johnma

Does anyone remember the game "Across the Rhine" ? As a Mac user, I never played it. I remember it got panned, but why ? I thought the concept rather interesting. Heck, it would be nice to hop into a Panther in CM to direct, micromanage, a crucial exchange of fire...

One tiny thing I disliked. When the Rangers and the Paratroopers are waiting for the German onslaught, they lug out a phonograph and listen to some Edith Piaf. Apart from the corniness of the scene, Upham (or whatever his name was) stands there translating the lyrics-- but gets them all wrong: to be more accurate, his translation and the lyrics are out of beat (whereas the actor's mimics and speech rhythms suggest that he's translating simultaneously). Very annoying (at least for me, because French is my native language). One tiny thing I was impressed by: the puffs of dust spurting from uniforms and smocks when hit by bullets. I have no grounds for saying this; but it struck me as very realistic.

If only you could put an ATGM in one or two of those entrenchments, e;g; to take out the grenade launcher. But I don't know if you can do that with a Javelin, as opposed to e.g. a TOW or a Milan.

I liked "The Thin Red Line": its point (I think) is that in the end war is a defeat for every man.

TacOps, larger scale than the CM setup, and completely different feel of combaat, but still very thoughtful game

On leaving the Tiger in overwatch: I have a feeling that's one of the things they were for; Guderian expressly instructed people not to lead with Tigers; and the manual for engagement tactics mentions hanging back for long range overwatch as one of the Tiger's duties. Source ? Sorry for the lack of precision, but I think one of those "The Tiger on the Eastern Front" picture books, with quotes from a contemporary manual.

If you use deja.com you can find a long post by the Major on this topic. In the meanwhile, here's how I once won TF Marks (the same iade as Fenwick) 1. use snipers to kill off SAM 16s 2. use arty and air strikes on the objectives (get rid of those BTRs nea the objectives, and those pesky infantry teams i awkward spots) 3. get rid of the mg team and infantry team in the entrenchment to the W. of the wood, but within the perimeter wire (the "middle one": it will allow you to criculate helicopters using the wood as shelter) 4. smoke and send in C46s 5. in the mean time, using the C53s, do the obvious: Javelins and mg teams, LAW teams, infantry at the choke points 6. Also, and very important: ferry in the sniper teams, to take part in the assault on the objectives. Once the smoke lifts, they will be priceless. 7. Most important, too: with arty, mortars, diect fire, clear the entrenchment directly east of objective E. Under cover of smoke, ferry in an anti-armour team (2 Jav, 2 LAW, 2 MG) and all the snipers and a few 60 mm. mortars. The sniers and the mortar teams will be v. important: they will suppress and eliminate the remaining OPFOR infantry and MG teams in the buildings on the E. side of the compound. 8. Hopefully, these arrangements, plus the cobras, should help you beat off the OPFOR counter attack.

Well, Nebelwerfer must make nice birthday fireworks. So, three sentences rather than three paragraphs The [belgian rather than French ?] town was finally taken (lost) on 8 Jan 1945. A German counter-attack pressed on and retook the bridge, but faltered on the outskirts of the town. Or you could imagine the whole story as told by one of the Volksgrenadiere in the northern move: hard slog, then pointless order to advance in the face of small arms fire and a tank fire, officers shot to pieces, hugging ground.

I'm glad you liked it. I teach and write on (ancient) history, which is why the experiment of writing it up was interesting. One could imagine a different style, e.g. Landser-Roman "...on 6 Jan 1945, 2 days after Maier's birthday, the luck of the hard-presed Falschirmjaeger ran out. The long-dreaded artillery preparation" etc Or Keegan's sometimes quirky thoughtfulness But looking at what I wrote, I'm not sure it's quite accurate-- how ould you summarize the long period of fighting at the wall line ?

... on 8 January 1945, the bridge and the town were finally taken, after an extremely effective artillery preparation. The US infantry attack, with strong reinforcements, took the town with little losses. A German column, Kampfgruppe von Kelly, had been sent earlier (1 company SS PzG, 1 company Volksgrenadiere; armored elements, including 1 Panther). This force was unsuccessful in its attempts to relieve or retake the town. The speedy conclusion of the US assault on the town wrong-footed its timing; it was also subject to effective mortar fire while still moving through the woods to the east of the town. Kampfgruppe Kelly enjoyed some successes, due notably some lucky gunnery by the crew of a Stug III. It inflicted severe losses on US holding forces, whose armor, infantry and anti-armor elements were put out of action. However, the intervention of a lone US fighter-bomber inflicted such severe damage on the advancing German forces that, in spite of skilful manoeuvering and a three pronged attack on the town, they made little headway. Their infantry suffered from long range small arms fire, as the US Major withdrew his forces deeper in the city; the remaining German armor elements were destroyed once they entered the town. The US forces lost all their armor, and a substantial number of prisoners (almost exclusively from the holding forces left to delay the Germans as they moved out of the woods). They nonetheless had managed to capture the town speedily, and hold it against the German counter-attack. No more fighting took place that day... ------ Well, it's not Keegan or Ambrose; it's deliberately dry, and misleading, as all narrative has to be, in a way. Also not specific enough. Anyone else fancy a go at playing the historian ? You have the primary sources...

The Major wrote: "In real life, suppressive fire from direct fire weapons against area targets is seldom used for more than a couple of minutes because achieving meaningful suppression would require a tremendous amount of small arms ammunition -far more than would be available to a typical attacking unit." In Team Krempp, I wasn;t asking for a 30 minute stream of M60 fire, but just some suppressive fire so I could get my poor three squads (and even the by now useuless Javelin teams), already pretty shot up, within 500 m of the tree line. Then they could have moved forward by mutually supporting each other (two squads as fire base, one squad moving), while the MG teams would have fired at enemy movement or fire. Not too unrealistic or gamey, I hope ?

Amazingly thorough. A lot of these questions, are not "whether X or not" questions, but more issues that have to be tweaked. But the basic idea sems very viable. Not showing infantry markers, but vehicle explosions, for instance, seems like the right solution. Generally, implementing Area Fire would allow some form of fire and movement tactics, whereas the situation now is move, get fired at and fire back

While I'm at it-- I'm sure this topic has been covered before, and that the Major has better things to do than re-answer the same queries-- but I was playing the old Team Kremp scenario, the hard one with just US infantry vs. a MRR platoon dug in on a hill, and making my squads advance up the long slope; Javelins took out the BTRS, mortar the grenade launcher. But once the smoke ran out, the only way the US units could fire on the remaining OPFOR infantry was by advancing and getting shot at. This is one situation where just having the MG teams open up and lay suppressive fire at the entrenchments in the treeline (their position is known and clearly marked) would have been practical, and (I think) realistic.

What's nice about that long story is the German: real German (rather than "De Kommahnder hass bin vounded") with regional accents. Perhaps would be nice to have a Berliner too ? ("Ja, jut, ick hab sie jesehen !")

I think the AARs are fascinating-- they show, in slow motion, the ebb and flow of a battle (remember how Wellington said that it was as difficult to tell the story of a battle as that of a ball)-- 24 minutes of hard slugging. I find the pictures interesting, but the text really gives them meaning. But most important is that we, the readers, get an insight into intentions as the battle is unfolding, and into perceptions-- each side's hopes, misunderstandings, brilliant guesses-- because we see both sides of the battle, and hence have some sort of reality against which to confront the two players' views