Broadsword56

The scale issue has nothing to do with the game or the game's map editor. That's something you have to decide and work with beforehand, outside the game, when you prepare the image you plan to use as an overlay. First, you just have to decide what size you want your game map to be. For example: 1200m x 1200m Then you have to make sure that however you crop/resize your reference image (whether it's Google Earth, aerial photo, map, etc.) that the boundaries of your image represent a 1200m x 1200m area. (So you have to take a close look at your source material and work with it to zoom/crop/whatever to make it represent the area you want.) When you're ready to make your map in the CM editor, set the map size to 1200m x 1200m. Your overlay will then be at exactly the right scale for that game map. [Anyone interested in mapping should get comfortable with an image editing program -- I recommend and use Gimp, and it's free -- but you can also use the free Painshop Pro or Photoshop, etc. If you use Google Earth, you can use the "Ruler" tool to measure distances and draw your map boundaries before you save the screenshot.]

Winkelried, Is Crest the same place where the Maquis launched an offensive, took over an entire plateau and declared it a liberated zone (expecting the Allies to arrive and join them) only to see the Germans arrive instead and massacre the inhabitants inside a locked church?

For background reading about this campaign -- and to get you in the mood for tactical level battles in this area, I highly recommend "Day of the Panzer" http://www.amazon.com/DAY-OF-THE-PANZER-Sacrifice/dp/B005M4T8Z2 It's the story of an American company that starts with the invasion on the S coast and has its climax in the village of Allan, which is just slightly off the S edge of this master map, SE of Montelimar. It's one of my favorite small-unit books, and extremely well written and researched, with lots of maps and even a 3D schematic of the village battle.

I've never seen anything like this - just absolutely stunningly beautiful mapping.

I agree, but I always wonder -- why??? When did people start thinking the past -- even recent past -- meant nothing to them? Having no awareness of how much they're saying and doing now are so shaped by the past? Worse, to have not even the curiosity to learn more about it once they accidentally become aware of history? Or -- worse than worse -- to wear their ignorance about it like a badge of honor?

Translation: A friend has made the following map for Villers-Bocage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3A8sABgfoA I made the scenario for it with a large number of units. It's still in testing, but it's fun to watch the units operate on a map like this.

But let's look at it another way: With so many of us so elderly, the other attractions and distractions of life (some welcome, some not) tend to lessen. Some of us are approaching that golden age of retirement -- meaning more time to enjoy gaming and spend money on it. Maybe CM will become the computer equivalent of golf -- an enduring and rewarding hobby for a lifetime that skews to an older and more patient demographic -- while the twitchy commercial FPS market continues to chase the young and the restless. Being that there's no physical demand (other than a sturdy ticker to handle the stress of onscreen combat), we can all keep playing until they have to pry our cold dead fingers off the keyboards.

Just turned 56 last week.

I thought with the Germans the doctrine was the other way around -- i.e., that it was built around the LMG, which kept displacing and tried to flank the enemy while the riflemen supported it?

Yes, please do finish it! Steve confirmed in a post that the initial release of CM East Front will be in 2.0 (since 3.0 won't be ready in time for the start of this new family series), so it would seem that any work done on winter terrain/veg modding now for CMBN 2.0 should also be usable on the Ostfront game when we get it. Ditto for that nifty new autumn terrain mod that Mord just announced. At least you wouldn't have to worry about snowy bocage for East Front maps. I guess we'll need some new snowy "steppe" horizons too, eventually.

Until you get tired of fighting your way uphill, ridge to ridge, mountain to mountain -- and then the bocage and CMBN may start to look pretty good to you again...:-)

Damn, mj, that looks *really* good! That's what I'm talkin' about. Did you just make that? How does it play? I started a new thread about winter mods for the eventual Eastern Front Cm family over in the CMBN mods forum, so that the terrain discussion doesn't hijack this thread.

I get it. Not an optimal situation, but not a show-stopper for me. If I wanted to fight a December 1942 East Front battle in forested terrain, that would be a serious obstacle. So I'd avoid using CM to resolve boardgame battles in heavily wooded/vegetated areas. In other places -- more open areas or steppe-like settings -- I don't think the discrepancy between the model and visible bare trees/bushes would make that much difference. At least not any more difference than the use of the bush model modded into a cactus or the poplar tree modded into a palm makes much difference in Tunisia maps. True, an HE shell would impact on that palm tree as if it were a poplar tree. So I'd just consider it an airburst and let it go at that. It just takes some imagination and a willingness to explore what *can* be done rather than be defeated by assumptions about what can't be done.

Good question, Blazing 88's. Maybe some of our resident OOB and TO&E grogs can weigh in here with a summary of the specific things one would have to change or delete to make a 1944 Eastern Front German or Soviet force better resemble an end 1942/early 1943 force -- weapons, vehicles, unit structures? BTW, Panzer Command as a boardgame op layer wouldn't necessarily be limited to a wintertime campaign. While the original game was historical and set in December 1942, it's my understanding that in the years (OMG, almost 30 years!) since the boardgame was published, gamers have made and shared various tools to extend the game's replay value and use its great chit-pull system in other seasons/theatres. New maps, some geomorphic; new counters; and even a set of rules for converting old Panzerblitz scenarios into Panzer Command ones. There's a VASSAL module for the original game version, but also a 2.0 version that includes the updated/modded content. I'm interested in a wintertime mod just because I personally prefer historical situations. But I think it would be possible for those so inclined to set up all sorts of other, theoretical operations without needing a wintertime mod to CM.

(Moved the discussion here from the 2013 Predictions thread in the main CMBN forum) A place to discuss, strategize, and share any ideas, WIP samples, etc., in anticipation of the Eastern Front CM family in late 2013. Since the initial release may be set in the summertime, mods may be needed to give us the option to fight wintertime battles (at least until a later module gives us that season.

Well, a winter look is at least worthwhile to have the season fit the battles. Just enough to have the bare trees, hedges, frozen weeds and bushes, and the snowy terrain tiles like snowy mud, snowy dirt road, etc. I suppose a terrain tile like "Sand" could be the one modded to make solid snow, because it would have at least some of the softer characteristics of snow. No skiing is necessary, and I don't think it matters to have actual falling snow either. Rain would give some of the same effects. The desert sand tile that LonLeftFlank made and that I've used on my Tunisia maps even has little wind ripples in it, and all it would need is to be much whiter instead of sandy colored. As for frozen water -- again I think there might be a possible workaround -- maybe "shallow ford" or something could be modded to look more still and icy. Then it could be crossed by troops and one wouldn't need to use water at all on the map (I tend not to use it anyway because of the elevation constraints that go with it). Thoughts?

Will the Eastern Front family's first release be set in a winter or summer time period? Will it allow us to make maps/scenarios for either season? Or, if it's set in the summer, would it be moddable enough that the community could create our own winter terrain/vegetation mod to use in the interim? I ask because I'm interested in the December 1942 battles in the Chir River sector involving 11th Panzer Division. The company-level boardgame Panzer Command (Victory games, 1984) is set in that campaign, and is what I'd like to use for an eventual op layer. [i know the TO&E for 1944 and 1942 would be different, but I think work-arounds are possible in many cases by fiddling with the OOBs and making sure to leave out certain weapons/vehicles, etc.]

@kip: You could just use a stock of existing maps and adapt them to your purposes. In my campaigns I make every battle map from scratch, using Google Earth imagery and aerial photos and period maps, etc., as overlay soources, so it's on the actual terrain each time. But I can do that because (1) I enjoy mapping, and ( because I don't resolve every op-layer battle in CM. Instead, my opponents and I just pick and choose certain engagements that look like they'd be fun or represent a critical situation. Update on "Flanking the Fortress:" I'm about 16 minutes into a solo WEGO test of the scenario, playing as US vs. the fantastic and challenging German AI that Snake Eye added to it. So far, so good. But I want to finish the battle and make any necessary adjustments before releasing a final version to the Repository. If you like to fire HMGs at maximum range, this is your map for it! Also, as the US player you need to be a maestro of artillery and WP smoke to cover your attack, or your men will be toast on their exposed approach to Hill 531.

Image #24 is the one I've had in my imagination for ages as a terrific source for a modded horizon box for the seaward side of CMBN D-Day maps. That sky and water, with all the invasion ships out to the horizon. Aris? Anyone?

I hope the CMFI 2.0 isn't just "Brits in Sicily" but a module that sends CMFI to the Italian mainland (i.e, adds CW troops, German fallschirmjager, and the standard 1943 TO&E vehicles that were left out of Operation Husky like M-10 TDs). With that you could do anything in Sicily, plus ops on the Boot (Salerno, Anzio, Cassino).

The higher-level politics and machinations of governments are completely outside and beyond the scope of this thread. I started it to discuss one individual soldier's experience and what it can tell us about the true horrors of war.

Hey that's great news! Looking forward to that immensely. I paused that MG campaign to wait for the module to come out anyway.

Thanks for setting it straight, mj -- didn't mean to perpetuate any errors about Durning's war record. I had looked around on the web to try and find better detail about his actual unit(s) and whereabouts -- but since many of the sites are erroneous and since Durning himself said so little about it publicly, the details take some digging to pin down.

The image of Durning sobbing and holding the boy "enemy" he just had to kill and who'd just bayonetted him is one that will stay with me a long time. War just can't get any more brutal, personal or primal than that. How stunning to realize that for all the technology of modern mechanized warfare, a combat with a rock could happen and send things right back to the Stone Age. I also think, from what I've read and learned about PTSD, that Durning's immediate empathy and his ability to express it right in that moment might have played a role in his postwar ability to recover eventually and live a somwehat normal life. Most soldiers who see or participate in battlefield trauma don't get the luxury of processing their feelings about it at the time. They have to blot it out and keep going, so the repressed feelings and the numbness vets develop to keep those feelings at bay do the real long-term damage.

I don't want them "too" anything. Just as realistic as possible in their lethality/suppression effects. If that makes the game harder or more of a sim, so be it.