c3k

Setup and thoughts...followed by TURN 1 I don’t believe in splitting forces. Once you determine your objective, you must gain it. However, if I sent both companies and the tank platoon to my far right, like a gamey edge-hugging bastard, then sfhand could counter by shifting his defense. I had to leave some forces to pin his defenses in place, as well as keep him in the dark as to my objective until it was too late for him to react. I put B Company to the right; C Company split with one platoon right, one platoon middle, and one platoon left. All the tanks went with B Company, as did the engineers. (C Company “right” was just right of the road. C Company “middle” was just left of the road. C Company “left” was the left map edge.) C Company’s job was to push. They had to push up the middle of the village, enough to represent a threat. They also had to threaten the immediate left flank (my perspective) of the village, as well as create a threat on the wide left flank. Their effort would free up B Company to create the breakthrough on the right. The field circled in green, below, is what I have deemed to be the pivotal piece of terrain to allow my plan to work. C’s blood would allow B’s conquest. The men of Company C thanked me. Company C, 3rd Platoon, makes contact… I’ve got every squad in this platoon split into teams. I want sfhand to think of this as the main threat, even though it is just a sideshow. The first step would be to feel out his defenses. I assume he’d set up a screen and then have a main line with some reserves. I mean, that’s what any competent commander would do, right? To do that, basic bocage battle tactics take over. Line the friendly side with a fire base. Pick some lucky SOBs to gain glory for themselves by advancing into the field. Hopefully, the enemy will shoot at them. If not, give them the same chance in the next field. They’ll thank you, later. That will give away the enemy positions. Blanket them with small arms fire, maneuver to outflank them, gain the far bocage line. Rinse, lather, repeat. These are basics everyone should have been taught by their mothers before kindergarten. I’ve got Company C spread out. Their role is purely secondary and supportive.

My at-start forces were 2 infantry companies and a platoon of M5 Stuarts. The infantry companies, which each have their organic MMG platoon (of 2 teams), get 2 batteries of 81mm mortars and 3 of 60mm to share. There is one FO to help call in the mortars. Additionally, I have one engineer squad with some demo charges with their platoon HQ. Finally, there is a single deuce and a half to act as an ammo resupply point. On to the AAR! I’ve decided to take some of the actual comm logs as recorded during the battle by my personal aide de camp, and post them here. I’ll intersperse them with various screenshots and commentary. Since this is mostly a summary, I’ll post pix from about every second or fourth turn. Exceptions will only be when my men were suitably heroic. The men were gathered for c3k’s usual pre-battle meeting (something often skipped by lesser commanders)… “Men!” he said, “You have the honor of being chosen to fight the upcoming battle! Other, weaker, men have not been allowed to step upon this field! Some of you know my reputation. Yes, I will aggressively attack the enemy! Have no fear that you’ll be relegated to some backwater. Each of you will have the opportunity to prove your manliness. Those who are wounded by the enemy will consecrate this field with their blood. What a shame if that blood is spilled without gaining glory. Have no fear: you’ll each have a chance at glory!” The men replied with spontaneous expressions of enthusiasm: “I will gladly die for your glory!” “My blood is yours to spill as you see fit!” “I only ask that I have the chance to grapple with the enemy before I die!” “This daft bastard’s going to be the death of me.” “My bayonet is thirsty!” “Crap, I got assigned to THIS guy…””Did anyone volunteer for this?” “Men,” he continued, “you’ve seen the map. You’ve been briefed on the terrain objectives. Those are a chimera. Terrain does not matter! If you kill all of the enemy, the objectives will be yours!” The ranks broke out with a chorus of “Kill them all! Kill them all! Kill them all!” “Men,” c3k finished, “while you get the privilege of fighting tooth and nail to kill the enemy, I will have the far more difficult task of wrestling with the TRUE objective: the mind of the enemy’s leader! The blood you will spill will pale in comparison with the effort needed for me to get into his head. Battle is a contest of wills! I will use you as a tool to crush his will! By the end of your assault, he will beg for a cessation of hostilities! When he is supine before us, THEN, and only then, will you have achieved your true objective.” “The MIND of the enemy commander is always the objective. The terrain is useful only to crush his forces. The death of his men will lead to his failure of purpose. When his will fails, then we will have won, regardless of the forces arrayed against us. This is how we will achieve glooorrryyy!!!” “Dismissed.” Overheard as the men marched to their form-up areas: “We’re lucky to have him leading us, aren’t we Sarge?” “Shut up.” Before I deployed my forces, I had to take some factors into account. In no particular order, and with no particular weighting, the factors included: objectives, terrain, correlation of forces, and my forum reputation. Yes, a public AAR brings a bit of scrutiny. First, and foremost, I had to maintain a good attack tempo. This is a game; it is more fun when there is a lot of action. As attacker, I control the tempo. Or, at least, I’d better! In past games, sfhand has shown a great ability to call artillery on any stationary troops. I knew my men couldn’t stay long in any location. Plus, my forum reputation rests upon the concept that the decisive mode of combat is always the attack. Defense is purely temporary and only useful to help bring about a better attack, later. Besides, if I didn’t flog my men forward, I certainly couldn’t goad anyone on the forum for not doing likewise. The Soviets would examine the correlation of forces. I started with no inkling of what I was facing. That saved me from doing any correlating. The Germans would consider terrain critical. Only by securing the critical terrain could the attack succeed. That seemed like a good place to start. Looking at the map, I determined that going up the middle, through the village, would be tantamount to suicide. A fight like that would suck my men into every house. It could take a squad for each house, or more. With 2 companies, that’s a total of 18 squads. That’s not enough to assault each house. Additionally, that type of attack would allow sfhand’s defenders to “squish” back, compressing like a spring, which would lead to increasing resistance the further I penetrated into the village. Instead, entering the village from the side, not the front, was the course of action I decided upon. My maneuver would be crafted to strike through any expected defense and go deep before the Germans could regain their balance. I had to go through the fields and slice into the village from the sides, rather than enter it along the main road. It’s always best to slice a snake from the side, rather than approach the head. But which side? Aye, there’s the rub… Looking at the map, the bocage divides the map into a series of discrete areas. I determined that my final terrain objective was the far intersection, based on points, and the way that would surround any of sfhand’s forces in the village. In order to take that intersection, I needed to control the field adjacent to it. In order to control that field, I needed to control the next one, and so on. Using a backwards analysis, I found that the key to the entire attack seemed to be the plowed field on my right flank, halfway up the edge of the map. That field would be my jumping-off objective. Therefore, I thought the battle would have three phases: gain the jump-off; attack the intersection; mop up. (Most screenshots are from my 2 ½ year old laptop with minimal graphics ability. This shows how well CM scales from low-end to high-end machines. Don’t groan at the quality. Please.)

This is a companion AAR to sfhand's defending Germans, over here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110164 I was challenged by sfhand to a combination pbem test and AAR of v2.0 of “White Manor”, a battle by Macisle based on his beautiful map, linked here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=109259&highlight=Macisle My first thought upon seeing this map was that it’s a work of art. Macisle has done a wonderful job recreating a real-world location and porting it into our game-world. Thank you for your work. My understanding is that JonS also provided assistance to Macisle to create a battle based on the map. Kudos to both for their efforts in making this battle. Sfhand and I have played several pbem games, all of which have been enjoyable. The only pre-battle agreement I seek is to ban any first turn bombardment of the setup area. Later bombardments, based on spotted units, are fine. Also, whereas I don’t begrudge any opponent the use of any in-game tool or order, I refuse to use my own artillery in anything other than Area Target with a 35-50m minimum radius. I don’t think WWII on-call artillery could or should use Linear or Spot targeting, or have a tighter sheaf than 50m radius. I use 35m for on-call 60mm mortars. It’s my thing after I was convinced of it by some arty grogs, and, again, I don’t expect others to use this rule. The game allows linear bombardments. Bocage positions are ripe for such an attack. Pre-planned bombardments are not so-limited in my mind. I did not read any other AAR’s of this battle, nor did I have any knowledge of the forces or objectives before I agreed to play. I plunged in, cold. I was the attacking US, tasked with gaining and controlling some terrain objectives. The objectives were to take the two intersections, and the village in between. They are split into about 8 different zones. They increase in value as they get further away from my start line. That gives the attacker an incentive to strike deep. I really like this design choice: well done!

THAT is a beautiful screenshot! (Minute 53, two posts up.)

In addition to HIDE, give them a COVER ARMOR ARC command. Their spotting ability will be reduced; that's a byproduct of the HIDE command. However, when they DO see a tank, if it's in the purple arc, they'll try to engage... Do you have a savegame showing this ATG behavior? Ken

Glad to see that your TC learned how to CLOSE THE HATCH! That's why they put hinges on them, doncha know? Nice AAR. Aggressive defense. Yum.

LOL. I read that to mean that you claim to've been IN a PzIV which was hit by a bazooka. Well, other than a panzerfaust and not a bazooka, and other than a Sherman and not a PzIV, yes, very close. But, yes, given that they reversed, you can assume a morale hit, at least. Possibly a crew casualty as well. That tank may be a bit sluggish for the next few turns. THIS is the time to ATTACK!! Where are your satchel charges? Ken

Regarding TARGET and TARGET LIGHT for machinguns: 100m is rather close, all things considered. Have you tried a bit further out? (I was surprised to see that was no difference in ammunition consumption between the two order types.)

Runners and wire are not explicitly modeled: they are implicit. So, even with zero radio comms, your isolated unit will eventually pass information up the chain. At least, that's the theory. Personally, I'd dread having to detail runners as part of my orders. Ken

This artillery round count "problem" has been present since the beginning. "HE" doesn't mean "HE": it means "total number of objects we can send your way on a ballistic trajectory". "Smoke" doesn't mean "Smoke": it means "the most smoke-filled objects we can send your way IF there are any "HE" left to use as smoke-filled objects". If you use HE and don't keep a tight eye on round count, you lose any smoke capability. If Smoke is 12, HE is 100, then you could the Smoke first, then have 88 HE left to use. A problem would be if your HE were down to 16, and you ordered "cease-fire". The delay in command and execution could result in more HE being fired, such that only 8 rounds, in toto, would be left. That means you could only use 8 Smoke. So, you'd have to cease-fire your HE MUCH earlier than you'd think, in order to ensure the Smoke doesn't get depleted. This is not intuitive. Ken

For those who haven't tried this program by GaJ, you're missing out on the single best add-on to CM that's available. Just adding my .02. Thank you, GaJ. Ken

That was an OLD bug... What version are you running? Screenie? Ken

Hmm, mathematically, +150% does, indeed, mean 250% times the at-start number. I've never checked the game. Should someone???

It's in the game...

It's the monocles which give them the advantage.

That's great! Gotta love it. During a beta test of CMBN, I was the Germans. The AI sent a Priest down the road... I nailed it but didn't kill it. The surviving crew panicked and BACKED it into my main defensive bocage block. Some stupid landser took the shot. Sigh. The ensuing cook-off killed half my guys. Defeat by kamikaze tank. Pretty fun...

Well, having been around awhile, I would find it ironic if anyone other than JK were to ask for features for a game he didn't even own. Ken

Thanks for the spot... Ken

Well, if that PzIV had zoomed up from BEHIND the M10, then that car analogy would be apt. Perhaps a better parallel would be to ask how alert would you have been to a van full of hungry bears coming towards you?

Umlaut: thank you! Ken

No. That is a unique achievement. Congratulations! Ken

Huh. I recognize most of those fields based on the CM battles I've fought on them. Ken

Crap. I was drinking when I read that. Now I've got a mess to clean up. Thanks.

Is is known, and not intended.

Early HEAT could have very unpredictable results. Any irregularity on the target could disrupt the round. A light bracket, a spare bedroll, tools, etc. That's not an exoneration of the modelling: it is a possible explanation. Ken