A Comment About "Balanced" Scenarios

[CanuckGamer]

My friends and I have been playing the Combat Mission series since the first versions were released many many years ago.  We currently have CMBN, CMFI, and CMFB.  Balanced scenarios which I suppose can be subjective are few and far between.  I am not complaining because historically this would have been the situation.  The last scenario that we finished was Brummbar from CMFI where the CW were the attackers while the Germans had two Panthers.  The CW lost big time because even though they damaged the gun on one of the Panthers.  In our current CMBN scenario,   Loamshires, the CW are the attackers but the Germans have from what I've seen,  4 Panthers to my 3 Fireflys.  One half of the battlefield is open field so the approach is limited to the other half where there are woods.  So far I've lost 2 Fireflys and one other Sherman without knocking out any of the Panthers.  

Historically the German tanks were vastly superior and CM does a good job of creating that superiority.  The difference is that in CM there is never any Allied airpower which countered the German superiority on the ground.  I've also read that the Germans not only had superior tanks but also  better machine guns and other small arms.  The Allies ground superiority was in their artillery and transport.

Regardless we continue to play and enjoy playing CM.

[Freyberg]

34 minutes ago, CanuckGamer said:

...In our current CMBN scenario,   Loamshires, the CW are the attackers but the Germans have from what I've seen,  4 Panthers to my 3 Fireflys.  One half of the battlefield is open field so the approach is limited to the other half where there are woods.  So far I've lost 2 Fireflys and one other Sherman without knocking out any of the Panthers. ..

I find Firefies are lethal if you use them with extreme stealth: keep at least 1000m, or more, from the enemy, creep up in cover to a point where you don't quite have LOS. They will generally spot first, after a little while, and often kill with the first shot.

[Bulletpoint]

7 hours ago, CanuckGamer said:

Historically the German tanks were vastly superior and CM does a good job of creating that superiority.

German tanks are not actually that superior in CM. They lose their main gun very often, as you also experienced.

[Dynaman216]

Part of this is the size of most CM battlefields, far too small to allow the flanking maneuvers that allied crews went for and another I have often seen is that allied tanks will stop while still in the front arc of a German tank and fire when they could have kept going a short distance further and gotten side shots.  I nearly put my fist through the monitor every time I see that happen.  With an inexperienced crew sure but an experienced crew would know better.

[Vanir Ausf B]

18 hours ago, CanuckGamer said:

Historically the German tanks were vastly superior and CM does a good job of creating that superiority. 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by Vanir Ausf B

[SimpleSimon]

18 hours ago, CanuckGamer said:

Historically the German tanks were vastly superior and CM does a good job of creating that superiority.  The difference is that in CM there is never any Allied airpower which countered the German superiority on the ground.  I've also read that the Germans not only had superior tanks but also  better machine guns and other small arms.  The Allies ground superiority was in their artillery and transport.

The only cleanly 'superior' tank the Germans had during the war was the Panther. Everything else of which there were many of were often referred to as Ersatz Panzers and were not much appreciated by the Landwehr, but were better than nothing. The Tiger is often brought up too...but the Tiger was a Breakthrough Tank not designed for mass production. It was only intended to be used on occasion as a Corp asset like siege artillery... Desperation frequently led to its use in meeting engagements and defensive ops it was not well suited for. 

The MkIV which made up most of the Panzer Divisions' complement of armor right to the very last days of the war was a pre war tank designed in 1934 and was only 25 tons. It's hull was stretched to the absolute limits of what was reasonable in order to remain competitive while the Panther (never) caught up. As an MBT it had numerous troubling deficiencies though, the forward suspension was under almost constant strain from the added armament and protection causing early wear and failures of drive sprocket bearings. The hull armor was strengthened to a respectable 80mm during the war, but the turret face-plate never exceeded 50mm, and could be defeated by even fairly light guns.

I don't know if i'd say the German possessed any kind of unique superiority in the Panzers thanks to their tanks. Indeed, this is not even a message the Nazis themselves pushed, as they did not like the idea of explaining their victory as thanks to a piece of machinery. Nazi propaganda was invested in its message of entitlement to victory being a product of the superior qualities of the Aryan Master Race...the Super Panzers stuff emerged after the war from western historians...

Edited October 3, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[John1966]

18 hours ago, CanuckGamer said:

In our current CMBN scenario,   Loamshires, the CW are the attackers but the Germans have from what I've seen,  4 Panthers to my 3 Fireflys.  One half of the battlefield is open field so the approach is limited to the other half where there are woods.  So far I've lost 2 Fireflys and one other Sherman without knocking out any of the Panthers.  

I'm going to be really, really unhelpful and say that I got a total victory as the Brits in that one. 

But it raises interesting points. I was expecting German armour because it was in the briefing and they don't give you 16(?) Shermans if you're just up against infantry. I kept all of the tanks behind the wooded ridges for well over half the game. I wasn't going to commit until I knew exactly where those Panthers were. When I thought I'd located them all (*SPOILER* I hadn't) I did a wide outflanking manoeuvre with nearly all of the armour out of sight of the known Panthers (there's a route to do exactly that on your left). Effectively a mass stalk. Got them to all break cover at the same time facing the Panther's sides at largely close range. And in the mad minute that followed (possibly two minutes), all four Panthers were burning but... so were quite a few of my Shermans. But I had enough left to support the infantry taking the town and losing a few more to German personal AT weapons (because that always seems to be compulsory ).

Point being, you can't take out Panthers in a stand up fight. They'll get you every time. You have to sneak up on them. I was saying in another thread that once I've spotted a Big Cat, all my battle plans are put on hold until I get it. Sneak up on them. Distract them with infantry (cruel but it works). Vainly drop artillery on them (surprisingly effective sometimes). But don't fight them like they'll fight you.

*ANOTHER SPOILER* I can't say but there is one.

[John1966]

The problem of the Big Cats for the Germans was that they either broke down on the way to the battlefield or they got a 500lb bomb dropped on them at the earliest opportunity. If they ever got into contact with the enemy I'm sure they were terrifying. So it was probably just as well they were usually outnumbered.

[CanuckGamer]

John,  interesting that you got a total victory with the Brits.  I shelled the reverse side of the ridge on my left flank to clear any infantry that might have AT before moving to the top of the ridge with tanks including one Firefly.  I could see the greyed out icon of a German tank on the other side of the woods but to my surprise it must have still had a line of sight as it took out my Firefly.  In regards to those woods, tanks can't move through it so they have to go around it on the left and it appeared that he had two Panthers there waiting.

I'm curious as to whether the 25 pounders can cause any damage to tanks such as immobilizing a Panther?

In regards to the superiority of the German tanks, here is a link to an article that I found quite interesting.

http://www.ihr.org/other/bestsoldiers

 

 

 

[John1966]

1 hour ago, CanuckGamer said:

I'm curious as to whether the 25 pounders can cause any damage to tanks such as immobilizing a Panther?

 

They can get a kill if they get a direct hit.

Even if they don't it's always worth shelling tanks as you can get immobilisations and take out the MA or optics. 

Edited October 3, 2020 by John1966

[John1966]

1 hour ago, CanuckGamer said:

I shelled the reverse side of the ridge on my left flank to clear any infantry that might have AT before moving to the top of the ridge with tanks including one Firefly.

I didn't stop on the ridge. I went straight over and round to back of the woods. Came up behind the Panthers.

[SimpleSimon]

4 hours ago, John1966 said:

The problem of the Big Cats for the Germans was that they either broke down on the way to the battlefield or they got a 500lb bomb dropped on them at the earliest opportunity. If they ever got into contact with the enemy I'm sure they were terrifying. So it was probably just as well they were usually outnumbered.

 There were precisely zero situations where a the commanding officer of a Panzer Division would ever want to go to battle knowing he was outnumbered, and careful observation of the Panzers in their victorious operations reveals a distinct preference for avoidance of the enemy main effort. It just so happened that after 1943 or so the Panzer Divisions had to be used all the time to plug holes where the frontline had been breached otherwise the whole line would get rolled up, but was far, far from preference that they be used against superior or even comparable numbers of peer enemies. Otherwise, the preferred enemy of the Panzer Division was soft infantry formations who possessed few means by which to stop 120 Panzers and associated infantry/artillery components rolling up on them. Even better would be no enemy at all and smooth sailing all the way to Moscow! 

Tanks of peer tonnage are very, very good at mutually inflicting heavy casualties on each other. The way the Wehrmacht worked you never tried to setup fair matchups or equal slugging matches between peer unit types. If it's infantry vs infantry, artillery vs artillery, and tank vs tank you're doing it wrong as far the Germans saw it. That they frequently had things this way after 1943 was a symptom of losing the war and not the sort of behavior they engaged in during the glory days of 1940. 

Edited October 4, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[CanuckGamer]

3 hours ago, John1966 said:

I didn't stop on the ridge. I went straight over and round to back of the woods. Came up behind the Panthers.

Actually, I didn't stop on the ridge.  My Firefly was knocked out when it got to the top of the ridge by a Panther on the other side of the woods and as I mentioned, I was surprised it had a line of sight.  We are still playing this scenario and I have spotted 4 Panthers.  He has 2 of them on the side of the woods where you came from, one in the town facing up the road and one behind the wall by the tower covering the open field.  A German AT gun also scored a hit on my last remaining Firefly but luckily it bounced off.

I think that it is a tough scenario for the CW regardless of what you do.  They have to attack and you almost always need superiority in numbers and or firepower when you are the attacker.  In this case the Germans have 4 Panthers to 3 Fireflys and they are the defender.  A mistake I made was not positioning the pre sighted targets properly.  I may try it a second time with my friend as the CW again.

I only remember one scenario in CMBN and CMFI where the Allies had any airpower.  A couple of Typhoons with rockets would certainly help in this scenario, ha ha.

 

[John1966]

16 hours ago, CanuckGamer said:

My Firefly was knocked out when it got to the top of the ridge by a Panther on the other side of the woods and as I mentioned, I was surprised it had a line of sight. 

That sounds like bad luck more than anything.

I always find that when I'm up against the Big Cats the "tank battle" bit of the scenario only lasts a minute or two. Everything else is stalking. You've got to bring as many guns to bear at once (preferably from multiple directions) and keep them out of sight until you can do that because any 1:1 encounters will always go the Cats' way.

[CanuckGamer]

I charged a single Panther with 3 Shermans and one Firefly.  All three got to within 10-20 meters and none of them fired.  What was  puzzling is that the Firefly moved in Hunt mode to the side of the Panther where if it would have shot couldn't have missed.  For some reason, it sat there for a few seconds then immediately went in to reverse.  Meanwhile the Panther was taking out two more Shermans that were the "decoys".  Really strange behaviour for the CW tanks and especially the Firefly which could have taken a point blank side shot.

Anyway, going to try this scenario again as the CW.

[MikeyD]

I recall someone quipping waaaaay back in CMBB days that 'amateurs play Tigers versus US-2s while veterans play Italian vs Romanian infantry', or words to that effect. I was watching a recent Youtube video of someone playing CMSF for the first time and promptly he got all of his Abrams KO'd in a night engagement. I suspect he would've had a pleasanter first time play experience maneuvering infantry squads around. I'm still attracted to playing with tanks, especially with monster tanks, but I realize the engagement is liable to be brief, brutal, and one-sided.

[John1966]

28 minutes ago, CanuckGamer said:

For some reason, it sat there for a few seconds then immediately went in to reverse.

I had an odd moment like that in this one. One of my Shermans got behind a Panther in the town (after we'd got the first four) and had a perfect rear shot. Fired once and then popped smoke and reversed. As it still had a perfect line of sight (the Panther couldn't have rotated its turret in RL but it was otherwise engaged with infantry anyway), I moved the Sherman back for another shot but every time it saw the back of the Panther, it reversed away. I think this was because the crew were "rattled" but still frustrating. In the end the infantry got the Panther with grenades.

But then the weirdness continued. The Panther crew bailed and got into a firefight with the infantry before running in the direction of the Sherman which cut them down. So the infantry and the Sherman had seen the crew bail. Yet it wouldn't come up as a confirmed kill until several turns later. They treated it as a live tank. Very odd.

[Vacillator]

4 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

'amateurs play Tigers versus US-2s

LOL, sounds like me!  My introduction to CM was Monster Mash in the RT demo - Panthers versus IS2s and other fine beasts.  I wasn't even an amateur but I loved it.  When I bought the game the same day, I fired up Gog and Magog - Tigers, Panthers and Panzer IVs against IS2s and other decent stuff, made a bit of mess of it first time as I hadn't even worked out all of the movement options and also thought my big cats should be invincible (not!).  Did a lot better a second time later on when I had learned how to play a bit better (and of course had a bit of unfair intel).

More recently (still as a relative novice ) some favourites have been the Wittmann scenarios in BN with of course Tigers.  The newer ones from GeorgeMC are great, but I've even fired up an older one from Wild Bill (RIP) and had a different but great experience with it.

[Vacillator]

11 minutes ago, John1966 said:

They treated it as a live tank. Very odd.

John that is quite spooky.  In the Wild Bill Villers Bocage I mentioned just now I had two Tigers firing down the length of the main street, targeted at two AT guns which were clearly visible but behind some wrecked tanks which were knocked out at or near to the start of the scenario.  Instead of aiming at the guns they must have pumped more than a dozen shots into the wrecks.  I thought perhaps it was just that the wrecks were in the way (and it may have been, clever design if so), but I couldn't find any position where they would hit the guns instead.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Vacilllator

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, John1966 said:

They treated it as a live tank. Very odd.

Yep, the units in the game do not automatically know if they KO'ed something. Unless their is smoke and fire. I once had a sherman pump 7 rounds into a PzIV from under 50m (it was in thick woods so viability was still not great). I was worried there was a bug but my opponent reported that the Panzer was dead after the second shot. The Sherman crew kept firing because they just didn't know it was already toast.

That's the most extreme example I have personally seen.

PS your Sherman crew is smart. The last time one of my Sherman tanks got a clean shot at the back of a panther it bounced of the turret and then I watched in horror as the Panther gunner turned the turret around and took out the Sherman in one shot.

[John1966]

3 minutes ago, IanL said:

Yep, the units in the game do not automatically know if they KO'ed something.

Normally I'd agree but in this case the crew had bailed. I thought that would indicate a kill to my guys.

It's possible the Sherman didn't see them bail as it didn't shoot up the crew until they ran towards it (so they may not realise they came from the Panther) but it was live to the infantry too.

(Which begs the question as to whether a tank is "live" to some units but not others - I thought it would be KO'd for everyone because when you click on it, it's live even though I saw the crew bail)

[A Canadian Cat]

1 minute ago, John1966 said:

Which begs the question as to whether a tank is "live" to some units but not others - I thought it would be KO'd for everyone because when you click on it, it's live even though I saw the crew bail

I am not sure about the KO status being per unit. But keep in mind that crew can bail on a tank that is not KO'd. So, in this case it may not have been.

[John1966]

1 hour ago, Vacilllator said:

I couldn't find any position where they would hit the guns instead.

That's classic CM frustration. 

How many times have I had a squad spot a distant enemy unit but no-one with binoculars can see it to call in the arty?

In a recent scenario (Out on a Limb), a squad spotted one of the 20mm AA buggers in the distance. So I move an HQ to the exact same action square. Five minutes later, the HQ still can't see it. I move the original squad somewhere else and they can still see it. As the HQ isn't spotting it where they are, I move them to the squad's new position. Five minutes later and the guys with the binoculars still can't see the damn thing.

This seems to be a regular frustrating occurrence in CM.

And let's not even start on units spotting units they can't get a LOS to.

[John1966]

5 minutes ago, IanL said:

But keep in mind that crew can bail on a tank that is not KO'd.

True enough but doesn't it come up as "abandoned" in those circumstances?

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, John1966 said:

True enough but doesn't it come up as "abandoned" in those circumstances?

Or 'dismounted'?  How I love to get such a crew back on board, tank saved.  But they are of course a bit flakey...