Reinforcements in Operations

[Sgt Swanson]

This is my first Operation I'm putting together. After reading some of the old posts on ops & reinforcements I still have some questions. But first, here was my original idea.

SYNOPSIS:

Date: May 16, 1943

Area: AG North

Map size: 1200 x 1140

Turns: 100 fixed

Flags: 2 Large (should there be more?)

Background: The German army has begun a new offensive and has pushed the Russians back for the last several days. But then the Russians just seemed to melt away during last night's heavy fog that had blanketed the area.

So, now that the German commander (to be named later) has lost contact, he has received orders to send out recon elements to reestablish contact and secure two bridges over the river. As the German CO you must use your recon elements wisely and find the Russian rearguard that should be protecting the bridges, then bring up the rest of your command (reinforcements in game) and seize the bridges, AND continue your march East (Map Exit).

As Russian CO you must protect the bridges with the rearguard while waiting for the reinforcements to arrive and push the Germans back!!!

I'm looking to make this a seesaw battle but kind of centered around the bridges.

Ok, now what it has started to become:

A 3 battle (30 turns each fixed)operation.

Axis Assault (made the map into a BW type, NP there).

Reinforcements showed up in battle #2, but on the wrong side of the bridges (West side [Axis]). How or can I change this? I want the Allied player to be able to set up only on the West side of the river in battle #1.

And how do I set up the victory conditions for the Axis side so that they have to take the following objectives in order as follows:

Town before the bridges

One of the 2 bridges so his armor can cross and continue on

The town of Gronzy (on East edge of map)which is the final objective.

Last question which may solve the reinforcement issue into what I would like to see:

How does the Batt. Regt. Div. reinforcements system work?

Thank you all for any input into this.

[Joachim]

The Batt. Regt. Div. reinforcements arrive whenever a certain force ratio is reached. If the Attacker is too strong, the Defender gets reinforcements from higher up and vice versa (on exact numbers for force ratio do a search)

There is no possibility to enforce that a player has to capture flags in a certain order.

Reinforcements:

Dunno if I understood yopur question correctly... so several answers for several meanings provided

IIRC there is a parameter which edge is friendly to whom. Did you switch that parameter

Reinforcements in battle 2 or later always arrive in the friendly setup zone.

The setup zones usually have a linear frontline across the whole map. If the Soviets are pushed back very far and the Germans dominate the west side of the river, the setup zone might cross the river and the reinforcemtns might set up there. If the Germans already are across the river, the frontline is pushed across the river and the reinforcements can set up there.

To achieve your goal, try the following:

Create a river that runs straigth north-south. Have it concave. Broad in the north and south, a bit smaller in the center where the bridges are. Long bridges would increase probability that you can't cross anywehre else in between battles, but it is hard to cross 500m bridges (I did once... glad there were 2 bridges. Traffic control was key as I needed many AFVs to shuttle the grunts across the bridges. A single squad dropping from the vehilce meant several turns delay.) So I'd suggest an island in a broad river with bridges to each river bank.

Experiment with the size of no mans land.

Experiment with the amount of stationary Soviet units (unable to hit from the west bank!) on the east bank to prevent the Germans gaining ground between battles.

Create a map that forces the Germans to advance linear on a small front. Either using a map that is not that wide or by using choke points between VLs to channel the advance.

Ooops.. that was German reinforcements on the wrong side. You want Soviets on theirs bank. What you need is reinforcements tied to map location - once the Soviets are pushed back far enough (aka behind the bridges) the reinforcements arrive. But that only works with assault or advance, not with static ops. As you say Axis assault, it should work. No guarantee they arrive in battle 2 though if the Germans are slow.

If the Soviets still hold the bridges, I see not much problem with their reinforcements on the west side... If they control the bridges, they should be able to get reinforcements across. So just tell the German attacker he has to reach the bridges in battle 1 to gain a favorable defensive position and make sure the Soviets have overwhelming forces in battle 2 which would wipe the Germans forces until in battle 3 the main force of the Germans arrives.

... lots of crude ideas that might help in a river crossing op... see what you can make from them.

Gruß

Joachim

[flamingknives]

If it's a static map, the Soviets can set up reinforcements whereever they hold ground. If they hold a bridgehead, then they can reinforce it.

Operations get very free-form very quickly and it's very hard to dictate the progress of the subsequent battles. One might ask why you're using the operation rather than a battle with ongoing reinforcements to carry on the attack.

If you make the battles longer you allow for more recon work, especially on a larger map, before a player commits his main force. The AI doesn't handle that too well though.

For river crossing, the river really does need to be straight across the map - no curves or meanders - or you end up with bridgeheads with no bridges.