Infantry hill attack

[JasonC]

The point of the scenario I already covered, it comes from the "if it is hard it must be good" school of scenario designer. Which is false, cheesy, dumb, makes for expoitation of AI stupidity and pushing game and design issues until they break, etc. Not defensible.

[sand digger]

Digging up an old thread, basically to see other's experiences with the Jock Column scenario.

It is impossible as the British to clear the board but it does teach a valuable historical lesson - how the hell did the British escape being anniliated every time early in the war? Even if some of the values given to the Germans in the game are sometimes, errr, 'optimistic,' eg wonder weapon and impervious MG's.

Anyway, being a sucker for punishment I'm going to have a third go against the AI. Second time I got up the right side to the Point, losing one Honey due to a peek over the top. Bam! first shot and the Honey blew. Did manage to knock out two German armoured cars with crossfiring portees though

Realistically the scenario is more an attack than a meeting engagement though, Germans basically lie in wait for you. And realistically if you can knock out a couple of armoured cars and take some prisoners without suffering many losses then as a Jock column you have done as well as can be expected in the situation, there are no supplies etc around waiting to be destroyed.

[JasonC]

"how the hell did the British escape being anniliated every time early in the war"

Early in the war they faced Italians who remained stationary along the coast in forts as the Brits drove around behind them.

When they faced Germans instead they lost badly. But not to Panzer IV longs covering every infantry position in poddunk, nor attacking across open desert with negative odds.

The Germans had this many Panzer IV longs at the battle of El Alamein, not against one flying column in the middle of nowhere.

Portees are simply broken in the game system, since its infanty fire model doesn't have accuracy. Infantry fire always hits, only the morale impact varies. Soft vehicles abandon whenever a squad would pin. That is fine as a quick and dirty way to allowing trucks as movers, but it has never been able to handle unarmored vehicles mounting actual weapons, whether portees or German flakwagens.

The Germans also didn't have 3 PAK per company in poddunk. Often they had none whatever, and sometimes they'd have a few 37mm per regiment. Specific gun fronts had lots but were localized anti-armor blocks that fought entire tank brigades, not every infantry position against a single platoon of light tanks.

The Brits also had carriers in their mobile columns. Light armor, both tank and carrier, did the moving (in daylight at least - British infantry attacks were generally delivered at night when possible).

Typical defenders were not on Somme style trenches, but in the game equivalent of foxhole cover. Shallow firing pits or rock sangers. The reason is it was a mobile war, no position being appreciably more important than any other and therefore worth digging in too deep. Also the terrain most worth holding was frequently far too rocky to dig (hence sangers instead). There are a few exceptions - Gazala line - but even there, positional defense revolved around remaining behind huge minefields (laid at night over weeks) rather than deep fieldworks. The reason again being huge spaces to cover.

A column of the sort depicted would also be much more likely to face enemies of the sort depicted in sequence over several distinct engagements in a day or two, rather than in 15 minutes on one fully integrated defensive position. As in, AM see some PSWs in open desert, afternoon winkle a German reduced company out of some rocks they were holding as a mortar-fire observation post, that night try to push past a PAK position with infantry leading on foot, then at dawn hold a ridgeline taken in all of the above against a counterattack attempt by a smattering of Panzer IIIs. As four scenarios, not 4 5-minute periods in the same one. The combined arms mix works well against specific counter-able opponents in sequence - you "lean" on the specific counter to that enemy while the rest of your force is pretty safe and does utility support stuff.