Broadsword56

Most definitely. Saved it to a text file as I'm sure I'll be referring to it often. Thanks!

Yes, it's the distinctive chit-pull activation and command-control mechanism of Panzer Command and its descendant, the Grand Tactical System, that make those games so excellent for CM op layers, despite the limitations. I looked over a lot of possible boardgames to use when CM gets to the Eastern Front. Very few seem to have the right scale. Many of the ones that have the right scale use generic/geomorphic maps. The only other one I really think would make a great CM companion is Streets of Stalingrad (also company level counters, 500m per hex). But I'd want to wait first and see how CMx3 improves urban fighting and/or adds features and objects that would make S-grad maps and scenarios work well. The unit density issues mentioned in earlier posts are also a major issue there.

Thanks Jason. Your Eastern Front expertise is greatly appreciated and I hope you'll share this again with the forum in the run-up to Bagration. I had a field day recently, reading through your old CMx1 threads on how to handle infantry on the steppe. Yes, we know this about the historical location of the front in Spring 1943. That's why I said it's a hypothetical (or fictional, if you prefer) operational scenario. The Panzer Command boardgame does have several historical scenarios covering the real Chir battles of Nov-Dec 1942. But the boardgame also comes with a cool "scenario generator" -- like the QB function in CM -- that increases its FOW and replay value. Players can dieroll and/or choose to set various parameters (game length, scenario size, initiative, force purchases, reinforcements, and type of scenario -- meeting engagement, setpiece battle, escalating attack). Using Panzer Command as an op layer and playing one of its historical Nov-Dec historical scenarios seems problematic because CM Bagration will have a summer 1944 setting. I wish the boardgame covered later times and places, but the latest time period covered by the scenario generator is Spring 1943. So we can get plausible seasonal terrain without needing a winter+snow mod, if we generate a boardgame scenario with the latest possible time period. Also, the farther back one gets from the CM Bagration time period of Summer 1944, the more TO&E problems I think we would have in trying to translate Panzer Command company/battery units into CM Bagration setups. IIRC the Soviet forces in particular changed a lot after 1942. So the generated scenario in Spring '43 seems like the best option. And by using real terrain of a real place, we get the immersion and map realism benefit that we wouldn't get from generic maps -- even if the battle is hypothetical/fictional. Speaking of TO&E, I'd love to see some posts or links detailing exactly how a German panzer division and Soviet Tank corps TO&E may have changed between Nov-Dec 1942 and the Bagration era of summer 1944. Making changes within the CM editor is usually fairly simple --usually just a matter of substitutions (I don't imagine we'll have much use for Panzer Command's Mark I and II tank counters, but the boardgame also has Mark II, Mark IV long barrel, and Tiger I. Soviet tank counters exist for T34/76, BT-7, KV-1, T-60, and T-26). But the research is the real pain to know what needs changing. I'm trying to learn whether there were any fundamental restructurings or weapon introductions between '43 and '44 that would totally wreck my time-shifting plans. Even then, I usually find it possible to "play around" those types of problems because as a campaign goes along, we can pick and choose which of the boardgame situations to set up in CM.

These are really only issues for the players who care a lot about playing historically and using historical tactics and OOBs and maps. Everyone else (probably most players) will just enjoy the new theatre and content and continue playing as they always have. If you want to simulate Stalingrad in CMx3 the challenges of densities and mapping will be greater than if you've got various types of fluid battle situations on the steppes. For me, personally, the best way to grapple with the new reality of the Eastern Front will be to put it to the test. I'll soon be setting up a hypothetical 2-day campaign of German Panzer Division vs. Soviet Tank Corps using a boardgame (Panzer Command), where the setting is the Chir River and steppes SW of Stalingrad. Time will be Spring 1943 to minimize TO&E issues and be able to play with the default Bagration summer season. With company & battery sized counters and the hex scale at 500m, I'll see how the engagements come together -- the ranges, force sizes, densities, etc. Then I'll have to look at the best way to translate them into CMx3 terms for PBEM play once I have that game and editor. It's a "problem" I look forward to exploring!!!

That really puts this map size discussion in perspective. Huge maps in Bagration are for master-mapping purposes. But the actual maps to be played on would/should probably end up *smaller* than many people are playing on now -- if players want to simulate the historical densities and frontages and not have to command more than a battalion-plus-assets. So, for example, a playable battle might have a scenario map of 300m to 500m wide and 1,000m or more deep, using the map boundaries to represent your unit's frontage and operating sector. But because you cut this strip from a master map, you can also set up the battles of the adjacent battalions to play separately. Or set up this battalion's subsequent battle later in the day after it succeeds/fails to reach its initial objectives. Isn't that a CM campaign? Well, it can be if you want to build one and work within the constraints of the campaign editor. But you can also just play the battles and use some other means to decide what happens next. I can see Bagration stimulating the player demand for more campaigns, and for the various experiments in third-party operational layers.

I'm actually finding recon by fire easier to do in the woods (or at least in these particular woods on this particular map) because when I move a unit, I can check LOS for each waypoint and usually there are only 1 to 3 AS in LOS from each waypoint. Even if there are more than 1 to 3, I can usually narrow it down to just one based on the logical place that enemy would most likely occupy. So it's not necessary to spray a wide area and burn a lot of ammo, as I had to do on Normandy bocage lines. If my unit is plotting a move where there turns out to be many possible LOS points, I know it's time to make sure there's overwatch and a more concerted plan to react to contact. And yes, round really do travel on CMx2 maps. I recall in Hamel Vallee that some reserves way in the back of the map and way out of action had to duck stray StuG or even HMG rounds now and then.

+1 to this. The maximum map size is just a tool to expand the possibilities. So, imagine an x-large map where at the forward edge of the battle area the opposing infantry are still only around 300-500m apart. Now you could use all that additional space to simulate a whole defensive system in depth, with other echelons that the enemy has to attack through. Position mobile armored reserves a good way back, ready to respond to the enemy penetrations. So instead of one gigantic continuous action, you might end up with several different smaller actions at different places and times around the same map.

Best helmet mod I've ever seen, anywhere. Outstanding job and thank you for all your work in making and sharing them!

Highly realistic, because actually he's a clueless cannon fodder replacement, sent straight to the crisis in the Ardennes from the "repple-depple" in France. Nobody had time to show him how to put it on properly. And the veterans in his platoon are ridiculing him behind his back. See? Almost anything less than optimal in CM can be explained away with a bit of imagination :-)

I wouldn't worry too much about the brown swirl -- it's not all that easy to see anyway unless you zoom in really close, and IRL steel helmets picked up all sorts of rust and dents mud and lord-knows-what-else spots on them from use. For all we know, maybe he just used it to boil some warming broth or shaving water, and it's a spot from the cooking flame.

Re: Setting up in contact... With a cooperative and like-minded HTH opponent, battles that start with some forces in contact can be a gas. For example: In my current Hell's Highway op-tac campaign, a battle for Son bridge on 18 Sept 1944 started with a boardgame situation where E/502 and F/502 already were within LOS and small-arms range of some German perimeter defenses north of the Wilhelmina Canal. Allied mortaring in the boardgame had already suppressed this German company. When we set the battle up to play out in CM, sburke and I handled this by requiring that the German player deploy that company with a tiny covered arc, and those troops were forbidden to move or fire for the first two turns. You'd probably expect that this resulted in slaughter of the German company by the elite 101st Airborne. We weren't sure what would happen. But in practice, it worked about right to mimic temporary suppression -- it gave the GIs just enough time to get into assault range and get an early surge of kills and gained ground, but the Germans recovered and regrouped for the rest of the (potentially 2-hour) battle. Starting some units in contact made this battle a thrill from the very first minute. So I wouldn't say "never" do it, but avoid it if possible, proceed with caution, and do it only to achieve a specific simulation goal (like different floors of a Stalingrad factory, etc.)

Even if a third-party op-level game does somehow manage to be created for use with CMx2 or CMx3 -- call me a pessimist -- but I'd expect it to be more of an automated bean-counting mechanism to track units or losses across battles. Which, to me, might be somewhat useful but would be a rather sterile substitute for the operational games that already exist. I wouldn't expect the automated PC op level to account for things like Ardennes fuel dumps and traffic jams on the roads, weather, command failures, celebrating crowds of Dutch civilians, Soviet mine dogs, or any of the diverse phenomena that are already in games and are available right now. I say, let the boardgames give me the higher-level setting, the chrome and the storyline, and let CM be CM so it can do the down-and-dirty tactical fighting that it does best.

Will the initial EF release allow us to play in snow and other seasonal conditions? Or, will it be limited to spring/summer because that's the historical season of that campaign? I'm wondering if we'll need a snow mod a la Bulge, or whether we'll get Mother Russia in all her seasonal glory from the beginning.

So if the tank gets ambished by enemy 20mm, another reason to pop smoke and retreat out of the LOF is to give the loader time to put HE up the spout.

To help get in the spirit for this mod and scenarios, here's a link to an outstanding old documentary on the battle for St. Vith that someone posted on BGG today on a Bulge anniversary thread: The video clips will be familiar to many, so I recommend opening this map to follow the action as you listen: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Ardennes/maps/USA-E-Ardennes-III.jpg To me, the real highlights are the detailed attention to this one battle, and seeing participants (still vigorous and with fresh memories in the 1950s) meeting on the actual battlefield to tell the story. There's Manteuffel himself, standing next to the US general who commanded the division opposite him, with both of them recalling details that really make the history come alive again.

Also, consider: In WW II, a Sherman tank could only have one type of main gun round loaded at a time. Since the primary threat to it would be armor, I think the default round was AP so that the tank could have the quickest possible reaction to an armor contact. So if the tank gets ambished by enemy 20mm, another reason to pop smoke and retreat out of the LOF is to give the loader time to put HE up the spout.

German 20mm guns can do a lot of damage to optics, radio, etc., even if they don't penetrate the Sherman's armor. Step out of game-think and just consider the tactical situation for a moment: If you're a tank commander and the first indication of a nearby enemy is the sudden clanging (and feel) of 20mm rounds impacting on your vehicle, it means you're being ambushed -- i.e., targeted by an enemy you haven't seen. And if the 20mm is targeting you, there could be panzerfausts lurking as well. Or, what if the 20mm was intended to attract your attention while an AT gun or a Panther is somewhere else, lining you up for a lethal shot on your flank? So the smart thing to do is get out of the ambush zone ASAP, establish some situational awareness, assess the situation, and then take appropriate action. If there's just the 20mm, you can always attack it on your own terms.

@ kettler: The recoilless 75mm is in GL already and I am happily firing it in Crete as we speak. CM lets it be fired indirectly from offmap too. So do you think it's unrealistic that it can be used this way? Thanks for the historical references.

No, mj, I never got them. You keep tantalizing me with screenshots but I thought you'd put that mod on the back burner. It would be great to have it if you feel ready to share it with the world....pretty please?

The CW armies did this, with the Vickers HMG companies. But iirc the HMGs mounted a separate sight for these shoots, they would set all the guns up, and then the massed HMGs area-fired at a preplanned map coordinate. The massed indirect HMG shoots could be quite effective because the enemy -- in some rear area some km away where they thought they were safe -- would just suddenly be caught in a hail of fire, without the telltale warning of artillery or cough of a mortar. But it required coordination by higher HQ, and it was not something that was done by individual sections or be organized on the fly, at the tactical level we're playing at in CM. I can't see how it would fit within the indirect fire system of CM without leading to ahistorical play and abuse. The current system would make it too easy and quick to do.

I have two Crete scenarios made so far, both of areas around Rethymnon (Retimo) airfield. But I hesitate to post them because they were made for HTH play of battles that my Crete boardgame campaign generated. There's no AI and nothing was play-balanced because they weren't meant for standalone play. The VPs and objectives are rubbish too. But the maps are good and the OOBs are there. So they can be adapted any way you want. I found it's not hard to approximate the German FJ 1941 TO&E with some tweaking and using Italian light mortar crews to represent their platoon light mortar team. Those who really want the scenarios can PM me.

Das ist der Friedrich Flintstone model :-)

That's not a bazooka, it's the MK I Auxilliary Brake.

If it's a near ambush (say under 5 AS or under 40 yards) soldiers are trained to go through it. This disrupts the enemy's angles of fire and shortens the time in the killzone. Plus, staying put at that close a range means if you get pinned an assault is coming next. If it's a far ambush, then the preferred tactic is to go out the way you came in. Base of fire, cover a withdrawal, etc.

I wonder if the Allied and Axis map sides were set up correctly for the map you're playing on. I think in battles I've played, the FAST reactions to fire usually go in the direction of the friendly mapedge. But maybe their first pixel-brain priority is to sprint out of the LOF and towards the nearest cover? That might explain why they sometimes would run the wrong way.