Big Boss Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 SPOILER ALERT! Finished playing this scenario yesterday and would like to share some thoughts about it. It was played H2H turn-based over several days. First some technical details. A noted in an earlier thread by Catacol (http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=114970)playing H2H turn-based and using the Save function is prone to error. We even experienced a new type of error that manifested itself as follows. When we loaded a Save the hosts clock automatically starts counting down even if the continue sign is in the corner unchecked. This doesn't happens at the other side and he could still order units around. His countdown only starts when the host pushes continue as well as the other player. Then the round is played out and after the full minute we are back in order phase in synch again. This happened on multiple occasions when we loaded a save. But me and my friend couldn’t resist the temptation of playing a big scenario In RT although it would probably have been better to wait for a patch to solve thisJ. Now to the good stuff:). This is a wonderful scenario by Jon Martina. The briefing has a good structure with informative text and maps. The warning text at the beginning in Designer´s notes is much appreciated. The map is enormous (2200x2500m) and very well built. Rolling hills, rich crops and a dominating plateau covered by a small but strategic wood. Although it is open and at places LOS stretched for kilometres it is full of small depressions and tree lines that makes both defence and attack plans full of possibilities. The forces at hand is of equal giant scale. The soviets have on their roster an entire battalion of PAKs and several companies of medium and heavy tanks with supporting heavy SPGs. Infantry support is also in company sizes but they are almost swallowed up by the size of the map and makes you have to concentrate at vital sectors. The Germans have the finest steel from Nürnberg at hand. King tigers and Panthers make up the majority with panzer IV in support. The Germans are a little low on infantry and rely heavily on their armoured might to save the day. The scenario is played out as a German attack to seize some objectives on the soviet side of the battle. They have all their forces at hand from the beginning . The soviets receive their armour at intervals. As this is no AAR I will simply say that we fought each other to a bloody draw: Both players used both attacks and counter-attacks plus defence during the scenario. Intense and deadly close combat together with truly Ostfront style long range cannon duels characterized the battle. Lessons learned from my side as the soviets. On Panthers and King Tigers the soviet 76 mm gun (both PAKs and early T-34) have negligible effect on any distance over 1000m is. After the fight some King Tigers showed tremendous amounts of un-penetrating hit decals all over their fronts:). Even IS-2 and ISU-122 have terrible odds against the German beasts at long ranges. Only at close ranges (<500m) the odds felt more manageable. My final word. A very good scenario. Lovely map with lots of possibilities. Large forces at disposal but evenly matched. Time limit felt reasonably. /Kim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Thanks for the report, which spares me ever loading this scenario... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Thanks for the briefing. Love these huge battles and looking forward to it. (Still trying to complete the campaigns.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kommissar Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 I found it quite frustrating to deal with the numerous Soviet ATGs. They would take lots of hits from the 88mm cannons of the King Tigers and be seemingly destroyed, only to have the one surviving gunner (it's always the last guy that seems hard to kill) get up a minute later and start shooting again. Although they could never penetrate the armour, the sheer volume of shots did a number on the optics and tracks of the KTs which left me in trouble when the big Soviet armour showed up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Boss Posted June 10, 2014 Author Share Posted June 10, 2014 Yes the AT-gun crews have sometimes a truly remarkable survival tendency just as Kommissar said. A lonely gunner can still fire away shots that sometimes strikes home. And at longer ranges the enemy have hard time figuring out if the guns are really knocked out or just taking cover. Then again, my PAK battalion situated on the open field, after halting the first German panzer advance on one flank got mauled by heavy German artillery and lost about 70% of their guns even when every gun was separated by at least 150-200m. Quid pro quo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFF Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Thanks for the report, which spares me ever loading this scenario... Yeah, we wouldn't dare want you to have fun while playing this game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 "only to have the one surviving gunner (it's always the last guy that seems hard to kill) get up a minute later and start shooting again" Had this problem a lot in the other titles as well. Someone (Womble?) thought that one should stop shooting at suppressed crews so that they could abandon their weapons and flee. It makes sense that if one keeps barraging crews, they can't flee and stay put. Possibly the big problem is that such crews recover from shock/suppression way too fast and are able to fire back way too soon and too accurately. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 This always seems to be the case with my opponents, but when it happened to me, the last surviving crewmember of my 88 recovered, had a clear shot at an enemy tank ... and decided to buddy-aid one of his mates ! Must have been a good watch 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 LukeFF - different strokes, I don't like giant scenarios. I prefer reinforced company or smaller and actually preferred just a couple of platoons as a scenario scale. I like things shoestring with every unit mattering, and gobs of uberarmor leave me cold, when I am not laughing at the screen. You can like something entirely different, entirely your affair. My comment was genuine, I am glad to know ahead of time that I don't have to try this one, because it is clearly aimed at the opposite end of the spectrum. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartokomus Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 I just finished this last night after leaving it for a month; my fight against the AI crested early in excitement and was a boring final hour. I feinted on the left with my Company of T-34's (76) and lost EVERY one to unknown armor, though i suspect it was Panther as i had several through-and-throughs. My heavy TD group were useless in both their accuracy and their starting location. My IS-2's saved the day, knocking out the KT's in a brutal bloody melee. After that i pretty much held position with the 3 remaining IS-2's and and remnant T-34 (85)s but the ai sent forth only a few platoons of PZGrenadiers who were killed to a man. Lovely map, great selection of forces but definitely one of those times where the AI just needed to CF/quit a lot sooner. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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