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Are AT guns too fragile?


DMS

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@SimpleSimon I am not sure about you're assertion about AT guns being too common. A PanzerGrenadier Division in 1944 would have 19 AT guns (Pak 40's), 31 tank destroyers and 42 assault guns to support the 6 infantry battalions.

This averages out to about 3 AT guns, 4 tank destroyers and 7 assault guns per battalion. It is not unreasonable to assume that a map size of 500m x 1500m would be defended by an rifle company, in which case you would expect to find at least 1 Pak 40, 1 tank destroyer and an assault gun section. I also do not find it unreasonable to suggest that the brigade or division commanders may concentrate additional assets into this area if they had intelligence to support an imminent attack.

Earlier German infantry divisions would have had 36 AT guns to support 9 battalions plus another 36 guns in the AT battalion making a total of 72 guns. This averages out to 8 guns per battalion or about 2 or 3 per rifle company if the commanders structured it so.

I am also not sure about your second assertion that the defensive lines in a CM scenario are unrealistically deep. The reality is that a single CM scenario cannot portray the actual depth of a WW2 defensive line. German doctrine on defense outlines 3 separate lines to create a defense in depth, a main line, an advance line and an outpost line. An attacker does not always have the opportunity to flank such a position.

The best WW2 example of defense in depth is the Russian defense at the Batlle of Kursk. The defensive line was 190 miles deep.

 

 

 

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Soviet rifle battalion had only 2 guns. And, may be, if it was very lucky, fire platoon or a battery from AT regiment (battalion) of rifle division. I usually choose only 2 battalion guns not to break historical accuracy. If you play with 1 company, you should take only 1 45 mm gun. Though, if you play against mech unit, it is realistic to assume that division command would move divisional AT guns at dangerous direction and set them in depth, behind rifles.

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2 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Precisely none of that has anything to do with scenario design. 

So now you've thrown a separate argument into the mix.

My response to your original post demonstrates by using an example of divisional organisation, that your assessment of AT guns being too common is incorrect. It also demonstrates that your assertion that "Players are usually not informed enough to realize that no one would realistically expect them to fight their way through defense lines as deep as usually encountered in a CM scenario. " is also incorrect because in reality lines were deeper than can be shown on a CM map and that they were indeed attacked.

To address your latest assumption, if you do not think that divisional organisation effects the Order of Battle for a given scenario and that in turn does not then effect scenario design then you are talking nonsense as I am sure one of the many scenario designers will point out to you. If you think the scenarios are unrealistic perhaps you would like to give specific examples so that the designers can address the accusation.

Edited by Josey Wales
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I just read Tomb of the PanzerWaffe, about German offensives in Jan-March1945 in Hungary.  Russians had a lot of AT guns, and lots were destroyed in every battle.  And defenses were in great depth whenever there was time to prepare.  Clearly by 1945 the Russians had learned quite a few things.  AT guns are very vulnerable in CM.  AT guns are very vulnerable in real life.

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1 hour ago, Josey Wales said:

So now you've thrown a separate argument into the mix.

My response to your original post demonstrates by using an example of divisional organisation, that your assessment of AT guns being too common is incorrect.

Full strength Panzergrenadier Divisions on defense is in fact not correct, when and how often were units ever full strength on any front? The assets covering sectors of map in this game are overpopulated with that knowledge in mind. Way way way overpopulated. If the scenario designer's intent was to portray a full strength unit, this surely would not escape the "Soviet commander", who would better support the "player's" attacks with that mind. As it is too commonly the scenario designers give the player...some mortars a pair of half tracks to fight what is an over concentrated defender that has somehow not already attracted the fire of every Division gun for days.  Nothing is believable or historic about that. 

 

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It also demonstrates that your assertion that "Players are usually not informed enough to realize that no one would realistically expect them to fight their way through defense lines as deep as usually encountered in a CM scenario. " is also incorrect because in reality lines were deeper than can be shown on a CM map and that they were indeed attacked.

Where? When? What lines? Your reasoning is so nebulous that I can't even consider what you're on about here as an argument. By your own definition sure, whatever. I will not engage with your further if you persist like this though. 

 

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To address your latest assumption, if you do not think that divisional organisation effects the Order of Battle for a given scenario and that in turn does not then effect scenario design then you are talking nonsense as I am sure one of the many scenario designers will point out to you. If you think the scenarios are unrealistic perhaps you would like to give specific examples so that the designers can address the accusation.

Hammer's Flank. The entire campaign, especially the river crossing mission and the attack on the village on mission 3, feature massively overpacked defenders w/supporting fires and armor of their own that the player is supposed to negotiate....with a handful of SU-76s and 3 mortar teams that appear as reinforcements so you can't use them in the planning phase when they most certainly would've been available. More scenarios with these issues exist, the litmus test for them is easy. Any time you play as the defender and you possess enough assets to legitimately inflict more harm on the attacker by attacking him first, the defense is over packed and the scenario is badly designed. Bonus points for including cited works the designer didn't read or didn't understand. 

 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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4 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Precisely none of that has anything to do with scenario design. 

I think you guys are having at least two different discussions.

ToE and standard doctrine will give you an idea of what you MIGHT run into.  The realities of war mean that you could possibly run into anything.

In terms of actual scenario design you have a whole other issue.  A designer has to take into account that the AI is a worse player than most humans (I would say all but I'd have to caveat myself in that :P ).  Because it can't really react appropriately nor do any of the myriad things a human player might do to present a better defense the designer is typically left with only one option and  that is to beef up the defense.  This is the primary reason it is so hard to balance a scenario for the different sides against the AI much less HTH play.

 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, sburke said:

I think you guys are having at least two different discussions.

Agreed. 

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ToE and standard doctrine will give you an idea of what you MIGHT run into.  The realities of war mean that you could possibly run into anything.

Also agreed. I do not expect the scenario designers to totally give away the secrets of their plan. Just that they enable the player to solve problems. Even a scenario that restricts the player's options can be perfectly valid, as long as the expectations placed upon the player are suitably reasonable. Can an entire battery of Pak40s covering a T junction ever be reasonable? Sure. It could happen, sometimes the Germans just really want that T junction. It's no fault of the player for suffering heavy casualties then as long as they are either not expected to continue, or will be receiving reinforcement and support in the coming missions.

For instance the Market Garden campaign in Battle for Normandy. It's much more reasonable to expect a defense in depth because in hindsight we know how hard the fight was over Hell's Highway. Montgomery's plan was boneheaded since it called for a predictable, narrow attack toward obvious objectives. With the historic context in mind frustrating scenarios are a reasonable thing to expect but here even the campaign designer wisely and cleverly enabled the player an "out" they allowed them to both continue playing the campaign and organically solve the remaining scenarios too. After failing...I think 3 missions in a row? The campaign moves to an alternate script where the player is reinforced, and resupplied, and the mission timers are doubled. Bang. You've experienced the history of the doomed Market Garden operation, and now you can solve the campaign scenarios on more reasonable, playable terms that do not resort to the historic vs playable false dilemma excuse. 

 

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In terms of actual scenario design you have a whole other issue.  A designer has to take into account that the AI is a worse player than most humans (I would say all but I'd have to caveat myself in that :P ).  Because it can't really react appropriately nor do any of the myriad things a human player might do to present a better defense the designer is typically left with only one option and  that is to beef up the defense.  This is the primary reason it is so hard to balance a scenario for the different sides against the AI much less HTH play.

The AI is very passive yes but the player is an all knowing and omnipotent God who can see every inch of the battlefield and instantly respond to detected units. Realistically neither side should have access to the speed of action or information that they do and in that sense the AI's passivity really isn't all that egregious. It can be worked around and the better scenarios do that with randomized placements or providing the player with substantial support. Either of these options have the effect of randomizing the AI's defense, which makes for a more credible scenario all around really. In many of the scenarios i've fixed I frequently go with the later than the former, since I play as Allies a lot and expect to have access to the legendary supporting arms that German sources so frequently ironically lament were turning so many men into "Heroes". 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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Ok now I understand where you are coming from in regards to over concentration of defensive assets in that an attacker should have a 3 to 1 advantage as a general rule of thumb.

As for defence in depth I can give an example where the German outpost positions at El-Alamein were 7km in front of the main line.

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

In many of the scenarios i've fixed I frequently go with the later than the former, since I play as Allies a lot and expect to have access to the legendary supporting arms that German sources so frequently ironically lament were turning so many men into "Heroes". 

LOL I'd be a little wary of that one.  The losing side will always find some rationale for losing that couldn't possibly be because they were out thought and out fought.  That is particularly true for an army that looks on their enemy as subhuman and inferior.  There has to be some other reason they won right?

 

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37 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

or instance the Market Garden campaign in Battle for Normandy. It's much more reasonable to expect a defense in depth because in hindsight we know how hard the fight was over Hell's Highway. Montgomery's plan was boneheaded since it called for a predictable, narrow attack toward obvious objectives.

Generally yes I'd agree, but the plan itself wasn't boneheaded.  The original concept played to allied strengths and was based on appearances of the German situation.  The problem with the plan was they did not adapt it based on changing intel and operational restrictions in lift capability.  End result was a plan that was ONLY going to work if all went right which is... yeah a bad plan.  Hindsight s always 20/20 but this is one of those classic cases about logistics being strategy.  Opening Antwerp was the right strategy.  Anything else was a distraction.  However it is all too easy to forget what the preceding couple months had been like and the stresses of inter service rivalry.  When the war's end seemed to be so close the urge to make a mark before it wrapped up.  Egos, politics and underestimating the enemy.

But yeah this is a diversion to the thread.

Back on topic, MG I wouldn't necessarily have a defense in depth (other than the initial push by XXX corps which had to break through an enemy defensive line), but rather sort of a constant meeting engagement as both sides scrambled units to block their opponents moves. One of the things that is fun about doing an OP layer campaign for MG is that both sides are attacking and the units are so varied.

Edited by sburke
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21 minutes ago, sburke said:

LOL I'd be a little wary of that one.  The losing side will always find some rationale for losing that couldn't possibly be because they were out thought and out fought.  That is particularly true for an army that looks on their enemy as subhuman and inferior.  There has to be some other reason they won right?

 

Just as the winning side will always act as if their own troops were super heroes who bit down on unspent casings and smoked V stamped cigars. Yes they conquered those beaches all by themselves and not with the considerable support they received from hours and days of naval gunfire, aerial bombardment, and an entire Corp dedicated to the catering, housing, and health of those men thus ensuring the high turn around rate of wounded, sick, skittish G.I.s with a tendency to describe as every loud bang as an "88" and every MG42 the whole dang Where-macht! If your point is that field accounts of war need to be taken with a degree of caution you'll get no argument from me.  😂

It's just not just one or two accounts of Allied supremacy in firepower that speak to me but the picture as a whole, which in my opinion many self described "military historians" frequently miss. The forest for the trees if you will, or the smoking craters that all used to be those trees. Reading many accounts is less important than thoroughly understanding those accounts, in a manner similar to how lawyers and accident investigators examine evidence. First hand accounts of the war are a valuable source but taken by themselves and at face value 100% of the time they suffer from all of the associated problems as a witness testimony in a court room. Witnesses' accounts of the war are not really lies, rarely ever in fact. What they tend to be is...inaccurate. Suffering from skewed perceptions, incomplete awareness, or mistranslation as often the case for foreign accounts.

The scenario designers are frequently wrong how they portray the Red Army than the others, but this is because sources for the Red Army are both in limited supply and of poor quality. The Russians are notoriously tight about their archives and western sources are frequently based on outdated information and "memes" from the Cold War or even worse, German veterans, who's description of the Russians could hardly be described as "in good faith". On the other extreme, because of thorough and open the Germans were about their own military forces (conspicuously selective on recall when the Waffen SS, or Einsatzgruppen come up) we have very good information to construct scenarios for the Axis, though even with German forces it should be taken with caution. Field reports were frequently "modified" because of Nazi Party politics or colored by culture/race/wealth biases. 

 

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1 hour ago, Josey Wales said:

Ok now I understand where you are coming from in regards to over concentration of defensive assets in that an attacker should have a 3 to 1 advantage as a general rule of thumb.

As for defence in depth I can give an example where the German outpost positions at El-Alamein were 7km in front of the main line.

Ah but how does one quantify those numbers? An infantry company attacking a Panther over an open field outnumbers the crew of that vehicle outrageously, and yet for some reason I don't think Charlie Company will be coming out on top on that one. There is a lot going on behind a simple headcount that some of the scenario designers seem to anchor their designs on. 

At El Alamein the German defense line was over 50km deep, but that does not mean it was of the came composition at every point, or that the defenders always had the luxury of time and geography the battle afforded both sides. Too much effort is spent trying to iron down the paper composition of these Armies when the reality matched the theory a lot less than one would think, especially the further East you went from New York. I'd say only the U.S. Army ever actually had an abundance of full strength units even, heavily implied by how large the American Army's non-infantry formations were. The British less so, since by the end of the war they were cannibalizing non-critical but arguably still essential units like London's anti-aircraft batteries for infantry (politically unpopular owing to the V-weapon attacks).

The Germans struggles in manpower shortages are well known, and they had to make tough choices between all kinds of essential jobs none of which could afford an empty space, like factory shifts, the infantry, pilots, the Reichsbahn, etc. They all won and lost at various points and it was mainly through the talent and tight organization of German bureaucrats that ensured that balance didn't collapse much sooner than it did in 1945, before the load on the whole military-industrial complex was finally overwhelmed. 

In Russia the solution to the manpower crises was simple, send everyone to the front. The Red Army dominated the situation owing to the immediacy of the threat and very real possibility of total defeat. As it was the Red Army never felt like it had enough men and the voracious appetite for large formations was so single minded that even the factories had to fight not to have their workers all conscripted and sent to the front. The farms be damned, men can earn their ration fighting at the front. 18 hours shifts were the norm in unsafe, damp, dimly lit, cold warehouses with a nice groggy stew made of water and pine needles for lunch. Dinner is a rotten potato if you're lucky, nothing at all if you don't like that. No one's left to till the farms.

In China the food is around, somewhere. I think the "General" who's really more like a local Warlord is hording it all. He wants to sell it on the black market so he can afford a Mercedes after the war. Doesn't matter anyway since if you're a male of military age (subject to wide interpretation by Chiang's Officers) you were probably press-ganged into the military years ago to fight the Communists. Still waiting on that rifle and uniform by the way. 

In Japan your food is victory. Want to eat? The Americans have it. You'll have to ask them. You may want to take your helmet, if you ever manage the energy to grab it after all the fits of dysentery. Let's face it back around Smolensk the argument over whether military units are full strength or not became largely academic. In many Armies you were well off if you got a pair of boots and a rusty rifle. 😋

Edited by SimpleSimon
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to make this a more constructive discussion it might be worthwhile to see how you'd design the scenario. You'd noted above how you've edited a few.  How about editing a RT scenario and doing a comparison?  It is all well and good to critique design but you've painted a broad brush about how many of them "get it wrong"

50 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

The scenario designers are frequently wrong how they portray the Red Army than the others, but ...

I left everything after the but off as it isn't relevant.  Don't take this the wrong way, but you have 9 posts on the forum and have made a very broad claim.  No one here really knows your background, knowledge, experience etc etc.  There is nothing really to evaluate your feedback.   The designers (both the ones who are doing stock scenarios and campaigns for BF and those producing user made content) as a group are all over the map.  Some are extremely knowledgeable and well versed in Eastern Front history and tactics.  Some just like bang em up tank engagements with some real beasts.  In terms of the Hammer campaign I think it is a compilation with a couple designers (that is a guess, it was a long time ago developing RT).  There isn't necessarily consistency as to design of each scenario in the campaign.

To see an actual comparison of a scenario and how'd you'd consider changing it would make this a more clear cut perspective.

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I wouldn't know how to answer how you would quantify a 3 to 1 advantage against a combined arms defence as I've never had any official training on how you would assess that, but I can understand how you can make the claim that the defenders in a scenario are over concentrated based on this as a general factor.

I can even accept that the defender is over concentrated for a given geographic area given the fact that we are dealing with a game that has to provide entertainment as well as realism.

However, given that you accept that defensive lines in real life (which were attacked and broken through) can be much larger than even the largest CM map, how do you justify the statement that "players wouldn't be expected to fight through lines as deep as usually encountered in a CM scenario"?

 

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3 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Hammer's Flank. The entire campaign, especially the river crossing mission and the attack on the village on mission 3, feature massively overpacked defenders w/supporting fires and armor of their own that the player is supposed to negotiate....with a handful of SU-76s and 3 mortar teams that appear as reinforcements so you can't use them in the planning phase when they most certainly would've been available. More scenarios with these issues exist, the litmus test for them is easy. Any time you play as the defender and you possess enough assets to legitimately inflict more harm on the attacker by attacking him first, the defense is over packed and the scenario is badly designed. Bonus points for including cited works the designer didn't read or didn't understand. 

Similar concerns about Hammer's Flank have been raised, and I think convincingly answered (including by one of the designers), in an earlier thread:

 

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4 minutes ago, sburke said:

to make this a more constructive discussion it might be worthwhile to see how you'd design the scenario. You'd noted above how you've edited a few.  How about editing a RT scenario and doing a comparison?  It is all well and good to critique design but you've painted a broad brush about how many of them "get it wrong"

I actually used the Campaign Decompile tool and modified the opening mission of Hammer's Flank. It was some months ago that I did this and I did a playthrough but didn't store it. I'll be doing one again as an AAR sometime to illustrate how much better that mission can be with some simple fixes in player support and mission timing. I didn't even, but should, fix the objective scoring too. 

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

I left everything after the but off as it isn't relevant.  Don't take this the wrong way, but you have 9 posts on the forum and have made a very broad claim. 

I'm also a long time customer of Battlefront and war games and a post count is not a good measure for determining the value of a community member. So it's difficult to see exactly how you can frame a comment like that a "right" way at all. It's a forum and feedback is what it's for. My experience with these forums is that they frequently end up as echo chambers for a select minority of pig headed bullies who want to lobby the developers to make products for them that confirm their narrow ideas. I am eager to be proven wrong. 

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

No one here really knows your background, knowledge, experience etc etc.  There is nothing really to evaluate your feedback.

Gate keeping is a good way to prove me right. The values you have named are the hallmarks of an honest community, not a toxic one. Which will the CM forums be I wonder? 

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

The designers (both the ones who are doing stock scenarios and campaigns for BF and those producing user made content) as a group are all over the map.  Some are extremely knowledgeable and well versed in Eastern Front history and tactics.

Many are not. Their work will speak for itself more frequently than I should the scenarios "speak" in ways that imply anything but knowledge. 

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

Some just like bang em up tank engagements with some real beasts.  In terms of the Hammer campaign I think it is a compilation with a couple designers (that is a guess, it was a long time ago developing RT).  There isn't necessarily consistency as to design of each scenario in the campaign.

Quite, but the German campaign in that game was much more consistent in its design and played better. I have never felt it required editing of any kind. Was it designed by the same team? 

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

To see an actual comparison of a scenario and how'd you'd consider changing it would make this a more clear cut perspective.

I'm working on Fortress Grosshau in Final Blitz right now. Kari Salo's scenarios don't usually need editing though, often being really fun and playable right off. I'm rebalancing that scenario mostly for fun and not really function anyway so next time i'm in the mood to play Red Thunder and see what I changed i'll make an AAR or something. It'll happen sometime, I don't know when but since i'm not looking to prove some kind of silly grognard cred to the community and don't much care what they think of me I don't know when that will be. 

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However, given that you accept that defensive lines in real life (which were attacked and broken through) can be much larger than even the largest CM map, how do you justify the statement that "players wouldn't be expected to fight through lines as deep as usually encountered in a CM scenario"?

Where? What part of the line? When? If you're pursuing a background in law of some kind I suggest you save the money and drop out of school. It isn't working. What i'm talking about is when I try to play a scenario only to find that the exits from all of my deploy points are covered by planned fires and that I cannot maneuver around  because of impassable terrain like thick forests or creeks. 

Take objective B, the back of a 2000 meter long map with 3 companies of rifle infantry, their under supplied mortars which will arrive late, and 4 Shermans/SU-76s. If it's supposed to be believable that recce missed the number of Germans comprising the defense or the heavy guns they've got sighted over meticulously thought out lines of sight, or the large craters that were left by what was clearly Corp guns trying to plink the recce, it's not. When I hit "cease fire - total defeat" because all 4 of my tanks were knocked out by bogging, mines, the Pak40s and I took over 100 casualties and see that not even 500m behind my deploy is an entrenched, reinforced company of infantry supported by what must be their *entire* Regiment's mortars (fully supplied!!!!), mines, bad weather, TRPs, and a whole battery of Pak40s I think we have a problem here. The mission briefing might make some excuses like  "you don't have any artillery because it was busy suppressing the enemy's guns or firing all day" but it sure doesn't look like that, if the scenario designer even bothered to explain why an asset you could normally expect per those lovely ToEs he cites isn't here today because hell with it. That's what i'm talking about. 

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9 minutes ago, General Liederkranz said:

Similar concerns about Hammer's Flank have been raised, and I think convincingly answered (including by one of the designers), in an earlier thread:

And then even more convincingly struck down on page 2 by Apocal for reasons I agree with him on. Has Joch designed many other scenarios in the CM games? I think I know which ones i'll be cracking open first with the editor from now on. 

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24 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

If you're pursuing a background in law of some kind I suggest you save the money and drop out of school. It isn't working.

Now now let's keep it civil!

So it's not the depth of the line now, but rather the assets the defending force has, the assets the attacking force has, how effective the briefing was, the terrain and how good a player you are?

I am interested to know what this unbeatable scenario is, perhaps I'll make a video AAR of it. Is it the Hammer's Flank Crossing the River scenario you keep alluding to?

Edited by Josey Wales
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3 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

And then even more convincingly struck down on page 2 by Apocal for reasons I agree with him on. Has Joch designed many other scenarios in the CM games? I think I know which ones i'll be cracking open first with the editor from now on. 

You can see my response there. Have you played it? I found the rockets, with a 15-minute delay, plenty useful. It's entirely realistic that the mortars would be on-call to the infantry as they advance--maybe they were used earlier along with heavy artillery in the prep fire, but that's mostly over before the scenario starts (and in contrast to Apocal, I found it pretty easy to call in the mortars--there are plenty of German positions that are "Reverse Slope--No Aim Point" but that's just fine for calling indirect fire). Would the Soviets *want* to make an attack this way, with the preliminary bombardment having failed to do much damage and infantry lagging a few minutes too far behind it? Probably not. But did they do it sometimes? Surely. Things go wrong, and CM often pays particular attention to the occasions when things didn't go exactly according to doctrine.

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16 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

I'm also a long time customer of Battlefront and war games and a post count is not a good measure for determining the value of a community member. So it's difficult to see exactly how you can frame a comment like that a "right" way at all. It's a forum and feedback is what it's for. My experience with these forums is that they frequently end up as echo chambers for a select minority of pig headed bullies who want to lobby the developers to make products for them that confirm their narrow ideas. I am eager to be proven wrong. 

Post count is a measure of absolutely nothing other than the opportunity others have had to have interaction with you.  You walk up to a person on the street and they start telling you how you should do something that is an area you have spent a lot of time on and discussed openly with a lot of others.  Are you simply going assume they should have the same basis of evaluation as someone you may have talked with for years?   That you immediately jump to an issue of "pig headed bullies" does concern me.  In your case you joined the forum less than  a day ago.  For all anyone knows you could have been a lurker since the first day BF ever launched a forum, or you could have discovered the game last week.  It does look like you have been a lurker for a while so welcome to posting!  Now relax and don't get defensive :D  Pull up a chair grab a beer if that's what you like and have a heated but friendly discussion.

 

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21 minutes ago, sburke said:

That you immediately jump to an issue of "pig headed bullies" does concern me. 

Same

21 minutes ago, sburke said:

Now relax and don't get defensive :D  Pull up a chair grab a beer if that's what you like and have a heated but friendly discussion.

Good advice.

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47 minutes ago, General Liederkranz said:

You can see my response there. Have you played it? I found the rockets, with a 15-minute delay, plenty useful. It's entirely realistic that the mortars would be on-call to the infantry as they advance--maybe they were used earlier along with heavy artillery in the prep fire, but that's mostly over before the scenario starts (and in contrast to Apocal, I found it pretty easy to call in the mortars--there are plenty of German positions that are "Reverse Slope--No Aim Point" but that's just fine for calling indirect fire). Would the Soviets *want* to make an attack this way, with the preliminary bombardment having failed to do much damage and infantry lagging a few minutes too far behind it? Probably not. But did they do it sometimes? Surely. Things go wrong, and CM often pays particular attention to the occasions when things didn't go exactly according to doctrine.

Ok let's go with that premise that this is an attack gone wrong in the biggest and most meticulously planned operation the Red Army has ever conducted against an pummeled, immobile enemy on a sector of front that hasn't moved in weeks. (This is really not how we should be introducing the Russians to a new player.) Why does the mission fail you if you call your attack off upon the very early realization you will have that the pre-mission bombardments have not worked, the German defenses are intact, and that pushing ahead even if you completely disregard your own casualties is literally impossible because your entire force will be Rattled by the time you've expended your first Company (the game should shatter them before that even). It doesn't help that the scenario designers cannot come up with a consistent set of guidelines for scoring or incentivizing the player's decisions. 

Since you agree with me that it's an intentionally dysfunctional scenario and that CM often has those scenarios it looks like I was right about Hammer's Flank being a good sample of a wider problem with bad scenario design. I have my theory as to why, and i've said it. Next time I play Hammer's Flank i'll catalog the changes I made and underline how easy it was to make the scenario much less scripted and much more interesting. I'm sure this does frustrate some members of the community, especially the ones who designed the scenarios because they put a lot of work into it but since they didn't put that last fraction of effort in to ensure the scenario played well and rewarded the player's agency, including his right to walk away from a loaded scenario, they just wasted all their time as far as i'm concerned. They're not wasting mine too. If they're going to be indignant towards the feedback then I welcome them to be so and if they don't like my tone then too god damned bad. I'm a paying customer who's sick of seeing defects in the product I bought. All whinging about it does is highlight who's scenarios I need to crack open in the editor before I make the mistake of wasting any of my time playing them. Bonus points for groundless claims of "historic accuracy". 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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40 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

Why does the mission fail you if you call your attack off upon the very early realization you will have that the pre-mission bombardments have not worked

"Why did I get demoted and put in a penal battalion? All I did was disobey a direct order, leaving the neighboring battalion's flank in the air and exposed to a counterattack! And then my own battalion, sitting still on the start line, took 60% casualties to a German artillery barrage. It's not fair!" The plans for Bagration weren't premised on individual battalion commanders being able to cancel attacks just because they guessed (based on what?) that the prep barrage didn't do enough damage. (In any case, if you Cease Fire immediately you'll get a Major Defeat but you can still go on to the next mission in the campaign.)

40 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

pushing ahead even if you completely disregard your own casualties is literally impossible

Again, have you played it? This is simply not true.

40 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

Since you agree with me that it's an intentionally dysfunctional scenario

I don't. Atypical, maybe. If you read the earlier thread, you'll see that there are ways I think "Crossing the River" could've been more realistic. But not "intentionally dysfunctional.' Plenty of things happened in WW2 that, if you read only the doctrinal manuals, theoretically should not have happened. That doesn't mean a scenario representing such an occurrence is "intentionally dysfunctional." By that logic, we should never see US TDs in scenarios except fighting as whole battalions, stopping enemy breakthroughs. All those scenarios where TDs are infantry support? All "intentionally dysfunctional." And don't even get me started on CMFB "Lanzerath Ridge." One US I&R platoon would never face down a whole Fallschirmjager battalion on its own, let alone without artillery support; that wasn't their job in US doctrine. And the Fallschirmjagers would never simply attempt a human wave attack; that wasn't German doctrine. Certainly not during "the biggest and most meticulously planned operation the [German] Army has ever [or at least recently] conducted against an unpummeled, immobile enemy on a sector of front that hasn't moved in weeks." Yet . . . it happened, and there's a scenario on it. And that's a far, far more severe and unlikely event than anything in "Crossing the River."

You seem to be echoing many of JasonC's concerns about "the typical case," and I think BletchleyGeek had a good reply to that in the same thread: 

40 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

rewarded the player's agency, including his right to walk away from a loaded scenario

No one is forcing you to play the scenario. As I noted, you can even hit "Cease Fire" and it'll still advance you to the next battle in the campaign.

One last thought on prep barrages: I think it's inherently difficult to represent them in scenarios where the AI is defending because the AI can't do what a human would do: put the defending troops on Hide until the artillery lifts and/or the enemy gets close, then un-Hide them. So the next best alternative is to abstract out the bombardment, as "Crossing the River" does.

 

Edited by General Liederkranz
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48 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

This is really not how we should be introducing the Russians to a new player.

Most of this discussion is above my paygrade.  I have read a fair amount on the eastern front including most of what Glantz wrote, but I would not for a moment consider myself truly anywhere even close to a grog on Eastern Front tactics particularly for the Red Army.

However the above statement I can address - Campaigns are not meant to be the introduction for a new player.  The theoretical model (which I promptly ignored in my initial experience with BF) is you take a look at the demo and training mission assuming there is one. (there was when I started and again I promptly ignored until after I had my a** handed to me a few times) then you move onto scenarios starting with the smaller ones until you are feeling proficient AND THEN you go for the campaigns.  They are not meant for introductions and leaping to them right away is done at your own risk.

Edited by sburke
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