Russian Training Scenario 110

[Sivodsi]

111 I did without breaking a sweat. Didn't even notice there were two mgs until the end. Did it by approaching up the far left flank.

112 though, theres a beast. I've been trying the left flank advance.

spoiler follows

right into the teeth of the platoon there. Get decimated pretty rapidly. Tried using the spotter on the flag and on the trees, but I figure it would be better to go up the right and neutralize the mgs before taking on the platoon. Will let you know how it goes.

[SteveP]

Originally posted by NameUsedBefore:

" Does 111 have the gun facing the right way or...?

The first nine scenarios (100-102, 110-112, 200-202) all have a misalignment of map orientation problem of one sort or another. The effect on play is variable, but in all cases the result is to give the German some a sort of handicap -- that is, the Russians have a more or less harder time when the orientation is corrected. I'm guessing that this was not intentional on Jason's part (though he's never said one way or the other), but I gather that it isn't something he's interested in investigating either. In any event, I strongly recommend correcting the alignment on all these scenarios before playing them. There are some other issues I have with some of these, but IMHO correcting the misalignment of map orientation seems like a no-brainer.

Side note: judging by the postings in a thread in the Proving Grounds web site, it may be that scenario designers aren't fully aware of the significance of properly setting map side ownership in scenario parameters. I've now seen this misalignment in other scenarios besides Jason's since discovering this for myself.

[juan_gigante]

I actually found 112 to be the easiest of the three. I was used to using combined arms to attack a position, and felt a little handicapped without them in 110 and 111. Different experiences, I guess.

And on the facing issues, one way to solve it is to have the computer free setup. It dilutes Jason's image of the battle, but it means that some interesting and unexpected tings happen. Like all those people saying to area fire on the trench? What if the MGs not in the trench? With free setup, that might happen (did to me).

[Sivodsi]

"I actually found 112 to be the easiest of the three"

Yeah, but I guess you didn't try to advance up the far left. When I tried a right/centre approach it was much easier.

On to the 200 series.

[JasonC]

Advancing left in 112 works just fine. Just do it right behind the 122mm barrage, and you won't have any problems. The point of the scenario is adding coordination with a fire plan.

[civdiv]

Ok, I finally completed this scenario on my 4th try. I have this little briefing in ppt format if anyone wants to host it. I could put it into a self-extracting ppt file so people wouldn't even need to have Powerpoint to look at it. Well, here goes, I'm new at this posting of pictures in forums;

TURN ONE

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9411/russiantraining11011eq.jpg

I start the scenario with the troops well spread out. I want the German MG to have to continually reorient to engage my various squads as they approach.

TURN THREE

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2623/russiantraining11034ld.jpg

This is turn 3 and all is going well. Because of the fence I’m going to move my troops from the right up a little bit more before moving the troops from the left into the open. My HQ section is on the right as these two squads will be a little closer together. Plus I can put the HQ section behind the fence, and MAYBE, as my squads break they will rout in my direction and I may be able to rally them.

TURN FOUR

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2015/russiantraining11040wv.jpg

Turn 4 and still no fire yet. The squads on the right have, or are moving into the open. Because of the long order delays, especially for the guys on the left, they will now just start to move into the open.

[civdiv]

Ok, I just wanted to make sure I was doing the links right and such. Looks good from my end.

TURN SEVEN

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3688/russiantraining11075us.jpg

Turn 7 and the German MG just opened up. I think they opened fire on the second squad from the left. No casualties yet.

TURN EIGHT

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1484/russiantraining11088uc.jpg

Turn 8 and more fire now. The squads on the left will dash forward just to this side of the fence. Then I’ll give them a short dash, just to get to the other side of the fence next turn. The squad on the left is shaken.

TURN NINE

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/6049/russiantraining11096ow.jpg

Turn 9 and the squad on the left is in trouble. He’s pinned right now. The German MG is engaging all of my squads in turn now. The squad on the far right is either pinned or shaken.

TURN TEN

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3465/russiantraining110109mi.jpg

Turn 10 and still slowly moving forward. The squad on the left is cautious now, but responding to orders again. The two middle squads are shaken, which is why I’m letting them sneak, rather than getting up and dashing. Maybe a turn w/o taking fire will get them settled.

TURN ELEVEN

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7355/russiantraining110115kg.jpg

Turn 11 and still taking fire. The squads are almost all shaken or pinned, I can’t quite remember. This is a critical turn as one squad is almost to a crater, from which they should begin to engage the German MG. Still just ‘infantry sounds’ in terms of spotting the enemy. I’m moving the commander a bit to my left so the third squad may get back into command range.

[civdiv]

Ok, looks like the screenshots and such are turning out well. I just want to make sure I don't get into a bad habit and start screwing up the screenshots. So let's keep going here;

TURN TWELVE

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/7857/russiantraining110126cl.jpg

Turn 12 and the squad on the left has been broken by firing from the German mg. But the other three squads are doing well. One is in a crater and he will start laying good point fire on the German mg. Note, because the squad is in the crater and in good order the German mg has been positively located. The HQ section is moving slightly forward to get all three squads in command, and MAYBE to rally a squad that gets pinned or broken in one of the craters.

TURN THIRTEEN

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/3876/russiantraining110134zv.jpg

Turn 13 and the left squad continues to head to cover. The right squad is engaging the German MG, and next turn, with the second squad from the right in another crater, they will begin to engage also. I’m pushing the other squad forward towards another crater to their 10 o’clock.

TURN FIFTEEN

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/427/russiantraining110159of.jpg

Turn 15 and all goes well. The two right most squads are hammering the German MG, and it’s fire has noticeably slackened. And all three squads are in command. The last squad continues its rout. I going to punch the right squad forward to another crater at its 12 o’clock.

TURN SEVENTEEN

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/7184/russiantraining110172qw.jpg

Turn 17 and the German fire is down to almost nothing. The broken squad has rallied itself to get back into the fight, and to claim its share of the booty. The right-most squad is now safe in another crater, and with the squad on its left is pouring in the fire. The left-most squad will be in a crater close to the German trench next turn. And I am moving the HQ section up to the crater vacated by the squad to the north.

TURN EIGHTEEN

http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/6757/russiantraining110189yn.jpg

Turn 18 and we have new employees for the coal mines in Siberia. I took a total of 5 casualties including one KIA. This took me about 4 tries, but it would have taken 20 if not for some tips I picked up here.

[civdiv]

Keep in mind that as these pics are on a free hosting site, they will eventually disappear. I'm not sure how long Image Shack keeps the pictures up.

[Cuirassier]

Nice AAR.

Just wondering, was this scenario played with the MG-42 reoriented?

I find your approach interesting. Two of your squads were not in command for a fair amount of time, and you used run instead of advance for your bounds.

Also, I notice the utilization of LOS blocks from the beginning. I'm a bit skeptical of your tactics however because in normal scenarios, the exact locatio of the shooter won't be known, and out of command green squads not behind an LOS block will be cut to ribbons.

Anyway, thanks for the AAR. It appears you have had more success than the lot of us. Congratulations.

By the way, it would great if you did a similar AAR and posted it for scenario 111 and 112, as people, myself being one of them, are interested in how one might fare with the MG positioned right. I have taken a short hiatus from the training scenarios, playing actuall games verse AI and PBEM instead. I will return to them shortly however.

[madDdog67]

Civdiv, excellent work! I think I'll try that one right now.

[civdiv]

Originally posted by Cuirassier:

Nice AAR.

Just wondering, was this scenario played with the MG-42 reoriented?

I find your approach interesting. Two of your squads were not in command for a fair amount of time, and you used run instead of advance for your bounds.

Also, I notice the utilization of LOS blocks from the beginning. I'm a bit skeptical of your tactics however because in normal scenarios, the exact locatio of the shooter won't be known, and out of command green squads not behind an LOS block will be cut to ribbons.

Anyway, thanks for the AAR. It appears you have had more success than the lot of us. Congratulations.

By the way, it would great if you did a similar AAR and posted it for scenario 111 and 112, as people, myself being one of them, are interested in how one might fare with the MG positioned right. I have taken a short hiatus from the training scenarios, playing actuall games verse AI and PBEM instead. I will return to them shortly however.

I didn't mess with the German setup at all, I simply played it right out of the box. I'm not sure how changing the orientation would matter much. But then this scenario is a close run thing, so breaking even one squad early would then concentrate the German fire power that much more, so it might be a factor. I did read the mg was setup the wrong way before I played the scenario, but I just assumed that since I had just dl'd the scenario a couple of days ago, it had been fixed, if that was the designer's intent.

In regards to using the LOS blocks, it's simply a product of the short nature of the scenario. I won it on turn 18 out of 20, so it was still a close thing. But as the objective is only that one flag, you are still going to orient your forces in that direction. So the LOS block is still going to be somewhat effective. And, in the two previous attempts I made at this scenario (I was wrong, this was the third time I had played this scenario) I still had no idea where the mg actually was. I only had sound contacts the previous two times.

In regards to the run commands, given the nature of the terrain (steppe), the green troops, and the fact that as far as I knew I was dealing with a concealed and dug-in automatic weapon, advance isn't going to help you any if you use it instead. The green troops are just going to be firing at shadows, as they can't get a spot until they get close. Plus, though I'm not sure of this, advance is just going to slow them down. But you have a point if the advance command makes them less vulnerable than the run command. But again, due to the open nature of the terrain, I wasn't worried about bumping into the enemy as I moved across the open fields.

In regards to the lack of command due to the lack of proximity to the HQ section, I really don't think it's an issue. The HQ provides no benefit in terms of modifiers to the squads. If the leader had a 'plus' somewhere, I might have concentrated on it a bit more. But in terms of ASL terms, this is a 7-0 leader with a platoon composed of a bunch of 447s, or 336s (I can't remember the values for the second-line Russian squads). Having the leader close provides no advantage, and there is a disadvantage if the leader breaks. And given the lack of time, I felt he was better off backstopping part of the force. If someone breaks and begins to rout, he has one chance to possibly rally someone. He can't backstop all four squads, so I picked the best spot, the area around the fence, which at least provides some marginal cover and concealment.

And I will try this for 112, I nailed 111 on my first try. Well, I didn't really nail it, I won a marginal. I didn't pick up on the conscript 82mm section and they promptly broke w/ the first burst of fire, wandered around for a while, became exhausted, and routed into a building. They were half in the building, and it took me a while to figure out why they weren't firing (from being IN the building). So lesson there. Keep them close to the company commander. They would have been great for dropping smoke on the right flank to keep that second mg from hammering my squads going for the objective.

But I will try to do an AAR for 112. I wish CM automatically saved the screen shots in a folder. It's a pain to have to alt-tab out of the game each time and save them into a jpg file.

Maddog, I hope this helps. Maybe not the perfect solution. But 60% of a good plan executed ruthlessly now is better than the 100% solution executed too late.

[ January 22, 2006, 05:39 AM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

[madDdog67]

Okay, other than learning that I suck, and that this scenario is impossible with my lack of skill, I'm stumped lol.

[Peterk]

You can't think of CMBB in ASL terms. The HQ most definitely provides an advantage. The second they are out of command, they are more likely to break when fire comes in, even if there is no additional bonus due to the quality of the leader. I've seen this over and over in my games.

Looked at the replay. The key to your win was getting the positive spot on turn 12 which is nice and early.

The runs are dicey. It's a nice way to get completely chewed up by the MG. But it seems to have worked here because the guy on the right got close enough to the crater before hitting dirt.

BTW, it's a 426.

[Sivodsi]

Excellent work with the AAR. I wonder if you have played the same scenario using the same techniques after winning it. I won on my fourth try or so and was really chuffed. I was so confident I'd cracked it that I tried it 3X after that, and failed each time.

[civdiv]

Originally posted by Sivodsi:

Excellent work with the AAR. I wonder if you have played the same scenario using the same techniques after winning it. I won on my fourth try or so and was really chuffed. I was so confident I'd cracked it that I tried it 3X after that, and failed each time.

Combat, is to a great extent, influenced by luck. You have to put yourself in the right position, by proper planning, training, etc, to take advantage of the luck. But luck does play a large role in combat, regardless of whether it's WWII or modern day combat. It's one guy in the MG team keeping his head up, or looking at his boots because an ant bit him. Or one guy looking to his right because he is adjusting his chin strap, and so he picks up a unit that until now hadn't been sighted. But to an extent you serve to make your luck. With these brittle, green squads, it can come down to one burst of fire. If the MG opens up at 200+ yards, it still has a chance to nail a guy or two. If it does, that squad is most likely going to break and rout, and then the whole scenario changes. Now he only has three squads to fire on, so each squad is going to get 33% of the MG's attention, as opposed to 25%.

But as I said, you either make your luck, or put yourself in the best possible situation to take advantage of good fortune. The difference between the two tries I made and lost, and the last, successful try, was fairly small. In one try I took the early casualty, and a squad was out of the fight. In both fo my first two tries I had situations where I had squads get close, break, and then rout, only to be engaged again. I watched as they routed to the craters close to the MG position, and then take a subsequent burst that caused them to fail another morale check, and begin to rout again. SO they were in cover, in close proximity to my leader, and they failed another morale check, and they were running again in the open. ANd then they just got chewed up. They ran in one direction, took another casualty, and then began to run in another direction. ANd they were just chewed to pieces.

If they get to the crater, broken or otherwise, and don't fail the morale check, the leader might be able to rally them, and then they are in a good position to deliver well-aimed fire at the MG.

But with small forces, as brittle as they are, and given the time constraints, this scenario is a game of inches. You have to push the advance because of the lack of time. If you are fighting a battalion level scenario, you only have to win the MAJORITY of the platoon fights. Assuming you are fighting '2 up, 1 back', you are fighting 6-8 platoon engagements. If you win 4-6 of them, you are doing well. Now you have additional platoons to push into the mini-battles you didn't win. Warfare is putting your strength against the enemy weakness and/or vulnerability. When its 4 squads against 1 mg, in semi-opne terrain, there is little room for finesse. So you lose that squad early, you just lost a quarter of your force to a single die roll. And combat really is about the die rolls. But you are just trying to take advantage of your abilities to force the enemy to roll snake eyes. If you aren't doing your job then the enemy only needs to roll a seven. In real life, or in this game, there isn't much you can do if your enemy keeps rolling snake eyes.

Snake eyes is when some lone rifleman flinches because hot brass flies into his collar, and his resulting, 'eyes closed' shot from his rifle drills your best squad leader between the running lights.

[NameUsedBefore]

I'm a little surprised that you were able to advance the way you did. Typically a 'Run' commanded troop who is in mid-sprint then is fired upon will fall apart.

[Peterk]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing.

I've seen MG's wipe out entire running squads almost instantly...not at this range mind you.

[madDdog67]

Wow...what a difference a good night's sleep makes hehe. I cruised through this scenario. I checked the facinf of the MG in this one, he's looking at my approach path...so I assume that's the correct facing for him?

Either way, I used the buildings as cover for my approach, and got my guys into a good position w/o a shot being fired at me. Here's turn 7, the early advance:

This is the end of turn 11.

I had the two squad in the building area fire into the general vacinity of the flag...I've tried this a bunch of times, I don't think it really matters...and advanced the leader forward. When he gets a little forward of the building, he'll spot the trench. At that point, I had everybody area fire into the trench, and gave advance orders orders to leapfrog my squads forward a bit, all the while dumping fire into the trench.

From there, it's only a turn or two to this:

I think the trick is to get your guys into something approximating the turn 11 pic unscathed...from there, it's almost impossible not to win this. I've done it 5 or 6 times from my save at turn 10 (not shown, but it's just a little bit behind turn 11's position, and I don't think the MG's even gotten off a shot.

[ January 22, 2006, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: madDdog67 ]

[SteveP]

Originally posted by NameUsedBefore:

I'm a little surprised that you were able to advance the way you did. Typically a 'Run' commanded troop who is in mid-sprint then is fired upon will fall apart.

Turns out that this works reasonably well given this green platoon. Basically, one uses the same tactics and commands we used to use in CMBO. By using the Fast command rather than Advance, you can spread your platoon out more and not worry so much about keeping them in command range. Also, you will get someone into spotting range more quickly, thereby reducing the amount of fire the platoon takes before it can start returning fire.

However -- and this is a BIG however -- it only works against the AI. As I've mentioned before, for some reason, the AI constrains the MGs fire. For example, it's not unusual for the platoon to avoid getting any fire at all in the first turn they emerge from cover. In the next couple of turns, the MG may only fire 3-5 times rather than 6-7. There is no obvious reason for this that I can determine. I know the MG is spotting the squads from the moment they leave cover. The behavior of the MG in later turns is not consistent with a short covered arc. It's as if the OpsAI (one step up from the TacAI) is able to intervene and control the MG's fire during a turn in a way that we as players cannot do. But why it's doing this is a complete mystery, as if definitely works to the disadvantage of the German.

[SteveP]

Originally posted by civdiv:

I didn't mess with the German setup at all, I simply played it right out of the box. I'm not sure how changing the orientation would matter much. But then this scenario is a close run thing, so breaking even one squad early would then concentrate the German fire power that much more, so it might be a factor. I did read the mg was setup the wrong way before I played the scenario, but I just assumed that since I had just dl'd the scenario a couple of days ago, it had been fixed, if that was the designer's intent.

[/QB]

This scenario has not been changed since it was originally posted. The only way you can have a corrected version is if you correct it yourself in the Scenario Editor. The way to do that is to open the scenario in the Editor and go the second page of Parameters. There you will see a set of drop down boxes for choosing map side ownership. You will see that the Allies are shown as owning the West side of the map. Because of this, the AI thinks that the Russians will be attacking from the west, and will orient the MG in that direction as part of setup. The Russians are coming from the east, however, so you need to change the map side ownership consistent with that. Unless you make this change, the MG will ALWAYS start out facing to the west, and the Russians end up advancing in his rear (emphasis added, as apparently there are people who think this problem is solved by simply freeing the AI to do its own setup at the start of play). If you want to confirm this for yourself, simply start the scenario as usual, but turn off FOW. Then look at the way the MG is facing as soon as you are ready to start play.

Important, when you make this change and it comes time to save the changes and exit the Editor, be very careful about what file name you save the scenario to. The Editor may give you an incorrect file name (that's only true for some of these Training Scenarios, not a general problem).

Now, as to how much of a difference this change to the scenario makes, the best thing is to find out for yourself

[SteveP]

MadDdog:

The reason this approach worked for you is that you area fired into the trench before the MG spotted you. You are playing the uncorrected version of the scenario, so the MG is looking in the other direction. When you fire into the trench the MG doesn't know where the fire is coming from, and can't react. Eventually he panics and breaks.

It was exactly because this tactic worked so well, when by all rights it should not have, that led me to discover that there was a map orientation problem with this scenario in the first place. You should try playing a corrected version so you can see how impossible it would be to do this under normal circumstances.

On the other hand, I think it may be useful to know that you can use area fire this way in any situation where you can get past the flank of an enemy (assuming you know in what direction the enemy is looking). You have to hit him with area fire first, though, before he spots you.

[NameUsedBefore]

I think the MG should be accompanied by some sort of commander.

[madDdog67]

Well, I swapped the friendly edges...it does indeed make a BIG difference!

Oh well, back to square 1 with this one.

[knalla]

Did someone playing 110 got an automatic ceasefire as soon as the mg panics?

It happen to me twice, the morale of my troops was good but suddenly the AAR window appears saying that there was a mutual ceasfire or somefink.

Did a search in the manual and it seems that the only way to agreed a ceasefire is to actually press the button which i never did.

very annoying to have a ceasefire i never asked for when im about to win it.