Sgt Schultz

That is an excellent idea. If they could code a 1 meter below-grade-level fortification, that would be just fine. It could show as a 1 meter mound that matches the dimensions of said item after setup, and/or be invisible to the enemy... like minefields or TRPs. Underground/covered trenches, that can be stitched together just like our current ones. ----

Yes, Jon, that particular test structure is impassable. I didn't find out until long after I took those pics. I made a bunch of testbed structures, and that one was in photobucket. There are various ways that DO work though. Especially with multi-tile rubble. LLF, the wireframe trades are frickin' awesome! Now, why do you not switch the wooden shelter look into the concrete shelter specs? Or, are they same as far as the game is concerned? -

Our friends at BFC have worked hard and given us much. Doubled our groups, made road-making easier, so many things. Even if they never add a thing from this list, I will still buy and enjoy their products. That isn't going to stop me from writing to Santa Charles though. ------------------------------ Dear Santa, I have been a very(ok, semi-) good boy this year and I would like ... in no particluar order... 1. Ammo crates. Takes up four(4) slots in a trailer, bunker or vehicle and cannot be placed anywhere else. Holds varying amounts of ammo for support weapons, depending on caliber. Four rounds of 150mm German IG ammo, with ammo count trending upward from there by caliber size. Not everyone plays a 30 minute battle, and we need more ammo. 2. Ammo trailers. Holds up to two or maybe three ammo crates. Can be towed anywhere and dropped off. Which leads us to... 3. Exterior 'ACQUIRE". Stop making us jump inside to grab ammo. Same or adjacent action spot should be fine. 4. Prime Movers. "TOW" command to remove immobilized and knocked out tanks, or remove debris/obstacles, as well as tow guns and carry ammo. 5. DEPLOYED Bailey Bridges in the editor. Not even hard to do. Take the tracks off a RR bridge, and alter some girders... done. I would rather place a Bailey section next to a destroyed bridge, then leave a bridge in place that would most likely have been taken out by either the Air Forces or the Germans themselves. 6. Fix the Ammo Bearers for QBs, so that they have some ammo to carry. 7. Fix the ammo sharing so Bearer ammo is used FIRST. 8. Here is a pie-in-the-sky one... "Wire for Demo" command for bridges and structures. Can only be done during setup phase and requires ALL the charges of a Pioneer Platoon. Only a member of that platoon can select the "detonate" command at any time thereafter, as long as he is within two action spots of the wired structure. What I wouldn't give to drop a few tanks in a river, or drop a building on some troops. The youtube videos, and asscociated tears, would be worth it. The Ost Front is coming, and we need this function for our Soviets. I would pony up an extra five bucks per copy for this. 9. Concrete bunkers that do not catch on fire when hit by an 81mm round. It is not the fire I take issue with, it is the ease with which the bunkers are destroyed. CM1 small stone house is better than CM2 concrete bunkers. Just move a decimal point or something for the roof, and ship it with a patch. 10. Flat-roofed structures. Every roof in Europe has a 8/12 to 12/12 pitch? I cannot bury my buildings properly without flat roofs. 11. Diagonal Terrain edge tiles. Stair-step treelines and field edges seem a bit 1990 at times without proper dressing-up. 12. Zook/shrek use inside buildings, with auto-suppression of any units inside. Fire a zook, we all get Pinned. Put a dice roll for a yellow-base casualty in there to make it interesting. Bleeding ears and backblast burns would count. That covers the 12 days. Thanks for the great battles, and looking forward to more, Schultzie -

LOLOL, I meant using the disabled HTs, as well as bunkers, for the French in their trench lines You can bury them and cover them with bushes so that they can barely be recognised. I was just spit-balling some ideas. CM has a lot of work-arounds if you want to dig for them, and can accept the historical accuracy compromises. So far, it seems the best you will be able to do is have a special mod package that comes with the battle, for Modular Buildings made up to look like bunkers. Send Tanks a Lot a check, and see what he says. ----

No, I am fairly certain they represent just what they are... Big freaking Jacks made of steel I-beams. Climbing all over them to wrap the det cord properly under fire, then getting back, then setting off the charges, is only the first step. In CM parlance the Team could of course just be forced to hold postion for X amount of time. Then what? The det cord just pops the welds/bolted areas. Unless the Team is toting along a cutting torch to slice it into manageable sections, and/or torch holes to attach the winch cables.... there is just a pile of steel in the road. There is no "Carry" command, so you can't order your troops to move the pieces off the road, even if they could lift them. ------------------- It brings us back to the desire for a Prime Mover with the "Tow" command. Tow the bogged, immobilized, and "knocked out" but not "destroyed" tanks to an exit zone to get 'em back in a campaign or get points in a scenario. Tow Guns of course. Tow ammo trailers that carry ammo crates. Tow away debris caused by Pioneer action. All these actions can take place in the course of a Large/Huge battle, but I am quite sure we will never see them. -

Now these may not apply either, but the concepts should be valid. By placing walls inside rubble, you get a little extra splash damage protection, at the cost of movement silliness that must be rigorously tested out. You want immunity to indirect fire??? Say hello to my leetle friend.... the immobilized sunken TigerPit bunker. Drop all you want on him, he won't care a whit. ------------ While writing this, it occurs that I have never experimented with sunken, immobilized Half-Tracks. Throw a few rounds at some HTs sited along your trench lines LLF. Maybe they will help some. EDIT --- StuG, JPzIV and JagdPanther would represent bunkers in a more realistic fashion, with their small fire arc.

I would be happy if BFC would just replace the current "lunchbox of doom" graphic with a decent-sized charge. As to the Horned Scullies... these "game pieces" give the player a way to block a road on a map. If the player/designer wants it to be temporary, then he uses Wire. If the player/designer wants to go for a more permanent solution, he pays more for the Hedgehogs. If Pioneers were the solution to all our tactical problems, then we would see a lot more of them eh? Yes, a team with some det cord could blow them, and have an engineer vehicle winch the pieces out of the way within the scope of a 1 hour battle. Yes, I agree that it would be cool as hell to give a "winch/tow" command to tow debris, or a tank, away with a Prime Mover. Go ahead and ask for that. I bet the guys at BFC haven't had a good laugh in a while with all the pressure to release by the holidays. ----

Find another way.

Here are some ideas you may wish to try. Remember, these were taken before I learned that removing a roof screwed a building's integrity.

Yes, trees can help quite a bit LLF. I have done those tests. Not in your empirical fashion with note taking, but I have slapped enough of my test structures with enough different kinds of arty to get a feel for what works and what won't. The main branches absorb incoming until they get blasted away. You lose leaves, then branches, then trunk. Single Tile Modular, sunk in the ground and surrounded by Three Tree tiles gives most Tree-related cover. Multi-tile Modulars gain inherent strength but lose overhead cover to direct hits for the center tile. I forget which species offers best cover. I think it was 'A' Trees. A direct hit by 150mm will vaporize a tree. Instant mulch, not even a stump. 81's will gnaw it. 105/120 dissolves the leaves and branches rather quickly. Deep Forest Tiles(yes they help), with concrete shelters, sunk in the ground, surrounded by three-tree tiles, with trenches leading directly from the doors into the network, which is also below-grade, with interspersed buried Modular structures in sufficient numbers to decoy any human opponent from barraging them all. Have I missed anything? edit --- yes I did... sandbag and/or low stone walls around the whole magilla. Bocage works as well to soak up blast effects of near misses. You want as much "stuff" on a tile as possible to soak up damage that otherwise would be expended on your precious pixeltruppen. Somehow we wandered away from DPF to the Hurtgen Forest. I could just send you my map in progress and let you copy the trenches. ------------- Were there any trees left at the stage of the battle you are talking about? I thought the battle pretty much defoliated the place. ------------- Between you and DPF, and ian and his flooded roads, I am having more fun figuring out other people's issues than working on my own maps.

Hey Ian, great work. I think you may be able to reduce/remove the last of your jagged edges by moving the bottom of the hill back a few tiles away from the road edge. This will give you some room to work and the water some room to find a smoother contour. Flooded creeks, with destroyed bridges, swamping both sides of a crossing may be a possibilty as well. This process could also allow flooded fields as the creek meanders acoss the map. Heck. I may have to see if I can swamp a bridge itself. Drive across a bridge that is under water. Hmmmm ... sounds rather Soviet to me.... Ost frontish even. The upside over a Ford is NO Bogging! -

I can design structure combos that will be almost impervious to direct fire and blast/shrapnel effects, at least until they get worn down. Making anything withstand even 81mm direct hits from above is problematic at best. The best results I have found for troop survivability over the length of an average 105mm barrage is Hiding on the bottom floor of a Tall Stone/Brick wall-wrapped three-story multi-tile(important!) Modular.. that HAS its roof(at least to start). So, if you want me to show you how to bury a three story house and still have grade-level access, let me know. It can be done. Modulars rule. Then place sandbag walls around THAT, with a low stone wall wrapping THOSE. The iterations can continue until the desired effect is achieved, or maximum ridiculousity. -

It seems to me that you will need to bury everything below grade level, and still reduce ammo allotments and calibers available to the VC. CM-land is a land of compromises, and you found another my good man. I tried "burying" buildings with the roofs removed. That sucked too, as their integrity is severely compromised once they lose their roofs. EDIT - Damn Photobucket has changed. My pics are reduced to thumbs. Sorry

To have a decent chance at an enjoyable QB against the CMBN AI, a few conditions should be met... 1. Proper map-appropriate force mix. This means you have to pick it. Even if you just shuffle suggestions, you should have some input in the process. 2. Quality AI Plans on the map. Proper number of groups and orders with decent intervals. 3. Proper setup zones and objectives. Not always the case, especially if it is set up as Allied/Axis, and you play it Axis/Allied. Arty comes in from the "wrong" side and other silliness ensues. 4. Conditions that match the designers plans. If the designer set up the AI plans for a sunny day.. and it is a dark and stormy night... then things may not work out. 5. The complex synergy of all the above and more, along with certain stars aligning, and the sacrifice of a goat in front of an altar, on which rests a small plastic brain in a mason jar full of hard liquor. --------------------------- In other words... make your own mini-scenario and have tons more fun. Buy some enemy troops, put 'em on the map, assign 'em groups(soon a lot more), send 'em out with some broad strokes of the orders brush with time to 'think', then turn 'em loose. Adding "destroy" points to both your and the enemy forces can make it much more interesting. Especially when you set your troops to be worth three times what the AI's are, and the AI has Vets and you have all Greens. -------------------- In short, with the proper handicapping and a little forethought a nice quick battle can be had, but NOT a standard QB. -

Thanks for the input GaJ. Hope you enjoy it. I feel that my briefings are my weakest point, as I have less than no knowledge of how to use Photoshop or those doodads that everyone else uses for their briefing maps. Would welcome assistance from anyone who would wish to help out. I just capture screenshots and use Paint to crop and text over. My briefing text backround is just an overhead shot of the map edge grass from level 9, that has been cropped to size. ---- The time I do not spend on briefings is countered by the agonizing weeks I spend on the maps. Never seems "done"... but sometimes I just have to let it go. ---------- I would like some feedback from a playthrough or two from others before I put up a final version in the repository. I always worry that my built-in bias towards the Wehrmacht, and their cool toys, will unbalance things no matter how fair I try to be. If it does turn out weighted towards the Heer a bit, I suppose you could put the "stronger" player on the Ami side.

I use balconies as porch roofs with no door leading onto them. This eliminates any temptation to have your boys hanging in the breeze. Without the old CM1-style unit positioning(ex. unit in rear of building but looking to the front), structures will always have their weak points. If BFC has stated that we are never getting zook/schrek firing from inside, then that is that. I keep holding out hope that Charles will find a way to code firing unit supression into the firing sequence when inside.

You can give passengers fire orders, or they will fire on their own if they feel the need to. If passengers see a Tube Guy™, they will pop up and blaze away from their mobile BBQ. I had an entire platoon of grenadiers in five 251/1s advance in echelon once, all passengers up and firing. It was like a propaganda movie. "The Wehrmacht on The Move". Mowed the enemy down and crawled right through their positions.

Did you try alternating elevations along the jagged shoreline? That can help occasionally, but roads have their own rules. The hill along the road is affecting things as well I am sure. Looks great!

Darn, wrong Jersey. Was hoping for a chance to drop artillery on Snookie. Looks great, thanks for the scenario and the hard work.

I think a nice compromise would be insta-pin for all units in the "room" with a chance(pick a %) of a "yellow base" wound to a soldier in that room. If you fired a zook in a room I was in, my butt would be on the floor for at least a few seconds. I would trade a turn of full team suppression with chance of injury for an emergency shot at a tank. Need to find a balance that keeps every single AT team from setting up in a building. Imagine the horrendous QB urban ambushes... shudder

That is why you should only buy VA(Late) Panthers, if you are buying them at all for a QB. The earlier ones won't pop smoke, and the later ones have crappy armor quality that may give you WTF moments. The manual has notes on each version's upsides and downsides. Know both your weapons and thine enemy's. RTFM. - Panthers, Jagdpanthers, and King Tigers seem to be all-but-immune to glacis penetrations or frontal attacks by the present Allied choices at medium to long ranges... except for low-percentage deflections or armor quality issues. You want an SU-100 or better on the scene before you want to try and go toe-to-toe with any large Cat. 17 lber gives you a boost in JPzIV, StuG, and other medium-tough kills, but you still want flank shots on the big boys until we visit our Soviet bretheren. -

Yeah, there is no cover difference on appearance. It is building type that matters. Independents have lousy cover as a general rule. So if it is a pretty modded one, stay away period. Modulars are better. Multiple piece multiple story Modulars with walls placed around the ground floors are best.

My personal wish-list of reasonable requests... Not for MG, but soon™ 1. In-place Bailey/pontoon Bridges. Not in the scope of the game to deploy bridging units, but a lot of crossings had temporary bridges sitting next to destroyed ones. I want those to set up my maps in a more immersive fashion. Much easier to shell into oblivion as well. 2. Assault boats, even if they are still stuck in gamey code-land. We have been dealing with wonky bridge code for 10 years, so bring back my boats please. 3. Less of some flavour objects and more of others. Railroad cars, burned out autos, downed gliders, even bloated livestock carcasses all come to mind as better choices than 6 types of pole. 4. Abstracted yet functional AAA. Whirblewind is coming and I want to shoot at its intended targets. 5. They said no fire, and so I do not ask for it. 6. AMMO CRATES! Under Fortifications, extra heavy support weapon ammo in boxes. Placed in fortifications or vehicles ONLY and take up personnel slots(say 4) in doing so. Priced according to type and number of rounds per crate. 150mm German IG round is largest possible so 4 per crate for let's say 15 points, and then do the math from there downwards by calibre. 7. Ammo use by BEARERS FIRST. Obvious obvious obvious. 8. QB Bearers get ammo in the first place instead of coming out clean as buddy aide-ing serfs. 9. Adjustable HE/Smoke ratios for off-map assets in design screen. --------- I will still buy and be happy if none of these come to pass, but I feel they would be improvements.

The quickest way to become familiar with the building types is to go into the editor and place one of each on a simple test map. Then stare at them or take screenshots and print them up for a recognition chart. I have found that the level of cover ramps up according to both building type and size. This is a rough idea.. from least to most cover ... Barns Independent 1 tile 1 story Independent 1 tile multiple-story Independent multiple-tile 1 story Independent multiple-tile tile multiple-story Commercial Modular 1 tile 1 story Modular 1 tile multiple-story Modular multiple-tile 1 story Modular multiple-tile multiple-story Large Church --------- Number of windows and doors will effect changes on the amount of cover. The amount of pre-placed damage on a Modular building will also change cover values. Look for "wall-wraps". Some designers will wrap the foundation of a building with a low stone or brick wall. A unit on HIDE inside one of these is safe from all incoming small arms fire at same elevation. ---------- When you slow move into a structure, it may help to have a HIDE command at the end of the move. Then at the start of the next orders phase, you can give more coherent orders to all your squads/teams. As stated above by womble, teams are the order of the day in urban combat. The tactics of getting in the building can be addressed as well. Did you use smoke? Covering area fire? Lots of details to a successful urban mission. Edit - Download Tanks a Lot's incredibly, amazingly, beautiful independent building mod. This will allow you to know which buildings to stay away from. They are for looking, not touching.

And by the by... for CM QB purposes, there is a way if one wishes to match(or even exceed) the number of radios that the Allies have, as the German player. Motorized Panzergrenadiers have radios all the way to platoon level, along with radios with all mortars. Extremely robust C2 net, with XOs at company as well as Btn level. If the scouts see something, as well as their own platoon HQ, and all HQs are stationary... then the info goes out quickly. Very few ways to be unable to call in support fire, whether on-map or off. Park a Halftrack near a mortar and it is on the net for any Lt to call upon. Arrival time, number of spotting rounds, and accuracy may be affected though. 64 points for a Veteran 251/1 halftrack(same as regular). Small arms ammo, transport, an extra MG if you can find a spare trooper, and guaranteed radio contact with mortars if you wish. Make it easy on yourself.