BletchleyGeek

Any guesses on the reason for that behaviour?

Update then, rather than announcement

That last paragraph contains a pretty huge announcement. It kind of sounds like you guys are already in the planning stage of CM3 and making the BIG decisions.

The quality of the edition is that of a typewritten fanzine. I found too that the content has been mostly superseded by more recent work, at coarser timescales. The maps are imprecise sometimes - necessarily I think - but overall a useful resource if you want to visualize the campaign for the city itself on a daily basis. I got the two first volumes, didn't get the other two because of the somewhat lukewarm sensation I got after going through them.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out Bil. Your attack force looks pretty solid to me.

Hi @Battlefront.com, Here is a screenshot from my Samsung Galaxy Tab A https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rijzebemtb3rgj/Screenshot_20180718-150823.jpg?dl=0 You'll see that the menu bar at the top has become one of those ugly widgets. It contributes to give a very Spartan impression. On the desktop, I find the fonts to be at odds with those used in the menus etc. Maybe you could get hold of a nice css/javascript library to make things look prettier.

Jeez guys, at least I got to watch Orson Welles being coy. @Sulomon how about this one?

Can anybody access the new website? I don't need to re download anything, but I was curious to see it and check if the CMSF2 pre orders were out...

Yeah so sad... remember to work hard on your tan and appraising the quality of the local rum!

Not applicable to Shock Force, but the combination of discretion before valour, drones and precision artillery strikes has worked for me quite well, as long as my opponent gets a bit lazy and doesn't have his Jav teams changing position frequently.

Great little summary @JonS - I found it of very high didactic value. I would suggest you to think about adding a "Further Reading" section, discussing and commenting interesting bibliography.

I see that the precision of the contouring algorithms depends on several things... kind of hard of pinpoint as I reckon accuracy is very sensitive to the quality of the source data (which I guess is mostly based on the SRTM survey). That introduces a fundamental limitation: that survey had a resolution of 30 meters. That means that every cell in the dataset grid covers about 16 CMx2 action spots (a 4x4 patch). I don't know if there are higher resolution surveys publicly available covering anywhere else than the Continental United States, and surely Google Earth/Maps seems to be using SRTM data judging from the artifacts. For areas in Western Europe I think you get very reasonable stuff at the scale of a huge CMx2 engagement: but you will have to make up the micro terrain anyways. For a Company level operational wargame the level of detail is pretty good. I think QGIS incorporates this same algorithm if anybody is wondering about a useable desktop app.

From your previous post I got the impression that you were considering to withdraw from Dumayr altogether. In this update you are describing a pretty offensive plan for the forces there and in the monastery. Was I reading too much in your last post, or some datum from the latest reply suggested to try and go for a backhand blow in Dumayr? Excellent materials @Bil Hardenberger thinking of the amount of time I think you invested in those waters my eyes. Very nice material to read while on holidays

On PC Gamer and other sites https://www-pcgamer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.pcgamer.com/amp/developers-fear-for-mac-gaming-as-apple-deprecates-opengl-support

Many thanks for your time @sttp this is very useful.

Haha, 1965 "computers" could well mean a bunch of boffins at RAND corporation producing nerdy stuff that only McNamara would care about or be able to read.

I could see the wire just right @axxe, spent a couple minutes mapping its extent, as it is only revealed when you get visuals on it. Going around it on the left was an option I discarded as it seemed to me crazy to advance on the open and be probably subject to enfilade fire. @MOS:96B2P being a combat engineer in WW2 wasn't a very safe job. As long as they blasted one AS their job would have been done

Thanks @General Jack Ripper for the intro You have almost answered the question yourself, but there are a few aspects that impacted my decision making which I don't think were "observable" from your POV. The attack on Casa Fanella didn't start on the conditions of my choosing. That stray private walking onto that HMG was pretty much like firing a flare up into the night sky, as my line engaged yours. I wasn't ready just yet, or more exactly, I hadn't the forces I thought I needed to breakthrough all the way to the top of the hill completely in position. Hence the delay in breaching the wire. The engineers were still on their way. In hindsight, perhaps, the rational decision would have been to call off the whole thing. I wasn't very sure I had the combat strength to push all the way to Casa Riposa in the units I had in position. And I was very aware that as soon as we had made contact, there would be artillery coming my way. My calculation is that I would have like 6 to 8 minutes before the shells started coming... but I did that on the back of wishful thinking, as you had a TRP right on top of Casa Fanella. That was great forward thinking and probably the second small decision which saved the bacon of your left flank. The first was to put down wire In any case, it is fairly evident that I had enough combat power to gain fire superiority over your forward line and the defenders you had in Casa Fanella. I was actually surprised to see them routing (or falling back) after 2 or 3 minutes in the firefight. It was also one of the most intense firefights I have had in a CM game in a while. Yet, I wasn't in position to exploit that success because the wire effectively preempted me advancing further. The only unit I had able to move forward was the platoon on my right flank. I could have squirmed a squad or two more... but it felt like I was feeding my men in dribs and drabs to the maws of German machine gun fire. So I stayed frosty. The right flank platoon wouldn't be able to make much progress. The quality differential between my force and yours became apparent then. You mention in the video that one of your HQ teams was able to pick one by one several members of a squad. That wasn't my choice. My squad had jumped over the wall to move across the road, and then got a casualty and became suppressed/pinned. The platoon commander was too far to provide support, and the TacAI wasn't going to take them anywhere but backwards. First thing I did was to bring forward the HMGs and the light mortars and start putting some hurt on your guys... which I thought would be reeling (and they were). Your position shuffling tactics reduced considerably the effectiveness of the mortars. Here the diminished Commonwealth squad firepower failed to reduce the mobility of your higher quality troops, which as a consequence avoided those little shells of death (which were falling quite close from what I can see in your video). Eventually, I breached the obstacles and was able to move forward in strength. But then your artillery arrived. In hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have made my engineers a more integral part of my plan, so I could have brought them forward way quicker. The initial success of my infiltration was squandered because of lacking engineering support at the right time.

01:45 Ten (in game) minutes after encountering my opponent's scouts it was clear to me that he wasn't doing what I had expected him to. Coys A and B had advanced quite a bit without finding any enemy forces. On my right flank, Coy C was making slow progress as I was being very careful. Note how I changed the company formation from column to vee, with a platoon in reserve. That was suboptimal move, since it is a combat formation not a march one, but I was pretty much expecting to make contact at any moment. Eventually I felt a bit ridiculous - it was bit like swinging your fists in the dark, really - and relaxed a bit. Fortunately, nothing bad happened because of that On the left flank, A and B Coys kept with their methodical, one squad at a time leapfrogging. Very good practice for me - now I can do these drills with my eyes closed, but nothing too interesting when it comes to write up an AAR. 01:38 We advance the clock 10 minutes, right to the time when I reached the ditch. Having found no enemy here at all, it was time for a replan. Up to now, I was basically probing ahead to get a handle on Chris' defensive plan. And so far I had probed into empty air, with the notable exception of Casa Fanella where I found a piece of wire with my organic scout section. That was a key piece of information to use. I must say that since the very beginning of the game I had been inclined towards a flanking attack on my right. The reasons for that was that I saw the terrain to be more favourable for an infantry attack. There's a fair amount of trees - obscuring visibility from the high ground Chris was commandeering - and walls and other linear obstacles can work both ways. On the picture below, from left to right you can see the Scouting element, Coy A (2 platoons and 1 back by now) and Coy B ( still in column formation), and Coy C in a generally defensive stance. All of the above was somewhat validated by the advice in the Truppenfuhrung - due to the low visibility and terrain, I considered paragraph 317 to apply well to this situation. Or rather, I thought I could make it work. The plan was broken down on the following four activities: Work my way around the wire with two platoons (1 from each B and C coys) in the wings, and two other platoons to pin down the defenders I expected to be around Casa Fanella covering the wire, and two platoons in reserve. This was to be a small scale Umfassung attack, with the wire to be breached and Casa Fanella assaulted as soon as the wing elements flanked the enemy position. A Coy would continue probing forward with one platoon towards Casa d'Antonio. It didn't seem at this stage that Casa d'Antonio would be strongly defended, as the ditch and forest had been forgone. Move up Coy D from the reserve to the area right behind Coys A and B. This planning included up the the milestone of securing Casa Fanella. Further down the road was the general idea of exploiting a breakthrough in the direction of Casa Riposa and then continue the execution of the flanking attack. 01:29 That wasn't a very complicated plan, and I think that was a good thing. Because when it failed spectacularly, it wasn't a complete mess - there were a few elements of it that could be reused By now activity 2) was nearly completed, as I had visuals on Casa d'Antonio. Still no contact though. Activity 1) was progressing a bit more slowly than I expected though. The wing platoon from Coy B was still moving into position (I forgot to move them for a whole 3 minutes!) while the wing platoon of Coy C was nearly reaching its jump off position. The central element of the envelopment attack on Casa Fanella was already in place, while some engineers were rushing to position. The serrated red lines I have sketched out highlight the positions I had put my money on Chris HKL would be. And then a nameless private on the tip of the right wing literally just walked onto a German HMG. And a timer starts: tic-toc-tic-toc...

@JoMc67 comment was a fair one. But I don't have a baseline to compare with, other than Graviteam. And in that one there are fully implemented flares. Also, @General Jack Ripper was taking for you the God view/drone shot of the action. So it looks quite orderly. From the ground at eyeball level I don't think you can appreciate the pattern. Last, there are no SOP in CMx2, or rather there is just one (return fire on contact).So of course there is no hesitation to engage. The only delays possible follow from experience, morale and leadership/C3I (as it influences spotting).

Feel free to comment guys to your hearts content guys, you are also part of this. Being an AAR we can go back and forth over the files and even try to replay bits of the game

Muddled my mind is after this gruelling week

Good points both It's not TOTALIZE I was thinking of what the I British Corps was doing on the right flank around Villiers-Bocage and Caumont... I can't remember the name of that one. You have obviously done your research well, @Ithikial_AU - Heer will be fine too. Any idea of what was the size of that KG in terms of Company equivalents?

I was actually thinking of a US Army vs. GE FJ match up - as that would be quite historical, and both are very cool OOBs. Substantial engineering support should be readily available. A CW Bn would be quite interesting too, but that would be an operation about TOTALIZE right? This has quite the flair of a US show... let's not steal the show from them

The Jacobites made great tunes back in the day any recommendations from the Roundhead's side?