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Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

I should probably withhold comment until I see the scores, but I can't help myself. Did anyone playing the Allies (South Africans) in Things Go Bump in the Night get a decent score?

I'd love for somebody to prove me wrong on this by telling me that they achieved some sort of stunning victory (or even a draw) as the Allies.

My opponent did. Lucky him :rolleyes:

You'll have to wait for the AAR to see why, though looking at the scores in the other thread will probably give you clue enough! :( .

It's worth noting that even with a sound contact, you can establish whether an enemy unit is EFP or not. ("Gee, those guys sound like they're in a hurry, they must be making for the exit zone!" :confused: ).

So you didn't have to labour under the misapprehension that your opponent had to exit everything for too long, right?

GaJ.

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Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

It's worth noting that even with a sound contact, you can establish whether an enemy unit is EFP or not. ("Gee, those guys sound like they're in a hurry, they must be making for the exit zone!" :confused: ).

So you didn't have to labour under the misapprehension that your opponent had to exit everything for too long, right?

GaJ.

Well - doesn't that just make me a bigger idiot than I originally thought! No, I had no idea that you could tell which enemy units were "exit for points." I just assumed that was a fog of war thing and didn't bother checking until the end of the scenario. But, you are right - the EFP label is right there in the unit data window.

Also, I'd like to retract my earlier statement that everything was weighted in favor of the Germans. Based on the scores from the tournament, Things Go Bump in the Night was actually the most balanced scenario. From the Allied perspective, it had a median of 51 a mean of 48, and the smallest standard deviation of all scenarios. Unfortunately, this just means that without the excuse that this was an unbalanced scenario, I suck at this game even more than I thought. Crap...

A well done to WWB for crafting such a well balanced scenario!

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Oops - all of my aforementioned "blow the bridge" comments were solely based on a re-reading of the Axis Briefing, but it turns out the prohibition was in the Overall Briefing...I knew there was some reason I didn't try it.

Ahhh...now it's coming back to me...I also toyed with blocking it directly with the roadblock but then thought, "if I can't blow it up, I'm abviously expected to be able to counterattack across it, so I'd best not be blocking my own vehicles from crossing." redface.gif

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Ah. In some ways, that landmark is a red-herring, since it's the bridge, not the vineyards, that end up being squeezed!

The briefing says you're not allowed to blow the bridge :)

GaJ.

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Originally posted by Brent Pollock:

Oops - all of my aforementioned "blow the bridge" comments were solely based on a re-reading of the Axis Briefing, but it turns out the prohibition was in the Overall Briefing...I knew there was some reason I didn't try it.

Ahhh...now it's coming back to me...I also toyed with blocking it directly with the roadblock but then thought, "if I can't blow it up, I'm abviously expected to be able to counterattack across it, so I'd best not be blocking my own vehicles from crossing." redface.gif

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Ah. In some ways, that landmark is a red-herring, since it's the bridge, not the vineyards, that end up being squeezed!

The briefing says you're not allowed to blow the bridge :)

GaJ.

</font>
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Did anyone besides me manage to complete "Bump" as Allied commander without making any contact? I exited my entire force that way by hugging the edge of the rocky ravine after transiting the board from my far left. Fortunately for me, my opponent didn't block the escape route.

And how did those who got big positive scores as Allies in Bump find a way to manage it. I wanted to avoid contact because of the full exit requirement and also because my units had such crappy attack values.

Side note: one thing about that bridge in Melon is that it's a heavy or stone bridge. Those are very, very difficult to take out. The light wooden bridges can be destroyed by a few turns of tank fire, but the heavy stone bridges are virtually indestructible in a game context. So the briefing order is reinforced by bridge construction. In ROW III, one of my opponents tried to take out a stone bridge with tank fire and ended up wasting many rounds and disclosing his location w/o denting the bridge. He blamed his defeat in the scenario on this state of affairs...

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Thoughts on the battles:

Squeezing the Melon. Good insights already posted. My Para attack went smoothly despite kicking off early due to an overzealous mortarman. Knowing there would be reinforcements moving up the road, I had all the MMGs, mortars, and a zook ambush waiting in that direction. The MMGs and mortars put a real hurt on the German infantry from long range, separating the infantry and tanks. The tanks forged ahead (minus one Marder from the zook :D ) and were in close quarters battle with the Paras. My very slow careful advance along the road finally broke through and I got tanks across the bridge in time to save the Paras, then mop up the scattered infantry.

Frontier Firefight. Hated every second of it. My worst nightmare of an attack across open ground into fortifications. Had no plan and it showed, perhaps demoralized from the beginning. Took the two front flags, one undefended (trenches too far back) and the other by storming the trench with a platoon surrounded in a cocoon of smoke. The rest of the time it felt worse than the first time we all attacked in Yelina (sp?) Stare. I recommended a much smaller Italian force in foxholes only, and a large reinforcement. That way both sides have to rush across open ground at times.

Retreat from Metemma. Not a bad battle, decent balance I thought, good map. I got pushed somewhat as the defender but my opponent did not take advantage of his mech units.

Bump in the Night. Excellent idea, good map. Exit scenarios always make me queasy since I'm never sure of the point allocation. I split up my combat units and hit each gap in the bad terrain. The infantry were bussed directly north to the gorge, then ran north since I knew they would be no use in the battle. Then the Carriers ran through the gaps I found in the enemy. The enemy bas basically moving along the south side of the gorge. He misjudged the rocky ground and was quite slow. The Germans got the better of any face to face encounters, but I had a group of jeeps and ACs fall on the rear truck convoy, destroying 6 trucks and a number of guns and units, as well as the crews. My forces had gone all the way around the map and were at the exit, I fanned out back towards the southeast in the hopes of finding just such a prize. Allied minor victory.

South of Vevi. My initial impression was like Frontier Firefight, but after I got into it, I thought this was the best battle of the tourny. My plan was disrupted from the first turn, and I had a horribly slow slog up the hills in the face of stiff opposition, but I slowly built momentum and was about to capture the large objective when the game ceasefired on turn 42, we believe it was an out-of-ammo ceasefire. I was most annoyed at that. :mad: :mad: :mad:

Anyways, I had a very good time in the tourny and I thank my opponents for the excellent battles. The designers, as always, produced some of their best and most original work for the competition, thank you guys!

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Originally posted by Walpurgis Night:

Great work on the scenarios. South of Vevi and Melon were so far the best 2 scenarios I've ever played. Bump was also fun and the map incredible, although too random for competitive play. Metemma was ok. Frontier was a joke.

I played Allies in Frontier and actually quite enjoyed it...our game certainly had an exciting last turn...although some of the early turns were very quiet until contact was made.
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Ace Pilot,

A tank didn't kill your Panther. Rather, it was the platoon leader of a macerated M-10 platoon (120mm mortar treebursts) who fired that exquisitely aimed shot after artillery fire flushed your tank into LOS and, more importantly, a Cover Armor arc. Sgt. Hendry was also the guy who finally put down your uberGreen StuG in town, again with one round.

Regards,

John Kettler

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WWB,

When you go through the AARs for your scenario, please pay particular attention to KR's and mine. We are concerned that our experience may have been a statistical outlier, and comments made by others in this thread seem to support that notion. It was a very strange gaming experience.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Panther Commander,

I must respectfully disagree with your assessment

of the armor/antiarmor balance in Frontier Firefight '40. The Italian L3/35 tankettes are hardly in the same class as the British Mark VIb light tanks. Not only do they lack turrets, but they can't pierce the British tanks (I tried, and at ~100m range), whereas the .50 cal. (or whatever it is) on the Mark VIb is quite capable of eating the Italian tankettes for lunch and from considerable range. Had one of mine gobbled up.

The Boys ATRs are serious threats in their own right, too. They're how I lost my other two tankettes. Against these, the Italians have one AT gun. One! In a prepared defense especially, where are the Italian ATRs (excellent Polish design, starting with "M")? I believe the British crews are of higher quality than their Italian counterparts, and there are four British light tanks pitted against three Italian tankettes. If that dual capable AT gun goes away, the Italians are reduced to hand grenades in close assault, and their infantry is generally not high quality either. With some creativity and a bit of luck/unknowingly helpful foe, though, other means present themselves. Read my AAR when it's posted for details.

Summarizing, it sounds to me as though your armor was misemployed and that you paid for it--the hard way. I almost lost the battle because of what a single British light tank did.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

Panther Commander,

The Italian L3/35 tankettes are hardly in the same class as the British Mark VIb light tanks. Not only do they lack turrets, but they can't pierce the British tanks (I tried, and at ~100m range), whereas the .50 cal. (or whatever it is) on the Mark VIb is quite capable of eating the Italian tankettes for lunch and from considerable range. Had one of mine gobbled up.

L3/35 can take out MKVIB from the front at out to 200-some meters (tough to kill at that range but possible). By the time the MK gets within 80 meters it dies almost immediately. If you hit it's flank you can kill MK(very quickly) out to 450 meters and beyond. The numbers are the same against the Breda MMG. As a side, if you even get 1 81mm mortar round close the MK falls apart.

Also L3/35 does very well vs the .50 . . . she's almost immune if you keep her hull down and out a few hundred meters from the MK. Same vs the boys ATR. 13mm of upper hull armor at 65 degrees sloping becomes a monster with a little range.

The only way the MK is going to do any meaningfull killing vs the massive Italian trench network is if it gets close. At which point between your Breda MMGs, L3/35s, ATG, 81mm mortars, and arty, you would have to try really hard not to wax them all quickly. I killed 3 of my opponent's MKs with flanking fire from the Breda MMG.

L3/35 vs MK is like a t34 vs stug . . .all you need is a flank shot and it's over.

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

Panther Commander,

I must respectfully disagree with your assessment

of the armor/antiarmor balance in Frontier Firefight '40. The Italian L3/35 tankettes are hardly in the same class as the British Mark VIb light tanks. Not only do they lack turrets, but they can't pierce the British tanks (I tried, and at ~100m range), whereas the .50 cal. (or whatever it is) on the Mark VIb is quite capable of eating the Italian tankettes for lunch and from considerable range. Had one of mine gobbled up.

The Boys ATRs are serious threats in their own right, too. They're how I lost my other two tankettes. Against these, the Italians have one AT gun. One! In a prepared defense especially, where are the Italian ATRs (excellent Polish design, starting with "M")? I believe the British crews are of higher quality than their Italian counterparts, and there are four British light tanks pitted against three Italian tankettes. If that dual capable AT gun goes away, the Italians are reduced to hand grenades in close assault, and their infantry is generally not high quality either. With some creativity and a bit of luck/unknowingly helpful foe, though, other means present themselves. Read my AAR when it's posted for details.

Summarizing, it sounds to me as though your armor was misemployed and that you paid for it--the hard way. I almost lost the battle because of what a single British light tank did.

Regards,

John Kettler

I was only going by the experience I have in this scenario. Never played with them before.

I can tell you that that Boys ATR's fired continously at them and never even got them to back up. I was appalled when the ATR's did nothing to protect my infantry for his tank attacks. When they first came driving up I thought to myself, "this ought to be good"! And it was for him. His tankettes practically wiped my infantry force out by itself.

His ATG did wipe my armor force out by itself. Even after I hit it with all of the artillery I had I couldn't stop that gun. Direct fire on the gun also had no effect. Plus, the ATG had an unrestricted LOS/LOF for all of my approaches, so I couldn't by pass it. I was only able to take out any of the Italian tankettes when my opponent made his one and only mistake. He came too close to my infantry and I took out some of his armor with my infantry at close range.

Before telling how bad my tactics were, and they were, I think we should see how many Italian players won this fight with a walkover. Looks pretty high to me. There are very low scores in this battle for the British commanders. So as you say my tactics were bad, but apparently mine weren't the only bad tactics. Terrain, troops and the quality of the enemy commander also played at least as big a part of my drubbing as my bad tactics I believe.

Thanks for your comments.

Panther Commander

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Walpurgis Night and Panther Commander,

Guess my ammo was defective, then. In a static face-to-face duel at ~100 meters, my L3/35 fired numerous bursts, got no kill or anything, and was killed by the Mark VIb it engaged. I also put many L3/35 MG rounds into the flank of one at around 300 meter range, again to no effect.

Closing on British infantry in one of those tankettes is thrilling at first, then terrifying,, and then it's over. The numerous Boys rounds, sounding like metal hail when they hit, initially broke up, then partially or fully penetrated but did nothing, and then someone died; the crew bailed. Two of my tankettes mounted an armored charge as part of a coordinated move to wreck an assault on a much beset strongpoint. It was either be shot up in place and accomplish nothing (tankettes defiladed by road gulch with no LOS to strongpoint in jeopardy and already under Boys fire) or put together a proper counterstroke and run the risk of failing. I lashed the area through which I had to pass with mortars and MG fire, then "raced" my tankettes, guns blazing, through the cut up, disoriented survivors and into the rear of the assault on my strongpoint. Those attackers were shot from the rear, shot from the front, and either pinned or put to flight. My tankettes lasted about two minutes under Boys fire once I passed through the "prepped" area and was confronting troops attacking my strongpoint.

Obviously, I didn't have detailed insight into what happened to Mark VIbs under mortar fire, but my experience was that only direct hits brought observable results (killed). Close misses didn't seem to do anything.

Presuming the ATG was in a trench, the keys to defeating it lay not in offboard support fires--ineffective save for smoke and the rare "golden bullet" (direct hit on trench; see thread on artillery vs. trenches in Tips & Tricks)--but in the 2 inch mortar and infantry fires, supplemented by bursts from rapidly appearing and disappearing Mark VIbs. There was ground permitting such tactics. Lindan certainly found some! He even found a way to cross from my right to the center, advance, then disappear from sight, ultimately winding up threatening my main VL.

It is remarkable how much both individual experiences and tactical perceptions can vary among players of a given scenario, and I say this as someone whose battle results this time ranged from decisive personal defeat to major victory.

I appreciate your (jointly and severally) insights and comments, and I'll close by observing that, absent the trenches, the British would mop the floor with the Italians. The trenches are a huge

benefit to relatively poor quality troops.

Regards,

John Kettler

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John,

Never having used either the early Italian armor or the early British armor before I had no reference point. All I know is that the Italian ATG opened fire and I lost all but one of my tanks. The last one was later killed by said ATG's last AP round.

My Boys ATR's fired until they were killed and didn't penetrate a single tankette. Didn't even make them back up. The tankettes killed at least a company and a half of my infantry while those ATR's fired at will with no effect.

The trenches were the Italian gold mines. That I will agree. I never even saw an objective.

Live and learn. That's a large part of why I play. To learn why things happened the way they did.

Let us not forget my opponent in all of this either. He used absolutely superb tactics on me and I was in awe how well the Italian forces responded to his direction. I was also in awe that I couldn't dictate any part of the battle.

Panther Commander

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

Walpurgis Night and Panther Commander,

Guess my ammo was defective, then. In a static face-to-face duel at ~100 meters, my L3/35 fired numerous bursts, got no kill or anything, and was killed by the Mark VIb it engaged. I also put many L3/35 MG rounds into the flank of one at around 300 meter range, again to no effect.

Closing on British infantry in one of those tankettes is thrilling at first, then terrifying,, and then it's over. The numerous Boys rounds, sounding like metal hail when they hit, initially broke up, then partially or fully penetrated but did nothing, and then someone died; the crew bailed. Two of my tankettes mounted an armored charge as part of a coordinated move to wreck an assault on a much beset strongpoint. It was either be shot up in place and accomplish nothing (tankettes defiladed by road gulch with no LOS to strongpoint in jeopardy and already under Boys fire) or put together a proper counterstroke and run the risk of failing. I lashed the area through which I had to pass with mortars and MG fire, then "raced" my tankettes, guns blazing, through the cut up, disoriented survivors and into the rear of the assault on my strongpoint. Those attackers were shot from the rear, shot from the front, and either pinned or put to flight. My tankettes lasted about two minutes under Boys fire once I passed through the "prepped" area and was confronting troops attacking my strongpoint.

Hi John

If you keep them facing forward and hull-down, the L3/35 is "immune" to the boys ATR . . . even at point blank range.

In your static duel, that the L3/35 even fired shows it *could* kill the MK. MG ACs don't fire if they cannot cause damage (a good way to test this is with hotkey "n", if your unit "picks up a target", it can damage it). But like I said a frontal kill is tough until you get down to about 80 meters or less.

Sounds like you just got unlucky with the flanking fire, or didn't have a large enough window of opportunity to get enough bursts off. Used in pairs hitting the MK flank at 450 meters, the L3/35 should take it down in 10-20 seconds every time.

The MK top has only 4mm or armor. That's why the mortars are so effective.

Jesse

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Kingfish,

My AAR for South of Vevi did not, alas, take the blow by blow form I often use when I have the time.

Yours was the last AAR I wrote, and I did it under massive time pressure and while fried from trying to get a stack of AARs done, despite all sorts of craziness on this end and having been up continuously for multitudinous hours. Nevertheless, I believe you'll find it useful and rewarding in terms of the design and tactical insights, not to mention desperate improvisations which kept me from getting my clocked cleaned outright. How I hate rough! It protects Germans but not British.

Quite a scenario and a grueling fight!

Regards,

John Kettler

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Walpurgis Night,

Most interesting! My major problem with the Boys ATR is finding the teams in the first place under EFOW. Every time I run into them, I wind up taking a great deal of abuse before I ever have a chance to ID and target my tormentors. By the time I have ID, I'm pretty much done for. As for keeping my bow toward the Boys, any opponent with half a brain will make sure to spread the teams out in order to generate flank fire opportunities and complicate my suppression problem. Hard to do much in that department when buttoned up, and that's what happens when the first shot spangs off the armor. When I get shot at, shots seem to come from nowhere

and it seems like at least three Boys teams minimum

are blazing away from all angles. And they have lots of ammo!

Regards,

John Kettler

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Ummm...was I the only Brit in Frontier Firefight '40 to take care of the ATG by:

1. suppressing it by massed...and I mean everyone who could target it...small arms fire then...

2. having one of the light tanks charge it from an off-angle with a FAST move that took it right over the position, and squished it to a pulp?

T'was about the only thing I did right in the whole mess.

Those light tanks were not the best pieces of equipment, but they were plenty speedy, even going through wire.

[ June 24, 2004, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

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