Rinaldi

The CiC is not always a reasonable man, I imagine - on a serious note you've maneuvered insanely fast given that a significant portion of your force is dismounted. I imagine the mapmaker did not expect the battle to develop so rapidly. How do you plan on keeping your supporting fire in the game as you go into closer quarters with the Ukrainians? Do you expect your casualties to increase noticeably as you go room to room? I'm curious to see how the UKR troops perform in close quarters, rifle to rifle.

Privet, Komandir! CiC wishes to express his displeasure at the reasons being given for the delay. Crush the pocket immediately.

Gah, curse my budget! I really want to get the latest upgrades ASAP just for the damage decals; its always the little things - as all these excellent screenshots have shown. Soon, though, soon!

To be fair to our backed-into-a-corner armor officer, he has been updating a bit more sporadically than Bill as well

I've been greatly enjoying both AARs and their divergent styles. I actually enjoy the narrative style; reminds everyone that all those pixels you move into MG and HE fire are supposed to be repesenting human lives (c3K, you widowmaker you). Battlefront certainly knows how to shift units with their Beta Testers, all this showcasing has my cash practically floating out of my wallet.

How would you rate the BMP-3 thus far, not in relative terms, but overall: Do you trust your infantry in them, does the ARENA and firepower they have offset their relative fragility and penchant for going straight to the moon when hit? What I'm trying to say is - what's your verdict: Boom, or Bust?

Well, another video AAR for you all - the map and scenario is by a "Daniel Pasquale" and can be downloaded here . Unlike my previous AAR, there was in fact a battle of encirclement fought at the crossroads of Montleimar, France. The majority of Germans would historically 'escape' into the Vosges because of their delaying actions - but the battle was a decisive success for the Americans and allowed forces landing in Dragoon to link up with the US 3rd Army. Watch it here: EDIT: Montelimar is the actual name of the map, clearly I need to retake French. I commend Pasquale for making a believable map; its large and has multiple good avenues of approach for an attacker: If you're having trouble following along with what's going along with the video, here's two images to help. The battle can be divided broadly into two stages. All in all, a decent scenario. Its definitely winnable for the Axis, far more so than my last H2H on "Muddy Waters", and the LW Infantry were actually above their usual dismal ability. The wooden bunkers are a novelty, I understand that historically the Germans had managed to fortify Montelimar quite a bit as the battle for it raged, but both of us can't help but wonder if a few extra, easier to conceal foxholes would've been of greater use to my opponent. Though my material build up was substantially faster then my opponent, neither of us felt that this game had an 'experience' slant; I think an inexperienced player can easily win on the defense here if he plays his cards right. The relative parity of forces was a pleasant surprise to me. I was expecting to be smashing my head against Panthers; if anything, I think I had a decisive superiority in Armor considering I was fighting largely Panzer IVs (You can tell I'm being serious because I still lost more tanks ).

That Tunguska has been a little glimmer of hope and success for your opponent thus far - certainly the mission kill on the T-90 would've given me hope if I were in his shoes. Should be satisfying for you to finally take it out or force it to displace. Everywhere else though the battle has been going largely your way; any ballpark ideas of how many enemy infantry you've killed or wounded?

Nothing more satisfying than a good hull-down.

I cannot stress this enough; its a clever bit of game design that is firmly rooted in reality - wholly acceptable abstraction. It also saves some poor sod from being hounded to death from making some minute model that will go un-noticed 3/4s of the time. Ding ding ding. The bottom line remains that if you drive unsupported armor into a treeline; you're taking a risk, and if there's concealed infantry in that treeline, you're going to have a bad time. Who cares how it happened; the truth remains that it should happen. Sometimes when enemy fire is too intense to get friendly infantry to keep pace with the tanks, I attempt to use rifle and MG area fire to screen my tanks and push them through such danger areas - sometimes it works, more often than not, it fails. Its the reality of attempting to push through buttoned armor into 'infantry' terrain - which in case you haven't noticed, NW Europe seems to be abundant in

Oh? Well I'm glad to report I'm not affected by that particular problem ; his Panzer IV was buttoned up and my Stuarts were already in position based on audio contact.

Here's another little teaser from a PBEM that's in-filming. Bit of context: I made a feint with a few light tanks to see if I couldn't get a reaction from my opponent, and sure enough he deploys some of his tanks. He's moving over open ground, but my Stuarts are moving behind and around woodlots - guess who gets the first crucial surprise shots off ? https://www.dropbox.com/s/pez8cbfurpk2apl/11%20-%20Ambush.wmv?dl=0

Ah well, thanks again everyone. Another friend and myself have begun a H2H on the Montliemar map. I've decided to film it as I suspect it will be played through quickly; given that we're both students with light schedules (as in, I have none until May, and he barely has one ) and 'tis the season. Keep your eyes peeled for a video - its sure to be an interesting match.

Loved the little parade review in Part 1 with the Tiger IIs haha, awesome videos!

"It really felt like my infantry at first were for show; that my defense would come down to my Artillery officer and StuGs" - words from the horse's mouth. Unlike you, he thought the Nebelwerfers a blessing, as he blasted an area to simply deny my transit through it. Buying time. He thought the German *total* force was good, but that the reinforcements, at least the first wave, could've arrived sooner (It certainly would've helped me, as my flank most likely would've hit air as intended and allowed me to deploy in his rear, blast!), but doesn't think the total force needs a redressing, just the initial one. He basically concluded that had he (a) actually had the first wave of reinforcements in a timely manner and ( had actually used the phase lines as lines of retreat rather than hold out up front for as long as possible, that he could've easily have had victory. Instead he had to use SPGs as a rapid reaction force which often exposed them to flanks. I'd have to agree on that, I may have gotten lucky with the first StuG, but the rest tried to fight my battle - 6:4 is a decent ratio of Allied to Axis armor lost, and most of my Shermans were killed by defensive infantry fire. Edit: More details from him.

You're quite welcome! I won't sit here and claim I'm a genius, but I'm usually the stronger player between myself and my opponent, so it was a massive (and much needed) ego boost for him - and a much needed slap in the face for me haha. It was frustrating but ultimately too easy, I wonder if the Assault Sherman and the M7s are necessary? The over matched firepower is 100 percent realistic for an Armored force pursuing a defeated foe, but all the same. I was expecting a tactical victory - considering I had lost a quarter of my overall infantry, yeah. I don't think you should tweak the points all that much, if my input counts for anything, but certainly that success should've been considered local at best. My opponent (thankfully ) didn't feel I should've been docked marks, but again, I believe I should've barely slipped past with a tactical victory at that.

Thanks folks; Ian I decided against embedding a large and rather low quality image to avoid having it take up space. Next time I'll just embed it however for everyone's ease.

Finally managed to find the time to sit back and bang out a narration for this PBEM match I concluded with a friend not too long ago on the scenario H2H "Muddy Waters." The scenario is by a gentleman named Bimmer and is one of those 'plausible' or typical scenarios not based on any true to life action. You can download the mission here. The video: (Hopefully my voice won the battle of wills for you this time, Mord) My plan was to probe either ford and decide which one would be better to force a crossing at(2); then exploit. The Americans start with quite a bit of intelligence (1), to simulate FFI partisans reporting enemy dispositions to you, and my first definitive contact came at the left most ford, hence where I focused my main effort. A lucky break early in the game allowed me to punch deeply to the 2nd Phase-Line and engage enemies along their route of approach while I cleared enemies along the 1st Phase-Line with less mobile forces. Unfortunately, I got into a knife fight with enemy SPGs in restrictive terrain - casualties were acceptable, but a personal shock to me. First time I've won a match but taken more casaulties! Bimmer made a highly entertaining scenario that provides a healthy challenge to both sides. In hindsight, to anyone planning on doing a match on this, I recommend the stronger or more experienced player goes German. The Allies eventually completely overmatch the Axis, so my wild flailing near the end practically guaranteed a victory. PS: Moderators, I don't want to clog up the forums, should I collect all my videos (as I make them quite often...) into a single thread, or are individual posts like this allowed?

A video from my next narrated PBEM game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nonnpx4nxu45yht/10%20-%2009-01.mp4?dl=0 Playing H2H "Muddy Waters"; I thought I tracked the enemy Stug as it tried to make an escape - I was wrong! Luckily the crew was so panicked, they backed up, and tried to escape again. A lucky break I unfortunately paid for with interest later on....grrr - there was quite a bit of panicked screaming from both myself and my opponent, I imagine.

Cheers man, I'm between school sessions (I don't return until may) and with the job aside, I have to fight off cabin fever at home - the videos are a good escape. I'm going to need to drop some cash on a durable headset; the poor audio quality is a god-awful combination of a cheap desk mic meeting my attempts to make it better (as you can hear, it didn't work). All I can ask for is everyone's patience in this regard. More videos to come, just trying to find them time to narrate (as loudly as possible) a finished PBEM on "H2H Muddy Waters" that almost brought me to fits and tears before I claimed victory. As for that voice mod, I'll try to tack down a name for it; for the life of me I cannot remember.

Down to last mag, if memory serves

Just a quick Hussar affair on my flank during the "Tiger and Elephants" scenario. Got a bit silly with UCs and didn't immediately regret it; clearly something that must be immortalized in video! Such interesting little 'battles within battles' are what make Combat Mission my go-to time-killer. Hope you all enjoy.

No that's not necessarily the case. A German kampfgruppe is adhoc by definition and has no definitive size; it could be a reinforced company, it could be a regiment-sized all-arms force. Likewise, in 1940s parlance, a US Army task force didn't necessarily have a definitive size - and it could consist of elements of a battalion broken up and "married" to elements of other Battalions. A common 'marriage' of units would be a tank company to an infantry battalion, or during more maneuver oriented operations an entire tank company to an entire infantry company. In modern military parlance now, a "Taskforce" is usually a battalion sized element of all-arms (e.g: 1 Company of Leopard 2s, 2 Companies of Mech Infantry) where as smaller elements are now called "Company Teams" (e.g 1 platoon of leopard 2s, 3 platoons of mech infantry).

The US didn't use the Continental brigade system; regiments fought as wholes (where as a regiment like the RTR would have its battalions spread over many brigades, divisions, corps); its why they were numerically sequenced as it had little impact on OPSEC. A note that the Germans used centralized Regiments over Brigades late war as well. Not all US units were sequentially numbered though; units like the late 1944 model Armored divisions had no RHQs; so they would have individual AIBs with often odd numbering(10th AIB, 51st, 53rd).

Differing doctrines, I'd wager, as well as different expectations. Something like this would be left to the minutiae of the divisional commanders, rather than the GHQ planning Market Garden, no? I know the media overplays American hesitation towards the plan in general, but I suspect the American airborne commanders had a more realistic expectation of how long it would take for armor support to arrive. If memory serves me correctly as well, didn't the 1st Airborne not have any experience since Italy '43? The 101 had just come off a relatively hectic jump in Normandy. The differing experiences, commander's expectations, TO&E and legitimate quartermaster concerns are all factors I would consider in scrutinizing the difference.