Broadsword56

Good decision! Your findings underscore the value of a boardgame like Saint-Lo to manage all that stuff -- things that matter, but are properly outside the scope of battalion-plus operations. Trying to shoehorn all that stuff into CMBN in-game would suck the fun factor out of the play experience pretty darned fast, IMHO. I think Balkoski's design did a really good job in accurately representing the historically available artillery support, yet making it easy to use without micromanagement. In my op-tac campaign, I used the boardgame for all the interdiction and counterbattery artillery missions, and to do the prep fires in support of battalion-level battles (applying any suppressions or losses to the setup situation in CMBN). Then, the assigned direct support artillery would be included as on-call offmap artillery in the CMBN scenario.

Well, as long as the Germans are in foxholes and/or bunkers and on HIDE, only a direct or lucky close hit will really hurt them. The Germans should have the ability to deploy a hedgerow or two back from their actual fortified positions -- this was a favorite tactic, letting them wait out the bombardment and return to their positions as soon as the barrage lifted past them. Also, the rolling barrage was a rolling carpet of preplanned area fire, not observed.fire on known targets. The way to simulate that in CMBN is to set two columns of Allied TRPs in the direction of the barrage, then set preplanned barrages on a successive lines between the TRPs. They're set pregame, with increasing delays. You put the FO with the ability to issue the fire call way in the rear, in a command post, with no LOS to the enemy side, allow the call to be made only "blind" by radio. (There are old threads with much more detail about how to set these up.)

Bravo, Christian! A few thoughts re: Your questions and issues that you summarized above... Artillery -- You can simulate a rolling barrage in CMBN. And I think it would be a mistake to scrimp on artillery supporting the US attack, if it was there historically. Firepower from artillery (and, where available, air and naval) was the only answer the Allies had to the superiority the Germans had in MGs, defensive terrain, and small-unit tactical leadership. In out Saint-Lo campaign, I often used massive rolling barrages with US attacks and still the GIs tended to get slaughtered. So don't be afraid to give the Yanks all their historical artillery support -- they'll need every bit of it. The difficulty for the US was that while they had artillery and ammo in abundance, the terrain offered very few opportunities for FOs to spot and place accurate rounds on target. That's the reason why this hill battle existed in the first place. Hill 192 was giving the Germans a perch from which they could put devastatingly accurate rounds on anything that moved, for miles around. The only other OPs in the heavy bocage country tended to be church steeples (which is why Balkoski marked each one on the map and made them so important in the boardgame). But if you didn't have your OP at Hill 192, Hill 122, or a steeple, you'd be lucky to see a few hundred meters. Re: Bocage defense. True, you can't dig real German bocage defenses in CMBN. But you can do much more than we had available when I made my master map years ago. Ditchlock is a huge asset now. You can sink 1m ditchlocked cuts into the terrain, and then place trenches in them. You can made basement levels to houses. Use foxholes everywhere, lots of sandbags, mines, wire, bunkers, and TRPs for almost every possible indirect fire location. The other important aspect is interlocking fields of fire and mutually supporting positions, placed in depth. If you do all this, you'll have the effect of a bocage defense system even if it doesn't look exactly like the real thing. Re: Damage -- again, no need for that on a master map unless you plan to actually play on it. Better to leave blasted trees, mud, and cratering to the smaller cutout scenarios when you're detailing those maps. But do it yourself because it really adds to immersion. Don't worry about load times if you've got the game map cut down to for a battle size. The load only becomes a big issue if you're trying to play on a master-sized map with regiments and divisions. If you do have to make huge maps and scenarios, you will find a hardy few eager to try them. But I've made them and played them, and I have to say they're not as much fun as one might think. I found the main enjoyment to be the sheer spectacle of seeing all those troops in action. But that soon wore off, as the burden of micromanagement became overwhelming. And larger is not necessarily more realistic, since CM was never designed to model command and control, supply, and other factors at those levels, either.

In my experience, it's better to make a master map and then only "detail" the areas that you ultimately cut out to use for specific scenario battles. The master map gives you the basic land tile patterns, hedgerow lines, road net, watercourses, and perhaps some paved splotches to mark where the areas of houses or buildings will be. No trees or veg!! Then place all the elevation points. Just having this type of master map will save you a lot of mapping time. And you won't waste time sweating details for areas that may never be played upon. A master map isn't just a huge honkin CM map -- it's a different type of map altogether -- and is not meant to be used in-game. Of course you could try to detail and play on one -- some have -- but it tends not to be a very satisfying experience. CM isn't really best suited to division and brigade-sized formations, and the lag and load issues make it an exercise in futility.

At the risk of kicking a suppressed horse... Curiously enough, the greener the troops in CM, the more likely they are to pop up and fire wildly or reveal their position, or panic and flee -- none of which is good for their side, but the opposite of suppression (cowering and pinned in place, not returning fire).

Further comment re: Translating suppression and other factors... Chris wrote: Leadership, yes. If the leaders are hunkered down in their holes, too, concentrating on survival and without situational awareness, then they've stopped leading. So if a unit is suppressed in the boardgame and is entering a CMRT battle in that state, I knock down the leadership rating to -2, and also worsent its starting motivation. Also, the unit has to start the action on HIDE and keep a temporary, very small fire arc for the first several minutes. After that, I let the owning player lift the arc and issue any orders. But experience should not change from suppression. Their training and battle-savvy doesn't disappear, it's part of who they are. Some games even make suppressed units harder to kill, because once they go to ground they make tougher targets.

Right you are, Chris. It's all about the journey...especially since a fully fledged op-tac campaign can take a year or longer to play out, depending on how regularly you play and how often you pause the op action to stage battles in CM. Having a group play sounds wonderful. I've never had the courage to tackle that, because doing a campaign my way is hard enough without having to manage other players with differing interest levels and real-life commitments. I find it simpler just to solo the op layer, answering only to myself, then invite opponents to fight HTH battles from it at my own convenience. I've been blessed by having some super patient, skilled, and sportsmanlike opponents for years now, and one of them is usually available to rise to the occasion. The tradeoff for the opponents is that all they have to do is show up and play. As long as I do good briefings and help them stay abreast of what's happening in the larger operation, they can feel a part of it without the responsibility of managing the details.

@sburke: Thanks for posting about our latest battle. Once I get Turn 9 and the single Night turn completed, I'll post another summary here of the overall operation "for all you folks watching at home." @chris: Great questions! I'll tell you how I handle it the personnel/casualty translation between layers, but this may or may not be to everyone's taste. Let me preface it by saying that when you use a boardgame system like the GTS, you'll always have lots judgment calls to make about things like this. That's because Cohesion Hits simulate casualties and losses to unit cohesion, all in one. There simply is no ironclad set of policies that will cover every situation and objectively reflect the reality of CM in the boardgame, or vice-versa. So I use some general rules, and then look at every battle as if I'm a forensic historian -- using any knowledge I have about the historical campaign, doctrine, and common sense as I try to interpret what story the pixels are telling for translation into cardboard (or Cyberboard). This fuzzy logic is a big reason why op-tac campaigns turn some players off, I think. It goes back to the schism between wargamers of an engineering mindset, who prefer games where things are objective and transparent, and those who favor "design for effect" and are perhaps more wiling to tolerate imbalances and anomalies in games as part of the cruel fortunes of war. You're correct about the 11 possible situations of a unit in Panzer Command. But to keep things simple, I like to view it this way: Consider 40% personnel losses as the threshold for a unit to be eliminated. (Extrapolating from the 15% threshold that the Pentagon found tended to be the case in American WW II rifle battalions, the actual losses among the front-line rifle companies for that figure would be closer to around 40%.) Elimination doesn't literally mean dead, just that the unit is combat ineffective, not able to perform its mission anymore, and shattered as far as this campaign's time frame is concerned. In Panzer Command, 4 Cohesion Hits eliminate a unit. (It gets 2, the third one flips it over to its last step, and then since it retains its original 2 Cohesion Hits, a third hit will kill it). If 4 hits = 40% losses, then I treat each Cohesion Hit as equivalent to 10% losses. But 10% of what number? In Bagration, the German units were lucky to have even 50% of their paper TO&E strength at the start of the campaign. That usually was true for the Soviets, too, but before Bagration they made a big effort to beef up the manning levels in unites slated for that attack. So I usually start my Soviet units with 70% of TO&E. CM doesn't let you reduce personnel strength below half, and that's OK because it's more realistic to start consolidating depleted platoons and companies into single, more effective formations. Even these policies should leave ample room for judgment calls. It's documented that a unit's ability to sustain losses and keep fighting also depended on other things, such as morale and leadership, or even its particular mission at the time. I just eliminated a German heavy grenadier company that took its fourth Cohesion Hit, because it had just been close-assaulted by a fresh Soviet Guards SMG company. The attack was in dusk, from a flank where an entire Soviet regiment was bypassing them. And this German unit had already had quite a busy and rough day. To quote from its battle log (a text note that travels with the counter in Cyberboard): ---- 4th (Heavy) Company 1/195 Sturm Regiment 78 Sturm Division XXVII Corps --- Battle history: 1100 hrs, 23 June: Despite being cut off, this unit's Opportunity Fire destroyed final step of adjacent SU-152 unit from 11 Gd Mot Inf Div that was in Hex 4707 and was trying to deploy from the forest track into fighting formation in the open. 1500 hrs, 23 June: With 195 Sturm Reg leader defying Hitler's standing orders, the unit attempts to break out of encirclement to the SW. Opportunity Fire costs it 1 Cohesion Hit, but it succeeds and regains friendly lines in Hex 4809. But, in the Peat Bogs, it ran into a battalion of the Soviet 40th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment that was flanking the German line. Their opportunity fire caused the German company to suffer its 2nd and 3rd Cohesion Hits and thus lose a step. But it avoided suppression and made to Hex 4710, where it formed a refused flank on the extreme right of its regiment's line. At that point the unit was down to about 35 men. Turn 9 (evening 23 June): Assaulted by 1 SMG/167 Gd in Hex 4710 during the Soviet flanking attacks in the Peat Bogs. Lost final step and eliminated. On the other hand, sburke had a German Sturmpioneer company that was heavily engaged throughout Day One. It was consolidated to a single remaining platoon, but because it fought from trenches and bunkers I let it fight longer and harder. It managed to repulse an attack one last time before finally succumbing to elimination. Here's its battle log: --- Sturmpioneer Company 195 Sturm Regiment 78 Sturm Division XXVII Corps 23 June, afternoon: Suffered 1 Cohestion Hit (10% casualties) in the Battle for the T Junction. In the second wave Soviet attack that afternoon, this company lost a further 13 men (19%) for its second Cohestion Hit. Occupies woods fortifications in Hex 4508 with its remaining 56 men. Then, after the battle but still in Turn 6, direct fire of MG Co/171st Reg causes it to lose its 3rd cohesion hit, and the unit loses a step. --- Sturmpioneers made their final stand in trenches in Hex 4508 on the right flank of the Single-Track Railway, fending off a MG company and hanging on by their fingernails. While they beat back the attack, they lost 25 of their remaining 56 men and were eliminated as a combat-capable force. ----- It's stories like this, as they develop, that make op-tac campaigns so rewarding and entertaining. You start to get a sense of the human character of a unit. My particular favorite is this little German dismounted AT platoon that turned heroic and performed far beyond what might have been expected: --- Tank Destroyer Platoon/14th (Antitank) Company 481st Grenadier Regiment 256th Infantry Division VI Corps 23 June, 0915 hrs: Reinforced battle for Hex 4506 fortified position. Saw light combat, cleared casualties and evacuated position with the StuG company. 23 June, 1100-1300 hrs: Tremendous valor holding the fallback defensive position at Hex 4507, despite artillery barrages and assaults by Soviet SMG and SU-76 units. Suppression by SMG unit removed by Rally event at 1300 hrs, further illustrating this unit's superior leadership and toughness. 23 June, 1300hrs: Repelled 3-round Close Assault by Soviet SMG company of 1 Gd Inf Div, with no casualties. In its final action, the platoon infiltrated the swamps to harass a Soviet armor-infantry column as it moved up to attack the Single-Track Railway on the afternoon of 23 June. But the swamps provided insufficient cover, and the teams were hunted down and wiped out by Soviet SMG-equipped tankodesantniki troops. Still, their presence slowed the momentum of the attack and wore down the infantry enough that it was unable to reach the RR and accomplish its assault mission. ---------------- Bottom line: For all the numbers and factors involved in a board wargame, using it with CMRT in an op-tac campaign often feels more like "playing with army men in the backyard" (and as much fun, too) than something objective and quantifiable.

What was your campaign called and where can we download it?

This has been along thread, so it may have been said previously -- but IIRC a key and heroic unit that helped the 101st defend the Bastogne perimeter was an African-American field artillery unit. So maybe the prospect of the Bulge game will spur development of more diverse pixeljoes.

Wonderful news. A worthy addition to the series to look forward to!

Ditto -- I wish I could just set a button to automatically download anything attached to Tanksalot's name. The mods are that good. I can even see flowers and houseplants through the windows of that house! (The civilians must have just recently fled, or the occupying Germans decided the place needed a touch of gemutlichkeit)

Apocal makes an excellent point. That's why it's important NOT to expect you'll fight every op-layer battle on the tactical layer in CM. Save CM for the battles where circumstances look like either side has a decent chance of prevailing. Or, go ahead and play some of the really desperate Alamo-style defending actions when they look like fun (and they really can be!). One thing the op layer will show you is that a "balanced" CM scenario can come from more varied situations that you might expect. Forces that are mismatched in size can be equalized by things like better defensive positions, better soft factors, or certain key weapons systems. In fact, this to me is the real value of playing op-tac campaigns -- variety and realism in the situation setups for CM. They usually surpass anything a single mind could dream up as a standalone scenario, and they have that realistically chaotic feeling of "fortunes of war."

As we can see, the issues get increasingly complex and challenging once the discussion starts to focus on specifics of how to implement an op layer. My advice: 1. Keep it simple. 2. Use a boardgame at company-to-battalion scale (but with Vassal or Cyberboard. One advantage of Cyberboard is that you can write little text notes for a counter that will stay with it thoughout the game. I use these to note unit IDs, manpower, losses, battle histories, or anything else of interest). 3. Run the op layer solo (and then invite players of your choice to play the CM battles HTH with you). A multiplayer group is very hard to organize and keep going. But those who really want to try that may have better results when all agree to let one player run the op layer and do the administrative part. 4. Don't worry about FOW in an op layer. If you use a good quality grand-tactical boardgame (not Panzerblitz) that models C3 well, then it doesn't matter if you can see enemy counters on the map -- the game's own mechanics should limit your units' abilities to react and revise their actions, so your units act as if they have FOW even though you (the player) can see the situation perfectly. Some good systems that model this are the MMP Grand Tactical System (chit draw activation), Saint-Lo (HQ Action Points), and on the ultimate end of the simulation scale, The Gamers Tactical Combat System games (in which players write actual op order sheets for their HQs, and roll dice in efforts to implement them. But the TCS games are platoon scale, so a bit too granular for CM use perhaps). There will be a lot of judgment calls to be made, as players have to interpret events on the op layer into things like unit fatigue, ammo, motivation, and other "soft factors" in CM battle setups. It's also easier to agree on a sensible set of mission objectives for each side in a CM tactical setup, and let a human decide whether victory has been achieved and at what level. Otherwise there's all kinds of work in every battle to establish VLs and points to allow the CM engine decide results. The way I usually run things is to watch the op layer for a promising tactical battle setup. Then, I freeze the boardgame action and cordon off a certain area of hexes for the CM battle. The battle gets played out in CM the cordoned-off area, and then any remaining activity in the turn gets played out in the op layer as if it happened simultaneously with the CM battle. Another issue you'll encounter is how to handle reinforcements. This can depend on the time scale of your boardgame. In general, I look at whatever units a side might have had in reserve or available/unengaged status just outside the cordoned-off area. Then I look at how fast that unit could travel to the battle if ordered to do so, whether it could arrive within the time frame of the CM action, and with what delay. Those units can be designated "optional reinforcements." In other words, they go into the OOB for the CM battle and are given a reinforcement arrival time range. But, when/if they do show up on the CM map, they go in a screened -off holding area. If the owning player decides not to activate and use them, then it's as if they never came. The boardgame resumes with those units back in their original positions. But if the owning player uses the optional reinforcements, then they get the CM battle results applied to them at the end just like all the other units that fought. This adds a nice level of FOW because you won't always know your opponent's exact OOB at any given moment.

We can always dream! It's just a game, after all :-)

I really wish you could find the game you're looking for. But, sad to say, you may continue to have "nothing" for a very long time. You can have "something," and choose to use what exists, for what it's worth. But I guess some have chosen they'd rather have "nothing" and continue waiting for someone to make them a game that takes them to single-player AI op-level nirvana. After all, it's easier to just complain.

"To my knowledge" is the operative phrase there. And the question of whether or not a given board game measures up to one's needs is entirely a personal judgment. There's no justification for such a sweeping statement. On a constructive note, here are some board games that offer authenticity and depth and have proven to work well in operational layer play with CMx2. I've had personal experience with these and found them very satisfactory. Every game on these lists exists in computer form, as Cyberboard and/or Vassal modules: Saint-Lo (West End Games) -- Great with CMBN. Designed by wargame design legend and official historian of today's 29th ID, Joseph Balkoski, who also wrote the definitive book Beyond the Beachhead. The Devil's Cauldron (Multi Man Publishing) - for the N half of Market Garden. Company scale. Where Eagles Dare (Multi Man Publishing) - for Market Garden below Nijmegen to the Belgian border. Company scale; links up with the game above for a monster campaign. Panzer Command (Victory Games) - Great with CMRT if you use my 1944 Bagration mod in Cyberboard. Otherwise, the base game is set in the Chir River battles of Dec '42 - Jan '43 and will have to wait for RT to get to that era. Or, using the good snow mods already out, one can play battles from that period using Panzer Command as long as you adjust your TO&Es accordingly for the period and avoid battles that require AFVs not yet in RT, such as Mark III tanks, KV-1 tanks, and short-barrel StuGs. Here are some other games I have not yet tried with CMx2, but their scales, systems, and depth put them on my hope-to-try list for op-tac play: Streets of Stalingrad 3rd Edition (L2 Publishing) -- The classic monster game of S'grad at company level. Mine dogs, you name it, it's all in the game. Don't even think of trying to game the whole campaign in CMx2. Slice off a section and just play one scenario. I laid out the Orlovka Pocket scenario map on Google Earth and marked it out for master maps in RT, and it would take around 6-8 of them just to cover that one sector. Death Ride Salerno (Grognard Simulations) - 4 connected games cover the entire Salerno beachhead. But you can just play any of them as a stand-alone. Designed by a former career Army armor officer, this series is not only playable but has an impressive depth (hospital and vehicle repair functions) and authenticity. Bradley's D-Day (Against The Odds) - A campaign special edition published a couple of years ago by this wargaming magazine. John Prados designed it, and it covers the first 48 hours of Overlord on the US beaches at battalion scale.

Which is why the best operational layers are between two or more human players, via PBEM, just using a good standard board wargame to manage the higher level. Simple, satisfying, no technological hurdles, and feasible to do right here and now. For example, I made an op layer scenario for CMRT that uses the excellent grand tactical boardgame Panzer Command. It uses the Cyberboard computer playing aid to keep track of everything, so there's not even any need to mess with maps and counters. We skip the super-lopsided or less-interesting op layer battles, and use CMRT to enjoy the ones we think will make good PBEMs. Thanks to the master maps that come with CMRT's Soviet campaign, It takes just one evening to cut out the relevant master map segment, set up the forces, and get the action started. When the battle ends, we apply the results back to Panzer Command, I play the op action forward a bit more, rinse, and repeat. I'm not saying this to brag or tout my own creations -- just to point out that this is extremely easy to do and anyone can do it. If Sandman is new to CMx2 and these boards, then his question is understandable and legitimate, and I don't fault him for raising it. But if an operational layer matters soooooooooo much to some players' ability to enjoy CMx2, then I have to wonder why it seldom seems to matter enough to motivate them to work one up and start playing. Instead, we see perennial "why can't BFC" and "When will BFC..." whiny threads that plead for some ultimate dream-game that we might see, perhaps, years from now, or perhaps never. One common objection is that hex-and-counter boardgames are clunky or old-fashioned. Indeed, Panzer Command dates from 1986, likely before some of the players posting here were even born. But -- ironically -- the op-tac campaign I'm playing now using the "ancient" wargame is on pause because we're waiting for a fix to the 26% crash bug bug in RT 1.02. Take that, you young'uns!

Hopefully along with German Mark III tanks and short-barrel StuGs, which aren't in RT yet either. With those and the KV-1, we could at least jerry-rig and work-around to simulate 1943 with what's available until the series actually gets back to 1943 proper.

At the very least, a tank crew that felt a hit like that on their tank would be shaken up and immediately reverse, if possible, to seek a position of safety where they could better assess the situation. They wouldn't just stand and fight in place against an as-yet-unspotted possible AT gun.

So, to connect it back to CM and specifics: The game continues to offer great depth and wide variety in equipment. But... when players request something that would give the game "meaningful narrative with defined characters," -- such as an editable and durable name for every soldier and not just the team leader, it tends to get dismissed as a trivial concern, not that important to many players, not technically feasible, or possibly feasible but not worth the investment in time and coding to implement. Another, related feature would be dedicated medics/stretcher bearers in the game, and/or a drag/carry wounded buddy feature like they have in ARMA2. (It might not seem terribly important, but if you had the named soldier feature and you've got a soldier who has made it through a campaign thus far, you really would root for him to make it and you'd take a greater interest in getting him away from the line of fire.) And what if you could even earn credit for aiding wounded enemy soldiers as well as your own? Moving on to less plausible features that could be in a game like CM, if designers saw it as important: The surrender/POW mechanism in CM is another aspect where the human and storytelling narrative aspects could play a larger role. What if the game forced you to secure POWs and detach a soldier or two to escort them to the rear? What if it also allowed them to die if deliberately shot? What if the game sometimes played the "surrender trick," and an apparently surrendering soldier suddenly triggers an ambush or pulls out a weapon? Suddenly all sorts of very realistic, split-second battlefield dilemmas could play out. Civilians in the game would also add to some of these aspects, although I don't think they're worth it because most of the time in the situations we're playing in, civilians would have already been killed/evacuated/driven away or are hiding in their basements (some notable exceptions being Holland, where civilians joined the fighting and gave intel to troops; and Stalingrad, where the Soviets denied evacuation and forced them to stay in the city.)

I don't think it hit the ammo cache, because wouldn't we have seen fire, smoke, or something more catastrophic? In real life I wonder if a MMG round that did riccochet through the open hatch of a StuG could in any way set off the StuG's MG ammo cache. Seeing those rounds cook off would make the crew bail in a hurry. In any case it was some heckuva lucky shot. I love the fact that CM doesn't just "roll the dice," so the physics allow for an infinite variety of battlefield phenomena to happen -- entertaining us at our pixeljoes' expense.

I used to grumble about RT not yet including the Dshk antiaircraft MG in the game yet, since it has forced me to arm my Guards AA MG companies with Maxims instead -- but I'm not grumbling anymore... This shot happened from approx 200m range. It was a real kill that made the StuG register as "knocked out,", not just a crew bail: Neither sburke or I had ever seen this before in RT. Maybe a clever shot through a viewport or some such? The MG blazed away at the front and top of the StuG for the better part of a turn. If the arc of fire plunged a little bit, perhaps that hit a thinner area of armor? It's ironic, since I watched Sherman AP rounds bounce of sburke's StuGs frontal armor all through Normandy...only to see one finally die from a showdown with a single (very brave) MG. Order of Lenin will be awarded to Selikanov and his crew, for sure!

As I understand it, it's possible to use images like this to create a 3D scene in Google Sketchup then link then to GPS coordinates using Google Earth. Then a person visiting the place today could, if standing at this GPS location, could hold up a phone or ipad and see the historical men and ships in these positions -- a virtual window into history.

Yes, I recently defended in a scenario as Soviets against a German KG that had company of Nashorns supporting about a battaion of infantry and some StuGs. This close swampy and forested terrain was not a good place for the Nashorn to operate, to its advantage, however. And they are vulnerable to AT rifles, which won't often kill them but can cause damage and suppression and make crews bail.