CM:FI AAR SLIM versus Bletchley_Geek

[BletchleyGeek]

5 hours ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

This is brilliant Miguel.  I should have you post this attack and your inspiration on my blog as a guest poster.  Interested?  

Thanks mate, I thought that since this is an AAR, there will be space for reflection. 

 

I am happy to get parts of this AAR "syndicated" in your blog. Let's have first a test run over here.

[BletchleyGeek]

3 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Think I'll pass on that one, .

Unfortunately, dear Oliver, it's not always that you can choose to turn down such offers

The backstory to this old tune is quite interesting, one of his authors was none too happy about its success...

[Warts 'n' all]

That is very tune. And following on in a musical vein, I normally make my own period piece mods.

[BletchleyGeek]

4 hours ago, sburke said:

I have asked for it, but there was some technical reason why it isn’t done in CM.  I’d love to be able to see a full roster of my units.

It is indeed  minor thing within the context of CMx2. There's some stuff coming up soon or soonish that will go a long way to give us satisfaction when it comes to bonding emotionally with pixel truppen. I wish it would be possible for the few surviving tactical war game developers to establish partnerships, so we can get compelling gameplay at several levels. In any case, looking closer at the true face of battle will be certainly refreshing. But it will be hard to gloss over sketchiness when it comes to the "fire and movement" side of the business.

[BletchleyGeek]

9 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

That is very tune. And following on in a musical vein, I normally make my own period piece mods.

The Jacobites made great tunes back in the day

any recommendations from the Roundhead's side?

[Warts 'n' all]

I don't know much about my alter ego's taste in music. Although he would sometimes invite himself into people's houses around the area now occupied by St Jame's Park if there was music playing, and have a good knees up.

For me "period pieces" means either music recorded during WW2, or tracks from the 30's that were re-issued on V-discs.

[c3k]

Back to the first turn recon squad. Even I have never given such an order! If, at any point, that recon team ran into the enemy, there's no way for them to get back. Sure, dead scouts DO tell tales, but that mission, as ordered, was something that even Carlos Hatchcock would refuse to do.

If the scouts got down the first leg of the "U", they'd be behind enemy lines with no options and no support. Sweeping across the setup zone (bottom of the "U") would be HIGHLY unlikely to be survivable. The return up the final leg was merely offered to give them hope, yes? I mean, there's no way a team could survive moving up behind an assault force and then pass through them into friendly lines, right?

I like the idea of a deep-recce. Some tight covered arcs would be needed, and a target location as a hole-up OP would be better. E.g., go deep and hide. The big sweep? Sure, they had 3 MPs, and that kraut-coolness factor, but even that would not suffice for three men to emerge from this mission.

In this kind of low-vis, perhaps several teams, sent ahead of the first line of resistance, as listening posts/pickets, would be best? 

Hindsight is 20/20, even in low vis. 

[Bil Hardenberger]

13 minutes ago, c3k said:

In this kind of low-vis, perhaps several teams, sent ahead of the first line of resistance, as listening posts/pickets, would be best? 

Hindsight is 20/20, even in low vis. 

All good points Ken.

Rule of thumb that I use:  the lower the visibility or the closer the terrain, the more eyes I send out, and closer together as well.  Recon is meant to identify enemy contacts, not to fight... once they uncover the enemy route(s) of advance they can be recalled.  Firm contact is not required.. sound contacts alone will tell you a lot.

I'm sure these two fellas don't need us to continue on about scouting though, even if it is part of the lessons learned from this AAR...  I however could talk on the subject for a long time.

[rocketman]

Nice analysis overall in the earlier video and the "unpeal" effect in particular.

Edited April 27, 2018 by rocketman
Wrong quote

[BletchleyGeek]

Feel free to comment guys to your hearts content guys, you are also part of this. Being an AAR we can go back and forth over the files and even try to replay bits of the game

[BletchleyGeek]

@JoMc67 comment was a fair one. But I don't have a baseline to compare with, other than Graviteam. And in that one there are fully implemented flares.

Also, @General Jack Ripper was taking for you the God view/drone shot of the action. So it looks quite orderly. From the ground at eyeball level I don't think you can appreciate the pattern.

Last, there are no SOP in CMx2, or rather there is just one (return fire on contact).So of course there is no hesitation to engage. The only delays possible follow from experience, morale and leadership/C3I (as it influences spotting).

[BletchleyGeek]

01:45

 

Ten (in game) minutes after encountering my opponent's scouts it was clear to me that he wasn't doing what I had expected him to. Coys A and B had advanced quite a bit without finding any enemy forces. On my right flank, Coy C was making slow progress as I was being very careful. Note how I changed the company formation from column to vee, with a platoon in reserve. That was suboptimal move, since it is a combat formation not a march one, but I was pretty much expecting to make contact at any moment.  Eventually I felt a bit ridiculous - it was bit like swinging your fists in the dark, really - and relaxed a bit. Fortunately, nothing bad happened because of that

 

On the left flank, A and B Coys kept with their methodical, one squad at a time leapfrogging. Very good practice for me - now I can do these drills with my eyes closed, but nothing too interesting when it comes to write up an AAR.

 

01:38

 

We advance the clock 10 minutes, right to the time when I reached the ditch. Having found no enemy here at all, it was time for a replan.

 

Up to now, I was basically probing ahead to get a handle on Chris' defensive plan. And so far I had probed into empty air, with the notable exception of Casa Fanella where I found a piece of wire with my organic scout section. That was a key piece of information to use. I must say that since the very beginning of the game I had been inclined towards a flanking attack on my right. The reasons for that was that I saw the terrain to be more favourable for an infantry attack. There's a fair amount of trees - obscuring visibility from the high ground Chris was commandeering - and walls and other linear obstacles can work both ways.

 

On the picture below, from left to right you can see the Scouting element, Coy A (2 platoons and 1 back by now) and Coy B ( still in column formation), and Coy C in a generally defensive stance.

 

All of the above was somewhat validated by the advice in the Truppenfuhrung  - due to the low visibility and terrain, I considered paragraph 317 to apply well to this situation. Or rather, I thought I could  make it work.

 

The plan was broken down on the following four activities:

 

1. Work my way around the wire with two platoons (1 from each B and C coys) in the wings, and two other platoons to pin down the defenders I expected to be around Casa Fanella covering the wire, and two platoons in reserve. This was to be a small scale Umfassung attack, with the wire to be breached and Casa Fanella assaulted as soon as the wing elements flanked the enemy position.
2. A Coy would continue probing forward with one platoon towards Casa d'Antonio. It didn't seem at this stage that Casa d'Antonio would be strongly defended, as the ditch and forest had been forgone.
3. Move up Coy D from the reserve to the area right behind Coys A and B.

 

This planning included up the the milestone of securing Casa Fanella. Further down the road was the general idea of exploiting a breakthrough in the direction of Casa Riposa and then continue the execution of the flanking attack.

 

01:29

 

That wasn't a very complicated plan, and I think that was a good thing. Because when it failed spectacularly, it wasn't a complete mess - there were a few elements of it that could be reused

By now activity 2) was nearly completed, as I had visuals on Casa d'Antonio. Still no contact though. Activity 1) was progressing a bit more slowly than I expected though. The wing platoon from Coy B was still moving into position (I forgot to move them for a whole 3 minutes!) while the wing platoon of Coy C was nearly reaching its jump off position. The central element of the envelopment attack on Casa Fanella was already in place, while some engineers were rushing to position.

The serrated red lines I have sketched out highlight the positions I had put my money on Chris HKL would be.

And then a nameless private on the tip of the right wing literally just walked onto a German HMG. And a timer starts: tic-toc-tic-toc...

 

Edited April 28, 2018 by BletchleyGeek
Added images

[General Jack Ripper]

 

[General Jack Ripper]

Before I begin, a disclaimer of sorts:

The next three parts of the AAR videos were all done simultaneously, so any conversation I had not already seen will not factor into the video discussion until at least Part Five.

 

On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 4:13 PM, c3k said:

So, you're saying Truman was right about "the domino effect"? 

Are you saying he wasn't?

 

On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 7:19 AM, Bil Hardenberger said:

I finally had a chance to watch these videos last night.. very interesting, and I love the presentation @General Jack Ripper and I'm very impressed with @BletchleyGeek's tactics.  In fact I would say that the assault on that objective is the best example of infiltration tactics that I have seen in a CM game.  Well done Miguel.

I would say, as far as the scouting goes that you made two major errors:

1.  You left way too much distance between waypoints.  When I scout I move forward two, maybe three action spots, then pause for 10-15 seconds.   It is better to move in short segments more slowly, than to give your teams long movement paths.. that is very dangerous in the face of an unknown enemy.  You can assign long movement paths if you feel relatively safe, but as you start to get closer to probable contact you need to slow down and shorten your movement.
2. Your lone scout team had no support.  You should always try to scout with at least two teams... I know I don't always follow my own advice.. but with at least two teams you can have one team moving while the other is stationary. 

This is good stuff.

The approach on Miguel's side was very well done, but don't underestimate the environmental factors. Practical visibility in any direction is only about 20 meters, unless there is another factor, such as the unit firing it's weapons.

1. You are exactly right.
2. The team was not expected to survive in the first place.

 

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 9:43 AM, c3k said:

Back to the first turn recon squad. Even I have never given such an order! If, at any point, that recon team ran into the enemy, there's no way for them to get back. Sure, dead scouts DO tell tales, but that mission, as ordered, was something that even Carlos Hatchcock would refuse to do.

But I got the idea from listening to your rhetoric about the glorious death and noble sacrifice of your Pixeltruppen!

WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

 

Alright, so here's my read on the "scouting situation":

My intention with the team was to verify whether or not the enemy was using Approach Route #1, by simply bumping into them if they were there, which they did.
They would then run away if possible, which they did not.
The rest of the path was only going to be used if they met no resistance...

Honestly, being the defender (remember, this is an ALLIED ATTACK QB) I had no real intention of conducting a proper reconnaissance, or I would have done so. I had a few points left over from my force purchase, couldn't think of anything useful to use it on, so I bought a scout team, bumped all their soft factors to the max, (which is surprisingly cheap, btw) and sent them off to cause confusion and terror with their sacrifice.
Clearly, that did NOT happen, in fact, the only effect that seemed to have was to cause my opponent to waste about 10 minutes of clock time.
In hindsight, I should have bought several CONSCRIPT (-2) scout teams, and had all of them go on suicide marches. 

[MOS:96B2P]

12 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

My intention with the team was to verify whether or not the enemy was using Approach Route #1, by simply bumping into them if they were there, which they did.

Interesting AAR as always.  +1

I did some experiments in CMSF1 after playing @Combatintmans excellent scenario Operation Neptune Spear.  I found that stationary infantry (without night vision equipment) were not able to spot, with a confirmed contact, moving OpFor past 28 meters (OpFor that were not shooting).  They did of course get tentative contacts past 28 meters.  I haven't played many night battles, without NV equipment, however I suspect Listening Posts (LP)s might be useful to the defender.  Especially at night in the WWII titles since there is no NV equipment.  In theory a scout team with a short target arc placed in or near a suspected OpFor Avenue of Approach should report multiple tentative contacts if the OpFor takes that route.  The tentative contacts would not reveal the exact type of OpFor units such as Tiger tanks but it would reveal a tentative armor contact.  So if LP on Avenue of Approach #1 (AA1) had two infantry tentative contacts and one light armor tentative contact while in contrast an LP on AA2 had multiple Infantry, Armor and Light Armor tentative contacts the answer to which AA are they likely to take would be answered.  Then, in theory, because of the spotting conditions these LP teams should have a decent chance of surviving and continuing to report tentative contacts (I guess it would be even better if the LPs had radios which the WW2 scouts teams won't).   

The way you answered the same question worked just fine and is something I have also done.  Sometimes intentionally and sometimes not .   The conversation just made me remember the above described experiment so I thought I would share how it might work in theory.  Good luck and I look forward to more posts.              

[General Jack Ripper]

I am, as ever, a busy man.
Here's the next part:

 

[General Jack Ripper]

The fight for Casa Fanella finishes.
 

 

The big question I have is: "Why did Miguel stop his advance?"

I suppose that will be up to @BletchleyGeek to explain.

[General Jack Ripper]

So far, we have seen an excellent infiltration and attack on one of the victory locations. My forward line in that sector was easily overcome, and mostly destroyed.
Vicious close range fighting then erupted between the leading Canadian troops, and my elevated positions of the second line.
Somehow, my boys were able to hold off the enemy long enough to bring in artillery. To this day, it still confuses me how this was possible.
The sudden pause in the enemy advance gave me time I needed to re-organize my defense and consolidate my combat power.

The next segment of the AAR videos will focus on the fight at Casa d'Antonio.

[Warts 'n' all]

A brilliant series so far.

[BletchleyGeek]

Thanks @General Jack Ripper for the intro

 

You have almost answered the question yourself, but there are a few aspects that impacted my decision making which I don't think were "observable" from your POV.

 

The attack on Casa Fanella didn't start on the conditions of my choosing. That stray private walking onto that HMG was pretty much like firing a flare up into the night sky, as my line engaged yours. I wasn't ready just yet, or more exactly, I hadn't the forces I thought I needed to breakthrough all the way to the top of the hill completely in position. Hence the delay in breaching the wire. The engineers were still on their way. In hindsight, perhaps, the rational decision would have been to call off the whole thing. I wasn't very sure I had the combat strength to push all the way to Casa Riposa in the units I had in position. And I was very aware that as soon as we had made contact, there would be artillery coming my way.

 

My calculation is that I would have like 6 to 8 minutes before the shells started coming... but I did that on the back of wishful thinking, as you had a TRP right on top of Casa Fanella. That was great forward thinking and probably the second small decision which saved the bacon of your left flank. The first was to put down wire

 

In any case, it is fairly evident that I had enough combat power to gain fire superiority over your forward line and the defenders you had in Casa Fanella. I was actually surprised to see them routing (or falling back) after 2 or 3 minutes in the firefight.  It was also one of the most intense firefights I have had in a CM game in a while. Yet, I wasn't in position to exploit that success because the wire effectively preempted me advancing further. The only unit I had able to move forward was the platoon on my right flank. I could have squirmed a squad or two more... but it felt like I was feeding my men in dribs and drabs to the maws of German machine gun fire. So I stayed frosty.

 

The right flank platoon wouldn't be able to make much progress. The quality differential between my force and yours became apparent then. You mention in the video that one of your HQ teams was able to pick one by one several members of a squad. That wasn't my choice. My squad had jumped over the wall to move across the road,  and then got a casualty and became suppressed/pinned. The platoon commander was too far to provide support, and the TacAI  wasn't going to take them anywhere but backwards.

 

First thing I did was to bring forward the HMGs and the light mortars and start putting some hurt on your guys... which I thought would be reeling (and they were). Your position shuffling tactics reduced considerably the effectiveness of the mortars. Here the diminished Commonwealth squad firepower failed to reduce the mobility of your higher quality troops, which as a consequence avoided those little shells of death (which were falling quite close from what I can see in your video).

 

Eventually, I breached the obstacles and was able to move forward in strength. But then your artillery arrived.

 

In hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have made my engineers a more integral part of my plan, so I could have brought them forward way quicker. The initial success of my infiltration was squandered because of lacking engineering support at the right time.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by BletchleyGeek

[MOS:96B2P]

16 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

You had a TRP right on top of Casa Fanella. That was great forward thinking and probably the second small decision which saved the bacon of your left flank. The first was to put down wire.

In hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have made my engineers a more integral part of my plan, so I could have brought them forward way quicker. The initial success of my infiltration was squandered because of lacking engineering support at the right time.

More interesting stuff @General Jack Ripper and @BletchleyGeek.  Wire, IMO, is a surprisingly effective obstacle.  Especially when covered by fire, as obstacles should be.   Even more so when TRPs are used.   There is always the dilemma of having engineers close enough to be used in a timely manner but not so close  they are chewed up in the forward edge.  Good AAR. 

[axxe]

17 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

In hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have made my engineers a more integral part of my plan, so I could have brought them forward way quicker. The initial success of my infiltration was squandered because of lacking engineering support at the right time.

@BletchleyGeek, how much of the difficulty / delay due to the wire was a factor of the poor visibility?  Could you see the wire a ways off, or did you encounter it suddenly and not even see how far to the sides it stretched?  I'd love to see a replay of the turn where you first saw the wire.

[BletchleyGeek]

I could see the wire just right @axxe, spent a couple minutes mapping its extent, as it is only revealed when you get visuals on it.

Going around it on the left was an option I discarded as it seemed to me crazy to advance on the open and be probably subject to enfilade fire. 

@MOS:96B2P being a combat engineer in WW2 wasn't a very safe job. As long as they blasted one AS their job would have been done

Edited May 13, 2018 by BletchleyGeek

[c3k]

Great stuff! Keep it coming. We're waiting on the tale of Casa D'Antonio!

[General Jack Ripper]

That was a very fortuitous disaster on my part...

 

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 6:52 PM, BletchleyGeek said:

My calculation is that I would have like 6 to 8 minutes before the shells started coming... but I did that on the back of wishful thinking, as you had a TRP right on top of Casa Fanella. That was great forward thinking and probably the second small decision which saved the bacon of your left flank.

That was part of my initial planning, I figured I could surrender a victory location, then immediately bombard it, then counterattack.
It worked, but I had to lose a Platoon in order to do it, which negated the "counterattack" idea.

I see now neither of us were expecting action. No wonder things were so vicious.
I often find when both sides are surprised, the side that wins either has more bodies, or more bullets.