danfrodo

Reminds of the 60 minutes show from 20 some years ago where they made a big scandal out of Bradley's not being able to take tank fire. Considering they weren't designed to take tank fire. Also, SimpleSimon, have you been watching me play? That sounds like one of my infantry attacks exactly.

As Bud Backer said, this can be easily won with the forces at hand. And it can be won many different ways. It's not like those games where there's just on magical answer sewn into the scenario. For experienced 'commanders' this is an easy clearing of a roadblock. The german troops can be seen from far away. We have mortars (there's mortars, right?). That's a tricky one for new users, getting arty called in and on target, but it becomes 2nd nature after a while. Most Normandy scenarios there's too much foliage, hedgerows, etc, to see far enough ahead. The germans here can be seen. So they can be killed. If the AT gun can be surpressed w machine gun/mortar fire, a tank can more into position to blast that area into oblivion. but be careful, there might be more than one AT gun, so try to get the tank peeking through somewhere that only gives an angle for that one area. Oh, and remember that Shermans can fire smoke. They can mask movement of men or tanks into position such that when the smoke clears you have clear shots at AT gun. He might get one of you, but he won't get two.

All well said about the 1000km front, etc. I would add that at some places there were lots of PAKs, tanks, etc. Those are the places we play in the game. The parts of the front that were poorly defended were of course more numerous, but aren't much fun to play, and were generally not the important places, usually due to being poor areas for transportation/movement. AT guns would be concentrated at strategic/tactically important areas, just as would be more troops, tanks, etc. There were certainly very wide stretches of terrain w no AT guns at all, probably just covered by patrols if at all. But the important roads, etc, those would be have some nasty defenses set up. This is how the Soviets were always able to make bridgeheads across rivers.-- the germans couldn't defend the whole river line in strength. Happened all the time.

and to this excellent list I might add OBSERVATION. look for unit w binoculars (split the squad if part of a bigger squad). Put the minimum men w binoculars at places where you can look toward your objectives and hopefully you can start spotting the bad guys. Recon makes a big difference. Send smallest possible forces forward first. Just don't send me out on point Sir, I don't want to die

Lots of good advice here. One thing you will notice is that most experienced users will play turn-based, not real time. I thought I wanted real time, but turn based is actually way more fun because you can replay from anywhere. That will also help you with time management. And remember that if there's a nice, easy path to you objective then the enemy knows that too and is waiting for you. That's a big part of these scenarios -- the enemy is set up in pretty clever ways, striking you suddenly as you move into some restricted field of fire they've set up.

I played MOW:AS2 for a long time, was really glad when I switched to this game. It can be very difficult because it's very realistic. Fortunately you very easily modify a scenario, which I did a lot as a beginner. I would add extra tanks & men so that I could be more successful despite being a novice. Stick with it, you will get better. And if a scenario is too hard, just add some more stuff and try it again. Also, you can do quick battles, choosing meeting engagements and giving yourself more stuff (there's a setting for that). The human can win those more easily because you can move faster, get into position and blast away while the enemy is moving up. Kinda fun sometimes, really

ranges in this game are much more realistic. MOW:AS2 had very unrealistic ranges, so one could maneuver quite easily. Here, if AT gun/tank can see you, it can take shots at you. Remember that most tank combat takes place at around 400m or more. 200m is basically point blank range for guns.

I am guessing that this year Canada, Britain, and France are considered the greatest enemies of the USA?

anyone read the two short volumes of "DDAY through German Eyes"? Two of the interviewed soldiers had the same experience -- they were captured and brought to the beach and asked "where are all the horses?". One asked US soldiers this and they all started laughing.

Hear, Hear DougPhresh. Well said. Yes, Tigers are great fun. But they are expensive, unreliable, slow, guzzle insane amounts of precious fuel, and bog easily. They can't cross most bridges (why does the T34 85 have relatively light armor? -- because at ~30 tons it could cross most bridges, not bog, etc). Otto Carius' book has him spending half his time trying to unbog his precious tiger. In a CM battle, the Tigers are already there, have fuel and ammo, and are running. Which is quite nice when I am the German side, I must say.

I just read Tomb of the PanzerWaffe, about German offensives in Jan-March1945 in Hungary. Russians had a lot of AT guns, and lots were destroyed in every battle. And defenses were in great depth whenever there was time to prepare. Clearly by 1945 the Russians had learned quite a few things. AT guns are very vulnerable in CM. AT guns are very vulnerable in real life.

Blood Forest looks very interesting and gets rave reviews. Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, no German. My grandfathers would perhaps be ashamed to know this (my grandfathers and one grandmother came from Germany/Austria-Hungary ~100 years ago. One grandfather fought on Russian front it WW1.

I have Ben Kane on my wishlist. Looks like I need to go there ASAP! Maybe this site needs military history / historical fiction book review thread?

so very true. WEGO seems archaic -- until you play it and realizes it totally rules over real time for vast majority of fights.

Thanks, helpful tips!

Vindolanda/Encircling Sea are set in Britain, ~80AD I think. Very 'Bernard Cornwell' type of story telling.

Bud Backer, Which of his history books do you like best? I haven't decided on where to start w those.

Super cool, thanks for sharing. I just went on a Roman reading binge: Vindoland & The Encircling Sea, historical fiction by excellent historian Goldsworthy. And also The Storm Before the Storm, history of the late republic -- super well told, reads like a novel. Makes Game of Thrones look like Candyland.

All these games are great, but BN big bundle is the best place to start IMO. Lots of choices, lots of battles that are less complex (and lots that are very), lots of infantry-only fights, lots of tank fights. You really can't make a 'wrong' choice. In the long run you'll own them all anyway if this is the sort of gaming you like. I have all the WW2 titles and will be getting the new RT & FI upgrades immediately when they come out. Will get BS when I run out of WW2 -- which will take forever at the rate I get to play.

Ah, I think I know the problem. I ran it from wrong place, thinking it would ask me what campaign to unpack. Thanks!

Hi my Battlefront friends, Any chance you would ever provide a tool to extract scenarios from campaigns? For me, it would provide increased value for CM. I see there's some that have been made but they don't work on my PC, and seem kinda complicated. I don't have a ton of time to play and would sure like more great scenarios to pick & choose from. I don't see why this doesn't exist already actually. Any chance of this in the future? I'd even pay some money for it Thanks, Dan

what is a 'java virtual machine' that is needed to run this?

old thread here, but trying to run this and no joy. Are they any other resources for getting scenarios out of campaigns? I've tried cm_uncam and this.

I tried running this but it just flashes a window & crashes. Anyone else see this? Do I just double click on it or do I need to run from command line? Certain version of python or some such needed, perhaps?

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