Normandy, 16. of August, 1944. Following Operation Cobra, the German main lines of resistance are now crumbling before the Allied advance. In order to delay the Allies and buy time to re-establish their front line, the Germans have resorted to a tenacious strategy of holding road links and crossroads by small units.
Your company of armoured infantry is one of several that are currently scouting ahead of the main drive in this region, clearing the way for operation Tractable to take the strategically important city of Falaise.
Before you lies the the village of Pierrefitte-en-Cinglais. It commands a vital crossroads, but it is only one of several possible routes of advance through this area. You are to conduct a recon-in-force, probing enemy defences and if possible overcome them, in order to seize the crossroads.
| WHAT VERSION OF COMBAT MISSION IS THE FILE FOR? | CM : BATTLES FOR NORMANDY |
| WHAT IS THE SCENARIO / MAP TITLE? | Crossroads at Pierrefitte-en-Cinglais |
| FILE TYPE? | SCENARIO VS AI ONLY |
| DOES THE SCENARIO / MAP REQUIRE BATTLEFRONT DLC OR MODS? | NO |
| WHAT SIZE IS THE BATTLE? | SMALL |
| WHAT TYPE OF BATTLE IS THIS? | ATTACK |
| WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THE SCENARIO? | 1 HOUR – 1 HOUR 29 MINUTES |
| WHERE IS THE SCENARIO / MAP BASED? | FRANCE [BATTLES FOR NORMANDY] |
| WHEN IS THE SCENARIO BASED? | AUGUST 1944 |
| WHAT TIME OF DAY IS THE SCENARIO BASED? | DAY |
| WHAT IS THE WEATHER IN THE SCENARIO? | CLEAR |
| NATIONALITY OF SIDE ONE | US |
| NATIONALITY OF SIDE TWO | German |
| THIS SCENARIO IS BEST PLAYED AS… | SIDE ONE VS AI |
| SUBMITTED BY? | Bulletpoint |
About Author
This is my first scenario, and I spent countless hours working on it. I hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to hear any comments, feedback and suggestions you might have.
I enjoyed your scenario quite a bit, but my game ended in a draw and it’s not clear to me why that happened. I had plenty of units left and the enemy had few. The game ended rather abruptly and said the germans received 500 points for friendly forces. 🙁
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/646625190683505462/02357982AD630BB580399423AAE520F42641DE62/
Hey Mike, sorry about that. That’s a flaw in the first version of the scenario. When the Germans surrender, of course you should win. Couldn’t find many beta testers, so the version I uploaded here had some problems. I’ve made a new and very updated version that fixes this and many other things. Will try to upload it here.
I have now uploaded a revised version with many changes and fixes. So if you download the file again, it should be the new version (it doesn’t say new version, but it should be).
Thanks, I’ll have to check it out again!
V2 is good to go! I have re-played this scenario several times. Best I get is minor victory and beat up units. It is a challenging situation which brutally punishes bad tactics and eventually awards good ones. There is plenty of time to exercise patience. Constant diligence is required. Creative use of combat engineers is well rewarded. This is an excellent solo scenario. With five (5) AI plans, it replays well. I look forward to more by Bulletpoint! Thank you.
Nice scenario, but I recommend giving the Americans some more indirect fire support. A single 60 mm mortar is insufficient for the mission given the density of the defenders. Consider providing the Americans some 81 mm support. Also providing the Americans with two Sherman tanks would be good. After all, as you know the armored infantry fought in combined arms combat teams. Maybe provide the Germans with a 5 cm AT gun and a couple of panzershrecks to balance things.
Thanks for the feedback. You’re right that armoured infantry is supposed to have tank support, and definitely the US forces would get a boost from some more fire support. However, as this is a fictional engagement, I wanted to focus on infantry tactics, so I left out the heavy stuff on purpose. I might later go back and do a revised version of the scenario, and I take note of all feedback for if and when that happens.
I’m very late to the fight here (I’m a pretty recent Battle for Normandy player), but since I’ve played the scenario, I thought I’d leave a comment…..
Obviously you put a lot of thought and effort into the scenario, so thanks for that, it was an interesting battle!
But.. (there has to be a but!), I did experience the scenario as a bit “gamey”, so it was quite hard to stay immersed in it as a battle. The reason? – it seemed to me that too much of the scenario was over-designed. For example:
1. The village seemed artifically built / designed to be particularly defensible. I.e. for example many streets, squares, alleyways and walls seemed unnaturally “designed”, simply to provide fields of fire, rather than having been built as per real-life to make the viallge easy and natural to live in. Another example – key buildings didn’t have doors where they would naturally (in real life) have certainly had doors (like a house with a big garden having no door into that garden etc) and it felt like the only point of there not being a door where there should be was to make it necessary to cross enemy field of fire killing zones.
2. Enemy squads being placed in particularly odd rooms that it didn’t feel likely they would realistically chosen to occupy in a real fire-fight, again the only reason for them picking those particular rooms was either to stage an ambush (with they themselves then having no chance of escape) or just to keep the objective zones occupied.
3. Unit selection for the player force felt artifically altered to be depleted in particularly “designed” ways, again it felt this was done simply to remove the possibility of particular tactical approaches, or artifically to down-grade the force simply to make the battle a bit harder.
Nevertheless, it was a fine scenario, if you could accept those issues and try to win the scenario, in a let’s-play-chess-against-the-scenario-designer’s-dead-hand kind of way.
(N.B. I did complete the game, through to German surrender (I was only awarded a “Minor Victory” though). German stats were 13 men ok, 26 killed, 17 wounded, 4 missing, 1 vehicle lost). Player stats: 24 minutes remaining, zero casualties (0 killed, 0 wounded, 0 missing, 0 vehicles lost).
Having said all that, I note this was your first scenario design (and an amazingly good scenario, given that fact!) I do wonder whether you have developed your scenario-design approach over the years, to make things feel more realistic?
Anyways, I hope that’s helpful, and doesn’t feel too critical – as I do want the emphasis to be saying “thanks!” for all the trouble and effort you put in to make the scenario.
Cheers, Dave