Kaunitz
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Posts posted by Kaunitz
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Sound improvements. This is pretty obvious as I think almost every CM player uses some kind of sound mod. Even if the devs don't want to invest in some proper sounds (hire that guy from Post Scriptum!
), it would be nice to have at least two sounds per weapon. One to be played at short range to the listener/camera, with more "pop" and higher frequencies, one for long range with the higher fequencies died-out and more echo. Also, sounds should keep their maximum volume longer/in a larger area. This should help against unwanted sound-recon by the players (you can almost pin-point a firing unit just by tracking its sounds). Also, it gives weapons their proper volume - you should hear a rifle shot pretty loud over the whole map, not just within 30 meters (theoretically depending on terrain, of course). Right now, you amplify sounds a lot (--> noise) to make them loud enough.
- This veteran (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTE9BPmiZNo, ca. at 18:30, if I remember correctly) gives an account of his attempt to blow up a german pillbox. Reminded me that it would be nice to actually have those shutters for pilboxes (and fortifications in general). I don't know how common they were, but they certainly make sense? They could work like button up/open up for vehicles. [Also interesting, he mentions that he considered it to be a big disadvantage to have to fire into the dark of the pillbox's back door, while the germans in the pillbox would be able to see him in full light --> "flashlight" lol. Somewhere in the video, he mentions a whistle as a starting signal for an assault]
- I also wondered whether it would be good to add some additional psychological factors. For example: A morale "buff" for intact friendly tanks close by. A "debuff" for hearing enemy MGs (close by? / inflicting at least a bit of suppression?)
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Sound improvements. This is pretty obvious as I think almost every CM player uses some kind of sound mod. Even if the devs don't want to invest in some proper sounds (hire that guy from Post Scriptum!
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50 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:
Glad you like the sample of the animation mod. The stuff I created some years back inludes a bit more, but there were also some more problematic cases with transitions. So I´d focused just on the to me important ones included in the dropbox file. If I understand you correctly the changes between reload single rounds and pop up for shooting might lead to a very unsteady and IMO more unrealistic animation. It´ll look more like taking "snap shots" when in fact the ptrooper does his "normal" aim and follow up shooting sequence which IMO reflects proper aiming times related to experience and maybe leader stats. But off course you can make your experiments and see if it suits your imaginations better. I´m more or less done with this mod and keep using just the ones from the Realism Pack file.
You're certainly right that it looks ugly. I'm not denying this. If you want to make infantry survive a bit longer (which I personally want), it is still an interesting option though. By reducing the silhouettes of pixeltroopers while they're reloading and aiming, they are harder to hit and make better use of cover. Especially when going over a ridge.
Of course there might also be some unwanted implications. For example, automatic weapons fire longer bursts and are therefore exposed for longer periods than riflemen who just pop up for single shots. At close ranges, this can be quite important as the suppression effect caused by the automatic weapons takes some time to set in - not sure how fast the game ticks/updates the suppression status of a unit, every 2 seconds perhaps? (The easy "fix" would be to keep the stance of the "boltaction" task untouched)
Here is a short video of close quarter engagements in the woods. It demonstrates well how ugly it looks, but also that soldiers act as if they had a slightly better survivial instinct, ducking a lot and exposing themselves only as briefly as it is absolutely neccessary. Close quarter engagements resemble "whack a mole". The grenade usually wins.
I still prefer this frantic ducking over the "I stand here in the open and take aim at the opponent at 2 meters' distance ... - Oh, bollocks, now I got shot while I was aiming!" I like that feeling that the pixeltroopers seem to react faster somehow. It feels as if there is slightly less "inertia" in their behaviour.
Just to make sure everyone understands the difference: In these clips, the soldiers only use their ordinary stance (that they would adopt in the vanilla game) when they fire. When they aim or reload, by contrast, their stance is lowered by one level (stand --> kneel --> prone). E.g. given: in the very first clip, the us soldier on the right would be kneeling all the time. Due to the animation changes, he stays prone and just switches to "kneeling" when he's firing. The same is also true for the germans in the foxholes, of course. The ugly bobbing is there because there is no transition animation between the altered stances. This is just my private experimental version. If you download RockinHarry's version, you don't get the ugly bobbing.
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Your animation experiment is really interesting. And apart from the lack of "transition" between kneeling/standing fire tasks and prone mag-reloading, I did not encounter any issues at all.
Currently, I'm testing whether you can go even more extreme to provide infantry with some desperately needed help (in my opinion, at least). I've changed the whole fire/bolt-action/aim process so it occurs one stance-level lower. While firing out of buildings doesn't seem to be any problem, I found that it does interfer with area fires though (area fire against an uphill target falls "short", so to speak). So I think it might be a good idea to keep the "fire" animation at the original level while lowering the "aim" and "bolt-action" (also shown as "reloading" in the individual soldiers' task info) by a level. The fire animation is very short, while the bolt-action and the aim (here depending on range to target) take quite a lot of time. Even though this experiment might not look as good as the vanilla game, I think I'd prefer the gameplay effects over the looks in this case. So, soldiers stay relatively low whenever they auto-chamber a new round and also when they aim, and then pop up only for a split second to fire. The bad thing about the "popping up", as mentioned, is that it happens without any transitional animation.
I will upload a file sometime this week in case anyone is interested (right now, I'm just working with the Kar98k files; once I have tested it a bit, I will apply it to the other affected animations and then upload).
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On 2/5/2019 at 4:23 PM, Bulletpoint said:
I think @Kaunitz once found out that the positions of the individual trees don't really matter for LOS?
Some insights regarding trees:
Note that I was unaware of this very enlighting piece of information provided by Vanir Ausf B back then, but reading through my tests and watching my videos, I'm not really sure whether the observed behaviour can be explained by it:
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For CMx3:
- Crouched run. Some way of moving faster than the crawl while keeping a relatively low profile.
- A new target order exclusively for throwing grenades (while staying prone/in cover, if possible). In close assault situations, you don't want your riflemen to stand up and go "peng, peng, peng!". You want them to go "boom!"
- An easier way (requiring fewer clicks) to make soldiers stay prone but NOT withhold their fire. Right now, the way to go is to use a "hide" command in combination with a 360° target arc (which in turn, means that you can't fine tune the facing/usage of cover). Also, the hide command reduces spotting capabilites (soldiers go through "hide" tasks, not just idle and spotting).
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Here is a little video of an engagement in the woods on my map. Basically, it’s 20 minutes of men crawling around
. As you will notice, I didn’t take it too seriously. I had fun doing it and I think the engagement played out interestingly, except for panic-charges and grenade-o-phobia. Creating videos helps me to consider more thoroughly what parts of my maps can be improved.
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I'm busy trying out stuff, especially RockinHarry's animation tweak/exchanges. I'll answer in more detail after that.
Current status: You can try out some wood-fighting on the eastern wooded hill if you feel like it https://www.dropbox.com/sh/91wr3f203ub9ash/AABD8cAKYNLStBpusxo1yl_pa?dl=0
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@RockinHarry Very interesting experiment!
Is the file (not just the "jumps", but the "covering" and "reloading") still available somewhere? I bought CM:BN (but the wrong extra modules, so I still can't test your map .. d'oh!)
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I really hope we will see some improvement in regards to defensive features at some point in the future. But somehow I doubt it, given that many people don't seem to have any problem with it. I wonder whether this may also be linked to the preference of Meeting Engagements in H2H games? I rarely ever see people pick fortifications anyway.
The fact that infantry dies like flies despite all your best, terrain-fiddly efforts to work around the problem is becoming a major deal breaker for me personally. It sucks the enthusiasm right out of me when it comes to map-creation. Infantry simply depends on using the protection provided by terrain. In CM, protection by terrain doesn't work that well as there is a lack of properly working defensive structures and issues with soldier placement (make good use of cover without completely ignoring LOS), which I understand must be a pain in the **** to code. This lack of staying power for infantry makes it quite hard to simulate real engagements.
Sometimes I wished we could just paint abstract levels of "small arms + shrapnel protection for infantry" areas on selected action-squares of the map (directional would be ideal...). I'm a big fan of the ballistic model in the game, but I think it reaches its limits when every single cm counts, which is the case if we're talking about cover for infantry. Elevating or depressing 8x8m areas is not a sufficient mean to create cover for infantry and is also extremely fiddly and unreliable. The implementation "abstract protection modifiers" would just swipe away all the fiddlyness with one god-sent blow. No more worrying about unreliable soldier placement, no more worrying about overexposed soldiers (also: soldiers deciding switch from prone to kneel every now and then...), no more worrying about lack of LOS if the soldiers are not overexposed.
/rant mode off
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Not directly on topic, but close! You might be interested in taking a look at the (west-german) videos on "fighting in built-up areas" linked in this thread:
Even if you don't understand german, there are many examples that show how buildings were fortified.
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This is a very interesting read!
I like the limits on area fire. Although it probably gets too complicated, have you considered to add a "delay" on area fire? Surely, it would take some time for the squad and platoon leaders to indicate the targets to their subordinates? When you think about it, even more questions come up (obvious terrain features would be easier/faster to target; tracer ammunition might be handy to indicate targets?). For example, if you note that your mg back there is firing at a particular spot (you can see its tracers), you can assume that something is there and might be allowed to area fire at that spot?
I also wondered whether it would make any difference if you disabled tracer effects (if that's possible via some mod)? Then again, in most situations, it seems as if the fire is immediately revealed anyway, so you don't need to observe the the incoming tracers?
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11 hours ago, RockinHarry said:
nice and noisy battle. I know it´s just for the fun, but this looks to me like that 1943/44 US training vid situation where the GI´s are beeing told they need not fear the german MG34/42 at all. Just flank it and kill it.
Guess a many allied soldiers paid that "training" with their precious lifes.
Really bad german postion. Crested, no covered retreat ways and no flank protection. So when using bocage I´d use a gapped section for the MG so at least the lMG gunner without tripod can lay down for more precise fires, as well as beeing better protected from any flank (keyholed). If germans in here (though doesn´t matter if german or US) are meant to be played by the AIP, I´d give them any holding hand that can be spared.
Fire and manoeuvre. Hehe. Against well supported positions, it must have lead to many ugly surprises.
As you say, the german position was really bad (there was another MG in the background which kept the flanking party's heads down pretty well, and killed 2). It could have been knocked out with mortars or any other form of HE instantly.
I also started to think about the overall layout of the german defence on this map. [SPOILER ALERT!!!
] Obviously the woods on the left flank are important, as they provide enfilade positions against anyone approaching the farm in the center. However, due to the swampy area in their rear, a retreat from the woods (via the fire break?) back to the "escape road" is only possible for infantry. The "escape road" at the swampy area must be held at all cost to prevent the wooded position from being cut off, but that should be easy, given that the road is a natural key-hole position. The central farm itself is a deathtrap. Only the little ditch, the orchard and the wooded stripe provide some cover. Most importantly, any retreat from the central farm is overwatched by the enemy's starting positions on the hill. So I suppose the german main positions will be on the hill on their side of the map (not sure yet what I will do with it - either also woods or a village) and the woods on the left flank.
While it would be tempting to defend the open ground south of the wooded hill position (--> see video above), it's too exposed to american support fires. So I guess it would make more sense to defend the wood from within the wood. This, however, needs many people (LOS is short, a thinned out position is prone to infiltration). Wire obstacles could help. I guess the germans should also put up wire obstacles and put down mines to slow down any advance along any ditches leading northwards and perhaps south of the farm to slow enemy down in the killing field of the german enfilade-positions. The wooded hill position provides natural cover, but would need to be reinforced against artillery (--> some "dugouts" = wooden bunkers). If hard pressed in the wood, the Germans should be able to do a fighting retreat towards "escape road". Support weapons placed on the southern slope of the wooded hill north of "escape road" could cover their retreat.
That being said, if the americans manage to reach central farm despite all the fire coming at them from the northern hill and the wooded hill in the east (the embanked road provides some cover...), they probably have an easy time thrusting further northwards, as this movement would be covered by the little wood that borders the main road west of "central farm". If they have tanks, it should still be risky for the americans to advance on central farm. There are many ditches /thickets that are impassable for tanks in the fields. I will only implement some spots where tanks are able to cross them. If I keep these spots hidden/camouflaged enough (so that the player can't plan his tanks movement in a way that leads them straight-on into the "gaps" of the ditches), they should increase the likelihood that the tanks will expose their flanks, which makes them vulnerable to hithereto concealed PaK positions from long range (from the hill on the german side).
(map size = 2100x1000)
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The map made some progress yesterday. I've started to implement "micro cover" (many little - 1m - elevations and depressions, bumps in the ground) in the wooded areas. While in this case (as in many others), it might look a bit exagerated from an aesthetical perspective, I think the ingame-effect is fine. In reality, elevations/depressions shallower than 1m would also provide cover, but the smallest intervall at our disposal in the editor is 1m.
What really helped me in my "bumpy ground" endeavour was my discovery that the "adjust" elevation tool can be used with delta set to "0", in which case it just turns the elevation at the action spot from an "automatically calucalted" one (no background) into a deliberately set on (black/blue background). So you can just paint over an area with delta set to 0, which doesn't change any elevations. Once this is done, you can add the bumps (delta = 1). Why is this important? If you'd just add the bumps into "automatically calculated" terrain, the whole area would start to recaltulate/change.
While working on the woods, I was also reminded of an important aspect that is (quite understandably so) missing in the game. Real woods in Luxembourg are often very cultivated cornifer woods, whose "borders" feature quite large trees with big gaps in between them. So they don't have that "gently rising canpoy of leafs" (smaller trees and bushes on the outside, rising as you go deeper into the wood) that I'm so fond of and that would block any LOS into the wood for good. However, even these open/gappy cornifer woods would provide some concealment as the trees would still cast shadows. Shadows are an important factor that is not modeled in the game. Obviously, it would also be highly dependent on the overall weather --> more sunshine --> greater contrast between sunny and shadowy areas.
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@RockinHarry Thanks for the explanation. I will see if I can figure it out and perhaps use it in some selected, important locations.
A short video, showing some scenes of a small american attack. Nothing special really, but everybody likes videos!
It shows my latest "bocage/thicket" solution. The german position was suppressed by a HMG. In the final stages of the attack, the american squad could bring an impressive volume of fire to bear on the german position. I really liked how the troops only caught sight of each other very for very short moments and that many units had a "medium" level of suppression and were pinned every now and then, slowing the action down a bit.
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I still don't believe in trenches. Here is a short test video to back up my opinion:
Explanation: I set up 27 guys in some trenches (which had a bit of zig-zag in them to stop shrapnel?). Originally, I wanted to test different calibres of arty. But after testing the 81mm mortars, I felt there was no need to continue the test with heavier calibres. Admittedly, I placed the target for the 2x2 mortars perfectly on the trenches, and I set the strength and duration of the fire mission to "max" (but this would only speed things up). The first test in the video demonstrates what happened to units who had no orders to remain prone ("hide"), but instead kneeled: Out of the 27 men, 21 were casualties, only 6 survived. Many of the casualties were inflicted by the buggy "run to the crater" behaviour: In the middle of the artillery barrage, troopers leave the trenches to seek cover in craters. But as I zoom in, you can see that most casualties were still inflicted in the trench itself. The second test in the video uses the same setup (27 men in trenches versus 4 81mm mortars). Results were almost the same - 19 casualties, 8 survivors.
(video will be available shortly)
No, I don't believe that trenches are working properly. The trench is by far too wide. When hit by artillery, it's only a matter of a few seconds before the shells hit right into the trenches. Therefore, the currently available trenches offers almost no protection against artillery (which ought to be their primary purpose).
Hehe, the trench looks nice. I came up with something very similar for my Gerbini map (picture: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/125278-highlanders-the-battle-of-gerbini/?do=findComment&comment=1747980). But the problems described above in my short test still remained.
I'm curious about that scenario of yours, given that you also seem to pay a lot of attention to defensive works. I'm really tempted to buy CM:BN for it. ...
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I believe the problem is the same as for the other fortifications? It seems to be impossible to make features sink into the ground/terrain mesh. Take a look at the current trenches: they protrude from the ground, which of course, is not how they're supposed to work. In my opinion, fortifications are really the one major thing that is not handled well by Combat Mission games, and it makes infantry die like flies, especially to indirect fire and direct HE fire. While the mechanics do work as you'd expect, with ground stopping shrapnel effects, any attempt to recreate foritifcations by messing with elevations is rather futile, as the action spots come at a size of 8x8 meters (a depression of such a big size does not offer protection from arty), can't be camouflaged and also the troopers' placement within the depression is a roll of dice.
Ideally, dugouts/trenches/pits should have these characteristics:
1) They should not be visible for the opponent in the terrain/ground mesh and have an excellent "hiding value" themselves, so that they're only discovered when you're right on them.
2) They should increase the hiding-value for units positioned in them (i.e. provide concealment).
3) They should be deep and narrow with sharp edges. The width of the trench is directly linked to the protection it provides against indirect fire. Every meter counts.
4) Troops inside the trench should position themselves in a way that exposes them as little as possible (head + raised weapon), while at the same time gives them good lines of sight (assuming that the surrounding terrain is flat...).
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Thanks for all your investigations of the "pillbox-issue"! I haven't had the time to conduct my own tests yet. It seems as if there are no clear conclusions yet. By the way are troops inside the pillbox unaffected by the "prefer the cover of a crater over any other cover" issue?
17 hours ago, General Liederkranz said:I just had some fun with this blowing things up, not really putting any thought into my maneuvers aside from getting units within LOS of each other to see what would happen to the bunkers. (It's a good looking and interesting map! It seems like with the forces currently on it, the long range gun duel will decide things. The little streambed was nice and it provided enough cover for a couple of guys to stage a Panzerfaust ambush (that's what I get for ignoring the US infantry and just drove the tanks toward the bunkers)).
Thank you very much for the feedback!
Of course the open space makes large calibre guns very usefull. However, some thoughts come to my mind:
1) Tanks were not everywhere. The available assets might be very limited in the final scenario. Lacking large calibres, artillery and machine guns should dominate the long and medium ranges.
2) Infantry would still need to advance into the danger zone of enemy machine guns to spot the enemy mg nests in order for them to be taken out by the tanks/larger calibres. As we know, the game has some "issues" in this respect (I have no clue either how one could solve these) in that the player can immediately target any enemy that has been spotted by any of his units. Coordination is too fast/easy. Also, as it is very hard to fortify positions properly (no good trench solutions, troopers don't make optimal use of cover), I'm convinced that positions are taken out way, way too quickly by HE fire.
3) The scenario might be set at night. As I envision the scenario as a proper attack on a (thinned-out) german defensive line, it would be more plausible to set it at night.
11 hours ago, RockinHarry said:Yeah...now that you say I saw all your varied hedge and bocage combos in some pics already.
With regards to tank ditches I prefer the mod method as one can create the classical ones this way. No odd & hard to recognize terrain alterations and WYSIWYG.
Regarding sunken roads and ditches, the pixel troopers dislike sloped terrain unless it provides some crested cover. Otherwise the games AI puts them to places where they can spot and shoot at the enemy as required. That´s the way it´s programmed and no way to change that basic behavior. There´s just that little trick by letting them move in column and slow "move" mode and stop/pause the current order. They´ll remain there until unpaused again, but otherwise it´s not really of much use actually.
Another trick of mine is placing crater terrain in an AS where I like the AI to move ptroopers individually. Craters is amongst the game AI´s most prefered cover terrain, even before foxholes sometimes. Seven tiny craters is sufficient most the time, the more if you´d like craters not so visible. One can even predict some the random crater placements if taking into consideration that each crater-click on the map turns them about 15° for the follow up one.
Haha, you can really control the position of troopers in an action spot by interrupting a "slow" movement order? As you say that's probably not that usefull but it's still hilarious.
Regarding the craters: That's very interesting! I just tested it (density: 7 craters) and indeed the troopers in the action spot always positioned themselves on a crater. The light craters only seem to provide space for one trooper each (contains only one "positional slot"). The medium and heavy craters, by contrast, can take 3+ troopers - so, if you only place 1 of these craters on the action spot, chances are high your troopers will all bunch up in the crater. I wasn't aware of this. Its usefullness obviously depends on how much control you can have over the placement of craters within the AS. The "7 craters" (which are "aesthetically tolerable" enough to be placed everywhere) are spread out all over the AS. I don't quite understand the 15° pattern you're describing. Could you elaborate?
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3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
I tested it out, and found hits from the front cause the same casualties on average as hits against a 2-story modular building. Bunkers are bugged.
35 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:bugged like a stray dog I´d say. Got to check with new patch again, but I guess they´ll remain unusable until V5.
That sounds weird. Yesterday, it seemed just fine to me. I need to check again tomorrow. (I was using the Pak-bunker versions, that can be purchased as "troops", not as "fortifications")
31 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:Kaunitz, did you consider using + X \ / , gapped and angled versions?
I use these a lot at the border of woods to cut lines of sight into the wood.
Still "heavy wood" creates the most convincing thickets in my opinion (at least in CM:FB).
26 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:for AT ditch I use "invisible" AT obstacle mod and place these anywhere I like to have tank/vehicle no go. Simple.
That's some advanced stuff right there! I'm not sure I want to use mods though and the heavy wood (=thicket) works nicely. As I've mentioned and as suggested by Bulletpoint, I will also set some crossing points.
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The thing that still bugs me out the most is that my pixeltroopers can't make proper use of all the sunken roads and ditches I create so painstakingly. Either they expose themselves on the "embankment", or they position themselves so that they can't see anything. I can either just go with it and create the aesthetically more pleasing (but mechanically dubious) version of the map, or I can make a lot experiments to find out in which way I have to create depressions so that pixeltroopers can use them for cover against direct fire (I've given up on artillery...), even though the result might look as good (for my Gerbini scenario, I was able to find one particular setup for straight - not diagonal - terrain, in which my troops consistently positioned themselves relatively well: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/125278-highlanders-the-battle-of-gerbini/?do=findComment&comment=1747999).
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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:
Did you paint the tiles with heavy woods to model antitank ditches? Another way of doing it is painting ditches with mud tiles and making the conditions wet. That gives a chance to cross the ditch, but the attacker knows he runs a big risk of bogging. I think that's more fun, and looks more natural than somehow having heavy forest growing in all the ditches.
Primarily, it's for aesthetical reasons. Heavy wood tiles are the only good option to create thickets. "Brush" and the "bush" foliage-elements are not dense enough (the latter are also to tall). Bocage and hedge-tiles are linear elements and thus not suitable as thickets (they can be added on top of heavy wood to make the thickets even denser). As you've suggested, I will create some marsh/swamp spots for tanks to cross them. I think it's an interesting change to restrict tank-movement a bit more than it is common.
1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:They don't, actually. A concrete bunker gives about the same protection against 75mm HE as a modular building. Unless something was changed in the 4.01 patch.
Are you sure? From my observation, bunkers are treated like vehicles. When they get hit, a vehicle-hit-info pop ups ("penetration", etc). Unless they hit the opening (which took a few minutes at a range of ca. 1km), the Shermans failed to penetrate the bunker. (The bunkers were still spotted way too easily though...)
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7 hours ago, domfluff said:
One thing that really strikes me about the above (and similar accounts) is how long this would take to set up.
It's likely only minutes, but in a world where we have one minute turns and infinite time to think in between them, I think there's a natural tendency to expect an awful lot to happen in those sixty seconds.
It's also pretty interesting as a response to many spotting questions in general - an entire platoon with attached AFV was able to manouvre within six action spots of a Churchill platoon, presumably sight unseen, since they've taken them by surprise.
Also, the thought occurs that the logic behind shoot and scoot is that you can break the connection between spotting contact and your vehicle, meaning that moving to a secondary firing position against a stationary known enemy should give you the advantage in reacquisition time.
I also thought that if the Churchill was only 50 meters away, the crew must have heard the StuG? But then we don't know if the Churchill's engine was running, too? And then obsiovusly the Churchill crew must have been waiting, expecting to ambush any enemy vehicle that showed itself on the ridge. The decisive difference was obviously that the Churchills lacked infantry support.
The StuG did not reposition to a secondary position, it just withdrew back behind the ridge to be safe from the other Churchills. So no proper shoot and scoot according to your definition, I'm afraid. How the other three Churchills were knocked out (the one close by by the StuG of another platoon; two others were a further 200 meters away, turrets pointing in another direction) is not described in detail.
7 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:+1 Interesting read. The book is probably only printed in German? Thanks for sharing.
It's only in German and rather complicated to acquire via the Monte Cassino Foundation. Some of the book's contents (not the accounts of the actual action) strike me as uncritical/ideologically affirmative, as the author seems to have been a "proud" paratrooper, convinced of what he was doing. But on the plus side, the proceeds of the book's sale benefit the Monte Cassino Foundation. I became aware of the book during my research for my COII Catania/Primosole bridge scenario (https://forums.lnlpublishing.com/p/30089).
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This topic deserves to stay up high in the list of topics (no sticky topics here?)! So I thought I could add an interesting account I've come upon, cited from Joseph Klein, Fallschirmjäger. Piniere der 1. Fallschrimjägerdivision im Italienkrieg", p. 89 (poor translation by myelf ^^). The author - who was a platoon leader in the parachute-engineer ("Fallschirmjägerpionier") battalion - narrates his encounter with a troop of Churchill tanks at Termoli in early October 1943. I found it interesting as it is an example of both "info sharing" and "shoot and scoot".
Context: He and his men stumbled into 4 Churchills when they peeked over a sharp ridge. The clostest tank was only at a distance of 50m and the tanks had to be taken out quickly as they were overlooking the path of approach of their unsuspecting fellow platoons. The author also mentions that they had no Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck ("Ofenrohre") with them. They had captured enemy AT guns, but were reluctant to use them as they had no experience with them. They also couldn't knock the tank out with grenade bundles ("geballte Ladungen") as there was no cover to approach the tanks safely. However, the company of the author was supported by StuGs. His platoon also had a StuG (of some short-barreled variant) at hand, which had to do the job:
"Due to its inflexibility, our StuG was at a disadvantage against the British tanks. It had no turret, so the whole vehicle had to be turned in order to aim. Also, the short-barreled gun posed some problems*. We hurriedly discussed our options with the StuG-crew. [The author goes on to assert the truth of the incredible story, he also points out that the StuG crewmen - of the 16th tank division - were veterans from the eastern front and their StuG's two (?!) gunbarrels were marked with 8-10 rings, indicating the number of their kills] First, we directed our StuG to the left side of the road which offered better concealment. Then one guy went to peek over the ridge to spot the enemy tank and indicate the line of collimation/direction to the target to another guy, who acted as a grain on which the StuG could orient itself. Finally our StuG was ready. It would need drive up the ridge in a straight line. The StuG's low silhouette was handy in this situation, as only ca. 50cm would need to be exposed to the enemy tank-gunner. As they had also considered the angle to their target, the StuG's crew had depressed their gun to the maximum - it looked as if it would fire into the ground. One of our squad-machine guns and some riflemen would trigger the action by abruptly opening fire at the vision slits in order to dazzle the enemy tank. [details about the position of the MG and riflemen...]
Then we got started: Shortly after the MG started to bark, and rifles and machine-pistols started to fire, the StuG's engine roared as it made its short approach to the crest of the ridge, followed by the dry "bang" of the StuG's gun. The Churchill tank was ablaze. It had been taken totally by surprise. As planned, its crew had been distracted by the machine gun and rifle fire, so they were unaware of the more serious threat. But I can't rule out that perhaps the machine gun and rifle fire had also had some effect on the crew inside the tank. We all rejoiced and were so excited that we almost forgot about the second enemy tank and threw our arms up in the air. [the StuG had withdrawn back behind the crest immediately after its shot]
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* "...wobei die kurzen Stummelrohre ihrer Kanone nur wenig Ausschlag und Richtungsmöglichkeiten auf das Ziel geben konnten" ???
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I need to point out that the map is still a big work in progress.
Tanks are very mighty here, that's true - assuming that the scenario takes place in daylight. They will have some troubles to advance because of the ditches that use "heavy wood" (impassable for tanks) terrain though. While I do want to add some places where tanks can cross a ditch (via marsh terrain, which I suppose has a higher chance to immobilize the tanks), tanks will still need to pass through bottlenecks that can be controled by the defender and/or be mined.
So letting the tanks advance should be a risk. They're still very powerfull if they stay back (at proper tank range) and support the infantry's advance, primarily by knocking out enemy MG nests. These nests can pin the advancing infantry well outside effective rifle range. That's an aspect that I really like and that corresponds to the accounts that I've read of WWII engagements: The approach phase is dominated by MGs, artillery/mortars and heavier calibres/tanks. On a relatively open map like this one, that's particularly true. I also like that troops tend to get pinned more often and for longer spans of time, without getting immediately wiped out. That's a positive side effect of the relatively long engagement ranges (depending of course on the distance at which you decide to open fire).
The question is whether the defenders have "enough" protection from the tanks. In the scenario-version, I really need to dig-in the MG nests very well and/or put them into bunkers, which - despite them getting spotted way too fast - do offer good protection as long as the tanks stay at a longer range.
I also wondered about whether it is a good idea at all to place the defenders in the farm in the valley between the two hills. It's a position from which there is hardly any retreat. As the attacker also starts from a hill, he has excellent view over the whole valley (the "line-of-sight shadows" of terrain-features shrink as you look at them from higher above...), so that any movement to the rear will be spotted and complicated by artillery or tank fire. (Also note that the larger footprint of features that offer good concealment makes spotting by FO teams way less risky than you might be used to). I might elevate/embank the main road leading to the swampy area (to the 88 flak) a bit. This should provide some cover for retreating infantry.
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I'm always happy when someone is willing to test the stuff I create. No hurry at all. I'm not the fastest one in creating the map either ;).
Short clip of a tank crew "brutality" that happened in my latest test (shortly thereafter the third tank got immobilized on the bridge by a grenade thrown from under the bridge; the immobilized tank then smoke-charged the orchard, pretty interesting scene ^^):
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Thanks! The map has progressed in the last few days. Aanother orchard in the valley has been added, as well as 3 new farms with little pastures for their cattle, works on the borders of fields, on woods, ditches and the roads. I will upload a new version once I feel like it's a big difference.
I've deleted the wall around the orchard. No too many thieves around here, even though the orchard lies adjacent to a main road. I don't think a wooden fence would serve any purpose (it also looks nice just to have the slight height-difference with "heavy forest" terrain (--> bushes) around it.
Generally speaking, for borders, I prefer the usage of "heavy forest" (somtimes in combination with a sharp 1m elevation, or with a "foot path" running through it) over that of proper hedges/bocage, as the latter creates all kinds of reverse-slope absurdities ("My MG can't fire through that foliage!"). I will replace some hedges with my custom "heavy forest" solution.
Once the map is finished, I'm planning to add a separate, "battle" version of it, full with defensive works (that will of course be visible to the attackers
) and shelled areas. It's natural to create the "untouched" version first.
)
I still prefer this frantic ducking over the "I stand here in the open and take aim at the opponent at 2 meters' distance ... - Oh, bollocks, now I got shot while I was aiming!" I like that feeling that the pixeltroopers seem to react faster somehow. It feels as if there is slightly less "inertia" in their behaviour.
Guess a many allied soldiers paid that "training" with their precious lifes.
)
Improvement suggestions
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
I know that a target order at short range also triggers the use of grenade. The grenade throwing is quite staggered and unreliable though. When you assault a house or a pillbox or whatever, it really counts. You don't want your guys to wait, or even worse, fire their rifles than to throw their grenades.
Yes, seriously. The sound effects in combat mission games are disappointing.