Cemetary Hill

[Holien]

(Guess who he carved up....)

[Matias]

PvK,

You bring up a point which I've been wondering about, just what is a "historically acceptable causalty level"? I ask out of complete ignorance.

Also does anyone know if this is taken into account by the game in determining victory? Or rather, since your casualties obviously count against you, is the penalty variable depending upon the type of encounter?

I imagine it would be more acceptable to lose a lot of men if the encounter were an assault rather than a probe? Maybe I'm wrong...

Actually I could also guess that the amount which penalties count against you could be variale depending on country and year of the war. I imagine the Soviets considered much higher casualty counts as acceptable and succesful considering their force pool. Hrm... Seems the Germans might also have considered higher casualties on the defense acceptable regardless of the force pool (or at least one very highly placed German)... Realistic balancing should reflect the economic potential of the countires involved (and their allies) and would effectively rate each battle in how it contributed to the war... Obviously a nightmare of balancing.

I think perhaps casualties should always have the same penalty after all!

[laxx]

My comments on Cemetary Hill:

I got a draw as Germans.

okay 117 vs 73

casualties 72 vs 98

kia 16 vs 29

no afv destroyed

But I used "gamey" tactics on three counts: I changed the time to 60 mins, I knew the enemy composition, and I increased play balance by 25% (I can't increase the experience level as suggested for 2 player game)

A couple of observations:

i. Use the 75mm to destroy buildings. Specifically (a) the two storey light building to your left of victory flag ( Victory Flag Building © small light buildings around the trenches.

ii. sneak the troops to the extreme right, up past the scattered trees, up pass the Brush, synch up in the woods. And 1 force to sneak up on the both scattered trees along the road. Another force to along the edge of the woods. When not sneaking, hide.

iii. Position the AFVs in the opening between the woods and scattered trees. Move them out using "Hunt" along the open ground between the scattered trees and the field. Stop in parallel to the start of the fields, about 70m before the nearest wooden building. (becareful where you place them, too far on the left, and the 2 enemy field guns will destroy your AFV).

iv. By now, the MGs, Squads from the trenches will start poping up. Use your support groups (sneaked all the way to the edge of the scattered trees) to suppress the squads. My two 75mm made short work of the Victory Flag buildings and surrounding buildings.

v. After several turns, the enemy positions should be exposed by now. And would be a good time for you troops to start firemovement along the houses along the road.

This is a very exhaustive game. Glad it is over. My infantry and support groups sneaked most of the time. And my Flame Throwers were not utilised at all (they died before seeing any action).

cheers!

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by laxx:

My comments on Cemetary Hill:

I got a draw as Germans.

okay 117 vs 73

casualties 72 vs 98

kia 16 vs 29

no afv destroyed

But I used "gamey" tactics on three counts: I changed the time to 60 mins, I knew the enemy composition, and I increased play balance by 25% (I can't increase the experience level as suggested for 2 player game)

Ahhhh...the Kobayashi solution!

Regards

Jim R.

[laxx]

eh...koyabashi solution, watt's that ?

[Eden Smallwood]

Originally posted by laxx:

eh...koyabashi solution, watt's that ?

I had to ask that too. It's Japanese for 'Smallwood', actually, but what he's referring to is the 'Kobayashi Maru', apparently some test I don't remember from Star Trek where the cadets were supposed to *not* be able to win, (to teach them that not all situations are winnable), yet Captain Kirk went in and hacked the computers the night before, so he won it anyway.

Eden

[Santi]

Buenos dias, MINOR SPOILERS

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it has probably been used by you all but blowing up the huts with demo charges blocks LOS temporarily and buys you time to assault the rightmost trenchline. Knocking out AT gun with mortars plus MG pillbox with 20mm fire are a must also, yet I pulled a minor defeat on 9th or 10th attempt I can't remember. I have given it up for the time being ,lest my sanity worsens even further

[Thomm]

** DO NOT BE SPOILED **

Second "major defeat" as Germans, default setup, here!

Started a massive attack on the Russian left flank (kind of SOP for this scenario, I guess). Moved all my troops to jump-off positions without any shots being fired. Spotted the AT gun with a platoon leader and destroyed it with mortar fire. Killed the MG bunker with simultaneous fire from the cars and the halftrack.

So far, everything went well. Selected squads were sneaked in forward positions in the houses. HMGs and IG softened up the trenchline (or so I thought.)

Things started to go wrong as soon as the IG ran out of HE and I decided to assault the forward trenchline through a (perfect) smoke screen provided by the IG. A little later one half of my assauting platoon was pinned, the other half were casualties. Fire from the foxhole row on the Russian flank had taken its toll, as well as the MGs in the forward trench that could not be silenced! The Russians also threw accurate mortar fire on my assault.

My vehicles rushed to the rescue and poured fire in the trench, four at a time at the high-point of the attack. Soon, the remote AT gun openend up (Remark: through the corner of a house) and dispatched two of my vehicles. Another one was scared off the map by mortar fire. The last recon car ran out of ammo and had to retreat. Things started going very wrong!

At this point I got a total of six men in the forward trench. The shattered remains of my other platoons occupied the forward buildings right and left of the road and the alley of scattered trees along the road, unable to conduct further offensive operations. The flamethrowers never even came close to the enemy. The game ended shortly after that.

Lessons learned:

1) The employed HE capabilities were unable to hurt the troops in the trench in any meaningful way. Most of the casualties were produced in close combat!

2) The LOS clipping around buildings is still not WYSIWYG.

3) I seriously question that this scenario can be won by the Germans (default setup)

Regards,

Thomm

[Skolman]

I have lost the scenario too ,and after trying it for several times i got fed up so i used the editor to give the germans some artillary spotters (tryed small and large arty) but i was still unable to win the game.... it seems that arty has no effect on bunkers and infantry thats dug in that way...even the flame missiles did almost no harm to the fortification.

[OGF Keller]

I managed to achieve a minor victory in this one as Axis against the AI; but as others have noted, a competent human adversary would make it virtually impossible. AAR at the bottom.

This scenario – which really is an attack and not a probe in the literal sense of these words – really underscores the unrealistic nature of time constraints in the CM world. I just finished testing a very nice infantry attack scenario called Klein Kargarlyk, based on a real event; this was a 40+ turn affair. I found out later that the actual attack took SIX hours!! And you know, that makes sense.

Why? Because when you are assaulting a position, especially if you know the opponent isn’t going to get reinforcements, it is more important to be patient, force the enemy to reveal his positions, and then bring a coherent body of troops to bear on the revealed positions. And then keep on doing it, slowly, methodically.

In other words, what’s the rush? No competent company or battalion commander would force his troops to take foolish risks to save, say, ten minutes or even a half hour on the assault.

What I did in Cemetery Hill to mimic a professional commander is this:

--Move small bodies of troops to CONTACT through the trees.

--Once the enemy is contacted bring additional squads and heavy weapons, including light armor to the same position.

--Pour superior fire down into just a few (some times just one) enemy positions until they break (even if other enemy in other positions reveal themselves).

--Rinse and repeat.

So what happened in my scenario was I had a whole bunch of troops massed at the edge of the woods, expending lots of ammo -- even the field gun was out of ammo on turn 21. Then at turn 20, with the Russians still at the crossroads, but depleted, and the flag still theirs, I did the bum’s rush into the trenches with around 6 squads supported by the Skdfz 10 (with the company commander riding) and PSWs. As you can see by the screen shot below, I got to the trenches with some squads intact, including a flamethrower who toasted up some Ivans. Minor victory.

But this headlong rush as “time” was running out is in my mind COMPLETELY unrealistic. A competent commander would never do that…it’s the game that forces you to do that.

There are only four instances on the small scale battlefield where short-term time intervals make a large difference.

1. Getting to an optimal defensive position, in which case you are likely to have no resistance until you get there

2. Getting to an optimal start line on the attack

3. Counterattacks to re-claim a key position or to trap an understrength opponent

4. Breaking out of encirclement—there may be just a brief window of time where an escape path is available

Other than that, patience and clear-headed thinking will win the day.

Screen shot of final positions, and AAR below.

[ December 14, 2002, 05:39 PM: Message edited by: OGF Keller ]

[laxx]

OGF Keller,

you da man! thanks for the nice post, and btw, i totally agree with you on the timing issue. 20 or even 30 minutes to capture the hill is not reasonable!

[Michael Dorosh]

I would imagine that many scenario designers use the time factor as a balancing mechanism, out of proportion to the reality of the situation. Yet another argument against CM battles being played outside the context of a "campaign", but it is a less than perfect medium after all. See the Korsun Relief thread for some scenario designer's comments on time and balance and realism.

I always thought the best game was one in which you have an equal potential of both winning and losing. The time factor, I would suppose, is a necessary component of this. Given a campaign situation, though, the component that would become most important would be the random nature of the opposition rather than time.

[manchildstein (ii)]

i've played this one twice and have been highly hosed both times... the first time i thought was a fluke due to my impatience and rushing around the right side and into a slaughter...

the second time the idea was to push the middle, but really with a set-piece firefight instead of any kind of movement.

from the beginning i took casualties in my set piece stance and the frustration entered in by about turn 10... then i tried flanking on the left with the armor and it all got toasted...

later i fired up 'gef...' ... i mean 'fighting for info' and that made me feel better...