Rugged Defense CM Tournament AARs - Me262 vs Barleyman

[RobH]

The third in the series of AARs from Round 4 in the Rugged Defense Short-75 and Panther-76 Tournaments and accompanying movies is now available on the Rugged Defense Combat Mission Tournament AAR website.

Also, read all about the Tournaments themselves from the Rugged Defense Combat Mission Tournament website.

This AAR completes the trilogy of games between Barleyman, Buckeye and Me262. Thanks guys for some really excellent AARs. None of the attackers won in this Group so it is really worthwhile to learn from the defenders in these three battles to see how a good town defence can be created.

This is the same map of course as for the previous AARs but you will again see another entirely different style of attack and defense in this battle. One point of note is just how flexible Barleyman keeps his defense, moving it around continuously to meet perceived or real attacker threats.

This AAR again really does show just how difficult it can be to get a foothold into a well defended town and is an excellent example of how to keep your defence fluid and reactive to an attacker's moves.

Thanks Me262 and Barleyman for a very interesting and informative exercise for us all !

Enjoy this battle! There is a lot to learn from it as from the previous ones.

The 4th AAR in the series should be published shortly.

As previously, any discussion on the AAR is most welcome on this thread.

Rob

[Fionn]

Thanks Rob,

These are good resources... Very good resources. I don't think people appreciate just how good as of yet though.

[Wolfe]

Oooo! Fun!

Very well done on both sides! ME did very well with his inf. And Barley's handling of the Sherm-76 was particularly excellent.

Some observations (mostly tactical).

Axis:

The flame vehicles were mostly a waste. They simply have to travel too far before they can fire any shots for them to be useful. Though watching 3 tungsten rounds bounce at 160m was really priceless!

Your scout platoons did a good job of discovering and engaging his forward positions. But you did ask a bit much of some of them by giving them orders to run across too much terrain, particularly for the initial platoons in the middle. And you Moved (instead of ran) some across open ground. No need to expose them longer than absolutely necessary.

You launched your main force out of their FUPs very well, but I think you took an excessive risk by joining so many squads to one Company HQ on the right. He may have nice command bonuses, but their Plt HQs were far away and the nearest alternate Co HQ was atleast a turn away, which can at times be critical, especially for so many squads. You had extra Co HQs; I think I would have taken an extra one along. Also, they were rather bunched together and stopped to fight on open ground at times. Open ground is *real* bad in CM.

BTW, why did you combine the Bat HQ with a platoon? I don't remember how this guy was used.

Just a little bit of arty would have flattened a number of his platoons; he really placed them close together. Oh well. Hindsite is 20/20.

Real bad luck with that Tiger. He could have been so useful.

And I really, really hate gun hits. I really do.

In spite of the score (and the horrible time with your vehicles), you effectively defeated Barley; he had almost nothing left except for the two tanks. Nice job.

Allied:

The initial overwatch was excellent, IMO. You were able to see just about every enemy infantry unit that moved!

I liked the forward defense, and you pulled most back just in time to avoid the enemy onslaught. Nice! But creating some extra foxholes with half-squads and then rejoining on Turn 1 might have been useful in some cases.

The Sherman-76 was used almost to perfection. It attacked when the enemy wasn't looking, and faded away when ME moved in to attack it. Sweet! The only quibbles I have are allowing it to stay buttoned through a number of turns early on when an enemy tank could have rounded the corner or popped up over a ridge and taken the Sherman down (the enemy inf didn't seem to be all *that* close to require constant buttoning). And you let Barley's infantry get too close at the very end of the game. But the Sherm didn't end up like the Priest, so in the end, it didn't matter this time. Really well done, overall.

You definitely were too impatient with your AT guns. Letting them open up before it's too late is important, but that was much too early, IMO. And the placement on open ground: a big no-no. CM doesn't reward infantry for being 'hull-down' on open ground, whether it's behind a ridge or behind a wall; even with a foxhole they're still very exposed.

Excellent use of arty, but I think you tried too hard to flatten all his recon units on your left flank early on. They were already taking fire from infantry and your AFVs. A turn of arty was certainly helpful, but I think you used too much on them.

BTW, don't bunch up your platoons so much. They were just begging to be arty'd into the ground.

Very enjoyable to watch, guys. Many thanks! Even the painful stuff was good to see (that recon-by-death performed by one of ME's platoons brought back some bad memories for me).

BTW, I hope all this doesn't sound too critical. All in all it was a job well done on both sides.

- Chris

[ June 24, 2002, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

[Barleyman]

Oh constructive criticism is always fine. Do note that the german attacker didn't win the scenario.

I'm pretty satisfied with how I handled the first half of the game but I made some really bad decisions during the last half. Being over-eager with my guns is a fault of mine.. That's what the girls say as well

I was really looking for 2-2-1 situation but tac-ai ****ed up by rotating guns to engage new targets instead of keeping firing at the current target. As for open ground.. One word: Treeburst