Der Manstein kommt - truck weirdness

[Nick Schieben]

Hi,

I'm playing the above campaign PBEM as the soviets. From the onset of this scenarion I've encountered an unsettling problem. In case "the enemy is listening" -

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There is a truck that was set up inside a single building, and I can't get the bloody thing out to tow an AT gun about 15m away no matter what movement order I try - reverse or move. Can anyone help with this, or explain why this was set up as such. I guess I should have tried to place it during the setup phase, but my opponent and I decided to stick with defaults.

Also, there's a jeep that won't accept a spotter team of 2 men although it says it can carry a team. Should it be this way?

Of course, this has forced me to improvise, but the more I thnk about it the less I sleep Any help appreciated.

Regards

[Kingfish]

There is a truck that was set up inside a single building, and I can't get the bloody thing out to tow an AT gun about 15m away no matter what movement order I try - reverse or move. Can anyone help with this, or explain why this was set up as such. I guess I should have tried to place it during the setup phase, but my opponent and I decided to stick with defaults.

Franko (the scenario's designer) is known for his attention to detail, so what you have is probably a very rare oversight on his part. In any event, that truck is no longer of any use to you, as nothing wil get it out of the building. Best to forget it and find another prime mover for the gun.

Also, there's a jeep that won't accept a spotter team of 2 men although it says it can carry a team. Should it be this way?

CMBB features two types of spotters, radio and wire equipped. Radio means the team lugs around a radio pack to communicate with their assigned battery. This makes them very mobile, and thus eligible for riding in a vehicle.

The wire equipped spotters must trail a commo wire back to their battery, so they are much slower and cannot ride in a vehicle. I suspect your spotter is of the wire variety. Easy way to find out is to click on the unit and hit enter.

[Nick Schieben]

Thanks Kingfish,

I've already more-or-less written off the housebound truck, although I still give it commands out of curiousity more than anything else. I've diverted another vehicle to come to the rescue, but resources are tight. What would a good battle be without the unexpected!

Good point about the spotters. Can't check right now, but I very much doubt the '42 soviets carried around much wireless stuff. Thanks again!

Regards

[Snorri]

wasn`t the wireless russian artillery introduced with the fall of the sovjet empire? late 20th century...?

[Scott B]

Originally posted by Snorri:

wasn`t the wireless russian artillery introduced with the fall of the sovjet empire? late 20th century...?

I am pretty sure no one had wireless artillery until the late twentieth century - I'm not sure anyone had abandoned wire communications for intra-battery commo until about that time. I believe the first platform the US Army had that did this was the Paladin, but we may not have been the first. My understanding is the 2S19 has it, but I'm not up to speed on Russian hardware so it might not be the first they deployed with that capability.

That said, the relevant point is on whether or not the observer has wireless commo to the firing element (or fire direction center, in certain systems). The Soviets had radios available to them for fire observation on some occasions in WWII. They were not common and they were certainly not universal, but they did exist.

If I remember correctly, CMBB gives this capability only to 81mm and 120mm mortars and 76mm arty spotters, always at high rarity and increasing from no radio capability to weak radio capability by the end of the war. Not likely to have been around at Stalingrad, but if present, it almost certainly would have been with a mobile formation, I would think.

Scott