A Quick Battle AAR: Shermans vs Pz IVs, Not Your Fathers Combat Mission

[Battlefront.com]

heh... well, we actually did some testing to make sure the chance of burning was realistically portrayed (as best we can figure it, of course). The Shermans with the "W" designation definitely go up in flames a lot less frequently than the Shermans without the "W" designation.

Steve

[Andrew H.]

heh... well, we actually did some testing to make sure the chance of burning was realistically portrayed (as best we can figure it, of course). The Shermans with the "W" designation definitely go up in flames a lot less frequently than the Shermans without the "W" designation.

Steve

Maybe there should be a steam animation.

[zukkov]

ok, here's my $64k question. did the americans ever win a tank battle of any size? when you think about it, they really didn't have to, but still it would be great for my morale if they won a few.

[Battlefront.com]

There were very few sizable tank battles in the West, though there were lots of tanks engaged. At the tactical level the Americans won plenty. Both sides suffered quite a number of battles where things didn't go very well for them. One of my favorites was the battle for Schmidt and Kommerscheidt. They didn't win those particular battles, but the Germans came off pretty badly in several engagements within the larger scope of the battles.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

Your question doesn't really make much sense to me on numerous levels, but Google up Mortain or Arracourt for starters.

[PaulMG]

There were Operations for CMAK for Kommerscheidt and Mortain. I enjoyed them both. The Kommerscheidt Op I played as US even though it was designed to be played as German.

[Krilly]

Woohoo!

Great updates again. Pretty pictures and the 'firing through smoke sequence' is pretty darn interesting. Thanks for that.

Seems like Bil's carefull positioning is paying off and lady luck is swinging sides. Also nice to see Shermans doing what they do best, burning on the field :-P.

They do use a lot of smoke though.

Believe me when I say that there was much rejoicing at this result!

Heh.

[LC-]

Only one way to end all questions, release the game to us all today.

[Vark]

Capt, where are your infantry, what are they doing? Surely a mixed combat team should be using all its assets or does relative spotting hamper infantry/armour cooperation?

[acrashb]

IMO NA would have been a place where this would have been practiced regularly because you could see the enemy coming a good ways off and had adequate time to get set up in most tank vs. tank engagements.

On top of that, it would not just be meeting engagements (which is the core of the "never happen in the heat of combat" arguments elsewhere). When a tank is getting setup in a defensive keyhole, there is plenty of time to angle the hull to the most-likely avenue of attack.

[kulik]

I think that there would be no special positioning needed, the driver just could break with one track split second earlier to end with some lateral angle. I admit that while i read about this stuff in some manual i never read that it was common tactics.

BTW since CMBN isn't "design for effect" it may be possible to just run a test and see if angled tank has a better survivability chance.

[The_Capt]

This reminds me of people who play various Villers Bocage scenarios and are disappointed when they lose "Wittmann" in the first engagement. "WHAT?!?! No way, dude, I should have rocked their world AND walked away cold as a Gurkensalat. This game is broken!". And what I mean by that is sometimes Lady Luck plays favorites in a battle and that produces some rather extraordinary results. Other times Lady Luck smiles on someone for a little while, grows bored, and then walks away. Wittmann had Lady Luck over his shoulder for the whole battle, Warren had Lady Luck only for the first 9 minutes of a battle that definitely wasn't 9 minutes long

As we look at this now we see that Bil put some of his tanks in really good positions (the one that was caught going cross field obviously wasn't one of them!). Warren got lucky for a little while with his M4A3s and had a mixed bag with the others (one M-10 gonzo, but quite a few burned up PzIVs). Now at Turn 10 it's clear two things have happened:

1. Warren's lucky streak has snapped

2. The battle isn't over yet

Steve

Not much to add to Steves assesment at this point.

Bil had is tanks in an excellent position. I never spotted the ones on this flank once while the peppered and then popped my two lead tanks.

I had infantry sharpshooter teams in that woodline and it was about now that I got the sense that Bil had more tanks out there, at least 5. For those keeping score I was now down 2 x M10s, 1 x immob M4A1 and 2 x M4A3. Just like old times CMBN QBs can turn on a freakin dime.

So I am back on my heels at this point. I still have 2 x M10s, an M4A3 (76) and a working M4A1 above the immob one. My plan was to suck back into a defensive mode and either nail Bils tanks as they crested the rises/came out of the trees or if they swung close to the woods on my right, catch em with tank hunting teams pulled out of my Coy.

But it looks bad. My remaining tanks are now in a crossfire noose and it is closing.

[Bil Hardenberger]

MINUTE 10 Part 2

2nd Platoon

Tank 4 and Tank 3 are the furthest forward and I decide to try and get a little better vision on the area to their front. These two tanks will shoot and scoot forward, see what they can, fire if able, and then withdraw. Armed with any information they uncover I can then make an informed decision on how to commit 2nd Platoon.

This is turn 10 of an hour long battle, there is no reason to get hasty at this point. I try to never forget to do my reconnaissance; you must know what you are up against before throwing in your forces. First contact should be with the smallest tactical element possible.

In the following image you can see where these tanks started from (the ghosted out tanks in the image) where they moved forward to and the cover arc command I gave to Tank 4. They paused at this forward position for 15 seconds then withdrew back to their starting points.

Note: this image was composited in Photoshop, this does not show a game feature:

Once forward Tank 4 spots an M4A1 at 50:49 and at 50:44 it fires and hits from 330m. I don’t think my tanks were spotted as they received no return fire. Unfortunately the Sherman seemed unfazed by the fire.

So I now know that Warren has at least one Sherman on AA2 and probably more. This is good news for me. It means that Warren has split his force that was on AA3 to prop up his defense on AA2 (could he have only had the two M-10s on this side initially?).

Before reversing out of sight, Tank 4 fires a couple of MG bursts at the unbuttoned Sherman. Just exercising the guns I guess.

Next: Minute 11

[LongLeftFlank]

Note: this image was composited in Photoshop, this does not show a game feature:

Rats, I thought this was the "Haunted Panzer" feature we hallucinated we had been promised. Young Oberleutnant Götz von Berlichingen goes into battle under the eye of his iron-fisted namesake!

[stikkypixie]

MINUTE 10 Part 2

Note: this image was composited in Photoshop, this does not show a game feature:

Sweet photoshop skillz

[Antig3n]

Chance Encounter? With reversed sides, a little extra open space on the German right, and rotated a bit to be played "corner-to-corner." Wooooord.

[Lt Belenko]

MINUTE 8

CMBN also has heavy woods, or woods that are impassable to vehicles, this is denoted by a change of ground cover at these locations:

Next: Minute 9

Excellent screen capture of the two types of woods passable and impassable.

Are tanks more likely to bogg/immobilize in the passable woods as opposed to clear ground?

[LongLeftFlank]

Are tanks more likely to bog/immobilize in the passable woods as opposed to clear ground?

Good question, and the answer ought to be not just yes but hell yes. One would also think that the maximum possible vehicle speed in such terrain would be SLOW. If you're in dense enough mature forest that there's limited undergrowth that also means no sunlight and poor visibility.

Fallen trees and tree stumps, as well as mossy boulders, are the main hazard. In low-lying level areas and dips, patches of soft ground hidden by a mat of leaves are also a problem, although this is least problematic in July-Sept.

[zukkov]

it's got to be the crew quality. bill always gets the first shot, even when he's moving and warren's stationary. i believe that was the difference in this game.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Zukkov after the initial contact on turn 2 when did one of my tanks fire on the move?

In the part 2 of turn 10 shoot and scoot those two crews are regular.

[Plinko]

it's got to be the crew quality. bill always gets the first shot, even when he's moving and warren's stationary. i believe that was the difference in this game.

Good point, but I think it has more to due with Bil taking advantage of concealment in the trees

[akd]

Excellent screen capture of the two types of woods passable and impassable.

Are tanks more likely to bogg/immobilize in the passable woods as opposed to clear ground?

Tree "objects" alone aren't really considered "forests" for the purposes of normal vehicle movement (I assume calculating pathing based on every individual tree is too taxing). The way it is intended to work is to use either a "light forest" or "heavy forest" base tile where dense forest trees are placed. Light forest is passable to vehicles with penalties, heavy forest is impassable to vehicles. It is up to the map designer to pair the right base tile with the proper density of vegetation.

In the above example, dense forest tree "objects" are placed on a grass field base tile. The AI can move through this faster than the visual representation would suggest, but may still attempt to seek another route if given a quick or fast movement order.

[zukkov]

true, using the trees worked very well. and i didn't reallize those 2 shoot-n-scooters were regulars bil. it just seems like warren's tanks are a bit slow on the draw compared to your's is what i meant. anyway, great comeback, though i admit i'm biased for the ami's. seeing so many rounds bounce off shermans is heartening. back in my miniature's days, that never happened. :-p

edited to say i really appreciate you guys posting this AAR, expecially spacing it out over time to allow everyone a chance to add input. don't know if that's how you planned it, but it worked out great!

[GhostRider3/3]

There were very few sizable tank battles in the West, though there were lots of tanks engaged. At the tactical level the Americans won plenty. Both sides suffered quite a number of battles where things didn't go very well for them. One of my favorites was the battle for Schmidt and Kommerscheidt. They didn't win those particular battles, but the Germans came off pretty badly in several engagements within the larger scope of the battles.

Steve

I strongly believe however that if the Allies did not have Air Supremecy and did not have to worry about Fuel shortages.... Hence = ground, then the Axis Tanks would most likely been on top in almost every engagement. I mean by the time Normady came to the Germans they had already lost the war...too many what if's shoulda, woulda, and coulda's.

But buy 1944 The Germans were using the last remaning stocks of equipment and men, while the Allies were now putting out Volumes of equipment... and men.

I remember talking to a son of a UK vet, and his Father explained to him that the entire meditereanean Theatre would have been completely different had the Germans gone the extra distance and destroyed the forces or made them surrender and Dunkirk, the British he believed would not have been able to make good on those loses, and the battle for Greece, Crete, and North Africa and even India would have been not the same. So I beleive it is Fate, and alot of lady luck or Divine intervention if you will... anyone who has been in combat either believes in a higher power, or is enraged on how a higher power could let stuff like War happen... but if your religious then you would know warfare is, and always will be apart of Humankind... Cain..and Able.. LOL.

[Bil Hardenberger]

true, using the trees worked very well. and i didn't reallize those 2 shoot-n-scooters were regulars bil. it just seems like warren's tanks are a bit slow on the draw compared to your's is what i meant.

Also remember that I use very focused cover arcs when doing recon, or when I know approximately where the enemy should be. This helps my crews stay focused on a small slice of the battlefield and not be checking LOS all over the field... that significantly reduces spotting and hence reaction times.

I don't even know if Warern has cover arcs set for any of his tanks, or how wide he sets them if he does, he'd have to answer that. But my point is that there are a lot of factors at play in who gets the first shot off.