Hammer's Flank Crossing the River

[SimpleSimon]

On 8/19/2017 at 2:28 PM, Apocal said:

 

So yeah, I didn't really like the scenario that much either. Whenever I replay the campaign I just hit cease fire during the setup phase and save myself the aggravation.

Which I also found myself do in "Osintorf or Bust" later on in the campaign. Another forced, really braindead attack into the teeth of an unmolested German defense. What's the point in featuring the huge buffet of artillery the Soviet's had in their park if designers insist on avoiding it???? 

[Warts 'n' all]

Having gotten a bloody nose the first time I tried this a few years ago, and remembering how frustrating it was trying to get through the first two lines of defence, when I took this campaign on a few weeks ago I tried something different.

The 1st line is only a touch objective.... The 3rd line gives twice as many points as 2nd... So as they say, I missed out the "middle man" and went around the right flank, just sending one platoon to touch the very edge of the 1st zone,

With regards to artillery, or lack of it. I was frustrated about it too. But, in the case of this campaign, it does reflect that fact that the Russians had problems moving their arty quickly in that kind of terrain.

[SimpleSimon]

It's the game's only shipped Russian campaign and few user campaigns exist. We're on mission 3 and the player gets some SU-76s and mortars? I felt I wasn't even getting my money's worth. 

[Warts 'n' all]

The game description clearly states that there are Two campaigns, added to that you get plenty of stand-alone battles, quick battles etc. So it is a shame that you feel that you are not getting your money's worth.

Mission 3 is very tough. But, that is how it was on the day. 

I think that at present there are 11 player created campaigns. Although because not everyone shares them on The Few Good Men site, I think that there are only four on there. What you might like to do is go to the top of this forum and click on "Maps and Mods" most of the campaigns should be on there with a description of what it is about, and which engine you need to have in order to be able to play it.

[SimpleSimon]

In the end I did not feel that Red Thunder was a waste because while it contains the single worst campaign I've played in a CM game it also contains the single best campaign I've played so far, "Blunting the Spear". That was worth the price of admission alone. To me it also just highlights how much more accessible German sources were about the war, and also influential they were over the history of the Eastern Front. 

Most of the scenarios are pretty good and I believe it was the first game in the series that had master maps? I'm working on my own campaign for it now that I should finish sometime before the year ends maybe but the master maps were crucial for that. 

EDIT: I also used the campaign unpacker to "rescue" Hammer's Flank by rebalancing the campaign in the scenario editor. I feel the missions were much more interesting with more artillery support for the Russians, I also redesigned the German defenses so they were less spread out and more concentrated on individual "nodes" or "outposts" to make them less vulnerable to the huge bombardments I made use of. This presented more opportunities for flanking out German defenses but also made unexpected run ins with strong points more punishing although it was difficult for me to find anything "unexpected" when I knew the changes I had made. 

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by SimpleSimon

[Frenchy56]

25 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

In the end I did not feel that Red Thunder was a waste because while it contains the single worst campaign I've played in a CM game it also contains the single best campaign I've played so far, "Blunting the Spear". That was worth the price of admission alone. To me it also just highlights how much more accessible German sources were about the war, and also influential they were over the history of the Eastern Front. 

Most of the scenarios are pretty good and I believe it was the first game in the series that had master maps? I'm working on my own campaign for it now that I should finish sometime before the year ends maybe but the master maps were crucial for that. 

EDIT: I also used the campaign unpacker to "rescue" Hammer's Flank by rebalancing the campaign in the scenario editor. I feel the missions were much more interesting with more artillery support for the Russians, I also redesigned the German defenses so they were less spread out and more concentrated on individual "nodes" or "outposts" to make them less vulnerable to the huge bombardments I made use of. This presented more opportunities for flanking out German defenses but also made unexpected run ins with strong points more punishing although it was difficult for me to find anything "unexpected" when I knew the changes I had made. 

 

Nice, Simon. Mind sharing? I've been trying to use the campaign unpacker but I still don't really get it.

[SimpleSimon]

There's two files in the unpacker that you copy, "Listing_Layout" and "CMx2 ScAn_CaDe_v2.0". Find your scenario data files, which will not be in the main directory (usually) for the games but in your Documents folder under your user name. Look for a folder under there (another folder might exist that says Games and it might be in there) that says "Battlefront" and you should find files in that for each game that contain scenario and campaign folders. Paste the copied files into each campaign folder and if everything works right you should see all of the game's campaigns populate the folder as .btt files. You then need to move or copy these files to the Scenarios folder and once that's done you have full access to edit them or just play them independent the campaign system! 

As for my own redesigns of Crossing the River and Osintorf, i'll do playthroughs of each sometime if you want and highlight my changes. I didn't know how to make or edit the briefing text (probably super easy with a little direction) so I wanted to figure that out before showing much. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by SimpleSimon

[Warts 'n' all]

I agree that "Blunting the Spear" is an excellent campaign. And your ideas for reworking "Hammer's Flank" sound interesting.

Just for the record, did you soldier on after mission 3? If so, did you find it anymore enjoyable?

[SimpleSimon]

Oh yeah I took some notes too on the playthrough of my own version of Crossing the River and highlighted some interesting things.

https://ibb.co/Zd2CCnB

Here is a view of the redesigned German defense. On balance it seems as if the German defense is heavier, but the major change I've made is to add a thinly manned trenchline between the center and right positions. Only a single squad holds it, and the logic behind it was that it would've served as a communication trench between the center and right (from Russian perspective) positions which this poor squad happened to be transitioning when your bombardment opened up. 

https://ibb.co/r0V7qGm

The redesigned left flank position (from behind the position, facing toward the river, trees disabled). A trench connects the two machine gun pits which are covering a wide axis but now exposed to being outflanked from an attack originating up the former center position. If the player should chose to pursue this course that is. 

https://ibb.co/XC5kqrY

A shot of the trench line running between center and right. This is an ideal target for the SU-76s to silence, but even if every SU-76 you have is lost or disabled it's defeated easily enough by infantry mortars and machine guns. It was a major point for me to diminish player reliance on the SU-76s from the original scenario, because they could all be lost to bogging, mines, or one (of the three!!!!) Pak 40s on the map and this crippled your attack. The Russians would not have been that reckless for an operation of such importance. 

https://ibb.co/7yMJTc5

The Russian's new artillery park, page 1. The Russians have not had substantial changes outside of the new support. The SU76's are no longer your chief tool to affect the map, though their presence is still welcome. 

https://ibb.co/t8RGQ6C

The artillery park page 2. After playing the original scenario with this new artillery park it became fairly easy. So this is why I redesigned the German defense in a manner that made positions a bit less vulnerable. More bunkers and trenches were added, (only positions with overhead cover stood a chance at surviving the 152mm and 122mm guns) but the Germans' mortar ammunition and tube count was cut down significantly. The weather remains the same, rainy and misty, and most of the defender's heavier entrenchments like mines, bombs, and barbed wire were credible I felt since this sector of front was fairly static for the months prior. 

My logic for all of this is that the weight of artillery on the Russian side is meant to be an abstraction of the huge bombardment the briefing alludes too, making use of Division and Corp level guns which would very much have been around for an offensive the size of Operation Bagration. The rocket artillery was dispensed with, and the German's own artillery has been cut down as German sources frequently cite the ease with which Russian 120mm mortars silenced their own mortars with counter battery fire. It's easy to look at the ToE of a Russian Division and be misled to think it's supposed to look much lighter than this, but Russian infantry did not function like their Western counterparts. Their tactical formations would not have been expected to conduct an attack like this without receiving Division and possibly even Corp' level assets in support. They would've been merely the maneuver elements of the parent formation who's fire-umbrella they were operating under. 

My playthrough on this design several months ago revealed a situation balanced in favor of the Russians, but not unduly. The German positions on the map's northern and southern extremities are unchanged, and still very formidable as a result. The center, right, and left positions are fortified heavily enough that a spread out bombardment would fail to neutralize all 3 of them, but limiting the bombardment to mostly fall on 2 of the 3 positions ensured that at least one position was weakened enough to easily seize with infantry while making it likely enough that both positions might be reduced. Bunkers were the only thing that survived usually and if they did, you either brought up an SU-76 or flanked them out, ideally with engineers and flamethrowers. The final strongpoint could then be neutralized with an infantry attack from the forest behind it but if casualties have been high for any reason the player has 120mm mortars to soften this position for the task.

I left the scenario with a note that the majority of my casualties were suffered by sniper fire and bunkers that I missed. An interesting parallel I felt was the American's experiences with both of these things in their own battles through the Pacific and later in Vietnam against the Vietcong. Major firepower would crush enemy strongpoints and infantry would mop them up with flamethrowers, engineers, and tanks, but all the guns in the world won't cover every square inch of forest or ground and frequently a machine gun nest or sniper the main bombardment had missed would prove to be the bane of the infantryman in 1944 just it was in 1917 and would be again in 1967...

Another note is that it was fruitless to retain any ammunition in the field guns and howitzers after the initial bombardment. Only the Russian's Battalion Leader and FO can call in fire from those guns and it takes a loooong time. It's doable, but inefficient. The Russians generally used planned bombardments, tactical bombardments were infrequent and few in the Red Army were qualified to call them anyway. There was little point in leaving rounds unfired (exception here was the mortars) after the planning phase because you want to be sure that you've neutralized the position you were firing at. Another soft factor discouraging (but certainly not ruling out) point missions with an M1938 battery was the size of the explosive, which make spotting rounds potentially dangerous to your own troops. Your men are operating within about a km or so of the German positions and while certainly no concept of "Danger Close" existed back then, prudent Field Officers would still have incorporated a bit of caution into their deployment...

 

[Grumpy Reaper]

Hello there! Recently bought the game on Steam. Can't find an FO promised by the briefing in my deployment, the battalion commander can't call in the MLRS' either. How can I actually drop it?

[chuckdyke]

19 minutes ago, Grumpy Reaper said:

Hello there! Recently bought the game on Steam. Can't find an FO promised by the briefing in my deployment, the battalion commander can't call in the MLRS' either. How can I actually drop it?

You got an FO. Find the Flamethrower Platoon, click the 5th Flamethrower then click the (+Key) on your Keyboard and you have him. He doesn't belong to any other formation.

[chuckdyke]

You find him where I put the Yellow Square.

[Grumpy Reaper]

Thank you so much, @chuckdyke. I am blind as a bat after all!

 

I am now in a planning phase for this operation and somewhat confused as to why my historical counterpart choose to deploy the way he did. At first glance, the left flank seems a lot more promising than the center.

[chuckdyke]

8 minutes ago, Grumpy Reaper said:

choose to deploy the way he did.

Which is all wrong. This mission takes careful planning. Read the briefing very careful then read it again. The game makes you think and you can deploy anywhere on the Red marked area on your side of the river. Study very careful and communications is vital even with the lack of radios. 

[joethepro36]

I started this mission and got bogged down pretty quickly in what seemed like a very difficult and bloody nightmare scenario: attacking in dim light across a river and into a bog with heavy rain "hammering" down. Feeling a bit demoralised I went to this forum to see what others thought and found this thread. Got a real kick out of some of the (unwarranted) over-the-top complaining on the first page and did note the positive feedback from others. I went on to complete this scenario having gone in blind with a total victory. A very satisfying ending and I'd encourage anyone feeling discouraged looking at this scenario to give it both a try and commit to playing the game to a finish.

The scenario was an "experience". The conditions are absolutely horrendous, it is downright cruel to the player at times. However it's a very unique experience that has taught me a bit about how to handle the terrain and how the soviets play. Without spoiling anything here, I really got a feel for attacking in large waves of units while supporting MGs and SU-76s provided suppression fire. Soviet infantry aren't very good but if you give the Germans the ole' company vs a platoon, platoon vs a squad treatment, then things quickly even out. Overall I was quite satisfied by their performance, just don't expect a lot from a single squad alone even in favourable combat. 

Full spoilers ahead from here on...

Initially the attack is extremely foreboding. The sheer amount of units to command was daunting and the prospect of crossing a river under fire was a worry. I deployed my forces equally on all 6 crossing points I could see with a view that a deployment in the forest edges with machine guns and SU-76s in the treeline would be able to cover infantry trying to rush across the river. The rocket artillery I quickly threw into a pre-mission bombardment on the 2nd line as per the advice of the campaign notes being totally blind to its effectiveness. My first minute was spent just watching the seconds tick, while unexpectedly without fire on my men. I gingerly moved a few squads forward to the crossing edges, took some fire and first casualties from MG gunners sitting in foxholes in the treelines. On trying to get units to fire back on the contacts to supress I found I couldn't get a target due to the reverse slope position of the enemies and then moving up units to try and fire back, found that my units just couldn't see the enemy. This was when I realised the map would be a really difficult one. 

I pushed on nonetheless and got squads across the river, carefully probing forwards up the very thin bit of cover that the river's slope afforded towards the enemy. My feelings in this beginning section were mostly an overriding fear of interlocking MG fire, AT guns and mortars hitting me as soon as I came up over the ridge. When this didn't come (great fog of war effect here), I had more confidence and pushed my men out into the forests with SU-76s giving a little fire support to knock out the sniping light MG teams. As the forest lines became secure and no grand enemy bombardment was coming down, I began a systematic push of all forces except top level HQ units across the river and into tree-lines. I used SU-76s and the MG teams to supress distant foxhole-stationed hostile units where possible while units advanced.

Then I bumped into the first line trenches with squads firing MGs at distance with interlocking fire from some of the forward foxholes. This is where things got extra difficult as sightlines are terrible and units can't see anything in the dark, heavily forested, rainy conditions. I found that I had to carefully order every unit each turn individually through the covered approaches in the forests while maximising the amount of suppressive fire I could get down on the enemy positions, often from awkward angles. It was also the case that advancing onto these positions resulted in heavy casualties anyway especially due to units clustering together and I had to keep in mind the campaign advice "expect heavy casualties". The nature of the terrain means that you are basically forced into pushing large amounts of men close together into narrow forested areas. If you don't keep units together you get curbstomped by German squads who outcompete your units. Mines were also a pain but ultimately didn't kill an excessive quantity of men and machines. 

This is also where I got quite discouraged, its absolutely grim seeing the SU-76s even at slow speed get immobilised in the terrain. I lost one in the river crossing itself and 99% of my movement with these units in the scenario was on slow. Lost another to an AT mine early on, then two more to distant AT guns. Before getting to the 2nd line I'd lose all but one to immobilisation. Great lesson in ammunition being only useful if it is actually fired. I worried over running out and then watched them die or go immobile and become useless. Seeing how hard it was to take the first line scattered defences made me much more worried and I could see glimpses of much stronger resistance on the 2nd line, besides the 3rd line to come!

I had a read of the thread and figured, hey I'll perserve and see how it goes. I got better at gauging my forces ability to attack and win and found I'd effectively split my force into 4 prongs. The southern 3 crossings formed into 2 prongs going through the dense forest areas. 1 crossing in the middle went the middle line and then the two up north merged into clearing that route. Middle got bogged down under heavy fire including repeated TRP based mortar fire and sort of just held the centre a bit at the first line. The southern prongs were highly successful in just battering through with sheer weight of numbers and I just kept rolling them forwards. Enemy mortar fire came down and because I generally kept moving quickly forward, I never got clipped by it too badly. Jeez do they fire a ton of mortars though! As I got to the 2nd line, my forces ended up in somewhat of a pincer movement, with the southern prongs merging and advancing on the flank while supported by fire from the centre units, while northern forces got practically stopped due to heavy resistance. AT guns were the most lethal enemy asset to my units by a good margin, one gun scoring 33 infantry and 2 SU-76s alone. Advancing on the 2nd line meant using heavy machine gun suppression, a massive flanking attack to avoid fire from the remaining bunkers and I used every bit of mortars I had on one grand line-barrage across their forces with admittedly not much effect. Time was getting very limited and as I passed under 30 mins remaining, I resigned myself to at least capturing the 2nd line with maybe some probing of the 3rd. 

As my forces started to press on the remaining centre of the enemy line and finish pinching the vice shut, I found the enemy were running away much more and while under fire. At 23 minutes remaining and to my great surprise as I was expecting a heavy fight for the 3rd line, I received a surrender and total victory. Felt well earned and left me feeling pretty great about having suffered and gone through the experience. I'd like to mention that in the thread there was some hostility towards the design of the map from someone who evidently hadn't played the scenario end to end before commenting, which I believe is to their loss. I think this map is a brilliant example of one that looks downright awful on first glance but is actually a well designed mission. It's a lot more forgiving than you first think, just listen to the advice in the campaign notes! 

Some screenshots of the final moments.

Results:

A German cowers as a wave of Soviet infantry move across the southern rear flank of the 2nd line clearing the positions out one by one:

Last of a squad surrenders as Soviet infantry on the north flank wrap around his position:

Soviet infantry inside a 300mm rocket artillery crater capture a German squad in the 2nd line centre:

[chuckdyke]

My scheme of maneuver: SU76's crossing the bridge after infantry secured it and kept moving till contact was made. My plan was advance on the left flank to capture the last and final objective. Right flank to capture the second line. Centre to the touch objective by the Company with of which the HQ has the lowest soft factors. With him the Regimental HQ stays in C2. The SU 76's are your direct artillery support and radio communications. It is won by attrition you can afford to exchange 1:1 the Germans can't. Don't use your SU 76's as tanks and use them for obscuration to enable the infantry to approach the Germans inside their tactical range. RT& FR have terrific Campaigns. 

Edited September 11 by chuckdyke

[ehbuh]

@joethepro36 great writeup. Had a similar experience with the mission and a similar outcome. It's a very intimidating scenario when you first load it. Your starting force is massive and the big wide open map gives off the impression of being an absolute MG crossfire hell. But once you get across the river and get stuck in, I found it way more balanced and fair than you'd think at first glance.

I had bounced off this mission a few times myself, so completely understand where some of the anger towards it is coming from. I feel like CM scenarios and campaigns, especially those with core units, can condition people to want to minimize casualties so much so that they stop enjoying the game. You stop playing "realistically" and chose to cheese instead. I can see someone with that mindset really hating this mission which is a shame cause its very solid.

Sometimes you need to shut off the casualty worrying part of your gamer brain and just accept the loses and move on the with campaign. Any good campaign designer designs subsequent missions with loses in mind so why worry so much?

[Erwin]

Thank you for this AAR.  When I got to this mission, I stopped as it looked so intimidating and mentally exhausting due to complexity.  This is will inspire me to give it another shot.