Mini-Campaign: Welcome to Sicily

[Mr.X]

I have just uploaded the campaign to the repository. Hope, you will have some fun with it It should be an easy run for most of the players but you never know...

One thing, you will notice, is the large time limit, the player gets. I have decided to do so, because IMO nothing is worse than to play a battle and be interrupted by the shot-clock....so, the majority of players may have finished the single missions with much time left...

Regards

Frank

[sfhand]

This sounds intriguing, I will definitely check it out. Thanks again for your dedication to the game...

[Jaeger Jonzo]

Sounds good, thanks, is it H2h as well?

[StieliAlpha]

Can you post a link, please? I don't find your Campaign in the repository.

Thanks!

[A Canadian Cat]

It was probably not there when you looked but since it is really hard to find anything in there: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=112471

[Mr.X]

@ Jaeger Jonzo: I have uploaded only the campaign, not the single battles, so it´s not H2H, sorry

I put it into the Gustav Line Repository, because it is only playable with the GL modul (British an d Canadian troops).

Regards

Frank

[nachinus]

Thank you, MrX! I'm definitely trying this as soon as I can find some gaming time.

I'm a campaign player and thus everlastingly thankfull to those hard working scenario designers that create campaigns for everybody's enjoyment. I have fiddled with the editor in the past and I know how hard it is.

[Glubokii Boy]

Mr X...Big thanks for this campaign !

I'm playing the first mission (nice looking map). At first it seemed pretty hard to be able to fight through the first italian line (bunkers) with the limited firepower at hand...but i found an opening that i have been able to exploit ...First reinforcements have just arrived...Time to clear this beach...

Again...Thanks for your work...looking GOOD !

[Mr.X]

It's a pleasure, to create battles and campaigns :-) if I had more time, I would create mich Moore oft them...

Regards

Frank

[Jaeger Jonzo]

So are campaigns only playable as single player with cmx2 ? Didn't know that.

[Mr.X]

Yes, campaigns are only playable in single player modus - and usually only as axis OR allies, not both. This one is for example only as allies vs axis AI.

Regards

Frank

[Kommissar]

**Spoilers**

I gave this one a whirl.  Here are my thoughts:

Mission 1: If I played it again, I would just wait for the tanks to show up.  I lost a lot of men assaulting bunkers and other positions that tanks would have taken out with ease.  The bunkers create a bit of a strange result; whereas every other Italian soldier in the battle runs for the hills upon taking any sort of fire, the guys in the bunker just sit there (i.e. they don't bail out no matter how much fire they're taking). 

Mission 2: High quality airborne troops versus low quality Italian conscripts = a giant massacre.  I think I took more casualties from a couple of random minefields than the defenders in this mission. All in all this was a fun mission, even if it was just sending around my SMG-equipped death squads to hunt down fleeing Italians. 

Mission 3: So much for the cakewalk that I understand this battle to have been historically.  I imagine that after seeing the town surrounded by Shermans and taking a few rounds from the HMS Rodney, that the garrison's commander would have raised the white flag.  The defenders were billed as being low quality, but there were a lot of AT guns and MGs to contend with.  And bunkers... When I had tanks early on, I thought the bunkers would be easy to take out.  But no - after nearly depleting my HE shooting at bunkers, they were still up and running.  I tried changing the angle and elevation, but despite all the "penetration" indicators, the bunkers seemed impervious to fire.  This was very frustrating.  Coupled with copious amount of mines at choke-points, this mission felt like a bit of a slog.  CMx2, especially on WEGO, is not at it's best in urban combat, and this was no exception.  It was a bit disheartening to lose 40% of my attacking force in a vicious assault in what was probably a quick Italian surrender IRL. 

In the end, I liked the map design and mix of units.  It's evident a lot of thought went into the design.  On the negative side, I thought this campaign laid bare many of the problems that still persist with how the mechanics for bunkers are handled.  To be honest, I think the campaign would be drastically improved if the bunkers were replaced with trenches. 

[Michael Emrys]

Is this campaign still available and is there a valid link to it? The one that Ian gave is broken.

Michael

[domfluff]

Try this one:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2917

[Michael Emrys]

3 hours ago, domfluff said:

Try this one:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2917

Thanks for the link, but I don't seem to be able to open it. Could it be a PC only document?

Michael

Edit: Never mind, I figured it out. 

 

Edited July 16, 2017 by Michael Emrys

[PEB14]

Hi,

(I know I'm 10 years late on this one…)

On 5/4/2023 at 7:15 PM, Mr.X said:

With „Welcome to Sicily“, from todays view, I am not lucky. Only 3 missions and historical not acurate enough.

@Mr.X I gave your campaign a try yesterday and I think I can understand your concern about accuracy. Is it about the reconstruction of the No.40 commando? As a matter of fact, it is very disturbing to fight with a bunch of unrelated "breach teams", without any command structure below company level… Not very sexy and poor from C2 point of view… I had a look on the editor and I wonder why you didn't keep the sections' structure, with the regular HQ, and attached the breach teams to these sections?

Anyway, the first mission's map is great. Lot of work here, nice rendition af the aerodrome, of the sand dunes, the farm strongpoint in the center is very nice too, the defensive constructions well cared for… very nice.

But I found the briefing a little weak. You throw the player with a bunch of breach teams and the vague promise of various reinforcement waves "in the coming hour". As a player, I was surprised by the amount of breach teams and, after scouting the enemy positions with the weak force available at the beginning, I waited a long time for the commando's main units… which never came, as the breach teams ARE the commando! So I had to use the engineers as my main fighting units (at least they have some Bren guns), but I guess that's not what they were intended for? When I wanted to use them for mine clearing, the "Mine" command wasn't available, I don't know why: either because the squads suffered too many casualties or because they were rattled?) After more than 30 minutes, I finally got some heavy weapons; but I gave up a few minutes later because IMHO my core units suffer too much to go on in the campaign (assaulting enemy strongpoints with bare fists, pocket knives and a couple of Bren is tricky, even against Italian troops). Now that I have a clearer view of my unit's structure, I'll give it another try to the scenario later — and wait a lot longer in the dunes to get some useful support.

If you ever plan to update this campaign (which would be great as 1. there are too few of them and 2. it has great potential), please consider buffing up the campaign  designer's note with a clear depiction of your rendition of the commando structure (unusual enough for the player to be warned), and the first scenario briefing by giving some PLAN (like "first wave is supposed to scout", "engineers are supposed to clear beach obstacles", "wait for the heavy weapons before assaulting enemy defenses", or whatever you feel necessary to provide the player with minimal guidance).

Thanks for sharing this one !

[Mr.X]

@PEB14:

As I mentioned: I am not a big fan of this campaign

On the one hand, the maps are quite nice…

On the other hand, the story is at least semi-historical, if at all. It depends on an old Osprey-Book. 
 

Concerning the mixture of units, I have to answer like a politican: „I do not remember, what I did at this time“

It was 2013, my former computer is dead for years and I don‘t own the original missions any more, nor do I have any memory about the briefings.

To be honest, I am mostly a RedThunder Fan and back then, I was waiting for RT and had only few freetime (job, children etc.). May be, this explains the result

And obviously, the handling of bunkers seemed to be a kind of game related problem. And I did the mistake to put too much Italian Units into the missions. 
 

Summarized, I think mission 2 seemed to be fun for most players, mission 1 was ok for 50% of players and mission 3 was (despite the hard map work) at least frustrating ****. 
 

Regards

Mr.X 

[kohlenklau]

@PEB14 is touched by @Mr.X to take the old campaign and revise it...?

 

[Mr.X]

@kohlenklau: 

Of course, PEB is free to use all that stuff and improve it

[PEB14]

27 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

@PEB14 is touched by @Mr.X to take the old campaign and revise it...?

 

@PEB14 has so much to do that adding that to his to-do-list so would be quite… suicidal ! In a later life, perhaps?

@PEB14 is trying to finish his first 3-missions campaign. What??? 3-missions campaign?? No, no, it's a fully new one. Boring, uninteresting, unoriginal, but still…

Considering the number of bocage hedges to adjust, it might take another century or two before being finished/released…

And after that there will be the Bracciano scenario.

And after that,… oh my God, it's already 2072???

[PEB14]

48 minutes ago, Mr.X said:

@PEB14

On the other hand, the story is at least semi-historical, if at all. It depends on an old Osprey-Book.

Well, a good semi-historical campaign is good enough for us, poor players…

 

48 minutes ago, Mr.X said:

And obviously, the handling of bunkers seemed to be a kind of game related problem. And I did the mistake to put too much Italian Units into the missions.

I had no problem with the bunkers… (I mean, they gave me trouble, but that's what they're supposed to do…) And it's true there are really many Italinas on this beachfront. The position has more depth than Omaha Beach!

[kohlenklau]

It is great to see the new blood pulsing in the forum. 

[PEB14]

On 5/17/2023 at 5:30 PM, kohlenklau said:

@PEB14 is touched by @Mr.X to take the old campaign and revise it...?

 

Hmmmmh… Damn @kohlenklau !

Now I have second thoughts…

I like the map so much that I had a quick look. Apparently it's not too much work to tweak the campaign: it's a very short one, and all files available thanks to the "campaign exploder" program, except the core unit files — and thus the campaign pics and briefing. No big deal apparently. I also had a look: it's indeed possible to keep the platoon structure of a regular British battalion, then to remove all squads but the HQ, and replace the squads by… whatever you like:  breach teams, sniper teams, Bren detachments... So I might give a try… But not before I've played though all three scenarios…

Unfortunately, these are British Royal Marines commandos. We all well know that the British never do like anybody else in the world (or is it the other way round? I don't remember… ), but it seems that the Royal Marines commandos are British to the British: they don't seem to follow the same TOE than the British army commandos . It looks like they were organized in companies, not in troops like the Army commandos. Which would be great BTW, because it fits better the Battalion's structure of the available CM formations. But I'm not sure, TOE changed so fast that it's hard to keep a track. I've got clean TOE for… August 1943! Apparently, all commandos were reorganized AFTER Operation Husky.

Bref…

@Mr.X do you happen to have clear TOE for your n°40 Royal Marines Commando?

 

As a side-note:

On 5/17/2023 at 5:15 PM, Mr.X said:

On the other hand, the story is at least semi-historical, if at all. It depends on an old Osprey-Book.

Mr.X 

It's looks like it more "semi" than "historical". I came across a book yesterday which described the n°40 commando action in Sicily. This decription is less than one page long, as apparently the commando encountered mainly empty gun positions and surrendering Italians all along the way…

But ahistorical campaigns /scenarios can make good CM games as well!

[Mr.X]

@PEB14:

Call it quarter historical

The information in this Osprey Book is not much more than some locations and generally info IIRC. 
I am afraid, almost any actions with Italians in Sicily are difficult to be used for CM Most of the Italian Units surrendered at latest with the beginning of serious fighting. 
And the few units which tried to counterattack like in Gela are reported to be massacred by Warship Artillery…

But your optimization of the campaign is much appreciated At least the maps are really worth it
 

Regards 

Mr.X 

[kohlenklau]

Crossing the channel enroute to bell France. The ferry Normandie has beautiful photographs of areas of Normandie...

~~~~~~

I think it is not a bad idea at all for new forum folks to get a leg up by taking older CM projects and altering (and maybe refining) them. So I hope you do give it a polish. Excellent!