Broadsword56

Thanks Aragorn! sburke and I are only a few turns into our scenario, but I can already tell you this is an armor map par excellence. Fireflies and Mark IVs are dueling across the Bordel valley at 1,500+ meters. What's nice is that because of the forests and towns, there's also a lot of interesting infantry and combined-arms terrain for those who prefer that.

Elevated view from the British (N) end, looking SW: 1. La Grande Ferme. One of several walled farm complexes that can anchor defenses on this map. 2. The chateau, with its forest preserve and and a tree-lined "allee" that runs N along the crest of the E. bank of the Seulles valley. 3. Juvigny bridge, a medieval stone bridge on the D9 route that's suitable for vehicles. It's the only vehicle-capable crossing over the Seulles on this map, so it plays a vital role. Note another, unnamed walled complex at the E. end of the bridge. 4. The Seulles river. Both the Seulles and Bordel are lines with thick trees and bushes, so they often block LOS. But they were only a meter or two deep, and infantry could get across. 5. D6 route, which runs north along the river through Juvigny to Tilly-sur-Seulles (offmap). Pivoting to look from the British (N) end toward the SE: 1. The infamous Tessel Wood. It sits on a hill that extends to Point 110 (just offmap to the west). In front of Tessel wood is an elevated shelf that offers the Germans ideal reverse-slope and hull-down positions. 2. The D9 highway. Fontenay is out of sight to the left. Past that (offmap) are Cheux and Caen. To the right out of sight are Juvigny bridge and Juvigny It pains me to think of the Tommies having to advance over these open wheatfields -- even after the 3-hour rolling barrage, and with smoke cover and air superiority. LOS on the plain is very limited due to the standing wheat -- ideal for German snipers and ambushes. 3. The Bordel river -- again, note the tree and brush line that give some LOS concealment. The fact that there are only 3 vehicle-capable bridges really channels movement. A fourth bridge (not visible) on the far E end of the Bordel is foot-only. Flipping over to the German (S) side: An elevated view from above Tessel Wood (foreground) looking NW. 1. The "Y" confluence of the Bordel and the Seulles. Both rivers are tree- and brush-lined, but at this LOD the trees way out there are not visible. 2. Ihe unfinished area that was off-limits in my scenario. Anyone who wants to complete the map could finish that area pretty quickly. Or, cut off the western side of the Seulles and play only on the eastern side. 3. The open fields where the British advanced before crossing the Bordel. Note how it's a forward slope as well -- making it that much easier for the Germans here to spot almost anything approaching, even in the tall wheat. Pivoting right to a NE view from the German side: 1. The Bordel and the D-9 highway, which runs parallel to and just in front of the river. 2. Le Bas de Fontenay -- a settled area among orchards and bocage in the western outskirts of Fontnay-Le-Pesnel. Fontenay gets a lot dense and built up just offmap to the right. 3. The open fields, nearly devoid of cover except for some sunken roads, on the British end of the map. Next: Some ground-level views...

This map was made for an operational-tactical campaign I'm conducting now. The map is already finished; I just need to strip out the OOB and HTH scenario-related stuff in the file before posting a "clean" version as a map-only file on the Repository. If the HTH scenario at the end seems good enough for others to enjoy, I'll polish that post it too along with an AAR. Among the June battles for Caen, the British operations Goodwood, Epsom, Bluecoat and others get most of the attention and historians' ink. Less well known is Operation Dauntless -- partly because it was a preliminary action to set the stage for Epsom, and partly because it goes by a second name that came to be the official one for this series of battles: Operation Martlet. Look at a topo map of Epsom and you'll know why Dauntless had to come first: At ring countour 110 is the Rauray spur -- not even a hill by ordinary standards, but enough of an elevation in this otherwise flat country to give the Germans a perfect enfilading view of the British right flank once they would advance past Cheux... So Dauntless had the Rauray spur as its ultimate objective. Several intermediate objectives followed from that: The Bordel river would have to be crossed. The town of Fontenay-Le-Pesnel, astride the D9 highway to Cheux and Caen, would have to be wrested from the 12th SS Panzer Division. And finally the British would have to secure Tessel Wood, which sat on a plateau that dominated the landscape in every direction. The job fell to the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division "Bears" and assets from 8th Armoured Brigade. This CMBN map covers a 2,400m x 2,700m area on the western side of Operation Dauntless. It features the battlefield where arrows #2 and #6 advanced -- from open fields north of the Bordel river, past the D9 highway (OBJ BARRACUDA) and on to the northern edge of Tessel Wood (OBJ WALRUS): On this Google Earth map, how my map (blue boundary) fits into the larger area of Operation Dauntless (white boundary). You can also see the "Breaking The Panzers" CMBN map area further south in Tessel-Bretteville (that happened a few days later, after Dauntless fizzled out and the Germans launched armored counterattacks)... My map area on the 1947 French Geoportail aerial photo: Here's the full overhead editor view of my Juvigny-Fontenay map... 1. An 18th C. chateau and its grounds on a N-S. ridge. 2. Tessel Wood. 3. Le Vieux Presbytere - a church south of Juvigny, also on the N-S ridge. 4. D6 route to Juvigny along the E bank of the Seulles river. 5. Juvigny bridge over the Seulles. 6. The "Y" junction of the N-S Seulles river and E-W Bordel river. 7. Bordel river. Crossable by infantry, but vehicles must use one of 3 bridges. 8. One of many sunken roads. 9. D9 highway between Juvigny and the W. outskirts of Fontenay. 10. The western outskirts of Fontenay-le-Pesnel. Caen is to the east. 11. Open fields where the British advanced from their 25 June start line. 12. This section of the map was left unfinished on purpose - The NW part of the map that's N. of Juvigny and the Juvigny bridge was out of bounds for both sides in my scenario. For the British the Seulles river was the division boundary with the 50th Northumbrian Infantry Div. 13. The W. side of the Seulles, below Juvigny and including the Juvigny bridge, was controlled by Panzer Lehr. So the map is completed here and (in my campaign scenario) the German side was able to use the D6 and adjacent roads as a covered axis of approach to threaten the right flank of Operation Dauntless. 14. This E-W road and the N edge of Tessel Wood were the British OBJ WALRUS on 25 June. Next: A closer look at the battlefield, real and virtual...

That's a good tip if you have to position an AT gun frontally. To be sure, the feasibility of that can also depend on the way the woods have been mapped. If the mapper just put trees on heavy and light forest tiles, it's a completely different tactical effect than woods made with outer bands of brush and bushes and weeds, and with small gapped bocage pieces scattered around to block LOS and create realistic thickets. But then again, there are places in Germany or Holland where I've read the undergrowth was nil and you could actually see quite a distance along the neat rows of tall evergreens. From what I've seen (at least for the Germans) they put a big stress on placing AT guns behind slopes at 90 degrees to the expected enemy axis of advance. That way, they could remain protected and unspotted and get flank or rear shots on the enemy after they passed through the forward defensive line.

Such a poor choice of location for an AT gun deserves to be punished.

Good advice on this thread about when and when not to use HUNT. While I too would like to see some sort of SOPs in CM, they're unlikely to happen. And while the game engine has definite limits and flaws, I think there's also a tendency to blame the game first, when a bit more thinking/learning about tactics might also address the problem. Don't just send scouts out to get shot at unless you have overwatching forces that can cover them and respond to the fire. If they can't be covered, then make sure it's the smallest possible team and try to think about exit routes and rally points. Split a small patrol or recon unit into two elements, so one can cover while the other moves. Be sure they have smoke grenades so they can pop it if ambushed. Know the difference between a near ambush and a far ambush, and the proper reaction to each: In a far ambush, use FAST to get the endangered element out of the killzone ASAP, back the way they came. In a near ambush, the better tactic (if you haven't already been pinned) is actually to assault immediately right into it. That's because it gets you out of the killzone faster, and changes the geometry of the enemy's plan -- when you're right in their position they're disrupted and thrown on the defensive, can't sit and aim, and have a much harder time hitting you without also shooting each other. Sometimes though, a good ambush is a good ambush and you're just going to have to pay the price. War is hell.

LOL -- I can just see someone Photoshopping a CMFI soldier reclining (well, in this case it would likely be a corpse) in wavy tall grass with a house in the distance to re-create "Christina's World!"

I like the movie lighting. It makes the game look less cartoon-y.

Are you implying that non ex-military officers fight dirty?

What differences would there have been between the German Fallschirmjaeger 1943 TO&E that we'll see in GL, vs. the 1941 TO&E that the FJ troops would have had in Crete? I'd be curious to know, since GL (with its addition of FJ and Commonwealth troops to Fortress Italy) would seem to make Crete scenarios a possibility.

The troops definitely will lob grenades at adjacent enemies they know about but can't see. It happens all the time when enemies lob grenades back and forth over bocage or wall, etc.

You can't really micromanage units to this extent. If your unit is really close to the gun position and the troops have detected it themselves (through sound or their quick peeks over the ridge) then they're likely to throw grenades at it on their own. But you can't specifially order grenade throws. So you just have to leave it up to their tactical judgment (experience, leadership, motivation and other soft factors may play a role in whether or how soon they take action) or find a way to call in some mortar fire. If they don't do something useful pretty soon, though, I'd recommend getting them the hell out of there!

And it looks like rucksacks have returned.

Best solution IMHO would be a "show LOS" toggle that would let the player click on any AS on the map and get a translucent overlay showing all AS that are visible and not visible from that AS. Imagine the red setup zone color covering the nonvisible areas, and clear or highlighted areas showing what can be seen. This would be LOS and not LOF, of course, but it would be a huge help in visualizing terrain and smoother planning without having to drag a lot of LOS lines around or plot fake order points. (Panther Games implemented that type of tool very well in Conquest of the Aegean and Battles from the Bulge. But those were 2D wargames on a computer, not 3D with the physics and 1:1 modeling that we have in CMx2) Of course, it would probably demand so much from computers that only some future generation of hardware would be able to handle it. The system we have works fine for me, I'm just dreaming of something that would be ideal.

Thanks for the gun mods and welcome back!

A masterpiece. Now if only BFC wuld give us indirect fire capability for them so we could do "map shoots" to TPRs as IRL.

I'd wager it was a performance and framerate issue that caused BFC to make the Large Rocks tiles 2D and not let us have actual man-sized boulders as 3D flavor objects either. Just to get them looking irregular and realistic enough would be the system-hit equivalent of putting hundreds more vehicles on a map, wouldn't it? Still, to me it's a significant game weakness for Italy, equivalent to the city-fighting issues that would be weaknesses for built up areas (like Arnhem) in the MG module. Significant enough to have major effects on tactics and gameplay and the historical fidelity of the game as a whole. Most other shortcomings I find easier to overlook, and in those cases I just enjoy CMx2 for what it is. I know BFC does they best they can with the engine they have. And they always manage to surprise us with new developments as time goes on.

And if you try to put little (a few AS) depressions here and there in your large rocks terrain to create cover and irregularities, you end up with weird looking pockmarks or jagged spiky pyramids that spoil the map. So it looks like Large Rocks tiles are about as good for infantry cover and concealment as a backyard patio...

...and those British MGs look beautifully positioned to sweep GaJ's approach routes. This is a great-looking map, but it makes me wish CMx2 had real 3D boulders. IRL, mountains like this would have been full of outcrops and nooks/crannies that would provide both concealment and hard cover. Does anyone know whether the "large rocks" terrain tile and/or the rocks flavor object offers any extra cover benefit -- some kind of abstracted value -- representing boulders -- even though we can't see it? If not, troops fighting in the Italian mountains will be a lot more exposed in CMFI than they really were, and infantry will have an even tougher time of it.

To be sure, some postwar changes to elevations/topography will have happened -- particularly in places that have seen a lot of development. But for the most part, I'd trust Google Earth and/or modern topo maps more than WWII era ones for elevations (and only for elevations). The technology is more precise now, and I think a lot of the WWII maps were rushed out and often based on old and imperfect prewar maps anyway. For anything other than elevations (building locations, roads, vegetation, etc) I trust WWII or late 1940s aerial photography most, followed by official maps. Best of all is a multiple-source approach: Make a Gimp or Photoshop reference image with each of your layers superimposed in place on it (elevation contours, aerial photo, troop positions, etc.) Then you can show or hide whichever layer you need at the moment, size it for your overlay, and place it in the CM editor.

But you may never get to launch the main attack unless you blind/pick off those Shermans and make sure they can't interfere with your maneuver and movement to contact. It wouldn't take much smoke to do it. You'd better put his "eyes" out or you're simply giving him time to spot you first and react and reposition as needed.

Why not smoke 'em instead?

The Tunisia scenario "Flanking The Fortresss" is alive and well. It has a good map and good AI (by Snake Eye)in it already. But it's waiting for GL to come out for two reasons: The Germans in the battle were FJ, and the machinegun improvements will make a big difference to the way this one plays (there's a lot of long range MG action because it's a very open map with clear fields of fire). Then it will need some testing.

Not boring at all. suspenseful! While we await developments, can you share a bit about your contingency plans on either flank or center, should one of your patrol squads make contact and you determine that it's more than just an enemy scouting force?

I'd say current situation is neutral, but Bil has the edge because he's got a more mobile and centrally positioned force and great OPs with fields of fire on likely approaches. GAJ seems to have bet the farm on throwing everything around Bil's left flank -- if that striking force makes it to an attack position undetected, then the advantage swings to GAJ, I think. But if Bil spots it first (and he's got a lot of recon going) watch out.