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You know you're off to a lousy start when......


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So, I have all my forces sorted out and hit the start button. I am waiting out the usual QB first turn artillery strike by the AI in the empty field in front of me. A stray round lands dead center into the back of one of my half tracks in the setup zone.:eek:

So anyone else have a good "aw h***" story?

:)

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Early on when I was naïve about the AI's tendency to use first turn arty strikes on expected avenues of approach, I marched a couple of squads right into the impact zone of a medium mortar. Four five guys were killed and about as many wounded, but the morale of the whole platoon was shot and it wasn't good for anything but occupation duties for the rest of the game.

Michael

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when i first started playing i didnt know about the preplanned arty strikes and i swear a whole platoon lost all of its officers they were the only ones that got killed and that whole platoon was useless

When i played the Operation GLACIER II scenario in shock force, i ordered an airstrike on a Taliban base ~1000 meters away from my position on the first turn and when the bombs exploded, the commander of my force got hit and wounded by shrapnel because he was the only one on the observation hill who was kneeling instead of lying down. He only was lightly wounded and could continue his duty, but still not the best start for a sucsessfull operation.

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This just happened. Two Panthers were trailing some mech infantry. The lead pioneers had reached the wall and were preparing to breach. One of the infantry spotted a nice juicy truck on the other side of the wall (enemy truck is 300m or more behind the wall, my HT is 300m away from the wall). Next turn command phase I tweak the Panther's paths so they follow the HT that spotted the truck and add a slow and a pause for the lead Panther (second panther is away behind so I just get him to stop behind the hill).

When the turn comes back the lead Panther spots an enemy Panther (we are playing red on red) where the truck was expected to be. The gunner takes aim - looks like I am going to get the drop on him because he is still turning his turret. Just as the gunner pulls the trigger the driver hits the breaks. Tank nose dips, round hits the ground most of the way to the wall. Down goes one of the pioneers.

My guys frantically try to reload. But it is too late one shot hit one shot kill.

But it gets worse.

During the command phase I decide not to risk my other Panther and back him down the hill to reroute him into cover. I am done taking risks against this opponent. He is good and lucky - nasty combination :)

The next turn comes back and I discover that not only is my second Panther not really hidden behind the hill but the enemy Panther already has a bead on him. Two Panthers down in 70s.

This is not starting out well at all.

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I was playing the first mission in the British campaign. It came time to assault the town so I sent the 95mm support churchill in with a platoon of infantry close by.

It was a textbook assault. I split my squads into teams, leapfrogged my teams so that 1/2 were moving forward while the other half were providing covering fire...I even had a pre-assault bombardment on known enemy positions within the town.

It was going very well, too. My Brens were surpressing the Germans in the town and my 95mm was blasting away as it lumbered towards the objective alongside the infantry.

I thought that finally, after months of playing CMBN, I was actually becoming competent at attacking.

I thought that until, boom...the churchill hits the AT mine (spoiler alert) situated at the crossroad at the entrance to the town....immobilized...I didn't want to continue the campiagn with two churchills anyways.

The explosion caused several casualties amongst the assaulting platoon and killed the CO. The whole platoon's morale was devastaded and the assault became chaotic.

The assault platoon broke and then a mortar strike hit their jump-off point where I had a second assault platoon lined up to carry on the offensive.

The town objective, needless to say, remained in German hands.

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This still gives me nightmares, my Stug42 is advancing down the road with a company of infantry all packed tightly together but its ok it only the first turn and I want to get them into the battle. A HE shot richocets off the tank archs up in the air and lands dead centre of my lines of advancing infantry, it was carnage!!

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Sneaking up to withing 10 metres of a Sherman on the other side of the hedgerow with an anti-tank team wielding their Faust.

Soldier aims, fires aaaaaaaaaaand the projecticle crashes into the actual hedgerow they are in, prompting the sherman to swing its turret and well...rest is history...

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Sneaking a M5 up to a bocage (taller than the M5) to get a shot at an AT gun by peaking through the hedge. BOOM!. The very second the tank crawls to a stop on my side of the hedge, he's knocked out by the AT gun, which has mortar rounds raining down on it at the time. Ahhhh!

In a simultaneous FI game, I have paratroopers who never panic, and they can't get a shot off with two 75 pack howitzers because they are cowering under it as rounds zip past them and mortar rounds land not on them, but in front of them. Eventually the enemy finds the range and wipes them out.

In real life, long ago as a FIST chief, we called in final protective fires from mortars and they were walking in closer to us with each volley. They had started out "danger close". We called in "check fire" and the reply was "rounds complete." Uh-oh. We advanced to the rear a few hundreds meters. Turns out it was quite muddy and the mortar baseplates were squishing further into the mud with each shot, raising the mortar tube. Time of flight about 40 seconds, so there were about 30 rounds still in the air. They did hit the position where we were before we left. Just goes to show you can call in fire on yourself even if you don't.

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Ultradave, I was wondering why your two 75 mm guns were silent. I thought : "Those Americans have got nerves of steel. They won't open up until they get a decent target in their sights..."

Now I know that even italian covering fire can pin US paratroopers effectively :D. And those Brixia mortars are the kings of the day !

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Ultradave, I was wondering why your two 75 mm guns were silent. I thought : "Those Americans have got nerves of steel. They won't open up until they get a decent target in their sights..."

Now I know that even italian covering fire can pin US paratroopers effectively :D. And those Brixia mortars are the kings of the day !

They never shot at anything in spite of me giving hard targets on a couple of your armored cars, even before the mortar fire took them out. I even had the extra ammo guys right there with them so they wouldn't run out. It's a mystery to me. They are supposed to be hard as nails paratroopers. Personally, as a former paratrooper and artilleryman myself, I'm very disappointed :-)

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Well there might be a problem with LOS not being the same as LOF. There are many trees on the map and it's rather tricky to guess wether a given unit will be able to fire or not to a specific location it has got LOS to.

For example, I had a Brixia team take position in front of your dug in bazooka team near the dead 75mm gun. The first turn nothing happened : crew members stared at the objective and that was all. Suspecting a LOS/LOF issue was involved, I moved the Brixa one action spot to the right and it did the trick.

Of course, you can't do that with an infantry gun...

I must say I've done my best to keep my grunts and vehicles away from your guns' LOS, mainly by trying to hide behind tree foliage.

Maybe you could start the scenario as US and test if your infantry guns can fire at action spots in the open ?

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They are supposed to be hard as nails paratroopers.

It's a bit of a side note, but AIUI, the formation type a unit is from doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to how hard they are (except perhaps in the default "typical" values assigned to the "soft" parameters, I don't know about that); that's all in the "soft" parameters. Were the crews in question "Veteran, +1 morale, +1 leadership"? It's entirely possible to design scenarios with Conscript, Poor, -2 airborne. Wouldn't be "right", but they'd be as useless as plain old Infantry with the same stats.

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Have you ever meticulously set up your forces at setup only to realize after you've hit GO that all your (wheeled) armor is enclosed by low stone walls with no exit point? :D

One time i set up a part of my force (including my only 2 ATGMs) at setup in overwatch positions in a large building at the edge of the map. 10 turns into the game i wanted to move them up to the other elements, only to realize the building i chose had no doors.

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