Raging Al

We won’t really know until final TO&Es are put in but we had planned pretty much the full gambit of UK units - if it was in the BAOR or had a chance to get pulled in, we put it in for submission to the game.  For the Canadians, I basically recreated 4 CMBG from the old ‘76 redesign - beefed it up some and tried to get some cool stuff put in.
Not sure I can post much more than this - BFC has a pretty uptight policy until we get the thing entirely baselined.

Swingfire is on the list.  Now whether we can get it developed for in-game is another question.   The good news is that its firing profile is not that different from a Javelin...but resources and time etc.

I see the rabble are getting roused.  We all appreciate the enthusiasm, we really do. As to updates, well I can echo what Steve has already said - we are aiming to have this DLC out this year.  As to progress, well data and research are largely complete (few things left but not biggies).  Maps for the major campaigns are built (I showed off a few and one was used in that CM tourney).  Campaigns are essentially designed and waiting for the kit.  Equipment lists are done, we will likely be haggling these to the finish line.
So over all scope, scale and background are all defined.  What we are waiting for now is the second longest pole in any content creation tent - artwork/modelling.  This is where stuff gets drawn and actually put into the game.  Once we get enough of that we start rolling on really putting it all together, which in the case of BAOR should be pretty quick, but we still need to do testing and polishing.  We still have a features debate - what is in or out features-wise but that will be sorted quickly.
So the short answer is “sometime this year” and we are fairly far along.  Now it is a matter of getting very few critical people’s time to deliver their end and we can then pull it al together.  No Star Citizen, conspiracy or subterfuge, only limited resources available and waiting in line.

True, I also think that there is a plethora of people that would enjoy the challenge difficulties of early war, especially with the German Forces as their tanks were... say on Par with Allied tanks, not a real advantage, and the Soviets would definitely be a major challenge, from AT rifles to the obvious T-34, and KV tanks.  All in all I think the early war is more exciting as far as historical battles and just pure challenge.

I've wanted CMx2 40-41 in the desert more than anything else.
They're just not going to put in the time and effort to create it since Steve says sales wouldn't justify it.
He certainly knows better than I do, but I'll keep hoping and dreaming of the day when I can once again enjoy the thrill of Crap Tanks™ in the desert blazing away at ludicrous distances and missing constantly.

I’m really hoping for early war, especially France 1940 and the Balkans campaign up to the fall of Crete in ‘41.   Various Cruiser marks and Matildas for the Brits; Char B’s, Somua’s, Renaults etc for the French; Pz Mk l, II, 35t’s for the Germans.  No big HE chuckers, so that ATG’s have a fighting chance.  
But if that’s too ambitious, I’d happily accept the Western Desert campaigns over the same period.

Exactly one year after the first announcement, the project is now finished. In order to avoid
misunderstandings on the part of the company Battlefront.com, I chose the name CampaignPack 😎.
The pack (as described in former threads) consists of 5 campaigns in which the player is thrown
into the events of the summer of 1944 in the sector of the German Army Group Center.
In total you will play minium 52 single missions, maximum 55 single missions (depending on one
branch). To avoid technical problems, I didn't add any mods to the campaigns. But I can, for example,
highly recommend the excellent work of @JM Stuff, especially his extraordinary mod collection of vehicles
and wrecks 👍
I recently visited the forum regularly to stay in touch with people who wanted to register. However, I have
asked the people at Battlefront.com several times to delete my profile.  This request has not yet been
granted to me, so as a quasi "undead" I will always stop by - but I will no longer take part in any discussions
or answer any questions in the forum. To get in touch with me, please write to me at:
E-Mail: f-s-zbg@web.de.😎
Of course, I can still send the campaign pack to anyone interested.
 
So all I can say is:
It was a great pleasure for me to finish this project and share it with many people.
I hope you have as much fun playing as I did creating it 🙏
 
Best regards
Mr.X 

Hi all, its been a while... in fact so long that I had to create a new account for the Forums... Anywho I started revamping some of my old work so it will play better in Game Engine 4.x and also I am back to creating some new scenarios (some fictional, some semi-historical)... Also redid my Combat Mission Site (haven't touched it in 7 years)... Since I lost touch with all the people that use to playtest for me I ask if you have feedback; Good, Bad, and/or Ugly that you submit that via the Feedback button in the site's menu... I have done extensive testing on the vs. AI battles but, the Head to Heads I have not been able to test... Well I am active again, who knows for how long but I do have a lot of time on my hands and a lot of scenarios/campaigns on the production schedule...  You can check every thing out at Fredrockers Combat Mission Site ... Enjoy

Maybe early war stage period? Like France or Poland.

BF have always pooh poohed chances of early war or NA as apparently those theaters didn't sell well.  But, maybe if increasing numbers of our voices asking for those keep rising...

I’m really hoping for early war, especially France 1940 and the Balkans campaign up to the fall of Crete in ‘41.   Various Cruiser marks and Matildas for the Brits; Char B’s, Somua’s, Renaults etc for the French; Pz Mk l, II, 35t’s for the Germans.  No big HE chuckers, so that ATG’s have a fighting chance.  
But if that’s too ambitious, I’d happily accept the Western Desert campaigns over the same period.

How about having a little more hope. Like CMx3 BEING CREATED AND IT WILL PICK UP WHERE CMx2 leaves off at. 
so continue to work back in WWII but also able to take what has been done in CMX2 and at a quicker pace convert those games into CMX3 versions.
I also wonder if what trends as the best period for sales will not change in the near future.
There is a reason as to what is the most possible period. What is the majority age of the buyers and where their interest lies.
For the younger groups that will become the majority of players in this hobby, they will determine what is the period of most interest. Not what the old guard likes, which is getting smaller all the time since age and health is taking them out.
 

I wouldn't mind if they just filled early war out with vehicle packs, scenario packs, or even map packs.  Could also give us a steadier stream stuff for the east front for example.

Please forgive me in advance for my extreme lack of knowledge on what to me seems to be and inordinate amount of time crank out these CM games. Steve mentioned 10 years ago that it took to complete CMBN, Yeah, that's right. I retired 13 years ago, and I was playing it before then. The business model involved in the development and all the computer work required and all the research that goes into these titles to me seems somewhat staggering. I was in Law Enforcement for almost thirty years, and I spent a lot of time investigating traffic accidents and other criminal activity. While I am in no way making a comparison to my prior work than what the Battlefront folks are doing is to say this. The dedication and hard work that is put into these "games" that we all love so much, certainly for me and I'm sure for everyone else out there in "Battlefront" land is greatly appreciated. Whatever Steve and his coworkers decide to work on is fine with me. I own every title put out. I will conclude my remarks with this. I am 63 years old, and I hope to the Lord above I am around to see and "play" the next full installment of whatever it might be.

Aye, I am the person responsible for this work. It's one of the very late battles of the war, featuring Kriegsmarine defenders. They put up a fight, as the original poster found out. It's also playable from the German side, with 3 plans per side. Maybe he got the Ultra Tough one.
To those that struggle through it, and need Cliff Notes:
Smoke is available, use it if needed. There's plenty of artillery available. There's also 2 flame-throwing Wasps that, if you aren't charging at everything can make short work of anyone in strong points.
Otherwise: I don't make puzzle scenarios. This area of Northern Germany is largely as flat as Holland. I've been generous, as to the cover in the design. It's flat, and largely treeless save along the water areas. The terrain is made from a period map and images from the actual area - as close as I could get to the real deal.

Why did I do a weird little scenario like 'Das Hochwasser'? While researching likely battle locations I came upon the picture below. Operation Grenade, the US crossing the Roer river. Conditions looked so miserable that I wanted to try a scenario to match.
You know those famous WWII Bulge battle photos of tanks covered in heavy snow? That snow happened after the battle in January. Photos were taken once combat photographers dared to return to the field. What came after the snow? Torrential rain that melted all the snow cover, flooded the countryside and made forward progress... uh... difficult. To add to the misery the Germans also sabotaged two Roer dams upstream. So, I concluded, this title needs an engagement on flooded ground. 😬

There isn't a listing for the big maps I made for the DF module included anywhere, but I'll attach some images of each them here for some visual reference for people looking to use them for their own purposes. These were either chopped up for the campaigns, QB's, and for the Rethem scenario that I made. There's a good deal of territory that wasn't used, as well.
Rethem:

Cologne/Koln:

Heister:

Kleve/Materborn:

Remagen:

Kranenburg:

Erft Kanal:

Elsdorf:

Yeah, that will teach them a lesson. 😄
Here's a thought. After BF has finally closed business (and long mey they rule), NO ONE will ever produce this kind of complicated and labour intensive wargames anymore. So let's praise ourselves lucky we've already got his much.

Thanks for the update, Steve.  Downfall pre-ordered and looking forward to part 2 with bated breath.  
 
I’m another player who’d love to see early war CM, if it ever happens, but I’ll continue to purchase whatever else you guys release in the meantime.  Keep up the great work.

I had pulled a bunch of screenshots for the guys but I don't know which they're going to use. So I'll post a couple of my favorites here to whet your appetite.
First, a tank I lobbied hard to get into the game - uparmored Sherman! One of a number of late war M4A3E8s that went through a field modification program that literally doubled the bow armor (which is now thicker than the Jumbo's). They acted as substitute/additional Jumbos in field units.
 
 

Here's screenshots #2 and 3. Maybe they'll eventually show up on an official screenshots site, maybe not. Late war M4A1 Sherman 76 and Pershing during some QB city fighting. Battling Jagdtigers
 

I'm right there with you. I can hardly wait for Battlefront to get around to covering the early-war period. In part because I find all military history fascinating, so I will always advocate for any period that I feel is underrepresented in wargaming. In part because I have a particular love for early-war tanks, such as the R-35 and Panzer 2. And in part because I believe that giving people an opportunity to experience this period for themselves will do much to bust the myth that these early campaigns were a complete walkover for the Germans at the tactical level. Despite the speed of the German advance on the operational level, the small scale fighting at the tactical level was much less one-sided than most people realize. For example, while the German army as a whole was basically unstoppable in Poland in 1939, there were no shortage of occasions in which individual tank attacks were stopped cold by Polish anti-tank guns. And there were even a handful of moderately successful Polish counterattacks.
But, they'll get there. Impatience does us no good. Battlefront made the call to finish up the late-war period first. And whether or not you think that was the optimal call, I don't think any reasonable person could argue that the late war period wasn't also worth covering. Now that they have finished up the late-war period we can be very confident that future work will start incrementally rolling the clock backwards until they reach the beginning of the war (there will probably be more Battle Packs covering certain late-war campaigns in greater detail, but future modules and base games will certainly be going backwards from here on out). I'm hopeful that they'll get back to the beginning of the war before the 1st of September 2039 (I definitely intend to start another chronological CM playthrough around this date).

I guess you did an actual poll, market research or similar about that?
So maybe this works with a mostly US based audience. For me personally Downfall and also to a lesser degree Fire & Rubble feels like the Allies get an extension of timeline so they can play around with their shiney toys. But that really feels like the only reason for me because contrary to, say, the Bulge, historically the whole fighting by that point was totally pointless. And tactically I don't see what it reall adds.
This is very subjective on my side and it may be because I'm German. Don't get me wrong, this is not about me being butthurt here.
I'd much rather see France 1940, not because Germany won this time but because it would add so many new tactical challenges (armor and gun wise inferior German tanks but with better mobility for example, instead of unicorn tanks for late war battles).

At "A Few Good Men" I am hosting my 5th and 6th Tournament and sign ups are now.
A person will need all modules of CMBN or CMSF2
 
You would be commiting to play in a Tournament that requires you to play one battle at a time, 
they are generally 30 turn battles and require you to have a turn rate of 5 turns per week.
These battles are scenarios and are locked, you will be playing them blind, your forces are selected for you.
You will be competing against those players playing the same side. The top 50% of the players receive 
points for each round as to how they did vs the other players playing the same side.
 
This is a 5 round Tournament, five scenarios, each lasting two months approx., So the Tournament last 10 months.
We only want Mature players, you are expected to finish all rounds, keep communications going when your away for more than a few days.
Handle being beat in a battle where you might have a terrible situation handed to you. Play with all sorts of different forces, play both defence and offence.
Be ready to handle the unexpected.
If you do not hold up to being a mature player, You are removed from the Tournament  and I blacklist you from my events for life, So dont bother to join if you cannot 
handle these things. I dont need you on my wall of shame list.

At "A Few Good Men" I am hosting my 5th and 6th Tournament and sign ups are now.
A person will need all modules of CMBN or CMSF2
 
You would be commiting to play in a Tournament that requires you to play one battle at a time, 
they are generally 30 turn battles and require you to have a turn rate of 5 turns per week.
These battles are scenarios and are locked, you will be playing them blind, your forces are selected for you.
You will be competing against those players playing the same side. The top 50% of the players receive 
points for each round as to how they did vs the other players playing the same side.
 
This is a 5 round Tournament, five scenarios, each lasting two months approx., So the Tournament last 10 months.
We only want Mature players, you are expected to finish all rounds, keep communications going when your away for more than a few days.
Handle being beat in a battle where you might have a terrible situation handed to you. Play with all sorts of different forces, play both defence and offence.
Be ready to handle the unexpected.
If you do not hold up to being a mature player, You are removed from the Tournament  and I blacklist you from my events for life, So dont bother to join if you cannot 
handle these things. I dont need you on my wall of shame list.