Broadsword56

This squares with everything else I've read about the nature of the two armies. The Germans were far better led at the tactical level, due to their system of building units around a core of experienced and battle-hardened NCOs and junior officers. German units got smaller over time due to losses, but gained experience. The US system of replacements meant that units maintained their size, but actually got worse as the war went on and green troops filled an increasing percentage of the slots. Also, I think the sides differed at the soldier level in motivation. The typical American GI didn't particularly hate the Germans, just felt he had a job to do. So he fought for his buddies but also wanted to stay alive and go home. By the end of 1944, the German soldier was fighting an increasingly desperate war to defend his homeland. In many cases, especially among German troops from cities, their homes were being lost and family members were dying from Allied bombing.

Just a weird little aside: The only place all this beautifully modded dirt on vehicles would be *less* realistic, perhaps, is for jeeps in units of the US 29th Infantry Division. Apparently the commander of the 29th had a pet peeve about dirty jeeps -- he would go so absolutely ravingly ballistic whenever he saw an unwashed jeep -- even on the battlefields -- that all his subordinate commanders were hypervigilant about keeping jeeps clean lest the commander happen to spot one somewhere. Oh, and he was also nuts about unfastened chinstraps on helmets. Patton was anal about troops not wearing their leggings, I think, too. Go figure.

I can't read the scale on the map. What is it?

These look terrific. And readily adaptable to CMBN.

I came across this invaluable PDF online -- it's loaded with drawings, diagrams, photos, and descriptions of traditional Norman architecture in the Cotentin Peninsula. http://www.caue50.fr/telechargement/collections/bati%20ancien%20cotentin.pdf It's in French, but even if you don't speak the language you will benefit from the pictures. If you can read it you'll learn things like: Buildings will usually face south to catch the sunlight. North walls are typically blank and you wouldn't normally see windows, doors, etc., on them.

+1 It really doesn't take any longer to put gaps, thin spots, varying lengths of hedge, low and high bocage, etc., to make a realistic and interesting hedgerow. It adds a whole new dimension to the infantry battle when you know there are likely to be some spots where your men can get a good LOS, crawl through a hole, or cross through the vegetation to infiltrate or assault. The "green wall" effect is a game-wrecker and unrealistic.

Huh???? Why wouldn't an attacker want to have all the TRPs he possibly could? Especially when they allow an attacker to kill/suppress areas without having to get a LOS and needlessly expose troops to fire? Especially when bocage prevents getting a LOS to much of anything beyond very short range? Defenders can have TRPs too, so where's the unfairness of that? Unless we want to go back to Civil War tactics and shoot all the guns over open sights, TRPs are an essential part of how artillery worked in WW II.

Fire11 and others: Just another thing I wanted to mention, to make sure you understand how to use this map file. This is just a map and a map only. It's not a scenario. You can see a 3D preview from the editor but you won't be able to use it in a game unless you create a scenario that uses it. So to use it, you have to open the Editor, select "map" and load the file. Once it's open in the Editor you can then use it as the map in a new scenario file, save the scenario with a distinct name, and then use the map in-game.

It's interesting (and disappointing) to see what widely varying results you all are getting. I've gotten many favorable reports from those who can load the map. Others can't load it at all. I have no idea what the issue might be, other than its size and people's different computer specs.

Then with castle building models we could also make those towers for the bridge at Remagen :-)

AT guns in Normandy were able to be extremely well hidden and camouflaged. They have low silhouettes, too. If you get one situated just right in th egame, all you see is a little bit of muzzle poking out of the foliage. How would you spot that unless you happened to see the flash? And you might need to see it fire a few times before you could pinpoint it, in which case you might already be dead.

Use cover arcs and the "Hide" command to take control of your AT teams, and be smart with the way you move them (hunt and slow commands, with pauses at times for a listening halt and rest). It's far from perfect, but you can hunt very well with AT teams and remain undetected if you manage them properly. Keep the arc tiny at first until you get them into position to watch for a target. Keep them on hide. Then when you want them to be active, set the arc to no more than 100m. Yes, they may shoot at infantry in that range, but if they're spotted they need to be able to shoot in self-defense. Hiding will cut down on that, but also means they will see less and be less willing to shoot at anything.

Someone posted a new scenario map recently (I think it was an Omaha beach landing map) that strengthened some of the buildings by placing stone wall right against the sides of the house, around the perimeter, as second thickening "skin" at ground level. It looked pretty good in screenshots and I recall reading that it greatly improved survivability against small arms fire (don't know about arty). Has anyone tried similar tests with this technique?

Thanks for that very thorough explanation! Do you know how common OD was vs. Khaki for any given division in the theatre at any given time period?

Do we have to pick one of these ex mods or the other to install (khaki or olive drab or airborne) or can all 3 coexist at once?

And even better when used with Mord's War-Ravaged German Faces mod: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97697&highlight=ravaged

Also, if mappers build forests properly (see some of the how-to posts from last week on another thread), they should have intermediary bands of thickets and bushes and smaller trees along the perimeter, along with even some gapped hedge tiles. This makes a forest that offers more realistic concealment, blocking LOS better, and offering realistic ambush possibilities. Too many forests on existing maps lack this detail and are too easy to see into/see through.

No, not possible with the existing map editor. It's a feature many of us would have liked. Failing that, maybe someone could invent a tool that "breaks" a JPEG into 8m segments and generates a roughly pre-tiled CMBN map based on the overall pattern recognition (field, town, road, water) that at least would give mappers a head start.

What happened to this campaign? Is it still happening? No one ever seems to post AARs or updates about it.

Thanks for your kind words. Another reminder -- be sure to refresh/flush out your system memory with a fresh launch of the game before loading this map, and you should be fine if you've got a decent medium-spec computer and video card.

Hmm...sounds pretty kinky to me.

The XIX Corps center map was created and runs on my desktop PC: 4MB RAM Vista 32 bit AMD dual-core CPU Nvidia 9800 something or other video card with 1GB on it. It was a screamer 4 years ago when I got it, but it would be a very moderate system in gaming terms for 2011.

Be sure to quit CMBN completely, restart the program, then launch the editor and the map. This seems to clear the memory and release whatever "hold" a previous file may have had on it. The only time I've gotten an OOM error is if I've tried to load this map immediately after closing a saved battle, for example. Once the master map is loaded, I find it scrolls and zooms smooth as silk. The only thing to bear in mind is a bit longer than usual loading time.

Good luck to LLF as he continues the Carillon map project. We'll all be excited to see it. I've given a plug for it and for this thread on my new thread, http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99780, which gives my 4km x 4km master map a thread of its own, now that it's been uploaded to the Repository and Greenasjade site. I'll certainly keep watching here with interest.

Also just uploaded to greenasjade CM mods site: Link: http://s3.amazonaws.com/cmmods-zips.greenasjade.net/CMBN/xix_corps_center_4x4km_july44_no_ai_master.zip