Combatintman

@Aragorn2002 Have a look at the attached which might nudge you along the way for the groundwork required to get your map started. This is the WW2 Era map overlaid on to Google Earth using the Add Image Overlay tool: Lochstadt Map.kmz This is the area of the map that I want to create in CM using the Add Polygon tool. Lochstadt Overlay.kmz Note that when I make this, as @Pete Wenmansays, you use the Google Earth measuring tool to get the dimensions. These are the dimensions you need to resize the mapping area to in the CM editor. I just used one overlay as my Special Editor Overlay in CM which was the map - sometimes I also use a screenshot of the aerial view but in this case I just had that view on my second screen: Special Editor Overlay.bmp This is the CM map created from it: Lochstadt.btt Load up the kmz files in Google Earth and just have a look around which might help you to figure out how I've done it. Stick the Special Editor Overlay into your Z folder and then load the btt file and see how it looks in relation to the overlay to get a feel as to how I've put the thing together.

Therein lies the problem with Schirwindt - this is what it looks like 70-odd years later: However, please don't take that as criticism of your efforts - anything that gets more people into the scenario game is always supported by me.

Of the two that I know you're looking at - I'd do Schirwindt first. As someone who's made a map or two, I don't fancy Goldap at all. You've got a whole bunch of closely spaced contours in your built up area plus what at a very quick look appear to be some quite tricky changes of elevation to get right. Your problem there - even if you use the elevation script is doorways and windows sunk into the ground in the town and all sorts of other shenanigans. Also, I find built-up areas quite a chore to do and Goldap has more of that type of terrain than Schirwindt. Schirwindt, elevation-wise is a doddle by comparison and is a neat and compact town. I'm sure you've sort of looked at this already but here are the two side-by-side to illustrate the ugghhhh factor for Goldap vs Schirwindt: If I was to do Schirwindt, I'd rotate it like this so that you've got the main streets in the town in vaguely straight lines:

A mere two division's worth of bridging ...

No idea - might be due to a VPN issue or something to do with your country of origin or where your credit card is from. Paging @BFCElvis

I suspect the bomb landed off map - is your target near a map edge? It isn't obvious with airstrikes but you'll often seen artillery and mortar rounds landing off map, particularly when spotting rounds are being fired if your aim point is near a map edge. In short, if my assumptions are correct this is normal behaviour and not a bug.

Ok so your narrative does not fit the commonly accepted 'how the Cold War gone hot would have played out' but ... so what ... That basic narrative is that there would have been about a week's worth of fighting, and it would have gone nuclear. The area that you're looking at is what was termed the Rear Combat Zone under that construct and sits at the back end of the 1st Belgian Corps (1 (BE) Corps) AO. 1 (BE) Corps was the southernmost corps of the Northern Army Group (NORTHAG). The 1st British Corps (1 (BR) Corps) sat to the north of the Belgians and basically the line of the River Weser was deemed the ultimate backstop line for 1 (BR) Corps and I assume 1 (BE) Corps - once that was crossed it was time for instant sunshine. If the Soviets managed to pull off an airborne operation then in the 70's or early 80s the Weser line would probably have been one of the target areas and if not committed there then the line of the Rhine. By the mid-late 80s the army-level air assault battalions would have got the Weser and the airborne divisions the Rhine. Not overly helpful for you right now as CMCW has neither Belgians nor Soviet airborne or air assault units and, as you have pointed out, none of the heimatschutzbrigaden which would be a good fit. Like I said ... so what ... your narrative has no nuclear stuff going on ... maybe the politicians changed their mind. Overall, it doesn't matter because the narrative you have is as good as any alternate 'history' and will work well enough for you to string a campaign together. For the Soviets you would be looking at something that fell in the Western Theatre of Military Operations and the best fit would be formations from the Belorussian Military District. As to how the thing would fit together, this RAND paper has some good stuff in it: Soviet-Warsaw Pact Western Theater of Military Operations: Organization and Missions (rand.org) Belorussian Military District here: Belorussian Military District (ww2.dk) I get the feel that you're looking at the lower end of the spectrum for kit - more T-55 and less T-80 so within that I would go for 28 Combined Arms Army: 28th Combined Arms Army (ww2.dk) Within 28 CAA I would go for 50 Guards Motor Rifle Division because its listings (all of the listings have big gaps in them) show that in 1985 it was T-62, BMP-1, BTR-60 and BTR-70 so the assumption being that it probably had that kit in 1980 works well enough. 50th Guards Motorised Rifle Division (ww2.dk) For the US side I have little expertise but dragging up some low-readiness division from CONUS sounds plausible and Wikipedia has it CONUS based in 1980. Other than that, I can't help much ...

Thats cigarettes in American before anyone gets too hot under the collar.

Yep - the gate overlooked the British Sector of Berlin, and the East Germans predictably had an OP in the gate to ensure ahem ... no fascists tried to cross the antifascist barrier into the Soviet Sector ...

Seconded.

Just a discussion.

I assume this is Naismith's rule or a variation thereof. Temperature, wind, ambient light and ground conditions are also factors of course.

According to the manual, headcount is a factor which will deny the command to a squad/section when it falls below a certain (unspecified number). Realism-wise it makes sense as while teams often fire and manoeuvre in pairs it is more a squad/section thing than a fire team thing.

Your opinion obviously and what makes a good map is horses for courses but dragging this back to Berlin, @benpark the creator of the stock maps for Berlin had started work on them sometime before January 19, 2015, and in March 2018 was unhappy enough with them that he scrubbed his work and started again. Modding is modding and there is great work done by modders as this threat amply demonstrates but "pretty boring" in stock releases is pretty much what has to be the standard because everybody has to be able to experience the game unmodded and stock scenario designers and map makers have to work within those constraints. To use CMFB as an example, the maps created by @benpark and @Pete Wenman(and others I'm sure probably) were absolutely superb - I have walked that ground on numerous occasions and the boring stock maps are superbly realistic which give you a sense of actually being there. @Pete Wenmanmade the map discussed in this thread for the Market Garden Module in which @Free Whiskyhad high praise for the quality of the mapping and a similar sense of "visiting history". Sometimes real ground is "boring," but it is what it is ...

CMCW specific but I suspect it isn't much different for other titles:

It is about 10 minutes work - set what you think your most common value across the unit is going to be when you pick the battalion in the editor then refine from there.

Great ... so you want to take this degree of control and refinement out of the editor then?

It isn't - there's just a lot of people bumping their gums about the game's soft factors who haven't looked hard enough into the editor to know how they can be applied. Most squad-sized units in most armies are commanded by NCOs - you want NCO-led units to be rubbish - select the squad-sized unit(s) and turn the experience, leadership and motivation factors down to whatever level you deem appropriate. You want the officer to be good (I'm still waiting btw ) then turn those factors up for the platoon HQ, Company HQ and Battalion HQ.

I know, but the subtlety of this reaction is important to grasp.

Well yes but the encouraging thing about the incident when examined through the prism of "we're going to nuke London" and similar threats that have been bandied around since the get go is that Russia could have reacted very differently to this e.g., "the aircraft was spying on Russian forces and was in airspace close to a warzone ahem ... special military operation zone that improved its chances of doing so and was; therefore, operating at risk," or something even more bellicose followed up by announcing an exclusion zone on pain of being shot down over the Black Sea for NATO military aircraft.

I even used a stack of flavour objects mate 'cos I know you love 'em ...

Village mate and not much of one at that - I've lived in two that are four times the size of Chervone ... I know to a lot of map makers four structures = a village, 8 = a town and 12 = a city but not this callsign. One of my particular scenario bugbears and why in the main all of my maps are based on real places as this avoids such schoolboy errors.

My version is 2.16 so you need to patch - deffo nothing to do with the battlepack.

I'm not a fan either but it is always a balance between keeping to the topography and avoiding zig zags. This one was pretty easy as the main road is pretty much north to south and the roads coming off it aren't too crazy.

I have the battlepack but I thought that the battlepack was just battles which is why I didn't specify it as a requirement. I'll check mate and amend accordingly - thanks for the heads-up.