Line of Defense - AAR

[Runyan99]

All spoilers here, so don't read this if you have not yet played the scenario.

********************************************

I took the Americans against the AI. I almost never play against the AI, but I didn't want to wait to arrange a PBEM opponent for one of the demo scenarios, so I just fired it up. I figured I would beat the AI handily. As it turned out, I had a very tough time!

Looking at the map. Basic town assault. Open terrain along the road to my left. A wooded hill on my right. I figure if I send my armor down the road on the left, they are sure to run into guns, and possibly tanks. I don't want that. I cannot send the infantry across the open terrain either, for fear they will get pinned down.

For those reasons, I decide to send the infantry to the right, through the woods and towards the church.

I have a rifle company and an engineer platoon. I send two of the rifle platoons forward, in line abreast, up the hill and into the woods. The thrird platoon in reserve (a classic two-up-one-back deployment) and I will also keep the engineers in reserve.

About 10 turns into the game, these platoons reach the end of the woods, and are just at the edge of the town, across from the church. I take MG fire from the church. I set up my support weapons, and I split some of my squads. Half squads with the BAR are used to fight it out with the MG in the church.

Nice sound effects generally. The ping of the Garand ejecting the clip is a nice addition. (Edit - I played this one on my old laptop. Running a few turns now on my home machine, there is a lot of difference in the sound. I actually prefer the sound I was getting out of the crappy soundcard on my laptop! The small arms sounded crisper, somehow. Oh well. I will reserve judgement until I get the full version).

This firefight goes on for 10 minutes. Sometimes, the MG in the church will go silent for more than a minute. But as soon as I send a maneuver team forward, the MG opens up again, and the firefight starts all over again. It is clear that I am not going to be able to establish fire superiority with the infantry alone. I have to get my tanks into the battle.

I decide to use the Greyhound and the Stuarts first. The Greyhound is a scout vehicle, so I send it up the hill to get a look at the village. As soon as it peaks over the hill, just around the woods, it is knocked out by a gun. Of course.

The gun is near the road, next to a house on the left side of the map. I call down an indirect mortar barrage on the gun's position. I use one 60mm mortar in direct fire against the gun. I try to suppress the gun with a few rifle squads and one MG.

The gun gets the better of the deal. It is some kind of low velocity infantry gun (probably 75mm). It wreaks havoc. It KOs two 60mm mortar teams, and causes 50% casualties in the two squads trying to suppress it. After the indirect barrage however, it is silent. I send the first Stuart over the hill to take the position under direct tank fire, to esure the destruction of the gun.

The Stuart is immediately hit and KO'ed by a second gun, of course. This one is in the light woods on the far left side of the map.

Another indirect barrage. Dust. Treebursts. A fire starts right on the gun's position. Looks like I might have got it.

Note - The dust effect kicked up by a barrage is a neat effect. It never had any actual affect on LOS in my game, but it does add something to the realism.

Anyway, I send the second Stuart over the hill to take this second gun position under direct fire, to ensure it is knocked out. This second Stuart is hit by the FIRST gun, previously silent but apparently still operational. The Stuart is not knocked out, but takes a crew casualty, and is able to back down the hill and out of further danger.

Now, the first gun position is again taken under fire by my last 60mm mortar. No more activity from that gun.

The firefight at the church is still ongoing, so it is apparent that I need to force the issue with my Shermans. I send a pair up to the hill together. They are able to knock out the second gun position, and the first gun position is taken under additional fire, just to be sure. One of the two tank commanders is hit by a German sniper in the village.

Now, there is a German tank of some kind in the village. I half expect a Tiger. I decide to back the two Shermans off the hill, and get one of my M10 TDs up there to take on that German tank.

The first TD comes up the hill, and immediately loses the tank commander to that same damn German sniper. Not wanting to get into a tank duel at a disadvantage, that TD back off the hill. I bring up my second TD, buttoned up.

I have a hard time engaging the German tank, although by now I can see that it is a StuH. I get off a few bazooka shots from the woods, but no hits.

I bring up a couple more of my Shermans around the left side of the hill. I lose more tank commanders to the sniper. I have a problem with some tanks unbuttoning before the turn is up, although I gave them button orders. I figure this is a demo-only issue, and will not be a problem in the full version.

Eventually, I am able to bring the weight of my Shermans to bear on the village. German infantry positions are taken under direct tank fire. The StuH is eventually hit, immobilized, and abandoned. The church, STILL holing out against my infantry, is leveled on about turn 35.

I lose more tank commanders to snipers and panzerfausts.

As the church collapses, I have only comitted two platoons of rifle infantry to the fight, and I still have a fresh rifle platoon, and the two engineer platoons. I decide to send the last rifle platoon in to take the ruins of the church.

There is still a good number of Germans running around the village It is only by taking every enemy postion, real or imagined, under direct tank fire, that the third rifle platoon is able to cross the open ground, and approach the church ruins.

Finally, on turn 46, I get three GIs into the ruins of the church, and another six into a foxhole less than 100 meters away from the VP flag on the right.

The game ends. I am not awarded any flags. I suffer a Tactical Defeat.

With another 20 turns, I could have worked the third rifle platoon and the engineers through the village and taken the bridge. The original two platoons are pretty much fought-out, but there are still some squads in those platoons with enough ammo to provide a weak base of fire.

Stats:

-----------------------Axis-------Allied

Total Casualties:-------71---------32

KIAs:-------------------16---------10

Mortars lost:------------0----------2

Guns lost:---------------2----------0

Vehicles lost:-----------1----------2

I knocked out the StuH, and only lost one Greyhound and one Stuart. I did however lose the TC/driver in 7 of my 8 tanks!

The Germans hold all flags, so the final score is 70-30.

I will post some general observations on the differences between CMBB and CMAK later.

[ November 20, 2003, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Runyan99 ]

[Salkin]

I played this scenario to and I think it's a lot of fun .

Great AAR btw , only you still haven't seen everything the scenario has to offer .

//Salkin

[Runyan99]

Okay, time for my observations.

It seems that the infantry model has been tweaked even more since CMBB. Infantry combat seems to be less 'intense' than in CMBB.

Infantry combat was not very deadly, except when the target was caught moving, particularly in the open. Firefights between squads in cover produced few casualties and no routs that I can recall. In CMBB, I can regularly rout a squad by concentrating multiple fires. I found this very difficult in this game, even when the target was only in light woods, or behind a stone wall.

Ammo usage seems slower in CMAK. Squads appear to fire less often. I had squads and MG in constant contact for more than 20 minutes, and they still had ammo left.

Movement with the Advance command seems faster than in CMBB.

The Extreme FOW seems even 'foggier' than in CMBB. I cannot put my finger on exactly why, but I very rarely was able to identify an enemy squad, and there were several times where I took fire from an unlocated position.

Overall, I found CMAK tougher than CMBB. The jump from CMBB to CMAK is not nearly as dramatic as the jump from CMBO to CMBB, but there is a difference between the games. The tweaking process that begun in CMBB has clearly continued in CMAK. The infantry game plays out a little slower than in CMBB. I found the results in my game very realistic, but it was difficult to make progress in an infantry only fight. My two lead platoons were held up for 25 minutes by the MG in the church, and another squad or two. Every attempt to cross open terrain under fire met with failure. I think that the trend towards longer games is going to have to continue, and the fact that the two demo scenarios are both longer than 40 turns may be a reflection of this.

All of the above observations are only my opinion, and may or may not be accurate. Further play of CMAK may change my opinion again, or reveal new changes to the game system.