Rokko

To me option 2 sounds preferable, actually. Covering 7 months in one single module with 2 (maybe 3) campaigns and some 15 scenarios would in my opinion most likely result in a rather superficial coverage of that period, especially if it were to include every region of the Eastern front (Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslowakia, Poland, Germany, Finland, Romania, Hungary, etc.) without adding any new forces. Much like Gustav Line, which was a great module but much of the added timeframe wasn't really utilized, e.g. I think there was only one scenario featuring the brand new snow feature. Option 2, expanding the timeframe from Oct 1944 to Jan/Feb 1945 (much like the upcoming CMFB) while adding some more prominent stuff (Waffen-SS, Lend Lease stuff, maybe Hungarians) would in my estimation lead to a more focused product. Some WSS summer 44 battles in Poland, Winter Warfare in Hungary in early 1945, Battle for Budapest etc. The second module could then cover the drive to Berlin, Seelow Heights, Spring Awakening, etc and also add some more obscure new forces like Finns, maybe Romanians, Partisans, other German stuff. That way both modules would feature some of both, new forces as well as new regions and expanded timeframe

There are lots of soviet tanks around in Eastern Germany. At least in Berlin and around the Seelow heights. I actually almost broke my neck once falling off a T-34/85.

Aknowledged, I guess for the future to give scenario designers the option, since you can also portray lakes and ponds, which probably did freeze in Belgium and Holland, too. I remember the dread in WITE when in 1941 all the nice defensive lines along major rivers would all become more and more under attack as the rivers froze and lost their crossing penalties as the blizzard raged on.

I wonder how this game handles water. Does water freeze when the temperature setting is low enough? And is marsh traversable by vehicles when the ground is frozen?

It appears to me he has shown that a certain gun can consistently penetrate/knockout a certain's vehicle armor at a certain place and that removing armor from that spot has the effect that the same gun at the same distance can not consistently penetrate the same spot of armor anymore. That is probably incorrect or at least unexpected behaviour. Also, the coax not firing from the MG 3D model is clearly a bug.

Has anyone even tried yet if this can be used for cheating in H2H games? From my (limited) technical understanding something would much rather lead to crash of the game than to a useful cheat. I am fairly sure this issue is way overblown.

Thought I'd share two screenshots I took. This company of T-34 decided to come driving out of the forest road out off Radzymin at the wrong time and was promptly taken apart by a bunch of Panthers without being able to fight back. This road proved to be death trap to retreat along. That Panther in the background was responsible for taking out two or three of the visible T-34s

I am pretty sure it's a bug, because it is very different in CMBN and this only appeared after patch 1.03. I reported this a few months ago and I believe it was then aknowledged to be a bug. The driver having the PzF is also clearly a bug and nowhere else in the CM series is equipment treated that way. But I agree that these issues don't really affect gameplay in this campaign. I got that there were enemy tanks retreating, but most of them that got away went through the woods appearently I couldn't really do anything about that. I don't know how many were there to begin with, but I just went back and checked and I had taken out 9 back then, so almost a full company at the loss of one PzIV and another that had it's main gun damaged. The full score for taking out Soviet armor would have been 500 of which I got 322, so probably 7 or 8 tanks got away. I pretty much realized from the start that given the strict time limit I'd probably not score a victory in this and just rolled with it, considering the campaign doesn't branch and doesn't kick you out for losing. When I determine the scenario goals to be not really achievable I generally decide to just play at my own speed and have fun with it. Having played CMBN before, I am probably a bit too timid when using tanks against infantry, even though Soviet infantry can't do a whole lot against armor. I realized this after the mission was over. I am not sure they really meant to show the enemy exit zones to the player or or if it was an oversight (incorrect setting in the editor) considering they didn't in the first mission, so it's kind of a consistency issue. If it was meant to be seen by the player I'd suggest to rename the zones to Soviet Exit or something like that. What I did was essentially first take out all enemy armor with my own and then advance the infantry to their objectives on foot. Only for the final push I lorried in two platoons that came as reinforcements. I actually scored a total victory in this as the enemy surrendered when I advanced into the village center after mercilessly shelling it into the dust. This was essentially what I did so far, I just wanted to share my thoughts and give the designers some feedback, maybe there will be some revisions to the campaign in the future. Either way it's a lot of fun. Another historical note, which of course does not mean the campaign has to be absolutely historically correct, but 3rd Tank Corps would have had about 180 T-34s at full strength (doubtful it was at full strength in early August 1944) + maybe a regiment or two of SPGs. After the third mission I have already taken out some 40 tanks and there is still a bunch of missions to come. Maybe those will be less armor heavy, but there elements from 5 Panzer-Divisions involved in the battle for Radzymin and the destruction of 3rd TC, not only the 4th Panzer Division.

I'm finally getting to play the German campaign from the CMRT base game at a decent rate and thought I'd share some of the things I've noticed in it, before I forget about them again. Most of the things I am going to point out are going to be negative, since thats the stuff that keeps sticking to your mind more, so first off: I am greatly enjoiying playing this campaign so far (I am about halfway through Mission 3). I like the scale and the open country armor clash gameplay of it very much. I also like that all maps so far have been cut from one large mastermap, as it gives a feeling of continuity from battle to battle. I also like that you get quite a lot of fire support, instead of artificially cutting away your batallion mortars or something like that, like many other scenarios do. But for the issues I've noticed: - The bug with the missing Panzerfaust allotment for armored Panzergrenadiers is no gamebreaker by any means, but it is annoying and more than once I had wanted to send some legged tankhunters into some undergrowth to weed out some T-34s that were hiding there and couldn't because there were no PzF around. - The motorized Panzergrenadier you get in Mission 3 also suffer from this. Their trucks do have one PzF each, but you can't have the passengers acquire them. I don't think this particular bug has been noted before. - The scoring in mission 1 seems quite off. In the end, the entire map was void of any Soviet forces except for a scout team or two and I still got a minor defeat or a draw because I didn't occupy all of the required areas (and I got most of them actually, it was Soviet bonus point that tipped the balance). Since many of the Soviets actually retreated and were off map, they didn't surrender either. - In mission 2 the scoring also seemed off. You have to attack a urban center with an artificially short time allotment of only one hour (1:20 actually, but it takes 20 minutes until you have a significant force at your hands). Seemed unrealistic to me, why the rush, why the ambitious goals, many of them weren't even held by enemy but you have no way of knowing the enemy is actually pretty weak in terms of force size). I think I also scored a minor defeat in this one despite seriously thrashing the enemy. Only about one platoon in relatively good order was sitting in the town center in the end. - the briefing for mission 2 is pretty inaccurate and some of the information it gives you is false. For instance, KG Baker gets a PzIV icon in the TacMap. What you actually get is a armored recon infantry company. So I was waiting the whole time for another group of tanks from the North West (?) which never came. The briefing also mentions you'll get a battery of 150mm artillery (6 Hummels I think), which never arrives. - I am not 100% sure, but in mission 3 it appears from the briefing seems to indicate you are expected to rush your truck-borne infantry force over a lot of open ground to reach a bunch of exit zones. Also seems ahistorical to me, I don't think this is the way motorized infantry was used. I am essentially not obeying my orders in this one and just take my time and walk everybody where they need to go and probably will not score a victory again. - In the beginning of mission 3 there is a pre-planned barrage hitting within your set-up zone. To me that is a no-go, it is just annoying and simply gets you to start over again and avoid the barrage. - In missions 2 and 3 the soviets get ground attack aircraft. While they didn't cause much damage (one self propelled Vierling wiped out while firing ironically) and it's cool to see your Flak reacting, from what I read about the Battle for Radzymin it is rather ahistorical. It appears the Germans for once actually had - temporarily and locally - air superiority during this battle.

I guess using them with regard for casualties makes sense from a game view, since you don't really have to care about air casualties. But I doubt a real commander would send in a bunch of helicopters if he knew it was very likely 1/4 or 1/2 of them would not return to base, and in my experience manpads are pretty effective. So what would a real life commander's choice be? My guess would be to not use them at all at the current time and wait for better opportunities where his air assets have better leverage.

Hi folks, I've decided I'd give the Russian campaign in CMBS a go and am in Mission 1's setup phase. I have 4 attack helicopters ready to go, but I am pretty uncertain whether to use them right away or not. Is it better to have them go in first or to wait and rather use them mop up in face of probable presence of MANPADs or other anti-air assets? Though using them to mop seems like a waste and spotting MANPADS without stepping on them seems rather unlikely.

"ich fuhr als vorderster Wagen, und da mir die Feuerhalte immer heikler wurden, preschte ich dem Waldrand zu, der mich deckte. [...]" This is an account I've just read, were Feuerhalte, so firing stops are mentioned, FWIW.

"In the night from 29th July to 30th July the Canadians managed to wrest a small group of houses north-west of Tilly-la-Campagne on the road to Falaise after heavy fighting from the defending group of 5. and 6./1 (note: 5th and 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, SS-PzGrRgt. 1). This is correctly juged by the defenders of Tilly, the rest of II./1 and 10./1, as well as 7./Pz.Rgt. 1 (note: 7th Company equipped with Pz IV) and parts of 2./St.Gesch.Abt. 1 (note: 2nd Battery of the divisional StuG battalion) as a preperatory meassure for a renewed Canadian assault." Lehmann, Die Leibstandarte IV/1, p.194 So not much on that, but a pretty precise identification of exact units involved, in CM terms probably to greatly reduced companies of motorized SS Panzergrenadiers.

JonS, if you wish I can give you a rough translation of what the LAH history (Die Leibstandarte IV/1) says about that date. It's pretty amazing btw how well the war in the west is covered by sources in comparison to the Eastern Front, imagine finding a war diary of some Soviet rifle batallion on the internet, even in if it were in Russian.

There is a mod that fixes that in the repository I think. Kieme made one for CMBS which also works for CMRT. Only thing there is no fix for unfortunately is fences.

But getting the ? would not help you one bit, because under no circumstances does CM try to simulate firing range conditions. You can check that by having a bunch of riflemen target a barn 200m away. They will have trouble hitting the literal broad side of it, even with no enemies around

Another great I source I recently found. http://www.landkartenarchiv.de/deutschland_heereskarte.php Full coverage of a large part of Eastern Europe. Scale is 1:100 000, but the resolution is really high, so definately usable for CM maps. Note that elevations are (mostly?) in the weird Russian scale for elevations.

Thanks Denis1973 and VanirB, those figures are very helpful. Since the figures in that graph are production figures, I assume that the turning point for the ratio in front line units would be a few months after Oct 1944, with most of the T-34/85 being concentrated in TC and GTC and Mech Corps, right? So the T-34/76 would mostly be in Cavalry units and independent Tank Brigades in the Rifle Armies, is that about correct? Btw, the mis-identification issue I first stumbled upon after reading this wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-43_tank interestingly, the combat report where I read the reference (where the T-34/85 was ID'ed as T-43) was from early 1945

If you need more maps and don't need them by tomorrow (or by the end of this week for that matter) and have some overlays ready you could send them to me. I find making maps without the hassle with AI plans and OOBs etc. very relaxing.

Could you upload that map somewhere? It looks pretty cool.

Yes, that I know. I just haven't seen them used in any scenario, i.e. few or no designers for the base game used them.

JasonC, thanks for the reply. I guess you are correct about my assumption being a little too quick to assume it was a common thing, but I've read that previously unknown to me reference to the T-43 in two or three different accounts in two different books. What would you guess was the point were the ratio tipped in favor to the T-34/85? BTW, I haven't played all all scenarios or campaigns in CMRT but I think so far I have only seen 85s ingame, so I wondered.

Hi folks, I've been reading some German divisional histories I have in my possession (in fact, I just bought all 5 volumes of the LAH history recently) and stumbled about an interesting question. German accounts often misidentify the T-34/85 as T-43. So presumably, many accounts that mention T-34s exclusively refer to the old model ones. Even by 1945 those are mentioned a lot. So I was wondering, how many T-34/85 were there in comparison to the older T-34/76 and how did that ratio develop until the end of the war? Also, at what organizational level would that differ? Tank Brigade or rather Tank Corps?

Actually that would be a pretty neat solution if it could be done, but I am sure that has been considered internally already, long before CMBN was even released. I think thats the way it is done in Operation Star, which has really pretty looking trenches imho.

If you look at the "About Us" page there are 8 people listed, but a good amount of work seems to come from outsiders like MikeyD and ChrisND plus most of the scenarios and campaigns come from other people. Only two people are actually coders, but I think someone once mentioned that researching TOEs and such is the most time consuming aspect of the whole process, that and scenario design I would assume.