kohlenklau

If they ever have a Combat Mission convention and said one of the speakers would be JasonC, I'd be getting a ticket.  

Legally I have obtained permission to post these, but not to charge money for them. I don't know what the YouTubers do, but I do recall my wife mentioned that some companies began lawsuits against people posting videos because they felt the posters were profiting materially from it. Not going there. Anything I do will be above board. Steve's been receptive and positive and I intend to keep it that way!
 
Big stuff coming for Dima and Sasha this afternoon. Get your flak vests on...

Now released at http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5520/details 
 
Thanks to all who pitched in with ideas and playtested the scenario. Worth a lot
 
Historical scenario. Requires both VP and MG (a non VP version will be made soon). Allies vs AI only.
 
From the briefing:
 
It is 4.00 AM, June 6th 1944. D-day is upon us. The liberation of Europe is at hand. The beach landings will begin in a few hours. Your mission is to knock out the gun battery at Merville (four bomb proof casemates) which is a potent threat to the landings at Sword Beach. For weeks, elite British paratroopers have trained at a replica battery in England, constructed from aerial photos, and is ready to drop over Normandy. Each and every man has a distinct role to fulfil for the mission to be successful.   At any price, knock out the guns at Merville. This is to be achieved no later than 05.00 AM. If not successful by then, the battery will be shelled by HMS Arthusa en route for the Normandy coastline (Note: This is not an "Exit scenario" - play until time runs out). However, it is likely that this shelling won't do the job, just like the massive bombings of the battery prior to the assault didn't. If possible, the shelling is to be avoided since it also gives away the position of the battleship and that an invasion might be underway.   The paradrop was more or less a catastrophy. Poor visibility and heavy crosswinds scattered a lot of units way outside the intended dropzones. What was intended as a mission for some 650 men and heavy equipment, only 150 men made it to Gonneville in time for the approach to the battery. None of the heavy equipment made it, no mine detectors, nor flamethrowers - nothing but one Vickers MG. Use it wisely and make the most with the equipment available.   A recon party has scouted the battery and cut holes in the fence for the approach.   Three gliders are tasked to land within the parameter of the battery, between 4.30 and 4.45 AM, but considering how the earlier drop went, this is an uncertainty at best. Don't plan for it.   The battery is defended by the 716th Static Infantry Division / Artillery Regiment - about 150-200 men. There is also a known 20 mm AA gun spotted by the recon party. There should be little resistance in the approach to the battery. Perhaps some night patrols, but no significant forces are expected.

I have been noticing that manned guns do not have tell you when they are setting up.  The activity string is supposed to show setting up but instead it just stays at spotting. So, far all has been well and after a time they setup.  Just make sure they are done with any movement order and the Deploy Weapon is down in the special menu and they will setup.  I think, I believe. I hope.
 
I keep meaning to actually set this up and verify it so I can report it and I keep forgetting.  Maybe this time...

There was nothing wrong with Russian interwar doctrine - which incidentally was not copied from the west. In so e ways it was the best in the workd, particularly the understanding of the need to sequence multiple large scale operations, the logistics limits on them, what the role of new mechanized forces was going to be, and the like.n it wasn't as good as the German doctrine in tactical details, combined arms principles, and some of the German maneuver tradition going back to Moltke the elder, but nobody else had that stuff down, either. Tbey had their internal political fights over it - the party basically feared that proper modern doctrine made generals tech heroes in a manner they feared was essentially tied to fascist politics, which was both paranoid and stupid, and they destroyed the brains that had come up with it in the purges, set back training and adoption etc. but the military acadamies had taught it to a fair portion of the senior officers, especially the younger ones who would rise to top commands during the war itself.

The more basic problem on the doctrine side was that it was still just academic theory. It had not had time to reshape the army along the lines of its thinking, and where it had, it had done so in impractical ways, for lack of serious experiment and training in full scake exercises and the like. The army could not implement the mobile part of the doctrine. The officer corps in particular, its lower ranks especially, was not remotely up to the standard of the Germans or even of the professionals of the western armies. In training, education, time in grade, staff work, etc. Bravery they could do, obediance they had done, about all there was to work with. Yes that reflected the purges, but also the scale of the force and its rapid expansion to that scale, its reliance on reserve mobilization (necessary given that scale in any event), lack of wartime experience, etc. at most, a small cadre had some battle experience from Spain or the brief fight with Japan - and the party tended to distrust those with the former experience. The Finnish winter war had been a disaster and showed how unready the force was, and didn't correct that, though a few of the officers involved got started off its lessons.

The two biggest weaknesses were combat service and support (CSS, more on it below), by far the biggest, and poor combined arms handling at the tactical level, particularly all cooperation with armor. They compounded each other, with weaknesses in the former forcing departures from book doctrine on the latter, that then failed. Behind the CSS failures lay inadequate staff ability, the officer management bandwidth to conduct the mech arms orchestra flawlessly. This was made worse by overly large mech formations with an org chart that wasn't streamlined enough and put extra levels of command between the key deciders and the execution, by lots of obsolete equipment (think early 1930s era T-26s, flocks of them) in a poor state of readiness, by inadequate facilities to keep anynof it working, and by lack of realistic large scale training (as opposed to unit level training or carefully staged set pieces).

On the org aspect, a prewar mech corps had two tank divisions, each with its own brigades, and those tank heavy. It had 2000 trucks at TOE, and 600 to 1000 tanks, depending on the makes. There were dozens of these. A huge portion of the tanks were old T-26s and the types were mixed, as were the truck types. To get a formation like that to move over a limited dirt road net from point A to point B with gas for everyone where and when they needed it, without traffic jams and without roads blocked by broken down tanks, with repair and spare parts to get the fall outs moving again, and then exoecting them to arrive with all arms together and coordinated, in communication with each other across weapon types, form them up into fighting combined arms teams, and go in to a schedule to hit the enemy in a well coordinated way - all proved beyond the capacity of one schooled muckety muck and his staff of four high school graduates with a pack of index cards, a phone and a couple of pencils. I exaggerate slightly for the sake of clarity.

What actually happened is they didn't manage it, one column got stopped by a T-26 regiment running out of gas, holding up 200 trucks behind, carrying the infantry expected to be part of the show; the other tank division got a brigade of newer BTs to the jump off point and looked around for all the folks supposed to attack with them, waited three hours, finally heard they wouldn't be ready until tomorrow morning, thought "that's crazy, this battle will be over by then", and drove down the road unsupported and attacked off the line of march as best they could. After scaring the German front line infantry, lost in the defended zone, they blundered onto a gun line and lost a bunch of tanks. They try again with minimal changes an hour or two latter and the Germans are readier for them than ever, and fails. The next day, an infantry battalion detrucks and tries, but expects the BTs to lead and do things for them; the try and fail, the infantry presses, and gets killed too. Nobody has heard from the artillery, which is 20 miles away in a traffic jam.

The CSS failures are huge by western or even later war Russian standards. A third of the tanks fall out on a road march. There are not planned arrangements to pick them up and fix them. The front moves and a road is cut. A full brigade worth of tankers get out and walk, in retreat, leaving their broken down hulks just sitting there. Another brigade follows the wrong dirt track, runs out of gas, and the trucks with the gas went someplace else, and by the time it is even sorted out whar did happen - let alone what has to happen next - there are Germans across the intersection between them.

Up at the operational level, a full mech corps hits the German lines, two days of confusion are reported, the corps is now a brigade, and the Germans resume their march. The Russian officers report losing their tanks to swamps (the swamp monster, I call it, because it appears over and over in these excuses). It fiesn't help that the Luftwaffe is strafing the columns making traffic jams worse, and German signals intel locates every radio with a range of more than a few miles and has told the Luftwaffe and army artillery where the Russian HQs are within hours, whenever they switch the set on. So soon the officers are trying to coordinate this sprawling mess with dispatch riders, who do or don't arrive with orders hours old that were issued without a clear picture of everything in the first place, and were nonsense on stilts two hours later. Then every muckety muck tries to clear it all up with their own orders, and the regiment commander has one order from brigade and another from division and a third (12 hours okd) from the original corps plan, but his (tiny) staff is telling him he can't physically do that anyway, because support X hasn't cone up and route Y is clogged and there is only enough gas to reach Z.

Now decide. You have five minutes.

It all goes pear shaped pretty quickly.

Some of this clears up as the decreipt T-26s drop out of the force. Some as the screwiest commanders ger killed. Sone as people learn their jobs better. But above all, the army reduces its ambitions and goes to tank brigades and gets thise working, the recreates division sized tank corps with a much flatter structure only after those are working. The types get more uniform, with the reliable and cross country capable T-34 becoming the workhorse. They only go back to trying to run tank armies after all those are working properly, and they use thise only with a lot more planning, and only a handful of them (with lots of independent division scale tank corps working for combined arms armies instead). The staffs get bigger and much more professional, and it all gets real and realistic. Just, a ,ot of poor slobs get killed in the meantime.

FWIW.

No, you can if you want.

Uploaded...http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5502/details

IMHO the walking fire is better termed "adjust fire" and I feel it is NOT so gamey. To me it is the standard Hollywood movie where the guy calls on the radio "add 50, left 100" or somesuch hurried words with his helmet cocked at an angle and the handset pushed to his ear, dragging the radio around, shells are pounding in at where he sees the enemy is....matching up the fall of the shells to where the enemy is approaching...it has been a while since I did it, the color line changes tone and you can't adjust once you get too far from the original mission IIRC.
 
OK, this is one of my favorites:
 
Put an anti-tank gun behind a wall or tall hedgerow. beyond the obstruction is nice clear LOS lined up like Minnesota Fat's at a billiards hall.
Then have a nice breach team standing by. It has gone quite well a few times. Blow the hedge and then let 'er rip. I have done the same thing for a
mortar team that was way back in the back field and a stupid hedgerow was in the way. Blew the hedgerow to give them great LOS for direct fire
using the "parallel blast line method" so the engineers didn't run out into "Purple Heart Alley".
 
A variation on this was to find a building with a solid wall up on the 2nd or 3rd floor facing the enemy and sometime into the battle, you blow that wall with your breach team and it allows an
HMG to fire out from an unexpected location. But they gotta bag it out of there fairly soon because there is no wall to protect them!

OK, long story short, no new Malta foliage is needed beyond the CMSF cacti I already brought in courtesy of mjkerner.
AND as long as we carefully utilize the existing foliage from CMFI. Only use certain stuff for Malta maps to match the "garrigue" ecosystem <holds pinky out>
Garrigue or phrygana is a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. It is found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin, generally near the seacoast, where the climate is moderated but with annual summer drought. I dorked around a tad more with the beutepanzer T-34. I fixed a camo spot mismatch on the turret, added some grease and grime, sponge desaturated the camo spots  and so I am calling it done but if any budding vehicle modder wanted to continue any embellishments on her, PM me and I can provide the photoshop files.

OK, long story short, no new Malta foliage is needed beyond the CMSF cacti I already brought in courtesy of mjkerner.
AND as long as we carefully utilize the existing foliage from CMFI. Only use certain stuff for Malta maps to match the "garrigue" ecosystem <holds pinky out>
Garrigue or phrygana is a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. It is found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin, generally near the seacoast, where the climate is moderated but with annual summer drought. I dorked around a tad more with the beutepanzer T-34. I fixed a camo spot mismatch on the turret, added some grease and grime, sponge desaturated the camo spots  and so I am calling it done but if any budding vehicle modder wanted to continue any embellishments on her, PM me and I can provide the photoshop files.

Los,
 
Juju is about to release discarded chutes mod.

Los,
 
Juju is about to release discarded chutes mod.

Dr's office? "samples". Ewwwww. Sounds like you should have gloves on.

Jeez guys...when trying to sell bikinis, always put a hot bodied babe in them when you publish an ad!

or at least one with pearly white teeth...

I would have a vertical full map height AI trigger "tripwire" way over on the east to cause the 2 platoons (all AI groups) to maybe go off hide. Then maybe a timer or maybe another trigger to start all AI groups moving eastward in the center.
 
Then 2 more AI enemy tripwires (1 to cover the northern option and 1 to cover the southern option). parallel to the first but each has half the map.
 
Northern half line gets tripped and we hook say A1 counterclockwise up to meet the north option. A1 trips a friendly AI trigger which tells A4,A6,to also swing up to meet that northern option in his left flank. Maybe one final AI tripwire if the enemy made it that deep to the west would tell A8and A10 to also cut north to hit the enemy. The other odd numbered groups would not be moving. Select their static posits to support the moving group.
 
In the southern option A2 is triggered to swing clockwise down to meet the southern option and trips a friendly AI trigger to tell A3,A5, to also swing down to the south and hit that southern attack in his right flank. Maybe one final AI tripwire if the enemy made it that deep to the west would tell A7and A9 to also cut south to hit the enemy. The other even numbered groups would not be moving. Select their static posits to support the moving group.
 
But it is just "Otto Maddox" the AI soldier....

Here is a little sneak peek...(the fantastic work of juju)

Hi all,
 
I've been working on a whole bunch of scenarios for CMRT, and finally got around to finishing a couple. I'll use this thread to post whatever I manage to finish. I have 4 for today (though one has already been posted before, just tweaked it a little), and hopefully I can put the finishing touches on 1 or 2 for tomorrow. Most of these have had barely any playtesting, beyond what I could do by myself. That's where I need feedback from you guys. These are not 100% tested. Please let me know what I can change to make it better!
 
I like small, company sized engagements. All of these have 2 companies or less. These may be suitable for H2H, do not have anyone to test them with though. All my maps are "hand made" originals. They look best with my terrain mod IMO!
 
Interlock OP v1.0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bs581b72xj6n96s/AD%20Interlock%20OP.zip?dl=0
 

 
You are in command of a German Grenadier platoon in Estonia. Soviet forces have secured an interlocking tower overlooking our forward positions and are calling artillery on our forces. You have been tasked with securing the tower by force and securing whatever intel you can. Axis vs AI only
 
 
Pastureland v1.0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pq48lgx5c1tokfe/AD%20Pasture%20Land.zip?dl=0
 

 
The Germans are falling back in confusion. Our tank corps and mehanized infantry have pushed far foward, leaving us, the dismounted infantry, behind to mop up the remnants and widen the corridors. Your company was doing exactly that when you came out of a small copse of trees and immediately started taking machinegun fire. A large, open pastureland sits between you and the incoming fire. On the far side, a group of buildings on the outskirts of a village. You determine that is where the enemy fire is coming from, and you immediately decide to attack. Allied vs AI only.
 
 
Gorbatzewich Roadblock v1.0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zsmkvq4hfcr09ms/AD%20Gorbatzewich%20Roadblock.zip?dl=0
 

 
You are in command of a Soviet Cavalry Squadron southwest of Babruysk. After several long days of fighting, we have finally managed to capture the vital city and open the road to Minsk. Remnants of German forces still remain around the city, occupying blocking positions and doing their best to prevent our forces from rushing into Minsk. One of these blocking forces is located in the village to your immediate front. Allied vs AI only
 
 
Amongst the Ruins v1.0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wo11fj4zcq3h2au/AD%20Amongst%20the%20Ruins.zip?dl=0
 

 
You are in command of a German Pioneer Company somewhere within a large city inside Belarus. We have been fighting with the Soviets for control of this vital city for several days now. Your company has been tasked with taking back a bombed out industrial area. Axis vs AI only
 
 
 

Thank you!

So cool.

My first CAAR (Comic After Action Report) was in the format of a DAR presented as a comic. To introduce some variety and also make this one a bit more like a comic, it will be presented less as an AAR and more as a story, following the actions and adventures of one man, a Russian soldier called Dmitry ("Dima") Ivanov. Of course this is also going to present the battles as well, so the AAR aspect is still included, just not the sole objective.
 
Some of you wanted to hear more about Lt. Warner, Cpl. Dietrich, and Sgt. Hirsch from my first CAAR; they will be back in another CAAR. At the time of this one, Warner and his boys are in Normandy, and later, in Holland during Market-Garden.
 
Once again, Kohlenklau is my partner in this, and I thank him for being a fun opponent in the battles and a patient friend in the delays doing these sometimes introduces.

Hiya folks,
 
Anyone interested?