Carl Puppchen

Only on the combat mission board would someone make a joke about Guy Sajer and the controversy about his wartime memoirs... who of course was supposedly a 16 year old Frenchman conscripted into the German army and fighting in the GD division from 1943-5... and expect people to pick up on it in the context of a thread

As far as the doctrinal confusion, look no further than the muddy plans for how the tank destroyers (M10's) were to be deployed. Can't imagine I'd want to go forward in an attack in a modified priest with a 90mm gun vs. hidden German AT assets, any one of which from 50mm AT on up could easily take out such a contraption. But it is still better than mounting it on a truck

Not to jump the thread which is very interesting and useful but what if the US faced the Russians after 1945... then the discussion is far from academic because the Germans fielded relatively few of the super heavy tanks relative to the huge quanties of heavily armored tanks that the soviets had of the JS II and JS III ilk, and even an SU 152 or T34/85 is certainly no slouch. The sherman is rolling junk compared to those, the 90mm is needed and - voila - you get the pershing. The presence or absence of a heavy tank killer didn't turn out to be a deal-breaker for the issues that other people have described much better than I ever could - plus don't forget about ULTRA which tipped us off about their offensives notably for Mortain (didn't help on the bulge, though).

If people think that a 90mm gun on a half track is so useful, they might try playing with the Italian 90mm AA gun that is mounted on a truck . My experience with it has been grim unless fighting from a keyhole and getting off the first shot, and surrounded w/other weapons to keep off infantry. Granted, a half track would be slightly more survivable than a truck mounted weapon but not by much - the German MG can take out a half track at decent range in CMAK and does it a lot. As far as using the 'kitties' or M-18's, yes they have a good gun but against a reasonably competent axis player these things will be struck at with on board mortars or arty immediately since they die a quick death or at least retreat rapidly in these scenarios. Combined arms is the way to go in most situations especially here. If you can push off the M18's then the panzers can mop up on the unsupported infantry. At least the shermans won't die (or at least not often) from on board mortars. I agree with the point of the thread that the allied tanks are overpriced relative to the panther or tiger. I know that many people don't care about point values but I do because I try to use it as a proxy for fair forces in QB's and scenarios that I play. There are other threads showing that allied arty is overpriced, as well, and combined the allies probably are at a net late war point disadvantage w/the axis in QB's. However, I think that the situation is reversed in the desert because the M-13/40 and PZ IV C are rolling junk when facing a valentine or matilda and the III H's are an even match. Unlike the real life allies a competent opponent will use combined arms and in these cases unless you have 88's (which you can't move during a scenario) the times are grim for the axis. Just my opinion and I enjoy the historical analysis.

I have only designed a few scenarios but it is hard to pick the right location for forces and the right mix of forces for reinforcements. If the reinforcements are coming in late in the game you need to estimate where the lines of battle will be at that time - if the reins are too far out of the action (and without transport, as noted above) they are useless, and you certainly don't want reins to instantly be fired upon as they materialize at a critical point. The problem becomes more acute as the battlefield gets smaller because there is less room for error and also if the reins pop in near an objective flag, because there usually is a lot of action near an objective flag. All things being equal I like random reinforcements in terms of timing because it causes the commander to work with uncertainty which I think is more realistic. I can't believe that people knew that on turn 5 3 panthers were going to come in on a certain road... but that is just my opinion.

I think people waste a lot of time playing with opponents who apparently play in bad faith. Every so often it is OK to pick a uber-tank (the russian OT-34 flame throwing tank springs to mind) but in general if someone is consistently gaming the system the best bet is not to continue dealing with them.

One item to consider is the 77mm Italian AA gun. It has decent penetration and good anti-personnel characteristics. It might be a bit ahistorical in certain situations, though. In my admittedly strange experience, I get about the same "bang for the buck" on most weapons - I usually don't tend to kill lots more tanks with the good AT weapons and tend to get lucky on the smaller ones, although for me the 50mm is very small and the 75mm IG maybe in some circumstances. I wouldn't count on the 'fausts. I don't get much mileage out of them in most circumstances unless the terrain is very good for the defender. Tend to get pinned quickly and are maddeningly resistant to use them (what are they holding them for - the afterlife ) I do get more results from the tank hunters than the native fausts. The tank hunters can be pretty effective weapons if the enemy comes up close. Shrecks are also very effective in close range situations. Don't put them in buildings. Get veteran guys and they will shoot faster and pin less. Don't forget flame throwers. In close range they can spring a nasty surprise. In a "gamey" phase I was buying the "wall of guns" strategy with 20mm AA guns at like 20 points each - you can buy 20 of the things! They would get all kinds of "gun hits" and usually terrorize the enemy AFV off the board. Plus with so many guns opening up the tac AI on the attack gets confused and does the ol' "pivot in place" at various defenders routine rather than picking one and smashing it to bits, which buys you even more time. I have no luck with marders - that is a separate thread. If the terrain is close their lack of turret makes them meat if they have to swivel and MG fire is a serious threat and if the terrain is open and long the enemy usually has arty and onboard mortars which make the marder's life hell, plus, they can't take a hit. The hetzer is a totally different package - low profile, much better armor, and a big favorite when they are around. Against the americans and british most of the german weapons are pretty effective against most models, unless you open up long range on a jumbo, and the churchill can be hard to kill. Against the soviets w/JS II tanks most of your weapons are junk - at that point you need a shreck, a puppchen (look at my name ), or a big 88mm gun or flak. The 75mm AT gun and the IG guns are going to be smashed to bits by 122mm direct HE. Bizarrely, the wall of guns is not a bad defense at all, if you can stomach it. Just my experience. Hope it helps a bit. If playing a human, mix it up, don't get too predictable.

I have been playing the germans a lot and my opponent has been using the M10 and M18. I concur with the poster that these weapons are very effective against "typical" german armor (the stuff I like to use) such as the PZ IV G and the STG III F/G series. Their gun has decent penetration and seems to get off a lot of first shots, obviously helped by the fact that they are typically on defense (the tank destroyer's role). On the attack it is a different story but I find the M10 and M18 to be very dangerous opponents when they can fight from hull down positions and use "shoot and scoot" tactics. They can be countered with artillery and MG fire does tend to make them retreat, but on the attack it takes time to drag the MG's forward and to line up arty fire - by then they usually have "scooted" off to another firing position. On board mortars are very effective since both weapons are open topped and on board mortars can hit immediately if you can target the tank destroyer with an observer (I am assuming the mortar is not visible to the M10 / M18).

I now have 4 random scenarios out there - Khamsin - mid 1942 desert Heavy Traffic - mid 1943 city battle Bloody Beach - Axis assault mid 1943, dynamic flags Bridge2far - meeting engagement, sept 1944, random Any comments are welcome. They are all at the scenario depot. I have been playing these random games a lot for PBEM and we have been having a lot of fun with them. Play tends to be more aggressive since if you have reinforcements and your opponent doesn't you tend to push for the "far" flag. As a result there is lots of action and risky behavior, which makes for fun games. Obviously these are not historical. Balance seems reasonable, but that is only my opinion.

As a defender you should be happy that the bazooka is a crew fired weapon. I find that the 'zook is much more likely to actually fire against an enemy tank / AFV than the squad 'faust will. As a result, it makes it a proportionately more dangerous weapon. Since I always play the axis I have torn my hair out like 100 times trying to get my squads to fire their fausts - but you can always get a shreck / zook team to take a shot (even if they die quickly afterwards! ). As far as holding AFV's back beyond the infantry AT weapon range that is a good idea, but in general tanks often need to "mix it up" with infantry to get an attack going that has been bogged down. Against a passive AI you can stand off and wait for them to make a mistake or expose themselves at bad odds and get smashed but a good human will take your infantry to ground with arty / MG fire and often you will have to force the issue with tanks.

The most critical item on the attack is whether you are playing a skilled human or the AI. I am not being a critic of cmak but the AI is a poor player compared to a human. Against the AI it obviously depends on the time frame, weapons at hand, etc... but the AI sets up a lot of defenders in a lousy fashion. They might have tanks / guns in the open and they might leave critical areas uncovered. Generally I would scout on a narrow front and pack my forces into that area and pound anything in the way, covering with smoke if needed. As far as leading with men or tanks, if there is a lot of cover use men if it is wide open they are likely to get pinned pretty quickly and you will end up using tanks anyways because they won't move. The AI uses artillery poorly and likely won't seriously be able to engage your concentrated forces and won't employ a mobile reserve to beat you. Some percent of their men / tanks / guns will be out in the open and you can blast them to bits and then you will likely stumble onto the rest of their assets... For a skilled human opponent you need to be much craftier. The human opponent is likely to have a front screen and a plan to redeploy reserves to meet your likely threats. They should have TRP's and arty waiting in the likely places where you will concentrate forces. Their guns / infantry will be well hidden and in trenches / covered by wire and mines. They won't open fire until they get a juicy target, maybe not until you are right on top of them. And they will try to wait until they get a flank or rear shot on an AFV with their weaker weapons. The most advanced human opponents will use reverse slope defenses which means you really CAN'T see what is going on until you cross the "lip" where you will be blasted to bits. Scouting doesn't work unless the scout lives long enough to get a good sighting. In these cases you need smoke / arty and need to go "over the top" en masse and expect severe casualties. Other more advanced tactics are "keyhole" defenses - the AI will open up on long range when his one gun will instantly be met by your whole force. A smart human will open up from a spot where your visibility is limited so you can't "gang up" on him in return. If it is an AFV they will likely back out of that position so when you finally concentrate your forces he is already gone. I constantly lose battles on the attack because I fail to use combined arms. Have all the types of weapons - use arty and mortars against AT guns, direct fire guns on your side against any available target (they are cheap as an attacker if you can get them into position), use your infantry (1/2 squads) as scouts but hold the bulk of your forces out of harms way until it is time to take the objective, and use tanks / TD's according to their strengths. If you have a panther or tiger you can put it on the heights and dominate the battlefield. If you have a TD like a marder you should fight from cover and retreat immediately. I hope this helps. Best of luck! Don't forget that lazy / concentrated tactics that work well against the AI may not work against a human that can react and probably anticipates your moves. And use combined arms!

Thanks for all the thoughts on operations. Once again I'd like to give a shout out to everyone who creates scenarios for others to enjoy and don't want to sound like I am complaining. But... a bit of complaining. I have been playing Team Desobry as the germans (attacker) and I have been getting KILLED as they keep drawing the start line for the germans FAR back of my men, leaving the forward units unsupplied and locked in place (I can drag them back to behind the start line, but this is no fun given that I am supposed to take the town). It turns out that my opponent has a few squads hiding out in trees in a couple of places - even though I have companies of men forward and over a dozen tanks these few men are holding back the line. It does appear that I need to turn over every bush and cranny in order to move the line forward, which seems wrong. On the other hand, I am defending in the GP10 Gemmano from the scenario depot as the Germans and the Allies were able to LEAP forward in front of my men at the end of the first battle. His tanks were snaking up the road and I had plenty of squads forward and then line was AHEAD of his tanks! Luckily of course my opponent is not "gamey" and he didn't take too much advantage of the situation but all of his men were refueled with ammo which hurt me badly (my setup wasn't very good, which hurt me more, but still...). We still have fun with these operations and they don't affect the quality of play that badly (in Desobry my men keep having to move forward under fire to reclaim the same positions but since 1/2 the battles are at night it is already a meelee).

I know that this thread has been dead for a while but I looked it up while trying to figure out dynamic flags for my own scenarios. I just wanted to say thanks for people that take the time to put together scenarios for others to enjoy, even if everyone doesn't agree on everything. It would be boring if everyone was on the same page, anyways

I played SL and ASL for years. It was hard finding good opponents and due to the HP and other rules I couldn't play a lot of the scenarios solitare. When Kampgruppe came out that was the "big bang" followed by Panzer General and then of course the whole CM series. I do miss "The General" where they took all the scenarios so seriously. They took so much time to setup and play (right) that it was worth really thinking about it. Now that a scenario is up and running in 30 seconds as mentioned above some of that analysis is gone because you can always just start another one. One thing I liked about the ASL and SL series are the national characteristics. For whatever reason in CM a squad is pretty much a squad. Give me a squad of free french with rifles and an LMG or a squad of russian infantry that are all regular and they all act the same (excepting the human wave, of course). I really liked the way they attempted to "build in" the national characteristics that REALLY DID matter, such as the British refusal to cower, the Russian occasion of going berserk, and the plethora of German leaders, and the Americans having plentiful ammo. Crescendo of Doom was a great name for a game - must give them credit for that - sometimes they actually got close to "art", not just a game. I loved ASL because it was as good as it could get back then and now CM is as good as it gets (in terms of realism, maybe not graphics) today. God bless 'em both.

I am not trying to sound dumb but if people are saying that the 251 half track series didn't make it to africa what are they doing in the game?

I created a CMAK scenario called "Khamsin" and posted it up at the scenario depot. It is made for PBEM play and features 8 rounds of random reinforcements over a desert map with poor visibility in the April 1942 time period. It is definitely PBEM only lots of towed guns and stuff that the AI would botch. I had fun with this scenario and it inspired me to figure out how to make it myself - thanks to the author. I am working on a few others with different time periods and different terrain. Then if they are at all successful I will create versions of them for play vs AI with forces more appropriate for their control. As far as play balance, I agree it is a crapshoot, all you can do is give both sides equal chances and if luck favors one side, that is the way it goes. The purpose is to have fun, after all, since there are lots of other balanced scenarios out there to play. I JUST ADDED ANOTHER ONE IN A TOWN - IT IS CALLED "HEAVY TRAFFIC". [ July 22, 2004, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Carl Puppchen ]

I am working on a CMAK scenario that I want to portray a desert battle 1941-2 with poor visibility simulating a khamsin. Any thoughts on the best way to do this? I tried just using heavy winds and that didn't help much, although I think it creates more dust when you drive. I ended up using heavy fog as a solution which limited the visibility to 200 meters or so. I guess I could try putting the scenario at dusk or at sundown. Would that help, too? Thanks in advance for help.

I was working on a scenario in early mid 1942 and wanted to have forces arriving with guns embarked and then having to debark on the map in a confused surprise action. The Germans, of course, have a number of half tracks capable of moving their large guns including artillery and flak. The Allies (British), on the other hand, basically had the bren carrier or they had trucks. The bren carrier has good off road mobility but can't tow much, basically a 2 pounder. If you want to bring a bigger gun into play, you need to take it on a truck, which has poor off road mobility. Do you think that the fact that Germans had half tracks that enabled them to bring guns along off road contributed to their success at combined arms? I realize that doctrine also worked against the Allies at least during the time between O'Connor and Montgomery, or at least poor coordination in practice. I remember seeing many pictures of the special vehicle that the allies used to move 25 pounder guns, when did that come into play?

Ha ha ha back to marders again. Yes they do make for a challenge, even against the AI. I agree that it is way more fun playing against a human. I try to take junky equipment and give the AI lots of extra guys to compensate. On the attack if you pick a scenario designed for playing vs AI AND you leave the defenders where they were assigned by the designer often it can be a decent challenge. Good designers (better than me) pick equipment that the AI doesn't have much trouble with like AT guns, pillboxes, dug in infantry, etc... the AI does suck on the attack, can't mount trucks, and is terrible with artillery.

I would love to see "trusted email" as an option. I would like to have some sort of 3+ player option, especially TCP/IP, for playing at once, even on some less than historically correct options (Patton plus Germans vs. Russians ) I still believe that operations could work better as far as the starting line on subsequent games. But all in all kudos to battlefront!

I read a bunch of posts and spent a bunch of time figuring it out and will work up a totally different scenario for PBEM that I will post later after I playtest it with friends (and fix the problems). I am indebted to the scenario designer for bringing back the idea of random reinforcements. Great idea!

I apologize for sounding like such a nubee but even though I have played this game forever I haven't done much scenario design. I am changing the reinforcement sequence for pbem and will throw more stuff in for the allies at the reinforcement points so that the point totals match better. Am also making the allied reinforcement area bigger - can't put on side reinforcements for allies without moving them, will try to figure that out, too. But I still can't figure out how to move the flag to a better spot in the middle Can one of the experts help me? I even read the manual

I think this is great and am trying to make a more even version for pbem. I think I will move the axis reinforcement to 3% and the allied reinforcement to 5%. I expanded the allied setup area, too. How do you move the flags so that they are in the middle?

Here is the thread again http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001757

Check out this thread called "are trenches too effective" in the tips and tricks forum. I started it and it really received a lot of intelligent responses. The short answer is, very effective. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001757