Rugged Defense CM Tournament AARs - Broken! vs Hodo

[RobH]

The sixth in the series of AARs from Round 4 in the Rugged Defense Short-75 and Panther-76 Tournaments and accompanying movies is now available on the Rugged Defense Combat Mission Tournament AAR website.

Also, read all about the Tournaments themselves from the Rugged Defense Combat Mission Tournament website.

At last! This is the only battle in Round 4 of the Panther-76 Tournament where the Axis attacker wins. A Short-75 battle German attacker win will be published very shortly. And who said the attacker could not win in 30 turns ? Broken! gets a surrender from Hodo on Turn 26 in this battle. Had the game gone to the full 30 turns, I am convinced Broken! would have taken all 5 flags too.

At least this AAR shows how a properly co-ordinated and executed attack is more than capable of succeeding against what may, at first glance, seem a very difficult challenge.

For those who have been asking how to cross a river and live to tell the tale, we see here a highly effective and successful river crossing from Broken!. Not without casualties inevitably, but highly effective using the combination of smoke and the suppressive effect of several assault guns. It is not often you see 150mm arty being used for smoke and they sure produce some nice big smoke plumes!

Broken!'s plan appears to be to flank the town from the two sides rather than take it head on. This means he can take those two rearmost flags within the time allowed for the battle and apply pressure upon the town itself from directions where its defences are perhaps not the strongest.

This is the same map of course as for the previous AARs but you will again see another entirely different style of attack and defence in this battle.

Thanks Broken! and Hodo for another highly informative and instructive battle! I should like to thank both players for superb AARs and movies which contain a lot of useful pointers for many of us to learn and to try in our own battles.

Previous AARs from the recent Rugged Defense Tournaments have already been covered in the following threads:

Barleyman vs Buckeye

Buckeye vs Me262

Me262 vs Barleyman

Hodo vs Vandal

Vandal vs Broken!

This is the last of the Round 4 battle AARs for the Panther-76 Tournament. The remaining Round 4 AAR will show one of the German attacker wins on the same map from the Short-75 Tournament. This remaining Round 4 AAR will be published very shortly.

As previously, any discussion on the AAR is most welcome on this thread.

Rob

[Broken]

Rob,

Thanks for posting this, but I think the interest in river crossing tactics has taken a far back seat to CMBB anticipation.

[TeddyB]

I have been wondering so long how this map could be conquered within such a short time! So it is very interesting to see how a lightning attack can be done! So far I have gone through 13 minutes so

the river crossing is yet to come!

Thanks to you ALL for these very informative and educational AARs, the more I look at them the more impressed I am!

To Broken!

You really pressed the attack very hard and had the fire support to overhelm the defensive positions very fast.

Am I correct to assume that you pre-planned the artillery strikes to suspected enemy positions and if nothing happened you retargeted the strikes. At least the 150mm spotter on the right looked to work like that?

I would like to ask why you decided not to have the AVF:s in overwatch positions while your infantry went in? In this case it wasn't necessary because Hodo didn't send his armor to make counter attack but he might have done that?

Also I noted that you used Move command for AVFs and not Fast. Is it related to the Damp groud, do the AVFs bog down easier when driving fast?

Also I wonder wether there might have been a reason to leave one or two higher commanders back. Just in case the infantry might have run into trouble and there would have been the need to rally them.

To Hodo

It looks like Allied forces were covering a too large area too thinly and so they hadn't the possibility to support each other.

In the first half of the battle the armor has been kept back. Would it have been possible to use armor to support your left flank? There weren't that many enemy AVFs but a lot of infantry which might have been slowed down by some HE fire?

Teddy

PS. I think that the tactics lessons like these will be very useful also on the eastern front. There are also rivers ...

[Broken]

Teddy,

The arty was targetted in advance on likely areas. If those areas were found to be empty, the arty was re-targetted on the next likely position.

I prefer to leave my armor out of sight until the infantry screen locates something.

I know that armor will bog more easily on sloped terrain, but I am still not sure about fast vs move. I used move to be on the safe side, since my armor didn't need to be anywhere right away. The StuH42s are quite easy to bog.

[RobH]

Well Broken!, a lot of people, especially in Europe outside of Germany, can probably watch the battles and take in the merits of your elegant river crossing while they eagerly await the postman . After all CMBB is not released to the English speaking population in Europe until October 4th I think!

Rob

[jKMkIII]

Teddy,

I agree with that I propably tried to defend too wide area and didn't concentrate troops enough, might have been more succesful if had more troops defending before town.

I remember planning to set couple tanks on my left flank so they could join battle earlier and then pull them back when enemy came closer. Don't now remember why I decided not to, perhaps has something to do with reason why I had my troops so back. And I also usually want to spot enemy tanks before I engage mine, I expected to see some tanks that could open mine extremely easily and didn't want to risk mine too early.

[TeddyB]

Now I am at turn 20, still something to go for!

North side:

The attack is very effective. All the possible defenders observation positions have been cleared so it propably was very difficult to guess what was behind the first lines of attack?

Did this "clearing" also disturb the artillery counter fire because lack of info about the attackers possible infantry concentrations?

It looks like Broken! also kept the artillery spotters almost at line with the infantry so that they immediately had LOS to the targets. It looks like this and the AVFs providing direct HE support were essential to the speed of the attack?

Also the 6 pdr AT Guns are succumbing to enemy infantry before they get the chance to shoot at AVF:s. And the infantry is advancing so fast that those guns don't have time to use their HE against infantry much either.

River side:

The troops got into the starting positions at the river side very early and the amount of smoke delivered is huge!

It looks that the coverage of the smoke needs really to be large enough for the whole area, to prevent high casualties.

When I have tried to cross the same river against AI, I have apprently used the smoke much too sparingly.

Also to smoke coverage from 150mm is huge compared to 81mm.

I haven't seen how far the smoke lasted (yet), did you feel that there were enough rounds to fire from 150mm to last long enough.

Do you use pausing firing of smoke to get it last longer? It looks that it stays there about a round or two before clearing away!

Also the support fire from the hills by AVFs has been very effective.

How do you feel, were the British tanks too fragile to duel with Germans, two of them are already lost?

Very interesting battle indeed.

Teddy

[Broken]

Teddy,

I try to scout every patch of cover on the advance. That hidden AT gun always seems to be in the patch of woods that I missed! See the AARs for the Tourney final (round 5) when they come out, I miss a few hiding places in my attack and Buckeye makes me pay for that mistake several times!

The German 81mm smoke lasts about 40 seconds and the 150mm smoke lasts 2.5 minutes. For that reason, I find the 150mm smoke much easier to use than the 81mm. I just use the 81 to "fill in the gaps" and for quick reaction.

The German Panzer IV/70 is very difficult to kill frontally with the Allied equipment available under the Panther 76 rules. You just have to keep them hull down and not allow any shots at the weak side armor. At under 500m range, they can kill just about any Allied tank. They were ideal for over-watching the river. This allowed the StuH42s to go to work without being bothered by the allied armor. Nearby AT guns could have been a problem, but Hodo placed most of them covering the tank-passable terrain to the north.

[TeddyB]

The river crossing was real clockwork! The smoke, fire support and the platoons running over and organizing themselves into formations on the other side!

To prevent such an efficient attack, should there be more wire and AP mines around fjords. The wire was slight displaced as Hodo noted in his AAR. Should there also be TRPs near fjords?

If the smoke covers the area, is it so that the defensive artillery spotters can't get LOS to the spot and will have out-of-LOS time delay? Would it have been worthwhile to use area-fire from the tanks into the smoke? Is it possible to use tank area-fire while the target is covered smoke? How about machine gun fire into the smoke?

If the buildings near the fjords wouldn't have been standing would it be a good idea to hide there some flamethrowers? Against the StuH42:s the buildings didn't last long. Some of them would have apparently wiped out like the infantry squads nearby the Flag.

A lot of questions

I am looking forward to see the final round and also the other german win at short75 this round!

Teddy

[RobH]

Hehe! At least somebody is enjoying this AAR ! Lots of good questions and I'm letting the players answer them for you.

Rob

[TeddyB]

At least I do enjoy and also hopefully learn!

I am sure that there are many other readers and learners also. It took me a year and a half to start writing onto this forum!

I came to conclusion that to make progress as a player I need to "train" on a same map over and over again.

If I just find one scenario after another and play them once I don't actually learn from my mistakes. I just enjoy.

When trying to solve a puzzle, how to win the attack on this VERY good map I started really to think and analyze it.

To be able to see what the players have done and how they handled the same situations really gives the base to start understanding this battlefield and the rules which govern it.

And to have the possibility to read the analyses and discussions of the players is very important for understanding. And even to have the possibility to ask questions really makes the difference!

I also started to play the other maps of earlier rounds with the same idea, replay, replay and try to handle it a bit better everytime.

Thanks VERY much for this opportunity!

Teddy

[ September 25, 2002, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: TeddyB ]

[Broken]

Teddy,

In my defensive setup on the same map (see Broken vs Vandal AAR), I did use AP mines, wire and TRPs for the purposes you have mentioned. I placed an AT gun in a position for flank shots on German armor firing into the town. One building was knocked down by howitzer fire to give the defense a clearer view of the fords.

Even if blocked by smoke, arty fire on TRPs is still fairly accurate. Area fire into smoke by tanks and infantry is not very effective, your target must be in LOS.

Flamethrowers in buildings near the fords (or flame vehicles) might have been quite effective. Buildings captured by the German assault forces could be set on fire. A rather "gamey" tactic would have been to set fire to certain buildings before the Germans even crossed, denying them cover.

The battles in these AARs are somewhat different from what is usual in CM: we were able to see the maps before making purchases.

[TeddyB]

It would have been interesting to see how your defense would have worked. Propably the attacker would have been in serious trouble

When studying the map before making the purchases did you also have the possibility to play against AI?

When I see a new map and try to understand it I always miss some critical terrain features which come very apparent during my first battle on that map.

Teddy

[Broken]

Teddy,

Since we could look at the map with the editor, we could, in theory, play against the AI, another player or ourselves. You would need to have a good bit of time on your hands, however, to do that with a game of this size!

[TeddyB]

When comparing the attackers forces to the original companies and battalions most players have dropped out the slowest units i.e. the MG:s, Mortars and ATG:s. This enables them to try to cover the map in time.

And as defenders there is no need for tranporting vehicles etc.

The result is a bit different from "normal" battle, I have to adjust my mind to these "purpose" build attack/defence units. I have played the round 1 and 2 maps with the default forces given and with various success, when I adapt the above idea I get much better result!

The key seems to be to see and analyze the map carefully before the selections. Also the initial setup looks to play key element at least in the maps where there is no time to make drastic changes in plans during the game anymore.

Teddy