manchildstein (ii)

for scenarios designed as human against the ai, 'hitting' the human player with challenging ai-controlled FO artillery barrages can be a key part of the overall scenario design. i've noticed that a trick human players might use when playing against the AI is - during setup - to put some 'sacrificial' unit such as a jeep or halftrack out in plain sight while hiding everything else. this tactic helps ensure that the ai FOs will call in a turn 1 barrage on the human player's sacrificial unit and away from the more valuable units. as a scenario designer, there are a couple of ways i can think of to get around this. one is the perhaps already-discussed idea that the ai could have a series of sentries throughout the human player's setup zone(s). these might be sharpshooters, light machineguns or tank hunter teams. interestingly, the sharpshooters might be the deadliest of those 3. in any event, by setting up a series of such sentries in the human player's setup area(s), this helps ensure that all of the player's units are in ai los at the start. with the 'borg spotting' of cm, the turn 1 prep barrage(s) would then have a much better chance of actually targetting something useful rather than a sacrificial jeep or somesuch. another method i just thought of does away with the 'sentries' of the ai. it also takes away any chance of a wasted ai-controlled turn 1 barrage. this method involves bringing in ai-controlled FOs as turn 2 reinforcements: simply 'pop in' the ai-controlled FOs on turn 2 at the desired locations. by bringing the ai FOs in on turn 2, you dispense with both the 'opening setup sacrifice tactic,' and any need for any initial ai 'sentry' positions within the human setup zones. using this kind of tactic can create artillery barrages against human-controlled units at unexpected times. for quick response, mortars are recommended if the FO position is expected to be overrun early; larger caliber, slower-reaction time FOs can work if they gain LOS in good time and are in positions which are expected to last as long as it takes for the actual barrage to begin.

And where is the review, eh wot? Where is it? </font>

http://militera.lib.ru/h/fugate/app.html Heinz Guderian in Panzer Leader states that his troops were much surprised and frustrated by the KV and T-34 tanks they encountered for the first time in early July. On July 3, Nehring's 18th Panzer Division was hit hard on its left flank near the Berezina River on the Smolensk highway by units from the Borisov Tank School and from Kreizer's 1st Moscow Motorized Rifle Division. Guderian himself did not see a T-34 until July 10, when he went to this area and took photos of one that had run off into a ditch. That Guderian had not seen a T-34 earlier is evidence of the sparse deployment of them in and around the Bialystok salient and evidence that the XIV Mechanized Corps' 30th Tank Division, directly in the path of Guderian's Panzer Group 2 near Brest, must have been equipped with the older T-28 medium tanks. http://havoc.battlegroupboston.org/program/Game_Descriptions.htm 220 The Bridge at Borisov Rules: Modified Command Decision III Scale: 1/285 Historical Period: World War II GM: David Redding July 1st, 1941, a flying column of the 18th Panzer Div sped for the bridge over the Berezina river near the town of Borisov. Elements of the Soviet 50th Rifle Div. responded to the attack. The commander of the Western Front, ordered the bridge held at all cost. http://www.consimworld.com/newsroom/archives/nowshipping/gmt.19981130.ship.html Scenarios Included Learning Scenario -- Battle of Borisov, 1-4 July 1941. 3 turns, uses a small portion of just one map. Here, Soviet 1st Moscow Mot. Div. tries to stop Gen.Nehring's 18th Panzer Division from capturing the crossings of the Berezina River; almost an even fight. Scenario #1: Yelnya Offensive Operation, 29/30 Aug to 8/9 Sep. 6 turns, uses part of just one map. Covers the historically successful Soviet offensive against this German salient. Zhukov is in command of the Soviets. [ July 06, 2003, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

here's a question: are the points better spent on lmgs, even in low-los situations like woods and city fighting? i would think that maybe lmgs would be more useful in the wide-open los situations, but maybe not in close

with 2 smgs, tank hunter teams are good at infantry combat inside 40 meters. so they're useful when in low-los situations. in any kind of overall low los situations i like to have a few of them around, then mix them in with infantry half-squads on the advance. lately i've been splitting the squads in a platoon, then sending the half squads with no mg forward, beefed up by tank hunter teams. behind them are the mg half squads and flamethrowers. doing this i can move the platoon's 3 mg half squads quickly to a supporting position ('firebase'), while the mg-less half squads and tank hunters are forward and make a series of bounding advance moves; sneak moves if contact is thought to be imminent. by 'bounding' i mean that each turn the most forward units sit while the ones right behind them advance through and become the new most-forward units. when contact is generally reached, if an intact tank hunter can open up inside 40 meters it provides good smg support. as already mentioned, those antitank magnetic mines will knock out anything, including pillboxes and bunkers. tank hunter teams are probably most effective in woods or a city; or at night. they are probably least effective on wide-open mapboards during the day.

if there's a map with just a couple of 2nd level buildings and i have a lot of attacking assault guns i will shell those buildings simply to ensure there are no enemy FOs or MGs in there... i read somewhere that a common german tactic in the late-war west was to set up in the inner buildings, behind the outer buildings which were often first destroyed by american HE fire... in cm, if a town has a multitude of 2nd level buildings the tactic won't work, but if i'm in chance encounter that church toward the middle is a good target whether i'm american or german... especially if i start taking fire from there...

edit: bumpety [ July 29, 2003, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

scenario depot: http://ns9.super-hosts.com/~dragonlair.net/combatmission/ EDIT - Briefing for version 2.0: Title: Sokolov Screen Play as Axis against the Allied AI Default AI Setup Semi-Historical Axis Probe 8 Jul, 1941 South, Hot, Dry, Clear, Still, Mid-Day Map Size: 2160 x 1600 meters Axis: SS Motorized Infantry Battalion, 7 StuG, 9 Pz Jg I, FO Support Allied: 2 Infantry Battalions, reinforced 10 Small, 8 Large Flags Turns: 60 Scenario Version: 2.0 Jul, 1941: Until now held in reserve, the Leibstandarte (LAH) Brigade is entering some of its first Eastfront fighting in an area outside of Sokolov. After a fairly quick - though by no means easy - fight through the Western frontier of the Soviet Union, 1st Panzer Group now must pierce the defenses of the Stalin line. With heavy woods on either side of it, a rail line leading through an orchard-laden valley seems to be the way forward. In order to clear the area, LAH is sending in one of their Motorized Battalions, reinforced by AFVs and supported by a rolling barrage from 2 Artillery Battalions. While the rest of the Brigade is fighting North and South of here (or simply being held in momentary reserve), your reinforced Motorized Infantry Battalion will pierce the defensive belt through this valley. Under the combined cover of dawn, smoke, and fog the dismounted grenadiers and their supporting AFVs made their way forward and to their jumpoff points. Presently the guns and pioneers from the Heavy Weapons Company are moving forward behind them. With the full light of day and the smoke and fog clearing, your attack is set to jump off. You have the following units available: LAH Brigade Motorized Infantry Battalion: 1 x 81mm FO 3 x Motorized Infantry Company, each with: 18 x LMG34 (organic to squads in platoons) 4 x HMG 1 x Sharpshooter 1 x Flamethrower (FT) 1 x Tank Hunter Team 1 x 28/21mm Heavy ATR 1 x HMG Company 8 x HMG34 1 x Heavy Weapons Company 4 x 37mm AT 3 x 50mm AT 1 x Armored Pioneer Pioneer Platoon 3 x LMG 3 x FT Brigade Level Armored Support Detachments: 7 x StuG B 9 x Panzerjager I Luckily, detailed topographical maps of the area were earlier captured intact. This will allow the LAH Artillery Battalions to provide a rolling barrage in support of this attack: I. Artillery Battalion: 3 x 105mm FO II. Artillery Battalion: 2 x 105mm FO 2 x 150mm FO Simulated Rolling Barrage Artillery Rules: While the Battalion's organic 81mm Mortar FO is available for on-call fire, certain rules are provided for the rolling barrage conducted by the FOs of the LAH I. and II. Artillery Battalions. When first loading the scenario as Germans, the view is at level 6 and looking directly down at the FOs which will be conducting the rolling barrage. These FOs are in 3 groups, each of the 3 groups or "rows" representing the same batteries but to be set to fire pre-planned on different turns; 01, 11, 21. In each row the FOs for each Battalion are in 2 "sections;" the 3 x 105mm of the I. Battalion on the left, and the 2 x 105 plus 2 x 150mm on the right. On turn 01 you will have 21 targets to choose: 7 FOs of I. and II. Battalion, pre-planned for Turn 01 7 FOs of I. and II. Battalion, pre-planned for Turn 11 7 FOs of I. and II. Battalion, pre-planned for Turn 21 Perhaps the easiest way to achieve this is to, after setup but during the Turn 1 Orders Phase: Individually choose each of the 21 targets for these FOs of I. and II. Battalions. After you have selected all 21 targets, then group select the 14 FOs from the "Turn 11" and "Turn 21" rows combined. Hit the "Q" key 10 times to set all 14 of these to "Turn 11." Then group select only the 7 FOs in the "Turn 21" row and hit the "Q" key 10 more times to set these 7 to "Turn 21." After this you will have the 7 FOs of the "Turn 1" row firing at the start, then the 7 FOs of the "Turn 11" row firing on turn 11, and finally the 7 FOs of the "Turn 21" row firing on turn 21. This is meant to represent a rolling barrage. No matter which targets you choose for your barrages, the two main points are that 1) all 21 of these FOs are firing pre-planned, and 2) that each group of 7 is set to the proper turn. Other than that, for each of these 21 FOs you can order smoke or HE, target wide or normal. You can follow up behind these pre-planned artillery fire missions with your ground assault. Aerial recon has delineated the main line of defense in this sector. It is marked on the map by the "*" symbols. Most enemy positions should be within 200 meters or so of these markings. Changes from Version 1 to Version 2: The Recon Battalion with its Armored Car Company has been replaced by a Motorized Infantry Battalion with no armored cars. The squads are now more robust, with 10 men apiece instead of 8. The armored cars weren't contributing much to version 1.0 and centering the battle around exiting them didn't quite stir the imagination. So the exit scenario of version 1 is replaced by a more standard, "capture the flags" scenario in version 2. Getting into the first belt of 10 small flags should prove easy enough, but capturing 4 or more of the 8 Large flags should (hopefully) prove a challenge. NOTES: Expect to go against some positions with large-caliber guns in a direct fire mode. This being the Stalin line, these are definitely known to exist. Don't be baffled when they turn out to be SUs. It was either that or KV-2s. The SUs were chosen because they are non-traversing and better represent pillboxes. So when you see a dug-in "Heavy Assault Gun" try to think of it as a "nasty pillbox on the Stalin Line" - which is what it is intended to represent. In the default many of the squads are split. This allows for each half-squad to carry a full load of explosives and rifle grenades. They are further organized with rifle/smg half-squads forward and lmg half-squads further back. This version 2 was originally set to 45 turns. It was increased to 60 so the player has the option of setting up further back than in the default, then using the extra time to move forward from what are initially covered positions. If you attack out of the default setup (or otherwise out of the leading edge of your black setup zone), expect almost immediate contact as you move forward. The main defense line is indeed within a couple of hundred meters on either side of the "*" landmarks; but if you look closely you can see that certain positions roughly 200 meters nearer to you than these "*" landmarks can gain LOS to much of your most forward setup zone. Good Luck [ July 29, 2003, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

if you want the ai to stay where you set them up, create an exit scenario where the ai defends with no flags... this seems to keep the ai where you left it... no bizarre counterattacks against flags... learnt this from the 'road to smolensk' scenario... there was another scenario, 'wittmann's cross of iron'... where the ownership of the east and west mapboard edges was reversed... i think this somehow caused the soviet tanks to attack the germans... you can get some spectacular turn 1 offboard artillery barrages if you can get human-controlled units within the LOS of ai-controlled units at the start... time and time again i've seen the ai hit with lots of artillery if there are human units within LOS. remember that, with borg spotting all the ai has to do is to is have LOS to the human-player's units and the ai can then dump beaucoup artillery rounds there... sometimes it is interesting to put ai-controlled units behind the human player's at-start positions... this would represent ai-controlled units which remained hidden and are now ambushing from behind... you can sprinkle the map with ai-controlled sharpshooters, lmgs, tank hunter teams and such... one favorite is to used split smg-squads and make nasty defensive belts in wooded or otherwise low-los areas... split smg squads because all you need is 4 or 5 guys to spring a nice ambush... then you have twice as many units to cover ground with...

one thing you can do to make 1941-era soviet fortifications is to set the editor ahead to 1943 and get su-152s, then set the time back to 1941 and make the SUs dug-in... gives the russians some nice on-board HE firepower without always having to resort to the KV2

you know, aside from its slowness that's a really powerful AFV... 30 rounds of 150mm... good frontal protection... some people say the 105mm StuH 42 was the best all-around infantry support assault gun of the war...

pic: http://www.be.wakwak.com/~khsudoh/northfox/sakuhin/doitu/doitu5.htm so they were only used in or around stalingrad?...

there was an excellent site - especially for german oobs - maintained by one dr. leo niehorster at http://www.freeport-tech.com/wwii it's been down for some time though. if anyone knows if this same information was moved someplace else, i would be excited to hear about it

it all depends on your level of suppression fire

--hit by about 20 105mm shells all of which failed to explode, thus proving they were ap -- they could have been dud HE

early war yugoslav and greek armies would be a big plus... also... later war yugoslav partisan formations...

the t-28 may have figured fairly prominently in the 'dubno' battles against panzer group 1 in the 'ukraine' in june, 1941.

that would be a good idea; showing the mg turrets but not having them function; at least it would allow for the t-28 to be in the game. it appears as though it generally had one of 2 types of 76mm gun, and by 1941 most if not all were up-armored to 80mm frontal. that would be - even without functioning mg turrets - a decent opponent for germans in those early war scenarios. the one with the 'L-10 gun' in particular would have been fairly tough; a 76.2mm 'L/26' at 555 meters per second muzzle velocity. http://www.battlefield.ru/t28.html perhaps beyond the multi-turret issue, one key reason they were left out of cmbb was their mechanical unreliability. perhaps the majority of them were abandoned en route rather than destroyed in actual combat. the web page referenced above states that most all of them were destroyed within the first 2 months, but some of them fought on into 1943 (leningrad front) and were at the battle of moscow (1941). i would agree though that it would be worth it to see them modelled, even with non-functioning mg turrets. but that will probably have to wait for the new engine...

if the jgpz iv is much more expensive than the hetzer, does the jgpz make up for it with superior ammo loadout and/or faster firing rates? one thing about the hetzer; it's vulnerable to the side and rear. i don't know about the soviet 12.7 mg but the american .50 cal can take the hetzer out. i'm sure the russian atr would penetrate consistently in any event. and in addition to that, from the front the hetzer has to be hull down. so what we have is perhaps just a limted use unit; must be hulldown and god help it if anything gets on its side or rear. it sounds like the type of unit a person could love one moment and hate the next. it would be interesting for a defending axis player to use the hetzer as 'bait.' for instance make sure that the hetzer gets seen frontally, then expect that, in failing to deal with the hetzer from the front that the allied player will begin all manner of flanking attempts. in anticipation of such flanking attempts, load up those approaches with ambushes.

--Panzerjäger-Abteilung 1-- i think that a lot of these in the infantry divisions were towed pak

one way to raise the odds of a scout surviving first contact is to give it plenty of overwatch firepower. this means having a 'firebase' behind the most forward unit (scout); a 'firebase' which can also see - and fire upon - whatever the scout can see.

to get the reinforcements organized, i break them down into platoon-sized groups, then space their flags (entry points) out. it's not a cure-all but at least it's a slight workaround.

july seems early for a long-barrelled stug, regardless of formation. it would be interesting to know for sure. if wittmann and the rest of his detachment were fielding long-barrelled stugs, waxing a bunch of t-34s wouldn't have been a problem. i made a test scenario which had 3 elite stug Bs against 18 conscript t-34 M40s. perhaps my skill is lacking but it was ugly. now if the map were mostly trees or if the original battle had been in sunflower fields, i could see the germans having a much better chance. if wittmann had really been in a short stug and his battery had faced 18 t-34s in fairly open terrain, then his gunner must have been an excellent shot; getting first-shot, turret ring type hits. at roughly 1000 meters i found this to be fairly impossible in the test i ran. it seems there are at least a few variables here: 1) what kind of LOS conditions were there at that battle, 2) how many stugs were present, and 3) were the stugs long or short-barrelled. finally, were those t-34s they faced? until we can at least nail down these, i suppose everything else is speculation. another thing to consider is that, in that now non-existant oob site (www.freeport-tech.com/wwii), they listed the lah as having a detachment of 7 stugs. i suppose this would have been two 3-gun batteries and a command stug. as for t-34s versus bt tanks at that particular battle, is it true that both tanks opened into a 'mickey mouse' hatch configuration when abandoned? this might have added to the confusion. i could also imagine germans at that time thinking they were always fighting t-34s, just as later in the war the western allies often thought every german afv a 'tiger.' if both the t-34 and the bt tanks opened into 'mickey mouse' ears i could definitely see a lot of bt tanks being mis-identified. from what i've seen of the models in the game, the bt looks a lot like a 'mini t-34.' it's interesting to hear that a lot of wittmann's early kills were t-38s and the like. if for example lah had crossed paths with the 18th mechanized corps they could have faced up to 280 t-38s...

spoilers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . against the ai, i used a wide flanking move on the right side. basically one company crossed the road under the 81mm FO smoke screen while the other company and some attached 50mm mortars and MG34s stood overwatch. the key overwatch position was a platoon, 3 mortars, and 3 MG34s in the E-W running treeline there north of the south wheatfields and where the treeline ended at the road. the platoon, mortars, and MGs laid down supporting fire from there while the manuever company crossed, turned, formed up in a northerly moving E-W picket and moved up through the far wheatfields 2 platoons of the supporting fire company made more of a center push, providing cover fire from some tall pines and brush. no major push was ever made the center. the moves there were basically to get into position to provied overwatch fire for the attack. the main push was on the far side of the road. the 37mm guns set up in the trees toward the left. 3 50mm mortars and an MG34 joined them there... the mortars turned out to be fairly useless as when the firefight got going they were out of range of the in-town defensive positions. all of the FOs and a company HQ moved into a stand of tall pines atop a hill just outside of the setup zone. from there the 81mm dropped its smoke in support of the road crossing, then when the town was under assault the 75mm FOs dumped everything on the t-34 they spotted there... it appears as though the offboard 75mm did something to silence the t-34... probably gun damage. on the last turn of the game a tank hunter team moved up along the road and took out that tank with a mine. 2 platoons of the company in the manuever wing were in the woods around the first small flag, and a squad ran forward to try and take the large flag but it failed. my forces inflicted more casualties - about a 2:1 ratio - but i got a minor defeat on the basis of not controlling any of the flags... just the one small one was contested... given the long route i took in the advance, i could have used about 10 more turns. the thing which struck me the most about this scenario was the german infantry squads. with four squads in a platoon you can set up an overwatch position and effectively have 4 lmgs with 50 ammo apiece. at over 350 meters these squads are putting out more than 40 firepower. having previously played mostly with recon, pioneers, and panzergrenadiers, the 50 ammo default on a plain infantry squad is impressive as are the 4 squads per platoon. the amount of overwatch suppression provided by these squads/platoons alone was awesome. it was a lot of fun putting down withering fire from overwatch while the manuever element closed with the enemy.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. end spoiler

yes a stug battery is like a platoon. i suppose 3 of them wouldn't be so bad, assuming every afv couldn't see every other afv, all at the same time... anyway apparently stug A types are out of date by then. the game offers stug B and E types... from the purchase screen they're the same with 50/30 armor and the 75mm L/24. so my guess is that wittmann was in a B, as he is in this scenario SPOILERS . . . . . . . . . .. . . i played as axis against the ai. things were going great at first, but before the second battery of stugs arrived, i took wittmann and his 2 pals forward up to the left of the center hill. i figured the hill itself would screen every threat to the right side of there on the map. in addition to the 3 stugs i moved up 2 recon platoons into a large patch of scattered trees, also just left of the hill. the stugs got into place and started engaging some BTs on the left, but then the ai got aggressive and BTs came pouring over the hill just out of the town... i lost 2 stugs and the 3rd was gun damaged... all from side hits... the reinforcement battery pushed the right/center then wheeled around and cleaned things up a bit. in the end i lost 2 stugs, had 2 gun damaged, and 2 survived intact. all of the soviet afvs were cooked. 1 of my recon platoons went up the right side and with little difficulty grabbed the large flag the two platoons in the middle were able to contest the small flag in the town. the small flag on the left remained in soviet hands... all in all this scenario was a lot of fun. i still can't really fathom 3 stugs on 18 t-34s... unless the action was totally piecemeal on the part of the soviets... i too would have gone for BT (and T-26) tanks as this scenario did... my reasoning on this is that an abandoned t-34 and BT tank have the same 'mickey mouse' opened hatch look if i'm not mistaken... and even at 18-6 instead of 18-1 i find BTs a lot more believeable than t-34s.... the main anomaly was the large flag being on the right (instead of in the center)... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. end spoilers