CMRT Right Hook at Sopockinie - Comments & Critique

[Rokko]

@Heinrich505: Nice pics again, I guess you win some you lose some

 

@Combatintman:

 

Thanks a bunch for that awesome and in-depth analysis! It's a great way to enable me to understand your and other peoples' thought process when reading the briefing and playing the scenario. I already have gotten some ideas on what I should change in the briefing to make things more clear by reading your interpretation of it.

 

 

For one I am suprised by your gross overestimation of the enemies strength. Reading the briefing I get how you could come to the conclusion that you're facing a full Rifle Regiment while it is actually a much smaller force, I am going to make that more clear.

Of course the division would give you more than a depleted batallion and some Stugs to fight a full Regiment

Also, maybe I will try to make things more clear on whether you should expect enemy armor or not. On one hand it's nice to have some level uncertainty, on the other hand it might be more realistic to have such operational intelligence on the topic of present armor threat.

 

BTW COA2 is probably most closely to the one I had in mind when designing the scenario, but since your assessment was you were being outnumbered I get why you came to a different conclusion.

 

My plan is to make a Redux Version once the first module is out and we get actual Waffen-SS TOEs (although the Heer one is pretty much the same, maybe some differences on the squad level).

 

Edited March 17, 2015 by Rokko

[Combatintman]

Rokko - as I've said before, I don't think you need to change much if anything in the briefing. There is enough there to get the thinking juices going and there is nothing that is deliberately misleading. Despite my assessed ratios, I still felt the task was doable through echeloning although I knew I was carrying risk in terms of dealing with armour and assaulting the final objective.

 

I mitigated the armour risk by crossing my fingers a little bit and hoping that any armour sortie would be dealt with be delaying it sufficiently by in place ATGs and handheld anti-tank weapons and keeping all assets well hidden. While that was going on, my OP on the nearest hill would have found and tracked the target and it would give me cueing options for swinging my Stugs into a flank attack.

 

My assault on the final objective would be supported by the reinforcing Arty Bty which I figured would even up the assessed unfavourable force ratios in combination with good old shock action of a rapid follow-up force.

[Combatintman]

MOS96B2P - yes same here, Comd's guidance for COA development and analysis would give natural weighting to the Staff working up the plan. In this case as I am both commander and staff I have my own prejudices/direction. With a big map and big force, Command and CSS weighed quite heavily and my firepower was important due to my assessed force ratios.

 

I won't deny that I was heavily influenced by the desire to dislocate the force on the hill feature ... why fight something I don't have to? Particularly so given my assessed force ratios.

[Heinrich505]

 

Rokko, the SS boys are a little overly aggressive.  They've advanced too far forward on the right flank.  Friendly artillery is not "friendly."

 

I posted a series of screenshots of action in the woods off to the left of this advance.  A StuG was pushing through the small wooded section to support the advance on the left side of the lake.  Those are posted in the screenshots section.

 

Due to limited time my play-through is not going very quickly.  That, and the fact that I have to stop and take screenshots all the time, ha ha.

 

Heinrich505 

[Combatintman]

Heinrich505 - great picture mate.

 

Ok here is part one of how I executed the mission - as I said in my previous post I went for COA 3.

 

 

Spoiler

So to speed things up - from set up I moved the bulk of 9 and all of 10 Coy to the southern end of the setup zone and used the Stugs as taxis to move 10 Coy forward roughly to the area in where the 10 Coy arrow changes direction east.

 

Concurrent to this - at the North end of the map I moved a couple of HQ units (prob the Heavy Weapons Coy HQ and the ATK HQ) to the top of the nearest hill. This position gave me sufficient observation of the open plain and the east end of Mankowice.

 

The bulk of 9 Company inched forward to a point where they could put direct fires on to the west end of Mankowice and to where the Coy HQ could call in fire.  10 Company which was to be assault unit stayed a tactical bound behind and the Stugs stayed well out of LOS from the village so as to avoid getting picked off by any lurking ATK assets.

 

To be honest I was surprised by how close I had to get before 9 Company could see the village (it was about 150-200m) and this took me a while to sort out. Once this was achieved though, I called in some fire from the infantry guns and put a linear 81mm mortar barrage on the west end of the village.

 

Concurrent to that 9 Company put in some direct fire and I was able to target every building on the west end of the village. With the suppression in place, 10 Company moved forward and I unmasked 2-3 of my Stugs to pile on the fire.

 

Overall I got to the first line without too much difficulty but by then Soviet indirect fires were starting to come in and 9 Company took some hits. Also despite my suppression, getting beyond the first line of buildings was bloody difficult and I took some fire from a cleverly positioned unit on the right flank (roughly from the area at the NE point of the lake). This position required me to move the detached platoon of 9 Company to move forward (movement arrow not shown on the schematic) to engage them along with moving 3 Stugs around the north bank of the lake (movement arrow not shown on the schematic) to support.

 

That position took a lot time to sort out and caused me real difficulty in maintaining tempo because to finally deal with it I had to go firm with 10 Coy at the west end of the village and bring the bulk of 9 Coy around the southern end of the lake and assault from the south.

 

By the time I had sorted the flank position out, I had been forced to expend some more mortar ammunition, had taken some 9 company casualties from indirect fire and one of my Stugs suffered main gun damage from an ATR. Additionally, despite being in buildings, 10 Company took some casualties from indirect fire and had to deal with an aggressive counter-attack from the east.

 

More to follow

[Heinrich505]

Thanks Combatintman.  I'm going to have to read your analysis later, as I am still working through the battle. 

 

 

Heinrich505

[Combatintman]

Thanks Combatintman.  I'm going to have to read your analysis later, as I am still working through the battle. 

 

 

Heinrich505

Whatever you do ... fight it better than I did!!!

[Heinrich505]

Thanks.  I'll give it a try but no guarantees.  Things are bogging down a bit.  The Soviets are hard to winkle out of their positions.

 

Heinrich505

[Heinrich505]

Rocco,

  Sorry it took so long to finish this.  I was trying to find time to play and RL kept getting in the way, haha.

 

Spoilers………………………………………………….

 

  My plan was to try and work a three prong with the right hook through the two victory positions on the right flank.  The troop mix was really nice, the map excellent.  I didn’t really change the scenario deployment.  I left everyone pretty much where they started with the exception of the AT guns as I moved them around a bit.

 

[Heinrich505]

  The center push was rather wide, but I did ease troops off to the left flank to deal with the possibility of the AT guns that Intel referred to in the wooded hills.

 

   It took a while to move through the depression in the center and ease up to the wide open areas.  I took my time and tried to scout ahead, having a bad feeling about the woods on the left flank.  Turns out that bad feeling was fully justified. 

 

  I eased forward with lots of MG covering positions on the right flank, again not rushing too much but also not wasting too much time.  There were lots of Quick Move rushes.

 

  Once contact was made with the center trench lines I used artillery sparingly to try and keep the defender’s heads down, always pushing forward in a somewhat aggressive manner.  After all, the boys were SS and were expected to take casualties, but I didn’t push it too much.

 

  Contact with the right flank was sporadic at first, and I called in significant Artillery to weaken the forward part of the two villages.  Then I moved in fast, taking some hits but having MG set up to the rear that were able to suppress the enemy forward positions that had survived my artillery.

 

  From that point I was able to systematically move through the right hook, again taking some casualties but not a great many.  I found that many of the troops became broken through the village fight, and they became very brittle.  They had to be managed with care and I had to keep the officers up pretty much right in harm’s way to get the lads to charge forward.

 

  The battle on the right hook was helped greatly when I pulled some platoons from the central push to work in from the left side of the villages and flank the defenders.  That seemed to unhinge them a bit and I was able to clear the right hook in good time.

 

  The center battle was bogging down though, as the AT guns now found the range and knocked out many of my StuG Assault Guns with side shots.

 

  I diverted several of them to try and work across the sunken road, only to blunder into some very clever ambush positions.  One StuG rolled right up onto about 7 Russian soldiers who promptly immobilized the StuG but then lost out big time as the crew blasted them at point blank range with HE.  Shortly after that the same StuG took hits from the 45mm AT guns and the crew bailed.

 

  At this point my left flank was hurting badly.  They turned away from the push and directed their fire against the AT guns and the other infantry positions dug into the woods.  I managed to work my FO up in the area and finally get some artillery crashing down on the AT gun positions, but I was always harried by the infantry positions on my flank.  Eventually I had to band together some tank crews and broken infantry and rush some of the trench positions in the woods.  That managed to dislodge the Russians who melted back into the woods. 

 

  The center push managed to reduce the trench fortifications with sparing use of mortars and I found myself pushing forward again, with mainly broken troops, and now to the right side of the main road in an effort to avoid flanking fire from the AT guns that just wouldn’t die.

 

  The center push went fairly well with the men hunting forward and occasionally Quick rushing.  They arrived in fairly good position for a frontal assault on the final objectives at the back of the map, only to find they were taking punishing fire and they had to stop.  My decision now was to fix the enemy fire on them, and wait for the right hook to come from their victory locations on the right flank.

 

  It was kind of like herding cats at this point, because I had to form up the right hook boys into some sort of order and then move them quite a distance over to support the final assault.  I had about 45 minutes left so I hustled the already tired troops across the map knowing I didn’t have a lot of time left.

 

  The left flank was in danger at this point.  I managed to drop the last of my serious artillery on the AT guns and kept some MG fire on them from the center as well.  Eventually I found that some of them had been knocked out, but I still had to push one of my last few StuGs through the woods trying to flank the remaining AT guns.  It was a real desperation move as they were pretty much unsupported. 

 

  The StuG did manage to dislodge the last few crews of the 45mm AT guns, but they were immobilized, the crew bailed, and they were cut down by the AT gun crew.  It was sad.  A small attack group consisting of a single MG gunner, a Kubelwagen driver, and two tank crew gunners forced the last AT gun crew into running back into the woods.

 

  There were still many Russian infantry milling about beyond the hills on the left flank and I had virtually nothing left there.  I just held the guys in the area.  There were only a handful.  I did run the small halftrack up the road on a scouting mission to see if the left side of the far objectives was open, only to find that it was strongly held and the crew of the halftrack was shot up pretty badly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  So, it was now all up to the right hook to support the center push.

 

  I eased the less tired guys from the right hook up and started to invest the right side of the last two victory positions.  They found some strong resistance.  I then remembered (thank heaven) that the heavy artillery guns still had smoke missions left.  I called them in while slowly easing up to take on the defenders, all the while rushing the rest of the tired troops across the fields in an effort to get them into the battle as well.

 

  When the smoke fell, it dropped perfectly and pretty much obscured the right side of the victory point.  I was able to rush the tired and broken troops forward and bring fire on the enemy positions as they revealed themselves.  I took some casualties but not as many as I thought I would.  I was still trying to be careful with the men and not overly aggressive.  I still had about 30 minutes now to roll up the defenders.

 

  And that is what happened.  I systematically moved in from the right flank while easing forward with the front push.  I still had two StuGs, and while they didn’t have any HE left, they still fired AP into the buildings where the Russians were holed up, causing some casualties and keeping their heads down.

 

  I had saved up the panzershrek guys on the possibility that there would be a push from enemy armor.  This worked well because I used them as my remaining HE to dislodge the enemy from buildings.

 

  I came away with a Total Axis victory, playing at Warrior level.  I played the time just right, I think, as I had the last victory positions with 1 minute to go “regulation time.”  I had to wait out the overtime but there was no counter attack and the “Right Hook” was a success.

 

  I thought your troop mix was good.  The use of MGs was critical.  It was a large battle and a long one, so I was not able to play it out quickly.

 

  The battle had a very realistic “feel” to it and I thought it captured the eastern front very well.  The map was huge and there was a lot of ground to cover, so you could say that was down-time.  However, the fighting in the villages was very intense, with men moving up, getting hit, others throwing grenades, assaulting buildings, some breaking and falling back while others charged forwards – all good stuff.

 

  The village fighting was such that you had to closely monitor the movements, so there was quite a bit of managing, but I felt it was well worth it.  Keeping the officers up close and in the middle of things was a must due to the broken nature of many of the men.

 

  As for the StuG dilemma where the crew gets systematically picked off if they try to use their MGs, I was able to avoid that, for the most part, by keeping them a bit far back from the action where possible.

 

 The exceptions were when the StuG blundered into an enemy ambush or was fired upon by a trench position that hadn’t been discovered by my advancing troops.  I was lucky to have 2 of them survive to the end and at one point the one StuG was running taxi service for two MG teams for the final push.

 

  I enjoyed the battle.  It was good fun, felt realistic in troop mix and tenacity of the enemy in their defensive positions, and it challenged me to use combined arms to defeat enemy positions.

 

  The battle was very long and very big though.  Some may not have the time to devote to such a large battle.  It took me quite a while to finish it, and I was playing the AI.  It would have been even longer if I was playing H2H. 

  So much for plus and minus.  I got a kick out of the battle and really enjoyed it.  Playing the SS with Vein’s SS mod was a blast.

 

  Rocco, I thought your hard work was well worth it.  Thanks for your efforts.  The battle played out well and there was lots of intense action and small personal battles to follow.  I’d highly recommend it.

 

Heinrich505

[Melchior]

I just started playing the scenario and am avoiding most of the comments so it's not spoiled. So far I really dig that the German's heavy artillery is deployed on the map. Would've been cool to see the infantry's trucks on the maps too. I would've liked to use the trucks to tow the AT guns to positions where I could use them as ad-hoc assault guns against the Russian positions on the west hill instead of using the StuGs to suppress that area.

Edited June 11, 2015 by CaptHawkeye

[Heinrich505]

Capt,

  I tried everything I could to pull those doggone AT guns up to the front.  I drove a Kubelwagen back there but it wasn't able to tow.  I then raced a frigging StuG back there with the hope that it could tow the gun and crew.  No dice.

 

  Finally I ordered one crew to start shoving their frigging gun up the road by hand.  They were in an ugly mood (because I singled them out and didn't order any of the other guns to move forward) so they only pushed it enough per turn to appear to be trying to comply with my orders.  They never made it to the bend in the road, the frigging slackers. 

 

  Good luck with the battle.  It feels very much like late-war eastern front.

 

 

Heinrich505

[Melchior]

Yeah the problem is acute of the 1944 era. The Russian defenses aren't just one line or even two. But several, with interlocking fields of fire. I won't have enough ammo to go around so i'm planning on using the terrain to keep my forces masked from the western hill. I only bring the StuGs in for priority targets like machine guns and cannons. Everything else has to be handled by my overloaded MG42 teams.

[Heinrich505]

I found that target briefly is a huge plus.  I didn't have a problem with not enough ammo for the end game.   

 

Also, I just used short artillery barrages and ran the guys up close while the rounds were dropping.  Risky, yes, but it got me close and then I could bring superior firepower.

 

The exception on the artillery was for those damned AT guns.  Geez they cost me big time. 

 

Don't forget about your smoke ammo - I almost did.  I believe the StuGs have smoke rounds but I didn't need to use them.  The big Arty guns had plenty of smoke for my last push into the far victory areas.

 

Heinrich505

[Melchior]

An issue I wasn't prepared for is that the off-map mortars do not cover the whole map. They run out of range about half way down the field. The Wespe is a big deal to me, but at only 64 rounds i'm conserving it for the final assault.

The goings have been rough. Casualties have been agreeable but the men's morale is low. Their are quite a few "Rattled" statuses. Ironically the Company I have taking the eastern town objective is having a much better time than the men I marched right at Biali Blota. I used to have real problems clearing towns because of the PPsh squads. I figured out that the Germans have a real advantage at range because of the MG42 which is liberally distributed to their infantry. German squads can really "reach out" at distant targets with that gun. So it's best to risk only small teams of point men with each move while the base-of-fire be kept large.

The infantry in the fields keep having issues because the Russians are nigh impossible to spot until you're right on top of them. The grass is high and the terrain modestly uneven. Normally i'd lead with the tanks but because the StuGs are bugged I have to lead with the infantry which is not what I want to do.

Next time I play I think i'll avoid marching straight through the center. I'll commit all of my forces to Manckowcie and then use the low terrain north of the town to flank into Biali Blota from the east without ever exposing myself to the defenses of the western hill.

[Heinrich505]

Capt

 

  Probably best to do the wholesale right hook thing, overwhelm the victory points on the right, and then sweep across to hit the far towns from the right flank.  You'll have all the StuGs then, as the AT positions won't be able to hit them in the flank.

 

  I thought about doing that and then figured I would just use the default set-up and carefully deal with the suspected AT positions.  My StuG crews are very angry with me now. 

 

 

Heinrich505

[Melchior]

Their is a caveat for this approach though. A high concentration of force on a single axis of approach will be an inviting target for Russian mortar fire. What I'll do is just pummel the south end of the town with pre planned artillery fire and basically bumrush the Germans into the town in the low light of early morning. Hot on the heels of the bombardment. I'll never clear the town before the Russians drop fire on the Germans, but the townhouses are a better place to be during bombardment than out in the open.

[Bartokomus]

Loving the scenario Rokko; very enjoyable so far.

 

thanks for doing it.

[Melchior]

The right hook worked. Entailing everything I was expecting. The Germans can hold their own against the mighty PPsh if they can get inside the town and use cover better than some shrubs.

The Manckowce route was slow, and yes invited very much artillery fire but 9th and 10th Companies did not suffer unacceptably heavy casualties. In fact I was able to grab a platoon from each and send them to attack Biali Blota w/11th Company which made the attack all but foolproof. Six StuGs supported the infantry with heavy fire moving through the town and the pre-attack bombardment from the Wespes contributed a lot too. The west hill was never unmasked once and not a shot was fired by any ATG on the map.

The average Russian infantry formation is at a severe disadvantage against armor. The PTRD-cool as I think anti-tank rifles are- is no replacement for a good Bazooka/PIAT. Whereas I would've had to be way more cautious attacking Allied troops in places like Normandy and Italy I did not have to be so cautious here.

The primary cause of casualties was, as usual, from mortar fire.

Edited June 22, 2015 by CaptHawkeye

[Heinrich505]

Nice job Capt.  I really missed all those StuGs I lost to the west hill gunners.

 

Heinrich505

[Combatintman]

The right hook worked. Entailing everything I was expecting. The Germans can hold their own against the mighty PPsh if they can get inside the town and use cover better than some shrubs.

The Manckowce route was slow, and yes invited very much artillery fire but 9th and 10th Companies did not suffer unacceptably heavy casualties. In fact I was able to grab a platoon from each and send them to attack Biali Blota w/11th Company which made the attack all but foolproof. Six StuGs supported the infantry with heavy fire moving through the town and the pre-attack bombardment from the Wespes contributed a lot too. The west hill was never unmasked once and not a shot was fired by any ATG on the map.

The average Russian infantry formation is at a severe disadvantage against armor. The PTRD-cool as I think anti-tank rifles are- is no replacement for a good Bazooka/PIAT. Whereas I would've had to be way more cautious attacking Allied troops in places like Normandy and Italy I did not have to be so cautious here.

The primary cause of casualties was, as usual, from mortar fire.

 

So my Mission Analysis and chosen COA at post 24 was right then ... you executed it better than I did though.

[Melchior]

It has its caveats. More than once I got super lucky with the mortar fire starting up too slow. Spotting rounds caused 75% of casualties I think and at least once a round landed right in the middle of a squad and just blew a guy's hearing out. Some of the wet swampy areas just absorb HE rounds. It was necessary to send at least one platoon to clear the patchy brush areas west of Manckowce. The Russians had only HQ teams and ATRs there so it was easy but on more than one occasion the platoon was unmasked to an SG43 that covered the approach. They were never fired on by it for some reason.  

 

It's super important for the Germans to just smash the planned entry area to a town with artillery or tank fires before entering. One guy with a PPsh stands to do a lot of damage and while the Germans don't have to worry too much about that outside of 200m, it just so happens they have to fight a lot closer than that. The Russians will not be eager to announce where they are until you happen to be inside St. Valentines Day Massacre Range. So the best thing to do is just pummel the approach so not much fighting occurs for buildings and houses. Once inside structure German infantry are way way way way better off against SMG fire and are allowed to have higher situational awareness. Machine guns and snipers are best dealt with StuG fire.

 

The biggest issue with this approach is that I was late to attack Blota. I had to rush 11th Company to attack the town with many "Fatigued" and "Tired" boxes on. The StuGs had been pretty preserved until now though so again I pummeled the approaches to the town. Clearing the town took the remaining time of the mission (26min) and I did not clear Blota west before zero time. Cease Fire at time gave me a Tactical Victory but I've noticed the mission has some variable time left so i'll see if another minute or two will allow me to clear Blota west soon.