Rollbahn D Part I, new Campaign

[Erwin]

Was really enjoying Mission 5 and exited all KG Spitze successfully and accomplished the stated objectives in the briefing (I thought). 

So, why is the result a Draw which kicks one out of the campaign?

The following are not spoilers because without a better understanding of what the briefing expects one to do, a player may end up frustrated.

The Briefing specifically says not to attack the town center - just make it a "Touch" Objective.  Touching was also not a problem.   

However...   The briefing is not explicit, but one is expected to drive the KG thru the town - even though that is completely unnecessary to safely reach the exit.

There are US forces in and around the town and it seems that unless one kills a lot more - ie: drive thru/attack the town, one cannot get enuff points for the win one needs to progress in the campaign.

So, now I have to go back to an earlier save and continue to attack towards the town.  Need a more explicit briefing that explains this.

 

******  SPOILERS ******

 

Driving KG Spitzer thru the roads to the exit it encountered no opposition or even any mines.  (So that is way too easy - like Mission 3 imo.)

Also, once the SS PzGren have dealt with the US in the buildings S of the occupy objective, there isn't much to stop one occupying the objective itself. 

[theforger]

Hi Erwin, I didn't encounter this during tests.

The mission is to occupy the 4x buildings to the South of Honsfeld using the Grenadiers (50pts), supported by Spitze tanks.

The Spitze should be able to touch the town objective 50pts and then exit.

That should leave you with at least 100 points and the Amis with just 50 for holding the centre of the town.  

There are also points for casualties for and against 50 points for both 30%.

If you are struggling, by placing one unit in the centre of the town will deny the Amis the 50 points without having to mout thru the whole town.

Maybe there was an Ami unit in your South Honsfeld objective area? 

 

 

[Warts 'n' all]

I also got a Draw. I occupied South Honsfeld, and touched Honsfeld. My casualties amounted to 8 men and 2 AFV's for which the Amis received 66 points, whilst I didn't get any for taking out more than 60 of them. And exiting the Spitze doesn't give me any points as far as I can see.

Such a shame for the campaign to end on a sour note.

[Erwin]

Is mission 5 the last mission of the campaign?

17 hours ago, theforger said:

The mission is to occupy the 4x buildings to the South of Honsfeld using the Grenadiers (50pts), supported by Spitze tanks.

The Spitze should be able to touch the town objective 50pts and then exit.

Yes, occupied the "Occupy objective" by destroying all enemy units in the area.   However, does one have to literally have a unit "inside each building"? 

I ran an SS PzGren to touch the town.  (It doesn't matter who touches the town, right?)

I was going to try and run a halftrack thru town as, according to the Results page there seems to be another victory location in town as well, just to pick up some extra points for a win in order to progress.  The Briefing needs to be more explicit as to exactly what is required.

I did not destroy 30% of the enemy, and the enemy did not lose points for that.

I did not lose any vehicles but lost maybe 8 men but did not have enuff excess points for a win and the Draw ended the campaign.

The issue of whether one needs to send anything thru town would be solved it it were made impossible to simply drive around the countryside and reach the exit zone without going near the town.  ie:  make the river/stream impassible and blow any bridges other than in town.  

Other than this strange flaw and Mission 3 which was rather boring since there was no enemy opposition, it's a good and fun campaign - esp for beginners - maybe a bit easy for veterans.  (Unless there are more and harder missions still to come.)

 

[chuckdyke]

On 5/11/2021 at 5:23 AM, Erwin said:

  The other mortars are in C2, and their HQ's are hundreds of meters away and out of contact.  My understanding is that one has to keep a mortar HQ close to the mortar for C2...  The other 3 mortars that are in C2 are close to (only) their respective Bn HQ's.

 

The Soviet mortar team. The HQ doesn't have a radio, the section team leader has and is the one you put in charge of the mortars. The HQ without the radio can call in fire missions up to 3km away which is the range. I just checked in one of my games. The HQ with the Radio is in Touch with his HQ without a Radio at almost 400 meters. He must have a foghorn or something like that. I can live with it there were other means apart from a radio but they are not in the game. As a rule I have him inside visual distance of a T34 tank but I don't have to. 

[Erwin]

You know we are referring to German units?

[Warts 'n' all]

12 minutes ago, Erwin said:

You know we are referring to German units?

Obviously he doesn't bother reading other people's comments, and apparently not even bothering to check which game he is going on about.

[chuckdyke]

44 minutes ago, Erwin said:

You know we are referring to German units?

Ok do the same with the HQ of an MG42 team. He is only a Section HQ and out of touch with his platoon. He can even call a 105mm. A Russian Regimental HQ with a radio can't call in the heavy stuff but his FO who is his subordinate can. But we discuss only German units. They were actually issued a flashlight for signaling?

 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by chuckdyke

[Erwin]

 

 

*********  SPOILERS *********

 

Am wondering if the only way to win is to have 0 Spitze casualties.  I noticed that Spitze lost 2 men from the Engineers and that cost 50 points(!).  Those 50 points may turn a Draw into a Minor Victory.  But, this sensitivity to any Spitze casualties should be outlined in the briefing.

I guess I have to replay and never commit those engineers to anything.  They may as well march to the exit zone as there are no enemy obstacles on the southern road to the W map edge and then N to exit.

[Warts 'n' all]

You might be correct on that one. Perhaps @theforger could clarify that for us. Of my losses in this battle only one driver, and one half-track actually came from the Spitze. And embarrassingly enough, they were taken out by a stray round from one of my AA half-tracks. Oooops!

[theforger]

I think that's probably the best route. I could amend the script but you'd have to start the campaign again. I can only apologise.

I think both the Baugnez and Bullingen scenarios are worth trying as they do have a couple of interesting challenges.

[Warts 'n' all]

@theforger Thanks for the reply. I still have saved game from the set-up phase so I might give this mission another go in due course.

[Warts 'n' all]

Replayed with a Tactical Victory, although getting the two half-tracks that hit mines in an earlier mission to the exit zone was a long old drag.

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

getting the two half-tracks that hit mines in an earlier mission to the exit zone was a long old drag.

Yup.  I have a HT like that and it took almost the whole 45 minutes (just) to get it to the exit.  

[Bulletpoint]

Took a while, but I'm now finally back from Büllingen with a Total Victory.

Spoilers:

I underestimated this mission and took higher losses than I thought I would. First of all, I ran the Spitze straight into the ambush, because even though I thought the briefing was lying to me about this being a rest area and only having light opposition, I thought the first resistance would not be encountered this early.

So, I lost 3 tanks and got one severely damaged straight off the bat. Strangely, one drove straight over an AT minefield triggering two mines, but just continued without a scratch, as if the mines were on a delay fuze.

The Spitze engineers in their halftracks also miraculously survived the ambush, but then I gradually lost almost all of them painstakingly clearing out the hedges and hunting down small teams of US forces that seemed to always run off into the morning darkness as I got closer to them. I probably spent way too long chasing them down than I should have.

Finally I could go about taking the rest of the map. I thought now surely the main line of resistance had been broken, and the rest should be a rollover? Nope. Much of the map  is completely infested with US troops. Spent a LOT of ammo here.

My main problem seemed to be that I had so little infantry compared to the amount of tanks and vehicles. Especially with the darkness and the poor German squad split options, I took some nasty losses here and there when a whole team got wiped out because of a wrong move into a place I believed was safe.

The US small arms such as Garands and Carbines seem way better than the German StG40 at close ranges - most American shots will generally hit and kill at 50m range, while the Germans shoot wildly into the air or the ground.

Anyway, I split up my forces and sent one team towards Landebahn X and the fuel dump, while another went towards the Bahnhof. After many meticulous hours of advancing slowly and destroying hordes of Americans, I finally took the fuel dump (only giving me 22 points as I had accidentally destroyed a wall inside this preserve objective), Landebahn X, and the Bahnhof. I decided not to go for Landebahn Y as I was not sure how much it would be defended, and I didn't feel like taking more losses for a minor objective.

In the beginning, I didn't move up the AA guns, but once I did, I found those things are murder against enemies in buildings. Especially because they don't have the weird issue tanks have - Tanks will often choose to use MGs instead of the main gun against spotted enemies in buildings, which of course rarely kills the enemies before they duck down out of sight. Whereas the AA guns don't have any MG, they always use their main gun, which is extremely effective.

At the end of the battle, I pressed cease fire with 43 minutes to go, leaving Landebahn Y in US hands.

In conclusion, I felt the map and scenario were well done. I especially liked having to overrun the airfields and taking the fuel dump.

I felt I didn't have enough infantry though. One platoon is very little for a map of this size where you have to attack in two directions at once. I'm not an expert on the historical campaign by any means, but I'm wondering if you put in the historical number of US troops, but choes to use far fewer Germans to balance things out?

 

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[Erwin]

Damn.  Gotten sidetracked testing out the team tournament.  Hope to get back to this soon.

[Bulletpoint]

One additional thing, the nitpick of all nitpicks, so take it or leave it:

I really think you should add the Umlauts in the German words spelled with ü.

In such a meticulously researched campaign, the spelling also deserves to be right, especially when the campaign is seen from the German perspective. Same goes with the word Führer in the campaign briefing.

[theforger]

4 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

One additional thing, the nitpick of all nitpicks, so take it or leave it:

I really think you should add the Umlauts in the German words spelled with ü.

In such a meticulously researched campaign, the spelling also deserves to be right, especially when the campaign is seen from the German perspective. Same goes with the word Führer in the campaign briefing.

+1. 

Cheers for the continued feedback.

It was a rest area for the 2nd and 99th US Divisions.

But also was the location for the 254th Combat Engineer Battalion, of which B Company defending south of the town provide the majority of the opposition. The other 2x Companies defended approaches from the east and south west, along with a mixed bag of troops in the centre.

I included the bahnhof to the east as a touch objective because historically what was left of Sternebeck's Spizte took a wrong turn during the advance into the town and went in that direction, towards Wirzfeld.

There's a bit of a doubt if there  were 2x airfields but there was definitely at least one.

Having refuelled at Bullingen the US were concerned that the KG would go north west towards Butgenbach which could have potentially freed up the 12th SS, instead they went south west to get off Rollbahn C and back onto their assigned Rollbahn D.

Re-AA, they are brilliant, effective but vulnerable! 

Re infantry, you should have 1./, 2./ and 4./(heavy) Zugs along with pioneers from the Spizte, but they could be reduced in number from previous scenarios. Agree more would have been very useful, but I tried to follow the history.

This opening campaign is relatively easy for the Germans as they often had surprise and/or fire superiority. In a lot of the scenarios in the later campaigns the forces are more evenly matched and balanced. But there are some that aren't. For example, unsupported US Tanks defending a village, at night, against Grenadier probe.

I am going to review the briefings, re this and your earlier feedback, specifically weather conditions and visibility. Campaign 2 will not only be available as a standalone campaign, I will also build a single one that combines campaigns 1 and 2.

I'll add in a decision scenario prior to Minen the Gap, to enable skipping, but with the loss of some of some of the Spitze.

I'll take another look at the point allocation in Honsfeld, the quick fix would just allow campaign progression from a draw.

Thanks again.

[Bulletpoint]

18 minutes ago, theforger said:

Re infantry, you should have 1./, 2./ and 4./(heavy) Zugs along with pioneers from the Spizte, but they could be reduced in number from previous scenarios. Agree more would have been very useful, but I tried to follow the history.

Yes, you're right. I think I did have at least one other, quite depleted platoon, but hedge fighting in the dark is very casualty heavy. I took something like 70 casualties all in all, for a bit more than 300 Amis, so it's not like it was a disaster on my side, but still.

I am happy you stay with history though and wouldn't have you add any troops that were not there. I just thought in an attack like this, in the beginning of the Bulge, the Germans would field at least a battalion of infantry to take an objective this size.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[Vacillator]

8 hours ago, theforger said:

Campaign 2 will not only be available as a standalone campaign, I will also build a single one that combines campaigns 1 and 2.

Excellent, thanks for your great work .

[Combatintman]

On 5/20/2021 at 9:42 AM, Bulletpoint said:

One additional thing, the nitpick of all nitpicks, so take it or leave it:

I really think you should add the Umlauts in the German words spelled with ü.

In such a meticulously researched campaign, the spelling also deserves to be right, especially when the campaign is seen from the German perspective. Same goes with the word Führer in the campaign briefing.

They may not be in there because text format does not like special characters or when it does it often renders something like this in the briefing screen Fu%hrer.

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

They may not be in there because text format does not like special characters or when it does it often renders something like this in the briefing screen Fu%hrer.

That would be a pity, if a realistic wargame set in WW2 didn't allow for proper spelling of German words

[Bulletpoint]

I managed to find an even smaller nitpick

On the Tactical Map of 'Butchers of Baugnez', the plural is formed with an apostrophe; "Butcher's".

Joking aside, I'll be back with some proper feedback, but it looks like another of those missions that will take a while to chew through.

[Erwin]

Finally got out of Mission 5 with a victory so on to Mission 6. 

High points of #5:

A halftrack moving FAST thru town literally having to push an enemy AFV out of the way.  Natch the US crew didn't even notice due to terrible lo-vis weather conditions.

Also... taking 30 turns to get a mobility impaired Spritze HT get to the exit zone just so I could get enuff points to get a victory so I could move on in the campaign.

 

[Erwin]

M6 looks really good!  Great map - large - something like 3Km x 3Km(!)    My only concern is that the designer has done so much work to make such a large, good-looking map, but only a relatively small part may end up being used (as what happened in previous missions).  Also, while there are reinforcements, there is no indication when they may arrive.