Suchy

1940 Panzerwaffe beret...

CMFI FRANCE 1940 MOD PACKS
***I don't have them ready yet****
But here is my system I am going to use! It will be a "tiered" system or whatever might best describe it. I will package the mods to release with scenarios in a consecutive manner over the next couple weeks or months. If you are wanting to play the mod. You gather up all the mod packs as we go on into the summer. Start with bronze, have fun with a few scenarios that have been matched to what bronze mod pack offers. Get it? The scenarios will say somewhere what mod packs they need. If it says silver. then that means both silver and the base bronze. Gold scenario needs gold but also silver and bronze. Finally the diamond scenarios will need diamond and the 3 others. I could have skipped the words bronze, silver, etc and just used A, B, etc. but it seemed a nice way to think of it.
FR40A BRONZE LEVEL MOD PACK (should be next weekend 4/8/23 along with several teaser scenarios!)
FR40B SILVER LEVEL MOD PACK 
FR40C GOLD LEVEL MOD PACK
FR40D DIAMOND LEVEL MOD PACK
I have mods I am still working on and they have been conveniently assigned to the last mod pack, the DIAMOND level.
The above system SHOULD allow scenarios to be staggered in development as well. @kevinkin
 

"FAKE LOBSTER"
The number of friends and fans of CMFI FRANCE 1940 mod are currently countable on your fingers and toes. It sure seems.
So, why not just address the elephant in the room?
I admit it. In this mod, you will be offered some "fake lobster" I call it.
I guess "fake crab" is better known. It is fish that is processed and made to look like crab with coloring.
I joke and use lobster because of the long use of Space Lobsters in CM forums, etc.
What is my "fake lobster"?
Fake lobster is when what you see on the screen is not 100% what the game engine thinks it is.
Some folks are confused on what is possible as a non-BFC forumite trying to mod the game.
Some folks are purists on the simulation and will not even look at fake lobster.
I would say that this mod has fake lobster but it also has situations where the fake lobster is not present.
The mod CAN be enjoyed by purists. It just has to be a certain scenario to avoid their food allergy!
I will take this time to go through the mod carefully and explain what is modded. If you have negative comments or criticisms, you can PM me or attack me here. but I prefer the PM.
~~~~~~~~~
A. The infantry mods:
1. ALLIES
To me this part of the mod is almost empty of fake lobster.
@Falaise and @JM Stuff and @Damian45 and I have worked to create a new arena of infantry combat.
CMFI has many nations and we took great advantage of that.
The 1944 French equipped with US gear have been modded to look like 1940 French Army. Regular metropolitan French troops AND Colonial troops -perhaps from Morocco. JM made the awesome RF grenade emblem helmet after I struggled and failed. Falaise made the Moroccan crescent moon collar badge coats. JM AGAIN gets a gold medal and made "crescent moon" emblem helmets. His new name is "Mr. Helmet"...?
The 1945 Brazilians equipped with US gear have been modded to look like 1940 French Army, the Senegalese Tirailleurs (S.T.). Names modded by me to be Senegalese! JM made a helmet with anchor emblem of the S.T. Falaise made coats with anchor badge on collar. I used black faces from my [buffalo] mod. I need to sprinkle in some Senegalese into the French voices which were renamed from stock Brazilian voices.
The 1943 Polish equipped with British gear have been modded to look like 1940 French Army. Voice files renamed and modtagged to now be French. Names changed to French names. Ranks changed to French 1940 style.
Bolt-action rifles. Sure, deep down, there are differences. Maybe we are generically treating them as the same. At the CM level, I think it is ok with this mod.
We can do certain scenario editing tricks to keep the number of SMG low on the French side. Both sides have rifle grenades. Oh well. There are not too many.
I only have 60 minutes for editing and can make additional posts for this description of the mod.
Folders for infantry



 



 
I am probably almost at my 60 minutes for editing. You might notice german ponchos up above. These are my existing transparency files to make stuff not be visible. I just re-use and rename. Falaise and I have made brand new gear items. We also decided to have some items just vanish. US webgear compass pouch for example. The same will be true for German Y-strap upper back gear that cannot be there as France 1940 the Germans are going strapless! 😮
The wife now returns soon from her 1 week away and I must go crazy to clean the sink dishes and all such things in a rapid last-minute manner. 
MORE DESCRIPTION LATER. Next is AXIS Infantry to showcase the beautiful mods of @Damian45
one more screenshot to show Senegalese folder

 
 

Just in case that the german from @Damian45 would try to pass to the Albert Chanel  that eventual @kohlenklau could have a scenario in his box,  with some research from @Suchy to prepare a duel with @Falaise or @kevinkin or @Heinrich505 supported by @Ivan Zaitzev and @Vacillator and well commented by @Erwin...
I was prepared some older helmets for the defense of the Eben Emael fortress, and hope this time that they will put some heavy weapons on the roof of the fortress, to say a good welcome to these gentlemen falling from the sky...not that we have again A Deja vu...
 😆
(Just kidding boys)

Well, it's been a lot more work than I'd anticipated. This is a rework of my old USMC campaign, a six mission campaign I put together shortly after the British Forces module for CMSF 1 was released. I spent SO much time making 'The Road to Dinas' that I missed playing with the USMC, which has turned out to be my favourite US formation to work with. 
 
I thought I was just going to have to make up a new core unit file, sub in the new units and tweak a few bits and pieces to take advantage of the new systems but I ended up pretty much redoing it all from scratch. Anyway, let me show you the old maps and the new versions. Each picture is taken a 6 am in the morning from the same position so that you can see main differences.
 
The first mission is Meet the Flintstones. This is a NIGHT Missions and this is the old map...

And this is the new map...

As you can see, it's pretty much doubled in size. If you've played the original, it will probably feel reasonably familiar with the old version.
The next mission is The High Chaparall and the map for this one has changed very little. it's a DAWN mission.

And here's the new...

It hasn't changed much although there was a LOT of deforestation which took place to the new. Apart from the map, it's been reworked very substantially and the AI improved.
 
The third mission was a real problem for me. It was originally called CAAT Fight and it took place on this map...

The problem wasn't with the map but the battle itself. It was rubbish! It was an interesting idea and was inspired by the first episode of Generation Kill but it wasn't anywhere near as much fun as that episode. So this one got a new map and new forces with the same concept:

I really enjoy playing this one. It's a NIGHT mission and, like the original, you only have the CAAT units to work with. But it feels completely different and I find it a lot of fun to play.
Now we come to the HUGE reworks. These took over a week each to fit up and the missions needed to be redone entirely, new AI forces, new objectives etc...
the first of these is Watching the Detectives. here's the old map...

And here's the new...

It's more than doubled in size and there has been very substantial enhancement of buildings complexes etc. This is a DAWN mission and has gone through several iterations before the right battle was found for it. it's a tough mission with the player attacking down a slope in full view of the defender with little cover to work with. it took many attempts to make this feasible and I'm happy with the end result. You need to take this one slowly.
 
Then Mission 5, Bridges. Once again, the old map has been massively expanded.

And the new one is almost entirely different...

There are some similarities but as you can see, it's almost entirely new with new, more realistic villages added. Again, finding the right battle for this map has taken a lot of time and this is the mission I'm currently playtesting.  it'll probably change a little before I finish with it but I've finally whittled down the forces on both sides so that i can carry out the mission without having too much at my disposal.
Al Qusayr
The map for the last mission is almost the same. there are some significant improvements for it but you won't see these from such a wide angle. the mission has also been redone with new forces added and all-new AI.

And there it is. I'll go into each mission in a little more detail later. This is very close to finishing now. I expect to have finalised it by the end of this month.
 

It is my great pleasure to announce that a fantastic forumite and talented modder @Damian45 has burned the midnight oil down under (Perth W.A.) and just this morning delivered a fantastique set of 1940 German Army uniforms. 
THANK YOU DAMIAN!!!
I will be editing this post and show off some screenshots of his stellar work. They are from a PBEM I am now testing.
This scenario with a French AI plan is for Damian so he can take a break and enjoy the mod a bit before he heads BACK to continue the outstanding modding effort and deliver us some new Waffen-SS uniforms. and a few other goodies too!
Before I show the screenshots, let us bow our heads and remember this solemn rule...

ok, so here are the screenshots. Freedom of speech but if you want to discuss uniforms, please make a new thread. PM Damian if you want or give "likes" here. 

I decided to create a new topic for this because "tool to set elevation in the editor" is no longer really a good description. Finally (from my perspective 😉) I managed to release version 2.0.0 of CMAutoEditor.

https://github.com/DerButschi/CMAutoEditor
Woah, Butschi, wait a minute CMAutoWhat? What the hell are you talking about? CMAutoEditor is a tool that takes "external" data, like elevation, and automates clicking in the CM scenario editor. This way it kind of works around "missing features" in the editor. Wouldn't it be nice to import something like a heat map instead of clicking elevations in the editor? Of course I can't change the editor but by letting CMAutoEditor do the clicking it does something similar.

 
Version 2 is really a major update as it now includes importing data from OpenStreetMap. This way you can basically use CMAutoEditor to create a whole map for you.
Still, feature creep and being overly ambitious is certain to kill such a small project so I had to triage what makes it into this release and what (maybe, provided there is enough interest on your side and enough time on my side) gets postponed to a later update.

The cut affecting most of you is that for this release only CMCW is really supported. The reason is that there are differences in what is in the scenario editor for each CM title. That means not only are there buttons at different positions but there are also different buildings, roads, flavour objects etc. which need to be programmed as a "profile". I intend to modify CMAutoEditor in a way that the community can help with that but I am not yet sure how best to do it. So, for now CMCW only. CMBS should work for everything but flavour objects.

Another thing I had to cut is support for Windows version older than Windows 10. I know, there are quite a few of you around who still field Windows 7. However, python is only supported up to version 3.7 on Windows 7 and a few of the libraries CMAutoEditor depends on require python 3.10. In addition, I don't have a farm of PCs idling at home where I can test different Windows version so I can really only develop for Windows 10. Sorry for that but maybe this doubles as a friendly reminder that nowadays Windows 7 is a security liability and you should upgrade to Windows 10 or 11. 😉
There is of course a long list of things I'd like to improve eventually and given that this is a rather complex piece of code the chances that it is free of bugs is close to zero. So, feel free to contact me here or on github if you find something!

Now, with all the caveats out of the way let's move on to the more pleasant stuff. 🙂 What's new in version 2? Well, of course OpenStreetMap data. You can import forests, rivers, roads, streams, railways, farmland, grassland, bushes, buildings and even bus stops, wayside crosses and much more. I improved the tools to import DGM data so that now arbitrary rectangles can be extracted. The information from this can be loaded into the OSM data converter so that you don't have to manually enter bounding boxes. (The geotiff tool is unfortunately among the things that didn't make it for this release so you are left with the previous capabilites). CMAutoEditor itself is now also much faster. Please note, that it may be too fast for what your PC can handle. If you experience "holes", e.g. when setting the elevation, that means the CM Editor is not responsive enough. I will make the parameters that determines the rate of clicking selectable from the GUI in a later update. Last but certainly not least there is a GUI for all the tools, so no more going to that evil shell, typing commands - kudos to @Dawntaker for supporting me with GUI making!

One more thing. I won't repeat the mistake and not have a manual or tutorial video ready at release: Since my previous tutorial video is now totally deprecated I am doing a new one. This time, instead of just telling you what the different features do, I'll do a step-by-step tutorial in four parts where I will create an actual map. This way I will certainly miss a few features but you should get a better feeling of how to actually use the tools in reality. Part 1 is finished already and it covers "installing" (i.e. downloading the .exe files) CMAutoEditor, installing other necessary tools, selecting a location for the map in map.army, finding and downloading elevation data, downloading OpenStreetMap data and getting historical aerial imagery and working with it. So, basically the boring stuff, some of you might say, but possibly the most important part. 😉
In the future I'd like to adapt CMAutoEditor to one of the WW2 titles, I think CMFB or CMRT would be best. Obviously present-day OpenStreetMap won't do for that. So, instead I'd like to make another tutorial showing how to use and old map or aerial image to make "OpenStreetMap data" from scratch and feed it into the CM scenario editor. Drawing polygons and tagging them is still - in my view - much more comfortable than clicking in the editor with some semi transparent overlay. So, if you have good material, go ahead and make a suggestion here. 😉
I hope you enjoy this new version of CMAutoEditor and the tutorial video(s)!

right now (I THINK) these are the only guys who want the mod and scenarios:
THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN PLUS ONE
@Heinrich505
@Falaise
@JM Stuff
@Ivan Zaitzev
@Suchy
@Vacillator
@Erwin

Canteen Boy!!!
French Model 35 with one spout.
Not the famed double-spouted Model 1877. A bit too hard to hack in Blender.

Dont need to do it is finish, I work always for myself in darkness like the truck !
now working on the chinstrap !

@Heinrich505 Thank you to my buddy Gary for the playtest...
We spotted a few things to fix and of course there are many more improvements that can be made to the mod. It just takes time and effort.
If you want to write a scenario using this mod, please PM me. I can share my advice on what units are "representable" within the scope of what I have modded. For example, like I explained earlier, I used CMRT as the base because I could get the Anti-tank rifle ATR for Brasche Encounter. If BFC would release a small module to sprinkle such items in the other titles, we'd have increased flexibility. oh well! But CMFI also serves as the base for the mod due to the numerous nations available. Thank you BFC.
ON MY PLATE...
1. try to create the MAS36 rifle
2. I asked a buddy to make the MAS 38 SMG
3. make the French canteen and finish all gear for French
4. tweak the German heer tunics, remove frozen meat button loop ribbons, etc.
5. Adrian helmet badge
6. Char B1 Bis camo
7. make some tiny teaser scenarios for folks to try against the AI
PM ME IF YOU WANT IN ON THE "FUN"...!
 

BRASCHE ENCOUNTER PART 2
The reserve company on the move toward the bridge...

The German squads hold their ground having occupied the French foxholes...

Capitane Jambon eyes the battlefield to determine his course of action.

He orders the Pan-Pans forward!

Under the cover of the Panhard "Grammont", the soldiers bravely move forward.

"Grammont" covers the crawling infantry...

Gollat is excited as he reaches the detonateur - but he has no training and cannot properly connect the wires.

But the Germans are unaware of that fact and assume the charges will be fired off. They pull back leaving their dead and wounded.

 
 

The Falaise Memorial Leather Cartridge Pouch is completed!
@Falaise

"Mort por la honour d' France" (I think that is the inscription on French war graves)

Sergeant Falaise fires a flare (simulated due to BFC not coding flares or starshells) to alert the reserve company of 72 soldiers (rifles only!) with a few officers. Another LMG. ONLY TWO DAMN SMG's sneak in. Gotta do what I gotta do.
The reserve company must get here on foot so it will be at least 5 minutes.
But they also have 2 Pan-Pans. Panhard scout cars. 20mm autocannon and a co-ax MG.
The beautiful flowers of bel France. @Lucky_Strike thank you!
Here are "le bad guys"...

MON PARDON! It is LT Falaise! He only has a pistol and his men look ready to do the marathon back to Paris?

MERDE!!! They have routed!

Here comes the judge! errr...I mean...the boche.

He is alone now at the bridge...
VIVA LA FRANCE!!!


a bullet has ended his life...

THE END OF PART 1
 
 
 

I love really your determination and  obstination to do your best, this mod could be one of your best, this one could be also a step to created perhaps 39 with Poland like Falaise was talking shortly about, and 36 in Spain,...ok perhaps a little too much...need only very old vehicles,  and simple weapons... hold down Phill, if I can do something tell me, this will not perhaps be perfect but perhaps this help you a little to breathe.

Love it.  Those of us who are less bothered by historical accuracy than for the chance to play early war will appreciate this.

OK, the leather texture is soon to come but I have found the seed that will eventually be the "Falaise Memorial Cartridge Belt"...
I am a Blender hacker amateur pinball machine tilter. But I keep trying. I did try my own custom 3D shape and it had an error so I tried my other trick which is to successfully open a BFC mdr and THEN sneak in what I want and export it usually successfully. That still was giving me errors. So, I resorted to going "mdr shopping" for an exisiting gear that seemed about what I needed. It came from the "british_breadbag" so I called it for now the "frenchy_breadbag". This is only because I try to stay with same number of letters.  british is 7 letters and so is frenchy.
I have made the leather texture from Falaise's photos but now must rework it.
Here it is before...not perfect but I was gonna try to use it as version 1.

Notice this below official mdr for the original british_breadbag is kinda lower quality with those gaps showing when rendered. Maybe somebody's kid did it.
The center heart is where I tried to dial the dimensions to be what Falaise told me. Blender kinda rounds it slightly different versus what I entered.

A Blender mod Panhard AMD35. Gotta do what I gotta do!

Luckily I have one lying around next to me!!!
my hand for the scale
face

back

rear

dowm

up

Italian Brixia 45mm mortar team will be modded to be the early war German 50mm mortar at the platoon level.
Gotta do what I gotta do

@Suchy I now have French forces armed with the Hotchkiss HMG...

or you remove the cartridges and equipment and put them in "trompe l'oeil"

 

@Falaise @JM Stuff
We need some leather cargo cartridge pouches.

I have a model that I am trying to convert so it enters CM thanks to @Ivan Zaitzev

The Berthier M34 looks basically like a Mauser.  The old Berthier 8mm is somewhat similar to the long and short Mosin. The MAS38 submachine gun looks a bit like a Thompson, but the wooden front pad under the barrel would have to be removed from the Thompson. Only with the MAS36 rifle might be a problem because nothing on the CM looks like it.