Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign (Spoilers)
 

I've been beating my head on the first mission in the campaign for the last two days; I'm just wondering:

Is 12 turns (36~ minutes) really enough time to rout entrenched defenders in good defensive positions?

I'd feel better if I had 20 turns (1 hour), it would give me time to methodically work suspected enemy targets over with artillery and to bombard them with tanks before moving my infantry up.

As it is, due to the 12 turn limit, I have to rush things, leading to casualties.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

I edited the campaign to allow me to move on with a draw result, and I'm now on the second scenario, the D-Day invasion; which is awesomely cool; there's a lot of nice touches here, like the Luftwaffle actually being a threat.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

I haven't played this one yet, but over the years I've noticed that a majority of scenarios do not provide enough turns to employ cautious tactics. I think this is probably just a way to add a little difficulty to the game.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

If you re-read the introduction you will see........

"You've heard that old "Blood and Guts" wants to finish this campaign up as quickly as possible, and is pushing everyone and every machine to 110 percent. Rumor has it that the next target will be France. if that is true, the 1st Armored may soon be pulled out of the line, to begin training for an amphibious assault."


"............finish this campaign up as quickly as possible, and is pushing everyone and every machine to 110 percent"

you are given 875 rebuild points after the first battle. You are SUPPOSED to be rushed and it's not meant to be pretty.

"Patton" ( OR in this case, the campaign designer...) doesn't want you to......"methodically work suspected enemy targets over with artillery and to bombard them with tanks before moving my infantry up." Patton would cashier an officer who did so when he demanded speed and aggressiveness. If he wanted Montgomery to plan this attack he would have asked him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif.

He's asking you to go in fast and hard and kick *** and take names and not worry about "casualties"

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Patton would cashier an officer who did so when he demanded speed and aggressiveness. If he wanted Montgomery to plan this attack he would have asked him .

He's asking you to go in fast and hard and kick *** and take names and not worry about "casualties"

Well, this village is insanely hard to take without absurd casualty rates in the time frame given.

I suffered close to 30% casualties in my tank arm (out of 10 tanks, 3 were knocked out); average casualties in my infantry squads were 20% (from 12 men to about 10 men). One squad was down to about 6 men (50% casualties).

All of these casualties were suffered because the Germans had an insanely excellent setup; with their 50mm PaK 38s hiding in the trees, guarded by a MG-42 and Infantry squads in buildings. If you sent your infantry ahead to clear the Pak 38s out, they'd get munched by the infantry and MG-42, while if you sent the tanks in to kill the infantry and MG-42, the PaKs would get 'em.

Anyway, I had completely routed the enemy by turn 10; broken all of his important units, destroyed the MG nest, blown up the PaKs, etc.

There was nothing really dangerous standing between me and the final six victory locations still held by the Germans; except the clock. Extending it by a few turns would improve the scenario a lot IMHO.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Here's my turn 6. All victory hexes have been taken. The game ended at the end of turn 7 with a marginal victory and the following casualty count for the US player

men- 78
apc- 7
afv-5

When it came time to rebuild my force for the start of the invasion I was given 875 points and "fix all" left me with 610 points unused for me to expand my core if I so desired.

FYI I have never played this campaign but I did have to correct this particular sceanrio some months back when we converted it to Windows so I did have a bit of an idea where some of the Germans were but I had in no way committed the disposition to memory.

My force selection was an "Armored team 42". I kept pressing "armred team 42" until I had no more core points left. I think it gave me a fairly good mix of units. My support selection was 81mm mortars

I generally play aggressivly but in in this case was really pushing to see how quick I could end it. A number of casualties at the end were incured through haste but the 875 points given to rebuild are more than enough

Don

.......and if I play conservatively after turn 6 I can cut the overall casualties by about 20% which in turn lowers the number of rebuild points I need to use up fixing units....

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Don,
Are you telling us that you actually get a chance to PLAY this game? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

It's rare.... but I do when I can. ( I have to use my special 26-hours-in-a-day clock though....)

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

As for the 1st campaign, getting all the perimeter Victory Locations is easy, as they are 100% undefended (unless you count the opels, lol). Send either a scout tank, scout car or barring either of those, a jeep with cav scouts up the top and around the back. That's what scouts are there for!

As for my question: I'm currently playing the 2nd mission. I bought green inf and I'm putting them down on the first wave like any good commander would do. However, I'm coming back for my M4s, and they just won't load on the (empty) LCM, even though they're in the same hex. Help! (can include save file if needed)

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

I won't have time to test this until the weekend

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Send the save and I'll look at this. I tried that campaign sceanrio and they unloaded on the beaches OK then I went back and loaded the tanks from the "ships" OK as well. I loaded them from the adjacent hex ( barges will load that way )

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Err, excuse my noobishness. I didn't know barges loaded from adjacent hexes. Carry on :-)

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

They load from the same hex too....

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Hmm. Maybe that's the bug. I already lost (immobilized) one M4 trying to get in the same hex. I'll probably show myself to be an even bigger newb, but I'll include the savegame anyway. If there is no "bug", then I apologize for wasting your time.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Well...... I had no trouble bringing in a couple of barges and picking up the tanks. I don't see a problem

Don

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Barges are allowed to load from alongside to allow for the fact they can be in deep water (e.g. beside a jetty) which land units cannot enter.

If you have solid land beside the barge even if it is in -1 water it is better to load from there than to try driving into the shallow water where you may bog down.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Just a quick potential bug report: 2nd map of the Roundhammer campaign. i had 3 of the DUKW's deployed on the bottom line of the map, when I clicked Start Game they were not on the map and the bottom line of the map was empty. In the army list 3 DUKWs are listed as <font color="red">Ready</font>.
I will try replicating the issue, if it is consistent i will post a save.
This is very easy for players to deal with if it is consistent, so is not a dramatic issue.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign
 

Hi,

Probably you have deployed on the lower gray hexes.
Try to redeploy a couple of lines higher than your previous deployment.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign (Spoilers)
 

A question re the 2nd battle.
I found about 3/4 of my vehicles got bogged crossing the mud. They then got pounded by artillery for the rest of the battle causing heavy casualties among my open topped halftracks, M10s and assorted light vehicles. Is this intended to create the experiance of being the wrong force for the job (mechanized force landing on mud), is it intended to be played with breakdowns turned off or am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

I eventually got what I considered acceptable casualties using paratroops dropped in behind (with a couple of glider light tanks) and sea landing of infantry and a few halftracks while wasting some landing craft evacuating my armor off the map entierly. Not sure that's in the spirit intended however!

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign (Spoilers)
 

Have to admit this is a bit rough there is nowhere you can land & move forward without crossing mud which carries a high chance of getting stuck.
If I remember however you get a decent compliment of support units so you can leave your vehicles at home.
There are a few spots where you only need to cross one mud hex so if you want to risk entry do it there. Remember speed plays a factor, with vehicles you should only ever enter a mud hex if you started the turn adjacent to it.
Just land a few vehicles where you can land them safely so they can provide covering fire The question is then leave them to draw artillery fire & let your grunts operate, withdraw them or risk heading inland.

Re: Roundhammer 1943 US Campaign (Spoilers)
 

Thanks Imp. Can I suggest a change to future releases? Land link the "landing ship" islands to the retreat edge. It would give the player the option to remove them without taking away landing craft.

I didn't need covering fire since my mortars fired smoke from the deck of the landing ship, otherwise I would have needed to at least put some tanks ashore to provide smoke.