Polish Push

[Vadr]

I *hated* this scenario.

My opponent and I fought to an exact 50-50 score for a Draw.

WTF is up with that? It was bloody, close, truly painful to watch each and every turn. I kept feeding in troops and watching them get massacred as fast as I fed them in...

Oh God, The Horror...

Vadr

PS - This would make a great TCP/IP matchup. Short and small, but VERY intense.

[MrSpkr]

Originally posted by Vadr:

I *hated* this scenario.

My opponent and I fought to an exact 50-50 score for a Draw.

WTF is up with that? It was bloody, close, truly painful to watch each and every turn. I kept feeding in troops and watching them get massacred as fast as I fed them in...

Oh God, The Horror...

Vadr

PS - This would make a great TCP/IP matchup. Short and small, but VERY intense.

Heh!

I *KICKED* butt and took names on this one. Something like 87-13 or so.

Those Poles PAID for interrupting our evening meal . . .

[Holien]

Warning Spoilers Below.......

Hmmm,

I would say the game is fairly balanced and it all depends on the use of the TRP's.

Wolfie got rushed on this one and I managed to keep the pressure up.

If the Germans can get there extra men on without hinderance then that can swing it their way.

Lucky for me I had my me in the right spot to plug his two Stugs as soon as they showed themselves.

I would be interested to know how and why the Germans did well as I think it is slightly harder to defend well in this one?

Did the German players split their squads?

H

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Holien:

Hmmm,

I would say the game is fairly balanced and it all depends on the use of the TRP's.

Hi H. Good to see you're around.

I'm surprised you consider TRP's for the Polish to be a great deal of use. I didn't know the Poles had them but even with them, I don't see how they'd be terribly useful for a defending force using mainly buildings as cover.

...SNIP...

If the Germans can get there extra men on without hinderance then that can swing it their way.

Couldn't agree more. Thankfully for me I was able to get my re-inforcements on relatively unmolested, otherwise they may well have suffered the same fate as your opponents.

Lucky for me I had my me in the right spot to plug his two Stugs as soon as they showed themselves.

I would be interested to know how and why the Germans did well as I think it is slightly harder to defend well in this one?

Did the German players split their squads?

H

From my point of view I thought critical issues with that scenario were initial placement of the 3 mine tiles the defender had as well as where the Panzerschrecks were emplaced. In my game as the Germans my 2 anti-personnel mines were very effective in stalling the initial Polish infantry attack which bought time for my re-inforcements to appear in one piece.

As for the Panzerschrecks, my two teams were able to destroy 3 of the 5 Cromwells which took the pressure right off the 2 re-inforcing Stugs- not that one of my 2 lasted at all long once in the vicinity of it's allocated ambush position.

Funnily enough, the 75mm A.T. gun in my game did bugger all, hardly firing a shot the whole game until right at the end when there were some infantry targets to take pot shots at as I knew by then that it wouldn't be needed for anti-tank duty. I'm sure your game was quite different however.

As for splitting the German squads, I found I didn't need to as they held up pretty well against the enemy infantry by ensuring they weren't too close to the front walls of buildings that would be prime targets for H.E. shelling by tanks.

My overall impression of the scenario was that it quite decidedly favoured the Germans. I guess that shows it must be reasonably balanced then.

Regards

Jim R.

[Holien]

Hi KR, Yep still lurking as I am UK based and we don't have something here yet.

I am considering the USA route...

Anyway before that spike character gloats over our lack of software onto the Push...

I was up against Wolfie and very worried about his reputation.

As the Attacker I knew at those ranges (low vis) I would be prey to his AT assets and really need to play a difficult game of keeping my tanks far enough back to avoid the AT's and close enough to support my poor foot sloggers.

The TRPs worked a treat as Wolfie had good foxholes around the X roads. I had a TRP on the X Roads and was able to call in the 4.2" rounds quickly. These kept his head down for about 50% of his force and caused quite a few to break.

He had some other guys in buildings which were in LOS of my tanks (I did not know this at the time) and he suffered badly when those buildings came down. This represented anothe 25% of his force.

I advanced quickly and exploited his bad luck and managed to route his force before his reinforcements hit.

When they came on I had moved my spotter into the remaining buildings and was able to wipe his infantry with more 4.2" and my piats and tanks put paid to his Stugs.

I was lucky in the way he deployed that allowed me to quickly push him back and cause a total collaspe.

He managed to tag one tank with the AT gun but by that stage I had infantry in his rear and they rushed the newly discovered fox hole the following turn.

His HMG's were rushed (unfairly but I do know the limitations) and fell prey to my squads as they tried to flee.

His failing was deploying in fox holes around the X Road and my shelling of that area. That started the rot and I quickly exploited it.

So for me TRP's rock and dropping a few buildings allowed me to gain the upper hand.

H

[CombinedArms]

The scoresheet seems to indicate that there are bigger point swings in this little scenario than in any other. (Lots of 80+ point wins for both sides.) Although I fought, as Axis, to a 52-48 draw, I can see the reasons for these big swings, and one of the reasons, IMHO, is luck! There's more luck at work, in my view, in this scenario than in any other. If my 75mm ATG hadn't bounced a shot off the turret of one of two surviving Cromwells in the game's final turns (how often does that happen on a Cromwell?) and if my vet Stug hadn't missed a nearly point blank shot on the other surviving Cromwell, I might have won this one handily. Instead, the two Cromwells survived and my Stug got killed by return fire, costing me my last armor and with that my chance to repel the Polish assault on one of my two VLs. But with worse luck, I might have lost battle by a sizeable margin, too.

I tend to think of the following factors as ones that enhance the role luck plays in a scenario:

smallness, shortness, prevalence of armor, relative point-importance of VLs (i.e. big VLs and small on board forces--contrast with "Another Day"), and night conditions. All five are operating in this scenario, hence the greater importance of luck. These factors also help to explain the large point swings. If you kill all the enemy armor and take both VLs (which can happen from either side) you will win big. If you lose all your armor and both VLs, you will lose big. If your losses are split and you split the VLs, it will be a draw (my result.)

BTW, I somehow missed the fact that there were TRPs. That explains the fact that the Poles knocked out my mortars so fast--but fortunately they overlooked my ATG. TRPs seem a bit unlikely from a real life perspective in the context of a night attack, don't they? Or am I missing something?

[Holien]

Yep I agree the swings can be explained by all those factors...

As for TRP's these can be legit in most situations.

Arty is often zero'd on key targets well before any battle starts and this could have been done days in advance.

Be it attack or defence a TRP or two helps give the player who uses it well an edge and I do not think it needs any strecth of the imagination to allow for it.

The only situations perhaps where it would not be realistic is if you are re-creating a meeting engagement which is un-planned.

As for Luck I agree luck plays a big role, some would say you make your own luck and I would agree with that as well.

Was it luck that I placed a TRP on Wolfies central defences around the X Road? Or was it his bad choice to place his forces there?

H

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Holien:

Yep I agree the swings can be explained by all those factors...

As for TRP's these can be legit in most situations.

Arty is often zero'd on key targets well before any battle starts and this could have been done days in advance.

Be it attack or defence a TRP or two helps give the player who uses it well an edge and I do not think it needs any strecth of the imagination to allow for it.

The only situations perhaps where it would not be realistic is if you are re-creating a meeting engagement which is un-planned.

As for Luck I agree luck plays a big role, some would say you make your own luck and I would agree with that as well.

Was it luck that I placed a TRP on Wolfies central defences around the X Road? Or was it his bad choice to place his forces there?

H

A bit of both I'd suggest there, a bit of both. Mind you, I'm surprised Wolfe didn't make use of the lovely buildings in the vicinity as cover. Perhaps he'll join in the thread to discuss his reasons for having those guys in the open (albeit in foxholes).

Regards

Jim R.

Regards

Jim R.

[Redwolf]

I lost badly on this one and agree to Holiens remarks.

Overall I tend to think I had a good portion of bad luck which by

extension made my reinforcements unusable.

The antipersonell minefield in front of a house in front of my Schreck

was simply crossed by a squad which went into the house and shot the

Schreck in the foxhole behind, so no tank kills here.

As for setting up in foxholes instead of houses, I try hard to stay

out of CMBO houses. I have foxholes between the houses and use the

houses to narrow down the possible angles of long-range tank shots. I

didn't expect the Polish to arrive with 4.2" mortars plus TRPs.

My CMBO house allegry was reinforced by this game. My only unit in the

center in a house was a HQ spotting for the mortars. A single tank

round destroyed the house, 3 men in the HQ and knocked out both

mortars behind the house, after the mortars had minimal effect. The

crews were paniced so I could't evacuate them, so there goes all my

fire support and a gazillion victory points (the crews are more

valuable than the mortars itself).

The StuG reinforcements arrived in direct LOS from several units. They

did not execute any of my commands before they got waxed.

The infantry reinforcement came too late for me.

Overall I think the scenario is flawed because there must be more room

for the StuG reinforcement to arrive and be deployed on the player's

behalf. While Holien got pretty far pretty quickly I think the

reinforcement point is too near the battle zone. The StuGs could have

made all the difference in the world.

Can somebody post my AAR? I'm posting from memory here and may have

selective memory and I am at work.

[Treeburst155]

I'd be interested to know how many German players lost their StuGs on the turn of entry. If the Poles push hard on their extreme left they will catch the StuGs coming on.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

AAR for redwolf in Polish Push

Setup:

- AT gun shoot down the diagonal road

- this forms a killzone right (my view of the road) and on the road,

by the bend

- AT mines are placed left of the road, to catch tanks which try to

escape the AT gun

- one Schreck in a foxhole behind the foremost house

- in front of the house in front of the Schreck a antipersonnel minefield

- behind it one HMG

- mortars as battery with QH spotting for it in the high building

behind the church. I know it's dangerous, but its my only artillery

- two HMG cover the hedge against infantry

- one minefield in the gap in the hedge

- infantry in the village, mostly in scattered trees besides the

roads. One HQ as spotter in upper level of the church. Yes I

know...

Second one, surprise number one: while I had HQ contact for everybody

in setup, now that people dug into the ground I have several units out

of command. Amoung them my rightmost squad at the map edge.

Turn one sees a tank firing at the church and grunts coming down the

roads and at the right (always my view) map edge. The HQ in the

church is hit worse than usual and can only be extracted with 1

survivour. Didn't really matter since command was out anyway. My

rightmost squad was placed in the ideal positions and withthe help of

the mortars hits the attackers at the map edge quite badly. But

without HQ the show is over soon, they run and get shot in the back.

The Schreck is killed by a squad just runing through the minefield

into the house and surviving the HMG fire while killing the Schreck.

Next turn, house down, next house.

One single shell knocks out both mortars standing behind the house.

Enemy infantry is near enough to kill all but 3 crewmen the next

turn.

All my MGs jam in the same turn.

Tanks roll up. One tank gets into the AT gun. My mighty PaK40

against a rather thinnie Cromwell. Three hits, only the third knocks

the tank out.

But what is that? a broken squad runs back twowards the gun and pushes

the gun out of the foxhole. The gun is turned 90 degrees away from

the enemy now. Great show, where's my popcorn?

Reinforcements! Great! Great? Nope. Beamed directly in front of the

the fast-turret Cromwells. Both are knocked out for no return, one

without moving, one even without turning.

More reinforcements! Great! Great? Nope. Also in LOS of the enemy,

although not as bad. But low global morale keeps them from being

effective and I get an autosurrender even with this units largely

intact. The reinformcement basically only improved the enemy score by

handing more prisoners to him. Total loss.

%%

I do not believe that this scenario can be won. Being unbalanced,

that might not even be a design goal.

However, there are several fun brakes in this scenario:

- the attacker has enough infantry to sweep away defenders without his

tanks. The attacker has non of the nice dilemmas that make a game

fun

- CMBO's restrictions on mortar spotting make on-map mortars a bad

choice for this scenario, in a town

- the ground is Damp, but the Cromwells are going just fine on it. I

think giving Shermans to the attacker would make for mor

einteresting gameplay as he is more likely to hug the road

- I think the mines should be allowed to be placed further in front of

the town

- obviously, do not beam Reinforcements right into the action

%%

I'm not sure what I could have done better, except for pulling my

infantry deeper into the village. But that neglects the foxhole

advantage, in open ground foxholes are not much better than the

buildings you would have been in if I defended from the inside. It

would also have made the problem of the StuGs appearing inside fire

zones more serious, as you would have advanced even further. Two HMGs

covered the hedges, but that was kind of neccessary.

If I knew where I was to get reinforcements on the road I would have

kept that area open.

I should have been more paranoid about units in the buildings, one HQ

was badly shot up, although the buildings were quite clear otherwise.

[MrSpkr]

My Stugs survived just fine. I didn't move them from their arrival area untiul the end of the game, however.

Had the Poles pushed a little harder on that flank, they MIGHT have been able to spot my reinforcements -- But I had that flank set up with an eye towards allowing him to push into the middle of town, rather than allowing him to push around on the map edge. I wanted him to get into the killing box.

The other thing I did (and I think it critical) was to withdraw my troops at the start of the 4.2" barrages. I was able to do that and thus avoid the worst of the mortar attacks which, although they brought down several houses, did not significantly harm my men.

After the barrage was over, I would rush back to my positions.

Steve

[ September 27, 2002, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: MrSpkr ]

[Big X]

Hi. I'm Charles on the spreadsheet....

I played as the Germans and did well. I think this scenario highly favors the Germans, who get to play cat and mouse with loads of cover. I found that the key to success was to do as little as possible. That is, lie in ambush until the "kill" moment.

I think proper setup was very important in this scenario. In general, I used a common German tactic of not lurking in the front row of buildings. Luckily, all my mines found targets (targets found the mines?)

Also, success was very much a team effort. I got armor kills from Stugs, guns, shreks, and fausts. Once the road was denied to my opponent he had to move in through the buildings in the center, where I had units lurking in ambush. Luck certainly played a role, and some things certainly broke my way.

Lastly, I found the Polish artillery to not be a factor, and was surprised that there were TRP's. This is not a comment on my opponent's ability. Rather, with all the cover, if you don't show yourself, a prep barrage is depending on pure luck to find a target.

I was surprised to see such high scores for the Poles. I definitely felt that they had their work cut out for them on this one.

[tabpub]

My pasty Polish rump was one of those that got kicked in this scenario.

The low points: Being cautious on the attack, to the point of having the 3 croms moving to the bend in the road the same turn that the STG's arrive. They were then caught in an arty barrage that made them button; the ATG got 2 and a STG zapped one in the flank as it engage the gun. 60 secs = 3 burning wrecks.

In the meantime, my men found every mine in one of the fields, and could not press home the assault. Then the reinforcements show up, I bravely(foolishly) try to engage the STG that is pounding the crunchies. But, I don't notice the quality difference! So, the regular moves up, STG whacks him after a duel, by then the Green one has read his order and moves up right next to his buddy. I can just hear the giggling in the STG now....one shot, WHAM! The rest of the scenario was spent extricating the survivors...

The high point:(there was one, really) Lone piat team in a crater on his 5th shot finally killed a STG...of course, he died..

[Redwolf]

But what is that? a broken squad runs back twowards the gun and pushes

the gun out of the foxhole. The gun is turned 90 degrees away from

the enemy now. Great show, where's my popcorn?

Oh yea, almost forgot about this one. A true highlight in my CMBO "career"

It seems to me that this scenario can be won on the discretion of the attacker. If the attacker very agressivly pushes into the village, tanks after infantry after TRP'ed mortars, then it is a certain win. Hesitate on the attack and you die.

As always the trick for the attacker is knowing this. But those attackers who made the guess were lucky.

EDIT: of course Holien fought flawlessly, I don't want to imply he didn't need skills to push the attack through after making the intial decision.

[ September 27, 2002, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Holien]

*** Blush ****

H

[Treeburst155]

The medians for this scenario, after splitting contested/unclaimed VLs, and missing results for one game are: Allies 43, Germans 57

The Nabla ranking for this scenario so far is:

Holien 14.31

Scheer 14.24

Charles 14.00

John_Kettler 13.58

mPisi 13.52

Ricochet 13.33

Jarmo 13.33

Vaders_Jester 13.20

Hobo 13.20

Jeb 13.05

JonS 12.89

MrSpkr 12.72

Jon_L 12.72

U8led 12.15

Kanonier_R 12.15

Lopaka 11.70

Tom_Norton 11.46

Warhammer 10.91

J_Jelinek 10.91

MickOZ 10.12

Bertram 9.19

The_Capt 8.99

Lord_Dragon 8.33

Wadepm 7.35

cuzn 6.81

White4 5.94

Cpt_T 5.94

Big_Dog 5.94

Vadr 5.62

von_Lucke 4.97

a1steaks 4.27

Michael_Dorosh 4.27

Kunstler 4.27

J_Porta 4.27

Tero 0.00

Cpl_Carrot 0.00

Torbhen -4.27

Soddball -4.27

Jim_L -4.27

Combined_Arms -4.27

Juha_A -4.97

I_Man -5.62

Strider -5.94

Evan_Roberts -5.94

Boris -5.94

Heavy_Drop -6.81

Uber_General -7.35

Zipper -8.36

Saport -9.11

Spanish_Bombs -9.36

Visom -10.61

StuGIII -11.86

Bimmer -11.86

Tabpub -12.86

Jack_Trap -13.36

Sgt_Gold -14.36

JeffWilders -14.36

Mikeydz -15.86

Fate -15.86

Diceman -16.36

EASY_V -16.86

RC -17.36

Ozzie_Osbourne -17.36

THumpre -17.86

Ali -17.86

mike8g -18.61

Ugbash -18.86

Rat -20.86

Pixelmaster -22.36

Redwolf -22.86

Edited because I pasted the wrong numbers.

[ September 27, 2002, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Cpl Carrot]

Hey cool! I scored a big fat zero for this one

[Holien]

Sorry Wolfie..

As for Sgt Lucky Bstrd...

H

[Treeburst155]

Yes, Cpl Carrot, you ARE the median so far.

Treeburst155 out.

[tabpub]

there went all the work done in FotM...

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Redwolf -22.86

This reminds me of the saying of wolfes in sheep skin - or vice versa...

[Frunze]

I tied this scenario as Germans, and thought I was doing well given the attacker's 5 tanks to my two. Clearly not, though, looking at the rankings - I'm at minus 5.94.

I traded my AT gun for one. The arrival location of the StuGs gave me some trouble, enemy infantry was already pushing into that area and I lost one to a PIAT. The other StuG took out one tank and gun damaged another. That left two tanks, and my shrecks never managed to do anything.

Clearly, I shoulda held fire with the AT gun 'til I could use it together with the StuGs, but what else should I have done? How did German players take out all those tanks?

Oh yeah - one thing I did right is put the mines in the gap in the bocage by the right map edge. (My right.) Stopped the first Polish push.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Frunze:

...SNIP... How did German players take out all those tanks?

Oh yeah - one thing I did right is put the mines in the gap in the bocage by the right map edge. (My right.) Stopped the first Polish push.

I was fortunate Frunze. My Panzerschrecks were able to account for 3 of the 5 Cromwells which left my one remaining Stug to only have to deal with the remaining two. As for the minefields, that's exactly where I placed them. It proved to be a good spot didn't it.

Regards

Jim R.

[Treeburst155]

Ooops, wrong thread.

[ September 28, 2002, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]