West Wall - Holland 44

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

I think that playing with a scenario would be fun. I would like to look at making some modifications to this one. I have some ideas, but need to do some reading first on the process.

I also would like to look at the victory conditions. In the Flashpoint Campaigns - which I have not often played lately - the victory conditions are always around a percentage of the total victory points. I remember in one scenario, the NATO force needed to get 65% of the VPs for a marginal win, 75% for a significant and 85% for a decisive. So, in scenarios where the Allies are supposed to win, they could do really well and get most of the VPs, but still not get the win. I'm not sure if I can do that in TOAW.

Anyway, this is a project that if I get to it will not start for a while. I have a battle to finish.

Have a good day!

[MikeJ19]

The battle is nearing its completion. Barring the arrival of significant reserves, I do not see the Germans being able to prevent me getting an overwhelming victory. However, I would like to capture Arnhem. I think I should get it within the week.

Here is the situation as the sun rises on 29 Oct

[larryfulkerson]

Anyway, this is a project that if I get to it will not start for a while. I have a battle to finish.

When you DO get started there's a few traps that you need to know about so I would suggest you practice on a throw-away scenario first to get the mechanics down pat and save your work often because there's no undo faciility in the editor. I try to remember to save my work just before I do something im;portant that could possibly go wrong. If I DO do something wrong I just load the older copy of the scenario.

So far I've only done simple things to the formations and changing the events. Oh, that's another thing: you could load a known simple scenario and take a look at the events to see how they are done.

Cam;paign for South Vietnam has some events to change the weather for the monsoon effects. I actually find lit fun to playtest the scenario I've changed to see if it works right afterward.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Thanks, this is very helpful. I took a look - a quick one - at Curtis Lemay's info on the editor interface. It looks good and would be helpful. I will also be discussing things on the forum. It would be nice if I can find a couple of people who have played the scenario, just because I found something in the scenario to be off, does not mean it is.

I think if I can find a way to make the supply work better in this scenario, it will make it more rewarding. Playing with history is always a little daunting...

As you suggest, I may take a look at a smaller scenario first to try some things out. That would likely be a WWIII scenario, which gets away from some of the worry about being historically correct.

In either case, it should be a challenge for my brain and that is a good thing!

Thanks for your input and recommendations!

[MikeJ19]

Here is the situation on the 30th!

[MikeJ19]

Halloween has arrived

[MikeJ19]

Things are heating up.

[MikeJ19]

Another day passes...

[MikeJ19]

I was having too much fun, so missed a couple of days

[MikeJ19]

Forgot to mention that most of the German units in and around Arnhem are unsupplied.

Also, the 104th are North of Arnhem, so that push will get much weaker tomorrow...

[MikeJ19]

I'm going to end this battle here. I have managed to liberate most of Southern Holland and have got Arnhem.

[MikeJ19]

AAR

What did I do well

I liked my different plans. I was able to achieve the objectives that I set on each of the different operations. This was the longest scenario I have played and it gave me opportunities to develop plans many times over. I also did a pretty good job in setting my forces up to be in the right places for this operations

The AB forces were fun to use. In most cases I was able to link up with them within a couple of days, which is very good.

When I started noticing the supply issues, I stopped, then withdrew some forces back towards the South to rest and build supply. This really helped me later in the battle.

I did a good job of cutting off and then destroying German units. I think that this really helped me later in the game as the Germans were really short on manoeuvre units. I ended up with over 600 points from enemy losses, which is about a third of my points overall.

Things I need to improve

My understanding of supply – this is a key issue and I need to learn more about the mechanics of it.

Flank protection. Just because there are no Germans on the East side of the AO, does not mean that they will not be coming in there. I got lucky a couple of times as the Germans came in near where I had units positioned.

Following my checklist. Once again, there were a couple of times where I forgot to move units forward. I got lucky in that this really did not give the Germans an opening, but it could have.

I got caught up in the race for Arnhem and did not really think though the approach. I was just looking each day at how to move the forces. Eventually, I started looking for other units to bring forward into the fray.

Air units – there were a couple of turns that I did not even look at them...

[MikeJ19]

Thoughts on the scenario

This one has tons of potential for the Allied player. He has lots of options and neat units to use. However, the supply issues are big. They are likely historical, but they really made me wonder about the scenario. Eventually, I lost my focus because of them.

I did have fun. Airborne troops. Canadian, Polish, British, Dutch, Belgian and American troops made this interesting.

I like the early attempt by the German to break out of the Breskens pocket. If successful, that would have caused me lots of issues. However, the way the German player (AI) attempted it doomed this idea to failure. Instead of a concentrated attack with as many forces as possible along the narrow road South of the Scheldt, the AI attacked in many places – mostly with losses in my favour. So, it was a bold idea, but poorly executed.

For the most part, the enemy in this scenario is supply. If the Allies had had better supply, I would have made it to Arnhem much more quickly and with less losses. As I have said on some of the posts, I’m thinking of trying to improve the way the supply is done in this scenario... we will see.

[MikeJ19]

Making changes to the scenario

I’ve spent some time today looking at the rules and thinking about if I could make changes to improve this scenario.

First off, the work that was done by Trey Marshall is incredible. Does anyone know if Trey is still around on this forum? It would be fun to chat with him.

The level of detail on the OOB is wonderful and the map looks great. It is intimidating thinking that I could do anything to improve the scenario. As I have said before, I enjoyed the freedom of action for the Allied player. As I look back, I think this was the most interesting scenario I've played - at least until I ran into the supply concerns.

That being said, there are a couple of issues that I have with the scenario.

1. The way it is currently set up, almost all Allied movement North of the Maas river is unsupplied. I looked at ways to improve my supply situation, but I could not find any options to push my supply chain farther North. So, I ended up deciding to move north without access to supplies. Since the new overextended supply rules were not on, this did not lead to a disaster. (I did stumble upon a supply point East of Nijmegen for the Allies that must have activated at some point. There was nothing in the notes about it.)

2. I’m not sure how the Germans can win. I do not think that my approach to the scenario was exceptional and I won handily. If I had not paused looking for ways to improve my supply situation, I would have been fighting for Arnhem 10-14 days earlier. Now, this could be a problem with the AI, but it may also be that historically the Germans were weak in this sector and the only thing that really held up the Allies was the supply situation. However, it would be nice if the German player could win if they play really well.

Ideas - In reading through the rule book on scenario design and editing I came upon a couple of ideas:

Increasing the supply stockpile level available to each side, but increasing the overextended supply threshold to at least 3.

Adding more supply when the Allies capture Antwerp. Not sure how much, but a bonus would be a good thing. I really did not notice much of a difference to my supply levels after the port opened up.

I would like to look at modifying the supply radius to see if that could help - I do not really understand the supply radius, so maybe I would learn something too.

I think that the Germans should get some victory points for delaying the advancing Allied formations. They should get VPs for holding onto the Breskens pocket until a certain date. This would give them something to fight for. The German could get Victory points for other locations too.

Also, at key points in the battle the Germans withdrew forces. That makes sense historically, but not so much when the Allies are closing in on Arnhem. It would be interesting to make some of these withdrawals as possible events.


Any thoughts or concerns. I have lots of concerns. I have never attempted something like this and am worried that I will mess things up. I know that I will not mess up the actual scenario, but I do not know if I have the computer skills to do this.

That being said, it will be interesting to try and figure this out....

[Szilard]

I wonder how historical it would be for the Allies to get a supply bonus for Antwerp? My impression is that at least to begin with 12th AG was the main beneficiary. 21st AG, with its shorter lines back to Normandy and some beaches in the Calais area, was relatively well-off at this stage. But could easily be wrong about that.

At a top level, I'd be interested in the main victory conditions for the Allies to be based on (a) opening up Antwerp and (b) getting bridgeheads over the Rhine while (c) minimizing casualties (given the Brit manpower issues). I wouldn't reward advances into the Netherlands for their own sake, and for (b), areas directly threatening the Ruhr etc would be more interesting than Arnhem. You'd need to achieve all of these things to get a big victory.

For the Germans, preventing an Allied victory with the greatest possible economy of force (given the need to build up for the Ardennes). It'd be fun for the Germans to be able to call on additional forces, and (as you say) retain forces scheduled to be withdrawn, at the expense of victory points.

[sPzAbt653]

Hi Mike - I have a few thoughts, first would be that Trey is an excellent scenario designer and I would hesitate to make any changes to one of his designs. That said, we can certainly do whatever we want for our own personal use, so no harm in making adjustments to scenarios to gain a result that we desire.

Grabbing a Scenario Dump can help when you have questions about a scenario. How to do so and some tips on use can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiRaL0s9sgg
For example, I looked at a dump of this scenario and see that the Supply Level for the Allies is 40 [which is pretty good], and the Supply Radius is the default of 4 [not so good]. Also noted that the Allies get a Supply Point at Antwerp when they capture 27,41. This doesn't raise supply levels nor help the advance to the north.

Supply - Keep in mind that 0% supply does not mean that you are out of supply, it is a reflection of supply delivery. Supply designs are complicated, and can reflect different things. For example, supply might reflect poor supplies as we would expect, but they also might reflect a cautious commander [Monty]. Due to the complexities of supply design, I would also hesitate to make any changes to supply parameters.

I have played this nice scenario in the past and don't recall having any concerns other than the Formation Supply Distribution Levels [FSDL]. These are inconsistent across formations, which could very well reflect a designer's desired effect, but in this case I suspect that there is a possibility that maybe some of these settings were inadvertently overlooked. It's an easy thing to do.
If I were compelled to make any changes to this one, I would start with the FSDL. This setting regulates the percentage of the overall supply level that the units in each formation receive.
In the Force Editor, follow the screen shot below to adjust the FSDL. I would simply add 100, that would raise all formations to 100 as that is the maximum allowed. I would also do the same thing for the German side, to balance the adjustment [hopefully].

[sPzAbt653]

I only took a brief look at this scenario just now, and its been years since I played it. I'd have to play it a few times from both sides and review the entire scenario in order to come to any conclusion concerning the Victory Conditions. But I can give you this [also from the Dump]:

Valued Objectives
14,46 (Breskens), Value:99.
15,41 (Middleburg), Value:99.
23,49 (Temeuzen), Value:25.
25,41 (Goes), Value:50.
39,12 (DEN HAAG), Value:99.
39,41 (Bergen Op Zoom), Value:25.
41,15, Value:10.
44,19 (ROTTERDAM), Value:99.
47,23, Value:25.
49,20 (Krimpen), Value:25.
50,37 (Roosendal), Value:10.
53,24 (DORDRECHT), Value:50.
54,23, Value:25.
61,35 (BREDA), Value:25.
64,31 (Oosterhout), Value:10.
65,22, Value:50.
66,48 (TURNHOUT), Value:10.
70,15, Value:25.
70,36 (TILBURG), Value:10.
72,15 (Vlanen), Value:25.
73,4 (HILVERSUM), Value:25.
73,11, Value:50.
79,24 (Zaltbommel), Value:25.
81,30 (St Hertogenbosch), Value:10.
84,42 (EINDHOVEN), Value:50.
86,36 (St Oedenrode), Value:25.
89,34 (Veghel), Value:25.
90,40 (HELMOND), Value:10.
95,26 (Grave), Value:25.
99,21, Value:99.
99,27, Value:25.
101,15, Value:99.
102,24 (Groesbeek), Value:10.
103,31, Value:25.
104,3 (Apeldoorn), Value:50.
105,55 (ROERMOND), Value:50.
108,12 (Doesburg), Value:50.
108,24 (Kleve), Value:10.
109,30 (Goch), Value:10.
110,2 (Deventer), Value:99.
110,7 (Zutphen), Value:99.
110,44 (VENLO), Value:99.
112,21 (Emmerich), Value:50.
113,16 (Doetinchen), Value:10.

[Szilard]

Historically, I don't know why Rotterdam, Den Haag etc would be considered tasty objectives in the larger scheme of things, but acknowledge I could be missing something.

[sPzAbt653]

Well, we have to make the safe assumption that it falls into the scenario design, especially as the Valued Objectives have no default value [each are input manually]. I don't know if you or Mike has designed scenarios, so maybe no need to state this but - when we design scenarios we have ideas for everything, and deciding what is important and what is not so important is one of the many subjective areas. Not all of us are going to agree with the decisions made. I think I can see where Rotterdam and The Hague would be valued ground to hold for morale or political reasons, but Ike didn't see either as furthering the war effort. He also didn't think Arnhem was very important, and its not other than it is the spot chosen at that time to cross the Rhine. When Arnhem was finally captured later, it didn't make any headlines. Rotterdam or The Hague would be front page news, I'm sure.
It's easy enough to rename the scenario, change some objective values, and save it for ourselves.

[Szilard]

I've been tinkering around with scenarios on & off since 1924 or whenever it is that TOAW first came out, in all of its bug-ridden, dubious glory. I only do this for my private amusement so I'd have no thought of trying to supplant somebody else's hard work for public consumption, and I don't get the impression that Mike had any different intention.