SeinfeldRules

First - Combatintman, thank you for the plug, I appreciate the kind words. Second - Kaunitz, if this is your first map, 2.5km x 4km is biting off way more then you can chew! Trust me on this one! You need to scale it back! 1000x1400 would be a much more suitable size for your engagement, and is much more manageable in the editor to boot. The narrative you've built for your scenario is excellent. Just enough background detail to get the point across. The minefield is a very credible threat, severely impacting the ability for wheeled vehicles to use that avenue- maybe not worthy of a set piece attack, but enough of a concern to send a platoon to deal with it. This kind of stuff happened all the time in World War 2 and would happen in a modern conflict as well. Don't sweat the small stuff, that is easy to hand wave away. Don't have artillery support? Eh, it's busy elsewhere, you ain't important enough (as suggested above). Why not at night? Eh, timeline is too tight, war waits for no man. Third - If you do end up cutting your map size down, I've attached a map with a red box around what I think is a suitable looking area you can cut out and model in game. Scenarios set in open farm land can be tricky as the extremely long sight lines can make it difficult to come up with credible attack plans. Having the main road, fence lines and what looks like a dry stream adds multiple avenues of approach for the player without "scripting" the scenario. It also makes setup of the defender more interesting as you have to account for all possible player choices! You can never get it 100% right, which is good. It's supposed to be a scenario, not a puzzle, IMO.... Another hint for map design... don't have your height map be based only on contour lines... add fixed height boxes of 1m difference between the lines to create more rolling terrain. The amount of realism (and tactical nuance) you can add by this one action alone is unbelievable! Download some of my maps, and you'll see what I mean. Also, paved roads and fence lines tend to be "built" up, and create natural barriers that troops can hide behind. Ditch lock these terrain features 1m higher then the surrounding ground and watch your map pop with detail... dirt roads and paths do the opposite, ditch lock those 1m down from the surrounding terrain. The number one thing that I believe makes maps look more realistic is this use of varying height. It can take a bland looking map and make it one that is full of realism. Also, don't be afraid to change reality... Google Earth makes it easy to copy real locations, but sometimes that just ain't fun! I always use a blended approach of reality and my imagination. Just my 2 cents of course, I am happy to see other scenario designers participating in this great hobby and don't want to discourage you! I hope you have fun!

With US artillery, assuming you've accounted for all non-standard conditions, you will still have a "beaten zone" or around 80-120m long and 40m wide. This for a point target, both in game and in real life. A while ago I did some tests, and the game results were actually quite similar to data pulled from the US TFTs for a range of around 12,000-15,000m. I had the exact data written down, but it's gone now. I don't know what your "beaten zone" looks like in this particular case but modern artillery isn't a sniper rifle.

Anyone have any feedback on the above scenario...?

Fall foliage is one of the hardest things for me to mod. I believe it has to do with the way the LODs are drawn in this game. At close distance, a multi-colored tree looks great and super realistic... but as soon as you back off and start actually playing the game, the LODs start kicking in and it's almost impossible to get the art to match color wise... and hence you get that super distracting POP as trees come in and out of LOD distance and the color changes. So I settled for the multi colored look by just giving every tree a different fall color. The coloring for fall foliage is also extremely hard for me to get right... either the color is too bright and trees look like lollipops, or everything is too drab and it looks like plastic dipped in mud. Hopefully someone more skilled then I will come along and make a kickass fall foliage mod, because the more I play with the art, the more it looks worse.

Thanks Zveroboy, always good to hear from the people who use my stuff!

A new scenario! East of Aachen v1.0 http://bit.ly/2imjAVC You are a German infantry commander, caught in the ever tightening noose that encircles Aachen. Your Volksgrenadier Regiment is responsible for the eastern portion of the defense, and has been slowly pushed back towards the edge of the city. American gains are steady, but we counterattack wherever we can to give the defenders of the city more time to prepare. Just this afternoon, American infantry and artillery pounded our battalion's position, pushing out our sister company from their foxholes and taking the ground for themselves. Your company, the regimental reserve, was quickly assembled and sent towards the position, in an effort to throw the Americans out before they can consolidate the ground and dig in.

As others have stated, a gripping account of the fighting, and one that shows a first hand view of what I've read elsewhere... using older technology to avoid effects of Russian EW, soldiers choosing to ride on the top of APCs, etc... and again hitting my point earlier about the use of vehicles in a fight of this scale, it seems that they are being used solely as a logistical transport asset, and not a fighting vehicle. When the soldier mentioned asking higher for more people/weapons/thermal sights, it seems the perfect answer to me would have been sending up an APC to reinforce the position. Why are the leaders on the ground not getting these vehicles into the fight? Are these vehicles more vulnerable then we think? Is the ground/terrain not adequate for employment of vehicles? Do they just turn into big targets? @Haiduk I would love your input on this one.

This is turning into something that I think would make an interesting basis for a CMBS scenario, often the smaller infantry fights that would occur on a regular basis during a large conflict are ignored for the large set piece tank battles. I'm curious about the role of vehicles in this fight... this seems to be a dismounted infantry fight, and I would expect more vehicle casualties mentioned if they were pulling a lot of weight. Modern units are very heavy on the vehicles compared to previous wars and I've always wondered how that would look tactically in a smaller fight, compared to the massive tank battles envisioned in a Fulda Gap scenario (and a lot of CMBS scenarios).

Thanks! Right here is my mod for CMRT: Try this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9om5odr0jp8rw2i/AD CMFB Terrain.zip?dl=0 The only tags I used were Autumn, Cold, Snow. Autumn is October and November, Cold is December/January with no Snow, Snow is self explanatory.

Haven't had the time but yes I plan on it. The link works for me, what are you getting when you click it?

Thank you for the compliments guys, I appreciate it! There was A LOT of files I had to touch for this mod, and I just know I missed *something* that you guys will find, so if something looks outplace or missing, please let me know and I can fix it!

A thing to consider is the damage this shrapnel does not to the armor, but to the pieces of technology modern tanks rely on to be dominant on the battlefield... sights, thermal sensors, APS, etc may be in armored housings but that armor isn't nearly as thick as the glacis plate is. A piece of shrapnel in your CITV will put it out of action right quick.

There is this obsession with using technology in the military to try to lower crew requirements for the various things they operate... whether it be a tank, an artillery piece, a plane or even a ship... and at some point you reach a level where it just becomes extremely detrimental to the usability of the equipment. You need a robust crew to do maintenance, execute sleep/rest cycles, load ammo into storage, etc... and the more automated you become, the more tasks get foisted onto a smaller and smaller crew. Put simply, someone has to break track on that crew-less vehicle, and it ain't gonna be no robot.

I can't imagine a direct hit from an artillery round is conducive to crew health, even if there is no penetration... certainly seems like enough of a force to cause TBI, especially if it's a repeated shock from a sustained artillery barrage. I'm no expert on that kind of stuff though, perhaps if the crew has all the hatches closed the over pressure is isolated to just the outside of the tank.

Thanks for the compliment! I will upload to CMMODS... just need to become an author over there first.

Hello All, I have created a new terrain mod for CMFB, similar to my previous terrain mods for CM games. I've taken the various tiles provided by Battlefront and recolored them to provide a more unified color scheme, focusing on a realistic look with subtle variations between the various tiles. One of the biggest changes you will find is that October and November are far more "green" then the base game. All the pictures I could find online of Germany in the fall show a significant amount of greenery still present, even into November. December is a much more traditional look, with a very brown, dead look. Snow terrain has been touched very little by me, I focused mainly on the trees and basic snow tiles. Here is the link, as always please provide feedback and any errors you find! http://bit.ly/2g4bYIs October - November December - January (No Snow) Winter

Straggler formations can also be useful - the soldier's weapons consist almost entirely of rifles and carbines, with a SMG here and there, and no heavy weapons - a fairly accurate depiction of what a HQ unit would look like.

No.

While American manufacturing is certainly renowned, with our over reliance and stubborn peristance with digital technology being in every piece of equipment we field, I question its ability to rapidly produce the necessary "stuff" for our military. A Paladin hull is easy enough to build, but when you look at all the digital equipment we are filling it with, that requires complex computer hardware which must be properly hardened, weatherproofed, etc... and from my understanding of what it takes to make computer chips, it is not a flexible process. IBM can't go from making computer processors to military grade digital fire control systems in a short amount of time. Add in the fact that these systems will also need to be replaced by front line units that suffer combat damage (can't fix a computer chip with a welders torch), surging our manufacturing power won't be as easy as cranking out Sherman tanks was in WW2. One of the great things about "dumb" military vehicles is they can be fixed virtually in the combat zone - not so today. You can fix the hole in the armor with steel and a private, but you cant fix a hole in the computer.

Yes, my first play through I exhausted all my men with quick moves across the whole battlefield... Most scenarios do not include Weakened units in them, so we are not used to playing with them. Move is the order of the day... Quick should be used only in direct contact or across danger areas, and give them several turns to rest afterwards. Remember these soldiers fighting in the Hurtgen would have been in constant combat with littlesleep, in persistent rain, cold and mud. Gives you an appreciation for what they had to go through! Other tips include keeping units in reserve, to maintain a fresh body of troops ready to take the next objective, and to watch for the spotting rounds of the mortars. Use you artillery to prep your objectives, and keep the far threats from influencing the close fight.

... Somewhat. I read a memoir that mentioned the 109th taking the lodge at hurtgenwald. There was very little else I could find. I used an old map as reference and a little bit of creativity to flush out the concept.

Hello all, With winter fast approaching, my time for gaming is increasing and I've started to create some new scenarios for CMFB. Here are my attempts! As always, my scenarios are not playtested to death and I don't guarantee perfection - I believe in the 75% solution now as opposed to the 99% solution weeks from now! Please give me feedback - I am always tweaking in order to produce a better experience for everyone! All my maps are "hand made" originals. Screenshots are with a terrain mod of my creation that I'm putting the finishing touches on. The Lodge at Hurtgenwald v1.0 http://bit.ly/2ckucTx You are a Rifle Company Commander in the 1st BN, 109th Infantry. Three days ago you were a brand new Platoon Leader, but the hell that is the woods that surround you has taken the lives of over a third of your company and thrust the mantle of leadership upon you. The incessant rain, mud and mortars has taken their toll but slowly we have advanced, taking the town of Germeter and the woods beyond it. Your next objective, Hurtgenwald, sits less then 1KM away to your north east. Your battalion commander has ordered you to take your company and seize the lodge of the local forest master, located halfway between you and the outskirts of Hurtgenwald, and push into the town itself. At your command, your weary and miserable men reluctantly haul themselves out of their holes and go forward. As they near the edge of the treeline, a burst of gunfire rips through the branches above their heads...

Like said before, the destroy units criteria is generally the more flexible of the options. You can assign variable points to different units; eg a single Tiger tank is worth 500 points, but the entire infantry company accompanying it is worth 500 points too. Then you can reward the player for inflicting casualties depending on the scenario you wish to depict. Maybe you couldn't knock out the precious Tiger but instead you just annihilated the tank's infantry escort, and realistically he would be forced to retire after the battle (ie a draw, or minor victory), or vice versa. Almost all my scenario having scoring in this fashion, load one up and take a look how I assign point values.

I think the additional "steps" people think is required for CMx2 scenarios is intimidating to new designers. Look at the scenario design AAR doc by JonS - certainly a thorough example of a way to do things, but the amount of work required outside of the scenario editor is pretty daunting. With CMx1 you built a map, selected some units and placed them on the map, wrote a briefing in Notepad, and you were done. No AI, no overlays, no detailed scoring breakdown, no fancy graphics. The only thing you had to do outside of CM was write the briefing. Clever use of flags was the limit of AI planning, and thus playtesting was greatly simplified. You had an idea, you executed it, you uploaded it - straight forward. Compare that to the work "needed" today and I understand why it's becoming harder to find new people willing to design scenarios. Of course, I will always argue that all that additional work that is perceived as necessary for CMx2 scenarios is in fact not needed at all. Perhaps the community needs a simplified version of the Scenario Design AAR, focused on new designers that have limited time and attention to devote to a scenario.

I personally believe that far too many people strive for the "perfect" scenario, with the result that they get tied up in AI, or graphics, or the briefing, or spend so much time testing it that it never reaches the finish line. Then when they do finish it, they get half-hearted feedback and a couple comments, only for their content never to be mentioned again. It doesn't have to be that way. I have started a scenario from scratch, completed the map, force selection, briefing, graphics and a quick play test in less then a weekend. It is possible. Was this a masterpiece of scenario design, playable from all sides that will be remembered for time eternity? Absolutely not, and I recognize the enormous work that goes into scenarios of that caliber. But you don't need fancy graphics or 5 AI plans for a fun scenario, especially when most people spend 99% of a scenario looking at the map and not the briefing, and only play a scenario once. The investment is not worth it in my opinion. What people want is a fun scenario that will kill a couple hours. These are scenarios you saw all the time in CMx1 - fun, short, sharp fights - that are rare in CMx2. We didn't have to worry about graphics or AI plans in CMx1 - and I think the scenario design community was better for it.