Invitational Tourney (Part III)

[Jarmo]

Hmm.. at this point.. to not win the precious elixir, Ari will need to get no more than 36 points on average from his last three fights. The final opponents being me, Dorosh and Kettler.

There.. that should lull him into a false sense of security!

And I'll only need 67 points in my last fight to pass Shandorf.

Hell, I've been on tighter spots before. Never gotten away intact, but I've been on tighter spots...

[John Kettler]

I see Fuerte has stolen Treeburst155's reportorial thunder before Treeburst155 even got to see the end of game screen, which I just sent to him.

I fully expected to win that fight by either taking both VLs or taking at least one VL while disputing the other. I thought his buttoned M-10 would probably die in a hail of grenades and that even if unsuccessful, the squad close assaulting the M-10 might distract the Priest while advancing, thus protecting the main advance on the VLs.

Even after the movie ended and my StuH 42 lay in ruins, I figured I'd still win, for the display showed my live men on and near both objectives, and much closer than Fuerte's men. Also, I knew I'd hurt Fuerte by killing three specialist teams--two FTs and a bazooka--worth lots of points, while having earlier evacuated every FO and crew I could, and having lost no specialist teams myself. These added to his armor casualties indicated that taking a flag and disputing the other would give me not only the game but a substantial win.

Didn't work out as planned, though.

Regards,

John Kettler

Password "sieg" (victory) Shows I was optimistic going in.

[Ben Galanti]

My fight with Jarmo went about as well as I could have hoped. If not for the best luck I've ever had with handheld AT, it would have been ugly. He had 6 Shermans to my 2 StuGs. I killed 4 of the Shermans with Panzershrikes (one of them was hit twice, but didn't die the first time. It also managed to kill both my StuGs after being hit the first time... I was pretty bitter). One other Sherman was taken out by a StuG before it got it.

I had lots more infantry and arty though, which on this 'King of the Hill' battlefield was key. He pushed some scouts onto the pinnacle early, and I artied them off and took it. My guys then got routed off by his arty and Sherman HE. He retook it, but I finally won out with more arty and my reserves...

My fight with Dorosh is about to get nasty, I think. We're both hunkering down in a small town with arty falling all around. now if he'd only send his next turn

Ari and I just recieved our maps... I'm going to have to be very lucky if I'm going to have any chance to knock him out of first.

Ben

[John Kettler]

Having just watched the battle unfold in FuerteVision, I learned some fascinating things.

Treeburst155, I hope you're paying attention.

Map and Its Impact

The map may've been a special creation, but I thought we were playing all the games on terrain mirrored maps. I was way too engrossed in my own tactical problems at the time to notice, but the map heavily favors the player on Fuerte's end, offering excellent observation, lots of cover for men and vehicles, multiple covered routes to approach the VLs, and superb fields of fire on offense and defense, including a lovely ridge for hulldown firing positions and another one which totally dominates both VLs.

By contrast, the person on my end can only advance armor by exposing it repeatedly and for deadly periods on the flanks, because of a big forested hill in the center directly in front of the VLs and lots of exposed fields on the flank approaches.

Observation is much poorer across the board, is limited to a few good areas, and blind spots abound even close to the VLs. This crippled my artillery

in both responsiveness and effectiveness. TRPs helped cut the delays and could've been deadly had I known where certain of his CPs were, but generally didn't buy me much. I was under observed fire through most of the game.

The upshot of this was that my veteran armor got butchered, even when in cover. It was sharpshot, killed by bazooka fire, smoked by a hulldown Sherman and a TD, and blasted, along with considerable infantry, to bits by that Priest.

Fuerte basically owned both VLs by the end of turn 3 and thoroughly controlled them through most of the game. This was precisely because he had fast,

covered routes to get there and I didn't. Also, he rolled downhill into position while I had to slog uphill most of the way to get to the same place.

Big difference! This explains why he didn't flap at all until late in the game. He was kicking my butt on his display and mine. I had to fight past his platoon which had moved beyond the VLs to even reach them, where he waited in heavy cover, FTs sizzling.

I don't know whether the map was an oversight or what, but something needs to be done to offset the huge difference in terrain between the two sides.

Bluntly put, I was both skilled and lucky to get a draw on such unfavorable ground. If you keep the map, the person playing my end needs more points

for a fair fight.

Fire Support

This was what inflicted a major fraction of Fuerte's casualties. Regrettably, his CPs had repulsion fields which got them unscathed even through multiple treebursts right over them. Even so, my turn 6 Nebelwerfer and mortar barrage knocked out a green M-3A1 HT, broke the crew and inflicted 1 casualty; immobilized a second M-3A1;

pinned an engineer squad in his forward platoon, inflicting 4 casualties; shook an engineer team, inflicting one loss; inflicted one casualty on another engineer squad, and pinned an FT, inflicting one casualty. The Sherman was near missed by multiple projectile types, but being both buttoned and lucky, survived utterly unscathed.

The next turn's remaining two rockets did nothing, but the 120mm mortar fire into the woods very nearly destroyed the engineer platoon, raising the aggregate casualties to 50% except for the CP and bazooka team, breaking or pinning virtually everyone.

The third turn of fire was shifted to deal with vehicles. A direct hit by a 120 K-killed the immobilized M-3A1 and vaporized the crew. Fuerte lost every vehicle crew when I got a K-kill. The deadeye M-10 survived volley after volley of mortar fire, but a volley intended to kill that Priest missed and dropped a round onto a 60mm mortar, knocking it out.

The other big killer of Fuerte's troops was my surviving StuH 42. It killed a Sherman, a third M-3A1 HT, and disposed of at least half a platoon of infantry by itself, probably more like two thirds, chiefly by blowing the VL buildings apart, occupants and all, aided by pinning fires to encourage the dwellers to stay put.

I didn't have the energy to analyze HMG effectiveness per se, but it put men to ground a lot and greatly inhibited movement.

The Gamble on Turn 25

Careful analysis of the last few turns, from both sides, shows Fuerte would've won by thirty some odd points had I not taken the chance and stormed the VLs.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Multiple post!

[ February 12, 2002, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Computer got hung up; multiple post.

[ February 12, 2002, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Don't you just hate it when you can't tell whether message got through? I do! This was the second duplicate.

[ February 12, 2002, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Fuerte]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

the map heavily favors the player on Fuerte's end, offering excellent observation, lots of cover for men and vehicles, multiple covered routes to approach the VLs, and superb fields of fire on offense and defense, including a lovely ridge for hulldown firing positions and another one which totally dominates both VLs.

I totally agree. I wondered this in the beginning, but kept myself silent! Especially the Priest position was wonderful.

Great analysis!

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by Jarmo:

And I'll only need 67 points in my last fight to pass Shandorf.

Hell, I've been on tighter spots before. Never gotten away intact, but I've been on tighter spots...

If it just didn't have that one totally crappy game where I lost all my Panthers and Jadgpanthers to those incredibly lucky Church VII and Cromwell shots. *grumble*

I think I am gonna send Ari a setup. I want to play him again.

Jeff

[Ari Maenpaa]

Hey, it seems that some of you are starting to play mind games

Anyway a short note to all my current opponents: right now I have very little time for CM, and thus my games will slow down for the next week or two. I hope this won't bother you too much.

Ari

[Fuerte]

I now watched the battle from Kettler's point of view (first time ever I did this). VERY interesting! I don't understand why he didn't surrender after I had destroyed his three vehicles on the left. :cool: My Sherman really ruled the battlefield in the beginning. If I was lucky in the beginning, then the StuH killing my Sherman evened it out, because it had only one hollow ammo, and my tank was hull down (OK, the StuH was veteran). I should have won this game hands down, and I would have if it had lasted a turn longer. The only thing about the map that was favorable for Kettler was the victory location area. He had much better cover from my units there, that's why the flag rush in the last turn was out of the question for me. Also I think that my one and only green 100 mm artillery spotter did relatively much better job than his two rocket, one 100+ and one mortar spotters.

Btw, my infantry units on the left and right were there mainly for luring artillery fire at them. They succeeded partially, and I had a lot of infantry in good shape in the middle in the end.

[Treeburst155]

John wrote:

"The map may've been a special creation, but I thought we were playing all the games on terrain mirrored maps. I was way too engrossed in my own tactical problems at the time to notice, but the map heavily favors the player on Fuerte's end, offering excellent observation, lots of cover for men and vehicles, multiple covered routes to approach the VLs, and superb fields of fire on offense and defense, including a lovely ridge for hulldown firing positions and another one which totally dominates both VLs."

Hmmmm....this is interesting. I suppose in my zeal to not make the maps too symmetrical I may have gone overboard and caused a significant imbalance. I'll be looking that map over now.

BTW, I will update the standings to reflect the Fuerte/Kettler results within 24 hours.

EDIT: Hehe....the very important Jarmo/Ari match has just begun on this very map. I don't know who has the supposedly best side however. Now to look over the map.

Treeburst155 out.

[ February 12, 2002, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

I looked over the Kettler/Fuerte map and without actually playing a game on it I can't see how it presents any significant advantage to one side or the other. One side does get some higher ground so I would probably prefer that side; but the other side has plenty of cover. Plus, the high ground is covered in woods so good LOS would be limited to the treeline. I would either try to seize this almost centrally located treeline or hammer it with arty. I don't think the map is way out of balance. Then again, I've never played a game on it.

Interesting is that only two games will be played on this map amongst the active players,the recently completed Kettler/Fuerte match and the recently begun Jarmo/Ari game. I'm not sure if any of the dropped out people played on the map in question since I've discarded those records.

Treeburst155 out.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

My fight with Dorosh is about to get nasty, I think. We're both hunkering down in a small town with arty falling all around. now if he'd only send his next turn

Ben

It's been sent. My ISP is really acting up - the turn sat in my outbox for two weeks - Outlook would ask me if I wanted to send any remaining messages in my outbox, I said yes, and would shut down no problem atnight. For some reason, the server would not take the message from my outbox. I think it finally went today.

A couple weeks ago I finally got delivery of two weeks worth of emails that my server had decided to store for some reason - on rhyme or reason to it, I got plenty of others from people who sent the stored ones.

[John Kettler]

Treeburst155,

I'm glad you responded to my analysis and are looking at that map.

Fuerte,

Before you get too self-congratulatory on your end,

I suggest that you bear in mind that your guys were conducting observed fire, whereas most of mine was unobserved; that after repeated viewings of the turns in which artillery fell on your forward engineer platoon, it appears that some of the treebursts may have been your own 105 fire; that you had a bunch of mortars on the board which I did not; that the terrain forced me to come to you, thus enhancing the value of your weapons, and that even having by your own admission major advantages from the start, I still fought you to a draw.

In terms of indirect fire, I had two sustained assets, a veteran 120mm mortar FO and a regular?

81mm FO, plus two spasm assets in the Nebelwerfers. You had the green 105mm howitzer FO and I'd guess three 60mm mortars, all looking down my throat. The Russians have a rule of thumb that direct fire is 10x more effective than indirect fire. I don't know what the multiple is for the effectiveness of observed over unobserved fire, but I do know it's significant, allowing you to get a lot more combat performance from your fire support resources. The responsiveness issue alone saved you from a pounding on at least two occasions. In both, the M-10 was able to displace shortly before I could bring down 81mm mortar fire upon it, saving the M-10 and causing me to waste almost priceless ammo. My FO has considerably fewer rounds than his U.S. counterpart, so I have to make them count.

In the direct fire HE engagement, you had three 75mm or greater weapons to my two, and the Priest had an ammo load at least half again what my StuH 42s combined had. These assets all had a big positional advantage through much of the game.

As for direct fire AT work, my StuH 42s certainly were capable of frontal kills against your heaviest armor, but only one per, because of niggardly hollow charge issue. Your M-10 did the same with impunity and had loads of ammo. The Sherman could kill me frontally at close range and long range from the side, while the Priest had a fair stock of hollow charge for frontal work and effectively unlimited HE for flanks and lighter armor. My brace of 250/9s was more than matched by your multigun HTs, the .50s on your Sherman, Priest and M-10, and the ones on tripod mounts firing from the hills.

I suspect that under CMBB procedures, the game would've gone into overtime, allowing your larger and less damaged force to take the flags, but I'm not sure whether that's triggered by outright change of ownership of a flag or merely by shifting its state from the previous value.

Some things to consider.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Ben Galanti]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

It's been sent. My ISP is really acting up - the turn sat in my outbox for two weeks - Outlook would ask me if I wanted to send any remaining messages in my outbox, I said yes, and would shut down no problem atnight. For some reason, the server would not take the message from my outbox. I think it finally went today.

Came through fine. Just a warning to you and Ari, I'm expecting a new baby any day now, so I may go mysteriously silent for a little while... Though, who knows, I may actually get more CM in since I'll be up all night anyway

Ben

[Treeburst155]

CMBB has an overtime function? Geez, I better start catching up on things. Standings still not updated. I'll do it within twelve hours.

Treeburst155 out.

[John Kettler]

Treeburst155,

From what my battered brain recalls, in addition to an end of game randomizer, CMBB will include logic triggering an extra turn when a flag changes hands.

The side losing the flag will have a turn to get it back. Real sudden death OT! That in turn triggers the same opportunity for the other side and so forth, until the flag can't be retaken. If we get into massed infantry attacks in CMBB, there may be a problem.

The conclusions you came to about the map baffle me utterly. Did you look at the VL approaches, observation, fields of fire and the like from Fuerte's final positions? The Priest alone controls the entire approach to the VLs, as it demonstrated by raining direct fire into the trees, up and down the road, and into my infantry in and around the rubbled VLs, blasting my first two drives to bits. By contrast, the firing position from which my StuH 42 blasted the VLs had far more limited LOS, and the same problem dogged my enfilading pair of HMGs nearby.

It was only an AI fluke that allowed me to engage and kill his last halftrack. Apparently the mortaring caused the halftrack to pull out of its cozy defiladed hollow and advance uphill into my gunsight. Otherwise, it would've been there waiting for me with both MGs.

Next to the Priest were a .50 cal. MG, a now moved 105mm FO, and a 60mm mortar, all in command and all with the same fields of observation and fire. I might add that this same position dominated my entire left side approach. Nor was this his only such dominating position.

I'll be happy to send you the last order phase for Fuerte's troops. That way, you'll be able to use the LOS tool directly instead of having to guesstimate by peering over the top.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Ari Maenpaa]

Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

Just a warning to you and Ari, I'm expecting a new baby any day now, so I may go mysteriously silent for a little while...

Ben

Congratulations Ben. Just take your time now and enjoy life to the fullest. I'm currently also very occupied with some RL business, so a little break is more than welcome.

Ari

[jshandorf]

Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

Came through fine. Just a warning to you and Ari, I'm expecting a new baby any day now, so I may go mysteriously silent for a little while... Though, who knows, I may actually get more CM in since I'll be up all night anyway

Ben

What? Can't you change diapers and play CMBO with one hand? Sheeesh... Besides, you got to start kids on war stuff when they are young.

Congrats on your successful procreation,

Jeff

[ February 13, 2002, 06:20 PM: Message edited by: jshandorf ]

[Treeburst155]

OK, I finally updated the standings to reflect the Kettler/Fuerte game. The final was Fuerte 38 and John 35.

John, in light of the final score, which is highly indicative of a no-win situation for both sides (balanced), I fail to see what the imbalance is. You guys got a draw. The VLs were a no-mans land for both sides. Fuerte may have found some positions to keep you out of the VL area, but apparently you did the same to him too. Ya know what I mean? It's hard to make an argument for an imbalanced map when your game results actually show different. If Fuerte's situation was that much superior he should have won outright if one assumes equal skill levels.

Are you saying you would have beaten Fuerte handily had you played the other side?

How about a rematch, just for fun?! You two switch sides and do it again.

Treeburst155 out.

[John Kettler]

Treeburst155,

There is a huge disconnect between what both Fuerte and I have told you and the peculiar conclusions

you have reached.

I said that in watching the battle in FuerteVision I noted right off how favorable the terrain was to him, and I mentioned several particulars to back my view. Fuerte then posted the relevant excerpt from what I had found and said "I wholeheartedly agree." Further, he went on to say that he noticed it right off and kept silent about it. This latter remark was followed by a smiley.

To recap, both my then opponent and I agree that the ground heavily favored him, in multiple ways, right from the start. Fuerte reinforces my argument later in the thread when he concludes: "I should have won the game hands down..."

In spite of this, and in spite of a detailed breakdown of his advantages and the resultant very strong tactical and victory level positions he had throughout most of the game, you conclude that because I somehow clawed my way to a draw, the scenario was balanced. You reached this conclusion

even though I clearly and directly stated that Fuerte would've beaten me by thirty plus points had I not taken the huge risks attendant with my last turn push to seize both VLs. This was based on carefully looking at both of our displays at the end of turn 24. Having seen Fuerte's position and strength, he would've won big had I not pushed that last attack home.

He still had a functioning force well in excess of a platoon, and that was just what was close to the VLs. I had at best half a platoon, and that in tatters. My company CP was in the infantry battle because it was all I had left to bring in to influence the outcome. His sat back and ran things.

His could afford to, for he'd lost something like one platoon HQ in the whole game. Mine were actively in combat from early in the game, and they had the casualties to prove it.

He still had two pieces of armor: the M-10 and the Priest. I had none. While casualties were essentially even, I took 30% more KIAs from his withering fire. In terms of survivors, he had 151 to my 97, and I had evacuated

four FO teams and several vehicle crews.

How you got from my parlous ending military state to your conclusion that the battle was balanced, based on nothing more than the outcome, is simply beyond me.

Yours in martial perplexity,

John Kettler

PS

I may play Fuerte later for grins, but first I have to finish my RoW AAR and fight some three battles in the Invitational.

[Ben Galanti]

Treeburst155,

Since none of the rest of us are playing that map, could you put it up for a quick download somewhere? Just so the rest of us can see what the heck y'all are talking about

Ben

[Treeburst155]

John,

Since you have done battle on that map, and I have not, I am willing to take yours and Fuerte's word for it that it is an unbalanced battlefield. You guys would know better than I. It's just that from the perspective of someone who hasn't scrutinized the map (LOS etc.) through play it is not readily apparent that the map is grossly out of balance. Having said that there is a side I would definitely prefer on that map.

Perhaps my ability to assess terrain situations is not all that good. That is entirely possible. I might not know an imbalanced map if I saw one. I'm no CM genius that's for sure.

Ben,

I will send you the map. I have no way of making it available for download. If anyone wants this map besides Ben just email me and I'll send it to you.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Ben Galanti & Ari Maenpaa,

I have purchases from both of you now. I will get a file to the German player within 24 hours. Things are a little busy for me at the moment.

Fight On!

Treeburst155 out.