Forum-Generated Battle AAR

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Mraah
Do reinforcements ONLY arrive at the sides starting map edge? Or can they be randomly rolled to arrive 90 degrees from the edge?
A good flank reinforcement modifier might prove interesting.

Disregard ... I went back to RBG thread and found answer [:)].

ORIGINAL: Laryngoscope
If reinforcements are selected as an option, they are chosen to appear along map edges as appropriate. No Tigers beaming behind the enemy lines.

Rob

[rickier65]

Eric,

Thanks for the AAR - When you lost your two tanks, I thought you were in trouble. Looks to me like AI did ok to me.

Rick

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

ORIGINAL: Mraah
Do reinforcements ONLY arrive at the sides starting map edge? Or can they be randomly rolled to arrive 90 degrees from the edge?
A good flank reinforcement modifier might prove interesting.

Disregard ... I went back to RBG thread and found answer [:)].

ORIGINAL: Laryngoscope
If reinforcements are selected as an option, they are chosen to appear along map edges as appropriate. No Tigers beaming behind the enemy lines.

Rob

The logic for reinforcements goes like this

1. The reinforcement platoon must occur within 100 meters of the nearest map edge. (This prevents "beaming")
2. The reinforcement platoon must occur within your setup zone (and remember these can be edited, added to and randomized)

So it would be possible to have reinforcements appear on an advancing enemy "flank" provided those two conditions were met. An example would be a kessel / envelopment engagement setup where the kessel forces breakout to a map edge. It would be possible for the enveloping forces to have a reinforcement appear at the rear flank of the enemy.

[jamespcrowley]

Good battle, thanks Erik.
 
The AI put up a good fight and equipped with better armour the result might have been different.
 
What is the point or percentage difference between victory levels?

[Mraah]

TURN # 2

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
However, they clearly have someone that could see the SS Infantry and Halftracks along the road in the south. 76mm Artillery and 82mm Katyushas started dropping on them. Fortunately, the accuracy was off and most fell behind. Still, one squad took light causalties and was suppressed, so they're currently hugging dirt instead of advancing with the rest of the platoon towards the woods. I've decided to change their orders to Rush to get them out of LOS ASAP and to Withdraw the Halftracks for now as well.

Erik,

Interesting ... I read the Artillery rules for PCOWS and it seem's that if the German player can stay out of LOS by turn 2 you have less of a chance of being shelled because the Russian "radio-contact" drops to 10% from turn 2 and on. So, it appears you were spotted from the git-go and it arrived on turn 2 [:)].

Off topic ... German defense ... I'm wondering if a good tactic(trick) for a German defense is to stay hidden for a few turns before opening fire!

Question about AIRSTRIKES ...
1. I've understood the aircraft spot on their own ... what base range do they use ... 800m?
2. Is there any sharing of LOS ... ie, if a ground unit spots you in the woods (whereas the aircraft might not) is the aircraft now aware of the target?
3. Does the aircraft consider a "?" as a valid target or will it wait for a full ID?

Thanks in advance!!
Rob

[Stridor]

I was curious, so I plugged the exact same values Erik did (including the same date) into the RBG and produced 4 battles. These are the OOB for each one. Almost all of these would have been really tough on the Germans.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Mraah
Interesting ... I read the Artillery rules for PCOWS and it seem's that if the German player can stay out of LOS by turn 2 you have less of a chance of being shelled because the Russian "radio-contact" drops to 10% from turn 2 and on. So, it appears you were spotted from the git-go and it arrived on turn 2 [:)].

Yep, the initial benefit they get for "pre=planned" strikes goes away after Turn 1.

Off topic ... German defense ... I'm wondering if a good tactic(trick) for a German defense is to stay hidden for a few turns before opening fire!

On Defense, yes, it's almost always a good idea to stay out of sight initially I'd say. Infantry are generally tough to spot anyway as long as tey're not running around in the open, but keeping your tanks out of easy LOS on Turn 1 is generally a good plan. As far as I can tell, they definitely spotted me on Turn 1, probably with some of that infantry in the field.

Question about AIRSTRIKES ...
1. I've understood the aircraft spot on their own ... what base range do they use ... 800m?
2. Is there any sharing of LOS ... ie, if a ground unit spots you in the woods (whereas the aircraft might not) is the aircraft now aware of the target?
3. Does the aircraft consider a "?" as a valid target or will it wait for a full ID?

I don't recall the aircraft base spotting range off the top of my head, but it's pretty long (but they are up in the air, so it has to be). Still, they will generally only spot larger targets and when I had my tanks moving in the open when they arrived it was pretty natural for those to be the first ones they spotted.

Aircraft do not share LOS with ground units. In fact, no units "share" LOS in Panzer Command, though there is a slight bonus to spot a unit if it has already been spotted (assuming some shared info) - but each unit does its own spotting from its own position and aircraft are part of that rule as well. If you keep your units under overhead cover (like in woods) they will be much harder for an aircraft to spot.

Aircraft do not attack ? units, they only attack targets they can fully see.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Stridor
I was curious, so I plugged the exact same values Erik did (including the same date) into the RBG and produced 4 battles. These are the OOB for each one. Almost all of these would have been really tough on the Germans.

Interesting, so the AI had more T-60s in my battle than in your four combined!

All of these would have been more balanced on the armor side, definely.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Mraah
Interesting ... I read the Artillery rules for PCOWS and it seem's that if the German player can stay out of LOS by turn 2 you have less of a chance of being shelled because the Russian "radio-contact" drops to 10% from turn 2 and on. So, it appears you were spotted from the git-go and it arrived on turn 2 [:)].

The Russian has 100% radio-contact turn 1, after that its any ones guess. As Russian I generally use or lose it. Plus if your original platoon command element is killed the one that takes over seems to have even less chance of contact.

ORIGINAL: Mraah
Off topic ... German defense ... I'm wondering if a good tactic(trick) for a German defense is to stay hidden for a few turns before opening fire!

Just one is good enough. Or make a feint attack move turn one to draw opening fire from the main body. However, if there's no one in the artillery barrage when it arrives, what I've seen the AI do is cancel the artillery call after 1 or 2 turns so it doesn't spend the usual 2 or 3 turns pounding nothing.

ORIGINAL: Mraah
3. Does the aircraft consider a "?" as a valid target or will it wait for a full ID?

I don't know what they see or how long it takes them to find a target. And I've done a lot of testing to find out what they do.
They seem to go for the bigger prizes.
They seem to go for bunched up targets. They can hit multiple targets with a single bomb or rocket salvo if they are like under 50m apart. 75mm or even 100m separation is better if the enemy has air.
They seem to attack in the second phase more. (Maybe they are spotting in the first phase?)

[FNG]

Thanks for a great AAR - the AI seems perfectly capable. I am very much looking forward to the release and have cleared my diary accordingly [;)]

[z1812]

Hi Erik,

Thanks for the AAR. It was very entertaining and informative.

Regards John

[Ron]

The armour choice of T-60 for the Soviets seems off, especially looking at its frequency in Stridors's picks. Given a quick search there were only about 2000 built in the summer of 1942, yet 7500 of another light tank, the T-70, were built from spring 1942 to summer 1943, and approximately 14000 T-34s in the same period. Taking into consideration all the other armour available, T-60s would be fairly rare in the summer of 1943 I would think.
 

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Ron
The armour choice of T-60 for the Soviets seems off, especially looking at its frequency in Stridors's picks. Given a quick search there were only about 2000 built in the summer of 1942, yet 7500 of another light tank, the T-70, were built from spring 1942 to summer 1943, and approximately 14000 T-34s in the same period. Taking into consideration all the other armour available, T-60s would be fairly rare in the summer of 1943 I would think.

I figured someone would comment more on that as I was surprised by it myself. Indeed, they are rare in the Summer of 1943, just not in that battle. I think for that battle there was about a 6% or so chance of them showing up - but with the right rolls you can run into them. The probabilities are based on the historical data we've put into the game, but they are also affected bit by any instances where a unit type does not have a 3D model yet (for instance the M4 Sherman Lend Lease), which limits the pool of actual choices and ends up upping some probabilities in effect since it all has to add up to 100%. With that said, here are the rough changes for Soviet armor in August, 1943 based on the units currently in the game.


KV-1 Model 1941 = 2.7%
KV-1 Model 1942 = 2.7%
M3A1 Stuart LL = 1.3%
Matilda Mk II LL = 2.3%
SU-122 = 1.6%
SU-152 = 1.6%
SU-76 = 11.4%
T-60 = 1.3%
T-60A = 6.7%
T-70 Model 1942 = 12.1%
T34-76 Model 1941 = 0.3%
T34-76 Model 1942 = 18%
T34-76 Model 1943 = 35.3%
Valentine Mk IV LL = 2.5%

[FNG]

Does the % split of forces have an effect? If the AI cannot afford the first option, does it keep 're-rolling' until it has fulfilled the % armour criteria for the battle? This may explain why you didn't have T-34s coming out of the woodwork

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: FNG
Does the % split of forces have an effect? If the AI cannot afford the first option, does it keep 're-rolling' until it has fulfilled the % armour criteria for the battle? This may explain why you didn't have T-34s coming out of the woodwork

It will still take T-34s, just fewer of them can fit into the points. Think of the above list like a big percentile table from 1-100, with 35.3% of that range giving you a T-34/43, etc. As far as I know it rolls by platoon, so if it rolls up a T-60 platoon with its first check and fills up the available armor points then it might not make another roll, but for most battles of this size I've seen 2-3 armor choices. As you saw in Stridor's post, there's a pretty good variance if you generate the same battle several times.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

By the way, Ron. Just to compare I did my own second test run with the same exact settings. What I got this time for armor was 1x Panzer IIIN and 2x StuG IIIG on the German side and 4x T-34/76 M1942 on the Soviet side, along with the usual mix of other units. I think that my AAR showcased a bit of a mismatch, but I think the vast majority of RBGs will not repeat that matchup.

[EagleMountainDK]

Thanx for the AAR Eric, a very good read. And I really think I'm going to like the new RBG. War is not and was not a fair and balanced gentleman sport.

[Redleg]

Eric - I appreciate the time and effort you put into the AARs.  They accounted for my purchase!
 
 

[Erik Rutins]

My pleasure and thanks for your support!

[Grotius]

Well done, Erik! Your AAR, and Stridor's, persuaded me to buy this game. Enjoying it very much so far. (And posted a few quick impressions in the impressions thread.)