Broadsword56

This seems like it would be a fantastic tool. But after installing it and following what I think are the correct steps, I don't see my bitmap transparency. I have the CMBN editor open to my blank map, correctly sized to match the overlayer.bmp transparency I made and placed in the same folder as overlayer.uws I launched overlayer.uws (having associated it to the .exe file) and on my desktop I get a small white window with an elliptical green shape and two colored lines on it. The window for adjusting the degree of transparency pops up, and I am able to adjust the degree of transparency up or down. But how do I get my bitmap image into the overlay window, and how do I make the window bigger so it matches my map size? I'm sure a lot of work went into this program. But we need much better documentation, please.

Ooooohhhhahhhhh....that pavement is pefect. Can you sell me a few square feet so I can re-do my patio?

Thank LLF, but as an old newspaper reporter I guess I'm in the habit of "going to the source." The e-mail addresses are easy to find with a bit of Googling -- and it's amazing how forthcoming even some of these esteemed authors and historians can if the request is specific, respectful, and courteous. A propos of that -- a few weeks back I saw a "Battlefield Detectives" episode on the Military History Channel about the Bulge. In it I saw a British specialist in military geography explaining something about the topography of the Ardennes -- he was pointing to a large scale color topo map that any of us CMBN mappers would have killed for. I looked him up from the show credits, sent him and e-mail, and to my surprise he answered me within 12 hours, saying he can't promise anything but would look through his materials to see if he has any digitized WWII source material he'd be able to share.

Erwin, if you really want to geek out on this question, the Pentagon did a detailed study of battalion-level units in WWII and how/whether/under what circumstances those losses may have affected their performace in combat: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0059384&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf Also, here's something that Joe Balkoski (the author of Beyond the Beachhead) e-mailed me recently when I asked him about a related issue: "...One thing I learned from the veterans was that even a full-strength unit with poor cohesion could do almost nothing, whereas a highly depleted unit with good cohesion could accomplish a lot. My only guideline for your question is that a unit losing one step in the game [the board game "Saint-Lo, which Balkoski designed] certainly would not have lost 33% of its men. It could have lost only one -- say, its CO -- and it would probably have lost a third of its effectiveness. "I have found as I continue to write about WWII that a loss of 30 men (wounded and killed) in a rifle company of 193 men typically was devastating and required the unit to sit tight the following day, absorbing replacements (if any) and generally not taking any offensive action. Even a loss of 5 men could be tough if the combat endured by the unit had been unremitting, day after day." [i even e-mailed the legendary Jim Dunnigan to coax him to weigh in on the issue, but he didn't take the bait and simply replied: "I agree with Balkoski."] Bottom line: The more I look into this question, the more I realize it's a judgment call and highly dependent on many factors. But, since we're gaming and a game has to abstract reality, we have to make some decisions, even though they can seem arbitrary. For example, if I make a CMBN scenario that forces an attacker loss after 35% casualties, someone will surely say it's "binary" and unfair when they can win with 34% and lose with 35%. That's a valid point. But IMHO, it's still better to have that condition because of the larger way it shapes the gameplay and makes the attacker behave more realistically. In my operational-tactical campaign, I set up the scenario victory conditions with attackers having to win territory, and the defender having to cause enemy casualties past a certain threshold (35% is what I use). However, there's also a 70%-80% "ground rule" casualty limit for the defender that's not enforced in-game but represents a "technical knockout" of the defender after the battle is over -- i.e., even if the defender won the battle tactically, with losses that great he would not be considered an effective enough fighting force to hold the territory. The great thing about CMBN is, it models the "soft" factors so well (motivation, fitness, experience, leadership, etc.) that we often find a battalion loses cohesion and has to break off an attack anyway, after a certain number of game events, just because the troops won't or can't press on. I suspect that players might not be using these variations in soft factors to their full potential. Play with too many units all "crack" and well-led, and you're guaranteed to get unrealistic bloodbaths. I like a scenario to reflect some larger -- even if imaginary -- military situation. A small force is cut off and low on ammo. Or: A well-fortified defender has -2 leadership and Unfit fitness to reflect the fact that it's been under a 2-hour preliminary bombardment before the scenario begins. The attacker might get a +2 leadership rating and 40% prebattle intelligence ecause it's a set-piece attack that's had the involvement of extensive divisional staff planning and preparation. These things might sound unfair and unbalanced to some, but I find they make for some really interesting and fun games for both sides, as long as each side gets a way to achieve a win in game terms.

The straight line looks fine to me, and not terribly unrealistic. During play I'd seldom get that far zoomed in to be looking at the joins of individual cobblestones.

But the bunkers in CMBN are like little log cabins that sit above ground level. Doesn't placing bocage over them make some weird distortions in the berm? Have you seen that the the game engine handles that OK? Great paper -- interesting to learn some of the reasons behind the 35ths difficulties from an officer who was there, like the misguided orders not to use radios on Day One of the offensive. Also, I nodded in recognition when the author said TDs were just mobile guns and proved to be pretty useless in the bocage, due to their vulnerability to mortar and AT fire at those close ranges. I've lost a lot of them in these very fields he's writing about! Yes, sburke and I have still been slugging it out in that AO using the operational boardgame and CMBN. Two days left for the XIX Corps to reach Saint-Lo. Major progress must be made now or the clock will run out. The German line has several weak spots that could crack with one good push, and then the road would be open. So now the Germans are rushing to strip away any available units to build and occupy a new fortified line around the outskirts of the city itself, to prepare for this.

LLF, when you place those foxholes and bunkers and then lay bocage over them, do you "sink" them by forcing a single lower (1m? 2m?) action spot there and then locking ones around it? Or do you leave the elevation alone? Do you find shell craters placed under bocage have any effect that's better or worse cover than a foxhole? (When placed that way, craters certainly look a lot more like the wartime photos of bocage fighting positions than the CMBN foxholes do.)

This is photo-realistic, fuser. Makes it seem almost a shame to wage war on it. If it gets any better, I might decide to retire there.

The emergency waypoint idea would be excellent for scouts and recon, too. A kind of SOP for when they encounter the enemy.

Thanks for the specifics on the maps. If you're accepting any requests/suggestions on future ones, I'd really love to see any from the 10th Mountain Division's final campaign in early 1945: Riva Ridge, Mt. Belvedere, the final hills of the Appenines and then the breakout/pursuit into the Po Valley toward Lake Garda.

Balkoski writes: "An MG 42 in battle would typically expend 3,000 rounds per day."

+1 to better area fire for HMGs. These were such a crucial part of German WWII infantry tactics, and have so much impact on gaining/failing to gain fire superiority, that a better representation of them in CMBN would significantly improve the realism of the whole game. As for the ammo use -- yes, a higher ROF would burn through more ammo, but that's what was expected and planned for IRL. All the men in a German squad carried lots of ammo for the MGs, and most of their job was either protecting the MGs or helping to "feed the beast." In CMBN it would be a good and realistic challenge if the German player's advantage in ROF were offset by the need to keep more ammo flowing to it and managing the ammo-sharing more consciously.

Can you tell us about the Italian maps -- are they actual places or fictional ones? If historical, which parts of Italy and which battles/time periods do they represent?

On armor's role against bocage defenses: The Germans, on all my historical maps so far, have easily been able to prevent US forces from rolling tanks or TDs right up to the far hedgerow and laying down preliminary suppresive fire. That's because the authentic field sizes are almost always within the effective range of German 'fausts and 'schrecks. And the bocage berm in CMBN doesn't seem to give tanks much -- if any -- defensive benefit against those. So without armor to prepare the way, and with no way to get LOF for an American MMG or HMG behind a hedgerow (due to the short tripod), how do the Americans achieve the fire superiority the need in order to maneuver and advance? Artillery and smoke are about the only things left.

How are you doing the "sunken" MG bunker? Do you lock some lower elevation cells for it, or just place it normally and then put bocage over it? The "bunker bug" in CMBN makes true bocage defenses problematic, unfortunately, because since troops get stuck in them I avoid using them at all -- even when they would have existed historically. Have you played around at all with shell craters around bocage? I've found they depress the terrain in interesting and useful ways -- especially around the corners of buildings and ruins, where they can create almost a dugout semi-basement fighting position.

Here's one reference to the German tactic of waiting to open fire, although I recall reading it other places too... GERMAN TACTICS AND ADVANTAGES One particularly favorite German tactic was to drive an armored vehicle, such as a tank, “in front of the line, to draw fire so as to locate the enemy’s position” [Citizen Soldiers 61]. Another tactic used by the Germans was letting the allies come forward and cross the hedge, and then shoot them dead. “The Germans also pre-sited mortars and artillery on the single gaps that provided the only entrances into the fields. Behind the hedgerows, they dug rifle pits and tunneled openings for machine-gun positions in each corner” [The Victors 191]. Abrose, Steven, The Victors. Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II. New York City: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1998. 188-219.

Great thread -- keep it coming! As I understand it, part of this German bocage defense was the timing of their opening fire -- they would wait until the lead US units were about 1/3 of the way into the field, so they'd get pinned and it would be too late/too risky for them to run back to the safety of their starting hedgerow. Using "hide" and short cover arcs on the MGs for the first turn or so would simulate this. The only problem with that foxhole-in-the-bocage trick in a real game is that the foxholes placed this way are so easily spotted. But maybe that's not really the problem that many people assume it is -- since you say you tested it 5 times under attack from two US infantry squads, and the defense worked every time. So that would suggest it's worth placing foxholes this way, because the defense and LOS benefits outweigh the visibility issue. Did the US have any mortars or tank support? They would have, in normal circumstances. I've found that foxholes -- since the last patch -- do an excellent job of cover from small arms and HE when the occupying troops are on "hide" in them. So if the US tried mortaring the MGs, they could just lay low and pop back up, being pretty safe from anything other than a direct hit.

Erwin, Mapmakers can easily make bocage gaps more findable by marking them with dirt or mud tiles, if they choose to. But locating and exploiting gaps is part of the tactical challenge of the game. The point you make about undergrowth foliage is a matter of taste and preference for how you want to play CMBN and what kind of experience you want from the game. You find it a chore to go down to level 1, while I actually spend as much time as I possibly can down there, zooming out only as necessary. Also, this level of foliage isn't just there to look pretty -- if LongLeftFlank puts it on a map, you can be sure it's there because it really was there in that place, historically. Foliage = concealment, and a more realistic level of concealment = a more realistic game that allows infantry to operate closer to the way they actually did in the Normandy bocage.

This is too bad --- the pixeljoes should follow the waypoints you plot unless it's prohibited terrain. Why this disobedient and untactical behavior, BFC?

Maybe too gamey, but you could always run a little barbed wire on heavy forest tiles through the brush along the banks -- it would stop vehicles entirely and channel infantry along the ditches unless they blow/breach the wire.

(giving this its own thread so we can continue without hijacking) adp posted this instruction in another thread: -- You'll find the bmp:s for the horizon in "...\b\terrain\skybox\mountains" once you exploded the "Normandy v100B.brz". The entire horizon is made up of 4 different files (actually there are three sets with 4 files each for clear, haze and thick haze). Each bmp measures 2048x256 pxls. I made one very long horizon measuring 8192x256, pasted actual photos from Italy into one picture and then split it into 4 individual parts. You have to be very cautious when you make the 4 parts - if you miss 1 pxl it'll show up as a nasty glitch on the horizon ingame - which seems to be the case in CMA (which I own btw). Shouldn't be to hard to make a part of the horizon showing the sea - I seem to recollect that this was done with one mod in CMSF (called CMSFUBKModv1, think you can find it in the Repository) --- Do the bmps have identifying characteristics that tell you they're for the N,S,E,W horizons, or do you have to use trial-and-error if you want the ocean horizon to be, say, North? Once you make those new bmp files, how do you get them back into the game? Do you: 1. rezpack them into their own .brz file with its own name, like "ocean skybox" and then place it in the z folder? Will the game automatically detect the modded bmps and use them instead? 2. rexpack them into a .brz file with the same name as the original (Normandy v100B.brz) and place it in the z folder? 3. Just put the bmp files on their own, unpacked, in a subfolder in the z folder, and the game will detect them to substitute them for the originals?

Wow, great how-to. It sounds risky but now at least I know how to do it - Thanks! Also: For you Italy buffs, here's an option to consider if anyone wants to run an operational board game to set up your tactical battles -- it was originally made to set up battles for miniatures, but seems like it would be good with CMBN also: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?50@810.Qa9EcEOd2ON.4@.1dd30af2

sdp, can you share with us the technique for changing the background "wallpaper" in CMBN? This would greatly help any of us making coastal maps, for example, where we need to replace one or more horizons with horizons showing only water (or, if we wanted to be even more ambitious for D-Day maps, an invasion flotilla in the mist offshore...)

I gave up on RTS games like RO2 and Arma2 over a year ago -- at first I was thrilled by the realism these games made possible, then increasingly disillusioned as I realized the human "software" (idiotic run-and-gun hth players with no interest in realistic tactics or teamwork) made the experience depressingly repetitive. The only way around it is to join some unit or "clan" -- but then you're looking at being intensely screened for suitability, making a time commitment for drills and events, and possibly even being required to complete a virtual "basic training" and endure being screamed at via Ventrilo by some 16 -year-old who thinks he's the reincarnation of George Patton.

Battalion-level is the maximum scale I think CMBN does a good job with.