Bil Hardenberger

Spotting never happens immediately... I forget the exact timing, but its something like a spotting check every 7 seconds or so (someone with more knowledge please correct me)... so I suspect there is something else going on in this situation that allowed the tank(s) to spot the offending sniper. What it is who knows? The sniper moved prior to firing perhaps, and was spotted moving into position.. the tank had a sound contact from another source (nearby infantry unit) and the firing solidified that contact, perhaps the sniper was on the edge of the treeline, rather than inside the woods.. it is far more exposed if so... we weren't there so we can never give you an accurate explanation. We would require much more information, screen shots, perhaps a movie showing the action, etc. in order to really dissect the encounter.

Apologies for slowing down on this one... I've gotten myself involved in a CONTENT REDACTED it seems. I will try to get a post or two up this weekend.

Interesting and useful thread.

Yep.

Very nice AAR @BrotherSurplice and well fought little action. You are right to be proud of your performance. @Rinaldi, I agree that it is often quite interesting to play a scenario that is a hard ask.. however in this one I saw the mismatch from the beginning and these types of actions are interesting, but really not much fun for the guy on the losing end. I am not going to get into what you could have done differently, because the Apache strike was so devastating that it really took away all of your options and left you toothless and without any tactical options... I'm sure you would have given him a tough fight if not for that AH. This has been a very interesting and well written AAR and was a pleasure to read.

I have a version that I annotated on my blog where I tried to provide notes to relate each lesson to Combat Mission.

Miguel, I encourage you to add some commentary of your side when you can.. to be honest, finding the time to devote to watching these AAR videos is tough for me. It's much easier for me to read a written account with screenshots.

Awesome! Can't have too many AARs.

They are a speed bump.. and their job is to delay and report the enemy movements.. I don't want to lose them but am willing to make that sacrifice if I can discern his exact attack route.

Yeah.. not having any real long range firepower to deal with those STuGs is a bit of a pain, still, we fight with what we are given. Having to close in to engage them is risky. He will lose a truck to long range MG fire during the period we are in the battle right now.. so I'm not entirely toothless.. still, that was too little, too late to have much of an effect on him being able to concentrate his attack force. By the way, I have a larger goal with this AAR, so am staying at a higher level for the most part with my reports, not getting into the details too much right now as they don't really add much.. the details will start to be important very soon though.

Very soon I will be getting into what I am planning with my support units.

I apologize for the delay on this AAR, I've been distracted recently... AXIS RED We are now in the 8th minute of action.. not a lot has happened as my opponent is shuttling troops to his jump off positions. On the back road he is running trucks back and forth, each one dropping off a platoon of infantry with each load. I guess he now must have close to two full companies of infantry with support arrayed against me on AXIS RED along with the two STuGs. My three teams acting as my lead scouts in this sector are doing a wonderful job keeping the enemy at bay in this sector. I doubt they are causing many casualties, but my opponent is being very cautious and has not advanced in the past several turns. Once he does start his advance, and now that he is bringing more troops up, I expect it soon, my scouts will fall quickly. AXIS ORANGE AXIS ORANGE is definitely a Support By Fire (SBF) position, all of the units that have been identified have been MG or mortar units, along with the STuG of course. In the image below is shown an artillery mission aimed at the corner of my ridgeline defense. This did cause several casualties, but it was not as bad as it could have been as many of the rounds fell in front of my positions.

Good observations there Duckman, you are preaching to the choir.

AXIS ORANGE I have another scout team, made up of a recon team and an HQ unit (from Dog Company) deep on Axis ORANGE. Towards the end of this turn the STuG on this axis drove straight towards them... However, I don't think these two teams have been spotted, as the STuG appears to have turned between two buildings, appearing like it was simply trying to get a better angle on my defenders. I could be wrong as I lost sight of this vehicle right after this shot was taken, but it looked like it was starting to turn left. AXIS RED On Axis Red I decided to try to take a long range shot at one of the STuGs to my front. It is literally a long shot, but taking out or damaging one of these things now could really help in the long run, right Captain Obvious? My AT Team rushed across the danger area to the hedges on the other side... Once in position they organized to take a shot...note in the following image that the STuG's flank is facing my team. Unfortunately... the rocket hits the trees and the STuG keeps moving.. I don't think they ever knew they were threatened... Both STuGs ended up facing Axis Yellow and appear to be guarding the flank of the Axis RED infantry, which can be seen linking up with the STuGs on the right edge of this image:

Well, I do give it a shot next turn.. don't go anywhere!

I hope it worked out for you!

SITREP It has been another couple of minutes and things have developed a bit more... AXIS RED: On Axis RED there are now two STuGs and they are pushing deep and ahead of their infantry.. in fact they do not seem to be coordinated with the enemy infantry at all on this axis. Also, the infantry contact icons have settled down some, and it appears to me like we are looking at perhaps one FJ company with support assets on this axis. No firing on this axis, other than my errant bazooka rocket a minute ago or so... which came to nothing, other than letting my opponent know I have an AT team in front of him. Brilliant. STuGs on Axis RED: AXIS ORANGE: The Germans on this sector have positioned several MG teams, many of which have started firing on my pickets causing a few casualties, but nothing serious. So this confirms that he has spotted a few of my teams. I am responding with some sporadic mortar fire, with no obvious effect. It really is starting to look like this is a support by fire position. The third STuG is still present and sends a round toward my lines once in a while to no effect.. so far. I need to reinstall my version of CMBN, the version I am running has some graphical issues that look really bad.. smoke, dust, etc... and I saw a German truck driving in his rear and the driver was sitting above the cab.. so yeah.. I need to fix this installation. Once I do that I'll be able to show more closeups images.

I've only done the one because frankly, they are very time consuming to develop.. they aren't simple screen captures, I could spend a few hours on one panel, hand painting, arranging figures from multiple screen grabs together (the leaders around the jeep scene is an example). I did enjoy doing the one I did and who knows, maybe someday I'll do another.

Heh, funny story there... I neglected cover arcs on some important units in this game and I come to grief over it, my stupid AT Team in the scout party fires a rocket at some infantry in the next minute for example... blowing the surprise and making them a priority target... there is a lesson in there for all of us to not get too complacent and lazy.

I believe you are referring to my work... see: King of the Hill Sorry Bud, now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

I like a man that does his homework. I didn't plan on opening fire with anything but support weapons at any kind of range, and even then I will re-position often to make sure I don't give him too much to sight those STuGs on. I was not too fearful of being spotted. I also was planning on moving one whole platoon forward into OP/LPs (as shown in one of my previous posts above) so I wanted to make their movements as short as possible so they can get into position and hunker down before he can get too many eyes on the hill. Oh, one more thing.. I like reverse slope defenses, but not as the main line of my defense.. I want to stay mobile and flexible, and if I went reverse slope I would lose my eyes on his troops and force myself into a static defense.

Now that you mention it, I do believe you are right about that. I will double check when I get home tonight and can look in the editor.

Bud, I get into this in my post on Reconnaissance on my blog. To simplify, you always assume worst case, until you have confirmation one way or the other... so if you see two STuGs out of a potential five, ASSUME that there can possibly be three more that you will have to contend with. Gathering intelligence is a never ending process and you answer questions as you go, but often many questions are never answered until the thing ends.

Fabulous! I will take your questions one at a time: I always think worst case when looking at UI contacts and without more information that shows squads are split... so I suspect that we are looking at least two companies worth of FJ infantry (I have confirmed they are FJ) and support units (MGs, mortars, AT teams, etc.) on Axis RED. At this stage of the battle it would be rare for a player to split his squads when on the Approach March. Usually players simplify their orders overhead by not splitting until contact is imminent. As for Axis ORANGE, I have only identified one infantry unit on this sector and it was an MG unit, so I need more information before I can make an assumption as to what ScoutPL has in this sector and what their role is. EDIT: Thinking about this, I am certain that many of those UI contacts are ghosts, so they are not really a good representation of the amount of individual teams/squads are moving up RED. As for the STuGs, at this point i am in a wait and see mode. I do expect to see more than two, but whether or not it will be a full platoon, I don't know yet. Agreed, to a point. I think at this point, two minutes in, I was pretty sure his main effort was coming up Axis RED. I thought he had at least two infantry companies coming up that route, and a couple platoons (maybe) or so on ORANGE. The speed he is moving on RED tells me that he is indeed intending to move up RED and is moving to attack positions closer to my lines. At this point, the STuG on ORANGE is obviously in a support by fire role, whether it will stay in that role throughout remains to be seen. Not really.. like I said in my analysis, I thought Axis YELLOW was unlikely as it is not armor friendly. That being said, it is always possible for his formation moving on Axis RED to turn, or split and move up both YELLOW and RED... I am not abandoning my line in this sector yet and am watching him closely. I am always on the look out for such opportunities... whether I have them in this game or not remains to be seen. At this point in the game I did not know the role he had in mind for the units on Axis ORANGE, but I was watching it and was keen to identify the unit types so I could analyze it's mission. I have zero long range AT assets, so I will need to close with them with small AT teams... this will not be easy, especially with the amount of infantry he has, and knowing how good a player ScoutPL is I am in doubt as to how effective my AT plan will be.. at this point in the game I wasn't really considering how I was going to take them down, it was a problem I could push lower on the priority list. Thanks Combat man, those were great questions.

@Bud Backer, beautiful work!