manchildstein (ii)

weren't hunting tigers pretty much used exclusively on the western front?

in my experience there are only three (3) ways to use an FO in this game: 1) pre-plan or 2) have los (line of sight) to the target area or 3) trp. in other words (iow), without pre-plan, los, or a trp the FO's barrage is going to fall in some random place. also, it appears as though a 105mm barrage usually does nothing more than immobilize t34s and KVs... 150 might be a different matter... ...or 105s against BTs... or soviet artillery against early war german... or... hopefully you get the picture...

edit... i forgot to mention... the descriptions for this scenario over at the scenario depot don't quite match the final 1.0 scenario... the briefing below is from the 'latest.' in the current version available at the depot there are a couple of couple of anomalies...the little one-line description you see when you 'play game' should be '41-06' and in the scenario editor the date was changed from june '44 to june '41 as it is supposed to be.... neither of these has any impact on the play of the scenario. so the briefing here is 'the latest' and the scenario at the depot matches it... again it's just the description and designer's notes at the depot which are a bit out of whack... the whole story is that i submitted the scenario to admketh, thinking it was ready because i had just had a pretty good go of it myself. then after i had submitted that version, i played it again a couple of times and got waxed pretty badly... and this was after having made some minor changes which i had thought were going to make it easier for the human player... as i was getting whacked for the 2nd time i realized that the scenario could use some more changes to balance it out... thus the final version i sent to Keth, prior to it ever having been actually released on the scenario depot site... in other words, the scenario there is the correct one, with the one-line description and in-editor date anomalies, but the description and designer's notes don't reflect this....again the briefing below is the right one... hopefully the bottom line is that, if you like huge scenarios this one will be a 'molten tnt-laden blast' for you... i have just fired up a new game and will post an aar... Hill 267.9 Play as Axis against Computer Allied Default Setup for Computer June 1941 South, Dry Ground, Warm Soviets 50% Fanatical Mid Day, Clear, Still Axis Attack but Soviets not Dug In 51+ Turns Huge: 3k x 2k Map, about 7000 points per side In the opening days of the War in the East Panzer Group 1, supported by the 6th and 17th Armies attacked into the Ukraine. In the 1939 Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland the Soviets had taken an Eastern Polish town called Dubno and annexed it to the Ukraine. So in those first few days of fighting in the Summer of 1941, the German 11th Panzer Division and the rest of the 1st Panzer Group fought through Dubno. The Soviet 8th Mechanized Corps was caught behind and South of this German spearhead. In that first week the 8th Corps thus fought in a N-NE direction with the objective of making their way through Dubno and thus cutting off the German 11th and 16th Panzer Divisions. The 8th Mechanized Corp was composed of 3 Divisions, including several hundred (on paper at least) tanks. The German 11th Panzer was equipped with Pz II, III and Pz IV tanks. Orders of Battle give us a rough estimate of 11th Panzer tank strength at the outset of Barbarossa; 2 Battalions of the 15th Panzer Regiment, each Battalion totalling about 80 tanks. From what I can gather, early on these Soviet counterattacks mauled one of the 2 Battalions of the 11th Panzer's 15th "Tank" Regiment. This particular scenario depicts the elements of the Soviet 8th Mech. Corps as having fought through and reached the SW outskirts of Dubno, and in the process having occupied Hill 267.9 to the W-SW. At the moment depicted here, the remaining "intact" Battalion of the 11th Panzer's 15th Tank Regiment is counterattacking, supported by the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Panzergrenadier Brigade's 110th Regiment. The infantry units are depleted but do have all of their heavy weapons. They have replenished their ammo and for this city action some ad hoc shuffling has taken place; the best soldiers of the Battalion have been put into Tank Hunter Teams surrounding the Battalion HQ. In the process the 50mm Mortar units have been disbanded and the "leftover" personnel have been turned into riflemen and light machinegunners to fill out the squad formations as best as possible. Earlier a friendly observation post (OP) was established in some of the factories within the then-friendly (but otherwise deserted) SW sector of the city. At the moment the sector is no longer "friendly" and the Soviets are all over the place," so the FOs of the OP are frantically communicating with their batteries, waiting to lay down barrages to cover the impdending assault by the newly arriving friendly forces. So battle is joined between the artillery, tanks, and grenadiers of the 11th Panzer Division and the tanks and infantry of the Soviet 8th Mech. Corps. Most of the rest of the Soviet 8th Mech. Corps has been already been destroyed in a series of battles leading up to this - earlier battles described in at least some quarters as having been part of the "largest tank battle of all time." So it is up to you, with the remaining "healthy" Tank Battalion of the 11th Panzer Division; up to you to knock the Soviets right out of Dubno before they have a chance to fortify the area and cement their hold. With that in mind this should be a fluid battle; the Soviets having arrived so recently as to not yet be "dug in." So don't worry about enemy minefields, and only a little about sharpshooters or antitank guns; instead clear the area of Soviet tanks and their supporting infantry. If you take back the town but not the hill, some air support should eventually arrive (outside of the scope of this scenario) to finish off those heavies up there. All HQ tanks are Veteran, and all other tanks are Regular. Your force consists of: Observation Post: Platoon HQ 3 x HMG 34 2 x Sharpshooter 3 x 105mm FO (radio) Panzer Battalion 1/15/11: HQ Company: 3 PzBefWg (PZ IIIF command tanks with low ammo loadout to represent radio equipment) 5 Pz II Reserve Tank Detachment: 1 PZ IVF 2 PZ IIIH 3 PZ II 2 Light Company, each with: 2 HQ PZ IIIF 1 Platoon x 5 PZ II 3 Platoons x 4 PZ III (mixed models) 1 Medium Company: 2 HQ PZ IVC 1 Platoon of 5 x PZ II 2 Platoons of 4 PZ IV (mixed models) 1 Panzergrenadier Battalion 2/110/11 (Panzer Motorized Infantry) at 60% Strength 9 50mm Mortars removed and traded for 10 Tank Hunter Teams Reinforcements: Expect a self-propelled AA detachment to arrive within the cover of the factory areas under your control. It should arrive in the next few minutes and consists of 2 Quad 20mm and 6 regular 20mm vehicles. Its designation is the 1./608 Self-Propelled AA Company. Your Panzer Battalion's PZ III Platoons from the Light Companies are all down from 5 "on paper" tanks to 4 here. In the default setup, the Panzer Battalion HQ Company and Reserve Detachment are both set up to directly support the Panzergrenadiers attacking out of the factory areas under your control. The 3 Panzer Companies (Medium, Light, Light) are in the clearing in the NE corner of the mapboard. Finally, there is the Observation Post (OP), already in position overlooking an "open" (good LOS) part of the city. The setup zone(s) allow you to change this default configuration - scrap the "observation post idea" altogether on the one hand or reinforce the nearby factory area with more units on the other - to suit yourself. Aerial recon and OP activity have revealed the following further details: the town is crawling with Soviet infantry, but they haven't yet entered the factory areas by the OP; likewise the town is crawling with light and medium Soviet tanks; particularly along the road which runs SW-NE South of the Church. There are Soviet heavy tanks on hill 267.9. If you attack from the default positions, your units will probably have to face fire from the hill as they move into the town; thus the clear area leading into town from the NE must be crossed quickly so as to avoid prolonged bombardment from the heavies on the hill and reach the cover of the buildings. One idea would be to spend your 3 FOs in a pre-planned barrage against the hilltop at the outset of the scenario. You can set up all of your tanks in the lanes around the factories you already control at the start; the problem here is one of manuever; how do you get - en masse - from those cramped lanes and out into the relatively open spaces with so many tanks? Another plan of attack would be to charge the hill from the setup zones over to the far West of the map. Then after taking the hill, attack into the town and the Soviet left flank; kind of an "L" shaped advance. The mapboard is wide open so once you've left the protection of the factory areas or the low ground on the North edge under your control, the shooting should start in earnst. Your OP HMG 34s, Sharpshooters, and FOs should have targets from the start, assuming they stay in their default positions. There is no Stuka support here so if and when you face the heavies on the hill, you will need to use some combination of your own AFVs, infantry, or 105mm FOs. One last thing; the idea is to strip the Soviet infantry of their tank support, in which case the remaining infantry will probably fold pretty easily. With this in mind, it may work fairly well to simply 'ignore' the Soviet infantry during the 'destroy all Soviet tanks' part of the battle. Design Notes: Thanks to "Berli" and Andreas and the others on the Battlefront.com BBS for helping with the OOB. General OOB information is found at www.freeport-tech.com/wwii The map was inspired by a small section of a 1:100,000 map which included Dubno (well, I hope it was Dubno - it wasn't in english) and was referenced on the web. If you want to get a lot of articles about Dubno, search on www.yahoo.com for with the following: +dubno +1941 Hopefully it will turn up thousands of articles, some (mostly at the top of the list) about the battle itself. In one such article it is mentioned that the 8th Corps "mauled" a "brigade" of tanks from the 11th Panzer. I figured they must have meant "battalion" given the historical difference in German versus Soviet unit size nomenclature; that and the fact that the 11th Panzer had no "tank brigade" but rather a regiment. In any case that is where the idea for "only one healthy remaining tank battalion in the 11th Panzer" came from. Another site mentioned "the largest tank battle of all time" which may be possible, given the on-paper strength of the German and Soviet units - hundreds upon hundreds of tanks and supporting AFVs in total from both sides - in the area at the time. If not the largest tank battle, "Dubno" was a big one nonetheless. [ December 21, 2002, 12:03 AM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

to be specific, the first site says, "In 1940, the typical Panzerdivision had a tank brigade of two regiments, and a rifle brigade of one infantry regiment and a motorcycle battalion, as well as the usual artillery, recon, engineers, signals and other divisional assets. " so make that one infantry regiment with a motorcyle battalion in '40, as opposed to two infantry regiments with a motorcycle battalion in '41.

i was reading on a website ( http://www.miniatures.de/html/int/panzergrenadiere-1939-1945.html ) that the '40 panzer division had 2 panzer regiments (1 brigade) and 1 infantry regiment. it seems that in '41 they went to 1 panzer regiment and 2 infantry regiments (1 brigade). is this correct? does that explain how they went from 10 panzer divisions during the battle of france to 20 at the outset of barbarossa, with negligible tank production in the interim? was another factor the replacing of some pz i and ii tanks with pz iii and iv? i mean would that explain where some of the 40-41 tank production went, despite few if any more tank battalions in total in the same period? i looked at a '39 panzer division and indeed it had 2 regiments (brigade) of tanks - mostly light - and 1 regiment of infantry (2 'understrength battalions'); yet in '41 i see the single panzer regiment/full infantry brigade configuration. http://www.freeport-tech.com/wwii ok.. another quick question about the freeport-tech oob for the 20th panzer in '41... the 92 'recon' 'battalion' shows what appear to be 100 armored cars in 2 large companies (24 20mm/26 lmg in each company), but with 'f' inserted in the diagrams... are these french armored cars? if so, how would they be represented in cmbb? i mean... that's one large recon battalion ... grin...

try 50 or more halftracks (battalion level) with FO, 'assault gun' and tank support... in some situations a 'heavy shock assault' (hsa) with halftracks can be the bees knees... let the infantry walk in behind them as a mop-up force...

i like the sharpshooter, the tank hunter, or the half squad. each one has different capabilities. when using half squads, when the squad has just on lmg, i send the half without the lmg ahead; usually just across a road or other similarly-distanced area of open ground.

the board is a bit slow in traffic... give it some time... 'bump' it now and then if you have to...

'putot' and 'tank trap (huge)' are a couple of huge battles i designed for cmbo... i would recommend though playing 'self-hotseat' and giving the side which would normally be the computer ai some rudimentary commands... this is especially true of 'tank trap'

i've played this one twice and have been highly hosed both times... the first time i thought was a fluke due to my impatience and rushing around the right side and into a slaughter... the second time the idea was to push the middle, but really with a set-piece firefight instead of any kind of movement. from the beginning i took casualties in my set piece stance and the frustration entered in by about turn 10... then i tried flanking on the left with the armor and it all got toasted... later i fired up 'gef...' ... i mean 'fighting for info' and that made me feel better...

spoiler . . . . . . . . . . . i played this one against the ai... sent the first group of afvs to the far left... the crossed the path of the first reinforcement group of afvs on the road... those went up the road, and 2 of them were toasted by an 88... in the meantime the other group on the left got chewed pretty badly, first by an 88, then by the tigers popping up in the far left corner... then the stugs chimed in from the opposite far corner, and i pretty much threw in the towel... i then loaded this one into the editor to check out force balance, and realized that a player of my (dis)ability should probably wait for the entire force to show up, prior to actually attacking... in short, i think this one will kill the impatient (impertinent?) allied player grin it was my first time with the isu122/152s... and the first time for hearing the long 88s and 75s... the shrieking sounds made in particular by the 88s on the one hand and the 122s on the other were impressive... i particularly liked the combined 'growl/shriek' of the 122s going off... and in cmbb, when i hear an mg42 i definitely take it seriously... again, this one is a good scenario which punishes allied impatience... the only thing i might change would be to make the map larger and have the tigers on the board at the start, instead of popping in in that corner at a random (30% arrival) time...

i play a lot of scenarios attacking with pz ii, iii, and iv (some 35/38t too)... i'm with that last poster, "see what it's like when you're out in the open and one of those (soviet heavies) pops up"... there is one scenario with about 70 german tanks (ib, iic, iii, and iv) and for the ii, iii, or iv whenever i get one matched up 1:1 with a t26 or bt, i think, 'oh this one doesn't need to move; this one is ok right here going toe to toe with that soviet tank'... on the other hand, whenever one of my tanks gets 1:1 against a t34 or kv, the thinking is, 'is my tank going to die?... can i retreat in time?... i hope more tanks can close and get los/lof to that bad boy'... and these are generally veteran/crack axis against conscript/green soviets in short, facing a t34 or kv on a moment's notice is a dicey affair... those 76mm (and sometimes 152mm) soviet guns make my axis tanks go, 'boom!' so playing a defensive qb with 88s in position is one thing... in a mobile scenario, without the benefit of emplaced 88s, trying to get instantaneous fire superiority on those soviet monsters is another...because if they're not taken out, a lot of axis tanks go 'boom'...

--12. A small API-set: - To read unit database (all values currently visible during unitselection) - To write to the map generator or map selection (All the values currently editable by the user) - To write to the unit selection Thus allowing 3rd party extensions for campaigns and the like--- with all of the discussion around a 'campaign mode,' the above suggestion would allow a 3rd party to make some kind of 'monster campaign' app to go along with cm**... it's just that i was thinking of this very same fing not 2 days ago...

if memory serves you could use the 88 against aircraft in asl.... but... there was some kind of time (setup) penalty for switching between air and ground targets and vice versa... still... it makes sense to me that an 88 would be pretty much useless against tactical aircraft... it's probably an oddity that asl allowed this to begin with (again if i'm rememberly correctly)

--Yes I could delete the folder but that dosent remove all game files/registry etc... -- actually, i think it does. if memory serves cmbb doesn't have any registry entries.

--The first use of rocket artillery in World War II is often wrongly attributed to the Red Army, while Wehrmacht was the first one to use it. Four Nebelwefer Regiments of the Wehrmacht were among many artillery units that opened fire on June 22nd of 1941 at 3:15am, beginning the Operation "Barbarossa". Red Army used rocket artillery for the first time on July 14/15th of 1941, firing at the rail station at Orsza (controlled by the Army Group Center) on the Minsk-Moscow route.-- ok i see that too... i'm just wondering if those batteries weren't firing smoke as i'd thought somewhere that - until the soviets used rockets - the german rockets were 'chemical mortars' or somefink... but from that website it looks like the germans were firing rocket-he before the soviets ever were... by the way... i sure would like some ~300mm soviet rocket trucks in the direct fire role in cmbb... a buddy of mine once introduced those in a 'quick battle' in cross of iron... i thought... 'ha, those are useless... too inaccurate...' then those babies started firing and i was hosed... i noticed avalon hill took them out of direct purchase in asl.... teehee

PZ IIC

found the glantz article: http://rhino.shef.ac.uk:3001/mr-home/rzhev/rzhev3.html

there are a lot of websites relating to this battle... i found one yesterday that had an entire, in-depth article by glantz... i lost it though... didn't bookmark... anyway, it should be fairly easy to come up with a semi-historical scenario based upon part of this battle...

--The Germans used Rocket artillery from the beginning of the war. Four Nebelwefer Regiments of the Wehrmacht were among many artillery units that opened fire on June 22nd of 1941 at 3:15am, beginning the Operation "Barbarossa". -- is it possible those were firing smoke and not he? i'd always thought the soviets were the first to employ he rockets... obviously that may be mistaken... but the myth is that the germans were 'surprised' by the first soviet use of he rockets as the germans themselves had never seen such a thing...

you need to throw the kitchen sink at the kv

as i was originally 'fulminating' over this 'problem,' 'that small still voice' was whispering, 'sop... someday sop'... perhaps if they did automatically stay buttoned then other problems would present themselves... it does seem odd to me though that as it is, i can be involved in a battle where it seems as though more than half of my (remaining) afvs have a crew casualty... anyway i guess it's not too big a deal... maybe just some small tweak is called for in 1.02... otherwise i suppose the answer is, 'wait for sop' mike the wino, you did have a thread, only from my view here it was posted under this title... and my original posting was gone... that's why i was wiggin'... after a few minutes this thread was 'normal' again and yours was apparently down the proverbial bit bucket... to try and answer your question... i think that whatever vehicles could be salvaged for further combat were... others were stripped for parts and left.. it was my understanding that wrecks left after the war were for the most part taken as scrap... you should probably re-start that thread if you want more answers....

whoa... for a second this thread was about mike the wino's halftrack question... i'm really trippin'

??? i was trying to post about afv crews unbuttoning, only to take casualties from small arms... i guess we found a bug in the software or somefink...