Explain Your Moments of Brilliance Here!

[Cribtop Gamer]

This thread is designed to gather some anecdotes that maybe we can use to create some new principles or just for jolly recollection of past victories.

Once we get past the newbie stage in this great game, we have all come to understand basic concepts (infantry formations; hull down; Tophat-Lowskie; alternating bounds; supporting base of fire, avenues of approach; kill sacks; etc., etc.).

When reading many of the excellent tactical primers available online, one common statement is "it depends on the situation and terrain, nothing is set in stone."

Thus, my call for anecdotes - describe a situation in which you or your opponent "stretched the rules" a bit and had it work brilliantly. Then discuss 1) what factors you think contributed to this coup and 2) whether you think it was a one-time thing or a tactic that could be re-used in other battles.

Who knows, maybe we'll all learn something.

[YankeeDog]

OK, I'll bite. I'd still definitely call myself a newbie, tho I'd like to think I've progressed beyond the 'beginner' stage to 'advanced beginner' by now.

Anyway, this is the story of the first time I really kicked the AI's butt without cheating - it was a scenario I'd never played before, so I had no advantage in 'knowing the map', knowing the OPFOR, etc. Now I usually defeat the AI with ease on smaller scenarios. I'm still learning on the bigger battles, though - just need more practice keeping everything coordinated, I guess.

This was the St. Anne's Chappelle scenario included with the CD - it's a short (10 turn) tiny scenario, and I assume most are familiar with it, but if you are not, you may not want to read on to avoid spoiling the fun. I played Allies' (U.S.) defence.

My total victory was basically due to the heroics of one unit - Cpl. Riley's bazooka team - my lone AT asset. Over the course of the battle, he knocked out ALL of the German vehicles. Given that the tactical superiority of the attacking Axis forces in this scenario is mostly the three HTs and one AC they possess, this pretty much shut down the attack and doomed his infantry to annhilation.

This scenario has one rather small setup zone around the VL for the Allies. There is one heavy building on the VL, plus a roadblock across the road that runs through the setup zone. There is a secondary (dirt) road that runs just south of the Allied setup zone (along the edge of my right flank), at a slightly higher elevation than the VL and the main road.

My first success was good placement. Riley's zook was set up on my right flank, supported by an MG and an infantry squad. From there, he could cover both the main road and also the secondary road. As well, from here it would be easy to move him around unobserved - lots of good woods and trees.

Kill #1: Early on in the attack, the AI sent a HT down the secondary road to flank my position and offer fire support to infantry units coming up on my left flank. My zook plinked this HT right from his starting foxhole, on this third shot as I recall, as the HT was trying to back rapidly out of the line of fire. So far, just good placement and some decent luck - his armor attack came right into where I had placed my one AT asset.

Kill #2: IMMEDIATELY (as in next orders phase) after knocking out the first HT, I withdrew the zook back out of the line of fire, and then ran him across the secondary road and into the woods where I hid him. I moved an infantry squad forward to the zook's old foxhole - I've since learned that this is a neat trick - having two units like a squad and a zook switch places after contact can really confuse an opponent. From his new position, the zook could cover the secondary road, but not the main road. I had good LOS down the main road, though, so I knew nothing was coming down it right away. This was my first use of what now has basically become doctrine for me: "IAT never strikes twice from the same place." Not successfully, anyway. Sure enough, another HT rolled down the secondary road, firing at the foxhole where I'm sure it thought the zook was sitting. It was firing at my squad, though, and while it caused some casualties to the squad, it too got KOed by the zook. True, a little bit of luck (got him in one shot from 100m), but a HT side-on is a big target, especially for a completely unsupressed veteran zook.

Kills #3 & 4: By now, I had another problem to deal with: an AC with a 20mm cannon was chewing up my left flank from a small hill in front of my position. My left flank was bearing the brunt of the infantry assault, I doubted it could hold for much longer if it kept taking supressive fire, especially since my .30 cal MG on that side had jammed, and so was not contributing at the moment. Once again Cpl. Riley came to the rescue. I moved him through the woods to a position well in front of my MLR where he could get a clear shot at the AC. On the way, he completely bypassed another HT that was coming down the secondary road. Riley KOed the AC in two shots, and then within 20 seconds of the AC kill, KOed the HT as it retreated up the road past him in an effort get some distance between it and an infantry squad I was attempting to close assault it with.

Once the vehicles were gone, the Germans were screwed. I held the VL and the associated good defensive ground. He no longer had tactical superiority, and a quick counterattack on turn 10 forced his surrender - his infantry was already pretty chewed up from trying to attack a prepared position without support.

What was lucky? Probably most of all the kill on the AC. This kill was at the longest distance (I think about 120m) and it quickly eliminated my opponent's best support asset. Even if I hadn't managed this kill, though, this attack still would have forced the AC to pull back from its firing position, and bought me valuable time to reorganize my left flank. Given that it was already turn 8 at this point, I still would have won, tho probably not by quite as wide a margin. The kill on the last HT was also a bit of luck, not so much in the kill itself, which took place at only 30 meters, but in that the HT backed literally right by the zook. Then again, that HT had just survived a close assault from a full squad, and I counted at least 4 grenade explosions around it and one demolition charge, so it had already used up alot of it's luck.

What did I learn? Well, I mentioned my "IAT never strikes from the same place twice" rule. I'm sure there's a more 'military' way of stating this.

I also began to understand the value of higher quality units - Riley was a Veteran zook, and I doubt I would have been able to maneuver him so effectively if he had been a less experienced unit, especially because my orders of necessity took him out of C&C range. You can do this (when necessary) with vet units. With lesser units, you're just going to get them broken (at best) or killed if you try to pull something like this. Now, I really analyze the forces I start a scenario at treat any vet (or higher) units I have like gold - ESPECIALLY vet IAT units. Green or less IAT units seem pretty worthless to me unless (1) they're massed together (at least 3), and (2) hopefully under C&C of a headquarters unit with a combat bonus.

In larger tactical sense, this battle was the first time that I began to understand that a successful defence is generally an active defence. I actually find myself taking tactical risks like running zook teams around in wide right hooks on the defence much more than I do on offence - it's well worth the risk if you can (1) throw off the timing of an assault, or (2) take out a major asset that's supporting the attack. If you sit there and wait, you're probably just giving your opponent a chance to line up his support weapory and defeat you in detail. To this end, I now place my units on the defence with much more attention to being able move them if the need (or opportunity) arises.

I hope some other newbies contribute to this thread - I love hearing tales from the front.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

[QB]Green or less IAT units seem pretty worthless to me unless (1) they're massed together (at least 3), and (2) hopefully under C&C of a headquarters unit with a combat bonus.

From what I've heard this week on the forum, Combat bonuses only increase a unit's firepower...in an infantry/rifle squad sense. It apparently does nothing for towed guns, AAA, inf. AT teams, etc. that rely on a Blast Rating instead of Firepower Rating. I'm not sure about this, but that would mean no increase of accuracy?

** I hope some CM Veteran could shed some light on this.**

(double posted on CM General forum)

[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

[Gpig]

Just won a battle against my pal playing Wiltz (off the CD). Axis surrender.

The pivitol point in the battle came after I had already taken out most of his armored assets with long range M-10 fire from the Right most hill. (Nice spot, that.)

He was advancing infantry up both my flanks. I had a platoon of G.I.'s at each of the VL's. They were spread pretty wide, as the flags were also on a wide front.

My most important placement was my sniper. I had ran him up to a great LOS position by turn 2 and he could see the approaches very well. He spotted 4 infantry? markers making double time towards some woods. Their approach was deep to my right. There was lots of cover from that point to my Right VL. So I surmised he had at least a platoon coming that way, through the woods. It was this intel gathering that allowed me to set up a devestating ambush.

There was a great place for an ambush at the foot of my Right side hill. A little clearing about 30m wide between the approach woods, and the hills bottom. I set up my platoon of G.I.'s and one 1917MG team in the woods, facing this clearing. As it seemed to me to be the place where his infantry would come out.

Sure enough, after 7-8 minutes of waiting, his troops began materializing through the woods. I had set my ambush marker right in front of my Platoon leader, amongst my own men. This forced my guys to wait even longer than normal. They all watched what looked like two platoons of FJ's approach the clearing and start to run accross.

The next turn's order phase, I just unhid my men, and did not target anything. With such a wealth of targets, I thought I'd let the TacA.I. do the targetting for them.

Two minutes later, my opponent had lost two whole platoons of men, while I had suffered only 6 casualties.

He surrendered right after that.

AMBUSH's require patience, and advance planning. And especially good intel. But MAN when they work . . . they can change the whole battle.

Gpig.

[Cribtop Gamer]

Great stories, YankeeDog and Gpig!

Anyone else want to share?

And Silvio, I've been wondering about your issue myself.

[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: Cribtop Gamer ]

[YankeeDog]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

From what I've heard this week on the forum, Combat bonuses only increase a unit's firepower...in an infantry/rifle squad sense. It apparently does nothing for towed guns, AAA, inf. AT teams, etc. that rely on a Blast Rating instead of Firepower Rating. I'm not sure about this, but that would mean no increase of accuracy?

[/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Huh. Now that I think of it, my greater success with Green IAT under command might be due to factors like being able to set an ambush marker so the Greenies don't pop off a shot at long range and reveal themselves too early, not necessarily any real increase in accuracy per shot. They seem to do stupid things more often when they're out of command, plus the command delay becomes unworkable if they're out of C&C. . . Quoting the manual, though, under "Leadership Abilities" (p. 81)

"Combat (icon: lightning bolt)

Increases the fighting abilities of units under its command (i.e. to-hit chance, firepower)" (emphasis added)

I'd be interested to get the answer from someone who really knows.

[Herr Kruger]

Not really a moment of brilliance, more a moment of luck... in a Chance Encounter (demo) I had artillery coming down, an enemy Sherman was passing through that area... a nearby explosion from the artillery damaged its gun, a few seconds later in the same playback the tank became bogged and the crew then abandoned the vehicle.... that was a bloody Chance Encounter though... 208 casualties for me (Axis) and 179 casualties for the Americans. :eek:

[Brewmeister]

I never thought of this as brilliance but it was nice to know that someone else used the same tactic and got the same result. I am referring to YankeeDog's experience with the St. Chappelle scenario which I played many moons ago and I swear I was reading a play by play of my game. The lesson I learned is that brilliance isn't some fancy move sometimes it is just knowing how the enemy thinks, in this case the AI, and anticipate their moves. I knew the AI would send an unescorted AFV down a narrow road bounded by trees because that was toward the objective flag. I just waited for them to blunder into an ambush.

[l3w53r]

just a moment of luck...a single 105 arty barrage killed 2 panthers in one turn=)

and on another turn I smoked the area where another 2 panthers were rumbling down and ran a zook to their hiney's.both panthers were buttoned so only one panther saw my zook...that is after he blew the other one up.Well, my zook and the panther that saw him raced at who could fire first.To my relief the zook killed the PzV just as it pointed its turret at the general direction of the zook.

And on another scenario the enemy had a KT rumbling down the road with onlt stuarts and a 40mm Bofors to stop it.so what I did was dash the stuart across the road and into a hedge just to make the KT buttoned up. Then I aimed the bofors at the road, paused it for 30 seconds, and just as the buttoned KT rumbled down it the bofor's opend fire with HE's, and disabled he KT,which was abandoned later as the stuart kept harrassing it. I also killed the KT with the stuart when I replayed the scenario after the stuart ran straight into the king tiger(literally),fired at the sonuvabitch at point blank range, hit a weak spot, and knocked the thing out.talk about luck!

[Wilhammer]

Timing.

A winter QB, my enemy is going to go down the roads with vehicles and infantry, and I know how fast they move. I deployed spotters (sharpshooters, light vehicles) to spot approaches, and I plot artillery fire timed to fall about where they would be after X minutes.

Eventaully, I spotted some unknown units doing as I expected, plotted the arty, and waited.

I put up a small blocking force at the expected place of first contact to help the enemy decide to halt.

The arty came down with perfect timing. HTs full of men, tanks, dismounted soldiers, all hit by an intense 155 and 105 barrage. Many kills out of LOS. Opponent surrendered. After battle viewing show nearly a company of infantry blasted, several HTs burning, a platoon of AFVs in various states of damage.

It is a strange visual site to see a vehicle burning without seeing the vehicle.