R&T Campaigns

[joethejet]

Hi All,

 

I've been trying to find any info about the campaigns (and "Mini campaigns") in the latest release.  I'm trying to decide between getting this module or the Rome to Victory Module and figure info on the campaigns would help me figure it out.

[kohlenklau]

FR has 5 new campaigns.

FR BROKEN SHIELDS, MEDIUM

FR NIGHT AT THE OPERA SOVIETS, LARGE

FR NIGHT AT THE OPERA AXIS, LARGE

FR BATTLE OF TUKUMS, HUGE

FR TO BERLIN, MEDIUM

~~~~

AND A NEW COMMUNITY RELEASED CAMPAIGN

FR BREAKTHROUGH TO KOVEL

~~~~~~~~~~

AND I AM WORKING ON SOME SMALL/TINY CAMPAIGNS FOR CMRT

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by kohlenklau

[Artkin]

CMRT module is insane, I recommend it over the RtV module any and every day.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Artkin

[Codreanu]

Haven't played Rome to Victory but Fire & Rubble is really, really good. Night at the Opera has an absolutely epic feeling to it and To Berlin is just perfection. I wish every campaign played like To Berlin does.

[joethejet]

What makes To Berlin so good?

[Ts4EVER]

Long campaign, varied terrain and opponents, decent challenge, but not frustrating, ends in Berlin, which is always the best ending for a WW2 game...

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

I’m playing this campaign right now and it’s great so far. Only a few battles in and my only criticism, and it’s a very minor one, is that there’s a few too many Shermans for my taste. I don’t play the Soviets to use Shermans for the most part. Nice to see lend lease represented and hopefully as the campaign progresses I’ll see more ISUs and IS tanks. 

MMM

Edited December 30, 2021 by Monty's Mighty Moustache

[Artkin]

I hate Shermans... 

[chuckdyke]

8 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

a few too many Shermans

They come in useful when you like to use smoke. 

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

I liked the fact that Red Thunder was so different from the other WW2 titles where the Sherman is all pervasive, and I know they were used by the Soviets and I’d have no complaints if they were sprinkled in here and there but they have been the most numerous tanks in each battle so far.

Like I say only a minor niggle, the smoke is useful and having to use them in platoons of 3 is interesting, but it’s very much a feeling of “Oh. Shermans. Again.”

MMM

[chuckdyke]

They didn't sprinkle them. What I read in Wikipedia. By 1945, some Red Army armoured units were standardized to depend primarily on them and not on their ubiquitous T-34. Such units include the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, 6th Guards Tank Army and the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps, amongst others. The Sherman was largely held in good regard and viewed positively by many Soviet tank-crews which operated it before, with compliments mainly given to its reliability, ease of maintenance, generally good firepower (referring especially to the 76mm-gun version) and decent armour protection,^[16] as well as an auxiliary power unit (APU) to keep the tank's batteries charged without having to run the main engine for the same purpose as the Soviets' own T-34 tank required.^[17]

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

14 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

They didn't sprinkle them. What I read in Wikipedia. By 1945, some Red Army armoured units were standardized to depend primarily on them and not on their ubiquitous T-34. Such units include the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, 6th Guards Tank Army and the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps, amongst others. The Sherman was largely held in good regard and viewed positively by many Soviet tank-crews which operated it before, with compliments mainly given to its reliability, ease of maintenance, generally good firepower (referring especially to the 76mm-gun version) and decent armour protection,^[16] as well as an auxiliary power unit (APU) to keep the tank's batteries charged without having to run the main engine for the same purpose as the Soviets' own T-34 tank required.^[17]

Yeah I know all that, all I’m saying is that in a game set on the Eastern Front I’d rather play with T34s et al when playing as the Soviets. But the units involved in To Berlin historically had Shermans and I accept that and like I said it is a minor niggle.

MMM

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

I’d rather play with T34s et al when playing as the Soviets.

Me too and I like to have the opportunity to wish you the best for 2022.

 

 

[dbsapp]

I really appreciate CMFR content. One of the best - if not the best - campaigns among all CM games I played.

But I absolutely agree with @Monty's Mighty Moustache that the amount of Lendlease equipment  looks  absolutely inappropriate and  artificial. What even worse practically the majority of CMFR single missions are also made for Lendlease fans. So basically there is no way to play Soviets playing Soviets. 

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

32 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Me too and I like to have the opportunity to wish you the best for 2022.

 

 

And to you. 

MMM

[chuckdyke]

If you play with the First, Third of Ninth Corps historically you will be using lend and lease equipment. I don't have a problem if the editor of a scenario used these units. Happy gaming to you too for 2022.

 

[Ts4EVER]

I was fine with the Lend Lease stuff, knowing that the Russians tended to standardize their tank units to use either homegrown or foreign equipment. Also, fighting against Germans late war, the huge amount of HE a Sherman tank carries is actually a giant advantage.

Since we are talking about the campaign now: As I said above,  I really enjoyed it, but if I had to come up with one criticism, it would be the German units you face. Not the tanks: I think it is perfect, that they didn't fall into the late war trap and just gave the Germans tons of Kingtigers or Panthers. Instead you mostly face Stugs or no armor at all, which makes perfect sense to me.

What I find a bit odd is the choice of infantry in many of the scenarios: If you don't face the militia forces or the SS in one or two scenarios, the designer mostly uses the "straggler" formations. I am not a huge fan of those, because they usually lead to setups where the Germans actually have tons of people in their trenches, but very little fire power due to having only one MG in each platoon. From what I know about the last months of the war, it would probably be more on point to face a defense line consisting of a bunch of MG nests, each with maybe 2 or 3 people manning them due to lack of manpower. Basically the standard formation but depleted to its essence. Some of the scenarios almost felt like you are facing an early WW1 style defense, with trench lines full of riflemen. Pretty small complaint though, all in all the campaign was excellent, one of the best.

[Artkin]

I hate shermans but they kill a lot of stuff! Well, except for Stugs.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Artkin

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I find Shermans utterly boring in all the other games, but I truly love the Emcha in CM:RT.....Especially in the later period when you can have whole companies of M4A2(76). 

[Artkin]

16 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I find Shermans utterly boring in all the other games, but I truly love the Emcha in CM:RT.....Especially in the later period when you can have whole companies of M4A2(76). 

Then they are almost as good as t34/85 :)

[dbsapp]

Shermans in Combat Missions definitely see better and they are better against infantry than t34-85. 

But to tackle Tiger ir Panther you need t-34.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

My favourite 'Big Cat Hunter' is the ISU-122S.....It's a mean looking thing with that long 122mm gun:

[Artkin]

I really havent played with the 122s because I always thought the penetration was meh. That was the A-19 gun. 

The newer D-25 gun found on IS-2 mid and late variants is actually scary. I guess the ISU-122s has it too. It can penetrate a king tiger at distance. 

[Sgt Joch]

CM modules often showcase new equipment, in this case lend lease.

Many of the better Russian units switched to Shermans in 44-45. Russian tankers rated the Shermans better than their T34-85s, more comfortable, more reliable with a better and more reliable radio. They also rated the 76mm gun as better against hard targets than the Russian 85mm gun.

[dbsapp]

38 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Many of the better Russian units switched to Shermans in 44-45.

The Soviet Union produced from 70k to 100k  tanks during the war (depends how you count them, do you include light tanks and mobile artillery etc.). About 4k Shermans were delivered to the Soviet Union. 

I never heard of "better Russian units" deliberately equipped with M4. Yes, there were some guard units that were partially equipped with M4, but Shermans were never seen as a better tank that should be kept for elite formations. 

Overall, the number of Shermans in Red Army in the end of the war was never substantial. 

49 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

CM modules often showcase new equipment, in this case lend lease.

Many of the better Russian units switched to Shermans in 44-45. Russian tankers rated the Shermans better than their T34-85s, more comfortable, more reliable with a better and more reliable radio. They also rated the 76mm gun as better against hard targets than the Russian 85mm gun.

There were different opinions on Shermans performance, including negative. But the majority treated M4 with respect and it became the most darling of all tanks imported under Lendlease program.  

Let me cite one of the Russian articles on the issue of Shermans (Google translated):

"The attitude to American Sherman tanks was different among Soviet tankers. AS Burtsev and AV Zakharov call them “coffins”, since they were often “burned” [15; 16] because of their bulkiness (the "Sherman" had a rather high "height" - 2.7 m) and sluggishness.
However, there were also those who respected the Sherman. These are D. F. Loza, P. V. Kurevin [12], I. I. Uritskiy [18].
Loza even wrote an autobiographical book called "Tankman in a Foreign Car" [17], where
speaks very well of "Shermans", affectionately calling them "Emchi" (after the first letters of M4). Vine
spoke of the Sherman as an excellent tank. Of the strengths of the Sherman, he singled out a very good radio station, talked about the advantage of the viscous armor of the Sherman - when a shell hits it
the armor gave almost no fragments that could damage the face. He also mentioned rubber-metal
caterpillars (like in "Valentine"), on which you can quietly drive up to the enemy. True, “with a strong
When heated, rubber from such tracks flew around in shreds, ”says Loza [13].
But on the whole, D. F. Loza spoke of the Sherman tank more than positively. He liked
"Sherman", like his "Airacobra" to Pokryshkin, otherwise both one and the other could switch to domestic technology, which was not prohibited during the war.
In the attitude of our tankers to Lend-Lease tanks, several common points can be distinguished. Firstly, it is the internal structure. Many noted that foreign tanks were much
more comfortable than ours because of the soft upholstery, comfortable seats - which is important during a long stay in the tank [19; twenty]. For example, about "Sherman" D. F. Loza said that from the inside it looks like some kind of euro-apartment [13]. You shouldn't be surprised here - Europeans, and then Americans, have always appreciated convenience. Although some of our tankers spoke directly about the convenience in the tank: “we are in a war, not in a restaurant” [21].
Secondly, the western tanks had very good communications equipment. And this is again the merit of the capitalist countries. Thirdly, it was warmer in foreign tanks than, say, in domestic T34s".