BletchleyGeek

This is SO true Regarding the AS's and the friendly AI - it's a bit like the AI struggles to work out a formation that complies with the Face command (if given) and the cover/concealment present in the AS or around it. And indeed the end result usually is much better the less pixeltruppen are in the AS. It's a bit like the formation is 'all right' but ends up being 'compressed' or 'distorted' because soldiers in the same element cannot be in different AS. I toyed around with the idea of 'breaking' up German squads into three Scout teams and an LMG team, but you end up with a lot more firepower than you wanted (unless the Scout team with poor 'equipment' is equipped with rifles, something I haven't tried). The other problem had to do with circumventing the C2 structure: those 'squads' not only had a lot more firepower than historical, they were also extremely resilient to adverse morale effects.

That early crash you got was quite useful to get a hold on the variability of the results of firing on moving targets. In your first run I reckon you were quite lucky, and the second run I think was more in line with what one should expect. I wonder what would have happened if the T-34's had charged directly into the position of your tanks, rather than moving along a orthogonal line. PS: Last July I had to get a new rig and I chose the 16 GB option - that was a no-brainer

Thank you for the massive and awesome session, Chris.

I think this is a good analysis of the map, Harry.

One request: try to save the game regularly, just in case. I'd have loved to see how that engagement in "Gog and Magog" you had on your right flank played out

I think the trick is to have those obstacles covering the 'obvious' approaches (i.e. there are various feasible approaches to the objectives), or providing the attacker with some means to deal with it (engineers to mark them, time to maneuver around the obstacle). The fun bit is to discover those minefields - that can indeed make people jump out of their chairs. The un-fun bit comes when you can't do anything about it. I mean, an scenario featuring the point platoon of the point regiment of the 11th Armoured Division in Operation Epsom isn't much fun, really. EDIT: it was the 11th, not the 7th Armoured division

Hehe, nice story Been there, done something like that... more so in games at this level of detail, where you can quite literally see people being shot to pieces or bbq'ed. There's indeed something about tactics going on here. But I'd say that the decisive factor is the ability to "keep it cool" and "keep the eyes on the prize". Armchair General or Actual General, losing ones nerves and messing things up is as old as the hills - it happened to Asdrubal in Illipa, it happened to Bil in the latter stages of his game against Ken. I'd keep the Hetzers in Blau - looks to me it's the typical Russian village stretching over almost 1 kilometer. Plenty of space to place hide and seek with those Hetzers, and with those Panzershcreks and Panzerfausts. I'd use the Panther as the bait, although I'm not sure of the chances of a lone Panther against three T-34/85's. Indeed that's what I'd try to do, another matter is that I'd be able to make it work

I didn't even know Elvis had mines - where did he put them? I am following only Bil's AAR and he hasn't run into any. Nevertheless, you made a good question Vark. He held back his armour for quite some time, I think. The problem is that after that it looks to me he was trying to get revenge from that OT-34 (which he got) or assumed the OT-34 was the point of Bil's armour thrust. But it wasn't, and now his armour is badly dislocated. Armour which consists of a Panther and two turretless Hetzers. The latter two shouldn't be used to counterattack: having no turret and facing fast enemy tanks is bad news.

So the idea is to use the ISU's and the OT as a holding force? That can work, since those ISU things have a surprising survivability. Yes, you're right there's no need to rush things and abort that OMG maneuver, which can probably completely dislocate John's armour, unless he gets wind - via sound contacts - of your deep strike. Are you taking any specific precaution to avoid that?

It is hard to judge from the screenshots in the updates for the last two turns, but I'd say that your T-34 platoon has outflanked the Panther and probably the Hetzers as well. If that's the case, then you got a GOLDEN opportunity.

Looks like that hatch isn't helping

As a former opponent of Elvis, I must say that this kind of comments are... unwarranted. He's a crafty player, that knows well the engine and who can only be underestimated at your peril. And who also makes mistakes very much as everyone else, including yours truly. I wonder how well would his "critics" fare against Bil. It's hard to look good when you're pitted against the very best.

Napoleon thought the same. Then the British Navy crushed the combined Spanish-French armada at Trafalgar. And then the British Empire paid pretty much for every army the continental powers tried to raise against Bonaparte, and kept a field army on the Peninsula from 1810 through 1813 which was a major pain in the bum for him. La perfide Albion didn't quite sit down on her hands

Very interesting, indeed I wonder about your short pauses, I have learnt to do those for much longer periods of time on forests, anything between 1 to 3 minutes. Have I been wasting my troopers time? It kind of exposes my guys to mortar stonks, but it also works surprisingly well, especially if my opponent gets jumpy and decides to move

I do agree with Umlaut analysis and assessment. The question is whether this is something the community needs to take into its hands or rather requires action on behalf Battlefront. Leaving aside that, your observation regarding 'what is the best moment to ask for a comment' is spot on - the best moment is right after the game is completed. Planting a link in front of the player's eye is one way, but of limited effectiveness I think. The link can be ignored. But what about ladder playing? Right now I'm heavily engaged with theblitz.org "Scenario of the Month" event - playing, not organising - and I can't help but observe that when one needs to report the outcome of the scenario, a "comments" and "ratings" box included in the form to be filled in, might be much, much more effective as a device to gather feedback. Of course, that only works for H2H - as we don't have a concept of a 'leaderboard' for single player. Maybe that's what you need, in order to "seduce" people playing the scenarios to speak up their mind.

Precisely. There are three victory locations and the map offers a lot of depth for the defense, so Elvis can maneuver against Bil (and Elvis can also mount his infantry on his tanks, so I think he's more mobile that he might have realized). Keeping a combat patrol in contact with the enemy is good, indeed, but "keeping contact" doesn't mean that the aforementioned combat patrol needs "to engage and defeat" Bil's advance guard. In my opinion, the mission should be to keep track of Bil's movements. Just that. Let me second that.

Hmmm, I think that somebody should speak Elvis into forgetting this thing of going head to head in the forest against Bil. Doing so negates the only advantage Elvis infantry has over Bil's: the range of his infantry weapons. And to be honest, I think Bil's been able to manage the skirmish in the forest much better than Elvis'. Recognizing when one is being outfought is important. Regarding the advices about the defense: a static defense in woods is as good as the outcome of the first clash. Due to the very limited visibility, there's no real interdiction on enemy movement due to fire. It's all about being "lucky" when placing your forces and managing to cripple the enemy force by doing stuff like killing the command team of a platoon or something. More so when the objectives are well away from these forested areas - I can't see a good reason for Elvis to fight hard for that terrain. He should be keeping a sizeable infantry force out of harms way to counterattack Bil's when the opportunity presents itself, rather than committing it by driblets against a force with a clear local superiority.

Well, I'd say that a great majority of the official and community scenarios and QB maps for CMBN and CMFI kind of adhere to the above. But besides that, I totally agree with what you say, YankeeDog. I wonder if we might ever see stuff like 'linked objectives' in CM. That is, objectives which do not become active (and award any points) until its 'pre-condition' is met. That would railroad the player in a gentle way and probably help the AI immensely.

This comment of yours made me think about to what degree commander's personalities were able to impose themselves over doctrine. I'm reading at the moment George Nipe's "Decision in the Ukraine: German Panzer Operations in the Eastern Front, Summer 1943" and I just came across the discussion of the Totenköpf SS division "personality": The book is discussing the performance of this division, and this particular section title is "3. SS Panzer Regiment Death Ride". That's quite an example of "eastern" tactics applied by guys on the other side of the fence.

Is it? Then I missed something about the edits and Bil's post of one of the "Careless talk..." World War 2 posters. :confused::confused: Regarding Soviet artillery assets: delays should be such as to make only it only useful if TRP's are available. That would account very well for the Soviet practice of pre-registering targets as a precondition to employ non-divisional assets. Regimental 76mm field guns should be quite responsive.

Thanks for the detailed explanation Bil

Got a question for you Bil: why this situation doesn't warrant applying your proposed battle drill (interleaving move and hunt)? I can't appreciate how well covered is the route from the screenshot.

Congratulations on having become a member of the beta test team, Vanir. That's very good news

They're referring to the CMBN/CMBN 2.0 manual. Which is, you know THE manual

All the best of luck with this game, John I won't be following this as I'm reading Bil's AAR and I'm a bit of a fanboy of Bil