ALLIED : Gustav Line BETA AAR Round Two - Eye of the Elefant

[GreenAsJade]

Last of all, I spotted something rather nice:

... a second dead HT! I did wonder where that guy went, though stopping HTs seem to be standard procedure.

I don't really know what took it out. I was shelling that area with 81mm from the West Spur, but I don't recall a shell that landed close to a known HT contact. It's also amusing to look at the line up of the ATG, the first dead HT and the second, show clearly in the picture.

In the past I've had 3 lined up HTs taken out by one enemy shot (that brings tears to the eyes, I can tell you!), so it's conceivable that this happened here! I bet that caused much hilarity in the other thread, if so

(I might have to go look at the old movie, if I can find it, and see if I can spot what caused this ... maybe later).

GaJ

[newlife]

Good to have you guys back!

I like to park my AFVs next to trees. I have an untested hunch that it delays enemy spotting and I've seen shots get broken up by the trees.

[A Canadian Cat]

Good to have you guys back!

I like to park my AFVs next to trees. I have an untested hunch that it delays enemy spotting and I've seen shots get broken up by the trees.

Absolutely on both counts. While a single tree does not do much for hiding tanks, if you are at the edge of the woods staying back between trees makes a difference in staying hidden.

[Alan8325]

I'd like to commend you on utilizing the mobility of your mobile units. Relocating the M10 is going to keep Bil guessing. Also relocating your MMG is taking full advantage of it's MEDIUM classification, rather than heavy.

[GreenAsJade]

Thanks for the encouragement Alan. "Tank dodging" is something I guess we all do when we get nervous about getting pinged, but Bil demonstrated how it could be used to really good effect as a matter of routine in our last game. He left his Sherms in place for maybe 2-3 turns before moving them. I think he had less to loose and more to gain by waiting for a "spot", wheras my current priorities are "shoot at something opportunistically if I can correctly predict where it will appear, but don't sit around to get whacked". It's a shame the stopping-HTs have foiled my predictions 2-3 times now, but eventually he has to come closer

The position I'm moving to next to the bunker may feel cosy enough to stay for a while, if the sight-lines are as good as I hope.

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

Movie 22, 0:49-:048

The guys in HTs on the right wing disembarked (dehted?) this turn ...

and disappeared like ghosts...

I gotta get me some of that cammo!

[GreenAsJade]

On the up side, from an intel perspective, I got a payoff from moving my anti-recon guys forwards. In addition to moving away from where the area fire continued coming in...

... I found those elusive central ridge HTs. They are moving forwards - two are empty and one is containing an HQ. This seems to confirm that there is a scouting party in that field - who must be sticking quite close to the HTs because they haven't bumped into my forward centre-right scout yet.

Dang - this is making it tempting to move the Tame M10 back down to his position of a couple of minutes ago, where he was looking at that field!

[GreenAsJade]

... but I don't think he can go back there. Bil's back 2 PzIVhs are only a short hunt away from having LOS into mid-lower Tame. I will avoid off the possibility of getting into a 2-1 shooting match for now, which means that the M10 can't really be much use against the HTs in the centre right field.

Instead, this turn I will fire some 81mm into that field, trying to guess how far ahead of the HT overwatch the scouts are, and I'm also spreading out some infantry on that side of the ridge trying to intercept them, with a lowly MMG for support.

The AAHT is now over on the right flank ready to catch Bil's flanking manoeuvre there ... I'm waiting to see the pace at which that proceeds before committing it deeper.

My sniper died this turn - although they didn't shoot anyone, I guess was both valuable intel and a valuable distraction for Bil.

I have been throwing some 81mm at Right Tit while the sniper hunt was on, since I can see men moving around there. I will be stopping that now and waiting for the next appearance of these guys - presumably on The Spur or just left of centre somewhere.

Interestingly, no further smoke developed in Tame. These odd spotting rounds create the impression of Bil tweaking the timing of a major onslaught...

That's about all for now!

[GreenAsJade]

Whoa, I was just checking my orders an noticed that one of the HTs in the field is not what I assumed it to be...

... well I'll be darned, these support HTs can carry an HQ unit as well.

I'm not sure if it changes anything significantly, but I'll need to watch out for that nasty little gun.

GaJ

[womble]

I'm not sure if it changes anything significantly, but I'll need to watch out for that nasty little gun.

Yeah, even 37mm (I'm assuming it's that kind of track) can make your M10s' day worse. And IIRC, the large gun shield makes the crew much harder to pick off with small arms than your common-or-garden MG-armed transport track.

[c3k]

(251/10's were the platoon HQ's mount. So, a fully equipped platoon would have 3x 251/1's for the squads and 1x 251/10 for the platoon hq.)

[GreenAsJade]

Well there ya go, that'd be what I'm looking at.

Meantime, I've been doing some rethinking about having that support HT menacing the centre-right, and decided that this is enough to warrant pushing the AAHT around to the right - not to defend the West Spur (which is in the 'we're only pretending to defend this' category) but to hold back that centre-right force.

In the absence of this, if that centre-right force got some momentum, I'd be forced to bring in the back 2 M10s, which would then deprive me of a decent response on the left.

So I tweaked the mortar to fire just in front of the 251/10 (IE I picked the action spot as close as I could to it but in front of rather than behind) with a view to either hitting it (in a dream) or at least persuading it to move back, hopefully giving the AAHT a clear run at the remaining HTs/troops. I have also pushed my scout further forwards to try to precipitate the spotting of those guys. The AAHT is on it's way, while avoiding being spotted from the Tits, which can see way back into my right hand flank in all sorts of nuisancy ways - it's hard to cover the centre-right ridge without being spotted from a Tit!

(I've sent the turn now )

GaJ

[pord]

Excellent posts and pictures GaJ.

This is my first time reading an AAR (I never really knew what they were until now), but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I spent at least an hour reading the whole thread while I should be studying for my final tomorrow, :/ I decided to read your AAR instead of Bil's so that I am kept in suspense as much as you.

I must say the tactical situation is quite intriguing. There are a lot of question marks about Bil's position, but I bet there are even more question marks about your position from his perspective. Can't wait to see some more.

[GreenAsJade]

Glad you're enjoying it - that makes it fun to do, too

Movie 23, 0:48-0:47

Well, probably the most dramatic thing to happen this turn was that I rushed the anti-recon recon guys across the road, and they hit pay-dirt, and the literal dirt too.

At last I found Bil's uber-camo-arty-spotting-KW-crew! And ... actually, the anti-recon recon dudes haven't spotted these guys themselves, desipte being under fire from them...

... it's the centre right ridge scout (not pictured) who can see that guy hiding in the bush.

I'm glad to have found this guy, and hope to put him out of action, but actually it has become academic anyhow, because his damage is done: I'm sure he was the guy who could see my rear M10s and that's how they got arty fire, and he can probably see other things along my centre right ridge defense too. Even if I kill him now, he's being replaced by the HT squads, who are moving up ....

(more in a while)

[GreenAsJade]

The overall picture is like this:

One of the things that's still surprising me each turn is how hard the attackers are to spot. In the above picture, the spotted HT man's icon is obsucred by a sound contact icon, but actually the centre scout can see that guy. There are at least 4-5 other eyes that can see the very grass that the HT guys are standing on, with blue lines an binoculars, but they aren't spotting these guys as they hunt (upright) through the grass.

So - despite the great temptation to open up area fire with HMG and M10 HE, I'm holding back still. Better to let some more HT men come forwards, and have more spotted units occupying this kill zone (also, the M10s have precious few HE shells - 13 IIRC).

There other thing in a similar vein that is bothering me is the other KW-guy has disappeared. It seems I am going to have to start a sweep for him with other units as well, because I can't really afford to have some guy of Bil's wandering around invisibly in my mid-field.

Another couple of things to mention, shown above and also here:

The turn before last I ordered 81mm mortar fire on the Brumbar. It took them nearly a minute to get the first shot fired, so it was in flight in the last movie. In this movie it landed waaayyy back behind Bil's Brumbar. I suspect this might be because those guys are tired (they ran away earlier when their foxhole was being shelled, then snuck back).

More importantly, there really are 4 PzIVHs. I was hoping that the second two contacts were "echos" of the two that I've seen before, but this turn as the movie played I spotted 4 individual tanks in different places. That is going to be hard to stop.

It seems I now have Bil's force pretty much identified and located, because the numbers now add up. 2 Brumbars (left and centre), 1 JgPz (left)m 1 Elefant (centre) , a platoon of PzIVHs (right) , 2 platoons of mounted armoured inf (centre and right) and some miscellaneous mortars and support.

Not specifically called out in the picture is the AAHT, which is just about to reverse into position to theoretically be able to see the field where Bil's HTs are positioned busily firing on my poor anti-recon-recon.

Last of all, I managed to capture this happy-snap of the Left Tit Brumbar firing what appeared to be smoke (at least, a fair bit of smoke blew off it) into a tree

Tee hee (I have to laugh, because when that thing starts landing shells where they are supposed to be, I'm sure I'll be crying instead!)

GaJ

[Vark]

There still seem to be the shell-attracting tree bug I see.

[$Pec5]

I don't think it is a bug

Are there reports of WWII AFV's rolling up to a new position, firing through a crop of trees, and hitting them? Not sure, but it is reasonable to presume the occurrence did happen

Are there tests to show that AFV's firing through trees hit the trees an unexpectedly high percentage of the time? I haven't been around these forums very long, but I haven't seen any

[Vark]

I doubt a gunner would hit a tree 20 odd metres away, for one its trunk would appear to block a considerable portion of the reticule.

Secondly, the trees in CM are invulnerable, so if he did hit a tree, there would not be a tree to stop the second shot!

[GreenAsJade]

Huh - I didn't realise it was controversial. I can certainly imagine a scenario where they are trying to sneak a shot into a tricky place and don't quite get it past the tree in the process... You can see that the barrel is pointing right at the tree, so clearly the tree is in the path of wherever that shot was supposed to be going.

GaJ

[MikeyD]

Actually, Those weapons with roof mounted sights were known to have problems, especially thinking a round was going to clear a nearby obstacle. Crews often had to resort to opening the breech and peering up the barrel to make sure they saw daylight. Not just German SP guns, early Shermans too had roof-mounted sights and no coax. I've heard of similar issues with Abrams.

[Erwin]

Are there historical WW2 reports that describe how many shots end up blowing up trees? It happens so frustratingly often in CM2 AND the firer doesn't make any changes.

So, in WEGO one can lose several rounds that way for no reason. Is that like RL, or maybe something that could be looked at for future change?

[Wodin]

Are there historical WW2 reports that describe how many shots end up blowing up trees? It happens so frustratingly often in CM2 AND the firer doesn't make any changes.

So, in WEGO one can lose several rounds that way for no reason. Is that like RL, or maybe something that could be looked at for future change?

Maybe some code to stop the weapon firing as soon as a round his a tree..or maybe if it hits twice in a row..

[Michael Emrys]

A couple of changes would alleviate that situation. As has already been mentioned, trees and some other objects should be more destructible. If you hit it once, there should be a chance that it gets blown out of the way.

If the object is more durable—such as a very large tree or a stone edifice of some kind—then the firing vehicle should adjust its position. If it is thought to be undesirable to try to have the AI do that, then the firer should cease firing until the player can make an adjustment. Obviously it would be better to have the Tac AI do this so that a computer player would not be at a disadvantage, but I suppose that writing the code for this might get into places the team would rather not go.

Michael

[GreenAsJade]

Movie 24, 0:47-0:46

Slight delay on my side as I updated (give us this day our daily 2G download, and forgive us our maxed bandwidth) to a new version.

Nice things in this update - the most noticeable being a FOW improvement.

When I first clicked on these guys, I thought "Whoa, darn, graphics bug, I must have mis-installed..."

... then I realised "whoa, Bil can't figure out my forces from the labels, yay!!!"

An interesting aspect of this is it may cause us all to be more focussed on looking at the guys close up, to see what they really are.

...ooo, a faust!

I haven't thought a lot about it, but I can also imagine a renewed interest in detailed uniform mods, at least from those especially keen to know exactly what the oppo's infantry dudes are

[costard]

One of the problems with having destructible trees - if you blow one over, it now provides cover and obscurance at a different level. For example, that Brummbar might not be able to see or fire at anything depending on how the tree fell (writing code for that would be wayyy down any priority list - just the thought of the complaints generated... ugh.) Not to mention pathing and vehicle damage diffculties.