Bud Backer

It's been a while since I played the tutorial campaign, but in splitting teams you usually have 4 options, Split teams (which gives for US squads) three teams, or you can keep the squad largely intact and split off from it much smaller segments like a two man recon team, or AT team and so on. I doubt you're doing anything wrong, it's quite simple to do.

Impressive wreckage! I think you're right, the Russian equipment seems too expensive for what it can do.

Thanks, Womble. I always appreciate your comments. Before I come across as smug, I need to point out some concerns I had in the game as well: -even with TRPs the best times I could get for off map artillery was 6 minutes. It's fortunate I bought two batteries of 25lbrs because even with them I felt I had insufficient flexibility. I needed them on the front line and never was able to batter his ATGs as I intended to. -my manpower was not as low as he claimed but I certainly was losing a lot of men to his own arty. With them scattered all about in the woods it was not hard for him to drop some shells and kill someone. -time was running out. For me to destroy the eastern Panther would take at least 4-6 min, and then I'd have to deal with the last one. I doubt I'd have finished that, let alone had time to clear the objectives of his (albeit limited) infantry. Had time been 45 min or an hour, I do not think I would fail to destroy him completely. So had this run to conclusion, the best I'd have managed would still be a draw. Which means I'm not winning. c3k would not be proud of me LOL

I suspect Ian is far too good a player to let you ambush him with Panzerfausts, because that's all I can think of.

I think I see Pete Wenman's commentary that the battle is in some respects not a good reflection of what happened, but at least as a test of skill where other things are equal (meeting engagement), it taught me some valuable lessons that have nothing to do with fighting the Big Cats: using lots of disperse reconnaissance teams, local fire superiority, shoot and scoot tactics. Well, I did, actually.... 1 crew dead, Coax MG kaput, optics kaput, track damage. Not as well as I'd hoped, but had I moved even further east and therefore out of LOS of the western Panther, I don't have a lot of worry that he would be short one more tank, and then it would be 4 against his remaining one. I was concerned about my infantry losses, but I knew since he'd purchased 3 ATGs, 3 Panthers, and off-map artillery, his infantry presence was limited and with 4 surviving tanks that could easily dominate the victory locations while in cover from the ATGs, it would be a foregone conclusion I'd win. He attached a lot of importance to those ATGs, and one did kill a sherman early on, but once I knew where they were it wasn't hard to stay out of their reach. What I did find surreal was that the entire battle was really a game of me focusing all my attention on his three, then two tanks. He wasn't advancing across the river, clearly surprised when he lost his first tank, and from there on, it was me constantly repositioning behind my ridgeline for a sudden lunge. His ATGs, artillery, infantry, were simply not something I gave much consideration, and it felt weird to do that. But I don't think that was a mistake, in retrospect.

The tactic was partly successful. The western Panther never fired a shot while my Shermans crested the ridge, fired a series of volleys while PAUSED, then pulled back behind the ridge once more. One of my fireflies took a penetrating hit but nothing of great import was damaged, while two penetrating hits were made on the eastern Panther. It fled, positioning so that it would be even more isolated from support by its co-hort to the west. We did not complete the game, but it did convince me that the big cats were something that could be managed, albeit with great care. Constant recon by split infantry teams gave me the exact locations of my opponents tanks at any time. Not being able to surprise me made a huge difference. The arty I bought was a mixed bag. Slow to respond but crucial for the initial smoke I needed to get my infantry over the ridge and into the woods. It was to be honest a bit of a goofy battle, but I certainly gave my opponent pause when he started losing those precious tanks.

Crazy life stuff got in the way so this game was postponed on and off. So my opponent moved his western Panther from the middle of the map to the woods at the western edge on his side of the river. This splitting of his armour was what I'd been waiting for for some time. I anticipated this and had artillery start landing on that Panther, in the hope it would either make him pull it back or blind it with dust. All my Shermans, two fireflies and two regulars, were concentrated in the middle of the map behind my ridgeline. I ordered all four to move to positions where I could target his Eastern Panther in the village. They would advance line abreast, with three firing on that tank, while the western most would lob smoke at his western Panther, and all my infantry with line of sight would pepper it with ballets to make it button and reduce the chances it could fire on my exposed tanks on the ridge. Edit: pic above is incorrect, should say all 4 not 5 Shermans crest at same time. The people responsible for making my images have been sacked.

Haha my wife went in with me and took pictures at Bayeux. Then we went to the Bayeux Tapestry museum. Cool presentation, very modern!

I have definitely had US rifle grenades fired at my troops in CMBN. Quite successfully I might add, so they are in the game. Bear in mind the CMBN DEMO may not be as current as the full game.

Good points, rocketman and womble. Makes sense to me.

I'm not sure how much coding would be involved in that, but something I could see as a (not as convenient but better than nothing) alternative would be to have binoculars as items one can Acquire from vehicles (or can we do that already?)

You crushed lucky cricket!! (See Balls of Fury for reference!)

Dammit, Ken! Stop making sense!

Such a simple, practical, loveable request, eh Kohl?

+1 You don't have to win to be entertaining!

My guess? Panzer battalion TO&E will not always be with actual tanks, but may be equipped with StuGs. StuGs lacking turrets by definition would in most cases be a disadvantage over full turreted tanks.

Seems I wasn't taking in enough scotch... That's a very all or nothing strategy, it would seem to me, because you're right, either it works or you lose your vehicles pretty fast to return fire. I wonder if instead of ATGs it might have been better to have more bazookas and mortars.

Now that I think of it, are there vehicles with more than 2 smoke discharges? I can't recall!

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Ugh, rough going. Bug out and Call in the Air Force!

Good game, Doug. I think I was far more anxious than you, and I'm just a spectator!

I don't think you have to worry, Bil. Lots of respect for both opponents in this battle.

Great, now you have me thinking of this...

Probably not what you're really asking for but I'll mention that in discussion with tech support for Europa Universalis IV I discovered that the game uses the GPU for additional processing that does not include graphics. With such a nice system it might be interesting to see just how fast the game runs on top speed. If you've never played the game never mind, but if you have, then my frame of reference is that at top speed I can get 4-5 days per second, depending how late in the game I am. Oh, and congratulations on your good fortune!

Thank you for testing these things out, exsonic01. There are so many vehicle variants it's easy to totally get confused as to what can and can't do something, and how much it can do it if it can!