Commandos?

[para]

Lord Lovat's 1st Special Service Brigade was a brigade of the British Army comprising Nos 3, 4, 6 and 45 (RM) Commandos in Normandy.

The Royal Marines also had the 4th Special Service Brigade in Normandy with 41, 47 and 48 RM Commandos.

Why have BFC not included the Commandos?

[usgubgub]

Lord Lovat's 1st Special Service Brigade was a brigade of the British Army comprising Nos 3, 4, 6 and 45 (RM) Commandos in Normandy.

The Royal Marines also had the 4th Special Service Brigade in Normandy with 41, 47 and 48 RM Commandos.

Green berets all 'round, then.

Battlefront have not included Commandos for probably the same reason FJs are not included: they are different and require more work. In the case of the Commandos I know they fought on after D-Day (they had, among other things, a running street fight with HJ PzGren in Rots), but there were many fewer of them than FJs. They were probably considered nice to have, but left out in the interest of getting the module out earlier than would have been the case.

It's not just about the uniform, they were organised and armed differently from the Infantry. Maybe they will be included in some odds and sods module to come.

[Sergei]

Why have BFC not included the Commandos?

Then the Airborne wouldn't have made it. Or something else. You can't have everything.

[slysniper]

I actually made a conversion from DeLuxeASL Pegasus Bridge module's scenario 'It's About Time!' depicting the arrival of the Commandos to the Orne bridges held by the Red Devils, and made it work with the modded AK to ETO: now I'm trying to convert that map I so painfully made in detail in CMX1 to use it in the CMX2 editor and rebuild the OB and I'm very eager to see the results, but unluckily the brilliant MOD Conduct Mappin: BOBBAK to BN script is giving me an error, but eventually I will make it by hand if I cannot solve that problem: that map was a faithful reproduction of the module's map based on original aerial photo reconnaissance material, with some added details I gathered by reading first hand accounts from the combatants, and it can be used for different battles and a whole campaign too, as I did before.

I remember playing this battle you made, More than once I recall. I found it after reading something about the battle. Enjoyed it so much. So glad to hear you are trying to take it on again in this format. I think it will prove to be even harder of a mission in this version of the game.

[Gen Von Television]

Thanks slysniper,

for CMETO I even made a campaign using that same map, starting with the assault on the Pegasus Bridge and ending with the arrivals of the 1st Special Service Brigade and the mopping up of the Germans with overwhelming firepower coming with the armored columns from the beaches.

All credits should go to the ASL developers, since I just converted their scenery to the CMX1 format.

Sure it will be interesting to see how the new CMX2 engine would handle that battle: for example I remember reading about the capture of an AT gun early on by the paras just near the bridge who used it as their own field artillery, and even shoot some rounds at the water tower where a German sniper was located across the canal in front of the Castle that at the time was used as a maternity hospital; in fact the hospital was evacuated and occupied by German troops, and a couple of the gun rounds went through its walls, so that the Nazi propaganda later declared the Red Devils as war criminals shooting infants with a gun!

I still have not touched the CMBN Editor, so it will take sometime to familiarize with the new system: from what I gather the troops can now use captured guns, isn't it?

As for the absence of the Commandos, just adding a green beret to some units in the British OoB would be OK, at least for the battles in Normandy: I believe their weaponry and uniforms at that moment were very close to the standard units, if not their organization tables.

Later on the Commandos were more likely equipped as the Paras as for uniforms and equipments...

[Rocky Balboa]

Why have BFC not included the Commandos?

I suppose for the same reason that US Rangers were not included in CMBN ... Steve, said sometime back that Rangers would be a good candidate for the final odds & ends mod so perhaps Commando's will be added as well ... cheers

[usgubgub]

Commando units were organised in 5 troops of 65 men, each troop had 2 sections of 30 men subdivided into 3 sub-sections of 10 men. There was an additional heavy weapons troop.

Sub-sections were armed with more Brens and SMGs than a regular infantry section. Heavy troops had HMGs (Vickers) and 3in Mortars. 2in Mortars were also used, I don't know whether they were with the 30 man sections, in the troop HQ or with the heavy troop.

Just adding berets and making the sections "crack" or "elite" and eliminating a platoon from a standard infantry company would approximate the simulation, but the firepower would not be adequately modelled.

A standard infantry battalion also had 4 companies including heavy weapons, a Commando had six. I suppose this means Commandos can be sort of approximated below platoon level, with far less firepower than would have been the case.

[JonS]

Good stuff

You know, someone could spend a bit of time in the editor, starting with probably a Para bn, strip out the extraneous bits, then add back in specialist teams of Bren teams and Vickers MMGs and 3-in mortars to come up with something that was pretty darn close to a Commando, or at least a Commando that was missing a Troop or two.

Said person could then save that file, then upload it to the Repository, named something like "TOE UK Commando June 44", and then other people would be able to download that file, and use the campaign 'Import Forces' function to add commandos to any scenario they wanted to.

Other people could also create other TOE files, for other specialist units they thought were missing, and add them to the Repository too. That'd be a good thing for a community to do. Instead of just kvetching.

Edit: and, with that in mind, I will put up a TOE file for a UK Field Artillery Regiment (Self Propelled) in the next day or so.

[JonS]

Edit: and, with that in mind, I will put up a TOE file for a UK Field Artillery Regiment (Self Propelled) in the next day or so.

File is up now:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=103133