New Stuff

[Arjuna]

Now for my third battalion, the 1st Pz Bn, I want them to attack from the clear are east of the village. They are going to be exposed and vulnerable here, so I don't want them hanging about there too long. So I order them to start in half an hours time and give them the same HHour as the other two Bns.

[Arjuna]

Finally, I want to coordinate my bombardment such that it starts 15 minutes prior to HHour and continues for another 10 minutes after it - hopefully lifting just before my assault infantry get close to the objective. Well that's the intent at least.

[Arjuna]

So let's see how it pans out.

Once I start running the game the two inf Bns start their reorgs while the 1st Pz Bn and 1st Bty wait.

[Arjuna]

Half an hour later 1st Pz Bn duly obeys orders and starts the process of moving out.

[Arjuna]

At 11:15 the 1st Bty commences its bombardment.

[Arjuna]

At 11:30 the assaults get underway. Note that the arty bombardment is continuing as planned.

[Arjuna]

At 11:40 the bombardment stops. Note the lead infantry are pretty close to the objective and the enemy here is actually retreating. [:)]

[Arjuna]

In hindsight I could have brought forward the HHour by twenty minutes as the 1st Pz Bn were formed up and ready to assault a bit earlier than I thought. But with a bit more practice I'm sure I can get it down pat. [:)]
 
Footnote - Actually in a replay the 1st Pz Bn got pounded by enemy arty and were delayed. In the end they commenced their assault from a position south of the FUP at the designated HHour. So the lesson there is you need to allow a little leeway.

[Plodder]

Awesome stuff! One comment confused me however:

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Now for my third battalion, the 1st Pz Bn, I want them to attack from the clear are east of the village. They are going to be exposed and vulnerable here, so I don't want them hanging about there too long. So I order them to start in half an hours time and give them the same HHour as the other two Bns.

Did you mean they're exposed at their current position or the one they're going to be attacking from?

[Arjuna]

The one they are going to be attacking from. I wanted to minimise their time in the open under enemy observation and fire.

[Txema]

Arjuna,
 
This new feature looks superb. I can't wait to use it !!!
 
 
Txema

[Javakamp]

Very nice feature. Thanks for the hard work.

[FredSanford3]

One question:  Is the 'end time' or 'duration' moot if you run your troops into the automatic 'Friendly Fire Preventor' zone during the assault?  This would be a gamey approach, IMO, or an argument to do away with that feature - or change it to a "Danger Close" warning with option ignore the warning.  Which could also result in some gamey tactics as well.  hmm...

[Arjuna]

FN,
 
I take it you are referring to the fact that bombardments are curtailed whenever friendlies are in the way. If so, rest assured that this will continue to be the case regardless of the timings.

[HercMighty]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

FN,

I take it you are referring to the fact that bombardments are curtailed whenever friendlies are in the way. If so, rest assured that this will continue to be the case regardless of the timings.

Why?

So as it stands now really you don't have to worry about an end time for bombardments. Just do a start time and when the attack begins and friendlies move into position the bombardment will stop and your good to go.

[RayWolfe]

A difficult call.
What would have happened IRL? In some cases, a call back to the arty to cease fire, in others, a failure in communications and you die. My feeling is that, for ground arty in 1944 communications were reasonable ... for air, poor.
You might want to see a chance of arty being stopped but I'd put the chance of failure pretty high.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: HercMighty

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

FN,

I take it you are referring to the fact that bombardments are curtailed whenever friendlies are in the way. If so, rest assured that this will continue to be the case regardless of the timings.

Why?

So as it stands now really you don't have to worry about an end time for bombardments. Just do a start time and when the attack begins and friendlies move into position the bombardment will stop and your good to go.

Well you could do that if you don't mind running out of ammo real quick. The average arty unit has just 45 minutes of ammo per day. So you had better use it wisely.

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: HercMighty
So as it stands now really you don't have to worry about an end time for bombardments. Just do a start time and when the attack begins and friendlies move into position the bombardment will stop and your good to go.

What is new is the start time parameter.
Current implementation, since RDOA time, has the duration of bombardments. So we can already "exploit" the fact that we could bombard all day long a position. And we can't do it becasue, as Dave said, we don't have enough arty ammo for doing so continuously. So we must be cautious anyway. If not for friendlies (as this is automatic), for our ammo.

Cheers,

JeF.

[FredSanford3]

I wanted to bump this to get Arjuna's feedback on whether this approach has any validity.

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

A thought that occurred to me when reading that other thread referred to in post 19: Right now, you have some method when a unit disbands of transferring the remaining assets to another nearby unit. Why not do something like that when a motorized unit dismounts, but have the vehicles "disband" into either the owning HQ or base force. When the unit remounts, the vehicles "disband" from the HQ or base back to the original owner. No separate counters, just an accounting change. An appropriate "transfer delay" analogous to orders delay would account for drive time between units.

If a coy/plt size unit dismounts > vehicles go to bn HQ.
If a Bn or larger dismounts > vehicles go to base.

I believe that's not too far away from what they did IRL in many cases.

The hard part is doing a "partial disband" of select items that would be player initiated and reversible. It would also require a re-definition of a unit's movement class on the fly. I bet there's other hard parts, but just a thought...

[Grell]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

At midnight the second day's historical weather comes into force and the ground condition reverts back to normal. Voila!

That looks excellent Arjuna.

Regards,

Grell