Hapless
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Posts posted by Hapless
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Trying checking you've got the right kind of battle selected in the quick battle menu- if the map is an assault, then it won't show up if you've selected meeting engagement.
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IIRC, in Black Sea everyone puts their war paint on for night missions and some Russian and Ukrainian troops without NVGs get night vision optics for their personal weapons. Probably just that.
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There was this article back in 2012:
Filling in the Blanks: Leveraging Simulations to Provide Tactical Experience
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We ran the ceasefire turn. Its a draw!
Again, I need to make these bigger somehow. I got 207 points with 38 dead and 18 wounded, losing 2 tanks, 2 halftracks and 4 jeeps in the process. AjarmanG got 275 points losing 22 dead, 13 wounded, 3 tanks, a halftrack and 5 assorted light vehicles. I think it works out that he lost a higher percentage of the points he picked than me, but it works out as a draw. Why it doesn't think we're holding the objectives I have no idea.
And here's the end game:
which is pretty similar to end of the "what if", except there's a lot more of my stuff still alive! Total hats off to AjarmanG for
I certainly made plenty of mistakes- not taking the wood full of pioneers between Cobru and Noville is definitely the biggest, though not taking any artillery is a close second. Sucks to fight when you're missing one leg of the old combined arms tripod.
One of the interesting things about the game is that it really came down to a tank battle, despite all the infantry hanging around, and that I spent most of the game tank hunting with the PBI as bait. So, as Benpark suggested and BletchleyGeek echoed, I've dropboxed up the tank hunting turns so you guys can download them and hop in to see how it all fit together:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cdi05lskgnudhrf/AAAnyOUhvFEmuxKuqU-R3e5Oa?dl=0
The password is papashah, which means that I need to find myself a new password.
If anyone wants any other turns up to have a look at, I can pop them up too.
So that about wraps it up folks- something a bit different hopefully, a bit more of a psychological battle. Hope you guys enjoyed reading about it as much we enjoyed playing it and hats off to AjarmanG for making me think so much!
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Ok then, as you might have guessed from the human bbq above, the attack into Noville has totally failed.
I did a little probing and couldn't really get a handle on AjarmanG's defence (except that it involved at least 2, probably 3 Panthers), so there didn't seem to be any weakspots I could exploit and eventually I went with the pincer movement. So I kicked up up a noisy fuss down on the highway to try and lure the Panthers down there before storming in with a halftrack platoon from Cobru and the Shermans together with another halftrack platoon from the northeast.
Not a fantastic plan, but the logic is that I wouldn't stand a chance going up against Panthers in the open, the best I could do was grab some real estate in Noville and then try to engage the Panthers at close range when they counterattack. The funny thing is that I've spent the entire game playing the psychological game mostly because I'm terrified of what would AjarmanG could do with a single Panther. Irony is a harsh mistress.
So, in brief: the demonstration down on the highway totally failed to draw AjarmanG down there. The attack from the northeast disintegrated under MG fire: 4 of the 5 halftracks broke and fled before they even got close to Noville, the leading halftrack that actually had testicles got cooked by the flamethrower team in the video above (Stravinsky should have given it away to them- its like hearing the jaws theme while you're swimming). Then the Panthers opened up, drilling a few halftracks and one of the Shermans up there.
I tried to bring the remaining three Shermans in the mob one of the Panthers that got spotted on the eastern edge of Noville- on the basis that fewer Panthers are better than more- but it was in a good keyhole position and managed to knock out the one coming from the front.
One of the flanking pair got immobilised by a panzershreck team on their flank, then finished off by a second Panther lurking further down,
which then proceeded to put a round straight through the last Sherman on the next turn.
At least the last Sherman did actually get a shot out on the target Panther, even if it did nothing.
The one tiny speck of good news is that the halftrack platoon coming from Cobru managed to get two vehicles into Noville and the pixeltruppen within piled out to occupy some buildings inside the objective area. But, they had to run the gauntlet of German troops in the wood on their right- which I knew were there and did nothing to really suppress them on the basis that it would take too long and give the game away. That's what you call a fundamentally bad decision and honestly, there's not really a good excuse for it.
So, I did get a toe-hold in Noville, but there was no way it was going to last: AjarmanG had a Panther on the other Cobru road that could fire on them and he brought another one up pretty quick. Interior lines and all that.
Turns out he had four left, so while that means that he didn't have as much infantry as I thought he would have, he probably didn't really need it. Those guys wouldn't have lasted until the end of the battle and almost certainly would have done little to no damage to the enemy in return. That left me with a two severely mangled infantry platoons to the north and south of Noville and two intact platoons with the Btn HQ in Cobru. Not a force that's going to be able to break into Noville. So up goes the white flag.
Should I have mobilised everything to assault Noville in the first place? Well, I think I'd have gotten the same result. Even when it turned out that AjarmanG didn't have as much infantry as I thought he had, all it takes is a few lone MG42s to slow my guys down and he's got time to get a Panther over and wipe them out. I appreciate I'm sounding pretty fatalistic about it all, but that's the logic from my point of view. Would it have made better entertainment? Debatable.
Here's the endgame anyway:
That seems a bit small. I had 246 men still kicked, lost 98 dead, 66 wounded, 1 missing and I lost 6 tanks, 7 halftracks and 5 jeeps. AjarmanG had 156 men still going, 44 dead, 32 wounded and he lost 3 tanks, a halftrack and 11 trucks/kubelwagens.
Of course, that's the 'What If?' result, the real result is a ceasefire a few turns earlier because neither of us wanted to attack- which certainly seems a justified decision from my point of view now!
So hopefully, I'll be able to bring you guys the ceasefire result in a bit. I'm betting its either a draw or a tactical victory for AjarmanG.
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We are just now probably bringing it to a close. Or rather more accurately, I've not been able to figure out a way to break into Noville without excessive casualties so I'm breaking into Noville with excessive casualties.
This is absolutely not how to attack an urban area, this is exactly what I've been trying to avoid for the whole game and this is why cease-firing a few turns ago feels increasingly justified. But on the plus side, its dramatic as hell!
Here's a quick indicator of how it's going:
Never hear enough Stravinsky...
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@BletchleyGeek Its a bit unusual to play as well! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'd forgotten about the turn sharing idea (sorry @benpark!). Now that I think about it I'll sort out some little sequences and dropbox them up so people can have a look- the tank stalking turns in particular- so that people can dive in and see for themselves. Then I'll try and think up a new password...
@Heinrich505 Funny you should say that actually, we've had a bit of a development:
After a few turns of mutual inaction I got in touch with AjarmanG and it pretty quickly became clear that neither of us were going to move. You can all see where I'm standing and appreciate the risks, AjarmanG knows that he's surrounded and that I've been poaching his big cats, so we've agreed to a ceasefire.
BUT!
We're putting the ceasefire turn to one side and ploughing on. We'll go back and do the ceasefire later for the 'real' result, but in the meantime I'm going to attack Noville to see what happens.
Obviously I'm not just going to throw my forces at Noville for a pretty but shallow slice of Michael Bay Gotterdammerung, I am going to be trying to do a good job. Of course, its probably going to end up with everything on dead, on fire or running away, but hey- the rest of the battalion will be coming up in an hour or so, I'm just pinning Jerry in place...
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Again, there hasn’t been too much going on. And it is distressing lighter now than it was earlier.
Both scout teams mentioned in the last post- the lone man in the graveyard and the team in the house- are dead. The lone scout was predictably finished off at close range, the team in the house took a Panther shell to the face. I never spotted the Panther, which raises the worrying possibility that now the visibility has improved, AjarmanG can actually pull his tanks back into the town to start exploiting keyhole positions, making it practicality impossible to get any flanking shots on him. So Panther hunting season is probably over.
We’ve got 35 minutes left on the clock- we’re 2/3rds of the way through- which means that I’ve got to start prepositioning, organising and thinking about the endgame here.
As I see it, I have two broad options.
First of all, I can hold my positions. This is going to keep AjarmanG pinned into Noville, or at least threaten him so much that he doesn’t make a move on Cobru. That said, after that bleeding Kubelwagen driver (now deceased) managed to get up close for a look-see, I have to assume that AjarmanG knows I have a force up there. Whether or not he has a handle on how big it is and whether or not he thinks he can hold it off is a different matter. Either way, with this approach I can stand by to exploit any opportunities to deny the Noville objective and if none appear I can go for the draw/minor loss on casualties and tell myself that I won by my own standards of (mostly) dictating the battle.
The second option is to attack. I can pincer Noville between the right hook and a force attacking from Cobru, really putting the pressure on. Although I don’t have any artillery (why didn’t I bring any arty? Why?) I’ve got plenty of .50 cals on that halftracks and I can use them to paste any enemy positions that pop up. And I can always throw in some feints, demonstrations and general deception to try and draw the Panthers away from the real attack. The problem is that I’m not convinced I can pull off the real attack with enough speed to get into Noville before AjarmanG can send a Panther over to squash it. The last thing I want is to have a load of halftracks and infantry caught in the open outside Noville trying to win fire superiority over a few tenacious German MG teams because if a Panther turns up they’re all going to die. I could try and attract AjarmanG’s attention to one side of Noville and then try and Thunder Run into the other side, but I’m not massively optimistic about such craziness.
So low-risk, low reward vs high-risk, high reward. Great choices there...
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Alright! AjarmanG is officially coming out to play.
There’s two things going on here: first of all, it’s getting light enough for me to start spotting German infantry on the edge of Noville- which means that they’re going to be able to start spotting me too. Secondly, it seems like AjarmanG has decided to do a bit of recce himself:
He’s sending some small teams out of Noville towards the Scout team in the house and towards his rear. The guys going for the scout team are in for a nasty surprise: not only is the scout team all set to ambush them, but there are two halftracks and some depleted infantry up there (including a 60mm mortar team) who can all cover the road in front of the scout house.
As for the German teams going out the back of Noville, one was a single soldier in a Kubelwagen, who pretty much drove straight up the crest of my little staging area and peeked over. Chances are that AjarmanG knows there’s plenty of stuff up there from engine noise alone, but I have to assume that he’s seen things. I still haven’t quite nailed the little bugger yet, I’ve got a team moving up to check his last spotted position.
Another German team has been sneaking up through the graveyard that runs along the highway behind Noville, where the single unlucky survivor of the very first Panther encounter has been lurking. They spotted his jeep and destroyed it, but when they moved up into his target arc he managed to take two of them out. There’s a high chance he’s now doomed, but hopefully he’ll get his grenades off before he cops it.
All this activity on the right of Noville makes me think that AjarmanG is either trying to gauge the threat that he knows is out there or he’s trying to pull my own trick off and goad my units into firing and thus giving their positions away for the remaining Panthers. Whatever he’s up to, it looks like his attention is over on that side and he's not looking towards Cobru, so I’m going to put a bit of pressure on over there and see what he does. Its more mind-games too: I want him to think that I'm able to to hit him in the back whichever way he turns.
I’ve got two platoons in Cobru still set up to defend and they’re going to probe forward. The third platoon in Noville is currently loading into halftracks so I have a mobile force (read ‘back-up suicide thunder run platoon’) to try and exploit any opportunities that come up.
Not that I’m about to go nuts now, I’m still holding to slow and steady for the time being.
There are 40 minutes left on the clock, visual range is now a scary 380m.
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@Rankorian Don't worry man, its always good to get as many different viewpoints in as possible.
On 13/09/2016 at 0:55 AM, Rankorian said:Your screening infantry sees a target several hundreds of meters ahead. Your tanks leap forward, shoot the target, and then retreat.
Not quite. With Panther 2, it fired on my infantry on the highway and revealed its position to the scout team in the building. The scout team was within shouting distance of its HQ, which was sitting in a halftrack with a radio so there is a spotting link via radio between the spotting unit and the tanks. There was a turn or two between spotting the Panther and the tanks getting into position and in that time they did get a spotting icon for the Panther, it just wasn't resolved- they knew that something tanky was over there, just not the details. To be sure, I was moving the killer Sherman up into position next to the scout team with eyes on the Panther so that they start yelling to the (unbuttoned) tank commander about that dirty great big kraut tank over there; but the Sherman spotted it on its on and made the kill.
Panther 3 is a little different- the Shermans had no idea that there was a Panther down the slope in front of them because it was too dark. But that's only in game spotting terms: you could argue that the tankers could tell that something was going on in front of them- plenty of muzzle flashes that are visible in the early morning murk but not resolvable, if that makes sense. From there its just a question of whether my orders to the Shermans represent orders from on high ("HQ says to move up and support the infantry getting hammered in front of us"- those guys in the streambed still had a radio I think) or whether they represent the tankers' own initiative ("The mission is to kill enemy tanks. Looks like there might be something ahead, let's creep forward and see."). In that case they actually spotted the Panther because it fired its main gun and lit itself up with its own muzzle flash.
Its a bit of a fill-in-the-blanks exercise I grant you, but once you start factoring the possibility that pixeltruppen can make local decisions on their own in line with the player-commander's intent, without waiting for orders you can pretty explain away any player based borg spotting :).
In the game, I'm still consolidating a little bit. I've managed to whack a radio operator down on the highway with some blind MG area fire and its starting to get a little difficult to keep track of AjarmanG's tanks: I'm not 100% sure how many there are and where they are now: one contact has popped back up on the Cobru road, one is definitely hanging around the top of town, I think the one on the highway has disappeared, that leaves the one in the centre of town unaccounted for... I'm trying not to think about it too much!
The real interesting news is that it looks like AjarmanG is worrying about his rear a bit and he's sent a long kubelwagen over to take a look. I'm all set to blow it away if it comes over the crest into my little staging area up there, but I'm fifty-fifty on whether to pop a halftrack up and swiss cheese it before it can get a load of sound contacts.
We'll see.
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Not much change in the last few turns. I'm making sure to area fire the highway positions a little bit with some MGs to remind him that I have forces down there too.
@Rankorian My view on AjarmanG's handling of his Panthers is that it fits in to what I think he's doing. If we had ceasefired before the last two Panthers got hit then he would almost certainly have won. Now, it might be more like a draw.
If I put myself in his shoes, then what I see is a crazy bit of recce with the jeeps at the start and a bit later a messy attack up the edge of the highway, then later still a surprise flank attack by a halftrack platoon. All three times, he's stopped me dead. The recce team got blown away and then quickly mopped up. In the highway attack he knocked out two Shermans and mangled an infantry platoon for the loss of a Panther. When I flanked him on the right he only lost a few transport vehicles and gave my guys a good kicking.
So it makes a lot of sense for him to say "If Hapless is going to keep attacking me and I keep beating him off with minor losses then I'm steadily building up an advantage. I can just dig in here, let him throw away his combat power and then make a grab for Cobru towards the end when I've the upper hand." That's without mentioning the fact that as visibility improves he's going to be able to play to the Panthers' strengths a lot more. There are disadvantages to this approach though, which I'm trying to capitalise on.
About the way I'm handling my tanks: I regard my tanks as tanks. That might sound a bit weird, but its pretty hard to explain. To me, tanks are very specifically tanks and I try to use them as such. At the moment I'm tank hunting, so movement is my friend for reasons of safety, deception, effectiveness etc. Once I'm happy that the AT threat has been degraded and fire support for the infantry becomes a priority then movement is less of a concern.
Ammo should be good. I don't think I've fired any HE yet at all so I should have about 30-40 HE shells per tank, something like that.
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4 hours ago, Rinaldi said:
Like I said earlier, you have him penned in. You're also starting to attrit the forward edge of his combat power. Time to sit back and let him bleed a bit.
I might sound a bit more enthusiastic than I actually am- I'm definitely taking my foot off the gas here. I have plenty of time and space to work with, the pressure to act is on him.
If nothing else, AjarmanG is going to start being more careful with his Panthers so I'm going to be burned if start being greedy.
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@Rankorian Thanks man, its actually kinda fun to do it this way as well, so win-win!
We got through a good four or five turns yesterday and it’ll take forever to peel it apart in minute detail, but the broad strokes are pretty interesting.
At the end of the last turn, as the Panther-killing Shermans were gallantly running away, it looked like AjarmanG was swinging a Panther out into the open on the right flank of Noville. It didn’t take long for my shattered GIs cowering in the stream bed to spot it and its supporting infantry advancing on them and we quickly got a rather one sided firefight.
Ok, so what actually happened was my infantry got rinsed, but it pinned the Panther in place, kept it spotted (most of the time) and it gave its position away to the Shermans when it fired its main gun:
So, one definite Panther kill there (plus a few footsloggers that the Shermans mowed down as they withdrew).
The downside is that my infantry platoon getting hammered down in the stream has really had enough. They’ve lost another halftrack, taken a few casualties in the firefight and to top it off that damn mortar got the range on one of the squads and wiped it out. So, those guys are pulling out.
I’m steadily moving my remaining uncommitted (read: intact) armoured infantry platoon round into the dead ground NNW of Noville and the tanks are moving to join them.
Enemy wise, there is definitely another Panther on the right in Noville (haven’t got a spot yet, but I can draw a line from the hole in the latest dead halftrack straight to a tank sound contact), I can still hear a tank down by the highway and it looks like he’s shifting the Panther heading for Cobru back into town to take up the position its most recently deceased buddy was holding.
Obviously its time for some pressure from Cobru to get his attention over there.
So, if I’m lucky, just three Panthers to go and then we can kick start the Fallujah party in Noville (Nice building there Fritz, would be a shame if anything… happened to it).
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Cheers guys! I can report that both Shermans managed to successfully disengage (read: ran away in abject terror) and that another opportunity may have reared its head, but first I’m gonna dissect that turn a little bit more.
What you guys didn’t see was the turn before where I started getting horrifically nervous. While I’d remembered to target arc the scout team in the house to stop them shooting, I’d forgotten that they were able to clue the scout platoon HQ halftrack next to them about the enemy infantry and they immediately opened up with the .50cal, causing some overshoots which pinged the Panther with pop-up text. I was pretty worried that that had given the game away, but decided to press on and see what happened anyway because it was such a good opportunity.
It looks like AjarmanG hadn’t spotted the halftrack and either got a spot on the scout team or correctly assumed I had some troops in that building and decided to give it a 15-second target-briefly with the Panther- hence, it tracks round at the very start of the turn, has enough time to fire one HE shell (harmlessly into the upper storey- my guys are on the ground floor) and then track back round.
Alternatively, the Panther switched its attention because one of the abandoned (non-radio) Willys jeeps from the scout team just in front of the highway got spotted and immediately filled in with machine gun fire. This could have been MG fire from the Panther in question, the other tank contact just across the road or any of the enemy infantry lurking in the gardens and houses over there.
Either way, I got a nice chunky side turret penetration. A bit of dirty quick testing (5 Sherman 76s with flanking shots to 5 Panther turret sides at similar range) shows that a turret hit like that should be enough to destroy and rinse the turret crew it unless I’m really unlucky, so I can be pretty confident that that Panther there is out of the fight (it also doesn’t appear to be moving, which is another good indicator).
My tank commander got domed by some fire coming out of one of the gardens from further up in Noville- I did get a full on spot on some infantry up there with the scout team, but lost sight of them. It might have been them, it might have been some other Germans up there- it seems like AjarmanG has got some infantry lining that edge of Noville. Once again, TRPs and artillery would be really handy here!
The next turn, my Shermans manage to reverse away without any interference. Absolute visibility- how far anyone can see due to the darkness- is about 300m now (I think its increasing by 6-7m per turn) and it’s still dark and misty so spotting inside that range is by no means guaranteed. The Sherman that fired the shot was about 270m out, so it didn’t have far to go to safety. It did bog reversing out though, which is a little worrying even though it managed to escape. Bogging is the kind of thing that could be a huge problem, but it’s the first I’ve seen of it despite sending almost everything everywhere cross county- that Sherman has suffered some track damage going through fences and hedges etc, so I could put it down to that.
Some interesting stuff happened on the other side of the fence too. It looks like all of AjarmanG’s Panthers in Noville switched their engines on! It looks as though he’s reshuffling the one by the highway and two more spots have popped up on the right side of Noville. These two moved into position after my aborted attack (attack? It was a raid *cough*) over there and I lost track of them- the top one I’d assume stayed in place, but I was working on the assumption that there were 5 enemy Panthers and with one down there were 4 left. Now it looks like there might be another one- though I’ve lost the sound contact approaching Cobru, I don’t think he’s pulled it back.
The second Panther on the highway looks to have pulled back some (it was on the same line as the recently nailed Panther after all- moving it is a sound move), the other two look like they’ve pushed forward a little to get some flanking positions on the offending Sherman, but they seem out of range to me.
The top one is almost in range of the two Shermans further up the right hook, so if I hunt them forward and provoke it to open fire I might be able to bag another one. These are different circumstances though- there’s no keyholing opportunity here, no cover to take advantage of because of the range involved so the close Sherman is going to loiter a little while in case it has a good shot in the next turn while the other shifts further up the right to try and get a flanking hull down position.
Then we’ll see if I'm get punished for being greedy.
Incidentally, for interest value, Noville is a bit different these days, but not that much. Here's a best guess as the Panther and Sherman relative positions:
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The results are in! I spent so long on the edge of my seat for this, it deserves a video:
Shoot: complete.
Scoot: in progress.
More details in the GMT morning. Hopefully that Panther's turret is full of dead people and broken machinery, but the Shermans aren't hanging around to find out!
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@Rankorian: Its all mind games lol!
You have got a point about where his forces are though. I have a pair of halftracks idling by the woods on my far left- I'd expect any Germans sneaking through the woods to open up on them and give the game away. Even if he is sending troops around my left, I'm happy with that. Cobru is sorting itself out in an all-round defence so he can flank me all he likes. I'd be very, very happy to find a major enemy force popping up on my left flank, or even behind my left, because it means they're not busy preparing for Stalingrad in Noville.
Overall, I'm pretty sure he's got most of his force in Noville. I've brought two companies and some tanks along, I'm pretty much expecting something similar from him- 5 Panthers (a platoon) and 2 infantry coys. I've seen (and set on fire) a few trucks and kubelwagens, I've nailed a halftrack (but there might be more), I know that he was transporting men into Noville at the start by having them ride on the tanks, I know he's brought plenty of flamethrowers along... I might crack open the QB force selection at some point and try and replicate his force to see what I might be up against.
We have had an interesting development this turn though.
When the troops I ordered to fire on enemy positions on the highway opened up, something shot back! (And missed to boot!).
Well hello there pussy cat! Is that a nice squidgy side armour you've got exposed there?
I think it is!
The opportunity to wang some AP into that is not something I can ignore, so the two trailing Shermans are off on a snap tank hunting mission.
The area that the Panther is in has been under observation from that friendly scout team there for a good ten minutes or more and things have come and gone without being seen- its only when the Panther fired its main gun and the infantry around it opened up that it got spotted, so I reckon there's a good chance I can sneak the Shermans up there without being spotted. If I'm lucky, the scout team will maintain the spot and it won't fade away so when the Sherman's pop up they'll be able to tell them where it is and minimise that terrifying spotting race.
So one Sherman is creeping up to the house itself to get intel off the scout team, the other one is going into the woods a little further back next to the scout team's HQ, which should know about the Panther by the time the Shermans arrive. I want to get in there, spot the Panther as quick as possible, drill in the flank with AP and then run away. It might take a turn or two to get into position, so I'll be reconsidering if it looks like I won't be getting the drop on them. But I can't pass up the opportunity to get a flanking position on an unaware Panther. Need more burning kitties on this battlefield before I start feeling happier...
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Not a lot in the last turn (File 68?). The offending tripwire team outside Cobru legged it but came under fire from an MG42 off to its right. Nobody got hit, so maybe it some opportunistic area fire from AjarmanG trying to enfilade down the hedge they just evacuated. No matter, that's given me another enemy contact between Cobru and Noville. The only toher development was that the enemy teams in the wood next to Cobru have disengaged and run away.
Here's a quick overview as things stand:
The big thing I've decided to do here is push the right hook across the stream and round behind Cobru to where the two weapons team halftracks are at the top of the image. There's a nice convex slope over there that they can mass behind. At some point I'm going to be pushing into Noville and its going to be easier to come in from the top because I'll avoid crossing the stream under fire and potentially get bogged in a really bad place.
In the meantime, the highway platoon is going to put some fire down on the enemy highway positions opposite them- mostly to see what happens, but also to remind AjarmanG that they're there- and I'm still committed to holding Cobru, though my chances of bagging a Panther in an ambush up there are probably nonexistent if he's supporting it with infantry.
So, a little redeployment of the right hook and a lot of wait and see...
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Thanks again guys, its all interesting stuff. How you get players to actually fight in a certain way is a big issue for games like this, especially when 'gamey' things like bumrushing the objectives at the start are so rewarding. Maybe for something like a QB meeting engagement the objectives should turn only appear on the map after x number of turns.
There's been a little bit more shooting (99% incoming) in the woods next to Cobru from a different contact from before, but that could just be the other half of a split squad. I'm not worried. A little comedy though- a few turns ago I regained control over one of the panicky crews from a knocked out Sherman which was in the middle of the field in front of the dead Panther so I crawled them forwards into the streambed to get a little cover. They quickly got spotted and wiped out, but after that the sound contacts started moving back down to that area, so I may accidentally provoked a bit of a reaction there.
The big news though is this from on the Road to Cobru:
The presumed Panther sound contact has been moving up fairly slowly and the tripwire team I've got covering that road has spotted some German infantry moving up as well, so my outrageous hopes of being able to mob an unsupported enemy tank have evaporated. My guys took some potshots, but I've ordered them to run away. I think it would be too much to offer no resistance whatsoever, he knows I can't be strong everywhere, hopefully he'll assume its a delaying action.
I have pretty much decided to wait and see what happens for the time being, while making a bit of noise and scouting around on the right some more. My biggest worry here is that AjarmanG throws caution to wind, clumps his Panthers into an armoured wedge and goes on a sightseeing tour of the map with them. Chances are I wouldn't be able to stop him without excessive casualties.
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@ Rankorian Its just as interesting to me to see what you guys think and how you guys play the game, so thanks for chipping in! For the record, when I have the time and patience to try the scenarios against the AI I tend not to do particularly well.
@Erwin Luckily the game doesn't simulate various kinds of mysterious mechanical or radio 'difficulties', pixeltruppen never 'get lost' and never 'misunderstand' their orders, otherwise I would be up the metaphorical creek, probably with the pixeltruppen crew beating me to death with the metaphorical paddles.
Sometime though you just have to stick your nose out to find the enemy. It used to mystify me watching footage out of Afghanistan where NATO troops are just patrolling around in open fields like they want to get shot, but it turns out that's exactly what they were doing- it was the best way to find the enemy. Survival mostly hinged on terrible enemy accuracy, good drills and rapid support (none of which I can expect here, so hmmm).
I agree that its not very accurate historically speaking, but neither is the whole set-up here because its out of context. In a historical context, I'm winning here because the enemy is pinned into a confined space that my side can overwhelm with superior firepower and resources in the next few days- I don't have to do anything. In the game context, we've both occupied one objective each but I've taken higher casualties so I'm losing and the onus is on me to do something. Or, I feel like it is.
I'm very focused on being active and aggressive here, but holding my positions around Noville is a legitimate option. Going into the town is going to hurt- a lot- but my presence on the southern and eastern edges is pinning some of AjarmanG's forces in place and reducing the force he can send towards Cobru. Maybe if I'm lucky I can trick him into thinking that Cobru is lightly held and lure him in. Options abound...
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Cheers guys, it’s good to be up and running again!
@Randkorian: Glad you’re enjoying it man, it’s always fascinating to see how other people approach Combat Mission. I did think about keeping my force as one big sledgehammer and just smashing straight from Cobru to Noville- it’s got a lot going for it (secure flanks, concentration of forces, simplicity etc) but attacking from just one direction is also going to let my opponent concentrate his defence. We’ve got evenly sized forces so a stand-up fight is risky: I’d rather stab him in the back or shoot him than have a fair fight! I’ve basically split my force in two and each half is chunky enough to manage on its own until the other half can take the pressure off by attacking somewhere else.
Caution is invaluable, but at the same time sometimes being cautious can be risky as hell. I wouldn’t say I’ve been very cautious in this game so far, but the risks I’ve taken have probably made me safer by giving me the psychological upper hand- I can be fairly certain that all enemy forces are confined in a relatively small area and I can manoeuvre my forces around the rest of the map with impunity.
Fire superiority is an interesting one here. Simply put, as far as I’m concerned I’m not going to be able to build up any kind of fire superiority while the enemy Panthers are still kicking.
A little bit of activity over the last few turns. AjarmanG is shuffling his Panthers around a bit- one tank contact has moved up through Noville and another appeared a little later, pushing down the top road to Cobru. It could be that he’s seen a lot of activity from the right hook and is probing towards Cobru to feel it out and see if I’ve left it uncovered. Early days yet though.
I’ve had this squad in an ambush position on the edge of the wood between Cobru and Noville and started probing forward with it to see if the woods were clear. Guess what? They’re not. A bit of Mp40 fire, an MG42 and a rifle shot gives means these guys are probably stand-up infantry rather than scouts. I’d guess they were lying there waiting rather than advancing, but the rest of the squad is going to hold up and keep their eyes open just to see.
I’m still not 100% on exactly what to do with the right hook. They're busy loitering in a semi-menacing kind of way at the moment. What I really want to be doing is chipping away at AjarmanG’s armour- more burning kitties please- but pulling it off is going to be risky. At the moment I’m thinking about creeping some Shermans up into good keyhole positions where they can see one of the (presumably) Panther sound contacts and then driving a halftrack forward until it gets spotted and blown away. Hopefully then the Shermans will be able to spot and nail the offending Panther and all I lose is two men in an ugly taxi. Assuming that the Shermans can actually spot, engage, hit and penetrate the Panther…
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Ok, we are back on track! Our technical problems have been sorted and AjarmanG and I solemnly return the cursed sceptre of the forum DAR to its place of rest while it contemplates its next victims. So, good luck to the Aussies :P!
Its been a while, but luckily I've got this thread to remind of what the hell I was up to. Got the first rejuvenated turn last night (File 55ish) and... nothing exciting happened. I'm still sloppily surrounding Noville, I think I have a fix on four Panthers, I know his infantry is dug into the town and that at least for the moment, I have the initiative.
Despite having a good few weeks to think about it, I'm not really any closer to coming up with a solution to the problem of administering a kicking without receiving one. And its getting lighter all the time...
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@Artemis258 Yes its a QB and yes, I'm missing artillery! If I had some 105s and TRPs in Noville like you say I could lay down some barrages to try and isolate German forces in the town and stop him exploiting those interior lines. And to pound any strongpoints I find. I very very nearly took some mortar halftracks with me (if they could pop flares up then it would have been a no-brainer!), but went for more infantry. I'm missing the artillery section of the combined arms triad here and that may come back to haunt me as the game goes on.
@Aragorn2002 Thanks man! I would actually recommend people to make little gifs of their own battles- its surprisingly helpful. The bigger picture kind of degrades when you only see a minute's worth of whats going every turn.
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Little update- my opponent AjarmanG is having some technical difficulties, so it might be a little while until the next update.
In the meantime what do you guys make of things so far? Is there anything you would have done differently? Would you have brought a different force along? Should I have picked the Germans?
On 29/07/2016 at 4:17 PM, Rinaldi said:how many losses did it take?
Headless chicken squad just lost two men to the MG42 fire there, but they were already down four or five from the mortar fire from earlier, including the platoon commander. Not ideal, but if the mortar hadn't been there then I'd have a decent size force holed up over there so I maintain it was worth the risk. Even though it didn't work it was clearly a psychological victory (*cough*).
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Cheers guys, glad to see everyone is enjoying it!
Nothing much to report, the MG42 team lighting up headless chicken squad has stopped shooting, the GIs have recovered and they're staggering away to relative safety.
Two of the Shermans have crossed the stream near the burning German halftrack, but I don’t think AjarmanG is moving any of his Panthers forward to try and capitalise on my withdrawal behind Noville so they might not have much to do. Speaking of Panthers, I can pretty much pin four tank sound contacts down:
Add the destroyed Panther to them and that makes five- a full platoon- that seems a reasonable number of Panthers to bring along so I might have a location for all of them. If that's the case, he's reoriented them all away from Cobru and that makes me want to at least give him a prod from that direction. Of course he's on interior lines though so he can reshuffle his tanks very quickly.
There is an interesting issue I'm running into here. To tick off the victory conditions here I've got to at least get a few men inside the objective in Noville to contest it and tip the balance of victory points in my favour (attrition isn't going to cut it- I'm attacking so I'm losing on that front).
But if we were to place the game into a larger context then I'm on a winner already- it suits the Allies to have a German force pinned down like this. If the Germans are attacking then they've stopped and the Allies are gaining time to reorient and reinforce, if the Germans are defending then the Allies can apply their overwhelming resources. So in a wider context, it doesn't make that much sense for me to try and get into Noville.
Not that I'm trying to self-legitimise any ideas of staying out of that place or anything...
map of quick battle ?
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
On the quick battle setup screen you can change the type in the top left:
In the scenario editor its on the mission tab under description at the top: