News from Heroes and Leaders mod

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

Golly those maps really have a wonderful, welcoming feeling of Stalingrad. I will play your legendary Barrikady battles over Christmas. I love Stalingrad and all those gritty, grinding battles of attrition.
asl3d your labor of love making all this is impressive.
Your nice looking scenarios will add a lot of comfort & cheer to the holiday season.

Hello GiveWarAchance,

Thank you for your comments.

In addition, the fighting in the industrial sector of Stalingad, especially in the industrial complex of the Barrikady Factory, happened approximately during these months, 76 years ago.
I hope you enjoy your Christmas holidays.

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you. I will remember you as I'm trading fire with enemy troops in the rubble on Christmas.
I hope you have a fun-filled holiday filled with wargaming and yummy turkey dinner.

[asl3d]

Barrikady full boards until now

[GiveWarAchance]

I Love the pictures of the battle you include here. I kind wish I was there with the troops to enjoy a Christmas battle in the rubble with them, but I think I'd need a yoga mat to put down on the rubble for laying down behind cover. I think yoga mats would be much more useful in Stalingrad than for yoga.

The Barrikady area was one factory district? This is a nice campaign you made of that battle. Those maps are really good.
After you finish this Barrikady campaign, will you do any other glorious places like the grain elevator, tractor factory, Pavlov's House, or Mamayev Kurgan?
I wish the developers were following this so they could make it officially part of the game with updates.

[asl3d]

Hello GiveWarAchance,

Thank you very much again for the compliments. You're very kind.

The questions:
The industrial complex of the Barrikady Factory belongs to the industrial area of Staligrad, located approximately in the north of the city, next to the Volga River. The Dzerzhinky Tractor Factory and the Red October Metal Factory also belong to this industrial area.
The module of the Barrikady Factory is inspired by the first historical module of Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) "Red Barricades," designed by the great Charlie Kibler.
Nevertheless, when I started working with the boards I understood that it was difficult to respect the original board of Red Barricades. Finally, I decided that it was preferable to reproduce the original terrain of the factory and its surroundings. In addition, I discovered that the original terrain of Red Barricades, which had been made from aerial photographs, nevertheless had several errors that I have tried to rectify (especially the railway network within the industrial complex of the Barrikady factory). But the fundamental thing was to respect some special rules of Red Barrikades, especially everything that refers to the Factories.
The original scenarios of Red Barrikades are another matter. When I tried to reproduce the first scenario of Red Barricades, I understood that it was not easy to do it. Of course it could be done, but the final result was not convincing. My decision was to reproduce the battles that were actually fought in those critical days of autumn 1942, using the multiple historical sources that exist today.
Red Barricades was published in 1990, and Charlie Kibler (his designer and one of ASL's most important innovators) did what he could. Now, with much more information available, scenarios can be made even more adjusted to what happened in reality (units that actually participated, their composition, the situation they were in and, above all, the advance of the "day to day" front ).
The historical module "Barrikady" of Heroes and Leader mod is composed of 19 scenarios that reproduce, as best I could, the battles that were fought during the month of October and November of 1942.

Finally, my plans are to develop a new Historical Module focused on amphibious assault of the United States Army on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. In addition, this new module will be complemented with new scenarios belonging to the first Carentan Historical Module, which it will be called Carentan Expansión, to include scenarios of the aero assault by the paratroopers of the 101 and 82 division of paratroopers of the United States. The idea is to combine part of the existing boards of the Carentan module with new boards (Carentan Expansión).

Looking further into the future, I am thinking of another historical module based on the rebellion of the Polish militias in the ghetto of the city of Warsaw, during the months of April and May 1943. This Historical Module will include the generic forces of the partisan units who fought throughout Europe during the occupation of the German Army.

Later in time, I would like to introduce the United States forces into the Theater of Operations of the Pacific (PTO), that is, the Marines and the early army of the United States, as well as the units of the Japanese Army. I have not yet decided the "theater" although, a first option, would be the metropolitan area of Manila, in the Philippines.

The return to the Soviet Union will be rather in the battle of Kursk .............

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you for your detailed plan. I love how you make your campaign as realistic as possible. This game will be invigorated a lot with your new campaigns.

I Like your future plans, especially the Warsaw ghetto. I am reading the Osprey Campaign book about the Warsaw Uprising and I read the Stackpole book about it too. I think that battle was similar to Stalingrad with lots of grinding battles in the ruins with both sides struggling terribly. I remember the green German troops were well trained and used good tactics like moving from cover to cover and bounding overwatch but suffered heavy losses cause the Jewish fighters would hunker down and pop off shots from concealed positions so they were not spotted, but the Germans had Stukas working the area and sometimes bombs hit rebel hideouts causing massive losses. The Germans replaced the mean leader with a professional leader and then turned the tide with proper army planning and tactics. That was a nice battle. Actually a Pacific War campaign would be awesome too. I guess you chose Manila for the dense urban environment and most games and documentaries skip past that battle even though it was a good one so it needs some love.

Have you considered the siege of Budapest?

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

Thank you for your detailed plan. I love how you make your campaign as realistic as possible. This game will be invigorated a lot with your new campaigns.

I Like your future plans, especially the Warsaw ghetto. I am reading the Osprey Campaign book about the Warsaw Uprising and I read the Stackpole book about it too. I think that battle was similar to Stalingrad with lots of grinding battles in the ruins with both sides struggling terribly. I remember the green German troops were well trained and used good tactics like moving from cover to cover and bounding overwatch but suffered heavy losses cause the Jewish fighters would hunker down and pop off shots from concealed positions so they were not spotted, but the Germans had Stukas working the area and sometimes bombs hit rebel hideouts causing massive losses. The Germans replaced the mean leader with a professional leader and then turned the tide with proper army planning and tactics. That was a nice battle. Actually a Pacific War campaign would be awesome too. I guess you chose Manila for the dense urban environment and most games and documentaries skip past that battle even though it was a good one so it needs some love.

Have you considered the siege of Budapest?

Thanks again for your kind words.

Regarding the Warsaw Ghetto, another option I'm considering recreating the Warsaw Uprising seriously, in the summer of 1944, by the Polish underground resistance, led by the Home Army, to liberate Warsaw from German occupation

My intention is to reproduce a historical environment where the role of the resistance forces played a prominent role. This is a good reason to introduce all the different units of the resistance (not just the Polish one).

The siege of Budapest was also an epic battle, but I not have very clear that the Hungarian resistance had a prominent role, although it is possible that I am wrong.

Regarding your excellent description of the street battles in the city of Warsaw, I do not know if I will be able reproduce all the richness of details that you describe with such enthusiasm. In this sense, a novelty that I want to try in the next historical module "Omaha" are the Narrow Streets, that is, combined hexes of street and building. This type of terrain would be perfect to reproduce the old district of Warsaw. I will also introduce the concept of Rowhouse.

Finally, Manila (or maybe better Philippines). The main idea is to try to reproduce the battles of 1942, with the early Army of the United States (US Philippine Scouts; US Manila Harbor Defense) and, then, take a leap in the time, to February 1945, and reproduce the liberation of the metropolitan area of Manila by the army commanded by the General Douglas MacArthur. Anyway, all these plans are still far away .....

[GiveWarAchance]

In the siege of Budapest, there were Hungarian units on the German side helping to defend. A campaign about Budapest would definitely be best with the player commanding the German side cause they were extremely outnumbered. But defensive campaigns are harder to make I think cause you have to create premises for victories within a losing operation.

For Omaha, did you make that campaign already? In the documents folder, there is a nice scenario story about Carentan.

I like your idea with Manila to include both the early battle and liberation battle. I hope you keep it all from the American side so it feels like one connected story but I guess this project is a distant whim for now. There is a good Osprey campaign book about Manila which would be extremely useful to you. You should look at the Osprey Warsaw book too. Osprey Campaign books have nice artwork, maps and tactical maps with a lot of detail about units involved. You can find them in the library.

[asl3d]

The new pack of Scenarios for Heroes and Leaders mod is already available in the thread “Scenarios for Heroes and Leaders mod,” in the post # 1:

tm.asp?m=4252327

List of scenarios contained in this pack:

“Barrikady Mashinnya,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of December 8, 2018
“Barrikady Factory,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of November 29, 2018
“Barrikady South,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of November 12, 2018
“Barrikady North,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of November 09, 2018
“Barrikady Yanvarya,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of October 30, 2018
“Barrikady Stalinaya,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of October 20, 2018
“Barrikady Tsaritsa,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of October 12, 2018
“Barrikady Skulpturny,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of October 03, 2018
“Barrikady Sormosk,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of September 21, 2018
“Barrikady Tramvanaya,” for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of September 9, 2018

List of scenarios published and contained in the Core of Heroes and Leaders mod:

“Barrikady West”, for Historical Module 2 Barrikady, version of August 29, 2018
"Donville", for Historical Module 1 Carentan, version of August 29, 2018
"Graignes", for Historical Module 1 Carentan, version of August 29, 2018
“Carentan town”, for Historical Module 1 Carentan, version of August 29, 2018
“Ingouf farm”, for Historical Module 1 Carentan, version of August 29, 2018
“Brecourt Manor”, for Historical Module 1 Carentan, version of August 29, 2018

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

In the siege of Budapest, there were Hungarian units on the German side helping to defend. A campaign about Budapest would definitely be best with the player commanding the German side cause they were extremely outnumbered. But defensive campaigns are harder to make I think cause you have to create premises for victories within a losing operation.

For Omaha, did you make that campaign already? In the documents folder, there is a nice scenario story about Carentan.

I like your idea with Manila to include both the early battle and liberation battle. I hope you keep it all from the American side so it feels like one connected story but I guess this project is a distant whim for now. There is a good Osprey campaign book about Manila which would be extremely useful to you. You should look at the Osprey Warsaw book too. Osprey Campaign books have nice artwork, maps and tactical maps with a lot of detail about units involved. You can find them in the library.

Hello GiveWarAchance

Budapest: Exactly, I agree with you that it is more difficult to design a scenario with a defensive role. The problem that I see in Heroes of Stalingrad (HoS) is that their Artificial Intelligence is not very "intelligent". I have had to strongly balance the scenarios towards the AI side so that there is some equality in the game.

Omaha: No, it's just the opposite. My idea is to reproduce the amphibious assault of the first wave and the following ones. The tests of the narrow streets I thought of doing in the coastal village of Vierville sur Mer, for example.

Carentan: The idea is to use part of the Carentan boards to reproduce the aerial assault in the rear-guard of the beaches of Normandy, especially the 101 and 82 Airborne Divisions. I had planned to do 2 nightly scenarios, "Les Chemins" and "Sainte Mere Eglise", so that they alternate scenarios of the Omaha beach with scenarios in the rear-guard of the beach, following a historical time schedule,... more or less.
Here (post 10) you can see what I am explaining to you:

tm.asp?m=4347377#

Osprey: I totally agree with you that "Osprey Campaign books have nice artwork, maps and tactical maps with a lot of detail about units involved". I'll keep it in mind.

[GiveWarAchance]

Your plan for the airborne looks like fun. I was having flashbacks of the program Band of Brothers as I was looking at your Carentan thread.
The cozy green countryside of France (bocage area?) gives the war there a comfortable, warm atmosphere. Maybe that area is not quite in the bocage which is further inland I think.

I hope I can play that scenario after I finish trading fire.... a lot of fire... with the Russians hunkered down in the Barrikady factory. I wanna play through all your Barrikady campaign.

[GiveWarAchance]

asl3d, the AI seems quite smart from what I saw in the Barrikady Factory. Russian troops stayed hunkered down out of sight in buildings mostly passing time until near the end of my turn when they opened fire across their line knowing I had no active units left to return fire. Even knowing the Russian affinity for this nasty trick didn't help me cause I had to keep the action going even by exposing troops to fire from active units. Most of my losses were from moving units near enemy positions and attracting heavy fire at close range.

And the Russians sometimes did moves past my units after mine were used or marked as melee so they avoided opportunistic fire. Another smart thing was their use of defensive structures, especially the factories. At the end of battle, the Russian infantry are in a neat, well manned line in strong defensive positions with little or no backup left south in the other buildings which is good for a strong defense but leaves no reserve which they didn't need at the end of the time. Overall I think the AI army did pretty good and decisively held their ground until I ran out of time.

[asl3d]

Barrikady Bread Factory 12th Scenario of Historical Module Barrikady is coming.....

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

Your plan for the airborne looks like fun. I was having flashbacks of the program Band of Brothers as I was looking at your Carentan thread.
The cozy green countryside of France (bocage area?) gives the war there a comfortable, warm atmosphere. Maybe that area is not quite in the bocage which is further inland I think.

I hope I can play that scenario after I finish trading fire.... a lot of fire... with the Russians hunkered down in the Barrikady factory. I wanna play through all your Barrikady campaign.

Yes GiveWarAchance, "a lot of fire" in Stalingrad. Soviet General Vasilii Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 62nd Army, discovered that if his troops came very close to the German troops, the German superiority of air support and artillery was neutralized. For the first time they fought hand to hand between both armies. The German army had to develop a more "dirty" tactic if it wanted to win. Here the German officers could not easily win with "elegant" flanking maneuvers or mechanized mobility ......

Band of Brothers: The scenario "Les Chemins" will be based on the episode of Lieutenant Winters, protagonist of the magnificent book of the historian Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers, to arrive at the meeting point in Les Chemins, in the middle of the night, with soldiers Germans scattered throughout the area and with very few men at their command.

The other scenario, "Sainte Mere Eglise" will be based on the episode magnificently narrated by Cornelius Ryan in his book The Longest Day (also John Wayne acts excellently in the film of the same title).

Finally, the bocage can be found on the "Donville" scenario within the Carentan historical module.

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

asl3d, the AI seems quite smart from what I saw in the Barrikady Factory. Russian troops stayed hunkered down out of sight in buildings mostly passing time until near the end of my turn when they opened fire across their line knowing I had no active units left to return fire. Even knowing the Russian affinity for this nasty trick didn't help me cause I had to keep the action going even by exposing troops to fire from active units. Most of my losses were from moving units near enemy positions and attracting heavy fire at close range.

And the Russians sometimes did moves past my units after mine were used or marked as melee so they avoided opportunistic fire. Another smart thing was their use of defensive structures, especially the factories. At the end of battle, the Russian infantry are in a neat, well manned line in strong defensive positions with little or no backup left south in the other buildings which is good for a strong defense but leaves no reserve which they didn't need at the end of the time. Overall I think the AI army did pretty good and decisively held their ground until I ran out of time.

Hello GiveWarAchance,

Regarding Artificial Intelligence I was referring to what is usually recommended is that the side that plays the attack should have an advantage ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 (that's what the doctrine says). However, I have had to balance in favor of the Artificial Intelligence so that the game is balanced (1:1 or 2:3).

Another solution is to shorten the duration of the scenarios, that is, to leave less turns to the commander of the side that attacks so that it is more difficult for him to regroup and move his forces from one sector to another.

The first Barrikady scenarios I decided to block the position of the Russian defenders so that they did not make movements that distanced them from the of defensive strengths. I just checked that in Barrikady Factory the Russians have freedom of movement. I'm glad to know that they have behaved smartly, like good soldiers .....

[GiveWarAchance]

Ya I was impressed by the discipline of the Russians in holding their defensive positions. They only rarely moved a unit and usually at the end of my turn so had only occasional long distance op fire chances that usually missed. The only place the were moving was in the left side of the map mostly near the top. It seems they were trying flank my troops on the west end who were focused on attacking south towards the factory buildings. If a human player had played like the Russians did in that scenario, I would think it was a fairly good player.

[asl3d]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

Ya I was impressed by the discipline of the Russians in holding their defensive positions. They only rarely moved a unit and usually at the end of my turn so had only occasional long distance op fire chances that usually missed. The only place the were moving was in the left side of the map mostly near the top. It seems they were trying flank my troops on the west end who were focused on attacking south towards the factory buildings. If a human player had played like the Russians did in that scenario, I would think it was a fairly good player.

However, in this scenario the Soviet units have freedom of action. That is to say, the Artificial Intelligence acts on its own, without external programming. His movements are free, without influence (at least mine).
Well, I give up. I accept that Artificial Intelligence is intelligent (but not human, OK?).

[GiveWarAchance]

I'm sure if a human was managing the Soviet side, I would have done a lot worse. But to be honest, I probably would have defended the same way the AI did in if I was the Russians except maybe I would put in more counterattacks just for fun cause I tend to attack a lot.

[GiveWarAchance]

I am watching this video about the drive to Stalingrad to help improve my Barrikady game. The narrator dude plays these Matrix games mostly Order of Battle. His videos about WW2 are quite good and he has his own fresh theories and ideas. I'm hoping after I watch his videos that I will have enough knowledge to complete the drive into the Barrikady factories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzr6dD8 ... freload=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCDjAqTUCmw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USCyLcjdH4s

[asl3d]

Barrikady Bread Factory is developed around Bread Factory