Brent Pollock

Turn 4: Orders: Two platoons on left of left flank will hit the sewer for 2'. Remainder are to Advance ahead, hoping to miss the TRP. Time for the Central boys to get in before the Smoke Jungle dissipates. They'll be plenty tired when they pile in but they should get a couple minutes respite once they're there and wait for the 105s to stop. Left flank needs to form up and neutralise the screen. Fortunately, one of the Pz IVs can draw a long range thread to the Maxim. Left Flank: No casualties from the Russian HE this time: a couple rounds hit before the boys make it into the sewer, but they are off target (or the target point’s shifted). The other sections seem to be out of the target zone and make good progress toward the factory edge. Centre: Wow – turn 4 and one of my FT teams is already dishing heat: scratch one platoon HQ. I’ve got the better part of three platoons solidly into the first four edge factory tiles and the 105 was left the two edges of the factory in very precarious shape, dropping another tile this turn and leaving many beams teetering. I’ve got a couple platoons straggling and with the smoke disappearing, they could eat be in trouble next turn from enfilading fire. The squad stalking my MG team receives about 30 ammo points in 50”. Centre: End of Turn 4 Right Flank: Last street is being crossed in fair order. A few casualties taken from the screen, but now the Pz IV is starting to harass the Maxim and weight of numbers is coming into play. However, my pioniere seem to be attracting pinning quantities of mortar fire. --------- Turn 5: Orders: Left Flank: no change. Centre: factory dwellers need to catch their breath, although I might send a platoon rightwards to try and help the FT team hose the bunker. Right: hunker down and start blasting the screen: could be in danger of letting the 76 mm FO zero in…maybe it’s time for the 105 to drop smoke? [ October 09, 2004, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

First, No update yet on the AAR. I completed my game file Wednesday night but boneheadedly forgot to send it. Realised the mistake late last night. Second, regarding Sewer Movement, I think it is important for everyone to remember the arithmetic: if you lose fewer guys to sewer movement than you would've using regular movement, then it is probably a good idea. Sure, even crossing the street can lose you a squad in the sewers, but trying to move across the open street can lose you plenty more than that. I don't focus on how many get lost in the sewer, I focus on how many more (or less) wouldn't have made it using surface movement. [ October 31, 2003, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

Runyan 99: 1: I'll try to comment on this after finishing the game as the Germans. It certainly seemed plenty long when I played as the Russian side. 2: At the moment, I would tend to agree. As the Russians, I felt like I had plenty of infantry and I'm not certain how historical the number and weight of OBA batteries are. Anyone who played Avalon Hill's Turning Point: Stalingrad is aware that they modelled Russian artillery as being quite limited in effect, mainly just engaging in large calibre sniping missions for fear of counter-battery fire. As to the lack of a TRP in the centre, it should be noted that there are three factory fronts and only two TRPs. Also, the centre is the easiest to support with enfilading fire. Given that he charged a platoon or two out of the central factory, he is probably not counting on a TRP. My experience playing the Russians can be found in the Scenario Depot rating section. As to sewer movement, I'm left wondering what you've used it for. I first tried the artillery avoidance tactic as the Russians: worked like a charm. Use HQs with Stealth Bonus and keep the moves to < 4 minutes. You will likely lose fewer guys to sewer disorientation than to the HE shower. Remember: you can still emerge from the sewer into rubble if the rubble was formed after the Sewer move order was issued - check the archives for my posting on who can use sewer movement and rubble's effect. In our previous match, once Steve saw that I was using sewer movement, he started using it to cross 20 m gaps between buildings. This paid off to the tune of one T60 and two T34s getting whacked by infantry grenades: bloody brilliant! Keep the discussion going, that's what the thread's here for... [ October 30, 2003, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

Trommelfeuer (Sven): Thanks for spotting that. Serves as a good indication of how little German I know. Hopefully I won't forget the lesson.

I'd rather have an assigned load-out for the FO, that can be locked by scenario designers, or changed in the OB purchase zone. I'd support mix limits for QB purchases, but not for scenario editors.

I just started posting an ongoing AAR (a During Action Report?) over at the Scenario Talk forum: link to Scenario Talk subject The topic will be updated with my German-side viewpoint as the PBEM game progresses. [ October 31, 2003, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

[Nov 3: added hyperlinks to screenshot pictures] [April 11/05: quite a few pictures seem to have disappeared from the free hoster...I'll try to reload if I still have them] Inspired by the AARs for the CMAK demo and the "SMG defense", I've decide to maintain a running AAR for my PBEM game of Our Backs to the Volga from the Stalingrad Pack. Here the synopsis covering the action up to my orders phase for turn 4. Preamble: This is the second time Steve and I have faced off in this scenario. On the first go, I was the Russians and came out with a Minor Victory (see the partial AAR in the Rating section). We enjoyed it so much we decided to swap sides and have another crack at it. Most of my Stalingrad experience is from ASL Red Barricades, although I've also played two CMBB Stalingrad city scenarios (Library and the tractor works one from the CD). Spoilers aplenty...but you probably already figured that since it is an AAR. All references to right and left are from the German edge perspective. Set up: Set Up Overview Overall all aim is to cause a crisis in the centre. So, the centre assault gets all three mortar FOs and will use them to establish a smoke jungle for the advance to the factory. They also get two of the three 105 FOs and these drop HE on the two sides of the factory. The entire company is going in on that 80 m wide central approach between the two roads; the 105s should take the heat off their flanks by hurting anyone on the sides of the factory. The last FO is kept for riverside interdiction, possibly even with unspotted fire. Just trying to break up the reinforcements. The left flank is going to head straight in to the middle of the factory across the street, with the two StuGs providing some smoke to the right side. They'll start on Move to Contact and then accelerate to Advance on turn 2. The right flank is going to head straight for the factory using Move to Contact. This group has the longest haul to their objective (~250 m). The two Pz IVs will rubble a suspected OP (that building looking west down the T-intersection between the two factories) then look for other things to do. All three sectors post one or two HMGs on overwatch, with as much LOS to the riverbank as possible to restrict the backfield motion. ------------- Turn 1: Orders: Pre-order recon shows two bunkers, but no tanks or ATGs. Left flank: Rollin, rollin, rollin... Centre: Holy patootie - the first thing to move in the middle are a handful of Russian squads coming at us from the central factory [steve later comments that he thought the Germans had a longer haul in the middle but thinks he was misremembering the distance traversed by the reinforcements, hence the Russian rush]. Shots are exchanged and some of the Red boys hit the dirt. The smoke box is established by turns end. Left side 105s start some seriously burning rubble on one of the tiles that started "**". Centre: End of Turn 1 Right Flank: Pz IVs bring the target to "*". The Pioniere roll on. ------------- Turn 2: Orders: No change of plan. 81 mm FO ammo will be pretty much exhausted by the end of this turn. Left Flank: One squad pins as the advance hits a couple Russian speed bumps. Otherwise running fine. StuGs starting shifting to the left rear of factory. Centre: Smoke Jungle thoroughly established. One bunker took a couple of pops before the smoke became too thick, but didn't do anything to stem the tide. A couple light losses to some short rounds from our 105s, but the Russian screen looks like it's about to get overrun. But, the boys are getting tired, so I'll call a 30 to 40 second halt, which will also keep them out of the 105 blast zone for a tad longer. Also, one platoon needs to halt to confront the two units in the building at point blank. I'm not worried about losing the smoke during the pause, as the entire company is within 40 m of the factory. "Light Armor" sound contact moving around right side of factory...maybe the 105 HE will ding it. Another tile on the left rear goes down. All that dust should add to the mayhem. Centre: End of Turn 2 Right Flank: Some pinning by MG fire. Russians moving towards us out of the factory. Steve seems intent on establishing a forward screen. The Pz IVs have brought the target to "**" and it seems to have struck a nerve: some 82 mm smoke has dropped in front of them, but not enough to obscure the LOS. ------------- Turn 3: Orders: Right Flank needs some more definite orders as Contact has halted some of them. Anticipating that the Pz IVs only need a couple more hits on that building, then they can shift over to help the pionieren. Left Flank: We're well in to the factory but it seems Steve is doing the same thing I did, as we start to get clobbered by some 120 or 152 mm HE. We lose a few guys. Might be time to hit the cellar for a few minutes (sewer move ahead about 10 or 20 m). Centre: Two Russian squads that surged into the building get obliterated without inflicting casualties. At this point, I've lost 4 or 5 guys to my own 105s, but it seems to be worth it; the 105s have dropped three factory tiles, starting two fires in the process. Several other tiles, including one with a panicky Maxim team, are looking pretty shaky, and the 105s still have another two minutes of fire left. No sign of the AFVs. Catch a quick glimpse of one of Russian squads that sets up marooned crawling towards one of my MG posts...might lose that overwatch position. Centre: End of Turn 3 Right Flank: Minor progress and minor pinning fire. Pz IVs complete their Urban Renewal project on time and start shifting to help the foot sloggers. --------- Turn 4: Orders: Two platoons on left of left flank will hit the sewer for 2'. Remainder are to Advance ahead, hoping to miss the TRP. Time for the Central boys to get in before the Smoke Jungle dissipates. They'll be plenty tired when they pile in but they should get a couple minutes respite once they're there and wait for the 105s to stop. Left flank needs to form up and neutralise the screen. Fortunately, one of the Pz IVs can draw a long range thread to the Maxim. [ April 11, 2005, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

Okay, lemme guess: it's based on King Tiger #222 from the Bulge battle, yes?

As the guy who started this mess, I suppose I should chime in: The question pertains to smoke from direct and indirect fire. The original testing I did using the scenario editor was done with direct fire smoke. As to actual smoke doctrine and concerns over players misusing smoke if it is given a BLAST value, consider the following: most of my smoke screens are placed directly in front of the enemy position. When given battalion mortar FOs, I routinely have my guys advance through the smoke barrage while it's falling. So, I seem to be running against doctrine with the current model. I don't think I'd change my tactics one bit if non-WP smoke were given the potential to damage soft targets. One of things that spurred my initial interest in testing smoke casualties was the blurb in the rule book about every large calibre round being tracked [i was thinking of CMBO p. 75 - MISSES]. So, I thought perhaps it tracked the smoke round impact and checked to see if some poor bugger got clobberred; it seems in keeping with the spirit of the engine design. As to difficulty of coding, I am utterly ignorant, but it seems to me that the system already tracks all the other ordnance and uses its assigned BLAST value. I don't see it as being all that different from Molotov Cocktails either: they have a damage effect as well as an graphic and secondary effect (potential ignition). So, why can't non-WP smoke impacts have an associated BLAST...other than aforementioned complications of air burst delivery systems...but that also seems like a tad more math. Resume banter... [edited for typos and to include the CMBO rulebook page number] [ October 28, 2003, 09:50 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

Maybe it's just my pathetic reading comprehension skills, but no where in this thread do I see the point values and parameters posted for the test battles...and I am too consarned lazy to back-calculate based on the OB posted by Michael. If we had those, we'd be in a better position to formulate an opinion on the good and bad of the attacker choices...but for what it's worth, Michael seemed to face an awful lot of open ground. I take it panzergrenadieren were not an option (quickly cross the open ground buttoned up in halftracks)...or just too darned expensive?

Yup, that matches what we surmised: you can overrun guns, but nothing else. Vehicles, hard and soft skinned, just get shoved out of the way. Infantry squirm, but don't get turned into mush. Smoke shells didn't seem to harm infantry or gun crews...don't think we tested soft-skinned vehicles, come to think of it, but I don't imagine the result would be any different. As to how you'd model it, the first thing that pops into my head is to assign them a Blast = 1, like they did for the 2 pdr AP and ATRs. [ October 25, 2003, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

I'm all for including in WP in CM. Related to this, a while back, my son got me testing the ability of CM smoke rounds to cause casualties (this was about the same time we were checking out what all out of infantry/guns/AFVs/soft-skinned vehicles could be overrun by AFVs). No matter how many smoke rounds landed on our near the infantry squad (that was in open ground), they never took any casualties. We figured that even without any blast, every now and again some poor bastard who get clonked directly by a smoke round....and he wouldn't be unscathed. I guess it wasn't worth modelling...or did I just not fire enough smoke for such a low odds chance of a wound?

Hmmm...no matter which part of Europe CM has taken me to, it always seems to be the same species of birds twittering about in the background. Damned successful buggers...must be starlings or somesuch. Wonder if they winter in North Africa... [i can hear it now: "make a bird wav mod ya smartass!"...or some bird grog will tell me that they actually aren't always the same and BFC went to the trouble of matching the bird sounds to the geography ]

Sorry, I'm not buying it. I just tried to have a Pz IVF ram a T40 several times at high speed and various orientations: nada on collision. The Pz IVF's HE/Canister/AP/HC was removed in the scenario editor. However, the tankette did get abandoned once the Pz IVF gave it a hull MG blast from close range at the rear. I'm guessing that's what zapped the tankette, rather than ramming, which (IIRC)isn't supposed to be modeled in CMBO/CMBB.

I checked the list that came with The Stalingrad Pack pdf: Kingfish missed nothing and actually provided the day in the month, which was missing from the pdf.

Get tired of WW II setting? Does not compute....does not compute... [ October 21, 2003, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

I will now resume "oooo-ing" and "ahhhh-ing".

Just being civil, I think, letting all concerned know that the tanks were provided by the USA rather than being home grown like the Cromwells, Churchills, et cetera.

Thanks, that looks vraiment tres groovy...except for the 6+1's line, which needs a nudge on the first variable. What's the trick? [edit to add the following] Also, I forgot to mention that folks should probably pull off an ASL HS to promote the SL from a SMC to full CM HQ. How's that for abbreviation hell... [2nd, 3rd, 4th, ad nauseum edits to add this] Instead of ooing and awing and winghing about the typos, I should see if I've learned how to post with "tabs"... </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">ASL CM Nationality SL Experience Command Combat Morale Stealth Any 6+1 Conscript 0 0 0 0 Any 7-0 Green 0 0 0 0 Any 8-0 Regular 0 0 0 0 Any 8-1 Regular 0 +1 +1 +1 Russian 9-0 Regular +1 0 +2 0 Finnish 9-0 Veteran +1 0 0 0 Any 9-1 Veteran +1 +1 +1 +1 Any 9-2 Veteran +1 +2 +2 +2 Russian 10-0 Veteran +2 0 +2 0 Finnish 10-1 Crack +2 +1 +1 +1 Any 10-2 Crack +2 +2 +2 +2 Any 10-3 Elite +2 +2 +2 +2</pre>

I'll work on it in CMBO but will definitely use the CMAK engine if the Paras are in there. As to Jim sharing Ortona info, he's always seemed eager to talk about it, but that was when I was much more into ASL; don't know how he'll feel about us using the info to crank out a CM version, but my view is he'll treat all platform versions of Ortona as a good thing. I'm certain he'd like to know what you've uncovered, and he's always been one for getting more CM-like realism into ASL (e.g. MG teams rather than squads using them as SWs; smoke being usable in mud/rain/snow).

I quick subject search came up negative so here goes... I'm starting to fiddle with tweaking Pegasus Bridge scenarios put out by others and settled on the following as a rule-of-thumb for converting the Squad Leader/ASL leader stats into CM terms: ASL CM Nationality SL Experience Command Combat Morale Stealth Any 6+1 Conscript 0 0 0 0 Any 7-0 Green 0 0 0 0 Any 8-0 Regular 0 0 0 0 Any 8-1 Regular 0 +1 +1 +1 Russian 9-0 Regular +1 0 +2 0 Finnish 9-0 Veteran +1 0 0 0 Any 9-1 Veteran +1 +1 +1 +1 Any 9-2 Veteran +1 +2 +2 +2 Russian 10-0 Veteran +2 0 +2 0 Finnish 10-1 Crack +2 +1 +1 +1 Any 10-2 Crack +2 +2 +2 +2 Any 10-3 Elite +2 +2 +2 +2 [i sure hope this looks okay as the "Preview Post" function doesn't seem to be working for me.] I realise it's a tad dry and doesn't take advantage of all the combinations and permutations, but I thought I'd toss it out there for all y'all to chew on and spit out/digest/have intetstinal troubles with. [edit to try new tabulation format] [another edit to remove the second tabulation, which looked the same as the first: if anyone wants a nicely tabulated one, I can send an EXCEL or WORD file] [ October 12, 2003, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

Hmmm...I only started into CMBO last summer so I didn't have a lot of experience with it before CMBB rolled around. I can't say as I've found either version to have a better or worse host of briefings. As one (of the many?) long time SL/ASLers, I did notice the general deviation from that format wherein each scenario had an historical introduction and aftermath. Of course, you also knew the exact compostion of the enemy OB and set up area(s). I've always found the tendency for the CM briefings to be a bit light on info (pre- and post-battle) to be in keeping with the excellent FoW that CM is able to deliver. How much to divulge in the briefing is just another choice that the designer has to make: t'ain't easy. I think the use of location markers for well reconned positions is an excellent device (e.g. Scott B.'s "The Bitter End" from the Stalingrad Pack) and my electronic hat goes off to whomever was the first to come up with it.

It's even less convincing when you squint at the photo and see that it shows French troops (look at the helmets and uniforms) in July 14, 1928 (or 1938...I have trouble clearly seeing the year signed at bottom right).

Just ran a quick test to confirm what I remembered: Yes - you can emerge from the sewer into rubble BUT ONLY IF IT STARTED AS A LEGAL DESTINATION BEFORE IT WAS RUBBLED [sorry for the shouting]. The test: had some infantry go into the sewer with a factory destination and a heavy building destination just before some heavy HE rubbled them: they emerged unscathed into the fresh rubble, with one unit actually doing so on the turn of rubbling, after the factory had been dropped. However - you may not enter the sewer from rubble, even it was created during the game. [ August 13, 2003, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

I recommend it just so you can watch the guys sink through the floor: grand fun. I was reminded of it with the two pale ghouls in the Matrix: Reloaded. I second the motion that it's something to use as a threat...which to me means you've got to follow through on it every now and again. Some uses I can think of: - you're in the VL and know you're likely to receive a thumping from heavy HE. Avoid the thumping by submerging into the sewer and remerging when the place has been rubbled. That one's worked for me before. - there are many VLs and you don't plan on holding the foremost ones. Nothing says you can't try and pick it up for cheap by sending a platoon into the sewer to try and scam it late in the game when its being held by walking wounded. - along the same lines, you can try to pop up in buildings near the heavy weapons/support AFVs and bushwhack 'em. I don't recommend sending lone units: think minimum of a platoon and but a +2 stealth HQ in charge. Any ASLer who's played the Red Barricades HASL can tell you how much fun the psych warfare aspect of sewers can be...by the by, sorry about using "MTR" for mortar, that's ASL speak.