CMBB Yelina scenario from Russian side (spoiler)

[Ted]

I’ve been playing the Yelina stare scenario against the AI and am finding it almost impossible to move forward.

The conscripts seem to break with the 1st shot against them. The green troops pin and crawl to cover on the what seems the 1st time somebody shoots at them.

Next to impossible to spot mg’s, I’ve only heard them.

I’ve had to use “human wave” to move up from cover to cover. The 1st time I tried to move up not using human wave almost every one was pinned and sneaking backward to cover.

Either the guns are really well emplaced or the Russian 76mm is pretty poor against infantry. I mean I fired easily 15 or 20 shots from 5 T34’s and the gun went concealed (iron cross) and everyone stopped shooting at it. So I moved up and it popped up in the same place, all 5 T34’s, half a dozen 50mm mortars and an assortment of mg’s shot at it for another full minute and a half. Now at least it’s pinned and stopped shooting back.

One of the worst things is the way the troops turn around when going to cover and point their boots toward the enemy. I had a mortar unit look like a ballerina pirouetting round and round. I’d tell it to face the enemy and on it’s way around it would be shot at and whoop, it’s spinning back around again.

I've moved up 100 meters and it’s taking me 10 minutes just get most everyone more or less back in line and facing the right way. But still every turn somebody's pointing backwards. This bugs me a little

I had to move the T34’s in front of the infantry to start firing at the German forward units a little quicker.

And talk about time delays! Give a conscript more than 1 way point and it takes over a minute to start moving.

Of course the tanks button up when the shooting starts and loose command control. I can see where the German tanks will have a large advantage in maneuver.

This is vastly different from CMBB.

Has anybody had success in advancing on the Germans?

Edit:

I’ve just reread this post and it sounds like I’m complaining.

NOT AT ALL.

(A little frustrated maybe but I’ll get the hang of it. )

New game, new tactics and all that, what?

Well done BFC.

[ September 02, 2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: Ted ]

[Hensworth]

Don't worry. I was just about to enquire whether anybody found those scenarios dang hard from the Russian side.

I had exactly the same problems as you. Invisible MG's, hard-to-kill AT guns (mostly because the T34's can't seem to hit the side of a barn).

Then I came to the same conclusion as you : I moved the tanks out in front of the infantry. This went against all my CM instincts but sure enough the Germans were on the run pretty soon. Once they were out of their foxholes the Maxims kicked in and it became a little easier to advance.

Looks like we'll have to be prepared to let go of some old CMBO doctrines.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Ted:

Has anybody had success in advancing on the Germans?

Today I finished the Jelnia scenario playing the russians. I lost no tank and only about 100 casualties. German casualties were about 200+.

I advanced one company very carefully on each of the flanks while advancing my T-34s in the centre, followed by 3 platoons of infantry. My mortars and Maxims targeted likely enemy positions while my infantry moved forward. In the centre my infantry got pinned by mortars and MG fire but my infantry on the flanks could move slowly forward. I used two platoons in overwatch positions and advanced one. This took quite some time but enemy infantry was spotted pretty fast and got supressed by the combined firepower of the T-34s, mortars, HMGs and the overwatch platoons.

I followed my infantry platoons with company/bataillon HQs to rally broken squads and arrived in fairly good condition at my designated jump-off points.

The actual charge using human wave cost me about 70-80% of my total casualties, but the german defense was broken and most enemy squads were destroyed, I even captured two HMG teams.

The most important point IMO is to advance VERY carefully and allow enough time to rally broken squads and supress the enemy before assaulting. I started my assault at the MLR at about turn 16 and took the last flag at turn 23.

Then the germans surrendered. Score was 81 to 19.

[Sirocco]

I had the same experience. The problem is that through CMBO we've become used to squads who generally speaking go forward until they're broken. In this particular game you do have to abandon those principles and lead with your armour, pulling the infantry along behind to exploit.

[Commissar]

The scenario is hard despite your numbers advanatage as the Soviets. I did manage to win though, but I had to mainly use my T-34's to supress and rout out the Germans. It was a lengthy process. Conscripts are too fragile to be of much use. A few rifle shots is all that is needed to make them hit the ground and tremble in fear. A few good bursts from the MG42 and MG34 were enough to stop my troops cold. Without some decently trained regulars or even greens, any attack looks like it will falter quite spectacularly. The best that I can do is use the T-34 for supressions in an area, get the conscripts to move a little at a time before German fire makes them hit the dirt again. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had some hills or cover for my troops to exploit. All I really had was some craters, which is better than nothing I guess.

[ September 02, 2002, 03:10 PM: Message edited by: Commissar ]

[YankeeDog]

One little suggestion: You might get more responses if you move your post to the proper forum. Looks like there's more new stuff to get used to than just what's in the demo!

While I'm here: I've had a lot of trouble with the russians too, but I do have one trick that has helped in both the tutorial (which is easy) and Yelina (which certainly isn't!!):

Massed area fire.

Once you get a sound contact to an enemy ATG, just plaster the area with MG and HE fire from your T34s. The new MG modeling (more suppression of units in the general vicinity of MG fire), the high blast rating of T34's HE shells, and the new area fire rework that makes a unit that is area targeting more likely to switch to a 'real' target once it pops up all seem to make this tactic much more effective.

I took out both of the German ATGs this way in Yelnia. Granted, this was against the AI, which seems to like to open up with the ATGs at pretty long range (before the 37mm really has a decent chance of KOing the T34), but it still worked really well. After a few rounds of ATG fire, it became pretty clear approximately where the guns were (sound contact plus fall of shot), so I just opened up on the whole area with both platoons of T34s for a couple of turns. KOed both ATGs this way. I did lose one tank to one of the ATGs, but this was before I tried the area fire trick and I was actually trying to spot the little buggers.

The tricky thing about this tactic is that you never know for sure if the guns are dead - the crews could just be taking cover. You just have to hope that after a turn or so of concentrated fire, they're either dead or broken.

I also used area fire to moderate success on German infantry with both my T34s and my Maxims. When playing Extreme FOW, you can lose contact to a unit really easily even if you have LOS, so I would just order area fire onto the foxholes if there was nothing better to shoot at.

IOW: Keep your high ammo-load units shooting. If you're not quite sure where the enemy is, guess. At least for Yelnia, this seems to seems to work well.

Cheers,

YD

[Ted]

LoL,

I was wondering why nobody was talking CMBB.

Oh yeah, new forum. Doh!

Thanks for all your responses. I’m glad to hear it wasn’t only me.

Yank, I can see that area fire will be the way of it all right.

And keeping the T34’s to the front (just like the news reels) helps to.

Anyway it’s time for a new mindset (and a new forum ).

See you there.

[GJK]

I win it every time. Right from the start, run all the armor down to the victory locations. You might loose 1 or 2 tanks tops. Move one of the tanks behind the woods that hold the large flag to catch the fleeing Germans. Each turn select enmasse 1/3 of the Russian ground troops and opt for "Human Wave" all the way to the victory location in front of them (1/3rd to each flag). You'll have to reorder them every turn but eventually, after the armor has suppressed/destroyed enough Germans, your troops will flood into the victory locations. Hasn't failed yet for me.

[Moon]

Moving this over to the CMBB forum...

Martin