Broadsword56

Hear hear -- As much as the moaning and nitpicking and negativity irritate me, too, I also have to wonder if we who enjoy the game are also somewhat to blame for allowing that tone to overshadow the forums. Negativity usually wins because it tends to drive people away. So, on a positive note: If lots more of players posted lots more good AARs, lively and entertaining discussions of tactics and playing the game (instead of posts about the game or game engine itself), more stories about the history being simulated, etc., the negative stuff would just be a minor nuisance. If it has to be about the game or engine itself, then let's see more constructive threads (like the amazing mortar accuracy tests) -- which are at least better than "this is lame, this game s**ks.")

Sounds excellent to me, but I'm no expert on the Carentan battle history. One small question: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought there was no "Company I" in the US WW II organization -- because it can so easily be confused with the numeral 1 (and because, I guess, it leads to sentences ambiguous sentences like "I was hit by a bomber..." (who was hit, him or the company?) Didn't they just skip over the letter "I" and go straight to "J" for the companies in the 3rd battalion (J,K,L,M)?

Oooooooooohh... Nice bone there, very nice. My favorite moments were: *The truly monstrous and menacing ground-level zoom shots of the Tiger. *The Commonwealth 17-pounder (I think that's what I saw). *The German SP gun. Since it's advertised as video from the beta, I won't quibble with any of the details of uniforms and kit -- still hoping to see realistically netted and foliage-bedecked Tommy helmets. I couldn't tell from the videos whether the SS have their much-awaited battle smocks yet, either.

Great news! Please consider posting your complete map (if finished) and OOBs as they are, for HTH play. Some of us never play the AI anyway, so I'd love to be able to take your battle for a spin against a real opponent. I'd also be happy to playtest it against you if you want.

That's what Vassal is for -- here's the module: http://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTVASSAL.aspx

101st should be normal experience -- definitely not green, because in CMBN "green" means untrained as well as untested in battle. Normal means they've had normal training but just haven't been in combat yet. And yes, the Germans should be "veteran" experience. Even though a lot of the landsers on D-Day might not have experienced combat yet either, they would have had a cadre of battle-hardened NCOs and Ostfront veterans sprinked among them.

The data import/export ability would be tremendous, if that were ever possible. Bookkeeping between operational and tactical layers is a task, but not always a huge one. Operational board wargames often state that the scale of a unit counter (say battalion) is "X to Y men," abstracted into strength points, and the game mechanics themselves use some type of cohesion hit/step loss in combat results. So a soldier-by-soldier and vehicle-by-vehicle tally in an op-tac campaign is neither necessary nor really possible. What I do is set some sort of reasonable formulas beforehand to convert unit strengths in a boardgame to CMBN strengths, and vice-versa. This depends on the game being used, of course, but here's what I use for Balkoski's "Saint-Lo" (West End Games, where counters are battalions and companies): --- 7.0 Unit strengths 7.1 Companies -- Company counters in the boardgame range from 1 to 4 points at initial strength, and represent approximately 100 to 200 men. So, for companies entering a CMBN battle, the units are purchased with reduced strength from CMBN's standard TO&E levels as follows: 1 pt = 100 men = 50% reduction from TO&E 2 pts = 125 men = 30% reduction 3 pts = 175 men = 10% reduction 4 pts = 200 men = 0% reduction 7.2 Battalions -- Battalions in the boardgame range from 11 to 5 points at initial strength, and represent 400 to 800 men. So, for battalions entering battle: 11 pts = 800 men = 0% reduction 8 pts = 700 men = 10% reduction 9 pts = 600 men = 20% reduction 7 pts = 500 men = 30% reduction 5 pts = 400 men = 40% reduction 4 pts = 300 men = 50% reduction ---

Hi Fry, welcome -- and it's great to hear your enthusiasm. From what you share about your life and priorities, it seems to me you might be happiest as an occasional player in one of the op/tac campaigns that someone else is running. These types of campaigns are rare for a reason -- organizing them and running them is a big commitment. And keeping a stable group of players together to complete all the battles over many months is no small challenge, either. I knew I didn't have the patience for that. I wanted the op/tac campaign experience, but in a way that suited my own schedule and preferences. So here's another way, and it's worked great for me so far: Just pick a board game you like and whose scale is suitable for an op layer to CMBN. Set up your own solitaire campaign using a computer-based module (Vassal, Cyberboard, Zun Tzu),and just play it yourself when you feel like it, at your own pace. When you get to an interesting battle situation, pause the board game and make your own map/scenario for it in CMBN. You'll need to look at your boardgame's rules and work out a basic set of conversion rules for CMBN. For example, if a unit in your boardgame's is "pinned," what will that mean when they enter the CMBN battle (motivation level, fitness, etc.)? Then look around for a good PBEM opponent for the battle, and play it out with them. If you both have fun, invite them back. if the opponent is a dud or unreliable, find a new one the next time you set up a battle. Someone will almost always appreciate the chance to play on a unique, authentic map and be part of something special like an operational campaign, especially if all they have to do is show up and play. Then you can go back to your board game and just do the next battle when you feel like it -- no pressure, no need to resolve every skirmish with CMBN or organize a bunch of other gamers. You to play when you want, with whom you want, and exactly how you want. If you post the progress of your maps and campaign on this forum, share AARs, etc., others will enjoy reading about it and you'll attract more interest from good opponents who share your excitement. Good luck!

Adding to what sburke said (having been on the opposite end of our op/tac battles for Saint Lo), I think perhaps it makes imbalanced CMBN battles easier to accept when, as a player, you also know the "bigger picture." And if you come up a loser today, you know there's always tomorrow and you might be the one enjoying 5:1 odds. For example, you might find you're better be able to accept a lack of supporting offmap artillery in today's battle if you also know your division HQ spent those fire missions on predawn interdiction fire that slowed/damaged the enemy's armored reserve and prevented it from reaching you. Or perhaps you accept (just like a real battalion commander) being handed a lousy mission at terrible odds because you're the only unit stopping an enemy regiment's advance and need to hold the line for just the next 4 hours to save the campaign. With the operational layer running, you get loads of realistic dilemmas about where to make the main effort, which troops must be sacrificed, worries about lines of supply and communications, etc. Weather gets to play its role over time. And you can use airpower and divisional/long-distance artillery realistically without trying to fit it into the smaller CMBN battlefields. Example: Preparatory preplanned bombardments. CMBN players have argued about how fair or unfair it is to allow first-turn artillery stonks, how big they should be, and the challenges of managing them within a CMBN battle. With an op layer you can "abstract" those aspects and apply the results to the CMBN battlefield area before the CMBN action begins. Then you can set up the CMBN forces with the effects of the bombardment/air strikes already applied, starting the battle from there. BTW, I've found reinforced battalion-sized CMBN battles to be quite fun and playable as long as the command structure is kept in mind, and units carefully deployed with their parent HQs. The greater issue has been not quite knowing what the game will handle, as far as map size/detail + number of units without eventually crashing a game in progress.

+1 to the use of good board wargames to run operations/campaigns for CMBN. It's fun, it adds realism, and you can do it right now instead of waiting/hoping CMBN someday gives you that capability. CMBN is great as a tactical game, and even if BFC tried to give it those operational levels, I'm sure people would complain about it and pick apart all its shortcomings. It can't be all things to all people.

It's a definite and long-reported bug that BFC has been told about and sent game files about. We're hoping to see them fix it in the next patch, but no official fix list has been posted yet, so we don't know where this stands.

Yes, the modern photos help a lot for seeing the details of surviving buildings. Roads seem to show up better, too.

It just keeps getting better and better!

In the modern color image, those light spots could very well be apple trees that happened to be in blossom at that time of year, which would make them appear white from above. Haystacks are the least likely possibility, because modern farming hasn't stacked hay in the field that way for decades. The hay gets rolled up in giant spiral bales by machines. The dark spots in rows I'm referring to appear 1947 French aerial photos, which should be your main authority. I only use modern color imagery as an aid to understanding the crop types, and in helping to identify/understand the features that still survive from the 1940s.

Yes, in the 1940s there were many orchards all over, not just adjacent to settlements. (Actually, if you think about it, an orchard is easier to grow "in the middle of nowhere" because it requires less frequent tending than a crop field). Even in the 1947 aerial photos they show clearly as rows of dark dots. Orchard and pasture were the primary agricultural uses of the region. Then some occasional crop fields and grain fields that feed the people and farm animals.

Yes. Single D trees on a grid seem to give the best effect, IMHO, especially when you leave lots of gaps and even replace some trees with a large bush representing an immature tree. I sometimes even put stumps where the missing trees would be.

I admire any mapper dedicated enough to get even the high or low bocage types placed exactly as they were. My approach is to assume that in Basee Normandy, both types existed, and to mix the two types all over the place -- no particular pattern, except that I might tend to do more low bocage and hedge closer to settled areas and farm building compounds. But in Mortain, where the bocage started to lighten up, I suppose I'd increase the proportions of low bocage and hedge. But I'd still mix a few tile of high bocage every now and then, just to keep it interesting and mix the LOS challenges.

I like that word, "finished!":)

I'd say yes, wire fences. But I'd defer to Snakeye, our resident Norman.

I think if you use demo charges against a bunker, you need to give the blast command *along* the rear wall and not into the interior, since there's no back door. But you may want to test this out.

Oh yes. I still have flashbacks about running around in the rubble of Carentan, trying to find that &$@)$ crate of Panzerfausts. Oh, and the endless human wave of German counter attackers that emerge right after you capture that MG42.

This discussion has convinced me to add mud or marsh tiles underneath my infantry bocage gaps, so that at least the troops will be slowed/tired a bit more when using them.

There's a work-around for this now. It's fiddly, but just move your tank a waypoint, put a 15 sec pause there, and a smoke target from that waypoint. Then either a reverse or another slight move forward to another waypoint, with no smoke target. That will limit the number of smoke rounds your tank fires so at least it won't spend an entire turn shooting them off.

It would be cool if units that spend more than a certain amount of time stationary in deep snow and when the temperature is below freezing would suffer fatigue penalties. I guess falling snow will probably just look like whitish rain?

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but do you or anyone know how AT and AP mines would have been assigned and how many at what levels of the German organization? For example, if you have a German battalion defending but it has no attached Pioneers, how many and what kinds of mines would it have, and how long would it take the battalion once it occupies a position to have these mines in place? Thus far, my rule of thumb for setting up battles has been that units that have been in their same location 24 hours always start with foxholes for everybody (since soldiers always dug in any time they stopped, especially overnight), and TRPs for most of the obvious places that would have been pre-registered, like crossroads and chokepoints. But I've been told that even plain infantry companies had at least Bouncing Bettys and schu mines that they could deploy without any Pioneers. But how many per platoon or per company, I wonder? I reserve the more serious fortifications (bunkers, trenches, wire) for prepared strongpoints or areas where the Germans had ample time with Pioneers to prepare deeper defenses.