John Kettler Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Since I've had several requests for a separate thread discussing this scenario debrief, here we go. Those just joining be advised... SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! Do NOT read further if you plan to play this scenario! With the admin stuff out of the way, anyone needing a refresher course on what happened, and maybe even why, may wish to start reading here. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105379&page=19 Having had some time to integrate the experience, I remain more impressed than ever by the fiendishness of the scenario designer. The good news? You're getting reinforcements! The bad news? There'll be little or nothing left to reinforce! This was pretty much the pattern, even when I got the big pulse--right before everything blew up. Consequently, I was forced to throw away anything remotely resembling normal approaches, this to eventually break the defense, using the most unlikely tools. My average CMx1 tank didn't fare anywhere nearly as well as PFC Cook did, never mind surviving to exit. And he didn't have a real tank. Nor do I recommend charging down on an antitank gun with a HQ halftrack crewed by remnants of a shot up command group. As the saying goes, though, "the mission comes first." I'm very glad I didn't have to deal with this scenario in a ROW environment, for the rate at which I was taking casualties would've made for scary drops in the morale meter. Speaking of which, I miss it. It was a valuable source of feedback. You can read all the FMs you want, but the term "winning the reconnaissance battle" has taken on whole new meanings to me. This fight clearly shows what happens when speed is traded for quality recon work. When freewheeling Americans, however good, run smack into the old German pros of a heavy recon unit. My M8 Greyhounds did just fine--when not dying. Had this been the steppes, though, it would've been a massacre. I played at Veteran level, and the gunnery, both ways, was frightfully accurate. Maybe, though, at no more than 600 meter range, this is to be expected. What was wholly unexpected, though, was the ability of the leIG 18 to readily kill fast moving jeeps and Greyhounds. For a guy who can't seem to ever do better than one kill on equivalent armor using a 57mm antitank gun, the performance of this tiny, stubby German weapon was an outright shock. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 21, 2012 Author Share Posted November 21, 2012 (watches the tumbleweeds roll past as the wind moans and the dust swirls) Am wondering why I set up this thread, seeing as how those asking for it are nowhere to be seen. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Hey John...is this you ? http://johnkettler.com/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanonier Reichmann Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 What I was hoping to see was John Kettler vs Mike Tyson. Now that will definitely be worth viewing! Regards KR 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 21, 2012 Author Share Posted November 21, 2012 noob, Not that it's relevant to "Cats Chasing Dogs," but yes. Please PM/PEM me if you wish to discuss this further. KR, I can take him in a battle of words (doesn't he rap?), but we both know he could probably kill me with one punch. Were he to start playing CMBN, that would be truly remarkable. Naturally, I wouldn't want to fight RTS, given his excellent reflexes. Fortunately, that's why we have PBEM! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 noob, Not that it's relevant to "Cats Chasing Dogs," but yes. Please PM/PEM me if you wish to discuss this further. Regards, John Kettler Well i only have one question for you, if it's true that Reptoids not only exist, but are running the world, how can you devote any amount of time to anything but exposing them ?, how do you have the time, or the inclination to play CM ? As far as i'm concerned, when it comes to Aliens and UFO's, it's like God / Gods, he / she / it / they might exist, but he / she / it / they don't manifest themselves in any meaningful or demonstrable way, so they might as well not exist. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Well i only have one question for you... Oh no. You went there. Hey ho. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Oh no. You went there. Hey ho. Statistically speaking there's a chance a member of the CM community is a Reptoid........and if it's reading this post, Kettler's busted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wicky Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 According to JK anyone with a tattoo is a reptoid - Thankfully I'm 100% mammal! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 According to JK anyone with a tattoo is a reptoid Now that i can believe 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 21, 2012 Author Share Posted November 21, 2012 People, Please stay on topic. This is supposed to be a debrief thread for "Cats Chasing Dogs." Wicky, That most particularly includes you. You're the one who started drama before by deliberately taking shots at me. And here you are again, stirring up trouble. Kindly cease. What you do isn't humor but nastiness intended to create drama and discredit me. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wicky Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Are you accusing me of being a reptoid?? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 What you do isn't humor but nastiness No, John. Nastiness is advocating people drink bleach. discredit me. Oh, John, you compliment us too much. At this point in your career, nothing any of us here can say could possibly reduce your credibility. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Come on guys....."scale" down the sarcasm, we don't want JK getting "hiss"terical 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 22, 2012 Author Share Posted November 22, 2012 JonS, Please sign up for Remedial Reading soonest. I NEVER said that or anything close to it. What I described was a situation in which a beloved wife, who had Alheizmer's so bad she'd stopped recognizing her husband of many decades, was apparently cured by being given large doses of MSM, then placed into a tub of very warm water, into which some bleach was poured. The MSM opened up the blood brain barrier and, in conjunction with the hot water and sweating, made her skin more permeable, allowing the aluminum to leave the body in order to combine with the chlorine in the tub. With the aluminum cleared from her synapses, the thinking goes, her brain cleared and she began to function again. The story's a bit garbled in its presentation here, but the core elements reside in the two parts combined. But don't let the facts inconvenience you! I'm sure it's much easier and more comfortable to spread demonstrable lies about me, yet another in your seemingly unending, deliberate flouting of Forum Rules. http://www.riverflow.com/msm/testimonials.html#alzheimers Again, this isn't humor but character assassination of the most rank and vile sort. Wonder what your family members would think of you if they knew the truth?! They, I think, would be embarrassed and ashamed that you'd behave thus and have done so for many years. It's easy to be grossly insulting when there are no consequences. It is, in fact, a global display of cowardice when you use the Internet that way. Well done, sir! What any of this has to do with "Chasing Cats and Dogs" is beyond me. So, if you've all gotten japes, jests, barbs and quips out of your systems, perhaps we could do something novel--such as discussing the thread topic! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFF Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 Ooh look, it's another "poke JK with a stick" thread! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMinistry Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 I gave this scenario a shot yesterday; it was fun... until I started to lose my Pumas one by one to Greyhounds. I thought Germans had gunnery/optics superiority? John, did you play this as the Germans? Where did you place those infantry guns that arrive with the halftracks? I placed them directly in the orchard that has a direct line of sight to the houses in the middle of the map. I also tried moving the guns into the heavily wooded areas, but apparently only infantry can travel among those trees. I'll give this one another shot today or tomorrow, then perhaps post a little AAR here (assuming I'll have the time to do so). BR 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMinistry Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 Oh, and during my run last night, the American AI was rather good. It poured accurate light mortar fire into the little village/farm/whatever in the middle, when I made the mistake of rushing a Puma in there... then I decided for my infantry to arrive (more like just four guys), but the Americans were quicker and they occupied the buildings. CMBN looks kiiiinnddaaaa crappy without shaders, by the way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 22, 2012 Author Share Posted November 22, 2012 TheMinistry, I played this from the American side, and was it ever a brutal, bloody slog. That dire saga is detailed in my DAR at the top of this thread. Optics don't matter much when even a long range engagement is something like 600 meters. Both guns have flat/flattish trajectories at such ranges, so it's more a matter of finding the target, then engaging it effectively before being hit oneself. Proper lead is also important when dealing with crossing targets, and playing at Veteran, that's not terribly difficult. Nor is it something the player has control over. Restated, gunnery's not much of an issue when engaging from such close ranges. Greyhounds take one, at most two hits to disable or destroy, but probably because of over penetration, it took as many as four to do in a Puma, and in one case, seven! The blasted guns were sited east of the road on the reverse slope of the first hill and the forward slope of the second. I took lumps from them long before I figured out what I was up against. I really thought I was dealing with proper antitank guns, so imagine my surprise when they turned out not to be. The Germans never occupied the farm, not that it mattered. I was under fire practically soon as I arrived, and it kept getting worse. I was heartened, though, that I eventually, following lots of recon by death, having half my mortar section KOed almost immediately and other horrors, systematically destroyed the forward Pumas, aided by a good shoot from my then sole mortar. I K-Killed one, killed two others by abandonment forced by multiple penetrating hits, and was pretty much paranoid about what I thought was yet another Puma lurking about somewhere behind the other three. LOS was hard to come by, and I paid through the nose for positions that had it. The hill west of the road was covered with shattered M8s, unhorsed Greyhound crews, including an HQ (forget which one) and another mortar crew which got clobbered when an M8 ate it. Every time I turned around, something else went wrong. The icing on the fecal cake was an effort to get a mortar into action, only to have the pickup botched, depriving me of a critical support weapon. The bridge was useless, most of the ground exposed and the hill deadly. And that was before I ran into the rest of the defense! More Pumas, terrible crossfires, whole formations of halftracks blazing away. I did everything I could think of that made sense, and still the carnage continued. Two platoons all but annihilated. Somewhere along in there, I threw out standard approaches altogether. By then, running on fumes would've been a stupendous improvement. Necessity truly is the mother of invention, and what's when I somehow improvised a way to crack the defenses. Details are in my DAR. I thought I was home free. Wrong. Evidently, the piper thought I didn't pay enough, so charged double! My great run for the exits more nearly resembled a death ride. So butchered was my force that only my M8 HMCs and one last Greyhound got out alive. I didn't dare move the halftrack, since the Ma Deuce gunner was dead, there were numerous 251s on both sides of the road, and the second gun was ferociously still alive and judging from the flaming ruin it turned most of my remaining force into, highly lethal. I skipped much (see the DAR), but I thought it a great achievement to get a draw. That was obtained by such herculean efforts and brain drain that by the interminable (went into three minutes of OT) game's end, I was like a spent wrestler barely able to crawl off the mat. Wore me out! In this fight, at least for this level of difficultly, the AI was quite a challenge. This challenge was enhanced by this being my first real CMBN outing with a somewhat armored formation I could actually maneuver to some degree, as opposed to playing target drones on a road flanked by hedgerows. I think this is an ingenious and nastily clever scenario. As a result of it, I'll never see battlefield recon the same way again. I wouldn't have thought it, but the Greyhounds, despite staggering casualties to themselves and their jeeps, who slashed into the Pumas at immense risks to themselves and died and died for their pains, hurt those hulking Pumas badly, ultimately defeating them, albeit at the cost of practically everything I had. And getting there took not, one, but a string of outrageous moves, throwing caution headlong out the windows, doing everything with nothing, committing an HQ as infantry, sending a Purple Heart Box into the teeth of an unknown defense--all to create an opportunity for a mad, ultimately terribly expensive dash for the exits. Armored Cav doesn't lead with its fire support elements, but they constituted two thirds of the force I ultimately managed to push toward the real goal, accompanied by my last Greyhound. Had this been PBEM vs a human, am practically certain I would've lost outright, though the AI reads terrain far better than mere mortals seem to be able to do. Had the Germans not moved aggressively against me and instead delayed from successive positions, none of my force would've made it off the map. That said, the moves made against me as I tried to advance were positively unnerving. I shall be most interested in seeing how you fare in your second outing as the Germans. What skill setting are you using? Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMinistry Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 Hmmmm, it sounds like you've had a rough fight. I played on the highest difficulty, Iron. Anything more than the "whites of their eyes" is long range for me, heh. I'm at work right now but hopefully I'll run the scenario once more tonight. I have a different plan in mind (formulated it after I had to ragequit). I agree with the fact that the scenario is fun; it's short and action-packed, great for firing up in the evening if you're not inclined to spend hours on a CMBN/CMFI battle. I'll keep you posted. Good hunting 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 22, 2012 Author Share Posted November 22, 2012 TheMinistry, Iron, eh? I'm still in the Copper Age! Ragequit? Pretty much tells me how well your last go around turned out. I wasn't able to play through. Instead, it was more like as and when I could, and the process was further extended by the DAR. If I did no DAR and could keep a high level of concentration and focus going for an evening, I might be able to do something like what you did. Of course, it would help if I had a lot more experience under my belt. So far, this is my third full combat scenario played to completion. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 Proper lead is also important when dealing with crossing targets, and playing at Veteran, that's not terribly difficult. The "difficulty level" you choose at game start has zero bearing on weapon accuracy. None. The manual tells you what it affects, and the difficulty is very largely in extracting information from the UI. That and arty delay times are about all that changes between "difficulty levels". The experience level of your troops makes a difference how accurate they are. Just because you can play on Veteran and there are possibly Veteran troops in a given scenario doesn't mean there's any link. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMinistry Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 TheMinistry, Iron, eh? I'm still in the Copper Age! Ragequit? Pretty much tells me how well your last go around turned out. I wasn't able to play through. Instead, it was more like as and when I could, and the process was further extended by the DAR. If I did no DAR and could keep a high level of concentration and focus going for an evening, I might be able to do something like what you did. Of course, it would help if I had a lot more experience under my belt. So far, this is my third full combat scenario played to completion. Regards, John Kettler Victory for the weary Wehrmacht! After a short, yet intense, firefight, the Germans manage to earn a rather lopsided victory. Germans: 8 casualties (6 KIA, 2 WIA). 3 AFVs destroyed (all Pumas). US: Approx. 60 casualties (20+ killed, around 40 WIA). 10+ vehicles destroyed, Greyhounds and jeeps. As it turned out, I didn't need a very detailed plan to stop the Americans. I kept the Pumas you get in the beginning exactly where they spawn (which gives them a chance to get some flank shots against US armor advancing on the single-lane road). Once the German reinforcements start trickling in, I tried to get them into the best firing positions I could find (which was more of a trial and error thing) and kept blasting away at the Americans. I got two infantry guns as well, but never had a chance to use them. The Pumas did all the hard work. On the American side, the only real danger was posed by the Greyhounds + American light mortars which managed to immobilize two of my Pumas. I didn't have enough infantry (only four guys, one of which got killed approaching the houses in the middle) at all to properly support the Pumas, but everything worked out in the end for the Germans. The Americans asked for a ceasefire, after 15-20 minutes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 womble, After reading pp. 60-61 in the CMBN Manual, I see that my misunderstanding is profound. In doing some checking in my CMBO Manual, I found that I seem to have transferred what was true there for Morale to here, where the Settings represent something altogether different. From pp. 130-131 in the former, I see that what was there before, as far as troop experience, is still there, but note an unfortunate term duplication between Settings and Experience in CMBN. That term is "Veteran," and it was all it took to shift me to a wholly different, and wrong, perception. In turn, this means I haven't the faintest idea what my troop Experience levels were in the scenario, since I mistakenly thought the difficulty setting affected combat performance. Knowing this might explain a great many things that happened during the battle. Regards, John Kettler Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 The Ministry, Did we fight the same battle? It would seem to not even slightly resemble my combat experience which, admittedly, was from the other side of the fence. Congratulations on a brilliant, force conserving victory! Your Iron Cross is en route by special courier. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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