Bulletpoint

In Normandy, what I often face is this situation: A wheat field with bocage on both ends. The wheat often prevents LOS from one bocage hedge to the other, so you can't set up a base of fire. When you enter the field, you enter the LOS of the enemy, and as you can only filter into the field from the little bocage gaps, that means you get shot to pieces before you can start to return fire. I'm wondering if the best approach would be to SLOW troops some distance into the field, not enough to take forever and exhaust them, but enough so that they can then suddenly all "pop up" and start shooting, while more troops then rush into the field to conduct basic fire and maneuver.

Maybe his chef has a technical problem..

I wish infantry would not use their bazookas against infantry unless the target is inside a building or bunker.

If the game had the option to save the whole battle as one big replay, we could then just post that, instead of all the little annotated screenshots. Then people could load the battle and see it play out in real time. I know it's been suggested before, but it sure would come in handy with big operations like this, where people are trying to keep an eye on the big picture and at the same time follow the outcome of many individual battles.

I second that, was about to post the exact same thing. Also, we need more maps that are not "puzzle maps". Try to design the map first, making it look and feel like a real place, then set up the defenders. I hate maps where the designer forces me down some path, using hedgerows, walls, etc to make sure I can't do anything else than what he had in mind.

This map seems very open, with all the houses some distance apart, and without much in the way of hedges, bushes, walls etc to break up line of sight. As such, it really favours tanks, because you can bring them to bear on pretty much any part of town without too much trouble.. Were towns in really that open spaced in the Netherlands in WW2?

After playing for some years, I now feel I have a pretty good understanding of the problems and opportunities of the various terrain types. However, I never really got my head around how to go about wheat fields. I find it very difficult to predict their effect on LOS. If you crawl through them, you're well hidden, but they are usually too big to crawl across. If you run across them, you will take fire from defenders on the other side, but when you then drop down to return fire, you can't see a damn thing. So, what it boils down to is: I see wheat as a very defensive terrain type, and I avoid it like the plague on the attack. But are there any tricks that I haven't thought of, to turn this terrain to my advantage as the attacker?

Thanks for making this Bud, I just finished reading through it now. Enjoyed it, seems a lot improved compared to your first outing. (tanks are now causing the rrrummmmbbbling, not the general war, etc.) A few things I noticed: Sometimes, you switch the camera angle around, that's a bit confusing. For example, on your first page, the hero is presented facing right, then on the second panel, the squad is facing left. The human mind assumes that those guys must be some other people (or the enemy). It's like in movies, when two people are having a conversation, they face each other, one faces right, the other left, as the camera cuts between them. If one of them suddenly changes direction, it's very distracting. Despite your efforts at translation, in one of the panels, the Germans shout "nooooo" - surely that would be Nein! It kind of ends very abruptly. I know you were letting the actual battle dictate, but maybe you could have focused more on elaborating the last couple of seconds to heighten the drama

Seems like you're having more success now. You are using your tanks much more aggressively than I do, and it's paying off. That panzerschrek team in the woods could have been trouble though, at that range. And the HQ squad in the building (wierd place for them really), I'm not sure if HQ squads ever carry panzerfausts, but driving straight up to them like that seems almost to have been asking for one

Actually I was thinking more about the recent discussion on Russian attack doctrine by JasonC...

Or do the authentic thing, since they are Russians.. select all your troops and give them one big assault command in the general direction of the enemy

Sure, sorry. It's my first scenario so I'm not into the routine yet It's called 'Crossroads at Pierrefitte-en-Cinglais'. Not sure if it's visible at the Repository yet, they state that they review all uploaded content before making it available. So might be a little while? Not sure how A Few Good Men work, maybe it's available there sooner... In any case I can send it to you directly by mail if you like. It's a tiny file size (107kb).

I now uploaded the scenario to A Few Good Men too.

Zipping it worked. But seriously - this is absurd.

Just tried to upload my scenario to the Repository, but it gives me this error: Why would .btt be a disallowed extension? It's the scenario file type. I did select to upload to "Battle for Normandy BASE GAME Scenarios and Campaigns"

I don't know about those fords, @Kohlenklau... terrain looks good, but there's not much cover, and it might be an opposed crossing!

I feel that once I start hand-picking my force for Quick Battle, I lose a big part of the fun. Because then it turns into a case of cherrypicking to maximise the efficiency, and it means I'd tend to only choose a small subset of the available units. In Normandy for example, I'd never rationally choose armoured infantry, because they are made for long range engangements, and lack the SMGs and automatic rifles for bocage fighting. I feel it's more fun to roll the dice and work with what you get (apart from those cases where the computer selects completely bizarre combinatons..) Of course not saying you must agree, just a couple of reflections.

It can definitely be intimidating at the setup, when everything's just mixed up like a bowl of spaghetti with the tanks as the meatballs. Once you finally sort everything out and get rolling, it tends to resolve, but until then it would be really nice if the game just automatically bunched formations according to their force structure.

But isn't that what people are noticing? That submachineguns are quite effective in the game even at the 200 metre range? Or am I reading the thread wrong?

Very true, and I always do that. But I'm talking about a mission where you get actual designated recon units and scout ahead with them first, until the main combat force arrives. Huzzar! seems to fit the bill. Just downloaded it and had a quick look at it. I was surprised to recognise the map from Carbide Carbide (one of my favorite scenarios)

The reason why I ask for a mission with a real recon phase is that I find that most of the recon elements are never really used as such. Even the missions that give you armoured cars and scout teams usually just ask you to fight with those. Then the enemy is dialed down accordingly to give the player a chance. Which means that the end result is the same as if the armoured cars had been tanks, and the enemy given bigger weapons. @PanzerMiller I haven't played that campaign. I'm not too keen on playing the Germans.

Contrary to popular belief, heads don't explode that often.

Maybe some of you already saw these, but they were new to me. Many incredible shots here. http://scalecombat.narod.ru/realwar/ww2photos.html

Thanks, I've found a "redux" version on the repository, but not sure if it's any good vs the AI, or if it's a H2H map? I'm just playing singleplayer these days.

Maybe he had bad luck with his PaKs because he was moving them locally? That voids the big concealment bonus for unmoved AT-guns.