Incorporating a Ground War element in a Scenario.. how do we do it?

[OOZ662]

In Stalin's Fourth I spent about half of the scenario in GVs guarding some "strategic" bridges. What that meant in practice was that we sat there in the bushes, shot the bridges down, waited until they reupped and shot them down again. About quarter of the scenario was spent in static AA-guns in the bases. Then we got a flight or two in a plane.

Result? Worst scenario experience ever.

The bridges were a bit of a design flaw as I don't think that had been tried before, and a lesson has been learned there. "Tisk tisk" to whoever gave you that order and didn't "rotate the watch," too.

[thorsim]

i know i am new, but it seems to me the problem was a result of objective overlapping.
if i may i would suggest letting the air to air assets work one set of objectives and let the air to ground work against another.

you could move the tanks into say an open field campaign outside any dar coverage the strategic bombers and air superiority fighters would work the towns and supply lines and the tactical bombers and tank destroyers would be scouting the open spaces for the enemy armor bridges roads etc.

if the armor was moving on a town then the number of times and time of frame could be restricted for strategic operations on that target.this could all be enforced by a negative feedback scoring.

i.e. a strategic bomb damaging a enemy tank would result in the bombers team loosing points.  so even if the tank gets it in a foul he will have done some good for his team.  conversely the bomber that is not assigned tank busting would need to look at every tank as a FF situation.     

this would add to the pressure to hit our strategic targets quickly.  i.e.

"get the town before the enemy tanks get there !!!"   

btw i know i am not exactly using the terms strategic and tactical correctly but for my purposes in this post tactical can be thought of as anti-armor and strategic can be thought of as anti fixed non transportation assets.

anyway just thinking about the problem. 

 

[thorsim]

didn't mean to shut everybody up ...

 

+S+

t

[K-KEN]

I had an Idea that we could do a recreation of the landing at Normandy.

4 Frames.
Frames 1 and 2 maybe, the allied manning CV guns, manning LVT's with cannons, troops and supplies. The Axis having Shore Batteries, M3's, M-16s to defend.
This means nearly everyone in GVs and Manned guns and maybe a few C-47's with supplies and troops to go inland.

A terrain must be set to have many many shore guns set up and the beach head would be made up of many map rooms requiring 50 or so troops. Gold, Juno, etc.

Frame 3 and 4 could also switch sides and do it again or some sort of Air Only campaign or a mixture.

Stalin's 4th did a great job of balancing this, as I recall.

I posted this over a year ago, I think.

[oneway]

Maybe your asking the wrong question...

Maybe the question should start with the premise that the challenge is to put more planes in a GV scenario...

I don't think you can find a happy middle ground...at least not yet.

Decide whether its GV centric or Aircraft centric and then work forward from there.

GV centric Scenarios should use limited amounts of aircraft, based far from the front line, in early war planes...

Perhaps base capture in such a scenario should use only C47 for troops, and the early war plane set has a goal not to kill GV, but clear the skies and get the Goon in...

Scenarios are understandably aircraft driven seeing as this is an aircraft sim and the community is 85%+ all about airplanes...

I think the guys on the ground need a bone or two...I think they need their 'days' in the sun...

Brooke Said: "We'd love more GV'ers to play, but we run into not being able to fill GV-specific registration slots at about 20-30 positions per side."

I think you all might be surprised with the turn out of an ALL GV scenario...The Sands of Tunisia...The Battle of the Bulge...there are enough talented and committed GV guys to design this and offer it up for review...

Start the design from the ground up...excuse the obvious pun...then find a way to bring the planes into the design to enhance a ground based design...

Not the other way around...

Shift the perspective if you want a different outcome...

Oneway

[Serenity]

but actually that is the point.......... they may not be able to go to their targets later with more ord............ they reached the ord limit...........


imagine this for example........... 1 hour left in scenario.............. thanks for your help bombers...... you can log off now......... we are out of bombs.............

also what about rearms...... if an aircraft took off with ordinance it will get all that ordinance back when it rearms......... even if ord is disabled for the field......... so now you have to turn off all rearm ability as well


not trashing the idea......... like I said it makes a good argument........ and would be an effective way to limit bombing GVs........ unfortunately IMO (one of the GVs who doesnt like getting bombed) there are too many uncontrollable variables and side effects

That actually sounds good to me. Force commanders to plan ahead. Those 190s don't NEED to be carrying ords. Throw ordenance-laden fighter-bombers into a fighter trap, you deserve to get what comes to you!

[5PointOh]

Another part of the GV aspect dawned on me this morning.  4 Lives per gv is ok, but IMO it should be a "floating" number. Example, in the last scenario, last frame the allied side had a total of of 14 tankers, the Axis had 8.  This equals 56 lives for the Allied and 32 lives for the Axis.  To me that number seems to be a bit overwhelming. Yes I know it sounds like "Scenerio ENY" but thats a huge advantage in the long run of the frame.  Just my thoughts though.

[USRanger]

Brooke contacted me in Frame 2 when Axis GVs were outnumbered asking me if it was ok if he gave them additional lives to even it out.  I said yes of course.  It ended up evening out so there was no need.  As for frame 4, at the frame start, there were equal players on each side, so if the Axis GVs were outnumbered that badly, ya might want to hunt your walk-on handler down and flog him.

[Fencer51]

Another part of the GV aspect dawned on me this morning.  4 Lives per gv is ok, but IMO it should be a "floating" number. Example, in the last scenario, last frame the allied side had a total of of 14 tankers, the Axis had 8.  This equals 56 lives for the Allied and 32 lives for the Axis.  To me that number seems to be a bit overwhelming. Yes I know it sounds like "Scenerio ENY" but thats a huge advantage in the long run of the frame.  Just my thoughts though.

This was enabled in this scenario.  Both COs had agreed to it and all that needed to be done was a request for it to implemented be given to Brooke by the respective CO.

[5PointOh]

Ah, was not aware that was the case.  Thought that was only frame 2.  Perhaps in the next scenerio with GVs that should be stated in the rules.  I'm not complaining, its just a suggestion for future frames.

[USCH]

Before i go into a big in depth message about what i would say, I would love to hear more of the axis side of this last scenario. they seem to have had a rough time and not enjoyed it even half as much as the allies....

Key notes i see right now are that:
#1. The 5min rule works
#2. Total lives may be more important than everyone gets 3 lives kind of thing... (i know i only used 1/2 of my lives vs some people getting killed alot quick and leaving) not wanting to gun for people.
#3. Recruiting for GV's needs to be better (i know alot of MA GVers knew nothing about the scenario)
#4. Online had great points about making the scenario from the ground up, As of right now i cant think of any scenario (even BoB and Big week) in witch Antiaircraft guns or tanks were not used during the operations. (BoB would have alot of gunners protecting things or ship gunners) (big week would need the same)

more later, but IMHO we all need to stay calm (some guys have gotten mad Ive read and want nothing to do with GV's in scenarios)
just like our plans on the allies side this past month, we all put alot of thinking and planing into it and had a blast. we have alot of smart talented people who I'm sure can make the ground war just as fun as the air war in the scenarios.

[BlauK]

I suppose I did not read through it all completely, but did anyone suggest providing air cover for the GVs? Protecting one's friendly GVs from enemy bombers? Is that not quite an obvious solution if GVs feel like they are getting hammered too much?

[5PointOh]

Before i go into a big in depth message about what i would say, I would love to hear more of the axis side of this last scenario. they seem to have had a rough time and not enjoyed it even half as much as the allies....

Pulled this from another thread, should probably be here instead.

 I myself had a good time, and there was public recruiting and private recruiting as well. Some showed up others didn't. After the first frame only 5 of the 20 registered players returned. Which to me was a huge disappointment to have 15 people not show or quit all togther. Not to mention two of them were GLs and one the original ground CO. Then I took over command the night before second frame, and I found difficult to fill 15 tanks. And my tankers that did show did an excellent job.

Sloehand, Kermit, Retail, Crypitic, and myself put a great deal of effort into this, between recruiting, collecting data, making maps, and conferences.  Thats all I have to say, you guys did a good job, and my guys did an outstanding job.

[USRanger]

I went through the same thing Nate.  In I believe it was Frame 2, I only had one guy show up for one of my Regiments, and another only had two guys show up.  That was a bad frame for us.  After that (which you will see when our boards are unlocked), is that we went on a massive recruiting spree.  People started bringing a buddy to walk-on & GV.  Luckily for me, they were some pretty dang good walk-ons too.  I think I had guys that signed up for a regiment and didn't show up for any frames.  I look forward to looking at each other's threads when the time comes bro.  I've never been in this position in a scenario before & had no clue if I was doing it right.  I'm glad I got to square off against one of my good buddies & semi-neighbor.  

P.S. bro:
    













 

(You'll understand. )

[OOZ662]

I went through the same thing Nate.  In I believe it was Frame 2, I only had one guy show up for one of my Regiments, and another only had two guys show up.  That was a bad frame for us.

The problem on our side existed because we all came from the same group of people. "HEELER's Group" as we began to be called were all picked up by close association with him and the other members of the group. Being close-knit, when the top of the chain (HEELER, batched, and myself) became severely disillusioned, the group left in one big heap, even taking a couple of the aircraft guys along who had also been recruited by HEELER. I believe the entire anti-tank 190F8 squadron almost dropped with us.

I'm sure many of them (especially the firebrands like batched) won't be returning to scenarios, period. I generally enjoy them enough that I will...though I'm not sure if I'll trust driving a tank any more. Unfortunate.