Rinaldi

The Forty-Eighth Minute
Objective ROT
Here you go Sgt Plucky, have some of this!

The scouts continue to advance and get a spot in the trees outside the objective.

It's another AT rifle team. I wonder if this is the same one who fired on me from the scrub at the start of hostilities and retreated?

A Tiger and a Panther are moving into firing positions.

The Panther starts firing this turn on the reverse slope at the western end of the village.

Next turn the other panzers will be moving up and start to area fire on the objective. The scouts will stop and engage the AT rifle team while the rest of the zug catches up. The SPWs are going to be moved up too.

NAI5
The AT rifleman is taken out very quickly by a burst from a SPW. I must admit I'm impressed with the accuracy of my troops thus far.


The contact icon is still there so I assume his pal is still alive. I'm going to start advancing towards the treeline net turn.
SITMAP

Still quiet on the right, the attack continues on the left. As I identify units in the objective this map could get messy so I'm going to provide a close in view whilst the attack is underway.

Things should start heating up nicely now. It'll be interesting to see how he reacts to these attacks, if at all.
MMM

The Forty-Forth to Forty-Sixth Minutes
Objective ROT
The scouts advance by bounds and spot the other member of the AT rifle team trying to retreat (to the town I assume). He doesn't make it.


The panzers start crossing the marsh, thankfully the bridge doesn't seem to be mined. I didn't think it would be but you never know.

Once the Tigers are across the first Panther crosses too.

He takes up position and is immediately fired upon. It wasn't an AT gun or tank round, smallish caliber and no idea where it came from.

The infantry soon id the shooter. It's another AT rifle team holed up in the buildings ahead. This seems like a suicidal move given the weapon he has, the range (did he really think he could take a Panther out at over 200m with that thing?) and the amount of guns that are now training on his location. Here the MG42 team is taking aim but they are by no means the only ones who have spotted him. The panzers know where he is but don't have a confirmed spot when the turn ends, but it's only a matter of time.
I shall call him Sgt Plucky.

Good news! The second Panther has arrived on station and will cross the bridge to join in the attack.

1st Kompanie continue to move up AoA2.


NAI5
The rest of 2nd Kompanie are moving up AoA1 to investigate NAI5. They are about 400m away from the treeline and dismounting. This treeline will be getting a healthy dose of recon by fire as I do not want to get within 200m of any suspected enemy positions.


KG RECHTS
I left them where they were for these turns to see if they can spot anything but nothing is happening. I am going to conduct some recon by fire next turn on the farm buildings and see if anything shoots back. It might prompt him into action.
SITMAP

Both mortar fires have stopped so I need to be alert for a counter attack through the woods on the right but 3rd Kompanie is in good position to see anything coming that way or trying to reinforce Objective ROT.
On the left the infantry screen is continuing to push towards the objective followed by the panzers, they are nearly in range to start shooting the snot out of the area. 1st Kompanie are moving to their jumping off points and will wait until the town has been bombared before starting their attack. I'm hoping any routing units will break towards the south and the trees (the right on the map) and right into the LOS of 2nd zug/3 Kompanie.
MMM

Still gathering my forces but we're close to kicking off the assault. Some screenshots to whet your appetite!




MMM
 

Thanks, glad you're enjoying it. I must admit I am fearful of the same as I don't have too much armour and they represent a lot of firepower. Hopefully I can keep them alive!
MMM

Update
A few more minutes have gone by but not a lot happened as I am repositioning my forces for the next phase. KG LINKS cleared KT7 and it is indeed clear so they will hold position.
As @George MC correctly guessed I am gathering my forces for a combined arms assault on Objective ROT. It has at least a platoon defending it, probably more likely a company/squadron sized force and is the most valuable objective in the AO. It's also very easy to defend from attack from the south and will give me a great jumping off point for future manoeuvres.
The left flank of the village is wide open and will allow me to mass my firepower and bombard it from a distance, albeit a not very long distance but I should be able to bring enough guns to bear to overwhelm whatever defences he has arrayed around the objective. Speaking of which, based on the templated enemy forces this is how I would lay out the defences, I've included an AT Gun platoon too even though they are not part of the Cavalry squadron he would have to expect an attack on the objective with armour at some point.

As you can see I'd concentrate on defending the north and west of the objective, sighting the heavy weapons in keyhole positions or in cover of the few trees there are. These will be getting some special attention as will the reverse slope, I think I will just about be able to put fire on there from the open ground to the north.
The plan is to allow the tanks to attrit the enemy from afar and then 1 Ko. will attack along AoA2 and then fan out and clear the town, details of that will follow once I've had time to have a closer look. The supporting assets will then shift fire to pin any defenders in the east of the objective and cut off any retreat or reinforcements.

Support will be provided by the Panthers and Tigers along with 2 Kompanie's SPWs and their weapons platoon. I will use a zug from 2 Ko. to keep pressure on the north side so he thinks I'm attacking from that direction then hit him in the ear with 1 Kompanie who will come in from the west.
The other zug in 2 Ko. will be pushing up AoA1 with the StuG to investigate NAI5 and see if he has any defences at all on this side of the AO.
3 Kompanie will stay on the right flank to provide security against any counterattacks from that direction and perhaps perform a holding attack, yet TBD.
That's the plan, everyone is redeploying at the moment so I'll only provide updates should anything unusual happen, otherwise I'll report back once everyone is ready to begin the assault.
SITMAP

MMM

"Ah, if only people had listened to The Diggers back in the 1650s."
Elizabeth lifts hers eyes from her Whitehall Gazette, rolls them and mutters, "They couldn't listen them cuz you had 'em killed. You dozy plonker!"

Quick Update
Alarm! Some intel just in! The scouts I sent across the bridge towards the SBF position to ensure it is clear report a contact on what looks like the banks of the boggy stream (they are the specks at the bottom of the image).

It's an unidentified infantry contact, might be another AT rifle team watching the approach as it would be roughly in line with where the one that fired on the scouts before retreating were. Interesting. If he is alert to my scouts then I may have to step things up slightly before he can react. The Tigers are just over the bridge ready to go and I have a 251/17 overwatching their probe.

MMM

Well, I guess you got me.  I didn't realize you I couldn't force you to do something.  I'll have to change my entire internet comms strategy.
You can comment on anything you want.  It is the internet, after all.  My comment was just advice to help you stop looking like a CM homer and reinforcing the BFC beta tester stereotype.  But fell free to not follow my commands.
I like CM and I like SB.  But I haven't played CM modern in almost three years, other than playing a bit of CMCW to see if anything was changed.  I still play some WW2 CM, but even that's getting a little old.  Anything close to modern though, I play SB.

You really need to back off from commenting on a game you know nothing about.  As I already said, you can play SB just like a wargame.  You don't need a human in the loop other than high-level decisions.  The AI is fully capable of picking targets and firing.  In fact, a fourth way to play is from the map only. 
SB is not perfect.  There are things that CM does very well that I would love to have in CM.  Mainly the experience and morale settings.  But for any combat after 1960, I'll take SB every time.

Which Russian tanks?  When?  Under what circumstances?

Yeah, right. Sure. Let’s make up more things that aren’t true.
 
 

Both historically, as well as from a gaming perspective, I'd say the main issue is less of which force is better/easier to use as much as which side has more variability in their options. Let's take a look at how each side stacks up:
Infantry
Although the Germans do have their good machine-guns, almost all Soviet squads have a higher complement of automatic weapons overall, and their mix of light MGs and SMGs will usually overwhelm the typical German infantry unit that still is mostly filled out with soldiers equipped with Kr 98 rifles. If the German unit is equipped with StG 44s (i.e. Begleit, Sturm & Volksgrenadiers) then the balance swings in their favour, but most units do not have StG 44s. Although the German infantry does have a distinct edge in anti-tank weapons (Panzerfausts/Panzerschrecks are far superior to anti-tank rifles), most of the time it is fighting other infantry and not tanks, and so I'd give Soviet infantry the advantage overall. 
Mechanized Infantry
This definitely goes to the Germans, with a catch. The German halftrack units have an excellent array of weapons and vehicles that gives them a considerable degree of flexibility on the battlefield. The Germans also have lots of special vehicles (e.g. AA vehicles) that the Soviets have no equivalent to. However, it should be remembered that both historically and from a gaming perspective, most German infantry (and even mechanized infantry for that matter) did not possess that many halftracks and other specialized vehicles. So this advantage usually doesn't mean all that much.
Armour
This comparison is interesting. From a purely technical standpoint, Panzer IV < T-34/85 < Panther, and Tiger < IS-2 < King Tiger. Thus, again, although the most powerful German armour is technically the "best", the Soviets have standard issue tanks/assault guns that outclass the more frequently encountered German armour (which is already rare enough as is). So I'd give this one to the Soviets as well, although only from mid-1944 onwards. 
In a nutshell, I'd say being the Germans is easier when you have the best they have to offer. A force equipped with Panthers, halftrack equipped infantry (especially Sturmgrenadiers), Sdkfz 251/21 AA vehicles plus armoured cars/scout halftracks represents a very powerful armoured fist that ought to be reckoned with even in the last days of the war. However the bread-and-butter Soviet complement of T-34/85s, IS-2s and SMG equipped infantry will usually be more than enough to deal with your average German infantry/armour. So I'd say that, for the period RT covers, the Soviets are easier to play when averaged across the board, but whenever the Germans can assemble the best mechanized elements they've got then they can absolutely tip the scales in their favour. 

“A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?”

“Is your wife a…’goer’… eh? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge nudge. Nudge nudge! Know what I mean? Say no more…Know what I mean?”

“You don’t frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called ‘Arthur King,’ you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.”

“Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.”

That was the biggest amount of rambling text I've seen in a long while, topped off with a random, unrelated quote at the end.

For me it's a dead heat. I enjoy playing both sides, with all of their inherent strengths and weaknesses.
If forced to choose I'd pick Germans as favorite, mostly down to their machine guns and top-tier armor, which I find more interesting (but not necessarily better) than the Russian tanks. Their advantages in optics, command and control and the aforementioned weaponry swings the vote. Command delay is not a thing in CMx2, which would swing it even more.
In 1944, the two sides are pretty well-matched from an equipment point of view, even if it's dissimilar in some ways. Germans tend to feel like a sharper, more surgical, but more brittle option than the Russians do. So in Combat Mission it comes down to scenario design, and often the real-world advantages one side may have had are less evident in what we play in this game. It's tactical of course. If Combat Mission were operational or even strategical, then things would perhaps look different.
For me, the word 'balance' has a negative connotation when it comes to war gaming. There's a sense that balance is a thing to strive for in scenario design, and while I get it, I think it serves to skew perspectives. Balance in (single player) historical wargaming should not be a priority in my view. It's OK to face difficult odds, or have no chance at all. The lack-of-balance should be a feature too, and if it was more woven in to scenario design I think I might have a different perspective on the subject of Russian vs German in Red Thunder.

Had a quick look through my dropbox/cloud/DMs etc to see if maybe Bloody Bill had also sent me a copy via some other means but no, this one is a complete mystery to me as well. Sorry for going 0 for 2 here. 

This one was rough around the edges and should never have been published in its current state. Sadly I don't have access to it, it's on a hard disk somewhere back in Canada, gathering dust. I never uploaded it to my cloud. Sorry, 37mm. 

God every time I see this it gives me the will to not ball a client out for one more day. Just pure gut laughter every time. 

This one was rough around the edges and should never have been published in its current state. Sadly I don't have access to it, it's on a hard disk somewhere back in Canada, gathering dust. I never uploaded it to my cloud. Sorry, 37mm. 

Ok, I thought I did acceptably but nope, tactical defeat:

 
point breakdown:

 
map at the end (I exited all of my troops):

doesn't feel right...

That mission is kinda broken. There is no Soviet air controller to call in the two SU27s you have for air support.

Took a crack at doing a late-summer Scenario after replaying the CMBS Russian campaign. Liked the look and feel of the map, figured it could pass for the Lorraine's rolling hills and open sight-lines with a bit of work. Used it as an inspiration for recreating a semi-historical scenario. Treadheads will like this one.
Download HERE
Best played as Allied v. AI or H2H; note that the more experienced player should play as the Germans. Market Garden Expansion is required.
Map Size: 3008m x 1680m
Battle Size: Battalion-sized forces. Ample artillery, no airpower.
There is no Allied AI plan.
___
Take command of the famous 37th Tank Battalion and attached elements during their attack into the rear of the 553.Grenadier-Division on September, 1944. Alternatively, play against an opponent and try to frustrate the American's advances. 
Allied difficulty level: Low.
Axis difficulty level: High
 
Spare no criticism, so long as it remains constructive, but do be mindful of the operational situation I'm trying to capture. Allied victory is based as much on getting the crossroads as it is getting armor off the map when that is completed. This means that for a H2H situation, even a mobility-kill is going to score the German player points. Finally, German forces are supposed to capture the generally confused nature of the 553 and its neighboring units - cohesion is not going to be the by-word when a division of armor is 20 miles behind your MLR - but don't worry, they eventually get units that can handle themselves.
Anyone who can offer a good set of alternative AI plans for the Axis is welcome to suggest them - I want a modicum of replayability.
Thanks in advance, guys. 
 
 

Kiss me