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

[Peregrine]

One cannot have a balanced game, in terms of roughly equal chances to win, in an attack/defend scenario? And size has nothing to do with it. Or do you mean by balanced that each side has the same potential for maneuver? Granted, it happened that on rare occasions precisely equivalent forces met on the battlefield. But neither side KNEW it. They assumed they were in a defensive or offensive posture. That's why 'Meeting Engagement's in Combat Mission play out in such an exceedingly odd way.

I found it curious that people will fork over $60 on a combat simulator, spend days debating the penetration values of a 75 versus an 88 or the bogging probabilities of a Matilda then sit down and play such an intrinsically improbable scenario. Not that they can't be fun, of course.

I had an opponent in CMAK/CMBB who would only do MEs. At the end he was proposing mirrored maps. 'To be fair'.

Remember this thread is an AAR for a medium size quick battle. No game is ever perfectly balanced but QB MEs are the best way to get close to a balanced two player game. I think size is critical. The larger the battle limits the chance that a piece of luck will influence the result.

I kept meticulous records of all my PBEMs and QBs (specifically large MEs) was simply the best way to get a balanced two player game in my opinion. I played all types and lots of them. Small, medium large scenarios, operations (some true monsters) attack defend QBs of lots of sizes and of course QB MEs.

I will play scenarios (single and two player) but most of the time in two player scenarios the result is already scewed one way or another and whoever has the advantage needs to make mistakes to lose. Not satisfying getting a win when you know that you had the advantage and conversely when you can see you are at a disadvantage do you get nuts trying to draw or win or just play to get the best result possible. I play for the best result possible, others prefer to go down in a blaze of (in)glory.

I think most experienced PBEMers judge the result by their performance but it is nice to have QBs MEs as have a simple method of getting a balanced game.

My main point earlier is that the victory conditions seemed to place alot of emphasis on the victory location, thus making a gamey situation even more gamier. Also a high points value victory location can bring the map layout much more into the picture and what does that mean, one side would have an advantage if domination of the victory location is critical. Unbalanced.

Steve said they were already looking at this aspect of the scoring anyway. I was just a little scared that what I felt was a good balance battle type had been messed up a little. Also the tank crews should have had SMGs. That would have made Bills gamey use of them even more exciting.

[StellarRat]

What would I do differently? Hmm

Well as to QB purchase, I am suprised to say; "not too much". I still would buy.

Bill didn't think your infantry was fast enough (on foot) to be effective. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[gunnersman]

Sweet! If saving the game during playback was possible under CMx1, I never knew it.

I'm 44.380821918 years old (approximately). When I was a child, we didn't have personal computers. When I was a little older, we had primarily text-based computer games. When I started my professional career, we were sharing a UNIX machine. Having to manually save each turn doesn't deter me at all, doesn't even rate on my personal tedium meter.

LOL!

In computer years...that's old!

[The_Capt]

Bill didn't think your infantry was fast enough (on foot) to be effective. Do you have any thoughts on this?

I would disaree, at least from my end of the map. It was never an issue of speed but the actual location of the engagement. I did myself in by pushing out and effectively forcing the engagement to occur in a very unfriendly spot for infantry and even further away from them.

Infantry have a bubble of about 100-150m of AT lethality, assuming they have zooks. Germans do even better with the Shrek/Faust combo. But you need to either get them to the tanks or bring the tanks to them. In the case of this map it was the latter.

From that woodline I could actually cover over half of the victory objective by zooks, may tanks could have covered the back half. Problem was I did not set it up for them to work together.

I think Bil's point was they are too slow to cover the open ground and get into his woods before he got his forces out...this is true and would have been mad to attempt.

[Vark]

In Elvis's DAR infantry supported my an M4 smokescreen seemed to be quite effective, they got shot up in the forest, but they did make it. I think CM1 failed to accurately represent the resilience of infantry (hit them and they all start the crawl of death), so perhaps some CM'ers are quite suspicious of their effectiveness against armour. Another thing to mitigate their effectiveness was Borg spotting, now armour better have an infantry component, especially in restricted terrain, or, as the Capt said they can seriously frustrate armour.

[Childress]

Couldn't agree more. But I guess it's just that some wargamers are from Venus and some from Mars (or whatever analogy works best here).

Haha. Love the analogy! Good post.

[Bil Hardenberger]

I would disaree, at least from my end of the map. It was never an issue of speed but the actual location of the engagement. I did myself in by pushing out and effectively forcing the engagement to occur in a very unfriendly spot for infantry and even further away from them.

Infantry have a bubble of about 100-150m of AT lethality, assuming they have zooks. Germans do even better with the Shrek/Faust combo. But you need to either get them to the tanks or bring the tanks to them. In the case of this map it was the latter.

From that woodline I could actually cover over half of the victory objective by zooks, may tanks could have covered the back half. Problem was I did not set it up for them to work together.

Hmm.. sorry, I still don't buy that this would have worked.

I think Bil's point was they are too slow to cover the open ground and get into his woods before he got his forces out...this is true and would have been mad to attempt.

Exactly.

[ClarkWGriswold]

Another AAR complete and it's only April 7th. What are we gonna do for the rest of the month!? Without an AAR to entertain us, it's quite possible that a few of us could be institutionalized!

But at least my Ctl+R keys will get a break.

[Sitting Duck]

Hmm.. sorry, I still don't buy that this would have worked...

Only one way to be sure...

[Baneman]

Only one way to be sure...

Take off and nuke them from orbit

[umlaut]

Couldn't agree more. But I guess it's just that some wargamers are from Venus and some from Mars (or whatever analogy works best here). Both equally valid in their own way, but totally different in motivation and taste (Battlefront marketing department take note)...

The type you describe is more competitive, and the "game" part matters more to them. It's like a sports contest, and a large part of the emotional payoff comes from being proven the better general/tactician, in a "pure" test of skill, like chess, where nothing extraneous can be blamed for the result. This is today's extension of the tournament player community at boardgaming conventions, who (still, I think), play ancient simple and pure games like AH's Stalingrad with great gusto.

The other type is more experience-motivated. They may be drawn in primarily by an interest in history. So realism and authentic play and tactics matter more to them. They want a time machine that puts them as closely as possible into the boots of Gen. Cota or Sepp Dietrich, to face the same dilemmas they did and better understand what happened and why. Eye-candy matters more to them, because the overall spectacle and drama of the game are a bigger part of the payoff than who wins. They can even enjoy a lopsided battle against desperate odds, they like quirky maps. They care about things like knowing the soldier's names.

And, come to think of it, I think there's one more type of gamer: The technician. I have a harder time understanding this, but from what I see I think their payoff comes from appreciating the technology of the game itself, the state of the programming art, the ability to tinker with details and get under the hood. This gamer is the one who loves the minute discussions of penetration capabilities and rates of fire -- tedious to some others, but crucial to making the games better for all the rest of us. And these are the people whose endless labors of love create the mods we all enjoy.

Game makers: Find a way to appeal to all these groups in some key way at the same time, and you've got a winner! I think the CM series fits that bill very nicely.

Brilliant analysis there, Broadsword. I believe it´s spot on.

At least I know your description of the experience-motivated player fits me perfectly (and yourself, I suspect).

:-)

[Battlefront.com]

Follow up to the poor-man's-CoPlay... the method I described can be used for any combination of Humans and opponent AI. Obviously there is no friendly AI, which is something a true CoPlay feature would probably need in order to have much value.

As for the comments about infantry, I think if The_Capt had hung his armor back and let the infantry advance (being overwatched, of course), then Bil would have been compelled to adopt a different strategy. If he had done that a different end result probably would have come about. A loss for Bil in that case? Oh, I don't think that's something that could be concluded. I just think the end result would have been different than what we saw.

The primary reason for this is that in order for Bil to chop up Warren's infantry, Bil would have to concentrate his tank fire on those little crunchies. If he's got attention diverted, then this opens up opportunities for Shermans and M-10s to land killing shots without being killed in the process. If Bil chose to ignore the infantry and concentrate on killing the enemy armor, the infantry might have been able to establish themselves in positions that would be difficult to get them out of after. Splitting attention between both infantry and armor targets would cover more bases, but less thoroughly in both cases.

The problem here was that as the game played out roughly 1/2 of The_Capt's forces (i.e. the points he spent) were not involved while 100% of Bil's forces were. This is a sort of matchup that most likely could never work in The_Capt's favor.

Steve

[Stitch]

Hmm.. sorry, I still don't buy that this would have worked.

I am smelling a replay of this ME soon. Do it quickly, before it's released!

[LeeW]

Thanks Bil and The_Capt for the answers.

Bil might have bought something to recon for his tanks to round out his force and being a mech force would still covered the ground fairly quick.

The_Capt would have kept his forces together to provide mutal support with maybe a different choice for the recon element. The infantry would have slowed the advance some, so he wouldn't have covered as much ground. This didn't seem to be an issue as the objective was still close enough to the woods to be brought under fire by infantry type weapons.

As a test for some tank action it was fun and informative to watch. And as far as what you would have done different that was informative as well. What we pick as a force will or at least should dictate how we will be able to play out the battle for the best results. And given the complex nature of the game, who knows what that result would have been.

lee

[dan/california]

If I may attempt a very short summary. The Capt attempted a very impatient tactical plan with force mix that was optimized for a patient one. He was appropriately punished for this error.

Of course in the broader strategic view of Normandy, trading tanks at more or less one to one, or even two for one was a war losing loss rate for the Germans.

[The_Capt]

Hmm.. sorry, I still don't buy that this would have worked.

Exactly.

Well if you would send me the damn turn I will continue to demonstrate in our current ME.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Well if you would send me the damn turn I will continue to demonstrate in our current ME.

Ha!

Check your inbox its been there for hours.

[Rocky Balboa]

Just noticed that this thread has exceeded the post count of the previous AAR's by a wide margin and just recently has exceeded the view count, making this thread the new leader.

In the process we have not managed to bring the forum software to its knees, so I'm impressed.

[ChrisND]

Just noticed that this thread has exceeded the post count of the previous AAR's by a wide margin and just recently has exceeded the view count, making this thread the new leader.

In the process we have not managed to bring the forum software to its knees, so I'm impressed.

In another forum I frequent using the same software threads regularly exceed 10,000 posts. Of course they also have two administrators just running the forum and website.

[zukkov]

bil, warren, you ARE planning on posting another AAR right? :-p

want command mode? let one forum guy for each side give you your initial orders. heh..

[futon river crossing]

Can anyone explain how the results screen was calculated? The 1000 points are made up of "ground" and "parameters". The ground is clearly the victory location on the map -but what constitutes the parameters?

[James Crowley]

Can anyone explain how the results screen was calculated? The 1000 points are made up of "ground" and "parameters". The ground is clearly the victory location on the map -but what constitutes the parameters?

The results, to me, seemed to have little or no connection to the outcome of the battle!

The objective didn't appear to have been taken; the Germans lost 42% of their tank force and 22% of their manpower; the US still had a sizeable infantry presence which the Germans, with only tanks and in the given terrain, could not have easily rooted out.

A tactical or marginal victory at best and even that is questionable IMO.

[Joachim]

Just noticed that this thread has exceeded the post count of the previous AAR's by a wide margin and just recently has exceeded the view count, making this thread the new leader.

In the process we have not managed to bring the forum software to its knees, so I'm impressed.

Well, I saw 1 thread with 55.000 replies on 1837 pages on that software and it still works. No full-time admin. They got miles from the day of the refreshing monkeys and I remember urging people to start new threads once a certain post count per thread was reached.... ahhhh the old days....

BTW: Double clicking on some buttons works with this software. E.g. double click on "quote" brings up the quote in "go advanced" mode.

[futon river crossing]

The results, to me, seemed to have little or no connection to the outcome of the battle!

The objective didn't appear to have been taken; the Germans lost 42% of their tank force and 22% of their manpower; the US still had a sizeable infantry presence which the Germans, with only tanks and in the given terrain, could not have easily rooted out.

A tactical or marginal victory at best and even that is questionable IMO.

Yup - I agree - and complete silence on this from all in the know! Fishy very fishy

Add to this that the AAR writers said they often ignore the "Battle result" and something smells fishy

How are you going to have ladder games where the results are nonsensical?

I think this deserves an answer.

[scottie]

... i would take the software even if the battle results were a real issue , would be disappointing to see a long delay at this stage. I would guess its just about parameters anyway, little bit of tweaking of values here and there may resolve.