RaggedyMan

21st Army Counterattacks - "pretty much untested" And after those lovingly crafted notes I wrote you on just this very thing after countless numbers of slaughtered pixeltroopen... You bad person, you hurt my feelings. Does this mean we can have that PBEM for the operation now? Or should I send you an email with a recap of my notes on the savory east front goodness that is 21st army counterattacks? *Whoops - this should be on the ISWIWDK post, but my meaning is the same. *

At the risk of sounding obtuse (I am most decidedly non-grog) I think I might have an answer for why the germans may seem to do better in your test (I've read Andreas' subsequent response on his testing methods, so I won't rehash the difference). If the soviet crews are taking hits while trying to fire on the german crews, then might they be experiencing some duress, basically, aren't they going to be rattled by the incoming fire? For some reason my addled brain is making me think that german crews will be better trained than their *equivalent* soviet crews - which is to say that even though the tank may be taking hits, perhaps the german loader keeps close to his rate of reload, the german gunner is able to not instinctively flinch at each incoming hit, commander still effectively spotting targets, etc. I think I remember reading that the TacAI modeled that sort of thing, but again I could be wildly off base. I think something else to look at for your particular test might be number of hits against a given tank against its number of shots per turn. I'd wager a quarter or a shilling or whatever that the german tank crews are probably better at delivering fire while taking fire than the equivalent soviet crews. And I'm not trying to imply that this is a bias, since the germans obviously had 2 more years of tank warfare behind them than the soviets by the time barbarossa began, but even without knowing the details of the game it would make sense that their training would be above average and more effective once engaged. Maybe try soviet veterans against german regulars?

I understand where you're coming from on the time component, but I'll just say this: JasonC's approach is a terrific one, if a little mechanistic in explanation. Knowing the relative values of the units, what can trump what and so on will not do you wrong. It is certainly nothing that will ever fail because it relies on the mechanics of the engine, and those (at least for CMBO,CMBB,and CMAK) won't be changing anytime soon. However, to develop the "art" you would be better served playing against opponents who can explain to you why they acted and reacted during the scenario, something which the AI will never do. My preference in learning the game was to develop it as an art since I didn't have the time or more importantly the discipline to experiment and get a feel for the mechanics of the game. And that's not some subtle shot at JasonC or what you're trying to do, I just think there are, with some obvious meshing, two styles of learning the game: mechanically (unit characteristics/strengths) or artistically (experiment - result - experiment). My guess is that JasonC's dirty secret is that he mastered one (the mechanical) and incorporated it to his understanding of the art. Regardless, my offer for a game is always good, just shoot me an email if you ever want to try one.

First, let me say that I love your sig, 'nigma. As far as playing with a smallish force, this whole thread has gotten me to thinking about doing so as a form of practice. If you look at the point value of a medium to large sized engagement, it is (and my memory isn't good on these things) probably two to five times the 300 point value being bandied about. But really, another way to look at it is just x platoons of infantry with y vehicles and z support elements. JasonC's alternate breakdowns of the purchasing power for this exercise would allow someone to really practice the micro-scale view of combined arms. Basically, learning how to attack with one tank, one platoon, or maybe 2 AFVs and a platoon and a HMG, and so forth. So really, taking a larger force and deconstructing it into smaller units (say, roughly the size of this scenario) might be a step toward learning how to balance the battles on your flanks, how to employ a reserve to exploit a breach that has tired your guys, or simply how to conduct strong reconnaisance in a large or huge game. I also wanted to say that seeing JasonC and F-A come to an understanding was one of those internet moments of zen that I just don't see but once in the proverbial blue moon on message boards...and for whatever it might be worth, Faxis, if you want to go head to head on a PBEM or maybe a TCP/IP game, drop me an email (my only warning is that I prefer published scenarios to generated ones, since I have zero idea about OOB for WW2 - also, medium or smaller scenario please). I can't promise that I'll challenge you but I would be willing to do an AAR with you once we're wrapped up. ta,

In terms of cartridge, no, the Walther and Browning are both 9mm. But, the Walther is a double action whereas the Browning is a single action. Even though I consider the Browning HP model 35 to be a superior pistol (and one of the original benchmark pistols, much like Colt's 1911 in .45) if you're looking at it from sheer "throw a ton of lead into the air" viewpoint, then the Walther -or any double action pistol- would have more FP than the Browning.

Dumb question time. Andreas, do you have a preference on the email I send the feedback too? I notice the one for your profile here and the one from "I Wish it was Der Kessel" are different. Since my feedback involves spoilers, and could be lengthy (although probably not to JasonC proportions) I'm just curious which email address you would prefer I send it to.

Playing the new 21st Army Counterattacks at the moment and enjoying the hell out of it (I'm on the first night or second battle). I'm not a grog or any kind of grand strategist, but I recommend it heartily. Good, clean fun.

Frankly, and maybe I'm showing my non-Grog-ness or my just plain naievete, if Battlefront can reproduce the feeling I got when I first read the Alpha AAR and truly began to appreciate what CMx1 could model, then they'll have me at "hello" with CMx2. It's definitely a hidden blessing, based upon all the discourse I've seen on the last eight pages, that Battlefront doesn't depend on shareholders or "focus groups" to design their stuff. As a casual gamer (Certified Non-Grog (CNG)) and based upon their product to date, they've definitely earned enough of my trust to leave them to their devices in order to tackle the next step.

I think one other idea that should also be included for a "standardized" review would be an estimate of the opponent's skill. I think that a typcial player who loads up a scenario/QB and goes up against, say, Rommel's great-grandson or something is going to a)get their booty stomped, and probably find some degree of frustration with the scenario. It might not be fair, but I think if people get spanked playing a certain scenario they may find faults with it that perhaps are more a result of the use of tactics by who they played (or problems with their deployment/plan) than the scenario's design. I think evaluating the quality of the opponent that the scenario was played against can add a dimension of depth/flavor to the review overall. But it falls back into the argument about bias/favorites/etc, so it may not be that good of an idea.. Of course, there will still be people who hate the scenario and perhaps their opponent enough to rate both poorly, but that's human nature.

Well, let me preface this by saying I have searched and searched for this operation through the archives (oddly enough, this one goes by either Kr*u*glowka or Kr*o*glowka depending on how you look at the operation (searched for both, BTW). Anyhow, I was curious what peoples' impressions were about it. I know it was authored by Moon (tried searching using his number to find it, still no luck). Having done six of the battles in the operation now, I feel like I'm finally starting to grasp what were, to me anyway, rather vague ideas (Force Conservation, Force Protection, MLR, and so on), at least in regards to the CM engine. One thing I have learned from playing this op is that this night-time-warfare doomahickey is for the birds...must be great if you're playing "Uncle Stalin's banjo" with no-end-in-sight of reinforcements waiting in the wings, but my boys in grey are running low on ammo and my nerves are taking a beating :-P I'm really just curious what others' opinions were on this op...well... Since I'm close to having a post resembling the Cliff's Notes version of War and Peace, I'll go ahead and request any suggestions to further my indoctrination into infantry tactics (I understand the basic concepts of fire and maneuver, withering-suppressing-covering fire, overwatch,etc), but not necessarily as they relate to the *game*. (owned CMBO and CMBB for quite a while now, just got the "bug" here about two weeks ago after CMAK arrived I'm playing the AI now, more to learn the engine, really, but sometimes my setups feel *wrong* once the game starts. I've read enough posts to know that the AI does its best, but I guess I'm concerned that my understanding of tactical doctrine may be 'tainted' by playing the AI...I hope that made sense...anyway, I either need to find some really good scenarios or just submit myself to some old-fashioned pommeling to educate me. Although I should post this last part in the opponent forum, scenario suggestions or CMBB turns are welcome (CMAK doesn't seem to favor infantry, at least not the African portion of the conflict, so I guess I would be willing to do CMAK as long as it was a non-African battle/op). Sorry bout the length, (boy, haven't I always wanted to say *that*?)

Not to interrupt the, er, reasoned debate here ..... but I do have a question about the stats for losses re: tank combat on the eastern front. Earlier in the thread, there were mentions of 200% losses...I'm curious, assuming that if I lose, say, 5 tanks to various factors, but maybe I can take all of the parts and repair 2 of them back to operational status, and then let us say I lose those 2 tanks next week or whatever...would that count towards the % of losses? I know that Easy Company 501(?) PIR (the Band of Brothers outfit) took something like a 150% casualty rate...obviously because newbies kept getting zapped, but I suspect also because a lot of people got hit two or even three times. If that is counted, then my guess would be that the Russians mantained their relative strength not simply through production, but also through highly-motivated field repair. My rough (and veeery uneducated) understanding is that the Germans could not maintain consistent and high-volume production, which makes me think maybe their repairs suffered from lack of parts or what-have-you. Either way, there were some interesting links and references given amongst the posts. Tanks for the discussion.

I guess we're passing each other on this one, ASL Veteran. My suggestion to blow one of the two bridges is from the assumptions that: a) the attacker would logically turn back if there were NO bridges in an area to cross, making the scenario a non-encounter, and as long as there is one way across, high command will send units across it. If this was an operation or a widescale offensive to which I was defending, I would blow every damn bridge except one to create the kind of bottleneck that would be easy to control, especially until I could leverage reserves to move up and support the poor bastards holding off the attacker. But I think this goes back to earlier posts about "the game" versus the "tactics". And it will ultimately fall that the bridges are too easy to demolish and there was perhaps a slip of thought in the approach that people might take to the scenario. I do think, however, that from a tactical (non-game) point of view blowing at least one of the bridges would be in the defender's interest. But to say that if you blow one you may as well blow the other, looking at it from a scenario standpoint, is too emotional of an argument for a rational situation. Now if we were dealing with younger players who might not understand that you should leave an approach so that the fight can happen, I would agree with you. But there seem to be far too many level heads on these forums, IMO, for that to be a real, unworkable problem. I guess we're very lucky that the chaps at Battlefront put the editor in with the kit, so we can at least change the wooden bridges to stone ones for the sake of mooting the argument. Anyway, I'm very curious as to where the actual authority rested vis-a-vis, bridge demolition. As I recall from Wacht-on-Rein (sp?), in particular, somewhere around Bastogne, there were small groups of engineers frustrating the German advance by blowing up bridges? Damn my memory, I saw something referring to this briefly on the History Channel a while ago, shame on me. :confused:

Perhaps as a middle-of-the-road suggestion, maybe blow *one* of the wooden bridges up and then, knowing that you are going to demolish the bridge of your choosing, concentrate your defenses on the other approach. This will leave it "still-playable" but will require a bit more ingenuity on your attacker's part...plus, if they are wooden bridges, then in my mind I see them more as a local solution particular to a county, city or locale rather than a feature of the country's infrastructure. Or you could go the tried and true method and just blame it on aggressive termites.