Rollbahn D Part I, new Campaign

[theforger]

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-final-blitzkrieg/rollbahn-d-part-i/

Part 1 of the Campaign available for download. 

Covers the first 48 hours of KG Peiper and nearby units. Should be ready to download thanks to BornGinger's Wordpress advice .

It should be a relatively straightforward campaign compared to parts 2 and 3. I'm waiting for my copy of a recently discovered and on order book covering Knittel.  

https://www.boekenbestellen.nl/boek/gustav-knittel/9789492475541 

by Timo Worst, before making some final changes to Part 2 (12x scenarios, all built). 

Part 3, 17x scenarios are also all built but again waiting on Part 2 before posting.

Thanks to Rastamon for advice and Kohlenklau for mods included in Baugnez/Malmedy scenario.

 

 

 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Holy Cow, really good looking new campaigns coming out for so many CM's right now.

Real Life™ is getting in the way...

[Erwin]

Lovely.  Thank you...  Yes, RL...   

 

[Vacillator]

Same here with RL but love to see new campaigns.  Thanks @theforger and keep up the great work.

[Bulletpoint]

I've been looking forward to this - will definitely give it a try once I have time. Probably next weekend.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[Warts 'n' all]

I've only just started a new CMBN campaign. But, I've downloaded this and taken a look at the first mission. Hopefully I'll be able to get stuck into it soon. Thanks for putting it together.

[Bulletpoint]

First mission complete.

Spoiler, select text to reveal:

US losses: 21 killed, 7 wounded, 1 missing.

Own losses: 6 killed, 9 wounded.

Nearly all losses were a squad that was almost wiped out in a building by an AT gun shot.

 

Tactics: Sent most of my troops the direct route towards the town centre, but I flanked around with one squad and a mortar through the forest to the north. Then tried fire and movement to assault the lonely medieval looking building midway between the two objectives.

The two US teams put up a ferocious fight to the death despite only being regular quality and despite being under suppression from several MG42s from various angles. In general, I think regular troops fight much too hard in this game. This kind of last stand should only be for elite units and fanatics.

But a nice little scenario all in all. I liked the focus on using all the tools in the toolbox - airborne mortar for smoke, suppression, and taking out key targets. Even using the Panzerschreck in a building-busting role. Not hugely effective, but both my PZschreck teams got a kill.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[theforger]

Congrats you've reached Page 134 if you have Pallud's Then and Now . Like the spoiler reveal.

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, theforger said:

Pallud's Then and Now

As luck would have it, this is on the floor next to my bed .  Alongside Normandy Then and Now...

[Warts 'n' all]

4 hours ago, theforger said:

Congrats you've reached Page 134 if you have Pallud's Then and Now . Like the spoiler reveal.

A great book. As for me the temptation proved too strong, and my CMBN campaign will either have to be played in tandem with this one, or go on the back burner. So far it is Played 1 Won 1. Although I can't see that record lasting.

[Bulletpoint]

4 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

A great book. As for me the temptation proved too strong, and my CMBN campaign will either have to be played in tandem with this one, or go on the back burner. So far it is Played 1 Won 1. Although I can't see that record lasting.

Looking at the lanzerath map during deployment, I got a bad feeling about this one...

[Erwin]

Just completed Mission 1, and greatly enjoyed it.  Seems easy, but some nasty surprises - which is what makes scenarios fun.   Just curious - are there alternative AI plans to make the missions replayable?  

Looking forward to Mission 2.

BTW:  The Briefing refers to organic light mortars, but they all seem to be 81mm.  I thought maybe light would be 50mm? 

[Warts 'n' all]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

BTW:  The Briefing refers to organic light mortars, but they all seem to be 81mm.  I thought maybe light would be 50mm? 

I thought that they would be 50mm as well. But, the extra punch of the 81's came in handy, so I can't complain.

[theforger]

The mortars are standard with the Fallshirmjager units / table of equipment, so no additional heavier arty were purchased for these early engagements, I probably should have been more specific. Arty is a bit of an issue for Peiper... the 150mm seemed to be stuck in traffic... a lot.

This campaign covering the first 48 hours finds the Amis very much on the back foot in a state of shock, and it should be quite a straightforward for veteran players. However in testing the A/I did react in different ways units so there's an element of replay ability but not much in Part 1. On the plus side there's 30 or so related scenarios available over the next 6 months in the 3 campaigns that give a large variation in degrees of difficulty.

I'm happy to provide any of the individual scenarios/maps/campaign script, if anyone would like to take the degrees of difficulty up a notch or develop what ifs. 

 

[Warts 'n' all]

The map for Mission 2 looks great. But it didn't take long for me to make my first mistake. I assumed that the fog was thicker than it actually is, and didn't give my scouts Target Arcs. Predictable result, a long range firefight. Wish me luck.

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, theforger said:

However in testing the A/I did react in different ways units so there's an element of replay ability but not much in Part 1.

It would be nice if you added some variability to the US deployment by painting a setup zone for them instead of just placing each defending unit by hand. It's very easy to do, and it means you can play the campaign several times and not know exactly which buildings will be defended, and which not.

This is especially good for campaigns such as this one, where so much care and attention has gone into maps, OOBs etc. so I often want to play through them several times. Anyway, just a suggestion. Off to assault Lanzerath now.

[Warts 'n' all]

13 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

It would be nice if you added some variability to the US deployment by painting a setup zone for them instead of just placing each defending unit by hand. It's very easy to do, and it means you can play the campaign several times and not know exactly which buildings will be defended, and which not.

That is good advice. Of course, you could be like me. Lose your marbles, so when that you replay a campaign you've forgotten everything. 

[Bulletpoint]

Lanzerath is finally in the hands of the Germans. Or at least the objective area. I did not clear the whole ridge.

Spoiler:

Enemy casualties: 11 killed, 7 wounded.

Own casualties: 6 killed, 7 wounded.

Two of my casualties happened in the very last minute when I took out a bunker with a Panzerschreck. As the bunker got K/O'd, it turned transparent to the US MG team hiding behind it, and they promptly gunned down the Schreck team.

Debriefing:

In general, I was overly careful with this mission, as I wanted to avoid getting gunned down like what happened in reality.

This also meant I took a very long time to clear Lanzerath town. I did not manage to catch any of the trucks leaving (I don't know if there were more than one). But I did feel my platoon tactics worked quite well to take out the HQ team (again fighting to the death despite massive suppression fire) and the sniper.

I then decided to approach the exit by flanking right through the woods. This took a very long time, as I had to stop and rest often.

I set up my mortars in positions where they would be able to lay smoke. While I waited for the maneuver element to get into position, I bombarded the foxholes I spotted. Unfortunately, my bombardment was very inefficient, as most of the foxholes were empty, and the airborne mortar is not very accurate at range.

As everything was getting ready for the assault, I suddenly realised that visibility was decreasing. I thought it wouldn't as it's still daytime. The decreasing visibility threw a spanner in the works and I had to scramble my mortars and get them ever closer to the ridge. The final attack got a bit uncoordinated but I did manage to get a few smoke bombs in to shield the attack element moving through the triangular forest patch at the objective.

Then disaster nearly struck when I found out there was an extra bunker covering the flank, just as the smokescreen was lifting. I managed to get a few last smoke bombs reasonably close to refresh the screen, and sent in a flanking team. This team was then intercepted by enemies in a previously unspotted foxhole.

I was getting a bit desperate at this point because the smoke was lifting and most of my assault force had not yet crossed, but fortunately finally a Shreck had arrived after walking a long distance. I was able to take advantage of a smoke screen to run out into open ground and take out the key bunker covering the flank. Then I could get more assault elements across.

This last maneuver was covered by massive suppression fire from my side of the forest opposite the ridge, where I put all my MGs. Unfortunately, despite having each US macinegun position hammered by two HMG42s, the US bastards still managed to pop up and return accurate fire once in a while, taking out several German MG crew.

Looking at the map after the battle, I was surprised how few Americans were actually on that ridge. I guess that's exactly the feeling the Germans would have had after the real battle.

Also, I was surprised that there was nothing guarding their right flank. I could have crossed the open ground and rolled them up that way, if I had known.

In conclusion, I liked the scenario and felt it was very well done.

One thing that could be improved is a confusion in the briefing: It says the battle is scenario representing a kind of combination of several attacks taking place that day, but at the same time, it also tells the player that he has to attack again after several attacks already failed. The actual scenario doesn't seem like the final of a series of assaults, but as the first assault (the US forces are taken by surprise but retreat - if it were the latest of a series of attacks, the US probably wouldn't be towing their guns and driving away like that).

[Vacillator]

10 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Lose your marbles, so when that you replay a campaign you've forgotten everything.

Perhaps you and I are of a similar age?  Or we drink a similar quantity of alcohol .

[Warts 'n' all]

2 hours ago, Vacilllator said:

Perhaps you and I are of a similar age?  Or we drink a similar quantity of alcohol .

You might well be right on both counts. In the meantime I won't be opening the above spoilers, but I am enjoying the second mission so far.

[Erwin]

Yes, the 2nd mission is another xnt effort.  Good map and interesting situation.  Enjoying it... at about 30 minutes in, "Lanzarote" holiday resort island seems cleared, an hour to get thru the woods to the 2nd objective.   

 

[Warts 'n' all]

4 hours ago, Erwin said:

, "Lanzarote" holiday resort island seems cleared, 

Lucky it was held by the Yanks. If is was the British it would be jammed packed with blokes in Union Jack shorts shouting "Do you sell chips, Pedro?"

[Bulletpoint]

Onwards to next mission: "Minen the Gap".

Initial impressions from the deployment screen: I like the idea of having friendly troops from 12th Volksgrenadierdivision, but orders not to use them. But if they are to represent traffic moving north, then it would be good for immersion if they also moved. I guess there's no way to do this, but then they could be maybe spread out a little more along the road?

Also, the briefing talks about the "fading light". I interpret this as there still being some light, but in december at 17:00, it's already dark, and the fog means visibility in this mission is down to around 60m at the beginning of the scenario.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[theforger]

no way of moving friendlies via AI unfortunately... I did check.

Orders were given to the Spitze at 16:00. But they were held up...possibly by where ur now...the blown Scheid rail bridge.

The Germans had blown the bridge during their retreat in September. Take your point and will amend briefing, as by 5pm, visibility would have been very poor.

Bit of a gamble to include this as a scenario, but the main aim of developing the campaign was to be able to retrace and replay the historical steps of the KG from start to finish...not just the well known clashes.

[Bulletpoint]

Alright, finished this mission now:

Rememeber when I said my least favourite part of your huge Mission to Maas scenario was having to plot hundreds and hundreds of waypoints for dozens of vehicles through winding roads?

It seems like you took that idea and made a whole scenario based only on this :^) There are 9 vehicles in this mission, and they all need about 30 waypoints manually clicked in by hand. Needless to say, I'm not exactly a fan...

However, I understand your point about trying to show various parts of the campaign, not just the main clashes. The map itself is beautiful, and looks atmospheric in the darkness and fog.

Since the mission was called "Minen the Gap", I assumed there would be mines somewhere, and indeed there was. However, the gameplay problem is that the player has first of all no way of knowing where the mines are, and secondly no way of doing anything about them.

On my first go, I put one of the Panzer IVs in front, since I'd rather lose that than a Panther. Ok, the PZIV did not trigger the mine, but the following Panther did. I then decided not to re-route all the following vehicles, and in the beginning, it looked like they were smart enough to drive around the immobilized Panther. But then the SPW with the pioneers for some reason drove straight through the Panther, and triggered the mines, killing everyone on board. I reloaded my last save because that's not the way I want to take casualties.

After reloading a couple of times and trying out various things, I found out that the mission can be skipped simply by clicking cease fire. Despite not having exited any units.