Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge takes the highly acclaimed Airborne Assault engine back to the West Front for the crucial engagements during the Ardennes Offensive. Test your command skills in the fiery crucible of Airborne Assault’s “pausable continuous time” uber-realistic game engine. It's up to you to develop the strategy, issue the orders, set the pace, and try to win the laurels of victory in the cold, shadowy Ardennes.
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich brings us to the setting of one of the most epic and controversial battles of World War II: Operation Market-Garden, covering every major engagement along Hell’s Highway, from the surprise capture of Joe’s Bridge by the Irish Guards a week before the offensive to the final battles on “The Island” south of Arnhem.
I have just finished adding in a new feature that enables the player to specify the supply levels for a given order. So now you can order a force to attach with a "high" ammo level or defend with "low" fuel. Handy to prioritise the supply allocation to where it is critically needed.
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SupplLevelSettings.jpg (191.05 KiB) Viewed 1219 times
I must be slow because I've only just realised from your screenshot that we will have the option to specify attack/move times as well.. which will make combined maneuvers much easier to plan! [&o]
Looks like lots of new goodies........ tell us more about retake position, stragglers, basing, and bypass et al. [&o]
Rob. [:)]
So we're at war with the Russkies eh?? I suppose we really ought to invade or something. (Lonnnng pause while studying the map)
Hmmmm... big place ain't it??
- Sir Harry Flashman (1854)
These are new standard operating procedures ( SOP ) options.
Retake Position = when checked the defending force will endeavour to retake the objective if forced off, otherwise it will simply defend in-situ after retreating.
Stragglers = when checked, the force will not stop and rest with any subordinates that are too exhausted to continue. Instead it will press on leaving the exhausted "straggler" behind. Otherwise the whole force may stop and rest with the exhasuted unit.
Basing = when checked, any subordinate base units are free to determine their own depot locations. otherwise, the basing code will be ignored and you will have to manually look after them. Unchecking this is useful when you want your whole force to move or exit.
Bypass = when checked the force may reassess if it encounters enemy opposition and choose a new route to bypass them. otherwise the force will continue to follow the original route.
Attacks = when checked the force may initiate attacks. Otherwise they may not.
Ambush = when checked, the force will refrain from opening fire until the enemy is very close.
Sounds great Arjuna!! Retake position looks like the beginning of a sophisticated new trend in player controlled "triggers". Very nice.......
Rob. [:)]
So we're at war with the Russkies eh?? I suppose we really ought to invade or something. (Lonnnng pause while studying the map)
Hmmmm... big place ain't it??
- Sir Harry Flashman (1854)
Just finished uploading a new BFTB build 4.0.149. This includes the above options for setting the supply levels of orders/tasks. It also includes the ability to set the initial supply level of units and the initial stock level of depots/bases in the ScenMaker. Here's a screenie.
The unit data window in the SM has been modified by hiving off the supplies into their own tab view and adding the controls to set the various levels. I've also taken the opportunity to display the persQty and estabPercentage on each tab view so you have an instant idea of how strong the unit is.
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SettingSu..lsinSM.jpg (155.66 KiB) Viewed 1213 times
one thought that may already exist, I played httr and not cota, [:-]
The ability of troops attached to mobiale assets to abandone their assets when the need arises, swamps no fuel etc
These are intended ( as I am yet to do all the underhood wiring ) to allow you to specify the timings of an attack - ie when it starts and ends. The defaults for most tasks are that they start "now" and end at scenario end. If you set the start to sometime later, then the force will hold in-situ till the specified start. If you set an end other than scenario end then it will duly stop at the time and the force will go on hold in-situ until such time as you give them another order.
Assault At is for attack tasks. Attacks are complex tasks, comprising of a number of subordinate tasks, one of which is an assault. The default is that the assault will start as soon as any preliminariy tasks have succeeded - eg the force has moved to the FUP and reorganised there. This new function will set the start time of the subordinate assault task. If the force hasn't reached its FUP, then tough, they'll start assaulting from wherever they are at the specified time. Otherwise they will wait at the FUP till the specified time and then start the assault. In this way you can coordinate different attack orders. You can also coordinate a bombardment to start or end when the Assault Starts. It will be up to you.
When the game is released this will be the the STAR feature. In any review the feature needs to be mentioned 3 times
writ in large text!
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Many scenarios in BFTB use 'dismounted' mechanized infantry estabs to address this issue as a stopgap measure.
For example the 9SS Pz Div had very little fuel to deploy effectively, so the Pzgr Bn's are on foot in the "Goose Egg" scenario. As are the US Engineers defending the Prümerberg, and a few other situations where the mechanized troops historically either didn't have enough fuel or chose a static defense line in rough terrain where the vehicles would have been moved to the rear because of the lack of roads.
