EFCO Platoons: Crossing the Dnieper 1943

Chris from The Sharp End Gaming has been hard at work again on Command Ops scenarios. Lately, he's really been pushing the engine to the limit by developing platoon and company level scenarios, something CO wasn't designed to do. Since these fit in with my current fixation on small unit actions (and because Chris' scenarios always rock) I gave his latest, Crossing the Dnieper 1943 a try.

Scenario description. I believe that Chris and I are determined to simulate every East Front river crossing engagement that ever happened between the two of us.

That Fleeting Moment - Map Preview

Here's a preview of the map I've put together (with help from Chris and Tim) for what I plan to be my first Command Ops scenario.

The map is of the area around Gela, Sicily. The scenario, That Fleeting Moment concerns the counterattack on July 12, 1943 by elements of the Herman Goering and Livorno Divisions against the beachhead of the US 1st Infantry Division. With the map ready to go comes the tough part - creating and ESTAB that contains the Italian units necessary for this theater. Hopefully using the ESTAB editor is as easy as the Map Maker was. Even so, there's a lot of research to be done.

Across the Tartar Ditch - German AAR

Tim at RangerX3X beat me to the punch with his great AAR of Chris' soon to be released latest Command Ops scenario, Across the Tartar Ditch. In this scenario the German LIV Corps is tasked with making the breakthrough into Crimea. Opposing them are the Soviet 51st Army. The Soviets in particular hold a substantial (and ancient) fortification known as the Tartar Ditch that the Germans will need to penetrate to accomplish the breakthrough.

Scenario Briefing

Bon Giorno Tomahawks

I spent a good part of yesterday playing Chris Maiorana's latest Command Ops masterpiece, Across the Tartar Ditch. Chris just keeps knocking out great additions to Command Ops in a theater not yet part of any of the official expansions. Look for this one later this week or next on Sharp End Gaming. This is not an easy scenario for either side!

All of that blizkrieging left me homesick for Sicily though. I returned to the sunny Mediterranean today at a very tactical level with Aris' semi-historical scenario for Combat Mission Fortress Italy: Bon Giorno Tomahawks.

Pz. Kpfw IV's brew up as they're flanked by a platoon of Shermans. More tanks support infantry in the village

New Command Ops Scenarios

Chris from Sharp End Gaming has released the second in his trilogy of Stalingrad scenarios, Race for the Volga. Like Operation Hubertus I was fortunate to help play test this scenario and I can tell you, it's a great one. A definite change of pace from the attrition-heavy fighting of Hubertus, Race really is a race from both side to build up sufficient combat power in the right places to take/hold the high value objectives before the enemy does.

Meanwhile, Tim Williams has released a set of four scenarios called the Tactical Battles Series. These scenarios have a common map and set of objectives and are illustrative of different types of operations, e.g. Airborne, Armor, Line and Combined Ops. I haven't had a chance to play these yet but the idea looks great. I'll be downloading them tonight.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I got smoked again in the "Platoon Recon" mission in SBPro PE 3.0 again tonight. Twice!

Operation Hubertus - German AAR

For the past several days I've been mercilessly playtesting Chris' Command Ops East Front scenario Operation Hubertus from the German side.  I'm pleased to say that this is one of the most interesting and challenging Command Ops scenarios I've played.  This is not an easy scenario for the Germans; indeed I've yet to do better than a draw.  The complexity of the attacks, the need for excellent timing to allow the divisions to be mutually supportive, and the challenge of having to rotate units in and out of reserve to rest them while always feeling that you don't have enough troops to take that critical objective - well, I've learned more about both Command Ops and commanding multiple divisions in an attack than in just about anything else I've played.

Here then, is a complete AAR of the German side of Operation Hubertus.

Operation Hubertus: Day One

Chris from Sharp End Gaming has graciously invited me, along with Tim Williams from RangerX3X to playtest an early version of his majestic Operation Hubertus scenario.  Tim already has an AAR up of his initial turns, playing as the Soviets. I'm going to play the scenario as the Germans.

If you are a Command Ops player, you are definitely going to want to play this scenario.  The forces are finely balanced and the urban combat is unlike nearly any other Command Ops scenario I've played. Winning this will take some fine generalship - probably finer than I can muster! This is probably the most fun I've had playing Command Ops - and I generally find Command Ops scenarios a lot of fun to play.

Some scenes from Day 1 of the battle:

Day 1 objectives are the Red October and Barrikady factories. I'm moving a Pioneer battalion and KG Seydel into position to join the 212 and 226 Sturm Companies.  Once the assault is prepared, I'm going to attack the Red October factory with the Pioneers and Sturmtruppen with the KG in support.

While my formations move into place, I bombard the objective in preparation.

Dawn breaks as the assault forces maneuvers into position.

Meanwhile, in the south of the city, I prepare several shaping attacks.  I want to tie up Soviet reserves and keep them out of the fight for the factories.

Soviet resistance and artillery fire in the south of the city is tough.  The shaping attacks take casualties before they even really kick off.

By 0822 the Pioneers and Sturm Companies have secured a foothold in the Red October factory.  Strong Soviet forces are still in the area, however.

To the north, a Soviet flanking attack is developing.  I commit the entire 576 Grenadier Infantry Regiment to a spoiling attack to break up the Soviet maneuver before it becomes a problem. The battered 544 Infantry holds in place north of the tractor factory.

The Germans hold the Red October factory, but significant Soviet forces are gathered around the Commissar's House.  That looks a lot like a counter-attack shaping up, to me.

In the south, the 191 Regiment attacks the Pavlov's House objective.
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Around noon, most of the Soviet troops in the vicinity of the tractor factory have moved west to threaten the 576 Grenadier Regiment HQ.  A recently arrived Croatian regiment is headed north to reinforce them.  I take this opportunity to move the 544 Infantry Regiment south and take the tractor factory objective.

The 576 Infantry took a bit of a drubbing, but managed to stop the Soviet flanking move.  I pull them back to their original positions to rest.

After heavy fighting, the 191 Infantry take the Pavlov's House objective around 1600. This prompts a counter-attack from Soviet forces in the area to the north that will require a further five hours of fighting to clear.

Two reinforcing Pioneer battle groups are now in place to begin the assault on the Barrikady Gun Factory. It is late in the afternoon, but these are fresh troops and I think sufficient to take the objective.

The 544 Infantry hold on at the tractor factory in the face of Soviet counter-attacks.  If they can hold, I'll move the 369 Croatian to their north and seize the Skudri Crossing.  I hadn't intended on grabbing any of the crossings on Day 1, but doing so should keep the Soviets in the north occupied and away from the main effort at the factories.

Things are going well, so I optimistically believe the Pioneer unit backed by KG Seydel can take the Commissar's House objective.  This is a mistake: those troops have been moving and fighting for 14 hours and should be rested before any further attacks.

Assault Group Linden's planned path to the Barrikady Gun Factory takes then straight into a pile of Soviet units. I'm going to adjust their orders to try and bypass the enemy and head straight for the factory.

The attack on the Commissar's House objective is a disaster.  By 1930 I pull my troops back to the Red October factory to take up defensive positions for the night.

Around the same time, 191 Infantry with help from some reinforcements KG Scheel has defeated all the Soviet counter attacks on the Pavlov's House objective and the Germans are pretty firmly in control of the south of the city.

The assault on the Barrikady Gun Factory gets underway while the 396 Croatian prepares to take the Skudri Crossing.  Artillery pounds Soviet units caught in No Man's Land.

The Croatians have taken the crossing, and the 544 Infantry still holds the tractor factory as night begins to fall.

Around midnight the 336 Pioneer Regiment secures the Barrikady Gun Factory, and with it, I've taken my planned for Day 1 objectives.  It's been no picnic, however, and I've taken some casualties.  If the Soviets can mount a significant counter-attack tomorrow, I may be in trouble.

Situation at the end of the first 24 hours. I'm working on an encirclement of the Lazur Chemical Factory and Commissar's House objectives, which are my primary objectives for Day 2. I don't have a ton of reinforcements expected, but I am getting a couple of battalions of assault guns.  Combined with still relatively strong Pioneer formations, I think I stand a decent chance of taking the Chemical Plant.

More to come!  I'll also be finishing up the Zumbelay Withdraw AAR in the next day or so.

Update: Chris has provided an updated scenario, that I'll be playing through this evening.  So, I won't finish this particular AAR, but I will do a full AAR of the entire scenario once we have a release version, probably this weekend based on Chris' latest post.

Stalingrad! Stalingrad! Stalingrad!

Chris from Sharp End Gaming has graciously invited me, along with Tim Williams from RangerX3X to playtest an early version of his majestic Operation Hubertus scenario.  Tim already has an AAR up of his initial turns, playing as the Soviets.

I'm going to play the scenario as the Germans.  Right now I'm just familiarizing myself with the OOB for the German side and have yet to formulate any real plans.  Mostly I'm just taking in this phenomenal map and scenario.

Overview of the full map.

3rd Battalion 208th Infantry Regiment near the heavily defended approaches to the Lazur Chemical Plant.  Not where I'll be kicking off my attack.

A view of the center of the city.

The depleted 544th Infantry Regiment on the northern flank of the city, near the tractor factory.

 The armored fist of KG Seydel, waiting to support the Pioneer's attack.

Initial objectives, the Red October and Barrikady factories.

There are a lot of units on the map, but I don't think its going to be necessary (or even wise) to get them all moving into the attack at once.  I'm going to mull over my plan a bit.  Stay tuned...

Also note that Tim has undertaken a massive venture of his own, modding Command Ops for Pacific Theater operations. Between these two guys Command Ops players are going to have new scenarios and be able to play in theaters like never before.

Drive on Loenen Revisited

Once I'd proven to myself that a straight up multi-battalion attack couldn't take the objectives in this Command Ops scenario, I wanted to find an approach that could.  Again, I tried this a few times, utilizing an approach designed to infiltrate troops to staging areas close to the objectives while avoiding obvious locations for blocking forces.  Each time, the outcome was superior to the Decisive Defeats I scored in my earlier attempts.

The key is to avoid the obvious locations for blocking forces.  I've assigned 1st Battalion and the regimental engineers to skirt the right side of the map, assemble south of the town of Loenen, and then attack the objective.  I've told them to move at their fastest pace, take an avoidance route, maximize their rate-of-fire, confine their organic artillery support to just this formation, and to not rest.

Second Battalion will "thread the needle" between the two forest tracks, seeking to avoid the potential blocking forces likely to be on those routes.  They will then assemble in the forest south of the eastern objective, and attack.

Finally, 3rd Battalion plus the regimental AA will move to the west of the forest track, assemble in the open area southwest of the western objective, and attack.  Both 2nd and 3rd Battalions have the same movement/attack orders as 1st Battalion.  I've left the regimental field artillery under HQ command.

All three battalions are moving into position without tangling with Axis blocking troops.

By noon or so all three objectives are under attack.  The southern objectives are close to being cleared.

At 13:15 both southern objectives are under control of the 504th.

Still holding the southern objectives at 1500, though repeated Axis counterattacks continue to dispute my control throughout the afternoon.

By 1800 I've taken all three objectives, but the objective to the west becomes disputed in the final minutes due to an Axis counterattack. I suspect that if I'd taken control of the artillery at the end I could have broken up the attack and held on to the Decisive Victory I had going.

This is an excellent scenario for demonstrating the importance of intelligent maneuver over simply battering your way through toward an objective.  Careful allocation of assets to objectives also wins over sheer combat power.

You can grab this scenario from Tim's blog here.

Drive on Loenen

Tim from RangerX3X posted a great AAR about the Drive on Loenen scenario from Red Devils Over Arnhem/HTTR.  I wondered in the comments about a more coup de main sort of approach driving straight up the middle with the 504th's battalions arranged in a classic "two up, one back" fashion.  While I don't own either of the two older Panther games this scenario was included in, Tim ported the scenario to Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge so I was able to give it a try.

As Tim notes, this is a tough scenario.  I gave my idea a try with a few different variants.  They all came out about the same.  The 504th seems to have more than enough combat power to get the job done, but the time pressure is overwhelming.

Scenario briefing and the settings I'm playing with. Playing with Realistic Orders Delay in such a time limited scenario is probably masochistic, but I'm a slave to history, I guess.

The plan is to send 1st and 2nd Battalions in an attack up the right side of the map line abreast, both in vee formation, and then on to attack the eastern objective.  I'm having them attack rather than move to clear any Axis blocking forces.  I've attached the AA unit to 2nd Battalion and the regimental engineers to 1st Battalion to boost the combat power of both formations.

3rd Battalion is to move to the highway to the west, up the highway to the south of the crossroads, and then attack along the road to Loenen.

By 0930 most units are in position to start attacks on the objectives.  My eastern force has encountered a blocking force.  My hope is that the combined firepower of two battalions and attachments will be sufficient to quickly brush aside any resistance like this.

This doesn't really work.  Two hours later and the SS infantry is still in the way.  I've ordered 1st Battalion to reorganize and attack north to the eastern objective south of Loenen.  Meanwhile, 3rd Battalion is encountering resistance shortly after it launches it's attack.

About three hours left and we aren't making much headway.  1st Battalion is finally clearing the first objective while 2nd Battalion tries to get organized to join them.  Third Battalion lacks the punch to advance to the east.

I finally take one objective and am preparing to advance on Loenen when time runs out.  Every variant of this strategy I've tried has ended up this way, including the most literal interpretation of my suggested approach: 1st and 2nd Battalions forward with 3rd in reserve, straight up the forest track to attack the center objective and then on to Loenen.

I have a couple more ideas I want to try, but it's pretty clear that an infiltration strategy is a more sound approach here than trying to punch through using a PIR. That might work with an armored regiment, but the paratroopers don't provide enough shock to brush aside the blocking forces quickly.

Command Ops - Lion Route

I'm giving Flashpoint Campaigns a rest tonight and trying out a new Command Ops scenario, designed by Chris of The Sharp End Gaming blog. Chris' scenario depicts the assault via the "Lion Route" of the British 1st Para Brigade to relieve Frost's men at the Arnhem rail bridge during Operation Market Garden.

I have to admit my knowledge of Market Garden in general and this part of the operation specifically is pretty hazy.  I read A Bridge Too Far over a decade ago and saw the movie when I was much, much younger.  Beyond the general details of what happened I don't remember much.  I know that Robert Redford crosses the river at night in a boat, but I don't think Chris' scenario covers that part.

Here's the opening situation on the morning of the 18th.  Frost is camped on the bridge, and the rest of 1st Brigade is around Oosterbeek.

My initial thought is to pull 3rd Battalion south to a defensive line along the canal north of town, while 1st Battalion consolidates a defensive position on the Oosterbeek objective. Frost and the 2nd Battalion will take up defensive positions around the north end of the bridge, and hold on.  I also send a recce unit to probe the Lion Route objective.

Looks like there are fairly strong German forces taking up positions on the Lion Route objective.  I order 3rd Battalion further south in line with 1st Battalion, and then order both battalions to kick off an attack on the Lion Route objective.

Despite a day's fighting, 1st and 3rd Battalions haven't been able to force the Lion Route objective.  Meanwhile, German units have come down from the north and threaten our rear areas.  I'm reinforced by the 2nd Staffords, who I assign to launch a counterattack against the advancing SS troops.

Situation just after midnight, September 19th.  Frost and 2nd Battalion have been forced off of the bridge.  I've retreated 1st and 3rd Battalions to rest and prepare for a new assault in the morning. The 2nd Staffords have been joined by the 11th and 156th Battalions in their attack on the SS units threatening Oosterbeek.  These troops are proving tough for the Red Devils to dislodge.

Morning arrives, and Frost is in trouble.  I've moved the recently arrived 10th Battalion up to help 1st and 3rd Battalions in the morning assault on Lion Route.  The 2nd Staffords, 156th and 11th Battalions are still bogged down fighting the remaining SS units to the west of Oosterbeek.

Things pretty much fell apart from here.  2nd Battalion was essentially destroyed by heavy SS attacks.  1st and 10th Battalions launched an attack on the Lion Route with some initial success, but were eventually repulsed.  3rd Battalion just decided the entire idea was a bad one, and bunkered down.  Some German paratroopers showed up to the north, so I dispatched the 2nd Staffords and the 11th Battalion to see them off while the 156th Battalion continued to mop up west of Oosterbeek.  We managed to push them back, but only just enough to get a good picture of the massive concentrations of German troops on the Lions Route and bridge objectives.

It was pretty obvious at this point that I was whipped, so I hoisted the white flag and came here to tell you about it.

Despite being thoroughly beaten, this was a fun scenario.  British combat power seems like it isn't strong enough to counter the significant German reinforcements that arrive, so I'm thinking the best approach is to try and force the Lion Route objective early, and then try and hold it strongly enough to siphon off some troops from the attacks on Frost.  Grabbing the objective of the heights north of town might help with that as well, but that seems impractical until most or all of the British reinforcements arrive - at which point there are bad guys between you and there.

This is a challenging scenario that looks like it requires top notch generalship to eke out so much as a draw.  This is one of those I suspect I'll play over and over as the British until I can get good enough to win! A big thanks to Chris for coming up with such a great scenario.

Update: Chris has posted an updated scenario file here if you'd like to give this a whirl.