manchildstein (ii)

ideally you want to have some HE in order to suppress enemy positions while your infantry moves forward. often this HE is provided by armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) which includes tanks. if you go without tanks try to set your machineguns up in positions where they can see along and beyond the line of advance of your squads... then use the MGs to suppress/destroy enemy defensive positions while your infantry move forward. the basic idea is that for successful movement of your own infantry squads, the enemy positions have to be either supressed or destroyed. fast movement of squads under fire is a sure way to heavy casualties... i use a combination of mostly move and advance - move when i'm not expecting any fire, and advance when i'm expecting to move up under fire... and sneak or assault if the distance is short and the enemy fire is expected to be heavy.... [ March 16, 2003, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

in the game the 20mm has a 6-round clip... just listen.... ack ack ack ack ack ack

General Briefing: Play as Axis against Allied AI, Default AI Setup Ragnarok: I SS Panzer Corps in Spring Awakening Map: 2k x 2k Axis: 5 Infantry Companies, Support Weapons, 36 Tank/JGDPZ, 73 Halftrack Allied: "Battalion-level" with Artillery, Air, and Self-Propelled Gun support March, 1945 Day, "Dry," Clear, Cool, No Wind 60+ Turns German Mech, Soviet Infantry, Urban, both sides max Fanaticism Version 1.0 Semi-Historical On March 6 of 1945 Hitler launched the "last" German offensive of the war. Code named "SPRING AWAKENING" and also known as the "Lake Balaton Offensive," the action is described in part of a book by Michael Reynolds entitled, "Men of Steel - I SS Panzer Corps." The ISBN is: 1-885119-66-6 According to the book, "Hitler's aims for Operation SPRING AWAKENING were as wildly amibitious as those he had laid down for AUTUMN MIST in the Ardennes three months previously. They were: to destroy the Soviet forces in the region bounded by Lake Balaton and the Danube and Drava rivers, secure the Hungarian oil deposits, and establish bridgeheads over the Danube with a view to further offensive operations." This scenario is based upon certain descriptions of the action given in the book, and the mapboard is based upon no more than a centimeter square section of the "Map 27" in the map section of the hardback edition from Sarpedon dated 1999. In this scenario you command elements of the "LAH" or "Liebstandarte" 1st SS Panzer Division in an attack on the 12th of March into the town of Simontornya on the Sio Canal. Your force consists of: From 1st Panzergrenadier Regiment: 1 Panzergrenadier Battalion (2+ Companies) From 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment: 1 Panzergrenadier Battalion (2+ Companies) 8 Jgdpz IV from 1st Panzerjager Battalion 73 SPWs (includes 33 251/1) 9th Pioneer Company 1st Battalion, 1st SS Panzer Regiment: 10 PZ IV 10 Panther 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion: 8 Tiger II The attack of the 12th was ostensibly made by the 1st Panzer Battalion, with support of Panzergrenadiers from the 1st and 2nd Regiments; the Battalion from the 2nd Regiment was an SPW Battalion. The King Tigers and JGDPZ IVs may or may not have been present in the 'actual' battle. From the book it is known that the 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment had JGDPZ IVs attached, and that the 8 Tiger IIs from the 501st were also available that day and in that area. In any event your job is to attack into the town and cause as many Soviet casualties as possible while clearing out the areas near the Sio Canal in the south of the town. You can expect heavy Soviet resistance; at least a Rifle Battalion supported by numerous "field guns," forward artillery observers, self-propelled artillery, and air support. Aftermath: On the one hand the book says that the tanks of the 1st Battalion stormed the town with the loss of only 5 tanks total but on the other hand it states that "house-to-house fighting went on through the day and into the night, until most all of the town was cleared." With that in mind this scenario is sort of an amalgam, an attempt to recreate the kinds of conditions under which the battle was fought, without having access to actual topographical maps, and with access to an historical source which - while however engrossing in its telling of the tale of the battle - is admittedly at least mildly contradictory in some aspects of that same telling. All in all I recommend the book, for even if the author had a lack of information available for chronicling SPRING AWAKENING, if nothing else he went into great depth regarding the I SS Panzer Corps' role in AUTUMN MIST (Battle of the Bulge) some 3 months prior. The section of the book after SPRING AWAKENING is about the demise of the I SS Panzer Corps.

since my largest battles are attacks against the ai i tend to be a bit more reckless, often with every unit moving at the start in order to close with the defender. once contact is made, it becomes an exercise where usually no more than 50% of my units are moving at a given time. essentially it becomes a series of leapfrog moves where some are providing fire, and others are bounding forward. oftentimes a 3rd group is by then 'hovering' in the background waiting for a decent move to present itself. right now i'm testing a scenario with 37 tanks/assault guns, 2 battalions (understength at 2 companies apiece) of infantry, and 1 company of pioneers, backed up by extensive support weapons and about 60 halftracks of various types. of those 60-odd halftracks there are 30-some odd spw 251/1s and these are the 'battle taxis,' bringing the flamethrowers, pioneers, hmgs, and 81mm mortars forward... the rest are 75mm shorts, triple 15mm mg, 81mm mortar, and 20mm halftracks... all 251/x at a certain point my attackers come under constant air attacks as they move to take the town...... it's a 'blast' by the way (btw) i would defintely buy an 'airborne assault' for the eastern front... [ March 11, 2003, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

...so your map is only usable by engineers? Very few units had the kind of explosives on hand to breach walls like that </font>

Apart from number of spare barrels, obviously... All the best, John. </font>

larger forces are where its at... but for pbem that most likely means broadband...

agreed that the tiles would need to be narrower... i actually thought about what you brought up about the inner walls... so what i really should have suggested was that this is a way to simulate rowhouses and breaching the walls with explosives...

that was what i did in this case... forgot to mention that number "3)" above was my favorite...

some units hystorically had a shortage of cadre - officers and ncos. since it isn't possible to purchase hq-less squads in cmbb, there must be some way to work around this. a few ideas are: 1) purchase companies and build the default setup positions for the squads around the company hq units; place the 'excess' platoon hq units at the back of the mapboard and in the briefing tell the player to move these off of the friendly edge one turn 1. 2) use say, 1 sturmkompanie to represent 2 depleted regular companies; this would depict enlisted casualties as well but the ratio of personnel in squads to hq units also depicts a shortage of cadre. 3) adjust the company hq and battalion hq units to have better leadership characteristics - morale, combat, stealth, and command - than the platoon hqs. 4) add in a lot of support units, particularly HMG, LMG, tank hunters, and sharpshooters. [ March 07, 2003, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

i have found a way to depict rowhouses and thus the ability of infantry to move between them without having to go back out onto the street: use a 'factory-end tile,' the same tile repeating side by side. once you have a 'row' of them, 'cap' it off by the opposite factory-end tile; or perhaps better yet, a heavy 2nd level building with its own doorway (dot) side facing into the row of factory tiles. the benefit is that you get a bunch of 2-story tiles with walls between them; walls that can be 'breached' (normal movement between the tiles is possible). the cost is that, if you look 'inside' one tile you can see windows and such - fixtures which would only 'realistically' be on the 'outside' of a building - on the 'inside.'

i think that in a basic, wwii-styled 3-man turret that the 3rd crew member is a dedicated loader...thus you have a dedicated gunner and a dedicated commander too... unlike the 2-man turret where the loading, gunning, and commanding was done by 2 people... in both cases there were 2 more dudes in the hull... driver and radioman/mgunner.... if a tank had a 6-man crew or larger it probably had either huge shells (kv-2) or more than one main armament...

yep...or when watching tv taking the remote and waving it in the air from side to side, expecting the same thing...

ok... try just getting the 20mm aa piece... instead of pz iis or armored cars ... it should be cheaper... i'm talking 20 or 30 20mm aa guns... not 5 pz iic... anyway it sounds like the 75mm ig is the best thing for this... 1941 ladder play will probably evolve into masses of german 75mm igs against masses of soviet 76.2mm shorts...

this same sort of thing happens to paintball players too... and a variant happens to first person shooter addicts as well... anyhow yes, i've definitely 'scoped out the terrain' or noticed how 'life imitates art' when some part of a landscape jumps out and reminds me of the scenario editor...

what about 20mm aa?... i know it has no chance on paper but if you have enough of them they could get a gun hit... i'm just trying to think of the cheapest weapon where if you bought enough of them you could get a gun hit... apparently 75mm ig works... maybe 20mm aa too... if you get a gun hit, then continue to fire on it... the kv will be abandoned...'knockout'... another reason for 20mm aa would be that it probably gets its first hit more quickly than the 75mm short... has anyone tried massed amounts of 7.9mm atr?

at least for aussies and soviets

if HE in the german 37mm and soviet 45mm is 'better than nothing,' i think the same could be said for the british 40mm... in sl/asl the british 40mm had no HE... ...and i think this was 'actual british doctrine' (abd) at the time... isn't the main discussion here though as to whether or not the british sent a fair amount of 40mm HE to the soviets?... if so it would seem someone already posted a source to document this contention... is anyone disputing that source?...

yeah i think that's what i was trying to say... thanks for making it clear [ March 01, 2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

in the scenario editor there are 4 heavy large building tiles. each one has a little dot which indicates the passable side. edit... actually, if a large heavy building is standing by itself, i believe it allows entry/exit on all four sides, but to be able to go from one such building to an adjacent one, they have to have their 'dotted' sides facing each other... finally, i'm not even sure if that is entirely correct... but i'm fairly certain those dots have something to do with it... [ February 28, 2003, 09:13 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

the problem is that the troops won't move between walls... if it had been 4-tile factory your move would have worked... as it is, it appears to be 4 large, heavy buildings; and you can't get from one to the other without going out onto the street... so the ai took your order and did the best it could...

that 28/21mm taper bore with the tungsten moves well, and fires quickly in quick battles, i like the concept of a lot of cheap pieces making up for high quality... say a couple of dozen 20 or 25mm aa, or the same number of short 75 or 76.2mm pieces...

perhaps i should make a plug for 'nogai steppe 2' here as well... in it you as the germans have 2 battalions of FOs... I. 3 x 105mm II. 2 x 105mm, 2 x 150mm and there is the 6-tube 81mm FO as part of the infantry. all of the FOs have 'max ammo' i find it to be a real 'blast.'

if you want the soviet ai to open on turn 1 up with a bombardment on a certain area, put axis trucks or unarmored halftracks into los instead of mg bunkers. in other words put as many 'hidden' axis as you'd like to in that area, but also put a couple of trucks and/or halftracks 'in plain sight' so as to get the soviets to 'hit' there right away. it might work. it has been my experience at least that if an ai FO has los to a truck or halftrack at the opening, there is definitely an 'opening barrage.' admittedly this was when the ai was set to 'defender' in the parameters (axis probe). i've definitely seen the ai drop artillery in the middle of a scenario... just last game i thought my attack was going 'swimmingly' within a certain 'sector' when a couple of ai 120mm mortar FOs - ones i'd long since forgotten about - dropped their payloads smack dab in the middle of an infantry company and some open-topped afvs... i have to admit that when the ai actually does drop artillery and it inflicts some casualties... it's one of the more 'competitive' moments i've experienced against my 'witto ai fwend' once i started a thread in the scenario design section about exactly how to get the ai FOs to drop their payloads... no one responded then so i'm glad to see a renewed discussion about it. i agree with wwb_99 that a scenario should be designed for one of 3 methods of play: axis vs allied ai allies vs axis ai head to head some people do a fairly good job though of getting at least 2 of these 3 to work without experience or force level modifications. i don't even bother trying... the idea of putting the FOs out of los at the start - in order to get a prep barrage - is another one i haven't experimented with too much... will have to look into it...

or putting in more powerful caliber FOs... it could be that the ai is saying 'can't kill those so won't fire a barrage' or at 200 meters it's saying 'too close so no barrage' try larger caliber and more spotting distance. it could also be that if the ai gets a chance it will drop a barrage on something later...