West Front US Skirmish Mod 1.2

[Paul59]

This is a Skirmish Generator Mod for battles between German and US forces in Western Europe from 1944 to 1945.




Features include:

1) New Units added:

US sniper
Sherman
M10
57mm
m5
m8
m16aa
m18_Hellcat
m24_chaffee
m36
priest
Sherman105
Sherman_76
Sherman_calliope
Sherman_jumbo
US_truck
Sherman_Rhino
US_Infantry
US_ranger
US_airborne
us_engineer
US_flamethrower
us_bazooka
us_30cal_MG
US_50cal
US_mortar
US_Scout
M3_HalfTrack
M8_Greyhound
3inch_AT_gun
us_airborne_30cal_MG
US_airborne_50cal
us_airborne_bazooka
US_airborne_mortar
US_airborne_Scout
Airborne_jeep
75mm_GMC
T30_75mm_HMC
pershing
M20
US_GUN_105
US_T19HMC
R35
S35
panzerjager_Bren
H35
H35_Wuframen
15cm_Lorraine
Char_bis_flamm

These are mostly straight from Battle Academy 1, with a bit of conversion work, apart from the Pershing, US_GUN_105, M20, and US_T19HMC, which are modder created units, many thanks to Amaris and Petcat for these models.

2) I have given the Americans a fighter plane by converting the P47 Ground Attack plane into a fighter. The US also has the P47 Ground Attack plane, and a British Typhoon for ground attack duties.

3) There is a FRANCE terrain pack included which you can select. It uses the western European houses from BA1.


How to install

The mod is available for download within the game using the Download Community Scenarios button.


How to use

Open BA2 and select "Skirmish" from the main menu. Click the "Advanced" button in the middle of the screen. Click "Use Default Data" in the bottom right of the screen. This will bring up a list of campaigns and mods that you have installed, so select "West Front US Skirmish 1.2". Then just select your Skirmish preferences in the normal way and click "Create".


This mod also includes the Improved Engineer Mod by Amaris:

http://amaris-games.com/ba-amaris/improved-engineer/

Engineers, including Engineer vehicles such as the Soviet PT34 and US Sherman Rhino, can now use the following new functions:

Add Tank Traps: Select Engineer unit. Right click and select "ADD TANK TRAP" icon.

Remove Tank Traps: Move Engineer unit into Tank Trap Tile. Right click and select "REMOVE TANK TRAP" icon.

Cut hedgerows: To use, start the Engineer unit adjacent to a hedgerow and right click on the other side, select "CUT HEDGE".

Burn High Vegetation: Move Engineer unit into a High Vegetation Tile. Right click and select "BURN" icon.

Destroy Bridge: To use, start the Engineer unit adjacent to a destroyable bridge, and right click on the bridge tile, select "BLOW UP".

Remove Wire: This option is redundant in Skirmish games because the Skirmish generator does not place any wire.

Add Minefield: To use, start the Engineer unit adjacent to a tile you want to mine, and right click on that tile, select "ADD MINEFIELD".

All these actions uses up all the Engineer unit's APs for the turn.

For more instructions and screenshots, see Amaris' page above. Note that I have not added the "Add Pontoon Bridge" function, as it was not working properly in this mod.

The AI does not appear to use these Engineering functions, so it is up to the player if he wants to use these or not. Some may feel that it gives the player an unfair advantage, so just don't use them.

Engineers retain their vanilla abilities of laying smoke and clearing minefields etc.


Enjoy!

Paul

[AlexDetrojan]

Thanks Paul59. Quite fun. Although playing as the Germans...fighting hordes of M10's, not so fun...

[Paul59]

Thanks Paul59. Quite fun. Although playing as the Germans...fighting hordes of M10's, not so fun...

There are some units those rate of appearance is very hard to adjust, and the M10 is one of them. The Churchill Crocodile (in the British Mod) is another. Sometimes you do get quite a lot of them, but if I adjust them just one click the other way they are never chosen at all! However, they only turn up frequently in certain types of scenario, not all.

[Eagletanker]

Hey, at least it’s not the M36

[Rommel633]

Great mod! Just a question: Is it possible to create new scenarios through the editor using your mods?

[Paul59]

Great mod! Just a question: Is it possible to create new scenarios through the editor using your mods?

Yes, it is. Rico has made three for the Spanish Civil War Mod, and these are now incorporated into it.

I don't know if he had to do anything special to create them. I know that I always have a problem when trying to create test scenarios using these mods, I get a message when trying to save it, saying "Failed to save map file, make sure the path is writable and try again". But don't let that put you off, it's probably something to do with my PC and it's operating system or antivirus program.

Maybe Rico can explain the process, if it different to the normal?

[Rommel633]

I had the same problem, I resolved it putting a "Scenarios" folder inside the mod folder.

[rico21]

That's the way, create a SCENARIOS folder to save your scenarios.
Paul open many potientaly good things.
-skirmish battles
-new scenarios
-new army lists
Play and enjoy, create and share...

[Paul59]

I had the same problem, I resolved it putting a "Scenarios" folder inside the mod folder.

Thanks Rommel,

You learn something new every day! I have designed literally dozens of scenarios for FOG2 and Pike and Shot, not to mention loads of extremely complex mods, yet I could never figure out that!

I used to get around it by creating a new scenario folder with the Editor, and then copying and pasting all the files I needed into it.


cheers

Paul

[AlexDetrojan]

Thanks Paul59. Quite fun. Although playing as the Germans...fighting hordes of M10's, not so fun...

There are some units those rate of appearance is very hard to adjust, and the M10 is one of them. The Churchill Crocodile (in the British Mod) is another. Sometimes you do get quite a lot of them, but if I adjust them just one click the other way they are never chosen at all! However, they only turn up frequently in certain types of scenario, not all.

Oh, I wasn't complaining about the amount of M10's, just that their devilish to take out...

[rico21]

Geronimo!

[MikeAP]

Noticed something a little odd that German infantry do not have their typical Wehrmacht grey uniforms available as an option in the editor. Is there a way to change that on my end?

[Paul59]

Noticed something a little odd that German infantry do not have their typical Wehrmacht grey uniforms available as an option in the editor. Is there a way to change that on my end?

The Default texture should be the field grey uniform. It is on my version of the mod.

[MikeAP]

Noticed something a little odd that German infantry do not have their typical Wehrmacht grey uniforms available as an option in the editor. Is there a way to change that on my end?

The Default texture should be the field grey uniform. It is on my version of the mod.

I just confirmed on both of my machines - no German grey. Just the Kursk/Camo uniforms for all German infantry.

[Paul59]

Noticed something a little odd that German infantry do not have their typical Wehrmacht grey uniforms available as an option in the editor. Is there a way to change that on my end?

The Default texture should be the field grey uniform. It is on my version of the mod.

I just confirmed on both of my machines - no German grey. Just the Kursk/Camo uniforms for all German infantry.

I have just reinstalled the WEST FRONT US SKIRMISH 1.2, and you are correct.

Sorry about that!

It seems that I have corrected this for the 1.3 version of the mod, but that was never released. You can fix this quite easily yourself. If you can find the Unittextures folder of the mod, just delete the GERMANINFANTRY.DDS file.

Do not delete the GERMMOR_INFANTRY.DDS file, only the GERMANINFANTRY.DDS file!

If your file structure is the same as mine, the folder will be here:

Documents/My Games/BA2/CAMPAIGNS/WEST FRONT US SKIRMISH 1.2/DATA/BATTLE/UNITTEXTURES.

[MikeAP]

the 1.3 version of the mod

Oh please release it!

You can fix this quite easily yourself

Thanks, that did the trick.

[Paul59]

the 1.3 version of the mod

Oh please release it!

To be honest, it only has a few minor changes and improvements. All my BA2 skirmish mods have similar updates.

The problem is that I haven't uploaded anything new to the Slitherine BA2 server for over 4 years, and I seem to have forgotten how to do it! If I can work it out I might upload it.