This is a very large map (around 1.5km wide by nearly 3km long). Loading times are around 5 to 8 minutes depending on your machine.
Players with lower spec machines may struggle to play this.
Due to the nature of this scenario and the terrain it’s been designed as either playing H2H (although not sure how ‘balanced’ this is as it’s a semi-historical type scenario) or Human versus Allied AI. There is a German AI plan so you can play as the Allies against the German AI BUT given the limitations of the AI this, at best, provides an interesting insight into the initial experience of the Allied tankers. First off possible SPOILER ALERT…..
The map is as faithful a recreation of the environs around Villers Bocage as I could make given the confines of the Combat Mission game engine, limitations of the aerial images and maps available. I’ve also tweaked history a little bit. The first 30 odd minutes of this action (arguably the most famous part) gives you, the gamer, a chance to emulate Wittmann’s attack. As you’ll find, recreating this on the digital battlefield illustrates just how lucky he was on the day. It’s tough to pull it off on the CMBN battlefield – more often than not your Tiger will be shot up, immobilised or have it’s main gun/optics knocked out.
From around 30 minutes on the latter part of the action makes the assumption that Bill Cotton from B Squadron managed to find a way through Villers Bocage on it’s southern side. This bit of pathfinding allows the rest of B Squadron to follow and attempt a counterattack against the Germans.
GeorgeMC
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Hi George, having visited Villar Bocage a few weeks ago and walked the route of Wittmann’s attack, I thought I would give this a run through to see how it worked out. In Normandy We walked the ground with John Buckley and used Akhil Kadidal’s Tanks in the hedgerows(https://ww2live.com/en/content/world-war-2-battle-villers-bocage-normandy-1944-akhil-kadidal) to follow the action.
Obviously this is a challenging scanrio to recreate. In the opening moves, my two lone Tigers on the flank edged forward and started shooting up the armour on the road and quickly took out 6 of A Squadrons tanks including one of the Fireflies.
Two of the Wittman group of Tigers covered the rear of the formation with the infantry spotting for them and quickly shot up another 3 Cromwells which meant that most of A Squadron was now burning. Wittmann’s Tiger edged onto the road about move 4 and started to engage the Regimental HQ tanks in Villar Bocage, so another Tiger came to join him. Even at long range they managed to silence the Regimental HQ after a few minutes.
Now one of the big mysteries of this battle is why no one at Regt HQ or the three Stuards at Calvarie spotted Wittman (probably perceived threat level as low and we off guard) but more importantly why did Wittman not see them as he advanced and engage from longer range. All engagements that day seem to have been a short range under 200m. Also 7 Armoured Division seem to have been taken completely by surprise and failed to respond quickly, flooding the radio net with traffic, so that each engagement was an event rather than a combined and linked series of events.
I wonder how it would play out by
1) changing the weather conditions to limit visibility
2) a plan to keep the British a bit more static
3) putting A Squadron all on the road around the farmhouses
4) a platoon of infantry up with A Squadron
5) rest of Rifle Brigade on right hand side of road just below where Wittmann emerges and with infantry dismounted
6) two flank Tigers brought over to join the main group so that A Squadron survives until the main German Tiger attack, perhaps bog a couple of them to account for the mechanical failures?
7) It would be nice to extend the town a bit so that the Firefly-Wittman action in the town square could be done
8) Perhaps a second scenario using this map to cover the German attack into the town that was beaten off with many Tiger casualties.
But as with many historical scenarios, its the Ai that struggles to react historically.
It was a lot of fun to play but the combination of the Tigers and spotting infatry was pretty deadly early on.