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CMRT Campaign - Kampfgruppe "von Schroif"


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50 minutes ago, Erwin said:

"BTW snipers are excellent spotters - you don't have to get within firing range - the fact they have scopes and binos is their key strength I think."

Yes, I forgot to mention that.

"if the enemy spot a marked unit they get points..."

Thanks for mentioning that.  After playing CM2 since it first came out, I did not know that the game features this!!  Amazing.  (However, am not aware of any scenarios or campaign missions where the object is merely to observe and spot as opposed to kill.) 

Aye that scoring option has been in since CMSF days IIRC. It's not used often although I have played a few where it has been used and I know for sure I've used it in several scenarios myself. However, it's all or nothing - you can't allocate points for a 'spot' unit objective AND have the same unit as a 'Destroy' objective. In von Schroif I use it in several of the missions where you have the option to use your whole force (at risk of your whole unit being spotted) or peel off a small portion to eliminate the enemy thus ensuring the enemy does not have full intel of your main body. One of the advantages of a campaign is can give the player options and not just focus on casualties as an arbiter of 'success'. In the campaign the 'penalty' should the enemy spot too many of your units in the missions referred to above is they may be able to divert more resources to oppose your command, if they succeed in the 'spot' threshold in the previous mission, OR if the player succeeds they get into the enemy's command cycle and have the element of surprise in the next mission. 

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Finished the 1st mission and got tactical win with mine 6000 against their 3000 points. 6 men WIA (but only due to the savegame reload spam, otherwise it would be much worse). Thought it was gonna be a draw for me since I employed all my units against the enemy. Looks like not all have been spotted.

There are two houses whose doors are not "enterable" from one side but it's not biggy at all since the enemy was not on the other side where exposed troops could have been moved down. Another thing is (spoiler warning) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- one of the two ATGs didn't fire on my panzers although they were in clear view. They just stood there and followed my tanks but haven't shoot. Dunno what is up with this one. Forgot to check if they perhaps lack any ammo. 

In the next mission I'm getting sub 20 frames in some instances. Auch. :( 

Loving your work George MC and thank you all for nice tips.    

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"...the option to use your whole force (at risk of your whole unit being spotted) or peel off a small portion to eliminate the enemy thus ensuring the enemy does not have full intel of your main body."

That's brilliant.  I did not recall that victory condition playing your campaign(s).  But then I forget what I was doing this am.  :(   I wish other designers would use some of these innovative features available in CM2.  I love the sneaking around doing recon concept as the usual "kill everything/take the objectives" can get a bit repetitive. 

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On 06/11/2017 at 3:27 PM, Erwin said:

"...the option to use your whole force (at risk of your whole unit being spotted) or peel off a small portion to eliminate the enemy thus ensuring the enemy does not have full intel of your main body."

That's brilliant.  I did not recall that victory condition playing your campaign(s).  But then I forget what I was doing this am.  :(   I wish other designers would use some of these innovative features available in CM2.  I love the sneaking around doing recon concept as the usual "kill everything/take the objectives" can get a bit repetitive. 

It all sounds good but I'm not sure players often get it as the norm is usually to hunt and kill stuff! I've used it on several occasions (even in another campaign) but sometimes it just confuses players. I'm not sure explaining it (and often players don't fully read the briefing) helps. Still, it's good to know its there.

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I restarted the 1st mission trying to employing some of the tips given here trying to not do any reload (my in-house rule is reload is permitted only if my units do something I didn't want them to do like go past the house in the wrong side and then getting shot at). Reloading is quite a game immersion breaker. I've been resorting to it way too much.  I wanna learn the proper tactics and after this I'll know it wasn't my stupidity that killed that tank but pure luck of war was at play. 

I am using only two tanks and one whole platoon to try and finish this one (seems bare minimum to me but you tell me if this is sound or not). Will see how it goes.

First I've put one scout and the sniper team in the small (and agile-fast) half-track and drove it across the bridge, made a left turn, disembark the two teams, took them to the hedge (made them crawl the last two action spots as to not get spotted) and left them there for a few turns testing if they would manage to see the enemy hiding on the other side of the fields in the village. I intently didn't want to made any attract fire by fire move since the two teams are too valuable to be shot at. After several turns they weren't able to spot anything although the enemy was definitely there because after I was bored of waiting for something to happen, I sent in the two tanks and area sprayed the suspected enemy position with their MGs. This made my observing units see some movement after the enemy started to retreat and thus a "?" sign appeared for them.

Is it still too dark that early in the morning for the scouts and the sniper to be able to see up there? Something similar is suggested in the briefing noting that hopefully the enemy doesn't see us crossing the bridge from the village due to the  early morning hours so this might be it. Right? 

Did you script the enemy to pull back after it encounters a strong fire or is 4.0 game engine funkiness at play here? 

BTW, do any of you know if the 4.0 engine patch is gonna be released soon or it's still months in the making? Will the patch be made for all games at the same time or will titles will be patched one after another? I'm annoying myself checking 3 times a day if the patch has already been posted or not. :D    

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Hi @Hister

Your plan sounds a good one, without giving too much away the other thing to work out is key terrain which provides good LOS/LOF...

As it's pre-dawn vis is limited BUT it does become better as the scenario progresses.

 

Possible Spoilers (highlight text below to see)

So the enemy has limited LOS to your avenues of approach to start with. There are AI triggers so if you move stuff within their LOS they react. IIRC it is not an immediate reaction for all the units. But more a phased fighting withdrawal.

Spoiler alert END

The AI reactions are scripted and nothing to do with any Game Engine 4 funkiness.

'Fraid no idea myself re game engine 4 patch release.

Looking forward to hearing how this one goes.

Cheery!

George

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OK George MC, thank you. 

BTW, just snatched me Stalingrad game based on the Blitzkrieg series that was published in 2005 for 1,4€ on crazy discount. I said why the hell not. Gonna play that today a bit and then return to your finely crafted art campaign.   

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I was going great guns in the KG von Schroif campaign, with minimal casualties, until I hit the mission where you have to take a large area of woods (split into four objective areas). 

--------------- Possible Spoilers -----------------

Crossing the large areas of open ground made recon on foot impractical and the overall geography meant recon by fire wasn’t really a viable option either.

Cue recon by burning halftrack.

This was one nasty, nasty scenario. The mission features an excellently laid out defence, centred around a couple of very cunningly positioned AT guns backed up by some very hard to shift infantry. The objectives are difficult to reach and the defenders seem to be able to shoot with impunity from areas that seem almost impossible to return fire at.

Although I only lost two halftracks, I lost a lot of infantry in this mission which doesn’t bode well for further operations.

--------------- End Spoilers -----------------

This is an excellent campaign and features the best CM maps I’ve seen – very evocative of actual Polish terrain. If you haven’t downloaded and played it, do so now.

Great work and a big, big thanks to George.

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31 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Hi George.  Could you provide a list of your scenarios and campaigns.  I worry that I get your work confused with other designers - (like Dragonwynn).

Jings! nae idea! I have no such list for scenarios - its heaps and heaps! Stuff released with the actual games (I'm on the BFC scenario design team) and stuff I've released off my own back.

Campaigns easy. Did one for CMSF (think it was called Armour Attacks) and done one for CMRT (Kampfgruppe von Shroif)

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1 hour ago, jonPhillips said:

I was going great guns in the KG von Schroif campaign, with minimal casualties, until I hit the mission where you have to take a large area of woods (split into four objective areas). 

---------------

This is an excellent campaign and features the best CM maps I’ve seen – very evocative of actual Polish terrain. If you haven’t downloaded and played it, do so now.

Great work and a big, big thanks to George.

 

Thanks Jon.

Possible spoilers (highlight text to see)

The PAK are cunning - took ages to sight them! The AI plan means the Soviet troops displace and relocate (fall back) to new positions. If you go too slow then they have time to relocate in the woods; if you go too fast then the PAK covering their withdrawal will take out your armoured vehicles. This mission makes a lot of use of AI plan triggers.

The trick with that one is smoke and suppressing fire - and some luck. If you get it the combination right then the wood objective becomes easier.

Spoilers end

The gun tracks are really, really useful as they are near impervious to close range fire but the 75mm cannon pack a punch.handy for staying close with your dismounts.

Thanks again and glad you enjoying it :)

Edited by George MC
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The 75mm gun tracks are as vulnerable as any halftrack.  My SOP is the same - use em at the max range I can get and preferably very keyholed.

The most fun imo is figuring a role for the 75mm inf gun that has to be towed into position and deployed.  

Edited by Erwin
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10 hours ago, Erwin said:

The 75mm gun tracks are as vulnerable as any halftrack.  My SOP is the same - use em at the max range I can get and preferably very keyholed.

The most fun imo is figuring a role for the 75mm inf gun that has to be towed into position and deployed.  

I was talking about their use in the context of the discussion with Jon - they are not as prone to losing crew to small arms fire as ordinary SPW are. Hence work better (anti-armour threats notwithstanding) as close support for dismounted panzer grenadiers.

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37 minutes ago, Erwin said:

"...they are not as prone to losing crew to small arms fire as ordinary SPW are."

Ah.... You mean in the game.   (I couldn't see why they would have any more defensive capability than a regular halftrack in RL.)

Aye that's what I meant - apologies for any confusion! You are correct in RL (and in game) when it comes to threats from any anti-armour assets yup they are tin cans.

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Finished the first mission again - this time with predictably muuuuch better results. :) 

kf5ag2.jpg

Start of hidden spoiler text:

As I said before this time I used only 2 tanks and 1 platoon of soldiers on their halftrucks with one additional scout team from another platoon, the dedicated sniper and forward observer team.  Due to much slower pace and less units to accomplish tasks with I almost ran out of time. Managed to finish everything when I only had 4 minutes left. Knowing where the enemy was was of big help of course. One funny occasion was when I proceeded to the first occupy objective and then all of the sudden an enemy armored car came down the main road behind the back of all my units. I haven't experienced this before because we have put a hole in it before that could happen I guess. It was like little David against the Goliath fight but the Goliath aka me won this time, hehe. That little car had so many targets too choose and could have mowed down one of my squads that was camping totally exposed in front of him but that little devil preffered to choose more beefe  targets and started plinking at my halftracks but got quieted after a few seconds with my one tank that was just barely able to shoot at it with the projectile flying down the length of the road just next to my halftracks who were neatly positioned in line behind the aforementioned tank. Was quite a sight, ha ha. :D 

Due to doing more work with my 2 lead tanks in order to preserve my mechanized infantry chaps they carried the brunt of the enemies wrath - one tank is down to only 7 HE ammo now and the other is quite badly beaten up (see attached photo). It was hit 3 times. Once from a tank and twice from the AT gun. The first hit partly damaged tracks, optics and radio, the second one made a big hole in the upper hull from the AT gun (that did zero damage to the tank and the crew, must have been really lucky there, eh!?) and one smaller dent in the glacis which caused armor spalling but fortunately no injuries of the crew. They do stand their ground these mark 4's after all. Before I considered them to be no match - pretty much one hit and that's it. Am respecting them more now. ;)    

End of hidden spoiler text.

 

ezle7l.jpg

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Hi @Hister

Excellent job! I'm impressed with that.That's way better than anything I've managed in it!

Re your comments:

Possible spoiler hidden text

There are several AI Plans - looks like you triggered one of the variations which has the armoured cars pulled out pronto but the circling back around (basically they are not looking for kills but spotting your units...). 

Your approach with the armour was spot on. The Panzer IVs can take a beating mine - were in a sorry state by the end of the campaign! Hardly any had operational radios and most had lost their tank commanders.

Spoiler END

This success will set you up well for the following missions.

Thanks again for taking the time to post your comments - look forward to the next despatches from the front line.

Cheery!

George

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  • 1 month later...
6 hours ago, Migo441 said:

Is there a chart showing the mission pathing for this campaign somewhere?  I feel sure I saw one somewhere (possibly in this thread?!) but now I can't find it.

When you download the campaign file you also get the PDF with the branching pathways (along with short descriptions of each mission) and a 'blood' chart (courtesy of @Combatintman to track your losses).  

Edited by George MC
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23 minutes ago, George MC said:

When you download the campaign file you also get the PDF with the branching pathways (along with short descriptions of each mission) and a 'blood' chart (courtesy of @Combatintman to track your losses).  

It was a pleasure helping such a master craftsman - although even my wife did say 'bloody hell' when I told her the scale of the mission briefing part of the task. ;) Compared to that, the casualty trackers were a doddle.

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On 05/01/2018 at 7:49 AM, Combatintman said:

It was a pleasure helping such a master craftsman - although even my wife did say 'bloody hell' when I told her the scale of the mission briefing part of the task. ;) Compared to that, the casualty trackers were a doddle.

Aye that was a HUGE amount of work - I'm indebted Herr Oberleutnant! ;) And to your good wife. If you both every find your ways to Scotland the drinks are on me!

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