Broadsword56

Merci beaucoup, Snake Eye! Fantastic photos -- this is what I enjoy so much about wargaming: the way the games lead me to explore and read more to learn about the history and the places on the maps. (I think #4 looks a lot like my El Guettar map.) You are the expert on Tunisian terrain, so please go ahead and alter Flanking The Fortress in any way that you feel makes it more faithful to the actual place.

+1 for persistent map damage, but would this be a workaround? To wit: After the first battle, make a copy of the campaign. Open this new one in the editor and apply said damage from Map #1 to Map #2. Save and then resume play from that point.

Great and timely news, Steve! Not to look a gift tank in the mouth, but... Are any Volksgrenadier units to be included in MG? And if so, will they have the dreaded MP44 assault rifle (even though, to be sure, it was rare at this stage)? Is it true that the season-setting capability in MG will end with autumn (because that's when this campaign ended)? In other words, no ability to design snow/winter maps like in GL?

It would be good as a compromise if a bridge could be designated in the scenario editor as wired or not wired for demo at setup, and then the player defending it could choose to blow it or not during play. I can understand not allowing bridges to be wired during the short tactical span of a CMBN battle. But if a bridge had been designated as wired before a battle starts, they shuld be able to blow during a battle. IRL, didn't the Son bridge blow up right in the 101st AB's faces just as they reached it on 17 Sept.?

Maybe the in-game temps were coded by an Australian.

Also: MMP has sent its new Tactical Combat Series game "Canadian Crucible: Brigade Fortress at Norrey" to the printers so it's likely to be available soon. The TCS is good scale for an op layer to make about a brigade-sized campaign.

Hi Snake Eye, Please go ahead and add whatever smoke-capable artillery to the scenario that you feel would make it better. Then you can send me your saved scenario file and we can use that from now on. If you want to adjust some of the US HMG starting positions to give them better fields of fire and better protection, please go ahead. The only requirement is that they start on those hilltops, which is where they were historically. I think the low German casualties from the US artillery are realistic. From my understanding of this battle, the Germans had some good cover under and among the rocks. Consider this: If artillery could have killed a significant enough number of Germans on Hill 531, then why did the US find it necessary to make a frontal infantry attack and, ultimately, to fight them from boulder to boulder? It must be because only close-assaulting infantry was capable of dislodging them. By the way, I hope your long trip to Tunisia went well. Since you have spent so much time there, can you tell me whether this map looks realistic for this northern part of the country? I tried to do the best I could using online photo sources, Google Earth, etc. I hope I captured the feeling of the place. QUOTE=snake_eye;1443781]Hi Broadsword56, You are right without smoke cover the attack is rather a suicidal one. However, once you have reached the area near the cliff and between the two hills (using artillery barrage and smoke) you are, if I can say it, safe, but only If the German observers do not have registered that area. The problem then is to move away from that position. Personally, I favor the right hook movement, using the low grounds cover. But that move is only efficient if the attacking forces are not exhausted and have ammo. Usually I have a fresh platoon moving through the one being there to do the attack. At that moment I have again a need for smoke cover. That smoke cover is needed, specially, if I have platoons moving from the right hill downward and toward the attacking one to join the attack. That platoon is particularly exposed on the hill crest and on the downward slope. To resume my thoughts about the way I have handle up to now that battle, artillery is the answer. HMG are put to good effect to slow down the enemy and in putting down an interdiction fire along the hill crest. They are somehow exposed to mortar fire, if they are on a hill crest. So, it is better to move them in such a way that they are not viewed directly from the enemy. That can be done for just two or three of them. Doing so, means that you cover the right and or the left side, but not both. Is it worth doing so? What game engine improvement will we have for these MG’s ? Coming back to artillery HE barrage are not specially the answer. They seem terrific, the views of the barrages are fantastic and beautiful (to watch, not to be under) however and even on that bare and rocky ground of that Tunisian hill the casualties are rather low. In RL they could be low on some instances, but right here (with no cover), I don’t think it matches reality. Will it be better on GL ? However smoke is surely the answer and it will be considerably needed to hide the attacking forces. That does not mean that HE should not be used. It must be used at the same time. One thing I have found on GL is that the LOS is such that in one battle I did not see the enemy crouching in their foxholes dug on the top of a slope. My troops were on the other side in houses and these areas were in plain view of some of the guys. They saw a AA truck passing by, but missed the guys. I only saw them with quite a surprise in the AAR preview map. That could be an asset in the scenario, if the enemy is not able to see the US as it had before. That we will learn testing the battle with GL loaded in CMFI Could you send me the file with the added artillery or do you want me to modify the last one I had worked on the A.I? Cheer

@snake eye: Thanks for offering to test this scenario again using GL. One thing I would already want to change -- even before GL -- is to add much more US offmap artillery support. The smoke available now isn't enough to cover the Americans for the entire length of their advance across the valley to Hill 531. Without the smoke the attack is suicide. The real AARs make mention of divisional artillery being involved in the preparatory fires. I have some Long Tom guns in there now, but there should be a divisional support element with a proper OOB. It will be interesting to see whether the new MG improvements to the engine will give the US HMGs a better ability to support the attack from their hilltop overwatch positions. In my short test they didn't accomplish very much and were largely neutralized by German mortaring.

Sorry, the AI for "Flanking The Fortress: is for the Germans only. It's really best as a HTH battle, but the German AI makes it possible solo vs. Germans. (Don't mean to hijack this thread. Enough about that here. Back to Bulge banter!)

So it looks like the biggest obstacle to doing Bulge battles using CMFI/GL would be OOB related (no SS, no VG or their weaponry). There's so much goodness just in GL and CMBN anyway that I'll most likely wait to see what Market Garden brings and leave the Bulge for some future time. (But I will eventually return to my Tunisia scenario "Flanking the Fortress" to finish it now that we have GL and the improvements it brings. Snake Eye's excellent AI contribution deserves to see the light of day.)

We all posed for our Mike Dukakis helmet-wearing shots in the turrets at the end. NOTE!!! There was more to this post but I, you're humbled moderator, unfortunately nuked it by mistake. Multitasking with distractions can have ramifications. Gah... sorry about that! Steve (Battlefront.com)

Where and when were these worn? A particular season or place?

That's great news about the test showing 15m visibility. Here's why it's not self-defeating to have real dense fog that shuts down visibility to this range: Let's say you want to represent a typical Bulge situation, where the Germans used the poor weather/visibility to infiltrate through heavy woods between a couple of US positions prior to attack. You have one master map with three German objectives on it. You slice and dice that map into several versions and place it into a campaign file. The German starting positions on each map would depend on whether/how many objectives they captured in the previous map. So, on that first battle map you'd want to be able to have dense fog, snowy ground and sero-dark-thirty time of day. The Germans would try to get as much of the Objective 1 line as possible to reach their jumpoff point. But the Americans would have a few patrols between their outposts, as well as some mines. The fog gives the Germans cover to move but there's the chance of a close-range patrol encounter (fun!), or blundering into a previously unkown outpost. etc. The German objective would be terrain objectives (reaching their intended start line for the dawn attack) and the American ones would be "spot" unit objectives (seeing any of the infiltrating Germans spoils their suprise.) Then you could change the weather (fog lifts) and light (morning overcast) in battle map #2 and the Germans would start that map from the positions they managed to achieve on the previous infiltration map. Credit to sburke for the concept here -- something we've discussed for use in operational-tactical campaigns.

In the Normandy battle we're playing now, sburke, the am fog was so thick tankers couldn't see past their gunbarrels, and units on the attack actually got lost for a while, according to the participants' AARs. But this was at 0430 am on June 25, so it would barely have been light then even that close to Summer Solstice. But I do hope BFC reexamines this for Market Garden and beyond. Dense fog should really be just that, and cut LOS down to assault and pistol range. We'll need that to represent autumn in eastern France and the tactical conditions for battles like Arracourt, for example. And eventually for the Bulge, of course. Maybe a decision was made that "players won't like it," but here's my vote for it anyway.

Do you have to set snow depth for the entire map, or can you have deep snow in some places and lighter snow or mud in others, etc?

Magnificent work. This will be a real feast for the eyes.

I will. And I edited my post because I think it was an overly harsh judgment of QB maps. Even if they're generally not my cup of tea, I don't want to disrespect the people who worked hard to make them and have them be as good as possible.

No, I map out the actual battle hex area in the real location on the actual terrain. Using QB maps is an option if you just want something quick and dirty to stage your operational setups on in CMx2. I don't like it, personally, because quickbattle maps generally are less than optimal, IMHO, and lack the terrain needed to make accurate OOBs and scale and tactics live up to CMx2's potential. Also, to me the point of doing an op layer is more than just having a mechanism to say "force A meets force B to fight over Objective C." If that's all you want then using QB maps would do the job. But to me, having an op layer is all about bringing specificity to the battles -- operational issues of fuel shortages and morale and logistics and reserves, and facing the specific tactical challenges these specific forces would have faced on this specific terrain. What's the point of all that detail at the op level if it just gets played out tactically on a generic pool table? Believe me, nothing beats the actual place for the variety and oddities that make CM battles interesting. No person's imagination can come up with the infinite quirks of the real places. Also, while it takes time to make good maps this way, I find the mapping process rewarding in itself to see how well I can make the actual place come alive in the game. It's actually a relief to me -- and feels like less work -- to not have to imagine a battlefield myself and to just duplicate as best as possible what I see on Google Earth, aerial photos, etc. But to each his own.

And of course the other good reason to use Vassal or Cyberboard is that you can PBEM the operational games against another human opponent anywhere in the world if you want to. That's the reason they were invented, since finding FTF opponents with the time/stamina/availability for boardgames has always been one of the hobby's biggest challenges. But whatever operation game you choose, I urge you to give it a try. It takes CMx2 to an entirely new level of realism and fun. In general, I'd say what any project like this requires to be successful is a spirit of experimentation, a willingness to play umpire/interpreter so you can use your own judgment to translate events between the two levels, a willingness to see things develop a little more slowly in exchange for greater historical accuracy, and an ability to view the campaign as a collaboration as well as a competition. You'll need opponents you can trust and who are flexible, and who will finish games.

Argh -- BFC has said that the next level of CMBN would bring it up to the same capabilities as GL. I took that to mean it would have settable seasons and allow for winter even though MG itself ended in the fall. If not, then GL is our only way to approximate the Bulge until the real Bulge title comes out someday.

Agreed, but the main problems with using those games that I found were: 1. They operate in pauseable real time and don't have a turn scale like other wargames. Makes it much harder to stop, apply results, and restart the op layer. 2. Their databases of OOBs, units, and strengths are not exportable or modifiable.

I'd urge you not to write off Vassal, Cyberboard, and Zun Tzu versions of board wargames too hastily. They solve the cats and kids problem with physical boards and counters. In many cases you can attach little notes to counters and stacks to keep track of losses, etc., which you can't do in a physical game. And you can take screenshots of the Vassal board to use directly as an overlay for your CMBN maps, to position units, etc. Also, with boardgames and their cyber modules, it's way easier to start and stop the action and modify play to work with your CMBN needs. PC games can be a little harder to work with that way. Sburke and I have finished one operational campaign using "Saint-Lo" (West End Games 1986) which has Vassal and Cyberboard modules. Worked great and we had a blast. Now we're in a second campaign using my playtest version of GMT's "Operation Dauntless: The Battles for Fontenay and Rauray" on Zun Tzu. Also works well. I just bought a used copy of "Ardennes 44" second edition (GMT) which is operational and covers the Bulge. Its regimental scale, but we're devising a way to split battle hexes in half to make two 1200m maps for the tactical CM For Market Garden, I highly recommend "Where Eagles Dare" (Multi Man Publishing). Vassal module for that is state of the a and even calculates dieroll modifiers for you now. For the Eastern Front, look for a used copy of "Panzer Command" (Victory Games) from the 1980s. it has Vassal modules and is excellent scale for CMBN. Its chit-pull activation system makes the play very exciting. And, unlike many Eastern Front games at this scale, it uses a hex map based on an actual place W of Stalingrad. So you can overlay the map on Google Earth and find your battle map locations. My only concern using this game will be the OOB tweaking necessary to turn Bagration era units into those circa Nov-Dec 1942. But it should be doable with the usual work-arounds.

You could, but I plan to wait for the Market-Garden module that will bring the winter seasons, etc., to CMBN. Then at least the buildings would look right, and (I hope hope hope) we'll have VG units. Those VG units made up a lot of the Germans in the Bulge, and they had those MP44 assault rifles too. Really need them to make the Bulge feel like the Bulge IMHO.

But John, The reality of a battlefield is not just the hardware on it, but the human "software" in it. I can accept tanks in CMx2 pivoting slower than what was rated as technically possible, because for a tank to turn a human commander still has to order it to pivot and a driver has to execute the order. So the slower pivot in the game can be just another one of those unquantifiable soft factors that make war a business of man and not just machine. If anything, things happen a bit too fast sometimes for my taste in the game -- like the speed of crew bailouts, and the (seems to me) almost instantaneous interval between a tank spotting a target and shooting it. But none of those things are big deals or must-fix items IMHO.

BTW, after playing with the new 2.01 machine guns in CMBN, I already expect Flanking the Fortress to play entirely differently once GL is out. I'm rather concerned that the lack of microcover (boulders, etc.) will make these naked rocky Tunisian hills more lethal for attacking infantry than they really were. But we'll see...