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

[panzermartin]

So casualties dont count in QBs?

[willmontgomery]

If you are playing against the AI and want to team up with another player, just save the game after you give your orders, etc. then e-mail the saved game to your friend... he will give his orders to his assigned forces and generate the movie.

He would then save the file and send it to you.

Both of you could watch the movie independantly, but he wouldn't give his orders until you e-mailed the save game back to him.

In CMx1 single-player, there didn't seem to be any save game file that stored the movie. If I saved the game _before_ the movie played, then every time that file was opened, it would generate a different movie (because it would be calculating the turn again). If I saved the game _after_ the movie played, then I was in a post-movie orders phase, and the movie would not be saved. Is this somehow different in CMx2? Or do I have this wrong about CMx1?

[Broadsword56]

That shot of the Panzer trooper in the distance watching as he shows all Americans are Jesse Owens in the right conditions is too funny.

Yeah, you could almost see that Panzer trooper shaking his little pixel-kopf in amazement and a grudging admiration for his plucky enemy.

[StellarRat]

Anybody have any comments on the tactics that were used in this game, or on battle plans/approaches used?

Bil

Well, my "he's going to win" sensor went off when you put the tanks in the woods. To me you made better use of the terrain (trees) and had better recon even though it cost you a few vehicles. All other things being equal, which they pretty much were, I would have expected you to win. Had the Captain been able to employ his infantry a little faster and in the right place the story could have been completely different.

I'm also quite happy to see that the new spotting system is making the games more "historically" accurate. The battles now "sound" much more like what I've read about in first hand accounts where seeing/knowing about the enemy first is far more a factor than what kind of equipment you have, etc... in a lot of situations.

[stikkypixie]

What would the_Capt have to do with his infantry to stand a better chance? Better scouting, occuppying the objective seems suicidal to me.

[StellarRat]

What would the_Capt have to do with his infantry to stand a better chance? Better scouting, occuppying the objective seems suicidal to me.

Suppose he would have been in woods where Bill decided to park his tanks? Or even just would have been in a position to scout Bill's approach route. It could have made a huge difference, IMO.

[sburke]

What would the_Capt have to do with his infantry to stand a better chance? Better scouting, occupying the objective seems suicidal to me.

Possibly by threatening occupation of the VL, drawing the Pz force forward into some kind of crossfire from the M10s. That implies some level of intelligence of what they may have been facing. Getting the infantry into position with some eyes on the field though still back away from the woods edge would at least seem to have allowed Capt to get first glimpse of the enemy while still potentially having his armor hidden. Kind of the interesting thing about the battle was the complete disparity in the force purchases. What we never really got a good look at is the terrain back on the Capt's side. Were there good hull down or reverse slope positions further back to hide movement of his armor? If not the map may have decided a good portion of how this battle was going to go already. It might only have been worse if he hadn't jumped out immediately. At least he was able to get 1st platoon in a somewhat closer fight and do some damage.

[stikkypixie]

Suppose he would have been in woods where Bill decided to park his tanks? Or even just would have been in a position to scout Bill's approach route. It could have made a huge difference, IMO.

Wouldn't that have been a huge gamble? Crossing open field into potentially hostile woods?

[Battlefront.com]

If it's a huge thing to put in, then I imagine that it's not commercially viable, in the sense that lack of CoPlay probably would cost you very few -- if any -- sales. However, I imagine that you're talking about real-time CoPlay.

95% of the work needed to make CoPlay has nothing to do with how the players are connected. So no... I'm talking about CoPlay as CoPlay, not as RealTime or WeGo. It's a huge deal and we're not sure it's commercially viable to add.

So casualties dont count in QBs?

Correct, they do not count for points. The "count" in the sense that they matter for gameplay, which in turn decides (in part) who wins.

There are a number of technical problems with having a good, balanced scoring system for casualties in a QB setting. As is so often the case, those issues are not apparent to end users because simple outcomes are usually thought of being simple to produce. That's not the case here.

What would the_Capt have to do with his infantry to stand a better chance? Better scouting, occuppying the objective seems suicidal to me.

Had Capt known what he was up against I am sure he would have played entirely different. In fact, he said as much starting with his earliest posts.

If his armor had hung back and his infantry worked forward I could see Bil having lost or this being closer to a draw. But once the American olive drab metal things were set on fire there wasn't much that could be done with the crunchies.

Steve

[YankeeDog]

Hard to tell without more detailed images of Capt's movements in the first few turns, but it does seem like the M-20s weren't used to potential. They seem to have just been moved forward adjacent the Shermans, which basically made them little more than targets.

I would have been interested to see whether the ACs could have used their greater speed to race forward to defilade positions (it looks like there are a few buildings close to the VL in the middle of the maps that could hide an AC behind them). From there, the crew could have dismounted and been used a forward OP/pickets. This could have given Capt an early intel advantage, and dramatically changed the future turns.

Using dismounted recon vehicle to scout is something you couldn't do in CMx1, and I'm curious to see how well the tactic works in CMx2.

[StellarRat]

Wouldn't that have been a huge gamble? Crossing open field into potentially hostile woods?

Crossing open ground is always a gamble. I was talking about at the start of the game before Bill tanks were in a position to see much. Dead out run. Captain knew it was a meeting engagement therefore he didn't need to worry about running into an established defensive position.

[Bil Hardenberger]

In CMx1 single-player, there didn't seem to be any save game file that stored the movie. If I saved the game _before_ the movie played, then every time that file was opened, it would generate a different movie (because it would be calculating the turn again). If I saved the game _after_ the movie played, then I was in a post-movie orders phase, and the movie would not be saved. Is this somehow different in CMx2? Or do I have this wrong about CMx1?

Hmmm.. might have found a hole in my plan there.

Guess you and your pal will need to team up against one or two human players and do co-play that way.

[Rocky Balboa]

What would the_Capt have to do with his infantry to stand a better chance? Better scouting, occuppying the objective seems suicidal to me.

Choosing to purchase Infantry did not lose this battle for the Capt. However, not having the game its hard for me to say how quickly that infantry element could have moved though those woods but had they gotten to the objective sooner, before Bills 2nd Plt made their move to flank AA3, that could have been enough to slow down or delay Bills 2nd Plt from catching the US Tanks in a cross fire. This alone might have give the US tanks enough time to pull back and find some good defensive terrain.

As been mentioned by others, better use of the M20 AC's could have also distracted or delayed Bills Tanks from focusing so much fire on a single route of advance.

Of course It's easy to look at what went wrong after the fact and not so easy to correct mistakes during the heat of battle.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable and informative AAR many thanks to all who participated.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Crossing open ground is always a gamble. I was talking about at the start of the game before Bill tanks were in a position to see much. Dead out run. Captain knew it was a meeting engagement therefore he didn't need to worry about running into an established defensive position.

I don't think Warren could have gotten his infantry there in good order without transport. Now if he had rushed his M-20s to good hulldown positions, or defilade positions along AA2 and AA3 then he could have seen the deployment of my recon screen and acted accordingly.. as it was, I think he was kind of surprised to see me where/when he did at first.

If he had rushed his Shermans or M-10s (at least two of them), into the woods where I parked my 2nd Platoon, then he could have controlled the center, and I would have had trouble maneuvering against or even finding a flank.

I think this open map really dictated either an all armor force, or at the very least a mobile one. If he had bought a couple trucks to carry his infantry they might have contributed, but I don't think on foot they could have ever made a difference.

I think Warren's problem was with committing his main force down AA3 without even knowing where or what I had. To me that was The_Capt's #1 sin.

[StellarRat]

I don't think Warren could have gotten his infantry there in good order without transport.

It's hard to judge the distances on the map. I'm sure you know better than I do how quickly infantry can move on foot in CMBN. I did have in the back of my head that I didn't remember him having any transports, but I couldn't tell from looking at the map how far apart things were. Maybe they would have made no difference.

[Bil Hardenberger]

...What we never really got a good look at is the terrain back on the Capt's side. Were there good hull down or reverse slope positions further back to hide movement of his armor?

There are always dips in the terrain, and woods that can be used for terrain masking and hulldown positions. For example, the woods next to Warren's first two M-10s on AA2 (the first two I killed) was light woods, the same type I drove through with 2nd Platoon... also, these TDs were sitting on top of a hill.. wouldn't have taken much to move them back some onto the reverse slope and find good hulldown positions. Would have made a world of difference.

[Vark]

Is there a shoot and scoot option in CM2? If there is, perhaps the M-10s could have done that, though not seeing the map in detail means I don't know how many hull down positions there were for the US and whether there were protected re-deployment routes. Bils cover arcs and deployments really made a difference and it seemed to me as though Bil was more au fait with the game system, or is that incorrect?

As for what tactics to use I think I would need to purchase the game, as most of the CM1 methods might be a non-starter, certainly the higher terrain fidelity, engineered hit-probabilities and vehicle modeling makes hull down fighting a far more effective tactic.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Vark, you can do shoot and scoot in CMBN. In fact I did that when I first committed my 2nd Platoon tanks. You have to set it up manually but it works well.

[YankeeDog]

Yes; you can shoot and scoot in CMx2. There's not a command as such, but you can set this up easily enough by issuing a short pause at a waypoint. This technique is actually critical for keeping your armor alive in CMSF. Having your Armor stationary in sight of the enemy for any length of time is usually a very bad idea in CMSF, even for Blue.

[futon river crossing]

The results screen is a concern. The Allies killed 5 axis tanks, yet scored no points, that's nearly half of his opponents force! I can see obviously that the Allies lost this game - but to be awarded no points for your efforts seems - well, absurd.

The results screen has 2 points scoring sections "Ground" and "Parameters" and both are noted as secured for Axis - I understand "ground" - but what were the parameters? These seem important, since as Steve has said, there are no pints for killing the enemy, but I must have missed where the "parameters" were mentioned, or discussed.

What, for instance, in this game would have given a "Minor Victory" or "Tactical Victory".

Without understanding what the "Parameters" were this result seems nonsensical to me, and from reading this thread, others too.

[Vark]

Sounds interesting, the CM1 shoot and scoot (wasn't this a term originally used by mech anised artillery?) let you have no control over the time you paused, are you saying you can vary the length, i.e. use a longer pause?

[ChrisND]

Sounds interesting, the CM1 shoot and scoot (wasn't this a term originally used by mech anised artillery?) let you have no control over the time you paused, are you saying you can vary the length, i.e. use a longer pause?

There's a pause command in CMx2 that you can stack on waypoints, where the unit will sit there until the time elapses and then execute the next order. You can tell it to wait anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute and a half, or even indefinitely.

[YankeeDog]

Yes; you can add additional pause increments for a longer pause. You can also add an area fire target to the waypoint, which is especially useful when you want to dump some direct-fire HE on an enemy infantry position, but you don't want to leave your armor hanging out in view for too long.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Sounds interesting, the CM1 shoot and scoot (wasn't this a term originally used by mech anised artillery?) let you have no control over the time you paused, are you saying you can vary the length, i.e. use a longer pause?

FYI, this is the turn where I had my tanks shoot and scoot: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1240840&postcount=588

[Rocky Balboa]

...........

If he had rushed his Shermans or M-10s (at least two of them), into the woods where I parked my 2nd Platoon, then he could have controlled the center, and I would have had trouble maneuvering against or even finding a flank.

......................

I think Warren's problem was with committing his main force down AA3 without even knowing where or what I had. To me that was The_Capt's #1 sin.

Rushing his Shermans or M10's forward to the woods might have ended badly if you had Infantry in your force. As I recall early on he suspected that you did indeed purchased infantry, so in light of that I understand why he didn't press forward to that extent.

No doubt his lack of situational awareness was his #1 sin. Using those M20's on AA1 or AA2 could have told him early on that you had a tank heavy force.