Rinaldi

Yes it does indeed but I always make my own assessment even when playing the AI, and I usually end up doing something different to what the briefing suggests. I just don't like the idea of charging over that hill straight off as it will probably mean heavy casualties to capture it. I've not ruled it out but I'm going to investigate other options first and hopefully give him something to think about too.
Thanks for letting me know they have 85mm guns by the way, nice spoiler 😠.
MMM

9. Time, Initial Plans and First Turn
TIME - This battle has 2 hours, no idea if the time is variable or not but this is a large map so it feels a bit tight. It's 1pm in January so I'm not expecting the light to fade too much but the visibility could draw in and the battle advances. Something to watch out for.
INITIAL PLANS - OK so now we have all this info, what am I going to do? Good question.
First of all, how would I defend this map if I were the Soviets? Well I'd keep the companies together so let's template based on the Cavalry regiment which has 4 squadrons (company equivalent). I would have one squadron in Obj ROT, one near OBJ GRAU, one near KEY TERRAIN 4 and one in reserve. I would place a piquet line/OPs forward on KEY TERRAIN 1, 2, 3 and 7 and have them fall back when contact is made. His heavy weapons I would expect to be covering the most dangerous avenues of approach and to me those are AoA1, AoA4 and AoA2 leading on to AoA5. I would be shocked if there wasn't something nasty lurking in the trees at KEY TERRAIN 6. However, he can't be everywhere!
I said I was going to stick to German doctrine as much as possible so while this map is screaming out for a command-push style attack I'm still going to do some aufklarung and try and find the schwerpunkt that I can then mass my forces and attack, hopefully causing some confusion and panic along the way.
To that end I've identified some NAIs that need some eyeballs on them.

I included Obj ROT as a NAI as I just want to make sure he has forces in there, I would be stunned if he didn't but you never know. For task assignments I've split my forces to probe forward and see what's in these areas. They will be lead by one Zug of mechanized infantry with some armour support but the armour will be keeping back, only to be brought forward when needed or when it's safe to do so. That being said the following have been tasked:
NAI1 and NAI5 (if they don't all get murdered investigating NAI1)
2 Zug/2 Kompanie 1 x StuG NAI2 and NAI3
1 Zug/2 Kompanie 1 x Panther NAI4
2 Zug/3 Kompanie 1 x Panther 1 x StuG The rest of the troops will stay in the assembly area ready to be brought forward once I have more info and a plan of attack. My hope is these will be enough eyeballs to effectively spot and also enough firepower to perform some limited offensive action and defend themselves should they need to. It also has the benefit of being quite a large force for scouting so it may make Grunt think I'm attacking across a broad front.

I've just realised I have an armour section going with 2/2 to NAI1 on the above diagram, it's only a StuG and I can't be bothered correcting it now, I'll update it on the next diagram.
PANZER MARSCH!
Finally, we're on the way! Some screenshots from the first turn for you:





Next time...movement to contact!
MMM

One of the school kids up on NelsonMandelabrug has just lobbed a house brick at this model during filming.

Elizabeth looks up from her copy of the Westminster Gazette. "Oi! Noddle Head, did they really have those underwater thingamajigs on the Nederrijn when that Anglican prig was trying to end the war by Christmas?"
"I don't think so dear, but I'm not particularly au fait with maritime warfare. Particularly when it is 300 years in the future."
"Well, if that's the case, let me put you straight. There weren't any, and according to my friend Mrs Miggins they don't have a place in a thread about Market-Garden." 

7. Terrain continued - Observation
Now I have identified some obstacles along the avenues of approach I can identify some smashing spots for the dirty Ivans to watch what I'm up to, and perhaps lob a shell or two at my forces. As alluded to in an earlier post there are a lot of trees, so not surprisingly a lot of the identified spots are in...the trees!

Just to the SW of Obj ROT is a hill. This hill wraps around the south side of the town and impairs visibility to the SW and S, it also provides a fantastic reverse slope defence for the town and great visibility in all directions. I would be stunned if he didn't have some units sitting there watching everything, it would be the first place to receive some arty love if I had it, but I don't. Boo.
Looking towards ROT from the SW

Looking West from the hill toward my setup zone

Looking South from ROT, note the hill limits visibility to that direction

Looking West from ROT, anyone fancy charging over that hill towards some Soviets in fortified positions? There's an Iron Cross in it for you!

Next up...time to identify the Key Terrain (spoiler - that hill is definitely on the list).
MMM

A Blackadder quote in one of the posts? I'm in!

A Blackadder quote in one of the posts? I'm in!

6. Terrain continued - Obstacles
I like to look at obstacles in a couple of ways. The first is to look at them in a general way to see if there's anything that will curtail my ability to move and secondly I look along each Avenue of Approach to see if there are any obstacles to movement there. I will mostly look at obstacles that will inhibit vehicular movement in this battle as my force is mechanized and that's where the majority of my firepower is going to come from so without the support of these heavy weapons the sledding will be tough.
a) General observations
In general there are a lot of wooded areas in the AO but they are mostly passable by vehicles although it will be slow. I've highlighted some terrain that will inhibit movement or block it altogether, these are mostly areas of marsh (the larger areas) that are completely impassable to vehicles but are passable by infantry, albeit they will be exhausted crossing it and it slows them down to a crawl. I'll be avoiding these. The marshes are connected by a boggy stream, it is passable in some places and impassable in others but to be honest I'm going to avoid it if at all possible as the risk of bogging will be a bit too much for me to accept.

The other obstacle to mention is the weather, it's only light snow on the ground but those 70 ton Tigers may still have issues. It is also snowing heavily so I'm not sure if that will have an effect later in the battle.
b) Obstacles on the AoAs
When looking at obstacles along the AoAs I look for pinch points, anywhere that will funnel my forces and make it hard to navigate that would be ideal to set up an ambush: bridges, roads between buildings etc. I've marked such areas with green circles in the image below. For the eagle-eyed amongst you I've marked the entirety of Obj ROT as an obstacle as it is behind a reverse slope and dominates AoA2, so much so that it is a serious problem as it also offers good cover and concealment to observe any movement along that corridor.

The next step in the process is to look at where the enemy can observe the AoAs and the obstacles along them, that should help identify Key Terrain.
MMM
 

4. Terrain - General Observations
"God, it's a barren, featureless desert out there!"
"The other side, sir!"
I will be using OCOKA to do my terrain analysis but first some general thoughts on the terrain.
The terrain on the whole is quite flat and rolling, there’s not a lot of dead ground but there are marshes that are impassable to my vehicles dotted around the place. There is also an abundance of trees for the enemy to hide in and overwatch the open ground. The ground rises towards the East with Obj BLAU in particular being quite prominent.
The open ground that there is is dominated by woods and treelines and smaller, sparser areas of scrub and trees that all make for good hiding spots.
Looking NW back towards Obj ROT

Looking E towards Obj BLAU and the treeline

Another view of Obj BLAU from the woods to the South

The approach to Obj GRAU on the South side of the AO

A word about the visibility. Ordinarily on a map like this the sightlines would be great but as it is the blizzard is limiting the visibility to about 350m. This is going to be a close quarters scrap (probably).
Next..OCOKA time, I'll start as I always do (perhaps a wee bit unorthodox) with identifying the Avenues of Approach.
MMM

3. Troops
I have a battalion(-) of mechanized panzergrenadiers with the support of a ragtag platoon of armour. I created a sheet with my OOB (yes, I am that anal):

Curiously, and this is something I only noticed on turn 18 or something, two of the platoons do not have a leader, I'll highlight which of them when I get to the turns. They have the HQ team but none of the soldiers are marked as "Commander" so they have no C2 contact with the Coy HQ even though there's a radio man and all the squads are marked as out of contact too. I'm not sure if this was intentional or if the reduction is strength is randomized and the Plt HQs were randomly chopped but it's something I'm going to have to manage.

The Panzer Coy HQ being off the map means that the tanks are cut off from the Bn HQ too via radio so I'm going to plonk the Bn HQ Support team next to the Panzer Plt HQ with everyone up so they can share info about the place.

The troops are about 20% reduced but in good condition, nothing there worries me but I expect the reds to have more men. This force is highly mobile and I have good long range firepower with the number of MGs my guys are toting but in this weather it may not help that much. I have no fire support and am expecting no reinforcements, I have to work with what I've got so it's imperative that I keep my armour alive as they will be my prime supporting fire assets. No charging off into the snow for you Hauptmann!
They are equipped with radios at the platoon level and upwards, all the Hanomags are equipped with radios as is the armour.

Next...terrain analysis!
MMM

I've been reading AARs and DARs on this site for years and always thought: that looks like a lot of work! Well now I've decided to see how much work it is and give it a go so I'm going to do a during action report on a PBEM match against a member of The Few Good Men (back out now Sgt Grunt if you're reading this), and we're playing the Snow For The Hungry scenario from the F&R module that neither of us has played yet so no spoilers please.
We've already started and are about 20 turns in so lots to get caught up on but let's start with the analysis. I'll be using METT-T (who wouldn't?) and trying to apply German doctrine as much as I can remember how to do it
A note about the weather. It's:
January Freezing Very windy (heavy into my face) Blizzard All in all pretty miserable, I wouldn't want to be there in real life. 1. Mission
The scenario is set in January 1945 as elements of the Großdeutschland division attempt to clear the coastal highway to resupply the troops trapped in Königsberg. Our mission is to clear the highway and the neighbouring towns of any Soviet resistance so that they can not interdict and disrupt the relief efforts.
Looking at the objectives (3 occupy and 1 touch) and the points totals they shape up as below (the objective designation are my own):
The town of Wardienen (Obj ROT) - Occupy for 400 points The village of Waldburg (Obj GRAU) - Occupy for 200 points The church (Obj BLAU) - Touch for 200 points The road to Königsberg (Obj SCHWARZ) - Occupy for 200 points The rest of the 700 points available (total of 1700) are for destroying enemy forces.
The focus is clearly on destroying the enemy here, I need to find them and destroy them and that is my core focus, the objectives are secondary and given the Soviets are on the defensive then they have likely occupied the objectives or the ground near it anyway, especially at ROT and BLAU, but more on that later.
The objectives in the AO:

Next up...enemy!
MMM

Wrong, thats up to the map designer, limited by the size of the structure (and the designer's patience for clicking things in preview mode).
Wrong, Pause & Cover Arcs can do this.
Wrong, as above.
 

This is an assumption, unless you have knowledge of the codebase, and pretty intimate knowledge at that, you can't say for certain that this is the case. It might be the case, but you don't know that.
Which was the point I was making in the first place. Anyway I'll get off this high horse for now to stop the thread being derailed any further
MMM

Bro...do you actually play CM or? I'm asking this in good faith because you have me conflicted. 

 

This took far longer than I would have liked to finish up, but I think it should be an entertaining read. Was certainly entertaining to play after the first 15 turns or so, at least - read it here: https://rinaldiaars.blogspot.com/2021/07/cmbn-aar-cut-off-at-kovering-what-if.html
 

Not usually the biggest fan of the early Panzerfausts, but at point blank it's hard to miss with them.

Fairly sure @chuckdyke doesn't write scenarios.....The TacAI will leave Ammo Bearers exactly where the designer put them unless the player's actions or an AI Plan Order causes them to move. 
In the event that they are forced to move away from their gun, the AI does not have a means of returning them to their position, nor could it easily be done through AI Plan Orders.
TBH I often find @chuckdyke's posts a little opaque. 

I think you are getting confused. The British are defending in this mission. And it doesn't include a PAK 75 or any Churchills.

Dudes thinking they are so cool in their bunker

Even invited all their friends

But forgot to invite the friends w AT assets and this is what sherman(-ski) tanks excel at.  Two shermans and an SU76 make 3 hits at nearly same time

Party over, Dudes

Meet the new neighbors

The bad news is there was another bunker I hadn't properly suppressed and one of the sections above lost several men and fled the scene

There were two of them, both best avoided. A 19th century composer, and a dreary 1960's singer.
With regards to the mission. Beware of Nebelwerfers. Avoid the temptation to rush your troops into "Gretel". And try to get troops into hard cover around "Hansel" rather than relying on the foxholes for protection.

It's actually the 7th iteration of these threads over the past year.
https://community.battlefront.com/search/?q=ODDITIES&quick=1&search_in=titles
Chalk it up to the oddities and weirdness of Erwin.

Was able to reproduce it myself, Aragorn. Seems to be a genuine oversight - SS do not have any Heavy Panzer units from June-Aug '44 in either "Soviet Union" or "Eastern Europe" location parameters. 

Looking forward to this one Surplice. 

There's a thread covering this and more. Might set you off in the correct direction.
re your question (been a while since I tested all this but what i use to work out % for campaign scripts)  is the percentage chance in all categories is for each individual soldier or weapon. There is a great deal of discussion around some tests done, and its all down to a cyber 'coin toss' with the % bar set by the designer in the script at which refit/resupply etc happens. which does introduce a great deal of variability (e.g. player could be lucky and keep throwing 'double sixes' and get over the % bar on successive throws as it were or unlucky and 'double ones' or anything inbetween some of which might take them over the bar or not!