FSO: Tunisia Tank Battle Opinions

[ghostdancer]

Hi all,

I made it safely to France and obviously have internet. So how did the tank battle go? Opinions? And yes, I heard about the country capture snafu. I will take the blame for that .. I never thought to ask Mystic to check or did I check myself to see if capture one base would set it off.

Now for frame 3, I want to have the same tank battle again of at least the same size. Unless there is a lot of interest in it and then I will increase the size of the forces. Opinions? Do more people want in on it?

[Dustoff2]

the axis where saved by that "base take glitch". I was one of the gv's at 104 that where killed by a JU88 flying over v104 and dropped bombs on me,a sherman. However, with all the confusion of what was going to happen and the map resetting. No one towered out and the films where not saved when the map reset. Fortunate for them. 

Now there seems to be some confusion as to who won the v base 104 at the end. I believe it was Mystic at the end texted out in blue text the gv battle was over. The axis troops where still running, and then shortly after the text stated 104 was taken.

I would like this sorted out.


On the positive side!! I would have to say It was a great battle! Some would say one of the best gv battles they have been in. 

I would like to see more gv battles put in.   

Dustoff2

[Anaxogoras]

Yeah, I got the impression that very few people read the rules about the gv fight.  When v104 was captured for the first time, a lot were taken aback by the capture as much as the announced reset.

Most people don't even read their own orders, let alone the whole writeup.

[Viper61]

Ghost Dancer:

  YES YES and more YES to GV battles in the FSO frames.  I have a post in the "V104 capture" thread that will provide a look from the AXIS side for this frame.

In general the desert GV battles will always be the best ones.  No hedgerow hiding, no hiding in barns etc.  Just long range shooting and fire and maneuver tactics, if you expect to win.  So for the desert FSO's I highly recommend the GV clashes.  I will also say that it was more fun this time around because control of the air space above didn't matter.  So no loses to tank killing airplanes happened.  This was just a 70 minute slug fest of tank on tank.  I know in some of the past Russian FSO's we had air spaces to control as well.  Although more realistic not as much fun as to many guys were getting killed in their GV's because we lost control of the airspace because a squad didn't show up for the frame.

Also there are a lot of guys that prefer the GV's over the planes and a "GV piece" would help to bring them into the FSO's as well.

I like the base capture idea.  Much better than just "kill them all" or control of a area sector.  I think the time period to have it by was a good idea as well.  I would keep these points in the next GV frame.

What also helped was having the spawn points back far enough to allow for the maneuver space to develop.  No one minded having to drive for 15 minutes to start shooting.  That space and time allowed for each side to develop its tactics.  Again the desert area allowed you to clearly see your opponent from a distance and then maneuver to him.

The size and amount of players was good for a base capture.  I think that if say twice as many players had been in the same area it would have been reduced down to a MA style event.  My recommendation is that is you want more players in the GV battles then create a second GV objective like the first and separated it.

As for what base to capture:  V 104 worked well because it had a significant piece of dominate terrain that you had to capture to control the base.  The hill overlooking the base was high enough that you could look down on the V 104.  Drive up it in at speed and maneuver around on top of it.  Could reach it from the either spawn point.  Whether by design or by chance V 104 was a great location for a even fight.

I would recommend in the future opening up the vehicle choices and options.  Allow the side to employ scout vehicles or vehicle resupplies if it wants.  I know that the GV options are limited but using a combination of GV's (perked vs. unperked) when possible would be a great addition as well.

All in all I and many others on the AXIS side (radio chatter) had a GREAT time in frame 02.  I didn't hear anyone on our side say anything bad other than to do some limited complaining about the restart, but most just laughed through it.  GREAT job on putting something new into the FSO's and I hope we see much, much, much more of it.

Viper 61
Ops Officer
325th VFG

[ghostdancer]

Never thought about doing a second battle at a different base. Biggest issue is that there are not a lot of bases that allow it. By that I mean two bases that spawn to a third. Well without the spawning forces having to drive 30 minutes to target.

Also interesting comment about allowing other GVs to fullfill the roll of scouts. Maybe will give both sides m-8s for scouting purposes.

For third frame I think I will up the the force size from low to mid 20s to 30s since there seems to be a lot of interest in it. Unfortunately I am away and can't load AH here to take a look at the map to see if can find another two bases that spawn to the same third base without a massively long drive.

Oh, and I really, really wish you guys had the JU88 film .. but I will check the logs if a JU88 killed a tank it will be in the logs.

[442w30]

While I was not in the GV battle, I have to second what Viper61 one says just on the basis of logic. 

Larger GV battles or a second battle would be a great idea.  I am sure that a CiC would never be short of GV volunteers because there are a good amount of squads that see a lot of GV action in the MA, perhaps more than in the air. 

As ghostdancer said, it might be necessary to give both sides M8s or even Sdkfz251s for an "artillery" component.  Unit requirements based on battalions could be used where one units has some scouts, tanks, flaks, halftracks.  It could also be useful to use a 4-6 commitment squad as a recon unit, or dedicated Tank Platoon.

Another good reason to add the Puma or another German scout variant, Sherman with the short US gun. 

ghostdancer, how hard is it to take an existing map like this one and add the bases and spawns necessary to run one or more GV battles.  That map could be saved as an FSO version and used for it while saving the original map without the jerrymandered base/spawns for other uses. 

ghostdancer, thanks for getting GVs into

[trax1]

I would definitely like to have my squad take part in the GV battle.

[ghostdancer]

There is actually a string of bases in SE, over on the Tunisia and Libyan border that I think were setup for tank battles. They have no spawns to other bases, so you would have to drive from your base to the target base. I tested the concept of using these bases but it took me 30 minutes to drive from the vehicle base I spawned at to another base (base that would be the target of the capture). I deemed a 30 minute drive a bit to long for this event so instead with Kasserine pass bases. A 15 minute or less drive I figured GV players would be fine with .. but a 30 minute I don't think so (of course I could be wrong but since was a test of a concept I didn't want to push things to much).

I can talk to the map makers in the future about incorporating more base positions where you have two bases spawning to a third for this type of battle. But obviously it would be a future thing.

[CHAPPY]

22:41:10 Departed from Field #46 in a SdKfz 251
23:38:21 Captured field #104.
23:38:21 Destroyed a maproom at base #104 
23:39:45 Arrived Safely at Field #104
23:47:24 Departed from Field #12 in a Bf 109G-2
00:17:25 Arrived Safely at Field #47
 if my time is correct after the second upping in FSO 22:36:00 or so, t+70 would be 23:46:00 time correct?      Axis controlled vbase at least 10 min early.

Am i wrong?

Anyone have screen shots of the gv battle?
bet it looked great with all the tigers and m4 rollin in.

[RSLQK186]

For third frame I think I will up the the force size from low to mid 20s to 30s since there seems to be a lot of interest in it. Unfortunately I am away and can't load AH here to take a look at the map to see if can find another two bases that spawn to the same third base without a massively long drive.

I checked the map and V104 is unique. The spawns are reletivly equal distant from both the base and the dominate terrain feature. There are some others that have close spawns, but one side would have a longer drive than the other and in 1-2 cases would have to pass by the enemy's spawn.

[ghostdancer]

Thank you and with this info 3rd frame tank battle will be a repeat at V104. With a few changes. Since quite a few are now expressing interesting in driving tanks (sort of surprised me) I will definitely up the numbers on both sides to mid 30s. Also both sides used a lot of armor cars. I wish I had an armor car for the Axis but actually the Afrika Korp used a lot of captured British equipment from the 8th Army. So I can live with both sides having M8s. So both sides will now have those also.

I have drawn up the map and I am not writing objectives. They will be out soon and posted to the same place as the others.

Oh, and this frame (on a non-GV note) will have the Allies trying to interdict an Axis convoy from Sicily to Tunisia. So another something a little different.

[442w30]

    for all of the above ghostdancer.

take care in France