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Wreck

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  1. In this scenario, I was American, tasked to push into and take the Farm. My infantry force was a somewhat depleted company: two rifle platoons at about 3/4 strength, one mortar platoon with two 60mm tubes and scant ammo, plus a squad of attached engineers with demo charges. Two M-10 tank destroyers were also attached, as well as a forward observer and solid artillery support from 4.2" chemical mortars with two TRPs. Of the two platoons, one had weak leadership and the other, very good leadership. The terrain was the now-familiar Farm, with my setup on the south side. Initially, wire was detected in the fields around the Farm, but due to a bug in the program, the wire had to be removed from the scenario. But even before I saw the wire there, the idea of attempting to cross this area struck me as a very bad idea. The defender has many good positions to hide, in the farm buildings and the hedgerow behind. An attacker has to advance in the open. And also, the other, more eastern fields still had to be captured for victory purposes. Instead of a frontal attack on the main farm, I planned from turn 1 to sweep around the right side. I felt that, the Farm being the primary victory location, the enemy would have to set up much of his force there. Therefore, my initial plan was as follows: 1) set up an pre-planned artillery barrage on the main defensive east-west hedgerow on the east side. I also put one of the TRPs there, more or less in the middle of the hedgerow, to assist shooting and also if more arty was needed. 2) make an impressive looking, but false attack on the middle/west side with my weaker platoon. I guessed that the enemy would pre-plan an arty bombardment along the straight line of the hedgerow here on turn 5, similar to what I was planning further east. Or if he didn't, he would quickly call for it when he saw the mass I was going to put there. Either way, I wanted this arty to not damage my better platoon. 3) make a weak but strong enough appearance on the right to hopefully find the enemy, and hurt him with light mortars, then pull back. Most of the men plus the engineers hide in the very back of the map, so as not to be hit by stray arty. 4) I expected the enemy bombardment on my left, at minute 5 of the battle along the east-west hedge that I would be behind. So my plan was, just before minute 5, pull back all the men on the straight line of the hedge. Hopefully by that time I would hold the double-hedged "lane" going northwest, and being in the middle of it would be good enough cover. There was no real cover to the south, but the men might at least get some distance away from the main expected area of effect. 5) after the enemy used his arty (my guess was limited amounts of 81mm mortars, probably 2-3 minutes), I would return my men to the hedge and keep looking strong over there. Use at least one tank, blast hole through hedge. 6) Mass just behind right hedgerow, out of sight. 7) My 4.2" arty hits on turn 10. 8) After my bombardment ends, quickly surge forward to take right hedgerow. 9) possessing it, now plan rest of arty to help get across road towards the Farm and take it. Use mass of men in grenade fights across the north-south road to take it. Therefore I set up the second TRP in the area just west of the road, near the Farm. During setup, I never noticed that one of my M-10s had a rhino. (Didn't realize they ever modded M-10s with rhinos. Live and learn.) Anyway, my plan therefore called for engineers to blast the hedgerows to allow the M-10s to advance. I wasn't sure how I would use the M-10s, and did not think they'd be needed for anti-armor; rather I suspected that the designer gave me M-10s because they have such a modest amount of HE and their general vulnerability to infantry. So I thought it was likely the enemy would have panzershrecks which I would need to avoid. So, that was the plan. I am pleased things worked out much as I planned, although the German Panther was a big unforeseen monkey-wrench. The first turn was a disaster for the enemy. My men rushed the east-west hedgerow, but evidently the German also had been allowed to set up close enough to it to think he could get it, perhaps guessing (wrongly) that I would have to set up further back. Anyway, my men won the footrace, and from the cover of the hedgerow engaged a German squad in the open at almost point-blank range. The squad was slaughtered with no loss. As planned, my men proceeded to noisily shoot up anything they could see, mainly some men in a trench on the west edge of the map. These men, too, went down as I rapidly advanced men up the northwest double-hedge. On the first turn in the middle, my men found a German 75mm AT gun in a shellhole between the Farm and the road. Fortunately it was abandoned quickly in the next turn. Ironically, most of the damage was done by an M-10 which I had initially moved onto the hedgerow. Even though it could not see the gun while planning the turn, I was concerned that LOS did exist, so I had ordered it to back up. But there was a man-sized gap in the row there and evidently the M10 backed up just so, opening up the slimmest keyhole LOS to the gun. Fortunately the gun had already been suppressed by infantry fire, and never got off a shot I think. On the right, few Germans were seen, but there was a halftrack behind the German hedge. Unfortunately for it, it was right next to my TRP. An M-10 advanced on the second turn to my hedge and burned it on the first shot. A few other teams there attempted to draw fire but didn't see much. A turn earlier than I had expected (turn 4), German mortars rained down exactly where I had anticipated in the middle. I took more casualties than I had hoped because my men were still there. Also the mortared line extended across the board to my men on the right. At least I had already taken the north-west double hedgerow. Therefore, the men near the west edge ran into it, and in the middle, back to the Cafe. On the right, I pulled back. In the middle some men were stuck and got pounded. At least this used up the German arty, with some effect but not great. As per my plan, my weaker platoon was hit while the better platoon was hit lightly, and the engineers, and armor, were unscathed. At this point I started to wait on my own arty, while attempting to push modestly in the center. I felt that the AT gun being KOed and its crew routed, the orchard in the middle would give enough cover to try to sneak up the west side of the north-south road, but I was wrong. Took casualties in the attempt. Eventually called it off and backed out to the hedge. There was still plenty of time and I had plenty of men. About this time I became aware of a German Panther behind his eastern hedgerow. I had already split off my bazookas into their own teams, in case I needed them, and held them off the line. So they were intact. I moved them over to the east. I also attempted to maneuver the M10s to get a shot, and had several chances, but didn't get anything. On turn five one M10 traded hits with the Panther without effect either way, except the Panther backed off the hedge. So my plan could move forward. As planned, my bombardment hit on turn 10. I could not see it but the main defense on the row was a HMG team which was evidently killed. My surge forward worked well without many casualties, although a small German team on the road got a few I think. I blew a gap with engineers and moved M10s into the field. About here I lost my first M-10, the rhino, as it backed (?) across the road attempting to get a LOS down the road once some smoke had cleared. The Panther retreated down the road to the German rear. (I had not wanted it to be backing up there, but I had also thought the smoke should cover, so might have been killed anyway.) I continued the move around the right side. Engineers blew a gap through the hedgerow enough to fit the remaining M-10, and it moved through to get to the flank of the Panther. Bazooka teams moved into shellholes in the field. As smoke cleared, I felt sure I'd at least get some shots. Unexpectedly, the Panther moved right back into the field! A few bazooka rounds hit it, but it was not affected that I could see. The M-10 behind the smoke attempted to get a drive-by, but this failed and it got killed by the Panther. However, the Panther backed into the gap in the hedgerow we had blown, and stopped there. I am not sure if it was immobile then, or later, but it never moved. My men soon surrounded it on all sides; those without grenades crawled off if they could (several were killed by the tank). Those with grenades tried to get close assaults on the tank. (Some of these may have immobilized it.) The tank did a fair amount of damage, but took numerous close assaults, including one demo charge from engineers. Anyway, eventually the crew had had enough and abandoned the Panther. It was never penetrated that I could tell. The crew were mercilessly slaughtered nearly immediately after bailing. Meanwhile, on the left, I had been very cautiously moving across the empty field. A few Germans were seen, but methodically we entered buildings and shot into those not yet entered. I had gotten about half of the Farm buildings proper, when the Panther died and the surrender happened.
  2. There is one more? Neat. I thought this was the last battle. I thought this one was weighed towards the Allies. I mishandled my armor (partly w/ the "help" of confused pathing algorithms) and paid the price for that, but still managed to pull out the win by virtue of infantry mass.
  3. John, sorry I should have mentioned it is only there in the full game. The demo only has the one you have.
  4. BTW I just posted in the Red Button Crash thread over in tech support asking if there is any workaround that we could do. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1364643#post1364643 Hopefully the BF guys can give us a clue here.
  5. Odin, same thing with me, and I am the only other American I think. I reported this last night to Bimmer thinking it was just me. I don't have any suggestions. I tried it more than five times, including using the unmodified turn as it came to me from eniced, and I also tried it after a reboot.
  6. Ditto Pak40 and womble. This may give a bit more info: http://combatmission.wikia.com/wiki/Acquire
  7. What womble said. You'll have to dig around in your game install to find it, but there's a nice PDF of the manual without the background (and with black text) in the same folder as the manual that you know about.
  8. Yah, I got your email and I have the turn from your dropbox. I fired it up this morning but did not have time to do all of setup. Looks like good fun.
  9. Hmm. I think I tested with mixed... maybe it works differently for AP only.
  10. I have tested this and my experience directly contradicts you. In my experience vehicles do not seem to benefit whatsoever from marking.
  11. Have you tested a green minefield? I have, and never saw a hit on one, although it is possible I didn't test it enough.
  12. http://combatmission.wikia.com/wiki/Mine
  13. You get a pdf of the manual with the (free) demo, in case you cannot wait. Unfortunately it is not ideal for printing, as its "black" is not fully black and it also has background images underneath each page. Still, it would work. (There is a no-background-image black and white version of the manual with the full game that is nice for printing.)
  14. I'll second or third the idea to use artillery on the woods as a whole, before moving in. Of course, that relies on having the ammo to expend. Since the OP doesn't mention it: be sure to use area fire a lot. It helps to have lots of ammunition and grenades. Basically, you creep forward one or two action spots with a scout team -- it will probably be killed. But it spots where the enemies are; then you move up several teams at once just into range and area fire into the spot where you detected the enemy. One other thing other guys have not mentioned yet is attempting suppression ahead of your men even without knowing where the enemy is. You can also get some suppression from infantry fire even beyond where you can see. Some of the bullets keep going, even though most of them are wasted on the targeted action spot. Don't want to do that with normal infantry teams at short ranges because they'll use/waste valuable grenades. Also don't do it with teams that are low on ammo and cannot replenish it. But with MG teams which have large amounts of ammo, or any infantry at greater than grenade range (typically, grazing into the edge of the wood), it can be worthwhile.
  15. Ouch: The priest now marked as dead: A halftrack MG attempted to help, but took a pegging from my two MG teams, and retreated. I didn't know, but evidently the crew abandoned it or was killed. Two trucks (apparently without drivers) are killed by MG fire from the selected team: The other Priest is killed via close assault. Moving up to assault the farm: At this point, the enemy surrendered. Which made sense, since he had almost nothing left. German Army Tactical Victory score: US 86, Germans 175 US: men OK 4 KIA 18 WIA 20 MIA 0 vehicles lost tank: 0 armored: 2 other: 4 German: OK 24 KIA 6 WIA 3 MIA 0
  16. More men in the southwest field. Casualties from across the hedgerow for one team. Team on other side killed. I now aggressively front up on the hedgerow in the southwest. Demos used to get through in one spot. The selected team is about to fire a panzerfaust at the nearer Priest, missing it. Taking out the few remaining American infantry there: Here we knocked out the first Priest, with a lucky grenade. The throw: Boom!
  17. Continuing to sweep to my left: Scouting the southern hay field: Still no Americans found. Notice the area fire into the bocage corner where we previously saw Americans: The American fires smoke to screen his units from his front. But we are on his flank! Not sure if he knows what's happening; hope this means my distractions have worked. Scouts enter the southwest field.
  18. More firing to soften up farm. Note the team bugging out on my right: After shooting up what I could see, I sent in a team. Big mistake -- a jeep MG was sitting behind a wall. I saw the jeep only after it killed my team. The next turn my men killed it somehow, but I didn't see what happened to the crew. This minor defeat, plus the lack of good terrain, soured me on this approach. Also, I had noticed that the Priests fired (area fire toward me generally, with no effect), but they had not rotated at all. If they were mobile, the scenario would seem to be rather imbalanced, and also, why would my opponent leave them sitting there while I assaulted on the right? So my guess was the Priests were immobile. And given the weak forces seen thus far, I figured there were good odds I could sweep across the south of the map and get behind the Priests, where they would be unable to affect me, then kill them using grenades. Leaving a few men behind in the north near the Farm to ostentatiously area fire, all my other men swept south: Checking out the cafe: Note the continued area fire on the right:
  19. In this scenario I was Germans. I had a platoon on an infiltration mission; there was some artillery (2-4 tubes, type unknown) in the area and I was supposed to take them out if possible. Then withdraw east. Setting up in the east, I took a small risk on turn 1 and ran full squads to the hedgerows along east side of the N-S road. (Strangely, I could not split squads in setup for some reason.) This worked fine -- no Americans. Here you can see my guys on the first hedgerow. The Americans are sound contacts for various vehicles. The next few turns, I cautiously moved across to the hedgerows on the west side of the road. Two American priests were discovered, as well as some small teams in the buildings and in the orchard area. I decided to try to push on my right (the north side), into the Farm proper. The left looked unpromising because the priests were there. You can see a crater that a Priest made. I fired for a few turns:
  20. I (playing Germans) got a tactical victory. Score: US 86, Germans 175.
  21. Noob, your system is what Nabla would generate if using only one game per tournament round. Nabla is a generalization of what you are doing so as to compare results in a set of games and pick a set of best players. Your system has the advantage of nearly trivial computability. It has the disadvantage that using a single game to determine superior players is subject to a fair amount of luck.
  22. eniced: I am not sure we should be discussing the results until the other guys finish. I'll PM you. sgtabell: no problems here.
  23. Looks like sfhand/Odin is the only game still going.
  24. There are pictures of the three states of minefields at the wiki: http://combatmission.wikia.com/wiki/Mine I have never seen any black boxes. It must be a graphics glitch of some kind.
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