Week-long class with CM:BO

[Tripp]

As some of you may recall from my post last fall, I was running a week-long (all day) class for high school students on the Normandy Invasion, using CM:BO as a centerpiece. I just thought I'd send y'all the results in case anyone is interested.

I want to thank those who commented in this forum for their input.

The class had 18 students (all guys, from grades 9-12) who knew almost nothing about CM:BO or strategy wargames. I co-taught the class with a colleague. Our goal was to use the game to draw kids into the history and get them to think analytically.

We mostly looked at the experiences of the men from Easy Company, the ones featured in Ambrose's book BAND OF BROTHERS (and the HBO series of the same name). We did this because we knew that using some scenes and episodes from the HBO series would be engaging to the students.

I don't want to bore anyone with too many details, so I'll be brief. We basically had a scenario (which I created) for each day. They were plausible (if not totally historical) battles with roughly a platoon or so of units in smaller battles and up to a company and attached tanks in the larger ones. Students played the US forces vs. the AI each morning, then debriefed, did some research and attempted the same scenario again in the afternoon. Scores were recorded. Before each scenario, we'd give an historical intro to put it in context. Then we'd give a SitRep briefing and an Intel briefing, and they could ask questions.

On the fourth day, we paired them up by the scores they'd earned all week, and we had all-day, 60-turn one-on-one battles.

The scenarios were set up like this:

-two quick intro scenarios to teach the game and some basic tactics.

-Sunday Night: a "night drop into Normandy" scenerio to get them more familiar with the game and history

-Monday: small attack of a German-held crossroads position outside Vierville

-Tuesday: assaulting Vierville

-Wednesday: assualting St.Come-du-Mont

-Thursday: (head-to-head) German counter-attack outside Carentan.

All in all, we were surprised at how much of the history they learned and how seriously they took the game (and enjoyed it). I think that they really would not have enjoyed CMBO much without the history lessons, and I don't think they'd have enjoyed/absorbed as much of the history without the game. It was a Total Victory!

If you want to see more of what we did, you can see the website I had for the week here:

http://sun.menloschool.org/~trobbins/KnightSchool/index.htm

Special thanks to Madd Matt for helping us get copies of the game on time!

[slysniper]

I thought it be fun to run through your class scenario's, it is a good concept for getting your student involved in history.

Just to let you know, the first scenario is not working at your site for download, the rest was fine.

"spoiler below"

I want to debrief the first battle I have done.This is taking the bridge that the germans have guarded

These battles are very small just as you wanted, thus making every event very critical to the outcome. I find that can sometimes be the most fun.

Battle plan, move infantry platoon up the right flank where some cover is available.

50 cal to set up in position on the hill to the left to give cover fire, hold tank in reserve until enemy strength is determined, going to position behind hill to use as cover if needed.

mtr and bazooka team to follow platoon to provide support if needed.

Troops move to the first tree line but no contact with the enemy as of yet.

Small amount of enemy fire when the 50 cal exposes itself moving to the hill.

My tank picks up the pace just incase something can fire on it as he heads for the back side of the hill.

First major heart break for my units.

The tank bogs and then within 30 seconds manages to get himself stuck so that he will not be doing much.His support will be minimal, he cannot see the bridge or the high ground that likely might have enemy on it overlooking the objective. He will only be able to fire on a few woods to the left flank of the bridge, if needed.

Hopefully the enemy is a weak force or I could be in trouble.

I start sending scouts through the open ground from my platoon to the next available cover, they will likely receive fire but we need to get units within range to be able to get lethal fire to that bridge.

Oh no, this could be a very bad day for my units.

a large gun has opened up on my first units and the fire is coming from that hill in the distance, the only thing I have to counter that is my morter crew, but they will have to cross a lot of open ground to get to the tree line near the river to even get within range to try and take out the gun, while I am sweating about how challenging that will be, we hear the distant sound of a tank engine turn over, this is starting to feel really bad. My men look back to see our tankers are waste deep in the mud hole they have created and looks like they have getting back to friendly lines as the only concern they are thinking about. I have no answer for a enemy tank unless he wants to drive on up on top of my bazooka team for me.

Well with a John Wayne attitude, my men continue pushing towards the Bridge even though they are now starting to receive heavy fire and dug in enemy infantry can now be seen at the bridge.

My forward units are managing to bring fire on the enemy so I start bringing my rear infantry units up in a leap frog method and I might manage to get units in the woods near the river, then if I stay on the backside of them woods, maybe I can fire on the infantry at the bridge but stay out of site of the supporting fire they have.

My 50 cal tries to fire on the enemy gun, my men know this is useless, but it might draw fire away from my infantry and morter that are trying to close with the enemy.

It seems to work but at a heavy cost, the gun returns fire and within a handful of shells three crew men are hurt or dead and the only thing gained was a few spare moments for the rest of the men.

The 60 mil morter somehow manages to get within range during all this but they have left two of their crew bleeding in the field from small arms fire from the bridge.

Everyone hopes sore as the first sounds of rounds heading to the gun are heard, hope turns quickly into anger as the gun corrects its target and now duels the morter crew and again quickly begins drawing blood and panic spread through the surviving men of the crew.

The enemy tank is now visable and it is a dreaded tiger and he has also started opening up on some of my men that have not managed to find cover out of his line of sight.

If my commander would have let me, it was time to pull back, but this was not a given option.

The only good thing was, my men seemed to be doing ok in the fire duel with the enemy infantry. I had a great field commander who was presently trying to rally the morter crew, but no clue as to how to take the bridge now.

My sherman has decided to enter the battle, even though movement is out, he has managed to spot some infantry on the left flank, so he is giving them hell.

The enemy tiger appears to be moving, it has figured out we have a tank back here and is going to get the drop on it. My men try and signal to the crew but they are too busy trying to spot jerrys on the river bank. Not until the first shell blows by and explodes to their rear do they start looking at the horizon for the tiger.

I just dont want to look, they will likely go up in flames with their side armor exposed, their war was a short one.

The tiger pauses, he appears to be lining up for a killing shot. Suddenly a shot is fired, but its from the sherman, that was quick, they must be scared to death. That first shot never hits, not at this range, almost 500 meters.

but to my own surprise, it finds its way right above the upper track and hits the hull on the side, even with the tiger almost head on, the weak location is penetrated, a mighty explosion ensures and I look up to the heavens and wonder if God is there, caring about this hell.

I still have no clue as to how my men can take the bridge but one miracle is done, now somehow a second is needed to take out that gun

The morter crew has managed to rally with the leaders help, they will be given a second chance at the gun, my infantry platoon has managed to get within 150 yards of the bridge, but they need that gun silenced.

in the meanwhile my units ammo are staring to get low, the enemy gun is having a hay day on any unit that dares expose themselves.My morter crew, what is left of it gets pinned down in open ground trying to get within range of that gun.

I decide to direct the few rounds the morter crew has left on the infantry that keeps firing on them, at the same time my infantry start assaulting the rubble on the near side of the bridge. The 50 cal opens up to give what support it can, this is going to get ugly, and I will likely get slaughtered.

One again I am surprised that some of the men make the rubble, they are taking heavy fire, and it appears that the gun will just be allowed to shoot away all its ammo since I have no counter now.

With men now this close to the enemy on the other side, I try to bring all fire I can on the enemy and send One group of men to try and cross the bridge, 4 men run, they are almost across when a mg opens up and all 4 go down.

The enemy must be weak also, they did manage to almost cross, so I send another five men, this time most Of the friendly units are firing on the mg position. My men get almost to the same spot, then suddenly a German unit climbs out of its foxhole and hand to hand combat breaks out right on the bridge, with fire coming in on them from both sides. Men start to drop, but no one is winning, it ends as fast as it started with one lone german left standing on the bridge, he turns, starts running back to his fox hole and then a american bullet finds the center of his back. The bridge is empty once more.

I am down to less then 10 men healthy that can cross the brige, 4 are my command unit. They order the other men across and they give support fire. the enemy appears to only have a few men left in the fox holes and also there is fire coming from the bldg on the left side of the road.

This time the half squad makes it across the bridge, they head for the bldg, break in and hand to hand fighting is heard.

My leaders decide to help and also make the dash, 3 make the bldg door, but only one manages to enter without being shot down.

Within a minute, the bldg is clear, Time is spent, one minute left, there is still a few enemy soilders in them fox holes, my remaining leader will try and pin them down with fire, three so far very lucky men make the last dash for the day across the road to try and make them foxholes. It turns into a point blank fire duel and with mere seconds left. the german men panick, run and get shot down for their efforts.

And that gun, the complete time it just fired away, thank goodness it did run out of ammo, that was how we silenced it.

My poor platoon was done, out of 58 men, 13 were dead, 31 more were shot up badly and only 14 walked away from it.

Though my commander staited it was a major victory, staiting some number of 76 to 24. it sure did not feel like a victory, only a amazing close battle with some devils luck envolved.

[ March 24, 2007, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: slysniper ]

[civdiv]

Sly,

That is an amazing story/AAR. Given the small force you had and the percentage of combat power that was lost with the immobilized Sherman, I probably would have quit and restarted at that point, or perhaps just rushed everyone forward willy-nilly to get the thing over with.

civdiv

[slysniper]

I was surprised also, but I have learned that the best victories are the ones that you know that you have somehow beat the odds. I was expecting a match more like the next battle, it has a king tiger defending a bridge, should be a challenge-not. I had 4 wounded men and 2 killed.

bagged the king Tiger and routed what men the German had left in about one third of the time the scenario gave. No AAR for that, even against a human I think it should have been pretty easy, the first might have been much more that way if my armor had not had bad luck, but then that luck can turn the other way at times, this time it just happened to be all in one game mixed with some skill also.

[Wicky]

Well done on Tripp on devoting your time and effort in transferring your enthusiasm for CM to your students and making it a fun and educational experience.

Especially as those who fought in WW2 are rapidly declining in numbers and what you've done is helped bridge the gap. My reading up on WW2 history had a benefit when I worked in hospital on a care of the elderly ward and could relate and chat with exforces patients of their experiences of the war in their latter years.

n.b. I see you say there isn't a CMBO mac demo but there should be but it only runs on G3 or G4 OS 8 or 9 'puters

[Physim]

Well done Tripp. As a devotee of military history I wish my teachers had put as much effort and passion into teaching as you have, you are a credit to your profession.

[civdiv]

Sorry Tripp,

The real kudos goes to you. For being a genuinely creative teacher and for thinking 'out of the box'. I don't give a hoot if you created any CM converts, I'm more appreciative that you gave a genuine history lesson to your pupils. I envy Sly for getting out of a tight situation, but I envy (and respect) you more for instilling in your pupils a love of history, and more importantly, an appreciation of the sacrifice our forefathers made for all of us.

Well done!!

civdiv

[Mies]

Originally posted by civdiv:

Sorry Tripp,

The real kudos goes to you. For being a genuinely creative teacher and for thinking 'out of the box'. I don't give a hoot if you created any CM converts, I'm more appreciative that you gave a genuine history lesson to your pupils. I envy Sly for getting out of a tight situation, but I envy (and respect) you more for instilling in your pupils a love of history, and more importantly, an appreciation of the sacrifice our forefathers made for all of us.

Well done!!

civdiv

I can only second that. I'm Dutch and into history. Most people are not. A random question to highschool students on when, which Dutch city got bombed heavily during the war and how many people lost their lives got answered something like "That was Arnhem in 1945 when planes dropped food packets that turned out to be bombs. Around a million people died." And that was from students that managed to come up with an answer. I'm not saying that everyone needs to know everything from history, but some awareness as Tripp has given his students wouldn't be out of place here either.

Job well done Tripp.

Mies

[Tripp]

Thanks for the kind words.

Sly, which scenario are you refering to (that you played)? I didn't upload the game scenarios on my site, just the "extra" ones. Was that the "Bridge Quiz"?

I'll put the game ones up soon, for posterity.

I may consider doing a similar class in the summer, and I will likely do something similar next year. But I'm going to look at other games (like Theater of War and CM:SF) as options too.

One issue for us is that we have Mac computers available at our school, running OS X, so it was challenging to get OS9 to run ("Classic", actually) and play CM:BO. The school isn't going to change to PCs, and we don't want to require students to use their own computers.

I'll try to get those "primary" scenarios from our week uploaded later today, although they really need the accompanying briefings, which are not completely written up (just outlines for oral presentations). So I will have to see if that makes sense or not. And keep in mind that for CM veterans, they will be largely unchallenging!

[Bert Hamoen]

Hey Sly ! When I played this one your Tiger was a Panzer IV !?

Does that explain perhaps why it was relatively easy killed by your Sherman ?

[slysniper]

From Tripp

Sly, which scenario are you refering to (that you played)? I didn't upload the game scenarios on my site, just the "extra" ones. Was that the "Bridge Quiz"?

Yes, that was the one.

[slysniper]

From Bert

Hey Sly ! When I played this one your Tiger was a Panzer IV !?

Does that explain perhaps why it was relatively easy killed by your Sherman ?

You should know better than to question if it was a Tiger, it was, so there must be different versions of these things out there or modified it at some point.

I had to smile because the Sherman had a 76 gun on it also, thus the reason it killed the tiger, I doubt a 75 would have. but the date they are trying to represent would be like almost impossible to find a 76 Sherman in combat if I remember correct as to when they really started seeing action.

[Tripp]

True! The 76mm gun on the Sherman was not out (as far as I know) until well (months) after D-Day!

-Just a quick note to say I have posted the scenarios for the "main" sequence now. I still do not have the "Night Drop With Navy" one up, though.

http://sun.menloschool.org/~trobbins/KnightSchool