Rumpemheim Rumpus...

[Halmbarte]

I beat RR as the Sov and I'm pretty pleased. Potential spoilers below. 

I did something somewhat unconventional compared with how I've seen the scenario played out in various videos. I wanted to solve these two problems: 

1) Find and attrit the enemy.

2) How to hit the enemy with maximum concentrated force. 

Given how your units dribble in over the first 30 minutes I wanted to wait until I had my whole force together before trying to cross. 

My plan was:

1) Don't try and cross the river until the last rifle company arrives (they will go straight from march to assault). 

2) Dismount some of the ATGM battery vehicles and tank crews and use them as scouts to get early spots. 

3) Plaster the mid depth of Rumpenheim with a 152mm contact fused barrage from the start until the 3rd company is crossing. 

4) Hit the side of Rumpenheim facing the river with VT fused 122mm barrage right before contact (heavy/maximum) to suppress any defenders hiding in the building. 

5) Any exposed targets get hit with the 120mm mortars as they are seen, paying particular attention to ATGMs and tanks. 

6) 1st and 2nd rifle companies dismount while out of contact and move up with their BMPs and the tanks. Any enemies that fire back have a tank company and 2 rifle companies with dismounts all looking for them. The BMPs are easily penetrated by pretty much anything that hits harder than a slingshot but this way I only loose the crew and not the whole squad. 

7) Smoke. Smoking the riverfront would just isolate 3rd company from their supporting fires on the other side of the river. I biased tanks and 1st and 2nd companies towards the left and I did use a 120mm smoke mission on the right flank to keep the swimming BMPs from taking flanking shots. 

8 ) 3rd rifle company crossed the river and seized the castle. After that they pushed deeper into Rumpenheim. This gave them access to the cross streets and they were able to kill the units fleeing 2nd and 1st companies when they crossed and grabbed their chunks of Rumpenheim. 3rd was also able to interdict the reinforcements as they tried to get to the riverfront. 

9) 1st and 2nd companies crossed one after the other and grabbed more riverfront before pressing inland. 

The plan pretty much worked. The river was crossed, there was FISH & CHIPS, mouses were holed, and all that good ****e. 

An observation is that the BMP and Sov infantry squad is a pretty lethal urban combat team. The scouts find the enemy (usually by being shot/shot at), the squad suppresses, and the BMP rolls up to the contact having an idea of what to exterminate because of all the green tracer heading out. Stalking enemy armor is another nasty trick the Sov can pull off better than the Americans can. The Sov squad has more RPG rounds than the Americans get LAWs and has another set of reloads in the track, so they don't run out of their organic AT weapon as fast as the Americans do. 

 

Against a human I would have had a tougher time, particularly as my supporting force could only move so much and remain, well, supporting. I did have > 50m dispersion between units and when I did take artillery from the AI I was able to move the affected units out of the bombardment by shifting them around some. 

 

No Soviet AFVs were sunk in the making of this post...

Edited July 2, 2022 by Halmbarte

[Simcoe]

4 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

I beat RR as the Sov and I'm pretty pleased. Potential spoilers below. 

I did something somewhat unconventional compared with how I've seen the scenario played out in various videos. I wanted to solve these two problems: 

1) Find and attrit the enemy.

2) How to hit the enemy with maximum concentrated force. 

Given how your units dribble in over the first 30 minutes I wanted to wait until I had my whole force together before trying to cross. 

My plan was:

1) Don't try and cross the river until the last rifle company arrives (they will go straight from march to assault). 

2) Dismount some of the ATGM battery vehicles and tank crews and use them as scouts to get early spots. 

3) Plaster the mid depth of Rumpenheim with a 152mm contact fused barrage from the start until the 3rd company is crossing. 

4) Hit the side of Rumpenheim facing the river with VT fused 122mm barrage right before contact (heavy/maximum) to suppress any defenders hiding in the building. 

5) Any exposed targets get hit with the 120mm mortars as they are seen, paying particular attention to ATGMs and tanks. 

6) 1st and 2nd rifle companies dismount while out of contact and move up with their BMPs and the tanks. Any enemies that fire back have a tank company and 2 rifle companies with dismounts all looking for them. The BMPs are easily penetrated by pretty much anything that hits harder than a slingshot but this way I only loose the crew and not the whole squad. 

7) Smoke. Smoking the riverfront would just isolate 3rd company from their supporting fires on the other side of the river. I biased tanks and 1st and 2nd companies towards the left and I did use a 120mm smoke mission on the right flank to keep the swimming BMPs from taking flanking shots. 

8 ) 3rd rifle company crossed the river and seized the castle. After that they pushed deeper into Rumpenheim. This gave them access to the cross streets and they were able to kill the units fleeing 2nd and 1st companies when they crossed and grabbed their chunks of Rumpenheim. 3rd was also able to interdict the reinforcements as they tried to get to the riverfront. 

9) 1st and 2nd companies crossed one after the other and grabbed more riverfront before pressing inland. 

The plan pretty much worked. The river was crossed, there was FISH & CHIPS, mouses were holed, and all that good ****e. 

An observation is that the BMP and Sov infantry squad is a pretty lethal urban combat team. The scouts find the enemy (usually by being shot/shot at), the squad suppresses, and the BMP rolls up to the contact having an idea of what to exterminate because of all the green tracer heading out. Stalking enemy armor is another nasty trick the Sov can pull off better than the Americans can. The Sov squad has more RPG rounds than the Americans get LAWs and has another set of reloads in the track, so they don't run out of their organic AT weapon as fast as the Americans do. 

 

Against a human I would have had a tougher time, particularly as my supporting force could only move so much and remain, well, supporting. I did have > 50m dispersion between units and when I did take artillery from the AI I was able to move the affected units out of the bombardment by shifting them around some. 

 

No Soviet AFVs were sunk in the making of this post...

Great write up. Something to think on about doctrine. The reason the units are drip fed to you is because Soviet doctrine relies on speed and ferocity. 

The first unit will pin down the enemy to hold it in place. The second unit will try to destroy it and if that doesn't work the final unit finishes the job. 

If your first units are sitting there until the rest arrive they are slowing down the entire regiment. 

The Soviets were willing to incur casualties in order to maintain speed. If your entire battalion is destroyed while destroying the enemy quickly, that is a major victory.

Also, I agree with Soviet infantry. They are not to be overlooked in close range engagements. 

[Halmbarte]

34 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Great write up. Something to think on about doctrine. The reason the units are drip fed to you is because Soviet doctrine relies on speed and ferocity. 

The first unit will pin down the enemy to hold it in place. The second unit will try to destroy it and if that doesn't work the final unit finishes the job. 

If your first units are sitting there until the rest arrive they are slowing down the entire regiment. 

The Soviets were willing to incur casualties in order to maintain speed. If your entire battalion is destroyed while destroying the enemy quickly, that is a major victory.

Also, I agree with Soviet infantry. They are not to be overlooked in close range engagements. 

I tend to agree, OTOH, dribbling troops piecemeal into a fight w/o proper reconnaissance and lacking artillery suppression seems like a good way to end up with a lot of BMPs either on fire or at the bottom of the river. 

H

[Simcoe]

43 minutes ago, Halmbarte said:

I tend to agree, OTOH, dribbling troops piecemeal into a fight w/o proper reconnaissance and lacking artillery suppression seems like a good way to end up with a lot of BMPs either on fire or at the bottom of the river. 

H

The intent certainly isn't to skip   reconnaissance and artillery prep. I understand what you mean. 

My intent was to explain the reasoning behind it and contrast the US style of warfare.

I need to try this mission and compare.

[THH149]

I think youre justified in your approach (concentrating your force while undertaking an artie barrage) as the results of the previous Soviet assault trying to take the town on the hop are strewn about the battlefied. And of course dont forget the more barrels and eyeballs there are they more likely there is going to be devestating return fire. There's nothing like clearing the way forward like eliminating the enemy in front of you. 

Plus I'd say if the designer wanted the Soviet player to emphasise continuing movement beyond the town, he could have included an exit point or further objectives on a larger map.

Edited July 3, 2022 by THH149

[Combatintman]

7 hours ago, THH149 said:

I think youre justified in your approach (concentrating your force while undertaking an artie barrage) as the results of the previous Soviet assault trying to take the town on the hop are strewn about the battlefied. And of course dont forget the more barrels and eyeballs there are they more likely there is going to be devestating return fire. There's nothing like clearing the way forward like eliminating the enemy in front of you. 

Plus I'd say if the designer wanted the Soviet player to emphasise continuing movement beyond the town, he could have included an exit point or further objectives on a larger map.

He decided not to include an exit point or other objectives in order to make it achievable for the Soviet player in H2H mode and because it would be a big ask to have further Soviet objectives in the time available.  In this respect the scenario is; therefore, slightly unrealistic because the Soviet 'bridgehead' objective (or whatever I called it) on the hostile bank is too small and too close to the river to allow the notional committal of follow-on forces unmolested and the arrival of assault bridging and the establishment of snorkeling sites and ferrying sites.  In reality, the whole of the southern bank of the River Main that is mapped in that scenario would need to be cleared to allow all of that good follow-up activity to occur unmolested by the US.

[Halmbarte]

17 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

He decided not to include an exit point or other objectives in order to make it achievable for the Soviet player in H2H mode and because it would be a big ask to have further Soviet objectives in the time available.  In this respect the scenario is; therefore, slightly unrealistic because the Soviet 'bridgehead' objective (or whatever I called it) on the hostile bank is too small and too close to the river to allow the notional committal of follow-on forces unmolested and the arrival of assault bridging and the establishment of snorkeling sites and ferrying sites.  In reality, the whole of the southern bank of the River Main that is mapped in that scenario would need to be cleared to allow all of that good follow-up activity to occur unmolested by the US.

I had 9 minutes left when the Americans surrendered. With the pace I was making clearing the town I wouldn't have been able to clear the entire urban area in the remaining 9 minutes. 

Most of the opposition in town was the cav troopers who survived the artillery bombardment. They would shoot at and maybe kill my scout teams as they rushed forwards but the fire support team and sometime squad BMP would then rinse the exposed trooper. US 3 man scout teams vs a Sov squad (or 2 squads if they have LOS) + a BMP isn't a real survivable fight for the cav guys.

The American reinforcing platoon had a rough time of it too. One squad dismounted into my 3rd company cut off team ambush and were pretty much annihilated. Another squad was trying to get to the castle and got their M113 colandered by 30mm auto cannon fire while a GMG on overwatch killed most of the survivors as they tried to bail out. I don't know what happened to the last squad, I didn't really encounter them before the surrender. 

H

[Codreanu]

9 hours ago, Combatintman said:

In reality, the whole of the southern bank of the River Main that is mapped in that scenario would need to be cleared to allow all of that good follow-up activity to occur unmolested by the US.

When I was first examining this map from the Soviet side, having no idea where the American units were, I assumed there would be all sorts of TOW units or maybe tanks in the woods surrounding Rumpenheim to provide flanking fire, later when I actually played it H2H as the Americans I was surprised that all my units were just in the town. A Rumpenheim Rumpus Redux meant just for Sov vs AI adding an exit point and more objectives along with more troops for the Americans would be very interesting to see.

[Halmbarte]

I'm playing RR as the Americans right now and I'm actually surprised that the Sov artillery isn't currently flattening the town. OTOH I'm 7 minutes in so that can still happen. 

I've got the M150s working the flanks and some M60s in town in keyhole positions. I have a bare minimum of OPs facing the river because I figure that anything exposed to the other side of the river is going to get obliterated as soon as it is exposed. My basic plan is to try and disable the Sov supporting fires with artillery until the BMPs cross the river then switch to my TRPs in town and blast them with VT fuzed 155mm hate while the scout teams and M60 slow the Sov motor rifle troops up to keep them under arty fire. 

We'll see how that works out. 

H

[THH149]

18 hours ago, Combatintman said:

He decided not to include an exit point or other objectives in order to make it achievable for the Soviet player in H2H mode and because it would be a big ask to have further Soviet objectives in the time available.  In this respect the scenario is; therefore, slightly unrealistic because the Soviet 'bridgehead' objective (or whatever I called it) on the hostile bank is too small and too close to the river to allow the notional committal of follow-on forces unmolested and the arrival of assault bridging and the establishment of snorkeling sites and ferrying sites.  In reality, the whole of the southern bank of the River Main that is mapped in that scenario would need to be cleared to allow all of that good follow-up activity to occur unmolested by the US.

Yep understood. As a game, it can be played as a game, given the limits on what can be gamed eg in H2H and vs AI. As a process of applying some kind of doctrine or an exercise in applying reality, then I agree the situation and measures of success would be different. 

But I was encouraging Mr Halmbarte to understand he got a great result in the game, and not see it solely thru the lense of realism.

 

[Halmbarte]

4 hours ago, THH149 said:

Yep understood. As a game, it can be played as a game, given the limits on what can be gamed eg in H2H and vs AI. As a process of applying some kind of doctrine or an exercise in applying reality, then I agree the situation and measures of success would be different. 

But I was encouraging Mr Halmbarte to understand he got a great result in the game, and not see it solely thru the lense of realism.

 

I appreciate the feedback and I actually do try to utilize Sov doctrine* when I'm playing them. In my analysis of the situation my plan allowed for:

1) Proper recon. I start with no information about enemy forces but must assume, after the failed attack earlier, that the town is defended. I need to know what enemy forces are where. Since I didn't have any proper recon I used dismounted vehicle crews. If we were able to dismount AT5s from the BMPs I would have pushed those forward too as the motor rifle units arrived. 

2) Artillery is the god of war, but it needs time to degrade the enemy. Besides suppressing and attriting the enemy infantry the artillery did manage to immobilize all the M60s and some of the M113s, along with a few direct kills of M113s. ATGM assets were high priority targets for the mortars. I didn't want to save the  artillery for the city fighting as the response time for everything excepts the mortars is just too long to be of much use. 

3) Achieve the proper correlation of forces. I wanted my direct fire assets to have overwhelming superiority and we achieved that. Anything that exposed itself to the other side of the river was killed quickly. The motor rifle units assaulted across the river as complete companies and just had overwhelming firepower compared to the surviving Americans. Because of terrain I don't have much choice except for a head on assault of an urban area. 

I was worried that my waiting to begin the assault with the 3rd rifle company wasn't going to allow me enough time to clear the riverfront. If the Americans hadn't surrendered I think I would have been able to secure the riverfront but it would have been much closer. 

H

*My notes on how to play the Sov in the WWII games and CW:

Time spent on recon is never wasted.

Time and resources spent killing enemy recon is never wasted. 

Have a plan and execute it. 

The artillery fire plan dictates the maneuver plan. The maneuver plan dictates the fire plan. These must be mutually supportive. 

A company of Sov tanks spots better than any single German/American tank. 

When you attack, attack! Don't poke him with one finger at a time. Make a fist and crush the enemy with overwhelming force. 

Use a platoon to crush a squad > use a company to crush a platoon >> use a battalion to crush a squad. Fair fights are for suckers.

Keep pressing attacks until they aren't feasible anymore, but don't reinforce failure. The Germans/Americans never have enough troops/tanks. 

Just because you have mass doesn't mean the only way forwards is a frontal assault. There are other ways to win that don't involve sticking your dick into the meat grinder until it jams. Recon routes that bypass the enemy, the Germans/Americans never have enough troops/tanks to cover every avenue of approach. Infantry infiltration is a thing.

Take you time, don't be in a rush to die. You'll probably run out of people, tanks, and/or ammo before you run out of time. 
 
Urban warfare: 

Don't move in the streets. Mouseholing is optimum, then back gardens, then alleyways. Stay out of the streets. Use supporting weapons to create mouseholes and gaps in walls. 

Don't go in through the front door. If you can arrange it start at the top and clear down. 

Suppress every building that has line of sight to your maneuvering force. If you can't suppress or smoke it don't move that way.  
 

[THH149]

I agree with your approach, and one scenario that demands something similar is Valley of Ashes.

In VofA, its vitally important as the Soviets to give the artie and air time to reduce the critical defenders to ashes, and then assault with the full soviet force against whatevers left.  Ironically, the Soviets have reinforcements that keep piling up and have to be hidden in the woods until the type is right to do the armoured assault while still using the terrain to your advantage.

 

[Halmbarte]

3 hours ago, THH149 said:

I agree with your approach, and one scenario that demands something similar is Valley of Ashes.

In VofA, its vitally important as the Soviets to give the artie and air time to reduce the critical defenders to ashes, and then assault with the full soviet force against whatevers left.  Ironically, the Soviets have reinforcements that keep piling up and have to be hidden in the woods until the type is right to do the armoured assault while still using the terrain to your advantage.

 

Funny you should mention that, because that's how I played Valley of Ashes too. And come to think of it, also Between Two Fahrbahns. 

I think I'm detecting a pattern here. Scenario designers like feeding you units in dribs and drabs but if you use them that way you're going to struggle with being defeated in detail. 

H

[Combatintman]

3 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

Funny you should mention that, because that's how I played Valley of Ashes too. And come to think of it, also Between Two Fahrbahns. 

I think I'm detecting a pattern here. Scenario designers like feeding you units in dribs and drabs but if you use them that way you're going to struggle with being defeated in detail. 

H

No 'like feeding you units in dribs and drabs' at all - they arrived in dribs and drabs because that is how the Soviet Army was trained to operate.  In fact most armies conduct tactical manoeuvre in this fashion in a fluid situation and when trying to generate or maintain tempo - a bit of recce up front, a fixing force and a main body with some stuff on the flanks and at the back to make sure they don't get caught unawares.

[The_MonkeyKing]

On 7/3/2022 at 1:52 AM, Halmbarte said:

I beat RR as the Sov and I'm pretty pleased. Potential spoilers below. 

I did something somewhat unconventional compared with how I've seen the scenario played out in various videos. I wanted to solve these two problems: 

1) Find and attrit the enemy.

2) How to hit the enemy with maximum concentrated force. 

Given how your units dribble in over the first 30 minutes I wanted to wait until I had my whole force together before trying to cross. 

My plan was:

1) Don't try and cross the river until the last rifle company arrives (they will go straight from march to assault). 

2) Dismount some of the ATGM battery vehicles and tank crews and use them as scouts to get early spots. 

3) Plaster the mid depth of Rumpenheim with a 152mm contact fused barrage from the start until the 3rd company is crossing. 

4) Hit the side of Rumpenheim facing the river with VT fused 122mm barrage right before contact (heavy/maximum) to suppress any defenders hiding in the building. 

5) Any exposed targets get hit with the 120mm mortars as they are seen, paying particular attention to ATGMs and tanks. 

6) 1st and 2nd rifle companies dismount while out of contact and move up with their BMPs and the tanks. Any enemies that fire back have a tank company and 2 rifle companies with dismounts all looking for them. The BMPs are easily penetrated by pretty much anything that hits harder than a slingshot but this way I only loose the crew and not the whole squad. 

7) Smoke. Smoking the riverfront would just isolate 3rd company from their supporting fires on the other side of the river. I biased tanks and 1st and 2nd companies towards the left and I did use a 120mm smoke mission on the right flank to keep the swimming BMPs from taking flanking shots. 

8 ) 3rd rifle company crossed the river and seized the castle. After that they pushed deeper into Rumpenheim. This gave them access to the cross streets and they were able to kill the units fleeing 2nd and 1st companies when they crossed and grabbed their chunks of Rumpenheim. 3rd was also able to interdict the reinforcements as they tried to get to the riverfront. 

9) 1st and 2nd companies crossed one after the other and grabbed more riverfront before pressing inland. 

The plan pretty much worked. The river was crossed, there was FISH & CHIPS, mouses were holed, and all that good ****e. 

An observation is that the BMP and Sov infantry squad is a pretty lethal urban combat team. The scouts find the enemy (usually by being shot/shot at), the squad suppresses, and the BMP rolls up to the contact having an idea of what to exterminate because of all the green tracer heading out. Stalking enemy armor is another nasty trick the Sov can pull off better than the Americans can. The Sov squad has more RPG rounds than the Americans get LAWs and has another set of reloads in the track, so they don't run out of their organic AT weapon as fast as the Americans do. 

 

Against a human I would have had a tougher time, particularly as my supporting force could only move so much and remain, well, supporting. I did have > 50m dispersion between units and when I did take artillery from the AI I was able to move the affected units out of the bombardment by shifting them around some. 

 

No Soviet AFVs were sunk in the making of this post...

I encourage you to try this as the Americans.

I found the AI plan especially brilliant in this one. Pretty impressive.

[Halmbarte]

6 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I encourage you to try this as the Americans.

I found the AI plan especially brilliant in this one. Pretty impressive.

I am currently playing as the Americans. Spoilers below: 

 

 

 

It's currently 1125 and the 1st BMPs are swimming the river. I don't* have anything in the 1/3rd of Rumpenheim facing the river as I feel that anything exposed to the tank company parked across the river is just going to get annihilated. 

My plan is to deny the free movement of Sov infantry in the town by calling VT on the dismounted troops, the tanks and scout teams with LAWs will deal with the BMPs. Once the promised reinforcements arrive I plan a counter attack to keep a toehold in the city and deny the Sov free movement. 

The AI plan may be brilliant but at couple of platoons got into a traffic jam at the spot where I had a 155mm contact fuzed mission coming in and a M60 covering from a keyhole position. I don't expect many survivors out of them. 

So far the big surprise has been the lack of Sov artillery. 

H

*I only ever had some OPs on the riverfront as I was expecting that area to get flattened by Sov artillery. I pulled the OPs in since I plotted the VT mission along the waterfront. 

 

[Halmbarte]

My history of being disappointed by the M60 has come to a close. A BMP2 attempted a drive by and I had a M60 waiting in ambush. I expected the engagement range to be a bit longer but I can confirm that the front armor an a M60 can take repeated hits from a 30mm auto cannon w/o being crippled. 

H

Pretty good shooting by the BMP gunner with nice tight groups, but just not enough in the end.