Henri
10-29-2002, 12:17 PM
When I first played the Jaegermeister advanced tutorial, I got my butt kicked to the moon, losing all my 20 or so Russian tanks to the seven German tanks without even denting one of them. So I have been among the critics of this scenario as too difficult for a tutorial, even an advanced one. It didn?t help that the instructions are so confusing that I thought that I had to send my main force up to the plateau on the left instead of on the ridge straight ahead. Anyway after a week of reading forums and the manual (highly recommended), I tried it again last night. Here is how it went.
As intended by the scenario, I sent a platoon mounted on tanks towards the woods on the right with the intention of disembarking the infantry at the woods so that they could continue to the next woods further on in order to later assault the side of the village. I sent two tanks and the two other platoons of infantry off to the left, intending for one to reach the woods far to the left before swinging towards the village far below, and the other about halfway, from where I hope they could sneak up on the village with the tanks. The other tanks and all arriving reinforcements were sent to the center, from where I intended to put them hull down to ping away at targets of opportunity until the German tanks arrived, at which point they would go into shoot and scoot mode.
On the left, things went pretty well as planned and contrary to my previous experience, the infantry and tanks were not fired upon as they headed to the left. They eventually reached their positions and headed slowly for the village without incident, having to stop once in a while to restore from fatigue and a slug of vodka.
On the right, it was a different story. My units were supposed to reach their destinations and hide until I was ready for the assault, but it turned out that contrary to the previous game, there was an AT gun and an infantry unit in the first woods and another AT gun and infantry in and near the shack on the ridge. As a result, my five tanks heading to the right were shot at almost as soon as they left their positions in the scattered trees. Fortunately the AT round from the woods bounced off the lead tank and knocked off the infantry riding on it, and the five tanks and their infantry soon had the AT gun and infantry running through the woods. Eventually the tanks reached the woods where one was suddenly hit in the side by the AT gun in the shack, penetrating without much damage. While my infantry hunted for the Germans in the woods, the tanks fired at the shack and collapsed it with the first or second shot, burying the AT gun. The accompanying infantry squad took to his heels, but not before panicking one of the two Maxim MGs that was headed for the woods to cover the village.
All of this caused considerable delay, not to mention that more German infantry were covering the exit to the woods on the right, which made it impossible for my platoon to reach the second woods until much later when the tanks on the ridge could give supporting fire. The positive aspect of this was that two precious AT guns for the Germans were gone, and no one was covering my units approaching from the left. Another high price for me was the rattling of my 76 mm artillery spotter, who was trying to take a position in the woods from where he could spot the village when he was taken under fire and routed. I had to send an officer next to him, who finally rallied him after about ten minutes, just in time to give the command for artillery to fire their smoke rounds, but the FO was so cross-eyed from his ordeal that he gave the wrong coordinates and the smoke fell on the other side of the village, leaving my assault to go in without smoke cover. But I am getting ahead of myself.
In the meantime, my tanks had reached the ridge facing the village, and the leading tanks had deployed in a hull down position. Before I read the manual I thought that one told the tanks where the hull down position was, but instead one must tell the tanks the location of the place from where the tanks appear to be hull down. This mistake had cost me dearly in the previous game, as well as a misunderstanding about how covered arcs work. Before the German tanks appeared far to the rear, my tanks had time to rout a few German units protecting the village. By now the rocket barrage had fallen, probably shaking up some unseen German defenders.
Based on the previous game, I expected the Tigers to appear behind the village a bit to the right and the Panthers to appear on the road to the left of the village. Instead none of the German tanks appeared on the road, they all appeared lined up on the edge of the woods on the right. When the tanks appeared, I quickly ordered my tanks to back up of their hull down positions to cover behind the ridge; during the exchange of fire, the Germans killed two of my tanks, but I killed an AT gun alongside the tanks.
I now put all of my tanks in the shoot and scoot mode, and had them lined up on the ridge all the way from the woods on the left end of the ridge to the woods on the right where I had my MG set up. The tanks would pop up more or less randomly (with the help of the ?pause? command), take one shot at the German tanks, then back away behind the ridge. This is particularly useful against AT guns, who take a long time to change their orientation, and even for tanks, who lose aiming accuracy when they have to swivel their turrets. So while the German AT guns were playing eenie meeny miney moe with my tanks, the latter played cat and mouse with the Germans. Now the Germans have a total of seven tanks, whereas the Soviets have 15 to 20, which means that losing a Russian tank is not a serious loss, but losing a German one is a catastrophe. As it happened, I was a bit lucky and when the smoke cleared, I had 12 tanks left and the Germans had none. OORAH!!!
Throughout the rest of the game, I occasionally spotted what appeared to be a Tiger and a Panther, so I kept 3 of my tanks hull down on the ridge with narrow armor covered arcs just in case. It turned out that these two tanks had suffered gun hits and were therefore useless except for making me hold back three of my own tanks. One of my anks also suffered a gun hit, and one conscript crew remaned panicked for the rest of the game after one of them was killed by a penetration.
Now my remaining tanks had a field day supporting the infantry and rooting out German infantry. I was sure that the Germans would have a machinegun in the church, so I ordered a couple of my tanks to put a few shells in the church. Sure enough, a couple of German squads soon emerged and hoofed it to the rear.
When I saw that the smoke had missed the village and that there were only 10 minutes left, I decided that it was time for the assault, and threw all of my infantry into the fray. It turned out that whatever German defenders were in the center had been routed or had moved to the flanks, and the infantry attacking from the ridge met no opposition and sailed right into the village, tired but happy.
On the flanks, it was a different story: on my right, the platoon who had finally reached the far woods took fire as they crossed the clearing towards the cemetery and hiked back to the woods. Support from the tanks on the ridge eventually cleared the way, but they arrived at the church too late to have any effect on the battle. As mentioned above, the left flank had been pretty quiet, but as the platoon to the far left approached the town, they were met by a hail of fire from a fair number of German units in foxholes and in houses. The two tanks and the other platoon closer to the center made it into town without much incident and moved to the left to support the assault there, which remained stalled for a good while. My tanks on the ridge could not help because their vew was obstructed.
The German platoon in the house furthest to the left at the end of the town was the toughest unit I have ever seen. Under fire from two tanks and a half-dozen infantry units, they fought on and on, even afer the building had collapsed on their heads, and when HE rounds were exploding on them. This must be what the manual refers to as units that go ?fanatical?.
I worked my way through the village without too much trouble ? infantry supported by a half-dozen or more tanks, one of which is a flame tank, is very efficient in rooting out entrenched enemies. When one of them didn?t hoof it early enough, the flame tank crew would have a barbecue party and convince them to go play somewhere else, encouraged in this endeavor by being shot in the butt by tanks and infantry.
Eventually I reached the end of the village and finally killed the stubborn Germans there and scattered the rest. Now there remained two last flags on the road and time was running out. Although I had a victory assured, I wanted all of the flags. The nearest flag had a house and a bunker near it, so I put some tank rounds and MG fire into the house as my tanks approached. The house collapsed ending resistance there, but the bunker bounced a shell off one of my tanks, but he had no chance against all of the suppressing fire and he was soon put out of action.
Now the time was up and there only remained the possibility of bonus moves, so I decided to send a tank all by itself to the last flag; when it reached it, two infantry units in the woods nearby assaulted the tanks and killed it. I mounted whatever infantry was available on nearby tanks and raced them up the road past the woods, from where they could turn around hopefully before the infantry could assault them. I also ordered the flame tank to race through the village and up the road to give assistance.
The tanks made it to the flag and were shooting it out with the Germans when the flame tank arrived and quickly convinced the Germans that it was a hot day and that they should go to the beach.
The game ended with a major victory. Very satisfying after the humiliating defeat I got on my first try. The tank battle decided the game. The strong German flank defenses threw me off a bit, but it turned out to facilitate my assault on the town against the almost undefended center.
Although I still think that this scenario may be a bit difficult for newbies, it is a good barometer of one?s grasp of the game. When you can get a major victory in this scenario as the Russians, you are ready for the major leagues. Of course I only believe this because I did it myself ;)
Henri
[ October 29, 2002, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Henri ]
As intended by the scenario, I sent a platoon mounted on tanks towards the woods on the right with the intention of disembarking the infantry at the woods so that they could continue to the next woods further on in order to later assault the side of the village. I sent two tanks and the two other platoons of infantry off to the left, intending for one to reach the woods far to the left before swinging towards the village far below, and the other about halfway, from where I hope they could sneak up on the village with the tanks. The other tanks and all arriving reinforcements were sent to the center, from where I intended to put them hull down to ping away at targets of opportunity until the German tanks arrived, at which point they would go into shoot and scoot mode.
On the left, things went pretty well as planned and contrary to my previous experience, the infantry and tanks were not fired upon as they headed to the left. They eventually reached their positions and headed slowly for the village without incident, having to stop once in a while to restore from fatigue and a slug of vodka.
On the right, it was a different story. My units were supposed to reach their destinations and hide until I was ready for the assault, but it turned out that contrary to the previous game, there was an AT gun and an infantry unit in the first woods and another AT gun and infantry in and near the shack on the ridge. As a result, my five tanks heading to the right were shot at almost as soon as they left their positions in the scattered trees. Fortunately the AT round from the woods bounced off the lead tank and knocked off the infantry riding on it, and the five tanks and their infantry soon had the AT gun and infantry running through the woods. Eventually the tanks reached the woods where one was suddenly hit in the side by the AT gun in the shack, penetrating without much damage. While my infantry hunted for the Germans in the woods, the tanks fired at the shack and collapsed it with the first or second shot, burying the AT gun. The accompanying infantry squad took to his heels, but not before panicking one of the two Maxim MGs that was headed for the woods to cover the village.
All of this caused considerable delay, not to mention that more German infantry were covering the exit to the woods on the right, which made it impossible for my platoon to reach the second woods until much later when the tanks on the ridge could give supporting fire. The positive aspect of this was that two precious AT guns for the Germans were gone, and no one was covering my units approaching from the left. Another high price for me was the rattling of my 76 mm artillery spotter, who was trying to take a position in the woods from where he could spot the village when he was taken under fire and routed. I had to send an officer next to him, who finally rallied him after about ten minutes, just in time to give the command for artillery to fire their smoke rounds, but the FO was so cross-eyed from his ordeal that he gave the wrong coordinates and the smoke fell on the other side of the village, leaving my assault to go in without smoke cover. But I am getting ahead of myself.
In the meantime, my tanks had reached the ridge facing the village, and the leading tanks had deployed in a hull down position. Before I read the manual I thought that one told the tanks where the hull down position was, but instead one must tell the tanks the location of the place from where the tanks appear to be hull down. This mistake had cost me dearly in the previous game, as well as a misunderstanding about how covered arcs work. Before the German tanks appeared far to the rear, my tanks had time to rout a few German units protecting the village. By now the rocket barrage had fallen, probably shaking up some unseen German defenders.
Based on the previous game, I expected the Tigers to appear behind the village a bit to the right and the Panthers to appear on the road to the left of the village. Instead none of the German tanks appeared on the road, they all appeared lined up on the edge of the woods on the right. When the tanks appeared, I quickly ordered my tanks to back up of their hull down positions to cover behind the ridge; during the exchange of fire, the Germans killed two of my tanks, but I killed an AT gun alongside the tanks.
I now put all of my tanks in the shoot and scoot mode, and had them lined up on the ridge all the way from the woods on the left end of the ridge to the woods on the right where I had my MG set up. The tanks would pop up more or less randomly (with the help of the ?pause? command), take one shot at the German tanks, then back away behind the ridge. This is particularly useful against AT guns, who take a long time to change their orientation, and even for tanks, who lose aiming accuracy when they have to swivel their turrets. So while the German AT guns were playing eenie meeny miney moe with my tanks, the latter played cat and mouse with the Germans. Now the Germans have a total of seven tanks, whereas the Soviets have 15 to 20, which means that losing a Russian tank is not a serious loss, but losing a German one is a catastrophe. As it happened, I was a bit lucky and when the smoke cleared, I had 12 tanks left and the Germans had none. OORAH!!!
Throughout the rest of the game, I occasionally spotted what appeared to be a Tiger and a Panther, so I kept 3 of my tanks hull down on the ridge with narrow armor covered arcs just in case. It turned out that these two tanks had suffered gun hits and were therefore useless except for making me hold back three of my own tanks. One of my anks also suffered a gun hit, and one conscript crew remaned panicked for the rest of the game after one of them was killed by a penetration.
Now my remaining tanks had a field day supporting the infantry and rooting out German infantry. I was sure that the Germans would have a machinegun in the church, so I ordered a couple of my tanks to put a few shells in the church. Sure enough, a couple of German squads soon emerged and hoofed it to the rear.
When I saw that the smoke had missed the village and that there were only 10 minutes left, I decided that it was time for the assault, and threw all of my infantry into the fray. It turned out that whatever German defenders were in the center had been routed or had moved to the flanks, and the infantry attacking from the ridge met no opposition and sailed right into the village, tired but happy.
On the flanks, it was a different story: on my right, the platoon who had finally reached the far woods took fire as they crossed the clearing towards the cemetery and hiked back to the woods. Support from the tanks on the ridge eventually cleared the way, but they arrived at the church too late to have any effect on the battle. As mentioned above, the left flank had been pretty quiet, but as the platoon to the far left approached the town, they were met by a hail of fire from a fair number of German units in foxholes and in houses. The two tanks and the other platoon closer to the center made it into town without much incident and moved to the left to support the assault there, which remained stalled for a good while. My tanks on the ridge could not help because their vew was obstructed.
The German platoon in the house furthest to the left at the end of the town was the toughest unit I have ever seen. Under fire from two tanks and a half-dozen infantry units, they fought on and on, even afer the building had collapsed on their heads, and when HE rounds were exploding on them. This must be what the manual refers to as units that go ?fanatical?.
I worked my way through the village without too much trouble ? infantry supported by a half-dozen or more tanks, one of which is a flame tank, is very efficient in rooting out entrenched enemies. When one of them didn?t hoof it early enough, the flame tank crew would have a barbecue party and convince them to go play somewhere else, encouraged in this endeavor by being shot in the butt by tanks and infantry.
Eventually I reached the end of the village and finally killed the stubborn Germans there and scattered the rest. Now there remained two last flags on the road and time was running out. Although I had a victory assured, I wanted all of the flags. The nearest flag had a house and a bunker near it, so I put some tank rounds and MG fire into the house as my tanks approached. The house collapsed ending resistance there, but the bunker bounced a shell off one of my tanks, but he had no chance against all of the suppressing fire and he was soon put out of action.
Now the time was up and there only remained the possibility of bonus moves, so I decided to send a tank all by itself to the last flag; when it reached it, two infantry units in the woods nearby assaulted the tanks and killed it. I mounted whatever infantry was available on nearby tanks and raced them up the road past the woods, from where they could turn around hopefully before the infantry could assault them. I also ordered the flame tank to race through the village and up the road to give assistance.
The tanks made it to the flag and were shooting it out with the Germans when the flame tank arrived and quickly convinced the Germans that it was a hot day and that they should go to the beach.
The game ended with a major victory. Very satisfying after the humiliating defeat I got on my first try. The tank battle decided the game. The strong German flank defenses threw me off a bit, but it turned out to facilitate my assault on the town against the almost undefended center.
Although I still think that this scenario may be a bit difficult for newbies, it is a good barometer of one?s grasp of the game. When you can get a major victory in this scenario as the Russians, you are ready for the major leagues. Of course I only believe this because I did it myself ;)
Henri
[ October 29, 2002, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Henri ]