newlife

I can't speak to Sicily, but the Tuscan farm I worked on used copse wood for fuel. Certain types of trees will send up multiple small trunks after the main trunk has been cut down. (Copse wood). So it looks really raged and untended, but in reality its their preferred style of maintenance. I don't think we split anything larger than 6 inches, versus the full trees we cut down in America for firewood. This makes the Tuscan woods very dense without a lot of long range visibility folks are mentioning from Germany. I have no clue whether the Tuscan woods applies to Sicily or the southern boot.

I'm with the no fortification crowd. Bil was assaulting the hill before he saw the wire and foxholes. I would have spent those points on an extra sniper team or two on the reverse slope to harass the guys coming over.

You can always move that quad 50 to perforate the kubelwagon! (As my earlier post was hinting at).

Pretty cool that Gaj just bugged out of the exact spot Bill targeted with MG fire, neither having seen the opposing unit involved. We got psi ops going on.

Any thoughts on what a quad 50 does to a kubelwagon?

So, you guys think the cost of the empty fortifications worth the ammunition Bill is spending on it? I don't know the ammo load out on the firing units.

Nice job describing your setup. I'm getting a good picture of what you're doing.

I think Gaj did fine here with purchases. Without the map to zoom around in, it's hard to know for sure. Bill won't have the tanks be a lead scout element with a high probability of ATG guns. Instead they'll sit back behind heavy frontal armor. If Gaj has the right kill zones that demand the box be taken out before advancing, then a tank has to come forward. Presumably the ATG is back enough with the right angle and view to take out the side armor. It's a fine idea and theory, lets see what the map brings.

Nice analysis. I look forward to your battle. On the fortification cost, I feel your pain. I've never been happy with the cost of fortifications for QBs. In particular, the cost of wire or mines is crazy unless you have a very clear kill zone the enemy has to come through. Give em hell!

Might be a tad late, but here's my own thoughts. Don't shy away from AT guns. It's hard to tell from the screens, but you do have some hills to position them on. If each gun takes out 1 tank before going down, you're winning. The key to the Elephant is to strip out its supporting cast of tanks. THEN your mobile elements can maneuver for some flank shots on it. Don't expect bazookas to get it done for you. On map mortars are your friend. With that much open you can attrit the opposing infantry, possibly without giving up your position. In addition, the 81s might have a chance at blowing out an Elephant track, which might just be a small victory. Finally, use the Rangers! I love em. The best part is their officer to man ratio with fewer teams per platoon. The satchels and other accoutrements are just gravy. Don't rely on them for tank busting. On the offense I prefer the BARs, but the other machine gun may be better in fixed positions. Speaking of the screen shots, would it be possible to take some shots at level 1 from the key spots. Its so hard to tell when the trees and ridges will get in the way of things.

And don't forget H2H only if there are no AI plans at all

I think part of your disagreement here is that one side is talking total numbers, and the other is talking percentage of force of declared brigades. JK, does it matter if a force has only 50% of its intended amount of tanks if that force is still big enough to get the job done? Essentially the Russians are saying they have more brigades than they actually do, and instead of consolidating forces they leave them at reduced strength. Probably cause no one wants to tell Stalin they don't have as many brigades as Stalin thinks they have. But those brigades still outnumber the Germans.

I love the non-matching shadows. Very surreal.

There's also setting up at breakneck speeds, bumping into the mortar in the process of spotting and hitting the dirt, or perhaps the ground is not 100% ideal. There's still adrenaline and fear involved during ranging and sighting (almost the horror movie style fumbling with the car keys as the big meanie gets closer). May still be better than a rifle, but there still variables.

You could search for old ones. You can also head over to the fortress Italy subforum and an AAR is stickier at the top of the forum.

I thought the 105 howitzer zeroed in on the painted TRP was there to keep the riff raff away. The fence was just to get them bunched up...

It is listed as fixed in the patch just released. We'll see how we'll they did.

Hi I'm in the process of creating a new map and scenario with a big town and castle and was curious which Italian formation best represented garrison troops. I'm thinking of using the Blackshirts for their smaller squad size. I guess I could also attrit the base formation. I'm thinking here mostly in terms of squads for roadblocks, checkpoints, and in town patrols. Thoughts on this?

I start with watching the turn from the air looking for: 1) the obvious enemy icons 2) my own flashing icons indicating a hit 3) shell impacts indicating mortars orbit guns of some sort If I see those THEN I get down and dirty to begin analyzing what is happening. I might also get down and dirty with lead units (hopefully prior to contact) to make sure I understand the terrain and aren't walking my guys into a kill zone. I don't track rifle ammo at all. I'm a very high tempo commander that puts a lot of force at once onto target meaning firefights are very short. Ive yet to run out of rifle ammo. The only ammo I keep track of are specialty ammo so: zooks, AP, HEAT, mortar rounds, etc... C2 I worry about at setup. On the move I'm less concerned but restablish before probable contact. Casualties I only worry about with regards to buddy-aid. There I'm quite specific about cleaning up. I do wince at every casualty so I'm not throwing away my guys mind you. I just don't keep more track than memory serves.

WWII aircraft are incredibly accurate. I've never seen one miss in a movie yet.

I've seen the squad members running back and forth and it seems to happen when the team or squad gets separated with a move order for whatever reason. Then, when I delete the order and issue a new one, every squad member needs to touch the AS where the squad icon was when I changed orders BEFoRE they get to run to the new objective. As that is placed in the middle of all the members, the guys with the head start get to run backwards before they run forwards. It's not noticeable when the group is already together. It's a cute little pixeltruppen game like steel the bacon, or red light green light. I have not seen the ATG gun problem with one guy crawling away (and I had seen it in CMBN). I have seen my ATG crews have no clue how to take cover behind sandbags (or the smart place to position the gun).

Those look like serious shot traps if that's the front. I assume at 70 tons it has some armor to compensate. Anyone know the details on that?

Not entirely true. I've been noticing this a bunch in the steep hills of CMFI that infantry looking towards the face of a steep hill appear to remain standing (apparently in order to see better). If you face them to the sides or down they take cover properly. But when looking towards the hill they have this daft notion that if they stand just a little taller they can see over. So you could test first strike mortar so. (taking advantage of the bug) Have a mortar zero in on a set-up target. Then have the mortar target the actual test subject that is facing a hill. It's not clear to me how much vertical displacement is modeled in the game with respect to artillery. I recently had 4 different soldiers in 4 different teams all in a drainage ditch (deep enough by my estimation to be a pretty good trench depth-wise if not width-wise) get hit by shell shrapnel over 60 meters away from what I guess was a 105mm shell. MANY more teams were closer and in the open but lying prone (and were not hit) whereas the guys in the ditch were standing due to this weird thing about standing facing a slope. So I'm guessing (not nearly enough evidence to state in either direction) that the game makes the short cut of not taking into account elevation with artillery, particularly with standing soldiers (who probably lose any micro-terrain bonus). I guess you could theoretically track rounds hitting up or down the hill separately from those hitting on the same contour line as the target. Mind you I'm not volunteering to run this test...

The NZ comment was probably about Roman roads on the mainland. The roman empire's success was due in part to the quality of their roads. And where we get "all roads lead to Rome." No clue about Sicily.

Some terrain encourages soldiers to stand, namely most steep terrain. I lost a bunch of guys because they were standing in a deep ditch. I thought the ditch would protect them (and maybe it did) but I had to order them to hide to get them to go to ground and up their survival rate. Ambush, scouting, and most other time I don't have them hide. (I'm still learning the CM2 engine so take that for what its worth)