Anyway to Free Ourselves of the Time Limit?

[c3k]

Bah. I never run out of time. I do, however, occasionally run out of men.

[MikeyD]

My standing criticism whenever I test a scenario is "Add another fifteen minutes!" Heck, I even say that about my own scenarios.

If you do really prefer longer gameplay may I suggest you bring some QB maps into the editor and resave them as proper scenarios with extended times. You'll of course have to add the opposing forces yourself. Its best to convert to scenarios in bulk so you can't quite recall what exactly you had placed where. It might help to be a bit drunk while doing it too.

[apoll]

Thanks MikeyD, I think, however, that I need to try and work within the given constraints, given that it seems I'm dragging the chain a bit, and my planning is faulty. Once I fix those, then 2 hours should be enough. I can always interpret the time limit as given from high, and something that is mission critical, and can't be changed. Plus, it is selfish I know, but I really like not knowing what I'm up against, or where the enemy is.

Regards,

Apoll

[c3k]

Bil Hardenberger is a master at battlefield recon. He analyzes the terrain and the enemy force, then saturates critical places with eyeballs. After gaining intel, he then executes a plan.

He is a master at "recon pull".

The other major technique is "command push". You come up with a plan then execute it. Maneuver is based on the plan, not the intel.

[Michael Emrys]

It seems to me that the key message of your site in this regard is that there are some tried and true principles to adhere to, but once an operation is underway, these should be interpreted as guidance, and not as slavish rules to follow, no matter what. Do I have that essential message correct?

Pretty much. Once the shooting starts, you will almost always have to improvise. Remember, the enemy is doing his best to interfere with your plan. So what's the point of even having a plan? To my mind, the point of a good plan is to have you in the best state to improvise from. Like in chess, a good strategy is to have command of the middle of the board as that is usually the best position from which to advance into the end game. So, for instance, if there is a piece of key terrain, you will probably go all out to capture it, and will only divert from that goal if an opportunity opens up through your opponent's actions to do him great harm by being spontaneous. Great generalship lies in recognizing which opportunities are real and which are wills-o-the-wisp.

Michael

[Wodin]

I've never had an issue yet with the time limits set for the scenarios with any of the CMx2 games. Though I'd always stay clear of a scenario with a tight time limit as part of it's description. Try Lock N Load Stalingrad..the turn limits on that are a immense pain. Just damn right annoying.

[apoll]

Thanks Michael. Well, I tried to speed things up...and I tried to do my analysis...and walked my company into half the Russian army. It was a village scenario, and only really one covered way in, with forest almost up until the village outskirts, but all approaches had open ground to cover. There were also tree lines in front of the village, so for sure the Russians would have troops, maybe guns, in it. Anyway, I picked what I thought was the most covered approach into the village. And the Russians had lined it wall to wall with guns and troops! I picked the route which gory had covered; what bad luck. The carnage started pretty soon after I cleared a small copse of trees; long range fire from a ridge in the distance killed and scattered my first platoon; they went to ground and became useless. I pushed through the next platoon to take the next but of forest, and called in a fire mission to suppress the long range fire on my men. The spotter must have had too much schnapps, because the fire was all over the place, far from the actual target. Did nothing to stop the harassing fire onto my troops. The second platoon spent itself clearing the trees, and i pushed through the remainder of the coy...into a hornet's nest of Russian guns and troops. They had half the 3rd Shock Army there; I was outnumbered and outgunned and my troops simply ran away. Several fire missions failed to do anything; the spotting was really bad, and the resulting fire was all over the place. My two half tracks were useless; knocked out by some tiny popgun; in fact, machine gun fire was enough to send it scurrying backwards! Useless! So, decisively defeated...again. Tell me, I was using a pioneer company; they are not going to make good infantry if I try and use them like infantry, are they? Must increase the battle size so I can afford infantry next time. Oh well, back to the drawing board. This I'd one hard mother!

Apoll

[womble]

There's an adage: "Send a scout first. A squad only goes where a Scout has been; a platoon only goes where a Squad has been." You're looking to make first contact with the smallest element you can, usually a Scout team. It sucks to be walking point because you're liable to get shot at, but a small team can often find enough cover to survive the initial contact until their squad can develop the situation enough to get the platoon involved and win the fire superiority battle.

Half tracks are probably more of a distraction right now in your stage of learning. Get used to some infantry fights, maybe, and develop your SOP so that you can win them before trying to handle "catastrophe" (they're either awful, or the most useful thing ever) weapons like half tracks.

Pioneers, per se aren't necessarily poor infantry. Depending on the particular TO, they might have fewer SAW, but they might be larger squads, too, and they come with demo charges which can be significant force multipliers in some (mostly urban or Norman) situations. As grunt line infantry, though, you'll probably get more bang for your QB buck with straight PzGr or Infantry, as you won't be paying for the special "Engineer" tags and demo charges.

[apoll]

Ok Womble. I did not split the platoon up; was using a platoon to scout. Will ditch the half tracks; useless anyway, and their FO is better off outside on the ground hiding in scrub and spying on the enemy. Half tracks are just too large a liability and target. Just having trouble working out what is in front of me; always getting a mass of semi-transparent enemy icons, but very few bright ones. So even not sure where the enemy is. Gets confusing, especially when try to micro manage all my units. Still feel not doing the up front analysis correctly; still blundering around the battlefield too much, not really sure what my objectives are etc.

So will keep practicing. I am determined to get good at this....but at present, I can't win against the AI, let alone another human.

Apoll

[Oddball-47]

Any way in all Christendom that we can rid of that pesky time limit?

Quick and dirty way is just open up the scenario you're going to play

with the editor. Under the "Data" header, you'll see the designer-imposed length of battle. Change it to whatever of the selections in the pulldown

menu you like.

Regards, Odd

[womble]

You always want to maintain a good dispersion of your squads. Personally, I split them into teams as the first exercise during setup, to allow squads to be dispersed and controlled. "Target Briefly" is your friend when you're doing recon by fire to see what might shoot back: get as many eyes as possible skulking, looking downrange with short covered arcs, then try a brief shoot with one or two teams at likely-looking hiding places for the enemy.

[Wodin]

First thing you should do at the start of a scenario is spli your teams. Platoons well behind your lines are fine though.

Ok Womble. I did not split the platoon up; was using a platoon to scout. Will ditch the half tracks; useless anyway, and their FO is better off outside on the ground hiding in scrub and spying on the enemy. Half tracks are just too large a liability and target. Just having trouble working out what is in front of me; always getting a mass of semi-transparent enemy icons, but very few bright ones. So even not sure where the enemy is. Gets confusing, especially when try to micro manage all my units. Still feel not doing the up front analysis correctly; still blundering around the battlefield too much, not really sure what my objectives are etc.

So will keep practicing. I am determined to get good at this....but at present, I can't win against the AI, let alone another human.

Apoll

[Michael Emrys]

You always want to maintain a good dispersion of your squads. Personally, I split them into teams as the first exercise during setup, to allow squads to be dispersed and controlled. "Target Briefly" is your friend when you're doing recon by fire to see what might shoot back: get as many eyes as possible skulking, looking downrange with short covered arcs, then try a brief shoot with one or two teams at likely-looking hiding places for the enemy.

A recent experience experience of mine might be illustrative. I was advancing an infantry force through some woods when a team outside and off to the side caught a brief glimpse of a German scout team (three men armed with SMGs) lurking to ambush my men. So what I did was to slow crawl three SMG teams to where they were just outside of visual range. Then I moved up a rifle team a little ways behind them, not attempting to be stealthy in hopes of suckering the fascists into opening fire. They didn't take that bait though. So first I moved up an LMG team behind the SMG guys, and once they were in position I had the rifle team area fire just short of where I thought the fascists were. This worked. The fascists didn't like that and opened return fire, fortunately not hitting anything. But that revealed them to my three SMG teams who promptly cut down two members of the enemy team. The third member decided that the had seen enough and started to run away only to be cut down by the LMG. Just another day at the office...

Michael

[MikeyD]

I recall years ago there was a great cry to extend the capability of the game out to four hours. BFC obliged but we only got a handful of 4 hour battles after that, because it was found if there wasn't a decision before that point each side will have probably run itself entirely out of ammo. Subsequent 'acquiring' of more ammo and now supply trucks/ammo caches have mitigated that problem somewhat. But four hours is still a long time for a unit to be expending ammunition.

I'm a firm believer in constructing your own scenarios to your own preferences (and sharing). If your 'thing' is three hour infantry battles with half your forces being ammo supply trucks then go for it. There's no right or wrong way to play the game. Me, I kind'a like heavily unbalanced games. Nobody said life was fair.

[Childress]

Ha! Thanks Childress, yea, should be aiming for that, but sat the moment, I'm the...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_RaRGdbKQ8

Haha. De nada. This oldie from the 50s will get you in the mood for your first PBEM.