Gustav Line QB AAR Axis

[Sublime]

Steiner if the Nazi's win this battle they'll still lose WW2. Hate to burst your bubble.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Whoa whoa, there! Who said GAJ is a Nazi?

[Battlefront.com]

Easy fellas. This is supposed to be a fun thread, not one with baggage dragged in from other threads.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Whoa whoa, there! Who said GAJ is a Nazi?

At least he wasn't called a Kiwi!

See... light hearted fun can still be had

Steve

[Sublime]

haha I'd never say that about GaJ - him I like.

Point noted though Steve. Can you really blame me though - given the content of the other threads?

[GSX]

The game isn't even 1/3rd of the way through. Far too early, in my opinion, to be talking about "too late" for anything (other than a good force selection ) ... those impatient for action should have petitioned for a shorter game and differently structured map

Obviously Bil and I had to confront this idea when selecting forces. The design of this particular game was such that we could choose whatever we liked (within "1500 pts of airborne inf") ... that results in each of us trying to select the most competitive thing, which is unlikely to be the most exotic thing.

I guess this is food for thought for future demo AARs: maybe the forces need to be more controlled by the organiser, since the participants have to choose the best weapons they can

Cheers,

GaJ

Oh, I'm not disputing your force selection in any shape or form, I wouldn't have chosen anything different from you. I was just thinking that as it is a showcase of the new Italy module perhaps it should have showed some new features, or units. Nothing to do with you or Bill, perhaps something that BF could have sorted out to show us the new bells an whistle?

Anyway, I am cheering you on! Give us some more up close screenshots of the Paras and stop whining about having to travel and get some sleep and Man Up!

[Alan8325]

I still haven't seen much artillery use from you, given all the medium mortars you have. Are you waiting until you see more of his troops bunched together? Have you thought about doing "harass" type artillery missions?

[Battlefront.com]

There's only so much that can be shown in one AAR. FJ units are certainly new, though

AAA weapons, weather, and some other goodies are only now just getting ironed out, so they weren't available at the time the AAR was started. But you'll soon get some more info on that stuff.

Steve

[sfhand]

haha I'd never say that about GaJ - him I like.

Point noted though Steve. Can you really blame me though - given the content of the other threads?

Short answer:

Yes.

[GreenAsJade]

I still haven't seen much artillery use from you, given all the medium mortars you have. Are you waiting until you see more of his troops bunched together? Have you thought about doing "harass" type artillery missions?

As you've perhaps noticed, I've counted out every artillery shell that I've fired

That's because I feel that every one has to count: each time I do an artillery mission, it's the equivalent of firing HE from a tank that I didn't buy. "Harass", especially on suspected but not spotted contacts, would be like tank area fire. But worse, because artillery fire is less well directed than tank fire. It feels like it would be easy to chug through a bunch of ammo without acheiving much if I'm not careful.

With still an hour of play to go, I feel like I need to look after my supply of shells ].

Therefore I want to be sure I have a good chance of hitting something before I start firing, at this stage.

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

Of course I congratulate you, but IMO it was pure luck

Ooo - that's harsh!

And it was IMO a always to avoid one on one duel and this was even done while you have numerically inferior forces. :eek:

It's a bit hard to reconcile this with your advice to send one of my tanks hunting his Sherm at close range

I think I'll stick with trying to keep my PzIVHs at a distance, and where optics may be favouring them, and the fast Shermie turret is less of an advantage for him, and where they can more reliably work as a pair.

Note that the short duel with the P511 Shermie was not in fact 1-1, Braun also had LOS to that spot a few seconds after Christoff achieved it. (Both were also positioned to be able to spot the place where the Shermie had been parked looking down P532 Valley, further to the right in this picture... basically this spot behind the MonteP plateau is a pretty reasonable answer to his commanding viewpoints from P511 and P523):

As I said, it was certainly wonderful luck that the first shot hit, and I am very thankful. But describing the outcome as "pure luck" ... that does seem a tad harsh!

GaJ

[Steiner14]

Oh, didn't know that the 2nd tank had LOS, too. Then I take it back. The result was well deserved and also well executed then. :cool:

[Michael Emrys]

It feels like it would be easy to chug through a bunch of ammo without acheiving much if I'm not careful.

Just as happened historically.

Michael

[GreenAsJade]

As with anything, it was a lot luck of luck I wouldn't claim differently But to a certainly extent you make your luck eh?

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

Just as happened historically.

Michael

Maybe I'll throw a bunch of artillery around for historicality's sake ... a bit later

GaJ

[Michael Emrys]

Maybe I'll throw a bunch of artillery around for historicality's sake ... a bit later

That wasn't a criticism, BTW. Well, not of you anyway. But the armies of WW II mostly tended to use prodigious quantities of artillery. If you do that in an H2H game of CM however, your opponent will scream bloody murder...unless he happens to be doing the very same thing.

Michael

[GreenAsJade]

It's an inevitable fact of CM that good fortune doesn't last long.

This turn I have the agony of watching 5Co2Plt get cut to pieces due to me not realising that the Sherm on P509 can see way down behind MonteG ...

I did have a very lucky friendly fire escape though. Watch this mortar round:

[GreenAsJade]

Over on my right, Bill pulled that tank back around P532:

and appears to be moving his men right into the back corner as defense:

So it seems like at last it might really be time for a push. I actually would have preferred to have Christoff and Braun much farther up the left side before making the push up the right, but I feel that I do need to move, while the Sherm appears to be going someplace else.

Therefore, I've asked for some artillery into the back corner:

and am pushing the guys who made it to the saddle ( ) over into the valley:

[GreenAsJade]

On the left, Christoff and Braun are working their way forwards, looking out for tanks on the far horizon, and also ready if that Shermie pops over P509...

and 6Co2Plt continues to slowly work it's way down the valley (really waiting until the cross-map arty lands on the HMG before trying to go around the corner).

GaJ

[c3k]

Gah! That was a big friggin' cluster o'men!

Seems that every time I forget the lesson not to cluster, some kind of event on the battlefield reminds my why I shouldn't.

Nice to see this attack developing.

Tanks: I'm a little disoriented w/that screenshot, but it seems with the hunt command might have them sideways on to some enemy locations. Is that so? Or, is that big hunk o'hill high enough to protect them?

Ken

[GreenAsJade]

If he comes popping over the top of 509, they're side on, it's true.

Is he really going to go 1 sherm against 2 PzIVH? That'd be bold!

[Vanir Ausf B]

Who dares, wins.

Unless their tank gun jams.

[GreenAsJade]

Or unless they miss. Or unless the other guy sees them first. Etc

[John Kettler]

GreenAsJade,

First round kill! At what engagement range, please? Oh, and herding is a natural tendency of soldiers under fire. A tendency which must be rigorously suppressed, but is clearly evident in combat footage from all over the world and in many different wars.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Michael Emrys,

True regarding artillery, and somewhere, likely several times, JasonC has held forth on how even low casualty rate artillery fire can grind a targeted force to dust when applied over time. Players in CMFI and CMBN have way better firing data than did the artillery types of the time. In turn, this makes the delivery of accurate fires much simpler than in the historical case.

In the 1980s, the U.S. Army, following a lot of field testing, concluded the average own position error figure for artillery observers was 300 meters. From this came the urgent requirement for north seeking gyros, GPS and whatnot. Today, we take eight digit grids as common, but during WW II, there were rarer than honest politicians are today.

In CMFI and CMBN, the player knows precisely where the artillery observer is on the map, which the real counterpart didn't know, and had to work from maps of uncertain accuracy, in likely anything but pristine condition, under every kind of environmental condition imaginable. Frequently under fire, tired, thirsty and hungry.

Since the CMFI and CMBN maps are so constrained, this magnifies the already enormous distortion in the artillery kill chain, for now the targets are in a space in which the target occupies a significant portion of the overall map, thus, is much easier to engage. In reality, there's an enormous amount of real estate out there, but the target is minuscule in relation to all that ground. Factor in all the various errors, to include the vital height data (critical for mountain warfare), met data which may or may not be current and may've changed significantly since last calculated, wildly varying powder temperatures, radio and wire problems, enemy action such as net intrusion and jamming, and you begin to see why artillery expenditures were so enormous.

In CMFI and CMBN, these issues aren't modeled, so artillery is far more lethal, round for round, than was historically true.

What's also true is that the modeling of cover in the game is off, starting with dead, but not K-Killed, vehicles and AFVs.

Large rocks apparently don't provide much cover, when they do this quite well in the outside world, as both the Soviets and we have learned to our sorrow in Afghanistan.

Gun and MG crews have to stay with their weapons when shelled or mortared, also ahistorical, when the normal drill would be to take cover and reman the weapon when the fire lifted. This also increases artillery lethality. Modeling of microrelief can, from what I'm read, stand some work, too, but it's a nontrivial coding problem. Then, there are the vexed (too wide and not deep enough) trenches (no fire step, no grenade sump) foxholes (no overhead cover option, no firestep, no grenade sump) and whatnot. Again, makes artillery too effective.

For these and many other reasons, artillery performs far better in CMFI and CMBN than it did during WW II. Consequently, adjustments of unknown size have to be made to at least rein it in a bit.

In fairness to the truth, I'd be remiss in failing to note that, while we have the WO test shoot data, there are far more situations than were tested, such as snow and mud damping, the presence of rocks and other items generating secondary missiles, etc. Large rocks can provide impressive cover, but heaven help you if a round lands nearby while you're up, for then you get the shell or bomb burst plus a bunch of high velocity jagged stone chunks. Ditto coral (if we had a PTO game).

Regards,

John Kettler