CO - BftB: Tutorial AAR - 1st Playthrough

[Chad Harrison]

Hi all

I have always loved AAR's, and when looking to get a game, my first stop is always with the AAR's. Kind of a 'Boots on the Ground' view of the game and the screens you see all the time, not just pretty screenshots. As many people might be either new to this series, old just contemplating their potential purchase based on its price, I thought a simple AAR covering the tutorial might be useful to some.

First and foremost: this is not a place to discuss the price of the game. The price is what it is. If you dont like it, there are other threads for your views. Please do not discuss the price in this AAR.

Second, this is by no means anything official from Panther Games. I was a beta tester for their first two games many, many years ago but had to eventually drop out due to real life time constraints. However, I still have the greatest respect for Dave and his team at Panther Games. Much like WitP:AE, games like these are few and far between - the value for this game is just tremendous.

Lastly, this is my first play through not only of the tutorial scenario, but also (obviously) CO - BftB. I will be taking the part of the Americans on their drive for St. Vith. I will also be watching the included seven tutorial movies. While I played the original titles of this series a lot, that was years ago. I am more than rusty. Expect many stupid mistakes and the AI wouping up on me [:D]

Obviously this AAR will be full of spoilers. If you want to be surprised when you play the tutorial, its probably a good idea not to read this.

And with that, my first screenshot will show the tutorial movies included with the game. Dave has done a great job on these and even if your an old hat with the series, its worth atleast one watch.

[Chad Harrison]

The second screenshot is of the general scenario description seen by both players. As stated, we are driving on St. Vith with the 4th Armored Division. We have four days to get the job done.

As stated in the first post, I will be playing as the Americans and will be using, as suggested, 'Realistic' order delays - in other words, my units will delay a realistic amount of time from when I issue and order to when it is carried out.

[Chad Harrison]

Here is the starting situation.

Under my immediate command on Day 1 is CCA of the 4th Armored Division. Major sub units are:

1. 1st Bn 318th Infantry
2. 51st Armored Infantry Bn
3. 35th Tank Bn

As for reinforcements, on Day 2 I will get CCB of the 4th Armored, and on Day 3 I will get CCR of the 4th Armored. But for the first day, its just me and CCA.

This screenshot also shows nicely our first objective: Steinebruck Bridge over the Our River. We will need to figure out what to do with that pretty quickly.

[Bamilus]

First AAR! Awesome.

On a side note my playthrough alongside the tutorial video was quite different than in the video. Not sure what happened, but my attacks were off by 30 minutes or so from the video. Regardless I still captured the bridgehead just fine and the tutorial videos are a great help.

[Chad Harrison]

Taking a look at the objective list, I have a pretty clear route that I need to take on my way to St. Vith. Obviously I could take anyway I choose, but since this is a game, and since I want to beat down on the AI, getting these objectives quickly under control is critical.

If you are new to the game, there are two ways you get victory points for objectives in this game: holding it over time and holding it at the end of the scenario. This prevents you from just rushing in on the last hour of the last day, taking St. Vith and getting the lion's share of the points. You *would* get the points for holding it at the end, but you would miss out on all the other points for holding it during the game. Usually each objective has a certain time where you start getting points for holding it - this is a nice way for scenario developers to somewhat guide you as far as where you need to be and when you need to be there. Again, you can do anything you want - especially since the majority of the points usually come from destroying the enemy and one major objective - St. Vith for this scenario.

As stated above, my first objective is the Steinebruck Bridge over the Our River. Second is the village of Lommersweiler. Points for this objective start ticking at 12:00 on Day 1, so I only have six hours from the scenario start (06:00) to when I would ideally like to be in control of Lommersweiler. Our last objective before St Vith is the crossroads at Breitfeld. Ideally, I need to have it under control by 03:00 on Day 2. Finally, St. Vith is the whole reason we are here. The point clock starts ticking there on D2 at 06:00.

As I stated originally, this gives me a clear route that I need to take, and a clear timeline that it needs to be done within. I have only six hours to get across the Our, secure my bridgehead, and expand it to Lommersweiler. After that, I have 18 hours to consolodate my gains and get into St. Vith. I am sure the 12h VGD will have something to say about my plans - again, I have no idea what I am facing, other than the original units belong to the 12th VGD.

[Chad Harrison]

Now its time to start watching the videos. After that, I will post my plan and get the ball rolling.

Edit: Just finished watching the tutorial movies. They were quite a bit longer than I expected - which is a great thing incase that is not obvious. Lots of detail and lots of little tidbits that I had either forgotten or did not know. While the movies obviously gave some suggestions for the opening moves across the Our, it did not spell out the entire scearnio. Actually, it never gets outside of the first day. So looks like I will still have plenty of surprises.

But that will all have to wait till tomorrow.

[Chad Harrison]

After sleeping on my plans, and having the advantage of being able to watch Dave's opening moves in the tutorial, I have settled on my plan of action. Obviously, my highest priority is to get into St. Vith as quickly as possible. From our briefing, we know we have enemy armor inbound form the West at around the end of the second day. I want to have St. Vith under contorl long before then.

To accomplish this goal, I have a three stage plan to get into St. Vith and secure it before (hopefully) 12:00 on Day 2.

Stage 1:
Using both 1st Bn 318th Infantry and 51st Arm Inf Bn, I am going to push my way across the Our and into Steinebruck. Early intel says that we will be facing what appears to be a Infantry Bn in the vicinity. However, I have plenty of fresh, high spirited troops and two Bn's (22nd and 66th) of Armored Field Artillery (105) - so I do not expect to have any problems.

While the 1/318th and 51st are attacking across the Our, my tactical reserve for Stage 1, the 35th Arm Inf Bn, will be on overwatch. There is a very nicely located high point on the South bank of the Our, and I can not resist putting some firepower up there to support my attacks.

Also part of Stage 1 is as soon as the bridgehead is secure, the 51st will immediately begin its attack towards Lommersweiler. I do not want to loose the momentum from my attack, so I will not waste anytime getting started towards my second objective.

Lastly, as soon as the 51st begins their assault towards Lommersweiler, I will release the 35th from tactical reserves and get them probing towards Breitfeld. As a side note, this is where the tutorial movie cut off, so I do not know what to expect on the road to, or at, Breitfeld. I do not expect the road to be open to St. Vith, so I am assuming that there are additional forces lurking along the road to it. However, both of my artillery Bn's can hit St. Vith from their current locations, so the 35th will have plenty of support.

I hope to have this all done by around late afternoon of Day 1. If all goes well, at that point the 1/318th will be holding Steinebruck, the 51st will be holding Lommersweiler, and the 35th will either be holding Breitfeld or having identified the enemies MLR around it.

[Chad Harrison]

The entire goal of this stage is to finish getting ready for my assault on St. Vith. My first reinforcements are the command portions of the 4th Armored, along with CCB of the 4th Armored. They both arrive early in the morning on the second day (around 02:00). I need to make sure that the road is open for them all the way to the outskirts of St. Vith so that as soon as they arrive, they can get moving.

First, I am going to split up the 1/318th to defend both Steinebruck and Lommersweiler. I know that will have them extremely over stretched, but its a chance I am willing to take. If they do run into problems, I will pull back elements of CCA to give them a hand.

Second, using both the 35th and 51st, and I am going to secure Breitfeld if I have not already done so. I will expand this area to the open ground South and Southwest of St. Vith. I do not know what kind of opposition will be in this area, so I will have to just feel this one out. CCA's most important task in all of this is to get the road open, and keep it open, for CCB to get all the way to St. Vith.

[Chad Harrison]

Stage 3:
At 02:00 on Day 2, CCB arrives. Their major line units are the 8th Tank Bn and the 10th Arm Inf Bn. While they will be a little tired from the nights drive to get onto our battlefield, I am going to put them immediately to work. The route tool states that it will take them a hour to move from their starting point to the Southern outskirts of St. Vith. This should hopefully mean that they will have no problems being in position for a dawn assault. So once again it is very critical that CCA keeps that route open the entire way.

At this point, its very straightforward: get into St. Vith ASAP. If CCB has a hard time of this, both the 51st and 35th from CCA will be nearby and able to assist. Ideally I would like to avoid this and be able to keep CCA in a defensive role for the inevitable counter attacks. We will just have to play that one by ear. If I do need to commit them, I will commit the 51st first, and only under extreme need will I commit the 35th - I want that ace to stay up my sleeve for as long as possible.

Well, there's my plan for about the day and a half. Its probably a little on the aggressive side, and definitely on the optimistic side with how much I plan to do with (initially) limited forces, but I do not have time to waste. Again, I have no idea what's in St. Vith - we may clear it quickly or it may take all of Day 2. Regardless, the end of day two sees the expected German armor arriving and I want to be ready for it. With that, its time to finally get this ball moving forward.

What's that saying about plans not lasting beyond first contact with the enemy?

[Chad Harrison]

07:00
At 06:30, my troops kicked off the attack. Full daylight is not until 08:00, so it was still dark when they left their foxholes and started crossing the snow covered fields. 1/318th deployed in a line abreast formation (per my instructions) and moved forward without opposition. The 51st formed into successive lines (AI's choice) in order to blast their way across the Our.

By 07:00, first contact was made and I was quite surprised that we have moved behind the two forward companies before they made contact with our troops and began engaging them. Even though I hit these forward Coy's with 10 minutes of artillery fire, they are still active and inflicting slight casulties on the 1/318th. Since we are in among them, the 105's will be unable to help and the troops will have to rely on their 81mm mortarts.

Also, now that we have closed with the enemy, we have positively ID'd the forward Bn as the 1/27th Fusilier. Now its time to get to know them.

[Chad Harrison]

08:00
For the next hour, my troops try to work out of their awkward position. Having moved past their MLR, when the sun began to shine at 07:00, the forward enemy units started to fire upon the forward elements of the 1/318th from behind. As you can imagine they were not too happy about that. C Co was especially hit hard and began to rout. They will be fine to fight later, this morning in the snow has just started out rough for them.

However, the good news is that the MLR South of the Our has routed away. The 35th is moving into position for their overwatch, and the forward elements of the 51st are nearly across the Our. While the dawn brought a fair share of casualties to the 1/318th, the 51st has barely had a scratch thus far.

Since we were too close to use our 105's on the MLR, both the 22nd and 66th Arm FA Bn's have been quite busy shelling the troops defending Lommersweiler. Instead of leaving them oncall, I have manually ordered these attacks not wanting to miss the chance to miss hitting enemy artillery and gun units moving in the open.

While things a moving a little slower than I had hoped, we are moving non the less.

[Chad Harrison]

09:00
The 51st finally made it across the Our. This good news is setback by the surrendering of C Coy 318th. They routed back along the river and somehow they always chose a stopping spot in plain sight of the remnants of the 1/27th Fusilier. When the enemy started dropping accurate artillery on them, the white flag came up. I always hate having my own troops surrender. Especially line units. Especially within the first 3 hours of the game. Oh well - my rust is starting to show . . .

As you can see from this screenshot, my troops from both the 35th and the 51st are firing heavily against the enemy. Every single unit is taking solid shots against the troops in the village. So perhaps it will take longer to get over there, but by the time we do, the enemy will be pretty well beat up.

While slower than hoped, we are moving forward. Though I am starting to have real doubts about my ambitious time table. Hopefully the next hour will prove to be more useful.

[Chad Harrison]

10:00
The enemy has finally started to break. Both the HQ Coy and 2nd Coy of the 1/27th Fusilier have now surrendered. The 51st is across the Our in force. Also, probably the best news is that due to the very heavy direct (from 35th and 51st) and indirect (from 22nd and 66th FA) fire against the units outside of Lommersweiler, most have either gone to ground or routed out of the city. This again gives me the impression that while things are slow going right now, taking Lommersweiler should not be too much trouble.

In two more hours (12:00), points start counting for Lommersweiler. Hopefully that will give me enough time to get the 51st up there. If not, we will be close enough that we will not loose any significant number of points by being a little late.

[Chad Harrison]

12:00
At 10:27 we finally achieved our first objective: Steinebruck Bridge. With our bridgehead secure, the focus now turns towards Lommersweiler.

The last two hours (finally) saw both the 51st Arm Inf and the 1/318th Inf complete their attacks and begin to move up and consolodate. Given its losses, I will leave the infantry right where they are - both to allow them some rest and to hold my crossing open.

However, there will be no rest for the 51st. As soon as the HQ arrives, I will issue their new orders to immediately assault Lommersweiler. As you can see from the screenshot, many of the enemy units have fallen back out of the village. I am going to ensure that my formation is tight as we push any remaining units out of the village. Hopefully this will go much quicker than the six hours its took to get across the Our.

Finally, the time for the 35th to get rolling has come. Due to the lost time, I am going to immediately order them to get moving on Breitfeld. Again, I do not know what units are North of the current enemy MLR, but we will soon find out.

[Chad Harrison]

17:00
The more this day goes on, the more optimistic my original plans now feel.

The good news: the 51st Arm Inf Bn has pushed its way into the heart of Lommersweiler. The bad news: its late, they are low on ammo, and its still a long way to St. Vith. The last seven hours had them moving slowly across the snow covered fields and firing all the way. Also, they have been fighting all day - they are very tired. I could have rested them, but we needed to get this ball moving for CCB's sake. Still, for the 51st, losses have been light. So while they are being slowed down by the enemy more than I would like them to be, they are still in great shape and will be a great help in the days to come. However, it looks like I might need to keep them in Lommerswieler for the night depending on how the 35th does.

Speaking of the 35th, they moved out in road column and made it quite some ways before reaching a few enemy units. This slowed down their movement somewhat, but as far as I can tell, they have yet to take any losses all day. That includes spending all morning on Hill 470 shelling the enemy, and their movement North. I still have hope that they will be able to make it to the objective tonight.

I am going to run it till 00:00, and then we can take a big evaluation of our first day.

[Chad Harrison]

D2 00:00
The day has finally drawn to a close.

Where do we stand? Well, my first two objectives took much, much longer to secure than I thought they would. The crossing point was not officially declared secure until 10:27, and Lommersweiler not until 17:07. My units spend the entire day shooting at the enemy. I cant really argue with them about that as it will help our efforts for the following days - but it takes a long time to get to my objectives. So it took all day to get my bridgehead secure and consolidated. Also, losing an entire infantry company was annoying. Though technically, these troops would have been recovered in reality since shortly after they surrendered, their captors were captured.

But all is not mediocre news. The 35th arrived in force at Breitfeld about six hours early. They are at full strength, but dog tired. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day so instead of pushing them further, I wanted them to be able to get some rest - and that goes for the 51st also.

So Stage 1 and 2 are now completed. I did not make it as far as I originally wanted too with the 35th, but that's life. In two hours CCB will arrive and immediately move into action. I have spotted at least one new unit up the road, but that was hours ago. Who knows that is there now. I will likely scout my route with A Troop (attached to the 35th).

[OlegHasky]

Heres a good opportunity to observe the AI potential as well.
I have almost build up my opinion on the issue. And its far from prising its lavishly.

Looking on the situation. The AI seem to have good force to mount the central river line well, and at least make it painfull for the Aliies to cross it using only main bridge.

My request for you:
Could you include in Your further relations, the arty soupport You have for Your disposal? (how many, and what sort of guns exackly).
Also a good view on how AI acting on the bridge.

Thx, Oleg.


EDIT: [;)] I gues youve lunched the AAr furter as I was writing my post, I will get my look on it.

[OlegHasky]

Ok, case is clear[;)][;)][;)]. The AI let his forces get bypassed before the bridge like a babies lost in a park[8|], and abandon the Northern river line completly.....
I understand this is a tutorial.. But it is a reflection of the other situations as well..

Thats just soupports my growing opinion on the hevenly laud AI..

The Ai could give You a game if the scenario is tight build. When it have space left, you can forgett about reasonable acting.
And You have to stretch your imagination to build up the story with reason that wil fit such unreasonable and unrealistic situations.

COTA, BFTB - full realistic expierience = HvH


P.S. - For all the potential "Defenders of the crown" - Please meassure Your attacks twice on this view.
Despite the AI issue. My well known opinion is that the engine , and the overall expierience is beyond any discusion. It blown up any interesst for other tittles in this sector for me.
The AI, as evrywhere is locked in the same boarders, And as the Panther crossed many, they didnt crossed this one, as their claiming.

please continue your AAR Chad.. Its good.

[Chad Harrison]

04:00
The command elements of the 4th Armored Division have now arrived, and more importantly, CCB has arrived. Another huge helper arrived: 177 FA Bn (155). You can never have enough 155 artillery battalions! That brings us up to three dedicated FA Bn's. With that much support firepower, we should be able to handle quite a bit more now. The 4th Armored set up HQ in the small village of Elcherath - South of the Our. Due to the minimum range of 2700 meters, the 155's set up shop next to 4th Armored HQ.

As for CCA, after letting most of my troops rest for the night, I started to reorganize my lines. For one, I am finally going to have the 1st/318th take over defensive responsibilities for both Steinebruck and Lommersweiler. While this unit is somewhat depleted due to its lost company, I think that this area is going to not see much action over the next three days with the focus on St Vith. I micro-managed its sub-units to ideal defensive positions. Orders to move out were issued at 04:00.

Incase the 1/318th does see action, I have moved forward both the 22nd and 66th Arm FA Bn's, along with CCA's command elements. While these artillery units are best for bombardment, they pack one heck of a punch for direct fire also. With not a lot of units to throw around right now, its an option that while not ideal, still helps hold the line. Once the elements of the 1/318th arrive in Lommersweiler, the 51st Arm Inf Bn will be free to join the 35th Arm Bn at Breitfeld. As my division reserve, here they will stay until needed. Again, if needed, I will release the 51st first, and if another unit is needed, I will release the 35th second.

During the early morning hours, A Trp 25 Cav scouted out CCB line of departure. Outside of the 27 Fusilier Regt HQ (which surrendered), this area was empty. As such, CCB immediately moved in and deployed south of St. Vith. Since there were no units harassing them along the way, this move was quick, quiet and without incident.

As of 04:00, things are starting to look better after my first day. I am now back on schedule, and CCB is now ready for the push into St. Vith. To avoid the problems of yesterday, I am going to wait until 07:00 for the actual assault into St. Vith so that we do not accidently bypass more defenders. Orders are going out now to both the 8th Arm Bn and 10th Arm Inf Bn to be in position for a H-Hour of 07:00.

Today is going to be a big day.

[Chad Harrison]

08:00
Looks like all that hard work yesterday is finally paying off.

The attack kicked off just past 07:00. The 8th rolled right into town meeting no resistance until reaching the city center. C Coy actually shot ahead without pausing while A and D Coy paused for a copule of minutes. The end result was C Coy was a full kilometer in front of his sister companies. Now at the city center they are facing (as far as I can tell at this point) remnants of the 27th Fusilier. After losing their Regimental HQ early this morning, I do not expect any real resistance from them.

The 10th did run into opposition on the South side of the city, included the 27th's base force. However, with the help of our three artillery Bn's, things are progressing. I do not expect this fight to last very much longer.

I also ordered the 51st to move up to Breitfeld. They are now well rested after a good nights rest in warm homes. Here they will stay, along with the 35th, until called for.

With that the big mystery is where's the rest of the Germans? Are there more troops lurking in the woods? Or is the supposed armor the last of the Germans reserves? I am certainly not going to sit around waiting to find out. Securing St. Vith is still our primary objective - and we are ever so close.