Bulletpoint

AT grenades are probably a different thing. I don't have CMRT, so I don't know. But I know troops cannot assault tanks from inside buildings (shown as throwing regular hand grenades at the tank)

Are your squads inside buildings? In that case, they can't assault.

I usually recommend the small campaign Devils' Descent. It has a good pocket-book narrative and you even get to make decisions. Also, it's not too difficult, so a good choice for a beginner.

Not without a roller. Roller not available, comrade. Tank available.

*Now assaulting...

On balance and artillery You give the Germans quite little artillery, and the US forces have a ton of artillery, much of it 150mm. In my experience, you could tone down the US artilley and dial up the German artillery. As an example, I'm not assaulting Cheneux, after pummelling it with 140 shells of 105mm, and 240 shells of 120mm. The town is still crawling with US forces. It's of course up to you to create the balance for this scenario, but the artillery support given hardly makes a dent on defenders in buildings.

Probably it could damage the tracks, but it's war. Many things can damage the tracks. I don't know if they deliberately used tanks for mineclearing, but I guess that no matter which direction the tank goes, there's always a risk of hitting a mine. And from the infantry's perspective, it's nice to only step where the tank has already gone.

I noticed that I am not able to use the Hummels for indirect fire... It's not that they are out of contact; they simply do not show up in the fire support tab.

I think of it as a highly advanced "virtual idiot simulation" But yes, I'd also REALLY like to see the wall-hopping behaviour fixed.

I never thought about in all that old film footage. I always thought they were using the tanks for cover ... (not above) They would also be pretty sure that the tank had cleared any AP mines in the tracks.

Yes, this is why some players have requested that the iron difficulty mode could be updated to place more restrictions on "player borging". Some of that would be easy (prevent HE area fire on locations without an enemy contact marker), other things would be difficult (longer turn times with better AI to manage units in between orders phases)...

Yes, +1. I can definitely see how it is fascinating to have lots of stuff going on at the same time, so that the various engagements make sense and affect each other. I just think the CM game system is poorly equipped for the player to handle many different tactical situations at the same time.

Perhaps you are thinking of "Parade March". Based on film from the war, troops close to the front lines walk slower - more like stroll speed, and they may even be tired carrying all their gear. I think careful walk would be covered by the HUNT command, and tired troops is represented by the fitness setting (and current fatigue level).

Why is the walking movement speed so slow? The average walking speed for people is 5 km/h, which means 83.3 metres per minute. And surely soldiers march a bit faster than the average.

I have not been able to notice any effect of freezing teperatures, apart from less risk of bogging. I think snow has some effect on stamina for moving infantry, but that's the snow doing it, not the cold temperatures.

More on the quality of Peiper's troops "The condition of Peiper’s force is well described by his senior American prisoner, Major Hal McCown. He was the commanding officer of a battalion of the 30th Infantry Division and had been captured in the Stoumont fighting. In an official report made immediately after the battle, McCown, who ended up as a major general during the Vietnam era, said, “An amazing fact to me was the youth of the members of this organization—the bulk of the enlisted men were either 18 or 19, recently recruited, but from my observation thoroughly trained.” McCown continued, “There was a good sprinkling of both privates and NCOs from the years of Russian fighting. The officers for the most part were veterans but were also very young. Colonel Peiper was 29 years old, his tank battalion commander was 30; his captains and lieutenants ran from 19 to 27 years of age. The morale was high throughout the entire period I was with them despite the extremely trying conditions. The discipline was very good…. The physical condition of all personnel was good, except for a lack of proper food…. The equipment was good and complete with the exception of some reconditioned half-tracks. “All men wore practically new boots and had adequate clothing. Some men wore parts of American uniforms, mainly the knit cap, gloves, sweaters, overshoes and one or two overcoats. I saw no one, however, in American uniform…. The relationship between the officers and men [...] was closer and more friendly than I would have expected." https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2015/09/30/joachim-peiper-led-his-troops-to-safety-during-battle-of-the-bulge/ As I see it, that would probably translate into game terms as veterans, fit, +1 morale, +1 leadership.

An idea for making this into a mini-campaign I know this idea goes against the whole purpose of the 'campaign-on-one-single-map', but if you wanted to, this is how I could imagine it would work better from a gameplay perspective. Make it into three separate scenarios: First scenario: Take La Gleize. The player only sees the first 1/3 of the map. Panzerspitze troops. Second scenario: Open a route ahead. The player must occupy several small areas around bridges and road junctions to clear out potential ambush sites. The player now sees the first 2/3 of the map, and his forces and reinforcements start after La Gleize. Panzerspitze troops with a few Panthers. Third scenario: Take the two villages. The player now sees the whole map, showing his progress so far, giving a sense of scale. All tanks arrive, and the player's forces now start much closer to the front. On-map self-propelled artillery and a spotter appear back at the original starting position. Off-map support also becomes available. The two first scenarios would have 1 hour each, and the final one 2 hours.

Some words about balance I don't think I spoil anything by saying there are a LOT of enemy forces in this scenario. Obviously when you get loads of heavy panzers, they need something beefy to fight. But remember that even Tiger IIs are routinely taken out by lowly Shermans - what happens is that the Sherman spots the Tiger moving into range, but the Tiger doesn't spot the Sherman. It just sits there taking hit after hit, until the optics are shot and the main gun gets taken out. So even having 4 Tiger IIs doesn't mean this mission is easy in any way. It's hard. The channeling effect of the forest and hills means the player can rarely use his armour effectively. This is of course expected from a Peiper scenario, but it also means that the player's force is not as powerful as it seems "on paper". This should be factored in to the balance considerations. Counterattacks I understand why you included counterattacks; clearly they are an important part of the historical KG Peiper tale. But I don't find AI attacks work well in Combat Mission. They tend to turn into fish/barrel situations, and the brainless way the AI advances sort of breaks immersion too. I'd probably just take them out if I were you, and remove some of the player's forces to compensate. Endgame - tactical overload There's a limited number of tactical situations the player can keep mentally track of at the same time. In the beginning of the mission, I'm having fun with the limited units and small objective of La Gleize. I was hoping that later, I'd keep just having one "tip of the spear" point, with the rest of the forces trailing behind. But the number of tactical situations expands quite a lot once the main attack splits up to attack the two villages, while I conduct mopping up operations behind the front, plot a bazillion waypoint to move troops up, and fend off counterattacks. At that point, I just get worn out mentally. And I'm a quite decent player with many years of experience with the game. You said in your introduction to the scenario that it probably wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea - I agree, so don't let this feedback discourage you. It is just that: Feedback.

Yes, I know it. Just joking a bit.

Or if the game allowed reinforcements to arrive further into the map, if and only if the player had cleared a given area. So when the Panzerspitze troops had taken La Gleize, follow-up forces could appear there, etc. Right now, the game only allows reinforcements to arrive at a certain time, so if the village isn't clear, the reinforcements appear in the middle of the enemy. Which is not good.

I've continued playing this scenario for some hours after taking La Gleize, and while I hate to say it, I think there's a fundamental problem in how the number of clicks needed to bring up troops to the front balloons as more reinforcements arrive and as the distance from the starting area to the front increases and includes more and more bends in the road. It turns into a game of "Waypoint: The Clickening". Problem is - I simply have no idea how to solve this. I really like the concept of a "one map campaign". Maybe I should just forget about moving all the many halftracks and only focus on getting the armour to the front?

You have to add nothing to achieve something. The mystical wisdom of Combat Mission.

No worries, it was just an off the cuff feedback remark

Which is a point in itself: Did the M8 crew get any medal for this deed? Do we even know their names? If no, then why not?

I think you might well be right. An M9 bazooka could have taken out the tank. It can penetrate up to 102mm of armour, according to the Wikipedia... so Tiger II side and rear armour would be no problem. Which makes the narrative that the infantry didn't dare to engage, while the M8 did, all the more strange.