Rinaldi
-
Posts
1,186 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
21
Posts posted by Rinaldi
-
-
Finally finished off all my matches in Normandy, and got to doing a PBEM with my go-to opponent in Black Sea. He loves to play as the Ukrainians, and so the stage was set. Caught the game-winning attack:
Black Sea makes it too easy; IR, APS and Rolling Smoke basically meant there was nothing the enemy ATGMs and infantry could do but keep their heads down and hope to survive the airbursts. T72B3s bypassed the Ukrainian infantry to savage their defenses in-depth as Motor Rifles come up behind and mop up. The battle lasted 17 minutes.
Liked Black Sea, now that I got a MP battle under the belt, love Black Sea.
-
At some point we will likely come back with an AAR if time permits.Please! I can't get enough of them; great way to pick other people's brains.
-
Honestly, in all the reading I've done, I haven't found mention of platoon level radios for AIRs. Most of the tactical manuals as well seem to be avert to spreading a Company out on as much of a frontage as a regular rifle company, but then again the manuals are all a bit out of touch with the reality in the ETO. Its made even more confusing because those same manuals stress that Halftracks should only be used as fire-platforms in the most ideal circumstances; so they anticipated constant dismounted action. A few minutes of google-fu doesn't seem to give me anything that contradicts this, but I'm really not sure.
C2 can only be maintained from the mount, yeah. Normally it would be a bit of an issue, as the strong C2 links for the Americans are what I consider to be an advantage in game, but AIR platoons are large and make up for the lack of squad level firepower with the 60mm and double MMGs. They're hands down my favorite unit to play with, even in poor armored terrain, and I've never had problems co-coordinating fire support for them, but my Captains are often up front.
-
It has changed, as you suspect and found out. This was brought up recently in a thread, if it interests you.
It changed with 3.0; my suspicion was and remains that its just them incorporating a feature from Red Thunder (as in Soviet rifle platoons, the HQ is attached to the 1st rifle squad). Historically its a decent abstract. The Armored Rilfe Platoon's PNCO often traveled in a different halftrack for security reasons in practice but on paper they were deployed thusly. It also is one less team to micromanage when mounting/remounting units. Pre-3.0 the 1st Squad of this formation was under strength and led personally by the XO, who was one grade in rank above the other squad leaders.
-
Battle Details:
---------------------------
Map - Hell's Highway Open
Theater: France, August
Rarity: StandardSize: Large
No Attacker's Handicap.House Rules: Anything Goes
Made this thread so we don't clog up the screenshots thread with discussion. Any questions or observations are welcome, enjoy.
-
The use of Tank crews for recon is worthy of it's own topic!
You're bringing up things I never considered before - such as differences in the terrain. I suppose it should be evident that one would approach it differently, but I always was so reluctant to dismount crews because - if I don't scout and lose the vehicle, well that's tough. Hopefully I got a shot off first before dying. If I lose a crew, I know I never had a chance to get that shot off. Faulty logic, likely but that's how I always was afraid to use crews for anything other than operating their equipment. Well Red Thunder puts you in the unique position to do that a few times. "Hunting for the Bug" is a good example mission, you only start with a few tank rider units but with a plethora of armor on the field, including T-70s. Alot of treelines overlooking a km+ of rolling wheatfields made me think it was wiser to scout dismounted than risk exposing the full tank. It paid off as a few turns of observing showed me a 88 a ways out.
I will be making my own topic for the video soonish, so I won't muck up the screenshot thread with text posts any further. I'll be open to critique and questioning then.
-
Eh, depends. Sometimes its a disaster. I've had the most amount of luck in Red Thunder doing it, terrain far more suited to do that on Steppes/Rolling farmland. Not as common as it is in Normandy.
-
Thanks Heinrich. I do my best to try and mix top-down with up-close, though editing this one was a pain, I may reupload a more carefully cut version when I find the time.
Did you dismount tanks and scout with the crews at one point? I saw a tank crew getting back into a tank and didn't know if they'd bailed due to enemy fire or if you had ordered them out to scout ahead.While I often do this on open maps, this wasn't the case for that crew. Their tank was essentially a tractor from stummel fire, everything but the hull machinegun having been degraded or knocked out. I dismounted them in the rear so they could be an extra pair of eyes...when suddenly a handful of survivors came out of that bypassed farm.
-
A Video AAR of my latest PBEM. A bit of a riproarer for me. I may make a separate thread in a few day's time to discuss it, we'll see. For those who are handicapped for attention, the big booms begin around 26 minutes.
-
How would VT fuses not be applicable to Barbarossa? Simply lack of imagination or understanding on the hitlers' part?
Ease of production. Barbarossa needed quantity to equip 4 million assaulting troops, alot of existing designs were simplified (like the PanzerBusche), and alot more planned designs were accorded low priority, like the Pak40, which didn't enter production until 1942 as a result.
-
Lessons learned:
-IG was bad choice. Not mobile, long set up time, and unable to exit deploy area except where it was killed because woods impassable to anything on wheels. Better would have been 1 light mortar to lay down fire and smoke, which was badly needed for cover to get to farm, and another HMG. The combined cost would have been about the cost of the IG.
-HMG was crucial in the battle. As long as it was working, it was almost impossible for the enemy to advance past the point where they were in heavy cover. Two would have been better. German doctrine centered around the MG and for good reason. They are devastatingly effective and ensuring they could work unmpeded would have made me take less losses and maintain better tactical control of the map.
-Their LMG killed the second most people on the American side, despite being brought into play very late in the battle - the last 10 min or so.
-We were unsuccessful in killing a single man behind the hedgerow. This was quite a surprise to me. I thought an HMG, LMG, and countless rifle rounds would eventually kill SOMEONE there!
-I Mistook rifle grenades early on for light mortar fire. I was very concerned about a bombardment initially. That's a matter of inexperience, but it was in retrospect scary that rifle grenades could reach to the rear of my positions.
This is always the most interesting part of an AAR for me; the break down and self-critique. No. 1 reason to play CM: Its good mental floss. The entire AAR was great to follow and read, thanks for doing it.
I agree with the mortar assessment, I love IGs but its not something I would reinforce a Zug with unless it was for zone defense and in a prepared position.
Surest thing to take out enemies behind a hedge is indirect fire, you'd be surprised how much of a beating you can take; my latest match saw a local counterattack by my opponent; about half a platoon supported by a Stummel. He ran into a blocking force behind low bocage and couldn't dislodge them despite sustained howitzer fire, only a handful of men lightly wounded.
On that note, I just want to point out how rare it is for me to see a German rifle platoon actually sustain more casualties than a "defender" in a victory.
-
@Rinaldi, thanks for the tips. I will try these.
No worries. I use mainly 'junk science' when I come up with these solutions rather than any intuitive grasp of how the game ticks, but it hasn't backfired yet. More often than not you're only going to find out about a minefield when you take losses; so use judgement and time if its on your side when moving into areas ripe for mines.
Mines that are detected are rarely cleared through and through as well; rather the sign will remain yellow, meaning that some mines are cleared but the area is still hot. I rarely try to force minefields but rather look for a gap or bombard the area with high caliber shells if available to cause cratering, the only time I ran into a minefield I was prepared to force was in Shock Force and the mission ended before I could do so.
-
Hey gents. I am just looking for some advice from more experienced players on how to keep my Engineers in the battle. Here are my frustrating examples.
1. Fighting in hedgerows my Engineers blast a path but run through to get MG'd to death loosing the whole unit. Can you blast without running through?
2. Engineers in hunt mode going through minefield. I thought if they spot a mine they would stop. I lose three engineers on separate occasions to mines with the engineers in hunt mode searching for the mines.
I could be using them wrong I am not sure. I just thought Engineers would hunt out mines than drop like being fired upon so they could mark them.
Any help would be appreciated.
1) It not foolproof and can lead to blasting where you don't want it, but try putting it next to, rather on the other side of, a hedgerow.
2) Break off a scout team, and move carefully, hunt through a suspect field and stop for 30-45 seconds at every action spot. They must be adjacent to the action spot that is mined for a while to spot the mines. Adjust time paused according to Engineer's skill and leadership.
-
Old-banned-Steiner, meet the new-not-yet-banned-Steiner.
(Sigh) It seems some things never change.
Oh this explains so very much.
An aside though...at the risk of derailing this thread even more; Luke are you the same LukeFF from subsim? If so, thank you for all your work on the RFB mod. Just recently got into SHIV on the suggestion of a friend and have been loving every moment of RFB+RSRD.
-
You need to gather your remaining volkgeiste and make a stirring come-from-behind.
-
The problem with the Bulge is that it gets over-focused on the Southern-Shoulder and Bastogne; where the Germans had all their initial scraps of success, and of course where the media ran hog-wild. The Northern-Shoulder is far more interesting, imo. Many German units never got off their start line; like the 79th VolksGren which actually got counterattacked and destroyed after repeated failure. 2nd Panzer also attacked more towards the North and was the closest to the Meuse, if memory serves, before being blunted and destroyed by the 2nd Armored.
Alot of interesting stuff for the community to do between the Bulge and Nordwind, I just hope its not all tired and already-visited areas.
-
Some people can't be pleased Womble. Ever. Perish the thought that its the very first screenshots we've seen of something that is so clearly a work in progress.
-
-
Yes, to pinpoint unspotted ATGs to the exact action spot. Really great...Oh for heaven's sake...
Some people will never be satisfied, I'm beginning to understand why there's so much delicious passive aggression when the developers respond to posts like this.
Edit: Here it is, I'm glad I decided to read on after downing some stiff drink to steel my resolve;
Anybody smell something a bit "off" in one of these posts? Perhaps the stink that comes from someone who has been banned repeatedly from this Forum for grinding axes and carrying around big chips on his shoulder? I know I sure do! I am even fairly certain I know which one. Almost certain enough to just go ahead and ban him now. But I'll let the charade go on a bit longer if he wishes to.
Steve
Lipsmacking.
-
Bud,
Cool vignette.
It gets harder and harder to play out a turn sometimes when you can't resist taking screenshots and then posting them. It really slows down the gameplay, haha.
Heinrich505
When I decide to film, this happens all the time. Especially with PBEM matches, thankfully my usual opponents have the patience of Saints.
-
You have a competent and aggressive opponent; you should be thankful
- makes for good material! -
Cheers, will check it out.
-
If anyone could point me in that direction; would be appreciated. I'm coming close to finishing the Road to Monteburg and am chomping at the bits for some movement.
-
Strange how one GI with a rifle grenade has me so worried. I guess that's what happens when your whole force is only 41 men!
Casualty wise were sort of even, but if Kohl has a full platoon that's 39 men right there and not counting bazooka teams or the MMG and I don't know if he has anything else. He's lost a little less than me but has more to start with.
I hope I don't run out of ammo for the HMG 42. That thing does miracles!
One good round from the leIG may equalize things. Its so tough though to keep them on the gun and able to fire.
You're bringing up things I never considered before - such as differences in the terrain. I suppose it should be evident that one would approach it differently, but I always was so reluctant to dismount crews because - if I don't scout and lose the vehicle, well that's tough. Hopefully I got a shot off first before dying. If I lose a crew, I know I never had a chance to get that shot off. Faulty logic, likely but that's how I always was afraid to use crews for anything other than operating their equipment. 
- makes for good material!
How Common Were Crack Units?
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
In my experience they have.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I try to squeeze every drop out of my QB purchases; which usually means buffing leadership and experience for individual units. I once had enough points left over to make all the 76s in an armored company "Crack" - but their rarity skyrocketed as a result. It made me experiment; you also take a rarity hit in June if you try to make a regular rifle unit 'crack', for example. Its not disastrous but it happens.