Phoenix's From the Meuse to the Rhine OOB

[dazkaz15]

Phoenix's From the Meuse to the Rhine OOB

[dazkaz15]

Phoenix's From the Meuse to the Rhine OOB part 2

[Phoenix100]

Wow. Nice Daz. It is a huge scenario, you're right!

[dazkaz15]

Thanks mate.

I made it as I am going to play the scenario from the start in my usual method of being careful, and working to a plan. It was only supposed to be a quick, rough thing, that I could put up on my second monitor, as I was having problems organizing the Brigades using the small OOB in game.
However I got carried away as usual, and ended up finishing it at 3am this morning, so only got about 2 hours sleep last night!
Thought I would post it here in case anyone else wants to have a go at this scenario, and might find it useful.

I have really gotten into this one now. If anyone wants a long term challenge then this is definitely one to try.
It has a bit of everything in it. Its like the grand defining battle of the entire series, and all the others in the game are just training exercises leading up to this epic battle.

I loaded up the save that I was going to send Dave of the supply problem last night, and forgot that the messages tab does not save, so all the 100% destroyed messages where lost.
I also realised what a mess it was in from all the experimenting I had been doing.

What I plan to do now is start this epic scenario from start, and play it carefully as I usually do. As soon as I start to get messages about the supply I will take a screen dump, write a bit about it, and send the save to Dave.

[Phoenix100]

The version I'm playing now is slightly different, Daz - if you're interested I can mail you the .cos. The OOB will be the same as it's the original OOB for the original FTMTTR scenario, I assume. I've changed it in a few main ways - 1. Made the SEPs ground SEPs - so that the jeeps don't run out (I imagine this as simulating airlanding of replacement jeeps). 2. I've dropped all of 1 para in the northern drop zone, not just a small CDM force, as they are destined to occupy a larger bridgehead that side of the Rijn. I've dropped all of the 82nd sth of the Waal (removed the nth bank CDM force as it always faired very badly, landing on exposed ground, getting very shot up and never managing to re-org. I might have upped the stats for some of para troops too, can't recall. 3. I've abandoned completely the idea of splitting the 82nd and landed them all near Nijmegan. XXX Corps will have to take Grave, at least, without aid (easy enough), though elements of the 82nd could feasibly take Honighutje for XXX corps. 4.I've moved the arrival of a couple of elements of XXX Corps forward a few hours (the 101st did a great job). 5. I've tweaked supply distribution between SEPs to make sure the Brits can theoretically get enough for about 6 days.

The idea, shamelessly, has been to set it up so it's possible to scrape a win. But, to be honest, despite all these changes to favour the allies, I still find it incredibly challenging and I'm not sure I can win it. The supply problem will remain and is a deal-breaker. unless some switching strategy is adopted the front line troops will continue to run out of supply where fighting is fiercest and if they are across the other side of the Arnhem Highway Bridge then the effects will be exacerbated by that choke point. I think that's maybe how it should be, more or less. It would be nice to have that trickle of man-ported supply getting through to them, but, in all honesty, it wouldn't make much difference given the ferocity of the battle.

Let me know if you want me to mail you this .cos file.
Peter

[dazkaz15]

Thanks mate, but I like the one you sent me, anyway I have made a start now.

Have you notice the view that flak tower has before by the way? I hope that really is light flak up there, and not the dreaded 88mm version.
I never notice that in the last fast game I played, as I spent most of my time at Arnhem end.

I have pushed 1 Bn 505 PIR that you were talking about out to Lent, and A coy will pull back to watch the North East road shortly. I hope to use the delay order for this as I very rarely use it, and thought it would be a good test for it.
I am also curious as to how many suicide runs the supply will make to try to supply me over the bridge.

[Phoenix100]

Wow. That's a commanding position. I had seen fire graphics coming right acropss to the drop zone from there (and, in fact, in the new version I sent you, consequently changed the drop to a more covered position!)

I'm at day 2 morning in my latest run through and have had only 1 100% interdicted message (no other interdiction messages at all, in fact). I checked the jeep tally for the base affected and discovered it had lost 4 jeeps as a consequence. This is playing with the SEP designated as a 'ground' SEP - which someone (I think Lieste) told me meant unlimited trucks. So I wait to see if that's true, if the loss is made good.

[Phoenix100]

Nijmegan looks like this:


Only 1 unit has a red supply box (and there was a 100% interdiction message for it, with the loss of those 4 jeeps) - the A-505, right up east of the highway bridge ramp, across water. I'll move it in to correct.

[Phoenix100]

Arnhem looks like this. Everyone in supply! Rail bridge blown.

[dazkaz15]

Oh my!
Is all that armour over the bridge really heading for my 1 Bn 505 PIR?!

That's a very impressive defensive setup you have there mate.

[Phoenix100]

Yeah. And I'm still going to be lucky to get a draw, I think.

[dazkaz15]

Here is my Arnhem situation, but its very early days yet.

[dazkaz15]

Another map falls to the cunning skill of the Legendary General Daz [:D]

Ok I admit it.
I had to cheat on this one. I rolled back to a previous save three times to try, different arrangements of positions for the bases, all to no avail, but it gave me an advantage of knowing where the next lot of enemy reinforcements were likely to strike, especially the two Coy's of Tigers that arrive about day six, and I shamefully loaded the route with anti tank guns [8|]

Still seeing as I only had about a quarter of the troops available to me, due to their supply depots being out of vehicles, I don't think I did to bad.
It is also a problem for the other Brigades, not just the Para's. By the end of the scenario I only had about half the forces on the map still with supply vehicles. Very frustrating when there is nothing you can do about it!
I did try keeping the base on the move, by going round in circles when the Brigades were in the bridgehead, and under heavy fire, during the day, and only let it deploy at night, but it is a very attractive target for enemy artillery, so that never worked[:(]

Was a fun if frustrating challenge though.
Thanks phoenix.

[Phoenix100]

Holy cow. Over 42,000 casualties!!!! brings to mind the old thread complaining about the casualty rate being a bit unrealistic. Thanks for playing it, Daz. I'm developing another, more realistic one now - which isn't to say your skill isn't phenomenal, especially given the disappearing supply issue. Well done!

[dazkaz15]

I think the casualty rate is about right. I think in real life they would have been surrenders rather than casualties though.
I pocketed up the entire enemy force that was south of Nijmegen, and destroyed it, while holding the bridgehead at Arnhem with minimal forces.
Then moved an entire rested Infantry brigade, the 68th, from Nijmegen straight into the attack at Arnhem in one move to grab the last achievable objective, which was Arnhem North.
The Welsh Guards were working on the West Arnhem objective, from the West, having crossed the railway bridge at Oosterbeek, but it was so heavily concentrated with enemy, that it proved to be an objective too far [:'(]

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

How serious is the supply issue plaguing the Allied forces in this one as it seems? I have just scanned this thread and the forums in general to get to know more, but all the conclusions I can draw is that airborne units do not get resupplied properly - perhaps it is the way to simulate the airlift of supplies which was not that efficient especially when the DZs for Red Devils were overrun by Division von Tettau et al. Is also that the general supply levels for the Allied ground forces including the XXX Corps are too low? In the first case that would be acceptable - in the other - not really.

[dazkaz15]

It is quite a serious problem, but only really noticeable in these longer scenarios. In the Shorter ones, the battle is usually over by the time it becomes a serious problem.
It has nothing to do with the supply levels being to low, or the DZ's being overrun.
It's to do with the abstracted level of attrition, of the supply vehicles delivering the supplies from the bases, and the poor route finding of the AI run supply.

What you will find is that the supply vehicles allocated to your supplying base, start to get destroyed, until you no longer have any supply vehicles to deliver the supplies in the base. Worst still is that these vehicles will never be replaced, and no supply will be released, even if you get a unit close to the base.

Even if you go out of your way to provide a secure route, if the AI can't see it, it will still try to send it down the one you know has enemy on it. The vehicles may also get destroyed if the unit is engaged with the enemy, during a re-supply event, even after following a good supply route.

It also has a lot to do with the lack of the ability to call for supply when you are in a position best suited to receive it, and suspend it when you are not.

In short there has been an attempt at making supply an important factor in this game as it should be, but in an attempt to take away the management of it from the player, probably because a lot of players don't find it interesting or fail to see the importance of it, the decision was made to abstract it 100% to the games AI. This leads the player to become incredibly frustrated, when the AI can't effectively manage certain problematic situations, like encirclements, and "the longer safe way around", but also the timings of supply deliveries, and emergency requests.

This means that if you have a lot of units drawing from the same base, that are heavily engaged, with the enemy, like the bridgehead in Arnhem, even if you supply a good route, and are within easy walking distance in a very built up area of your base you will very quickly run our of Jeeps to supply your troops, and then the supply will stop....for ever!

So for now, I would recommend sticking with the shorter scenarios, and preferably not Para drop ones, as its much harder to provide a direct, clear, supply route in these, than in a broad front pitched battle.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

The case is that I have run out of all of the shorter scenarios for "Market - Garden". I had an impression fighting in the Ardennes that indeed the supply columns have been way too often running into some disastrous incidents which were somehow loosely related to the area they were operating in as they must have been crossing the enemy contested territory just to resupply certain units that were not encircled and moreover there was a clear and accessible route for wheeled movement leading to them - I blamed the chaos reigning each battlefield and ever present incompetence or poor performance of friendly personnel, but perhaps You're right that in a longer scenario the cumulative effect of this well known factor is way too ever present. Thanks for that anyway, I'll take that into consideration.Oh, wait , isn't it also affecting the jerries then? That would perhaps level the imbalance a bit again?

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: burroughs

. . . Oh, wait , isn't it also affecting the jerries then? That would perhaps level the imbalance a bit again?

Yep!

The human commander doesn't get to see the AI commander's supply delivery interdiction messages .

Might be enlightening if the two players engaging in HtH play provide some feedback and perhaps some game saves about the supply interdiction messages, particularly the frequency of 100-percent loss of supplies for a single unit, they receive.

Would support the game engine's support team's evaluation of the supply issue.

The thought has been that the 100-percent loss is the demise of a delivery vehicle(s), whose numbers are limited early in the game to what can be air landed in isolation from road-supported supply entry points. Lose all the vehicles in a base, and it can no longer honor requests to pull supplies, or support the push of those supplies from the airhead-supported SEP to the base.

[Phoenix100]

Excellent succinct summary of the issues, Daz. I commend your brevity and perspicuity, sir. Cheers.