Running out of time and Tiger tanks!

[Afrika Korps]

Two questions, first a little background: (I decided to play a few smaller battles before diving headlong into Blood and Honor)

I just finished up a scenario--I forget the name, but as the German player you must retake a bridge (circa 1943)...great game, bloody battles in and around the RR station...tanks burning everywhere...

1).
I seem to run out of turns all the time! I move too slowly--I just can't seem to run my squads over open ground (the RL Army in me)...I look for flanking routes, lots of cover, etc....so I run out of time, right when the game starts getting good, and it ends in a DRAW! Bah! What am I missing here? Should I be more bold and just bum rush the objectives since my way is too slow? Perhaps since I am still unfamiliar with the game, I have yet to learn the finer points of the terrain...hmmm...

2).
My Tiger tanks took on some of Ivan's AFVs...a few of these "gnats" were the PUNY 20mm gun ones with paper thin armor (23mm or less if I remember correctly). My Tigers hit them over and over, SIDE shots, and most of them bounced! WHAT!!?? I was pounding my desk after one round so hard my wife jumped outta her chair! These "tanks" then proceeded to mow down my squads with their 20mm CHUG-CHUG-CHUG. Nothing worse than hearing that sound bite in the game and seeing your squads VANISH... So what happened? Shouldn't my 88s have blown right through that armor?

3).
Arty! I can't seem to get my arty to work half the time...I have a spotter or HQ unit in FULL VIEW of Ivan, but my arty won't FIRE...I click on "B", highlight the unit (it has the ammo), but it won't change the mission or let my fire anything off...is there an arty primer somewhere? I read the manual several times...not sure what I am missing here. What to the numbers in the yellow circles mean anyway? I call up my arty, and several times I see bombardment hexes highlighted already, with a number say 1, 2 or 3 in it...I can't change the hexes to something else, and don't seem to get any fire on the squares either. Hmmm...maybe I missed it.

Thats all for now...more later, I am sure...

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Von Doom

[Hades]

I'm sure anyone can answer any of these better than I, but I'll tackle Q3. Your arty won't fire if it is out of contact, which is most likely your problem. Arty gets out of contact when it takes counter battery fire, among other reasons. If its onboard try reducing its suppression. The yellow circles with the numbers are priority targets, which can be pre-plotted by you or sometimes they come pre-plotted. All I think they do is reduce the time to call in the fire to .01.

uhm did I miss anything? if I did someone will correct me.

[Belisarius]

Von Doom, the numbers you see in the arty assignment screen are your Priority Target hexes. Those are "golden hotspots", and are pre-set. They can't be changed, but are only markers, not indicating assigned arty. Try to assign a tube to that hex, and see the time-on-target indicator drop to 0.1! Gamewise, you can picture it like the artillery crews having a set of pre-set coordinates that they don't need to figure out before aligning their cannon.

The arty you can assign has clear explosion or smoke buttons. Klick a hex, and then click the tube you want to fire at it. Sometimes they'll be able to target the hex EVEN if the explosion icon is greyed out, so check even it. If the button is greyed out, you can see why the unit is unavailable if you hover the cursor over it for a few seconds.

[Larry Holt]

To continue with Q3: When in the bombardment window, click on the eye icon for an artillery unit to see its stats. If it says "out of contact" then you can't raise them to send a fire mission. On board arty can be kept in contact by keeping a LOS to the unit calling fire in but there is no way to do this for off board arty.

Q1. Perhaps you are doing everything right but that is just the way it is designed. MOST (but not all) scenarios have to have at least one player get a DV at least one time to be posted. However, some designers just want to make players sweat so they design a scenario with a very fine line as you have found out. Advance too quick and die too much, advance to slowly to save casualities and run out of time. If you really like the scenario, you can extend the number of turns in the editor.

Q2. Large shells will penetrate though without causing critical damage if they hit empty spaces on the tank (e.g. a hull hit with nothing behind it). We call those through-and-throughs. Large shells will bounce off thin armor at low angles of incidence (grazing shots). I suggest that you turn on logging (crtl L or is it alt L keys) then examine it right after one of those bounces. What is the angle that it is hitting and the effective armor thickness? Are you playing ver 7.1? Also check to see that your preferences are set to 100% all around. There have been some isolated cases (happened to me too) where they spontanously change!

Good luck

[Afrika Korps]

First off, I want to thank everyone that has posted a reply! I love this game!

Originally posted by Larry Holt
To continue with Q3: When in the bombardment window, click on the eye icon for an artillery unit to see its stats. If it says "out of contact" then you can't raise them to send a fire mission. On board arty can be kept in contact by keeping a LOS to the unit calling fire in but there is no way to do this for off board arty.

Hmmm....I will have to check these points...not sure what the deal was...I will reload a saved point in the game and retry a few different things...

Q1. Perhaps you are doing everything right but that is just the way it is designed. MOST (but not all) scenarios have to have at least one player get a DV at least one time to be posted. However, some designers just want to make players sweat so they design a scenario with a very fine line as you have found out. Advance too quick and die too much, advance to slowly to save casualities and run out of time. If you really like the scenario, you can extend the number of turns in the editor.

Good point about the intended design...I like to sweat it out, but I REALLY dislike running out of time, right when things really get hairy...

Q2. Large shells will penetrate though without causing critical damage if they hit empty spaces on the tank (e.g. a hull hit with nothing behind it). We call those through-and-throughs. Large shells will bounce off thin armor at low angles of incidence (grazing shots). I suggest that you turn on logging (crtl L or is it alt L keys) then examine it right after one of those bounces. What is the angle that it is hitting and the effective armor thickness? Are you playing ver 7.1? Also check to see that your preferences are set to 100% all around. There have been some isolated cases (happened to me too) where they spontanously change!

Ahh...I see...I will have to use that alt (or ctrl L)...how do check these logs? I am using version 7.1. All I have to say is those little Ivans must have been swiss cheese, as I hit one of them at least 5 times with two different Tigers...BANG BANG BANG...and still it rolled on, and blasted my poor foot soldiers to goo...

I did check the preferences right after that happened the first time, to make sure the Ivans were not set to SUPERMAN level, but they were all set at 100% so....not sure what the deal was.

Thank you for your help!

[G_X]

OBA(Off Board Arty) is out of contact 50% of the time or so, my suggestion, if you can take alot of it, do so, double what you really need, that way you always have enough.

Also, the best time to attack with Arty is Preliminary bombardment.

Playing Brits or Russians, I can break an armies Force Morale in under the first 5 turns, mostly by routing most of his units using OBA, I've had one very lucky game, used my 13 or so 8" British batteries to break a US Army's Force Morale with my Prelim Bombardment.


Sometimes even if things hit, they do no damage, or they hit, and damage nonvital systems, or hit, and do damage, but not enough to destroy it. (Try playing with 1939's Russian and using the Super Heavy WWI style tanks that were literally juggernauts, and you'll see what I mean, I've seen one take 7 hits from a Panzer that penetrated it's armor before dying.)

What you're probably getting is Non-vital shots or Through and Throughs, Try getting in front of him, less of both types of shots that way. You might also wanna try getting to less of an angle, if you're at a 75 degree angle or so, that things armor can be multiplied several times over (The manual states 6-8 times) Which makes it pretty freaking hard to kill.

[Hades]

Off board Preliminary bombardments are great but if you only have on board I wouldn't use it. Because if you are playing a human they will probably return fire with everything they have their first turn. In one game with Easy8, he fired all his Hummels and Wespes with Prelim. The next turn I sent every one of my 203mm and 122mm battiers into the smoke supressing his arty for several turn. I also made him move it.
Just my thoughts.

[Ograbme]

I think I know which scenario you're talking about. I used a few nebelwerfers to supress the light tanks and had the infantry coming in from the east mop them up. I think only 1 or 2 were left for my tanks to take out. Keep those rockets coming down, creeping them toward the Party HQ building while you advance. A platoon or so of NKVD troops are in there, so don't be afraid to wait a while to soften them up. To the south, the hardest fighting is at the Train Station, as you said, so it's ok to rush your troops across open ground to get to the outskirts of town. Towards the end, a company of T-34s shows up across the river, but can't cross! I dispatched every last one of them with my remaining Tiger.

[G_X]

OnBoard Arty's not great for Prelims, I 100% agree, but since OBA doesn't show the locations of any of your units, and sometimes shows where their units are, I am never without it.

I almost always use only OBA, when I do use OnBoard, it's usually only if I need a continual bombardment in a low point cost scenario, where I'm limited in the numbers of OBA stuff I can take.

[Afrika Korps]

Originally posted by Ograbme
I think I know which scenario you're talking about. I used a few nebelwerfers to supress the light tanks and had the infantry coming in from the east mop them up. I think only 1 or 2 were left for my tanks to take out. Keep those rockets coming down, creeping them toward the Party HQ building while you advance. A platoon or so of NKVD troops are in there, so don't be afraid to wait a while to soften them up. To the south, the hardest fighting is at the Train Station, as you said, so it's ok to rush your troops across open ground to get to the outskirts of town. Towards the end, a company of T-34s shows up across the river, but can't cross! I dispatched every last one of them with my remaining Tiger.

Actually, that T-34 company just forded across and started nailing the remaining elements of my forces that took the train station...my lone remaining Stug was trying to nail them on the bridge, so it would be blocked (the river between the bridge sections is a ford) and keep them over there. There was just too much smoke to bring my AT guns into play over there.

[chief]

Those two Tigers that fired 5 shots each.......did they have APC rounds when they fired or HE ammo ?....that would change results also.

[G_X]

I had always gotten where it would only fire at an enemy if it had the proper round type (IE won't fire AP rounds at Infantry) I've never run out of AP rounds and tried to shoot at tanks though, can you really fire HE at tanks? I was under the impression that that wouldn't do a whole lot.

[chief]

The answer is yes after depletion of AP rounds you can/will fire HEAT at tanks/armor, and yes they are not as effective, except when in close. No you cannot fire AP after depletion of heat at infantry. Remember the AI will tease you, with small vehicles etc., to fire op fire at them to deplete your tanks of AP, then when you've used up your quota of shots and only have mgs they will close for a kill, hoping to get it prior to your turn. Its better for the AI to give you a HT in exchange for a free shot or two at a tank....hope this helps a little:)

[Ograbme]

Originally posted by Von Doom


Actually, that T-34 company just forded across and started nailing the remaining elements of my forces that took the train station...my lone remaining Stug was trying to nail them on the bridge, so it would be blocked (the river between the bridge sections is a ford) and keep them over there. There was just too much smoke to bring my AT guns into play over there.

Really? When I played they simply drove up to the edge of the bridge, drove back, and went forward a couple times in frustration until they were all killed.

[Afrika Korps]

Originally posted by Ograbme

Really? When I played they simply drove up to the edge of the bridge, drove back, and went forward a couple times in frustration until they were all killed.

Ja, Ja!! When I was playing, I suddenly saw the tanks spawn and I was...LOL! You can't get across!!! MWHAHAHA! Then, one of those pesky Ivans just drove slowly right into the river! I was...uh, oh...I put my mouse over the river and it said FORD...OH @#)($*)@#(*$!!!! Lucky for me, the game ended, as my troops in the RR station were pretty tore up...I had one platoon fresh, but he was up near the Party HQ finishing off some regulars that were caught in a crossfire that I had set up with another platoon up on the hill due north of the HQ. Like I said, I took too long to set all this up, but it would have been pretty ugly for the last of Ivan's holdouts had there been a few turns left. All his regulars in the south were destroyed, all his tanks (not the T34 company though...doh!) but a few of the pesky "super gnats" as I called them (the ones with the anti-Tiger force shields).

I just wish I could play that one again, but now since I know where they are, and where they will come from, it does not seem as much fun....I would move half my AT guns to the woodline south of the RR station and nail those tanks on the bridge (after I cleared out all those pesky partisans).

[G_X]

Yeah I can just imagine how use(less) firing AP at troops would be...I can also just imagine all those troops laughing at my tanks when I fired AP at them.

Is there any way to force it to fire HE? Like against soft targets like trucks?

[chief]

G_X even if you have AP ammo on board you still cannot fire at a soft target with it, only MGs will operate. This is programmed in SPWAW.

I am sure there is no way of 'force' firing of HE at a hard target, it will automatically select HE for soft targets if you have ammo of course. I believe a truck is soft target and a HT is a Hard target.

[G_X]

Maybe I had run out of HE, my T-34's always end up as killing more infantry than tanks it seems, so I probably was.


Thanks for that, I'll have to remember it!

[chief]

G_X you do know how to check your ammo load don't you ?

[G_X]

Yes, It's in the status screen of the unit, I just tend to forget to do it.