Pelican Pal

I recently received permission from PanzerMike to use his map for the Squad Battles scenario. Currently there isn't any AI behind the opposing side (allies) and the briefing isn't done. However, by the end of this weekend I should have a basic scenario done that I would like people to try out. Mainly I'm trying to find out what size should the missions be for the different control mechanisms (RT and WeGo). Also what sized force is the most fun. edit: Also thank you for posting the picture Kohlenklau

Does anyone know of German riflemen that I can get as single units that carry hand grenades? I've been using truck drivers however, their lack of grenades is a serious detriment to German capabilities so far. Edit: I've thrown together a quick battle showcasing a German platoon attacking a small village supported by 2 medium mortars and a single halftrack. Everything seems to be working pretty well currently. Interestingly enough long range combat has become much less lethal while close range combat has had its lethality increase dramatically. In my few test runs I've managed to lose entire squads to not more than 3-4 Russians. http://imgur.com/lZdhwDI ^ I can't seem to get images to embed properly. This is a picture of 2nd squad advancing through a wheat field while the supporting halftrack and second squad wait for trouble to brew.

I will be making an AI for it. Although I'm not sure how it will turn out. 1:1, or as close as CM allows to it, requires a a lot more precision than the AI is usually able to do. So we will see how it turns out.

hello all, I've been working on two scenarios that I am getting ready to release sometime during August. Sicherungs: You are Sicherungs-Divisionen Company Commander during the opening days of Operation Bagration. Your company has been tasked with holding a small river crossing East of the village of Plehany against the might of the Soviet Army. Squad battles: A test scenario in which you command a single infantry platoon. However, instead of commanding squads of men each individual soldier is his own controllable unit. So a squad of grenadiers consists of 8-9 separate elements. Right now Sicherungs is closest to completion. I just need to refine the AI plans (there are currently 4), add in the briefings, and finally send it out for testing. Squad Battles currently has a map and I am in the process of building up the two opposing platoons. It is rather difficult to do since the game wasn't meant to be played on this scale. I'll be posting some more information here of the following days as I gear up to let Sicherungs out for testing.

Well really the number of windows/doors a building has should limit the number of shooters it can support in some way. An infinite number of men cannot shoot from a building concurrently. But like I mentioned above I think this problem is too big for BFC to handle with their current system. The action square system has some pretty significant limitations, but those limitations let the game run as well as it does.

Unfortunately I don't think it is a currently fixable problem. The action square system exists to cut down on the processing requirements of the game and doing any sort of expansion will increase the PC requirements to run the game. I would be interested in seeing how the game played if we were able to split squads into fireteams and fireteams into buddy teams.

I have a MN 91/30 (thanks Russian surplus!) and it is a reliable, accurate, and generally powerful weapon. I wouldn't deride it as a ****ty weapon at all. However, as a CM player it is something I don't want my men to have. Really it comes down to how squads move and spread out. In reality an infantry squad should have something like 5-10 meters between each man. So an average German squad would cover between 40 and 80 meters and an average Russian squad would cover between 50 and 100 meters of terrain. While in CM both of these squads will cover 10-20 meters of terrain with maybe a little more than a meter between each man. Quite often these men are in tight column with less than a meter distance between each man. Or you have men fighting in a house and have 4+ men at a single window. There are a plethora of circumstances like this where troops bunch up absurdly tightly. In these cases a single burst of automatic fire can easily cause 50% casualties if not more. Something a bolt action rifle could never hope to do.

Semi-auto rifles like the SVT, M1 Garand, and G43 are all a clear cut above their bolt action counterparts though. The same can be said for the STG 44. SMGs are really useful although I think that the way CM handles squad movement makes them too effective. An average CM squad will have at most 2 meters of spacing between each man and will be traveling in a column or "tactical blob" regardless of the situation. So a burst of SMG fire will result in multiple hits and is essentially as effective as an LMG in ranges around 100 meters. Generally speaking I believe that particularities in CMs infantry modelling make bolt action weapons very ineffective compared to nearly any other weapon on the field of battle. Primarily these are the capability for players to push their infantry into extremely close range which heavily favors higher ROF, and the tendency for CM troops to move in tactical blobs which also favors putting more bullets out more quickly.

I will say that I would like men to pickup SMGs, semi-auto rifles, and assault rifles more often when they are buddy-aiding someone. It is frustrating to have the G43, SVT, MP40, or PPSH in a squad go down and a soldier keep is bolt action rifle. However, only in very rare circumstances would a solider acquire two primary weapons and switch between them. This is especially true of relatively heavy weapons like a light machine gun. An MG34 weighs 26.7 lb while an MP40 weighs 8.75 lb. This is in addition to ammo and other equipment that is needed. The soldier then has to deal with holding onto both weapons at the same time. These are heavy weapons and these are generally very bulky weapons. It is one thing to have a pistol in your holster and another to have an MP40 (or other rifle) slung on you.

Thanks for the information! So I should be using Grenadier battalions minus heavier AT and artillery assets. I am a little confuse now by the inclusion of Sicherungs Battalions in CM:RT. In what instances would they make up a unit?

Hello, I'm currently finishing up my first CM scenario that involves elements of the 286th Security Division (a company+ of the 354th Infantry Regiment) in a semi-historical scenario around Orsha during the opening days of Bagration. I'm currently pretty pleased by how it is turning out and I am considering making it part of a short campaign (3-5 missions). I would like a slightly more historical basis for this campaign than my current scenario offers. All I've been able to find out currently is that the 286th was a part of the 4th Army East of Orsha. At this time it consisted of: Grenadier Regiment 638 (French volunteers that would eventually be folded into SS Charlemagne) Infantry Regiment 61 Infantry Regiment 122 Infantry Regiment 354 II./ Artillery Regiment 213 Alarm Battalion 704 Signals Battalion 825 Reiterhundertschaft 286 The 286th was destroyed during the offensive, although 400 men from Grenadier Regiment 638 held a crossing at the Bryobransk (sp?) river with the support of five Tiger tanks and Stuka dive bombers later in the battle. Unfortunately this is all the information I've been able to find. Security Divisions aren't quite as cool as most everything else and information seems pretty scarce. Does anyone have some recommended places to find some more information, have information regarding the average TO&E of a security division's infantry regiments, or any information regarding the 286th's infantry regiments in particular?

There is a lot of opportunity to make things clearer and generally slicker with the use of some automation and proper UI enhancement. The unit icon, for example, would be a great place to give information about what the unit is doing and its progress doing so. Currently there are a lot of weird inconsistency with realism and general lack of documentation/in game visualization of things happening. There doesn't seem to be a clear difference in fatigue based on weight of ammo carried (I've often seen lone riflemen carrying several hundred rounds of ammunition, tens of grenades, and a number of anti-tank gun rounds with no apparent ill effect). Collecting thousands of rounds of ammunition is done instantly, while it takes minutes to grab a a panzerfaust from a dead soldier. Men will share information and ammo between each other, but the details of when, how, and length of time this requires are all essentially unknown. Generally speaking CM does a pretty good job of simulating the actual shooting and killing of the enemy, or at least it does so consistently across the board. While literally everything else is a hodgepodge of high detail, high abstraction, maybes, sometimes, only in this specific circumstance, and we don't knows.

For Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. There is a fun campaign called Devils Descent. It covers an airborne unit during the first days of the invasion. It is especially unique in that it allows you to choose what to do during certain parts of the campaign. For example, you need to take a positon and you could choose to attack with the men you have or wait for reinforcements. These choices will result in different engagements.

There currently aren't any for CM:RT and I'm not sure if there are any in the works. Although I am currently considering producing a short one that covers 3-4 battles, but if that happens it will probably still be a month or two off. Making scenarios by themselves are time consuming not to mention linking them into a campaign. Over in CM:BN someone made one involving an airborne unit with branching campaign paths that you get to choose. It is quite popular.

Unfortunately all weapons in CM fire at center mass so the possible effectiveness of weapons like ATRs is much reduced.

JoMc67, I've not seen that ever happen to a normal combat unit. I've only see that occur to crew served weapons. Right now the basic solution to the acquire problem, let men do it from nearby and not just in a vehicle, exists.

Selfless initiative is crawling over to the shot man and then kneeling in open ground to try to save his life. To grab the squad's only LMG and keep it firing is anything but selfless. I'm not at all convinced that out of a squad of seven effective men, armed with a single smg, and six K98s (maybe a G43 or two) no one has the presence of mind to get the LMG operational again. While it makes sense that maybe a few men or stunned and worried about the now wounded man someone in the squad would have the presence of mind to get the gun operational again. Especially in experienced combat units. A veteran squad has seen casualties and has fought in a number of engagements. The importance of keeping that gun operational will be apparent to them, and while the internal monologue of soldier 1 might be that "I wonder if he is dead" the yelling of the Squad Leader to get the gun operational or the motivation of soldier 2 who knows that they are all hosed if that gun doesn't start firing also plays into it. In fact, the game already handles the situation in which someone wouldn't attempt to grab the gun. If the squad has taken heavy casualties or is heavily pinned the men will be "cowering" and generally won't move to buddy aid at all. I'm not expecting it to take seconds to grab the gun, but there is a definite difference between buddy aiding a wounded man and a dead man. A wounded soldier can take minutes+ to buddy aid while a dead one is maybe 30 seconds. So using the "dead man" time to recover the weapon isn't instantaneous however, it is significantly faster. And once again the precedent for going gun first aid second already exists in crew served weapons. Edit: I also agree with the acquire overhaul. WeGo getting ammo for a squad can easily take up to six minutes or more. I would also like to be able to type the amount of ammo acquired, or at least always provide the ability to grab just 50 rounds at a time. This would allow the player to add a small amount of ammo repeatedly until the soldiers have an adequate amount. Currently if you have a single soldier with an SMG trying to grab ammo from a resupply point the smallest amount he can generally grab is 250-500, which is way too much for him especially if you have multiple squads with only a single smg.

My personal favorite would probably be CM:SF Red Vs Red or Red vs UnCon. There is something I really enjoy having troops that are kinda incompetent (compared to CM:SF blufor) going at each other with powerful weaponry.

I was playing a scenario recently and had a Opel driving up to the front to deliver ammunition to a depleted unit. On they way it became immobilized and the driver dismounted. I then attempted to have the ammunition depleted platoon hoof it to the vehicle and grab the ammo (walking a mile for ammo is better than no ammo). Unfortunately I could not get anyone to stay in the vehicle. As soon as the troops mounted the vehicle they would immediately dismount. I am assuming this has something to do with the unarmed nature of the vehicle so the tacai just counts it as destroyed. However, it would be great if men would stay in the vehicle when ordered or an ammunition dump was placed next to the vehicle when it was immobilized. Currently I'm out three to fourth thousand rounds of MG ammunition and 1,000 rounds of 9mm, and a relatively full strength platoon is as useful to me as a bunch of dead bodies.

Of course sometimes Max would be worried because Hans got shot and would not think about grabbing his gun. On the other hand, if Max is the assistant automatic riflemen and Hans, the squad machine gunner, was just shot it would make sense for Max to grab the LMG. At a minimum one of the seven active members of the squad would try to get the squad LMG active again. HMG and other crewed weapons currently do this, and a squad level LMG, especially for the Germans, is equivalent to a deployed HMG as far as importance in keeping it firing. Now maybe conscript or green troops would be less likely to do this, but as your men get more experienced then the importance of keeping powerful squad level weapons in play would be more apparent to them. I also think it is important to remember that in most situations it is not a two man situation. You don't have the guy who got shot and his buddy. You have the guy who got shot and the rest of his squad. So while Max is trying to stop Hans from bleeding to death Squad Leader Dietrich still has the presence of mind to grab the LMG or yell at someone to do so. Edit: Thinking on it I;ve seen in game situations where a whole HMG team is wiped out on the gun. One would go down and another would take his place and this happened until everyman was dead or wounded. For a Grenadier squad keeping their LMG operational is as important as it is for the HMG crew so I don't see why the difference exists.

JasonC, thanks for the information. I'll try that out.

The buddy-aid feature is one of those things can get really annoying depending on the context in which it occurs. You have those moments where the Russian infantry is bearing down on your squad and one of the two LMGs gets hit. The assistant gunner then proceeds to carefully try to save the gunner's life while a bunch of PPSh toting russians are minutes away from killing everyone. Personally I think that it would make more sense to salvage weapons and ammo first and then treat the wounded man second. In most circumstances there will be no noticeable difference, but it covers those weird cases better than the current system.

With the maps getting increasingly larger I can see the in game utility of having an MLRS system in. Back in CM:SF an MRLS would have wiped out a 1/4th of the largest maps possible iirc. This isn't the case anymore.

Hello, I've been working on a scenario and right now I'm "mostly done". Mostly because I'm working on AI plans/balance which is a ton of work. Anyway I've been running into the problem that Soviet infantry is incredibly impotent against armor. Even very light armor. I'm currently considering adding tank hunter teams or giving the soviets Panzerschreck teams. Personally I don't think that the tank hunter teams are effective enough for the AI to easily use so I'm leaning towards the Schrecks. My two primary questions are: Did the Soviets use captured Panzerschreks? What is everyone's opinions on seeing a few Germans holding Schrecks in a Soviet infantry formation?

Yea, a grenade order would be great. I recently got very angry with a scenario where a 6 Russians were dug in on the top of a little plateau. My men were maybe 5-10 meters away at most and tossing a bundle of grenades would ahve cleared them out. Instead it became a game of trying to suppress them by firing at the lip of the hill and running enough bodies up to ensure someone would shoot them. - colored changes in elevation. Lower the ground the darker the overlay, the higher the ground the brighter the overlay.