xerxes

The great thing is they can reposition very quickly to counter any guns you might find. Fired en mass against infantry in woods they will shatter any infantry.

I agree on the mortar HTs. They don't abandon nearly as easily as regular mortars and are obviously a lot faster.

Quite easily Sergei. I tried designing some "Capture the flag" style maps. I didn't care for how they played so I ditched them.

yes! Then you can fling it into the void of the scenario depot and have people rip it to shreds. After that, you're in the club. (Everybody gets at least a couple of their scenarios shredded). Designing good scenarios is MUCH more difficult then it looks. That said, I think you've made a number of good points. [ June 02, 2003, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]

It's a tradeoff of realism vs. playability. I don't like scenarios in which time is THE critical element but I also like things to move along. I don't want to wait as the attacker inches up his infantry for 25 minutes.

A little wire and some AT mines will fix that. What the heck TRP the woods too. A heavy flank attack is in a lot of trouble if it gets blocked and has to shift the direction of attack. The map edge helps the defender too.

deleted [ May 31, 2003, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: xerxes ]

The 2 lmg german infantry lacks ammo for my tastes. They can be good on defense when the terrain has large open spaces but in close the dual lmgs aren't that much help. I prefer the rifle heavy german infantry backed by a good number of the extremely effective HMGs (mg34 or mg42). Adding in pioneers for close in punch and AT capability is a very good idea if you're going to be attacking into heavy cover areas.

QB MEs are inherently unrealistic and "gamey". If you want realism you should go elsewhere. They do make perfect good games if you like that sort of thing. btw, I tried the 25mm Soviet flak defense. I got bored after killing 1/2 the flak guns while losing a handful of infantry and have one PzII crew member killed by a frontal penetration. I might try buying some flak in my next defense and placing them deep with a wide field of view.

Ok, I tried unrestricted, Soviets got all 37mm flak and trenches. I took a platoon of pzIIIs and a platoon of PzIIs and a company of jaeger backed by onboard mortars. Result: Axis: 96% Allies: 4% I took 6 infantry casualties and one PzII that I used as aggressive recon. One of the PzIIIs ended up with gun damage. The autogenerated map was fairly open and favored the defender. When faced with a combined arm force, the flak guns just can't do it. All you need to do is get enough eyes on target with binocs. Expose some infantry first, the flak guns have to respond, hammer the guns with onboard mortars. Then advance more infantry and bring the tanks into position with a view of a portion of the field. The flak guns get id'd reasonably quickly and taken out. A standard attack works quite well against a pure flak defense. I'd rather have some HMGs to stop the infantry. Probably a flak heavy defense shines against very expensive later war heavy tanks.

LOL, the reason I don't like unrestricted. I don't want to defend against someone who spends all their points on conscript 300mm rocket spotters either.

I tried this against the AI with a standard combined arms attacking force. The flak guns lost rather badly. The flak guns aren't really that effective against infantry and when the flak guns open up they can be ID'd at 300-400m if you're putting enough infantry eyes on their locations. Once the flank gun location is ID'd the flak guns are post toastie. Naturally you want to use your tanks wisely, keeping LOS to your tanks restricted so they can engage the flak guns in isolation. Using all your support points for flak guns doesn't seem like a good idea. I'd just finished a PBEM where my opponent bought a good number of flak guns. The flak did manage to gun damage a T34 and take out a couple of T60s but the flak guns really weren't a major hinderance, just an annoyance. I do like the technique of getting some flak guns and placing them deep, ideally 400+m away from where the enemy infantry can reach.

A nimrod in '41 is a formidable tank killer. The BT42 sounds downright nasty. Be fun to see those in CMBB.

I prefer the flexibility of dual overtargeted 82mm mortar 9 tube FOs over a single 120mm FO. It's a tradeoff of stopping power vs flexibility.

Sharpshooters are excellent spotters, their binocs give them good long range spotting. Extra HQs are also great spotters. On defense you can use sharpshooters forward and let the enemy pass by them. Then you can snipe from the rear, very effective. Also since support weapons often lag the main force you can pick these off with a sniper that's gotten behind the main enemy force. If you're buying sharpshooters it does pay to get the best quality available. Quality greatly effects spotting capabilities.

I'm just finishing a battle in which I was faced with a wooden mg bunker. The bunker absorbed 20+ 75mm HE hits and just wouldn't die (20 out of 100+ HE rounds!). I had to finally close assault it with infantry. Ruined my attack timetable totally. I thought my experience was an outlier, now, I'm thinking it might be the expected durability (which would make wooden mg bunkers rather effective).

Rune, your link to the Glantz article must have aged out. I was able to find it at CSI though. Here's the link to the CSI reprints including the Glantz article. Good stuff! http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/csi.asp#reprints

yes and yes cpl Dodge, your assumptions are correct. The tricky thing is infantry rarity is not displayed as it is for other units (unfortunately). Battalion buys in CMBO and CMBB are good deals. They're even better deals in CMBB because support weapons are more effective.

Better than your Wooden MG bunker is to just buy a trench and put one or two HMGs in it. Great cover, it's harder to spot a trench than a bunker, and the bunker suffers from the "vehicle" modeling where the crew will bail out. ______________________________________________ Trench units are suppressable with small arms fire when under 100m. The advantage of a reverse slope wooden bunker is that it is impervious to small arms fire. MGs in trenches are great, my point is that a wooden bunker has a definite useful role in building a defensive position.

The concrete bunkers do seem to weak and if you think getting them taken out by a 20mm autocannon is bad, ATRs can reliably KO them with enough shots. Since the ATRs are pretty much unspottable at 200m+ gun bunkers are a true waste in CMBB. The more cost effective bunker is the lowly wooden mg bunker. Sure HE can take them out, that's why you need to place them in a covered postion. Reverse slope is idea or with a treeline that prevents afvs from getting to the bunker. You can also use the wooden bunkers as tank magnets to draw the enemy tanks into your AT gun kill zone.

Thanks very much guys, these links are exactly what I needed.

Does anyone have any online references concerning this engagement? I'd appreciate any pointers.

heh, I always go to the infantry and find the largest formation I can buy. Battalion purchases are the only way to go if possible. The soviets get those cheap mgs, ATRs, and onboard mortars. The Germans, lucky dogs, get guns as part of their battalions plus mg42/34s. Quite a steal in my mind. Then of course, there's the '43/'44 soviet recon brigade that comes with 10 M3s, very nice. Always check if you have rarity on (who doesn't) what the prices of the different infantry are, you can sometimes pick some stuff up really cheap. CMBB is a discount shoppers paradise.

Between battle briefings would be a GREAT addition. I'd also like to see the ability to present additional messages to the players tied to either a specific turn or a reinforcement. [ May 18, 2003, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]

Yep, though it was my opponent, not me. He was assaulting (on skis in deep snow) under very tough circumstances so he deftly plotted 105mm to land on my suspected positions followed by 81mm smoke to cover his advance. A nasty 1-2 punch. It was unfortunate (for him) that his 81mm smoke landed too early, making his 105mm lose LOS. The 105mm landed in the woods on top of his assault company. They immediately deskied themselves and hit the snow. The smoke nicely covered my smg'rs in their trenches though. Now that was a disaster. [ May 16, 2003, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]