ROW IV

[Melnibone]

Originally posted by redwolf:

I tried to get fancy. I set up the AT units on the hill, firing back towards my map edge onto the road. Sharpshooters and mortars were also positione there. However, my opponent sent a company of paratroopers through the scattered trees there. Not only did it maul all the heavy weapons, the infantry I sent there was shot up on the move.

lol...great minds think alike...I also tried that...with very similar results. Thought I was being quite clever at the time!

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Brent Pollock:

...anyone try to blow the bridge?

It may not have been in the briefing for Squeezing the Melon, but I did get specific directions that the bridge was not to be blown/destroyed. However, I checked with Kingfish, and there was no directive preventing me from putting the roadblock across the bridge entrance. It wouldn't stop troops from crossing, but it certainly ensured that no US tanks were going to cross.

[Edited to add that it does say in the main briefing that neither player is allowed to destroy the bridge.]

[ June 18, 2004, 07:20 AM: Message edited by: Ace Pilot ]

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Melnibone:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by jbertles:

The concept of the scenario was brilliant, but even the slightest hint of an encirclement in the Axis briefing would have made me more properly paranoid in my setup.

Hmmm...I thought it did give a hint...I was playing Axis and after reading it I certainly expected Allied forces to appear at some time on "my" side of the bridge. Funnily enough in my AAR I stated that it gave me too big of a hint - I like surprises </font>

[Melnibone]

I thought I recalled something in the General Briefing - other than map directions - which certainly gave me the impression of a rear attack - but I could be wrong.

[jwxspoon]

hehe

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by jwxspoon:

hehe

I guess I wasn't clear enough in my previous post. I meant to say:

Damn designers.

Great job on the scenario, Jeff. Now, seriously, what were you trying to do with the briefing?

[Nidan1]

When I read the briefing for "Melon", I too noticed the reversal of the map directions. I posted in the thread on this forum and was severely chastised by someone for violating the gag rule. After emailing Kingfish , I pretty much got the same response as Ace Pilot got. From that point on, I took the briefings from all the battles with a grain of salt.

I found that the LOS "keyholes" in "Melon" were negated early on by my oppponent when he began blasting all the buldings near the bridge, dropping smoke and just creating a general smoke mess. In our battle most armor casualties were inflicted at very close ranges, which seems to be opposite the pattern faced by some other players.

In "Bump in the Night", I just followed the general instructions fopr the German player, and just attempted to get my units off the map, while trying to avoid any contact at all. I used a flanking screen of PSWs, and just herderd my other units through. Contact with the allied player consisted mostly of armored car duels, which the PSWs usually won. I was able to exit nearly all of my mounted units. What I found odd was that in the final score my opponent received a -8 points for exited units. How does that work?

In "Vevi" I made what I thought was a big mistake by attacking on a broad front. I had contemplated massing on one flank, and then rolling across the map, but decided against it in the end. In hindsight that might have been the best move. My opponent had an excellent interlocking defense set up and mauled me pretty bad, especially on the German right flank.

In "Retreat" I must tip my hat to Larsen for frustrating me, as the Allied player, from the very beginning. He kept his units under cover and hit me from range, without my units being able to spot anything specific. By the time I was close enough to make a credible assault, my forces were so weakened that they were easily handled by his Axis forces.

"Frontier Firefight" as the Axis required not a lot of moving or adjustment, once the game started. My opponent was very cautious, and whenever I got a quick glimpse of any type of unit marker, I dumped mortar fire in the area. I figured to slow him down even more, by scattering unseen concentrations. I only physically defended two of the three flag locations, and that proved wise because as luck would have it his artillery landed on the empty location.

I thouroughly enjoyed all the games, my opponents were all gentlemen and all good players. Kudos to the scenario designers, Kingfish, Holien et al. for providing and excellent tournament experience.

[ June 18, 2004, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: Nidan1 ]

[jwxspoon]

I will be posting a designers notes section on "Squeezing the Melon" as well as my intended changes for the public release version of this scenario this weekend.

Ace Pilot - the briefing thing was a freudian slip, I think.

jw

[Brent Pollock]

What gave it away for me was:

1. the title, "Squeezing the melon", which let us know their would be a pincer attack involving the melon field in the German's backyard;

2. that crack in the briefing about "of all the Allied forces around us, let's hope we get attacked by those underperfoming Americans"...which let me know that we definitely would get attacked by US forces and they'd be no worse than regular, and have some sort of sneaky, grand tactical maneuver going on...like having crossed the river during the night with a light infantry flanking force;

3. the German force dispositions; all the good stuff crammed into a shallow bridgehead, with their 6-o'clock covered by the regimental band, which was only allowed to set up in a narrow strip in town, even though they'd been in the area long enough to have several children by the local gals. I've typed it before and I'll type it again, the whole setup reeked of being a "set up"...it stank, and is the only downside to the scenario. It struck me as contrived and ahistorical...be very surprised to see if this was based on an actual historical event.

Originally posted by Melnibone:

I thought I recalled something in the General Briefing - other than map directions - which certainly gave me the impression of a rear attack - but I could be wrong.

[ June 18, 2004, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

[Melnibone]

General Briefing for Melon read:

"In some cases, the Allies were forced to think up more creative solutions..."

That's what made me think of an attack from the rear

[Brent Pollock]

Yah - that one, too.

[jbertles]

Hmmm. Well, you bring up good points about the title and the hints in the briefing. Clearly I just didn't read enough into it. Grit ma teeth; a tuff lesson learnt; and ready to die agin tomorrow!

[Brent Pollock]

Phooey - I knew what was coming (just not from which flank) and still ended up third from the bottom. It didn't help me much at all.

[GreenAsJade]

I agree that Squeezing the Melon was the best of the bunch.

It had an interesting & spectacular map, interesting premise (unlike Brent, I don't care about the allegedly unhistorical nature of it) , lots of good gear to play with, armour and inf, and action right away.

In my AAR I lamented the unbroken trees everywhere that the allies were forced to slog through - a long way on foot, a slow way in vehicles - and I still see that as the one shortcoming. It certainly limits options, and impacted my enjoyment of the otherwise fine scenario.

(I had one other gripe in my AAR, re a completely unnecessary and misleading comment in the Allied briefing "The ground is damp, but not yet saturated and should bear the weight of our vehicles if necessary" which I strongly suggest takng out... if the idea is to alert the player to the weather conditions, there must be a better way!)

GaJ.

edit: note that any comments I make here or in AARs have to be taken with a pinch of salt, because I am one of the lowest ranking players in the world... so what the heck do I know!!?!?

[ June 19, 2004, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: GreenAsJade ]

[Brent Pollock]

Too bad I didn't play you, as I set up to greet Yanks slogging through the trees...which was most unfortunate as they blitzed down the road...nice payback for 1940.

[GreenAsJade]

Yeah - in my AAR I observed that a blitz down the road was the way to go (I also noted that the briefing suggests otherwise... a shame IMHO).

GaJ.

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

In "Bump in the Night", I just followed the general instructions fopr the German player, and just attempted to get my units off the map, while trying to avoid any contact at all. I used a flanking screen of PSWs, and just herderd my other units through. Contact with the allied player consisted mostly of armored car duels, which the PSWs usually won. I was able to exit nearly all of my mounted units. What I found odd was that in the final score my opponent received a -8 points for exited units. How does that work?

Bah! Your opponent must have been a rank amateur. I racked up -586 exit points as the Allies (yes, that’s a negative 586 points, as in, less than zero). Coupled with my whopping 108 points for the casualties I inflicted (actually, I think most of those were from accidentally backing over the Germans that encircled us as we tried to reverse out of various disastrous situations), my overall score was on the order of -400 something (yes, negative). Yet I still managed to earn a score of 22, which didn’t seem right to me.

Can anyone provide an explanation for the scoring in exit scenarios. I’ve read the manual, but I can’t fathom how this score resulted from these numbers. Here is the breakdown

<font size=3> </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">

Axis Allied

Enemy casualties 846 108

Prisoners taken 60

Exited troops 4,485 -586

Final Score 78% 22% </pre>

[Redwolf]

I posted descriptions of the exit scenario scoring since CMBO times.

Gotta run right now but it should be easy to find if you look for search terms redwolf and "exit scenario" (with quotes).

[Ace Pilot]

Thanks, Redwolf. I found this link which gives a good description of exit point scoring, but I can't find anything that describes how a score is calculated when a player has a negative point total.

I've juggled the numbers trying to guess how the final score was arrived at and I just don't see it. I know CMBO had some exit point scoring problems related to no credit for units exited while riding vehicles. But that problem got fixed in later versions. Still, makes me wonder if there may be some other problems with exit scoring.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Yeah - in my AAR I observed that a blitz down the road was the way to go (I also noted that the briefing suggests otherwise... a shame IMHO).

GaJ.

My opponent tried that - I dropped a 120mm barrage o him and jumped for joy when I actually took out a Stuart. Several Shermans were immobilized by the side of the road, through wet ground or my minefields. And when he stopped to shell a trench with area fire, my squad there refused to break or even lose his concealment status - he was quite the hero! Eventually something had to give, but we only played 25 turns before email contact was lost.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Yeah - in my AAR I observed that a blitz down the road was the way to go (I also noted that the briefing suggests otherwise... a shame IMHO).

GaJ.

As Allies I first of all tried the blitz down the road approach and wound up with many burning vehicles--my opponent had set up his Pak40 and dug in PzIII to frustrate that strategy. That pushed me to take to thescattered trees with both my infantry and armor and that worked out much better for me. It was probably sheer luck but few of my vehicles bogged and none was immobilized going through the scattered trees.

I thought this was a great scenario and clearly the class of the tourney. I wouldn't want to see it changed much... And please, please maintain the chance of allied suprise with the paras on the east side. Otherwise, this will be just another scenario where the so-called "surprise" force gets massacred by an enemy on hyper-alert. It sounds like there are more than enough hints for the Axis in the title and briefing...

[Brent Pollock]

I also set up to receive the blitz but, as noted previously, had the force thoroughly blasted by OBA before the blitzers were in sight...presto-chango...no blitz defense. Also as noted, I was a tad slow with my OBA so I couldn't hit the parking lot of AFVs that had collected in front of the roadblock before my FO was pummelled by the massed direct area fire of the parking lots occupants...it was damned "dicey", for sure.

As to ruining the "surprise" of the paras' rear flank attack, it's really in no danger as they completely outclass the buffoon platoon that they run into. I had set that platoon up to repel attack from the rear flanks, but they crumbled under the first hail of small arms fire.

I still think it'd be more fun (and realistic) for both sides if the Germans were allowed to set up freely on either side of the river, and let the paras show up on either flank (where were they allowed to set up, by the by...just on the melon patch side, or did they also have the option of the opposite flank?). That way, the German heavy weapon section can be back where it is supposed to be, and also presents a juicy target for the paras to slam into.

[GreenAsJade]

The paras are reinforcements: the Allies have no choice where they arrive.

(I'm not sure what melon patch you refer to either! The "Melon" I thought the title was referring to was the "Pont di Cantelope")

As to running into buffoons: somehow my opponent had time to get people back over the bridge and defend... I guess I needed to be more aggressive with the paras right from the start. I do wish I knew how I should have known that, though. Am I just too soft on men, not being willing to rush them in blind?

Interesting how the best scenario generates the most debate about how it should be improved!!

GaJ.

[Brent Pollock]

Check out the Landmarks - the huge vineyard area is labelled Melon Fields, or somesuch. I was too inept to get people over the bridge, which came under US LOF very quickly (lost the sandbagged AA to halftracks/Stuarts). I'd love to try it again just to see if I could evacuate my guys across the bridge and blow it up before the Yanks arrive; the 120 mm OBA should lay thick smoke.

[GreenAsJade]

Ah. In some ways, that landmark is a red-herring, since it's the bridge, not the vineyards, that end up being squeezed!

The briefing says you're not allowed to blow the bridge

GaJ.