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

[Strip]

I misread the 8 tigers, none the less, its still the same. 24 lives for the tigers and 32 lives for Shermans, and T-34/85s.  To me thats just manipulating the numbers.

Numbers are what scenarios are balanced by....the fight between the two would be vastly different though.

Strip

[fudgums]

Your right, I did not fly DOB, though an explanation on how the two relate would be welcomed.

I have read the rules for nearly every scenario, Krupp Steel is unique in many ways.


Strip

Its not the rule writeup, its your assumption on the difference between the tiger and the firefly(not M4). The firefly proved that it could fight the tiger from long range or short range. The matchup of the firefly and the tiger was equal in DoB. As the tiger was being killed by shots from longer than 3k(could've been longer).

[Strip]

Well, I can agree with that to a point....

I still maintain the current setup should be run again with some little tweaks that others have mentioned.

Strip

[5PointOh]

Btw, which tank where you in Strip?

Nevermind, I checked the logs.

[USCH]

IMO the T34-85 was the real winner in this scenario, had the allies been held to equal numbers of M4's Vs Tigers and used the T34/76 and not the 85 the allies IMO would have had a much tougher time wining.

I don't think its broken but tweaks are in order....

If the rosters were full every day with equal Tiger to M4, and 1 squad of 85's and 1 squad of 76's to full squads of panzer's. I think the axis may have pulled it off.

Keep in mind during the real allied advance by the Russians they had the odds in there favor as well.

IMO the axis went about defence the wrong way, had I been defending i would have done what they did in frame 2 and more (as they denied us the one and only runway we can see they did well holding A7 that day.)

[Strip]

Btw, which tank where you in Strip?

Nevermind, I checked the logs.

I can see where this is headed, I should have known better than to have a constructive discussion. FYI, one of my good friends sat 10 feet away from me driving a GV on a spare computer. I have read nearly ever thread in Allies forum and heard a ton of vox chatter. Never mind I am in the process of designing a scenario for eventual submission to Brooke. Enjoy your sandbox...

Strip

[5PointOh]

]

IMO the T34-85 was the real winner in this scenario, had the allies been held to equal numbers of M4's Vs Tigers and used the T34/76 and not the 85 the allies IMO would have had a much tougher time wining.

I don't think its broken but tweaks are in order....

If the rosters were full every day with equal Tiger to M4, and 1 squad of 85's and 1 squad of 76's to full squads of panzer's. I think the axis may have pulled it off.

Keep in mind during the real allied advance by the Russians they had the odds in there favor as well.

IMO the axis went about defence the wrong way, had I been defending i would have done what they did in frame 2 and more (as they denied us the one and only runway we can see they did well holding A7 that day.)

In my opinion it is much more difficult to hold off an attack on a v-base vs an airbase. I truly think if the Allies were tasked with taking airbases the outcome may have been different.  Of course this is all speculation. 
Lets examine frame 4 (I cannot comment on frame 3 as I was not there due to PC issues).  According to the rules: Phase Three (Frames 3 and 4)
Battle on the eastern bank of the Oder River. The Soviets are attempting to take A34, V23 and A68 (the Soviet Objective Bases). The Germans are defending but can counter attack at A31 (the German Objective Base).
In frame 4 we had one base only to persue a capture of.  An airfield with one spawn, that was some distance from town or base.  Approximatelty a 10 min drive by an Axis tank (drove it many times in planning for frame 4).  The spawn from V30 (Allied base) to V23(Axis base) only takes 3-6 min depending on the vehicle you are assigned, and that is to the map room.  This left us very little time to get setup up.  Naturally the Allies used the higher ground to shell down the hangers and over run the base. 
I left my five best tankers there at T-10 into the frame to defend while three of us ventured off to capture A31, and for the most part it worked.  We did capture 31 but 23 fell to quickly for us to return and defend, with the other five tanks.   We discussed this in great detail, our plan and what we figured you’d do.  The Allies did exactly what we figured, shell the hangers and finish off the ground vehicles for the capture.   Almost identical to the Allies capture frame one, take out the hangers  and clear GVs. 
You refer to frame 2 where we held off the attempt at A7. We actually did that with about 6 guys (had a couple of discos and walk offs).  But the spawn into A7 was longer and it was a town full of buildings the Allies had to take down. 
In my eyes that is the major difference.  Even with our number differnces, I feel that if the Allies would have had to attack A34 first before they were aloud to capture V23, the outcome may have been different.  And again this is all speculation and there is really no way to tell, just my humble opinion.
I don’t know if eliminating GV base captures  or setting an “Order of Capture” would help even this out, but may be worth looking into.

I can see where this is headed, I should have known better than to have a constructive discussion. FYI, one of my good friends sat 10 feet away from me driving a GV on a spare computer. I have read nearly ever thread in Allies forum and heard a ton of vox chatter. Never mind I am in the process of designing a scenario for eventual submission to Brooke. Enjoy your sandbox...

Strip

Before you throw your hands up,  I was just trying to figure out how you knew so much about how all the tanks operated, and the feelings of the tankers. 

[Tilt]

] But the spawn into A7 was longer and it was a town full of buildings the Allies had to take down. 

Plus the drive into A7 town (IIRC) took the allies past A7 Field...............

I think A7 was the hardest objective of the scenariuo capture wise............... Vehicle fields are easier (in their default state) to take than some air fields so there  may be an arguement for them earning less points yet A64 was "sneaked" twice! (Axis didn't see this coming in F4? or just had insufficient numbers to defend?)

Showng that the numbers misbalance was critical when so few GV players were actually "in game". 

IMO Gv's should be open to all players as secondary rides (Jeeps, M16's, maybe even M8's) when such low numbers turn up. Gv lives should be measured in vehicles lost not players killed. It adds some difficulties for the CM but not insurmountable ones.

[Strip]

Before you throw your hands up,  I was just trying to figure out how you knew so much about how all the tanks operated, and the feelings of the tankers. 

Well the feelings of the Axis tankers I cant comment on other than whats been posted here, when the forums open it will be evident that the Allies had blast.

I would have joined the Allied GV's but I wanted to GL and USRanger was already slated for that area.

Strip

[sethipus]

If you look at the statistics over several months in the MA on Tiger vs. Firefly, the Tiger does kill the Firefly more often than vise versa.  I don't recall anymore what the stats are, but it's something like 1.3:1 ratio or something like that.  Yeah, the Firefly does kill the Tiger a lot, but it's not equal to it in that way.  The Firefly does kill the Tiger more easily than any other tank does, of course.

I don't agree that Tiger drivers should have fewer lives.  As we can see, if the Tiger drivers are in wooded areas, or in cities, and a smart T34 driver can take advantage of the T34's strengths, the Tigers go down in droves.  To back that up, I killed 11 Tigers in frame 4 in my T34-85.  I could not have done that in Dawn of Battle, where the wide open terrain would make it very difficult to exploit the T34's main strengths.

I think the Panzer drivers had it the worst off in this scenario.  They were outclassed by both the M4 and the T34-85.  The T34-85 was really only challenged by the Tiger - it should dominate the Panzer.

I don't think that the T34-76 is the answer to balance this.  It's essentially useless against Tigers, and is dominated by the Panzer if not well-played.  The T34-76 drivers wouldn't even come back after frame 1 of any scenario, because they would be sick and tired of getting pwned over and over again.

I think the key for a scenario like this is to keep the numbers even.  The fact that we had 4 to 6 more players on the Allied side in the last two frames was probably the single most important decisive factor in our victories in those frames.

As far as the vbase vs. airbase thing goes, sure, taking a vbase is easier than taking an air base.  Nobody will argue with that.  It's also the easier of the two to take back.  And the Axis did pull off a surprise (to us) take-back of V23 later on in Frame 4.

Perhaps we could have a scenario where it's 60% Panzers and 40% Tigers on the Axis side, and 100% T34-85s on the Allied side.  Eliminating the Firefly would allow the Tiger an increased margin of dominance, that might well balance out the dominance that the T34-85 would have over the Panzer and even things up.

[5PointOh]

That was a very nice write up Seth.  And you are right.  We realized the panzers weakness to the M4 and /85.  We used our panzers for mainly town defense.  And our numbers show, 160 kills for the Tiger group, and 30 for the Panzer group.

Its a tough call, to limit types of GVs or type of bases to be captured.  Again I think if some people hadn't quit after frame 1 the outcome may have been different, and trust me I do not fault the Allies on that one, and will keep my opinion to myself too   A lot of varibles.  I'd like to hear more from the CM's on their thoughts on how to create a happy medium

[MORAY37]

As far as ground support from the air, I know the 190-F8 pilots must have worked hard practicing that rocketing technique.  During frame 1 I was tracked by a 190 using rockets, in a very spot spot, where multiple Tigers and Panzers had shots at me from 2000-3000 yards away, and I was eventually killed.  In frame 4 I went out with two or three others at V23 to patrol the perimeter and see if anything was going on when some F8s attacked us, and I and another one or two of us were outright killed  by their rockets.

I can only say, after spending 30 minutes in a Tiger turning in circles under bomb after bomb in Frame one.... I wanted revenge. I transferred to 190F8's and  9 of the 25 kills the ground attack F-8s had against GV's were mine.  The shape charged rockets the 190F8 carries are the best gv busting rockets in game, and I sighted them in perfectly. 7 of those 9 kills were with rockets.

I will not waste my time again in GV's, and I really like ground tactics.   In Tunisia, it was the lack of historical perspective, namely the fact that a ground battle only erupted there due to the weather grounding aircraft from both sides, that ruined it. Looking at the real life Air Force sorties, it wasn't until day 4 that a single flight of P39's even got to Kasserine Pass.  IMO, that should have been modeled into the Scenario.  Instead a bomb fest erupted there.  I'm sure any Battle of the Bulge Scenario would be ruined in exactly the same way.

As far as this scenario, as it has been pointed out, you can't be in people's cockpits.  Using bombs to mark tanks....."it's not dive bombing.. it's glide bombing"....The rules strictly said, no group was permitted to even attack a tank unless it was the designated squad.  Attack is not defined by success or failure in the dictionary. Yaks strafed the pintle off of both Ooz's and my Tiger in Frame one.  This, combined with the fact, that any axis air cover was 20 minutes away, while the allies were 6 minutes away at most from the start of every frame.....C'mon, this scenario was tilted at the start, for one CM to win.  

Yes, airpower affected gv operations in real life. But, in real life, aircraft couldn't see GV's at 1.5K (~5,000 feet)  in heavy cover either, with a big bright red tag.  Whole battalions of tanks moved under cover without being sighted once, in real life.  

In AH, the superman eyes of the ground attackers will always tilt the battle in the favor of the air.  Hence, until this is dealt with, I will not participate in ground operations again.  The last two scenarios showed no way in making it fun.  

I see absolutely nothing wrong with hermetically sealing the GV portion of a Scenario from the rest.That is, unless you get rid of the icons from the air.

[USCH]

Im taking my ball and going home 

[Have]

C'mon, this scenario was tilted at the start, for one CM to win.  

 

Just for Your information, the rules were presented to both me and Swareiam/RedTail7 at the same time in 99% complete form AND it was up to us to choose our sides. I said I was fine either way and Swareiam wanted to lead the axis side. So that is how the sides got picked.

[Strip]

Implying that the scenario was specifically setup for one side to win is absolute crap.

Strip