Let's talk about the Road to Nijmegen

[Tim1966]

Don't want to 'teach Grandma to suck eggs' but do you split your teams? I found I could use the Light MGs to cover whilst sending the small squads on various routes at intervals so the Germans can only target one or two smaller squads at a time. I set up the LMGS in the two houses and poured fire into the bunker (also had a MMG left too).

I finally got through Bloody Aalst. used similar tactics as mentioned by Myles. Got my observer in the tower and blew everything that moved to Kingdom come. Had some trouble winkling out tank destroyers. One had backed himself into a walled area and some houses. Literally had to flatten the houses and walls to get at him. Those Paras are tough too. Lost a lot of Guardsmen in the town Very tense and tight battle. On the next mission now for the US Paras and having a bit more joy against green troops.

[ss11955]

Am playing single player campaign---- "on Mission 4-The cloak of Hoek"-----is there a list of the 16 missions somewhere --so I can relate this thread's various missions "Lock Bridge etc." to where I am in this campaign ? Thank you.

[Holien]

Yes list of missions right at start... Really annoying that only way to see it again is loading it up from start...

Hoping they will tweak that at some stage

[Paper Tiger]

Mission List

Day 1 - Sunday 17th September

Mission 1 E&F Coy 2/505 A Perfect Sunday

Mission 2 A Coy 1/505 Grafwegen

Mission 3 Irish Guards Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead

Mission 4 Irish Guards The Check at Hoek

Mission 5 C Coy 1/505 Riethorst

Mission 6 C Coy 1/505 Mook

Mission 7 E Coy 2/505 The Heuman Lock Bridge

Mission 8 Irish Guards The Deelshurk Bridge

Day 2 - Monday 18th September

Mission 9 C Coy 1/505 Night Fight

Mission 10 A Coy 1/505 Papenberg

Mission 11 C Coy 1/505 Red Sun Rising

Mission 12 Irish Guards Aalst

Mission 13 F Coy 2/505 Badlands

Day 4 - Wednesday 20th September

Mission 14 C Coy 1/505 Here we Fight!

Mission 15 A&C Coys 1/505 Turning Back the Tide.

Mission 16 E&F Coy 2/505 Hunner Park

All missions designed by Paper Tiger.

The designer would like to thank the following for the hours of hard work they put in to testing this for me:

Zebulon Pleasure Beast2

YankeeDog

Normal Dude

Meateatr

There you go. That's the main line of the campaign. If you lose some missions on Day 1 you may fight Deelshurk in the morning of Day 2 but otherwise it's good to go.

And I left in the designers thanks to his testing team because I can't thank these guys enough. BTW, it Normal Dude who won the Guards compilation on his first playthrough. I hope he'll forgive me that bit of disclosure

[ss11955]

Thank you Paper Tiger.

[Frederico]

Wondering about the "assault pioneers" listed in the oob for mission 12 Aalst. Is that a typo or did I not get them as a result of a previous failure? Paper Tiger, the campaign is great! Hard as #*^*, but really well done.

[Kenzie]

I just tried that lock bridge scenario for the first time, and I only took two casualties in the entire thing:

I had a few minutes to spare at the end when the Germans surrendered as well. I'm reading this thread now and I'm amazed at all the difficulty some people are having with it. I think I got really lucky. I didn't think I was all that good at this game.

At the start, I ordered a preplanned linear barrage all along that treeline across the river with the off-map 81mm mortars. Since it would take 8 minutes to call them in later, I didn't want to wait that long. I ordered them to use maximum ammo in "harass" mode, so the rounds kept falling for quite some time and it seemed to be pretty effective. Enough time would pass in between shells for the Germans to feel safe and pop their heads up again, only to take a face full of shrapnel when more shells came down.

I split up all my squads and made the LMG teams stay behind and set up behind the hedgerows and in the top floors of those buildings at the start, and kept them there for the whole game. The MMG was set up behind a hedgerow. I got really lucky and managed to catch their bunker on fire in the first few minutes. My MMG team got the kill, and their bunker never caused a single casualty.

The German HMG in the trench was taken out pretty quickly by one of my 60mm mortar teams, and my other 60mm focused on the AT gun. They didn't take it out, but their crew was shot up pretty badly and they never fired a shot in the whole game. My MG teams in the back kept them pinned until I was able get across the bridge to assault it.

I sent one platoon across the open ground on the left side of the map, and the other into the woods on the right. The platoon on the right, along with the MGs in the back, provided covering fire for the other platoon to get across the bridge. From that point on it was just mopping up. I took both of my casualties in the last few minutes during the final assault.

One of my assault teams found a second German HMG deployed on the first floor of one of their buildings and dispatched them easily. I think the 81mm barrage at the start may have forced them to retreat down to the first floor because they were in a terrible firing position. My men waltzed through the door and shot them all in the back. The rest of the Germans abandoned their positions and surrendered a couple of minutes later.

This has been a really fun campaign so far. I still haven't lost a battle, but I did get a draw once from running out of time. Thank you Paper Tiger for making it. I like the balance between these small paratrooper missions and those huge Irish Guards missions with all the vehicles to play with.

[Holien]

Arrrghhh my 1st loss..

Mission 9 C Coy 1/505 Night Fight

Tactical defeat due to my failure to really understand points structure and what I needed to do.

Not a great game but looks like no real punishment for this failure if I understand correctly. Only if I get 2 consecutive?

The Previous game was a real toughie with Guards at Deelshurk Bridge. Especially when I lost my 17pdr without getting anything in return...

For those playing mission 9 make sure you think hard about what you need to do to get a victory...

[Lille Fiskerby]

The first time I played the Deelshurk bridge scenario I also found it

very tough, but the second time I played it I changed my tactics.

SPOILER ALERT for those who havent played this scenario yet.

The inf. Company that is available at the start of the mission I moved

through the woods on the right side of hells highway towards the farm complex

Venbergse farm and at the same time blasting Aardehus and de Stenenburghoeven

with my armoured cars (I KO'ed the 20 mm. In Aardehus with 81 mm mortars)

now storm the hedges on the south and eastern sides on Venbergse using 50 mm.

mortars and the company HMG team as covering fire and was just in time as

when I arrived at the hedges german SS soldiers was also just arriving and

I killed them all in a few minutes.

After securing Venbergse I moved on to Hendrikshoeve and the same happened again

as I got there the germans did to and I killed all SS soldiers and a SPW.

Now the second inf. Coy. have arrived and I moved them on the left side of

hells highway through the woods and dashed towards Stenenburghoeven covered by

my shermans.

Now with only Steenen bridge OBJ. Missing I took my piat teams out to destroy

the 2 SP on the right side cowering the road. After the 2xSP was KO my right flank was secure I raced my shermans to the edge of Stenenburghoeven while

preparing a smokescreen and the rest of my arty on top of Steenen bridge OBJ.

Moved 2 shermans slowly on the right side of the road to get flanking shoots

on the SP at Steenen bridge got a total victory and more important a lot of

fun while playing this mission.

LF

[Tim1966]

Just finished with a tactical victory. Phew - some great, seesaw battles there. My last battle was 15 - Turning back the tide. Didn't get to Hunner Park . Next time maybe...

Scottish Corridor next.

[ss11955]

Maybe I have a mental block--but where and what is "Scottish Corridor" ?--- Am playing "Road etc. Mission 8-The Deelshurk Bridge.

[Tim1966]

Scottish corridor is a campaign in the Commonwealth module.

[Lethaface]

Now in mission 3, first guards mission. Having a great time!

I'm not sure if the Bombers available will be resupplied during day 1, so I'm hesitant to go all out and bomb those dodgy forests into smoldering firewood. Anyway until now my casualties are very modest, IIRC about 5 KIA/WIA in the first mission and ~10 in the second. Those US airborne troopers pack some serious firepower.

[YankeeDog]

Now in mission 3, first guards mission. Having a great time!

I'm not sure if the Bombers available will be resupplied during day 1, so I'm hesitant to go all out and bomb those dodgy forests into smoldering firewood. Anyway until now my casualties are very modest, IIRC about 5 KIA/WIA in the first mission and ~10 in the second. Those US airborne troopers pack some serious firepower.

FYI, Air Support can't be carried over from scenario to scenario. This is an engine limitation, and also fairly realistic as WWII Tac Air generally did not have the loiter time to hang about the battlefield for extended periods of time.

So if you have Air Support in your roster, use it or lose it!

[Lethaface]

Cheers, going for Winchester!

Restarting the scen, since time is of the essence I guess some pre arranged air strikes make all the difference.

[ss11955]

Scottish corridor is a campaign in the Commonwealth module.

Thank you !

[Kenzie]

I'm almost finished with the campaign now. I just got to mission 15. That "Here We Fight!" scenario was insane. I got major or total victories in all the previous missions except for one draw (I ran out of time), so when I got to the Here We Fight one... well I guess I let my guard down a bit. I just got hopelessly slaughtered. My platoon commander was the very first casualty of the engagement, and then the rest of the platoon just got shot to pieces shortly afterward. It was a bit disconcerting.

I tried it a second time and did a lot better. I hit three of their tanks with bazooka shots but only knocked one of them out, and I killed the commander of another with small arms, forcing the tank to retreat. Those bazookas don't seem very effective. I caused over 200 casualties, wiping out over half of their infantry, and held onto both objectives yet still only managed a tactical victory. I guess because they still had most of their tanks.

I like it when the AI can pose a really serious threat like that. The fields outside the objectives were choked with so many corpses. My 81mm mortar alone caused 37 enemy casualties.

I think my favorite scenario was the Bloody Aalst one though. It had a good mix of open fields on one side of the map, and the brutal, up-close urban fighting on the other side. And I liked all the artillery and tanks and vehicles and those Crusader AA tanks. I wish there were more Guards missions because they were usually my favorite.

[Paper Tiger]

I wish there were more Guards missions because they were usually my favorite.

Me too. But the four Guards missions took more time to craft and test than the rest of the campaign put together. (And of those four, Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead and Bloody Aalst were the most work) They're all quite big missions and a lot of work went into making sure that they were challenging AND fun to play (especially the latter). I did originally intend to have a 5th Guards mission on the road to Elst as a bonus mission. I even made my own map up for it but there just wasn't the time to playtest it.

What's likely is that I'll include it when I revise it later. I plan to revise all three of my CMBN campaigns at some point in the future so maybe then.

[Paper Tiger]

I'm not sure if the Bombers available will be resupplied during day 1, so I'm hesitant to go all out and bomb those dodgy forests into smoldering firewood. Anyway until now my casualties are very modest, IIRC about 5 KIA/WIA in the first mission and ~10 in the second. Those US airborne troopers pack some serious firepower.

YankeeDog has said it already. When I was designing the NATO Canadian campaign, I wanted to have Allied air support as core units because of the close connection between the first two battles. The second kicked off 20-15 minutes after the first and the fighting took place just a few hundred metres to the north of the first so the thinking was that the same aircraft would be flying support mission for both these actions. But the air units get fully resupplied between missions regardless of the campaign author's intentions. Probably a good thing though as it would have made those two missions a bit tougher and some of the testers were already squeaking about the difficulty

And yes, the US Paras really pack some serious firepower during MG. I had to rebalance a lot of the Para missions when the new TO&E arrived because I'd been using Normandy paras as stand-ins. The difference was massive!

[Kenzie]

Well I finally did it... I finished it! My result:

That last mission, the Hunner Park one, was a blast. I loved all that artillery. By using a preplanned barrage and the 'harass' mode, I was able to keep the heavy guns firing nonstop for the entire 40 minute long battle. The park was a moonscape of craters when it was over. I moved the artillery spotter forward to adjust fires as needed, creating a 'creeping barrage' kind of effect. I put down a big smoke screen as well and then ordered a massive charge into the park. If this game had bayonets I would have called it a bayonet charge.

Since it was the last mission, I just thought "What would Patton do?" and I tried to be as aggressive as possible. My tanks led the charge and overran their positions, engaging their tanks at point blank range, sometimes from the side. Some of their foxhole positions were still occupied as my tanks drove right over them and kept going into the rear. To my surprise, it was actually very successful, and most of their positions in the park were overrun and destroyed within minutes. I took heavy losses, but they ended up taking a lot more in the end.

Me too. But the four Guards missions took more time to craft and test than the rest of the campaign put together. (And of those four, Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead and Bloody Aalst were the most work) They're all quite big missions and a lot of work went into making sure that they were challenging AND fun to play (especially the latter). I did originally intend to have a 5th Guards mission on the road to Elst as a bonus mission. I even made my own map up for it but there just wasn't the time to playtest it.

What's likely is that I'll include it when I revise it later. I plan to revise all three of my CMBN campaigns at some point in the future so maybe then.

That sounds awesome. I can't wait until those revised campaigns are released. I will have to try replaying the Nijmegen campaign at some point.

[Gamer58]

There is a serious underrepresentation of artillery in almost all CM campaigns. IRL enemy positions were bombarded for hours if not days before assaults and there was a lot more arty available during assaults.

[poesel]

On the giving end: great fun seeing your artillery drop then walk into the defence and take the few survivors as prisoner. Not very challenging.

On the receiving end: see your careful placed defence bombed into oblivion then see the remaining survivors raise their hands. Not fun.

[YankeeDog]

There is a serious underrepresentation of artillery in almost all CM campaigns. IRL enemy positions were bombarded for hours if not days before assaults and there was a lot more arty available during assaults.

And such extended large bombardments are largely out of the scope of CM. The artillery directly represented in a CM scenario is "on-call", dedicated quick-response assets available to the local Company or Battalion commander. This type of asset was often in short supply, even for the relatively artillery-rich Americans and British.

This way of representing indirect-fire assets is a simplified abstraction and isn't a precisely accurate depiction of how artillery really worked in WWII, but for the vast majority of battle scenarios it works well enough. The game is called "Combat Mission", not "Fire Plan Mission;" a detailed artillery fire plan simulator would really be a game in and of itself.

The effects of prep barrages are generally better represented in the scenario start conditions than during the battle. Defenders are reduced head count and/or in poor condition at scenario start, etc. Sitting and watching artillery come down for several hours would be fun maybe once, but the novelty would wear off quickly.

Further, there are very good gameplay reasons why CM scenarios taken as a group are not representative of the "average" or "typical" tactical engagement. Sometimes large prep bombardments pretty much wiped out the defense and the attackers walked across the battlefield almost unhindered. Other times, the prep bombardments were poorly planned, wildly off target, and/or the defenders managed to mostly avoid their effects by repositioning, in which case the assault force went headlong into a prepared defense and was often slaughtered. Still other times, the prep bombardment had some effect, and weakened the defense to a degree, but the defense maintained some degree of cohesion and there was still hard work to do for the assault force. It is this final type of situation that makes a good CM scenario; cakewalks and suicide missions make for poor gameplay.

[nachinus]

I'd like a cakewalk from time to time.

[Paper Tiger]

There is a serious underrepresentation of artillery in almost all CM campaigns. IRL enemy positions were bombarded for hours if not days before assaults and there was a lot more arty available during assaults.

I think I provide more artillery support for the player in my campaigns than do most others

I'd like a cakewalk from time to time.

Cakewalks are not popular with a lot of folks. They require almost as much time to develop as the other missions and you get almost zero feedback on them. Personally, I think the first three Reithorst missions are easy, especially the first two, as well as the Mook Bridge mission as well. (Not the Heuman Lock Bridge mission though which was intended to give the player a bit of a slap in the face after the relative ease of the previous two missions.) The 2/505 'Badlands' mission on Day 2 can be a cakewalk if the player really put the hurt on the German core units in Papenberg. In my campaigns you have to earn your cakewalks. But otherwise, Market Garden wasn't much of a cakewalk for the Allies and so there are not many in the campaign.

If you want easy, just skip the first two missions accepting the losses and then you have a whole campaign of cakewalks