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British and Canadian in CMFB


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Plus of course we can be gaming the US battles along the Siegfried Line October - December 1944, a period when the Brits saw relatively little major action except for Overloon. Aachen, Huertgen Forest, Lorraine, Saar and the Vosges Mountains campaigns are US affairs apart from some Free French - and they were US uniformed, equipped and organised in any case. And Nordwind, again, is a US battle

That said the UK/Commonwealth forces are required for the Rhineland battles anf, of course, the final operations in Germany itself which is where you can add the German 2nd Marine Division (Rethem) and of course the Volksturm

CW is Brits + Canadians (and some minors) and one can´t really say that the period between october 1944 to january 1945 was a peaceful one in northern france, belgium, the netherlands and Heinsberg triangle. :huh: Breskens pocket, Walcheren, Overloon, Geilenkirchen and Operation Blackcock were enough of some major actions, for CW forces to be considered for inclusion in CMFB time frame.

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. . .  apart from some Free French - and they were US uniformed, equipped and organized in any case. . . .

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Has BF indicated where ETO Free French forces might appear?  Mortain and Operation Dragoon fall in the CMBN game timelines, the advances into Germany within CMFB.  Are there any plans mentioned for one, the other, or both?

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There was never any consideration of not including Commonwealth in the Bulge title but the basegame's already filled to the brim with stuff, it couldn't get any bigger. Future CMFB modules are going to be interesting.

About hoped for new vehicles, I would personally like to see a cuckoo Panther in Brit hands assigned to Churchill units.  :)

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"About hoped for new vehicles, I would personally like to see a cuckoo Panther in Brit hands assigned to Churchill units"

Yeah - but it would have to burst into flames or grind to a halt within 5 minutes of game start - mixture of technology straining with the weight of the vehicle and some drivers size 11 (UK) army boot being a tad enthusiastic with the revs...

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Has BF indicated where ETO Free French forces might appear?  Mortain and Operation Dragoon fall in the CMBN game timelines, the advances into Germany within CMFB.  Are there any plans mentioned for one, the other, or both?

They said they were planning on having French Forces in the next Fortress Italy module including North African forces.

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There was never any consideration of not including Commonwealth in the Bulge title but the basegame's already filled to the brim with stuff, it couldn't get any bigger. Future CMFB modules are going to be interesting.

You'll know what MikeyD means when you see the size and number of brz files.  It's frikken huge!

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Well, you could quite easily do an Overlord without reference to the British, Canadians, Poles, Free French and any other number of nations that were there, but it would not be entirely accurate and one of the main reasons people buy the CM games is because of their accuracy and integrity.

Well that'd be a so-so Overlord game simply because of Overlord, especially in the early phases the US-Commonwealth balance was pretty even.  If you split up by beaches or objectives though it's pretty possible to exclude one or the other (ala Close Combat 5 which basically covered Utah beach and inland).

However in the battle narrative of the Ardennes fighting, the involved British components played a fairly modest point.  It is worth noting that indeed, four or so divisions worth of Commonwealth troops were involved, but they fought along side 25 or so US divisions which bore the brunt of the fighting.

Which again is not at all an argument that the British were not involved, indeed for about 200 of them they were very involved, but it is not at all unfair to say that, as I am arguing that spending time focusing on that particular corner of a battle overwhelmingly fought by Americans is misplaced, and it would be better served instead having the Commonwealth module that covers the post-Market Garden fighting through VE day (as certainly it seems FB will provide all the tools to accomplish this!) and then just building a Bulge through Tommy's eyes scenario or two.   This also serves well in the counter-factual German breakthrough what-ifs.  

So in that regard, I am much more excited for a good Scheldt scenario, as now with amphibious vehicles it is very possible to do authentically (also Buffalos!).  Or simply answering one of my favorite World War Two armor questions "what if Comets?*" in terms of armor on armor fighting.  

*It is a distant second to "What if Pershings?"

 

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A certain Mr Churchill had this to say about the Battle of the Bulge ...

'This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe be regarded as an ever famous American victory'.

I would be gobsmacked if there wasn't a CW module to cover the time period depicted in CMFB ... so let's just wait for it to arrive rather than getting into a US/CW urinating competition about content in the title (I'm a Brit BTW).

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Hey lads, I totally agree lets not make this into a 'my dad's bigger than your dad' contest.

I - again - totally agree that the vast majority of the effort and casualties were made by the US.

However what I don't agree with is this 'flavour' thing. CM does not 'do' flavours, accuracy and authenticity are a huge part of what they do, so I'd be very surprised if they released a game that should include other Allied troops and closed the module down without featuring these Allied troops.

Hollywood would do it but not Battlefront.

 

This is what the Fat Lad said (he's not venerated in our household - we remember his other exploits)

Care must be taken in telling our proud tale not to claim for the British Army an undue share what is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory.”

I have seen it suggested that the terrific battle which has been proceeding since 16th December on the American front is an Anglo-American battle. In fact, however, the United States troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses. They have suffered losses almost equal to those on both sides in the battle of Gettysburg. Only one British Army Corps has been engaged in this action. All the rest of the 30 or more divisions, which have been fighting continuously for the last month are United States troops. The Americans have engaged 30 or 40 men for every one we have engaged, and they have lost 60 to 80 men for every one of ours. That is the point I wish to make

I think it was in response to Monty's  Press Conference of 7th Jan, 1945 which didn't fully underline the limited contribution of the British forces - although to be fair to the Short Arsed Prima Donna - he did personally make a larger contribution to the north side of the Bulge than is generally acknowledged nowadays

1. Object of this talk.
I have asked you to come here today so that I can give you some information which may be of use to you, and also to ask you to help me in a certain matter.

2. The story of the present battle.
Rundstedt attacked on 16 Dec; he obtained tactical surprise. He drove a deep wedge into the centre of the First US Army and split the American forces in two. The situation looked as if it might become awkward; the Germans had broken right through a weak spot, and were heading for the Meuse.

3. As soon as I saw what was happening I took certain steps myself to ensure that if the Germans got to the Meuse they would certainly not get over that river. And I carried out certain movements so as to provide balanced dispositions to meet the threatened danger; these were, at the time, merely precautions, i.e., I was thinking ahead.

4. Then the situation began to deteriorate. But the whole allied team rallied to meet the danger; national considerations were thrown overboard; General Eisenhower placed me in command of the whole Northern front. I employed the whole available power of the British Group of Armies; this power was brought into play very gradually and in such a way that it would not interfere with the American lines of communication. Finally it was put into battle with a bang, and today British divisions are. fighting hard on the right flank of First US Army. You have thus the picture of British troops fighting on both sides of American forces who have suffered a hard blow. This is a fine allied picture.

5. The battle has been most interesting; I think possibly one of the most interesting and tricky battles I have ever handled, with great issues at stake. The first thing to be done was to 'head off' the enemy from the tender spots and vital places. Having done that successfully, the next thing was to 'see him off', i.e. rope him in and make quite certain that he could not get to the places he wanted, and also that he was slowly but surely removed away from those places. He was therefore 'headed off' and then 'seen off'. He is now being 'written off' and heavy toll is being taken of his divisions by ground and air action. You must not imagine that the battle is over yet; it is by no means over and a great deal still remains to be done. The battle has some similarity to the battle that began on 31 Aug 1942 when Rommel made his last bid to capture Egypt and was 'seen off' by the Eighth Army. But actually all battles are different because die problem is different.

6. What was Rundstedt trying to achieve? No one can tell for certain. The only guide we have is the message he issued to his soldiers before the battle began; he told them it was the last great effort to try and win the war, that everything depended on it; that they must go 'all out'.
On the map you see his gains; that will not win the war; he is likely slowly but surely to lose it all; he must have scraped together every reserve he could lay his hands on for this job, and he has not achieved a great deal. One must admit that he has dealt us a sharp blow and he sent us reeling back; but we recovered; he has been unable to gain any great advantage from his initial success. He has therefore failed in his strategic purpose, unless die prize was smaller than his men were told. He has now turned to the defensive on the ground; and he is faced by forces properly balanced to utilise the initiative which he has lost.
Another reason for his failure is that his air force, although still capable of pulling a fast one, cannot protect his army; for that army our Tactical Air Forces are the greatest terror.

7. But when all is said and done I shall always feel that Rundstedt was really beaten by the good fighting qualities of the American soldier and by the team-work of the Allies, I would like to say a word about these two points.

8. I first saw the American soldier in battle in Sicily, and I formed then a very high opinion of him. I saw him again in Italy.
And I have seen a very great deal of him in this campaign. I want to take this opportunity to pay a public tribute to him.
He is a brave fighting man, steady under fire, and with that tenacity in battle which stamps the first class soldier; all these qualities have been shown in a marked degree during the present battle.
I have spent my military career with the British soldier and I have come to love him with a great love; and I have now formed a very great affection and admiration for the American soldier. I salute the brave fighting men of America; I never want to fight alongside better soldiers. Just now I am seeing a great deal of the American soldiers; I have tried to feel that I am almost an American soldier myself so that I might take no unsuitable action or offend them in any way. I have been given an American identity, card; I am thus identified in the Army of the United States, my fingerprints have been registered in the War Department at Washington â which is far preferable to having them registered at Scotland Yard!

9. And now I come to the last point.
It is team-work that pulls you through dangerous times; it is team-work that wins battles; it is victories in battle that win wars. I want to put in a strong plea for Allied solidarity at this vital stage of the war; and you can all help in this greatly.
Nothing must be done by anyone that tends to break down the team spirit of our Allied team; if you try and ' get at' the captain of the team you are liable to induce a loss of confidence, and this may spread and have disastrous results. I would say that anyone who tries to break up the team spirit of the Allies is definitely helping the enemy.

10. Let me tell you that the captain of our team is Eisenhower. I am absolutely devoted to Ike; we are the greatest of friends. It grieves me when I see uncomplimentary articles about him in the British Press; he bears a great burden, he needs our fullest support, he has a right to expect it, and it is up to all of us to see that he gets it.

And so I would ask all of you to lend a hand to stop that sort of thing; let us all rally round the captain of the team and so help to win the match. Nobody objects to healthy and constructive criticism; it is good for us.

But let us have done with destructive criticism that aims a blow at Allied solidarity, that tends to break up our team spirit, and that therefore helps the enemy."

 

 

So that's what Churchill & Monty had to say. Of course by this time the US were the main partner in the on the Western Front and a lot of Monty's previous comments were coming home to roost so he wasn't the flavour of the month in certain (including British - Tedder HATED him) quarters.

 

 

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Please do not mistake my statements for a Anglo-American urination competition.  I'm just simply saying that the Bulge was not exactly the showcase of the Commonwealth, that while British forces certainly played their part, it's hard to pick a more yankee imperialist focused battle on the western front.  When discussing a future module, talking about the British part of the Bulge seems to be focusing on a very small corner of a much larger picture of the contribution of the Commonwealth forces to victory in Europe.

So while yes indeed, there were British forces in the Bulge, there were a great deal of them elsewhere and I am certain there were be a module giving them both their full due, and possibly giving the British portion of the Bulge some airtime too.  

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I think it really depends on how BF is developing the modules.

I don't think that CMBN is getting any more modules, in other words that time period is closed. There is the battlepack coming out shortly but all that does is bring in a Brit campaign and a bunch of standalone battles until the end of the CMBN time period (although I really am looking forward to it). CMFB is the next module and takes the next time slot -from October 1944 to January 1945. Obviously the main event that happened in that particular period (in the West) was the Ardennes Offensive, and equally obviously this particular event was almost entirely a US party, however there was still a war being fought in places other than the Ardennes, if you look at the CMFB manual you will see that they do cover other areas

"Regions supported by Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg include:

• Ardennes.

• France.

• Germany.

• Holland"

So it's almost certain that other allied troops will be included in the CMFB family.

 

Perhaps we have been talking at cross purposes?

 

 

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Its not announced yetbut if you read the CMFB PDF youll see: " Future expansions (modules and packs) will expand Final Blitzkrieg to include additional nations, forces, and equipment, and extend the timeline of the Western Front all the way to VE (Victory Europe) Day in May 1945."

Finally Getting real tired of the later war stuff.. After all this gets cleaned up we can finally have Combat Mission: First Blitzkrieg with the module Second Blitzkrieg

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I'm completely at a loss as to why anyone would think that there might not be a module for the CM:FB Family which will address the major non-US Allied forces fighting in the ETO October '44 to end war. It's a non-issue: there will (assuming BFC remains a healthy commercial proposition, but that's a given for any discussion of what may be to come) be a CW etc module. The only question is whether they extend the time period covered by the game at the same time as releasing CW content, or get us to end-war with German and American TO&Es then let us have the CW. All will be ours, in the fullness of time. FI and BN both had a first module which included the CW forces; FI(GL) extended the timescale of the Family as well as adding new nations, whereas BN(CWF) didn't. Last time Steve spoke on the matter, I gathered they're thinking of extending the timeline in RT before they do the minor nations, but those are minor nations and, while the Brits weren't the main combatants in the Ardennes Counteroffensive itself, there were other fights in that theatre between September and Christmas which involved Brit/CW forces, and they can't really becalled "minor combatants", so my guess is that they'll be doing it the "traditional" way for the ETO, even if they deviate from that methodology for the OstFront.

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Perhaps we have been talking at cross purposes?
 

Rather.  My confusion has been somewhat of "why are we talking about small part of the Ardennes Campaign that was British?" because it is something that totally can come with the inevitable Commonwealth module that will cover Holland and other NW European campaigns in their entirety.   So I've never doubted there would be a Commonwealth Module, I just don't think the little narrow part of the Bulge was something to hang the module on. 

I'd think in the final module should be a sort of "Combat Mission: Gotterdammerung" though, like it'd cover the final drives into Germany with all the associated odd ball last ditch German units and gear, and the very late war US and UK gear.  
  

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CW is Brits + Canadians (and some minors) and one can´t really say that the period between october 1944 to january 1945 was a peaceful one in northern france, belgium, the netherlands and Heinsberg triangle. :huh: Breskens pocket, Walcheren, Overloon, Geilenkirchen and Operation Blackcock were enough of some major actions, for CW forces to be considered for inclusion in CMFB time frame.

I am not saying the British front was peaceful at that period. There were a number of major local actions but compared to the US operations against the Siegfried Line it was a relatively quiet period until Operation Blackcock at he very end of January 1945. There would certainly still have been plenty of small scale fighting in the UK/Commonwealth sector.

My point was that, in this case, it was the right decision to prioritize the US sector as the really major Allied offensives as well as the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Nordwind involved US forces almost exclusively

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Yep, it´s a base game starting with Bulge stuff and US majorly and at last I don´t care if BFC adds a CW module seperately (yet for the 10.44 - 01.45 time frame) or adds all of that in one package when a module expands the game to end of war. Personally I´d like the CW forces to be added rather sooner than later though, even if it adds about 25-30$ more to customers, but some might disagree. :)

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And, frankly, given the market demographics, starting off with the CW forces in any theatre/timescale combination where the Americans were doing anything significant at all would be commercial suicide. If there was a Pacific Theatre '42-'43 family (to take a completely hypothetical improbability), it'd focus on Guadalcanal, not Burma. Only settings where the US weren't involved in any direct significant way at all (North Africa pre-Torch, or France '40) would possibly start the Family off with a CW-centric product.

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I seem to remember Steve saying they weren't entirely happy with the structure of the Market-Garden module so perhaps that's a clue that a Commonwealth (and Polish) module will take us to the end of the war so there will be no need to put the Commonwealth forces into a module twice again.

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And, frankly, given the market demographics, starting off with the CW forces in any theatre/timescale combination where the Americans were doing anything significant at all would be commercial suicide. If there was a Pacific Theatre '42-'43 family (to take a completely hypothetical improbability), it'd focus on Guadalcanal, not Burma. Only settings where the US weren't involved in any direct significant way at all (North Africa pre-Torch, or France '40) would possibly start the Family off with a CW-centric product.

I probably would not be all that inerested in the Pacific right now but I would be interested in an early war family (France and Poland) and a Western Desert family

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Has BF indicated where ETO Free French forces might appear?  Mortain and Operation Dragoon fall in the CMBN game timelines, the advances into Germany within CMFB.  Are there any plans mentioned for one, the other, or both?

The Free 'French  were US organised, trained and equipped. All you have to do is chnge to French na,mes in the scenario editor and voila! :-)

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