Jaegermeister AAR

[Henri]

When I first played the Jaegermeister advanced tutorial, I got my butt kicked to the moon, losing all my 20 or so Russian tanks to the seven German tanks without even denting one of them. So I have been among the critics of this scenario as too difficult for a tutorial, even an advanced one. It didn?t help that the instructions are so confusing that I thought that I had to send my main force up to the plateau on the left instead of on the ridge straight ahead. Anyway after a week of reading forums and the manual (highly recommended), I tried it again last night. Here is how it went.

As intended by the scenario, I sent a platoon mounted on tanks towards the woods on the right with the intention of disembarking the infantry at the woods so that they could continue to the next woods further on in order to later assault the side of the village. I sent two tanks and the two other platoons of infantry off to the left, intending for one to reach the woods far to the left before swinging towards the village far below, and the other about halfway, from where I hope they could sneak up on the village with the tanks. The other tanks and all arriving reinforcements were sent to the center, from where I intended to put them hull down to ping away at targets of opportunity until the German tanks arrived, at which point they would go into shoot and scoot mode.

On the left, things went pretty well as planned and contrary to my previous experience, the infantry and tanks were not fired upon as they headed to the left. They eventually reached their positions and headed slowly for the village without incident, having to stop once in a while to restore from fatigue and a slug of vodka.

On the right, it was a different story. My units were supposed to reach their destinations and hide until I was ready for the assault, but it turned out that contrary to the previous game, there was an AT gun and an infantry unit in the first woods and another AT gun and infantry in and near the shack on the ridge. As a result, my five tanks heading to the right were shot at almost as soon as they left their positions in the scattered trees. Fortunately the AT round from the woods bounced off the lead tank and knocked off the infantry riding on it, and the five tanks and their infantry soon had the AT gun and infantry running through the woods. Eventually the tanks reached the woods where one was suddenly hit in the side by the AT gun in the shack, penetrating without much damage. While my infantry hunted for the Germans in the woods, the tanks fired at the shack and collapsed it with the first or second shot, burying the AT gun. The accompanying infantry squad took to his heels, but not before panicking one of the two Maxim MGs that was headed for the woods to cover the village.

All of this caused considerable delay, not to mention that more German infantry were covering the exit to the woods on the right, which made it impossible for my platoon to reach the second woods until much later when the tanks on the ridge could give supporting fire. The positive aspect of this was that two precious AT guns for the Germans were gone, and no one was covering my units approaching from the left. Another high price for me was the rattling of my 76 mm artillery spotter, who was trying to take a position in the woods from where he could spot the village when he was taken under fire and routed. I had to send an officer next to him, who finally rallied him after about ten minutes, just in time to give the command for artillery to fire their smoke rounds, but the FO was so cross-eyed from his ordeal that he gave the wrong coordinates and the smoke fell on the other side of the village, leaving my assault to go in without smoke cover. But I am getting ahead of myself.

In the meantime, my tanks had reached the ridge facing the village, and the leading tanks had deployed in a hull down position. Before I read the manual I thought that one told the tanks where the hull down position was, but instead one must tell the tanks the location of the place from where the tanks appear to be hull down. This mistake had cost me dearly in the previous game, as well as a misunderstanding about how covered arcs work. Before the German tanks appeared far to the rear, my tanks had time to rout a few German units protecting the village. By now the rocket barrage had fallen, probably shaking up some unseen German defenders.

Based on the previous game, I expected the Tigers to appear behind the village a bit to the right and the Panthers to appear on the road to the left of the village. Instead none of the German tanks appeared on the road, they all appeared lined up on the edge of the woods on the right. When the tanks appeared, I quickly ordered my tanks to back up of their hull down positions to cover behind the ridge; during the exchange of fire, the Germans killed two of my tanks, but I killed an AT gun alongside the tanks.

I now put all of my tanks in the shoot and scoot mode, and had them lined up on the ridge all the way from the woods on the left end of the ridge to the woods on the right where I had my MG set up. The tanks would pop up more or less randomly (with the help of the ?pause? command), take one shot at the German tanks, then back away behind the ridge. This is particularly useful against AT guns, who take a long time to change their orientation, and even for tanks, who lose aiming accuracy when they have to swivel their turrets. So while the German AT guns were playing eenie meeny miney moe with my tanks, the latter played cat and mouse with the Germans. Now the Germans have a total of seven tanks, whereas the Soviets have 15 to 20, which means that losing a Russian tank is not a serious loss, but losing a German one is a catastrophe. As it happened, I was a bit lucky and when the smoke cleared, I had 12 tanks left and the Germans had none. OORAH!!!

Throughout the rest of the game, I occasionally spotted what appeared to be a Tiger and a Panther, so I kept 3 of my tanks hull down on the ridge with narrow armor covered arcs just in case. It turned out that these two tanks had suffered gun hits and were therefore useless except for making me hold back three of my own tanks. One of my anks also suffered a gun hit, and one conscript crew remaned panicked for the rest of the game after one of them was killed by a penetration.

Now my remaining tanks had a field day supporting the infantry and rooting out German infantry. I was sure that the Germans would have a machinegun in the church, so I ordered a couple of my tanks to put a few shells in the church. Sure enough, a couple of German squads soon emerged and hoofed it to the rear.

When I saw that the smoke had missed the village and that there were only 10 minutes left, I decided that it was time for the assault, and threw all of my infantry into the fray. It turned out that whatever German defenders were in the center had been routed or had moved to the flanks, and the infantry attacking from the ridge met no opposition and sailed right into the village, tired but happy.

On the flanks, it was a different story: on my right, the platoon who had finally reached the far woods took fire as they crossed the clearing towards the cemetery and hiked back to the woods. Support from the tanks on the ridge eventually cleared the way, but they arrived at the church too late to have any effect on the battle. As mentioned above, the left flank had been pretty quiet, but as the platoon to the far left approached the town, they were met by a hail of fire from a fair number of German units in foxholes and in houses. The two tanks and the other platoon closer to the center made it into town without much incident and moved to the left to support the assault there, which remained stalled for a good while. My tanks on the ridge could not help because their vew was obstructed.

The German platoon in the house furthest to the left at the end of the town was the toughest unit I have ever seen. Under fire from two tanks and a half-dozen infantry units, they fought on and on, even afer the building had collapsed on their heads, and when HE rounds were exploding on them. This must be what the manual refers to as units that go ?fanatical?.

I worked my way through the village without too much trouble ? infantry supported by a half-dozen or more tanks, one of which is a flame tank, is very efficient in rooting out entrenched enemies. When one of them didn?t hoof it early enough, the flame tank crew would have a barbecue party and convince them to go play somewhere else, encouraged in this endeavor by being shot in the butt by tanks and infantry.

Eventually I reached the end of the village and finally killed the stubborn Germans there and scattered the rest. Now there remained two last flags on the road and time was running out. Although I had a victory assured, I wanted all of the flags. The nearest flag had a house and a bunker near it, so I put some tank rounds and MG fire into the house as my tanks approached. The house collapsed ending resistance there, but the bunker bounced a shell off one of my tanks, but he had no chance against all of the suppressing fire and he was soon put out of action.

Now the time was up and there only remained the possibility of bonus moves, so I decided to send a tank all by itself to the last flag; when it reached it, two infantry units in the woods nearby assaulted the tanks and killed it. I mounted whatever infantry was available on nearby tanks and raced them up the road past the woods, from where they could turn around hopefully before the infantry could assault them. I also ordered the flame tank to race through the village and up the road to give assistance.

The tanks made it to the flag and were shooting it out with the Germans when the flame tank arrived and quickly convinced the Germans that it was a hot day and that they should go to the beach.

The game ended with a major victory. Very satisfying after the humiliating defeat I got on my first try. The tank battle decided the game. The strong German flank defenses threw me off a bit, but it turned out to facilitate my assault on the town against the almost undefended center.

Although I still think that this scenario may be a bit difficult for newbies, it is a good barometer of one?s grasp of the game. When you can get a major victory in this scenario as the Russians, you are ready for the major leagues. Of course I only believe this because I did it myself

Henri

[ October 29, 2002, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Henri ]

[wayne.hatcher@hok.com]

GREAT REPORT!!!! YOU SHOULD DO THIS KIND OF AAR MORE ??? GREAT READ!!!

[Henri]

There will be others.

[ October 29, 2002, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: Henri ]

[aka_tom_w]

bump

[OGF Keller]

I am REALLY beginning to hate this scenario.

Now the 4th time through, and I thought I was doing well.

Through the 15th turn I had

--good morale,

--first flag won with minimal casualties (with a platoon hiding in the building rubble)

--nice flanking vectors,

--good unit coherence,

--a sizable contingent of organized infantry(including pioneers) in the woods ready to assault the town,

--company commanders close to the troops,

--tanks lined up nicely on the reverse slope in the appropriate fashion,

--assault guns over the hills down into the road below, but still in defilade.

The perfect setting for a total victory....NOT!!

AAAAAAARGGGGGG!!!!

Here's what happened.

--I lost EVERY one of my reverse slope tanks, despite doing shoot-and-scoot with tight time delay alternatives! Took out two Panthers, but the Tigers survived and rumbled toward the village. My tanks were hulks.

--Could get only ONE of my assault guns in defilade insinde the town. There it did considerable damage in support of my infantry assault. The other three, including the flamethrower tank, were picked off.

--On my right flank the combined force ran into a dug in gun and got nowhere.

--On my left flank, I managed to get my combined force far down the road, and then up over the hill to the main road. But by that time, a Tiger and a Panther had unfurled their claws and were standing off and creaming me.

End result? Tactical defeat. Two flags won -- hill building and church -- and two contested, though the near flag on the road changed hands twice.

I am sorry, I did everything right, but STILL lost.

This is maddening.

C'est la guerre!

[Agua]

Okay, I think this was the first scenario I played once I recieved the CD and I just used the hints in the manual, but I got out with a major victory, first try - anyone who has played me knows it is not due to any great skill on my part, so it is winnable by your average joe.

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As I recall, all the German AFVs were taken out with a loss of between two, maybe three (one was gun damaged), JSIIs, simply by assembling the JSIIs in a row, just beneath the ridgeline overlooking the valley, then assigning very narrow "cover armour" arcs to them, combined with "shoot & scoot" commands, along with the use of "pause" orders that resulted in the JSIIs popping up to shoot at any vehicle in a very narrowly defined area, in alternating locations along the ridgeline. I tried to time it so as to have each JSII pop up over the ridge (into hull down, as determined by estimation, rather than use of the "hull down" command) a good distance away from the one which previously fired. The idea here was that the target acquisition time (through the covered arcs), as well as time exposed to the German fire (by use of short "shoot and scoot" commands) and area of the vehicle exposed (by directing the "shoot" portion of the "shoot and scoot" command to terminate with the JSII in hull down) were kept to a minimal, while alternating the location at which the Germans would see the JSIIs would increase their target acquisition time. Worked like a charm. I'd have to say, though, I can see that even with this approach, a bit of luck was involved in my success.

The SU assault guns moved to stand off positions behind the woods and assisted the infantry that cleared those woods and the road leading to the village / town. I moved several of the JSIIs down from the ridge, towards the town, with several left then moving up to the edge of the ridge, hull down, for overwatch protection in the event more German big cats showed up. Once in town, it was a grind 'em down action with the infantry. I lost an SU-152 to an 88(?) along the road on the opposite side of town during the clearing process.

[ January 07, 2003, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: Agua ]

[rune]

AHHHHHHH hate......you are coming over to the dark side...excellent....

Well, if nothing else, you got to say it has replayability.

Try it again, it sounds like you had a good plan, but bad luck. Luck is a factor in the game, of that there is no doubt.

Rune

[manchildstein (ii)]

i have a copy of this saved at about turn 7 or somefink...

i've lost all 3 tries from there... the first time horribly so, the 2nd time fairly close to that.. and the 3rd time i actually had 4 afvs still alive at the end... never killed more than 2 panthers...

where i have it saved is where the is2s and su122s are on the ridge on the left... 2 is2s were lost in their starting positions due to bogs...

anyway, the 1st and 2nd times i was shredded... the 2nd time in particular my is2s gathered in the valley beyond the ridge on the left... there by the buildings along the diagonal road by the with woods on the other side. i thought i was doing great until my tanks got taken out piecemeal by the panthers...

but the 3rd time was uncanny... that was the time i made up my mind to line the diagonal road with my tanks and su122s... the kv85 and su152s went further left... anyway, the tanks and su122s on the road ... i thought they were in great position to pick of those pesky panthers at the right moment... but what happened was uncanny... my tanks and assault guns along the road decided to take out some infantry in some buildings by the intersection.

when they did this, the buildings blew up and there i was... in los of three panthers all scrunched up and with los looking directly down the road... again they could only see 2 or 3 of my afvs, which they dispatched.... i was trapped... there was no place to go... the panthers just sat out there and took out everything which moved... one is2 made it over to the far left with the su152s and kv-flame... by then i was ready to cease fire...

i probably need to go back and play this one from turn 1... so i can 'move' instead of 'fast' my tanks out of the woods and arrive with all of them intact... also my infantry could be manuevered better...

anyway... accidentally blowing up those buildings and then being mowed down by the panthers... uncanny i tell ya...

[manchildstein (ii)]

ok... what i'm doing this 4th time is starting from the beginning. all of the afvs are moving over the left side of the ridge, there where the scattered trees have the adjacent rough terrain.

all of the afvs are going into the valley there beyond that ridge.

the infantry is all moving left that way too... the MGs set up in the scattered trees there over the crest of the ridge there, and the rest of the infantry is pressing forward with 'advance' commands from those scattered trees into the patch of scattered trees across the way...

it's about turn 10 and i've again lost 2 is2s to bogging (even though moving instead of fasting)... but the rest of my armor is in the valley or on its way there. i've already got some infantry across the valley and in the scattered trees... the idea is to flank far enough to the left that i start picking up the victory flags from the one there at the 'back' side of the town, then work toward the right... i don't know about that far flag ... way back on the left... maybe there will be time to get that ... if... and it seems like a big if... i can win the armor battle...

[Guest Mike]

Based on this thread I had my 2nd go at this scenario last night - my 1st as teh Russians.

I stuck to a simple plan - using the ridge immediately in front of the set-up positions with the small flag on it and the wood on it's right as start positions.

I sent 2 platoons on a long march around the left side of the board, and a single platoon of reinforcmnts went up the central valley to teh left of the road.

When the tigers arrived I shifted my armour to the road between teh 2 groups of scattered trees.

All went pretty well until late in the game - I'd lost a couple of SU-122's, 1 IS-2 & a pltoon of infantrykilled a Panther, KO'd the 3 AT guns, taken half the wood in front of the village & the 2 platoons hooking around eth left had moved as far as the road passing through the village to assault teh left hand objective flag.

Then I f-ed it up of course - in one turn I KO'ed 2 moer panthers & immobilised and KO'ed 2 Tigers so I got a bit cocky!

Well the ermaining tigers (1 immobilised) and 1 Panther slugged it out for 2 turns with the massed Russian armour KO'ing 5 or 6 tanks without taking a single hit in return!

So the game ended in a draw!!

As an aside - the concept of conscript Guards tank crews seems perty damned dodgy to me. While it may be good for game balance it jsut plain grates for historicity!!

[demoss]

As an aside - the concept of conscript Guards tank crews seems perty damned dodgy to me. While it may be good for game balance it jsut plain grates for historicity!!

This bothered me as well. Not only odd from a historical standpoint, but it made doing those shoot-n-scoot moves even harder. Good thing there weren't many conscript crews.

[manchildstein (ii)]

ok... i played it out last night... it went to turn 37... the ai stopped just as i was about to grab the large flag by the church... on the positive side my infantry platoons were without exception in decent shape or better... everything went left... there is a small barren hill there surrounded by pines and scattered trees... most all of my infantry worked its way into the scattered trees before that small hill.. some went straight for the pines on my left of that... the su152s and some su122s sat in the valley and obliterated whatever german infantry appeared in the pines on the other side of the diagonal road... the kv85flame and a half dozen or so is2s went to the left, one is2 and the kv into the scattered trees between that small hill and the pines further to the left, and 4 or 5 is2s even further left, through the scattered trees left of the pines.... infantry led the way in all cases... at some point a lone, '3-1' crewed is2 made the jaunt across the road and in so doing was penetrated by the 75mm gun over there by the building... some 'snap' shooting by an su122 in support (area target at a location next to the gun) knocked the gun out as the routed tank arrived there in the trees across the road... meanwhile 4 is2s were making their way around those pines (through the scattered trees) and came into LOS of some panthers... i used some shoot and scoot and the is running the 'gap' with the kv85 also got involved... 2 panthers knocked out with no losses... things went badly after that though as 2 more panthers appeared... a single panther knocked out 3 of the 4 is2s left of the pines in the scattered trees in a single turn...

the 3-1 is2 had by then recovered, and after a shoot and scoot by the (then ruined) building by the knocked out 75mm gun... it reversed into the clear and ran even further left, then ran up through some scattered trees to try scoot and shoot from there... by then it was hit all at once by the last 2 panthers and a tiger across the way... so much for my flanking manuever... the last is2 by the pine trees on my side of the road had by then retired... the other is2 in the 'gap' between the pines and the barren hill had also been knocked out... the kv85 in the 'gap' had worked its way further around the 'front' face of the barren hill but didn't dare show itself through the scattered trees... it was simply looking for some nearby enemy infantry to hit at close range... as i said, my infantry was fairly well swarming in a line all along 'my' side of the road 'through town'... from the destroyed 75 on my left, all the way to the church... nonetheless the germans controlled the small flag on the right and the church... all of the other flags were disputed... but it was enough for me to lose 36-64... it has me thinking i should stick to playing the ai... although a lot of it does seem to depend here on a bunch of shoot and scoots...

the is2, while a very good-looking tank, seems to have the flaw of a 4-man crew... i wonder if later is tanks had 5-man crews... seems kind of strange... i sure like the sound of those high-caliber, high-velocity guns going off... anyway... i was able to keep my infantry intact, and save for losing 3 tanks to 1 panther that one turn... lost only 6 afvs overall... with 2 additional bog/immobilizations... the germans in the pines on the center/right got pummelled by my assault guns and tanks all game long... the 75 on the far left accounted for 2 of my lost afvs... not too bad... infantry for the most part led this one... 'the eyes' of a force indeed...

[Guest Mike]

The IS-2 lacks a hull machine gunner, which is why it has a 4 man crew instead of a 5-man one.

It still hada hull machine gun, but it was fixed and isn't represented in CMBB.

The slow rate of fire is due to the seperate loading 122mm ammo and no extra loader to cope with it.

and yes - leading with infantry is almost always the way to go!! Although in my game I had a squad pass right over a shrek team that it didnt' see and which later took out a IS-2!!

[ January 08, 2003, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]

[rune]

Gentlemen,

You realize the guards designation was given to units that usually had a high casualty rate. It was quite common to have Guards units that were basically new units due to casualty replacement. Guards is just a honorific designation...nothing to do with training.

Rune

[Fionn]

Has no-one tried the dodge of pushing your infantry assault down the right flank and centre very hard such that your infantry almost make the woods in both areas and will, plainly, do so once the 2nd echelon infantry are committed?

This forces the German CO to committ more than his infantry to hold you off ( this is when the Panthers come into play). He either advances them to push your infantry back ( and exposes them to close-range tank fights) or he sits back and lets your infantry clear his infantry and ATGs away ( and providing you with the extra intel and tank-buttoning capacity which will give you a decisive advantage in the tank on tank battle).

I ended up destroying all of the panthers at ranges of from 150 to 50 metres between the ridgeline and a line drawn from the village to the right woods (holding a German infantry platoon and ATG, both of which were over-run by 2 of my infantry platoons). Infantry close assaults of the Panthers aided my IS-2s immeasurably. By the time the Tigers arrived all but 1 of the Panthers was knocked out and I had gained the freedom to engage in tactical maneuvre. I utilised this to pin the Tigers into a small area which was gradually encroached upon from both flanks while "Shoot and Scoot" IS and SUs kept them pinned with frontal fire (from the ridgeline). All in all I lost 2 IS-2s in the whole battle IIRC ( 1 to a Panther and 1 to an ATG). When you break 10 tank-killers onto both flanks of a 3 tank Tiger platoon at ranges varying from 60 to 200 metres you do a LOT of damage very quickly and very irrevocably. Remember you CAN stalk tanks using scattered trees, intervisibility lines etc in exactly the same way you can stalk enemy infantry ( and deer in real life).

Has no-one tried that? Combining arms instead of aggregating them and then "stalking" the Tigers through bad terrain for close in shots whilst keeping them pinned with harrassing frontal fire? I only played Jaegermeister once and that seemed the obvious thing to do IMO.. MUCH better than some force on force overmatch type solution which you all seem to have been taking (IMO).

[Guest Mike]

Why would anyone want to employ a "dodge"?!

I used terrain and numbers to shield my IS-2's from unsuitable matchups and in an attempt to overwhelm the foe while at the same time assaulting the areas they covered with massed infantry.

It worked - but I still lost IS's to AT guns when 3-4 IS's returning fire failed to put a shell anywhere near the target, the infantry fire fails to suppress it and the AT gun kindly gets 1 tank a turn for 2 turns in reply!

I don't think there's much wrong with anyones tactics - as you say Fionn you've only played it once & it sounds like yuo rode some luck - not that there's anything wrong with that either of course!!

[ January 08, 2003, 07:30 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]

[Guest Mike]

So does anyone fancy a PBEM of this scenario?

I'll play either side, or perhaps we could play it both ways at once?

[Guest Mike]

Bump

[Guest Mike]

bump

What - no-one??

What are ya all?? A bunch of pansy waste girlie squats or summit??!!

[manchildstein (ii)]

i'm all 'jaegermeistered out'...

[Knaust]

Mike I'm in and I will take the Krauts...fancy how the Russkies will win

[Knaust]

forgot the e-mail: roby@teleion.it

[Guest Mike]

Right oh - that's me as the Russians - anyone want to let me take the Germans against them?