Random Campaign - Britain '39

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> SPWaW AAR/DAR >> Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45

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Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/24/2005 8:31:21 PM

Raccoon_TOF

Posts: 24
Joined: 1/22/2005
Status: offline

Just started a random campaign as Britain, ranging from Sept. 1939 to Dec. 1945, with 10 battles selected, against Germany and Italy. My first battle selected ended up being a Delay vs Italy, heavy rain, visibility of 1...and I discovered something drastically out of balance in the points system I think...

I had composed my core force of combined arms companies of lorried infantry, supported by a section of Cruiser IVA, a section of Cruiser III CS, and a platoon of 3in. Mortars per platoon of infantry. I also had 2 sapper platoons supported by a platoon of 2pdr AT guns with the Bren MG's reassigned from the recon groups, 3 recon groups (minus the Bren MG teams so they would all fit inside the integral transports), and a short Cruiser IVA company (removed one Cruiser platoon from the default formation). The HQ company had a section of MG carriers, some tracked FO vehicles, a platoon of 3in. AA guns, 2 sections of 25pdr field guns, and associated transport vehicles. Ammo carriers were attached 1 per unit that contained a significant number of artillery pieces (the 3in. mortar platoons, the AA gun platoon, and the 2 field gun sections.)

Well, I was happy with my core force being all that I needed for a delay action, so was at a loss as to what to spend my support points on...so I decided to try something I hadn't done before. After buying a field HQ, an Ammo Dump, and 4 snipers as supplemental warning posts (since the visibility was 1 I couldn't rely on my 2 recon teams alone), I spent the rest on mines...

Well, as I had never used mines before, I had no idea just how many you GET for the price. When I saw 10 points for 5 mines, I thought that was for 5 mines not 5 minefields. Well, I proceeded to place minefields around all of the victory hex clumps 3 deep on 3 sides (leaving the rear open for withdrawal or reinforcement of each defensive location as needed...) and then placed the rest in a deep swath behind my forward start line. The two central VH clumps were pretty close together, so I placed the HQ company, HQ tent, Ammo Dump, both sapper platoons and associated AT guns, and my understrength Cruiser company there, and assigned a combined arms infantry company with all support elements to each of the remaining 3 VH clusters. My recon teams got placed top, central, and bottom of the map right behind the main depth of mines, with the snipers placed in the gaps between them to give me as much spotting coverage as I could manage with a 1 visibility...

Well, if anyone else has ever used a truly massive minefield deployment like this, you can probably guess what happened...

The only units of mine that saw any contact with the enemy were my recon groups, snipers, and a few skirmishes in the central 2 VH clusters with my sappers against the occasional extremely lucky Italian infantry squad that made it all the way through the mines and slipped through the few gaps along the front that I had for visual coverage. None of the other 3 VH clusters saw any action at all, all of the Italian vehicles were destroyed or immobilized in the minefields (at least half of the time for the enemy turns was composed of watching "Crewman Retreating" messages...) and the only work my extensive artillery force had to do was hunting down the few Italian mortar batteries and driving them into retreat. Even if the Italian forces had been composed almost entirely of engineering teams I don't think they would have been able to successfully remove a significant number of the minefields to allow them more than perhaps a single route through (which could have be easily blocked by bringing up my sapper platoons and armor company, as I had expected to have to do...), even given the 33 turn time limit. The thinnest section of the front minefield was still 9 tiles deep....

In conclusion, if you ever need an easy DV on defense, mines are definitely the way to go...but incredibly boring as well. While highly effective, I don't think I will be using this technique again, it takes most of the fun out of it...below are the final results:

Player 1 Losses - Britain
Men: 39
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 4
APCs: 0
AFVs: 2
Gliders: 0
Aircraft: 0

Player 2 Losses - Italy
Men: 866
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 14
APCs: 0
AFVs: 54
Gliders: 0
Aircraft: 0

SCORE
Britain: 17,899 - Decisive Victory
Italy: 451 - Crushing Defeat

(Note: the 2 AFV losses were from my own error trying to move the 2 Cruiser III CS tanks in the Cruiser company from the central area out around the minefield surrounding the VH clusters to move up to the front and broaden the visible stretch a little more...there was so much smoke from both my own artillery firing and the pounding from the Italian mortars until I had finally forced them to retreat that I missed seeing a couple of minefield icons...and apparantly the crews didn't notice them either, because they drove straight through them - something I didn't think the pathing algorithm allowed to happen with your own minefields...)

Post #: 1

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/24/2005 9:09:23 PM

IBTyrone

Posts: 432
Joined: 7/29/2003
From: Kentucky, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raccoon_TOF

(Note: the 2 AFV losses were from my own error trying to move the 2 Cruiser III CS tanks in the Cruiser company from the central area out around the minefield surrounding the VH clusters to move up to the front and broaden the visible stretch a little more...there was so much smoke from both my own artillery firing and the pounding from the Italian mortars until I had finally forced them to retreat that I missed seeing a couple of minefield icons...and apparantly the crews didn't notice them either, because they drove straight through them - something I didn't think the pathing algorithm allowed to happen with your own minefields...)

Nice writeup, Raccoon! The pathing algorithm is something that can be real frustrating in this game. You couldn't do anything about the retreating units, but even when you pick a point to go to yourself, your units don't always go the way you think they will. It is best to move your units a few hexes at a time to reduce surprises.

(in reply to Raccoon_TOF)

Post #: 2

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/25/2005 12:06:14 AM

robot

Posts: 1438
Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Covington Ky USA
Status: offline

Nice write up is my view too. I play a lot of the long campaigns when in defense I use mines too. The only thing is I limit my self to how many I use. Small map I take no more then 60 mines some time less. With big map no more then 90 will I buy. I also supplement this with my Engineers which I have 2 plattoons. So small map engineers and what i buy amounts to about 70 big map close too 100. Have been thinking I will cut this down maybe by ten on each map.

If this doesnt work will try reducing even more the amount i purchase.

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(in reply to IBTyrone)

Post #: 3

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/25/2005 6:56:32 PM

Poopyhead

Posts: 612
Joined: 3/17/2004
Status: offline

The AI has used multiple belts of mines to stop me (to no avail!), so I wouldn't worry about giving it to them. Use the battle as a lesson to teach yourself what might happen and how you would deal with such a situation.

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Post #: 4

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/26/2005 1:20:27 AM

Riun T

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline

I got a really good reminder of assumptions NOT to underestimate the AI in my last two battles in a Brit long campaign, the first was a double advance vs the germans,at Arras.I shoulda been prayin that they didn't pick any air assets,cause they kicked me down to a draw,which was outragous. the fuggen AI played me really hard with the same let me grab the forwardmost VH,with a good old tank,artillery,and infantry scuffel,the vis was 8 hexes and I keep a tight advance only 3 hexes wide right up to unloading the troops,Bofors, AT's and HMG's on turn14 they hit the middle main 5VH's and the south 4VH's with a flight of stuka's each,up to this point I had been winning with the greater amount of kills on the field.Had to pack up what ever was left that I had just gotten deployed at the VH's and do a fighting retreat, got 75% of my surviving units off the map,but the stukas strafed the whole retreat and my AA just could'nt get a fix on them with the visableity at 8. This next battle is vs the italians in Hafala and its Advance/Delay,to make this story shot as poss. the advance goes fine until one of my vickerIVb's gets spooked into a routed/retreat,and drives blindly back 6 hexes,,, and runsover the wooden building two hexes back that I just ran my HQ into !!!!!!!!! killing 4 callapseing the building to boot!!! Have'nt played the next turn yet, BUT I'm A FEARFULL I'll post again soon and tell you all the result Later RT

(in reply to Poopyhead)

Post #: 5

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/26/2005 1:32:43 AM

Raccoon_TOF

Posts: 24
Joined: 1/22/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: IBTyrone
Nice writeup, Raccoon! The pathing algorithm is something that can be real frustrating in this game. You couldn't do anything about the retreating units, but even when you pick a point to go to yourself, your units don't always go the way you think they will. It is best to move your units a few hexes at a time to reduce surprises.

Aye, I generally move 2-3 hexes at once, sometimes a little further when I am moving along known-safe roadways. The problem in this case (I think at least) was that I was shift-clicking to move, because I was doing lots of stacked movement...got into the habit and didn't NOT do it when I was only moving a single unit into a tile. I think that may have been what allowed them to override the normal avoidance of the minefield, since I think I shift-clicked into the tile with the mines (it was the edge of the smoke from the Italian mortar barrage, I wanted to stop there and check things out before proceeding further...oops!)

(in reply to IBTyrone)

Post #: 6

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/26/2005 4:37:57 PM

IBTyrone

Posts: 432
Joined: 7/29/2003
From: Kentucky, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raccoon_TOF
Aye, I generally move 2-3 hexes at once, sometimes a little further when I am moving along known-safe roadways. The problem in this case (I think at least) was that I was shift-clicking to move, because I was doing lots of stacked movement...got into the habit and didn't NOT do it when I was only moving a single unit into a tile. I think that may have been what allowed them to override the normal avoidance of the minefield, since I think I shift-clicked into the tile with the mines (it was the edge of the smoke from the Italian mortar barrage, I wanted to stop there and check things out before proceeding further...oops!)

I think you have a better handle on the game than I do, Racoon. I'm too impatient to move 2-3 hexes consistently although sometimes I remember. It's a good thing this is a turn-based game as opposed to realtime. I would be in a heap of trouble all the time if I felt pressured to get my troops where they needed to go as quickly as possible. It's when I feel like I'm rushed I start making stupid mistakes, like shift-clicking on to mines.

(in reply to Raccoon_TOF)

Post #: 7

RE: Random Campaign - Britain '39 - '45 - 1/27/2005 9:21:53 AM

Raccoon_TOF

Posts: 24
Joined: 1/22/2005
Status: offline

Heh, ya, I don't know how many forces I lost to simple hastiness when I first started playing and hadn't gotten used to the limited intel and the op fire yet...always just clicking the final destinations for units rather than "bound and overwatch". The first heavily forested assault battle that I played with entrenched infantry buried in forests with blocked sightlines and scattered minefields cleared me of that problem quickly enough though...after losing half my panzer company to opportunity infantry assaults before I figured out that it WASN'T just extremely good luck for the AI the number of kills they racked up so quickly with op fire...it just took me increasing the message delay so I could actually READ them to figure out what was going on...

(in reply to IBTyrone)

Post #: 8

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