Broken

You really need to write a book or seven, Jason. I don't always agree with you, but your prose is always highly readable. Better than Paul Kennedy's "Engineers of Victory" I am currently reading.

Yes, the Robert Leonhard maneuver fetishists all wanted to be Erwin Rommel 24/7/365. Jason, on the other hand, tends to be more Bernard Montgomery. There is a happy medium. In the Combat Mission series, theory doesn't really matter if your tactics are winning your battles.

sburke's example showed that direct fire against a hedgerow defender at a higher elevation is pointless, no matter how much of a firepower advantage the attacker has. If he has no indirect HE, the attacker's best recourse is to maneuver to outflank the hedgerow. To maneuver without taking heavy casualties, the attacker must either suppress the hedgerow or advance on a route out of LOS of the defenders. The attacker might use smoke to block LOS, provided he has enough. I could send you a screenshot of a smokescreen used in School of Hard Knocks, if I had any decent screen capture software. All I have is Snipping Tool, which is useless with CMBN.

That is a good example of the need for maneuver. Many defenses one encounters in CM are "linear" as opposed to "defense in depth". Often the best way to attack a linear defense is from a flank or rear. To get to a flanking position requires maneuver and a good linear defense will be designed to prevent that maneuver. A well placed smoke screen can often defeat the defender's efforts to to protect his flanks. As sburke's example illustrates, an attacker may have an overwhelming advantage in firepower, but the defender's position blocks that firepower, negating the attacker's advantage. Using smoke to blind some of the defenders may increase the attacker's advantage even more, but it is a useless exercise if he cannot harm the defender. Maneuvering to a position where lethal damage can be inflicted on the defender becomes the attacker's best course of action.

Heh, heh. Jason has been, and apparently still is, a die-hard believer in Attrition as opposed to Fire and Maneuver. There have been endless debates on this board between him and various proponents of maneuver warfare. Just warning you. I have to shake my head about this particular belief of his, but Jason is an excellent writer and brings a valuable perspective to discussions on this board.

No. Jason specifically expresses the belief that smoke should be used to isolate sections of the battlefield to achieve overwhelming fire advantage. He said:

I have to disagree with you there, Jason. Smoke in CMBN works quite well in masking movement, as Bil has already noted. In the infamous 'School of Hard Knocks' scenario in the C&F campaign, use of smoke to mask movement will save you a lot of casualties, as womble said. I do agree with you that smoke is used to "shape the visual landscape", but it can be used for more than LOS isolation prior to a fire-fight.

I lost 120 casualties attacking with infantry, but got a total victory anyway. I sent two platoons plus 2 Eng sections along the far river bank to the right map edge and then up that map edge to attack the German fortified ridge from the flank (with some 105mm tenderizing). Most of the casualties were from mortar fire on my support MGs and mortars, and from one platoon which made an abortive attempt to drive across the bridge and up the middle. I did succeed in getting three semi-functional Shermans across the bridge, which greatly aided the flanking infantry attack.

I am playing the Vierville scenario in response to this thread and you are mistaken about the size of the German force. (spoilers below) In this battle, the High Ground objective is occupied by an infantry platoon plus HMG and panzerfaust team at the least, not just an HMG and HQ. I don't know if that is all the Germans forces there because I have not finished the scenario (25 minutes left in my game). In any case, it is not surprising your 15-20 rounds aimed at a minority of your opposition did not suppress or destroy the enemies you are unaware of. Practice better recon.

Not a D Day site but definitely a Normandy must see, Mont Saint Michelle: http://www.damncoolpictures.com/2011/08/mont-saint-michel-castle-france.html Kids love it.

I do have to agree with him that the UI is clunky, the load times are too slow, and the graphics not top of the line. On the other hand, the tac AI is the best I've seen, the modelling is great, and the physics exquisitely detailed.

I have had a problem where the surviving crew member of a knocked-out US 81mm mortar would not share his mortar rounds.

Are you using version 1.01? This problem appeared in version 1.00 and was supposedly fixed.

Sure, and if an AT gun starts sniping your tanks it is a good idea to react in a "hurry". What I meant was that your overall plan in School should not be hurried, but patient. You have an hour and a half. If your plan is to hurry large concentrations of infantry up the middle against intact German defenses, you will get slaughtered. Yeah, I suppose if someone happens to find a workable solution to a particular CM "puzzle", they get some satisfaction from playing it and it is therefore a "good" scenario. However, I disagree that finding a "key" to School of Hard Knocks renders it trivial. I think your overall complaint is that messing up in School pretty much makes the rest of the Fortitude campaign a nightmare. If you pass School in reasonable shape, the rest of the campaign is not real hard. So, maybe the challenge is too front-loaded. In which case, perhaps campaign designers should always make the last scenario in a campaign the most difficult.

You hit the nail on the head. Patience is definitely key in winning School of Hard Knocks. It's 90 turns long! The only time you need to hurry is at the beginning to take advantage of the cover of darkness. There are other approaches to School besides "Hey-Diddle-Diddle, Straight-Up-The-Middle". Frontal assaults with infantry are notoriously bloody, so why be surprised if the results resemble WWI? It really doesn't take much infantry to win this scenario. Just because you get an entire battalion doesn't mean you have to send all of them into the meat-grinder. Womble won this game by focusing on getting his tanks across. I was successful by getting two platoons through the swamp to the right map edge and then flanking the German positions. School is a puzzle. Not figuring it out doesn't make it a bad puzzle. It might not be some player's cup of tea because the amount of patience and care required simply isn't fun for them.

Interesting. I didn't quite "get" this scenario. Maybe it would have made more sense if I took the other fork. No, you are probably right. There is only one unblocked route left now. There is something that smells distinctly vehicle-like near Crossroads Bravo. I leave for Eastern Europe for two weeks, so I will have to be in suspense until I get back. Heh. That's good, molasses attack. Seems to work in flanking those damn bocage strong points which otherwise take a million rounds of ammo to suppress. Maybe there is some strange interaction when two mortar sections direct-fire smoke (Target Smoke) at the same time. The total rounds of smoke fired were 10, which is the maximum for one section. After that, no more "Target Smoke" was allowed for the mortars in either section. In daytime dry conditions, Regular squad, I got 38 meters/minute and the squad went from rested to tiring. Average of two tests, so probably some slop in the numbers. Scout team units seem to go slightly faster than full rifle squads in clear terrain, but I didn't test scouts in swamp. How much ammo the squad is hauling may effect things as well, but I didn't test for that either. Figures. I guess I should have been less frugal with my 105mm. Thanks for the tip! I will be sure to leave no truck unpillaged.

I have had no problem with tanks pushing past jeeps, halftracks, other tanks, etc. The AI does it all the time (try the Huzzar scenario). If anything, it is TOO easy to get past immobilized vehicles (version 1.01).

I've had tanks squeeze by immobilized tanks through gaps I thought were way too small. The AI is almost Jedi-like in it's ability to squeeze tank after tank through piles of burning vehicles in it's relentless attempt to reach an objective.

I tried to be a good boy and do as the man said, so I only shot as many Germans as necessary to get off the right fork exit. That amounted to four small German units for the price of an MG jeep. I got a tactical victory, so that must have been enough. So far, I haven't been completely blocked off, but new tiddly-wink barriers pop up on a regular basis. Heh, heh. It wouldn't be properly evil if there wasn't something nasty waiting for my armor, but no exploding tanks just yet. Since you get five rifle platoons in Bumper Cars, I have them making a broad front push down every available avenue, with the armor and FOs lending a hand where necessary. As you said, the map edges seem to be offering the least resistance.... so far. My 81s had their full load of HE and smoke. One section fired eight smoke and then stopped. The other fired only two. A while back I tested movement rates on all the terrain types and made a little chart. 16 meters/min is what I get for squad MOVE in swamp, not counting stops for waypoints. It took 1/2 hour from start-of-game to reach the far edge of the swamp and recover from Tired, so it must have taken 20 some odd minutes to cross the swamp. Yep, I had run my offmap 81mm completely dry as well. Lesson learned, I only used up half my 105mm in School. I am sure you will now tell me that the 105mm is completely resupplied before it's next appearance, but them's the breaks. I wish they would give you a hint in the scenario briefings. Something like, "We don't know when we will get our next resupply, so use ammo sparingly" would be helpful. Why, that's not sporting at all. Proper Wehrmacht infantry should take it's obliteration and like it. I was going to say if I waste a few spotting rounds chasing infantry from their foxholes, it's well worth it. But not if they run to even better cover!

Thanks! Good to know I didn't take the wrong fork at Crossroads. From your chart, it doesn't seem to matter which fork unless Crossroads beats you. I'm midway through Bumper Cars. It is another highly bottle-necked scenario. The armor has only two narrow channels to the other side of the map (maybe less if there are more tiddly-wink obstacles than I can see so far). Probably well covered by German AT, I'd wager. That's a good use of the Pop Smoke command for this scenario if you were able to get enough mobile tanks across the bridge, which you succeeded in doing. One of my 81mms refused to fire smoke after two rounds- hence the title of this thread. My two platoons + engineer squad hugged the river bank very closely. Some of the troops were actually wading in the river. Lost three men to mortars, three to MGs, and one idiot to mines when he took a very original interpretation of the waypoint path. I used some 105 smoke to exit the swamp and dash to the 50mm ATG woods. Lost very few men after that. Absolutely, it took a "geological epoch" to cross the swamp. Quick tires the troops quickly and Move is only 16 meters a minute. Still, the first platoon exited the swamp with one hour left on the clock. Did you find the US 81mm a bit ineffective against the foxholes? I did in version 1.01. I think I will be adding the 105mm to my QB buying list, especially against defenders who put everything in foxholes or trenches. The 6 minute delay (Elite difficulty) used to scare me off, but foxholes can't run away from spotting rounds.

I don't know how to tell if mines are mixed or not, except by the obvious method. The after action map views don't help. Do all paths lead to RR? How can you be sure to get to that scenario? Heh. The 81mms sure seem inexhaustible at any rate. You had more success going straight up the middle than I did. The platoon I sent up the middle didn't fair so well. My main infantry push was two platoons along the river bank to the West (right) and then up the West map edge, with smoke. One platoon flanked the west-side German foxholes and the other platoon plus some engineers flanked the hill. The hill platoon took no casualties clearing the trenches, but they only had to mop up the gibbering survivors of a creeping barrage of 105s. Gotta love those 105s, damn accurate.

What are the experience and motivation level for the Stummels? Are they in command?

Agreed. "Death by Recon" seems to be the primary method of detecting whether the mines are AT, AP, or both.

Some of the mines I ran into were "Mixed". Both infantry and tanks could "discover" them. It never occurred to me there might be alternate AI plans for this scenario. For re-playability, I suppose. Having survived it once, I'm not in a rush to have another go. Besides, I hear there are even tougher scenarios later in the campaign. I was quite worried about staying under the casualties limit, too. Fortunately, the "torture by mortar" seemed to taper off after 45 minutes or so, and really slowed down after my infantry tossed a few grenades into the German FO's trench on the hill. The mortars still got 80+ of my guys.

Heh-heh. My engineer team was vaporized by the same "sympathetic explosion" while trying to clear the wire at the bridge entrance. This explosion revealed the underlying AT mines, which another engineer team then marked. A Sherman at slow speed attempted passage of the marked mines, but the mines went off, immobilizing the tank and decimating the second engineer team. My remaining three tanks (the fifth tank was killed earlier by two 75mm AT guns) managed to squeeze by the immobilized tank and onto the bridge. From my later tests with marked mines, this was either very lucky or else the mines had been completely expended. Expended mines turn green, but I couldn't tell since they were directly under the immobilized tank. The first of the remaining three tanks promptly ran into a mine field at the other end of the bridge (Doh!), but somehow survived with only severely damaged tracks. This tank limped 100m further down the road before it's tracks gave out completely. The second of the three tanks avoided the new minefield, but caught the edge of yet another minefield to the right of that one, immobilizing it. The third and final tank managed to run this gauntlet unscathed and went to work blasting Germans out of their foxholes while dodging Panzerschrects fired at ridiculously long ranges. I am amazed you got four tanks through. Excellent job. What is your secret for passing marked mines? And I think you wrote earlier that you only took 15 casualties in this nasty scenario!? I was quite happy "only" taking 110! (Elite, turn-based)