GL Bear Claws (spoiler alert - if you havent played it, move along)

[herr_oberst]

A merry start to GL I thought. Play around with some new big clankety things, and chew up some Amis.

And after hearing various debates about the effectiveness of Allied CAS in CM, I figured I just needed to keep my Brummbars moving to be relatively safe.

Ahem... "CAS TOO POWERFUL!!! BFC: please fix or do sumfink!"

The short of it, CAS plastered the command tank on turn 2 (is that a 500 lb'er it is carrying?), then proceeded to spread the guts of most of one platoon across the dusty ground over the next two or three turns.

Gods, what a great game. To paraphrase an old BFC forums quote (was it from 1993 or somewhere's 'round then?):

"I love CMxx games, all the frustration of golf without the exercise."

[togi]

this is the first battle that I played.

major victory with axis site (iron hardness)

I think is relatively easy with axis site, you can use 150 mm cannon of Brummbars very efectively

[weta_nz]

Yeah I've played that one too. Was fun demolishing everything!

The CAS dropped a huge bomb next to one of my brumbar but no damage. A few strafing runs as well but the bear shook them off too. Tough bugger!

[Spanish Bombs]

First scenario I played upon download.

Did anybody else notice that the extra road wheels 'stored' on the back of the Brumbarr were rotating when the Brumbarr was moving? I assumed they were accidentally tied in somehow to the animation of the operative road wheels.

[togi]

First scenario I played upon download.

Did anybody else notice that the extra road wheels 'stored' on the back of the Brumbarr were rotating when the Brumbarr was moving? I assumed they were accidentally tied in somehow to the animation of the operative road wheels.

This problem has been reported for a fix at next patch

[MeatEtr]

Yeah the CAS is a bit of a wild card. Some battles it can be devastating and others be of little to no effect. I wanted to limit the bombs for it, but there's no way to edit the payload.

**SPOILER ALERT**

To help or attempt to limit the effectiveness of the CAS I deliberately positioned the FO near the AA gun on the hill. So when the player targets the AA gun, the 150mm shells could take out the FO along with it. Also the Flakwagon that shows up sometimes takes the bomb/brunt of the CAS. At least thats the idea anyway.

P.S. I'm fairly new to scenario making, mostly just a tester, so am glad to hear you guys like it.

[weta_nz]

Hey Meatetr thanks for the scenario - it's nice to have a fun scenario where you get to see the rare stuff and just have a play

[PhilM]

Yeah the CAS is a bit of a wild card. Some battles it can be devastating and others be of little to no effect. I wanted to limit the bombs for it, but there's no way to edit the payload.

**SPOILER ALERT**

To help or attempt to limit the effectiveness of the CAS I deliberately positioned the FO near the AA gun on the hill. So when the player targets the AA gun, the 150mm shells could take out the FO along with it. Also the Flakwagon that shows up sometimes takes the bomb/brunt of the CAS. At least thats the idea anyway.

P.S. I'm fairly new to scenario making, mostly just a tester, so am glad to hear you guys like it.

Certainly happened (my bold, above) to me: first minute the Flakvierling arrives, I hear a droning aircraft sound, then ... kaboom ... one kaput flak unit, without firing a shot. Makes the non-AA capability seem even more ironic when a purpose designed flak unit cannot even disrupt the aim of the air strike!

I know that we always want everything, right now, but - given the level of abstraction which seems to be already present in air strikes - would it have been soooo hard to add an AA layer to the calculation? (Or enhance it for the specific new AA assets, if one is already present to represent the general level of ground fire at the attacking air asset - sometimes from BOTH sides in real life!) Presumably the air attack resolution already checks for e.g. does the requested strike arrive at all?; weather / visibility?; does it see a target?; does it hit the target? How difficult is it to add another layer to the calculation that asks e.g.: is an opposition specific AA asset present?; is it not currently targeting a ground target / not suppressed?; how many gun tubes/calibre/Rof?; what terrain is it sited in (for view of aircraft)?; then add a combined AA defense factor to the airstrike outcome calculation? There are no complex actual sighting and round tracking calculations to do, as the aircraft is never actually physically "present" in the same way that ground units are, is it? And it would not need actually to shoot down the attacking aircraft (relatively rare, but possible), but just be another factor that disrupts its aim and persistence?

If this seems like too much of a moan, let me say thanks specifically for this scenario, and for GL generally - great!

[Ron]

I'm in the camp that this is a pretty easy walkthrough for the Axis, CAS or not. In my case the CAS knocked out the Flakwagon and immobilized a Sturmpanzer - no handicap as it was positioned well initially to provide overwatch and bombardment of the objectives. I hid the infantry company for a few turns while the CAS did its thing to avoid uneeded heartache.

It was basically target briefly every building and likely defensive location with the Sturmpanzers for most of the scenario. By the time the infantry began approaching the objectives, they had no difficulty cleaning up the dazed and shellshocked survivors. Game over, lots of fun though. Thanks.

[Publius]

In ten plus years of CM, this is the first scenario I've ever played where I just gave up and requested a ceasefire. I lost all four Brummbars within 10 minutes.

I took out one Sherman on the first or second turn but the other kept scoring repeated hits taking out the optics of two of the Brummbars and then destroying them before they could get effective shots off in return. The third just blew up from a Sherman round and the fourth was lost to CAS.

Three of the four where taken out by frontal hits. Frankly, a platoon of Panthers would have performed better.

[CarlWAW]

I just played this scenario and I am so angry that I came here to post my anger. This is the worst scenario I ever saw. I never before quit a game but that was the first one.

Can anyone tell me what the tactical sense of cramping four such beasts on such a map is? Is it meant to be fun to demolish stupidly one building after the other? Or engaging enemy tanks with a Sturmpanzer over several hundred meters? Is it meant as special thrill if the reinforcement AA vehicle is being placed in LOF of enemy tanks?

WTF?!

[A Canadian Cat]

LOL, I played that secanario from both sides against humans both times. I found it loads of fun. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Sometimes it is fun to put up a despareat fight against the odds. Spoiler alert I lost

[weapon2010]

In ten plus years of CM, this is the first scenario I've ever played where I just gave up and requested a ceasefire. I lost all four Brummbars within 10 minutes.

 

I took out one Sherman on the first or second turn but the other kept scoring repeated hits taking out the optics of two of the Brummbars and then destroying them before they could get effective shots off in return. The third just blew up from a Sherman round and the fourth was lost to CAS.

 

Three of the four where taken out by frontal hits. Frankly, a platoon of Panthers would have performed better.

Well I hope a platoon of Panthers would perform much better then Brummbars, they are a far superior tank.Were you playing a human opponent?

[weapon2010]

I just played this scenario and I am so angry that I came here to post my anger. This is the worst scenario I ever saw. I never before quit a game but that was the first one.

Can anyone tell me what the tactical sense of cramping four such beasts on such a map is? Is it meant to be fun to demolish stupidly one building after the other? Or engaging enemy tanks with a Sturmpanzer over several hundred meters? Is it meant as special thrill if the reinforcement AA vehicle is being placed in LOF of enemy tanks?

WTF?!

I really hope your kidding?

[CarlWAW]

Why do you think so? Tanks need room to maneuver.

[A Canadian Cat]

Why do you think so? Tanks need room to maneuver.

Ah my guess because your first post was pretty over the top.  The US tanks are able to manoeuver quite nicely.  They pull back behind the edge of the ridge and move around and pop back up where ever they like, rinse and repeat.  That was how I did hold of the Germans for quite some time actually.

[CarlWAW]

IanL,
yeah it's the attacker who has no room to maneuver. :D

[fivefivesix]

Why do you think so? Tanks need room to maneuver.

This is one of the tactically interesting things (to me) regarding the Sicilian / Italian AO. Often the mountainous topography quite limited the ability to draw on direct fire support, especially tracked vehicles. Sometimes they just couldn't maneuver like they could on the Russian steppes. I have played Bear Claws against a human once as the attacking Germans, and I must have been lucky I didn't get annihilated by CAS. 

[CarlWAW]

I think it are two different things not to be able to get vehicles where it would be best to have them or not being able to reverse them out of LOS, because the end of the map is behind them...
As much as I love opponents using tanks as sitting ducks I always avoid that and I expect from a scenario that this bad use is not being enforced on me!

[Melchior]

Why do you think so? Tanks need room to maneuver.

Which they weren't going to get in Italy, the land of mountains and swamps.