Broadsword56

The enormous El Guettar scenario is finished but needs play testing. Please PM me if interested. Length: 150 minutes Time of day: Begins slightly predawn Map size: 4000m x 3200m, rough, open Force scale: Regimental-plus Some things to note: 1. This battle is at a scale beyond anything ever attempted in CMFI yet, so it could crash or simply become uplayable at some point. It loads and runs fine in setup and first turns on my machine, but no one knows what will happen where there's zillions of waypoints and smoke clouds and rounds in the air, and the turn file sizes become bigger and bigger. Having said that, CMFI and the 2.0 engine are amazingly smooth and fast and stable compared to CMBN, so it just might work. 2. To preserve your sanity, if you play as Axis, you will want to use group orders (double click on a HQ and issue one command). You can then refine specific unit orders by clicking on the unit and moving some waypoints -- for example, to keep tanks on separate paths so they don't keep stopping and starting and running afoul of each other. Also, I'd recommend not splitting squads until they get near enemy contact. 3. Find a reliable HTH opponent who is also interested in huge scale battles and willing to see it through. 4. Please post comments, suggestions, etc., in this thread. Screenshots, DARs, or AARs of your playtest on the BFC forum would also be entertaining and build general interest in the scenario/theatre. 5. Because the forces are so imbalanced, the Americans could simply be slaughtered in a playtest. I have no idea. But this is the historical setup. If I find the battle doesn't give both sides a decent winning chance, I'd tweak things like arrival times, battle length, objectives and point values, etc., to see if it can be turned into a good game experience. If you read about El Guettar you'll know that the heroes of the morning battle were elements of the 899th TD battalion, which had the brand-new M10s that the Germans had never even seen before. If I designed this battle correctly, the Americans should be just about ready to collapse by the time their offmap artillery becomes fully available and the time clock runs out. That's when the M10s should come in to save the day or even turn the tide. But we won't have them in CMFI until the next module. So in future versions of this scenario, I may either shorten the battle to end before the M10s would have arrived, or insert a different AFV in their place temporarily.

Just looking for suggestions... Obviously the motorcycles themselves aren't available. But that can be worked around, by assuming the troops parked their bikes just offmap before deploying into battle. Same for any trucks. The infantry in my Tunisia battle were all on foot by the time they advanced onto this map. I'd guess I'd just use a standard Heer infantry Battalion with all transport removed, have its heavy weapons be a 120mm mortar section + 251/9 halftrack, a recon platoon, and an FO section.

I always feel so idiotic posting these "where do I find X unit" questions, but... I've been clicking and clicking everywhere I can think of in the OOB editor, and can't find Mark III tanks. Mark IV yes, Tigers yes, but where are the Mark III? Actually what I want is what the CMFI TO&E page calls a "Mixed Panzer Battalion" (One company of Mark IV and two of Mark III), but I see no listing of that battalion type. Then I thought maybe I should select a medium Panzer battalion, and just select the tank type manually to change them from Mark IVs. But the only options for tank types are other varieties of Mark IV. I'm stumped. Please don't tell me the Mark III wasn't in Sicily and is waiting for CMFI's addon for mainland Italy...I need it for Tunisia!

Update on this map and mod: I'm busy making the OOB and deploying the forces on the El Guettar map. I've cut an 800m strip off the S edge of the map to make it 4000m x 3200m, to save strain on the CM 2.0 engine and our computers -- that sector wasn't really needed for this battle area, and I can simply have the German spearhead that straddled the highway enter as a reinforcement a bit farther W along the highway after the battle opens. The belt of hasty wire and mixed mines (which stretched all the way from an area E and S of Hill 336 across the highway and off to the SW) is in place. Unfortunately it will add greatly to the system strain for this scenario. US starting forces (3 x TD companies, 1 x Recon platoon, 1 x Inf Bn) are all in place. But the infantry all need to be in foxholes, which I'm going to plant next. That's another big load of fortification units and another strain on the system. There's another US Inf battalion that arrives later in the battle on foot, as reinforcements. And then there will be the German armor-infantry spearheads -- with many, many Pz III and Pz IV tanks. You can see where I'm going with all this...I may be making a scenario that turns out to be a computer-killer or has such an awful framerate that no one would want to play it. But I want to try making it, just to see where the playable limits of CMFI might be. We need to see more of what happens with big armored engagements on wide-open (and authentic) maps, because we're going to need to be able to do this once CM gets to the Eastern Front. The more armored/mechanized the battles get, the bigger the maps need to be, to have realistic engagement ranges. And the bigger the maps are, the larger the unit scales tend to get (unless we just want avoid real battles and to play only patrol actions, meeting engagements, or other situations where small forces meet on a big map). Also, it's just plain fun to see something this big and awesome. El Guettar won't be everyone's cup of Tunisian mint tea -- but the map will offer plenty to let would-be scenario makers cut out chunks to make their own, smaller Spring 1943 scenarios in Tunisia. Interestingly, the full-scale El Guettar Hill 336 scenario I'm making shouldn't be too much strain on the human player, from a management standpoint. The US infantry is largely static and comes already deployed in the historic positions. The 33 or so TDs are most of the action for the US player, and it will be fun to play pop-up, shoot-and-scoot tactics among the foothills with them as the panzers approach. The German player has the bigger management task -- but since so many are vehicles and they're rolling over such open terrain, it shouldn't be anywhere near as fiddly as the bocage battles in Normandy or even the battles in Sicily. (It might make you wish we had a "find hull-down" command, though...) Bottom line: It's an amusing experiment. If I end up breaking CMFI with the historic El Guettar scenario, then I'll probably just release the full 4 x 4 km map with no units and let the community adapt it anyway they want.

Or, just open the scenario in the editor and look at the tiles, if you really want to know something about a map in detail.

Firepower-wise, I agree towed 37mm would be the best equivalent to the M6. but I went with a recon platoon and used 5 White scout cars -- since in this environment the mobility is important, and they can dash around and use their MGs to help guard the M3 GMCs from enemy infantry, go hull-down, etc.

Oh well. What do you think would be a good stand-in for those 5 M6s in my TD battalion?

Some 1943 units in the Med had the M6 "Fargo," a nasty little jeep with a 37mm gun on it that could fire canister. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M6_Fargo Unfortunately, I don't see it in CMFI currently. Just wondering if we might eventually get it. In my El Guettar scenario I'm making for the Tunisia mod, the 601st TD Battalion had 5 of these, along with 31 of their oridinal 36 M3 GMC heavy destroyers with 75mm guns on them. I'm thinking these 5 M6 vehicles were in the recon platoon that the 601st took into this battle. Anyone know? I'm also wondering how to structure the 601st for the scenario, since when I buy the M3s from the Armored Infantry menu as SP gun sections, they're all independent. I'd like to have the three company HQ's over them, or a battalion HQ.

The German desert uniform cammo and vehicle cammo on both sides looks right at home here, don't you think?

More shots... You can see the cactus in the mod here: US scouts on Hill 336 look out over the valley: We're not in Sicily anymore...

As promised, some ground-level screenshots fo the completed map: The Wadi El Keddab, on the extreme W edge of the map:

Can't find the Halftrack-mounted US AT guns. Are they in CMFI? Or are they coming in the mainland Italy module along with the M10s?

OK, Palm trees are fixed. So all the Tunisia mods are done and they work. I'm also going to include mjkerner's US 1st Infantry Division mod, which will give the dogfaces their correct division patches.

Thanks Mord -- this mod worked in CMFI right out of the box! Adds greatly to the immersion factor. That's the cactus and the mud walls done now -- just need to get those darned palm trees working.

Update: Got the cactus to work in CMFI now. Still working on the palm trees.

Making a few adjustments to this project now... I'm probably going to slice off a strip along the S edge of the map, to eliminate a good portion of the highway and focus the map more on the action around Hill 336. A few reasons for this: 1. It would eliminate areas of the map closer to the wadi and the oasis where there were a fair number of palm trees. That's a work-around because the current palm tree mod doesn't completely work in CMFI (it shows up all black). 2. It's not really possible in even a 4 x 4 km map to do justice to both the German spearhead that went W along the highway, and the other one that went NW to make a run around the right flank of Hill 336. The highway action would only be interesting if there were room to show more of the wadi and the area W of it, where the M10s arrived in the nick of time and sacrificed themselves to stop that advance. But we don't have M10s in CMFI yet, so cutting that part of the map also solves that problem. But that still leaves plenty of interesting mechanized and infantry action on a large and open map. People who are Eastern Front fans would also probably enjoy this.

(Posting this as a new thread to attract general modded interest) As some of you may have noticed in a separate thread, I've been making a huge Tunisia map as an experiment to see how well CMFI can be adapted to other parts of the Med. The good news: The terrain is easy to make and looks believable. We also have enough 1943 OOB to do some Tunisia battles. The bad news: A few things in CMFI are still lacking to make fully satisfying Tunisia maps. Here's a challenge to any would-be molders out there, if you like tinkering with skins and would like to contribute to this effort, but aren't into mapping or scenario design. The most-needed mods, in order of priority: 1. Palm trees. LongLeftFlank's excellent palm tree mod to the "B" tree in CMBN shows up when placed into CMFI, but only as a completely black object with no skin. Trees aren't plentiful in Tunisia or very tactically significant, but important for immersion and for making areas near oases. 2. Prickly pear cactus. LongLeftFlank made a gorgeous .bmp that modified Bush 2 in CMBN, but it has no effect on any bushes when placed in the mod folder for CMFI. These cacti would help a lot with field borders, add variety to scrubby areas, and help make the landscape more convincingly North African. 3. Mud walls. The rural stone walls and regular walls in CMFI don't look right for a Tunisia map. Making farms and more settled areas would be possible if someone could reskin the walls from stone to that ubiquitous khaki-colored mud texture.

I've found it's better to get all the elevations done, then get all the terrain tiles exactly the way I want them, before planting any vegetation or placing any objects. It's fun and tempting to get into details right away to see how it will look, but it often means having to erase and undo things later, adding more hours to the creation time. The vegetation and objects can get in the way and make it harder to see what's really going on with the evolving map.

No, there was no need for that. Once some counter were in proximity and in a situation where an interesting battle would happen within one board game turn, we'd simply define a battlefield area, make a CMBN map, and play it out.

That's good to know, Fernando! So, the only mod we'd want might be a groggy one -- like "Big Red One" division patches (which would be good for Italy too). Did the Heer tropical/desert uniforms/kit in Tunisia include that Afrika Korps pith helmet? Or was the standard coal-scuttle helmet (painted in desert colors) in widespread use in the late stages of the campaign? Or would there have been a mix of both?

And behold... The semi-arid landscape of Central Tunisia, after the heavy spring rains of March 1943: Just the terrain tiles and elevations are done so far on this huge (4km square) map. I'll post more screenshots -- including ground-level ones -- after more of the details are completed. A few things to note about the key terrain: *The darkest areas are the mud in the Wadi El Keddab. It's full of mud, sand, rocks, and scrub. *The empty grayish patches are going to be irrigated olive groves and farm plots (the dirt there is just a placeholder so I don't waste time painting it yet) *You can just barely make out the Gafsa-Gabes road, running L-R across the valley. At the far left where it hits the mapedge is a sort of causeway/culvert labeled "The Bridge." There's a lot of mud and sand along the road shoulders, so vehicles could be at some risk of bogging. *The valley is, as eyewitnesses described, a semi-arid rolling steppe covered by short grass, with scrub and sandy patches. It is a huge open battlefield with almost no cover -- but it's not a "billiard table." Far from it! If you look at the topo map I posted earlier, you'll see the valley is loaded with gentle undulations and defiles that could easily hide a tank or infantry if they're careful how they move. *The hill complex dominating the map from SW to NE is part of the Eastern Dorsal, which climbs way up to higher elevations toward the NE, off-map. The critical action on this part of the battlefield on March 23 centered around Hill 336 (labeled, top center). From this view, the hills look a lot higher and more rugged than they really are. Actually they rise quite subtly from the valley. *Historical deployments: I'll post more about that in the future. This was a rear area of the US 1st Division. The 10th Pz Division had blown through the front lines and was coming this way from the SE corner. Patton designated the Wadi El Keddab as the stop line, and engineers had hastily sown a mine belt and wire the previous night, running SW-NE from the Wadi S of the road to just E of Hill 336. A battalion of US 1st Division infantry was dug in on the reverse slope of Hill 336, and some companies of the 601st TD Battalion (equipped with M3 GMCs) were up in the hills to the right of that. A desperate last stand was about to begin...

The overlay capability in CMBN will make you very happy. In CMFI I'm making a huge 4km x 4km historical map of Tunisia in the time it would have taken me to make a 1200m x 1200m map in CMBN with the old editor.

Yay! Consider yourself volunteered. It will be a while yet. But I'll post progress screenshots as the map comes along. The ultimate result will be "Broadsword's Tunisia ModPack," because it will contain not just the El Guettar scenario file, but separate folders containing the modded vegetation, desert horizons, etc. The idea will be to have one folder that's easy to move in and out of your game so it doesn't complicate matters when you want to go back to Italy. And folks, even if you don't want to play this scenario, you will want to have it because it will use my patented Tunisia Spring '43 terrain texturing -- because it's a huge map, you will be able to clip out and save a chunk of it, re-do the elevations, and then make any of your own battles for March-April '43. The only thing missing from CMFI -- as it is now -- that would hinder Tunisia scenarios is the lack of the M-10 tank destroyer. The Hermann Goering Pz Div should make a fine stand-in for the DAK, since their uniforms are lighter and at least not like NW Europe feldgrau. The lighter cammo on the vehicles in CMFI should look good in Tunisia, too. And perhaps one day, if enough people get into this theatre, someone may want to mod the uniforms and things to make it totally authentic.

Thanks for the votes of support, LLF -- and yes, I have your tree and prickly pear and intend to use them! Good news: I did get the full sized map to load in 3D preview again -- I just had to wait for the extremely long load time (i.e., walk away and come back in a while). So what I thought was a crash was actually just a really really long loading time. Seeing that this map strains my PC so much already, I'll most likely save it and then cut it down a bit from the south edge (where there wouldn't be any action in my scenario anyway). Re: El Guettar -- This battle has always fascinated me on a number of levels. First, it was the Patton's first big victory, and he was on the battlefield to see it all happen. Also on this battlefield, on the German side, was Von Stauffenberg, Hitler's would-be assassin in 1944. The long, rolling, open valley with lots of undulations makes it a great terrain for a classic Panzer attack, with tac air support -- and here the 10th Panzer really did it with an "iron fortress" of Mark III and IV tanks and infantry, in what all the US AARs say was an extremely well-executed armor attack. On the US side, it's David vs. Goliath because of no US tanks -- you get to play shoot-and-scoot with a company of M3 GMCs armed with their 75mm guns, popping up from flanking positions in the foothills. Then on Hill 336 there's a battalion of dug-in GIs from the Big Red One, holding on for dear life as the battle swirls around them and nearly cuts them off. At the very last minute the US reinforcements arrive (M10 tank destroyers en masse) and at huge cost to themselves they finally defeat the Panzers, helped by a massive offmap US artillery bombardment. Simulating this in a good CM scenario makes an interesting challenge. I don't do AI, so it will be HTH only in my version (although anyone who wants to code AI into it later is welcome to take a stab at it). My map's SE corner is right about where the historical German attack column split into three. I'll be replicating the two northern spearheads, and leaving the southernmost one off map. If I get the timing and force balance right, the initial US force should be just about overwhelmed as the artillery and M10s become available. And if the US player is too rash with exposing the AT Halftracks and loses them all too early, the Germans can overrun the US before help ever arrives. The map is going to be big enough to allow ample chances for the Germans to send a spearhead into the hills to try and flank Hill 336 from the N, as they attempted in the actual battle, too. So, for the Germans there will be an "occupy" objective for Hill 336, but also major bonus points for exiting units off the NW part of the map (which was the division's entire objective here). Although the Wadi El Keddab was said to be impassable except at the highway bridge, I'm going to vary the mud tiles with enough sand and rock that a daring German player might at least have an incentive to get through the wire and mine belt to try it -- as they did in real life.

Scale is 307 yards per hex (280 meters). Units normally get a 3 movement point allowance, and it can be 8 MPs for strategic movement. But a unit can activate a number of times in any given 2-hour turn, due to HQ morale and die rolls. So the beauty of the game is you never really know how much a given unit can do or how far it can move in any given turn.