Calculation of front lines in operations

[Cribtop Gamer]

I have read the manual wherein it describes how "front lines (setup zones)" will be readjusted for a new battle.

In a recent operation, rather than assaulting an allied held town head on, I worked my way up a dominating hill on the town's flank at night with recon assets, intending to move up tanks and arty spotters at or before dawn to pummel the town. I also intended to move the bulk of my force around the town and plunge on toward the objective.

My force was an armored spearhead with attached pzgrdrs., and I considered this a pretty historical grand tactical choice (go around the town).

Now, I wasn't expecting a freebie, I expected to gain the hill, hit the town, fight off American counterattacks (or perhaps interdict an American tactical withdrawal), and then move on. However, after my night recon occupied the ground, I was thrown back to the original start line.

I was ok with this, rationalizing that it was just a recon.

In the next battle, which took place in fog at dawn, I moved 2/3rds of my main force up the hill, catching a few American vehicles and infantry in the flank.

At the end of the battle, I had tanks, spotters, and infantry "on the top," and had discovered that the American MLR just in front of the town had indeed been flanked. I greedily hit "ok" after the AAR screen, and found myself... right back at the original start line.

How much of the map's frontage must I occupy to move the start line? Are the tactics I pursued impossible? Anyone encountered this?

I'm not asking to be allowed to sneak up one edge of the board, that's unrealistic, but what's wrong with letting the front lines extend to the hill in this instance? I really don't want to have to attack on a broad front just to "move the line."

Any suggestions, or at least a better understanding of how the game engine "moves the line?"

[Cauldron]

1) Please adjust so you can receive e mails directly.

I have done similar things with op's. The perimiter thing with op's is still pathetic. I had the reverse problem. I pushed hard on 2 sides of a town and OBA'd the centre. Although at least 50% of the town was Allied controlled I ended up with most of it.

In your case run something up the other edge and I would say you would get similar results.

if anything needs a major rework in CM its campaign stuff.

ta ta

eric

[chrisl]

If you're donwe playing it, you should check the setting for the size of the no-man's land. If it's set to zero you can get the kind of gerrymandering that you're looking for. I haven't played enough ops to know where the threshold is for being able to hold long skinny bits of advances, but I suspect that unless you've cleared a large swath, zero is the setting you want. The op may have been designed by someone who didn't know this, or before this was seen to be a problem, or even by someone who wanted the lines forced back every time.

What I've seen in the couple ops that I've played with no-man's land set to zero is that if you advance a small/medium force into enemy territory you can get two different colored setup zones, which generally keeps you from getting to move a large force up to the captured area, but sometimes you can get a few from the front areas.

[Cribtop Gamer]

Thanks for the replies. This helps me to at least know what's going on.

Also, I modified my profile as requested to allow direct e-mail.