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Section Leaders:
March Archive 22:45 EST Whew! This has been just one HUGE week for Combat Mission and CMHQ as well. Everything that's been posted has been of a large caliber and it certainly continues this evening. From Fionn's Tolystoyian effort to the release of the new Combat Mission Intro Movie it has been non-stop and we haven't even reached Friday yet! We finally have the first installment of the long awaited Riesberg After Action Report from Jason McGrody and Robert Hall. These guys know how to write and may dethrone Fionn someday as master word smiths! If they fight like they write then its going to be one helluva battle and you can join them for their setup through to the end of Turn 5 right HERE. Movies and Pictures are included of course. Follow on reports will follow in the coming days as this will be a five parter! Tonight's POTD is again taken from real life and gives you an opportunity to see the wondrous toys that await you at the Patton Museum! View the Panoramic view right through HERE. Be sure to drop in at Wild Bill and the Raiders little house of war as they have some new goodies in their Combat Mission area called Boots and Tracks. Anything with Wild Bill's moniker is going to be top notch and we highly recommend his latest offering. -Madmatt 22:10 EST After yesterdays HUGE news I couldn't come up with any In-Game POTD that would come close to measuring up. So I posted this picture that I snapped from my recent visit to the Patton Cavalry and Armor Museum at Fort Knox Kentucky. Click HERE to see this monster up close and personal! Tonight, Dan Kowaleski starts getting into the series of US Medium tanks that actually saw some fierce combat AND ones you will get to see in Combat Mission. Check it out in our recently re-categorized Articles section or simply click THIS. -Madmatt 17:23 EST New Potato Masher POTD now up, see HERE for full version
14:45 EST The ANNOUNCEMENT in full as told by Steve Grammont on the BTS Combat Mission Forum: Man, can't a guy put up a single HTML page without someone finding it within a couple of minutes? OK, here is the official announcement from us: The time for Combat Mission’s release nears! After months of hard work putting on the finishing touches, a realistic release date of the end of May has been set. We have held off from releasing a new release date until it became clear that this one could be realistically met, and that time is now. Why are we so confident in our release date this time? 1. All coding on Combat Mission, except for a few bug fixes, stopped as of March 22nd [dude, is that about the right date?) 2. The 2nd draft of the massive user manual has been completed. 3. All but a handful of textures have been finalized. 4. The process of finalizing the scenarios is under way. When will we release the Gold Demo? Not until we have sent the Gold Master (the final full version) off to be duplicated some time in May. This will mean the Gold Demo will be out and available for roughly 2-3 weeks before we actually start shipping. Until then, we have uploaded something for people to check out. It is the intro movie we cooked up for Combat Mission. This is probably the first intro movie that is 100% made up of actual game play scenes. Yup, no highend 3D rendered animations that no game will have for years to come, but actual footage captured straight out of Combat Mission, edited, and set to music. It is a bit on the hefty side (10MB or so), but it is worth the download for sure.
Thanks for the support! Charles Ed. Note: And then shortly after, Charles added this clarification! Just to be absolutely clear, we plan to ship (not master, but ship to customers) the game in late May. The gold demo will come out a week or two before this. Charles
Download Locations! Big Time Software HTML Download (link fixed!)
14:30 EST STOP THE PRESSES!!! BTS RELEASES NEW 10mb .avi OF COMBAT MISSION!!!! With the biggest move since the Autumn release of the Demo, BTS today announced and unveiled their new 10mb .avi INTRO MOVIE!!! With all in-game footage taken from the latest builds you will now see for yourselves what Steve, Charles and the Beta Testers have been saying for sooo long! EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED!!! FOLLOW
THIS LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE INTRO MOVIE!!! -Madmatt 20:20 EST Even though it won't be until Combat Mission 2 comes out that you will see any Soviet vehicles, Fionn's MASSIVE new article on Soviet Tank Development was just too good to keep bottled up. Ok, truth be told its too big to fit on my hard drive and I have over 100gig here! All joking aside this was an incredible undertaking and I had to break it down into 4 separate parts. Tonight's first part delves into the early pre-war years and the organization and makeup of the Soviet Unions armored force. I think this article covers more time-zones than the country does but get out your reading glasses and go to the bathroom now as you begin Part 1 of Fionn's Magnum Opus on Soviet Tank Development right HERE. When you have a minute you may want to check out the slightly remodeled Articles page index. It is now divided into three main categories covering: Historical Articles, Combat Mission Specific material and General Military Interest features. Snipers are solitary creatures by their very trade. Operating alone and often with full knowledge that there could be no surrender they could hold up entire columns of men and material for precious hours. Usually concealed in vantage points of height they were granted spectacular views of the chaos below. With war waging all around them they could patiently wait for that one precise moment to strike. Tonight's POTD tries to capture that essence of solitude in battle. Zero in on it HERE. -Madmatt 20:00 EST Just got back from the Patton Cavalry and Armor Museum and I had a great time! They have allot of cool stuff there and no security personal or cameras are present outside so the 'Keep off the vehicles for your own safety' signs are pretty much ignored by all the visitors. I saw all sorts of people crawling along the tops of the tanks they have displayed outside. I even climbed up on the massive T-28 Super Heavy Tank (pictures forthcoming) and snapped off a few shots for a friend who has been dying for that one. The only downside to the incredible weather was that it was too sunny and some of my pictures were washed out and will require much more post-editing than I was gambling for. I used four separate camera's with two being Polaroid's so I could have pictures to post tonight. Sadly, the Polaroid's are the pictures that need the most work. I did manage to get one good picture ready though. Its of the King Tiger and you can see a preview of it HERE. Now, in the 'How Many Cool Things Can I Show In One POTD' category the Oscar goes to: THIS!!! You get better building and terrain fire and the first glimpse of a German Flak Vehicle, the Wirblewind. What more in one picture could you want? I'd like to thank the Academy and all the other little POTD-ettes who made this all possible.... People from almost the day of the Demo release have balked and complained about the look of the Fire Graphics and BTS stayed relatively quite and non-committal on the whole subject. If they have a mantra it would go something like this: "Nothing we have shown is Final. Everything could be changed before release." Tonight's POTD again exemplifies that. Fire in terrain hexes is now (and actually has been for some time, I just never showed it until now!) more scattered and uses a variety of graphic 'tiles' placed in random sizes and angles throughout the area that is on fire. Buildings also now have fire erupting put from more 'realistic' area of the structure. -Madmatt 20:45 EST I am getting ready for my trip to the Patton Museum tomorrow morning and I am hoping to have pictures to post as early as tomorrow night! Stay tuned. Somebody call a Priest?!? If POTD's had captions (and they don't) that would be tonight's. The M7 Priest (named for the pulpit style Mg mount) may be a butt ugly vehicle but the texture sure is nice. Also please cast your gaze down at the tracks... YUP, that's snow you see on them! Combat Mission now is smart enough to look at the type of ground in each scenario and use an appropriate tread texture. Currently you get normal, muddy and snow covered tracks depending on the ground conditions. See that Priest up close and personal right HERE. I will be showing this as well as many other improvements in the day's to come. And just for all you loser nay-saying, "release it now", dip wads, there have been some significant other improvements recently that have absolutely NOTHING to do with graphics. So there! -Madmatt 20:52 EST After a torturous week of being on-call at work, the weekend has finally arrived! Now celebrate we offer you this bounty. Max Molinaro hasn't completely disappeared off the face of the earth as we feared, he has just been ravaged by horrible nightmares and his Picture of the Week gives is a peek into one such nightmare! Scary stuff and you will find it in his own private gallery right over HERE. We have a new German Tank Commander inductee into the Heroes Corner thanks to the eyewitness reporting of John Morse. Check out the exploits of Unteroffizier Bahr in our newly inaugurated fifth page right through these DOORS. The weekly POTD Archive has been assembled and is open for viewing. Browse through our fine gallery of past art by clicking on THIS. Finally, bringing up the rear is our daily POTD. Tonight we get a taste of the DYO (Do Your Own) scenario generator in action as I set up the computer to randomly select armored units and generate a map to play on. I was given a mixed force of M4A3 and M4(105's) to take a small farming community held by an unknown enemy force. By the second turn I discovered that this town was not to fall easily as it was vehemently held by at least two Panzer IV/70's! Very tough customers indeed as shell after shell ricocheted off of their tough exteriors while they dished out destruction from afar. Check out the picture in full right HERE. Just a few more notes about this weekend. I am planning on a trip to the Patton Museum and will be trying to get as many pictures as I am able. Hopefully, if all goes well I will be able to post these up on the site soon after! Also, be looking forward to the new MEGA-After Action Report of Riesberg. This baby is HUGE and is going to take me a while to get it all squared away but it will be worth the wait! -Madmatt 22:30 EST Sorry for the late update tonight but some other commitments took precedence. Also there has been allot of work going on behind the scenes here at CMHQ to make updating the site faster, easier and free up more time for the features you like most. For tonight, we just have a POTD on the plate but this is by no means any famine. Get a load of that texture on the German AT gun. Check out the big momma version right HERE. -Madmatt 17:40 EST While at first glance it will be VERY hard to see what so special about today's POTD, when you blow it up to full size HERE you will see something totally cool! You fledgling Scenario and Operation designers are going to love this new feature. In the map editor you can place TEXT LANDMARKS. What that means is you can place a floating line of text over ANY terrain tile in the game. You want to identify important terrain features for the player but don't want them to be Objectives? Name it! Simple as that. Wanna identify Hill 209? Name it! The player can toggle these landmarks on or off at any time during play and they add a huge amount of situational awareness and convey key information that is sometimes not so clear in the scenario briefings. Another great feature is that you can add them to any pre-created map by just entering into the editor, loading the scenario or operation in questions and editing the map. Its very simple takes just seconds to do!!! I have just let the auto-generator create a quick and dirty map and I have placed some landmarks to show you how this looks. You will see them floating slightly above the terrain tile and they are viewable in the overhead views as well. Last week Dan Kowaleski took us back down memory lane to witness the early development of the US Medium tank line. Today he continues this historical overview with an intense look at the M3 Medium Tank and it's variants. This article is available in the Articles section or you can just click right on THIS. -Madmatt 22:10 EST Man, been a long grueling day but thanks to the efforts of Capt. Foobar, NiN_Lorak, Colin, Richard_III and other Yahoo Chat Club regulars, I got up the energy to crank out a quickie update. If you guys don't swing into the chat group every night then you are really missing out on a whole other aspect of Combat Mission. Thanks guys! Ok, so what do we have tonight? Well, while I was away soaking up the sun and fun in the Caribbean NiN_Lorak held a little POTD caption contest and the winners of the best captions for a series of pictures got to choose their choice of POTD subjects. Tonight's is the psuedo first winner. Notice that the 'Schreck now has a cool little blast shield. Little touches like that certainly go a long way! Click HERE for the full version.
Stay tuned as later this week we shall have a new After Action Report and the second installment of the US Medium Tank Development Article, this time featuring the M3!. -Madmatt 20:21 EST Been a little slow around here lately and that's largely my fault. It isn't that there is nothing to put up, quite the contrary! I have just been knee deep into the latest little OS to come out of Redmond Washington, Windows 2000 Advanced Server. When those brainiacs put their minds to it they can actually do something right, or at least not too wrong. I have heard it said before that the only way Micro$oft would make something that didn't suck was if they started making vacuums... So far though, this here vacuum ain't all bad! Ok, on to the show. Tonight's top down madness POTD comes from about the oldest wargamer I know, Mr. Wild Bill himself. Here we see him introducing about 33 tonnes of Detroit steel to some poor sap that found himself on the wrong end of a track. And before you ask, NO Combat Mission doesn't model vehicles running over infantry (at least not yet!) but it does allow for vehicles to overrun crew served weapons! Fun to watch a 57mm AT gun crew bolt as a behemoth like a Jadgtiger comes steaming by too! Click HERE for a slightly larger version although the original wasn't much bigger. So, have you finished all the exercises in that Map Reading article yet? Good, now it's time to really stretch your mind. Jon Sowden has another Article all about real world measurements and appraisal of angles and distances. This will go a long way in accurately guesstimating the distance of that ridge to the side of the road and trying to determine if it would be within range of your StuG or not. Or am I the only one who does that? Either way check out this newest offering in the Articles section right in HERE. -Madmatt 20:15 EST Still playing with my new Server so the update is rather small tonight but sometimes that is just the way the worm turns... Tonight's POTD comes to us from Wild Bill and gives an idea of just how up close and chaotic some of the action can get in Combat Mission as all three vehicles fire at the same moment. Check it out HERE. -Madmatt 11:00 EST As I mentioned in the BTS CM Forum earlier, commitments to my REAL job (yeah, the one that pays me so that I have money to buy all this neato hardware that I am playing with!) are going to be keeping me occupied pretty much the whole weekend so updates will be sporadic (if at all) at best. Now, having said that I was able to piece together the weekly POTD archive for you and you can get to it right through HERE. -Madmatt 19:00 EST Haven't heard anything from TGN yet so I am going to take no news as good news and go ahead and squeak in a little update for you. Speaking of updates, Mr. Wild Bill and his capable team of Raiders have just posted one helluva an update on their Combat Mission 'Boots and Tracks' site. There is a review of a Nijemegen scenario, Part 3 of their article covering the CM Editor and a great new feature which will cover the various vehicles in Combat Mission one by one, and they even include pictures... Hmmm... Why didn't we think about that?!? Oh, yeah! We did... Stay tuned as we took a slightly different approach to this same basic theme and you will see how each site will cover valuable info that the other does not... So you get twice the info for half the price!!! Or something like that... You can browse to Wild Bills Combat Mission site right through HERE. We hear constant whining all the time about the graphics and Combat Mission and if people would actually listen to the updates that BTS has provided they will see that textures have never been considered finalized in any of the pictures you have seen. In today's POTD comparison we show you just how far they have come since the days of the demo! It's interesting to note that even though the scenario was basically the same in the Beta build and the Demo, I was UNABLE to line up the shot the exact same! This is due to many FUNDAMENTAL changes that have gone into the game and terrain engine since the demo! We keep telling you that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED, but you don't seem to want to listen.... :-) Click HERE for the old version (demo build, no mods or graphic tweaks) Click HERE for a much newer Beta Build version -Madmatt Wednesday, March 15, 2000 20:15 EST Due to some TGN work being done across all the sites there will be NO UPDATE tonight. The last time they did something like this I had to re-do the entire site so I am just playing it safe and waiting to see what happens. I will be taking this 'downtime' (note: the site will still be reachable during this time!) to do some needed maintenance on my end as well. I will keep you informed and hopefully this will all be worked out quickly and with a minimum of disruption. -Madmatt 19:00 EST We just love days like today! A day when a fat juicy update comes down the pike and you, the faithful, viewer gets to benefit from it. Makes you feel good to be alive! So to what does this glorious life affirmation stem? How about a brand spanking article all about the development of one the most recognizable armored vehicles of all time. Namely the United States Medium tank, the Sherman. Cursed, loved, nicknamed, driven from Normandy into Berlin, this tank bore the brunt of US armored operations throughout World War II. In a thrilling series (that's right, more than one part!!!) of articles Dan Kowaleski takes through the long development cycle of the US Medium Tank program, Part 1 is now ready and brings us through the early phases of planning and design. Check it out right HERE in our Articles section. And don't forget, more installments to come! There has been allot of coverage on Combat Missions Scenario and Operation editor but one part which has always impressed us hasn't got much press. Its the Auto-Generate Map functionality and it truly is a work of programming genius. With 3 simple selections (General Terrain Type, Level of Foliage and Level of Hilliness) you will be almost instantly treated to a map like... Well, just like today's POTD which you can see in the wonder of techno-color right HERE. To create that map I left the default map size (800x800 meters for this picture, but as has been discussed to death, they can be quite a bit bigger!), time of day and year alone (November 1944 and daytime) and just went into the Map module and clicked the big "AUTO-GENERATE MAP" button at the top of the screen. I was prompted to select three settings which I mentioned above. For this map I selected I wanted a Village, which was to be Densely forested and I wanted some Modest hills and voilla! Instant battlefield automatically created! You guys are gonna love this!!!! -Madmatt 23:10 EST Due to public outcry I have gone back over the included maps in the Map Reading article and made them MUCH clearer so if you had trouble reading them before they should be a little easier on the ole' eyes now! Click HERE once again to read the article.
19:55 EST Good evening all, we hope all is well in your little corners of humanity. Thanks to the quick eyes of Jon Sowden who noticed a typo in with some co-ordinates in the CMMC Map Reading article which made following along one section particularly difficult. We think there may be one more error in the document but haven't found it yet but rest assured that as soon as we do, we will repair it! If you missed it the first time around you can click HERE to read it. There has been quite a lot of talk around the Forums recently about the Polish forces involved in WWII. Well in honor of their sacrifices and courage we offer up tonight's POTD. Although outnumbered (there are about 5 assault guns cresting that ridge alone) this small defensive screen of polish troops and armor made a valiant, if brief, stand. That's actually an INCOMING round you can just make out and its aim (unlike the Firefly's) was true. See for your self right HERE. -Madmatt 14:25 EST Feeling a little more acclimated to dry land now so I figured I would put up some more goodies for you all. The fifth POTD Archive is now ready and covers all the pictures from the final week in February and on into March. You can browse through those pictures using this LINK. While we are on the subject of the POTD, today's was taken from that wacky German movie, Von Kelly's Heroes. A whimsical yarn about hidden gold and the wild antics of a platoon of Germans as they try and retrieve it from behind enemy lines. Here we see one of the more memorable scenes as Unteroffizier Odzwalh and his accompanying misfit tankers stumble into the midst of a British armored convoy! Click HERE for the full sized version. After a long delay we have finally gotten some Heroes Corner submissions ready. On page 4 you will find a duet of dueling deuce 8's. These fear inspiring guns were under the able command of Obergefreiter Kraus and both times single handedly defended the sleepy hamlet of Riesberg for another day in a long and brutal war. Pay your respects to this hero of the fatherland right through HERE.
00:45 EST Well, I am back as promised and even though I am feeling a little queasy, I have thrown up (literally!) a tidy little update for ya. For those of you gnawing at the bit for more CMMC info we have just posted the first new article devoted to elements of that awesome undertaking. This article is all about proper real world Map Reading and it can be found in the new CMMC Articles Section located right over HERE. We have also added a third stellar page to the growing Max Molinaro Gallery and inducted yet another piece of work from this twisted little mind of his. Check out the new page and picture right though HERE. New POTD's, Articles, After Action Reports, Heroes Corner submissions and much much more are forthcoming...Stay Tuned for some great stuff! -Madmatt ???? EST DOH!!!! Well I was hoping to have a giant update to hold you over while I am on vacation for the next week, but guess what? NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!
Sorry all...Just ran outa time... Here is what I was able to cram in... I have uploaded Max Molinaro's latest pic as the POTD as a parting gift, but that was about all I had time for... While its not a genuine section yet, you can check out the preliminary Downloads area which is currently hosting three pretty interesting Propaganda films filmed during World War II. WE have one each from the American, German and British viewpoints. The action in the British and German movies is very interesting. HERE is a link to the area and run times and file sizes are noted for the Zip format Quick Time Movies Bon Voyage and I will see ya when I get back....
-Madmatt p.s. Be sure and check out the Yahoo CM Club and Chat area nightly 'till I get back, they may just have something for you! ;-) 20:00 EST Just giving everyone a heads up on the near future. I will be going on vacation (taking holiday, for our friends overseas) starting this weekend and will be gone approximately 7 days. During that time the site will NOT be updated but I have arranged a little parting gift for you to play with. Check out the BTS Combat Mission Forum for details... Surprise is a key element that you will need to learn whether you command a squad or a Corps. Nothing will surprise your foe more than the sudden burst of heavy machinegun fire or the sheik of an anti-tank rocket. Ambushes in Combat Mission are an art form and tonight we have picked up the masters brush and doodled all over the canvas. We now offer you our newest Special Feature - AMBUSH: A Pictorial Essay. That's right, click HERE to see how we blow the living crap outa a whole British armored convoy. Combat Mission has a incredible ability to convey emotions and feelings far beyond any wargame before. Tonight's POTD gives us a lonely, cold and desperate gun crew as they prepare to engage. You can almost see their breath as it fades in the snowy night... Click HERE to see the full sized version. Not sure yet if there will be an update tomorrow night or not. If there isn't, be good and I will be back before you know it... -Madmatt 22:00 EST The month from hell has finally ended! As we prepare for the Ides of March just around the corner, what better way to pass the time then with a fresh new "For the Hell of it' POTD. Sometimes, I just wanna see what Combat Mission can do... Tonight's picture, which you can see in full size HERE, is one such example. We have been busy preparing the aforementioned Map Reading Article for the CMMC area and its proving a bit harder than anticipated. Rest assured that it is coming soon though. Expect some nice new entries into the Heroes Corner as well before the weeks end. -Madmatt
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