Broadsword56

What the battalion faced was an interlocking German defense, with mutually supporting reverse-slope positions on all the hills guarding Hill 609: To outflank Hill 609, the battalion first would have to secure Hill 531, then neutralize Point RR and Hill 455 beyond that. This scenario opens as the 1/135prepares to attack... (more...)

In late April 1943, the Allies had the Germans almost beaten in Tunisia as the campaign moved to the north, on the approaches to Tunis. But as the US II Corps advanced toward the key road/rail junction of Mateur, they faced this: Djebel Tahent -- marked on military maps as Hill 609. It dominated all approach routes and surrounding hills. A modern-day photo of Hill 609, from the reverse slopes on the German side: As if Hill 609 wasn't daunting enough, it was actually part of an entire hill complex that made a virtual fortress guarding the route to Mateur. After days of costly attacks, the decisive action came on April 30 when the 1/135th Infantry, 34th Infantry Division, got orders to flank Hill 609 from the southeast. (more...)

Yes, there was another thread about this same topic recently. All one has to do is set up a battle, do orders for your own units, and -- without pushing the red button -- save the file, and then send the entire saved game file to your teammate. The final teammate on your side pushes the red button before sending the game file to the first player on the opposing side. It could be great fun, but -- like all operational-tactical campaigns, tournaments, and other projects requiring humans to cooperate -- it could also prove a major headache if turns don't get completed promptly, or if players don't share compatible views about how the game should be played (for example, if one team member is more into the competitive aspects, another is an authenticity nut and wants to use historical tactics, and another is a lone wolf who just wants to blow things up). Be great to see it done, and better still to read an illustrated AAR about it to see how things play with multiple commanders involved.

Just a tip -- in case you didn't know this: When you draw contours, do not draw them as lines on your map. That is unnecessary, produces way too many "hard" elevation points and strains the system. Place your elevations as dotted lines, with the elevation dots as far apart as possible. You place a dot only where a contour line would change direction. Also, place one or two dots for your lowest point and one or two dot for your highest point.

Also, how about a change to the way water levels work on maps -- since much of Holland is below sea level. I don't think the old "use marsh terrain as fake water" trick would work as well in Holland, and it would be nice to see the canals actually flowing above the land terrain level, with the land lower and behind the dikes.

If the game gives bridges a way to be wired for demolition, then it also needs to give enemy engineers/pioneers the capability to unwire them (provided they can get close enough and remain unsuppressed enough to accomplish it). For example, make the "Mark Mines" order function on bridges in such a way that they can detect whether a bridge is wired, and (given enough time) disarm the charges.

Amazing detail, and it looks very easy to use. But (and I hate to say anything negative about such a great tool)... It appears to give a final headcount ("OK & Wounded") of every unit -- but does it also show the unit's own KIA? I don't see that -- only the global totals for the entire side. Adding that to the "OK & Wounded" total would then equal the unit's original strength. It sounds like a nitpick, I know -- but for me personally, its use in campaigns would be much more limited because I'd still have to track units' starting strengths and KIA manually. Is there any way to make the tool count units' KIA, Japanzer? Or is that impossible because the dead men are no longer onmap and in the unit at the end of the battle?

+1 to the blur filter idea. It was summer in Sicily, and a bit of haze and atmospheric perspective would up the immersion level.

Great news. Just curious -- Are you talking about better colors, smoke or dust appearance, and those kinds of cosmetic changes only? Or could it be possible within the limitations of CMFI modding to actually change the look of explosions so they're bigger, more realistic, with fingers of smoke and fragments radiating up and out from them (more like the excellent ones in, say Theatre of War 2)?

It's up now at GreenAsJade's CM Mods Warehouse. File name is: Tunisia_Mod_Pack_CMFI_1.rar I also uploaded it to the BFC Repository about 12 hours ago, but it hasn't become available yet. Enjoy!

Also just uploaded the mod to GreenAsJade's CM Mods Warehouse. I'll post a separate announcement thread now to make sure it doesn't get missed.

Yes, it usually takes a while. Sometimes a day or more.

Oh, the might-have-beens. I wish someone at BFC had thought to do that -- it would have opened the door to a lot more great content and possibly prompted more people to buy CMFI.

Just uploaded to the Repository: Tunisia Mod Pack CMFI_1.rar Pull down your sand goggles, tighten that scarf around your nostrils, and enjoy! I hope to see El Guettar get played, but I'd be happy just to see it become the raw material for some good user-made battles, maps, mods, and AARs.

This just in... Bletchley Park has cracked the code and translated the pigeon's message: S-E-N-D M-O-R-E M-A-R-M-I-T-E

@herr_oberst: My dual-core system is 4-5 years old, has only 4MB RAM, and uses a 1GB NVidia 9800 card that's a good 2 years old now. So I don't think leading-edge hardware is required. It's really CMFI and its optimized engine that makes such large scenarios able to run -- CMBN never could handle this, but probably will once it's upgraded to 2.0. However: My FPSwith El Guettar is typically in the low teens, dropping to single digits at times. So it's really pushing the limits of what my rig and the game can do. Still, I don't mind the stutter and I don't notice it much until it drops below 15 or so. @LongfLeftFlank -- well, as they say: in the desert, visual distance perception can be deceiving :-) Don't judge from screenshots, because I used a lot of zoom to get some of the close action and it removes all the focal depth. You have to experience it in-game to really judge it. Or maybe you did boot up the scenario? I know Fuser has been playing with horizons lately, so maybe he'll come up with something even better. But the desert ones I'm using now look just fine to me. What's great about CMFI is the new mapping editor and its capability to use overlays, draw walls and fences and roads with a mouse drag, etc. Huge maps take very little time compared to the original CMBN.

Thanks for the thumbs-up, Blazing88's! Nice to know there are some of like mind, who will appreciate this scenario for what it is. The scenario and map were researched in detail, and made as close to the actual situation as I felt the game's capabilities allowed.

No, the release version will be HTH only, because there's no AI in it. I'm a mapper and not a coder. I leave that to the coding experts. I think El Guettar would lend itself very well to German player vs. AI, if anyone wants to code some active defensive plans for the Americans. Just open it up in the editor and have at it. Disclaimer: To most players, this scenario may be more of "an interesting historical simulation experience" than a thrilling game. That's because it's so massive, and there's a huge area of maneuver, that it will be beyond most people's comfort level. But I just wanted to make the historical OOB on the historical map and see how the simulation played out -- both for for my own amusement while waiting for the CMBN 2.0 upgrade, and to see what CMFI was capable of. I'm very impressed. So, enjoy El Guettar for the spectacle -- then adapt the map to other scenarios that might make for a smaller and more fun games in the NA theatre. I hope to include Tempestzzz's adobe building(s) into the modpack, so it should come with everything needed to make NA scenarios that include towns and settled areas too. [edit: Ooops -- just read Tempestzz's latest post. It now appears no adobe buildings possible. So we'll have to content ourselves with NA battles that don't include human settlements.]

The middle spearhead of 10th Panzer Division breaches the wire and mine belt: I'll probably post the scenario and mod pack to the Repository within a week or so.

Wait...OH WOW!! You're right. So we're in a game too, and we just think we're the ones playing a game....

Even better if it could go so far as to give less and less reliable ID info, as the troops get greener -- so with green troops, virtually every German tank spotted gets reported as a "Tiger" -- as happened so often IRL.

Great work.

Yes. I'm always afraid my pixeljoes will notice it, stop in their tracks, and say, "Hey wait a minute -- are we in a game? They're making us die for a &@$&@ GAME???"

As a matter of fact, that particular boardgame WIP is still in need of playtesters if you want to join us. The Zun Tzu module looks and plays great. (Looks very promising -- and an excellent scale for CMBN battle setups.)

2300 hrs, 15 June 1944 to 0400, June 16, 1944 (before British ground attack on the village of Cristot in Operation Dauntless) Shelling all that time by: *3 Royal Navy Cruisers, *76th AA Brigade *5th AGRA (62 guns in 2nd Army) *121st Medium Artillery Regiment (16 x 5.5" guns) *49th Div Arty (72 x 25-pounders) ...and then British fighter-bombers raked over the area with rockets and strafing for 15minutes prior to jumpoff. Apparently a surprisingly small portion of the ordnance fell on live Germans, because the 12th SS had already pulled back mostly to positions behind the village.