gredeker Posted January 30, 2002 Share Posted January 30, 2002 Kingfish, I'll send you my AAR for Real Guts (I was allies) so you know what I faced. I have a feeling that the pillbox placement in my game was atypical, but I have no idea what the initial German setup areas were. I would assume that the ideal pillbox placement would be on the two hills on either side, with commanding LOS and interlocking fields of fire. However, in my game, one pillbox was covering the left bridge (all references from allied perspective) with relatively limited (but effective) LOS and the other was covering the center near the diagonal road, in a position that could not see, nor be seen from, the allied reinforcement areas. The Pak40 was on the right hill near the top, but its exact location only had LOS to the bridge and the hill on the allied side, not to the initial allied reinforcement area (some trees or whatnot got in the way). The Pak40 managed to take out one tank as it crossed the bridge, but it was then wiped out by in a fury of HE return fire (as only Shermans can provide a fury of HE to avenge one of their fallen). The pillbox in the center was actually remarkably effective in denying use of the center ridge area, forcing my pincer flanking attacks to swing even more to the outside to avoid the pillbox (which still managed to destroy a Sherman). My impression is that "par for the course" for pillboxes is around 3 or 4 enemy AFVs before being taken out, in comparison with 1 or 2 for AT guns, assuming good placement. Is this accurate? Where were the pillboxes in other people's games? How much freedom of placement does the German player have for his defenses? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted January 30, 2002 Share Posted January 30, 2002 You have great flexibility on that game for placment. Mine took nothing and were dispatched by the end of the game. I took the approach of trying to get limited LOS but covering the approaches to the flags. I will send you the set up file. My opponent did a great job of breaking my defences down bit by bit. H P.s your suggested approach was rejected due to gamey sods that would use smoke to stop the PB's firing. Also with good LOS any tank or Greyhound would take the PB really easy. IMO. But I could be wrong. As I was in this game, ohhhh soooo badly wrong.... [ January 30, 2002, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: Holien ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalistdoginchina Posted January 31, 2002 Share Posted January 31, 2002 Regarding "Real Guts" i had the highest score as the allied attacker, so maybe i can comment with some authority on this one I have an inbuilt fear of AT pillboxes since usually they kill my tanks with an uncanny ability, but when i use them they seem to die an early and fruitless death (Except in our current replay Kingfish ). Hence i give them a healthy dose of respect. My oppponent placed his pillboxes in the default positions - one on the left flank hill and one in the center (As viewed from the allies). I immediately saw the threat and knew my armour would arrive sometime in the battle according to my briefing. Therefore i prioritised my plan to take out the pillboxes with infantry close assaults ASAP. So i close assaulted the left Pillbox and took it out in around 5 or 6 turns i think. Using smoke as cover i got 2 platoons on that hill along with 2 bazooka teams and took out the pillbox with the loss of only a handfull of men and one Sherman (I lost the sherman because he arrived in LOS and the smoke was not thick enough to protect him - true to form the pillbox fired one shot and KO ed my Sherman, my Shermans fired 8 rounds at the pillbox and all missed! Anyway the infantry competed the close assault next turn without further loss. I kept all my armour well back until i had succesfully close assaulted the second pillbox in the center. The second Pillbox was not given any opportunity to KO any of my tanks. I patiently advanced until i was able to close assault it. Once both pillboxes were out of the way i took out the 75mm AT gun after it revealed itself firing at one of my Shermans. The AT gun only bagged one Sherman. Once the guns were out of the way the rest was easy. By turn 16 or 17 i had captured both objectives and destroyed almost all enemy units. I can send the detailed AAR'r if anyone wishes to see it. There i describe my plan, and the excecution. Regards CDIC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gredeker Posted January 31, 2002 Share Posted January 31, 2002 Originally posted by Captitalistdoginchina: I can send the detailed AAR'r if anyone wishes to see it. There i describe my plan, and the excecution. Regards CDICI'd like to take a look at that AAR, if you don't mind. Let me know if you want mine as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalistdoginchina Posted January 31, 2002 Share Posted January 31, 2002 The AAR is on the way - i already have yours although i have not read it yet - so many to read! Cheers CDIC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gredeker Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 In case you didn't see it in the other thread on the main forum, we can now talk about "We Can't Wait". So... Did folks find any particularly inspired/effective placements for AT guns? What did airpower do in your game? In my playing, the best AT gun position was a keyholed Pak38 in the town, which managed to take out three(?) of my halftracks without me seeing where it was. My airpower experience can be summed up in two words - Friendly Fire. The airedales did manage to strafe a few German vehicles and a flak gun or two later in the game, but they saved their bombs for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 Hi Redeker, Just seen that we can chat about my 1st challenge in the Tourney. A very tough game that I just squeezed through by the skin of my teeth. I did not play a great game and was lucky to have some ill luck on my opponents side help me out. I went for a left flank push over the low hill. All went well until I got into town and then it went badly for me with tanks being taken one by one. A darn Pak got many of them and it took me ages to locate the bugger. In the end I managed to get the main flags in town just as the clock ran down. In truth I had turned the flow by some good shooting and some brave HtH combat in town. A good game but it looks like the Allied players found it too hard on the whole? Only 3 winners out of all those games were Allied victories. Would seem un balanced but maybe it was just close calls and a tad easier to defend than attack? H [ February 02, 2002, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: Holien ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted February 3, 2002 Author Share Posted February 3, 2002 For the German player in 'We can't wait", every German infantryman is worth his weight in gold. I actually realized that during my setup, yet went ahead and commited two very stupid mistakes later on that cost me the game. As with all the ROW scenario, my offer for a replay is always open. Any scenario, any side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 Hi KF, I am replaying CDIC at the moment and when that is finished I will jump at your offer as I am trying to limit game play while so much needs doing on the house. I should be doing a turn for Tom T but I am writing this. Must get back to Casey Jones Graveyard... Our game was a tough one and it could have swung either way. Just lucky that I managed to get the drop on some of those damn guns... Just looked at Redekers Duel game and I am really surprised at the Allied player using the right flank to attack. It is so open and exposed that the Panthers must have had fun. Why did people not use the better covered left Allied flank? H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enoch Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 I was unlucky in 'We Can't Wait' as I got to play Leonard Dickens and he kicked my butt. He placed most of his AT guns behind the village and keyholed them down the roads. I split my forces to advance along both the left and right. The forces on my left never got over the hill and took a lot of casualties from artillery fire. I actually managed to make it into the town on my right, but once I was in there he unloaded on me with a ton of HE fire and near the end I had to lick my wounds and pull back. I think that if I had sent my infantry looping around behind the village more I might have been able to take out some of his AT guns and get at least one of the flags but I can't say as it would have worked. My armor got worked over pretty well but I did manage to take out some of his stuff. Unfortunately for me I managed to immobilize his JagdPanther right near the crossroads on the my right, it basically became a pillbox at that point. If you happen to end up facing Leonard in the second round beware. As you can see from the results so far he managed to beat up on everyone in section 3 pretty well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spanish Bombs Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 "We Can't Wait" was probably my favorite scenario, perhaps in part because it was the first one I played, but also perhaps in part because it was a real see-saw affair. I had the Germans, and I really thought the Americans were never going to run out of tanks or infantry. I also thought that the map was quite well done - the smoke effects and the snow made me cold just looking at it - this is how the Bulge looked in my mind. My personal "best team of the tourney" was a recoilless rifle that took out 4 Halftracks and caused some infantry casualties as well, it was keyholed on my left, somewhat behind the buildings, and survived a fair amount of artillery when stouter defenders fell all around. When the two JgPzIVs showed up, I felt pretty good, but they were literally thrown into combat from the first second. One took a gun hit right away and was dead w/in 30 seconds, the other lasted one more turn and took out one Sherman (or was it a TD?) before getting drilled. At that point, I thought I was in real trouble, but then the JgPanther shows up with its Wirbelwind escort. Again, confidence soars until I hear the fighter above. The fighter actually made a pretty good run at the Wirbelwind and JgPanther (and its strafing later cost me an Ostwind and a HT or two), and its bomb-load landed very close, causing a casualty and shocking each. The effects of the loss of the TCs was to be felt later, when I had trouble getting the Wirbelwind to concentrate on bazooka teams coming through the woods on that side. I eventually lost both to close in shots from bazookas, but the blow was softened somewhat when my JagdPanther took out 3 Shermans in the 45 seconds before I lost it. As great as getting a JagdPanther as a reinforcement is - losing it is an equivalent bummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Svensson Posted February 3, 2002 Share Posted February 3, 2002 Originally posted by Holien: It would be interesting to hear Peters or Warrens experience with Duel. They did very well as the Allied attacker and it would be nice to see which approach they took. HI played Dompaire as defensively as I could. I basically hid all my armor behind hills and depressions, and let the infantry act as spotters. Of particular use was the sunken area on the French right flank, in the middle of the board. I snuck a whole platoon of Shermans and an M10 in there without, I think, being spotted. From there they could dominate the right flank from hull down positions. My opponent party played into my strategy by being fairly aggressive. He advanced the Panthers pretty far up, so close that I could button them with my infantry and then nail them with M10s popping up from cover. Rather than orchestrating a massive outflanking like Holien describes, I picked the Panthers off one by one, by concentrating several M10s on each one. Final tally was eight Panthers destroyed and a ninth gun damaged, to four Shermans and two M10s lost. Luck was a major factor as well. I was very lucky to stop a particularly bold move on my left early in the game. I had two Shermans moving up to reinforce a Greyhound guarding the flank when a Puma snuck up and nailed my car. At the same time, a Panther came racing down the road along the left board edge, heading towards my rear. In a matter of seconds, the Panther, Puma and one of my Shermans was knocked out. The next turn, the engineer platoon in halftracks appeared right where the Panther would have been if it hadn't been stopped. I also had an exceptionally daring and lucky Sherman that played hide-and-seek with two Panthers in the center. It pretty much forced both Panthers to withdraw back to the village by constantly threatening to outflank them. This was after it took a Panther shell through its side armor with no ill effects. Only when I had about won the tank battle did I really advance. This was too late to dominate the VLs on the German side of the map, but at least I interdicted both of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juha Ahoniemi Posted February 4, 2002 Share Posted February 4, 2002 Originally posted by Enoch: I played the German side on that one and I used the sunken road on the (German)right. At first I just sent a few vehicles over to cover that approach. But then I sent a couple panthers up the road when I didn't see anything coming down the road. I had 2 armored cars and a Panther run into the French Armored infantry reinforcment that showed up on that side. My litle task force completely shot them up. The French stuck mostly to the low areas and used the cover pretty effectively. They never made it into town as I had infantry in front of the town plus panthers sitting on the main road. By the end of the scenerio there were still a number of tanks running on each side. I think I still had 4 or so Panthers and I think the french still had 4 or 5 tanks (not much else though).[/QB]Enoch, Your nasty little task force was undetected by my scouts/observers. I paid a painful price about their blindness...I lost almost all of my reinforcements in that havoc. I managed to save the arty spotter, however. At least I stopped that flanking attempt further, I guess You got overconfident I also used smoke and other cover as good as I coud, but sometimes the dice just doesn't roll favorable... Remember that shootout between Your green Panther in the city and mine TD on that hill? My TD wasted all 5 tungsten rounds and then got a weak point penetration to that panther. In that early shootout I was amazed to see that even M10, put in very good position and angle, coud take on pather's drill...it took 2 shots to turret as ricochets before that other panther killed it. And I sure witnessed many ricochets coming off Your panthers... After taking heavy casualtion from that task force I thought that what the hell, it's only a game and got quite close to that city on that middle road...until the reality landed as arty and angry panthers... Anyway it was quite fun scenario (I had my moments too, remember the uber-bazookas?) and maybe we will meet on other battlefield someday. Juha [ February 04, 2002, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: Juha Ahoniemi ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WineCape Posted February 4, 2002 Share Posted February 4, 2002 Gentlemen, I have a prepared MSExcel97 spreadsheet with all the tourney tables neatly organized with match totals and section medians, barring a couple of match results still awaiting. Anyone interested, email me (WineCape@global.co.za). Best wishes, Charl Theron --------------------------------- ”I have singed the Spanish king's beard.” Francis Drake, referring to the raid on Cadiz harbour, 1587. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 The High Cost of Real Estate? Well this was a bit of a bummer for my opponent who after a good start got caught from behind and certainly did not like it up him as a certain character in Dad's Army was fond of saying. For the Allied player do you think the Scenario was fair in the initial setup and the position of the German reinforcements? As the German player I had no choice as to where to locate the P/B's and I thought after seeing the first turn results that I was well and truly shafted. My ernest whiel opponent had changed the initial position of the Croc and put it in a great place to flame the P/B with AT Gun in the center. I was only saved by lucky positioning of a TRP and my reinforcements arrival like a pantomime, "Behind you, he's Behind you, ohhh no he's not" etc... Anyway it would be good to hear some other views on this as I lucked out. H [ February 05, 2002, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Holien ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gredeker Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 High Cost of Real Estate wins the award for "Weirdest Scenario of the Tourney" in my book. It also looks like it is one of the most unbalanced scenarios. I was the Canucks, and barely pulled off a 51-49 "win". The allied setup zones seemed to favor a hard left push, so that's what I did. However, I made the joint mistakes of a) turning my Croc to help support the left, thereby giving the 75mm pillbox a perfect side shot; and giving a target command instead of rotate command to the Croc once the PB appeared. The Croc rotated just the turret, and the PB got an upper side hull penetration. The attack on the left consisted of scouts moving out in turns 1 and 2, with a Wasp taking out the MG bunker, followed by a blitz in turns 3-5 which busted open the left flank. During this blitz I lost 3 'roos (one to mines, two to 'schrecks) and one Sherman (to the 75 that killed the Croc) and a HT (also to the 75 when he appeared as a reinforcement in its LOS). The whole idea was to get out of the covered arcs of the two 75 PB's, then roll up the line. By the time I had mopped up and re-mounted my infantry, it was turn 10, so the arrival of the StuHs and PzIVs in turn 12 (?) found my infantry and Wasps on the front slope heading into the valley by the Vineyard, and much carnage was inflicted on my infantry and vehicles. The Firefly single-handedly turned things around when he arrived on the scene, taking out 3 of the 4 German AFVs in a single turn, but the fighting then bogged down to a static situation. Both of us were more effective on the defense, and neither wanted to attack the other. A late German push was thwarted with help of the remaining shells of the 25-pounder FO and a lucky shot from a Sherman 75, and the game ended with the Canucks controlling two flags and the Germans one. I had two tanks get bogged in the mud out of LOS to any terrain of value, so that was frustrating. I also learned that while you can push an immobilized vehicle with another one, you cannot push a bogged vehicle. I had two 'roos trying for 4 or 5 turn to push a tank up to the front lines, but it didn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted February 6, 2002 Author Share Posted February 6, 2002 I agree about 'High cost' being a weird scenario. Weird setups, weird arrival points for reinforcements, weird (and incredibly frustrating) outcomes, it had it all. My AT assets did very little before being taken out by the croc from hell. In sharp contrast to how the crocs in other games fared, John's fire breathing dragon survived my every attempt at killing it. One thing I discovered during one of these attempts is that the croc's fuel trailer is not modeled. I had two Stugs sneak up directly behind it and get off two shots before they were discovered. One shot missed, the other hit the tracks, immobilizing it. Had the trailer been modeled the croc would still be burning. Of course, the croc then blows both Stugs to hell, typical of the luck I had throughout this scenario. Incidentally, this is the other scenario I was referring to about reinforcements arriving in the LOS of German PBs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spanish Bombs Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 I guess I'm in the middle of the pack as far as the Croc goes. W/in the first 30 seconds it did take out a 75 pillbox, but shortly thereafter it was shocked by a MG pillbox, which I recall it eliminating in a turn or two. It sure felt nekkid hanging out there all alone on my right flank, though, and I was sure that Wild Bill had something in store for it, so I tried to get a squad over there for some support/spotting, and just started moving it up the hill in the middle, figuring it would be better to lose it on the move and hunting for something to roast than let it set there as a sitting duck. Of course it got drilled by a side shot by a StuG from my far right flank shortly thereafter. I suppose I was relatively successful in eliminating the pillboxes relatively quickly, but my Shermans and the Kangaroos kept on finding 'schreck teams hidden up those hills. It was sure tough to work for a decent shot on the reinforcing PzIV's and Assault Guns? because of the goofy terrain. Our game ended with the Germans in control of the flag to the far left (as the Allies advanced), and ?'s on the other two flags. I was very close to holding the flag on my far right, but I left too far to move to get to that flag with the terrain and the time I had left. The area around the flag in the center was truly a killing ground that sucked my infantry into it, hunkering down in small hiding places while the German armor pounded away, hoping to get off a Piat round or two. Actually, the game may have turned when the one Piat round hit I had was a "Gun Hit" on the Assault gun, but not the good type, only the type that gets your hopes up only to crush them like so many peanut shells... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 As the only other player to win as the Canadians in "The High Cost of Real Estate", I feel behoved to comment: Yup, I agree, that was a weird one. Enjoyable though. With my initial set-up, I placed my armor to the rear, in hull-down positions where all the hills on the German side of the map could be targeted on turn 1. With the exception of the Croc, which I placed as close to the base of the hill on the right as possible (I wanted to move it into a covered spot ASAP). Most of my infantry --- and a wasp ---I concentrated on the edge of the town / base of the hills near the center. The kangaroos and vickers I dispersed at various angles thoughout the town to try and give some MG cover for my infantry assault. On the left, nothing but half a split-squad and a Green HQ (for scouting). On the right (or as near as I could get) the Engineer platoon was to run like hell to back up the Croc. Luck favored me: I took out both my opponents 75mm bunkers on turn 1 (my main infantry force started out something like 50m away from one of them, and my Croc 150m from the other), leaving nothing but MG bunkers on the far left hill (where all the mines were also located, BTW); the VL hill to the left rear; right on the edge of town near the rough; and near the road that cuts through the German zone. Most of the wire was lined up to both sides of said road, blocking the entrance to the valley. The rest of the wire, and the roadblock, stretched out in front of the rear-most VL and the main road. Basically, I advanced up the center to the edge of the ridge just opposite the VL there, and waited for my reinforcements to arrive --- which I then used to sweep left on the far rear VL, and pinch in on the center VL, with the help of most of my infantry already waiting just the other side of the ridge. The German reinforcements arriving in my rear during the middle of all this was a nasty shock: Especially since all I had over there was two HT's, an engineer platoon, the Croc, and a PIAT. The Croc and PIAT (and, a couple turns later a Sherm I had on the hill overlooking the road to the right) took out all the rolling stock, and then the Croc's 75 / flame combo, along with some 3in arty, and the engineers mopping up, did for the German infantry support. When the other German reinforcements arrived later, I was already well into my push in the center, so they had no effect there. They did, however, greatly stall my push on the right --- succeding in taking out a Sherm plus my Firefly (never even got off a single shot!). Eventually though, I succeeded in picking off all the remaining German armor with long-range Sherman fire from the center and far-left hills, medium range Croc fire, and close range PIAT fire. Where I badly under-estimated my opponents strength was at the final VL on the far right: I only saw about a platoon of infantry and a pair of 'shrecks guarding it, so wrongly assumed my Croc, backed up by three HT's, an engineer platoon, a flamethrower, some long-range Sherman direct fire, and what was left of my 25lbr arty could handle the final assault. Wrong! There was twice the opposition I expected dug in behind the ridge, and not only did they wipe out my attacking infantry, but they also nailed my Croc. If it hadn't been for that final act of hubris on my part, I probably would have had a Decisive Victory. As far as I could see, my opponents main mistake was in placing his bunkers too far forward, and in placing his infantry too far apart (a squad covering each VL) --- until reinforcements arrived to bolster the far right, that is --- allowing me to reduce his defenses in detail. [ February 06, 2002, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: von Lucke ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 Hi VL I am glad I did not have to take you on with this one as well as Real Guts. Your approach sounds ideal and looks like the text book way to tackle this game. Just so that you know the German player had no choice in the position of the bunkers they were locked down tight. As for the poor spread of the Infantry this was again closely controlled by WBW. They were poorly split between the three regions, left, middle and right. I would have abandoned one of the VL's to mass the defense force on the two more closely together, but there was no chance of that. The PB's seemed to have caused people real problems and I am going to have to get more experience using them. I have not worked out yet how best to deploy them. H [ February 06, 2002, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: Holien ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gredeker Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 Originally posted by von Lucke: With my initial set-up, I placed my armor to the rear, in hull-down positions where all the hills on the German side of the map could be targeted on turn 1. With the exception of the Croc, which I placed as close to the base of the hill on the right as possible (I wanted to move it into a covered spot ASAP).Von Lucke, what choices did you have with the Croc? My Croc was outside a setup zone (and in the sights of that one PB), giving me the options of either leaving it where it was, or dragging it to one of the two setup zones (which were in the town and and straddling the road leading to it, IIRC). :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 The way I read his post, it was nearly infront of the middle PB with the AT gun. That is where my opponent placed his and it was damn effective. I could not pop it and it was close enough to flame me. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wild Bill Wilder Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 Just so you know, I'm listening and learning, guys. These are excellent reports. So "High Cost of Real Estate" was weird, huh? Well, weird people do weird things. I guess that tells you something about me. I'm looking at it. I would agree that it can be made a little better with some work. As for the Aircraft in WCW, I was torn here. I don't like using planes in tourney scenarios because they are too big a variable. Yet to not use them seemed very ahistorical. The USAAF was quite active in the days following the clearing of the skies but weren't always that accurate. I've read of a couple of friendly fire incidents that took place in the days of good weather. Finally, my desire to add a little more historical flavor won out and I put them in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gredeker Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 Originally posted by Wild Bill Wilder: The USAAF was quite active in the days following the clearing of the skies but weren't always that accurate. I've read of a couple of friendly fire incidents that took place in the days of good weather. Not to mention the tourney... I can't really complain, though, because the strafing runs (after the mis-dropped bombs) hit the right targets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 6, 2002 Share Posted February 6, 2002 WBW The planes did not un balance it for me and if anything helped sligtly in both cases. Mind I am sure the Germans would not totally agree with that. When you add planes do you add more German forces to balance it? How do you try and balance the games? Just trying to get an insight should I go down the route of design. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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