A Canadian Cat

Over near the bridge head the fighting heats up. First the Stuart the pulled up alongside my point Stug loses the quick draw. The Stuart crew must have been slow to notice the Stug in the trees given that they were pointing across the river at the end of the turn. The Panther’s have a little success hitting Churchill tanks. They get penetrations but no kills this turn. Starting with the one in the treeline that chewed up my infantry last turn. And then an new arrival on the other side of the field. Three hits later we see he has a friend.

Near the town the Stug I sent forward to find and destroy that Stuart comes under fire from something much nastier than a 37mm gun. Even the infantry start running after this. The crew remain in their Stug and start backing off but are hit again. Found them. That Stuart has a Churchill as a buddy right near by.

The third shot at close range has bite and finishes the job but the crew had just bailed – one managed to escape from view. Finally my men have had some success against those two Churchills. But the turn ends badly once again. Those Achilles on over watch destroy another Stug. To make matters worse they seem to have a bead on the second Stug in the trees as the turn comes to an end.

The ambush continues to go poorly at the start. That Achilles on the other side of the valley scores a dramatic kill shot. And then another kill shot this time to the abandoned Stug. You can see the crew was just about to remount it and hopefully drive it out of harm’s way. To late. Meanwhile the two newly arrived Stugs (that crossed the field earlier) arrive at close quarters. And I mean close. The Churchill tank that took the Shrek round in the face earlier gets pounded at close range. Several hits bounce of the side of the tank (which is at a less than 45% angle to the Stug). And again… The other Stug fairs better nailing the further Churchill squarely. In the picture below you can see the Stug and Churchill from the above shots and how close they are.

I am writing it up now... Well the results are a mixed bag. One Churchill that was side on was KO'ed at close range. But the other one that was at about 45 shrugged off several close range hits. Yeah - note to self don't do that again.

Over near the orchard a Stuart is approaching. I definitely do not want that tank to get close and start hurting the infantry. The nearest Stug gets a set of shoot and scoot orders to move up engage the Stuart and then pull back. The mortar team finally has eyes on the Churchill across the river. At the bridge head the infantry and the rest of the Stugs move up to secure the Panther’s flank. Over near the town I will send a few Stugs forward to try to catch that Stuart next to the barns. I am going all in on this ambush the two Stugs that I moved up last turn do not have LOS to the Churchills so I will move then in close – really close. Lets see if those Churchill tanks can shrug off hits at point blank range.

The Shrek team in the field scores a hit but it has little effect. Hopefully this hit will be like the other one where there was no visible damage but there are crew casualties. Meanwhile the Panther’s partner dispatches an armoured car as it tries to cross the field on the opposite side of the tree line. Along the river a Stug pulls up to protect the other edge of the field above and a Stuart drives up right next to him. This happened right at the end of the turn. Oh man Stuart vs Stug. At this close range it will be close.

And then it hits one of the Stu42s. Turns out there is an unseen enemy nearby and they put a hole in the Stu42. Thankfully it survives that and shrugs off another hit from the uber Churchill. This ambush has definitely not gone well at all. In the centre near the bridge the Panther backs away from the Churchill. That enemy tank was much closer to the tree line than originally anticipated. Then the Panther starts moving forward again and takes a couple of shots at the Churchill. The trees save it once.

Over on my far right flank the ambushing of two Churchill tanks continues to go poorly. The enemy tanks take a pounding and still manage to take out a couple more Stugs. The Shrek team seem to get a nice solid hit (with penetration) but the Churchill is still operational after the hit. The Stugs continue to unleash a pounding with hit… …after hit, on the Churchill… … and yet another. But it is still fighting and takes out another of the four ambushing Stugs.

Yeah, ditto. I seem to remember someone writing that they could not fix it. But I cannot find the reference I remember. But I did find this: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1375068&postcount=33 A beta tester talking about that seam being there since CMSF. And there was mention of it on the CMBN threads too.

Nope, never Oh, those mapping enhancements are awesome. I will play the $10 for that alone in CMBN. Now if I could tear myself away from *playing* I might finish my scenario

Thanks for not going there. I *will* be firing up the editor and trying this out but your explanation will make that more meaningful. I also like your idea of handling the shoreline differently too. Interesting. Are those ford tiles next to your water tiles? This will be an interesting evening of playing around.

Actually that would be an excellent suggestion for him. Do a video on "What to do when your plan goes sideways" I could use that right now

Yeah s**t happens. Upon reflection for clarity we are talking about one HEAT round that hit and did not penetrate. One Stu42 was out of HEAT and the other one had 2 and its first round missed. I have had lots of good luck with 105 Sherman HEAT rounds - ironically against Stugs. So I am not down on HEAT in general - just frustrated that me perfect ambush did not work out. Agreed, and even though there is a current thread (that I added my 2 cents to) discussing the problems of urban combat, those Fausts and Shreks can be nasty in those environments too. In fact right now I am hoping that will save my face here. If I can get a significant force into the town and engage his tanks at close quarters with all the Shreks I have. I could make this interesting again. Yeah, it is pretty awesome. He often says he has more fun talking about it than playing. There are three of us that play CM and work here. Still working on the third guy to move him up to CM2x. We had a good laugh this morning because he was pointing out that in all our previous games I have kicked his butt; here we are in our first public game and he is the one taking names. Yes, that was my lame attempt at feeling better for getting my butt handed to me.

LOL - people are looking at me funny here at work.... No, no, no because I am laughing at my monitor.

Yes, your men will align up along the wall right now using the face command. What these guys want is a way to order your guys to either: Hug the wall and stay out of sight Hug the wall and look / shoot around the corner I will refrain from commenting on how the UI should express such a thing but will say that this would be an excellent Tac AI enhancement.

Those creek photos look *awesome*. Please, tell us how that was made.

I have not tried this yet - since I am not at home. But can I get a translation - what are "doodads" in this context? Are you referring to flavour objects? Or are they something else?

Good - hopefully I will not run into frame rate issues but it is not as big as this game I am playing now so hopefully I'll be OK. Yeah I just had coffee with Dungeon Tiger - man we talk to much sometimes - but it is fun to talk about the game. And you are right the tanks have taken crew casualties. As for HE vs HEAT. I think one of the Stu42s had two rounds but the other might have been out. Anyway the one that did have HEAT did connect with one of them (first shot was high) and it did *not* get a penetration. According to DT it was the shrek round that caused the most damage. He let slip that an Achilles had eyes on my ambush force - not good for me. One of the best parts of this game is how little you know about the shape and make up of the other guys forces. Don't tell your opponent stuff after all - loose lips sink ships. I really like Stugs, whenever I face them they shrug off so many rounds and they have such a low profile that they are hard to hit sometimes. They have served me well many times too. And I am not really having a problem with their survivability in this game it is there inability to kill Churchills that is causing me concern. I agree regarding the Firefly and the Panther's 75 HE and those 88s *are* damn scary. I have occasionally seen Shermans take a one or two hits form 75s but I have never seen one survive a hit from an 88.

Yeah I have a lot of respect for Churchill tanks and even more now. I have to admit I a feeling like I brought a knife to a gun fight though. Regarding Cromwells: I agree they die easily. But they are amazingly fast. I have a few in a QB I am fighting now. They raced a head of my Shermans and took up an excellent position that surprised my opponent. They did a lot of damage by being in the right place fast. That is there advantage. Interesting I am starting the gateway right now - I hope I fair better. In this game I sometimes get down in the 8-10 frames per second range when there are a lot of ground and lots of vehicles in view. The way I usually watch the frame rate usually stays in the 14-20 range which is reasonably playable.

Oh I know. They each had two HEAT rounds. All four used up to no effect - except a TC kill. I was hoping for a HEAT kill since the Stugs 75mm guns have had so much trouble with the Churchill tanks. That's why I sent the 42s around to hit them from the rear. My Stugs have been pounding Churchills and not getting KOs. If you look back in the thread you will see an earlier encounter where a Churchill survived 22 hits from Stugs before finally being destroyed by the 23rd.

At this point I am very concerned. I ambushed those Churchills almost perfectly and dealt them 6 or 7 hits. Not a scratch. Sure, I killed a tank commander who did not button up fast enough but I cannot win this game killing one crew man at a time. I do not get it what do I have to do to put down Churchill tanks!

At the bridge head the platoon will finish their advance to the treeline while the other prong of the advance will move to the other edge of the field. Since that mortar team still cannot see anything useful – reposition them again. Tighten the noose on those two Churchill tanks. The nearby Stugs are going to move to a hull down position behind a rise in the field while the Shrek team moves through the trees. At the same time the remaining Stug will move forward to avoid falling prey to the Achilles on the other side of the valley plus they will hug the treeline and try to get some protection.

The trap has been sprung. I am not a happy commander. The two Churchill tanks took multiple hits – none penetrating. None penetrating – again! The ambush looked flawless. The Stu42s came out of the woods and hit both Churchill tanks from behind. The first one hit moved away – towards my Shrek team but the other one stood its ground and took a pounding while it dispatched one of the Stugs. The Churchill tank the moved forward came very close to my scout team but the Shrek team behind them did not get a shot. Meanwhile over by the bridge more hell was unleashed on my platoon and Panthers moving to the tree line. The Panther took two penetrating hits with little damage and no casualties. Good thing some of my AFVs can take a pounding. The Panthers did manage to take out a couple of more armoured cars. The platoon took quite a few casualties but two squads almost made it to the tree line before the minute ran out.

The other issue with urban fighting is the problem with area fire. The fact that you can only area fire to the centre of an action square is ok when visibility is not tunneled down streets. But it becomes an issue when you cannot target the front of buildings two or three doors down. Clearly your men and or tanks can see the front of the building down the street but you will not be able to target them because the neighboring building blocks your LOS to the *centre* of the further building's actions square. This leads to frustrating occurrences when you have tank support and your infantry are clearing building by building. Your tanks cannot effectively suppress the occupants of the building down the street while your men move to the next house. Further more if the enemy is at the windows firing and your tank spots them the enemy can be fired at. So your tank has LOF to the font of the building down the street while the enemy are up and shooting but as soon as they duck you cannot fire at the front of that building any longer. Even though you know they are there because you were just shooting at them.