Bulletpoint

Well, would a machinegunner even know how to use a demolition charge? I don't know how sophisticated those things were, or if your average grunt had any demolition training in WW2...

I really like scenarios based on historical photos. Could you link to the original aerial photos please? I'd like to see what the large central square looks like in detail.

Maybe the game could make them wait until the order was carried out, before letting them continue to move. A bit like packing up a mortar. That might be reasonable, given that they'd be busy preparing the demolition charges ?

Well that made sense, but can't help wishing they would decouple the movement from the demolition. Making the blast command simply blow up the upstacle right in front of the unit, depending on facing like with pop smoke... then let the player add a movement order if that's what he needs.

Is this technique workable when playing one minute turns, or is it only in realtime that you can manage to call back the breach team by moving their waypoint, and then immediately give the fire order to the other team? Since they can only be given the order when the wall is gone.

Thanks for testing this out, Rockinharry. I notice 5 casualties were caused by the first turn of area fire, but only 1 additional casualty was cause by the following turn. Is this due to most casualties being caused by grenades? Also, what would have happened if you had just let the engineers run into the breach? I'm thinking that maybe with the suppression caused by the breaching charge, they might have cleared out the building on their own?

Well I just finished it. There's an AI plan for the opponents, but it's basically shooting fish in a barrel. Oh, and a LOT of waypoint plotting through the landscape for the tanks. That's a real chore with a map this size and 15 tanks to plot around. I ended up with losing 19 men, 4 tanks, and armoured car and a jeep. Killed 33 armoured vehicles and 10 tanks (6 Stug and 4 Panthers), and a lot of troops. Those Panthers are tough, even struggled to take them out at 460 metres using 76mm Shermans. Never got to the infantry phase, so didn't have to conquer any of the crossings.

Here's how I see the best options for the defender. Sorry about the graphical quality compared to your stuff, I'm doing this on a laptop in Paint, using a touchpad Yellow circles are potential places for strongpoints. Could be tanks, could be assault guns, could be HMGs with AT-gun backup. But it should not be an unsupported HMG, because then it's too easy to just roll up a tank and take it out. Distances seem short enough that most German AT-guns should have a decent chance against the armour. The strongpoint just north of the farm houses is not likely to survive long after it opens up. It's just supposed to be a single ambush HMG, probably hiding, without any foxholes (they just give away their position, as foxholes seem very easy to spot in CM, and they mostly protect against mortars anyway). Red squiggly lines are general purpose infantry positions. The parts of your squads that end up without MGs when you split them. They are mostly there to annoy the enemy and prevent him from moving through. 4 guys with rifles don't pack a lot of firepower, but the enemy can't afford to just rush past them in a forest. Ideally they should not be sitting straight at the wood edges, or if they do, it should just be for spotting, and then move a bit inside the trees if they start to take fire. X Y Z are the key positions, as I see it. Well, that felt good to get off my chest. I'm no expert by any means, it just seems like an interesting map With your horde of SMG troops, the German player's success will largely depend on how well he keeps you at a distance, and how well he deals with your armour.

I really want to start drawing lines on the map, but it's a bit of a bother to download the image to my computer, then draw on it, then upload it to web storage, then link it on the forum. Is there any webpage where this can be done more easily somehow? Nevermind, just realised we can upload images straight into the new forum

I meant that mounted machineguns such as the MG42 should (ideally!) be kept at around 1000 metres distance - if possible. On this map, that's not possible, but he could have placed them much further away from Western Woods. Mounted HMGs have a maximum range of 2000 metres in this game, but I think they reach their optimum balance around 800-1000 metre mark. They will of course also hit their targets if you place them closer than that, but then the targets will start to shoot back much better than at longer ranges. HMGs are not "bad" at close ranges, but they lose their specific advantage. It looks like he set up his long-range HMGs about 150-200 from the western woods. That's well inside rifle range, and that's a really bad matchup for him. If he had placed them at 300-400 metre range, rifle lethality would have dropped a lot, but you might still be able to suppress him. If he had placed the MGs even further back, it would have started to become unfeasible to suppress them with rifles either. Looks like there are some potential keyhole positions with about 5-600 metre lines of fire? Simply not enough bullets would be able to hit close enough to maintain suppression levels. In any case, it's a bit of a moot point because your tanks will do the job. So, should he have left those woods north of Western Woods empty? No, I don't think so, but he could have placed troops with unmounted MGs or rifle infantry, even SMGs there, just enough to annoy you and delay you while maneuvering himself or just calling down mortars on you.

I think there might actually be some truth to it, in a roundabout way. The main factor is amount of grenades, as you say. But if you split a squad into three teams, then each team gets its own share of the squad's total grenades. So, each team will likely be stingy with them (unless one of them is an assault team, which gets nearly all of the squad's grenades). But if you keep the squad together and advance by the assault command, then each team will count the squad's total grenades when it comes to deciding whether to throw them. At least that's my theory...

Seems like Carbide Carbide is basically the middle portion of the Huzzar! map. Weird thing by the way: the jeep-mounted recon troops you get don't have binoculars... Oh, and you get 4 (four!) sets of priest artillery standing by, but not a single forward observer, and the whole map, extremely well made and natural looking as it is, is one big undulating hedgerow tangle with very very limited LOS Not sure how to use those assets really..

I've actually been wondering lately if they feel more inclined to throw grenades when on an assault order... would make a lot of sense if it works like that.

I keep thinking about this mission and what I would have done, both on attack and defense... your opponent seems to be doing all kinds of mistakes. His HMGs are too far forward. Should be kept at 800-1200 metres distance, keyholed and protected by guns or armour. He's just letting you blow his MGs to bits with your tanks at leisure, heck, it even looks like he placed them close enough to the treeline where your guys are that your rifle troops can do some work.

Well maybe I should have made it more clear that I'm the only guy here still living in the CM stone age

So that's why I can't find it. I was asking about scenarios for the CMBN base game.

Nothing comes up when I search for that in the Repository.. where might I find it?

Question: Will troops throw grenades using Target Light? Because when I send in an assault team, I don't want the leader to area fire with his SMG, to save ammo, and also to keep it ready for if any enemy pops up. Nothing worse than charging in and then having the leader stop to reload and get shot by a pistol.

That's interesting, especially in forest. I often end up with many small teams trying to leapfrog carefully, and if they can kill each other with grenades... well it might be better to keep them as one squad then, instead of splitting them.

I agree, historical battles are the most interesting to me as well. But often, we don't know exactly where the enemy positions were, and how the landscape was exactly (trees, bushes, hedges, walls..) so the designer has to come up with a lot of the details. And that's where it often goes wrong. Bocage, for example. Yes, it was an obstacle in real life, but don't tell me there's not a single place where infantry can squeeze through, for 500 metres of bocage...

I stand corrected, then. Never saw this happen, myself. Maybe I just always assumed any unusual explosions must have been enemy grenades. However it seems that my point stands for grenades once they are thrown, so grenades can't bounce back from a wall and hurt your troops at least.

Sometimes, it's even worse: There's a declitiy, as you say, but it's so slight that it's not visible by inspection. The wheat field just north of the ambush houses in Eroudeville is an example of this. There's no LOS to the other side even though it appears there should be.

In this game, hand grenades cannot cause friendly casualties.

I know this is pretty shameless, but I'd like to nominate my own scenario http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-battles-for-normandy/crossroads-at-pierrefitte-en-cinglais/ I spent a very long time adjusting it to recreate the village according to the aerial photo, even down to individual trees and bushes. Not saying it's better than the fine work of many of the talented scenario designers here, but hey, I'm proud of this one

I think as a designer, there's a big temptation to make very difficult scenarios. I know, because I've designed a scenario myself, and I clearly felt that urge to turn up the difficulty for the player simply because I got the "me VS the player" feeling. But that's something to be suppressed, I think. The purpose of a scenario should be to be fun to play. And not every battle in real life was a "saving private Ryan intro scene"..