Matrix Games Forums

OK, just finished, two draws, three mv and three dv. I have some Hero's to send to Mr. Tankheads hero page. Now maybe I can finish U to R.
17 points total. Luck pure Luck.

Don

Very good camPAIN. Mr Wild Bill.

Excellent job, Don! Really! I did not do that well and I designed it.

It certainly makes me very happy that you did enjoy it.

The Victors will be online within a few weeks. Let you take a break from the war. You deserve it!

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

OK Bill. Seeing as we've got a new thread going here I'm going to hold up my hands and in front of the whole forum admit that with Watchword Freedom I've cheeted! (Hangs his head in shame)
I used the campaign editor to give myself 4000 pts to build my core force with, which got me a Coy Of Panzer Gren. and a Coy of Tigers.
Though I will say in my defence. I have halved all the build points and support points for all the battles. Now I'm just hoping that I'll have enough points to make my repairs after the first battle! Only upto turn 4 and am already 3 Tigers down, 2 to Su152, and 1 to mines.

DaveR: I'll tell you what was really a bummer for me. On the second battle, I had 5 Tigers on the central hill. while I had three or four elsewhere. One Tiger was poised to deal with the north, and unless moved couldn't deal with the attack from the direct east. So, I had four Tigers facing east, and two SGs fruther back on the hill facing SE or E. The first turn that fire was exchanged, saw one Tiger have it's gun break, while two other Tigers were main gun inoperative due to SU152 fire. I dispatched 3 Tigers from the more rearward quarters to that hill pronto, but the hill was on pins and needles for the longest (having infantry and mines in front didn't hurt matters any).

If I understand the campaign design correctly, battle two may be quite a break for you, as the only mines you have to worry about will be your own.

(mutter, mutter, grumble, groan!)
Change that to scratch 4 Tigers!! (pouts)

I should have remembered from Heros of the Motherland just how good those damned Russian 76mil anti tank guns are!!!

This is turning into an object lesson for me that Tigers are damned good! But they are far, far from invulnrable!

Though most of you may know this, it is worth repeating.

In my readings about German armor I find that a inordinate number of Panthers and Tigers were captured intact and abandoned.

The reason?

Being more technically advanced tanks, optics, etc, they were more prone to breakdowns. Rugged and durable against enemy fire, they sometimes became their own worst enemies with delicate mechanisms that sometimes had not been thoroughly "debugged" and made tanks useless or ineffective.

With the weather, the hard push and the lack of opportunity for either preventive or repair maintenance, The German tankers had more than just the Russians to contend with.

In fact, they were fighting two enemies: the Russians and maintenance problems (with the weather as a very strong factor).

It was rough for those panzer commanders in more ways than one!

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

No problem Dave. I can understand your reasoning. These ultimate campaigns are some of the hardest I've ever designed for the SP gamer.

In fact, I intend to do 2 versions of The Victors, one easier, one harder.

That way the diehards can take the rough road and those less experienced can choose the easier route to victory.

And of course, as always, one can make all kinds of adjustments (don't you love the preference choices! ?)

Good hunting guys. Keep the pressure on those Ruskies. The kamaraden inside the trap are counting on you to get them to safety.

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Here is what I used:
one plt of Elfant,tigers,stugIIIG,stuh42,
two plt. of leg inf. and eng's, two obs.
two 88 flak 18 AA one sdkfz 7.
stug3 upgraded to panthers then tigers.
two of stuh42 to brumbars.
one of the 88 to 88pak43 atg.
then the other 88 to nashorn
the two mg's from the inf to leg inf.
then the leg inf to ss leg inf.

This was not an easy campain to do. I was very LUCKY in several battles. In the last battle my core Hero's had to defend/fend off an massive russian tank/infantany assult at the cross roads to keep it open for the trapped units.

Don

Don, did you get the feel of the historical moment, the Russians pursuing the Germans seeking to flee the net?

WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Actually Bill! There's an idea for a campaigne. Let the player buy a sizable core force, but then no support points, and no repair points. Then lets see how far people can get.
Hmmmm! Something like the Chindits comes to mind!

I got the feeling I needed to flee back to german ground. It was a interesting to all of the sudden to have a group of T34s and inf. show up behind the trapped units. Made my lif hell for several turns until I could place the panthers and marder between the russians and fleeing units. Hated to us them that way, since they where fleeing too.

Don

Dave_R: I was thinking that this particular campaign was that way (though it may be impossible to program a seperate campaign from the programming of other camapigns with different rules), but if you have all options on, there's almost no way you could win, because each tank would break down more than likely over the course of all the battles, while the AI would always have fresh forces.

Mea Maxima Culpa ! I too must admit to having cheated at WF! I started out the first battle with an inordinately high opinion of my combat power. I spread the boys out into three attack groups and advanced. By turn 9 it was apparent that I was going to be overwhelmed in detail so I went back to the 'save' and restarted. Needless to say, things went better next time.

The second battle was much easier, defending and all that. I just started the third battle.

A mistake I made in U2R was that I took too small a core force that could not be significantly upgraded. I didn't make that mistake this time. Here is my starting force with eventual (hopeful) upgrades:

1 platoon of 4 Tigers and 2 platoons of 4 StG 4's. I then formed 3 mixed platoons with 1 or 2 tigers per platoon. I am upgrading all the AFV's to Tigers ASAP. At the end of the second battle I have only 3 StG's left.

I bought 3 Spec Op's platoons of 3 squads each. I like these guys for their short range SMG firepower. I also bought 3 sections of PanzerFausts and a total of 12 trucks. I then formed 3 infantry platoons of 3 Spec Op's, 3 Pz Faust and 4 trucks each. I am slowly upgrading the trucks to halftracks, I may change all the grunts to SS eventually, too bad they don't have Sturm Gewehr's.

I took a total of 3 81mm Mortars and 2 120 mm Mortars, to eventually be upgraded to better indirect fire guns. So far they are unchanged.

I took 2 sections of 2 20mm FlAK (4 total) and have upgraded them to the SP versions.

Eventually I think I'll upgrade my A0 to an Elephant, just because they are cool and nearly indestructible.

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Target, Cease Fire !

Kluckenbill: You might want to rethink some of your units. To me, the Panzerfaust units are something of a waste, though the Panzerschreck may not be. What I'm getting at here, is that the regular infantry have panzerfaust weapons themselves, so why not use infantry instead? I can see using panzerfaust units because they're stealthier, but since their enemy is tanks the stealth may not matter that much anyway. The panzerschreck units on the other hand not only have stealth but they have a wealth of shots and also aren't available to any other unit such as infantry.

I don't believe they're available in 2/44, and their experience may be suspect, but I think the VG units carry smgs as an alternative to commandos, if economy is an issue.

My two most useful weapons (units) were Tigers and motorcycle units. The motorcycle units are recon and see well. They don't fight that well but they can really pick up on the enemy presence....and they are cheap

Tigers seem to have much better durability than Panthers. I'll give up the speed for the more solid punch and resistance of the Tigers.

Smart move to upgrade to Tigers. If you get infantry, get SS. They are a little more expensive but have a +10 to morale and experience. That can come in very handy.

Just some thought from my own personal play of the campaign...Wild Bill


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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Charles, you are right about the Panzerfausts. I took them because they were a cheap way to 'round out' my future infantry platoons. I plan to upgrade them to something better eventually. I was (and still am) in a quandary as to whether it is better to take the Spec Opn's for their tremendous short range firepower, or regular rifle or SS to get a bit more anti-infantry power at moderate ranges. With all my Tigers, I'm really not too concerned about taking out the Russian tanks.

Bye the way, I have found two interesting things in the WF battles:

1. The 20mm FlAK units seem very effective against bunkers and MG nests. I don't know if this is by design or some fluke of chance, but my 20mm units have knocked out more bunkers by direct fore than have all of my tanks combined!

2. Russian Engineers in buildings are awfully difficult to kill! They have tremendous close range (1 hex) firepower and can easily chew up any German unit in one turn. My 'to hit' percentage is usually 2 or 3 per cent against them! I try to chase them out of town with artillery but I don't always succeed. I've managed to lose several recon and motorcyclcle squads to them, then I sit a few tanks 2 hexes away and pound them for 2 turns befopre close assaulting with my Spec Op's boys, and I still have a rough time of it.

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Target, Cease Fire !

Hello,

Using the following forces:

3 rifle Plt's -> Now FJ
1 Engineer Plt
1 Tiger Plt
1 SS Panther Plt
1 SPAA Sec.
1 SP Rocket bt
1 MC Sec -> Special Forces Plt
1 Scout Sec -> SPAA
1 Tracked FO
1 Foot Fo
1 Halftrack FT sec (My most dangerous units when used properly)

This has so far been enough for two decisive victories. Although resistance in the second battle, especially the engineers in the north, was fanatical. Even single men kept killing my infantry... My finest moment was when a burst of MG fire took out a MG pit *BEG*

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Lars
Nec Temere - Nec Timide

Kluckenbill: Perhaps what you are seeing is that you've run into a number of fort units that have a '0' hull rating, such as the WF mg posts do. One thing good about those light tanks (which as things stand we can't buy, just yet) is like the HTs they carry quite a lot of ammo. In the first WF battle, I too seemed to knock out mg posts more easily with whatever I was using (I believe it was 37L46s on HTs) than with Tigers. Given the mg post hull was a zero rating (and many forts have hull ratings no more than 40mm), I almost felt as though I was wasting time and ammunition better spent elsewhere than to use the Tiger guns on them, but it's one of those things where in order to hope to advance your Tigers very far, safely, you need to help out the infantry, so as it generally happens with me, there will be a phase where the big tanks are suppressing/destroying any anti-personnel obstacles, and then later, as more AT factors have been dealt with, I will move up some of the lightest stuff to take over while the Tigers move on.

I looked at the panzerschreck yesterday when I got home, and other than what I already knew about it's having more shots, a few other things popped up. For one thing, it has a range of '4', while the best panzerfaust has range of '3'. The accuracy is about the same, given that the more inaccurate panzerschreck is blessed with 33% more range to work off of. Secondly, the panzerschreck has max. penetration of 195, while the faust has 225. A considerable advantage to the faust, but then again, how many tanks withstand the potential of 195? Of course HEAT rounds don't achieve the max all of the time, but given the advantages of the schreck, in the areas it has them, ideally, the enemy tanks would face fausts, frontally from the infantry, while facing schrecks, more distant, from the sides/rear.

Hello,
I have the following forces:

2 Tiger sec.
2 Panther (d) sec -> Now Tigers
1 SP mortar sec
1 SPAA Sec. -> Now flammpanzer
1 flammpanzer sec.
1 Stug IIIf/8 sec. -> Stug IV -> Now Tiger
2 Pioneer Plt
1 Inf-AT Sec (2 Pzschrek)

the 2 pioneer Plt and the Inf-AT sec. were now reorganized in 3 Plt:
1st & 2nd -> 1 SS Rifle + 2 Engineer + 1 Pzschrek + 3 HT
3rd -> 2 SS Rifle + 2 Engineer + 4 HT

I have now 10 Tigers in 5 Sections

My two first battles were decisive victories.
In the 3rd scenario, I only win a marginal victory because I confounded retreat hex and exit hex. I had already "retreated" my 2 SP mortar and my 2 SPAA before realizing what I was doing.
BTW in this scenario, the objective being to exit before the end (which I did by the 14th turn), I was surprised to didn't have to fix an immobilized Panther (the crew exited the map). Doesn't abandonned vehicle be considered destroyed even if the crew survive ?

Comments:
As I play with all realism preferences "ON", the CC "ON" make me prefer sections and recon-type troops. Flammpanzer when correctly supported by Tigers are my weapon of choice, they are really good to dislodge infantry from 2 hexes away (avoiding close assault) and kill ammo/fuel dump with one hit. Pioneers are much better than engineers, they are elite AND recon troops and come with HT; their range is limited but changing the Plt. leader to SS Rifle and eventually the MG-42 to Pzschrek compensate for this weakness.

Finest moments so far [SPOILER]:
In the first battle, one of my SPAA (Spw-251/17) killed the 1st aircobra with its first op fire. Yes, with its first shot, that's luck, isn't it?
But the best was in the 3rd battle, where one of my Pzschrek team reduced to one man after its first miss and a lucky Soviet op fire answer, singlehandledly destroyed 3 T34-85 and escaped alive. It is now credited with 5 kills (2 pillboxes close-assaulted in previous battles). Is that sufficient to be eligible for an Iron Cross?

Thanks Wild Bill, this campaign is very fun and full of surprises.

One last question, when you play with AI advantage "ON", does this affect custom campaign like this one?


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"Qui voit le ciel dans l'eau voit les poissons sur les arbres"

Herr Wild Bill...

I just finished the campaign, and it left me with one small question; were the wounded soldiers in the final battle supposed to be hauling around a 105mm gun?

As the trucks hauling the wounded arrived at the support area, I unloaded them to send them into the buildings (one of which should be an aid station or some such). Idly curious, I right clicked on one to see what the well equipped wounded rifleman is carrying these days. Imagine my surprise when the 4th weapon turned out to be a 105 L 52 from a StuH 42. While visions of using the barrel as a splint or an IV tube danced in my head, I decided that I had to ask if this was just a glitch or if they were really supposed to be able to blow T-34s to kingdom come with great ease...So, which is it?