A Canadian Cat

Minute 28 Orders: Frobe's squad triggered a touch objective for the SW barns. Now that I see these are touch objectives I think I am in trouble. The Americans have made it all the way to the Cafe and into the whole of the farm (remember there was a team inside the SW barns). That means they have probably touched all of the objectives and I have only touched one. Right now we have taken about equal casualties. So as it stands now my opponent has the win in hand and only has to defend it. Not a good situation to be in but no sense crying over spilt milk. Time to clean it up – if I can. My plan will be to continue assaulting the farm and if that goes well then I should be able to swing back for the rest of the objectives. This will be touch and go. Inside the farm there are several contacts towards the farm house. I have to assume there are men in each of the barns and I can see soldiers behind the wall at the opposite side of the court yard. The biggest threat is to get flanked from the bocage line to the left of the North West barn. If the enemy can secure that field then I will not be able to get the rest of the platoon into the farm area. First squad under Meissner have started advancing towards the sunken road I will get them to leap frog the teams and assault the bocage line. At the same time I will continue to fire suppressive fire into the farm court yard – Steiner's MG team plus Fitzemeyer's team will target areas inside the farm. At the same time the Harmel's Shreck team will target the visible infantry on the other side of the court yard. I will leave Frobe's squad to them selves in case the enemy start moving around. Meanwhile Heuer will head into the orchard to touch the object there and then double back to the bocage line near the cafe to protect against the GIs flanking me from there. Minute 28-27 Action: Things pretty much go as planned. Frobe's scout team lead, Jork, gets hit but that is the only casualty this turn. Meissner squad leap frogging towards the bocage. Fire fight in the farm. Harmel's Shrek team did not get into a good position so no HE was sent towards the spotted GIs on the other side of the court yard. I don't think my guys hit anything this turn. Minute 27 Orders: Orders pretty much stay the same. Keep up the fire in the farm, assault the bocage line and cover the rear with the last of 3rd squad. ... post 7

Mean while at the farm the rest of the platoon is doing it right. With supporting fire from the MG team and the Platoon commander into the court yard plus Harmel's Shrek rounds hitting the farm building, Frobe's squad advances. They take no return fire and arrive in good order. When they storm the building they find the two GIs already dead (a bit of luck that happens when you have covering fire) and no one else inside. The wall outside has a team of GIs firing at them but some small arms fire and two grenades later they are all gone too. Below you can see two Americans have already been hit and the first of two grenades is just sailing over the wall. That is how a building assault is done right – covering fire on the approach and after. I had no casualties at the farm and managed to inflict some significant casualties on the Americans. ... post 6

Minute 29 Orders: Lammert's 3rd squad will rush the back door of the Cafe with the scout team trying to cover the road. Hopefully no other GIs will try to cross it. Meissner and Steiner's MG team will lay down suppressive fire into the farm and the bocage while Frobe's assault team will try to follow those GIs into the barn and eliminate them. This is a bit of a bold move since the GIs are already in the farm but if I don't move now the field between the farm and my guys will be covered by the bocage line and the farm will be firmly in the GIs hands. This way I hope to get a squad into the farm and keep the GIs down with the MG team. I hope it works out but we will see. Minute 29-28 Action: The action was heavy this turn and it can be summed up in one word “grenades”. This is also a case study in how to assault a building the right way and how to do it the wrong way. Lets start with the wrong way. Lammert's 3rd squad rushed the back door of the Cafe with no direct support at all. The scout team simply was cover the road but no one was firing into the building they were assaulting or the near by buildings. Things start off well enough with the squad crossing the open space only taking a little fire from across the road. But once they are about the enter the building boom – two grenades hit and all hell breaks loose. They they are finished off by some small arms fire. The result is a total loss of Lammert's squad (save the two scouts) What at total disaster. I wasted the whole squad and should never have made that bold (aka stupid) move. This is the wrong way to assault a building and my men paid the price for my mistake. The best I can do is promise them I will not do that again and do my best to keep their platoon mates safe and successful. ... post 5

Minute 30 Orders: My orders remain the same: The rest of Frobe's squad (Jork's scout team) will join the squad in the sunken road. Steiner's MG team will cover them. Fitzemeyer will move closer to ensure everyone remains in command and Meissner has split his squad so they can leap frog into the lane while the other team covers the field in case any GIs try to come through or around the other side of the farm. Minute 30-29 Action: The Steiner's MG team and Fitzemeyer spot a whole bunch of movement in the farm's central courtyard. They open up. Two GIs make it into the barn. They also spot some movement in the bocage behind the farm. This is trouble the GIs are here in strength and have made it to the farm first. Meanwhile at the Cafe some GIs show up there too. Heuer's scout team opens up but they make it across the road and into the Cafe buildings. Lammert's team also takes some fire but no one is hurt. ... post 4

Minute 32 Orders: No change in the orders 3rd squad moving to wards the Cafe everyone else moving towards the farm. Minute 32-31 Action: First contact made! Steiner's MG team spots a lone GI behind the farm walls. They score their first victory Minute 31 Orders: The question is was that GI part of a scout team or a larger force. Given his position behind the farm buildings I believe he is a scout team. It turns out that Meissner's squad and Steiner's MG team are in a perfect position to cover Forbe's squad as they move across the field. I decide to take advantage and rush the natural depression next to the farm. Forbe will lead his assault squad across the field to the sunken road and take up a position on the reverse slope facing the place the GI was spotted. If all goes well I will be in a position to move the rest of my main force towards the SW bars in a minute or two. Minute 31-30 Action: Frobe's assault squad makes it across the field but not without taking some fire from the farm wall. The MG team does a good job of suppressing the GIs and none of Frobe's men are hurt. Lammert's men are getting close to the Cafe and will soon know if it is safe or not. ... post 3

Prologue As requested here is the long version of my AAR. This is the file I kept turn by turn as the game played out. I have only proof read for spelling and grammar which I am sure are still not 100% correct. Since the cat is already out of the bag I will start by saying I lost. Big time. I made my plan based on incorrect assumptions then changed my mind part way though executing the plan. After a poorly executed building assault and some bad luck my small number of victories could not make up for my mistakes. The teams Platoon: Fitzemeyer 1st squad: Meissner 2nd squad: Frobe scout team: Jork 3rd squad: Lammert scout team: Heuer MG team: Steiner Shreck team: Harmel Minute 35: Setup and initial orders. The briefing says this is a platoon patrol and I am to seek out any enemy in the area and destroy them only if tactically possible. It further states that I need to keep my casualties low. So, sounds like I am either out gunned and I will need to be very careful to keep my casualties under control and spot as many enemies as possible. Or, I am the stronger force and I will need to find and destroy the enemy. The map has several objective areas with point values. There are a lot of objectives on the map and many of them have low point values. I am not sure how important these are compared to the briefing objectives of spotting and destroying enemy units. Clearly holding all these objectives will be difficult with such a small force so I think I will start by trying to get to the cafe at the intersection the the south east and use that as a base of operations as I head north. That will give me the most points for a single objective and the ability to get eyes on the central road the orchard in the west and the field in the east. My initial orders look like this: I have split off a scout squad from 2nd and 3rd squad. I will be sending Heuer's team east along the road stopping to check the safety of the field and eventually the South Orchard. Jork and his team are tasked with verifying the lane to the west of the orchard is safe. Once I know the road is safe I'll move the rest of the platoon at least part way along it towards the Cafe. My plan is to keep the scouts close enough that if they get into trouble they will have support. Minute 35-34 Action: None – the scouts moved forward and around the corner without incident. Minute 34 Orders: I decided to move the platoon up behind the scouts. Minute 34-33 Action: Again not much – the scouts now have some view into their assigned fields. The platoon did start moving up behind the scouts: Minute 33 Orders: After seeing how close the farm buildings are from the small lane I decided to switch plans. 3nd squad under Lambert will continue to move towards the Cafe while the rest of the platoon will switch and move towards the farm. I think I can get the bulk of the platoon into the farm fairly easily and since the farm buildings seem to have a variety of cover and walls if they meet trouble the will have a place to fight from. We will see how this plays out. Minute 33-32 Action: None – just a careful walk in the rain so far. ... post 2

I started to work on putting the full thing up but ran into the 5 images per posting limit. I defiantly will put the whole thing up but it might take me a while to assemble it all into chunks the system will take and then I'll post them.

I thought it mainly rained in Spain. Oh wait just because most of the rain falls on the plains does not mean it is always raining:) That would be a logical fallacy - my bad. Seriously though, I think the announcements time out after they have been there awhile. I have not conducted an experiment but that is my impression.

Thanks for your suggestions Sgt Schultz but they are not working for me. I played around 7 turns over the weekend and the game "lost" two of them. I am now back to saving each turn before I continue just in case the turn gets lost. So, my original question stands are other people having this problem? Is it just me?

This is the number one thing I would like to see added. I usually don't want my AT guns firing at the attacking infantry screen. Usually. I want control over that choice. A cover armor command will give me that. The trouble is the hiding squad does nothing until it is unhidden. So if your HQ unit sees a target enter the kill zone there is no way to automatically trigger the ambush. Without a command like this the target could travel right through the kill zone or worse stumble on your hiding guys and kill them before you have time to change their orders. Yes, I am talking WEGO here. Yes, this works already there is *no* need for a special command for this at all. True about the gaps - please designers help us out here. As for low bocage / hedge differences I would like the game to be tweaked here. The low bocage just does not look imposing enough. I think that is the basic problem. If it looked imposing then we would get the feeling that it could not be easily crossed.

Prologue During the game I kept a turn by turn record of the game and turned it into a 38 page AAR with lots of screen shots. I don't think it is fair to hog this thread with that volume of content so I am going to do a one page version here and if people want I'll post more in a separate thread. Since the cat is already out of the bag I will start by saying I lost. Big time. I made my plan based on incorrect assumptions then changed my mind part way though executing the plan. After a poorly executed building assault and some bad luck my small number of victories could not make up for my mistakes. The teams Platoon: Fitzemeyer 1st squad: Meissner 2nd squad: Frobe scout team: Jork 3rd squad: Lammert scout team: Heuer MG team: Steiner Shreck team: Harmel Minute 35: Setup and initial orders. The briefing says this is a platoon patrol and I am to seek out any enemy in the area and destroy them only if tactically possible. It further states that I need to keep my casualties low. So, sounds like I am either out gunned and I will need to be very careful to keep my casualties under control and spot as many enemies as possible. Or, I am the stronger force and I will need to find and destroy the enemy. The map has several objective areas with point values. There are a lot of objectives on the map and many of them have low point values. I am not sure how important these are compared to the briefing objectives of spotting and destroying enemy units. Clearly holding all these objectives will be difficult with such a small force so I think I will start by trying to get to the cafe at the intersection the the south east and use that as a base of operations as I head north. That will give me the most points for a single objective and the ability to get eyes on the central road the orchard in the west and the field in the east. I proceed with caution just in case my assumption that I am outgunned is correct. My initial orders look like this: I have split off a scout squad from 2nd and 3rd squad. I will be sending Heuer's team east along the road stopping to check the safety of the field and eventually the South Orchard. Jork and his team are tasked with verifying the lane to the west of the orchard is safe. Once I know the road is safe I'll move the rest of the platoon at least part way along it towards the Cafe. My plan is to keep the scouts close enough that if they get into trouble they will have support. Over the next few minutes I slowly moved the scouts and platoon forward. A few minutes in after seeing how close the farm buildings are from the small lane I decided to switch plans. 3nd squad under Lambert will continue to move towards the Cafe while the rest of the platoon will switch and move towards the farm. I think I can get the bulk of the platoon into the farm fairly easily and since the farm buildings seem to have a variety of cover and walls if they meet trouble the will have a place to fight from. We will see how this plays out. This was my first mistake. Not the changing plans part (although in hind sight I think starting from the cafe and heading north to the farm would be the superior plan). No, the mistake was splitting the platoon up. As my guys moved into position they spotted movement in the barn and across the road to the cafe at the same time. I decided to move fast at this point against both the cafe and the farm. This is where I make my really big mistake. The squad heading for the cafe is totally unsupported and I have no business ordering them to take the cafe. The rest of the platoon are in a good position to assault the farm. That was a good move. So, in Minute 29 saw a great victory and a disastrous defeat. The disaster at the Cafe was my undoing. Here is the entry from that fateful turn. Minute 29 Orders: Lammert's 3rd squad will rush the back door of the Cafe with the scout team trying to cover the road. Hopefully no other GIs will try to cross it. Meissner and Steiner's MG team will lay down suppressive fire into the farm and the bocage while Frobe's assault team will try to follow those GIs into the barn and eliminate them. This is a bit of a bold move since the GIs are already in the farm but if I don't move now the field between the farm and my guys will be covered by the bocage line and the farm will be firmly in the GIs hands. This way I hope to get a squad into the farm and keep the GIs down with the MG team. I hope it works out but we will see. Minute 29-28 Action: The action was heavy this turn and it can be summed up in one word “grenades”. This is also a case study in how to assault a building the right way and how to do it the wrong way. Lets start with the wrong way. Lammert's 3rd squad rushed the back door of the Cafe with no direct support at all. The scout team simply was cover the road but no one was firing into the building they were assaulting or the near by buildings. Things start off well enough with the squad crossing the open space only taking a little fire from across the road. But once they are about the enter the building boom – two grenades hit and all hell breaks loose. They they are finished off by some small arms fire. The result is a total loss of Lammert's squad (save the two scouts) What at total disaster. I wasted the whole squad and should never have made that bold (aka stupid) move. This is the wrong way to assault a building and my men paid the price for my mistake. The best I can do is promise them I will not do that again and do my best to keep their platoon mates safe and successful. Mean while at the farm the rest of the platoon is doing it right. With supporting fire from the MG team and the Platoon commander into the court yard plus Harmel's Shrek rounds hitting the farm building, Frobe's squad advances. They take no return fire and arrive in good order. When they storm the building they find the two GIs already dead (a bit of luck that happens when you have covering fire) and no one else inside. The wall outside has a team of GIs firing at them but some small arms fire and two grenades later they are all gone too. Below you can see two Americans have already been hit and the first of two grenades is just sailing over the wall. That is how a building assault is done right – covering fire on the approach and after. I had no casualties at the farm and managed to inflict some significant casualties on the Americans. Frobe's squad triggered a touch objective for the SW barns. Now that I see these are touch objectives I think I am in trouble. The Americans have made it all the way to the Cafe and into the whole of the farm (remember there was a team inside the SW barns). That means they have probably touched all of the objectives and I have only touched one. Right now we have taken about equal casualties. So as it stands now my opponent has the win in hand and only has to defend it. Not a good situation to be in but no sense crying over spilt milk. Time to clean it up – if I can. But I could not. The Americas took out my scouts and flanked me in the south. After hitting me hard in the side my last casualty free squad was decimated and broken. I managed to secured the farm but that broken squad surrendered and never fired another shot. And that is how it ended - a tactical victory for the US. Congratulations to eniced73. I will be rooting for you in the next round. I have a more detailed version of this AAR that I can post if there is interest. It documents the first 18 turns (last few turns are covered by one entry before we called a cease fire) with 47 pictures.

The Blitz also has most of what you are talking about. I guess the big thing missing would be a real time player finder. It has a ladder system that includes a results based rank (ELO) so, over time, you can find players that have similar skill level to play: http://www.theblitz.org/ladders/Combat-Mission-Battle-For-Normandy/action=ladder&lid=16&active=0&played=0&order=d&order_by=elo&all=1 Another opportunity for you to join forces perhaps.

Lots of good advice deleted. What I wanted to add was - make sure the fields are not billiard tables. Many topo maps show contour lines that are 10m or more apart. What that means is elevation changes that are less than 10m will *not* show up on the map. But changes in elevation of 1, 2 or even 5m will make a big difference to how real things look. Around here fields that are flat are few and far between and those that are are full of water:) Most fields have a roll to them with high spots and a variety of gradients, heights and shapes.

I too was going to +1 PP's sentiments but then I read this and actually laughed out loud. So instead, nice one Erwin and thanks Fuser - I want to echo what PP said too.

Agreed. I have one PBEM friend that has temporarily giving up CMBN. He is strapped for time right now due to RL and found that he could not just jump in and play CMBN like he was playing CMBB. So he wants to go dark for a while and play against the AI when his time frees up so he can figure out the new game.

I stand corrected - about the proper spelling of Commonwealth. I *do* know that poverty is common and wealth is not.

Someone else can correct me if I am wrong but I would suspect that the current CMBN demo would be a good test. If you are happy playing it on your note book then you will be just as happy with the Common Wealth module added in. Well more happy because you can play the Canadians:D Nope no download only in the pre-order. Once it is released you can just buy it and download it.

And while the game loads - for that you need a book no web surfing while the game reads in the next PBEM file. This will be the number one issue for people who want to do WEGO over TCP/IP. Every PBEM turn will cost them 3 to 5 minutes just for the game to load. That long load time is my least favorite part of PEBM but at least at a turn per day rate there it is not a significant time compared to the 24 hours in a day. However with TCP/IP support there would be no need to reload the game every turn - what a time saver that would be.

What!!! unacceptable That is a good point. It does seem from the artillery discussions that things could be tweaked in terms of targeting and accuracy. I have no knowledge of that. What I do know is if your guys are under an artillery barrage it is a bad thing. In game and out. That would be awesome - it would make me so happy. True what you say about both sides suffering. I would really like to see some improvements here. Like GreenAsJade's (I think it was him) recent postings about wanting infantry especially AT teams look around corners more. Right now it seems you can either have your guys snug against the wall and able to see anything past the building. Or away from the building totally exposed. I would love to have the tube guy poke his head and weapon around the corner. Misses do happen. The more I think about this the more I think people are forgetting about the misses. Why just this morning I was playing a turn (in Carbide Carbide) and noticed a Sherman burning. So I looked to see who got the kill and found both my Stug and an At gun took shots. Replay showed two shots from each down range. Both missed high with their first round and found there mark with the second. The AT gun got the first hit but no idea which will get credit for the kill. This is in the 400 to 600m range. The Sherman was invisible behind bocage and came through an opening and suddenly appeared. It was moving at the time. Perhaps the complaint will come from my opponent "No fair my Sherman never got to shoot" but hey they came zooming around the corner right into my pre determined kill zone for both AT assets. What happened is pretty much what I would expect. PS. I know my opponent. He will not actually say that and he probably knew that tank would flush out something. I just hope they did not see wht hit them before they brewed up or else...

Thanks to flamingknives and Wreck for this information. I will be applying it to current and future games for sure. This is an example of why I read these forums. Dealing with buildings have been giving me fits and I hope your information will help. Yeah that is very important. One thing I am getting good at is clearing buildings. The fits come from my guys inside the buildings. Area fire by supporting units on upper floors is important. Before sending the assault squad in the door the supporting units have been blasting away at *all* floors for at least a turn (for un confirmed enemies) or longer (for confirmed enemies). OK OK with an 8 story church tower I usually cannot target all the floors so I'll try to hit ever second one and mix things up each turn but you get the idea.

flamingknives Interesting experiment with buildings, very interesting indeed. I like your explanation of the difference between Veteran and green troops better too.

Sorry to see that you are disappointed but please hang in there. There are many things that are different but the game is lots of fun to play. However it *is* different from CM1 (which are also still fun to play). Yeah artillery is nasty and mortars are really nasty used in direct fire. This has been discussed a lot and the consensus IMHO is that they have it pretty much correct both in terms of accuracy and effect. The only thing that might be done to make it better would be to have the AI spread out squads a bit more than they are now. Bottom line if your guys are under an artillery barrage they will die fast. Conversely if you can get the other guys troops under your artillery barrage they will die fast too. I agree there are some issues here but you can learn how to get the game to do what you want without the unexpected surprises. Here are a few instances that cause confusion and some suggestions. Vehicles in convoy: Yikes this is still a pain but give space between vehicles (more then you thing you need) and use pauses to make sure they stay separate. To avoid vehicle bunches and the inevitable "you first", "no you", "no you first", "oh never mind I'll just go around you" keystone cops routine that follows I start out my convoy with lots of space. Then in each command phase when I see vehicles getting too close I issue pause orders to the following vehicle and all subsequent vehicles. I religiously manage this turn after turn to prevent the bunching. Also you can / should drive convoys in packets of vehicles. In real life this is how it is done anyway groups of 3, 4 or 5 vehicles form a packet and the whole convoy is made up of a number of packets. Each vehicle in a packet stays together relatively close like normal driving and they keep an eye on each other slowing down so stragglers can stay close etc. The separation between packets is larger and more varied. In the game this means that you have some extra space between groups of vehicles and you never have more then 5 vehicles that can get into one of those keystone cops moments. Bridges: Make sure you have a way point on one side of the bridge and another one on the other side of the bridge. And make sure you do not have a vehicle bunch up that happens near a bridge (see previous). Bocage: For infantry to prevent long surprising trips I also usually place a way point near the gap one side and the next way point on the other side of the bocage near the gap I want the guys to go though. For vehicles off road: Check that the terrain between way points is passable. You can do this as you place way points by moving slowly along the direction you want to go and watch for the ghost buster symbol. After a while you get better at recognizing terrain. That would be great and is one of the most requested features around here. Not sure about what you are seeing here - no comment. Well first off are you sure it was not an HE shell? Also my understanding is that some AP shells did have some HE inside them. Plus buildings seem to be shrapnel generators which would explain a lot in this example. Oh, there is a difference big time. The troops have their own AI that responds to what is happening on the battle field. Green troops will break, cower and run back much sooner than crack or veterans will. Trust me after playing this game for a while you *will* notice a difference. You will learn to pay more attention to CC issues with your green troops. You will also learn to make sure you do *not* ask crack troops to perform a suicide charge because there is a good chance they will try it. Yep this can be a bit of a pain. The face command is your friend. If you move your guys to the action square where the cover is and issue a face command towards the enemy then the guys do a pretty good job of setting up using the sandbags etc. Yeah, lots of debate on this one. Lots. Again IMHO the consensus is that unfortified buildings *are* more dangerous to be in and that churches do not offer enough protection. This has led to requests to make the churches stronger and offer a fortification that could be applied to houses to make them offer more protection. It has also lead to some scenario designers to add walls around the first floor of buildings to make them offer more protection. Yeah, also and issue. This one has not been debated very much but suggestions have been made. Who knows what will happen. Yep, CMBN gets this right. After much debate the consensus is that is how it was. If you saw the other tank first, you hit the other tank first, you kill the other tank first. Having said that if you play this game enough you will see lots of misses too. They do happen from time to time. And tanks do sometimes shrug off hits - even Shermans. So hang in there and you will see some amazing things. For example here is a PzIV and a Sherman killing each other: It is OK only .50 cal and up can cause Blue on Blue casualties. But it is a good idea to manage your targeting to avoid wasting ammo and especially for the big stuff - which can cause casualties. I know just this morning in the Huzzar scenario I had a tank coming from one direction and a squad from another. The tank put a HE round towards the target and missed. Then the round landed in the trees right in the middle of the squad. It killed five or six guys. Take advantage of what ever terrain is there to hide behind and keep their heads down. They do not spot. The do not respond to sounds close by - they just hide. Be careful with this command. Well people do stupid things some times so do the pixel troops. Firing on open tanks to close them up is as expected. The consensus is that some of this needs tweaking like sniper assistants showing their position by firing SMGs early. Or team hunter teams using rifles when they should be holding their fire until the tank gets closer. Yeah, that was tweaked in the patch. Lots of people thing it needs to be lowered some more. It is not clear if this is planned or not.

As previously answered this is caused by there being multiple setup zones. As far as getting the placement you want I stared a PBEM game of this scenario recently and had the same issue. Here is what I did. I placed the mortar teams where I wanted them inside their own setup zones (no movement orders for them). Then I placed the their leaders as close as possible to the appropriate mortar team inside the leader's setup zone. Then I gave the leaders a move order to where I really wanted them to be. In my case they were all set and ready to go after that first minute.

Yes. They will be outside of a setup zone. I have not seen this personally but from reading the manual about scenario creation this is clearly possible to do. Your setup phase is both initial setup and first turn's orders. The next command phase you get is after the first minute of play.

I had another look at that picture blown up really big and look at that a pistol grip near the front. Very cool never seen one before - thanks akd.