Conrath's Counterattack - Narrative AAR recollections

[herr_oberst]

So I just started Conrath's Counterattack last night. Built a new Hackintosh with lots of horsepower so CM is enjoyable now, and figured I'd subject everyone to my lack of recent play with a narrative AAR. I'll see about grabbing pictures from now on (finished 2nd battle last night).

IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED IT YET, STOP READING - go play your own campaign - you don't need my bad example to foster your play-style. I want no blame when your pixeltruppen get dissected like some of mine have.

If you have played the campaign, I'd appreciate some advice / comparison / perhaps even a few jibes, so feel free to comment, but not on upcoming events, just on posted actions.

Commentary starts on the next post.

[herr_oberst]

First scenario - bouncing some para's out of town.

Gads it's been a long time since I played, and force coordination is lacking, particularly the support weapons. I need to get them into play sooner, and spot their overwatch positions sooner, but in a small town, I figure those opportunities are pretty limited.

I pretty much ignored the right side of the map and went through town.

I kept a fire lane straight down the main street, working my armor in halves (half in overwatch, half moving), and leap-frogged the infantry through town building by building just ahead of the armor. The armor spotted a mortar team very early and pounded it into oblivion that turn. No other indirect assets were encountered. The infantry spotted 2 bazooka teams, and was able to keep their heads down while the armor spent some HE dispatching them.

I did move two squads down the right side of town on the outside just to patrol for Amis so they couldn't hit me unexpectedly from the side.

Worked on fixing an enemy squad from one direction, then hitting from a flank when I could. Worked out well enough that US surrendered with a bunch of turns left. I lost 3 infantry, they had 2 left.

The warm-ups were over I guess. On to battle 2.

[herr_oberst]

This one is also being reconstructed from memory. First off the map. Obviously not going to be fun. The center of the map looked to be a death trap for armor. High ground on both sides, and a lot of trees on the high ground to conceal ATGs, or bazooka teams. Ugh. Right side barren hilltop looked like a fine place to stand up and get shot from a distance, or have mortars rain down on the rocky soil, adding flying stone bits to the shell shrapnel. Left side had buildings and stone walls to hide defenders, and a paucity of foxholes that might or might not be occupied. With the VLs in the two back corners, you have to basically traverse the whole map to win soundly.

Initial deployment on the right: decided to send the recon guys up over the top to deny the high point for observation purposes and have a look-see myself, and see what the US left flank looked like. Took half of the tanks from that side and planed to gingerly explore the right side of the valley.

On the left, took half my armor and planned to blow holes in the walls for the armor and advance with my infantry up the US right flank. Split infantry teams and advance in a leap-frog waves up to the walls and fences, then start sorting out the buildings and foxholes.

Initially was dumb with my Scouts on my right, who got mauled by the reverse slope defense. Retreated behind the crest, but did manage to spot 2 ATGs on the US right flank covering the valley. Over the next couple of turns, snuck the FO up just behind a knuckle in the rocks so he could drop some mortar fire on them.

On the left, there was better success wit the advance, and I moved a spotter up behind the first stone wall so he could call on the Wespe's to lay some fire on that reverse slope that caused me so much grief (that fire proved relatively ineffective, much to my dismay. My right side advance fell into a stalemate for the majority of the battle, with my troops trading desultory fire with the defenders just to keep them occupied and in their holes.

The MkIIIs were getting smoke rounds dropped in their vicinity, and were of small use until later.

The left became my focus, and over the next 20 minutes, I advanced 3 MkIVs and about 4 squads halfway up the map along the high points, leveling buildings that were occupied and providing covering fire for the infantry maneuvers.

The breakthrough happened when I was able to clear a corridor all the way to the back left corner of the map. Three of the MkIIs made a long end run around to the left and joined the 3 MkIVs in dominating the battlefield from the high ground and attacking the remaining US positions from the rear. That one ATG positioned behind the corner of a building on the opposite side of the valley managed to KO two of my tanks before I could silence it, and mortars took out two MkIIIs with top hits. (Note to self - always move, even if on Slow).

With the left side of the valley cleared of serious threats, it turned into an armor romp, scrubbing the US troops from the field, and eventually hitting the reverse slope defenders from their flank and rear.

Have to use my off board arty more effectively, and audacity (foolhardiness?) cost me 4 AFVs, something I'll probably miss later. Maybe its time to read Panzertaktik again.

Onward to battle #3.

[Erwin]

This was a fun scenario I recall. In most of the scenarios (of any campaign) it seems that the tactic that always seems best is spending at least the first half of the game doing recon to spot the enemy assets (ATG's especially). Then killing em with arty.

And only then moving armor/ vehicles from their set-up positions to massacre the enemy inf. (This is a major reason I prefer larger maps that allow for maneuver, as 95% of the scenarios I have played all end up basically the same.)

One or two of the ATG's in this scenario were well-placed and hard to spot. I also had a hard time keeping my FO in a safe position. The US seemed able to spot any inf after a few turns even when in what I thought was good cover/concealment.

[slysniper]

isnt that the truth.

You have basically pointed out how about 90% of the battles are played in the scenario's provided. I blame it on the designer some. Its hard to find battles that this is not the best approach.

This was a fun scenario I recall. In most of the scenarios (of any campaign) it seems that the tactic that always seems best is spending at least the first half of the game doing recon to spot the enemy assets (ATG's especially). Then killing em with arty.

And only then moving armor/ vehicles from their set-up positions to massacre the enemy inf. (This is a major reason I prefer larger maps that allow for maneuver, as 95% of the scenarios I have played all end up basically the same.)

One or two of the ATG's in this scenario were well-placed and hard to spot. I also had a hard time keeping my FO in a safe position. The US seemed able to spot any inf after a few turns even when in what I thought was good cover/concealment.

[sburke]

isnt that the truth.

You have basically pointed out how about 90% of the battles are played in the scenario's provided. I blame it on the designer some. Its hard to find battles that this is not the best approach.

Well that's the issue with playing against the AI. It won't react while you are slowly reconning where it's AT guns are. It isn't necessarily the designer but the limitations the designer is up against. Honestly if folks want to see different designs then maybe they should take a shot at playing with the AI so they understand what is possible and then offer suggestions. It gets pretty old to the folks that do design to hear complaints about the scenarios from folks who will not take the time to understand what is possible to begin with.

[Erwin]

Not complaining about designers per se, only commenting on the limitations of small scenarios (using small-ish maps).

But, yes, your point that ithe experience would be different vs a human is well taken. CM1 is definitely better vs a human. But, it's also a lot faster. CM2 (for me) is very slow and time-consuming due to its detail/complexity (for complexity's sake), plus personally I like sitting down and hammering a game out non-stop. If CM1 had better AI I would probably still be playing it vs the AI just for speed.

CM2 AI is still quite satisfying if the scenario is interesting/different from the usual cookie cutter assault.

[herr_oberst]

Battle #3 begins, and I am dismayed. No replacements means that I am severely handicapped in terms of infantry. Hopefully my panzers are up to the task. The map looks horrible. Occupying the abbey up on its hill will likely be costly, so I intend to go slowly initially, using what infantry I have to scout out the US positions before committing anything.

Initial setup is simply to take a couple of my worst depleted squads, down to 1 or 2 men (yes, I have a few of those), and sneak up to the first stone wall and take a look. Looking at the map, it looks like the right will be my choice, and I've positioned all my armor on my right flank.

Turns 1:10 down to 1:05 are spent getting Scouts into place and having them look for about 30 seconds, then going to ground and Slow moving to another position. Maybe I'll look more formidable than I am, though I'm sure it's wasted on the AI.

Spotted an MG, and 2 ATGs with support in foxholes on the right slopes of the abbey. Ridiculous fields of fire from those positions, so they simply must go, or an advance on the right would be a fiasco. On the right side of that first ridge, just at the end of the hill, there's a point where I could get the FO some visibility to that side of the abbey, and proceeded to hit the ATGs with mortar and Wespe strikes. At about the same time, my Scouts started taking mortar fire, and one hit took out a pair hunkered down behind the wall.

The FO must have been drunk, 'cause it took a few 'Adjust Mission's to really hit the targets I wanted. Mostly Light, Short fire missions so I wouldn't expend too much arty without a good chance of damage on the targets.

Turns 1:05 to 0:55 are spent working on those damnable ATGs before they both must be KO'd. One confirmed, the other highly likely due to the impact craters I can see. Time for the armor to get a move on. I'd been positioning them in a line, preparing to race through a lane of plowed field to the road on the right, then head down the road and disperse in the field next to the vineyards on the right.

Four anxious turns later, I have 7 panzers advanced without any fire from the ATG positions. They must both be fully dead, much to my relief. Having one tank killed anywhere in their planned march route would have badly gummed up the works for the trailing units. Phase 1 complete.

Next comes the planning to figure out how to get some sort of assistance up there without the soft-skinned vehicles getting ripped by MG fire, while keeping the armor moving to avoid any substantial indirect fire from those 60's that were hitting my Scouts on the ridge.

More as this continues.

[John Kettler]

herr_oberst,

What's a Hackintosh, please? New term to me. Are we talking some sort of PC style box configured for OS X?

Regards,

John Kettler

[herr_oberst]

herr_oberst,

What's a Hackintosh, please? New term to me. Are we talking some sort of PC style box configured for OS X?

Regards,

John Kettler

Well, since Apple started using Intel processors in their machines, enterprising folks have spent the time to determine which generally available components (motherboards, processors, video cards, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc) are compatible with the Mac OS X operating system. Some of them host websites dedicated to building a computer compatible with Mac OS X. Following those instructions, you build your own machine, then run Apple's OS. If you're comfortable building a computer from parts, you can build comparable functionality for about 1/2 the price of buying a similarly performing product in the Apple store.

So rather than buying a Macintosh, you're "hacking" together one of your own, hence the "Hackintosh".

[herr_oberst]

Battle #3 continued.

Smoke 'em if you have 'em. -- laid down a huge barrage of smoke to split the battlefield down the middle. The armor continued to advance on the right, working its way towards the abbey with continuous slow moves, right around the vineyards, just above and below the fence line running parallel to the line of advance.

Back behind the ridge, I loaded up the Opel to the gils with the two MG teams and a couple of soldiers from my tattered squads. The Kubelwagens were taken over by two squads with 4 men each, trying to advance as much firepower as I could to get some infantry cover up to the armor.

While the armor fired on anything that moved while crawling up to the abbey, the Opel and Kubels sprinted up the march route used by the tanks (took 3 turns) before catching up to their armored compatriots.

In the meantime, the armor had been wiping out the mortar teams positioned on top of the hill behind the abbey, and firing on the abbey walls to open up avenues of attack for the arriving infantry. This exposed a third mortar team in the abbey courtyard itself, which was quickly gunned down by a MkIV.

Once the MG teams took over the abandoned US mortar foxholes, and a squad of pioneers began assaulting the abbey, most of the tanks turned their attentions to slowly advancing down the opposite side of the abbey.

A third AT gun was dispatched, and three more sets of foxholes were taken under fire.

About three turns later, when the final HQ element in the abbey was killed, the US forces capitulated. Total Luftwaffe victory, 800 to 8. I lost 5 men (even that was expensive, jeez I hope that some reinforcements show up soon, or I'll be pushing guns into the hands of my Kubel and Opel drivers).

[Bolldar]

Have played this through to the beaches and my major impression is that it is designed to make you fail. I used my infantry as little as possible as you receive no replacements and face succeeding units of American infantry who are always at full strength while you motor on with the same tired pioneers and recon troops. Seems there are no Panzer Grenadiers in HG.

By the time I got to the beaches I had something over 300 men vs 400+ Americans with tons of AT Guns, halftrack mounted pack howizters (can you believe I lost a tank to these?) and tanks. This last (I think its last) scenario is almost impossible due to the LOS problems with the AT guns which kill Panzer at extreme range and often remain totally invisible.

I've found the 57mm AT gun to be overly effective and almost impossible to detect. After action reviews have shown that these guns seem to shoot through hills, through forests etc while the reciprocal LOS doesn't exist (in truth the original LOS didnt exist either which makes it very hard. They kill at extreme range also, I was hit by AT guns sitting on the beach in the last scenario and had yet to even get through the first US line.

One of the problems with LOS to AT guns is that the gun itself is not targeted. Only the crew who is they duck down in entrenchment break the LOS to them. Thus they get a shot off from a hidden spot. The crew hides and the gun disappears from sight again because the crew has. I have been up at point blank range trying to kill these and still not able to effectively target them.

[Sublime]

Well it is accurate to the forces.. The Axis were always outnumbered at this point in the war, except for local counter-attacks, or maybe the Bulge. (This is speaking about in the West)

Part of the problem fighting troops like the Americans or British the Germans and Italians found out in real life was the closer you fought to the beach-head the tougher it got. You came in range of naval gunfire, and the Allied supply and reinforcement lines shrank.

[Bolldar]

Naval gunfire was certainly a major factor historically. However it isn't really in the scenario as it would be all but impossible without the US artillery support. The German counterattack at Gela came very close to success and co ordination between US navy, airforce and army was extremely poor for the most part.

In this campaign its more a case of being forced to use the least appropriate and weakest troops for the assault and major problems with the way the AT guns work.

[Bolldar]

You can win it but I think only after you learn where all the deadly 57mm ATs are. I think of them like 88s now except worse because you cant see them while they slaughter you.

[Sublime]

They do the job. I've found 88's actually aren't that great in CMx2. Of course a large part of this is the terrain depicted thus far - the 88 really shined in Russia and N. Africa. Plus CM maps are only so big. Mind I'm referring to the 88 AT gun and the Flak version as well, not the 88 on tanks which definitely does the job well.

The deadliest ATG's in the game IMO are the Brit 6 lbers. The after armor effect kind of sucks, but they usually get a good amount of APDS which deals with any German armor up to KTs and Jagdpanthers. I think they're deadliest because they have a relatively smaller size and blast effect when they shoot compared to 17lbers. This means they're much harder to spot. 17lbers of course being the best ATG in the Allied arsenal power wise. The US 57mms are deadly, but not as much as the Brit 6lbers. However they're stealthy, and used in pairs or more will kill even heavier German armor just by repeatedly pinging away. The German 50 is useful as well, it also is hard to detect. Another odd gun that's hard to detect is actually the German 150mm IG. It makes no sense, but I've had a couple of battles against an open who had one admittedly far away, and he shot my men to $hit, with me never spotting it or getting more than a reasonably accurate ? marker in the general area it was in.

All in all though its safe to take a heavier ATG or two if you opt for that defense - super heavy is too much though as the 88 always gets spotted and shelled nearly immediately. Unfortunately the same is true of 17lbers. The 75mm German gun and US 76 are a little better as far as concealment, but not much.

As an aside, I've noticed my men seem to be spotted much easier in CMFI than to similar terrain in CMBN 2.0