Nikademus
Posts: 25684
Joined: 5/27/2000 From: Alien spacecraft Status: offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeff_Ewing:
That was the coolest! I had to play that about 5 times to get a decent score against those "flak chicks." (Hint: you need a *lot* of smoke-capable arty) So, no, I don't get burned out on designed campaigns. You do sometimes have to figure out what the designer "wants" you to do. Another example from the Stalingrad campaign: I fight an advance and win handily; I get a huge # of repair points, which I bank , since I don't need them. Next scenario, I have 2 AUX Tigers attached. They're the only tanks that survive the scenario. Light goes on over my head: Ah, Melvin *wanted* me to buy a bunch of Tigers with those points! Needless to say, I played that one again.
heh, the trick would be to somehow purchase the artillery with said smoke. IIRC you are only give about 135 support points for that battle, not enough to buy even a section of 81mm morters. Fortunatly the designer does provide a moderate artillery component which did allow me to isloate the flak guns situated farther back.
A tough scenerio with some truely evil inspired quirk (hint: watch out for insideiously placed AT guns) A good variation (I ran into a scenerio like this before back in SP-1 days) but not one i'd want to play 5 times! I dont have a week to spare
In the end i just took the draw and moved on to play Battle V with a depleted force. Fortunately i was able to pull a DV out of that one. A great tense little scenerio that was featuring a classic armor heavy Soviet attack across an open plain, made more tense by a sudden well......try it and find out
Lets just say if you keep your cool....(and dont overcommit) you can still pull the chestnuts out of the fire.
The pre-built bug makes it an even bigger challenge as the few T-34's and KV-1E's benefit from heavily favorable zero angle armor results when forced to take fire on slight or moderate oblicities.
Thing i liked most about this scenerio was it's realistic balance of AFV types. Some of the past controversey around the T-34 and KV when 7.0 hit was along the line of, 'if the T-34 was so great and so overmatched the Mark III and mid Mark IV, how did the Panzerwaffen do so well all the way through to 43?
A good part of the reason was that the T-34 did'nt become the primary battle tank (in terms of sheer numbers and organization content) of the Soviet army until 43. Even with their herculoran efforts you cant just replace 20,000+ tank losses overnight, especially when having to move your primary factories. So it was'nt always or even primarily Mark III/IV vs T-34 and/or KV but more like a mixture of light tanks, left over T-26 and BT, some lend lease and then T-34's and KV's where they might be found.
Continual losses due to botched operations like the Kharkov spring offensive did'nt help either. This forced the Soviets to fill out their ranks with whatever was available, meaning primarily light tanks as well as the hodge podge of lend lease tanks. A typical 1942 brigade might contain 1/3 T-34 and a few KV if they were lucky, the rest were light tanks in most cases or lend lease for some others.
Battle V portrayed this nicely with a slew of light tanks and lend lease Stuarts, followed by a battalion of Lee's, filled out lastly by a few troublesome T-34's and even more troublesome KV-1E's
SP players are just too used to generated battles where Soviet players (wisely) choose T-34s or KV's exclusively while disregarding the neglicable and often useless gaggle of light tanks. Similar to the complaint that that German players always pick Panthers and Tigers or at least long barreled Mark IV's for most battles.
I can say with a little pride that i resisted this urge for this campaign in favor of going for a challenge as well as a more historical mix and chose one platoon of Mark III's and one of Mark IV specials. ok, so i upgraded the Mark III's over the space of the first two battles from J to M. I wanted a challenge, not to commit suicide!
Good fight and since i only lost one tank to a lucky hit from a T-34 i was able to rebuild my core back to muster.
My only complaint......for some reason in the campaign when you are unable to repair a tank (but have part or the crew intact) that crew does'nt transfer to the next scenerio. Instead, a destroyed graphic of the tank appears.....sans crew, meaning that after the present battle when you are able to repair the tank, you get a completely new crew, losing the experience in the process. grrrrr
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