Winning the Roadblock scenario

[PoorOldSpike]

WINNING THE ROADBLOCK SCENARIO

I thought I'd put this up as a noob tutorial to show how simple the play system is; I've only had the game less than a week and won this easily enough, I never even had to look at the manual during play, it's that simple..

The start positions, they come ready-placed in this one. The objective is to occupy the crossroads at the far end of the map.
Note the clock at lower right, the game lasts 45 minutes at 1 minute per turn-

To begin, I toggle trees off to avoid clutter (ALT-T)
To select a unit I click on its floating icon and give all the units move orders into that field (circled); no need to micro-plot, just click a spot and they'll make their own way there, (but I did plot my 2 tanks through that gap to give them a bit of help)
I find 'Quick' is good for infantry because they'll jog at a nice steady pace without getting tired, although I do throw in other types of movement sometimes by way of experiment.
I'm still experimenting with tank movement, but for now I use 'Move' or 'Hunt'-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

After a turn or two they're nearly all in the field.
(Inf units with flag icons are HQ units, I try to keep them a little way behind the front line troops but close enough to be in visual contact)

I skip through a few more turns while they settle down, which also gives time for these reinfs to come on, so I order them into the field too-

And after skipping through more turns this final batch of reinfs arrives, so I order them to join their mates-

My whole force is soon assembled and ready to kick butt, my plan is brutally simple, I'll put everybody including the tanks up against that bocage in front (yellow line) and say to the jerries "right, analyse this!"-

Top view (key 7 and mouse wheel zoom) helps with precise plotting, I try to get everybody's nose right up close to the bocage or they won't be able to see through it.
(key 3 returns to oblique view)

 

[PoorOldSpike]

The move plots-

Bingo! my boys move up and it hits the fan as they begin slugging it out with jerry (note the tracer)
But I forgot to order one of my squads to move (foreground), duh-

It's neat the way infantry in CMBN auto-align themselves along the bocage in line abreast formation without having to be told-

After a few turns jerry begins to get rattled at the other end of the map and abandons the shelter of this stone wall, the Shers have already punched a hole in it.
So far i've issued no fire orders at all, i've simply let my boys pick their own targets-

We can set targets if we want, like here. Incidentally, stretching the target line around the map like this is a good way to check all your tanks and infantry really can see through the bocage.
(If you didn't move them close enough to it they won't be able to see through)-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

WTF? I hear a sharp clang on the Sher at left and the crew bails in panic!
But looking at the German icons down the map I can see nothing to suggest an AT-gun!
(PS-note the clock, 31 gameturns left, with 55 secs left in this turn)

Next turn a Ger AT gun icon (circled) appears near the crossroads-

So I scroll over to the spot and there he is-

Okay it's payback time; I give my 4 remaining Shers a fire order on his position-

They can't get a solid lock on him so i'll settle for Area fire..
(don't worry if the cursor jumps a few metres away from him when you click, as the blast will still get him)-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

He fires again-

But not any more after the Shers guns begin speaking-

Okay, with the AT gun out of the way (there's only one in this battle hehe), I can continue the advance, beginning with a reverse move by the Sherms followed by a second 'Move' waypoint to take them through the gap-

They go through and I toggle trees on (ALT-T) to remind myself where the trees are, they hamper LOS and movement-

By the way, I had two 60mm mortars but forgot to deploy them which is why this 'Not Positioned' message came up when I tried to call in barrages via the HQ unit (orange icon), duh-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Hitting ALT-T again toggles leafy clutter off and you can see the tree trunks.
I order my infantry to advance, just giving them one waypoint per squad and letting them find their own way to it-

Some find a gap in the bocage and some go round the end.
German fire starts coming in from the farm, but my inf automatically return fire and the Gers begin to run.
The Shers couldn't fire because the trees were blocking LOS (toggled off again so I can see things clearly)

Okay let's do what I should have done before and move the Shers out of the trees to that farm track-

I give them area fire orders against the farmhouse to finish off any dazed Ger survivors still lurking there-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Down it goes in a cloud of dust. Some running Gers are also spotted and blasted in some trees.
21 turns left on the clock-

The advance continues to the crossroads objective, I 'Move' the tanks forward and jog the infantry ('Quick)-

That's my boys, you're soldiers now..

Suddenly I hear a telltale whoosh and see a puff of smoke as a panzershreck opens up but luckily the shot falls short-

His loader stops a bullet and goes down (red cross icon) but he stands his ground, no doubt bucking for an Iron Cross-

 

[PoorOldSpike]

But not today Fritz, as Sher return fire rattles his eyeballs-

And he legs it, he had his chance..

And my boys achieve the objective. The odd Ger gunshots keep coming out of the trees for a few turns but my boys shoot back until with 10 turns left it's all quiet on the western front-

So I hit the Ceasefire button-

SUMMARY- Like I said, I played it through with almost no micro-managing at all, I simply told everybody "go here, go there" and let them select their own targets most of the time and sit blasting away.
The trick is not to move on until the enemy fire has tailed right off, there's no rush..
The only times I issued fire orders directly was when I told the Shers to concentrate their fire against the AT gun, and when I ordered them to demolish the farmhouse.
So the system is very smooth, simple and noob-friendly and I like it..

 

[Lighthorse]

WTF? I hear a sharp clang on the Sher at left and the crew bails in panic!
But looking at the German icons down the map I can see nothing to suggest an AT-gun!
(PS-note the clock, 31 gameturns left, with 55 secs left in this turn)

POS, did you try to recrew the Sherman? If the Sherman was not KO and all the crew still around, there a chance you can, after the crew recovers its morale.
Because on the AAR it shows that you didn't lose that Sherman.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

..POS, did you try to recrew the Sherman?..

No mate, it crossed my mind to try but I forgot, ha ha..

 

[Hiram Sedai]

Thanks for sharing that AAR with us, Mister Spike. I played that one about four times but always had more casualties even with me using the mortars.

most disconcerting...

 

[Corsaire31]

Plse note that when you replay it from scratch the AT gun is not always in the same place...

 

[PoorOldSpike]

Thanks for sharing that AAR with us, Mister Spike. I played that one about four times but always had more casualties even with me using the mortars.
most disconcerting...

The key to glorious victory in real war and wargames is to simply present the enemy with as many of your units as possible in a solid mass simultaneously to outnumber him and "beat him down with fire", he can't beat the maths..
That's why in "Roadblock" I waited 10 turns for ALL my reinfs to arrive before launching the attack in one huge overwhelming 'Tunguska Incident'..

PS- I'd only had CMBN a few days yet was still able to win, that's how easy it is to play..

 

[Bootie]

They tried that at The Battle of the Somme and look what happened. 20'000 casualties in one day.

 

[Hiram Sedai]

exactly, i didn't mass because I was afraid of arty or mortars

I was also getting used to the idea of bocage and attacked up the right. His anti tank gun hurt me every time.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

..His anti tank gun hurt me every time.

Yeh it got one of my Shers and I was expecting that, but the other 4 Shers and my inf quickly blew him away (I was expecting that too!) that's what I mean by overwhelming numerical superiority, there's no way a single ATG can take on 5 Shers and a zillion men and expect to come out of it in one piece..

As for the Somme, it sounded fine on paper--just subject jerry to a sustained millions-of-shells bombardment, then send in the inf to mop up.
Fly in the ointment was that jerry was too well dug in and simply popped up to clobber our advancing inf when the bombardment stopped.
Also the tanks we had were clumsy, inefficient and badly managed, hell they weren't even properly bulletproof!