Riboflavin

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Berlichtingen: If you are playing Last Defense with a German Infantry Battalion, the Amis should have no chance. Your machineguns will surpress the defenders so you can take the village before the armor arrives... and those Hellcats are useless against infantry in town (pretty much useless against infantry in any terrain)<hr></blockquote> Well, I switched the Hellcats for 2 sherman 75s and 2 M8s (the 75mm howitzer) to help even it out, and I replaced some of the MG42 teams with panzershrecks so the German force would have some anti-armor punch. I figure the background for this scenario was that the US forces were a flank guard for an armored thrust, and that the Germans were launching a suprise counterattack with some infantry to try to derail the main advance. (I'm not likely to try to make this a real scenario, but I like to think of 'how could this happen' ideas when I'm fiddling around with things). As it happened, I only had one platoon in the village as the armor arrived; I hadn't moved the deployment zones, so the MGs had to walk up to the edge of the woods (took a while, 6 or 7 minutes IIRC) before I could start crossing the clear ground, and that was done by running between patches of cover so it took a while. It ended up being fairly easy to clear the village since I had such a numerical advantage, but I only managed a tactical victory in the end. I think this was because I took massive casualties from the HE both on the rush to clear the village and when his few remaining infantry walked back and woke up my forces. It was pretty brutal on the panzershreck teams, who couldn't keep up with the running infantry and several got caught trying to zip into the village. Overall, though, I got what I wanted to out of the scenario - I got a better idea of how to attack with infantry formations, and a better feel for the speed of the support units (I didn't expect the MGs to take so long to get to a firing position, and the shrecks got tired and fell behind during the long runs the infantry made without much trouble). I also have a better idea of exactly how dangerous MGs are when crossing open ground. I now see the need for long-range anti-armor abilities, since I wasn't able to touch the US armor (aside from one M8 that got a little too close to 3 shrecks).

I didn't realize the Germans organized things that way, but I can see that it would be devastating against massed infantry. Against anything else, though, you definately have to add in other assets. It's interesting that they organize the battalion that way, though - I would have expected Panzershreck teams, at least, to be part of the standard OOB by that time. For the game, I ended up using a battalion but ditching the MG company and adding a panzershreck for each platoon to get the kind of force I wanted. The game definately gave me a better grasp of how to use infantry on the attack(being forced to use them kind of does that), though it gets annoying trying to control that many units. It also (to stick with the forum theme) taught me to be careful that you don't end up with a stalemate from the forces you use. Ending up with 2 Shermans and 2 M8 howitzers watching a village filled with hiding Germans for 10 turns was not all that exciting.

OK, I'm playing around with using different forces in some of the CD scenarios to get a feel for using different kinds of forces (Currently I'm messing around with Last Defense). I was going to try it with just an infantry battalion, but when I selected one I found it odd. Did the German Infantry Battalion really follow the pattern that you get in the unit purchase screens (lots of HMGs, no panzershrecks, AT guns, or INF guns)? It seems to have too many MGs and not enough other support to me.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You can accomplish all that through the pause commands. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How do I accomplish all that through the pause command? All a pause does is delay the start of my first order, it won't let me move then pause. Has this been changed in the released version? Fionn's comments led me to think not, but... ------------------ -- Kevin Allegood

OK - so I'm playing chance encounter, and I want to have some heavy weapons teams ride along on tanks for a while, then dismount when the tanks stop and let the tanks drive on from there. How can I do this, since pause commands only make the tank delay before moving? Currently I have to give the tanks movement orders that will have them stop where I want the units to debark, run through a turn, then give the units move orders, then wait until the tanks stop, then after the units are debarked give the tanks fresh move orders. It seems kind of silly that there is no way to tell vehicles to 'drive over here, drop off some troops, then drive over here'. What I'd like is a 'debark' command for vehicles that would let you give a movement order, a debark order, then further move/fire orders. The vehicle would move to where the debark order is, then wait for the infantry to dismount, then continue with its movement orders. Is there anything like this in the final version, or is there another way to give these kinds of orders that I'm not using? Thanks, ------------------ -- Kevin Allegood

Steve, I understand why joining squads on the battlefield isn't included, but will there be any provision for joining squads between scenarios in an operation? I think it would be pretty annoying to keep dragging along these 2-man infantry squads by the end of an operation. ------------------ -- Kevin Allegood