General Jack Ripper

I am, as ever, a busy man. Here's the next part:

So yeah, I went and bought Black Sea. This is now officially a 60 dollar scenario! I did have a thought, if you receive points for Red casualties, do the forces that EXIT from a destroyed base count towards that? Or do you miss out on inflicting those casualties if you prevent them from operating? Anyway, my work break starts on the 8th. If the scenario is not released, would you mind hooking me up with a test copy?

One thing that surprised me greatly as I began reading more into the manufacturing side of the war is how much the manufacturer is responsible for these sorts of upgrades. It really gives me warm fuzzies when you read reports of how responsive American manufacturers were, even sending teams of company men to the front to directly listen to the gripes of the soldiers in the field! It's a whole side of warfare I had never considered before.

Ha! I get it! *Caution, Volume*

Before I begin, a disclaimer of sorts: The next three parts of the AAR videos were all done simultaneously, so any conversation I had not already seen will not factor into the video discussion until at least Part Five. Are you saying he wasn't? The approach on Miguel's side was very well done, but don't underestimate the environmental factors. Practical visibility in any direction is only about 20 meters, unless there is another factor, such as the unit firing it's weapons. You are exactly right. The team was not expected to survive in the first place. But I got the idea from listening to your rhetoric about the glorious death and noble sacrifice of your Pixeltruppen! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? Alright, so here's my read on the "scouting situation": My intention with the team was to verify whether or not the enemy was using Approach Route #1, by simply bumping into them if they were there, which they did. They would then run away if possible, which they did not. The rest of the path was only going to be used if they met no resistance... Honestly, being the defender (remember, this is an ALLIED ATTACK QB) I had no real intention of conducting a proper reconnaissance, or I would have done so. I had a few points left over from my force purchase, couldn't think of anything useful to use it on, so I bought a scout team, bumped all their soft factors to the max, (which is surprisingly cheap, btw) and sent them off to cause confusion and terror with their sacrifice. Clearly, that did NOT happen, in fact, the only effect that seemed to have was to cause my opponent to waste about 10 minutes of clock time. In hindsight, I should have bought several CONSCRIPT (-2) scout teams, and had all of them go on suicide marches.

We open with a lecture of sorts about night fighting, barbed wire emplacement, and move on to the first minute of real action. From now until the end of the battle, fighting will be bloody, violent, and without much letup.

Funny enough, that's exactly what came to mind. Anyway, I'll have a video along soon. I managed to get some time to myself this afternoon and recorded video showing the entire fight for Casa Fanella and Casa Riposa. I'm going to focus on that side of the battlefield first, then I'll cover the other sectors.

This was pretty cool:

Understandable. I myself am wearing multiple hats at work this week.

Also, I am aware of Rinaldi's video, I have been subscribed to him for some time: ^ See? Now, enough of that nonsense.

I have not. It's right here: https://youtu.be/6TQ6fRLaGec @IICptMillerII. Please keep ancillary discussion to a minimum. This is an AAR thread, not a general discussion thread. I openly admit in my video I completely screwed up my attempt at scouting, yet was still able to generate some accurate intelligence. If you're expecting an error-free battle, then you'll have to find some thread over in fantasy land, because as anyone around here can attest, even the best among us make mistakes. The next video will be posted on Saturday, perhaps @BletchleyGeek can fill the time with some writing?

Okay, I missed that in my review because the camera was too close to spot the contact marker behind the tree. I had intended to do that, but previous experience at night fighting against @lucas showed me how deadly it was to engage the enemy without having superior firepower. I was determined to hold my own forces back until I could gain some advantage, or at least have a concrete idea of where you were. As you said previously, superior firepower at point of contact is key, because once the shooting starts, all nearby teams will join in. So having a few teams scattered in front of my force would have simply got them killed to no real advantage aside from intel, but I think my METT-TC analysis was good enough to operate without a complete intelligence picture. Of course, we shall see how right or wrong that idea was in the next video on Saturday, when we have contact along the MLR.

The next video explores my attempt to gain some intelligence about enemy intentions. After completing my METT-TC analysis, and deploying my troops, I seek to gain the one piece of the puzzle I do not have. To that end, I send my scouts out, "NormalDude Style". In proper fashion, they get brutally murdered, due to a mistake I made planning my movement. EDIT: While my scouts may have come to grief, it did teach me one very important lesson, very early in the battle, and that is the exact amount of visibility I would be dealing with due to the prevailing weather conditions. So in that regard, their deaths were invaluable.

Now there's a pretty thing... ^ Same here. My very first experiment in burning something came at the expense of a B-17G model I had lit on fire, for an authentic crash scene. My mom didn't care about my arguments in favor of, "But it's more realistic this way!" That thing had been EXPENSIVE. Of course, far be it for a nine-year-old to understand the concept of money... Anyway, here's my entry for the thread, one of my favorite tanks: That thing just screams, "TANK!"

It's a screen recording program I use to make my Combat Mission videos. I can't post commercial links, but a quick google search will suffice.

It appears to me you actioned the intelligence properly in all respects. The enemy cannot trouble your forces if he has been completely eradicated... I do have a week off coming in early May. I might just have to buy CMBS so I can play this scenario... Maybe I'll run Bandicam while I do it...

When you see the old salt Combat Mission veterans look at you with the Virtual Pixeltruppen Thousand-Yard Stare, it was scenarios like this, and a small little jaunt known as 'To The Volga' that did it to them... (Combat Mission Beyond Overlord veteran in his natural environment, circa 2001)

Hmmm, I thought this idea seemed familiar... Several years later, and here we are...

One of my favorite parts of Combat Mission is being confronted with the Force Selection screen, given a chunk of points, and just seeing what kind of highly customized, and finely tuned force setup I can make. It's like a game within a game...

I think it's more a question of who else would have the imagination to even look for such things, or the tenacity to dig them up on a daily basis... Checking in with the latest tidbits keeps me coming back to the forum. It's like a scavenger hunt, but without a list of things to find, the things find you instead! That's a long story, thankfully such behavior is no longer possible. I almost quit the forum over it.

You can write and post whatever you'd like, I just don't want to spoil things early, that's all. You'll see what I mean in the next video, I leave you a hook at the end to write off of. It would make coordination a bit easier, or we can open a DM here on the forum to collaborate.

That's why I'm going with weekly updates, to keep the pace down. The next part is cut and dried at 17 minutes, and will be posted on Saturday.

I think you will find this one interesting, especially the way it ends. No spoilers though... Thanks for coming. That is one small tidbit I have had to teach myself, time after time involving night battles, the absolute necessity of outgunning your opponent in very confined spaces the moment contact is first made. By all means, post whatever you like, I would simply ask to refrain from excessive spoilers. I kept all the turn files from both sides, and will use video from both sides in my presentation (showing the actions I took, then with an aside to show the effects of said action, whether effective or not). You can feel free to DM me any notes you might have that you would like to see referenced in each video section, or if capable, I am more than happy to include any recorded commentary you might wish to insert. ^ I would say that is perfectly sound advice. We are playing on Elite, simply because I find the relative friendly spotting on Iron to be annoying, despite the fact it can be useful as a tool to visualize the C2 links. I'm hoping to release a video segment once a week, Real Lifetm work permitting, as well as a few other obligations currently running.

This thread will be a repository for videos showcasing a PBEM game I had against @BletchleyGeek which had finished about 4 months ago. Do not expect quick or timely updates, this is a free-time only type of project, and is mostly me trying to shake off my lethargy after running three PBEM games concurrently, which left me feeling a bit burned out for a while. Without further ado, stand by to receive your mission briefing! Feel free to leave comments, or ask questions, but I would ask that ancillary discussion be kept to a minimum.