White Manor AAR: c3k as ALLIES

[Macisle]

Yes, that's what happened. Didn't you see the film?

Thanks for posting that. -Had a big laugh!

[JonS]

[a German] infantry division, armor would not be available.

*Armour*, no. But armoured vehicles? Yes. Maybe. Sort of. Some/most/all (delete as appropriate) German inf divs in Normandy included an antitak (panzerjager) battalion, which usually(?) consisted of a company of towed guns, a company of self propelled guns (Marders or StuGs), and a company of light FlaK (of all things). The company of Marders/StuGs had about a dozen vehicles. You could, therefore, plausibly deem this battle to be the main defensive effort for the German Inf Div, and allocate a portion of the Divisional self-propelled A-Tk assets.

improving the scenario in [Option R] direction would primarily be a question of adding casualty points to put more realistic constraints on how aggressive the attacker can be.

Yup - any scenario can be balanced by dickering about with the points allocations. The key to that technique, though, is letting the players know /beforehand/ exactly what they have to do to score points, and also give them a reasonable - but not exact - idea of what the enemy will be trying to achieve.

The US is by definition pretty likely to have armor support

Pretty likely, yeah, but it isn't guaranteed. Each inf division usually (but not always) had a tank bn in support, and a few also (or in lieu) had an SP Tank Destroyer Bn. On an even-stevens basis that's only one platoon of Shermans per US inf bn, and even fewer Stuarts.

Fun fact: the British had more armour in Normandy than the US did, both as a proportion of their overall force, and in raw numbers.

The problem is that sticking to the core situation of German infantry on the defense in the bocage, it seems inescapable that artillery becomes the key factor in who wins or loses. And, THAT puts a damper on the fun factor.

Only if you make a lot of artillery (or tanks, or engineers, or ... well, anything, really) available.

Arty can certainly help decide a scenario outcome without being a negative. However, when it becomes THE key factor, it has a negative impact on the vitality of a scenario.

So dial it down, and compensate (if compensation is even needed) in some other way: change the amount of time available, dicker with the points allocations, include another platoon of infantry in lieu of the artillery, etc.

[Baneman]

...

Also, I’d really like to see the White Manor area come to prominence as the climactic battle location. Currently, if it sees combat at all, the defenders tend to be on their last legs, making for anti-climax. That means perhaps fundamentally altering the objectives and/or unit mix so that the defender will have adequate force there to make for a juicy final showdown.

That's a very good point and I never thought about it, which is why I'm not a scenario builder

To achieve that effect, I think you would have to move the VL's back, but leave the deployment zones as is. That way, the defender would be encouraged to "tip and run", trading space for time and attrition, while the attacker would still have to be cautious, having to treat every hedgeline as defended. This would also potentially cause the attacker to "waste" artillery on undefended zones - after all, on learning how much artillery the Americans had, I feel that had he just pummelled several of my lines I would have folded much sooner. ( ok, he did have the drunken FO )

The reason I like the idea is that as it stands, with the time available, the American player can take his time, whereas with your new idea, the defender can eat into it more ( and of course, more of the map comes into play ). Although it may still be just a tad too long.

The defender needs to feel that there is hope and that is usually going to come from the thought that he just needs to "hold long enough" - after all, with a long enough time period available, almost any attack is bound to succeed as the attacker can simply run the defender out of men.

- which is what was happening to me. Sure, realistically, the attack stopped at a logical point, but from a gaming point of view, the attacker could have pressed on and gained a total victory.

In CM1 defend scenarios, often the defender's task was to hold off the attacker long enough to "run down the clock".

In CM2, scenarios are often more complex and it's difficult for a designer to get a good feel for how long is viable for both sides - ie. it's feasible for the defence to hold until the time runs out for the attacker AND the attacker can get it done IF he pushes quickly ... usually at the expense of caution and scouting.

In the Italy Bil and GAJ AAR scenario, the attacker had superior forces and had time to be careful, still ending up right outside the final VL with 10 minutes to spare. Granted, the defender didn't apply much friction in the earlier stages, but you would have needed to chop at least 20-30 minutes off the total time available to give the defender hope that sufficient friction could be effective.

With more of the map available to cede to the enemy without costing dearly and a little more time pressure on the attacker, the defender would have more to work with.

And I see your point about what you're trying to represent - the unsupported infantry unit vs the Americans with everything. In that case, I agree that AFV's for the Germans would bend the idea. It's a pity the Heavy Weapons have their niggles, hopefully BFC will be able to correct some.

Anyway, although I now know what's what, I would still happily playtest a revised version

[c3k]

Crap. Now I feel like I should've dragged this out for another 2-3 weeks and filled in the blanks! Thanks for the kind words.

FWIW, there were some good 'schreck shots. My single M5 on my left had a full loadout fired at him. One hit. He survived. Red 'X' for optics, et al. My HQ M5 took a hit. One casualty, they bailed. I took them aside, chatted to them about their family honor and how anyone can be afraid, it's what you do after you run that's important. They remanned the M5. I holstered my sidearm. Both these hits were on the front. A lot of other rockets missed. (In a previous game against sfhand I advanced tanks with no screening infantry. His schrecks shredded my tanks. I did not advance without infantry screens in this game.) Each of sfhand's defensive positions had antitank defense with schrecks. (Or so it seemed.) I stood off, pinned, and flanked. Yes, we celebrated our fallen foes' martial prowess, but we continued to advance.

I caught sfhand's antitank gun on the move. It didn't work out very well for him.

Was I a bit ruthless in this particular attack? No more so than I felt necessary. There were some great little kill-sacks set up. I avoided some and got tagged by others. The artillery was great. If sfhand had positioned his ATG up front the game would've had a different flavor.

My "success" may be an outlier, based on the other games shown. I would not buff up the Germans too much based on this one event. At most, I'd add another light ATG so he has flexibility in positioning, rather than all eggs in one basket.

As well, whereas the US gains points for deeper penetrations, maybe make the German objective points all equal, rather than weighting front line positions higher than rear positions. That would remove the German bias to protect the front at the risk of the rear.

A single ATG would be enough, IMO. However, I'm willing to take either side, as is.

[c3k]

Re: White Manor. I'd saved B2 because I thought that White Manor would be a festung. I was surprised by the lack of resistance once I'd killed off the antitank gun and a few teams back by the German truck (located near the furthest wheatfield on my right front).

[c3k]

(and even though you don't know it yet, you have had some nice luck in our current game...)

Hah! The blood of my men creates my luck. Like a thick stew, it must be stirred before it is done. (wanders off muttering...)

[womble]

FWIW, there were some good 'schreck shots.

Thanks for filling that in.

As well, whereas the US gains points for deeper penetrations, maybe make the German objective points all equal, rather than weighting front line positions higher than rear positions. That would remove the German bias to protect the front at the risk of the rear.

From reading, this does seem to be a sensible idea. If you weight the German VLs too far back, you risk the German merely trading empty space for the time they need, and not actually fighting until the first meaningful VLs. Spreading their points evenly encourages a progressive defense.

A single ATG would be enough, IMO. However, I'm willing to take either side, as is.

I wonder whether switching a bit of 81mm to being on-map would be a good tweak, and removing a proportion of the TRPs. Giving the Germans a StuG would probably mean up-armouring the Americans too, else they're looking for (lots of) side shots from the Stuarts, or artillery direct hits on a StuG that doesn't have any self preservation instincts.

[Macisle]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

That’s good news on Stugs/Marders being historically, technically, available, JonS. Some Stugs could very much fill the role of adding fun and enriching the tactical mix, while reducing the defensive need for arty and beefing up both defensive anti-tank AND anti-infantry capability. The Germans do start out with quite a lot of infantry-based AT capability—especially given the close combat ranges on the northern part of the map. Marders would just add a bit more without doing much/anything about dealing with the “Hordes of Mordor” as it were.

What seems a difficult nut to crack indeed is how to give the Germans the ability to deal with two companies of American infantry. This is where we can touch on the question of how well the game engine currently depicts bocage fighting. On the praise side, Baneman’s game shows how well CMx2 can do FoW (and getting better ala GL improvements). If his opponent had known how thin on the ground he was, he likely would have steam-rollered like C3k.

On the flipside, the Germans in the real war didn’t have arty like in the current scenario everywhere, all the time. They gave the Allies hell a lot (most?) of the time with carefully prepared foxholes amongst the bocage. And, CM foxholes have turned out to largely be useless for defending in bocage. In addition to lingering deploy bugs, it seems that CM infantry simply does not have the ability to make use of the kind of concealment and cover that the their real counterparts did in bocage country. (Your thoughts?)

Short of lots of arty, AFV muscle, extreme “asymmetric war” handicapping via casualty points, or much greater parity in numbers, it seems very difficult for a single company of German Grenadiers to stand up to two companies of US infantry under the game’s current FoW and coding for defense structures and bocage effects. To date, I’ve tried to stay within QB force point parameters. But man, those US companies come cheap and they pack a BIG punch!

Looking again at armor, Stugs are good for another reason—they don’t tip the scales completely should the US find itself stripped of its own armor assets. Vs a medium tank, they have less HE, much less MG ammo, and can’t overwatch an area like a turreted tank can. So, for example, whereas a couple of PIVs remaining might make a US player denuded of his tanks feel that he has pretty much lost the battle, Stugs could keep him in the running with infantry only

Of course, Stugs for the Germans means a peck on the cheek goodbye to the Ami’s Stuarts and a big, sloppy, wet hello on the lips to their Sherman replacements. That’s not a problem for me, as I was planning to change them out anyway. I put in Stuarts as a change of pace (given their canister), but I feel that visually, the map kinda’ swallows them up. Shermans just look right to me on it. German infantry AT assets generally work just as well on them as a Stuart and since most fighting occurs at canister range, the upgunning may not be that noticeable—except in the area of building busting. ‘Course, gotta’ upgrade the ATGs as well… (Truth be known, my original scenario idea way back when was actually Shermans and M10s versus Panthers!).

Staying within QB point parameters, it still seems difficult to give the Germans the kind of infantry force I want them to have when the battle hits the White Manor, without having to give the US HUGE amounts of infantry or tons of tanks. Losing some or all of the fortifications would help, but I want to keep some for flavor. It has always felt like the map “wants” two companies of German defenders. But gawd, what I’d have to give the Amis to compensate…

Refocusing things on the White Manor means that I need to come up with a way to make the points “tell a story” while requiring the US to take (or at least prevent the Germans from holding) that specific location to win. -Will have to think about how to do that. Like Baneman said, I wouldn’t want to change the current starting zones. I do plan to make all point values very clear to both sides from the get-go. And, the scenario will be 60 minutes or less.

Anyhoo, I’ve got to end here for now, but quickly—something interesting. The most successful German commander that I know of for this scenario so far took a page out of C3K’s book. He threw caution to the wind and was very aggressive (did I get the quote correct? Was it, “Screw that ‘defense-in-depth’ nonsense!”?). He put his whole force up front and met the US with its full firepower along with harassing arty. He-he. Maybe he and C3K should have a go at it when I get the new version done!

Until next time…

[sfhand]

Interesting read... I'm with Baneman (I think), I would remove the 2 southern most German objectives (keeping them as allied objectives) and leave the setup zone the same. I would make all objectives the same value (per side - since fewer objectives on Axis side they would be more valuable compared h2h with Allied objectives) except White Manor. This way, as Baneman pointed out, the defender can set up to slow the attacker.

I thought, because of all the trps, that this was a main defensive effort so I was surprised the effort didn't have any rolling stock. But, I am not a military historian...

Most of my defensive effort was up front... Ken's break through was the majority of the battle, after that there wasn't a lot of interesting combat which is, I think, part of the reason he ended his AAR the way he did.

I'm not sure adding one at gun balances the scenario. In many ways 'schrecks are superior IMHO, I personally think replacing the at gun with one stug vs a platoon of Stuarts would not be over kill for the Germans. It would add a lot of flexibility while still keeping some limitations. It would probably also force the Allied player to split his forces.

[womble]

I'm always very dubious, in this sort of scenario, where the attacker is pressing forwards wanting to take ground that the defenders don't want them to, of giving the attacker VLs that don't count for the defender. You have to be sure the defender knows that the ground still has explicit value (in terms of denying the attacker points), rather than just being "room for bleeding him". It's also good that "easy" objectives that the attacker "should" reach pretty much every time are worth less than objectives that are more difficult to get. It doesn't, admittedly, do much to guide the storytelling side of the scenario; for that, the objectives that the designer wants to decide the flow of the narrative should be "incentivised" by having larger values.

Using a "hard shell" defense is an "all-or-nothing" approach that relies on the attacker not being able to saturate your frontage with arty, DF HE and automatic weapons. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. While "defense in depth" sometimes seems like "laying out your force to be defeated in detail", there's good reasons it got traction as a doctrine, and I think CM represents those adequately, in HvH play: who calls 105s for a single team when you can defeat it by fire and movement before the strike arrives? If it's a whole platoon behind the same hedge, you'll be suppressing them for ages anyway, so you might as well drop a stonk on 'em while you're waiting and save the small arms ammo.

[Erwin]

Is there a way of making the importance of victory locations appear different to the AI? ie: Could the AI be made to fight harder for a "more important" VL, or less hard for a lesser VL?

[c3k]

Re: on-map 81mm.

The TRP's are far more effective in closed-in LOS's than an on-map asset. Taking away TRP's and off-map arty in exchange for an on-map 81mm would, in my opinion, merely weaken the German defense. It would be immobilized and more ammo limited (and subject to incoming fire).

Between StuG's or Marders, Marders would be "more" historical. (IMO.) However, any vehicle is easily sound spotted then immobilized/killed. ATG's hide better.

My .02.

Ken

[womble]

Erwin: I think that'd be covered by the AI plan design.

Ken: On the other hand, TRPs can't move, whereas 81mm teams can. But if that's not sufficient compensation, don't take the TRPs away, just move a pair of off-map 81s on-map and give them a truck or kubel to move long distances in... Even adding 1 or more on-map HE chuckers (an IG instead perhaps?) would be a less drastic addition than a StuG or Marder. Though the US seem to be missing their 60mms as well...

[Macisle]

On VLs: I'm planning on making them the same (both location and value) for both sides with both sides knowing that.

On ATGs, AFVs and mortars:

-Could be more than one ATG...

I playtested Marders way back when. It was fun using them with the bocage lines, but like I said, they just don't give the defender what he needs. If I stay with Grenadiers, it will likely be Stugs. If I switch to PzrGrens... who knows!

I will likely do a mix of on and off-map mortars. I will try not to delete elements completely. Rather--subtract some of an asset and add a variation of the asset, if possible. Remember, when their ammo is out, a mortar team on-map means you've got some warm infantry bodies able to cover (or at least watch) something.

v2.0 has the US 60s off-map. At full supply, that gives the US player a healthy increase in 60mm rounds, while taking away his ability to use those teams for direct fire or as infantry. V2.5 (current Repository version) has them on-map.

I may still not do AI, as my time is very limited. Moving the center of things to the White Manor would make defending AI much easier to do. -Might tackle that. To date, it has seemed pointless to try attacking AI as the map just requires too much finess. It would be too much of a cakewalk for the defending player to make it worth my time to do.

Erwin, you can make the AI go wherever you want via AI plan. It doesn't really seem to sniff out VLs in and of themselves. It's up to the designer to tell them via plan to go there and be on the VL ground specificially (IIRC).

Speaking of AI: a nice feature to add to CM would be allowing designers to give humans one force mix and the AI a different, custom, AI-only force mix within the same scenario.