New Operation Available: WE FIGHT AND DIE HERE

[Franko]

Okay, this one took me a long, long time. Enjoy! It will be available at www.combatmissions.co.uk as soon as Manx puts it up, and at CMHQ when the scenario depot decides to work.

Here is the Operation Description:

"WE FIGHT AND DIE HERE"

The Battle of Domane Butgenbach

OPERATION -- German Advance

Thirteen Battles

Morning of December 18 to Morning of December 21st, 1944

It is the beginning of the third day of the Ardennes Offensive. The 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitler Jugend, has been assigned the task of clearing Rollbahn C, which leads through Bullingen, Malmeday and Spa, eventually to the Meuse at Aigremont. In the van of the 12th SS Panzer is Kampgruppe Kuhlman, a potent force of armor and panzergrenadiers.

The first two days of the offensive has gone poorly for the Hitler Youth. It lost a precious number of tanks, including many Panthers, attempting to pound through the unexpectedly stubborn defense at the twin villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath. The Germans, aware of the the futility of continuing this attack, have begun to shift the 12th SS to the southeast, hopefully to outflank the American 5th Corps by seizing the town of Butgenbach.

However, the Germans must first battle their way through the American 1st Infantry Division, which is determined to make its stand near the stately manor of Domane Butgenbach, approximately two kilometers southeast of the town.

This operation begins on the morning of December 18th, and runs to dawn, December 22. The weather is bad, and the terrain is muddy. Night falls every third battle.

DESIGNERS NOTE: This Operation is intended to be massive and challenging no matter what side you pick. It may become a resource hog at points, so if you have a low-end machine don't get mad at me. The first time you play it is recommended that you use the default setup for the American side (if you are German), or let the computer setup (if you are American). Also, read your side briefings VERY carefully for clues as to setup and what you can expect as reinforcements, and perhaps a couple of hints, too. No spoilers are given, of course!

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Matt Hyra and Christian Lim for their excellent playtesting and after action reports. They helped immensely in developing the final version.

Historical Sources:

Arnold, James R. Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble in the West

Astor, David. A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Story of the Battle of the Bulge by the Men who Fought it.

Doubler, Michael. Closing With The Enemy: How the US Army Fought the War in Europe

Dupuy, Trevor N. Hitler's Last Gamble

MacDonald, Charles B. A Time For Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge

Pallud, Jean Paul. The Battle of the Bulge, Then and Now. [Great for Pictures of the Battle area]

Quarrie, Bruce. The Ardennes Offensive: Osprey Books Order of Battle Series Vol. 4 and 5.

Vannoy, Allyn R., and Karamales, Jay. Against the Panzers.

I always enjoy your comments and creative suggestions as to how I can do scenario design more and practice law less:

Frankrad@pacbell.net

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Ruth, Ruth! We March!

[GriffinCheng+]

Thx!

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"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

"Can't get enough Tank?"

[Blades]

Franko,

So far the operation is great.. Me and a bud are playing it and are on the 4th battle..

The second battle I thought the Germans should've gotten alittle reinforcements but its cool.. Also in the write up I sorta wish you would've used the correct town names and discribed what kind of operation this is, like a distroy, advance, whatever it might be. We are both relitivly new to CM so maybe all operations are done this way. If so then do not pay attention to what i said ...

Other than that, we love it.. I will recomend it to all my friends.. GREAT JOB...

BTW Im playing on the US side of things and I seem to be holding the town ok SO FAR..

Blades

[Franko]

There is only one town in the operation..Bullingen. Its named correctly.

And it says "German Advance" right on the third line of the general scenario description.

[Blades]

Franko,

Sorry man.. Like we seriuosly read the discription a few times talking back and forth trying to figure out what exactly we were supposed to do..

He didnt know if he was supposed to move off map or what. Sorry again. like i said in first post we are both fairly new to CM and obviuosly missed the important information in the discription. LOL

Well again great job on the operation. still seems to be going ok for me as US..

Blades

[Franko]

No problem...glad you're enjoying it!

Frank

[BK6583]

I keep going to the hot link sight posted at the top but the most recent operation is Task Force Montepelier (sp). Where can I find this operation?

[BK6583]

With big apologies in advance because I'm obviously missing something here and probably not doing the spoiler format right to boot:

SPOILER

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Started as the US. Read and re-read the briefing. I understood that my mission with the engineers was to hold Bulligen (no mention in the briefing about protecting flanks in the initial battles with the engineers - just hold Bulligen). I guess I should have surmised from the initial deployments that that was a big hint. However, I redeployed all of my forces and spent the initial beginning turns moving them into and around the immediate perimeter of Bulligen. By the end of the firt battle I had stopped the germans cold (or so I thought).

Comes the 2nd battle setup and to my surprise and chagrin, my engineers are setup hundreds of meters outside of Bulligen! I figure this must be like the 1st battle and that I'll have to move in and reoccupy Bulligen. But no! I move about 10 meters towards the town and am confronted with what seems like the whole German army deployed in front of me.

I oocupied and held this town with nary a casualty, inflicting big losses on the Germans. Why am i summarily "kicked" out of it and redeployed? I saw above that others have played this operation (particularly as the US) and enjoyed it. So to cut to the chase of my ramblings here - what am I missing?

Sincerely,

Bob

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[Wesreidau]

Franko, I`ve just started this op playing as the US against Blackhorse. We are on the 2nd battle and loving every minute of it!

I too was shocked however, when I managed to hold the line in battle 1 and battle 2 started with me a good 200m back with the enemy on my doorstep - literally. We`d setup platoons only yards from each other - this could`nt have happened historically - its still daylight. Is there anything you could do about this in a revision or are your hands tied by the game engine?

[Blades]

Bob, Wes,

I am still playing this operation as the US. Have not played as the Germans yet. When the 2nd battle started my reinforcments were at the back of the map, as far away as possible.

But, during the set up for that battle i was able to move them to the front of the line before the battle started. Same thing in 3rd battle. Havent gotten past that cause the guy Im playing has been out of town alot lately.

In his second battle he got 0 reinforcements. He had to fight with what he had left from the first battle, so things must be going differntly for us for some reason.

I do agree that our set up lines should not be, basically right on top of eachother. I had units start the game in the middle of his front line. Was good for recon but bad to loose those units, and was sorta gamey if you wanna look at it like that. There should be a "buffer" zone. Maybe the town should be more centered on the map so the Gery has more rooom to set up...

Maybe, there is a reason for it like that and we just havent found out yet..

My advice to both you, if you can, start from a saved game (hope you saved at end of 1st battle) and set up your army where you want to from the set up screen...

Blades

[BK6583]

"My advice to both you, if you can, start from a saved game (hope you saved at end of 1st battle) and set up your army where you want to from the set up screen..."

Blades

Blades,

Can you expand on the above - I've never been down this particular CM road before.

Sincerely,

Bob

[Blades]

Bob,

I take it your sorta new. So am I so its all good.

Ok for ME(just speaking for what happened for me now) When the 1st battle of the operation was completed. I got reinforcements. Not a ton but some... And when I got those reinforcement there was a "setup" stage of the game. Just like I had to start the whole operation. I placed my troops in different spot on the map instead of leaving them where the game put them at the very back part of the map. I assume they were put in the back part of the map to simulate them arriving to the front from the rear. you know sorta like they would in real life.. (maybe im wronge).

But I hope you saved your game when the first battle was completed and did not write over it. I would suggest doing this at the end of every battle. The save games dont take up alot of room and can easily be erased when you feel you have no more need of them. This is what I do just in case I write over the wronge saved game with something I did not mean to. Sorta like a back up.

Blades

[BK6583]

Blades,

I'm actually not that new. I did save the last turn of the 1st battle. The way you worded your post though, I thought that maybe there was a "special" way that I wasn't aware of to set up my forces for the 2nd battle in Bulligen - but I guess not. So I'm putting this operation on hold b/c I just don't like the way it evolves from the 1st battle to the 2nd battle in terms of where the US is forced to set up. Thanx for your help though.

Sincerely,

Bob

[Robert Mayer]

I played the first few turns as the Americans, then switched over and tried it from the distaff side.

I like a lot of things about this operation. It's big, it gives you a lot of toys to play with, and you have some interesting decisions to make about setups. I do have some concerns, however, that are probably related to CMs AI rather than the design of the op.

It's very possible to start a battle with the enemy deployed inches away from your front line, leading to some furious exchanges and a 25 turn battle being decided in four minutes <g>. And the American defenders have a tendency to launch very ill-considered counterattacks when they should be hunkering down to ambush the Germans. The attackers, for their part, often fail to concentrate their power or support their armor. But those are CM issues.

Overall, the op is quite nicely done, and it's indeed impressive when you can bring that American arty to bear.

[Lost Admiral]

Just finished playing as Germans vs computer AI (+25% American forces). I liked this operation. Most of the battles were hard fought, and I love how it's tough to anticipate when reinforcements will arrive. I achieved a tactical Axis victory with a lot more bloodshed than I would have liked

I encountered a couple things that bothered me but they have mainly to do with the way CM handles operations:

1) I agree with some of the previous posts, the "no-mans land" should be set to at least 50 meters. With a 0m buffer zone, you deploy along the line and find enemy units nose-to-nose with your forces.

2) The end conditions for the Germans are a bit messed up. By the 6th battle, I had captured the entire map but the game still ran 3 more battles. The 7th battle the Americans got a few reinforcements that were crammed into a 1 inch strip on the map. I killed all those and in the 8th and 9th battles, I literally sat there with no one to fight. I moved all my troops to the very edge and sat there twidling my thumbs. I think this is probably a problem with how CM calculates victory but maybe the increased no-mans land area will help.

3) I don't know how CM computes the "advance" line but it is relatively easy to send a spearhead through the thin American lines and drive a force halfway across the map. Then when the starting positions are calculated for the next battle, you get a huge advance for the Germans. Maybe you could make the map narrower or add depth to the American defense to prevent this.

4) Just out of curiosity, what was the historical outcome of this operation?

That's about it. Overall, this was probably the best 3rd party operation I've played. Thanks for the hard work!

[Lmandrake]

IIRC, the historical outcome was not good for the attacking forces. The Amis had tons of concentrated arty behind them, including many 155's, and the Germans were repeatedly slashed to ribbons in successive assaults. I think the MacDonald history contains an anecdote where a Belgian farmer purportedly saw young (late teens) Hitler Jugend troops weeping after being told they would be going back for another try. Bullingen remained in U.S. hands and the Germans ran out of troops before the opposition ran out of artillery shells.