LUCASWILLEN05

One thing to note about the Churchilll tank regiments is that No 4 and 5 Troops are Sherman equipped. There were not enough Churchills available in theatre (they were sent as a priority to the forces preparing for D Day so Shermans were substituted)

A Korean War game could 1 Be set with any date from the 1970s to the near future with a mix of equipment for both sides suited to that date 2 Involve Chinese and perhaps even Russian intervention 3 Include South Korean, Japanese and perhaps even Taiwanese allies (so you get to do a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Japan as a bonus) 4 Allow for winter warfare in all those frozen Korean paddy fields Yes the North Koreans would probably lose if the US was involved but it would likely be a hard fought conflict due to the often difficult forested and mountainous terrain.

A scenario designer can set up really quite sophisticated victory conditions using the scenario editor feature. For instance the parmeter window lets you set victory points fo overall friendly/enemy casualties (anong other things) And we can identify key units as objectives under the unit objectives window. W e can select one of three options: Destroy, Destroy All and Spot and assign points for achieving those objectives. Losses in WW2 could be quite high. For example I was reading Fatal Decision recently. TThe Sherwood Foresters went into their first attack of the Anzio campaign on 31 January at Campoleone Station on 31 January 1944as a full strength batttalion. They finished the day with 8 officers and 250 OR. The strongest company had only 40 men left. The battalion CO was killed, every company commander was killed or wounded and even the battalion MO was captured trying to rescue the wounded Things got even worse for the Forestersand by March 3 the battalion was down to one officer and 40 men. The Foresters were not the only ones to suffer badly at Anzio but they do seem to have been the worst case. We can also set Experience and Motvation for individual units. And we can set the value for any leader down t squad level. If you have, for example conscript with poor motivation and a -2 leader those guys are very unlikely to put up much of a fight. i would expect most of them to be cowering after taking a little fire and they would probably surrender at the earliest opportunity. Elite Fanatics with a +2 leader would very likely have to be killed in their foxholes. A typical unit of regulars with Normal Morale and Average leadership could be expected to perform credibly but won't go beyond the call of duty. Often, when one looks at a squad that comes under heavy fire we see several soldiers cowering and the morale of the squad changes and we see descriptions such as "Nervous" and these can get worse. So it is not just the number of dead and wounded we need to consider when assessing the realism of the gaming simulation. It is the morale model as well. In my experience the gaming simulation seems to be quite accurate. If you are highly aggressive with your troops and take too many chances and/or prepare poorly then the chances are you are going to take high losses which, again, reflects the historical battlefield realities.

Market Garden on its own still seems too naarrowv a focus but, if it were the first of a series of games covering all the Siegfried Line battles of the Autumn/Early Winter period prior to the Bulge that would be a differnt matter. Market Garden itself would only cover a week or two of combat. A series of two or three modules covererin all combat in Hollland and along the German borde fro September 1 to December 16 wouold be much m,ore intersesting. Anf for future WW2 gameswhat about some of the early Blitzkreg camaigns in Poland, France and the Balkans. Maybe Norway and the Russo Finnish War,

I have been in fog where you could not even see your hand if you stretched your arm out to full length. Doesn't happen very often but I;d say 160m looks about right for more typical dense fog.

Thankyou Battlefront. Will be buying in the near future. Look forward to playing!

BF may mean 2 working days in which case Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe :-)

And then they get sent up against an M1A2 or a Challenger II for dis-assembly

quod erat demonstrandum

Well. my guess is June 4 :-) http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=5103

From a realism point of view I don't think we need this. You a a task force/battlegroup commander B Company on the right flank starts taking fire from La Mont Ferme and No 2 Squadron supporting them takes anti tank gun fire from the woods to their left. Task force commander gets a garbled report on theradio a few minutes lae. If he can see maybe there are half a dozen smoke plumes where No Squadron are supposed to be. In game terms, if you are monitoring the battle as a whol which you really ought to be if yo are commanding a battalion you will be able to keep track of what is going on much more effectivly than if you zoom in on the action No 3 Platoon D Company is fighting on your left flank. Nice to know what is going on ove there but if you are a battalion commander platoon levwel fire fights are not really your job.

You can however dismount the British tank crews which, if I remmber you could not do in the original CBO. We can also find other ways to hobble the British in the village, Having said that the later armoured engagement outside the town might well be a better game. There might be possibilities around combining the two in a campaign game played from the German perspective and there could also be possibilities of an Operation Perch campaign played from the British side and assuning that the 7th Armoured Division had not been caught by surprise in Villers Bocage.

Friendly Fire ISN'T. Though it might be possible n this game I am not certain I have ever seen it.

Hmm I don't thnk anyone wants to be fixing tank tracks or anything else while in combat. If a tank is immobilised then it is no longer mobile fr the rest of the battle due to track/engine damage etc. If you are really lucky the crew might stay and fight the tank otherwise they will just bail out and who can blame them? I think some campaigns do allow some vehicles to be repaired (divisional workshops) though I suspect the ability to repair depends on how badlly damaged it was. Knocked out and burning would, I suspect be a write off. Knocked out but not burning might be repairable.

You don'treally expect her to understand do you. You could try telling her it's her Italian Holiday except iit's to Anzio, Salerno, Monte Cassino... But then you might actually have to buy her that Italian holday. You get to tour all those WW2 battlefields. She gets to shop and sunbathe/ Good plan huh?

Seqouia is quite right about the Scuds. It would be nice to have a version with better quality Syrians bt, having played (and lost) this campaign you do need to take full advantage of terrain and engage vehicles you actually can kill at a time when it will be most effective. For example, if defending a town, don't attempt to put your MLR on the outskirts. In particular this means your tanks which die easily in a shootout. If you try to engage US/UK armour in the open you are entering a shootout you can't usually win and your men die in droves. Tank battles look like Desert Storm.Which is the right result of an open field action between technologically mismatched armoured forces. But, if you are clever and deploy inside the town setting up ambushes along key intesections etc you have a better chance of engaging at close range. If he sends his infantry iin alone they lack the heavy fire power of the tanks and his IFVs will be really vulnerable if he goes in mounted. If he sends his tanks in with the infantry hey are quite vulnerable to close range flank shots. From the Syriian commander viewpoint your goal is not really to win the battle as such (though nice if you do) but to extract the maximum possible price for the destruction of your force (make up your mind to go for a "win" on points and am to kill as many Western troops/vehicles as you can. Go for easy "soft" kills like infantry and IFVs but take close range flank shots at MBTs (best chance to knock them out - and you don't have to kill many. This is what the Iraqis tried to do in OIF showing that they hd learned one lesson from their 1991 defeat. And the Syrians, if they were wise would have seen this plus other examples such as what happened to the Russians in Grozny orthe IDF n the 2006 Lebanon War, specifically at Bint Jbeil

However, in WW2 these weapons were in the earlier phase of development and backblast would have been a problem creating a danger to the man firing the weapon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backblast_area Given the dangerous results of this in a confined space such as a room would you want to be the guy asked to fire the weapon in such an environment? On a rather larger scale

I know we are all dying to play Gustav Line but BF did say 4 - 6 weeks from 3 April so they are not actally late yet, While we can tease them in a good natured way I for one have to say that one or two remarks on this thread were not very nice and rather disrespectful to the sdesign team that works so hard on our behalf. If they brought something out that did not work properly because it was rushed out to please us we would be a lot more upset than we would be if we had to wait a few more days for a product that really was fit for purpose. Which, on balance the games are when published. So tease them all we like in a good natured way. Call them "D Day Dodgers if we must ie if we are not in Rome by June 4 or June 6 at the very latest :-) But, to paraphrase Noel Coward "Don't let's be beastly to the Design Team" Having said that, it would be nice if BF told us what was happening. In the meantime thanks for all the good work Battelfront and I look foward to seeing Gustav Line very soon :-)

Ahyes. But then we could hve this as a theme tune Instead of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmYG5vZnX10 or even this

Does (4) mean that Gustav Line is now "imminent. Hint mode shamelessly switched back on again? Presume Market Garden will be covering earl battles for the Siegfried Line incouding Aachen and earlier phases of the Hurtgen Forest campaign meaning we will see theSeptember 1944 Panzer Brigades and the first Volksgrenadiers, If so maybe "Siegfried ine" miggt be a better and more accurate title. Just a thought.

Hitler Jugund also a bunch of fanatics. Like many German divisions it can be argued that they get better with experience of intensive combat but, given thwe nature of the German replacement system the price for that is lower headcount as the Normandy Campaign continues. Agree with you on 116th Panzer. As anyone who has read the excellent divisional history From Normandy to the Rhine: with 116th anzer Division in World War II by HeinzGuntherGuderianthe division was only formed in the spring of 1944 and was not even considered combat readyIt was held in reserve for most of the Normandy campaign and was only committed to combat in early August (in terrain that was less than favourable to tanks) Considering the inexperience as a unit and the other factors cunting against it perfrmance, to say the least was somewhat lacklustre. A grade of Green or Regular (if we are feeling very generous) with normal motivation seems about right. For 9th and 10th SS they had seen their baptim of fire in Russia in April 1944 so I would be inclined to start them, off as Regular in Norm,andy. As thy saw heavy and intensive fighting I would be inclned to raise them to Veterans by avbout the middle of July. Motivation was I think quite good but not aboveand beyond the call of duty so Normal or high seems about the right level On theAllied side 2nd ~US Armourd likely deserve at least a Veteran rating and perhaps even Crack. Brtish 7th Armoured were Veteran but tended to have a "sticky" reputation so I would put Motivation on the low side for most of the campaign. Though this might change later in the campaign after various changes were implemented

Goodnight Kim

I would like to see something of this sort though not just Wittmann's roll through Villers Bacage but the later fighting around the town. An Operation Perch campaign would be a good one to have. Ideally versions of he campaign for both the Allied and German sides.

I would think that a lightly wounded soldier wirth lower motivaton would be more likely to cower. Particularly if the squad leader is not around to motivate.

I like the option to customise uniforms in he 2.0 version of Nrmandy and was a little surprised that it does not seem to be available in Italy (yet) It might change in Gustav Linewhenever that is available - the sooner the better Battlefront. Hint mode re-set to the ""Off" position