Two H2H Mission packs on the way

[Paper Tiger]

I've just finished uploading two H2H Scenario packs to the Repository so you guys should be able to download them sometime later tonight or early next week...

The first is a two-mission combo featuring H2H conversions of the two missions I finished off for another Beta tester:

Buying the Farm

It's a New Dawn

Not much has changed here except that I have reworked the set-up zones and expanded the briefings.

The second pack required considerably more work to get together.:eek:

The Montebourg H2H scenario pack 1

The first scenario pack contains three missions from my 'Road to Montebourg' campaign. These are:

La Grand Hameau

Le Hamelet

Eroudeville

THESE ARE FOR H2H PLAY ONLY - There are no AI plans for either side.

They have been scored to allow both sides the real chance to win a victory. Casualties taken in the course of the mission will matter to both sides but will be particularly punitive for the attacking player. Because they are adaptions of 'historical' missions, the US side is expected to control the objective at the end of the mission. However, to provide the German player with an incentive to fight, he will be rewarded with the win if he can hurt the US side badly in the course of the mission. They may lose the objective but they will still win the mission. Further, these casualty restrictions may actually allow the German side to contest an objective at the end of a mission.

Mission 1 - H2H La Grand Hameau

Is a small, Infantry-only mission on a tiny map. A single US Infantry company attacks a small complex of farm buildings as part of the fighting to secure the Georgian ridge on the 7th June. A very small German force is positioned in the complex and must attempt to inflict as many casualties upon the enemy force as possible.

Because there is very little chance of the Axis player successfully holding the objective at the end of this mission, he must have something to play for. Therefore, if the Axis player can inflict 30% or more casualties on the US force, then the victory will go to him. Without this casualty threshold, the most realistic result most Axis players could hope for would be a DRAW.

Mission duration: 40 minutes (+5 mins extra time)

Mission 2 - H2H Le Hamelet

Medium-sized combined arms action on a small map featuring a single US Infantry company with tanks and artillery in support assault a prepared German defensive position atop the Georgian ridge on the morning of 7th June. Germans have a number of powerful heavy weapons available to them in this mission which can badly hurt the US side if he is careless.

Once again, the US player will have to be mindful of the casualties he takes in the course of this mission.

Mission duration: 1 hour (+5 mins extra time)

Mission 3 - H2H Eroudeville

This is an adaption of the campaign finale and I had intended to have US air support in the original. For the H2Hversion, the air support has been reinstated so this mission has almost everything in it. Both sides have around two companies of Infantry supported by armour and lots of artillery at their disposal and are fighting on a large, and reasonably open, map. The German forces have received a bit of a buff in this version so both sides should have real chance to win this mission. Control of Eroudeville will be essential to win this mission. Both sides know this.

Mission duration: 1 hour 40 minutes (+15 mins extra time)

I plan to rework some other missions from this campaign as my schedule permits. I'd like to do some 2/505 PARA INF missions next.

I will be very happy to support these missions so if you feel that they need a bit of tweeking, post it here and I'll consider it.

[Broadsword56]

I'm interested in the way you set these victory conditions, because I'm using something similar when I convert operational boardgame situations into CMBN scenarios. The US has territory objective(s), but the Germans have a casualty objective.

One of the things I've wrestled with was deciding what that casualty percentage should be. You make it 30%. The DoD study I read says an attacking US battalion in WWII would typically reach a cohesion "breakpoint" of around 15% casualties -- that's the point where the unit would not be destroyed, but would no longer be able to continue attacking.

But that's 15% of the total battalion strength, and when you consider that almost all the casualties would have been in the two rifle companies (assuming one was in reserve), that breakpoint would actualy be much higher.

Example: 871 men in a full-strength US battalion. 193 men per company. If 2 companies fought, that's 386 men. 15% casualties in the battalion would be 130 men. But if all the casualties happened in those two up-front companies, that's about a 34% casualty rate for the actual units engaged.

So I think you got it about right -- except that if CMBN tends to create "bloodier" battles than real life, for various reasons (the foxhole and building cover effects that have been documented on these forums, etc.), I wonder whether the percentage should be a bit higher to take that into account? 40%? 60%?

Also, the study seemed to find a higher cohesion breakpoint for battalions on defense (which makes sense to me): somewhere closer to 60% if you average officers and enlisted. But that's 523 men, and that would wipe out almost all the rifle companies. So I'm not sure that's quite right.

Any thoughts?

[sburke]

One of the difficulties CM has in replicating is that loss of cohesion. I don't really see any way to fix this outside of a GM'd game. Being the decision maker for every unit you will always know what everyone is doing.

I have played around in solo HTH simulating the loss of contact issues just out of curiosity, but I don't ever see actually getting that into the game.

I think that is where you begin to see the real life breakdown in offensive action versus in CM. The need for a higher ranking officer to come down and meet with lower level commanders to assess the situation and prod them forward doesn't exist. W/O that the only thing that stops you is actually getting your units so beat up they are incapable of attacking.

[Broadsword56]

Yes, although after a while the "soft" factors of CMBN do seem to have a cumulative effect on an attacking force -- to the point where accomplishing the original attack mission just isn't feasible any longer. In our La Nicollerie HTH, for example, I think I'd just about hit -- or was soon to hit -- that "breakpoint" when the game crashed. And, interestingly enough, my rifle company's casualty level was around 25% at that point. A 30% casualty rate would have finished them for the day, I think. So maybe 30% is a good figure?

[GerryCMBB]

Hello Paper Tiger:

Thanks for doing this. I assume if I play the missions it would ruin the campaign for me?

I prefer H2H campaigns versus scenarios. But unfortunately we don't have than now (anyone know if there are any changes coming in this down the road?). So a compromise right now might be to play these historical missions H2H. So thanks again.

Gerry

[Paper Tiger]

Hi Broadsword

First, are you looking specifically at the first mission, La Grand Hameau? I scored that one to give the German player a real chance to get a victory playing against a human opponent as well as to produce a wide range of results.

A really good US performance that nets all the possible VP awards will get 350vps while the best the German can get in this case if 75vps. Result: Total US Victory.

As the US takes more casualties, so will his victory margin drop. When he exceeds 10% casualties, the best win he can hope for is a Major Victory. As he gets to around 20+% his chances of drawing get higher.

To actually lose the mission, the US player wouldhave to lose somewhere in the region of 40-50% of his force and given the drastic imbalance between the two forces and two players of roughly equal ablility, I'd say that was unlikely to happen. I would imagine that a German player would like to have a chance at winning this mission himself and not simply marking down the US player's margin of victory. So, if he can kill 30% of the US forces, he starts winning. He gets a US Tactical Defeat if he reaches 30% and it gets better and better after that the more he kills.

So the net result is a very broad spectrum of victory conditions with Total Victories only going to the really good players.

[Paper Tiger]

Hi Gerry

Well, playing them would definitely count as a spoiler. However, the campaign missions have 2+ AI plans so you might not get the Axis set-up you see by default here.

H2H Eroudeville is quite a bit different from the campaign mission because the H2H version has airpower where the campaign mission doesn't. The German OB is tougher with more armour and more, and better, artillery as well. It's also longer than the original to allow the US player to exit some of his forces off the board. I'd imagine that this would be much harder to do against an Axis player who was competent with his armour.

[Holien]

Just seen this thread and it ties in with my thread on buying the farm...

Bump for others to read if so interested.

[Holien]

Paper Tiger why did you change the German Victory conditions in the Buying The Farm update? The new deployment choices for the German player are great, but I think the original victory conditions of <50% Casualties was a better target for the German player and would allow him to withdraw if he so choose.

By changing it to <10% you have removed any real chance of the Germans ever obtaining those points and make it more likely that the player will fight to bitter end. I think the original design would allow for more intelligent play and a more interesting scenario...

Just my 2p and maybe it was a mistake?

Cheers

H

[Holien]

Ohh and while I have just noticed the minefield on the road near the American base line has been moved. IMO it is not unreasonable for the Germans to have placed mines anywhere along the road.

And finally but not least thanks for updating the scenarios and posting them to the repository. I have posted on the main forum as I don't think people know about what you have done and it needs a wider audience. If I had known before we had played this as H2H we would have used your version and it would have given my Oppo more choices on how to set up his defence. So thank you for taking the time to update these designs.

Cheers

H

[Bob Willett]

My buddy and I have been playing this scenario for over 64 mins and because of what seems to be continual air support and artillery support for the US very little FTF ground combat has occurred except for in the City. The Germans have been trying to drop the 150 howitzers ever since they got that reinforcement allotment but they have been continuously getting them delayed for unknown reasons so they haven't been able to enjoy this benefit of a reinforcement. Extremely frustrating battle for the Germans when all they can do is sit back and take air pounding. Most of the 88s and some of the STGs never fired a shot b4 they were taken out by arty and air support. Very one-sided. I'm not familiar with the historics of this campaign and maybe this is what happened in real life to the Germans in this battle. If that's the case then you have recreated/designed a scenario very accurately. But if you intended for this scenario to be balanced it is not. Not a fun side to be Germans......................