Bubba883XL

Buy it while it is available. Superb book.

i just grabbed this, quick look shows awesome detail on the battles etc. they have great book son thier website. waiting for endkampf to get back in stock also.

My wife has three good looking sisters. None of them is as beautiful as my wife. In her presence they all look average and plain. I guess it's the same with the Jagdpanzer IV L70 and the Jagdpanzer IV L/70 (A). 😀

YES!!! To the 251/22...thank you for including this vehicle...😍
and how can you say the jagdpanzer IV L 70 (A) ugly????>!!! its my favourite vehicle! lol 
Good luck for the battle!

Those Start books have been a great resource. There's also the updated version of "Bloody Streets" that has started shipping (I think it just arrived). The first edition sold out very quickly (lucky to get one way back when, it was a primary source for the FR module), so order now! I'm happy they re-released it, as it is by far the best source of the military operations in Berlin during the battle.

yes,yes.
more more screenshoots

Soviet SMGs are great for defending complex buildings. 

Great selection of vehicles, especially the 251/22 and the 234/4, but also the Jagdpanzer IV (not the ugly one 😀). Please be careful with them! 🙂
And that Pz III will come in handy, I'm sure.
Good to see progress too.
 

Those two vehicles in the screenshot were:
SWP 251/22 Ausf D - 75mm L/46 Pak 40
and
PSW 234/4 - 75mm L/46 Pak 40
 

Probably a Sd.Kfz.250/10 or 251/10 (with 37mm PAK) or maybe the Sd.Kfz. 250/11 (with 28mm ATR).

Huh? 
The Sd.Kfz.251/22 was a last ditch attempt at a panzerjager and it didn't enter service until 1945.

(Budbaker has his comics… but I’m not an artist so expect memes)
Welcome to the Fire and Rubble German DAR as I take on BFCElvis and his pesky Soviets in a very late war May 1945 urban engagement in Berlin… and it’s somehow snowing. The war has effectively ended but my guys didn’t get the memo, so our adhoc combined arms force is going to push forward into no man’s land one last time.
The mission is a simple meeting engagement. Secure Objective Jägermeister and Objective Berliner Weisse, while holding our own starting Objective, codenamed Vodka. The Soviets deploy around Jägermeister.
The map is a very small slice of Benpark’s absolute monster 2x master maps covering the centre of Berlin. Honestly each master map with no units took my PC around 25 mins just to load in 3D preview mode. The part of Berlin we’ll be fighting over is towards the north east corner of the eastern map. If I’ve got my bearings right, I think we’re close to Alexander Platz and a hostel I stayed at back in 2017… I digress.

The map from above. Well... the right way up because I'm from Australia... (I took the picture looking south <facepalm>)

 
The forces…
To show off the variety of new kit I’ve done away with forming a coherent force for a little bit of everything. Command and control is going to suck.
These small forces are organised into small kampfgruppes of between a platoon to a company in strength.
KG @benpark – In honour of the mapmaker himself, he commands the central force which is a company of Waffen SS Pioneers with enough demolition charges to level a few of his meticulously placed buildings. Part of his force will however need to remain behind to cover Obj Vodka if it all falls apart. The bulk of the force will advance. (Benpark's force highlighted in the picture below).
KG @mjkerner – Commands the Fallschirmjager who will be the main infantry force trying to take and hold Obj Berliner Weisse. (Picture of the KG that will take the beer objective).
 

KG @Hapless – Will be working in tandem with KG Mjkerner to secure the beer. This adhoc Panzer Platoon (more on that later) includes a Panther, PzIV’s and a PzIII. Yep a PzIII. For all the grief I gave poor Steve I had to include at least one in the DAR.
KG @DoubleD – The other adhoc Panzer Platoon is kitted out with 2x JzPz IV/70’s (including one of the ugly versions), a Panther and a Panzer IV. They will be initially responsible to heading up my left flank to get into a good position to effectively cut the map in half. Oh and something new...
 

KG @Bootie – The local Volkssturm unit. Initially will be responsible to provide security to KG DoubleD who will be exposed in an urban environment.
KG @Josey Wales – The adhoc Armoured Car unit. Will be holding back for the moment but will be used as a mobile reserve depending on the situation. Oh and some weird ones...

And I’ve just noticed a bug. Every single unit is set to typical/default ‘Green’ experience. The joys of betas.
 
The Enemy
We’ve picked forces in the editor and not the quick battle generator so some variety can be included in the DAR – particularly on this side. Benpark has ensured it’s roughly balanced. I’m expecting a solid Battalion (+) of Soviet infantry coming at me and probably a company or more of tanks. Probably Lend Lease heavy….
We’ve sort of agreed to avoid major spending on off board assets and focus more on the visible units.
 
Da Plan
KG Mjkerner and Hapless have the initial glory as they race to secure Obj Berliner Weisse, (Green and blue). If Hapless can get his tanks into position first it will be a big help as we wait for the foot slogging infantry to catch up.
KG DoubleD probably has the most crucial task of trying to cut the map in two, (Red). That major street running through the centre of the map will be key. It’s closer to BFCElvis’ deployment zone so I’m expecting Soviet tanks to roll past it or already be on that road by the time I arrive. But if I can split up to Soviet armoured force or I’m real lucky and BFCElvis plays cautious and leads with his infantry DoubleD’s JzPzIV’s will have a field day.
KG Bootie (white) and his Volkssturm will cover KG DoubleD, while KG Benpark (orange) will advance with the intent of pressuring Jagermeister. KG Josey Wales will remain behind in the deployment zone ready to move to where he and his armoured cars are required. Either helping Benpark around Obj Jagermeister, or to backup Hapless and Mjkerner around Obj Berliner Weisse.
The map….

That’s about it for now. Feel free to post any queries below but obviously no promises that I’m allowed to answer anything. Also, the usual caveat that all screenshots you see here are taken from a beta so everything you see is subject to change. I’ll try to avoid the placeholder art where I can but who knows, maybe we’ll have purple Panzer IV’s in the final build.

see, no schurtzen at all...very cool...

You chose some interesting Pz.IV pictures there, George.....The first one looks to be a command tank and the closest tank in the second picture looks very much like an early production Pz.IV Ausf J. 

For nigh on ten years now my biggest projects have always been my portrait mods. I have invested weeks and months on end, that have added up to hundreds and hundreds of hours of time and frustration creating them. I have made easily over ten thousand portraits, through trial and error, redesign, and updates. It's been a true struggle at times, and I am never happy with the outcome, though I'll say I am, once a project is complete. But I am always fighting the design decisions I started with way back in SF1 and it's hamstrung me artistically. After the FB portraits I decided I wanted to redo all the portraits for all the titles (the BN mod is long over do for an update) . So, after a long hiatus, I set about trying to get to someplace that would finally make me happy. I decided to start with RT to get ahead of the module release, and after a week or so of fiddling, resizing, making test bmps, and checking in game, this is what I came up with.

For about two seconds I thought they looked good. But once again I was confronted by the poor design decisions I adopted all those years ago. You see, I have been in a constant fight with what I term the "bobble head effect", which causes the portrait heads to appear bulbous and fat-headed. It occurs because I opted to show each portrait with a split face on the bmp. It has been my bane since my BN mod and it frustrates me to no end. And considering how I built each face from screenshots, pieces of faces from all sorts of pictures, and the fact I only worked on the left side of the face, well it doesn't leave me room for presenting them in any other way. And On top of all that, I have always felt there was inconsistency in the quality of the faces, and that they appeared too cartoony.  So with that said, I am putting these portrait mods to rest. I have taken them as far as they will go and they have reached a dead end. They had a good run but there really isn't anything more I can do to improve them.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Now, check out what I have been doing for the last two weeks and tell me I didn't make the right decision...



Now for some comparisons of the old style and the new.


 
Now the portraits in the context of their own mod. It'll give you an idea of the overall design.


 
And within the context of the game UI.


 
Some of the portraits are tentative/place holders until I find something that really blows me away. Or will be replaced later. The Heer Armor and Armor Infantry come to mind as far as that goes. Luckily I haven't made anything yet with them, just tests.
Now, unfortunately I will probably have to share a lot of the portraits (mostly Germans) across games, however backgrounds and the like will be changed for each setting.  And I will of course do all the battalions and regiments etc. Whether or not I will be able to keep the quality across titles remains to be seen but I will do my best. It is going to be a colossal amount of work, already has been. For the Germans alone I have created and discarded over a thousand portraits. LOL. Every time I think I have one down and start producing keepers, I stumble across a better pic, or I adjust some color to better fit the portrait into the overall look and I have to redo a ton of work. I just replaced the Heer Infantry yesterday, now I have to redo 374 that I had already made, as well as the SS Arm Infantry. I have done this a couple times already. But getting it right is what's most important. Perfection is what I am aiming for.
I don't know how long it will take. Getting the right pics is painstaking and laborious as hell. For every good one I make I throw out five. But this style will be the definitive version of my portrait mods from here on out. As I complete them I will remove the old versions from the planet. I'll start threads in the corresponding game forums as I progress.
Welp, that's about it. I was gonna keep all this to myself and wait to surprise everyone, but I have been working in a vacuum for a month and it feels good to talk a little bit about it. Especially as I have been going full bore, night and day for two weeks straight. I Hope you guys like what you see. I think it's the best work I have ever done.

Mord.
 

Fortunately, there's YT. Am absolutely baffled as to how they maneuvered this particular tank with no one in the cupola nor any evidence of rear view mirrors, though they may've been lost to me in the tremendous amount of visual clutter and excitement. It's easy to see how one could be mistaken as a Tiger 1. To me, a IV/H in full array like this one is one of the most marrtial looking tanks ever.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

But even if BFC can't get it out until 2021, I still wish them Green Grass and High Tides...
even

The CMFI TO&E, in particular, would resemble an encyclopedia if entirely printed out. I was going to suggest doing screenshots of the force picker in the editor, but that doesn't get down to the details of number of soldiers per platoon and how large the HQ is. You need to view the units in 3-D to count how many lmgs  in a squad.

A little love for the British.
 

 
 

 
 

 
Mord.

I find the best way to use them is to destroy or bombard nests of resistance from as far as possible. You really don't want them facing against something that can fire back, even lying in ambush against tanks, it would be best for them to get out of sight as soon as possible after the first shot or two. They are a force multiplier for your panzergrenadiers, not a force unto themselves.

Hey;  leave CMSF2 out of your drunken ramblings! 😀
That was awesome fan service for owners of the original. Very much appreciated by many here including myself.
Otherwise, I'm not to sure what you mean by too big & complicated... what would you have them release instead?

Google Earth is a pretty good resource for the Ardennes because the place hasn't changed very much. Google Earth is useless in other regions because your battle field is now highways and shopping malls and suburban tract housing.

A few more

A few Panthers