Broadsword56

I use Vein's tracers and flashes mods from CMBN and they work fine for me in CMFI.

Many strange things happened March 23 at El Guettar. One of the strangest, to Cpl David J. McCarthy of Dipper Baker and Fitchburg, Mass... Asleep in his hole and overlooked when his battery was ordered to withdraw, McCarthy slept blissfully through the German occupation of the position and its recapture by the 16th Inf. Rested after a good nights sleep, he awoke only after a salvage team from the battery had re-entered the area. Grabbing his messkit he whistled a cheery tune as he made his way to the small group of men gathered in the vicinity of the kitchen. Here, much to his consternation, he learned what had transpired. Three days later his was still wandering around, scratching his head and muttering to himself, "It shouldn't happen to Rip Van Winkle..." -- from the 18th RCT newspaper, "The Decoy Doughboy," May 1945

Has anyone tried placing the "shelter" flavor object (you know, that narrow thing that looks like a little wooden bus stop with a couple of posts and a flat roof) over a slightly sunken action square with 3 sandbag walls in a "U" shape? I was thinking that might make a plausible ersatz CP or overed field artillery position. Haven't experimented with it yet though.

Good point sburke. About 17 minutes into the battle, with the map and forces on it now, I get a consistent 12-15 FPS on my old rig, which is completely acceptable. (Wouldn't be good enough for a flight sim, but for CM it still looks smooth). I'm amazed it plays so well.

Appreciate the honesty, Kip! Since so few have stepped up to test, I'm just soloing it in hotseat mode at the moment. This at least lets me see how the basics of the scenario come together, and it gives me a chance to enjoy the North Africa ambiance... I can already see most players would be bored and get sore mouse-fingers from the LOOOONNNNGGG German armor-infantry advance along the valley. I won't cut the map down because I want others to be able to re-use it for other Tunisia scenarios. But I'm likely to change the German deployment areas so that the forces start about 10-15 turns closer to the Americans than they do now.

This episode of Patton 360, "Rommel's Last Stand," covers the El Guettar battle of March 23, 1943 and makes a perfect briefing for the battle scenario I'm working on. Here's a link to the relevant portion: (Rommel wasn't actually in Tunisia anymore by then, of course...)

So they are! Thanks for the tip.

The presence of the 10th Motorcycle Battalion (Kradschuetzenbatallion-10, nicknamed K-10) at El Guettar has made me more curious about this early-war German formation. It's not in the TO&E for CMFI, and I don't know whether any motorcycle battalions fought in Italy, but what I've found so far suggests some of them remained in the war into 1944. Most were absorbed into recon regiments, but some survived here and there in the panzer divisions. I'm working on a special OOB file for a motorcycle battalion -- similar to what JonS did for British artillery -- and save it as a .btt file so that it can be imported into the editor using the "import campaign units" function. Not sure yet how close I can get it to the actual formation (since obviously we don't have motorcycles) but this is a distinctive formation in various ways that would be interesting to have, even dismounted. Each squad in the rifle platoons had 2 LMG 34 teams, and the battalion had a company mounted on halftracks and another company of armored cars. Their MG firepower made them hellish as infantry, especially when the US 9th Infantry Division had to defend against and then counterattack them on Djebel Berda (just S of this map) immediately after the big March 23 battle.

Hey Kip -- thanks. If you'd like to test the scenario (and have the inclination and stamina for something that massive in scale and length) I'd be happy to share the files, even to play it HTH against you if you want. Just PM me if you want to try it. [The only thing that prevents me from posting it to the Repository now is a lack of test results -- I don't want to inflict the scenario on the public unless I know it basically works, either side can have a decent chance to win, etc.]

Ha! Thanks LLF. I fear I've been a tad too aggressive with those US antitank half tracks -- a couple of turns later, 3 of the 36 in the battalion have been destroyed and they've only got one German tank kill to show for it. That attrition rate is going to result in a crushing German victory with so much of 10th Panzer on the battlefield.

All we need are some ambient cricket chirps! Looks suspenseful.

Ask that guy with the push broom who sweeps up after the elephants! Actually, I love the parade and setup part too, because I get to enjoy the spectacle of my force in all its awesomeness, they look so invincible, my plan seems like a sure thing, and no one has died yet.

I'd be delighted with even an abstracted illumination round. You could order it fired, and then you'd simply see a circular portion of the map lit from overhead, casting a light like the way a burning tank does in the game now. The light would fade back to nothing in a few turns.

Well, LLF, I know sburke appreciated your contribution, because he ended up winning the battle!

+1 to all of the above. The only thing I'd add is that IMHO, deployment is at least half the battle -- maybe more -- when it comes to defense -- not only in CM but IRL. The attacker can improvise to a certain extent. But the defender will really pay a steep price if a potential avenue of approach is left unwatched/uncovered, outposts are poorly sited, fighting positions aren't mutually supporting, defenders don't have covered escape routes, alternate firing positions and rally points, etc. Not to say one has to do all this -- since it's a game, and supposed to be fun. But I've often spent an hour or more on a (battalion) setup and still I often feel as if I'm overlooking something important. Ideally, the nature of the battle/scenario should govern a lot of this -- because there's a huge difference in a situation where a commander has all night or several days to set up and improve a defense, and those where, say, an attacking force has paused and is making a hasty defense to brace for an expected counterattack at any moment. From what I read in WWII books, experienced troops started digging in the moment they stopped anywhere longer than the time it took to brew a pot of tea. And, the longer the troops remained in a position, the scrapes became slit trenches and foxholes. As time permitted, they'd start dragging tree trunks or barn doors over their holes for overhead cover, pile on some dirt, do some camouflage, etc. By then a higher commander would likely have visited the position and critiqued the positioning of the AT guns and HMGs. With more time they might even clear some trees and obstacles to make clearer fields of fire. And, of course, if Engineers were present, they'd start stringing wire, laying mines, sandbags, digging in the AT guns and AFVs, etc. One thing I try to do in the scenarios I make is have good, logical deployments for both sides already set up in the scenario editor. The players can change them in the battle's deployment phase, of course, but I like to save the player time and not just dump a lot of troops into a disorganized pile on the map. Everyone appreciates it when a battle is ready to just load and play, if a player doesn't feel in the mood to spend a lot of time on the setup.

Thanks for the dirty Mark III, Fuser! (Looks perfect in the Tunisian desert -- using it already in my WIP map/scenario).

But the shot misses -- the German infantry at such close range must have suppressed the GIs just enough to spoil their aim. The Yanks quickly raise their armored windshield as the M3 starts reversing into cover... But then... "Feuer!" The hit destroys the M3's gun, but the vehicle and crew survive unscathed and retreat to safety. (A second M3, also on the crest, wasn't so lucky -- the same German tank killed it with one shot, and only two crewmembers survived to bail out).

March 23, 1943 0637 hrs (7 minutes into the battle) Aerial overview: Just before dawn, the 10th Panzer Division has broken through the 1st Infantry Divison lines and overrun American forces to the E (offmap). Now the attack has split into 3 spearheads: One (offmap, S) is attacking along the Gafsa-Gabes road and will emerge eventually as German reinforcement about halfway along the S mapedge. The second spearhead is angling NW to try and flank the du-in US forces on Hill 336. The third spearhead, in the N, is sweeping the foothills to clear out enemy positions and secure the right flank of the advance. A closer look at the action in the foothills. The panzergrenadiers, supported by dozens of tanks, climb the slope... Scout teams probe toward the crest of the hill, when... A U.S. tank destroyer (M3 GMC 75mm) pops out of defilade. "Kontakt! Panzerjaeger!" As German small-arms round plink off its armor, the M3's gun adjusts, and... (more in next post...)

Let's get real here, folks... If you don't like massive scenarios/maps, that's fine and you don't need to play them. But if you say you like and want massive scenarios, then the reality of having them in CM means you're going to do a LOT of order-clicking. Because it's a tactical game being stretched to simulate a much larger action. At some point, the gain in scale and scope will be outweighed by the management burden, and a battle can become unplayable. A massive force is going to need a big map. And the play value of a massive battle isn't going to be very good unless the forces have some room to maneuver and use alternate approaches/strategies. That means quite a bit of time will have to pass before the real lead starts to fly. To be sure, many players (myself included) enjoy the recon battle, the artillery prep, the cat-and-mouse aspect of the initial phases, and just plain gawking at the troops as they move over the CM terrain. So it's a tradeoff. But to say one prefers "huge" scenarios, and then complain about the work it takes to play them, just makes no sense to me. It amazes me that these huge scenarios are possible now in 2.0, with every individual soldier on the map. CMBN never seemed up to the task, but CMFI seems to be able to handle it (in my limited experience so far). But there's always a price to pay for that. There are ways to alleviate the pain -- for example, don't split your squads until they're in or near enemy contact. Use group orders. On my Tunisia scenario/map (WIP) the terrain is so open that it's easy to just issue group move orders by platoon/company, at least on the moves to contact. In 2.0, having draggable waypoints makes group orders even more useful because now we can tweak some individual vehicle paths without re-doing the whole sequence. Infantry is more of a PITA because to have them move in coordination with AFVs, the AFVs need to move on SLOW while the infantry uses QUICK. But they'll tire unless they take pauses. So one has to manually insert a 5 sec pause at every waypoint for every unit to keep the fatigue level reasonable. Big hassle, and we have no way around that. And yet... I'm surprised at how playable this still can be -- because once I issue all those initial stacked orders, the troops keep moving and I don't always have to issue new orders to everyone every turn.

Panzers at Dawn -- El Guettar, Tunisia, 23 March 1943:

Actually (for those who know how to do AI) this would be a very easy scenario to code AI for on the Allied side, making it a German single-player scenario. Because the onmap US infantry battalion is basically dug in and static, just trying to hold Hill 336 against all comers. All the US side really has to do, at minimum, is: a.) Retreat the two exposed TD companies in the valley safely into the hills, b.) Play shoot-and-scoot with all the TDs in reverse slope positions to pick off German armor as it races by, c.) Get offmap artillery called in to hit the dismounted panzergrenadiers at some of the anticipated times/places they'll be as they attack, d.) Maneuver the reinforcing infantry battalion to do something useful (probably with two or more alternate plans).

Thanks, Blazing88's. Just a reminder -- this scenario has no AI at all in it. So if you don't play it HTH, you'd need to play it as "2 player hotseat" in WEGO and play both sides. Yes, those load and processing times sound similar to what I've seen. It amazes me that a battle this huge loads and processes at all. So one of the things being tested is whether the battle will keep playing, or whether it will hang/crash at some point.

Just a few, to appease LLF: A panzergenadier scouts ahead of the armor (artificial brightness setting): US tank destroyer in retreat, predawn (artificial brightness setting): Jeep in retreat (normal light setting): Dust trails of retreating TDs: Aerial view of the dust trails:

OK, I'm only in Turn 1 of a solo hotseat so far but I'll try and post a few. Some observations: *The new ALT+B brightness toggle for night/predawn hours in 2.0 really makes these types of scenarios playable and fun now. The purple desert sky and suspenseful gloom as this battle opens are quite fun. The Americans initially benefit from the darkness to be able to fast-retreat two very exposed companies of 601st TD Bn from the valley floor. But then it will benefit the Germans and allow them to approach the American positions quickly without getting suppressed at a distance. The dismounts would be sitting ducks in broad daylight (as they were in the afternoon follow-up attack) *I like the dust cloud effects in CMFI. It seems to vary depending on terrain type and dryness of ground conditions. Given that this is a very sandy map, vehicles moving fast leave quite a roostertail of dust. I wonder if this will affect how easily they are spotted? It should. I'm wondering what kind of dust the 10th Panzer will make when the tanks all start to roll. The dust vanishes quickly though and doesn't linger or rise in the sky very high, as it would have IRL. *Even on my rather old PC I'm getting 14-15 FPS so far. Which is not optimal but very playable, and amazingly good considering the size of this battle. This never would have been possible in CMBN -- although with the 2.0 upgrade, who knows. *The "show all move paths" toggle is important for planning but should be switched off the rest of the time because it slows things down a lot. So far, Baneman and Blazing88s have stepped up to playtest. We can look forward to seeing what they find. Sburke is also having a look at the scenario and has already spotted a deployment error that I've fixed.

Yes, it's worth playing just to see what almost an entire Panzer Division looks like in CM/ I can already see it's going to be fun for the US player, having only those plucky little M3GMCs to stand up to them. Those who have PMed me -- please stand by. I'm making a tweak or two and then I'll PM you a download link. You'll install the Tunisia mod folder in your Z or mods folder, and the El Guuettar scenario in your scenarios folder. When you want to play in Italy again, just move the Tunisia mods folder out of your z or mods folder and put it away somewhere for safekeeping.