Font You Very Much

Awhile back I posted about a scaling issue that I had with the Airborne Assault games (Highway to the Reich, Conquest of the Aegean, and Battles from the Bulge). It even affected the new game back when I tried the core engine. Those games worked fine on my Windows 7 machine up until sometime in November 2014 when the scaling issue reared its ugly head. I had thought it was an issue with my AMD video card, however several driver updates had gone by without a resolution.

Forward to the Past

Given the myriad of issues that I am having with some games in the Windows 7 environment (as well as AMD video card specific game issues), this weekend I began the process of rebuilding my Windows XP computer. I had tried a dual boot option with my Gateway however it didn’t work, and even if it did in hindsight it would not have resolved the scaling issue with Command Operations (and other Airborne Assault games) as I would still have been playing off of the same GPU and drivers.

Command Ops Scaling Issue

I am not sure when this occurred, but it had to be some time after the last post I made about this series of games. All of my Airborne Assault engine games (Highway to the Reich, Conquest of the Aegean, and Command Operations) now have what appears to be a scaling issue where the text and graphics on the left side of the screen image are out of alignment. I have checked several forum threads from what remains on the Matrix site and attempted to adjust monitor scaling but to no avail.

Command Ops Return to St Vith

The following after-action report is for a hypothetical scenario that takes place on January 5, 1944 between the Axis I SS Panzer Korps and the Allies III Corps in the Belgian province of St. Vith, the last supply route available to the Germans in the Bulge. The American 4th Armored Division is approaching from the south and the German 12th Volksgrenadier Division is defending the area. Both sides have reinforcements available during the scenario which will last four days.

Highway to the Reich Nijmegen Historical Campaign

For anyone who owns Command Operations Battles from the Bulge and the expansion pack Highway to the Reich, Matrix games makes the original HTTR game available as a free download in the Members Club area under the COHTTR link. Given that Panther Games is officially leaving Matrix Games at the end of this month, anyone who has not taken advantage of this freebie should grab it now just it case in goes away (with Panther).

I have recently reinstalled the game and find it runs perfectly in Windows 7 without the need for any compatibility wizard tweaking. The screen resolution can be adjusted to full screen by changing the Quick Start icon properties target from "C:\Matrix Games\Highway to the Reich\HTTR.exe" to "C:\Matrix Games\Highway to the Reich\HTTR.exe" -resolution 1920x1080 (or wherever you installed it to and to what resolution you want). It looks great full screen at 1920X1080 without any aspect ratio issues.

Battle of the Roadblocks

December 18th 1944, 06:00 Bastogne Corridor: This scenario pits elements of the Allies VIII Corps HQ against the Axis XLVII Corps HQ. After the virtual elimination of the US 110th Infantry Regiment, VIII Corps committed their last reserve units into blocking positions along the St. Vith-Bastogne Highway in an effort to blunt (if not halt) the German advance to the west. Reinforced by the 101st Airborne and CCB of the 10th Armored Division, this force is all that stood in the way of the three Axis divisions moving on Bastogne.

Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) was a massive German offensive supported by multiple subordinate operations with the ultimate goal being the recapture of the harbor at Antwerp, a secondary objective the severing of the American and British line which they hoped would allow for the encirclement and destruction of the various Allied forces in theater. Although American intelligence predicted a major German offensive, a precise date was not known and the Axis forces achieved almost complete surprise.

Crossing the Dnieper 1943

Chris at the Sharp End Gaming has put together a set of small unit tactical scenarios called “Command Ops Platoon Scenarios” which presently consist of three missions: Charge of the Pioneers 1942, Crossing the Dnieper 1943 and Kekava Firefight 1944. This after-action report will focus on the Dnieper scenario, a bridge defense type effort that pits the German 108th Infantry Regiment 38th Infantry Division against the Soviet 177th Rifle Regiment.

This semi-historical scenario begins at 04:00 on September 24, 1943 with the German forces comprised of the 38th Infantry Division that was depleted to at or below regiment strength. Hitler had allowed elements of Army Group South to fall back across the Dnieper, and faced Soviet forces that consisted of a refreshed and refitted rifle regiment whose goal was to establish a bridgehead and prepare for any possible counterattack.

Command Operations Across the Tartar Ditch Soviet AAR

This is a semi-historical scenario designed by Chris from The Sharp End Gaming in which the German LIV Army Corps is driving towards Sevastopol against the Soviet 51st Army that is augmented by air superiority and naval infantry reinforcements. The Tartar Ditch was an important defensive terrain obstacle in the Crimean Peninsula though ancient, still proved difficult for armies to traverse (in many cases makeshift bridging had to be constructed to facilitate transport).

It is interesting to note that (although I am playing as the Soviets) the German forces include the semi-infamous 73rd Infantry Division, a group that was destroyed, reformed, destroyed again, banished, brought back from the dead to reform yet again, and ultimately destroyed a final time during the fighting around the city of Danzig in 1945. In a brutal final knife in the back , the surviving officers of the divisional staff went down with the liner Goya in April 1945.

Command Operations Objective Taganrog Soviet AAR

This is a semi-historical scenario designed by Chris from The Sharp End Gaming in which the German 1st Panzer Army is driving on the port city of Rostov as part of the advance of Army Group South. They are represented in the scenario by the 14th Panzer Division whose primary objective is to capture Taganrog by securing a bridge crossing over the Mius River.

The Soviets have several elements of two rifle divisions at their disposal and must attempt to hold the objectives for as long as possible to delay the Germans while the front line behind them reorganizes for the larger picture. The Red Army is represented on map by the 9th Army HQ and the 31st Rifle Division, along with a battalion sized reinforcement along with two tank companies.

PACOPS Type 94 37mm Anti-Tank Gun

This weapon was developed based on the design of the German 3.7cm Pak 36 anti-tank gun to improve upon and replace the Type 11 37mm Infantry Gun that had been in service since 1922. That weapon was considered an inferior substitute for an AT capability due to its low muzzle velocity, poor range and slow reloading time.

The Type 94 began production in 1936 with approximately 3,400 units produced. It could fire both HE and AP rounds and was usually assigned in groups of four to combat infantry regiments. Although the weapon had performed well against Soviet light armor, it was obsolete when facing Allied armor such as the Sherman tank.

Tactical Battle Series: Armor Operations

The Tactical Battle Series is a set of scenarios played out on a single map utilizing the same objectives for each side for each scenario. The set contains the following installments: Airborne Operations, Armor Operations, Line Operations and finally Combined Operations. The scenario design is for the Allies to have a 3:1 superiority over the Axis forces with each mission lasting 48 hours.

On Day 2 of each scenario the Axis will receive a full complement of their starting force (another regiment if they started with a regiment, etc.) There are multiple reinforcement lists for the Axis side so that these additional forces will arrive at one of three possible entry points: far north, far west or far south. These three points will be randomly selected by the game engine.

Tactical Battle Series: Airborne Operations

The Tactical Battle Series is a set of scenarios played out on a single map utilizing the same objectives for each side for each scenario. The set contains the following installments: Airborne Operations, Armor Operations, Line Operations and finally Combined Operations. The scenario design is for the Allies to have a 3:1 superiority over the Axis forces with each mission lasting 48 hours.

On Day 2 of each scenario the Axis will receive a full complement of their starting force (another regiment if they started with a regiment, etc.) There are multiple reinforcement lists for the Axis side so that these additional forces will arrive at one of three possible entry points: far north, far west or far south. These three points will be randomly selected by the game engine.

PACOPS Type 93 Flamethrower

Both Type 93 and Type 100 flamethrowers were used by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy (SNLF) during World War II, although during the later war period their use devolved into an ad hoc anti-tank capability that met some marginal success on the battlefield. The type that is being modeled for the PACOPS estab is the Type 93 model.

The original concept was to field these weapons in flamethrower companies comprised of between 6-20 units, and these companies were organized into engineer regiments within a typical infantry division. The base unit contains 20 soldiers with 20 flamethrower weapons, with an infantry value of 20, a recon value of 4 and an engineer value of 2 (based on guidelines set forth in the estab editor manual).

PACOPS Type 89 15cm Cannon

Only 150 of these artillery pieces were made from 1929-1945, however it did take its place as the main gun for IJA heavy artillery units. Classified as a Fortress Gun, it had a firing weight of 10,360kg and could fire a HE or AP shell some 19km (it also could fire shrapnel and illumination shells, however those are not being modeled in this build). It could fire approximately two rounds per minute and had a muzzle velocity of 875m/s.

For this effort I will clone the American 155mm M1A1 gun and edit various parameters in order to mutate it into a plausible weapon for the Japanese forces. For the aper and the bombard ammunition I will use the existing JPN Type 1 HE Shell. Several sources reference that the shell was considerably heavier than that used in other 150mm howitzers; however I have not located a specific reference to the shell weight to make a credible change to the cloned data.

Race to the Volga AAR Soviet Union

Chris over at The Sharp End Gaming has provided me and Doug from Cry Havoc! an early build of his new Stalingrad scenario, “Race to the Volga”. This is a companion scenario to “Operation Hubertus” that Chris released on his blog on Monday. Doug has typically played these as the Germans, and I have been playing them as the Soviet Union.

I am in command of the Soviet 62^nd Army with 9,351 personnel, 55 armored fighting vehicles, 1,281 non-armored fighting vehicles and 153 guns with a combined anti-personnel firepower rating of 3,519, anti-armor of 31,474, bombardment of 666 (pure evil), armor of 348 and an infantry value of 4,809. These 113 total starting units are facing a German press into the city that I must repulse or delay as much as possible to collect the Victory Point locations my forces are presently arrayed upon.

Progress Report and Alpha Build 1.0

Happy New Year! While things have been somewhat quiet on the blog for the last several days due to the holidays, a great deal of work has been going on behind the scenes with estab files, force lists, scenarios, briefings and graphics. A change log will be detailed at the bottom of this post to identify some of the work done in the Estab Editor.

I will also be posting the first alpha build of the PACOPS mod which contains battle specific Force Lists for use in the Scenario Editor. A sample mission that mimics the landings by US Marines on Green and Red Beaches on D-Day, June 15 1944 and the tragic counterattack launched by tanks of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 9th Armored Regiment is also included.

Operation Hubertus Part II

When I opened up this scenario to continue on I realized that I did not save the battle at the D02 00:00 mark as was originally posted in the first thread. So I am picking up at my last game save, that being D01 11:31 which actually gives me an opportunity to take some vignette shots of how I deployed the artillery units that arrived on the battlefield, and test some new image sizes for Picasa web albums.

What had occurred in the original play through until midnight was that the German forces had blown open a hole (or rather my poorly designed defensive front allowed them to) between the Tank Factory and the Brick Factory leaving the Skudri Crossing Objective wide open for the taking, however they had failed to exploit that advantage properly (I suspect a human opponent would have surged there).

PACOPS: Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank

The 9th Armored Regiment of the 1st Tank Division was reassigned to the 31st Army in April 1944 and sent to Saipan where it was effectively annihilated and not reorganized. Commanded by Colonel Tadashi Goshima, the unit consisted of 31 Type 97 Medium Tanks (modeled below), 4 Type 97-Improved Medium Tanks and 12 Type 95 Light Tanks.

Just after midnight on June 16, 1944 the Japanese forces made a large counterattack against the US 6th Marine Regiment on the beachhead near Charan Kanoa and were soundly repulsed due to inexperience in mounting tactical armored engagements. The Marines were able to concentrate their firepower on the assault and were augmented by naval gunfire.

Operation Hubertus Part I

Chris over at The Sharp End Gaming has been kind enough to fire me off an early Christmas present of sorts, that being a work-in-progress build of the cornerstone scenario of his Eastern Front estab work for Command Operations: Battles from the Bulge. The settings chosen for this attempt are realistic orders delay, historical weather, standard reinforcement schedules and normal supply for both sides.

I am playing this scenario as the Soviets, in control of the 62nd Army which is arrayed on the west bank of the Volga River with several artillery units on the east bank providing indirect fire support. There are a total of 13 objectives during the scenario, and each one is active from the start until the finish with many of them being a mix of occupation/completion point accumulations.

Force List Progress

Work began this morning creating battle specific force lists for the United States Marines, focusing first on V Marine Amphibious Corps HQ, the 2nd Marine Division and in particular the 6th and 8th Marine Infantry Regiments that landed on Green and Red Beaches on D Day June 15th, 1944. These forces came ashore to the north of Afetna Point and the 23rd and 28th regiments landing further south.

Fortunately a great deal of the ground work for the Marines (1944 version) had already been accomplished when I created the I Marine Amphibious Corps HQ previously (which serves as the backbone of the current Marine Corps 2.0 mod). Additional work needs to be done as some of the sources I have referenced seem to have minor conflicts in data.