Sidi Rezegh

[Bruceov]

Does anyone know what happed historically in The Taking of Sidi Rezegh? I understand this is a historical scenario.

[rune]

The armoured cars and tanks made a mad rush to take the airfield. Aircraft were still on the runways [dirt field] and many aircraft were destroyed by either shooting them on while they took off, or the tanks/acs rammed the tails. The British/South Africans too the field, with losses.

In the scenario, a mad rush towards the airfield will get you killed. The map is big enough to use manuever.

In real life, the Italians were caught by surprise. However, you cannot set surprise up in the battle. I would pull a couple of aa guns in the editor if you find it too difficult. During play testing, the field was taken about a third of the time. As I said, during playing, head first gets you killed. Yse the terrain and manuever to take the airfield.

Rune

[**YK2**]

Rune.. can you go to ICQ like NOW please??

[rune]

Nope am at work...dirty job but someone has to do it.

Rune

[Michael Emrys]

Too bad. Sounded like she urgently needed to confess something.

Michael

[Eric Alkema]

What sort of maneuver did you have in mind? The only options I saw were

Advance in the open from the (I think it was) west.

Advance in the open from the (I think it was) north.

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spoiler

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There are a few terrain features but they are not less than 600m from the guns, and with only three tanks with small HE loads, it seems like nibbling at what few guns you can spot from range, is likely to only net you a few guns.

Am I wrong, or is there some other move you can pull with your rather pokey armor.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Eric Alkema:

What sort of maneuver did you have in mind? The only options I saw were

Advance in the open from the (I think it was) west.

Advance in the open from the (I think it was) north.

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spoiler

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There are a few terrain features but they are not less than 600m from the guns, and with only three tanks with small HE loads, it seems like nibbling at what few guns you can spot from range, is likely to only net you a few guns.

Am I wrong, or is there some other move you can pull with your rather pokey armor.

Leap frog your Australian infantry forward, while your Matildas provide covering fire.

[rune]

Remind me to slap you when I get the chance.

The testers took the airfield by going wide to the right, and timing their assault with tanks. It is certainly a difficult one to win as the Allies, due to the fact you cannot gain surprise on the Italians. Feel free to take out 2-3 aa guns to balance it out a little better.

Hmm...makes me think...there should be a way to acheive surprise for CMX2. Say the guns cannot fire for the first XX turns. Got me thinking on this...

Rune

[Eric Alkema]

I wonder if one could make do with making some of the guns reinforcements. I have zero experience making scenarios and I am at work, so I can't try it and see what happens.

[Eric Alkema]

I would think that the attacker would need to have some way of knowing that he had the element of surprise, like being told so in the briefing. Otherwise, the only way to find out would be to dash straight at the defenses. If you don't blow up, they were surprised. I don't see any non-cesspool players attempting that tactic without any prior knowledge.

[rune]

Thinking about it, I have approached the guys on an idea for the new engine. If it can be done, and when the time comes, I will let you know. Thanks for the idea!

Rune

[Kingfish]

Hmm...makes me think...there should be a way to acheive surprise for CMX2. Say the guns cannot fire for the first XX turns. Got me thinking on this...

Given the size of the map, and the dust clouds thrown up by so many vehicles, how could surprise be achieved even if the guns don't fire for XX turns?

[Eric Alkema]

Yea, it seems like it would be hard to swoop down on anyone at about 20 mph.

[flamingknives]

Start the tanks closer, ready suppress the guns and have them facing the wrong way?

Have guns coming in as reinforcements on turn X? (of course, there would be trouble as these would not be dug in.)

[Mad Russian]

Originally posted by rune:

Remind me to slap you when I get the chance.

The testers took the airfield by going wide to the right, and timing their assault with tanks. It is certainly a difficult one to win as the Allies, due to the fact you cannot gain surprise on the Italians. Feel free to take out 2-3 aa guns to balance it out a little better.

Hmm...makes me think...there should be a way to acheive surprise for CMX2. Say the guns cannot fire for the first XX turns. Got me thinking on this...

Rune

Think in terms of % of surprise. Like reinforcements. That way you are not automatically un-surprised at a specific moment but have to work through it.

Panther Commander

[Michael Emrys]

Rune, would giving the Italians a lower experience level help? Or can you start them off with a hit on their global morale? Still not the perfect answer, but might help?

Michael

[xerxes]

If you start the surprised side off in a "panic" state they'll take (depending on experience) minutes to recover. Green troops will still be "pinned" after 4 minutes and still not be spotting very well. I find this simulates surprise quite well in that the defender can't move or target his units until they get out of the panicked state. Vets recover morale very quickly so this doesn't work as well for them. Of course it really depends on what effect you're trying for in a scenario.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by xerxes:

If you start the surprised side off in a "panic" state they'll take (depending on experience) minutes to recover.

Ah! That's what I was trying to think of. Good call.

Michael

[Aco4bn187inf]

For those of you out there who have won this scenario as the allies, I would be interested to hear how you did it, if you could give more detail than is given above.

My problems-

Can't suppress a meaningful number of guns at one time. (Can't hardly suppress any at all.)

Once heavy fighting starts, crusader CS tanks retreat from enemy guns instead of firing.

Have people succeeded in knocking out guns with AP shot, or with MG's? If so, at what range have you done it? Have your CS tanks duelled sucessfully with the enemy guns? With their 200m/s muzzle velocity I wasn't willing to try it. I figured I would have to overrun the guns but it's not working.

The situation seems to require a totally flawless attack plan, no margin for error, but half my opponents guns were still hidden when I began my attack...

What I've done wrong, I guess-

5 surviving German vehicles were milling about among the Easternmost revetments. They were driving eratically at the sight of my tanks, popping lots of smoke and throwing up dust. I figured that was a better smokescreen than my CS tanks were ever going to manage on their own, so I began my rush without my forces being quite all together in one mass yet.

I came from behind cover in the East and Southeast, trying to let the CS tanks fire smoke along LOS's between lanes of my attacking tanks.

The enemy opened up with 6 known and 8 previously unknown guns.

At this point the doorbell rang. It was the FedEx man. "Package from your opponent," he said. Inside the package was my ass, on fire and shot full of holes.

That's a metaphor, OK? Any help with this scenario would be greatly appreciated.

[karch]

Originally posted by xerxes:

If you start the surprised side off in a "panic" state they'll take (depending on experience) minutes to recover. Green troops will still be "pinned" after 4 minutes and still not be spotting very well. I find this simulates surprise quite well in that the defender can't move or target his units until they get out of the panicked state. Vets recover morale very quickly so this doesn't work as well for them. Of course it really depends on what effect you're trying for in a scenario.

Now THAT is a very cool idea. If someone makes a scenario or 2 I'd love to help test. scottkarchcm at gmail.com

[jjelinek]

I've played this one 3 times and lost bad every time. The first time I tried a pincer from opposite flanks. The second time I tried the right flank. The third time I tried the left flank. It seems that the left flank allows you to get more forces close without bringing as many of the enemy forces into effective range, although Rune said that the right flank might be better. At this point I think that the key might be to maximize the effectiveness of the few smoke and HE firing tanks that are available. If anyone has won this one let us know.

[Aco4bn187inf]

I think you are right about the smoke firing tanks, jjelinek.

It seems the ideal would be to have a smoke screen as close to Italian positions as possible, and charge ALL available vehicles through it "all at once."

(As much as the factors of vehicle speeds, command delays, and terrain make that possible.)

You would have to do this on the shortest 'facet' of the enemy's position, so proportionally your smoke would mask the largest number of his guns. (In the case of my current oppoment's set up this was the Eastern flank of the airfield.)

The smoke throwers could potentially be beside a small rise, just out of sight of the enemy, but having LOS to a 'smoke-target' area a few meters beside the enemy.

Plus you have to arrange so one tank's smoke mission doesn't block LOS for another's.

Don't mean to obsess about this scenario but If it's possible to win I want to find out how.

[JasonC]

You can beat it. Here is how.

Spoiler alert. If you care, go die first. Thank you.

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So first you see what you are up against. If you want to find out the hard way, your funeral. Me, I peeked. Then I decided what to do.

The Eye-Ties have 4 75mm AA guns at the airfield. These will kill anything they hit with any round. They each have 70 rounds. The HE counts because it will still go in.

The Eye-Ties have 4 47mm AT guns at the airfield. These have 23, 23, 18, and 18 AP ammo each. Those will go through a Crusader front, the HE will not. The balance up to 50 rounds is HE, dangerous only to the armored cars.

The Germans also have 4 heavy PSWs with 75L24 guns. Fortunately, they are thin skinned and low muzzle velocity, but these can potentially kill Crusaders (with AP from the front).

The Eye-Ties have more light 20mm AA and ATR ammo than you can shake a stick at. The Germans have 12 20mm armored cars. All of them can make a hash of your dinkie armoured cars under about 1000 meters, but can't hurt a Crusader, or even the armoured cars at serious range.

When the impossible has been eliminated whatever remains, however wild or implausible, must be the solution.

Charging in with the armoured cars means 20mm Flak eats lots of armour cars. Then when the Crusaders follow, the heavy AA eats the Crusaders. Charging after the German armored cars with the South African ones will get lots of your South Africans swissed by laser autocannons to no purpose.

Face it, the South African armoured car has only one telos in life, one reason to exist, one contribution to make to this glorious hack. To be shot at. By the highest calibers available and for as long as possible, but relentlessly and endlessly shot at.

To win this one you need to have a strong passive aggressive streak and a brutal attritionist's mindset. A few tactics also help, but they are secondary. The main answer is just math.

70 shots each of 4 AA guns at 6 shots per minute is 48 gun-minutes of serious hurt. 23-23-18-18 shots of 47mm AP at 6 shots per minute is 14 gun-minutes of serious enough hurt. The Eye-Ties can fire 62 gun-minutes.

Ergo, get them to fire with 4-5 guns at a time at the South African armoured cars. At 1000m. Moving. In and out of dust.

There are 27 armoured cars. To kill them all, the Eye-Ties need 270 shots if they average 10% accuracy against (lamentably, not all that small) moving targets at range. They will overkill some. I find they typically actually kill only 1-2 per minute with 3-4 guns firing. The 47mm don't know any better and don't use HE, so their AP is gone in minutes, long before they see a Crusader.

While the armoured cars mill about south and southeast of the airfield, at the edge of the brush or so (have to get that close to induce the AI to fire), purely to soak up ammo from the low fire discipline Eye-Ties, the Crusaders go around the right looking for the German armored cars. And blow them to heck. Staying oh about 2 kilometers from the airfield, with South Africans in between making dust and eating shells.

When the South Africans are ruined and so are the German armored cars, turn left with all the Crusaders together. Have the remaining South Africans tear along the airfield perimeter, still at about 1000m so the light AA isn't enough to kill them, making dust and eating more shells. If you already got them all killed, use the last 3 that arrive late to make a dust screen on the southeast edge of the airfield.

Now, on the axis of the southeastern revetments, come in with all the Crusaders in a block on fast. The late-arriving CS tanks and 57s can go straight to the entry point behind the AC dust, no need for them to detour around the right. Perpendicular to the South African's last dust forming run.

Run right up that line of revetments and physically drive over any gun in your way. One or two of the 75s might have a little ammo left. They will torch a few Crusaders, but they won't have enough left to get all 24 of them on "fast". The CSs can pull left of the massive dust cloud this sends up, to try to mask anything actually firing with thrown smoke. Not a wide screen, just fired 40m in front of the shooter to blind him, personally.

If you do it right you should lose about 3/4 of the armored cars and only about half a dozen of the Crusaders.

Fire discipline is the AI's Achilles Heel in this one. It just won't pass up all those trash shots at worthless tin cans a km away. And its pretty 75mm AA ammo just won't last long enough to do both sets. The 20mm stuff is should use on the armoured cars, won't even scratch the paint on the Crusaders.

[Aco4bn187inf]

Thanks for that, Jason C.

By AI, do you mean your opponent was the AI, or that the AI was overriding your human opponent's hide or covered arc commands?

A few interesting things did happen during my debacle.

In a rare event in the history of the Marmon-Herrington, I succeeded in killing about 8 enemy armored cars while losing only a couple of my own. My opponent, an eager beginner at CMAK, allowed several many-on-one shootouts involving masses of M-H's. He benefitted from his lesson, though, and changed his methods.

His forces often misidentified my M-H's as Stuarts, which was kind of interesting and helpful. With the little boxy turret, flexible MG on top, that seems quite realistic.

Also the boys ATR was surprisingly accurate out to near its maximum range, to the chagrin of at least one overtaxed PSW222.

The PSW 233 did heroic service for my newbie opponent, one of them surviving at least 4 Boys and 40mm full penetrations over several running mini-engagements. It's fast and it packs a blast, especially at close range where the slow-flying shell isn't a handicap.

There was a lot of exciting racing and fighting for hull-down advantage on the crests of those bumps in the sand.

I'm at 17% global morale now, the next tank I lose will be the end of my fighting spirit.

So much for the desert...

[JasonC]

AI opponent. Against a human who knows what he is doing and exercises proper fire discipline, its hopeless.