Hellmann

Some excellent suggestions and points ladies & gentlemen! Well, if we're talking separate games proper (as opposed to modules for existing ones) and I have to choose one (Poll, anyone?) it's easily WWII North Africa, no question. I mean, if we're talking potentially epic battles with significant Armour? Tim Stone of Rock, Paper, Shotgun has lamented this in his various Flare Path articles over the years; I think his recent-ish playthrough of CMAK illustrates the point: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/06/17/the-flare-path-welcomes-combative-commenters-2/ BTW, I'm guessing Tim's articles in Rock, Paper, Shotgun have been an effective sales boost for Battlefront in this regard (or at least I've always bought a new module after reading his write-ups) and I suspect Tim's enthusiasm for a new CMAK would be shared by a significant number of wargamers around the world too? My only question is, what to name it? CMOT (Operation Torch)? CMBG (Battle of Gazala)? CMKP (Kasserine Pass)? CMEA (El Alamein)? CMRR (Rommel's Revenge / Raid on Rommel)? CMDF (Desert Fox)? CMDR (Desert Rats)? CMSS (Sandstorms & Stukas)? CMSQ (Sandstorms & Quicksand)? Of course, add-on modules don't have to be epic tank battles. LRDG raids are cool too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Desert_Group e.g. I like the idea of commanding a small LRDG force with the mission of rescuing a downed RAF Hurricane pilot (Roald Dahl?), stranded in a minefield. (you only have so long before a DAK / Regio Esercito patrol arrives). Or, how about including a quicksand mechanic? Either way, I just feel WWII North Africa is an interesting environment to roll tanks through, more-so than CMFI for me. Also, sand storms. Lots of epic lo-vis sand storms and swathes of rising dust from vehicles, tactically obscuring that column of enemy Armour. Also, Stukas? Not to mention Hurricanes, 109 strafing runs, He-111 low levels, etc. Um, did I mention Stukas? Alright I'm blabbing on now, cheers! -H P.S. Whenever I see a classic war film set in WWII North Africa, I can't help thinking it's disappointing we couldn't buy a new CMAK so we could make our own personal Tobruk, Ice Cold in Alex, Patton, Raid on Rommel, Desert Fox, Sea of Sand, Big Red One, Play Dirty, The Hill, The English Patient, Raiders of the Lost Ark (etc!) CM scenarios based on the old movies just for fun.

Interesting how the BBC "journalist" was grinning with glee, beaming at the prospect of this museum closing. Why was he so happy about it? Is there a connection with the closure of this (privately owned) museum in France & the recent dismantling of the Battle of Britain museum aircraft at Hendon? So, there's a recent increase of individuals making a cool killing selling WWII museum pieces to private collectors. Shouldn't these artifacts remain in a public museum? Or could it simply be that the public who are now living in the immediate vicinity of these museums couldn't care less or know about WWII history? I expect the thinking behind this is, the museums are more profitable for the owners by being sold off and converted into housing (for immigrants)?

I'm one of those nutcases Easily fixed of course; created fake music intro.wav, music splash.wav and music end of battle.wav files (renamed zero byte text files), dropped them in the z (or Mods) folder and no more distracting music. Still, I hope the currently missing/broken music splash.wav is fixed in CMFB 1.02 for those who want it Sounds good!! Looking forward to how the new FX lighting looks during a night skirmish! Now I'm really going Nuts! (re: Lt. Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard's BotB message) Take care and all the best to you sir.

Hi, thanks for the patch! Just one small bug report (so far, lol) the trigger for music splash.wav is still broken during scenario load. music intro.wav plays instead. (music end of battle.wav works fine as normal after a scenario). Just mentioning it in case you were unaware. I see Erwin and CMFDR were talking about the bug in Maps & Mods before 1.01 patch release...

Hello guys, please excuse the impromptu message but I just felt I had to say thank you to Battlefront for making such brilliant games. And I wasn't quite sure where else to post this, sorry if I got it wrong. I just bought Red Thunder and the modules I missed (Vehicle Pack and 3.0+ Upgrades) to complete my CMx2 collection and it's all good stuff as usual, thanks. Now, I just reinstalled my old CMx1 games I bought years ago and hadn't played for a while and I'm loving it even more! Yes, even with the genius of your CMx2 series I have to admit my favourite is still old CMAK, mainly because of the North Africa theatre. I hope you'll revisit North Africa at some point in the future but at the same time, I was thinking at some possible reasons why you've avoided it in recent years. I'm just guessing here... could the reason be because the swastika on the Afrika Korps vehicles is a bit too obvious and "politically incorrect"? And you want to "avoid potential problems" of having the swastika portrayed in full view? I know you have the swastika in CMx2 already on some uniforms but you really have to zoom in close to see that. But of course, on the main AK vehicles it's right there for everyone to see, isn't it? So, is this one of the reasons you've avoided Afrika Korps recently? I'm thinking this could very well be it! But hey whatever guys this is my main point I'm drifting from I wanted to say: The main thing I like about your Combat Mission games is not so much the WEGO system (which I love, don't get me wrong) it's just the fact we have those "instant replays" to watch the action from any angles or viewpoint. So I was thinking if you wanted an idea or improvement for a future game, the one "new" feature most welcome would be a full battle replay movie viewer. I'm thinking something along the lines of the movie viewers we already have in games like Rise of Flight, Cliffs of Dover, Flaming Cliffs, Black Shark and DCS World that record everything in the game world from mission start to mission finish, saveable in a replay file for later viewing anytime we like. This way, if we want to play our missions in Real Time mode rather than the WEGO system, then we still have this tool for debriefings and catching events that happened on the battlefield we might've missed during Real Time. I mean, c'mon guys... we had this years ago in Falcon 3.0 and Total Air War, didn't we? And let's not forget what our god and savior Larry Holland did with his Battlehawks 1942, Battle of Britain Their Finest Hour, X-Wing and Tie Fighter movie recorders (even if a little buggy, the trick was not to hit pause during recording!) If nothing else, we could make editing our war movies so much easier. And isn't more videos on YouTube more free advertising for you anyway? I loved whoever made the "Cross of Iron" video of Red Thunder I saw on youtube a while ago but I think they missed one glaringly important element; no "Cross of Iron" tribute is complete without a "Peckinpah" slo-mo camera mode, is it? Now, if this was somehow recorded in other game engines like Rise of Flight, Cliffs of Dover or even the Birds of Steel engine on PS3 (the forerunner to War Thunder), the "slo-mo Peckinpah" movie camera mode is already built-in to do exactly that with no further editing necessary! Does anyone else think a proper battle recorder (slo-mo feature optional!) is just a basic feature worth having in Combat Mission, or is it just me? I mean, it isn't just Flight Sims that have "black box" recorders like this, is it? The Total War strategy games have had a save replay feature able to save full battle recordings well over an hour long for years since the first Rome Total War. The Time Commanders game show on the BBC was based on it as well as a handful of other historical documentaries used it (I'm trying to avoid mentioning the History Channel here as they are a total joke in recent years not worth watching). Imagine the possibilities of using Combat Mission game footage in future documentaries if we had a similar battle recorder as in the old Rome Total War? What do you think?

I'd bother looking at this, if I didn't already believe the IJN movements were already known full well in advance by Roosevelt (Rosenfeldt) at this time during WW2...

Haha yes I wanted those too, but wait for a moment... think of some items that would truly be unique to own... I always wondered *who* in the world it is who has Baron von Richthoven's collection that was reportedly looted from his home after his death. That sort of thing. Somebody out there, has those things, somewhere. A banker, perhaps? I doubt we will ever know.

Brilliant! I read about this in a comic many years ago, I think it was probably Warlord or Battle Picture Weekly. Never saw it in anything other than a drawing until now though, cheers mate!

High end?? If you were into that horribly dumbed-down brainwash device for zombies made year after year by 'Worst Company in America', then you would be the lowest-end person imaginable on Earth and I would probably never speak to you again. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Not the droids you were looking for but I'm currently reading this: http://www.amazon.com/It-Never-Snows-September-German/dp/1885119313 by Robert Kershaw. I think anyone who is currently playing the Market Garden module would be interested though. Also, again perhaps not the theatres you wanted but I've always liked the works of David G. Chandler. He taught at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and wrote a few books you might like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Chandler His talks on The Great Commanders documentaries were brilliant. Sadly, no longer with us, RIP sir.

John, that is such a wonderful film, thank you sir! I don't like to admit, I saw this classic a few years ago. Just in case you didn't know, there is a possibly higher quality version of this superb film on archive.org you are free to download at any time: https://archive.org/details/germansnipers Speaking of free archive.org videos, there's a good collection of various vintage American training films you might be interested in too.. here's a random one I found: https://archive.org/details/gov.dod.dimoc.29862 FUNDAMENTALS OF SMALL ARMS WEAPONS - PART I THE CYCLE OF OPERATION (1945), for example. Don't forget to watch the German WWII Newsreels on there too... or what about Panzer im Angriff (1944), U-Boote am Feind (1943).. etc. https://archive.org/details/1944-Panzer-im-Angriff https://archive.org/details/1943-U-Boote-am-Feind The only reason I mention archive.org is just that sometimes (not always) it is a higher quality version than one might find on youtube (and of course there are *some* rare videos on there, banned on youtube). Enjoy!

Oh man, I feel like such an idiot now... I always thought that CMAK was the biggest selling CMx1 game.. I was sure I read articles about that years ago... haha all these years I've been assuming wrong and Afrika Korps is NOT the most popular?! I thought popularity-wise, it went... I) CMAK II) CMBB III) CMBO Still... wrong or not, the one singular thing that makes the ubiquitous omission of official (as opposed to our own mods) Afrika Korps ops in CMx2 so puzzling to me is simply this: If we took a "who is your favourite WWII general" poll, who do you think would win? I'm pretty sure it would be "Desert Fox" Rommel. Or wouldn't it? So... why wouldn't a CMx2 CMAK-II choc full of the North African campaigns be a sensible thing to make, when we'd all buy it? Stalingrad would be nice, as well of course! Good luck guys, I have my wallet ready for you.

Haha good one. Not a regular forum member here, I usually first hear about my next imminent Battlefront purchase on The Flare Path: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/23/the-flare-path-goes-dutch/ Anyone else hear about upcoming Battlefront stuff there first? Tim Stone always seems to make me want to get my credit card out double-quick, whether I can afford it at the time or not haha. Looking forward to buying it Steve and everyone who worked on it, thank you for putting it all together for us. I'm sure it'll be superb.

Anyone else think it odd he was trying to get his mother to "read the script" in the video review? Because from the outset it sounded as if HE was reading from a script. He's definitely reading, it doesn't sound natural at all. Which makes me think... what if he was reading a pre-prepared script written for him by someone like say.. a shareholder of a major games publishing corporation? Or say, a business rival of Battlefront? This is what it seems like to me. He probably actually isn't quite as dumb as he sounds, he's just another paid troll reading a script for the benefit of a rival corporation. In this way, Battlefront can't sue him because it's just his "personal" opinion. The types of low-life individuals who sell their souls like this are the scum of the earth though. They aren't dumb per-se, they know exactly what they are doing.

Haha.. knitting, yachting, cocaine, cigars, massage parlours and Mr John Kettler as well, brilliant! I find there is a certain sense of satisfaction whenever I buy another Combat Mission game/module... I haven't got stacks of gold but hey... I still enjoy the process of saving-up to give my money to brave companies who are still putting out interesting games like this, rather than give it to the huge firms who put out the typical "dumbing down" games the corporate marketing execs seem to think the kids want nowadays... I think Battlefront got their prices just right for this ethos. For me, it's more than just the money. It's a kick in the bollocks to big games publishers marketing and PR executives. Do the kids actually want to play those dumbed-down on-rails COD type games initially though... or is it the corporate marketing execs trying to brainwash them with relentless advertising (and other methods to be found in Edward Bernays' Propaganda), subconsciously bullying them, if you will, into thinking they want to play them? ("Everyone else is playing it, so should you if you want to be popular my son!" whilst using fraudulent Facebook and Twitter polls, fake bribed reviews and "online reputation" PR firms), turning them into malleable dumb and happy consumers? (Simultaneously drugging them with GMO's, Wi-Fi/Cellular microwaves, Sodium Fluoride, Aspartame and antidepressants?) Either way, I'll carry on voting with my wallet. I don't mean any ill will on anybody but... I'd punch the air shouting for joy to hear the news that [names of major games publishers withheld for legal reasons - you know who they are] finally... finally went bankrupt. The laws of Sun Tsu finally coming to fruition back at them. Rejoice! But I can't see it happening soon... so long as enough idiots keep buying the product... so the product line continues. It's the same principle as buying cheap hamburgers that are actually harmful to one's health. Apologies for stating the obvious of course; it is in the gaming industry's interest to keep their customers (sorry, "consumers") dumbed-down enough to stupidly buy into their rubbish. I like to think Battlefront treat us gamers with a little more respect than that and not take us for idiots, so I will always thank them by happily buying their "pricier" games. I like to think that if Battlefront ever became as big as the morally-bankrupt major publishers, they would carry on treating us with the same respect.

GaJ, I just wanted to say thanks so much for your mods site, you rock!

Hm I was close then, only about 1800 miles or so out.. silly thing for me to say too because I said "you guys" and here's me the Englishman in the outskirts of London so I'm the classic hypocrite right here.. a bit like Prof. Stephen Hawking talking in an American accent... I'm not sure which TV show you mean but I can't think of the word "brrrrilliant" without thinking of a certain person... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UezPt7SjMsY Anyway I digress, I just wanted to say that I just bought Fortress Italy and the CMv2.0 upgrade to show my support! Honestly Steve, I don't know how you manage to put up with the nay-sayers who moan it's too expensive... I'm sure they haven't thought it through properly. I mean, with less PC games around these days actually worth buying, it all works out about the same when compared with say 15 years ago when we used to buy a whole load of good PC games per year, that when added together, actually cost more! It's the same thing with people who say Steel Beasts Pro PE is too much... well it isn't expensive for those of us who are buying only one, two maybe three PC games per year at most now because we aren't buying the mountain of rubbish games churned out by the big publishers! Cheers and keep warm Jack

Steve, I know this might be a silly irrelevant impertinent question but to risk it can I ask it anyway? I was just wondering where in the world you are based? I mean, for some reason I had for years thought you were American and based in Texas somewhere... don't ask me why I just had that idea... but now, your use of the word "brilliant" suggests to me that you are actually British?? EDIT: "Michael Emrys seems to have nailed it". Ad finatum hehe.

Thanks very much for the info Steve and ASL Vet, I've been away from the forums for too long so I missed all the news. Hope you're all well! Looking forward to buying Arnhem then! (just to get my mitts on those Fallschirmjägers for my own crazy Monte Cassino mod haha!) PS: I'm sure you've already seen this, but for anyone else who's interested in adding Fallschirmjäger to your scenarios, it's definitely worth a watch:

Hi, I was about to buy Fortress Italy for my copy of CMBN+CW but was disappointed to find there wasn't an inclusion of the 1. Fallschirmjägerdivision so changed my mind on buying. You see my favourite scenario in the original Combat Mission I bought some years ago was always the Battle of Monte Cassino... I hoped there would be an update in the new version... At the same time, am I right in saying we'll see Fallschirmjäger units in the upcoming Market Garden module? In other words, a possible updated Monte Cassino Battle scenario would then, finally, be playable in CMx2? What I'm trying to ask is, but probably failing miserably at is.. will there be an official Battle of Monte Cassino scenario to buy along with the release of those elusive Fallschirmjägers in the Market Garden module? Or is it that you are planning on adding to Fortress Italy at a later date with Monte Cassino, as a proper complete update to the Italian theatre? Or have I got it all wrong and the original Battle of Monte Cassino scenario is already in there to play in Fortress Italy - it's just we are waiting on the Fallschirmjäger unit models to make the gameplay look a little more authentic? Sorry if this has been asked before but I couldn't find any real answers to this. Oh and please understand this is by no means a complaint from me at all - merely a question. No disrespect to Battlefront whatsoever; I'm a fan of you guys and like the work you've done so far and look forward to the next installment! Thanks for the answer (hopefully?), take care and happy gaming

Oh no!! Sorry to hear that mate! Funny enough, I did a similar thing a couple of months ago fitting a new HDD. Without thinking I got my drive letters mixed-up (probably because my dual-boot XP/Win7 has the drives lettered differently), thinking that I was deleting the partitions of one drive when they were actually on a different physical one. After I almost had a heart attack and eventually calmed down, I managed to undelete pretty much everything. 500 gigs of rare albums, family photo's and song's I'd written going back over 15 years... Although a minority of the filenames were scrambled (probably because I chose the wrong setting in the program as I was in a hurry before fragmentation set in!), at least I saved irreplaceable data. This free prog worked for me: http://www.piriform.com/recuva. Good luck and hope you get those Tigers back!

I respect your opinion, Juju, but I don't agree with everything you're saying. Please let me explain why. In the extremely rare cases I feel a good mod needs a photo and readme which doesn't already have them, then I'll just take a quick screenshot in Fraps and type a couple of words in a text file. It's hardly a hassle. Most of the mods I've seen already have readme's though. The one's that don't are usually because the filename says everything about the mod as it is. If not, rename it! What more do you need to know? So long as you store your mods logically on your HDD, there shouldn't be a problem. You're right about one thing though; I did indeed notice one of the mods by a certain mod-god (hehe he knows who he is) that had a different 'loading bar' not previously advertised, but I actually liked it and considered it a nice bonus! It's not as if I had to use it if I didn't want to, is it? Just extract it and delete the .bmp files if you don't like it, surely? And as for loose files in the Z folder... what does that mean? All my mods are in their own folders inside my Z folder, nothing is "loose" and I can see exactly what's what. You do know that you can have all your mod files in their own separate folders under the Z hierarchy? Or didn't you know? Another thing, I usually extract any .brz I download with RezExplode so that I can see exactly what's inside a mod before I use it. Don't you? If I'm happy with what I see, then I'll leave it as the default .brz to minimize fragmentation. Otherwise I edit it and repack. I prefer it if the mod isn't packed as a .brz, but as it's such a trivial thing and only takes a few seconds to extract and examine it, I don't care either way. Why does it matter to you? There's nothing stopping you from renaming the mod folders to whatever you like, and there's nothing stopping you from repacking it as a .brz yourself... or is there? I'm pretty sure the manual or 'Mod Tools Readme.txt' explains how to do this. And why shouldn't we update our own mods whenever we like? Firstly, we don't get paid for it, so what right do you have to complain? When anyone is kind enough to share a mod or update it, I'm always grateful WHENEVER it is, considering they might never release a mod ever again. Secondly, if the person hosting our mods seriously doesn't like frequent updates, they should BAN the "offending" modder(s) to prevent them from doing so - if it's actually that much of an issue to them. Lastly, and I know I'm not the only modder who thinks this; it's nit-picking unnecessary gripes that can and do put modders off from sharing mods with the public. Remember those talented modders we lost in the past? Frankly, I've found that it's better to share the mods I make only with friends and people who can appreciate my work, than have to put up with the hassle of sharing them publicly. Not saying you're guilty of it my friend, but I'm tired of those ungrateful lazy souls who love nitpicking and complaining about the most trivial, obvious, inane mind-numbing things. You say, "In a year there will be hundreds" [of mods]. Really? Carry on with the "complaints department", and there might be less than you think!

All this is good, but I'm wondering how long it'll be before Mord grabs his Dictaphone, dons his helmet and goes throwing himself in a ditch again screaming his lungs out in a reprise of his CMSF mod? "TANK! TAAAAAAANNNNNKKK!!!!!!!!" :eek: 'Mord's Vocal Mayhem Mod' is almost perfect as it is though, mixed in with a few Big Joe and Oddball's "move it out"s for variety eh?

Thanks, got it! For sure, feel free to update with weathered versions later; it's nice of you to release the clean version first though so we can actually see how nice a job you made of it "off the peg" before messing it all up! Hehe it's hard to put all that work into it and then have to cover it in a load of crap eh? Very nice job, thanks for sharing buddy. BTW, I may (or may not) edit your textures a little in photoshop (for my own personal use) maybe changing it slightly to what I feel is more historic, but of course, that's my business and nobody elses. One thing I will most certainly never do is criticize your work and your kindness for sharing it. Thanks again old boy, I'm sure you've done this sort of thing before, very professional.