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Updating The Road to Montebourg


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Edit 1: A suggestion for when you get to actually work on new campaign: Don't clutter so many units in small places like you often do in The road to Montebourgh - it kills the immersion (few rounds would cause huge devastation to such tight packing). Make the map a bit bigger and spread starting unit's postions somewhat. Deal? ;)

I prefer to have quite large set up zones for the attacker but occasionally, I like to keep a map as small as possible to avoid too much detail work. An extra 100-200mm on the friendly board edge might mean a lot of work to keep it up to par with the rest of the map. I remember this being the case with the La Grand Hameau map.

Fortunately, your guys are not at risk from an opening AI artillery strike in these campaign missions.

Edit 2: Oh, did GeorgeMc and Pete Wenman perhaps create some kind of work together as a team or only each one separately?

No, not a team. They design their own stuff. GeorgeMc hasn't done as much stuff for CMBN as I'd like. 'Carbide Carbide' and 'Hussar' are the two offerings that I know of. He was more prolific with CMSF. I definitely made the time to play his CMSF missions. And Pete Wenman has made a number of top notch maps for both CMBN and the Commonwealth module. He's a modest chap so I don't think he adds his name to the scenario info. However, he did do 'In the Shadow of the Hill' for the module and 'Pleasantly Shaded Woodland', 'Silence the Guns', and 'The Crossroads at Monthardou.'

Looks like I just answered Edit 3 as well. :D

BTW, I am a great fan of MikeyD's stuff as well. He seems to be able to hit the sweet spot for me as well. Again, he's too busy doing artwork to create content which is a real shame.

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I can't find MikeyD's work. Is this short for Michael Dorosh?

Nope. MikeyD is one of the guys responsible for producing the artwork you see in the game, vehicle skins and the like. He's kept very busy doing this work and doesn't have much time left for creating scenarios.

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Er, sorry to play the linguistic pedant card, but shouldn't that be 'Le' Grand Hameau?

Heh I've only got room in my head for one foriegn language nowadays. When I am asked to say something in French, I usually end up saying something in Indonesian. :D. I'll make sure that this linguistic slip is corrected for the final version...:o

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  • 1 month later...

Hey there PT, maybe you've missed my above post 'cos I've seen no response from you?

Just finished Les Licornets the other day (Updated Campaign of course) and managed to get a great score. This is all good but the issue I have is HOW I got to get such a good result (SPOILER ALERT!).

leslicornets.jpg

I sent one squad along the highway just for the laughs of it and expected them to trigger landmines that were supposed to be there and gotten shot at by defending Germans.

No mine went off and no shot was fired against them (are those mines there only anti vehicle mines?). That squad actually managed to kill off most of the Germans on the left side of the highway which made a frontal assault on the left side a piece of cake (only two men were still hiding when the main body of my soldiers arrived there). They also picked the AT gun hidden further behind. They sustained only 2 casualties and at the end of scenario logged 41 enemies killed including one enemy assault gun (not in the whole campaign, just in this level).

When I saw that such approach is viable I sent more squads down that highway to take care of it's right side and results were similar only that this time the other assault gun and Germans hiding next to those buildings and in them managed to actually made some shots against my soldiers but I had no casualties there. There was also one AT team positioned on the other side of the hedge next to the highway but apparently didn't see my men until it was too late for them.

Germans are just sitting ducks if the player decides to send his foot troops down that highway and flank them full on.

What I sugegst is to to make this approach less viable and/or more costly for the player by applying anti personnel mines down that road and more infantry positioned on each sides of the highway that can fire on the approaching Americans.

All this becomes mutt if that was actually what happened historically, then it can stay that way of course. :)

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Historically, there was a fight here with the 2/505 attacking on the right and the 2/8 attacking on the left with some of the supporting tanks from the attack earlier on the Georgian Ridge. But there were no noteworthy actions so it was probably a fairly straightforward fight.

However, that's no excuse :o as I didn't want it to be such a walk in the park. Those are MIXED mines, representing booby traps, so you must have been either very lucky not to trigger them or you hugged the bocage while advancing and so missed them. I guess I'll have to have a look at this again when I do the final revision when v2 comes out. :eek: The solution is probably as simple as creating a couple of 'T' sections in the bocage that will force the player to move into the minefields. Of course, this will look strange.

The 'final' revision will have to wait until we get the captured French tanks as I'd like to use them in 'Turnbull's Stand'. I'd also like to add one other 2/505 mission to this series, probably a Ste-Mere Eglise mission. There's not much more I can do with this campaign though as there are only two AI attacks which will definitely benefit from the v2 improvements, 'Turnbull' and the Eroudeville finale. The rest are all defensive missions and so won't need much updating.

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Oh oh, also booby traps you say?! I've sent many squads down the highway with only the end point of arrival clicked and no way-points in between. All the troops were automatically hugging the hedge and did not walk in the middle of the road as is usually the case when you send troops from point A to B down the road. Is it not possible to position those mines also just next to the road or are those tiles already occupied as hedge tiles?

I suggest at least increasing number of those minefields (at the scenario review at the end I saw only 4 or 5 mine flags on the road). T sections would indeed look a bit off considering this is supposed to be a highway. BUT what you can do though is to position German squads along the highway on the other side of the hedgerows so that they can at least present some obstacle for highway advancing US troops. Troops positioned that way do seem to have limited LOS and don't spot approaching enemy in time so maybe putting them in fox holes would improve their survivability and threat a bit? Did German troops historically have time to dig holes before Americanos came down that highway?

Another possible trick would also be to not end the map with a straight end but for the highway to make a curve at the end of the map with a hedge behind which you would position an assault gun or AT gun overlooking down the whole highway. But that would most likely look even stranger then "T" solution and you would also have to change historical map for that purpose which is a no go right?

It's a hard nut to crack this one indeed.

On another note I have a question for the level following Les Licornets. I'm generally not good at using armoured scouting units (don't know how to). Can you give me some tips how the tactics for that should look like? It will come handy for that next level.

Thanx.

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I could lay a barrier of mines across three tiles, one in the centre of the road and the other two on its flanks but that means that troops moving on the other side of the bocage would trigger the booby traps as well and that's not what I want to happen. TBH, I don't really like using minefields very much and try to avoid them as much as possible when I'm designing. Although they do come in handy from time to time ;) Ecoqueneuville and Le Ham being two examples. (There are others though)

Another possible trick would also be to not end the map with a straight end but for the highway to make a curve at the end of the map with a hedge behind which you would position an assault gun or AT gun overlooking down the whole highway. But that would most likely look even stranger then "T" solution and you would also have to change historical map for that purpose which is a no go right?

I believe it's a Roman road and so it runs straight as a ruler for quite a way beyond that map.

With regards to the next mission, Labrynth, I usually play it slowly at the start of the mission, scouting with infantry and having the scout cars moving behind in support. You have quite a lot of artillery support to help you out as well so it's good to wait up and let the big guns do most of the work for you.

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  • 1 year later...

I finally resumed playing Road to Montebourg (Revised version) with Hell in Hedgerows mission at which I stopped last time I played this campaign.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I managed to clear first 2 lines of defenses but the third remained to be tackled.

With latest patches machine guns have been buffed-up and attacking the final line of defense where all the bunkers with their machine guns are is a slaughter. I've sent a few of my men toward the touch objective but they were all moved down or routed by machine gun fire coming from the bunker/s which I wasn't able to suppress enough.

After realizing I only have a very slim chance of reaching the objective ground with any units while definitely obtaining terrible losses I went for a cease fire which allotted me minor tactical defeat. I haven't managed to bring any units to touch ground objective but had only a small number of soldiers killed until that point which gave me better position with the score.

I obviously attacked the third German defense line with all my on-map and off-map assets but could not knock out any of the wooden bunkers. Also firing directly to only one bunker from MANY units didn't manage to suppress soldiers inside and they kept on firing on my soldiers.

Obvious plan would be to use lots of smoke to then charge the big clearing in front of the bunkers but none of my artillery/mortars seem to have any smoke shells. Am I blind and somehow missed on smoke shells (I've read it somewhere by a player saying he used smoke) or is this WAD and there are no smoke shells in this revised version of the campaign?

I don't mind losing a mission but am wondering how this one can be won without smoke...

P.S. PT, are you working on revision 3 of this campaign or you don't have time for it any more?

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  • 2 months later...

they were all moved down or routed by machine gun fire coming from the bunker/s which I wasn't able to suppress enough.

I don't think bunkers can be suppressed at all..

I obviously attacked the third German defense line with all my on-map and off-map assets [......]

Obvious plan would be to use lots of smoke to then charge the big clearing in front of the bunkers but none of my artillery/mortars seem to have any smoke shells. Am I blind and somehow missed on smoke shells

If you spend all your HE-artillery, that will also deplete the smoke ammunition.

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I don't think bunkers can be suppressed at all...

Yeah, they can. Take a lot of incoming though, and high motivaion troops in 'em can make that an impossible quantity in practice.

If you spend all your HE-artillery, that will also deplete the smoke ammunition.

Or if the arty is a module from a previous scenario where you used the smoke and it hasn't had resupply.

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Call me a boring old fart. But' date='personally I'd like a "Road to Montebourg" campaign where the AI has to make do with what the Wehrmacht had to hand, i.e. Hotchkisses, Renaults etc. It would a lot more fun, as well as historically accurate.[/quote']

Heh. There've been intimations we might see the captured French equipment in the last BN "pack", which will give PT another bite at redoing the campaign :)

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  • 1 month later...
Heh. There've been intimations we might see the captured French equipment in the last BN "pack", which will give PT another bite at redoing the campaign

I'd love to do that but there is one small snag with that and that is that people who don't have the battlepack won't be able to play it anymore.

I have plans to revist this one final time once BFC is finished with Normandy and if there are captured French tanks, I'll definitely sub them in. I'd also like to sub in some of the security forces that came with the MG module to replace the defenders in some places. They might be better for the opener as well as the Georgian ridge missions instead of the standard German infantry formations that shipped with the title. The version that's currently on my hard drive already has Pz IIIs in place of the Pz IVs in Turnbull's Ridge and Labrynth.

While these changes are all easy to make, and indeed, most have already been done, I doubt that there'll be an extra mission. There's just too much to do at the moment and I'd like to do something for Red Thunder. But Montebourg is pretty complete anyway.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

" Labrynth has full arty ammo after I used half of it in the previous scenario, contrary to what the briefing said. Possible mistake? "

 

This happened to me too. Just got to Labyrinth and noticed, hey I have full ammo sweet! 

Les Licornets was TOUGH. First two attempts ended in debacle for me. Third time I launched massive pre-bombardment and rushed a platoon and the tanks down the road and that allowed me to split open the nut. Still didn't managed to take less than 10% casualties though ><

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