Combatintman

I can't find a German 23 man squad in the editor either.

You're probably not - the fact that it is sitting there is a partial win because it is not using its mobility to best effect. There is no one solution I'm afraid because it will depend on the ground and the resources available but some things you can try are blinding it with smoke or suppressing it with direct and indirect fire. Then approach it from more than one axis. The most important thing is the psychological thing. You have to accept that you may take a loss or two - if you don't then it is a bonus. The trick is to minimise them. Or you can try dislocation - make the tank irrelevant by attacking elsewhere.

Difficult one to be honest because there aren't too many scenarios that deal with typical recce taskings. I tend to use mine counter-intuitively by keeping them back and using them to mop up infantry or as infantry fire support platforms. I also often use them as a handy reserve because they do have mobility and firepower so they can change a situation that is going south fast.

Ok, I'm sort of getting it, I confess to not having played more than a dozen QBs but I've been lucky so far with them and not had any weird force picks.

And impossible to write an accurate 'Situation Friendly Forces' orders paragraph for the mission. QBs give you this force pick facility so I don't really get this request at all.

The 'direct' button. This will change the height of the tile to the value you specify however if you specify no other values then all tiles will change to that height. This is a very simple but coarse way of explaining it but illustrates how it works. Let's say you want the top end of your map to be 20 m and the bottom 15m. Use the direct button with these values. TOP 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 BOTTOM. The terrain editor automatically fills in the intervening values so you will have an even upward slope from the bottom to the top of the map. Play around a bit with it and I'm sure you'll get the hang of it and bear in mind that every direct value that you specify has an impact on processing power so use direct values as sparingly as you can.

Preserve objectives are your mortal enemy then!!!

My method is similar to that suggested by Ian Leslie. I put the unit into the editor and do a physical headcount which I break up into unit chunks eg Pl HQ = 4 men, 1 Squad = 10 men etc. I find it is better than the other method suggested because it allows me to weight certain units as VPs if I desire eg the player gets more points for killing the Pl HQ rather than the squad. That said, most of my CMSF scenarios worked on a 1 person = 1 VP for red and 1 person = 10 VPs for blue casualties.

Unfortunately the CM3 upgrade is a long way off - it is on the 'to do' list but MikeyD said about a month ago that other projects have priority.

Sure they were Shermans?

How about WW1 ... which bit of it?

Not sure I agree - the 1st Commonwealth Division comprised reasonably sized contingents from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Might even appeal to the Chinese market.

Chicks and beer ... you?

The whole thread is pure gold for scenario design - I quite often refer to it when putting stuff together.

That is a bloody nice map - how big is it?

Kauz, I'm not here to argue. LukeFF has more experience in this area than I do and he had clearly answered the question you posed in post 35 in his post 11. My experience of 'treating' these wounds is limited to two of my three pre-Afghanistan tours training and my experience in this training reflects what LukeFF said in post 11 - you need to get a knee in there backed up by your bodyweight to even have a chance with arterial bleeding and you have to do it quickly. Added to that I benefitted from such fantastic technology such as an easy to apply tourniquet, well-engineered bandages and quick clot. Mucking about from the prone position with a WW2 era bandage and trying to fashion a tourniquet from a stick ... if you forgive the pun ... is not an act of war. As to making somebody 'disappear' which is the CM Casevac protocol I have more experience and it is something I have no wish to repeat - it is mentally and physically the hardest thing I have ever done. Your question has been comprehensively answered so I suggest you accept that and here's a suggestion ... play Red Thunder rather than carp on about it.

Kauz - I refer you to LukeFF's post 11 in this thread.

Kauz, the illustrations at your link speak for themselves - the first aider is in the kneeling position.

Shameless plug for PanzerMike's work - this will appeal to those who like manageable force sizes and well worth a look when it comes out.

Sorry but this is the post of an irritated person who is fed up and I generally don't like flaming new guys but .... You start with 'in my opinion' If your opinion is informed by combat and life saving experience them it is relevant, otherwise it is not. The BLUF message is, if you forgive the pun ... in regard to the situation described live with it or play real time. Luke FF's expert advice and my own limited real life experience in these situations is exactly as he said, to even give basic first aid you need to be at least kneeling. On the other side of the coin think about the person you most love in life and imagine them being stricken. Then think - what would you do? Would you refuse to give aid because 'you only do it lying down'' or would you act naturally despite the risks? How do you legislate for that in a game of this nature? In combat, the people you are with are always your best mates. What we have in the game is a half way house through abstraction. Where do we go from here ... multiple threads supported by re-enactment videos, and (if we're lucky) save games. Threads might be as follows: Scenario 1: 'the guy was hit in the arm by a 7.92mm round fired from 700m at an angle of 3200 mils in open terrain in rainy conditions etc, etc yet the buddy aid guy applied a tourniquet to the left leg although he was a 'Veteran'. In my opinion he would have had a shattered arm and be suffering arterial bleeding and the buddy aid guy should have known that instantly and knelt on the pressure point (because that is what it takes). Scenario 2: 'The guy should never have been hit because it was a 7.92mm round fired from 700m at an angle of 3200 mils in open terrain in rainy conditions and the firer was rated as 'Green' etc etc. Let me present scenario 3 - if your bloke gets hit try one or all of the following: A. Question why your poor play allowed that to happen. B. Deal with it. C. Go into medicine. Again, I apologise for being grumpy but I'm kind of bored with a lot of this 'in my opinion this isn't realistic' stuff - particularly as I haven't seen anybody complain about the body 'disappearing' after buddy aid - from the perspective of somebody who has had to make somebody 'disappear' under fire I can tell you that it is the hardest thing that you can do in both emotional and physical terms.

Pretty sure it is numbers of enemy remaining that is the dominant factor. Some of my earlier CMSF scenarios set in Afghanistan with the AI Red always set on 'Fanatic' automatically surrendered due to casualties. One of my scenarios (Op GLACIER 2 I think), the enemy pretty much always surrendered despite being in control of the main objective on most occasions and despite the fact that they had bonus VPs as part of the setup conditions and points were allocated to Blue for knocking them down as well. However, what the ratio is I have no idea but it will be in the 50% ballpark. It took me a while to understand that the way to get an AI enemy to hang on in there until the bitter end was to allocate reserves that never arrive.

You'll have noticed that I haven't been here much recently and it is due to a combination of CMRT and the issue I identified with red 'occupy' objectives in CMSF. Having now seen how easy map making is with the special editor overlay I'm never going back to manual measuring and plotting - it is just too painful by far. As soon as this facility comes in to CMSF I will be revisiting Helmand Province and plan to knock out a load of scenarios for the British module depicting events of the action there.

Just itching for the upgrade - especially the ability to have a special map editor overlay. Once that is in place I plan to go mad creating scenarios.

Taking the Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia as an example ... Chapter 2 - XII - An Armored Task Force Seizes Two Vital Bridges. Read the description and look at the schematic - then try and find where this action took place. I'll save you the bother - there is a scenario on the repository that depicts this but the author states that he could not locate the actual ground. I have tried hard to do so myself (my first go was when CMBB came out). I have been up and down that area on paper maps and Google Earth ... there is no ground that matches the schematic. Discuss ...

astano - hadn't seen the map locator thing before - thanks for the pointer.