Artkin

Hello fellow CMFIers,
I’ve just finished compiling my second campaign (battle series) called “The Buffalo Soldiers’ Ordeal” (all modules needed). It is a battle series that includes a prologue and 8 scenarios aiming to reproduce some of the events that took place on the western edge of the Gothic Line from 8 to 10 February 1945, during Operation Fourth Term.
The nine battles (to be used in conjunction with @kohlenklau's Buffalo mod) are:
0.    Prologue (Sommocolonia)
1.    Raiders on Highway One
2.    Strettoia
3.    Ordeal on the Plains
4.    Kesselring’s Ghosts
5.    Assault on Monte Folgorito
6.    Pushing to the Top
7.    Georgia on My Mind
8.    Castel Aghinolfi
Here are some pics to whet your appetite.

 

 

 
It is currently in a “pre-alpha” state and I’ll be soon testing it myself for the first time. It would be great if a couple of other players could test it as well. I’d just need to know some very general things, such as:
-    Is the battle too  short / too long? Map too big / too small?
-    Too many / too few troops?
-    Too easy / too difficult?
-    Any obvious mistakes?
-    General impressions / improvements suggested?
-    Etc.
It is a historical campaign but I'd still like it to be as enjoyable as possible. Drop me a line if interested.
Thanks in advance!
 

Korea 21st century, of course.

This is why unit dispersion is a thing. 

and after...

Firing unit was a M1 at 1600m 
H

Here are some preliminary screenshots of a master map I have been working on of the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan. It is roughly half done is by far the largest map I have ever tried to create. It will be 4160m wide and 2992m deep and it covers a variety of terrain including farm fields, waddies, compounds, villages, highlands and lowlands. There is tons of micro terrain to battle through and the map is for a future campaign for either the 82nd Airborne or Canadian forces, haven't made up my mind yet.
In Kandahar province, the Arghandab River flows south from the Afghan central mountains, passing just north of Kandahar City. Together with its various tributaries, the Arghandab irrigates the greater Kandahar area—including the Arghandab Valley, northern Panjwaii, Zhari and Maywand—before continuing westward to join the Helmand River immediately south of Lashkar Gah.  The Registan Desert lies south of Kandahar and the Arghandab. To the north, foothills and mountains of the Afghan central mountains separate Kandahar from Oruzgan province.  A highway runs southeast from Kandahar to the Spin Boldak-Chaman border crossing and thence to Quetta, Pakistan.  The Kandahar to Kabul section of the Afghan Ring Road stretches east and northeastward from Kandahar into Zabul and then Ghazni provinces.
Arghandab district is one of the most troublesome in Kandahar because of the level of insurgency and insecurity. The Taliban have taken control partial of complete control of the strategic district as they see it as a gateway to the city of Kandahar. It is strategic terrain given its proximity to Kandahar city (it is only fifteen kilometers to the north). It also offers natural defenses. Insurgents can hide from the air attacks of the ISAF Forces in the district’s fruit orchards. 
The map is as accurate as I can make it using satellite imagery and photographs though there will be some fictional farms and villages. The campaign I hope to create will hopefully be a different type of experience where the idea is your forces, based out of a FOB and a OP, are responsible to gaining control of the valley from the Taliban. The valley is a rich source of poppy harvests used to produce opium that the Taliban use to finance their insurgency. Your mission will be to secure the villages from the Taliban and win the hearts and minds of the local population.
If anyone has a preference of whether to have the 82nd or Canadian Forces you can chime in. Right now I am leaning towards the Canadians. The master map has a long way to go so it will be a future project.
Here is the link to the screenshots. I'll post more as it comes along.
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/utq8x5kmoyusg/Arghandab_River_Valley

The only problem people have is a lack of communication. That's it. Other developers share their progress, we're lucky if we get more than one update. 

To buy? Would Germany really agree to sell them in that time, when in 2014 they rejected to supply engines for BTR-4, because "it may cause more civilian deaths". And even in 2022 there were half years of discussions "will Russia nuke us if we give Leos?"

A stupid simple version is already completed, and I'm sure youll see it soon. It works great. 

A stupid simple version is already completed, and I'm sure youll see it soon. It works great. 

Well I've managed to get the dgm2cm tool to work. 
I can get satellite elevation data from anywhere in the world and apply it to CM now. 
If anyone would like to know how to do this process then I can help you. It's actually super simple. 

Frankly, the community can be somewhat gatekeep-y when spotting troubles are brought up, sometimes resorting to Olympics levels of mental gymnastics to justify why fairly plain to see issues "actually make sense".
But a save file is necessary to help make sense of this @SDG. It looks strange based on your pics, but there could still be factors which really do explain it satisfactorily. Looking at the pics though I can see that at least one crew is Green. Most American crews are at Veteran skill in FB, that's a significant advantage right there already.

Lets do it! 

Lets do it! 

Available from https://chacr.org.uk (The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, a think tank established for the British Army) as a .pdf

What lol? Each of these is worth over 100k? What a complete ripoff. Taxpayers are getting ****ed so hard. 

What lol? Each of these is worth over 100k? What a complete ripoff. Taxpayers are getting ****ed so hard. 

What lol? Each of these is worth over 100k? What a complete ripoff. Taxpayers are getting ****ed so hard. 

It's a workaround for an engine limitation. Vehicle weapons can't be rearmed within a mission or dismounted.
But certain vehicles, here the Jeep, can dismount their weapons.
For this reason, they have a second TOW launcher with it's own ammunition as their team weapon, while the model of the TOW disappears, when no crew is mounted.
As this is a combat vehicle, only the original crew can mount it.
As the TOW launcher carried by infantry, and the TOW launcher mounted on the vehicle are independent weapons, they can't share their ammunitions.
It also works the other way around. If you dismount and shoot all 3 three missiles, they jeep will still have its original 5 missiles loaded.

But this way, it is possible to simulate the team to dismount with the TOW launcher at least in a similar way, as it would be in real life.

I found a couple really good resources for historical data. The first is a google drive which has NARA rolls on pretty much every single armygroup, army, corps and division that fought during the war, including OKH and OKW sections.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11j1SA3HtfUxdvf9qplqhWznTtVA7aVlo
 
Also, this website (Follow the instructions.. I recommend using the tool WinSCP since Filezilla seems to be broken) has situational maps for pretty much every front and every day of the war. It also has aerial photos and lots of other stuff including NARA rolls.
https://jcarlcalvin.wixsite.com/wwii-photos-maps
 
 
Both of these are awesome tools and I'm in the process of filling my new 14tb enterprise drive (They go for just over $100 on ebay these days... an insane bargain)

Well I've managed to get the dgm2cm tool to work. 
I can get satellite elevation data from anywhere in the world and apply it to CM now. 
If anyone would like to know how to do this process then I can help you. It's actually super simple. 

This image doesn't reflect anything of the real Red Thunder that we know, the uniforms, the grounds, the grass, are not the same and the position of the tank riders, this view is much better as the original but is not real, this, should not be allowed, and this is a bad publicity, I think, customers have to have the correct view from what they buy.
I try to buy my games directly from BFC and so far I'm happy with the original version, (even when some are a little more expensive than the other versions), but that's another story.

So I was a little wrong there. It seems all of 6th army was eventually destroyed.
In terms of forces involved - yeah all of the Soviet troops fighting in the city were conscripts - 62nd and 64th armies were reserve armies deployed that year. They did have fighting experience during Blau but it wasn't good experience - both armies were pretty much already decimated by the time they retreated to the city.
This is a complex question because many units were shifted around over months, and it can't be answered without going in depth. It's the reason why I'm committing to a Kursk campaign first instead of a Blau campaign.
The assault on the city began on September 13th 1942.
 
---------------------Troops trapped in pocket------------------------
6th army was composed of many late wave divisions:
1st wave - 44th ID (August 1939)
2nd wave - 71st ID, 76th ID, 79th ID (August 1939)
8th wave - 295th ID (February 1940)
12th wave - 113th ID (August 1940)
13th wave - 305th ID (November - December 1940)
18th wave - 384th ID, 389th ID (December 1941)
19th wave - 376th ID (March - April 1942)
100th Jager (July 1942 .. Eight days after Blau commenced)
3rd Motorized (October 1940)
60th Motorized (August 1940)
14th Panzer (August 1940 from the 4th ID)
16th Panzer (November 1940 from 16th ID)
24th Panzer (28th November 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division .. The only cav div in the heer)
 
4th Panzer Army:
29th Motorized - Before 1940
20th Rumanian
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tracking the strengths of units:
Soviet:



I'm not going to draw conclusions from all the data but if you look you can see decently sized Soviet divisions disappearing in a week. Many divisions were rebuilt on the spot. For the third picture you have Authorized/Actual strengths. It's hard to calculate totals when you're dealing with this.
 
I can't find any definite numbers on the Germans from September 13th because the staffwork was not the best afaik. This is important because we don't know what strength the Germans actually had when they entered the city. I do have 6th army's primary source documents in pdf form but I'm not sure where to look to find their "Iststärke" (Actual strength) numbers.
I have numbers for the later months but they are not very useful without an initial strength value.
For 24th October:

And mid November:

Sorry about the off topic post. I know this also doesn't conclude much. A serious in depth look is required on this topic.

So I was a little wrong there. It seems all of 6th army was eventually destroyed.
In terms of forces involved - yeah all of the Soviet troops fighting in the city were conscripts - 62nd and 64th armies were reserve armies deployed that year. They did have fighting experience during Blau but it wasn't good experience - both armies were pretty much already decimated by the time they retreated to the city.
This is a complex question because many units were shifted around over months, and it can't be answered without going in depth. It's the reason why I'm committing to a Kursk campaign first instead of a Blau campaign.
The assault on the city began on September 13th 1942.
 
---------------------Troops trapped in pocket------------------------
6th army was composed of many late wave divisions:
1st wave - 44th ID (August 1939)
2nd wave - 71st ID, 76th ID, 79th ID (August 1939)
8th wave - 295th ID (February 1940)
12th wave - 113th ID (August 1940)
13th wave - 305th ID (November - December 1940)
18th wave - 384th ID, 389th ID (December 1941)
19th wave - 376th ID (March - April 1942)
100th Jager (July 1942 .. Eight days after Blau commenced)
3rd Motorized (October 1940)
60th Motorized (August 1940)
14th Panzer (August 1940 from the 4th ID)
16th Panzer (November 1940 from 16th ID)
24th Panzer (28th November 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division .. The only cav div in the heer)
 
4th Panzer Army:
29th Motorized - Before 1940
20th Rumanian
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tracking the strengths of units:
Soviet:



I'm not going to draw conclusions from all the data but if you look you can see decently sized Soviet divisions disappearing in a week. Many divisions were rebuilt on the spot. For the third picture you have Authorized/Actual strengths. It's hard to calculate totals when you're dealing with this.
 
I can't find any definite numbers on the Germans from September 13th because the staffwork was not the best afaik. This is important because we don't know what strength the Germans actually had when they entered the city. I do have 6th army's primary source documents in pdf form but I'm not sure where to look to find their "Iststärke" (Actual strength) numbers.
I have numbers for the later months but they are not very useful without an initial strength value.
For 24th October:

And mid November:

Sorry about the off topic post. I know this also doesn't conclude much. A serious in depth look is required on this topic.

So I was a little wrong there. It seems all of 6th army was eventually destroyed.
In terms of forces involved - yeah all of the Soviet troops fighting in the city were conscripts - 62nd and 64th armies were reserve armies deployed that year. They did have fighting experience during Blau but it wasn't good experience - both armies were pretty much already decimated by the time they retreated to the city.
This is a complex question because many units were shifted around over months, and it can't be answered without going in depth. It's the reason why I'm committing to a Kursk campaign first instead of a Blau campaign.
The assault on the city began on September 13th 1942.
 
---------------------Troops trapped in pocket------------------------
6th army was composed of many late wave divisions:
1st wave - 44th ID (August 1939)
2nd wave - 71st ID, 76th ID, 79th ID (August 1939)
8th wave - 295th ID (February 1940)
12th wave - 113th ID (August 1940)
13th wave - 305th ID (November - December 1940)
18th wave - 384th ID, 389th ID (December 1941)
19th wave - 376th ID (March - April 1942)
100th Jager (July 1942 .. Eight days after Blau commenced)
3rd Motorized (October 1940)
60th Motorized (August 1940)
14th Panzer (August 1940 from the 4th ID)
16th Panzer (November 1940 from 16th ID)
24th Panzer (28th November 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division .. The only cav div in the heer)
 
4th Panzer Army:
29th Motorized - Before 1940
20th Rumanian
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tracking the strengths of units:
Soviet:



I'm not going to draw conclusions from all the data but if you look you can see decently sized Soviet divisions disappearing in a week. Many divisions were rebuilt on the spot. For the third picture you have Authorized/Actual strengths. It's hard to calculate totals when you're dealing with this.
 
I can't find any definite numbers on the Germans from September 13th because the staffwork was not the best afaik. This is important because we don't know what strength the Germans actually had when they entered the city. I do have 6th army's primary source documents in pdf form but I'm not sure where to look to find their "Iststärke" (Actual strength) numbers.
I have numbers for the later months but they are not very useful without an initial strength value.
For 24th October:

And mid November:

Sorry about the off topic post. I know this also doesn't conclude much. A serious in depth look is required on this topic.

I found a couple really good resources for historical data. The first is a google drive which has NARA rolls on pretty much every single armygroup, army, corps and division that fought during the war, including OKH and OKW sections.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11j1SA3HtfUxdvf9qplqhWznTtVA7aVlo
 
Also, this website (Follow the instructions.. I recommend using the tool WinSCP since Filezilla seems to be broken) has situational maps for pretty much every front and every day of the war. It also has aerial photos and lots of other stuff including NARA rolls.
https://jcarlcalvin.wixsite.com/wwii-photos-maps
 
 
Both of these are awesome tools and I'm in the process of filling my new 14tb enterprise drive (They go for just over $100 on ebay these days... an insane bargain)

I believe they were pretty rare but yeah I'd love to have these bad boys in the series eventually.