Rokko

Restricting modding for CMBN games like it is done doesn't really matter I'd say. The community is very small and the amount of people with modding skills is even smaller. Even if all the people who upload mods here got together they couldn't make a total conversion in their free time I believe.

A preview of the next map I'm working on after finishing the Buron-Authie-Cussy one. I expect it to reach a little under 3x3 km in size. Main focus is on the town of Cambes-en-Plaine which saw combat between I./25 and the 2nd/The Royal Ulster Regiment. Not sure what this is, until recently I believed this was the local school, but turns out, that is somewhere else and didn't exist in 1947. View from the North showing the railway line which doesn't exist anymore, the Cambes wood and the Cambes park. I'm not sure if I have pinpointed the exact location and size of the park. I can't imagine what it was there for, but all battle accounts mention a huge 3m stone wall severly restricting movement. The Cambes church. The real one is much less tall than the standard CMBN 8 story chuch so I had to destroy the top floors even though it doesn't look as good. Gameplay over looks in that decision. A view of the unfinished Chateau with the park and the church in the background. A top down view from the West. I'm a little sad that I couldn't stick to my usual "keep the roads straight" maxim, especially with the railway, but the scene just didn't allow that.

Does the book mention why Stiegler didn't just force them to land in Germany or bail out? I guess that's what I'd have done.

The largest CMBN map that I know of is this one http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=109593

Well, looks like this replaced the old thread, too bad. I was kinda dumb when I uploaded, because I forgot to update the description, so I'll post that here: This is a NEW VERSION of my map, one that I would consider final and the one I am going to use for my 12SS campaign. List of changes: 1. Reworked elevations 2. Some changes in Buron made according to new data that I have found 3. Added the AT-ditch North of Buron, though it doesn't actually stop tanks, so: -a) Place AT-Obstacles in it - Set up houserules not to send tanks in it (for H2H scenarios) -c) Tell the AI to move around it (in AI plans) 4. Flavour objects EVERYWHERE! 5. A little more vegetation here and there. The archive also contains the old map file, though I wouldn't recommend using it. The flavour objects don't seem to affect performance much.

Interesting. Why did the US have so much more POWs and only about half the KIA despite losing only about 25% fewer planes? Could it have something to do with the fact that the British mostly did night raids? That's the only explanation I could think of right now.

Are there sources on the internet about Chinese and North Korean TOEs and OOBs? Like detailed ones? I would imagine this could be the most difficult part about researching for a wargame.

Banzai charges were not meant to be successfull. They were a means of suicide by enemy fire, not really a military tactic

The third picture makes me wonder: Do troops actually get cover benefit from captured enemy foxholes? I mean I have often enough sent people into them hoping they'd protect them, but it always looks like they don't enter them properly.

Yes the equipment wouldn't be too different (which would make development easier btw considering most of the stuff will be already present in Normandy/Eastern Front) but the array of different tactical situations is just amazing. Human wave attacks against American firepower in frozen terrain, rugged hillsides like in Sicily/Italy, desperate battles of cut off American forces, etc.

Well it wasnt exsctly followed by the Vietnam conflict at least when we are talking about American intervention. And it was my understanding that the fighting in Korea didnt affect the public back home (in the US) nearly as much as WW2 or Vietnam did. Also the faact that it was so inconclusive and that it wasnt all shining victories contributes to its unpopularity today.

Is something like this ever going to happen? I never understood why the 1950-1953 Korean conflict is so unpopular, maybe because it didn't have such a great impact on civilian life even back in the day. But from a military view it always strikes me as amazingly interesting. Essentially it appears to me as sort of much like the Eastern Front with UN troops as Germans and North Koreans and Chinese as Soviets on a smaller scale. For instance Frozen Chosin to me sounds very much like the winter battles in 1941-1942. Mostly the same equipment as in WW2 with a few more modern toys. Also, WW2-era Marines would be a debut to the CM series The strategic situation having been highly fluid (considering the entire country was fought over like what? 3 times?) it would make great for some great offensive and defensive scenarios for BOTH sides. I am by no means an expert on that war, but it appears to be quit managable from game developing standpoint. Relatively confined in terms of terrain and force involved (US Army, USMC, CPLA, KPLA + other UN forces and South Koreans that could be delivered in modules). Technological advances don't seem to have played such big role and were definately not as important as in WW2. I don't know about organizational changes during those three years, although only the first two might be really interesting for a tactical war game. The most important question, off course, is, how much interest is there in such a game and if it would be profitable.

I'm pretty sure a 76mm could have killed a JpzIV frontally at that range, should have given it a try I'd say.

In my experience being lightly wounded can drastically affect sniper accuracy. I'd even say they're mostly useless in yellow state.

How well are Brummbaers protected agains ATG fire? Like how much punishment can they endure considering they're on PzIV chassis.

How severe were personell losses in aerial combat during 1944? Surely aircraft losses could be easier sustained than pilot losses, but at what rate or in what ratio were pilots actually lost back then?

Marders are actually pretty good. I have often seen them outperform my own expectations on them despite their paper thin armour.

Wasn't it said that MG was being developed by a third party? I suppose that influences how much is publicly declared.

From "CW My Honor is Loyalty". Me vs. the AI. Pretty cool scenario, but the AI isn't very smart in this one. It essentially shoved Sherman after Sherman through a bottleneck which my Panthers had in sight from two sides until it ran out of more tanks. It also bunched up lots of infantry in very very dense "formation". The greatest tank killer of the day:

The Schreck is not in the building but before it at the wall. Unfortunately, I too had hoped they allowed AT weapons to be fired from indoors.

Now that I think about it, will AA guns also be included in the Market Garden module? I am wondering, because that would mean some TOEs already in the base game would have to be changed to include them and that might cause inconsistencies with older scenarios.

On the other hand, I feel kinda sorry for the guy on the Bofors. That one is about as likely to survive as the gunner in a 37mm Sdkfz 251 or a Churchill commander.

Oh wow I can already see all these squads moving in single-file getting eaten by quadruple AA guns You still can't preorder download only, right?

Well bummer But it's definately a plausible explaination for why the files change everytime you save. It's also kinda understandable considering Battlefront's policy of not letting anyone change any game files except for sounds and textures, although I don't think it is necessary here or at least I don't really see what needs to be protected in the .btt files. I guess if I really wanted to get into this I could find out what the .exe does when you hit the "Save" button in the editor but I'm not gonna go down that road. Still sad though, because I think it wouldn't take long at all to implement with only very few problems potentially coming up. I think BF should do anything they can to make the lives of mapmakers's easier, though, considering how user-made maps and scenarios are really what keeps Combat Mission games alive.

OK guys, this is something for the pros I'm envisioning programming a tool to make life easier for map makers, considering how relatively cumbersome the editor itself is. The idea is along the lines of the following: The user paints a rectangle (in the editor) in Map A using one of standard overlays we already like Allied Objective #1 or Axis Setup Zone #1 or whatever (doesn't really matter I believe). He then paints an equally sized rectangle in Map B. The tool would then read all the data associated with tiles marked in A, including every information (tile type, elevation fix, brush, houses, fences, roads, flavour objects) and copy said data over and overwrite the information in the marked area in B. So essentially it would be a copy and paste tool. Now I am definately not a seasoned programmer, but I am not completely clueless either and what I am planning sounds relatively easy (in theory). Now before any of this gets started, I'll have to understand how map information is saved and where and that already is much less clear than I hoped it would be. Main biggest problem at the moment is, that each time you save a map, the code changes (when watched in Hex Editor), wether you actually changed something or not. I could identify a file header which stays always the same (could contain information like date, time, etc, not sure). I made a test map, 4000x4000m, completely flat with only (short) gras tiles and I could kinda identify the pattern for defining the 16,000,000 individual gras tiles which was like 01 AC 06 B in Hex and probably stands for Gras, Elevation 20 or something like that. But sometimes when I simply saved the exact same file and the pattern changed into 60 35 80 D but mid-file, so the first part of block I assume defines the terrain tiles still had the first pattern and later changed into the second pattern, without anything in the editor itself except the file name. Also between the assumed header block and the assumed terrain tile block there was another block that never remained the same, also no patterns recognizable there. Note I am not experienced in using Hex Editors so this really confuses the hell out of me. And that way I can't really analyze how changes in the editor affect changes in the code. So now I kinda hope there is someone here with some programming skills how might be able to explain this to me. Maybe I have also woken some interest and someone would like to support me in this.