ncc1701e

Over by Sexton's house, my 2 inch mortars have started to have some effect. The tree has lost all its leaves, the wall turned to rubble and RH's men start to flee. I will adjust the aim of the mortar and hope to catch a few of his men in the open next turn.

I have two Staghounds in this area and with 10 seconds left in the turn, they get a spot.

Can it be? Please oh please be who I think it is...

HAHA! It is the 20mm AC halftrack. He is reversing again and with no time left on the clock, the Staghound fires!

A solid hit again, but this time it appears to have done some more serious damage. Say, where did the driver go....hehehehe....

It is now time to take this DAR into dangerous waters, unbuttoned halftrack gunners and their totally useless shields. I should be able to be dropping these guys like flies, am I right? D Company's 14th Platoon has been spotting behind a house near the church. It appears they have spotted something. One man is peeking around the corner of the house and is taking aim.

A closer look down his rifle sights reveals his target, an unbuttoned halftrack gunner blazing away. Ah fresh meat.


He steadies his rifle against the side of the house, takes careful aim, exhales slightly and gently squeezes the trigger.

His shot is away and somehow he manages to miss.

A Bren gunner from 15th Platoon, high in the houses to the left of the church also has a spot on the gunner. He blazes away and only manages to hit the gun shield. The ricochets fly off harmlessly into the sky.
 
So what gives?? What did I do wrong?? I thought these guys were bullet magnets. I thought they died within seconds of being exposed. I thought they didn't stand a chance. I thought those gun shields were useless. Maybe it is only when they are under my command that they die like flies but when the enemy uses them they are safe? 

Minute 1:54-1:53
This 20mm Ac halftrack.... WOW! With his drivers dying screams still echoing in his ears, he turns the gun and fires off another amazingly accurate burst of fire.

Once again striking another Staghound with incredible ferocity. I lose the driver and the radio operator. Shortly after this picture is taken, the remaining crew bail and run for cover.

Finally RH's gunner can stand it no more. Grabbing the picture of his girlfriend from near his gun, he takes one last look at his driver before bailing and seeking shelter.

I can only hope all his halftracks are not as difficult to knock out as this one was.

Over at Sexton's house I sneak an assault section in for a better look. They see some men still present and open fire. Other than a few rounds fired harmlessly over the German's heads, nothing happens.

C Company was given orders to spread out and seek higher ground in an attempt to welcome RH's men to this side of town. Here are their positions at the start of the turn

And again at the end. The Daimler seen in this last screen shot was within line of sight and of the men who had made contact last turn. He heard their shouts of "Enemy Spotted" and their rifle fire so raced over to offer support. C Company Commander has now been made aware of RH's men in the town and begins to direct some other AFV assets under his control to help support his men.

This turn ends with little other action occurring. 

Now to FORCE SELECTION, not yet quite taking all the maps various pecularities into consideration for developing a general attack plan. In the forum we had quite a lot of discussions going on concerning WW2 (german) halftracks, their combat abilities, tactical usage in battle and such. So my spontaneous idea then developed to something like mounted attack straight into battle and getting some experience with it in our game. With the map providing some good east-west approach routes on hard surfaced roads and lots of cover from the wooded crest and the buildings, it appeared an interesting idea. So then I started purchasing. With mechanized infantry beeing the only selectable branch I clicked an army Panzergrenadier battalion. Off course 2850 points didn´t suffice, so I started deleting a full Coy, many vehicles and then some the heavy support weapon platoons from the force, til I reached ~2500 points something.
At last I came up with the following:
2x Coy. Panzergrenadier infantry, of which only parts (2x Plt) of 1. Coy remained mounted on 251 HT´s and 2. Coy beeing just leg infantry exclusively
1. Coy also remained with organic heavy weapons all mounted on 251´s and
2. Coy hvy. wpns. teams had to walk like their buddies.
Hvy. weapons: Both companies remained with organic 2x HMG Plt (=4 guns) each.
1. Coy retained the 7,5cm Stummel HT section (2x vehicles).
2. Coy None.
Both Coy. also retained a mortar support section (80mm, 2x tubes), offboard version.
With having some choices from vehicle assortment, I opted for some SdKfz 251/17 model (turreted 20mm Flak) beeing my Plt. leader vehicles (2x) for the mounted Panzergrenadier Plt´s. Never quite that noticed nor used that vehicle before in the game and it can carry the Plt. HQ´s and little bits more as I found later. I think it also was little cheaper than the usual 251/10 (3,7cm Pak) model.
Note: Few turns into the game later I investigated this vehicle some from various sources. From the gathered info it appeared the turreted 251/17 wasn´t yet delivered to german forces in 9/44 (our battle time setting), though beeing intended addon for the autumn 1944 Panzergrenadier KstN/OOB. Ok, then frontline prototype testing in the game sort of. (larger deliveries of this turreted 251/17 model started in 10-11/1944) 
251/17 rushing forward, while some HMG team debarking straight into combat positions.

I replaced the organic 251/3 radio vehicles with normal 251/1 model, since these appeared more useful. Deleted these from OOB and put back from single vehicles menu.
From the forces retained after that many initial deletions, I found I have little to none infantry AT assets, beside some squads carrying the Faust 30 model. Though no fully tracked AVF were allowed for the game, I still wanted to preserve something that can deal with any enemy AFV (AC, carriers) beyond that 30m. Thus I added a handful of Schreck teams, either to Coy HQ´s or selected Plt´s.
Added as well were few sniper teams that I also like to use as sneaky recon infantry on occasions. The map seemed to provide a lot of places well suited both for sniping and observation purposes.
That´s it basically. Worth to note is the Panzergrenadier squads are all 8 men strength and carry 2x lMG, providing some good FP. The remaining 2 guys operate the 251/1 D, driver and lMG gunner, beeing the organic vehicles crew.
I also found the Panzergrenadier 251/1´s carrying big loads of 7,92mm AP (SmK) rounds, which I liked to make use of. More on this later. 

Forgot to mention that Matt opted for canadian forces, also from the mech infantry branch, beeing my pixeltroopers adversaries.
First hassels: The force selection file I then sent back to Matt turned out to beeing corrupted or anything. He couldn´t load the file properly. Reason remained unknown. And off course I didn´t make a save game before hitting the red button. As one can imagine I was somewhat p....d off and me required doing all force selection over again. 
Ok... now having first experience from the first force selection procedure, I did bits of rethinking but at last I came up with the same force, but refined my selection technique somewhat. Before clicking purchase I set the forces defaults to all regular, normal morale, 0 leader and so on. After renewed purchase (more or less same force as mentioned above) I then spent remaining points on improving various HQ/leaders up to veteran, also adding occasional +1 to leader stats, which seemed to me more important than doing that for the actual combat troops. Few specialist teams also got a slight quality increase, but it´s all a rather small part of the overall forces which I´d consider fairly well led regulars.
Next Chapter: Map/terrain evaluation, force setup and orders for 1st turn.

finally came to start my part of that interesting affair. Lots to catch up with @Heirloom_Tomato, but I´ll try. 
That PBEM game was born from the desire testing the "remove game clues" and parts of the "Re-Animate" mod and see how it plays out in PBEM and both opponents using the same mod package. Matt offered his kind assistance and I also could take my very first opportunity to play some H2H CMX2 game, unlike CMX1 which I played some couple of years back. Beside having some fun I´d liked to experience first hand if the mod package is suited for H2H games generally and if there´s possible issues, particularly if the sometimes mentioned "cheating" possibilities have any validity. We´ll see.
With Matt beeing the experienced PBEM player and me the rookie I let him choose map and setup after brief negotiations on basic parameters, which were: Medium sized map and forces and having same the mentioned mods in place. We quickly settled with meeting engagement on QB map, mechanized forces, single vehicles, specialist teams and artillery included. Also agreed any vehicle taken must have at least two rubber wheels and roughly about 1-2 companies of infantry.
The first file then sent by Matt gave me 2850 points to make my purchases from german army mech infantry. Having a peek at the map in purchase screen showed a nice longish town map with medium amount of woods, some fields & pastures, framed with some gently rising elevations toward the east and north. The setup for this map was me to attack from the east and Matt from the western map edges. The town spreads along the center more or less, north-south. So what to purchase for this game? (next posting)
Supplemental info: We have dry ground, skies clear and strong winds blowing west to east. The latter will have bits of importance in this game, as is dry ground producing treacherous dust clouds when moving vehicles offroads.
There´s some medium sized rectangular objective area in the middle of the map (not shown below) worth some points, but it´ll remain neglected for the games purpose.
Main parts of the map and looking east-west from german setup areas. Made it from "Holland Town Large Meet 049" map which I figured that´s the one we use somewhat later after exchanging first turns.

Topview. I´ll use this further on to tell of my map evaluation, battle plan and particular actions.

Contour view. Interesting for evaluating some more specific contours on this map.

That´s it for today. Hard to find a beginning, since it´s also my very first DAR (attempt). Have fun! 
 

MINUTE 5
The German infantry position is confirmed.

Meanwhile, my tank is doing a lot of noise while my infantry will spot what is really in front of us. I have a unique tank and I do not want to waste it.

In the woods on my right wing, I am taking some suppressive fire. Most probably this is coming from the Stug III.

My XO team is reaching the first house of the first objective. I will move them on the second story to try to spot something. I am blind and I do not like that. This is incredible how I miss the drones and a good old Javelin.

So back to the current game. The map contains three objectives located around three groups of houses. There are lot of woods as well.
A preview of the map can be seen in the following screenshot:

We are only using the 'Suggestion' box to purchase your Formation. Initially, my idea was to have lots of infantry and artillery and perhaps few tanks. Cycling through the possible suggestions, I have finally choose the following one:

I have taken "on map" mortar to allow the possibility to perform direct fires... And, my infantry is having bazooka for the cats on the other side.

The map is divided in two by the main road. Woods are limiting LOS for both players. Here is the view from the enemy side:

Here is the view from my side plus at ground level:

My plan is simple:
On the left side, I will try to reach the woods and obtain some intel of what is behind. On the right side, I will do the same. In the center, I will reach the first objective in front of me.
Once done, I will assess what's next to do.

SETUP
My positions at the beginning of the first turn. View from the enemy position:

View of the center of the map:

View of my side:

MINUTE 1
On my left, my troops are moving to the woods as planned.

My mortar team is remaining in position ready for targets.

On the right, my troops are progressing to the woods and to the first objective.

An overall view.

MINUTE 2
While moving, my troops, crossing the road toward the left, are immediately spotted by what seems to be a Stug III.

And, the Stug III is immediately shooting at my men. 😡 Lesson learned: never cross a road without Fast move or smoke...

This first shot is taking me three casualties... Great!

Panic!!! What a better way to start a new game... 🤗

MINUTE 4
Mortar fire is starting but the shots are too long. Crap... I am even surprised the mortar team was having an LOS there...

I have ordered my tank to move left in order to counter the threat of the newly discovered tank.

My infantry is entering the woods. I will now really see what is going on behind.

Just one second before the turn ends, an infantry sound contact can be heard. The overall situation:

Next turn will be great I think.

Over at the church there is a battle between a Staghound and the 20mm auto cannon halftrack. First, the halftrack shot in the wheels last turn takes some incoming rifle fire and reverses to safety. 

The sniper in the tower draws a bead, exposing his location to RH's men. It doesn't end well. A Staghound supporting D Company soon spots a 20 mm AC halftrack.
The Staghound crew opens fire with their MG's while the main gun takes careful aim. The 20mm AC is reversing out of trouble, hopefully he will be unaware of the danger he is in.
Uh oh, looks like that cannon is starting to draw a bead on the Staghound. He is reversing at full speed so any shots should be hasty and off target right? The Staghound takes careful aim and fires!

A clean hit! It misses everything important and the 20mm AC is able to return fire.
Not just return fire, but fire accurately, while reversing, just after taking solid hit to halftrack. Can the battle luck be any worse?? If you look closely there are two holes in the Staghound, one of which killed the driver.

Not only does the 20mm AC halftrack take a hit and kill my Staghound driver while reversing, somehow while all that is going on, he manages to spot the sniper in the church tower as well takes him and the spotter out with a perfectly aimed shot. 

Busy week Joe, but I can post one up tonight!
Minute 1:57-1:56
We will start on the left with C Company as it has been a while since their positions have been updated. The platoons have been moving in leap frog, one moving, the other two in over watch. They are almost to the edge of the objective, near the middle of town. A few more bounds and they should be on the objective. They have some contacts on the right side of the map, but still nothing ahead of them. They will continue this same movement until they secure the first line of buildings in the objective or make contact with RH's men.

Back to the church. The scouts I gave a face order to last turn decided they would sprint out of the tower, into the main part of the church and go all the way to the far end of the building. Before they even make it to the end, incoming fire first drops one man
and less than three seconds later another
That did not go as planned. Who is to blame for their deaths? Some PanzerGrenadiers! Note the snipers in the bell tower come under some sort of HE fire this turn, somehow RH has seen them moving up the tower. In the background, some men from D Company are rounding the corner of a house and making their way to the church.

The men from D company get close but those PzG nail another one of my men
He must have been the best friend to every man in the squad as a few seconds later, his squad mates turn tail and run away. Their fellow platoon mates and the remaining scout, pour fire onto the heads of the PzG, and while I see no one drop, one man appears to be starting to run away. Have I broken their will to fight??

Near the end of the minute, one of my Daimlers gets a bead on a fully loaded halftrack! HA HA revenge is ours
Except instead of hitting anything important or the passenger compartment, my gunner decided a road wheel needed a hole... I hope he gets a chance to fire again. This image also shows what appears to be a 20mm cannon halftrack. Could this be the one who killed the Preacher? Whoever he is, he draws a bead on a passing Daimler, takes aim and hits, killing the driver. The crew bail and run away.
Here is an overview of the positions of my men at the end of the turn.

I have taken a close up view of where I have seen RH's men so far. The buildings circled in red have had some infantry spotted running into them.
My analysis at this point of the battle leads me to believe I have found the one of RH's companies as well as some of his support vehicles. I have counted at least 6 halftracks including two support versions. While I have some solid contacts, like the fully loaded halftracks, others have been only a single man spotted here or there. I feel confident still with my plan laid out at the start of the battle, but I have more questions than answers.
Where are the rest of his men? Are they with this company and I have not yet seen them? Could they be just out of sight and next turn come rolling into view decimating my men? Or did RH split his forces into two battle groups and his other half is just infantry working their way in on the other flank of the map? Should I push in hard with my AFV's and another platoon of men from C company and attempt to crush his men by the church right away? If I do, will I leave my flanks exposed and potentially walk straight in to a trap? The answers to these questions and more in the next post.

My ADD/OCD fidelity mapping project for tonight: Claies de Vire.
1. Overview 


2. A nice back door into the German anchor position at St. Martin for Company A, 119th Infantry?
3. Simple. Just cross this weir, single file.


4. ... and hop the open barge lock (US engineers subsequently shut it btw, flooding German footbridges upstream as far as Pont Hebert).


5. ....But wait, it gets *better!* You then cross the dam and take the solid stone powerhouse/mill by the old mill pond. (No chance the Krauts have turned that into a blockhouse or anything).
 

Briefing pages for my second scenario in the Carillon sequence: PURPLE HEART CORNER



Still laying out German defences here, so it will be a while before this is ready for testing.

MINUTE 2
While moving, my troops, crossing the road toward the left, are immediately spotted by what seems to be a Stug III.

And, the Stug III is immediately shooting at my men. 😡 Lesson learned: never cross a road without Fast move or smoke...

This first shot is taking me three casualties... Great!

Panic!!! What a better way to start a new game... 🤗

@ncc1701e posted an AAR thread with a set of rules for handling area fire and C2 that was quite a bit simpler than the command friction and spread sheet method. Check it out here: 
@Bil Hardenberger and I played a quick battle with a version of these and quite liked it.

Ok, Here is the latest iteration of the 'House Rules' (with the usual subject to change mindset).
1* No Pre-Planned Arty (or Area-Fire from Ground Units) on Turn 1 of a Meeting Engagement, or from Defender. Player will need to Call-In Arty normally. Attacker in Attack/Defense Games are exempt and can use Pre-Planned Arty.
2* Players will let the Computer AI choose what Targets to shoot at (Players can't choose Targets, but can still use Small Arms & HE' Area-Fire'). Player can still use Smoke at anytime and any Location on the Map.
3* Units can conduct Free LOF/LOS checks (and thus conduct Small Arms & HE Area-Fire) at its exact location and any adjacent Action-Spots (total of 9x Action-Spots)...Since Vehicles don't have Action-Spots per say they are allowed to conduct Free LOF/LOS checks 360 degrees out to 20 meters.
4* Players Can't click on Enemy Icons/Units during a Game.
5* Direct Small Arms & HE Area-Fire in a Meeting Engagement can't be more then roughly 2x Action-Spots in any direction from Enemy Icons/Units), however, in Probe/Attack Engagements treat as normal and can shoot anywhere at anytime.
6* Vehicle Smoke Dischargers (not Smoke Shells) is controlled by the Computer AI, and not by the Player.
7* No Armor Detailed Hits, RH Animation Mod, Invisible Floating Enemy Icons, Invisible Casualty Cross, Invisible Enemy Tracer.
8* C&C System...From either BH or the more quicker user friendly version from HT.
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Now, there are some variations to the above 'House Rules' to better suite how you think CM should be played...Below are some examples:
'House Rule' #2 Variation: Allow a Player to Direct-Fire with Mortars (since they Area-Fire anyways). Allow Direct-Fire with HMG Teams or MG equiped Vehicle against other Vehicles (since not doing so will have both AC's pairing off and not shooting at each other, but giving a DF Order will allow for either AC's to potentially damage each other.
'House Rule' #3 Variation: If a Unit checks LOS at a Waypoint that Unit has to keep that Waypoint (and not alter it) for duration of turn...Next turn he can delete any or all Waypoints, and repeat procedure.
 

Brings me back to my time at Warminster assisting with the CO's course. Half a dozen Brits in the syndicate and one French officer. He sized up and conceptually solved the problem in about 5 minutes and the solution was one that made everybody else look utterly pedestrian in how they had thought about the situation.
As you might conclude from the above, I have a lot of time for the French and particularly the way that they truly have an expeditionary mindset and can do operational/strategic agility, economy of force and influence to achieve effects in the parts of the world in which they have an interest.
Just a pi$$er that the Armee de Terre isn't in game.

Definitely think this is the way to do it as a standard campaign.  The key here is you'll have to really work the map.  For this to be more of an infantry based patrolling map, it needs to have a really good natural feel. Spend some time looking through images of Afghanistan for the area you intend to be the AO.  Google Afghanistan look through the images.  If you see something that looks like what your mind's eye view of the terrain is then dig in, figure out where it is.  What NATO forces may have been based there, what are the crops, get a feel for how the construct their villages etc.  The more you feel grounded in knowing the place the better it will work.

Back to the persistent damage and infantry only points … I disagree mainly because infantry only fights in Afghanistan for the most part operate in an environment where offensive support of some form or another (air, aviation, mortars, rockets and conventional artillery) is on tap. Generally the CONOP won't get signed off unless this kind of support is in place so it would be unrealistic in the majority of cases for any unit to step outside the wire without the capability to whistle that kind of support up when required. Inevitably, and I made a mission depicting such a circumstance, there were some well-known occasions when the offensive support either wasn't properly teed up, arrived late or the coordinating HQ misread the reporting that was coming from the ground leading to non-arrival or confusion. However, for this to happen to the unit in the proposed campaign every time it steps outside the wire is stretching credulity to the limit and therefore killing immersion.
There are of course techniques that can be applied relating to realistic concerns about collateral damage and the policy of courageous restraint implemented towards the back end of the NATO involvement but ultimately that firepower is still going to be on call and will be used where ROE permits which means that buildings and compounds are going to get dropped. All of this ignores dynamic compound entry using breaching charges which is another thing that is going to create persistent map damage.
A perfectly viable way to nail this campaign is to have the unit newly arrived in its newly established FOB and then have a series of missions where it extends its security bubble. In the schematic below, there are nine separate maps which would be say anything between 1km x 1km and 2km x 2km. Mission 1 sees the unit securing its FOB properly and then the remainder are extending that bubble by patrolling or knocking over the insurgents in the villages (or outside them if you prefer) in each box. Each mission doesn't have to be of this type and could involve things like a hard knock on an identified insurgent commander's compound or maybe doing route clearance and security for a resupply convoy coming up a route leading to the FOB or whatever else takes your fancy. The bottom line though is that you get realism without bumping up against the persistent map damage issue, which certainly for me is an absolute immersion killer.

MG team in action

infantry and armored in cooperation