CMBN - Quick battle (ME), AAR (Allied)

[Ripppe]

Hello there good folks of BF forum!

As most of you probably notice, I'm bringing some new blood to the forums, though - to be honest - I have been lurking around here a few years now.

For your delight I decided to share an after action report of a meeting engagement my friend (from now on I’ll use his favorite nickname Crécy, some may know him from Subsim forums) and me are just about to start. The game will be the default CMBN (without any modules) with the 2.01 patch. This is not the first time that we battle, and as our tradition is: I’ll be playing the allied forces while my friend commands the axis. Unfortunately it seems that this AAR will be one sided – sort of – since my friend is busy with other stuff and didn’t promise anything with our AAR, though he didn’t completely abandon the idea about writing the axis AAR so we just have to wait and see… Nevertheless he agreed to take some pictures every turn and send them to me after the battle is done, so I can at least release those for you guys to look. Better than nothing, don’t you think?

Meanwhile I try to give you the narrative side of how my plan evolves. To avoid unnecessary double posting I’ll write my initial comments & thoughts to this post, and add the plan itself (with pics) to the next one.

Initial thoughts

As I mentioned, this is not the first time we play combat mission against each other. Therefore I have some retrospective thoughts that I try to take into consideration with the plans and orders. Medium sized disclaimer: Neither of us (as we have both agreed) is a tactic genius, so if you think that my plans suck, they very well might.  Back to the thoughts which I have listed down below:

The first thing I have noted is that I won’t be winning this game by armor. In our QB games it is quite typical that each of us brings around 5-10 tanks. My highly sensitive super combat mission sense tells me that Crécy is probably going to bring 1-2 tigers, 1-3 panthers, 1-3 panzer IVs. This is only a hunch but still, that setup is a force to be reckoned. My allied armor just cannot withstand those beasts in a direct confrontation. This leads to three things:

• My infantry’s AT capabilities will play a big role
  
• I’ll bring 6 tanks: 3x M10, 3x M4A3. The way I will use them is a scoot and shoot –tactic from strategically important positions. Overall I try to keep them out of sight and use them to cunningly attack from where the opportunity rises. Frankly I expect to lose 2/3 of those tanks during this fight, but hopefully they won’t die in vain! Unlike in the matches before…
  
• Use the terrain to my advantage. The map we chose (I have to check that one for you, can’t remember the name) doesn’t exactly support long ranged tank combat because of the bocage and hilly terrain. So Crécy will either need to bring the tanks alongside his infantry (and not just let them stay outside the frontline sniping my unfortunate soldiers) or he has to rely on few key locations which offer a better view. The first scenario supports my infantry’s AT capabilities, since they have a (theoretical) chance of sneaking to a good fire position and bring down the beasts! The key locations (I have identified two likely and one not-so-likely) can be dealt with artillery fire enhanced with TRPs. Of course the artillery may not kill Crécy’s tanks, but it will force him to react (e.g. withdrawing tanks off from the fire, giving me a ‘free’ opportunity to advance).
  

The second thing is fire superiority. The terrain forces us to use infantry, which is more to my liking, if we drop outside the fact that German’s MG capacity extends mine… This is a constant pain in my ass when Crécy’s squads pin down mine with the damned MG fire. If used strategically it can be devastating as most of you probably know already. There are only two things that I can really do about that: gain the fire superiority by 1) bringing more guns or 2) trying to take the most out of the terrain. The first point is somewhat completed by the force I chose: the main bulk of main infantry consists of a PIR battalion. A light mortar with every platoon and an LMG (1x platoon I think?) are a good start. I have further enhanced this by giving 2x HMG for every company (3x companies in total, so that makes 6x HMG). The second one is a tiny bit trickier since I tend to be quite cautious player. In a fear of losing my troops I don’t take much of risks. In this game I try my best to take more decisive actions and even try some risk taking, though I don’t intend to go completely reckless. Let’s see how that goes.

The last thing I need to bear in mind is that as Crécy himself has stated, he tends to neglect the artillery. This leads to an assumption that he will try to use them more this time. Recognizing those spotting rounds can be crucial if I intend to keep my men alive.

The force

So, what will I bring with me to achieve a victory:

1x PIR Battalion consisting of

3x Companies

Each company has an attachment of 2x HMG and two of the companies will have a FO with them.

4x 81 mm mortar section (4 tubes), on map

1x Recon element consisting of

4x jeeps with 4 soldiers in each

2x M8 armored cars

1x HT (HQ unit)

1x Armored infantry element (assault/reserve force)

2x platoon of armored infantry with HTs

3x M4A3 Shermans

3x M10 TDs

1x Battery of light howitzers

1x Battery of medium mortars

Few notes I’d like to point out about the composition of the force:

• No heavy artillery since I don’t need massive barrages. Artillery’s two functions for this scenario are: 1) pinning down key locations if needed, and 2) gaining fire superiority for advance.
  
• A separate recon element. First time for everything! To be better prepared to execute my plan accordingly, I want to have eyes in front ASAP, so that I can scout out Crécy’s avenues of approach and get a grasp of what I’m against.
  
• Reserves. A dedicated motorized reserve will hopefully serve me well. My airborne troops will be in the frontline, motorized platoons coming to rescue where needed or acting as a mobile assault force. Overall I try to maintain a platoon sized reserve for every PIR company in order not to massacre all my men at once.
  

Next post will reveal my master plan and layout the map for you.

Cheers,

R

PS. Almost forgot to mention. We are playing by the gentlemen rules so no tank spamming and no initial artillery barrages to the setup zones.

[Erwin]

Given your description it sounds like the more mortars the better to neutralize the Axis superior direct fire power.

And what is "tank spamming"?

[Ripppe]

Erwin: A good question since we have never established an actual rule for this (e.g. max 10 tank units or max 1/3 of QB points to tanks). The general idea is that both have some mix of infantry, mechanized units and tanks, but we haven't felt a need to dictate this further than that. The size of the battle is huge (although the map would probably be more suitable for large or medium) so I expect that 5-10 tank units per side will be close to correct.

With mortars I indeed hope to close the gap their MGs cause though I'm curious has Crécy done something to negate this.

-R

[womble]

...German’s MG capacity extends mine… This is a constant pain in my ass when Crécy’s squads pin down mine with the damned MG fire...only two things that I can really do about that...1) bringing more guns or 2) trying to take the most out of the terrain...

With your organic 60mm and the on-board 81mm mortars, you're quite well set up to neutralise pesky MG nests. It's what the 60mm was made for; don't neglect its Direct Lay capabilities, and having the 81mms on-board means they can help too. It's harder to use mortars in the front line now, with setup times being enforced, but if you give them a Hide order while they're setting up, along with a short Covered Arc so they don't start plinking away with the Carbine, M1s they have, and have other targets for the Jerries to shoot at, they can often get into action and when they do, you won't just be suppressing Jerry, you'll be killing him.

If your opponent does park his invulna-panzers on a high spot to lord it over the battlefield, you might find smoke to be your best option. Especially if you've got TRPs deployed somewhere useful.

[Ripppe]

womble: Thanks for the tip, will definitely try that if (and when) I get a chance. I normally try to deploy 60 mm mortars near the front line and use their direct fire rather than calling them as fire support, though usually they end up a little back from the direct front line, preferably to terrain which gives them a good FOV.

I do have three TRPs from which two are placed to locations I suspect Cércy will most likely use as "sniping position" for the tanks. The third one is deployed to the only VP location on the map in case I need to flush some troubled Germans out of their positions.

[Ripppe]

Finally had the time to take the pictures. I beg for forgiveness in advance since I don't have a picture editing tool and the pics I take won't be the most awesome you have seen. Let's hope that they will suffice.

The map

So the map is a medium sized village type meeting engagement map called 0AcropolisME.

Map overlay. North is in the top of the screen.

2nd overlay picture, this time east in top.

Overlay wth markings.

The red triangles represent interesting terrain points on the map. Green circles represent places from where I have taken some photos for you. They offer (at least to some extend) a good view to appointed direction (roughly between the green lines). Blue place names are codenames I have given to some of the locations to help pointing the map places from my narrative. There is also a quick sketch of the force composition and how they have been laid out (I'll discuss them more while revealing my plan). Now that i have been taken these photos, I have come to realize that the map is definitely not the best one for forces this big. We will probably see some interesting troop handling here.

Views from Hill 123

The top picture is from left, middle from center and bottom from center albeit fromt little different position.

Views from Scarecrow. From left to right

[Ripppe]

Views from fortress

Note how this big hill dominates the map. You can pretty much see everywhere from there. Only problem is that it is barren and offers now cover from artillery/mortar fire.

The view down the road to Village

The view from Field day to Scarecrow and Hill 123

Views from the three topmost positions in Easy through. From top to down

Views from the bottom most location in Easy through.

[Erwin]

The map looks really beautiful from these angles.

[womble]

The thing that struck me the most was how seamlessly the map blends into the background/surround image...

[Ripppe]

Here is a rough sketch of what I'm up with at this point.

Very rough setup. Basically this is how I have planned it to go:

• Fox company will attempt to take and hold point Fortress. If they achieve this, they will provide fire support from that location but also use this left flank as an attack route to the center. Two platoons will conduct the attack with the help of an HMG and M4A3. One platoon will stay in reserve.
  
• Dog company will not advance to Village before I have a better knowledge about Cércy's troops. However, a recon element is dispatched there to scout the environment (the red circle). One platoon will compose a baseline to the two dotted lines visible while the other acts as a reserve. A mechanized element is ready to storm the Village when needed.
  
• Easy company has the objective of assaulting and holding Easy through and Hill 123. Especially from Hill 123 there would be nice flanking routes to the center. I anticipate that this won't be an easy task. Therefore, Easy through point will act as a fire base - both to the Hill 123 and Village. This task is given to the detached platoon of Dog company. There is two M10s in Easy's sector, ready to shoot some Kraut tanks! Easy will advance with two platoons while one stays in reserve near Easy through. M4A3 can provide supportive fire if needed but I'll try to keep it hidden. The recon element will rapidly advance to the intersection near Farmhouse A (the second red circle), and tries to keep it until Easy arrives. The second mechanized platoon will stay as a mobile reserve.
  
• Main goal here is try to surround Cércy's troops and then launch an assault from multiple directions.
  

I do have my concerns about this plan and atm I believe that I cannot achieve a superiority in the flanks. But the truth is that I cannot just stay and wait what Cércy does (+ as you can see, pretty much my whole army is bunched up and I need to clear some space as soon as possible).

The first minute is played and though it was very quiet - as expected - I caught a glimpse of something interesting. Unfortunately I don't have time to take the pics so unlike me, you have to stay and wait...

Cheers,

R

[Erwin]

"how seamlessly the map blends into the background/surround image..."

+1. really lovely.

[Ripppe]

I can assure you that it was my intention, though now that I look the photos from 'cinematic' point of view, they do blend quite nicely.

[Ripppe]

One correction first: in the above post I of course meant that it wasn't my intention...

"Pretty" pictures

Recon elements advancing in Easy company's sector.

The men of Fox company look at the long way they have ahead of them before reaching point Fortress.

Surprise Stug

As I mentioned last time, the only interesting thing I glimpsed was a lonely Stug.

The scouts did see it only a few seconds and during that time, it seemed to be rotating itself towards Hill 123. Most likely at least one tank heading to meet Easy company.

E: Just to be clear: the stug was spotted on the other side of the map (near setup zone of Cércy's)

Orders

Not much to say here. Fox is executing its approach to Fortress. One platoon of Dog company is getting to fire position to provide fire in Village. Easy company is moving to positions to commence the assault on Farmhouse A and further to Hill 123.

[SpeakEasy]

Anyone else having trouble viewing some of these screenies?

[Ripppe]

SpeakEasy: I noticed that also, though I have no idea why it keeps happening. I'm publishing the pics through GoogleDrive, so the issue may lay there. Curiously this inconvenience occurred (at least for me) only with the above post. The others have been fine so far. If it keeps happening, let me know so that I can try to work something up.

[JohnO]

I don't see the screenshots either.

[Erwin]

The shots are large and can take a while to load.

[A Canadian Cat]

The shots are large and can take a while to load.

Wow yes they are huge. 3M + and 1400 pixels across.

@Ripppe may I suggest resizing to 1000 pixels across and use a jpg compression that will give you less than 300K each. Many of your pictures are actually three together so that should still work OK. All the screen shots in this AAR are 1000 pixels on the long side and under 100K each.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105660&page=8

That will help with the performance for your readers.

[Ripppe]

ian.leslie: Thanks for pointing that out! Didn't pay any attention to the fact that GDrive releases those pictures in png format... Did a quick test and those pictures with three game pictures inside get to 961x1365 -> ~250K. No biggie for me, just have to alter the way I provide those pics.

[Ripppe]

[The pictures of the first turn in better size & format.]

"Pretty" pictures

Recon elements advancing in Easy company's sector.

The men of Fox company look at the long way they have ahead of them before reaching point Fortress.

Surprise Stug

As I mentioned last time, the only interesting thing I glimpsed was a lonely Stug.

The scouts did see it only a few seconds and during that time, it seemed to be rotating itself towards Hill 123. Most likely at least one tank heading to meet Easy company.

E: Just to be clear: the stug was spotted on the other side of the map (near setup zone of Cércy's)

Orders

Not much to say here. Fox is executing its approach to Fortress. One platoon of Dog company is getting to fire position to provide fire in Village. Easy company is moving to positions to commence the assault on Farmhouse A and further to Hill 123.

Hopefully those are clear enough!

[Apocal]

And what is "tank spamming"?

Extremely tank heavy force composition, i.e. purchasing one or two complete tank companies with minor shaving to get rid of lights, supporting assets, and few hulls, then cherry-picking a few "uber" tracks (cats for Germany, 105 Shermans for Americans, etc.) that represent some form of a hard-counter towards ATGs, dug-in infantry, etc. rounded out by perhaps a platoon or two of infantry, possibly stripped of supporting weapons, possibly stripped of rifle squads and given additional cherry-picked supporting weapons instead.

Its considered cheesy because it requires your opponent to guess "right" at the purchase screen and buy piles of AT mines, ATGs, air support, etc. rather than a rounded force mix. If he guesses "wrong" than his dedicated tank-spam counter-comp is horribly ineffective against a rounded composition. And CMBN sits at the wrong scale for max-tanks vs. infantry to be a winnable fight (generally-speaking, of course) for the equivalent point cost in infantry or a more rounded force composition, although they can certainly make even a good player pay a hefty price for the win. That doesn't matter any in QBs because force preservation is under-scored and ground control (no matter how tenuous) over-scored.

I don't view it as a realism problem per se as much as a problem of scoring and maybe purchasing options being a bit too wide open. I understand BFC doesn't want to touch the latter, but perhaps there could be a few shifts to the former to encourage force preservation.

edit: just my definition, personally. YMMV.

[Erwin]

thanks for the explanation. I have only played campaigns and scenarios...

[Humbug]

Extremely tank heavy force composition, i.e. purchasing one or two complete tank companies with minor shaving to get rid of lights, supporting assets, and few hulls, then cherry-picking a few "uber" tracks (cats for Germany, 105 Shermans for Americans, etc.) that represent some form of a hard-counter towards ATGs, dug-in infantry, etc. rounded out by perhaps a platoon or two of infantry, possibly stripped of supporting weapons, possibly stripped of rifle squads and given additional cherry-picked supporting weapons instead.

Its considered cheesy because it requires your opponent to guess "right" at the purchase screen and buy piles of AT mines, ATGs, air support, etc. rather than a rounded force mix. If he guesses "wrong" than his dedicated tank-spam counter-comp is horribly ineffective against a rounded composition. And CMBN sits at the wrong scale for max-tanks vs. infantry to be a winnable fight (generally-speaking, of course) for the equivalent point cost in infantry or a more rounded force composition, although they can certainly make even a good player pay a hefty price for the win. That doesn't matter any in QBs because force preservation is under-scored and ground control (no matter how tenuous) over-scored.

I don't view it as a realism problem per se as much as a problem of scoring and maybe purchasing options being a bit too wide open. I understand BFC doesn't want to touch the latter, but perhaps there could be a few shifts to the former to encourage force preservation.

edit: just my definition, personally. YMMV.

A rounded force mix can be effective against tank spam (like in the 20k point battle of ian.leslie), but it of course depends heavily on the map. Best solution is probably for both players to tell their opponent beforehand if they want to take a tank heavy force so they can respond in kind. IRL they'd usually have a general idea of what they were facing beforehand due to scouting.

[Ripppe]

Next turn in. Overall no big things happened, though I spotted some more of Cércy's troops.

More sightings

You probably remember the Stug from the last turn. Well, it (not surprisingly) did get some company. First another Stug showed up, and then a half track carring pioneers. In the last photo, the original Stug is seen while the other spotted this round are in background.

The next sighting I did not expect:

A flak cannon. I'm surprised that Cércy brought static guns with him. The good thing is that the flak stays where it is, the bad is that it has somewhat clear(ish) sight to point Easy through, which might have consequences for Easy company.

Other pics

Recon elements have now established a baseline to the road section which I will call Crossroads.

The force of Easy company masses at Easy through. M4A3 Sherman is waiting for the men to get ahead.

Half of Dog company is waiting for the steel storm to arrive...

[Ripppe]

The vanguard of Fox company makes it way to Harbor next to point Fortress.

Assault plan for Easy company

Here is the illustration of how Easy company's assault to Farmhouse A should go. Parallelograms represent squads, circles HMGs, squares 61 mm mortars and pentagon Sherman. Blue/green are platoons of Easy company (bright green, 1st platoon, greenish/blueish 2nd platoon, blue 3rd platoon (reserve)), purple is the detachment platoon from Dog company.

The plan itself is roughly this:

• Easy company will establish a baseline, detachment platoon will hold the flank.
  
• When everybody is ready both E1 and E2 will commence the assault simultaneously, advancing one squads at a time via the marked paths. I'm still not sure which is the best way to move the squads through the field: using assault command or using fast command combined with maybe splitting down the squads. This depends on the force Cércy has against them.
  
• Support assets (HMGs and mortars) will stay and provide fire support.
  
• Once squads are through, the support assets will move. E3 and detachment platoon will fill the blanks in the hedgerow in order to sustain the fire superiority.
  

The space is too little for my liking to force this size, causing some heavy bunching up, but I hope to complete the assault before Cércy can get a barrage there (if he realizes what is coming for him). The bunching up is also caused the poor FOV in certain points, so I need to get my support assets to the places where they are the most useful. For example the left flank of E1, as seen in the pic below: