Valamir

I'd have to say that at this point I'm an attrition general by default...I'm simply not good enough yet to have figured out this maneuver stuff. The closest thing I get to maneuver is pulling a platoon out from under an arty barrage or rolling up the flank while an enemy force is being pinned down by MGs But even attrition warfare is not easy. The parts I'm still struggling with are: 1)The best use for allied tanks. Right now I'm using them primarily as close infantry support/mobile machine gun platforms which makes them fodder for most german armor. 2)How to tell when the right time is to rush an enemy position to finally break him and when doing that will get you cut to ribbons (I assume this has always been a historical "learn by experience" kind of decision. 3) The proper use for arty. Right now I generally use even my 105s primarily for smoke because I've only once actually got HE rounds to fall on an enemy when I needed them too. Too often by the time the HE begins to fall I've already broken the enemy with MG and rifle fire...which tells me a) I'm calling the fire mission far too late or I'm picking the wrong targets. Built into this is my apparent lack of ability to pick good locations for my spotters. Either my "perfect position" fails to get LOS on the location I need or else its so exposed as to get killed in short order. Its been a fascinating learning process for someone whose never played at the tactical level before.

Well, I've also seen very odd behavior from routed units. One that stands out in particular reminded me of a B-Western where the banditos open up at some cowboys feet crying "dance gringo dance" I had two squads and a machine gun hidden near the edge of a field. A platoon of krauts rushed out of some woods on the other side attempting to cross the field. When my units opened up, most of the enemy squads hit the dirt behind a wall on their side of the field. A squad that had been in the lead was caught in the middle of the field. Rather than head back to the saftey of the wall where his CO was, or to the shelter of a nearby farm house he remained in the middle of the field. He'd first run one way for about 10-20m. Then, hit by several bursts of fire, he'd reverse direction and run another way. Sometimes he'd drop the ground briefly and get back up and run yet another seemingly random way. This squad did the "funky chicken" for a good 40 seconds in the middle of the open field while his man power dwindled to 2 even though his CO and a nice safe wall were a mere 20-30m behind him. I'm willing to put it down to "some people just act stupid under fire" and not worry too much about it (I'd probably be one of those people). But since it seems to bother several persons, I thought I'd just throw out an idea I had for improving the AI decision making in these situations.

I was wondering if perhaps the easiest solution wouldn't be to add a Fall Back position marker similar in form to the Ambush Marker. Routed units could then be "encouraged" to head in the direction of this marker using a similar kind of logic structure as what is used to prioritise fire targets. Meaning even when you manually target an enemy the AI uses some logic to evaluate when switching targets is a better idea. A similar routine could be used to determine when other cover is a better idea. An added level of realism would be that if a unit takes fire in a Fall Back position before recovering its morale, that morale effects are extra detrimental (even the safe place isn't safe).

Thanks Moon, I wasn't sure if thats what it was programed to do or not. I had indeed pushed him off map. He had a grand total of 4 units left. 3 were Crew fleeing from abandoned bunkers who were pinned down by vehicular machine guns, and 1 was a rifle squad with 4 men left whom I captured. Well, I highly doubt I'm that good, I haven't played against a human yet and this is my first experience with this scale of combat, so I'm learning as I go (some of the "how to use tanks" articles over at the HQ proved quite useful) I did get a couple of lucky breaks early on. There were a number of pill boxes but most had machine guns, the one pill box with an AT gun that would have been in a position to restrict my mobility was taken out on turn two with a lucky slit penetration. I probably would have been stuck for awhile on that obstacle. Danger point number one came when a Panzer IV showed up, took a beautiful positon screened on two sides by trees so I couldn't get a shot at him, and proceeded to fire cross map at some infantry. Had to pull them back or I would have lost a whole platoon. I rushed him with 3 Shermans a Stuart and a Greyhound in order to get a shot around his trees. The Stuart right away got a lucky track hit which imobilized him and left him broadside to my Shermans. A third good break occured when second Panzer moved right into the line of fire of the Shermans I had rushed and died from a side turret hit before getting a shot off. The second danger moment came when the town had more troops in it than I expected (the AI did a good job of not opening fire until I had gotten real close) and my Arty Spotter was WAY late getting me my smoke rounds (the 2 minute counter didn't start counting down for 2 rounds) Even with those lucky breaks, however, I don't see the Op needing 6 battles or 2 batches of reinforcements to finish. Probably more typically 2-3. The scenario was by Wild Bill Wilder. Is it SOP to email the designer with play experiences such as this?

Hey guys, thanks for the response but Stolberg *is* an Operation... Stolber-Punching a Hole is described as "6 battles large" The mission briefing comes complete with expected reinforcements for battle 3 and 5. My question is I never got past battle 1. After turn 15 of 15 on the first battle I got an AAR that said "Total Victory". Does this mean that I missed something about how to set this up...or does it mean I did so phenomenally well in the first battle, that the entire operation ended day one and I never needed the other 5 days. If so the Op was WAY too easy. There were only 2 points in the game that I thought I might be in trouble.

I've just started playing the full version of CM and the manual suggests that when playing an operation the next battle will start automatically and shift the front lines and go back to a Set-up phase, etc. However, I played the Stolberg scenario and never got any of the battles beyond the first. On turn 15 I recieved an after action report that looked exactly like a scenario report which told me I had achieved Total Victory and took me back out to the menu. Did I miss something? Or did I somehow manage to win an operation that was supposed to take 6 battles and several reinforcements with a overwhelming victory in the first battle so that the remaining battles were never played? Thanks