Three Towns (Stafford vs Drifter Man DAR)

[Bulletpoint]

That risky move was Stafford's mistake that I compensated with mine. He probably wanted to put the Firefly in reverse but used a forward move order instead, so the tank slowly turned around on the hill, exposing vulnerable side and rear armor. But the blinded StuG only caught a short glimpse of it through the smoke, and did not manage to fire a shot. An opportunity was wasted.

Haha what a coincidence... two very careful players make such a blunder at exactly the same time, and they cancel each other out..

I expect an air attack in the next turn or two. Where possible, I will try to protect the StuGs with smoke grenades but it is hard to say if that has any effect.

This is actually brilliant. Never thought of that idea. If smoke protects against air attacks, vehicles with smoke launchers could be very useful.

 

[Drifter Man]

Haha what a coincidence... two very careful players make such a blunder at exactly the same time, and they cancel each other out..


This is actually brilliant. Never thought of that idea. If smoke protects against air attacks, vehicles with smoke launchers could be very useful.

It is! It looks we made our mistakes at the exact same time.
We'll see if the smoke can help and if I can deploy enough of it in time. I've observed that the planes attack from the rear where the armor is weakest. So, in principle, a well placed smoke screen could protect the rear while keeping the ability of the vehicle to fight to the front. But it would take some careful positioning.

 

[Drifter Man]

I had the time to do a few quick tests of flak vs aircraft and I have to take back a lot of what I said here.
Flak is effective - it is not a magic cure but a reasonable amount of flak goes a long way in protecting your forces from air attacks. And yes, planes can get shot down.

I took the same map we have with Stafford, placed 10 StuGs roughly where I placed them in the battle, and deployed an AA company in the setup zone (~600-800 meters back) with three platoons: 3x 20mm single, 3x 20mm quad, 3x 37mm. I tested each platoon alone in each run, ordering the others to hide. Therefore, no more than three guns fired in each test.
Four Typhoons attacked in preplanned strikes, two with a 5 min delay, one with 10 min, and the last one with 15 min. I spread out the attacks so that all StuGs could be targeted. I only did each test once.

First run - no flak. All planes attack until they run out of ammo. 5 vehicles destroyed, 4 disabled, 1 undamaged
Second run - 20mm singles. The planes spent on average only about 40% of their ammo and then broke off the attack. Some broke off immediately and not fire at all, some attacked with full effect, but on average the damage was much less: 4 vehicles disabled, one lightly damaged.
Third run - 20mm quads. In this case I didn't seem to be substantially disrupting the attacks, but one plane was shot down. The rest spent all their ammo, destroying 4 vehicles and disabling 1.
Fourth run - 37mm. The planes spent about 40% ammo on average and one was shot down. 5 vehicles disabled.

I think that in my situation, a platoon of light or medium flak (something like 170-240 points) could have reduced my casualties by about a half. The problem remains that even after the planes break off the attack, they remain available to your opponent and can be called back. Meanwhile, the flak runs out of ammo rather fast - after the fourth plane the 20mm quads and 37mm were generally Empty. The 20mm singles still had a decent amount of ammo left, which makes them the best choice in my opinion - though they didn't get any kills.

For a large battle like this mobile flak would be preferred, but this would eat into the 30% point limit - so I don't think I will accept this limit next time.

When a plane is shot down, it appears as "KNOCKED OUT" on the opponent's air panel. In the next turn, the plane crashes somewhere on the map with the impact of a bomb, and the label "Aircraft Destroyed" appears above the gun that is credited with the kill.



The battle would be more interesting had Stafford not brought so many planes. It would also be more interesting had I brought some flak. A limitation of the maximum number of planes is still reasonable (e.g. I wouldn't want to face 20 planes attacking at one time), but the German player can protect himself - it's just my problem that I didn't.

 

[Bulletpoint]

I'm surprised that your test indicates flak is somewhat effective. Currently I'm playing through the CMFB Rollbahn D campaign, and in one mission, I'm attacked by what seems to be one aircraft at the start of the mission. I have several haldftracks, a platoon of infantry, a couple of tanks, and following flak: 2x 37mm, 1x triple 20mm.

These flak vehicles fire away, but the airplane just keeps attacking, several times strafing the AA vehicles themselves, and even spotting and strafing infantry prone along a hedgerow. I see no effect of the flak.

This matches well with a previous scenario where I had about 25 different flak vehicles, most of them quads, and got attacked by two aircraft. They just kept attacking till they ran out of ammo.

And I don't think these are outliers. It's the general impression I have every time I seee flak in action: it's useless. So I was very surprised by your test.

Could it be that there's some effect of the inactive flak vehicles even though they are hiding and not firing? Maybe they just have a general area of effect, no matter what they do, and the firing is just for the very small chance to shoot down a plane.

 

[Bulletpoint]

I think that in my situation, a platoon of light or medium flak (something like 170-240 points) could have reduced my casualties by about a half.

OK let's say you spend 200 points on flak, and it cuts your casualties by half. You now only lose 5 StuGs. But that's still 284*5 = 1420 points you lost. And you then need to add the 200 points you spent on the flak.

Your opponent set you back 1620 points, and how many points did he have to spend doing that?

If the 20mm cannon planes are Typhoon IB [strafe], then they are 92 a piece * 4. Plus an air controller, 63 points = 431 points in total. In this situation, your opponent destroys 1000 of your points essentially for free.

 

[Drifter Man]

Could it be that there's some effect of the inactive flak vehicles even though they are hiding and not firing? Maybe they just have a general area of effect, no matter what they do, and the firing is just for the very small chance to shoot down a plane.

That's unlikely - when the whole flak company was hiding and no one firing, the aircraft carried out all their attacks and spent all their ammo unimpeded.
What is more likely:

• Flak vehicles are less effective than stationary AA
• US aircraft are invincible
• CMFB flak is bugged

OK let's say you spend 200 points on flak, and it cuts your casualties by half. You now only lose 5 StuGs. But that's still 284*5 = 1420 points you lost. And you then need to add the 200 points you spent on the flak.

Your opponent set you back 1620 points, and how many points did he have to spend doing that?

If the 20mm cannon planes are Typhoon IB [strafe], then they are 92 a piece * 4. Plus an air controller, 63 points = 431 points in total. In this situation, your opponent destroys 1000 of your points essentially for free.

The test results are a bit extreme because the planes had nothing else to attack than the StuGs. In my battle with Stafford, the 4 planes disabled 3 StuGs in 3 strafing passes. The other attacks were against halftracks (3 passes), infantry (4 passes), dead infantry - German or British (2 passes).
So maybe I would have saved 1-2 StuGs, good value for ~200 points for a flak platoon.
I do agree that Typhoons (and Allied aircraft in general) are underpriced, but that's just one of the many woes of the QB pricing system in CM...

 

[Bulletpoint]

I haven't tested it out methodically. All I can say is that I don't see much effect. I think just a modest amount of AA at a location should make planes a lot less accurate, as they would have to fire from longer ranges and do a lot more dodging, but in fact they seem to have no trouble attacking the AA unit itself. While I'm no expert, I think WW2 pilots generally avoided diving straight into a stream of 20mm tracers.

But all of this is getting off-topic.

 

[Drifter Man]

I haven't tested it out methodically. All I can say is that I don't see much effect. I think just a modest amount of AA at a location should make planes a lot less accurate, as they would have to fire from longer ranges and do a lot more dodging, but in fact they seem to have no trouble attacking the AA unit itself. While I'm no expert, I think WW2 pilots generally avoided diving straight into a stream of 20mm tracers.

But all of this is getting off-topic.

In my tests I placed the flak outside the target areas and they weren't attacked - on large maps where this is possible, it may be a good idea to keep the flak a little bit away, this should also reduce the need to rotate the gun quickly as the plane passes around. Of course, this does not apply if your opponent is making a preplanned strike.

I repeated the test with SdKfz 7/1 (4x 20mm) - a platoon of 3 vehicles, no other flak on the map. No kills this time, but otherwise similar effect - the planes spent only about 40% ammo before breaking off. 3 StuGs disabled, 2 more damaged.

I acknowledge that you made a different experience of course - the other two possibilities I mentioned (US aircraft harder to get rid off, CMFB bugged) are still open.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Spoiler: More off-topic pontification

I've noticed that sometimes, the spread of the bullets from the aircraft is large, and at other times the stream is more focused on the target. Maybe this has something to do with the AA?

I'd like to believe it's not just random, but that the AA has a chance to disrupt the aircraft's attack run so that its accuracy gets lower. Unfortunately in my current mission, I'm seeing the planes spot and strafe single cowering soldiers prone in the grass, even while the planes are taking flak. Might be a binary random chance to either get disrupted or not.

Also, I tried out your smoke trick. It actually does seem to work. Having a Panther pop smoke and then gathering all the halftracks around it like chickens around mother hen kept them safe from the eagles. Just need to pop smoke repeatedly because the moment it clears, they are all bunched up and served on the same silver platter.

 

[Nemesis]

I really dislike aircraft. Some of them are unrealistically cheap or at least they were a couple patches ago. I usually rule them out by rule in my games.

Getting attacked by aircraft on turn 1 as you leave a setup zone is doubly cheesy.

 

[Bulletpoint]

The Battlefront design process is so weird.

They spend a good amount of work to add a new feature to the game, in this case aircraft, and in the first attempt, it's unbalanced and the points price is way off. But it could be fixed with a few tweaks.

Then, instead of listening to the players and tweaking the feature to make sense, they just throw up their arms and say "You don't like it? Fine. Don't use it then".

With the result that nearly all players simply don't use the new feature. It becomes a non-feature. Another houserule on the list of game features to not use.

 

[Drifter Man]

Spoiler: More off-topic pontification

I've noticed that sometimes, the spread of the bullets from the aircraft is large, and at other times the stream is more focused on the target. Maybe this has something to do with the AA?

I'd like to believe it's not just random, but that the AA has a chance to disrupt the aircraft's attack run so that its accuracy gets lower. Unfortunately in my current mission, I'm seeing the planes spot and strafe single cowering soldiers prone in the grass, even while the planes are taking flak. Might be a binary random chance to either get disrupted or not.

Also, I tried out your smoke trick. It actually does seem to work. Having a Panther pop smoke and then gathering all the halftracks around it like chickens around mother hen kept them safe from the eagles. Just need to pop smoke repeatedly because the moment it clears, they are all bunched up and served on the same silver platter.

Possibly - I didn't watch the spread but I did notice that some of the attacks against the StuGs were less effective when under AA fire, resulting in only minor damage to the target. The effectiveness of AA can also depend on the experience and motivation of the pilot. Perhaps in the CMFB scenario you played the pilot was set to high quality so as not to be deterred by the AA.
Thanks for trying the smoke trick. I was thinking more about protecting just the vulnerable back against strafing, while keeping open the observation forward. Otherwise it is better just to hide the tank under trees.

I really dislike aircraft. Some of them are unrealistically cheap or at least they were a couple patches ago. I usually rule them out by rule in my games.

Getting attacked by aircraft on turn 1 as you leave a setup zone is doubly cheesy.

He actually attacked on turn 5 but that did not change much - the map is narrow for our force size (10,000 points, 1800 meters), so the planes had plenty of targets to choose from.
Yes I will need to regulate aircraft in my battles, too. Perhaps not ban them entirely, just limit the numbers and their use in early preplanned strikes in MEs.

The Battlefront design process is so weird.

They spend a good amount of work to add a new feature to the game, in this case aircraft, and in the first attempt, it's unbalanced and the points price is way off. But it could be fixed with a few tweaks.

Then, instead of listening to the players and tweaking the feature to make sense, they just throw up their arms and say "You don't like it? Fine. Don't use it then".

With the result that nearly all players simply don't use the new feature. It becomes a non-feature. Another houserule on the list of game features to not use.

More BP ramblings
Yep it is strange - such a great game that could be much better with relatively little effort put into balancing the numbers in QB... compared to producing e.g. Cold War or something else I'll never play
But now, back to our Three Towns!

 

[Drifter Man]

1333 hrs, Turns 42-43. Practically all activity is limited to Hill 33, where a full British rifle platoon disembarks from a truck and a halftrack and run into the woods. Just as they pass the burning Firefly, they run into mortar fire - too weak to stop them, but accurate enough to cause some casualties. The mortar responsible for this is the one that suffered 3 casualties from strafing by aircraft - the last man remaining has a light injury but seems to be almost as effective in handling the weapon as a full crew. I make sure this guy is well supplied with ammo - I am moving another mortar in but for now the fate of Hill 33 is in the hands of this man. Nevertheless, he is not alone in his effort as two StuGs join in by area firing the Hill. I don't know how this ends but I think Stafford will pay dearly for pouring so many troops into such a small area I'm zeroed in on.



One of the StuGs firing at the Hill is the other victim of the recent air attack. I was able to put the crew back in, but it is only the Gunner and the Driver surviving. When given the Target Area order, the Gunner fires one shot but then no one seems to care to reload. So I am concerned this vehicle will not be able to fire for the rest of the battle.

The fifth plane is not showing up. Was the sound I heard actually plane No. 4 flying overhead before its third pass? I decide not to deploy additional smoke as I don't want to risk obstructing the FOV of the crews.

With British tanks on Hill 36, frontal attack is not possible. Instead I'm trying to trickle in some scouts to see what forces are on the near side of the hill. Meanwhile, orchard is under bombardment by 150mm guns, but I see nothing moving in there. There should be a British company in the area. Are they further east of the orchard perhaps?

 

[Blady]

Running past a burning tank through mortar fire. Must be great for their morale!

 

[Bulletpoint]

Running past a burning tank through mortar fire. Must be great for their morale!

And still they press on. Goaded into action by their English cook with the threat of dessert.

 

[KGBoy]

So I've been playing with QB AI selection process. Not sure about the British as yet but the Americans rule. So much more materiel than the Germans! You can even get tanks while the Germans only get halftracks. Why play Germany I'm thinking?

 

[Drifter Man]

So I've been playing with QB AI selection process. Not sure about the British as yet but the Americans rule. So much more materiel than the Germans! You can even get tanks while the Germans only get halftracks. Why play Germany I'm thinking?

You mean the AI selecting the force for the player? Not sure I'd want to commit to such battle The force selection process is part of the fun.

 

[Drifter Man]

1345hrs, Turns 44-45. All that is happening now is that I am shelling Hill 33 with mortars, trying to make the most of the opportunity of having an enemy platoon concentrated in such small space. It costs a lot of ammo, but vanishing contact icons are telling me I'm hitting something. I can also see all three vehicles on Hill 33 - the damaged Firefly, the halftrack and the truck, which has turned around to get out of there as soon as possible.



You can see I have withdrawn most of 1/6 Platoon to stay out of sight of the enemy mortars on Hill 36, although they have not been firing in a while.

In the center I am again trying to get some infantry forward. With three StuGs providing overwatch I move a StuH42 forward to stay close to the 5th Company. This vehicle has spent most of its HE ammo, including 5 HE in the "negligent discharge" incident a few turns ago, but it still has HC and at close range it could take out an enemy tank. Two snipers are active in the area and I lose a scout on the approaches to Louvoy.



Finally, in the north I am not satisfied with the shelling of the Orchard with 150mm - the wood patch to the south has not been hit. I am now moving fire further back, using the tall building on the edge of the current target area - which can be seen by the spotter - as the new anchor point. I will also try to smuggle some scouts into the Orchard and see what is in there.



Now that I can see the exact position of the damaged Firefly, I can do something to kill it. Its hatches are closed - as could be expected with all the mortar fire falling around - and I think I have a place for the Marder to take a shot at it. At more than 1600 meters, it is the longest shot I've ever attempted. I give the Marder an elaborate target arc to avoid shooting at the halftrack on Hill 33 while allowing it to respond to other threats from Hill 36.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Just noticed you're using a Marder II. Rare to see them in QBs because of the high rarity cost.

 

[KGBoy]

You mean the AI selecting the force for the player? Not sure I'd want to commit to such battle The force selection process is part of the fun.

Hey, a guy has to learn somehow! But to my assertion, German stuff is very expensive and you get a lot less for the equivalent points. Why choose them if you can help it?