WHAT VERSION OF COMBAT MISSION IS THE FILE FOR? *
CMRT
WHAT IS THE SCENARIO / MAP TITLE? *
Kampfgruppe von Schroif
FILE TYPE? *
Campaign
DOES THE SCENARIO / MAP REQUIRE BATTLEFRONT DLC OR MODS? *
No
WHAT SIZE IS THE BATTLE? *
Medium to large
WHAT ARE THE MAP DIMESIONS? *
Largest map is around 2.5km square
WHAT TYPE OF BATTLE IS THIS? *
German attack
WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THE SCENARIO? *
Longest is 2hrs
WHERE IS THE SCENARIO / MAP BASED? *
Poland
WHEN IS THE SCENARIO BASED? *
August 1944
WHAT TIME OF DAY IS THE SCENARIO BASED? *
Starts at dawn
WHAT IS THE WEATHER IN THE SCENARIO? *
Varied but generally fine
NATIONALITY OF SIDE ONE *
German Heer
NATIONALITY OF SIDE TWO *
Soviet
THIS SCENARIO IS BEST PLAYED AS… *
Germans Vs Soviet AI
SUBMITTED BY? *
George MC
SCENARIO / MAP DESCRIPTION *
About the Campaign
This campaign covers a short and sustained period of combat operations taking place over a period of less than 72 hours, in Poland, on the Eastern Front in early August 1944. Although fictional it is heavily based on actual events.
In the campaign you take the role of 1 Kompanie Commander Hauptmann Hans von Schroif, of the 3rd Panzer Division’s (Known as the Berlin Bear division – the bear features on the city coat of arms) I(gep)/PzGrn Rgt 3 equipped with half-track carriers (SPW). Hauptmann von Schroif – AKA you – has been tasked with commanding a small kampfgruppe, to which has been attached the 6 Kompanie (Panzer IVs) under the command of Hauptmann Eric Faust. You have a sister kampfgruppe – commanded by Hauptmann Krüger – with roughly the same make-up, SPW and PzIVs. Krüger is a glory hunter with a desire for a Knights Cross. Correspondingly his unit is very aggressive. Other elements from Division will be attached given the situation – mostly recce units from Aufklärungs-Abteilung 3 (AA3).
Reinforcements; Resupply and Refit
It is worth noting that the player receives no reinforcements and little in the way of refit in the 72 hour period.
Therefore you, the player, have to use your forces wisely, especially your panzergrenadiers. Keep your casualties as low as you can, for as long as you can. The key to success is close co-operation between your SPW, panzergrenadiers and panzers.
Key characters, including platoon leaders, are all named individually and are tracked throughout the campaign. You’ll notice, as casualties mount that key names slowly start to disappear. Don’t get killed yourself though early on, as it may lead to you ending the campaign, like your life, prematurely.
Player Campaign Briefings and Tactical Maps
The briefings take the form of an immersive narrative. Therefore they tend to be fairly lengthy, Not everyone’s cup of tea but I like that. To help process the info I compiled all the campaign briefings into a PDF file titled Kampfgruppe von Schroif Campaign Briefing Handbook. Each brief is linked via the Campaign Flowchart so you can quickly access the briefing you want. If you don’t like reading then the Operation and Tactical Maps in each mission provide the key info required at a glance.
There is also a table showing your unit, its commanders and their ‘soft’ values e.g. experience, morale etc. In addition there are Force Tracker graphics which allow you to track casualties and effectiveness of your unit as the campaign rolls on.
In addition there is a pack of Tactical Maps included in the zip file. These are maps of all the main missions and are blank unannotated JPGs. They offer the player the ability to use them to plan their actions either on paper (print them out) or digitally on your PC/Laptop.
Mods
There are no mods required to play this campaign. It’s playable “out of the box” using the base CMRT game. If you are interested in what mods I use (and you’ll see in the screenshots) then I use the following:
Aris’ vehicles (both German and Soviet)
Kieme’s buildings and terrain mods
Tanks a Lot buildings (these just add more ‘skin’ options for buildings but they are great!)
Veins’ German and Soviet soldiers
Veins’ tracers and special effect s(smoke, flame and dust)
Rambler’s CMBS Trees and Hedges (yup CMBS mod but it works in CMRT).
Acknowledgments
Huge shout out to SeinfeldRules for the kind permission to use his “Assault Position” scenario in this campaign.
I owe a huge debt of thanks to the guys who did the playtesting. So a big shout out and thanks to the following for playtesting, feedback, proof reading and critical comment:
SeinfeldRules, Raptorx7, mjkerner, RepsolCBR, TAKODA. BarbaricCo, olliwa, SlowLarry, Reech, borg, bangalor44, Chudacabra.
Special mention goes to Combatintman who painstakingly proof read and checked all the briefings for every scenario and their associated tactical and operation maps. I think the words Oberleutant and Oberstleutnant will be forever etched in his brain! He also provided the “Force Tracker” graphics.
Any subsequent errors, omissions and weirdness are entirely my fault!
Any feedback etc please don’t hesitate to contact me at georgemc@blowtorchscenarios.com or via the Battlefront.com forum my ‘nick’ is George MC.
For info about the development of this campaign you can check out the thread below:
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/121775-cmrt-campaign-kampfgruppe-von-schroif/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uETDL3fbLx7MY8SU-KTBcJ4ORtU8CA03/view?usp=sharing
About Author
Hi George,
I was about to begin that next, very promising masterpiece from you, but a problem made me to come here and ask you about it first.
Before I raise my question I must congratulate: contrary to the factory scenarios from Battlefront your briefings miss that anti-Axis tone and are creating a good and quite realistic atmosphere for the Axis player.
For my taste the briefing and the orders still are a bit too much US-like. For example: Leaning back against a vehicle while discussing an attack with an officer…
And too less Auftragstaktik but a too rigid plan. In reality the chief of the Kampfgruppe probably would have received only the direction Rogachyevka/Bondariski/Osinnik/Rakow with all available intelligence, but for example, the AZ00x objectives would not be ordered.
To make the freedom of the German Auftragstaktik fit with the needs for scenario design, maybe a solution could be to use loud thoughts from Schroif or a conversation among the leaders, where the importance of these locations could be brought to the player’s attention?
But that’s really only cosmetic.
The reason why I came here before I start to play it: there is no radio communication between von Schroif and his tanks (Traugott’s PzIV).
Was that overlooked or a design limitation?
Hi
Cheers for the comments. Aye always a challenge doing this sort of briefing as I was never served in the German (or any nations’s) army. So aiming for a ‘tone’ was always going to be more creative. There are also game play realities re scoring but some objectives are elective i.e. not crucial to winning the mission. The points in the scenario briefing ‘notes’ will serve as an indication how important various objectives are. That way the player cam operate within the commanders intent (which I do state).
Re radio comms – yup nothing I can about that. That;s a game engine limitation with C2 – even although Traugott is assigned to von Schroif (in my briefing) they are not connected via a radio net (in the game engine). A work around is to position a command section next to the command section of the partner unit. that allows information to be shared (via voice). This trick will come in handy in later missions. e.g. position 2IC of SPW with 2IC of Panzer. Kompanie.
So not overlooked, not a design decision but a game engine limitation.
Good luck with this. If Traugott has shown up I’ll wish you “viel glück!” 🙂
Just finished this campaign, pushed through, so I didn’t get to enjoy driving about with those Tiger II’s I saw come up if I would have been willing to wait. I enjoyed the maps. I found the first mission a bit “gamey” with it’s requirement that I keep most of my forces from being spotted. It took me two tries to do that (the second of course helped by what I knew about where the enemy was from the first run through). That said, I liked the feel of the missions, and appreciated the manageable force size throughout. I found myself skimming the briefings, too long even though well written. I wonder if they could be repackaged in some way where you get the orders in the front, and can read the “color” commentary if you desire?
Hi Peter
Thanks for your feedback. Glad you enjoyed it. TBH you did not miss much not getting the Tigers! If you got them it’s all gone a bit wrong… You only get them in the last chance saloon (there was a small briefing error in an earlier version, now since corrected). You might have Tiger IIs in the last chance BUT the Soviets are ready and waiting. The time it has taken you to bring your Tigers up means the Soviets have time as well.
Re first mission I was shooting for a stealthy approach by the Germans using minimum force. To do so meant operating within the confines of the game engine hence the unusual scoring mechanism. TBH “winning” or “losing” the first mission makes no appreciable odds as a/ as long as you keep your force intact – well and good for the next mission b/ if you do get a “draw” or “lose” well, if you have kept your force intact your timeline is different for the next mission but at least you have all your guys. The worse is “losing” or “winning” the scenario and losing lot’s of your guys. That’s not good at all at all for later on…
Re briefings – I did add a PDF that has all the briefings there. TBH I like long immersive briefings. I appreciate it’s not everyone’s cup of tea hence why I made the PDF and supporting info.
FYI you can gauge what is to be done simply from the relevant mission OP and Tac maps – I made them such you can easily see what you have to do at a glance (Orders and objectives). So long detailed briefings are my thing, I like em 😉
Glad you liked the feel of the missions though – that’s what really counts.
Thanks for doing the update Shane 🙂
This is a fantastic piece of work but it might need more tweaking. For example, I am on Turn 21 of the Second Mission. I’m supposed to have my own mortar support, but, I have none. The mortar support has not yet appeared. Is there some mistake? Thanks.
Hi Craig
Thanks for the feedback. Re the mortars – I checked the compile – it all appears in order. So all I can think is a/ you used em all up in the earlier mission b/ some weird bug when it’s (the campaign) is compiled.
This campaign is defective. There are supposed to be mortars appearing in the second mission. There are none. I have played through to the second mission twice and the mortars appeared neither time, nor were they used up or destroyed in Mission 1. So, it appears that in some cases the mortars do not appear, because the Campaign designer says that they appear and there is no problem. There is a problem. BUT, other than he missing mortars, the Campaign looks brilliant. I recommend it regardless of whether the mortars show up for you or not.
This is a great looking campaign, but, I think it might have a minor defect that keeps the mortars out of the game sometimes.
Hi Craig I know there is a problem – you’ve posted three times now, but as I said I’ll need more precise info re what second mission – there are two versions as the campaign branches after the first mission – you are playing and waht version of the campaign as well please? I suspect it’s a game engine bug as this issue arose before (hence this latest revised version 3).I’ve checked the compile etc and all appears in order but as I said I do need the exact version of mission 2 you are playing (and what campaign version please?) so I can double check, but I suspect campaign game engine bug…
I finally made it to Mission Three and the mortars are here. 120mm mortars and 81mm. No mortars on Mission 1 and 2, but they are here for Mission 3. I am playing Version 3 of the Campaign, which is the version that is posted. This is really brilliant work, so, thanks for checking up on things with such diligence. This Campaign is really not to be missed.
Hi Craig Excellent – cheers for that. Right had a wee look and there was an issue with the compile. For some reason the off-map mortars don’t appear in any version of Mission 2 (there are two branches based on Mission 2). NOTE: there are no mortars in Mission 1 only off-map 105mm support. What I have done is have the mortars be on-map. That solves the issue as i could not get the off-map mortars to appear in the campaign. This appears to be some sort of game engine bug. I’ve asked Booty who runs this site to upload an amended version of the campaign compile. Thanks for spotting this and posting it.
Glad you enjoying the campaign though. Awra best for Mission 3 🙂
I have finished the campaign and it is one of the best ever — better than some of the Campaigns that come with the games.
The author should email me privately to discuss matters that would be spoilers if discussed here.
I have been playing CM since the beginning, and this is one of the very best campaigns. Congratulations, and thanks for all the hard work!
Thank you, Stroudgreengooner – really pleased you enjoyed it. Thanks for playing it and for taking the time to post your feedback.
Cheery!
George
Hi Craig
Thanks, high praise indeed – really pleased you enjoyed it. Creating it was a real labour of love!