38th at Monschau: A Hot Time

[Guest grunto]

Over at the scenario depot there should be a new scenario, aht.zip available.

It depicts elements of the 38th Cavalry Squadron and attached engineer elements defending against a battalion-strength attack by the German 326th VGD.

In the ahtspoil.txt included in the zip are all of the briefings. Included in the briefings is a unit citation in recognition for their success in halting the German advance toward Monschau.

As a bonus there is 'Hamlet du Barrage' (hdb2.zip) which depicts an American 83rd infantry division attack through the bocage and the mud on the 4th of July 1944.

The defenders include units from the 6th Parachute and 17th SS Panzergrenadier regiments.

This latest though - A Hot Time - may be my favorite thus far.

The Americans are strung out in a default setup which defends several objectives. The scenario could really get interesting if the Americans were to mass everything together and launch an 'attack' of their own. The problem is this: The point values in the scenario are roughly 3800:3600 favoring the Germans, but the number of infantrymen 'on the board' probably favors the Germans 3:1. Also, the American force has a number of cavalry-type (fast, highly armed and lightly armored) vechiles but the board isn't general 'open' for extensive vehicular operations.

As a matter of fact it's a heavily forested board with roads carved into it, terrain rising and falling steeply from the sides of the various roads.

Anyway it was called, 'No Soft Shoulder' (the briefings will explain this) but I changed it to 'a hot time' because it really becomes that within the first 5-10 turns if not sooner.

Andy

[Guest grunto]

screenshot of the aftermath:

<img src=http://www.geocities.com/g_r_u_n_t_o/aht.jpg>

andy

[Guest grunto]

the photo above was taken looking eastward up at the hillside the german infantry originally attacked off of. in this one i was germans and it took several attacks and regroups before i could finally secure the mapboard. i knew i could be sloppy and the ai's punishment for that was never quite enough to shatter my overall attack. but things which would have gotten me killed against a good human player... laying some companies out to a bunch of 300-meter allied tank gunfire while the stugs were still minutes away from their support positions. against good humans you can't get away in lapses in the timing of your combined arms attack. against the ai you can get away with it but in this case barely.

there were definitely a couple of moments where one or the other wing of the attack appeared to be collapsing, and at one time it appeared as though i wouldn't be able to take the last flags.

the germans really have to take care of their units, and i've found that a muddy mapboard over a 60-turn scenario will force the StuGs to stay on the roads. i think i lost 4 or 5 to immobilization from off-road mud.

so as the attacker after suffering grevious casualties i won 80:20 against the computer.

against the ai the scenario is actually esigned to be played as american defender but you probably know how it goes.... you sit through a few games with the ai attacking and bu then you just have to take a shot at it yourself.

the latest file is aht1.zip over at the depot and it has a german setup.. the one i used when i played which resulted in the above photo.

the original uploaded earlier (aht.zip) didn't have the germans setup as it was strictly designed to be played as american defender against the ai.

so now it has full briefings, some mapboard tweaks, and a full setup in place for both sides so if you don't feel like moving a lot of stuff around at the beginning both sides' default setups are 'acceptable.'

andy

[Guest grunto]

spoiler info

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more comments.,,.. in this one you can mass your germans overal - armor and infantry -for a single strike but your vehicles come on from your choice of one or both flanks. the infantry comes on anywhere from either flank including the entire middle. so the infantry can start literally within 100 meters of the main town but the vehicles are 700 meters away on either side.

this situation demands that the germans coordinate their infantry and vehicle support, for if the infantry is massed in one spot and the vechiles are coming up an opposite side without infantry support, those vehicles are in danger to american bazookas and flamethrowers on this board with its roads closed in by heavy pine forests. also playtesting has shown that realistically the vehicles - at least the tracked ones - are confined to the road because of the mud. this makes the coordination of the infantry and vehicles an interesting problem, one which can be approached in many ways due to the single, wide setup area with no locked units - a setup area which covers the 1600-meter length of the board for each respective side.

in defense the americans can defend equally as freely as the germans can in the attack, that is to say they hav a lot of options.

this game almost provides the americans a chance to launch their own attack, the amount of firepower they possess is so great when combined all together. in default setup though the americans are spread out and have a bit of their force at each objective. this is fine against the ai but against a good american pbemer i'm thinking, 'he who defends everywhere defends nowhere.'

anyway if you've been reading this far you can probably tell i'm stoked about this scenario. i think it stands far above much of my other work, for whatever that is worth.

andy

[McAuliffe]

Would love to try it out, but seems not yet out on the CMHQ-depot...can you send it over :

eric.antonsen@pandora.be

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http://users.pandora.be/aneric/index8.htm#Projects

[Guest grunto]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McAuliffe:

Would love to try it out, but seems not yet out on the CMHQ-depot...can you send it over :

eric.antonsen@pandora.be

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ok sent dude... have fun... it's designed to be played as americans against the computer ai, but as you can see it can be a bit of a challenge as germans.

it depends on the speed of your computer as it is a large scenario. if you attack you'll have many more moves to plot, but the american 'computer player thinking' time will be much shorter. if you're americans you'll have less moves to make but the german 'computer player thinking' time will be much slower.

spoiler

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one thing... it might be effective to take the Chaffees and put them in the town with the isolated engineer platoon in the north hamlet. i find that with the default american setup, the chaffees only start to contribute to the fight after several m3a1 scout cars have been torched. i took 3 of the chaffees (the three in 'overatch' mode in default setup) and put them up in the northern hamlet. in retrospect i should have put all 5 chaffees there. i think a cardinal rule would be to split the chaffees.

if you can get them all involved in the same firefight simultaneously, they could put up an impressive amount of fire. with their speed consider them to be your 'fire brigade.' i believe 2 of the 5 or crack, and the other 3 veteran. those crews are outsanding shooters as a group.

it would be fun to play this one against a human opponent. i think that the american player will take a look at all of those vehicles and be tempted to put them all together with the supporting infantry and make an attack of their own. i think this is doable against the ai but against a human opponent the german artillery might be a problem.

the default setup has the americans dispersed, partly as an antidote to possible german artillery barrages.

there sure is a lot of firepower there though with 9 greyhounds, 5 chaffees, all of those engineers with full ammo and full demo charges, and 2 on-board m8 HMCs, as well as the 3 57mm AT guns with the extra HE load.

then there are the 2 75mm spotters with 300 ammo each. they represent a total of 4 M8 HMCs being fed by an ammo truck or sitting at an ammo depot, perhaps 2 or 3 kilometers away.

not to mention 9 white scout cars (m3a1) and 18 jeep .50s.

Andy

[Michlos]

You can also find both scenarios at MiNa's Combat Mission.

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< All gave some, some gave ALL>

Owner of MiNa's CMBO Page

http://www.combat-mission.com

[Guest grunto]

It's turn 21 of 60 in a game against the German AI where the setting is +3 experience for the computer side:

http://www.geocities.com/g_r_u_n_t_o/aht02.jpg : In this one the view is south along the north-south road at the intersection. There you can see the craters from the various American HE fire and there are eliminated German units in the road and Americans in the woods right next to them on the West edge of the road. Those poor Germans ran into probably 5 AFV main guns (37mm and 75mm) and several machineguns. The American defense in the center holds intact just to the right (west) outside of the picture. In any case casualties were taken in repulsing that first assault and it isn't certain another - perhaps larger - attack could be repulsed here.

http://www.geocities.com/g_r_u_n_t_o/aht03.jpg : aftermath on the north end. this abandoned M24 Chaffee took out:

11 infantry

3 StuG IV

2 Sdkfz 7/2

1 StuH 42

Behind him out of the picture the carnage continues as a couple of rear-guard American flamethrowers in the hamlet try to stave off StuG IVs and VGDs. The surviving units from the overall position have fled southward back toward the main intersection and town. The entire Chaffee platoon - 5 tanks - were knocked out.

The 'hero' crew in the picture was veteran. It was a 5-Chaffee ambush centered on the road from firing positions on both sides, all within probably 50 meters of each other. So as you can see it was a definite 'kill zone.'

http://www.geocities.com/g_r_u_n_t_o/aht04.jpg : overview of aht03: from behind the abandoned M24. Note the two flamthrowers almost in a line directly behind the abandoned tank. On the west side of the road a couple of stragglers (lower left in picture) try to escape the invevitable next German wave from the east.

The rest of the escaped units are forming up South to help out with the town defense.

http://www.geocities.com/g_r_u_n_t_o/aht05.jpg : the view from the south end of the board.

Note the tiny green dot in the upper left. That is where pictures 3 and 4 were taken. Picture 2 was taken from near the center of the board... looking South from the East side of the north-south road.

In any event in this picture there is an American flamethrower team behind the church window. As you can see, one of the Greyhounds has a bead on the side/rear of the StuG. That StuG took out the Greyhound to the left of it in a tragic miscalculation on the part of the Greyhound commander. Thinking there would be a rear shot on the StuG, the Greyhound moved up from the low ground onto the flat by the road.

Instead the StuG was facing it when they both gained visual contact. The crew of the M8 watched in horror as the StuG gun moved within its tiny covered arc - all while the M8 was frantically turning its turret to try and get a shot. The StuG took the Greyound out at point blank range as that awful sound of screeching, pierced metal filled the air and debris from the exploding vehicle spilled over onto the church roof as the flamethrower team made their way amidst the hidden pews nearby in an attempt to stop the beast just outside, on the other side of those old, cold, stone walls. Now if they can just sneak up to the window... maybe the other Greyhound will do the job for them first.

In this scenario the Germans are expected to take the center, 'built-up' portion of the mapboard, then advance down a West-leading road to the edge of the board. There are 20, 300-point flags in this one. 4 of them are on the far West edge, so if the Americans can at least cling to that spot and keep the town in question (?) then they could get a draw.

At first glance a 3800-3600 attack by the Germans doesn't seem very easy for the Axis but if you factor in that the Americans have 418 points' worth of Jeep .50s it makes it tougher for the Americans, because no one in their right mind would spend 418 points for that kind of return on this mapboard. The problem is that it happens to be an extended (60-turn) engagement at close range. Even if the jeeps survive say, a 3-turn firefight, by then they're out of ammo and no better than taxis.

The infantry matchup in this one is an entire German VGD batallion, supported by a company of VGD Pioneers, along with 6 FOs of various caliber.

The Americans have 4 platoons of Engineers, and company commander. 3 of the platoons are 2-squads, a .50 cal, a bazooka, and a flamethrower. The 4th platoon is 3 squads and 2 flamethrowers. All have platoon HQs.

The squads are all split at the start and each team has 2 demo charges and 3 rifle grenades....in addition they all have their ammo set to 60 (HQs too).

Sidebar: Hopefully in CM2 there will be a system to buy extra ammo and heavy weapons for the infantry.

The Americans need every bit of extra ammo they're given, because the Germans have at least a 3:1 advantage in infantrymen.

Here is a link to the actual scenario for download:

http://unix.thegamers.net/depot/depot.cgi?g=31&a=scenario&scenario.scenarioID=2062

Say I see 41 people have already downloaded this one. Thanks for your interest and let me know if you've played it either way and have any feedback.

I would like to play this one PBEM but my computer can't handle it (yet). If anyone plays this pbem double-blind I would certainly like to hear about it.

Andy