Slappy

Is this the operation that has commonwealth pushing through a town into farmland up a hill?

In the header is good. So is: SPOILERS BELOW * * * * *...

OK, I get it. They're on the way.

On the way. They are designed for Axis v. AI play only. Testing has shown them to be a pushover for the Allies v. AI. My guess is that they are poorly balanced for PBEM as well.

In an attack, the attacker gets a natural 50% bouns. Anything you select would be on top of this. Your friend will have 3000 points. As for units, if I were your opponent, I would field something like: 2-3 platoons T34/85 Motorized Infantry Batallion A bunch of 120mm Regimental Artillery Whatever else looks good Taking this down without armor can be tough, but you can do it. I recommend the following as a guideline: Panzergrenadiers: High HQ to unit ratio allows effective command of support units and the companies come with a ton or organic shreks. Buy the company. AT Guns: 88mm and 75mm. You need to take down his tanks without tanks of your own. AT guns are much cheaper anyway. Artillery: Several 105mm modules with generous TRPs. On a moderate trees map, you'll have a decent idea where he's coming from. TRP it and pound it. Fortifications: AT mines are pretty cheap, AP even more so. Use them to funnel his force. Use them in combination with TRPs. Use them to make him move his armor into your gun traps. Don't spread them out too much. Use them to make key areas entirely impassable. Other: A variety of MGs, sharpshooters and the like to keep him suppressed. At more than 200m, he'll never see them and they can considerably slow his infantry advance. Good luck. /* Edited to reflect the fact that I'm an idiot and I gave you advice for CMBB. */ [ July 03, 2003, 11:41 AM: Message edited by: Slappy ]

Is this new, or does it always happen. This happens to my PC occasionally. Rebooting has taken care of it 100% for me (at least for a couple of weeks at a time).

I'd actually prefer non-experts. Inexperience is a plus for these! As far as an AAR, I'd love to know whether you thought the battle was challenging, and whether it gave you interesting practice and learnings that you could apply elsewhere (PBEMs mostly). A brief description of what you tried and how it worked would be nice as well.

I've decided to dust off an old idea on the forums. That is creating training or scrimmage scenarios. The idea is that they would be smaller scenarios depicting the smaller 'sub-engagements' within larger battles that allow the player to brush up on one or more aspects of their game. I've put together two smallish and straightforward '41 axis attack scenarios both facing off a company of motorized infantry with limited support against a smallish dug in defense. They 'should' improve your infantry skills on the attack when armor and large bore artillery are unavailable. The road attack scenario focuses on how to cross exposed ground with infantry and how to force defenders out of foxholes with only infantry support weapons. Time is fairly short, but there is enough to allow proper scouting and to position support weapons. Town attack has an identical force clearing a village of resistance and showcases combined use of infantry and support weapons in a limited visibility environment. It may also be useful as a model for some of the urban combat discussions that have been going on lately. I'd be happy to send the betas out to testers. No briefings yet written though, play as Axis w/ scenario default posisions and EFOW. Let me know if you're interested.

Far more covered than in trees. Treebursts, for one thing, don't apply.

Sustained fire from onboard 81mm (even 50mm) will take down light buildings in a turn or two. Generally, when the building gets to ** the opposition will bug out. Offboard of less than 150mm tends to scatter too much to be useful. Direct HE is by far the most effective with 75mm+, as mentioned, what you need. Remember to target the rear of the building with a MG to get them as they run out!

Small caliber artillery, although it will not take down buildings, is also very helpful. Use 81mm HE to further restrict movement (target behind the strongpoint you are focusing on to prevent retreat or resupply) or 81mm smoke to cover your advance through those inevitable open spaces and to storm positions.

None directly, but I hear that there is a 'mapping missions' program that might help. Someone will likely be along shortly to explatin more. There is also a thread titled 'On reusing maps in scenarios and campaigns' on just this subject. You can just go over there.

I don't know about offical word, but I've certainly seen it. I just lost 3 HTs to an SU-152 round. The first was a penetration, and 2 others up to 30m away went down in the shock wave/shrapnel aftermath. I've seen the like several times with large aircraft bombs.

If you play a lot of PBEM that is. While you're sitting there watching the 'Loading 3-D Graphics...' line, you can input your password and hit enter. You'll drop straight into the game. It may only save you a second, but you're not doing anything anyway and all those seconds can add up. You may even see your wife once in a while. This may be common knowledge, but it is a recent discovery for me.

Actually, this would probably hurt you far more. The damage on damaged maps tends to center around the objectives giving the defender craters to hide in. Similarly, overcast and dawn will make your spotting of the guns much harder than the guns spotting of you. Enlarging the map size may well give you more tactial options (read flanking) against pillboxes. If at all possible, you want to engage spotted guns with your unspotted HMGs and onboard mortars. You then want to engage his dismounted infantry with your armor. It's a rock paper scissors type of thing.

Hindsight is always clear, but here are the ways I would have gone differently. I personally think the Jackson is overkill and would have gone with a Firefly. Similarly, I probably would have gone with a smaller calibre of artillery to get more shells. I'm also not a big fan of onboard mortars in BO, although I swear by them in BB. This allocation would free up points for more guns to round out the defense. Your AT capability would have been overall about the same, more barrels and therefore more robust but less mobile and so more prone to breakthrough. Smaller artillery would have given you more lasting power, but probably netted fewer kills. That said, shattered SMGs are as good as dead SMGs for the final push. 105mm artillery is probably good enough on the defense and you gain little from VT if the target is in woods. Smoke from anything larger that 81mm is a complete waste. In all, this would have given more staying power to the defense and might have allowed you to hang on.

I must have played CE 50 times as well, along with all of the other demo era scenarios while I was waiting. Wiltz is my favorite from the CD. I just think it has more replayability and tactial options for its size than almost any other.

Wow, it's been a long time, but here is what I remember. Cover the flag with MGs and FO only. There is no way that the US can push across the road from the open / scattered trees side against 2 HMGs. You may want to leave one platoon at most back for reserves. Load up the infantry on the left and move them forward into the woods. You want to try to ambush the US in the woods, far enough in to avoid most direct fire from the Shermans. Once the Shermans are occupied (preferably having turned side on to fire at your team in the woods), hunt the PzIVs into hull down positions and pick them off. Between moving up shrecks in the woods and keeping the tanks back and hull down, you can generally get both at the loss of only one of your own tanks. From there, you just have to play defense. Artillery will remove most of the US cohesion if brought down on them in the woods and the MG42s do pretty well as they try to cross the road. You can, at this point, pull back your forces from the woods if you like or feel pressured.

To my knowledge, this has always been so. You have to have something in the area or the flag will go back to unknown. The game doesn't know that you had the approaches covered.

Here is my theory, and what I've seen: When you give any vehicle a move order to terrain that it cannot move into (water, slope, woods, etc.), the line turns red to point this out. The same check happens for rotate and the same red line is shown. For rotate, this has no effect as the length of the line does not matter, only the direction. Try this with rotate. Pick a vehicle and ask it to rotate toward some woods. The line should be purple. Now place the line to rotate INSIDE the woods. The line will turn red. Note if you click in the woods, the line will 'stick' and turn back to purple. In short, it has no effect.

This is the premise at its most simple: You get to attak a small portion of the attacker's force with nearly all of your own because the hill screens your force from everything except those units at/over the crest.

I've been in BB land for some time, but here's what I remember about the americans. 1. Their infantry is designed for all around mediocrity. The germans have a different squad for every use. The americans have just one pattern. They lose at close range to SMGs and at long to better MGs and LMGs. American infantry is best used at medium rifle range. They also have more organic heavy weapons like the 60mm mortar and the fairly fast squad MG. You need to use these to get the most out of american infantry, not just the 3 squads. 2. Artillery is much faster and more important. American artillery shows up 1-2 min faster calibre to calibre. Use this to your advantage. VT can also be particularly punishing if you have the points to buy 155m+. So much so that it has been outlawed in many point restriction schemes. 3. US armor sucks. Nothing you have the points to buy can take on anything he has the points to buy from the front. If you can't get a side shot, and you don't have a 76mm, you might as well stay behind the hill. If you're considering a Sherman 75mm, you might as well get a Greyhound. Neither can take out a Panther from the front, and the Greyhound is half the price. Put it together and what do you get? Use your infantry much farther forward of your armor. Use your superior artillery to break / pin infantry before you close to make up for your lack of SMGs. Once you've stripped him of his infantry, then you can bring up the sub par armor and go for side shots. At least that's the way I remember it.

I'm too stupid to use assault boats, so no use playing me. Seriously, I'd teach the AI to use trucks first, then move on to the more advanced issue of boats.

"Iam no programmer but iam sure it woulndt be huge effort?" Famous last words

They can reposition rapidly, but you need to buy a HT for the HQ that will do the spotting too. I've had too many bad experiences with light armor showing up to let them fire on their own. If anything, I find them less robust than foot mortars to MG/HE fire.