JonS

Hi Dragon,

thanks for your new campaign, which I've been playing over the last couple of days. I really enjoyed the first mission, and particularly liked the innovative ways you created the defensive positions and the WNs.

Unfortunately the second mission has left me underwhelmed since operationally and tactically it makes no sense. There is no plausible reason that the Germans would have such an absurdly high concentration of heavy weapons on a nondescript spurline in the middle of nowhere. They've just hours ago been defeated on the beaches, and on the afternoon of 6 June were scrambling to cobble together a defensive line. Aside from remnants of the forces wrecked trying to defend the shoreline, the Germans had just *one* regiment available to cover the entire west and south-west faces of the GOLD Beach breakout. It seems highly unlikely that they would allocate all of that regiment's anti-tank and infantry guns to defend a spurline that doesn't even cover the main route - there is, for example, not even a track running the length of the map that nominally heads towards Bayeux, let alone a major route. Even given all that, the German defensive layout is tactically naive - they're simply strung out in a long line on the forward face of the spurline, with no reserve, and no main defensive effort. That is spectacularly *not* how the Germans organised their defensive positions, which in turn makes using plausible tactics /against/ the Germans pointless. For example; recce is largely pointless since the Germans are equally strong everywhere, so the British player may as well just pick a map edge and bull down that then turn in to roll up the line. Finally; where did all those halftracks come from - am I facing 21st Panzer Division? Because ... at this time those guys were all away over to the east, north of Caen or on the other side of the Orne. It's great to see items from the vehicle pack being used, but historically there shouldn't be any halftracks in this area at this time.

Similar incongruities apply to the British. What are they doing here, in this specific location? In the context of the afternoon of 6 June it doesn't make sense that they'd allocate a battalion(-) on a axis that would not support rapid exploitation. Further, in terms of force structure they are the opposite of the Germans - all that infantry, and no heavy weapons? No artillery, and not even the battalion mortar platoon. The battalion commander is here, which makes this the main effort for the battalion - why didn't he bring any toys to the party?

Basically, there are too many explicit and implicit questions posed by the scenario for me to find it enjoyable. It's fine as an generic "use tanks to reduce a fictitious defence line near Somewheresville, Northern France", but as an historical scenario it falls a bit flat for me. Not every scenario needs to depict the main effort on the main axis, with all the bells and whistles thrown into the mix. And, actually, I dislike those kinds of scenarios - there's far too many of them already. I think that tactically interesting battles where the player has to find and exploit weaknesses using a limited set of tools are a lot more fun and interesting. But the force mix employed should always be sensible given the context of the scenario, and significant divergences should be plausibly explained.

Once again, many thanks for creating another campaign - I well understand how much time and effort goes in to making these things.

Best Regards

Jon 'JonS' Sowden