2007 Thanksgiving CPX

dhuffjr

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I had the northern force for Blue and after about 20 minutes one
element of the recon force.

Good CPX overall with minimal technical difficulties.

Jeff and I did pretty much zero planning and it turned out well for us
:>) Map distance didn't hurt us though.

For myself I managed to bunch things up pretty good for the road march. The rapid pace of the turns makes managing the size forces that we
had a bit much but it works. Puts a lot of pressure on you which I'd
complain but then I'm not being shot at in real life and having folks
under me die by my commands so I think the blood pressure increase is a
good simulation of reality as its going to get sitting at my desk.

Entering the town was really not a problem. The German side could have
made it a lot harder with their placement of AT ditches and minefield.
I had a moment of panic when I saw I had mine plows until the
ditches and minefields came into view. If they had cut the road with out
leaving the gaps it would have even us out time wise and helped them out a
whole lot.

WWII infantry are not a hardy bunch as they don't have AT weapons so
once we got into the city we really just rolled right over them killing
them off in short order. Once in town we just got into position and
waited on the Germans to come to us. That was the time that I had to bail
out on the game for real life. I was worried the German force would
force us out.

Due to the slow biped speed of the infantry I drove them in close to
the town and fortunately didn't suffer catastrophic losses as a result.

I'd like to see a WWII scenerio sometime with a infantry focus and
longer turns say 3-4 minutes to see how it works out. I've heard they've
used longer game turns at the school house.

Overall as I said earlier it was a lot of fun. Motivates me to spend
some time finishing another map so I can host some more WWII games.
Maybe give Wake Island another go this winter sometime too.
 

JohnfMonahan

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Umpire AAR Thanksgiving CPX

I set up the German leg Infantry Battalion (-) in El Alemain. The Germans players did not see it until the CPX started. Placement of the AT Ditches and minefields was less than optimal. This represented an isolated outpost.

The exact units were not known to the players until the start of the CPX. They knew, in a general sense, what Battalions they would have, but not exact size or equipment. This simulated the uncertainty of unit strengths in North Africa due to the logistical issues.

The Germans had the more difficult situation. A good combined arms force ( 1 panzer, 1 recon and one motorized infantry battalions) and a mission to resupply El Alemain. They were, however, a farther distance at setup. And the motorized infantry battalion disappeared about turn 20. The Germans had a large variety of equipment.

The UK Player had a tank brigade of three tank battalions and a support (motorized infantry) battalion. Few equipment types but lots of tanks. They were close to El Alemain, their objective to capture. They had four mine rollers.

Neither player had much offboard artillery. I set one minute game and realtime turns with few breaks.

The UK forces had no problem clearing El Alemain, much more quickly than I would have thought.

The German advance was halting. The recon battalion stopped to engage a few UK armoured cars. By the time they got to El Alemain, the Brits were defending. This reduced the technical advantage of the German tanks. The Germans then attacked into town and were badly shot up by short range shots by the Brit tanks.

The scenario really highlighted the vast diversity of equipment available in WWII.

There will be another CPX over the Holidays. A Soviet attack in 1942. Any volunteers to be CDRs ?


The 779 map, the saved game files and my original .tac files are at ftp://www.usa-bayern.com/tacops and soon at www.tacopshq.com
 

bongotastic

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From an observer's perspective, I'd say that if RED had started 3-5 km west of their original positions, there would have been some interesting maneuvers around the village while the house to house action was taking place. These little Humber scout cars did a great job tying down the StugIII+mounted infantry and delaying the counter attack.

To better model the Italians, MajorH should add the "surrender on contact" SOP option ;) The Germans in town sure fought like paratroopers.

Thanks to the players and umpire for the entertainment.
 

JohnfMonahan

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bongtastic,

the additional distance for Red was a scenario design feature. They did not follow their mission, and allowed themselves to be delayed by UK recon forces. The UK recon force accomplished their mission, delay the enemy.
 

GCoyote

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[modified from my AAR comments on the mailing list]

From my perspective it was planned as a fairly straight forward advance to contact.
Blue [UK and Red [German] recon units exchanged sporadic fire for the
first few minutes followed by a determined UK assault that seized El
Alamein in very short order. By the time we drove from the west map edge
to the town it was already in UK possession. In the process we lost the
supporting infantry as the PzGrn Bn disappeared [Probably between turns
20 and 21]. Could have been related to the fact that the player was in
Kandahar and did not have a reliable connection.

Faced with the UK already in town and not much else going on, Matt
suggested we 'go rogue' and attack anyway. Since blue had already
achieved it's objectives we figured it not much of risk to try. I didn't
have anything else to do and figured an Iron Cross would look good so
went along with that. It was all spur of the moment and of course we got
shot up in the process.

This was my first WWII CPX and it was a lot of fun. One of the things
that came up was the wide variety of equipment in WWII units. The UK
force had five different types of tanks. My PHz Bn had four plus a sec
of Stug III. Trying to gain an advantageous position between any two
types was very hard to accomplish in one-minute game turns. We killed
more UK tanks than they killed in return but in the end it didn?t
matter. They were in possession of the their objective and did not have
to come out and fight us.

The outcome makes more sense now that I've seen the UK side of the scenario briefing.
 

dhuffjr

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Gary,
WWII almost negates the signature line if your in the town with armor. :D


What happened to the disappearing infantry battalion? I keep seeing mention of it. Was it taken out by the Brit force or did it truly disappear?
 

GCoyote

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. . . What happened to the disappearing infantry battalion? I keep seeing mention of it. Was it taken out by the Brit force or did it truly disappear?
If you watch the replay, look at the trucks on the secondary road at left. At the end of turn twenty they are there. At the beginning of turn 21 they are gone. IIRC the owning player [PIN 32, Maurice?] was having connection problems and dropped several times.
 

bongotastic

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Considering that this player was playing from a tent in Khandahar, these units could be anywhere now ;)
 

dhuffjr

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Considering that this player was playing from a tent in Khandahar, these units could be anywhere now ;)
I didn't realize that.

Maybe a glitch we can see if the Major can fix. Allow a dropped players units to remain on map and continue on orders as they have been given.
 

bernard Cousin

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German CO After Action Report on Tacops Thanksgiving CPX - November 2007
===
I was supposed to be the German commander. Our task was to rescue German infantry on leg isolated in El Alamein, ensure the safe deliver of a supply convoy and clear the immediate area of UK scouting forces.

We got a Recon BN, a Pz BN, and a Gren BN. We knew that some UK scouting vehicles had been seen around El Alamein. We have correctly guessed that some of then were between us and El Alamein. The size of the UK attacking force has been guessed to three or four BNs.

We have planned a drive toward El Alamein: the recon Bn in forward position, following closely by the Pz BN, the Gren BN protecting our right flank and the supply convoy. The left flank was anchored on the Mediterranean sea.

The Probable Enemy Courses of Action have been established as:
COA 1: the enemy wants to occupy El Alamein.
COA 1.2: the enemy is already at El Alamein and is moving west (variant of COA1)
COA 2: the enemy wants to reach west edge and bypass El Alamein. If he moves very south of El Alamein he will not infer with our operation.
COA 3: the enemy wants to cut the roads west of El Alamein
It has turned out that the enemy followed the first COA.

We have discovered the exact German TO&E some hours prior the start of the game. Information about which unit was affected to which BN was not available, but at game start. Thus some of German players have never discovered or have discovered later in the game that some AT guns or mortar units were loaded into their own BN vehicles.

All German forces have been pre-installed on the map by the Umpire. It was not a very large problem for the rescuing force which was not in contact and highly mobile. However it was very dramatic for the units defending El Alamein: they have no vehicle. Moreover their placement was less than optimal: they were dispersed in the open around El Alamein, the antitank guns were not hided and not located into the entrenchments. This problem was anticipated prior the game by German HQ. The request was turn down by the umpire. Placement of the AT ditches and minefields was totally inoperative: the mines did not form a contiguous minefield.

We had three HE rounds of off-map arty. No airplane was available despite the fact that air parity was announced. We have discovered that UK got much more of them. The total lack of off-map smoking rounds during the last assault has disadvantaged us very much.

The UK scouting party in front of the German rescuing force was swept out quite easily. Similarly the German party trapped into El Alamein was destroyed by the UK tanks, which were appropriately stacked in strong units. During this first period we have discovered much if not all of the UK force. We have never used this valuable information, mostly because we were in the expectative that may be some other UK BNs were behind. At about T0+20 all the units of Gren BN disappeared suddenly for no apparent reason. At T0+30 the UK loss reached 30%, whereas German loss was only 11% (Gren BN included, real loss could be less than 5%). However at T0+30 German forces were at 2 km from the west edge of El Alamein, when UK force reached the same edge. Quickly gunfight began between both forces, obviously at the disadvantage of the moving German force.

The German CO asked to halt the movement toward El Alamein and take a defensive posture. The rationales were (1) no more German infantry to rescue in El Alamein, (2) a deliberate attack against an entrenched enemy requests more (arty) assets and very precise movements, thus time to think and plan. A defensive posture was not an option for the two remaining BN officers: they preferred to have fun and attacked the enemy under smoke. The two German BNs were quickly destroyed due to lack of smoke and of coordination. At T0+56 the two opponents were exhausted (loss rate is 57%, for both), but UK still held El Alamein.

If German units have been initially put 2 kilometers nearer El Alamein and thus were arrived three minutes sooner in El Alamein, the ending will be very different.

Thank John Monahan for your scenario.

Appendixes:
- The German OPORD
- An overlay for the Recon BN, one for the Pz BN, one for Gren BN (not added because the mailer does not like large files)
- The map779c.names file with German OPs and objectives (not added because the mailer does not like tjis type of file)
 
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