A Canadian Cat

Could be it is Beta after all. Bill did say that there were plans for an AAR based in a more urban setting. I am looking forward to that.

I interpreted the OP's opening remarks in a broad sense including all aspects of the effectiveness of an army. Certainly its equipment and training are important but I think that WWII showed everyone - again - that those things are not enough. Your army also needs an efficient replacement mechanism, intelligence gathering and analysis. Your politicians need to support the top level generals who must make good strategic decisions. Your military industrial complex needs access to resources and an ability to keep your army supplied and advance your fighting equipment at the same time. All of that needs to come together to make an effective army. Sure we could have a mano a mano pissing contest and you might even be right but it does not matter in the larger picture. If those better soldiers don't get fed, resupplied and have casualties replaced the advantage is lost. If the upper leadership is not properly assessing the strategic situation and using their soldiers for the wrong tasks the advantage is lost. Indeed truly remarkable. All armies suffer losses and defeats I get that alone is not a mark of a failure. In fact as you said it can be quite an accomplishment. The trouble is again it does not matter how well you manage while you are loosing ground, or gaining grown, on a particular day, month or even year. The army's effectiveness is the sum total of *all* its actions and assets right up to the top politician in charge.

Here you can see members of 2 and 3 company moving into positions further into town. With the elimination of the Stuart and one Churchill tank and the beating back of another Churchill and the Achilles my men will begin to move house to house to find other targets for the supporting Panthers to engage. I should get eyes on any attempt to engage the Panthers long before they are in danger. My men will be looking to eliminate any enemy scouts and find the enemy tanks. If I can blind my enemy and get eyes on his tanks I may have a chance to start evening the score. I am pretty sure that Churchill tank in the field is immobilized. The goal here is to ignore it if that is the case. My platoon HQ is moving forward to get command of some shaken men so they can get back to safety. Problems Update: Well I should have called off the hit on this idiot since he was heading back. One of the Churchill tanks that pinned 5 co in the orchard takes out my wondering squad member. The last half track is on its way now. I totally forgot to cancel the AT gun’s move order – oops.

Horror of horrors! The Churchill backed up right past where my teams were supposed to assault it from behind. I watched expecting the worst but instead the tank fired on them while they were still in the building and they did *not* jump out into the road to get gunned down. My soldiers did the right thing and they only lost one to the MG of the tank as it backed away out of site. Here it is disappearing around the corner. Note the enemy scout running forward. Somehow he managed to avoid getting hit and disappeared into the low building across the street. Members of 5 Company on their way to help take the town.

LOL Brilliant

Well actually there are infantry teams around (and really close) even a Shrek team made a short appearance.

^^^^^^ ? can you elaborate on that ?

Yeah that is the card - I probably miss spoke (wrote). Bummer it did not fix things. This is something that needs following up. The last time this came up here I mistakenly thought that BFC had recognized the problem and was going to fix it. We need to make sure the right people get involved and the problem is properly reported and acknowledged. In my experience if they get stuck they are going to stay stuck.

Well what came out recently was that only some of us with the AMD cards were experiencing the goofy way point behaviour because of that setting that @Schrullenhaft told you about here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1463852&postcount=14 (which was there to work around a bug in early AMD Open GL implementation). I personally keep forgetting to try since I have no battles going on with bridges right now (at least running the newest patches anyway). I would love to either remember to try it out or have some one such as your self try it out and report if it works or not.

This thread from January is the basis for what I am currently doing in an Urban setting and is worth a read: From the archives...

Yes, I believe the biggest determiner for a good urban fight is starting with a good map. @umlaut's Ciembienne map is excellent for CMBN. I am currently experimenting with @sburke's Venafro map and so far it looks superb for CMFI.

Indeed. I can see your side being a bit tiresome. I hope that once you chip away some more you can find some interesting things happen. Now that you are in contact things could swing towards your guys.

It is great to see your AAR posted here - thank you for doing it. I will be reading as you add to it. I have an image size request. Yours are 1600x900 pixels and 6Mb in size .png files. Consider switching to .jpg I know some people have had trouble with png files in the past but more importantly use some compression and consider resizing to 1000 pixels on the long side. AARs are much easier to read when they fit onscreen and the need for horizontal scrolling is minimized. Plus small .jpg files load *much* faster. Consider the images here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105660&page=9 Most of them are 70 to 80 Kb or 100 times smaller than yours which means when you are loading 20 or 30 images on a page it will make a huge difference.

My wondering Gunner makes it to World’s End – but there is no pub. So, he decides to head back. I told my opponent about his idiocy and asked him to kill him. He came under fire as he approached the bridge. We will see if he makes it. That stupid gun team is still wondering off. I guess he is planning to meet his buddy at the pub at the end of the world. That will take a long time for one guy pushing a 75mm AT gun. I am going to try to cancel move orders next time wait for a turn and then try to get him to come back. I am so glad this is fixed in the newer version (we are still playing this with 1.1 BTW – that is how long this has been going:-)

Yes, we are back. We ran a couple of turns this Saturday and my opponent says he is back closer to normal at work so Yay.

Minute 0:56 Orders: The same teams that assaulted the Stuart will make a try for the Churchill now. Everything else was consolidating my position, nothing special.

But their luck runs out pretty fast. They take two steps towards safety and both get taken out by a single MG burst from the Churchill. I did not take any screen shots of the Achilles TD. It got away. It backed up from the fire from the second story and when the Shrek team was in position it was already gone. The Shrek team proceeded to scurry back to safety. I missed my chance the first time. Meanwhile the Panther that did not spot the enemy tank does so after being hit again by an enemy shell. They waste no time scoring a direct hit. Nice. So a pretty middle of the road outcome: Five enemy tanks under attack, two are destroyed, one got away clean, one was hit in the wheels and one hit in the turret. I lost a Shrek team a Stug and another soldier. I guess I came out ahead but not decisively.

Another mad minute with lots going on. The Stug vs Churchill duel near the farm went as planned. And turned out much like the rest of this game. The Stug got the drop on the Churchill tank and got the first shot. Hit on the side, no effect. The Stug got a second shot. Hit wheels, nice big explosion (see below). The Churchill returned fire, hit a tree. The Stug got a third shot. Hit, not effect… … Second shot from the Churchill destroys the Stug. I really hope that the enemy tank is immobilized. Things went much better for my infantry assaulting the Stuart. The team attacking from the rear gets there first and puts grenades on target forcing the crew to bail. The crew are then gunned down as they try to escape. In all the mayhem one of my men is a casualty and one of the crew gets away. I’ll take it. That Churchill tank blasting away at the Panther also is hit by infantry. The Shrek team scores a turret penetration.

This turn I setup five attacks on tanks. Three by infantry and two by AFVs. The Shrek team that decided not to fire last turn will try again. Same movement orders but with 5s pause this time (not shown). At the same time the squad in the building will continue to fire on the TD – to keep it distracted. The Stuart will get assaulted by two teams from two directions. No more sneaking around this will be at a run. Between them these two teams have 14 grenades. Another Shrek team will step out into the road on the flank of the Churchill and then run for cover. Hopefully the crew will be occupied trying to take out that Panther and my Shrek team can go to work. Not shown here are the Panther in the town which did not spot the Churchill tank that was firing at it. I did not move and did not give orders either. I think they will notice the enemy tank and react. Also not shown the Stug by the farm noticed that the Churchill tank in the field was driving forward trying to get closer to the infantry. I ordered it to rush down the road and then turn into the trees. If the Churchill keeps moving the Stug will get a rear shot. If it stops it will get a side shot. I think I can get down the road covered by the trees and get the first shot. This coming turn will be interesting - 5 separate assaults on tanks under way.

Meanwhile the supporting infantry clearing buildings gets a bead on the Achilles and opens up from above. The do not hit any crew but the crew does stop firing at the Panther towards the end of the turn. My first supporting Panther takes a few hits from a Churchill tank that the Panther crew never spot. The enemy tank is partially obscured by that burning Churchill tank. The team sneaking up on the Stuart are spotted – and die.

The Churchill tank added a little extra HE to the already dead Stug - jut for good measure. The nearby Shrek team misses way high. The artillery barrage on the far end of town continues. There is no sign that anything has been hit. My disabled toothless Panther faces off against a Churchill tank and an Achilles TD. Somehow he shrugs off 14 hits between them - at close range too. The Achilles TD is focused on the Panther but my flanking Shrek team decides not to fire. They run into the street get set and then turn around and head back to their alley. Because the loader and not the tube guy went out first there was no time for the tube guy to take aim before they executed their next order. I wish Shrek teams were consistent with who leads and how follows. As it stands now you probably should give them a 5s pause order in their shooting location. Next time…

Sorry man I put this video and screen shots together this morning instead of playing my turn for our battle. I thought it would be worth it. Now I am intrigued I have not considered other uses - what did you have in mind? Let us know when you try it out.

Yeah, I know that one. Truthfully I really want to hear people's techniques for dealing with your tactics:D I know my first post was about *helping* tanks but we all know we need better ways to *deal* with tanks in an urban setting. I hope some more posts get made on that subject. I have some urban fighting happening in my 20 000 point Quick Battle that may be relevant here but first I will have to see if it works:)

Yeah I was pretty happy when it worked and I knew people here would like to hear it.

Oh, man, wait to fix your technical issues. Don't risk your marriage over this:D Unless of course it really will be fun, for your wife, to describe the replay. I picture lots of frustration and anger resulting from trying to tell you what is going on without the vocabulary to do it. It will be like computer tech support over the phone with a non techie. Not a happy place.