Struggling with Eroudeville - revised version

[Bulletpoint]

It's my second playthrough of the campaign Road to Montebourg, and this is the final mission. I don't remember how I did in my first time around, since I was a complete newbie, but I remember it as much easier.

I've played Eroudeville two times now, with a couple of false starts to try out tactics against the known ambush in the first little group of buildings, and to try out various combinations of artillery and air support missions.

Well, first time around I decided to fight my way past (bypass) the strongpoint with the trench, then through the village on the right side of the map, up to the church, then continue left to the main objective. I did reasonably well, but ran out of time before taking the objective, and long before I could exit my troops. Result: Draw.

Next playthrough, I decided to try to dominate the centre of the map and bypass the urban fighting. Well, no luck with that, I took the trenches and then fought off the counterattack, knocked out two StuGs, but couldn't advance from there because the Germans have two JpzVI in hiding, and the layout of the map means I can't really flank. Driving out from the forest with the trenches would make my tanks sitting ducks. So the attack ground to a halt and I had to cease fire because I could see no plausible way forward. Result: Major defeat.

Now, it's a pretty big map, and it's just about possible to make a huge flanking maneuver to the left of the starting area, bust the bunkers guarding the 88's on the hill and then take the high ground, killing the assault guns from the rear. But I don't like doing this, because it seems like an exploit - from looking at the map after the battle, I know the flanking area is clear, but if I had to advance reasonably carefully, it would take a long time. Ages! I don't like to drive fast through areas that I wouldn't know to be safe, just as I don't call down artillery on locations where my units haven't spotted the enemy yet.

While I enjoy Paper Tiger's work, I sometimes feel he forgets to see the map from the player's perspective, as it's all too easy while designing a battle to forget that the player will not be able to advance rapidly through empty areas, thus burning lots of time before the real battle even begins.

Another problem that I see in this map is the "you have an objective but you have to make the enemy surrender to achieve it anyway, so might as well just say 'the objective is to kill the enemy' ". I prefer battles with limited objectives, so I know my mission is to take a specific location, and then devise a plan that will take me there, only punching through the enemy that I need to in order to do it.

Anyway, not posting this to complain, just to ask if any of you have won this mission (the revised version), and how you went about it I already searched a bit, but seems the posts are old and about the original version that comes with the game.

[WriterJWA]

I know this is an old post, but I went searching for answers on this Eroudeville madness, and I'm experiencing everything you've mentioned here... with no end in sight. I either get chopped up and bogged down in the house-to-house work or stumped by the Stug or JpzVI's. One engineer team would make a HUGE difference. Just one.

 

My losses through the campaign have been fairly light overall. I've got through this scenario four times and still can't get a twist on it. It's frustrating.

[Bulletpoint]

I know this is an old post, but I went searching for answers on this Eroudeville madness, and I'm experiencing everything you've mentioned here... with no end in sight. I either get chopped up and bogged down in the house-to-house work or stumped by the Stug or JpzVI's. One engineer team would make a HUGE difference. Just one.

 

My losses through the campaign have been fairly light overall. I've got through this scenario four times and still can't get a twist on it. It's frustrating.

 

I've also had some more attempts at this mission since I posted back then, but still haven't cracked it. I've analysed it to hell and back, tried various combinations of artillery, flanking etc. Still no dice. Came close to winning once, but simply didn't have enough time on the clock, and my troops were broken by the end to push through the final bit. I actually consider this one harder than the infamous "School of Hard Knocks".

 

Basically, my conclusion is that the player is supposed to do the following (but even trying to do that, I fail):

 

1: Spend all 400+ artillery shells to bombard the main village. This breaks some of the houses and knocks down most of the walls. You need to do this pre-planned, as there's no way to get reliable LOS for artillery spotting later, not even from Les Haut Bois (the hill with the 88's).

 

2: Mortars on the little triangular wood with the trenches. Won't do much damage, but there's a slim chance of a lucky airburst.

 

3: Some other mortars on Les Haut Bois, this is not gamey as you are informed about the 88's in the mission briefing. Won't knock many of the guns out, but every little bit helps.

 

4: You start the mission, going up to the last hedgerow before the triangular wood. It's a decent base of fire, so just a matter of slugging it out till resistance slackens. The little group of buildings to the right are a PITA, as you get chopped up by SMG as you emerge from the forest. There's one square where you can set up a machinegun though, and cover fire on the house.

 

5: After breaking the resistance in the trenches, is where the mission becomes hell. You somehow need to push north through the outskirts, it's possible but slow going. Losing so much time with that. If you try sticking around in the wood trenches, you'll get toasted when the counterattack comes in.

 

6: Meanwhile, you probably need to flank left across the vast open area. I keep forcing myself to do this in a proper manner, with scouts, staggered advances etc. But you could probably just run through it.

 

7: Your flanking force then needs to clear the bunkers and the 88's in the forest. This is not so difficult, as you have tanks to kill the bunkers. One of the two bunkers has some kind of glitch though, and my tank never spots it, though it quickly spots the other one (happened in several playthroughs). The 88's are not that hard to kill either, it's just slow going in the forest.

 

8: The make or break moment is sending your tanks to the area close to the bunkers. Ideally, they should then be able to crest the hill and hit the panzers in the back. However, the times I tried this, my tanks managed to miss, or not do any damage.. and the german tanks just turned around and wiped them out. Those Jagdpanzers are tough as old boots from the front.

 

9: If you do better than me, you should then be able to send your other force through the bombed out part of town and meet with your flanking force in a big pincer movement. But when I do this, I get cut down step by step from lone surviving German machinegunners.

 

 

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is".

 

 

Oh, and the air support: Useless if you call it in pre-planned. You might get some success with it if you save it and call it in from Haut Bois, but you could also be unlucky and have it attack your own guys.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[Bulletpoint]

Edit: Actually forget about mortaring the 88s. I've tested in another map, and the 88s are very resilent against mortars up to 81 mm. Pretty much immune to 60mm at longer ranges, and even 81 mm mortars need pretty dense saturation of the gun to knock it out or force the crew to abandon it. It seems the game gives the protection of the frontal shield all around the gun for some reason (this is just a hunch). I've seen plenty of 81mm bursts about 5-10 metres _behind_ the gun without killing any crew actively manning it.

 

So either prep the hill with 105mm airburst or save the mortars for calling in as spot fire later if you spot any of the 88s. I recommend the latter since you really need the 105s for the town.

[Ts4EVER]

Just got a total victory on this on my first playthrough, had to reload once at the end though to deal with an unknown resistance nest in the village that was contesting the objective.
 Here is what I did:

1. Preparatory bombardment by the mortars on the obvious defensive hedges (most was wasted, turns out). Once I spotted the defense position I called in a direct 60mm strike on the Pak40, then destroyed the bunker with tanks and occupied the trenches with moderate casualties. At this point an 88mm gun blew up one of my Shermans and I noticed a counter attack forming.

2. At the western edge of the defense line is a hedge that gives you good sight on the 88mm battery. I put both company HQs there and called in 81mm and Priest fire on the 88s. They didn't bother me the rest of the scenario. As I saw the Germans pausing at one of the farms, I also got a platoon hq in to call in the rest of the 60mm on them. They caught the Germans in the middle of their advance and caused lots of infantry casualties.

3. After I was sure that the 88mm guns were done, I retreated the HQs and moved a Sherman into the aforementioned position. He destroyed two German tank destroyers from there and mowed down what was left of the infantry.

4. While the counter attack was being mopped up I moved Fox Company down the road into the village, supported by a bunch of tanks. This took very long, as I had to clear 1 house after the other without satchels. 1 Tank destroyer was knocked out by rifle grenade of all things. As darkness fell there were still several resistance nests in the village that proved very stubborn. I was running out of time, but I decided to at least try to reach the evacuation zone with Easy Company, so I moved them from the trench line into the fields under the cover of darkness.

5. I encountered scattered German resistance and another tank destroyer, which I knocked out. By the end of the round I had only reached the center farm where the Germans had gathered for their attack.

6. I then lost the mission because of an HQ I missed in one of the houses, so I reloaded, destroyed it and got a Total Victory as time ran out. Total Victory for the campaign as well.

[Bulletpoint]

Congratulations. Sounds like a combination of skill and some damned good luck  I also finally managed to complete this mission.

Not sure how you could take the main village without shelling it? It's full of big walls. In some of my playthroughs I have dumped more than 400 shells on it and reduced it to ruins, but there is still some resistance there and it's still far from a cakewalk to take it.

 

 

[Ts4EVER]

I got most of my casualties in the village. Close tank support helped though, after the German tank was knocked out they were basically unstoppable. Germans were turning brittle at that point as well.

[Bulletpoint]

Are you playing the original version that came with the game, or the updated version from the Repository? The original was not so difficult.