c3k

Bah. Bil has such a paucity of firepower, it's ridiculous! Sure, he can blast holes here and there, but how many rounds of HE is he carrying? If he wants to use his MG's (which I'd've been doing ages ago) he's gonna have to come close enought to dance with me. I -think- he'll slowly manuever his forces (infantry) and creep them closer under the cover of his fire. He'll need about 8 turns, give or take, for that. That will only leave him about 20 minutes for the house to house fighting. I may fill that lorry up with volunteers and rush some more bodies, err, trigger-pullers, into the town. Big risk, but it may be enough to tip the scales. Ken

Best wishes for a successful operation and a speedy (and full) recovery!

32.00-31.00 Town News: Bil is still moving around and using long-range gunnery. Poor Bil. It's almost like he knows what will happen to his men if he tries to enter. Pix... Like I state in the screenie, I've had no casualties. Well, the Glider Flight CO, but, c'mon, that just means there'll be more beer for the rest of the men. I fully expect anyone in the steeple to take losses. No one else has been hit, yet. Yeah, that'll change. For now, I'm keeping the paras sheltered as best I can while they still have some sort of field of fire to hose down Bil's dismounts. One final image from the churchyard: Ken out.

32.00 - 31.00 Sneakers Over in my back left, Bil used a halftrack as a probe and lost 3 men last turn. The halftrack reversed away. I've got my one tank left. (Probably not for long!) It'd be tough to send my infantry team against a mounted squad, so the tank noses forward. By the end of the turn, there's no solid contact. Maybe next turn will get the job done. More...

32.00 to 31.00 cont. Ballsy PIAT man: Why ballsy? Why don't we look? What a way to end the turn! Like it shows in the screenie, I've decided to pull him out. He's got a sten and he's a para. He should be able to handle 3 of Bil's Germans easily enough, but I'd like him to have a cuppa as a reward and to show my men that bravery is to their benefit. Also, the tall grass could put him at a disadvantage. There's always that... More...

Turn 32.00 to 31.00 Speaking of PIAT man... He's alone in the field. Bil knows he's there. How? Shrug, it's Bil. Actually, I think Bil's approach is very good, but it is a style I don't use. He floods the battlespace with eyeballs, then very carefully notes EVERYTHING. Hell, I'm willing to bet he uses grease pencils on his computer monitor! Seriously, he's good at gathering intel. He probably noted a bit of movement, maybe a contact, and is now finally checking it out. He's got a lot of SPW's with just drivers left, scattered as OP's all around. Eyeballs help. However, who's got the town? Yeah, he's got plenty of eyeballs, my men have plenty of... Well, why don't we just leave it there? Let's look at what's happening in that little corner: And just a few yards away... An overview: More...

PIAT man, expanded: Another issue that has to be kept in mind is that I'm taking some freeze-frames and posting them here. There are a lot more bullets flying around than are shown or discussed. This is not a pristine environment for the piat guy. It'd take a full day for me to show everything going on or to explain the reasoning behind every team's movement or targeting orders. I'm doing far more than what I'm showing. I'm trying to get the highlights out... Don't make a judgment based on screenies in an AAR. You're not seeing the whole picture. Ken

My explanation is that it's due to superior battlefield leadership. My men know what I expect of them. If you haven't seen this kind of performance from your men, perhaps you need to work on your pre-battle morale speech?

A few points, some big, some small. PIAT man: 1.) I'd given him a COVER ARMOR ARC, but decided to free him of it, in case one of Bil's men in the field survives the long-range Vickers/Bren suppressive fire and stumbled upon him. With a COVER ARMOR ARC, my piat man would've been easy pickings. 2.) His lack of spotting is very likely due to the way he's got his face in the ground. If you've ever been in thigh-high crops, if your face is in the ground, you can't see much beyond a few stalks. He did (eventually) gain a contact spot vs. the Jaggie. It was purely sound based. Now, did I WANT him to pop up and look? Heck yeah. I don't know how to "force" that. But, he's totally alone in that field. His mates are dead. He's "+2 Nervous": now, I know what I want him to do, but I'm back in HQ. He's the poor bloody bloke who's got to stick his head up to look around. I don't think this is a bug or problem. BFC and our doing these D/AAR's: There was absolutely no instruction or slant about what to do. You're looking at a BETA build. If BFC wanted a marketing game, well, I wouldn't be the one to ask to do it for them. We picked forces available in non-CMBN games, then we played. Now, if that shows bugs and flaws, so be it. If there are flaws in a beta build, you can be sure they've been presented to BFC. (No guarantee that they can or will be fixed.) So, if the depiction of game shortcomings drives people off, then perhaps that's for the best? Why spend upwards of $50 (or whatever) for a game someone considers seriously broken? A benefit of these AAR's is that it introduces new players to the game, without them having to download the demo, let alone but it. Also, it lets others see a different play style (You may call them tactics. Or not.). Ken

I wonder what they go for?

33.00 to 32.00, odds and ends Orange boxes are Bil's big hitters. 2 jaggies, a wirbelwind, and a panther. The other panther is by the dunes. He's got various AA tracks scattered about. The lower box shows the jaggie which started by the windmill and never got fired upon by my piat man. The linear bocage could be a trap for my men. I've been blowing gaps in them so I don't get caught. My A Company support line, a little further south in the wheatfield, has slowly been stripped down in anticipation of this phase of the battle. I'm using my jeeps to move the vickers and brens. I'll leave a sniper or two, a mortar, and a piat. A bit of bait, and a something to spring a surprise. So far all my piat surprises have failed. Try, try, again... The main event is about to start! I want to chew up Bil's infantry, then somehow find a way to use one of my piats to kill a tank. Ken

33.00 to 32.00 Piat man. My piat man near the windmill is PERFECTLY positioned to nail Bil's jaggie 4. Let's watch: This was a big missed opportunity. I don't know why this guy didn't get a sound contact or pop his head up and get a visual contact. THAT would've been nice. The jaggie moves off...safe.

Turn 33.00 to 32.00 cont... The lads: Sure, this is small. But, so has everything else been up to now. My tank losses? Sure, they hurt, but they had no effect on the terrain objectives. Sad, but true. I'm whittling his manpower down every turn, and the real fighting hasn't started yet.

Turn 33:00 to 32:00 The more things change... First, this is a horrible internet connection. I could do better with a tin can and some string. But I digress. I'll start with a brief overview: Bil tries a little flank recon on my back left corner. He starts to soften up the town with long range fire while his grenadiers keep moving in. Oh, and I have a man with a piat, don't I? Let's look at the sneaker flanker. Now, these barely qualify as graphics, but then, that's the price of playing on a netbook. Some of my lads take exception to this probe. They're outmanned, outgunned, and out armored. But none of that matters: they fight for me. Let's take a look at these fine lads...

Slow going, due to my lack of turnability. That's been resolved. I'll get some pix up tonight. Shall I update without screenshots?

What's all this defeatist talk? I'm not privy to Bil's thread, but all this "game over" sentiment has me thinking that Bil wants to throw in the towel. I wouldn't blame him. But, until he has surrendered, I'm honor-bound to continue killing his men. More goodness awaits... Ken

Remember, though, that any extra ammo/ordnance will carry a weight penalty which will cause your troops to fatigue more rapidly.

Hah! As you suggest, victory is far more nuanced than just some numbers spewed onto the screen after running some rigid algorithm.

In general, it's not a great sign when your best AT asset is a single man who's holding a bloodied short range shoulder launched AT weapon cobbled together by some boffins in a laboratory. Just saying...

Turn 34:00 to 33:00, cont... (Ask if ye have questions) Ken.

Turn 34:00 to 33:00 The pictures do the talking More...

Just for you... Onto the turn! Ken

What? The poles are tilted?

A safety margin if 10:1 is not unheard of in civil engineering. Any permanent bridge should not fail with a single vehicle crossing. Harmonics, point loads, etc., coupled with battle damage, may present some over stresses. Modelled? I don't know.

One of the more galling aspects was that I put that truck there to create a little dirt and distraction. The truck started just down the road a few hundred meters at the same time the tanks were all still in the Town. In fact, the truck had a one turn head start. Even with a shorter distance and a head start and all of it on a dirt road, the truck still couldn't get off the end of the road before the tanks got there. WTF. Ach.