'Caper' scenarios?

[Bob The Terrible]

I am trying to build scenarios of the 'caper' variety, by which I mean battles which involve blowing up a bridge, destroying an installation of some kind, assassinating a general etc. Unfortunately CM doesn't seem suited to this kind of scenario. There isn't a 'target' unit - unless an unarmed pillbox could be used. But then why would the AI defend it? I would have to include a flag somewhere I guess. I hit upon the idea of using an artillery spotter to simulate a general to be assassinated. Perhaps this could work.

Any thoughts?

[Philippe]

Yes, you are correct, CM wasn't designed to reproduce Hollywood scenarios. What it was designed to do was to show how far from reality Hollywood scenarios are. If you play too much CM you'll have a hard time watching war movies because you'll see how absurd they are.

AFAIK the AI will end up defending (or attacking) anything with a flag sitting next to it. If you entrench a tank it can't move. I don't know what happens if you use the dig in command with a jeep or a truck.

[von Lucke]

I did one on the Bruneval Raid (British para commando mission in France, 1942), that involves blowing up a radar instalation, escorting a radar techie to the beach, taking out the beach defenses, and then embarking on landing boats to exit. Involved a few "special rules" to make it work properly, but in the end, I thought it came together well.

Bruneval Raid at the Senario Depot.

(Hmmm, I notice there are two other Bruneval scenarios up at the Depot. Just like to point out that mine is from 2004 --- despite the recent upload date.

[Hans]

I did a number of those types of scenarios.

I often used a FO unit (large point value) stripped of any ammo as a "target" or "VIP". Generally CM is poorly suited for such scenario but you can come up with an approximation.

Oh and no you cannot dig in anything that doesn't have a turret (AFAIK)

[Bob The Terrible]

Thanks all.

Well, there were real operations in which raiders landed by parachute or boat, did something, then withdrew. Even if there weren't many of the Hollywood variety, I would still like to simulate them.

At the moment I'm thinking about a delaying operation, perhaps France 1940, in which the player must prevent the AI from exiting the map by blowing a bridge or blocking a road or something. I could block a road with trucks, but then how do I abandon them where I want them?

[John Kettler]

Bob the Terrible,

You can simulate a bridge demolition by targeting a bridge with heavy caliber artillery and padlocking a TRP on it as part of the setup. Special rules then require that the FO provided to conduct the shoot to blast the bridge may be used for nothing else. If said FO somehow gets whacked, so sorry! I've read of people using everything up through battleship fire for such scenarios when a stone bridge is involved. For a lighter bridge of wood, you can bring in engineers with demo charges and target it via command

Use Explosives.

Search the Forums under "bridge demolition" to learn more. Here's some similar data on demo charges vs. buildings from Fragment. The section from which this is drawn is simply terrific.

http://tinyurl.com/2g92t5

Some very clever minds have sought solutions for some of the things you want to do, and these are particularly in evidence in the CMx1 D-Day landing scenarios. CMAK has assault boats, but they're the paddled variety and are glacially slow.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Hans]

yep I used that method (artillery fire representing a timed demolition of a bridge) however even with a TRP the damn round sometimes missed!

You can use mines to block a bridge representing "damage" then engineers can clear it. I used that a number of times and it works well.

[John Kettler]

Hans,

Forgive what may be a stupid question (zero sleep since yesterday), but would a higher quality FO reduce the likelihood of that unfortunate outcome?

Apropos of blowing bridges, the old mag AFV-G2 used to run a skirmish scenario for miniatures now and again, one of which pitted a poorly led (Leutnant Gelb = yellow) covering force trying to protect the engineers while they wired a bridge for demolition. ISTR the cover force Germans had a StuG III, an MG-42, some infantry, and a Tiger that was theoretically available from down the road after a bunch of turns. The trick lay in keeping the American spearhead, Shermans and halftracked infantry, at bay long enough for the Pioneers, represented as a truck and some men, to wire and blow the bridge--without being so cut up they couldn't finish the job.

Bob the Terrible,

Don't know what the pickings look like in CMAK (should be captured Italian trucks and tanks in British service and at least some captured Matildas and whatnot in German service), but CMBB has a bunch of captured armor you can play with, maybe some softskins, too. These would lend themselves well to caper scenarios, but unlike the movies, you couldn't crew and decrew them at will.

Sorry, absolutely no vehicles, motor vessels or aircraft available to hotwire and steal! Commando raids are doable, albeit beset by severe flexibility issues not faced in the real world, not to mention the game doesn't model a sentry tour! Something of the order of The Guns of Navarone could be done, through using, say, 88 mm equipped pillboxes or an entrenched siG33 or leFH 18 battery as stand-ins for something much nastier, with light forces available to the defenders initially and a potent reaction force later. In fact, I've intermittently toyed with this idea for modeling Russian naval infantry raids on German shore batteries, as detailed in Leonov's remarkable BLOOD ON THE SHORE.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Hans]

Short answer

Yes! An elite FO is more accurate than green. Even so a crack gunner would miss occasional, reflecting the reality of artillery - which isn't unreasable considering the CEPs of those weapons.

[dieseltaylor]

Anything with assault boats I have problems with as debarking may be OK but trying to re-embark and skedaddle is a nightmare.

You could look at Popski's Private Army or the LRDG/SAS for doable land based scenarios. My gut feeling is that with uber-spotting a lot of these will breakdown as surprise is always a factor in the raids success.

I can think of two ways about it.

a: use smoke from mortars to cloud the battlefield

b: night

c: have multiple targets and allow the attacker to nominate

None of these I fear will be entirely successful but may make it better. In BoB we have had two raid scenarios and one was quite good but not I think published by GAJ. I beleive that the CM series was designed primarily for armour with infantry a secondary and less well modelled support to the game - therefore - infantry based games are not favourite.

You might look at a recon based scenario where by its nature there are many vehicles and fluid linesand with maps 4km wide there could be lots f fun.

[John Kettler]

dieseltaylor,

Sadly, a jeep with a Ma Deuce simply doesn't pack the punch of a Popski's Private Army jeep, the S.A.S. jeep or the L.R.D.G Chevrolet truck, all of which carry multiple MGs and major quantities of ammo for same. Even so, some possibilities exist, such as crewing the larger vehicles with combat engineers armed with demo charges. We're also lacking good counter vehicles, such as that special rig the Italians built for dealing with such raiders.

I think you've got some good ideas, but further possibilities exist in putting only a skeletal, lowish readiness defense force in place, then time the rest as increasingly likely to arrive reinforcements. It further occurs to me that large trucks might make reasonable aircraft substitutes as raid targets.

Regards,

John Kettler

[dieseltaylor]

I agree JK that it is tricky but compared to poxy assault boats ....

I would tend to use half tracks and A/c's so everything would be up-gunned but also up-armoured so the relationship is probably intact.

I like the trucks idea and I think it would play to the games strength, motorised units, better than an infantry raid. Also the time frame would be pretty much 1 to 1 in terms of action to minute rather than the accelerated blood letting normally seen.

So airfield centrally placed in large large map and the raiders can come from any direction : ) Sounds doable with night or smoke to counter uberness. Furthermore Franko's Iron MAn rules might really work with limited units to play with.

: )

[John Kettler]

dieseltaylor,

It occurs to me that low grade sharpshooters might make passable sentries and ditto with foxholed, entrenched LMG teams for none too sharp automatic weapon crews, simulating the period before the sirens start wailing. I think a jeep can carry a team/half squad, so if combat engineers, that's one? demo charge per jeep. Fortunately, grenades are far more plentiful and should destroy trucks nicely. If the target's a building, though, then demo charges will be needed.

Regards,

John Kettler