ASL Veteran
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Posts posted by ASL Veteran
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34 minutes ago, FogForever said:
I am down to 27 minutes left in this scenario. I suspect I will probably get some sort of victory but I would rank this one as similar to some of those really difficult Black Sea scenarios. If you stick up your head, it gets shot off.
Spoilers---
Down to 27 minutes and I still have not been able to use vehicle firepower whether tank or BTR. Every attempt has resulted in destroyed vehicles. I have managed to take out all the M60s and Bradleys with my ATGMs but one Bradley...hopefully. Also there could still be an effective M-60 somewhere. However then I discovered masses of infantry dragons and at least one dismounted TOW. I believe a minimum of 6 dragons. Far more than I would expect from a platoon of infantry. I have taken out several dragons with infantry and artillery but I am also running out of artillery. At this point, there is still at least one dragon and one dismounted TOW covering the bridge and possibly one other dragon. Mortar fire is no guarantee of a destroyed ATGM. I hit one behind a wall fairly heavily with mortar and spotted again later and not one casualty. So basically I have resigned myself to an infantry advance from the left ridges to the objective and it has to from my left. I did get an infantry platoon across the bridge but then discovered a dismounted HMG with flanking fire on the far side of the bridge. There is also an AGL which should be able to put firepower into that same area but hasn't yet. Without vehicle firepower that platoon can't neutralize that HMG or the AGL if it opens fire. I will put smoke on those two identified ATGMs and try to rush some tanks across the bridge and hopefully find some dead ground not covered by ATGMs but I don't have high hopes and time is running out. But if I can get a couple tanks across and keep them alive, even with only 15 minutes left, they could help tremendously. So the main assault will be infantry on my left and they have a lot of ground to cover and the last Bradley and possibly an M-60. This is, IMO, a high difficulty scenario and how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy a very tough challenge.
Depending upon the casualties for both sides, it's possible for the Soviet to win just by crossing the bridge. It's also possible to lose after crossing the bridge but there it is.
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11 minutes ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
Its also extremely unrealistic for a spotter to have to constantly correct a fire mission they just fired at a position, CM has many abstractions relating to artillery that aren't completely accurate. And every time you delay a fire mission for a certain amount of time you are pre-registering a fire plan, especially if you use multiple batteries that you have available.
Keep in mind the CM has multiple eras and if you are only thinking in terms of modern, then you should probably adjust your thinking because we are also talking about WW2 Soviet field artillery. A Fire Plan in the context of CM would be something that was pre planned and pre registered prior to the start of an action / scenario / battle / whatever. A Fire Plan is not 'created on the fly' by the player as he calls for FFEs during the course of a scenario. Now, if you are calling a previous FFE as a 'Fire Plan' then yeah, maybe you should be able to call another fire mission on the same target if the battery is still available because they would still have the coordinates and the spotting rounds would have been already used, but that's not a Fire Plan in the context of something like the British created prior to attacking at El Alamein. It would be helpful to use 'Fire Plan' in the context of the traditional meaning of 'Fire Plan'. In the context of CM 'Repeat' is certainly something that could be argued, but at the same time since CM has no Fire Plans then the At My Command would still not necessarily be appropriate because the battery, not being assigned to a Fire Plan, can be assumed to have other missions to perform other than waiting for a player to repeat an FFE sometime within the next hour or something. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future some day, but at the moment an At My Command artillery order is unlikely to be implemented sorry to say.
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15 minutes ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
I work in a brigade level TOC as a fire control specialist and I can assure you that "At My Command" is absolutely something we train with, one of the battle drills I did a few months ago involved it. Also "waiting for Fred" is extremely common for any fire mission, an FCO will always give the order to fire as far as I know, fire missions do not just go off whenever the guns are ready unless its an immediate suppression/immediate smoke mission. I understand that on a fluid battlefield you want your batteries to be flexible, but if we are talking main effort here holding a platoon of howitzers for 20 minutes is not crazy or unreasonable if the situation dictates it.
There may very well be instances within the context of an overall pre registered fire plan where the 'At My Command' order / mission might be appropriate (assuming a battle goes to plan). However, CM doesn't have any pre registered fire plans in the game and the game has no context for any sort of 'At My Command' set of orders so if you just added that order without the context of a pre registered fire plan you would be adding something to every fire mission that isn't going to be representative of reality under all circumstances.
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They should eventually toss the demo charge themselves if you just leave them to do their own thing. Targeting might actually confuse the pixeltruppen in some cases.
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Variable extra time is not dependent upon scenario size. It's strictly a function of whether or not the scenario designer added it or not. There is a small scenario in CMFB where the scenario is 15 minutes long with 15 minutes of variable time added, for example.
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6 hours ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
In the artillery world we have many different "modifiers" we can add on to a fire mission to tweak it for whatever the situation requires. One of the most common is "at my command" which is exactly how it sounds. The guns will range in on a certain spot (adjust if necessary from a spotter, if TRP or known point this shouldn't be required) and wait for the FDC's fire control officer to give the order to fire the mission. Right now in CM all we can do is add a certain amount of time until a mission starts which isn't always desirable. I figured this might be a reasonably simple change that would be a major improvement for artillery.
That would be great if a battery is solely dedicated to support your particular unit, but in the case of divisional artillery that is unlikely to be the case since multiple units may need access to that asset. If the player can just have the divisional artillery sitting around waiting for twenty minutes for the player's unit to begin the FFE then some battalion at another (off map) location might get overrun because the artillery is just sitting around waiting for Fred to finally call his fire mission in.
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Knocked out vehicles can't be pushed, although vehicles don't necessarily fill the entire 'space' that they occupy visually so if something is KO'd on the bridge it may be possible to still pass, but it might also not be possible to pass so it's a risk.
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Just in case anyone is getting confused, every post after White2Golf in not discussing Czechmate but rather the Soviet Campaign.
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1 hour ago, pintere said:
Yes but it would be good to get some additional comments on playability for those scenarios that are listed as "Best Played As". The following scenarios are listed as best played as Soviet:
- Zitzewitz
- Now or Never
- Block Buster
- Block Buster Redux
- Home
- Red Star A-Blazin
- Red Dawn
These are listed as best played as German:
- The Last King of Berlin
- Rescue That Beast
- Out for a Schwimm
Is it still a decent match when playing these scenarios against the opposite AI opponent (e.g. Zitzewitz as German or Rescue That Beast as Soviet), or is there no point for the reason that it would basically be a turkey shoot?
There is no realistic way to answer your question. The playability comments are the designer's opinion on which side would present the best challenge for the player, but that doesn't mean that you can't play it from the other side if you want to or that you wouldn't enjoy playing it that way either. The designer also doesn't know what skill level the player is at or what kind of situation the player prefers to play so just take it as a recommendation and then play it however you want to play it. It might turn out that playing it the way the designer recommends is too difficult for a player and that playing it the other way is just right. It's just a recommendation, that's all it is.
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10 hours ago, Thomm said:
Personal message to the scenario designers:
I just finished my first medium scenario (Brauersdorf), and it was great, but I find it very hard to motivate myself to even start another medium (or larger) scenario.
They are simply too big / too much effort for casual playing.
You (the designers) put so much time into the editor to set up these big scenarios, and I cannot even appreciate your effort, because I simply cannot convince myself to put the necessary amount of time into a single game.
I have no idea if others feel the same way, but for me it would be much better, if, e.g., two thirds of the scenarios would be 'small' or below in size. And not the other way round.
Best regards,
ThommThe thing with scenario size is that, generally speaking, the smallest 'semi' independent maneuver element is typically a battalion - at least for WW2. Not sure if that's changed for modern or not, but you simply can't find very many situations with a company sized force that is operating independently of it's parent battalion. Platoon sized actions take place obviously, but those are typically going to be patrol type actions and so you are somewhat limited in what you can do because a lot of patrolling activities simply don't translate into CM very well since they aren't typically going to be a 'capture location x' type of battle. Prisoner snatch type of things simply won't work since you can't really deliberately capture enemies in CM. You can do spotting for victory points, but then what's the other side doing during that time frame and if it's a larger enemy force then how does the player keep their 'spotting' units alive - especially if playing head to head. Then how fun would that be anyway since most of the time would be spent hiding from the enemy. It works for campaigns but not so much for a stand alone.
On top of that, modern units just have a lot of 'stuff'. Even a US Mech Infantry platoon is something like eleven 'pieces' if you split your squads. A US Mech Cavalry troop has something like four tanks, three scout teams, two M901s, and three M113s IIRC so that's twelve pieces to move around for one troop. Smaller battles are a lot easier and quicker to create, but at the same time there is only so much you can really do with them since you have to come up with patrol type objectives.
Incidentally the US side in Czechmate is only two platoons (slightly reinforced) and you are defending so it shouldn't be too taxing. It's still a lot of pieces relatively speaking (in WW2 terms) because of all the vehicles, but the Soviet force is a lot larger so it wouldn't classify as a small scenario given the size of both forces combined.
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5 hours ago, Ultradave said:
Well, good question, because this is the first time any of this unwanted behavior has been seen that I know of since they thought it had been fixed for the updates for each game. In fact there were Russian troops in the German campaign who ran toward German troops from a building in the first scenario and it was seen to be fixed. In fact, the general behavior across all the titles has changed to troops in good cover being very hard to dislodge.
So I'll report this with the saves and we'll see what happens. That includes troops changing levels. What is supposed to happen, and seems to, is that under heavy indirect fire they will go to a lower level, but shouldn't for small arms fire unless maybe they are poor troops and are panicked (these guys were panicked).
Dave
I don't know if this was changed at some point or not, but troops on a higher level will always drop down to the first floor if under heavy fire - as in the suppression meter maxes out. It makes no difference what type of fire it is. Sometimes they will curl up in the fetal position for a while first, and maybe they will stay up there for a bit, but eventually they will always run to the first floor. If they are subjected to continuous heavy fire on the first floor eventually they will exit the building, although they should typically exit the building in the direction of the friendly edge so that they can put the building between themselves and the enemy. Infantry don't normally just sit in a building under heavy fire forever and ever in the game, although how resistant those troops are will be dependent upon whether they are in command and control and what quality level the troops are in terms of morale and their state (broken, panic, nervous). Dropping to the first floor or exiting the building is actually normal behavior - it just depends upon whether the examples given are outside of the norm or not (and what the expectations are of the person reporting the issue as compared to how the game is supposed to act by design)
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11 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:
I can assure you that Dom does not mean it in a disparaging way. I've talked to him at length about the scenario (and CM in general) and he has a ton of great insight. There is no ill will or intent here.
I'm kicking myself for not getting a chance to play this while still in beta. If I had the chance to get to it there are a few recommendations I would have made. I love the map and I think there could be a few changes made to the Soviet forces that could turn this scenario into a "how the Persians could have won at Thermopylae" type thing. This speaks a little to what Dom means when he talks about a tactical puzzle. He does not mean that it is some game like chess or something that has a code to crack it, he means it in the military sense that the bridge is crucial key terrain that must be seized in order for the Soviet advance to continue, and that it is the obvious bottleneck. Overcoming this bottleneck as the attacker, and properly defending it as the defender despite being outnumbered, is the tactical "puzzle."
Do you think it would be worth the time to converse (perhaps in the beta boards) about some recommendations I have? Again, this is partly my fault. I meant to get to this during beta but was not able to, for which I apologize. If you would rather move on I completely understand. Just let me know!
I really do love the map by the way. Hot damn is it great!
Up to you. You can always put something in the thread if you want to, but unless there is a patch coming out I can't change anything.
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6 hours ago, slysniper said:
Personnally, I think its a great scenario to show the use of infantry as to when a force needs to lead with infantry, not armor.
From the comments, it sounds like more proper guidance in the briefing could have been used to help the gamer along the correct path.
Yes, I did that for the Seelow Heights scenario, but I had a lot more feedback on that one since it was in the oven for a lot longer. I certainly could have included better 'orders' in the briefing for sure. At the same time though there are those who don't want detailed orders in the briefing so it has to be a balance. Seelow Heights is another one where the AI won from both sides and the complaining was continuous from the Soviet players about how hard it was and I had the opportunity to include a very detailed briefing off of that. For me though - it's like - well the AI won from both sides what the hell am I supposed to adjust? If the AI is winning and you aren't then it can't be the scenario it has to be you. If the AI wins from both sides then that's as good as you can get from a design perspective. I don't know what else to do.
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Well, I mean from my perspective I made something where the AI won the scenario as the Soviet and the AI won the scenario as the American. There is only so much testing that can be done. Now I'm sure that domfluff is an accomplished head to head player, but this scenario wasn't designed as a puzzle scenario (which I'm sure is meant in a disparaging manner coming from a head to head player). I picked a patch of ground, plopped some forces on the map, and I worked on some AI plans and this is the result. There was no thought of 'well the Soviet has to do this that or the other thing' (as in a puzzle type solution). No, that was never any part of the design process whatsoever. The terrain dictated the route of advance, just as it does in real life. I found a covered route of advance and used it - domfluff did not. If domfluff went back to the commissar and gave a report that he retreated after five minutes he would be shot.
The Soviet force that's currently in the scenario now is a lot more powerful than the force Slysniper had when he tried it and the American force is actually substantially weaker than it was originally. In fact, I strengthened the Soviet force and weakened the US force based on his feedback. However, the terrain is what the terrain is and there are only so many ways you can advance up the valley. I took it right off Google Earth so unless I want to use a different patch of ground then that's the terrain that was used. Now if during testing I could not make a viable Soviet AI attack plan well then I would have to make adjustments obviously. But for the player, if you drive the BRDMs up the highway and they explode then you have to look for an alternate route and if a player just plays for five minutes, throws up their hands and says it's impossible then I can't respect that. Especially when the AI plan, which most players who play Head to head would say is a worthless opponent, can succeed where the player fails. You can't make the scenario 'better' using this map because it doesn't matter if you have a battalion of Soviet tanks driving up the highway - if the TOWs are still in the same place then you are going to lose some tanks - there is just no two ways about it. The Soviet force already outnumbers the US by 3 to 1. Some guys want to say that it's not their tactical acumen, but rather it's the scenario that's broken. In this case I don't think that's a valid position to take. The AI won the scenario from both sides during testing. That's as good as I can do. What you do with the force and situation provided is up to you. Now if someone has some trouble finding an alternate route when they first play it - sure I get it. Not everyone is going to find a covered route of advance right away - and even if you do find that route you still have to execute the attack. At least Slysniper kept working the problem until the time expired. I can respect that.
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2 minutes ago, slysniper said:
Playing as the Soviets for the first time, this battle is brutal. And that is playing against the AI, let alone another person.
So losing and finding out what you are up against is not at all surprising.
The designer has more than explained now that the method is to use the infantry to move through the woods and to clear the enemy with arty and atgm's.
But I would be amazed if anyone wins this battle on the first try. I recall I quickly went to the methods needed to advance in my battle, but still ran into plenty of challenges. I walked away with a minor defeat to the AI and felt good about it.
But, if you play it again, using what you have learned about the enemy , you can win this battle.
But no, its presently not a good h2h battle, As likely mentioned. Best played as Russian vs AI
You can play it US against Soviet AI as well - the AI got a victory that way too. If I did it again I would probably delete one of the dismounted TOWs and maybe a Dragon, but that's about it.
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2 hours ago, domfluff said:
Gotcha. The ATGMs show up after 25 minutes, during which the US can hit the entire Soviet deployment area with TOWs.
Minor correction here - the 2500 meter ATGMs show up at the 25 minute mark, but the infantry company weapons platoons that arrive at the 15 minute mark have numerous 1000 meter ATGMs to use. If you stopped after five minutes though you probably wouldn't notice them. Their range is too short to use from the back of the map, but if they are deployed along the bluffs on either side of the river they will be effective.
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The Soviet power is the infantry companies not the tanks. The tanks are just along for the ride. I guess it depends on where you tried to cross the river - you can also move through trees as well btw. If you cross the river near foot bridge by moving north of the house then you should be able to cross there. You can then re-cross the river to get behind those trees on your side of the river and (or you can just drive behind them I guess) then cross the river again and you are behind the bluff. Now it's possible that your opponent deployed in a fashion that I did not foresee so there is that. But if you play as the US against the AI you should see what I'm talking about.
The great thing about the AI is that it doesn't care when things explode
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You swim with your BTR60s across the river and deploy on the bluff next to the bridge. The Bradley's can't see to the valley floor from where they are located and you can put infantry onto that hill and flush them out. The TOWs can't see to the other side of the river - at least not very well. If you are sitting around then yeah, maybe they can spot you but if you know where you are going and are on the move you might lose one or two but that shouldn't be a problem.
You can also move tanks up towards the top of the hill on your side and engage the Bradley's from there.
I mean, your gonna lose vehicles - that's going to happen. It won't happen as much if you are moving somewhere as opposed to if you are just sitting somewhere. The deployment zone can get hit (unfortunately) but it takes several minutes before the TOWs can see into there and it's mostly the stuff on the right side and towards the back that might get hit. If you move closer to the trees then you should be fine - assuming you want to sit around in the deployment zone
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7 hours ago, domfluff said:
This scenario really disappointed me.
We just abandoned a PBEM after about five turns. The map is fantastic. The tactical problem from the Soviet side (aggressive recon and attacking through a chokepoint) is superb, but the forces given and arrayed against you really hurt this - the briefing tells you you're a second line force, running into other second line forces.
From the situation, it's clear this will involve marching into TOWs. The bridge is the key terrain, and the situation (a small cavalry force defending a chokepoint) is plausible and should give them a similarly difficult problem to solve.
Instead, the US start with three Bradleys and four TTS M60, so a ton of thermal optics, with the Bradleys sited well forward and in hull down positions against a line of advance.
The end result is that the Soviets have three possible lines of advance, and all three are covered by fires - either from the TOWs down the valley, or from the flanking Bradleys. The only element that the Soviets can have is the T-62 platoon, which cant get angles on the Bradleys without coming under fire from the TOWs.
Further, the TOWs in the town can shoot into the Russian deployment zone, so not only are all three possible lines of advance covered from turn zero, they also cant stay where they are. If they did, they'd have no chance of winning a duel against TOW launchers at a multi-kilometer range, since they're only T-62.
Then you have the Russian forces themselves. Zero TRP, artillery is limited to 120mm mortars, and a tiny force - two companies is not sufficent for this size of target, and I'm not sure why the ATGM assets arent alongside the main force. I'm also not sure where the BRDM scout teams are, and I have some issues with the formations chosen, which will hurt their c2. This is also a scenario where you could legitimately have T-72, so there's that.
It's such a shame. This is halfway to being a *fantastic* scenario. The map is incredible, and the tactical problem the soviets have to solve is very thorny. It's just that the US forces dont have a similar problem to solve, and the combination of forces and placement really wipes out any interesting decisions to make.
I'm very tempted to do an alternate version of this scenario. I'm expecting the US to have a much smaller force - perhaps an armoured cavalry platoon (or two), in 1979, with maybe M60A1 or M48. I'd need to do something about the sight lines.
The aim would be to give the US a similarly difficult tactical problem - how a small, mobile force can use terrain to constrict and defeat a larger one.
I wouldn't be upset about this if it was so nearly brilliant - this map could easily be the basis for one of the best scenarios in the game, but currently it feels like a passive tower defence.
The Soviets outnumber to American force 3 to 1. There is one thing that you neglected to notice in your Soviet OB. You have a lot of ATGMs that apparently you chose not to use. You also have way more infantry firepower than the US force. The US force is anti armor focused and the Soviet force is Infantry heavy. The American ATGMs are easily taken out with the mortars because they are not dug in. The problem isn't the Soviet OB. The problem is your ability to use it to best advantage.
The American force is only two platoons btw. Well, one infantry platoon and one Cavalry troop, but the Cavalry troop has no infantry so it's really like a big tank platoon.
Regarding the Soviet ATGMs since you asked - the 2500meter variety show up near the top of the hill on your side because - well if you were smart you would put them on that hill so they can fire into the town since they can see all the way down into the valley from up there. The other infantry all have 1000 meter ATGMs that if you happen to notice the bluff near the bridge - well a smart man would notice that if he put his ATGMs up on that bluff maybe, just maybe, all those ATGMs could also fire into the town. At that point you wouldn't need any tanks because your ATGMs would take out the M60s and your artillery could take out the TOW. Now that I told you what to do maybe you can try it again.
Honestly I'm having a lot of trouble understanding why so many are having so much trouble with this scenario. The bluff on the other side of the river near the bridge is just sitting there screaming "hey come on over here and deploy on me". If you don't like that bluff there is plenty of high ground on your side of the river too. The TOWs can only take out so many vehicles so if you wanted to rush them up to the intersection above the bridge you could put ATGMs in several locations over there too. You are only dealing with one American infantry platoon and you have two Soviet infantry companies. I mean seriously....
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You aren't going to win with your tanks. You are going to win with your infantry. I think I'll leave it at that - don't want to give too much away in case anyone else is trying this one. Well, infantry and artillery.
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Well there are some parts of the woods that are impassible, but those parts are scattered throughout the woods as a whole and so those particular spots are impassible when the cursor changes, but there are routes around those spots. The vehicles just have to pick their way around them. The woods are a mix of bushes, clear terrain with just grass, passable trees and impassible trees.
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All the woods are passable by vehicles - you just have to be patient and let them pick their way through.
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When moving armor you should almost always use the DASH command - almost to the total exclusion of anything else. The tanks will be more effective if a group of tanks all arrive at the destination at a similar point in time so that they can all engage any threats that are spotted. If you use ADVANCE or even QUICK then the tanks will show up individually and just get picked off. DASH will also let your vehicles move down roads the way you want to. If possible you should put tanks into AI groups individually - so one tank = one AI group. If you don't have enough groups available to do that then you should make your AI groups as small as possible. Modern tanks can fire accurately at speed so there is almost never a reason to have them not moving at DASH. WW2 vehicles can't fire on the move like that, but at least you can get them all to their destinations as one group thus reducing the risk of getting them picked off one at a time. So DASH is your friend when using vehicles. About the only time I would use something other than DASH would be if you are crossing a large open field in range of enemy units. So long as all your vehicles are already in range of the enemy then you can use something like QUICK or ADVANCE, but otherwise DASH. Did I mention that you should be using DASH for vehicles? Yes, DASH is what you want to use in almost every circumstance.
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The main thing you have to be aware of as the Soviet commander is that every single one of your BTR60s can swim. In fact, the only thing that can't swim are the tanks and the Shilka's.
Artillery suggestion: "At My Command" option
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
I agree with this 100%. I really hate the TRPs and wish that we could pre plot sections of the map for possible fire missions, although I would probably suggest that the size of the target area be a little more standardized rather than the free form way it works now. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future although I doubt that it will be something that is done for CM2. We will probably need to wait for a future version of the game before something like that comes to pass if it's something possible to add.