Broadsword56

I've seen the "sprint to exhaustion" too, and I agree that the game's individual soldier AI handles reactions to incoming fire a bit clumsily sometimes. But... Sound tactics can help prevent the type of situation described in the OP. Setting the game to display all routes will show you who's suddenly got involuntary FAST orders. The flashing icons during the replay are, as mentioned earlier, a good indication that you'd better check on that unit to see what happened. Plotting a single long MOVE order over an open field when enemy contact is possible is inviting trouble unless it's in a very safe rear area. The HUNT order gives them better self-preservation reactions. So, use HUNT in alternating segments with MOVE along the route of advance. They won't get as tired as a pure HUNT move, and will advance faster. Then you get the best of both worlds. If you sent the men through a field on MOVE because you thought it was entirely safe and then got ambushed, then your opponent got the drop on you -- c'est la guerre. The issue is that the affected units tend to run way farther than necessary and wear themselves out. But the choice of tactics can also affect the outcome when your unit suddenly takes unexpected fire. If you send an entire squad across an open field on a long MOVE order, then there's a good chance an ambush will suppress or pin them all. Splitting squads and giving them some space intervals insures against this. Because if there's an ambush, there's now a chance that only one of your teams is actually fully in the killzone. The other teams can take cover, try to locate the source, and lay a base of fire to cover a withdrawal. (Using these tactics means you'd also have triple the number of units and orders to manage in the game -- another reason to stay away from these big scenarios if you don't like the management.) The problem, though, is that instead of dropping and waiting for the covering base of fire, the ambushed team will immediately start sprinting -- which we all know usually leads to grief when an unsuppressed MG has them zeroed. Choosing to play monster scenarios and then saying you don't like to manage or check on your units makes no sense to me. Why not play something better suited to your style?

Probably works also because IIRC suppression effects carry over into adjacent AS in addition to the one you're a-shootin at.

Great tactic tip!!

Hoping for a fix or improvement to this some day. This issue would be my #1 wish, even before fire or other much-desired items. It's one of the few areas of CM where the game, sadly, bears no relation to the real-world historical tactic -- which was for tanks entering towns and cities to stand off and hose down every structure that could possibly shelter enemy infantry. The hosing down might or might not have any significant effect -- but at least the player could try and the proper infantry-tank balance in urban combat might be achieved at last.

Might be a dumb question, but just to double-check... Are you sure you had the "quality" settings on the left side of the editor set exactly the same level in both games? Did you select it in the same order (quality first, then the unit from the OOB menu)?

Some of my faves that really seem to cover the CM-level small-unit action, tell a good human story (not just maps and numbers and hardware), and illuminate various corners of WWII history quite well: Saving the Breakout: The 30th Division's Heroic Stand at Mortain, August 7-12, 1944 by Alwyn Featherston Day of the Panzer: A Story of American Heroism and Sacrifice in Southern France [available in Kindle] by Jeff Danby Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible [available in Kindle] by John C. McManus Key to the Bulge, The: The Battle for Losheimergraben (Stackpole Military History Series) [Paperback] by Stephen M. Rusiecki The following one is fiction, but written as a blow-by-blow account (from both sides) of a typical hedgerow battalion-level battle in Normandy, summer 1944. It's by a British vet who was there. Probably my favorite of the list, and it gives you a really good insight into how the units operated, command-control, snipers, patrols, orders, etc., all while telling a page-turning story: Anatomy of a battle [Hardcover] by Kenneth Macksey

In the U.S., at least, it's probably because copies start at USD $97.89... http://www.amazon.com/18-Platoon-Sydney-Jary/dp/1901655016

We just need them in the editor where they can be a bridge type.

Now they HAVE to do it.

They're good for leading patrols, since they have radios and a few stripes on their sleeves. I wonder how much patrol activity is actually happening in CM games... Short fights on small maps reduce the importance of patrols. Playing only against the AI, knowing it can't react or exploit a weakness, also may lead players to overlook patrols and patrol tactics. Typically we think of recon and scouting patrols, to find the enemy. Even then there can be a difference between a patrol tasked solely to gather intel and a "fighting patrol" that's out on its own looking for trouble. Patrols are useful to cover gaps between your positions when you don't have the resources for a continuous front or LOF to cover those gaps. And it was also doctrine on the US side for every unit to always maintain visual contact with some element of a neighboring unit. "Contact" patrols can accomplish that. Are there other good uses of patrols that other players have found in-game?

IRL there was a culvert under the canal, offmap to the east, which allowed some transit N and S without needing the bridge. So your ford would serve some of the same purpose if it can be crossed without being completely under fire.

Yes, you could just turn a few of the water tiles in the canal into shallow ford and make the canal fordable in some places that way. It would be a huge change in the way the map would play, of course -- since the defender would then have to cover a lot more ground on the W and SW perimeters.

There was a scenario with this same title in BiA Earned in Blood. A good inspiration source, to be sure.

Which part are you going to use for your QB, vanir?

Is there a mod anywhere for the German Mark III tank(s) in the MG module? Searched the Repository but no joy.

Yes, your best bet is to open a map like Bimmer's in the editor, see if you like it in 3D preview mode, and then and see exactly what was used (tiles and elevations). I find swamp tiles make good ditch, creek, gully, and small river beds when you need a water feature like this but can't use real water or shallow ford tiles due to the elevation restriction. But the key is variety -- so the swamp tiles can and should be studded with tiles of mud, and rocks. Then paint some brush here and there along the banks. Then, depending on the kind of real-life location you're modeling, add a bit more foliage along the banks -- the various A,B and C bushes, maybe a tree here and there. For elevation, you need at least a 2m difference between the sides and bottom of the creek to make a noticeable gully effect. And you would need to lock the elevations a lot along the bottom and the sides to get the effect, otherwise it will just be a slope and not look like a water-cut channel.

Yes. It's the building block of a scenario. If you want to play on it, you need to: 1. Place the file in your "Scenarios" folder. 2. Open it in the CM editor 3. Finish the scenario with forces, etc., of your own choosing. Map is already done for you. But if you want a smaller battle area, you can also cut the map down to an area you want (be sure to save a clean copy first so you can go back to the full version in the future). 4. Play the scenario you made as a 2 player head to head battle, either PBEM or 2 player hotseat. (If you want a solo battle vs. the AI, then you'll have to add your own AI to the scenario, victory points and objectives, etc.)

Great, immersive, stupendous mod! Thanks for updating. I especially like the "light" ambient noise set.

Hear, hear. Even if the PC "died" as a common household and workplace device, I'll bet many of us are so hooked on CM that we'd just scrounge old PC components (like vinyl record and typewriter enthusiasts today) and keep building our own machines to continue playing and enjoying these games until our twilight years.

I came across this book many, many years ago in my school library, and found it fascinating: It's from the late 1960s and long out of print, I think, but I found it on interlibrary loan. It's filled with line drawings of typical Dutch farms and fields and settlements -- worth browsing if you want to get a better overall feel for the look of the place. But beyond that, the book has several detailed diagrams that illustrate how the whole dike-and-polder system works: So, if you're trying to make an authentic CMBN map of Dutch terrain and wondering what all this "polder" stuff is about, you can use this to better understand why a drainage ditch, a canal, or a set of windmills might be in a particular location and how they relate to one another. Granted, most of Spier's book deals with regions farther north and closer to the sea than the Market-Garden battlefields. But much of it can still be helpful. According to Peter Spier's Wikipedia page, he had a harrowing WWII experience (Jewish descent, concentration camp survivor). After the war he emigrated to the USA, and I think many of his books reflected his love and nostalgia for his native land.

Yesssss!!!

http://loisirs.ign.fr/patrimoine/espace-photo.html

Thanks! Just to make things even more challenging for the Allies, I think I'm going to make the scenario's touch objective zone (which triggers the bridge becoming "contested" and a determination of when the Germans can attempt to blow it) known only to the German side. That way, the only way I'll know when it's triggered is when you get an alert and telle me it's time for a demolition check. Prevents me from getting to gamey with the zone and creeping right up to it, and gives me relaistic uncertainty about exactly how close I can get without a possible KA-BOOM!

JonS recently made the definitive tutorial for maps and scenario creation. It's on this site and came as a PDF with the MG Module too.

Hard to say exactly. About 2 weeks of working on it an hour or so at a time, so roughly 15 hours. Overlays make things go much faster than before.