New file at the Repository: Thunder Over Ponyri (2014-10-31)

[Battlefront Repository]

This is my first attempt at a campaign so any comments, suggestions or feed back are welcome.This a 3 battle mini campaign depicting actions by elements of the German 292nd Infantry Division and the 18th Panzer Division during the beginning phases of Operation Citadel. The campaign covers July 5th and 6th 1943 during the attack towards Ponyri Station in the northern face of the KurskSalient.Read the designers notes for more information about the campaign. I tried to keep it as historically correct as possible in both map design and oob's but there were limits to the historical details. The German 86th inf div was also involved in the action as well as Ferdinand tank destroyers but since those vehicles were not modeled yet for RT I kept to the actions of the 292nd and 18th.Ponyri was modeled as close as possible based on what information I could find with the exception of the water tower which I left out simply because I did not have a model for it. If any modders know or have such a structure perhaps I can revise the campaign later to include it.I hope you enjoy and please let me know of any problems with the campaign so I can correct. It played through well in my testing.

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[Lille Fiskerby]

Thank you for making this campaign I will give it a try.

LF

[Rokko]

Congratulations for being the first one to release a campaign for CMRT!

I haven't gotten to actually playing it, but it took a look at it in the editor. The maps look nice, good steppe feeling I'd say. But I wonder if the German OOB is all that historically accurate?

Lots of Tigers and infantry in halftracks (infantry from an Infanterie-Division!).

There weren't all that many units with Tigers and no Infantry-Divisions with halftracks.

I didn't take a look at the Soviet OOB to not ruin anything for myself, but with all those Tigers the German player is probably overpowered.

[Erwin]

Yes, congratulations and thanks for any campaign (regardless of OOB issues).

How many man-hours/days/weeks you reckon it took you?

[dragonwynn]

Thanks guys for the comments. Rokko you may be correct as I couldn't find exact equipment oob's for the two divisions but simply went by what I had seen in photographs, which depicted a lot of halftracks. As for the Tigers they were present in the battle though in what numbers I am not sure. Just didnt want the poor troopers to walk across the map lol.

The idea behind this was to simulate the grinding down action of the soviet defenses as the Germans penetrated deeper towards their objectives. Of course there were many more mine fields in the actual battle but I tried to keep it balanced also.

But these suggestions are helpful as I plan on doing more scenarios and maybe campaigns during this battle. Erwin I spent about 2 weeks (maybe 20 hrs or so) on this campaign, simply learning the mechanics of the editor was a bit time consuming for me.

[Wodin]

Big thanks!

[umlaut]

Sounds great. I am looking forward to playing it, even though it won´t be for a while - I´m busy making my own scenarios at the moment.

Regarding the water tower, I don´t know what the original tower looked like. But perhaps you can use the modded church tower I´ve been using for the Grain Elevator in my Factory mod set.

tower

[Blazing 88's]

Awesome and I haven't even checked it out yet. I was hoping someone would try creating something for this time period. Also like that it is a German campaign. Thank you.

[dragonwynn]

Thanks Umlaut that would have worked perfectly for the water tower, though from what I saw in pictures I think it was on a stilt type platform. Still your model would have simulated the tower just fine, a far cry from the tiny fountain I was using originally lol. I will wait for more feedback from other players to see what adjustments or improvements I need to make on the campaign and I may "borrow" your model to add the water tower in. By the way your factory mod is an amazing piece of work and I hope to do a scenario soon using your map and mods. Will these mods be released later as individual buildings or will it stay tagged to your map?

[umlaut]

think it was on a stilt type platform.

I don´t think it would be possible to make a mod that would resemble that with the current building models.

By the way your factory mod is an amazing piece of work

Thanks a lot

I hope to do a scenario soon using your map and mods. Will these mods be released later as individual buildings or will it stay tagged to your map?

They will not be released later, because they aren´t locked to my map at all: you can use them for any map you like - just as long as you have the mod set in your z (or data or whatever) folder and the map has the mod tag: [umlauts_factory]

So by all means go ahead and make scenario with my mod set - that is what it was meant for.

If you'd like to use just the tower (but not the other mods) for your campaign, just copy the tower BMPs (building 307) and change the mod tag to something else, like [dragowynn_umlaut] for instance. The same of course goes if you want to use some of the other buildings in the mod set.

But before you that be aware that I´ve just discovered that I forgot to mod one of the BMPs (I hadn´t catched it because that part of the building isn´t visible on the Grain Elevator on my map, but it would be as a single tower). I´ll update it as soon as I can.

Cheers

[dragonwynn]

Thanks again Umlaut, I will no doubt be using your model in my upcoming revision. Having obtained some new literature and some deeper research done I will agree with Rokko completely....my OOB's are screwed lol. First the 18th Pz Div was only equipped with medium tanks (MkIV, MkIII, etc. Tigers were involved in the attack, roughly 2 companies from the 505th. So I will be reworking the entire campaign until I am satisfied it is as accurate as I can get it within the limits of the game.

It will probably result in at least 2 platoons of tigers converted to MkIV's with a few MkII Lynx thrown in for flavor. From what I gathered around 40 Tiger I's were involved so these will remain as the strength of the German attack. Also as Rokko pointed out most Infantry Division units (not grenadiers) were motorized in trucks not halftracks. The 292nd did have a few Grenadier units attached to it so I will rename them appropriately and leave them with some tracks. To keep from cluttering up the map with additional trucks I will probably create a seperate setup zone for the 292nd closer to the defensive lines which would represent their jump off points at the beginning of the attack which is more historically correct I think.

I am OCD for trying to get things as accurate as possible and I apologise for being a bit hasty in the release of this campaign. I was so occupied with just making the silly thing work properly that I didn't put the time in to the actual battle and do the research to make it right. Obviously there are limits as there was so many different units involved with this attack in such close proximity to include it all would probably bring most computers to its knees.

I will add the water tower in also as this was a important part of the battle within the town itself using Umlaut's excellent model so the new version of this will require having his factory mod.

For those who have took the time to play the current version any additional feedback would be helpful. The Soviet forces should be pretty accurate though I may add some additional defenses along the flanks and possibly add some stragglers from the 81st on the second battle as some of these did fall back into defensive positions around Ponyri with the 307th. Having the Ferdinand model available for this would have been awesome as they did play a big role in the battle.

[Rokko]

I managed to play some 5 turns or so in the first scenario. I was suprised how easily Tigers could be penetrated frontally by Soviet ATGs at 500m+

For a 1944 scenario that might make sense but probably is inappropriate in a 1943 Kursk scenario. Either way it serves as a decent counterweight to having almost an entire batallion of Tiger tanks. Although it is pretty large I'd say it's still not large enough to 'accomodate' an entire batallion of Tigers.

18th PD had only one batallion of tanks instead of two, my suggestion would be to replace most of the Tigers with Panzer IV Gs and at most keep one company of Tigers (depleted to maybe simulate pre-battle breakdowns).

Also, it seems somewhat unlikely to really have elements from two different divisions in one battle in the scale of Combat Mission, at least for most battles. The infantry would more likely be from one of 18th PDs Panzergrenadier units, so it would also make sense to have infantry in halftracks.

[Homer The Doomer]

I played the first scenario and really enjoyed it.

One thought, however: were the Soviet trenches really just in one long, continuous line? Once I had spotted them it was very easy to just order a linear fire mission on them, wipe out most soldiers and at-guns in them and then run the rest over with my tigers.

The second scenario seems like a much bigger challenge so far, but I haven't gotten around to playing more.

[dragonwynn]

Thanks again Rokko for the input and I will consider your suggestions in the revised version. Further research has revealed that it was the 86th infantry division that attacked along the rail line towards Ponyri and not the 292nd which was in action along the right flank with the 18th pz div I believe so I will change that so the core units are actually the 86th.

The Tigers of 505 were in support of the 86th but I may reduce their number as you suggest.

Homer thanks for the comments and I am glad the battle proved enjoyable. Your suggestion is a good one as I agree about the trenches. I was trying to keep a balance of creating enough defensive positions to cover the map but still keep as less a strain on the computer. Originally I had barbed wire stretched in front of most of the trenches but removed them to reduce the tasking of the computer. But I may add a few more and stagger them as suggested.

Once again all these comments are very helpful and thank you.

[umlaut]

I will add the water tower in also as this was a important part of the battle within the town itself using Umlaut's excellent model so the new version of this will require having his factory mod.

Thanks a lot. But just to avoid misunderstandings:

It is no problem using only the tower - if that is what you want. You can simply copy it from my mod set - and then rename the mod tags for the scenario and the BMPs. If it is only the tower you want to use, there is no need for all the players to download the entire 360 MB mod set.

[dragonwynn]

Thanks for clarifying that Umlaut. I may have to get you to do a step by step on how to tag that mod correctly. I have not done a mod tag yet.

[dragonwynn]

But also I can't imagine players not wanting your 360meg download...

[dragonwynn]

Umlaut I have tagged the silo mod's bmp and created the text file as a tag. It shows up in the UI screen as it should. Now where do I find the silo in the editor to add to the map? I have looked under the independent building set but don't see the mod showing up. Is it located somewhere else or am I missing something?

[dragonwynn]

Well version 2 has been sent up the pipes so hopefully it will show up soon. I reworked the entire campaign and now it follows the 86th Inf Div instead of the 292nd. My research revealed the 86th actually made the original attack down the Kursk/Orel railway towards Ponyri and the 296th and 18th Pz Div were attacking along the right flank.

I also made adjustments to the OOB to hopefully be more historical though limits to the game will probably have this campaign classified as semi-historical. The water tower is now added thanks to Umlauts fine model and the Soviet defenses are adjusted and beefed up. It should be a bit tougher now.

To all who commented with suggestions thank you as these will help me improve. Any further comments or suggestions on the new version are quite welcome. Hope you will enjoy it.

[umlaut]

Umlaut I have tagged the silo mod's bmp and created the text file as a tag. It shows up in the UI screen as it should. Now where do I find the silo in the editor to add to the map? I have looked under the independent building set but don't see the mod showing up. Is it located somewhere else or am I missing something?

Hi

Very, very strange. I have already answered this a couple of days ago

- but the reply seems to have gone missing?

So here we go again:

The tower is a church steeple. Height 7, but you can only see the height once you´ve placed the tower on the map.

But be aware - as I said earlier - that I´ve just discovered an unmodded bmp file in the tower that I had overlooked, because it wasn´t visible in the grain elevator. I´ll fix it as soon as I can.

Let me know if there are any problems.

tower2

Edit:

I just discovered that my answer was in another thread. But it is still the same

[dragonwynn]

Thanks Umlaut I did see your response and it is sitting happily in the town of Ponyri. Thanks again.