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Weekend Challenge Battle


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I thought of the idea of not hitting the houses yesterday afternoon and ran two test runs with a preserve objective. The results were not quite as I expected and since I didn't have time to run more tests to determine I was using the preserve objective properly, I took it out of the offical scoring. Since I can be thick headed sometimes, I still wanted to include the idea, even if the only way to verify the results is a little bit of a pain.

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This was the most enjoyable battle yet, I found this one had plenty of surprises also. (you like to do that it seems)

I will only say I went about this battle all wrong but it worked out for me, I was on fire for this one and everything went my way.

I will not give anything away or comment on the game until after people have turned in their results.

 

My screen that shows the buildings and what damage is done was hard to take without giving anything away., you will note the two craters.

I was not caring about your request to not harm the buildings, I felt they had to go, lucky for me those bombs missed I guess. But that was a interesting event which I will discuss later.

The only comment on what you could improve on was I was confused as to what you tell us the scoring will be and then I open the map and see 3 objectives, so I was not sure about the scoring still. So that is not clear but maybe you did not want it clear for us.

 

http://So5EZSK.png

http://sTaYJwF.png

Edited by slysniper
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Well so far we have @slysniper in for 10 points and @mirekm61 in with 6 points. Anyone else want to post up their results? 

This weekend's challenge battle is going to be a CMRT battle. I have a few ideas running in my head right now for it but am open to suggestions. Do you have a vehicle or unit you would like to see featured? Something you think is cool but never seems to make it into a scenario? 

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Well, I am sad to see that this latest scenario did not get any more interest than it did.

Out of your releases, this is by far the best one I enjoyed while playing through it.

It presented the most challenges and interesting decisions one needs to have to make.

 

 

Recap below “Spoiler”

 

 

 

That latest scenario is much harder than my score reflects.

I had made the decision from the set up I was not going to follow his instructions to not bomb the buildings

I was looking at the map and with the forces I had, said to myself, no way, those buildings are the only thing that has a view to the ravine and open area I need to cross with my troops so they have to go.

I had made the decision to go up the left flank and the buildings were the only defensive terrain that had a good view. Remove them and I have a chance.

So I set the planes to bomb the two large buildings on the left with preorders before the battle and then was hoping to take out the ones on the right also if I had bombs left.

Needless to say the second the planes showed up I had the forest on the left side erupt in anti-aircraft fire. I thought there had to be at least 4 AA guns over there, only saw one with a hard spot on it so I was not sure what was in there, but I saw 3 firing at once for sure.

So one turn of air and I cancelled the bombing run, the result was the first two bombs missed and the 3rd hit, thus the one lost structure seen in the image. One bomb was left to use later.

Needless to say, my mortars and one remaining bomb on the plane were used to clear the woods of all the guns I exposed on the left flank. While the woods received that attention, I ordered the infantry to infiltrate up to the walls on my side of the ravine but had them stay hidden til I dropped the one remaining heavy bomb on the woods, then I started my attack immediately after the bomb drop, exposed my infantry and then started assaulting on the left flank.

One Machine Gun was firing back from those buildings up on the ridge at that point.

Just after starting this action there was a welcome surprise of armor appearing, I had the Stewart go into action immediately to solve my problem with infantry fire from those overlooking buildings on the ridge. Now that kept the machine gun fire from there quiet, I only used light fire against it so as to not damage any more structures per the requested orders given.

The enemy also receives armor support about at this time. So the 76er’s become the tool to take care of that.

So as long as you get the jump on the enemy armor this is not a problem. If you lose this duel, this battle can become much uglier very quick I would suspect.

So I pushed the left flank and became aware of how well my arty and bomb run did on that area, finding I had removed more than I knew even existed in those woods.

The enemy was not done trying to hold on to this location and another little group of reinforcements arrived.

After handling them. I sent the Stewart up the left flank to where I had my infantry, with the Stewart leading the way and the infantry in support I crossed behind the vines to the structures on the ridge right flank and did my final mop up operations.

 

 

After thoughts:

If I had not exposed the enemy location from the very early start of the battle, this would have been a much harder challenge. There is a large likelihood if the woods are not pre-bombed before any assault, friendly losses are going to add up from what is there in defenses.

I should have thought about hitting the left flank woods from what we are told in his briefing, but I didn’t.

So in truth, I was lucky in this engagement in that I made a terrible decision, had my air power exposed to the full effects of the enemies defenses and instead of suffering from poor decisions, turned it into my advantages.

So it never hurts to be a little lucky.

 

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This weekend's Challenge Battle features a Soviet Infantry platoon clearing out a small village after the main attack has passed. It is late in the day and your tanks have just passed a small village and knocked out a German Supply platoon attempting to snag last minute supplies before fleeing. Sunset is fast approaching giving the Germans a chance to escape into the night. Battle is to be played as the Soviets against the German AI. There are 3 AI plans for this battle. Good luck!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k5v42gds4y7e2so/AADyXv9MCabs64EVeJJFv0jua?dl=0

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Hi, appreciate you putting this together. Gave this 3x attempts to test your plans. All 3x times I got all the Germans. But didn't get a win 1st time, in hindsight versus the toughest AI plan, took too many casualties. Got a tactical victory 2nd time, 26x men ok,  and total victory on the third with just one killed. Very enjoyable thanks!

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had a go at battle2. Victory would have been even more complete if an AT crew who I thought I'd wiped out managed to knock out one of my StuGs.

Total Victory, 50 ok 16 casualties, 1000pts v 90. Spend most of Combat Mission WW2 series fighting as Germans, so was pretty confident beforehand. Cheers for putting this together.

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Nice little scenario, thanks.  I have a quick question for the Soviet grogs out there: Why does the soviet SG43 MMG have a Deploy time of 26 secs and a Packup time of 0 secs?  I understand the weapon is on wheels so it should be easy to get going, but wouldn't that obtain, at least partially, for setting up as well?  By comparison the M1919A4 30 Cal has a setup time of 21 secs and a packup time of 14 secs.  This weapon has a separate tripod that needs to be placed first but the setup time is less than the SG43.  What part of this am I missing?    

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Great job making this tiny scenario for the Russians. For me it highlights what Combat Mission is so good at. Which is giving your orders and then that suspense of watching the minute play out.   The twilight setting adds to that theme. Also with such a small amount of men to control it also makes it much more engrossing somehow for me.   Keep them coming :)

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6 hours ago, weta_nz said:

Great job making this tiny scenario for the Russians. For me it highlights what Combat Mission is so good at. Which is giving your orders and then that suspense of watching the minute play out.   The twilight setting adds to that theme. Also with such a small amount of men to control it also makes it much more engrossing somehow for me.   Keep them coming :)

 

21 hours ago, wadepm said:

Nice little scenario, thanks.  

 

 

On 2/23/2019 at 4:21 AM, theforger said:

Hi, appreciate you putting this together. Very enjoyable thanks!

 

On 2/22/2019 at 6:54 PM, slysniper said:

Out of your releases, this is by far the best one I enjoyed while playing through it.

Thanks for the feedback, it sure makes doing these a lot more enjoyable. I am glad you enjoyed the battles.

This weekends battle will be one for CMBN. I will update the seed scoring later tonight, so there still is time to post your results.

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On 2/22/2019 at 6:54 PM, slysniper said:

I had made the decision from the set up I was not going to follow his instructions to not bomb the buildings.I was looking at the map and with the forces I had, said to myself, no way, those buildings are the only thing that has a view to the ravine and open area I need to cross with my troops so they have to go. I had made the decision to go up the left flank and the buildings were the only defensive terrain that had a good view. Remove them and I have a chance.

This decision tree was why I put the requirement to not hit the houses into the briefing. I wanted the player to have to think for a moment about the consequences of having an asset with the power to alter the course of the battle, yet need to balance the lives of his men against potential civilian lives. The planes could knock those house flat and any potential enemy in them leaving the way into town clear. Yet the real threat was not in the houses but the woods. If the mortars had smoke rounds, it would be easy to blind the houses and attack the woods with the planes.

It would have been very frustrating to see the houses get flattened, confidence build that the approach was clear, only to see your men cut to shreds by the enemy in the woods. It would have been the worst of results. Fortunately, Lady Luck was on your side and all turned out perfectly. 

The variable timing for reinforcements is something I like to use as it adds randomness to a battle. In my playthroughs, sometimes the Allied tanks didnt show up until well after the enemy reinforcements arrive. Your infantry have some weapons available to tackle the tanks but if they have to battle them in the open terrain it is going to be a tough fight.

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts on the battle.

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Well, sounds like I was even luckier than I thought.

I don't have time to post at the moment, but this weeks battle gave me a minor loss. 

I managed to lose 21 wounded or dead to get those 12 Germans out of the village. 

My mopping up operation turned into a bloody disaster and I have gone a-wall become I am sure they will shoot me for being a enemy of the state for my lack of leadership in this last battle.

Edited by slysniper
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Sorry for the delay in getting this battle up. Had some family commitments I needed to get done first.

Weekend Challenge Battle #5 features and American Engineer platoon clearing out a small village. It is for CMBN and features some units included in the Market Garden module. It is playable from the Allied side against three AI plans. Good luck.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k5v42gds4y7e2so/AADyXv9MCabs64EVeJJFv0jua?dl=0

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You have made a very good scenario, for me it is difficult. After a great effort, a draw was achieved, but the result could not be saved (missclik).                                                                              So I decided to play again and again it was hard (next plan AI). The village was taken care of but the losses were enormous.


Spoiler.

The first game.
  A cannon behind the city with a good field of fire. After 20 minutes of fire from both HMG crews escaped, however, the gun was shot several times and I had several dead.


The second game
Cannon in the city I thought that a bad idea, but it will come extremely difficult. Well placed MG effectively prevent its firing, and every shot even inaccurate is very dangerous.
Thanks again for the great scenario.
Maybe I'll play it again and publish the result.

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