Tux Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Just thought I'd share this experience with you all as it absolutely sums up why I love the CM series so much. I was playing casually on my ETO installation about two weeks ago. I took a randomly selected British assault force on a small map to take on a 1000pt German defence. I find that, whilst the CM AI is pretty hopeless at attacking, it is more than capable of putting up a stiff defence, and so is useful for praticing good attack techniques. Anyway, my advance was going well. I'd taken up position on the outskirts of the defenders' town, but behind a ridge that obscured me from LOS and allowed me to get nice and close whilst remaining unseen. I'd lured an SPW 250 and a Marder forwards to kill them with PIATs, and so I began my assault proper. My only 'AFVs' were a Staghound and a Dingo. I moved the Stag up with my infatry to take on the enemy defenders at close quarters, and was suitably alarmed when an 88 HC projectile exploded on the pavement nearby and was attributed to a 'gun?' sound contact 200m away in a patch of brush. A bloody Puppchen! I retreated the Stag and sent a mortar forwards. Unfortunately, the little gun could only be spotted from open ground, and so my spotting Company HQ was unable to remain undetected. A huge bang rang out and a succession of 105mm shells shattered his morale and sent him scrambling for cover. Ok, so I now had a 105 Howitzer and a Puppchen sited next to each other in a patch of brush. Not a problem - I brought my 3in. spotter forwards and waited five minutes for the rounds to start falling right on target. Just as they do another huge bang rings out. The spotter had been spotted! The shell whizzed past his ears and landed in the middle of a platoon of men I had in cover behind him, killing 18 of them. Yep, you've guessed it. There was a Puppchen, a 105 and a 150mm infantry gun all sat right next to each other in position to utterly dominate the fight once it got past the ridge and into the town. My entire load of 3in. rounds landed on them, but failed to knock out a single one, and the 150+105 team were threatening to annhilate my entire force. I managed to spot for my on-map mortars instead, and they emptied all of their rounds on target, but still not a single gun was silenced. I toyed, briefly, with the idea of quitting. I honestly did not see a way to get a win out of this fight without having to absorb sickening numbers of HE shells during my assault. Instead, though, I came up with a rash, stupid plan. Stupid and rash enough that it just might work... Next turn my Staghound and my little Dingo raced along the main road through the town on 'fast'. They survived a hail of Panzerfausts and HMG fire and, as they exited the far side of the town, they swung out into open country behind the three guns. As they got within 50m of the guns the Stag bogged, and the three guns were spotted all rotating to face up and let 'em have it. The Stag and the Puppchen fired simultaneously at each other and both missed. In the next instant the Dingo parked 5m from the gun, and the crew surrendered! During the next minute the Dingo sped up to the other two positions and the Stag engaged the 105 with its turret guns. Both heavy hitters were levelling their barrels to fire when both of their crews also surrendered! A Stag and a Dingo had single-handedly wiped out one of the strongest pockets of HE and AT firepower I've ever faced! The rest of the game went like a dream. The mere sight of my Staghound (by now unbogged again) and Dingo rolling up towards the rear of the enemy infantry force caused an unprecedented number of surrenders. In the final minute of the game (before the AI 'commander' surrendered) I had the best part of an entire Grenadier Company in captivity behind my lines! I love this game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Sounds brilliant fun. Excellent post. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinrich505 Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Tux, I've had a few encounters like that, where the most unlikely course of action actually turns the day. Really neat to see it happen. I've read of many actual encounters where a few men or a vehicle crew decided in the heat of battle to do the unthinkable, rushing headlong through the enemy to reverse the tide. It is really neat that this can be recreated with this game. It could have ended just as easily with a panzerfaust brewing up your vehicles.....but it didn't. Thanks for the battle review. Good post. Heinrich505 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux Posted June 22, 2008 Author Share Posted June 22, 2008 Originally posted by Heinrich505: It could have ended just as easily with a panzerfaust brewing up your vehicles.....but it didn't.Precisely. I think the 'chance' factor of warfare is especially well modelled in the CM series, and the immersion is aided by the abstract nature of the graphical interface. In theory, the above manoeuvre was ridiculously unlikely to come off, but the way that events transpired was absolutely believable and, as far as I can tell, realistic because it was left to my imagination to fill in the details. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syagrius Posted July 11, 2008 Share Posted July 11, 2008 I only own CMBB now but I love it, so I might get CMAK also. I found it quite difficult to find the game at a reasonnable price on ebay, and NWS doesnt have it in stock and Amazon also, why CMAK is more rare than CMBB? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pavlov Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 I only own CMBB now but I love it, so I might get CMAK also. I found it quite difficult to find the game at a reasonnable price on ebay, and NWS doesnt have it in stock and Amazon also, why CMAK is more rare than CMBB? Well, there is the summer sale this month here. I just took advantage of it, finally giving in and buying CMAK. I had given up on C/M a couple of years ago when I finally moved to a new mac running OSX and I just didn't want to keep booting back to OS9 just for CM, but now I decided to dust off my old mac and run it on OS9 just so I can return to playing CM again (much to my wife's disappointment I might add). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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