Jump to content

The Carillon Nose (137th Infantry) - Campaign In Progress


Recommended Posts

Broadsword56 I read right at the start you where thinking of using your map for a player run campaign. I was thinking the same thing. Just mulling it around in my head at the moment and just had a few questions.

on a 2 x 2 map how many companies would you put across the 2 km if they where 2 platoons up 1 back.

I like the idea of the larger map with just the basics on it as a template.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 225
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Glad to hear that you share my interest in this!

In Normandy, infantry battalions on defense typically covered 914 meters to 1829 meters (1,000-2,000 yards). So at that scale of battle, if a full battalion were defending, I'd want to define a 2km x 2km battle area on the larger CMBN map.

A battalion on attack would have been far more concentrated, and a frontage of as little as 280 meters would not be unusual. So, for example, if a battalion is attacking a company-plus, 1km x 1km for a CMBN setup should be sufficient.

I'd use the boardgame's operational situation to set up the map and the OOB for a CMBN battle. Only the defined battle area (marked by labeling and landmarks) would be fully detailed, and would contain the setup zones.

Outside that area, you'd see the general landscape and elevation of the 4x4 map, but to save game speed (and mapmaking hours) the outer area would have no objects on it except for forests and strategically relevant church steeples. Those objects would be included because the operational game includes an artillery obervation post, which the player can place on the map anywhere in friendly territory within 1130m of any friendly unit. The availability of on-call artillery and defensive artillery, and the location of the OP, are established by the operational boardgame -- so it would be clear where the OP would be placed at CMBN setup and which terrain would affect its LOS to the battle area.

Here's what I'm talking about:

SaintLoMap_OP_examplejpg.jpg

(The German OP on Hill 192 is also in a church steeple, and is 6 game map levels above the spotted US company. That attacked German company could, thanks to the OP that is 1,130 meters away, call in accurately spotted offmap fire from its regimental 105mm artillery battalion and greatly hamper the attack.)

This raises the exciting possibility that artillery in CMBN might get to have something closer to its historical role in Normandy -- especially for the Germans, as a counter to the US superiority in numbers, armor, etc.

The small scale of our typical CMBN stand-alone battle maps requires FOs to spot from the front lines, where (due to bocage) they rarely can see anything useful without getting themselves killed. FOs did do this, but the preferred and more effective method in the bocage was remote spotting from strategic hilltops and church steeples in the rear. That's whay the Americans got slaughtered by German artillery and had such a hard time making progress toward St Lo until they took those hills -- if we don't represent that, we see the offense having too easy a time in the bocage. Fixing the foxholes-and-cover bug will help make bocage defenses work properly, but so would map setups like this, which would let FOs and indirect artillery play their role a bit better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ha! Good spotting there, LLF!

Actually they're "substitute" company counters provided by the boardgame (due to countersheet space limitations, I guess). The ones you see represent a "breakdown" of 2nd Battalion, 38th IR, 2nd "Indian Head" ID (part of the 2nd ID has a thin sector at the far eastern end of this map). The game doesn't have any sub company counters in the 2nd ID color, (yellowish), so I used some from the 35th ID and (as the rules say to do), made note of which 2/38/2 companies they actually represent.

The image you saw represents the first 8 operations phases of Day 1 (11 July 1944). 1st bn/3 th Inf used a heavy arty barrage, airstrikes, and a ground attack supported by engineers to obliterate the strongpoint at 5611. Then a German FJ company at 5411 retreated to 5412 to plug the line. Another US airstrike (weather was clear so they had two available) caught that company as it was taking up the new position, and eliminated it too. Now there's a gaping hole and if the US can keep the initiative, they might be able to seal off and capture Hill 192 quickly.

But (and this is the great thing about the St Lo boardgame) every time a battalion HQ takes an action during a day-turn (move, attack, reorganize, entrench, etc), it loses HQ morale points. You have to roll a die to activate a HQ, and as its morale level drops it gets harder to successfully roll below the ever-lower morale number. So inertia sets in very quickly, and there's a fun unpredictability in whether units will act/react as the player would like. The 1/38 and 2/38 are down to morale = 4, so they're nearly spent for the day. Looks like time to bring up the 3/38 (off map to the N, not shown in the pic) with some attached armor, and put the pedal to the metal...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd want to define a 2km x 2km battle area on the larger CMBN map.

Outside that area, you'd see the general landscape and elevation of the 4x4 map, but to save game speed (and mapmaking hours)

I like this idea!

A battalion on attack would have been far more concentrated, and a frontage of as little as 280 meters would not be unusual. So, for example, if a battalion is attacking a company-plus, 1km x 1km for a CMBN setup should be sufficient.

you could have players play 1 company each in a group battle then passing orders to each other by email each turn

I'd use the boardgame's operational situation to set up the map and the OOB for a CMBN battle.

Would this not soon get out of date with cas and all

How long do you think each battle should last

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi StoneAge, Thanks for your enthusiastic support of our mapping projects!

To answer your questions:

*My map has all elevations and all the major roads done. It will still be a big job getting all the terrain tiles patterned in. No screenshots yet.

*Yes, a campaign having real people command companies in CMBN would be a blast -- but I'm just not into organizing and umpiring that sort of thing, and I'm pessimistinc about the likelihood that people would have the time and commitment to see it through. But -- what I do plan to do is:

a.) Share the "clean" 4 x 4 map so the community can do whatever they want with it;

b.) Play my own operational level using the boardgame, solitaire, and then invite you or other people to play the various CMBN battles as individual PBEM scenarios, once they've been set up with map, OOB, etc. I can post the boardgame's operational situation, and then a little AAR to show how the battle results fit into the bigger picture. Maybe if some folks develop a sustained enough interest in the process, it might be possible to develop this into more of an organized group experience. (You might want to check out a group campaign that Noob is running now, using Normandy '44 as the op layer.)

* Not sure what "cas" meant in your post -- Close air support? Casualties? I've made conversion rules that translate the three types of battles (Hasty Attack, Deliberate Attack, Intensive Attack) in the St Lo boardgame into CMBN terms, and then the CMBN results back into the boardgame. Something like this:

----

1. In a hasty attack, no on-call artillery or air support (just the mortars or whatever are organic to the unit). Time limit 45 turns. No modifier to default leadership levels (except for units that enter the battle pinned or disrupted from the boardgame).

2. In a deliberate attack, on-call artillery and air support are possible (subject to the boardgame rules). Units all add 1 to attacker standard Leadership levels, reflecting better planning, involvement of higher commanders, and intel. Time limit 90 turns.

3. In an intensive attack, attacking units enter CMBN having all the benefits of deliberate attack, plus some extras like "Full" supply level, Target Reference Points for artillery, Add 2 to attacker standard leadership levels. Time limit 120 turns.

*Pre-battle Intel: Simulates amount of pre-planning and each side’s prebattle scouting of enemy positions.

Hasty attack: 1st attack on this objective hex this turn: 10% both sides, 2nd attack 20%, 3rd and subsequent 30%.

Deliberate attack: 1st attack 20% both sides, 2nd attack 30%, 3rd and subsequent attacks 40%

Intensive attack: 1st attack 30%, 2nd attack 40%, 3rd and subsequent attacks 50%

Modifier: -10 percent if the attacker moved into its attacking hex this turn, +10 percent if attacker was already in the hex from a previous turn.

*Step losses and strengths.

It took about 2 weeks time lag for reported casualties to result in replacement reaching a battalion (at least for the US) and that is beyond the scale of this 8-day campaign. So casualties are not replaced, and battalions on both sides entering CMBN in reduced state should have personnel 15% below TO&E (halfway to the 30% or so associated with a WW II unit’s “breakpoint” of ineffectiveness in attack missions). It’s been reported that by the end of the campaign, few of the active 29th ID battalions could muster more than a full-strength rifle company.

During battle: Scenario imposes overall casualty thresholds representing cohesion “breakpoint” for the type of mission the battalion is doing:

Attacker: 20% casualties

Defender: 60% casualties

At the end of CMBN battles, players check who occupies the objective, and whether any participating units should take a step loss. Based on the overall casualty once, at the end of the battle, any battalion or company that lost over a certain percentage of strength should go back into the boardgame with a step loss, as follows:

Each 20% casualties per battalion (average for the entire battalion at the end of a CMBN battle) triggers 1 step loss.

If total size of a player’s starting force was less than battalion, each 60% casualties per company triggers one step loss (elimination) of that company (Companies survived in real life with even more losses than this, but this rule just simulates the fact that the company would no longer have any combat effectiveness within the 8-day time frame of this campaign).

-----

You can see how long some of these battles could take, and how involved the rules can get. If it were a group PBEM campaign, I think people would pretty quickly get impatient or bored. But since I'll be playing the operational level solo at my own pace, no one's going to care how fast or how regular the progression is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Been a while since I checked in -- a lot going on right now and little time for gaming.

This is the 1750 x 1750 map of the La Meauffe - Le Carillon area (sorry about the blurring). The contours and watercourses are more or less finished except for tweaking, there are placeholder buildings marking nearly all the settlements and I'm now building the road net, including the railway line. Once that's done, I'll outline the patchwork of fields/lanes and begin detailing the settlements and farmsteads.

CarillonJuly4.jpg

So this monster map doesn't totally crush my machine, I am putting in very little vegetation, bocage/walls and doodads (only what's adjacent to the buildings) -- that will be up to the scenario designers to add on the smaller carve-out submaps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I navigate the bare-bones map at ground level, the fiendish nature of this terrain becomes evident. Even with no bocage and no vegetation, the natural undulations of the ground, rising gently from the Vire river, compartmentalize this battlefield into distinct zones, with little direct LOS between them. Except, that is, for the 70m rise around Le Carillon (farthest corner of the map in the screenie above), which can see pretty much everything.

No wonder pretty much every American attack petered out within an hour or so under a lethal rain of Nazi mortar and SP gun fire. And while the sunken lanes, rail cuts and creekbeds offered good cover for movement, these spots were also well known to the Germans.

P.S. I misspoke above regarding the map dimensions. The pictured map is 2800 N-S by 2750 E-W, basically the entire frontage of the 137th Infantry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since we're sharing today, here's a WIP shot of my 4km x 4km adjoining monster map, which continues the 35th Infantry Division AO east to the Saint Lo - Isigny highway (the dark line on the right side of the image). View is from the SE (highest) corner, looking N. You can see a creek valley (marshy at the lowest elevations) that runs roughly N-S. Just off the SSE mapedge would have been Hill 122, The key to the entire St Lo campaign.

WIP_4x4.jpg

LLF, we seem to be in sync -- I'm mapping in field areas and roads now, having done the elevation contouring and the major highway (took a while to get all those highway tiles set right!)

Like LLF, I'm putting hardly any objects on this map -- the details can be added to cut-out sections when used for scenario battles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Groovy. The easternmost settlement appearing on my map is St. Gerbot, and it's less than 100m from the east edge. However, I did ensure the map had room to grow in all 4 directions.

I've stayed away from the highway tile because it doesn't resemble anything that would have been in Normandy -- except for an airstrip perhaps. My "main highway" is paved road and all others are dirt tracks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Groovy. The easternmost settlement appearing on my map is St. Gerbot, and it's less than 100m from the east edge. However, I did ensure the map had room to grow in all 4 directions.

I've stayed away from the highway tile because it doesn't resemble anything that would have been in Normandy -- except for an airstrip perhaps. My "main highway" is paved road and all others are dirt tracks.

Agreed -- except (1) the plain paved road just didn't look wide enough to me for a Route Nationale, and (2) some people are already modding the terrain tiles (a new one was posted just today), so I figure if I have the highway tiles in place, they'll automatically switch to a better look as that tile type gets improved -- and at the rate these maps are

going, there's plenty of time to wait for those better-looking mods!

So my road net is the one big highway, then simple paved roads for the ones that show up wider and whiter on the 1947 aerial views, then gravel for the smaller ones, and then dirt for the farm tracks and little connecting roads among the fields -- many of these latter ones will be the "sunken" kind with virtual tunnels of veg around them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the bump and show of interest. Great progress being made on my map, and I'll post a screenie or two later today...

One more thought I had about the way to play on huge 4 x 4 km maps. I've suggested several things, like only putting objects and details in the smaller area you'll be fighting in, marking the boundaries of this smaller battlefield using the "Landmarks" function, and having special setup zones for remote artillery FOs.

My new thought is to not only mark a scenario battlefield's boundaries with "Landmark" spots, but also to set up the scenario map with mines all along the edges as a way to enforce those boundaries. Seems like a good way to keep things honest, and if a unit strays over the boundary and blows up, you can always imagine it was killed by a random shellburst. I'm curious to know whether players would consider this frustrating, or helpful?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some update screenies on the massive 4km x 4km map, which continues east of LongLeftFlank's "La Meauffe" map and extends the XIX Corps mapped front all the way to the St-Lo-Isigny highway for the July 1944 battles...

Today I thought I'd post shots from within the Map Editor -- they show more of the work than 3D views, since this is a map of tiles and hardly any objects on it. In 3D it just looks like a lot of grass and crop patches and roads. But from above in the editor, it looks like this..

CMNormandy2011-07-1610-33-54-20.jpg

And this...

CMNormandy2011-07-1610-34-30-27.jpg

Compare it with the 1947 French aerial shots and Google Earth, and you'll find that almost every field and hedgerow are in their actual places. The green lines you see marking the hedgerows are actually just XT Grass tiles. But this will make it very easy to place the hedgerows when cutting out or demarcating a battle area for a scenario.

The process of making this is ridiculously, insanely detailed...but I think of it as a sort of quilting project, and patch by patch the map grows into one amazing landscape. I really think the "true" bocage pattern of this map, and the ability to place remote FOs on it, will tilt the tactical balance a bit more toward accurate levels for defending Germans.

Once this "clean" object-free map is done, I'll release it to the community. All anyone needs to do is pick an area, and then add whatever additional level of detailing and objects they want. The time-consuming work of elevations, and locating where things go will have already been done. So it will be more of a "paint by numbers" job for anyone to create a finished map out of this big template. It's so vast that it should provide all the bocage terrain that anyone could want for just about any type of scenario.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the aerial, Patboy. Such detailed images really help us understand how the terrain, farm compounds, etc., would have looked.

This is a propos of the mod thread about orchards, too -- notice how the orchards have many gaps among the trees, and quite a bit (probably 3 tiles or so?) of space around the perimeter of the planted areas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The French 1947 aerial views are not in Google Earth -- they're on a different site. But once you download the French photos and convert them to standard JPEGs, you can import them into Google Earth as an overlay. Then you can play with the transparency and scaling sliders to match the 1947 terrain exactly with today's Google Earth.

Here's the link for the French site:

http://loisirs.ign.fr/accueilPVA.do

And here's how to use it, step by step. It's a little complicated, but really not too difficult once you walk through it.

On the main page, in the "Commune recherchee" search field, just type in the city or town you want to look at (e.g, Saint-Lo, and be sure to include the hyphen).

You'll get a list of matches. Scroll to and double-click on the correct one one: Saint-Lo (Manche).

Now you'll be in a map view.

On the right-hand side of your screen you'll see a scale ("echelle") setting. Place it about halfway between "Dept." and "Ville."

On the left side, under "Catalogue," scroll down until you see the items starting with "1947." Place your cursor over any one of them, and you'll get a pop-up window that says which scale it is (1:10000 or 1:25000) and be sure to select one that says "Telechargement gratuite" -- these are the only ones that you can download for free.

Once you've selected your photo, put your cursor over the map window and "drag" the map around a bit by holding down your left mouse button. Look for some little bright green "crosshair" symbols on the map that look something like this: [+]

Each of those crosshairs is a link to a specific aerial photo. So find the crosshair that's closest to the area you want to examine, and double-click it. A box will pop up, asking if you want to order the download. Click "annuler" (cancel) for now. You'll see a green box on the map, outlining the area covered by that photo. Now if you like that area, go back and select the crosshair and download the photo.

Beware -- these are HUGE files and they are in a special format called JP2.

To view them or use them for most purposes, or to be able to place them in a Google Earth overlay, you will want to convert them into regular JPEG format. To do this, go to

http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Image-Converter.aspxand download the free AVS image converter software. It's pretty easy to use.

Once you have a JPEG image, you can study the terrain in terrific detail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...