Mad Russian

So what did you think of the scenario? Have you played it yet?

For a steppe defense, in a word, layered. You need to dig in if you can. If you can't then you need to put your troops in the toughest possible spots for the attacker to have to dig them out. In any kind of cover, including grain fields, tall grass, brush. Maybe, on a map with only a limited number of trees, you don't put them in the trees. Whatever you can do to keep them hidden for as long as possible. A key element in any fight is time. The longer it takes the attacker to find you, the longer it will take him to fix and destroy you. Unfortunately, there is not a dig-in command in the game. Maybe CMx2 will have one. Be that as it may...you are going to have to stop an attack in the wide open spaces with no place to hide. If your troops break they will more likely than not be cut down before going 5 meters. This is a defense to the death. The only way I have seen this be effective is to make it so costly on the attacker that the attack breaks down. That has only ever been accomplished in the battles I've seen fought in the steppes with layered defenses. Keeping the AT weapons back out of harms way and keyholed using the terrain if you can. The key to any Ukrainian defense is mobility. You MUST have a reserve and that reserve MUST be able to influence the battle at hand. Vehicles of any type are much more valuable in a Ukrainian setting because of their ability to move around the map and influence the outcome of a battle. That influence may well come from any range of 1500 meters down to 1. You never know. That is why you must retain the ability to move your forces where they need to go. While smoke is of more limited value to the attacker than you may be used to it is of infinately more value to the defender. Smoke can be used to limit the attackers LOS/LOF into areas that you may need to move across to reinforce the threatened area(s). Unsupported positions are 99% likely to be taken out. They must have AT capability. As much as you can afford to give them because as Jason pointed out this is TANK country!! And you will see lots of them in the Ukraine. The infantry can defend pretty well against purely infantry attacks unless they are of overwhelming numbers. Engineering obstacles can be a greater force multipier in the Ukraine than in other areas. Wire by itself is normally worthless. If the attacker has armor, and I think you better plan that he does, he will just lift his infantry over the wire. Same thing with purely AP mines. The bad boys in the Ukraine will be TANKS and you need to plan every defense against them. Engineers with satchel charges are a devastating defensive weapon here. They are good against both tanks and infantry that get within range and can take out either with equal effectiveness. If they are in trenches they are very tough to kill. The covered arc ambush is your best friend out here. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes or have extremely favorable conditions to reveal your positions. Like a side shot on a Tiger at 400 meters. By the way Tigers do roam the steppes so bring a big gun. I normally set my ambushes at 100 meters. Be aware that a trench can be seen in LOS at 200 meters. So, a trench line defense might just as well open fire, if that is your intent, at 200 meters because the enemy will see the trench. They won't know if it is occupied, but they won't be able to take the chance that it isn't, and will pore area fire on it. An interesting tactic is to leave the trenches empty and have the troops in the fields behind them. When the enemy gets to within 50 meters of them open fire on them in the open while they have hammered an empty trench line with fire. More wasted time. Watch the clock. Time is on your side as the defender. ANYTHING you can do to slow the attacker is worth doing. You just have to weigh the advantages of it against the disadvantages of it. Like the ranged fire. Is it better to fire and suppress the attacker at long range and cost him time or to hold my fire and hit him with a wall of fire right in front of my defensive position? Only you can make that call. ANYTHING you can do to force him into LOS/LOF is worth doing. Put the attacker in a position that you can hit him with as many weapons systems as possible. [ May 22, 2005, 07:04 AM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ]

Jason, the intent was not to highjack your thread (at no time did I mention the name of my scenario, nor will I) but to show that players haven't played on steppe maps very often and are very surprised that they require different tactics. I thought this thread was about general combat tactics in the Ukraine, you did name it Steppe Terrain Fighting, if I was wrong and this is just about your Ukrainian operation, I will glady start a new thread. Or if this is a discussion on Ukrainian tactics and you wish me to start my own thread I can do that too. Otherwise I'll just add to your discussion here. LOL! The roughly 300 other things you refer to I used to try to support the fact that while in the steppes you are like nowhere else on earth. I may have overdone it... From my limited experience in the steppes it seems to me that the trump card is intelligence. You desperately need to know what the enemy defense is so that you can deploy your assets to break the defense. For me personally, the tactical drill changes little. Find, fix and destroy seems to work as well on the steppes as anywhere else. Finding can be more of a problem here though. It's not as obvious. There isn't that clump of trees over on the right or that small farm on the left to immediately draw your attention to it. Trenches can be seen in any terrain with a LOS at 200 meters. Whether or not they are occupied is another story. Are mines involved, once again you MUST do the recon work. Just stumbling forward blindly will get you cut to shreds. Once you have decided where the enemy is, and in what strength, then you isolate him and attack the position. Whether you do that by using smoke, terrain blocking LOS/LOF, suppressive fire, or all of the above, for me at least, that part of the battle drill hasn't changed. I also agree that the important forces for holding the battlefield aren't the tanks. The infantry still alive at the end of the scenario will more than likely determine the level of victory. Tanks are just the major force multiplier to get the job done. If I can identify your infantry positions in LOS/LOF at a distance my tanks will take them out. Without sufficient AT support you won't be able to do anything about it. Those are facts. Of course, the defender isn't going to aways oblige you by putting his infantry where your tanks can sit back and shoot them up without a fight. I cannot stress enough the importance of Russian tanks carrying cannister against your infantry positions. IF they get close enough to use cannister that position WILL FALL!! You are more than likely going to have to break a layered defense in the Ukraine. And unlike other places on earth, the angles that you can take fire in the Ukraine seem to be limitless. As some of the examples I posted show, players have trouble identifying threat sectors on a Ukrainian map. While it's true that the long range suppression weapons are in their element in the Ukraine, weapons like the HMGs and light mortars, their real value at longer range is in suppression and they normally don't have unlimited ammo supplies. So, while it is true that your forces can be under fire for a longer period of time, I'm not sure that it is a particularly good idea. I read about a German Lt. that was transfered to Utah beach a month or so before D-Day. When he saw the Americans moving across more than 800 yards of open sand he said he gave the order to fire at around 4oo meters. What made such an impression on me was, that he said, in Russia they NEVER opened fire at more than 100 meters so that they could break the attack. If the defender uses up all of his ammo just suppressing your attacking forces and firing at long range that dilutes the fire he will be putting out when the assault does come. I've rarely seen an attack every STOPPED by long range fire only slowed down. Slowing at attack down is a tactic too. I'll discuss that in the defensive post coming next. Like the Lt. in Normandy I'm not sure I think that is a good idea. To let me get within a 100 meters of the position though before opening fire will at least let me identify that there is a trench system there. It won't tell me if it is occupied or not. Once again recon. While I again agree with the idea that AC's can't advance against a hail of ATR fire, how often does the enemy possess the ability to bring hail fire down? A single ATR can kill a recon HT or AC under the right circumstances so you have to use good tactics to do your recon. Whether it is by infantry or vehicle or preferably both is the key to winning this battle. If you know where the enemy is and where he isn't you can make an effective battle plan. Another thing that you and I agree on, is that the attack, when it comes, needs to be of the utmost violence. Don't expect the infantry to take out defensive positions by walking over open ground to get there. The attacker needs to have supporting/suppresive fires of his own. These need to be in a direct fire mode if you can get them to the point of attack. The attackers don't have unlimited ammo supplies either. Mortars and artillery are very effective on the steppes because there is nothing to protect the infantry but wheat or corn. Those have not been great sources of protection in the past and I have grave doubts about their ability to stop artillery rounds in the future as well. Smoke actually seems to be less effective. The greater number of angles that the attacker has LOS/LOF into the attack area can limit the effectiveness of smoke. Also, the limited time frame of smoke will put your troops in the suppression zone for a longer period of time than you are normally used to. The trump card once your attack is under way can be tanks carrying fresh infantry to move into the attack and carry the infantry across much of the open ground to a suppressed and battered defender. Assuming of course you have the resources to do it. While my experiences have been only with battles, and not with operations or QB's, I have not had the luxury, so far, to play with defenses in depth. Jason, where would I be able to download your operation? I am very interested in playing an operation in the Ukraine and yours sounds like a good place to start. [ May 22, 2005, 06:55 AM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ]

Jason...this is a most interesting thread. I have just recently entered a scenario in The Proving Grounds "King of the Hill" tournament that uses a Ukrainian map. For the first time, in more than 2 years and making more than a hundred scenarios, I made a map that I thought represented the Ukraine well enough to suite me. You are 100% correct in your assessment that players don't know what to think of the Ukraine. After extensive study of photos coupled with trial and error for many months I think I finally came up with a map that "works". The map was so different that it took gamers by surprise. Here are some of the comments from the discussion thread on the scenario at The Proving Grounds... "Sometimes you just try to locate where the guns are firing! Holding back heavy armour until I know the location of the enemy heavies. Sending out some HT's and 8wheelers for recon and safe shelter places for the others to follow. Great moving around with the 'heights' and 'lows' on this map. Disadvantaged: if you only misplace your 'move'line 1mm. you get blown into the sky!" "This battle rocks! It is one of the most intense tank battles I've fought, ever!" "Never took so much time to order moves and targets on any battle I played before!" "Never before played a battle where I was so frightened to push 'GO'!! Did I check everything? The hills and valleys? The speeds of the vehicles counterattacking together, the cover left-right, and so on.... Very tough fight! Axis have superiour quality but Ruski have more armour and advantage of higher grounds. Very hard for axis to move forward due to lack of cover. Probing and retreating all the time! This one really makes you feel like a general on top of the hill overlooking the battlefield!" "I had a plt of PZ(3) who almost didn't move during 15 turns firing all the time at anything that moved without gettin' hurt so that was a good move. !!! Had the greatest losses due to my mistake not checking the cover by a nearby hill which had a lower point!!" "It's only now after days of sitting in a darkened room listening to whale music and sniffing scented candles that I feel I have recovered enough from the stress and anxiety of fighting that battle..." "This is perhaps the most interesting map I"ve ever seen. You should release this as a map with a corresponding U shaped bastion for the Soviets maybe. I'm only now becoming intimate with this map." "The map is quite different (pleasantly) then any other I have played on." As you can see from these comments, players are not used to fighting on Ukrainian maps with little or no cover. It does take some getting used to. Even as the designer, it took me several playtests before I learned how to move and fight in the Ukraine. As you said, the tactics are much different. Even more different than North Africa because here the terrain is nothing like as flat as it looks. My battle is a Meeting Engagement and not an assault or an operation like yours. The Meeting Engagement has some of the same qualities though, as you can see from some of the comments made, about the battle and the map. The lack of cover, the differences in LOS/LOF, a small spot of dominating ground that the battle can end up swirling around, all come together to make a Ukrainian map a very different place to fight. In the Ukraine the speed of a vehicle can be as important as how well armed or armoured it is. You have to be able to move to that position that will flank the enemy! Hull down is a position that you will either use or die trying to get there. Infantry will, as you say, form into strongpoints. They are very suseptible to tank attack though, in the open, and often take extremely heavy casualties if they are unsupported by adequate AT weapons. Hand held AT weapons in the Ukraine are virtually worthless unless you are in reverse hillside positions and the enemy tanks come right over the crest. (That can happen...) Otherwise, the tanks just sit back and blow the infantry positions away from long range. Especially the Russian armor, with the ability to use cannister rounds to it's advantage. So far, it's been my experience, that in the Ukraine, more than anywhere else, the tank rules. It needs to be supporting the infantry. It needs to be maneuvering to outflank the enemys tank positions. It needs to be pressuring the enemy infantry positions from a range that they cannot respond. Recon is an absolute. Information on the position of the enemy is key in these situations. Charging over the crests of hills and ridges can be a quick way to lose the battle. On my map LOS/LOF can be as long as 2000 meters or as little as 1. Depending on where you are sitting in relation to the high and low ground. I have seen vehicles destroyed at ranges of greater than 1500 meters and as little as 7 on a map without a single tree on it to block LOS/LOF. So, are different tactics needed here?! Yes, I think you can safely assume that there are. Is the fighting intense? From all the comments made about this scenario so far I think you can assume that fighting in the Ukraine can be one of the most intense experiences you will ever have. The biggest "thing" that hit me about it was that you need to know your equipment more here than any other terrain I've ever fought in. The Ukraine is very unforgiving. You need to layer your weapons systems to get the most out of them. The player that uses his equipment strengths and weakness' along with better tactics, and they can go hand in hand, will win these Ukrainian battles. Whoever makes the least number of mistakes here will win. This is absolutely true of the Ukraine. For gamers that have not yet tried a battle in the Ukraine I urge you to try one. They will be an experience that you won't soon forget. Jason's Kursk Campaign would be a great place to start if you are into campaign games. [ May 21, 2005, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ]

Oh, that may be a mistake that got through The operation is definately designed to be played as Axis vs the AI. Don't worry about the English it was good enough to get your point across. My recommendation is that you need to be very aggressive in battle one and grab as much land as you can in the village. Secure the brick works...if you can... and move inland. The farther you get in battle one the better off you are by a long ways when the Soviet forces realize that you have crossed the Terek. I look forward to the results of your battle.

GoG...When you increase the computer experience bonus the Tactical AI gets more aggressive. I personally play all of my battles against the AI at a CEB of +2. I know that the resulting experience level adjustment isn't realistic. BUT the AI at lower levels plays too tenative. By adding CEB to the scenario the computer will get much more aggressive. That is how I lost all my Panthers! Try the scenario one time using a CEB of +2 and see what a difference it makes. I'll be surprised if you come anywhere near that Total Victory you got the first time. I recommend to players a CEB scale of +1 to +3 depending on their experience levels. I recommend that scale because I think it makes the scenario as good as it can be and when playing the AI it needs all the help it can get.

There may well be a point bonus in the scenario, for one side or the other, that is tilting the results as well.

Did you give the computer an experience bonus? It sounds like you got off way too easily. I've played Panthers Roll before where I lost EVERY Panther! Not just one... But I normally play the scenario at a +2 CEB. Thanks for the AAR. Good luck with the operation. I think you will find it challenging as well.

Thanks. I appreciate the kind words. All the designers at HSG work hard at "getting it right"! We don't always succeed but we try hard. Our scenarios get playtested throughly and we try to pick areas or equipment that gives the gamer a bit of an unusual experience or tactical situation. I look forward to hearing what you think of my operation. :cool:

I have just uploaded HSG 3AD Savage Struggle to the Scenario Depot. This is the most historical scenario I have ever done. In some cases I know the number of rounds individual tanks fired during the engagement and the names of almost every crew member of every tank in this fight. The map is accurate too and is made from a topo map, drawings and photos of the village at the time of the fight. So if you are at all interested in historical fights this one is right up your alley. This is a very strange fight on top of all of that. I have a hard time envisioning the Germans making this attack. Enjoy!

I have just uploaded HSG 3AD Savage Struggle to the Scenario Depot. This is the most historical scenario I have ever done. In some cases I know the number of rounds individual tanks fired during the engagement and the names of almost every crew member of every tank in this fight. The map is accurate too and is made from a topo map, drawings and photos of the village at the time of the fight. So if you are at all interested in historical fights this one is right up your alley. This is a very strange fight on top of all of that. I have a hard time envisioning the Germans making this attack. Enjoy!

I have uploaded this brutal small scenario to the Scenario Depot. 4 February 1945, Posen (German name) or Poznan (Polish name), Poland The Germans were defending every building like it was sacred ground. Some were defended more tenaciously than others. The Gestapo building was one of those being defended to the end. The SS defenders were not giving or accepting any quarter. They would hold this building or die trying. Lieutenant Bylyev was in command of the Soviet assault force assigned to capture the building. He would have a very tough assignment. Can you capture the Gestapo building Poznan? We'll soon see won't we? This is a very tough little fight that has been playtested TCP/IP and does very well. The battle is small but very intense. Enjoy!

I have just uploaded a CMBB Operation to the Scenario Depot. It's called, "HSG C Across the Terek AI". It takes place in the Caucasus and the 111th German Infantry Division does a river assault across the Terek River to take the village of Predmostny, Russia. There was a very detailed description of the battle along with a battle map. The only thing that kept this from being historical was that the map wasn't a topo map and information on the village was as detailed as I would have liked. If you get time you might try this one out. It is my first try for a CMBB operation and has been A LONG TIME in the making. Junk2Drive mentioned one of my CMAK operations in this thread...I found out I have one historical review of one of my favorite ops. HSG First Town Liberated. Three in one. Attack, hold, defend. Across the Terek has the same type of combat. You must advance but you have to also defend your positions from the Russian counterattacks at times. Or you can advance on parts of the map while trying to defend other parts. The artillery support is extensively modeled in this fight as well. Hope you will give it a try.

I have just posted my very first CMBB Operation to the Scenario Depot. It is about the German 111th Infantry Division's river assault over the Terek River to capture the village of Predmostny, Russia. The text and accompanying battle were very detailed and the artillery support for this battle sets it apart from all others that I have ever played. The only thing that kept this from being a historical operation instead of just a semi-historical operation was that I didn't have a topo map of the area and a more detailed map of the village. If you like operations or are interested in battles in the Caucasus, or both, this may be for you. As is normal for my battles there are little surprises along the way. I would like to thank both Corey Runyan for his help with this operation and TPG playtesters for helping to make this operation all it can be. Enjoy!!

Maybe I should mention, that the scenarion that has the dynamic flag in it, is a meeting engagement between Canadian tanks and SS German tanks in Normandy. Neither side knew where the other was and was cautiously feeling out where the enemy might be. How would the defender in this situation know what the attackers objectives are when he doesn't even know where the attacker is?

Having victory flags at all is hardly the heights of realism. Capturing the arbitraruly placed flag by the arbitrary time limit means you win, while being one minute late or twenty meters short means you lose. Victory in CM games is to a fair extent an artificial construction with a selection of arbitrary rules. It doesn't then seem so wrong for both players to know what the rules of the game are. Granted, those rules are hopefully used to create realistic situations, but that isn't always going to be the case. And in the case of dynamic flags, the difference between a 'victory' and a 'loss' (in game terms rather than reality) can be determined by the knowledge of dnyamic or static flags, as in Alsatian's example. Keeping the dynamic flags secret from the defender doesn't automatically add to the realism. Maybe it can, but it won't always. But ultimately, this is a game (which aims to be as accurate a simulation as it can be), and generally having both players playing to slightly different sets of artifical rules isn't going to give you any more realism than having both sides know that there are dynamic flags. It just leads to different 'game' (rather than 'real' tactical) decisions. [/QB]</font>

There is an Airborne Operation that pits the American initial drop against the Germans defending the village of St. Mere-Eglise. It's called HSG First Town Liberated. It depicts the 82nd Airborne liberating the first town in France during the invasion. It might interest you. You have to collect your scattered forces, take the village and defend it against German counterattacks. It is at the Scenario Depot.

Doesn't the attacker, in an actual combat situation, have an advantage in being the only one who knows what his objectives are? Why should I give a game player an advantage that a real commander on the battlefield doesn't get? In PBEM games you play, do you tell your opponent that you only intend on going for the left objectives and letting him have the other's? Why would you, as the attacker, tell the defender ANYTHING about how or where you intend to attack? This doesn't happen in real combat situations.

If you take yourself on over to The Proving Grounds all they do is help game designers work out their problems and then playtest their results. You can find them here: http://the-proving-grounds.com Best bunch of guys in the CM universe, IMHO, of course...

You may or may not know that several of the CSDT guys are now associated with HSG. IMHO, they know what they are doing too. As you said Rob does an outstanding job on his scenarios and you can't go wrong in downloading anything with CSDT in front of it.

Double post...

I have made many scenarios with dynamic flags. What would be the point of making a scenario with a dynamic flag and then telling the defender, "Oh and by the way, I'm only after one objective during this battle." Ever hear of a commander calling the enemy and telling them don't worry about our troops that are moving into the south of town we are really only after the rail station on the north edge. The whole idea of dynamic flags is that the defender rarely knows what the attackers objectives are. Sometimes you have a pretty good idea. But to KNOW happens rarely. Look at Lee and McCellan at Antietam for instance and how important it was thought that event even took place. McCellan got a copy of Lee's OOB and objectives. He didn't believe that they were real so he didn't act on them. They were real and had he realized it could have changed the course of history. It is so rare that it happens that when it does there is tremendous caution to make sure the enemy isn't just trying to lead you someplace other than the real objectives. Look at what great lengths the Russians went to keeping the objectives, start times and directions of their offensives from the Germans. No, for me, dynamic flags introduce a level of realism that you can't get any other way in CM. I can understand that you want to know what to defend. My question to you is: as the battlefield commander would you know that your enemy was only going for the train station or would you defend the bridge too?

Thanks for the kind words. They are hard but very winnable. This one is no exeception but it is very hard to learn to keep the Nashorns alive. Took me many playtests to make this scenario work for me. There two other Hero series that HSG supports. There is the VC Series done by Warmonger and the Congressional Medal of Honor series done by myself. They both highlight the acommplishments of extraordinary actions and they too are mostly for play vs the AI and as you noted "super hard to win" but very gratifying when you do. [ May 07, 2005, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ]

19 September 1944. Munsterbusch, Germany. The crew of "In the Mood III" was due to rotate to the United States in just a few days. In fact, loader Del Boggs was away on this day getting his hearing tested before they were shipped back stateside. The 3rd Armored Division was slugging it out with German units in the Stolberg Corridor. Trying to break through the final belt of the Siegfried Line. Here, in the town just to the west, of Stolberg, Germany, the crew of "In the Mood III" would fight their final fight before going home for the war bond drive. The 9th Panzer Division is the German unit thought to be defending this area. We have been fighting with them for nine days now. It's time to break the front open and then go home. Can you keep the crew of "In the Mood III" alive to go home on a bond drive? Or will SSG Pool be killed in his last engagement? We'll soon see how well you can do. This is a 3rd Armored Division series scenario. It is currently available at the Scenario Depot, and is listed as "HSG 3AD A Hero Goes Home".

9 January 1944. Near Vitbesk, Russia. During the night 9 January, 1944, The crew of Lt. Albert Ernst in their Nashorn named "Falcon" prepared to support a night attack by the 14th Infantry Division. A Soviet assembly area had been identified on the left flank of the 14th Infantry Division. Lt. Ernst's platoon had been sent to support the attack. The attack would take place early in the morning of January 9th, 1944. It would be here, in this small Central Russian village, that Lieutenant Albert Ernst would earn the Knights Cross. He would be awarded the decoration on 7 February 1944. Can you take a section of Nashorns and make a successful night attack with them against a Russian tank assembly area? This isn't going to be easy but then winning the Knights Cross never is! We'll see if you are good enough to win the KC here! The Scenario is at The Scenario Depot. You will find it listed as HSG KC Lt Ernst.