AAR - CMRT Corsaire31 vs Strachwitz

[Corsaire31]

Let's continue the AAR...

Suddenly the mortar reappears ( thought my tank had shot this one...) and the shelling resumes on the right woods.

In the middle, I managed to extract most of the units ( with losses ) to escape the mortar fire and regrouped them in the wheat field. Just left a HQ with no leader and a LMG at the edge of the woods to check if germans counter-attack.

At this point the only sound military decision would be to call it a day, retreat to reinforce and come back tomorrow. But since it is a game and the purpose is to test red troops in different situations, I have a warning sent to the HQ units left that any retreating troops will be shot by our own HMGs and that the assault will take place. Tovaritch Stalin will not worry about the death of some heroes...

 

[Strachwitz]

I wasn't going to ask - but now I will? How tall is an unspotted tank?
Correct answers on a postcard...

If the amount of traffic on BF forums isn't enough to let them know their is a problem - then that is the problem.

As I mentioned above there are some problems with spotting and this sometimes makes me angry as well. But in most cases the spotting system works. I am not here to defend BF in some way or another not I am a BF fanboy. In fact sometimes I think they are arrogant to users which sometimes really spot a bug. My intention is to share some helpfull tricks and explanations of how the game works to @Corsaire31 . To smoothen the transition from CM1 as he seems to be a very skilled and competent player. And the learning curve with CM2 is quite steep and can be frustrating. So, here I am explaining the event with the Hetzer. And as it looks to me there is nothing broken or odd about THIS case. It makes perfectly sense. Other cases? I don't know but this one is not clear and nothing is wrong here.

I am sorry I don't really get your question about the size of a tank. But the size of a tank has not much to do with beeing spotted in this case. It matters in spotting though. The size of the Hetzer is important. He is that low that he can spot right under the canopy of the trees. The T-34 with its high silhouette simply has to spot through the thickest part of the canopy effectively blocking LOS.

POV from T-34: the location of my Hetzer is circled. The red transparent area is roughly the area where the canopy is thickest. The LOS is totally blocked. The Hetzer can't be spotted. It is concealed.

LOS from the Hetzer. Having a very low profile the commander is able to see right under the canopy. You can even see a part of the T-34 (in the small circle within the bigger circle) in the picture.

So for me the result, a destroyed T-34, is very plausible.

@Corsaire31 : I see you use a translucent trees mod. Looks like the same I use. But be advised this sometimes is a bit misleading regarding LOS as for the game engine the tress are by far not as translucent as the mod suggests. I hope you are still interest in insights in game mechanics. If not then just tell me I definitely don't want to hijack your AAR .

 

[Corsaire31]

Of course I'm interested, the goal for me of these first games is to understand how things work differently in CMx2 when you come from CMx1.

I could may be understand your explanation above ( except it's difficult to believe that the spotting algorythm uses as a parameter the height and thickness of foliage on different trees and also that it's not what the tank leader sees that is important, but what the gunner has in sight ...) if it had not happened again in open terrain and if there was not these tons of examples on the BF forums. Since anyway they have decided they wouldn't fix it ( probably because they can't as it must be hard coded ) I guess the only choice is to live with it or uninstall the game ...

So one first thing I learned so far is that there is too much "luck factor" involved in the spotting process and that I will in the future alter my ambushing tactics. I think now the best decision would have been to back the T34 out of sight instead of waiting for the Hetzer, and this is what I will do if the same situation happens.

As a chess player, I don't like the idea that I rely too much on luck, but of course tactical combat is different from a chess game !

 

[Corsaire31]

So before the assault, the situation is as follows, waiting for the mortar shelling of the village :

On the left I am holding the objective and no enemy troops seem to be coming this way. In the middle, what's left of my Reco Company has been regrouped in a small depression in the wheat field. On the right the Tank Riders reserve Plt has rejoined the SMG Company.

In the back woods near the church, my repositioned HMG has managed to score a hit on the 20mm AA vehicle, forcing it to back out, but has been decimated by the return fire of the Panther which has been repositioned at the back of the village.

 

[Corsaire31]

The 82mm mortar shelling falls on the village...

And as the last rounds are falling, the whole infantry forces are sent to assault the village from three directions, except for a few depleted teams staying in the woods on the right to add support fire and prevent infiltration of german soldiers from their objective where the Hetzer is sitting.

 

[Corsaire31]

The game ended in a bloodshed... One of my T34s in the farm tried to ambush the Panther but once again the moving tank shot first...

I got the 20mm AA vehicle. May be the assault would have worked with veteran guards troops, but my regular soviet army guys with leaders missing just couldn't hold it and many panicked quickly once under fire. They don't have AT weapons so the Panther could shoot at houses.

After two or three turns it was over, no will to fight so I surrendered.

I think the game winners were the two well placed mortars which did some valuable casualties and stopped my assault on the middle woods. It would have helped me a lot to be able to take this spot I think.

If I had to replay it seriously, I would probably take more experienced troops even if this is less boots on the ground, and 120 mm mortars or 152 mm artillery for the shelling of the village. Tanks were not very useful on a relatively small map and I'm quite sure the game would have been more interesting without them.