PEB14

Hi Phil, You're perfectly right. Your "fake lobster" job leads to great results. I enjoyed very much playing a French campaign scenario of your design. And I think the very modest one I did for your mod had the real taste of the Phoney war. By TOE, I really mean the squad organization and weaponry, as you know very well. One cannot play Stalingrad with Panzerfaust. IMHO It's not a matter of purist or snobish style… I'm one of your fan! And I sincerely hope you won't retire. You and your work are pillars for this community! That's really a pity because it would indeed boost your mods a lot (see my remark regarding Panzerfausts issue above)… This afternoon I was having a look at the units available for the Italians in September or October 1943, as I consider a small red vs. red campaign during Operation Achse. Unfortunately, nearly no armor are available for this era, whereas some did fight against the Germans, either on Italian mainland or in Corsica. So I really would have interest for such a CMFI workshop…

You're correct. It's technically not a bug. But it's one of those illogical behaviour caused by the way the game functions. Here it means that it's more interesting NOT to buddy aid.

Can you remove Panzerfausts from the units? Can you adjust the number of LMG per squad? If I'm not mistaken, 1941 german infantry divisions fielded 37 PaK that are not available in CMRT…

Sounds like a bug… You can use ammos from the neighbouring bodies, but once the bodies are evacuated the ammos disappear?? I doubt the extra gun shells went to the medical aid station with the poor ammo bearers…

That's the more realistic (from an amount of design work required) option every WW2 CM fan is waiting for since… how many years?

Hi, Game manual states (Game Engine page 64) that it takes 1-2 minutes for surrendering (i.e. raising hands) troops to actually be captured. In my last CMBN game, it took at least 6 or 7 minutes for my troops to capture surrendering ennemies in the same building (and at the same building's level). In my current CMRT game, I have two different Soviet soldiers raising their hands since 4 turns and nothing happens. My troops were 12-15 meters away, since 2 turns they're in the same action spot, not pinned, nobody firing at them. Still waiting. Did I miss something??

So did they for the Italian front. So did they for the late Eastern Front. Anyway, there's nothing critical in having a separate game for CMFB, except for a couple of drawbacks: I have to install yet another game engine on my already crowded hard drive CMFB would have been a formidable opportunity to upgrade CMBN (tank riders anybody?)

We all know the fundamental weakness of Phil's stuff… While it is graphically on-par (and even better) with BFC official production, it doesn't (and it cannot !) feature the proper TOE and weapons characteristics of the portrayed eras/theaters. And it is by no mean Phil's fault: we cannot mod these critical aspects. I hope we could.

Hmmmh… This is defintively NOT the most exciting timeframe/theater combination of WW2 as far as wargaming is concerned… Germany doesn't offer terrain much different from CMBN's France and Benelux… There is not much to be added in terms of equipment and organization… save the Volkssturm, and the French forces, whose colonial troops are already portrayed in CMFI… and which, together with their armored divisions, will probably never make it into CMFB anyway. So what are you expercting from CMFB's last module save for the "'last ditch' efforts on the West Front" ? Did I miss something from WW2 history? To be honest, I don't even own CMFB. I still don't understand why it's not a CMBN module, the same way R2V was to CMFI. And I don't think in terms of cost for the customer or complaints like that, I'm thinking in terms of coherency: one game for the Western front, one for the Eastern front, one for the Italian front. And the next one for the African front, obviously… (or for Korean War — in both cases, see @kohlenklau achievements…)

That's somewhere on our planning, don't you remember Tim?

Don't worry. After a couple of minutes the Brits are out of ammo. It's not a scenario — it's an execution. (As you guess, I was on the wrong side of the blade… but Theblitz's stats consoled me somewhat…)

You don't need this company anyway; the scenario is unwinnable as the British. https://www.theblitz.club/scenarios/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/boy-s-against-men/b-15.htm?action=scenario&id=3709

Easier to hit I don't know, but my understanding was also that green troops are pinned down more easily.

The two versions might be VERY different if all troops were changed to green. @WimO did you test the impact on the whole campaign? Rushing the La Fière causeway with green troops might be... complicated!

One more question, even though I'm pretty much certain that the answer is "no !": - is there a way to show simultaneously on the map the "yellow zones" from all AI groups for a given order #? - is there a way to show simultaneously on the map the "yellow zones" from all the orders phases for a given AI group? That would be so useful…

Yeah! But when you're wondering about the AI, don't forget @CarlXII's phone as well, he's pretty impressive regarding this topic…

@WimO@kohlenklau@George MC@CarlXII Gentlemen, thank you for your support! That… I'm… It's… unbelievable !! I just scratched my head and tried things and tricks for an hour… and all I needed was SIMPLY to push the GO button?! I can't believe it… It works!!! The IA units are instantly teleported to the yellow areas! Yeah, that's an issue. I thought that the "facing" (MAJ+click) painting in the AI plan would do the job, but it just does THAT: adjust facing. It looks like the wall/hedge's side an AI unit deploys is only determined by the friendly map edge — which obviously doesn't work well for hedges and walls which are orthogonal to the friendly edge… I guess you mean TEAMS, not SQUADS?

Hi Phil, Indeed… Mine is devoted to campaign buildings. I know, this is pure masochism… Absolutely. Yes they are. Not sure what you mean exactly… I've painted only one big SetUp zone in the "Map" menu for the AI side (big blue blob…). And I ensured that all the yellow-painted "SetUp" areas for the 4 groups of my AI plan are all within this big blue blob...

This is it. I'm currently playing the "Angriff (randomized and expanded)" version from March 2017! (Which I propbably got on the FGM repository).

You may have played a different version of this scenario, because I'm 100% sure that the tanks I'm facing are T-34/85! I was more than surprised to see their incredible performance against my Panzer-wonders. Particularly because in the previous PBEM, I played T-34/76 against Panzer IV — and the T-34 were no match at all! (this was in "Hill 621 Redux", which is as bad a scenario as "Angriff" is a good one — even though I might be the losing side in both cases in the end…).

For initial placement of AI unit, I usually decide precisely where they sit. For the scenario I'm working on, I decided to delegate to the Ai some decisions. So I painted yellow zones in the "SetUp" order for each grou. I ensured that all the yellow painted areas are placed in a big, single SetUp zone, as painted on the map menu. Then, in the "Units" menu, I drop all groups' units inside the SetUp zone of the map (but not necessarily inside the yellow-painted areas). When I start the game, units are exactly in the position where I let them in the "Units" ! Am I suppose to place all Groups inside their allocated yellow-painted areas???? Isn't the AI supposed to to the job as long as the yellow-painted areas are inside the SetUp zones?

Oooooh yes. I'm presently playing "Angriff" H2H (very nice scenario by the way). WIth my fleet of Panthers and Panzer IVs I was full of confidence. Since this happy time, a pair of those damn T-34/85 wrought havoc among my poor panzers. Part of my Panzer IV were ambushed and lost three of them to a hidden T-34/85, who then won a 1:1 frontal duel versus one of my Panthers, and a few days ago the SAME T-34/85 won a 1:3 duel against most of my remaining Panzer IV, knocking two out within a minute a forcing the last one to retreat into a SU-152 line of sight… I think I hit this tank at least three times but all the 75 bounced off helplessly… Annoying to say the least…

Downloaded! By the way, you recommend Abram's and Aris' terrain modifications mods. I could find none of them at the FGM repository. Any idea where to find them? And if you are short of ideas, feel free to ask…

Nice movie… Even though I don't understand the second T-34 movement at 0:20. After backing off to relative safety he moves forward again offering his flank to a known enemy, with no apparent overwatch?! It could have been me doing such a silly thing, but this time I swear it was not…

Youalways feel very unlucky when it comes to the destruction of AFV: yours always seem to be more brittle that your opponent's, whatever side you plau... I understood only recently that there is a reason for that: it takes generally more than one "killing hit" to just DISCOVER that the tank you're firing at is knocked out. As long as they're not sure, your own tanks go on firing at what might already be a wreck... And so you think that you need three shots to kill a tank while the first was already a kill! That may be what happend to my Cromwells against this couple of StuG.