
Then I read this post: 
which had domfluff's excellent advice for using the camera at level 1 to spot buildings that are potential have the potential to be covering your moving troops. Also in that thread was a link to this short write up about street fighting : https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_01-9_karagosian.htm which has this quote 
and then talks about the need for suppressing or obscuring buildings that have line of sight to when I need to move my troops in the open. 
 
And then it all just clicked. In the city fighting in the Hornets nest I only lost a few troopers fighting in buildings or crossing over to buildings after applying these 2 key principals:
1) Don't move in the open 
2) Smoke or suppress buildings that have LOS when you do have to move in the open
And of my losses were in the 1st few turns where I was in a firefight to get fire superiority of the rooftops. I wanted to be able to move around on the roofs to avoid moving in the streets and to be able to clear buildings from the top down whenever possible. Another learning is that even with target light the troops will burn though a lot of ammo surpassing just the buildings that have LOS. 
 
Big thanks to Sgt Squarehead for getting me going again after a bug kept crashing the game at 30 minutes remaining. 
 
I want to play thru the scenario again, this time using Syrian forces and in particular the BMP3. ISIS has their own VBIEDs but so do the Syrians with the BMP3. I imagine encouraging the troops do debus when under fire is never a problem when they are riding in a BMP3. Keeping the troops mounted and within a 100m might be a problem...
 
H
 

JFK has both a space center and a lobster stew named after him.
"Super bundle" contains the letters "S" and "L".
Coincidence?

As a habitual off-topic enthusiast, watching a commercial announcement thread go random is a guilty pleasure, even though it probably shouldn't be.
Word on the street is 8 out of 10 reptilian overlords react positively to the Super Bundle.

@Erwin 
Firstly, this is politics, and we avoid it here, so let's not go there. But you started it.
Secondly, you couldn't be more wrong. The whole point about Chinese civilisation (and this is somewhat nationalistic) is that it is only applicable to China, and nowhere else. They aren't remotely interested in any sort of hegemony, and if you read any of the thinking of the CPC or previous Chinese philosophers going back a long time you would know this is the case. China has made no secret they want a multi-polar world, where everyone goes their own way. That does threaten the West, but not in the way you think.

Yeah right, apparently they were invading southern Ukraine last September too:

Yeah right, apparently they were invading southern Ukraine last September too:

To me that's what gives CM some of its replayability, there's a huge differnce between playing any scenario as a novice and then coming back to it after you've learned the game.
I actually found CM:CW to be the easiest of the CM games to get on with.....I suspect that this is because the scenarios are well balanced for HtH (or to play either side), thus the AI has generally been given a good hiding (as it should). 
I only ever play Iron, because it's the only mode that really helps you to understand the battlefield.....'Who knows what, when and who they are telling' and that is what makes CM largely unique IMHO. 

To me that's what gives CM some of its replayability, there's a huge differnce between playing any scenario as a novice and then coming back to it after you've learned the game.
I actually found CM:CW to be the easiest of the CM games to get on with.....I suspect that this is because the scenarios are well balanced for HtH (or to play either side), thus the AI has generally been given a good hiding (as it should). 
I only ever play Iron, because it's the only mode that really helps you to understand the battlefield.....'Who knows what, when and who they are telling' and that is what makes CM largely unique IMHO. 

Your StuG was pretty lucky, when I saw that first image of the T-34 I thought it was going to be a goner too! 

Your StuG was pretty lucky, when I saw that first image of the T-34 I thought it was going to be a goner too! 

The Sixty-Sixth Minute - KT4 aka Die Vernichtung von 1 Zug
"Oh c*ck!" - James May
A terrible turn for 1 Zug that results in their destruction as an effective fighting force. Where to begin?
The 251/3 with the four men of 2 Gruppe remaining continues to take fire from the DP gunner in the trees. That boy is some shot as he takes out one, then another and then the final two men as they all line up like lemmings to be shot behind the MG.



Just like that 2 Gruppe are wiped out.
Over on the right where Operation Russenjagd had just concluded the infantry push forward and immediately get a spot on two 45mm ATGs in the treeline.

The 251/17 never spots either of them, but it's not long before the rightmost gun spots my Landsers. His first shot hits and wounds two of the four men.

Back on the left I am moving the StuG into a hull-down position on the left to take the treeline under fire.

3 Gruppe (five men) spot the infantry in the treeline and stand up to take some shots.

Then they start cursing when this appears (and they actually did say a naughty word thanks to the sound mod :)).

Things went boom.

The shot went straight into the engine and into the passenger compartment destroying the vehicle and everyone inside it.

3 Gruppe gone. The Zug is down to the two men still alive on the right, the scout team and a schrek team, a total of 7 troops.
As for that armour contact...
The StuG starts to crest the hill.

It quickly gets a spot on the harbinger of such doom. It's another T34-85.

The auto-MG takes the T34 under fire and forces him to button.

He starts reversing away but never seems to see the StuG, which fires first and scores a penetrating hit to the turret at a range of about 300m.

I am unable to perform a BDA on this hit though as the shot was taken right as the turn ended. Hopefully it's destroyed.
While all this was going on the scouts get a spot on infantry advancing through the treeline again and send some bursts their way.

A tough turn and this Zug are spent as a fighting force, they will be relegated to support and occupation duty from now on. They still have two functioning SPWs but not much else. Next turn I'm going to pull the screen I have out front back in case he charges more tanks down the highway and see if the Landsers on the right recover from their shaken state enough to get them out of there. The StuG| will stay where it is and fire on the treeline to cover the retreat, it's in a good hull-down position to cover the highway.
MMM

It's not the precision munitions or lack of. It's the trajectory of the rounds in the air, vs. the flight path of the aircraft coming in on an air strike. Pilots are not amused when told "Big sky, little bullet" 🙂
Dave

I believe our models were made for us by @Aquila-SmartWargames, he's been a massive help.....We're discussing what exactly needs to be stolen from CM:CW right now.
Consequently we're in the opposite position of having models, but with nothing to drop them on. 
The PT-76B is a case in point.....We have a gorgeous official model, but the closest vehicle that we can drop it on is a BMP-1.  These will probably work OK if used as AI controlled units (give or take the odd guided missile), but would be massively open to abuse by human players.

FINN The Old Graveyard is now in my goody box (scenario with some new mods).

Quicker than reloading the M16.....He must be a FPS player in his spare time! 

Forgot to mention that the  Demo is free to try. One could download it here: https://gunnerheatpc.com/
 

Tried this again recently.....Stopped the first assault dead with absolutely no losses to our force.  I dropped 120mm PGMs on the Russian artillery spotter and killed him and I used sneakily placed ATGMs to destroy or immobilise all the Russians tanks, without loss to the ATGM teams! 
Then I got overconfident and my infantry died in droves! 
Tactical Defeat. 
Still a brilliant challenge. 
PS - @Pete Wenman There are a couple of buildings on the map that do not have any doors at all, the two I found are in the area just north of Block Bravo.....Small single floor with no access at all, you are either in or out:

Medium two floor building, accessible only via the roof, which will get your pixeltruppen killed every time in this scenario:

It looks like both of these buildings were meant to interconnect with the buildings adjacent to them, but some clicks went missing, as they are so often wont to do on maps of this type (so many clicks)! 
I'm going to make a fixed version for my own use, as I suspect it WILL make a big difference to the fight.....There's no back door to several of the buildings that look like they were meant to interconnect, notably the big five floor one seen in both images, which turns them into death-traps.
PS - IMHO attatching a Breach Team to each Ukrainian rifle platoon could make the world of difference to this scenario.....I may make a modified version to test the theory.

Title says it all really.....An appeal to @Battlefront.com to add Uncon abilities to the Partisans in CM:RT. 
As they currently stand they are just rubbish infantry (with no access to vehicles), I'm assuming that, as the game lacks a Population Density setting, they can't infiltrate urban areas any better than other units (although I haven't properly tested this, yet) and they definitely can't blow up a bridge or lay booby-traps (other than mines, which are a poor substitute for IEDs).