Stonecutter

While 1st platoon is repulsing the first British probes, the fall back position is prepared as Cristoph’s 3rd platoon assists two panzer platoons in establishing DP2. When the railway station proves to be blocking the LOS into the designated kill zones, the panzers demolish it quickly with HE rounds from their 75mm guns. The Pressure Mounts (H+20 to H+30) Realizing that the left flank hedges are not defended, the British have forced their advance and now threaten the flank of DP1A. Having fought steadily for the past 15 minutes, Kroner knows his platoon is in serious trouble and that he should have moved earlier. The British armour pours heavy fire into the position from the front and left flank to support their infantry’s assault. Despite Kroner’s best efforts, a couple squads break and flee back toward DP1B. Worst of all, enemy armour is also closing in from 1st Platoon’s right front, completing the envelopment. Receiving the urgent appeals for help from Kroner, Siebel’s panzer platoon conducts a right flanking to relieve the pressure on Kroner’s hard pressed infantry and Graf’s Mk IV takes out the nearest Churchill tank. Graf’s driver is too slow in reversing and the five British Churchill’s spot and engage their foe. Miraculously, the Mk IV does not explode despite multiple hits, allowing Graf and his crew to escape with their wounded operator. While he is down a panzer, Siebel hopes he has done enough to help the hard pressed 1st platoon withdraw. The fierceness of the hedgerow fighting is evident as Andersen and his squad mate lob grenades at British infantry in a Bren carrier on the other side of the hedges. The grenades land directly in the carrier, killing all the passengers and immobilizing the vehicle. The action buys a few seconds of time for surviving members of 1st platoon to escape. The British successfully dislodge Kroner’s 1st platoon and render DP1B useless as they quickly flank it on the left. Some remnants of 1st platoon occupy DP1C along with a couple squads of scouts and Mk IV’s from Henrichsen’s 4th platoon. Kroner and one of his squads, exhausted after 20 minutes of continuous combat, try to make their way back to DP1 and safety along the wooded hedgerow. In response to the advance of 5 Churchills, two panzershreks and a couple squads are deployed in the north facing hedges of the vital ground of DP1. Lastly, FOO Rau reports that he has finally made contact with the rocket battery and moves to where he can call in a danger close mission just north of DP1C – if the position can be held!

This is my first AAR so I have included my battle estimate and plan at the start to provide some type of baseline for comparison with how things actually worked out. I still have a lot of bugs to work out with respect to getting good screenshots, writing a compelling narrative and cutting it down to a more manageable size but hopefully you will enjoy the AAR in spite of its flaws. Battle Estimate and Plan SITUATION ENEMY: Infantry: 2 x dismounted companies with a mix of green and regular troops and normal leadership modifiers. A scout platoon with similar experience/modifiers. 12+ carriers, most of which are Bren variants. *The Bren carriers provide good protection vs small arms, excellent speed & mobility along with a lot of extra MG firepower. *Potentially, almost an entire company could be mounted in carriers. Armour: A full Churchill tank squadron (18 tanks) with a mix 6-lbers and 75mm variants along with 2 x 95mm heavy support tanks. Crews are a mix of regular and veterans. *At nearly 40 tons, the Churchills have far more protection than the Mk IV. *The extra protection & weight makes the Churchills very slow, limiting their mobility. *Firepower of the Churchills is ample to take out a Mk IV but its most impressive feature is the ammo load of 80+ main gun rounds and nearly 10,000 rounds of 7.92mm for the 2 x MGs. Artillery: Heavy support consisting of 4 x 25 lbers and 6 x 81mm mortars with the latter split into 3 missions of 2 tubes each. The FOO & HQ units provide reasonable response time for the mortars but the 25lbers are much slower to bring onto target. There is sufficient ammo to conduct preparatory bombardment and still have enough for in-contact fire missions. Furthermore, the infantry also carries 9 x integral 2” mortars. While the 2” has limited lethality, it is able to provide very targeted smoke screens with 1-2 minutes. Reinforcements: None, all British forces are present from the beginning. SITUATION FRIENDLY Infantry: 1 x dismounted COY with regular/vet experience & positive leadership modifiers. Mechanized scout platoon of 2 sections, regular experience and mostly negative modifiers. Support platoon with 4 x MG34 HMGs (regular experience) and 2 x snipers (veteran & crack). *3 x Panzershreks and normal dose of MP40s, MG42s and panzerfausts in the COY. *7 x SPW 251 half-tracks for scouts. These are purely battle taxis as experience has proven that small arms fire will take them out and kill the passengers easily. On the plus side, they all have AP ammo to enhance all other infantry based MGs. Armour: 1 x Mk IV panzer COY (14 tanks) with regular crews. *Mk IV’s offer little protection against any British AT weapons due to thin armour. *Good speed and mobility, especially compared to the Churchills. *The 75mm L48 guns are good but likely unable to penetrate at long (600m+) ranges. 2 x Tigers arrive mid-way through the battle and have the ability to take out all enemy tanks at long ranges while surviving most hits over the frontal arc. Artillery: Zero to start! Rockets and 81mm arrive as reinforcements. Reinforcements: 25-30 minutes (nebelwerfers rocket battery) , 45-50 minutes (81mm mortars) and 50-60 minutes – 2 x Tiger tanks! GROUND & MISSION Ground: Total frontage to be covered is 1300m – a large area for limited infantry. The top half (where the British deploy) is open wheat and grass. The middle area is filled with hedgerows that severely block LOS and channel the approaching British forces into two routes on either the left or right sides. The railway goes from lower left to middle right and is bordered by hedges on each side except at the two gaps mentioned above. South of the rail line has a mix of orchards, open fields and two built up areas. Conditions are wet so bogging is problematic. Deployment: There is wide latitude for deploying the infantry COY & support platoon at the start. However, the panzer COY & scouts are on the far, upper right in the open fields must be moved if they are to be useful in the battle. Mission: Victory points (VP) are roughly evenly spread between destruction of enemy forces and 3 built up areas. British victory conditions are similar but include 2 touch objectives worth ~25% of VPs. Time: The battle last two hours so there is no time pressure on the attacking British except to exploit the initial numerical superiority before reinforcements arrive. For the German forces, the goal must be to delay as much as possible KEY DEDUCTIONS 1) British numerical superiority in armour and infantry at start increases the need to minimize losses and avoid becoming decisively engaged too soon. 2) British artillery dominance presents a large risk of preparatory fire inflicting heavy casualties and multiplying their advantage to a catastrophic level. Consequently, likely defensive positions along the hedges must be avoided initially and manned only at the last moment when contact is imminent. 3) The LOS and protection offered by hedges will allow identification of British main effort and movement of forces while denying the British knowledge of German deployment and movement. 4) Tank engagements – Should be restricted to under 500m to increase chance of penetration/kill. The panzers must only engage with clear information from infantry and use a “Shoot & Scoot” approach to avoid return fire. 5) Qualitative and weapon advantages of German infantry can only be exploited if enemy tanks are limited in their ability to provide suppressing fire. British Courses of Action (COA) COA#1 (left flank) Most likely as closest to British deployment area. The series of hedgerows will slow down the advance but once south of the hedges and into the open field by the orchard, the British can quickly seize both Manor 1 and the touch objective. COA#2 (right flank) Less likely than COA#1 as it would require an entire redeployment of forces of nearly a kilometre, thereby consuming time. However, a flanking force using this route would provide a serious envelopment threat and could quickly break into the rear area. Furthermore, a fast moving flanking force could engage the Panzer COY and Scouts before they are able to seek cover behind the hedges. German Battle Plan 1) Maintain Defensive Position 1 (DP1) as vital ground as it covers both enemy COA’s, has quick access to all other DPs for reinforcement or countermoves and a potential withdrawal route if things do not go well. 2) Sacrifice the left flank as the hedges should provide sufficient delay and any infantry used to defend them would be easily outflanked and destroyed. 3) “Rescue” the Panzer COY and Scouts ASAP by moving at max speed to DP1 4) Establish DP1A, 1B & 1C once COA#1 is confirmed and preparatory fire is over. 5) As enemy advances, leap frog back to DP1C and hold as long as possible. And, if things go pear-shaped? 1) Withdraw and establish defence south of the rail line with remaining forces. 2) Panzers to occupy DP2A & 2D to provide flanking fire into KZ’s. Infantry to defend DP2B & 2C. 3) Hopefully, drop the rocket artillery on Manor 1 just after the British have taken it ! The Early Stages (H to H+10 minutes) Using smoke rounds from their main guns, 3 Kompanie panzers create a screen to help cover their move into DP1. To minimize traffic congestion, three different routes were used. Scheer, one of 4th platoon's new crew commanders, directed his Mk IV into a mire but was able to recover a few minutes later and complete the move thanks to the skills of his driver. While bogging his panzer was embarrassing and would undoubtedly result in jokes from his peers, Scheer was glad his error hadn't had more serious consequences as he could have easily been caught in the open by the nearby British tankers Kroner’s 1st platoon/25 Hitler Jugend waits in DP1C to occupy DP1A & 1B. Minimal scouts and observers are positioned at the northern hedges to minimize potential losses from any British preparatory artillery barrages. Harzer’s 2nd platoon/25 defends the vital ground of DP1 while 3rd platoon/25, under Cristoph, is in reserve along the rail line east of Manor 1. While Zimmerman and his 3 MkIV’s race around Manor 1 to reinforce Kroner's platoon, the remaining panzers of 3 Kompanie/22nd Pz Regt deploy. Meanwhile, the scouts conduct a rapid re-supply program for 1st & 2nd Platoon to top them up on 9mm and 7.92mm AP ammunition (the faded infantry symbols in the half tracks). To the far, top left, a sniper and HMG report the sounds of British armour. Zimmermann’s haste to block the British high speed advance down the main road proves costly as a Churchill, firing from behind the hedges, brews up one of his platoon’s Mk IV’s. With the British main effort seeming to confirm COA1 along the left flank, Kroner and 1st Platoon occupy DP1A, 1B and 1C while Harzer stretches 2nd platoon’s defence of the vital ground along the northern hedgerow to aid his friend. In the interim, the legendary sniper Fink has set up his hunting stand and awaits his prey. First Contact (H+10 to H+20) Kroner and 1st platoon remain carefully hidden behind the hedges and avoid the suppressive fire of Churchill tanks, waiting to draw more British infantry into their kill zone. Well concealed behind the hedges, Fink carefully takes aim at an incautious Churchill crew commander, ignoring the 75mm HE rounds and MG fire directed at the opening in the hedges just a short distance away. The exhaust from the enemy tanks gives him a perfect wind gauge as he adjusts for a range of 340m. Slowly exhaling, he gently applies pressure to the trigger until he feels the recoil. The 7.92mm AP round strikes home and the British tanker slumps over, fatally shot through the chest. With the British scouts giving the all clear, more of their comrades rise and begin to advance along the hedgerows and main road. Waiting until the enemy are almost upon him and his men, Kroner screams the order to open fire and his platoon springs the ambush. They blast away at extreme short range with a hail of MG42 and MP40 fire with lethal efficiency. Further away, the success of Fink in killing the British crew commander has forced the remaining crew to pop smoke and withdraw. The British appear to be taking a very cautious approach along the left flank as their armour has not yet moved beyond the first set of hedgerows. As the additional elements of his platoon reinforce DP1A, Kroner already begins to think about how difficult it will be to conduct a fighting withdrawal through the open field behind him.

I'm just adding my two cents (or $20 + taxes, as the case may be) to the issue of the new vehicle pack. I love the idea of upgrades and new vehicles but I am in the same boat as several other people with respect to the point and conditions under which I am willing to pay for the pack. Without any new scenarios that employ the pack, I am not too keen as I enjoy QBs far less than regular ones. That being the case, I will wait and see how the pack turns out and if it goes well and a number of scenarios are put together, I will have no difficulty in paying for it. On the issue of paying for packs/scenario development, I agree that people need to be reimbursed for their efforts and that BF is a business, not my personal gaming charity With that in mind, here are a few ideas other than direct sales taken liberally from other video games on how to monetize CMBN (warning, some ideas are less serious than others!!): 1) Ongoing user fees - a lot of software I buy these days has a self-destruct mechanism that expires after one year/period. I for one am glad that I can continue to use CMBN as long as I want although the patches do effectively accomplish a similar thing. 2) An "app-store" - if people are truly interested in scenario development, a central repository where players could buy additional scenarios might be viable. This would encourage both "professional" and "amateur" scenario developers. 3) Advertising - how about flooding the start up screen with ads for various products that you don't need but are suddenly under a compulsion to buy? 4) In-game Advertising - my personal favourite. I want to see the infantry putting Trojan brand condoms on their rifles before the assault river crossing, tankers smoking Camel cigarettes and gunners drinking Budweiser before lofting a few mortar rounds down range!

Hello, I am ChappyCanuck's buddy and am currently the opposing force in our Huzzar! battle While I am far from being an expert in game design or AI algorithms, I am an engineer and also have some experience related to the LOS issue as I was part of team that examined a military war simulation program similar to CMBN, albeit it was over 10 years ago. For our evaluation, we used the program and the associated maps to estimate the intervisibility (i.e. line of sight or LOS) at over 200 locations spread out over ~300 square kilometers in one of our training areas. We then chose 10 different LOS arcs from each location and proceeded to use a Coyote reconnaissance vehicle to measure real life LOS from each of those locations, using the appropriate arc (thank goodness for GPS and laser rangefinder!!). The findings validated the LOS algorithms in the simulation program with the following key observations: 1) Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) - DTED sampling largely determines accuracy. Put more simply, if you sample the elevation of the ground every 25m to form your grid, it will be much more accurate than if you use a 100m grid. In game terms, ground based LOS accuracy can improved by reducing the size of each "hex" or "square". The offset to this is that the complexity increases inversely with the square size (e.g. simulating a 1km x 1km battlefield with 10m x 10m "hexes" = 10,000 hexes to check at each step during a turn while increasing this to 5m x 5m = 40,000 hexes) with a commensurate decrease in game speed. Faster processors can largely offset this but then more processing time is dedicated to determining merely if LOS does exist and not to the issue of whether or not the LOS is detected. 2) Rastor overlays - these represent the terrain features overlay (woods, buildings, hedges, etc.). This is where the realm of stochastic (statistics) decision making enters the game. Depending on how a terrain feature is modeled, this will impact the probability of being able to see through it and hence assessing whether or not LOS exists. Depending on the modelling algorithm and the "roll of the dice", this could even result in Unit A having LOS to Unit B while Unit B does not have LOS to Unit A - likely due to Unit A having "rolled" higher than Unit B. Ideally, there would be only one roll that applied to both units but this again depends on how LOS is determined. 3) Tac AI & Target Arcs - This is perhaps the area where I see the greatest potential for deviations from real life and an area that could benefit from some TLC. Based on numerous examples, the "survival instinct" for units in CMBN appears to be nearly eliminated when the Target Arc or Target Armour in Arc commands are used. In our example of the Sherman and Panther, I strongly suspect that the Sherman was just outside the Arc LOS even though the Sherman was within the general LOS of the Panther. Earlier in the game, one of ChappyCanucks' halftracks drove up to an opened up Sherman just a couple meters outside the covered armour arc. When I checked, the Sherman had LOS the entire time the halftrack approached but did nothing - it merely waited for the halftrack to stop ~10m away and then kill the Sherman Commander with MG fire! I can accept when LOS doesn't happen when I expect it to based on the stochastic processes and modelling involved. While there is room for improvement here as noted above, there are tradeoffs in terms of processing power and complexity. However, the survival instinct is an area where I think the TacAI could definitely benefit from some tweaking (not twerking, you Miley fans out there!). At this point, my default solution is to only use the arc commands at long ranges where I am not too concerned about the enemy sneaking up on me or I want to ensure that my tanks and ATGs shoot up opposing vehicles rather than wasting ammo on lone scouts that are conducting recce by death.