Combat Mission Red Thunder: Interesting Screenshots

Just a couple of interesting screenshots from today's gaming:

Tank riders! I'm feeling the combined arms love more in this game than any other since CMSF. Better not take these guys into an exposed position like this, though...

Check out that radio set! This poor FO team observer is hauling the equivalent of a living room cabinet radio set around on his back. The red line in a new (?) feature showing active command links. 

I found the visible portrayal of command links very useful in Graviteam Tactics and am delighted to see it implemented in Combat Mission.

Assault on Bespalovka - Graviteam Tactics Operation Star

Looking back, I realize that I started this blog a year ago during last Thanksgiving weekend.  Something about this time of year must put me in mind of the Eastern Front of WWII.  One year ago I was playing Achtung Panzer (now renamed Graviteam Tactics), the same game I'm playing tonight.

Tonight I'm playing the Taranovka campaign from the German side, during the Soviet "Operation Star" in early February of 1943.  Operation Star was the Soviet offensive after the destruction of the German 6th Armee at Stalingrad to recapture the cities of Kursk and Karkov.  Initially successful, the Soviets over-extended their attack, setting the stage for Von Manstein's famous counter-attack in the Third Battle of Kharkov.

The Taranovka campaign deals with the encirclement of the German 320th Infantrie Division in and around the Ukrainian town of Taranovka.  I'm commanding the 2nd Battalion on one of the regiments of this division. The weather is nasty: very cold with a blizzard the night before.  In this particular action I'm advancing on the village of Bespalovka to the south of Taranovka with 4. Companie reinforced with some infantry guns and a recon section.  My intent is to begin to break the encirclement so I can link up with units of the SS Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler to the southwest.  Having fended off a probe around dawn, I know that there are troops from the Soviet 6th Guards Cavalry in the area of the village.

One of the things I love about this game are the maps.  I'm a sucker for games that use actual military maps.  

Within a few minutes of stepping off, 4. Companie encounters a Soviet platoon.  We quickly flank them and the weight of fire of three German platoons backed by a pair of infantry guns wipes out the Soviets in a few minutes.

Note the orange smoke in the picture above.  This game is really gorgeous, and full of nice weather effects, signal flares, explosions and fires.  The combat is by far the most immersive of any game of this scale I've ever played.

Bespalovka itself is occupied only by an AT gun.

With no infantry support, the AT gun is first neutralized by a mortar round and then overrun, albeit not without casualties.  Note that in this shot the red and yellow dots indicate the position of my troops.

In less than half an hour we've secured the village.  I elect to rest my most fatigued platoon and send another platoon to recce the crossroads to the west.  If they encounter no resistance, I'm intend to move them toward the objective marked "Rail Crossing" further to the west.

The Soviets have more infantry and guns to the south of the village!  My troops come under fire, so I move a platoon supported by the infantry guns to the south side of the village to defend that flank.  Concentrated fire from squad MG42s and indirect fire from the infantry guns routs the Russians in a few minutes.

Shortly thereafter my platoon takes the rail crossing.

What's that odd sound?  A trio of Soviet biplanes!  This was great - for some reason I've never had an air attack happen to me when playing this game before today.

The aircraft make a pass over the village and rail crossing, and bank around...

...for a bombing run! The bombs turn out to be neither accurate nor terribly effective.

Nor are my troops minded to take being bombed lying down, as tracers criss-cross the sky.

With the village and rail crossing occupied, I dispatch the recce section toward Hill 209 to scout the route for a next advance.

I'm always puzzled by the scoring in this game.  Most of the time when playing a campaign I ignore it, since what really counts in achieving your self-selected objectives to move toward a campaign victory.  In this case I grabbed a good bit of territory without completely gutting my force, while causing some significant Soviet losses. 

Now, if I can just survive the Soviet armored attacks about to happen to my relief force to the southwest...

Operation Hooper

After a few months playing anything but, I've returned to my fundamental interest: modern armored warfare simulations.  I've been alternating between Graviteam Tactics Operation Hooper and the old standby of Combat Mission Shock Force.

Operation Hooper is quite the departure from previous Graviteam games in the Operation Star series.  Set during the 1980's Angolan Civil War/South African Border War, actions are much more mechanized.  Terrain is very different than the frozen Russian steppe of Operation Star. Combat is decidedly deadlier, with longer weapon ranges and infantry with much more effective anti-tank capabilities.  Armor is no longer essentially invulnerable to an infantry squad, so you'd better not send your tank forward without their own infantry in support.

I've seen some gamers wondering why Graviteam would select this conflict (focused down to a single operation during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale) rather than other, better known modern conflicts.  I suspect that given Soviet involvement in the conflict, this war is better known to a Russian development studio with contacts in the Russian military than it is to the typical Westerner.  Graviteam has also visited this conflict before in Steel Armor: Blaze of War and no doubt already had maps and models complete, probably significantly shortening development time and decreasing development expense.  Regardless, I find the conflict interesting and have enjoyed learning about it rather than rehashing something I'm already very familiar with.  I think it would be very interesting to see this same engine applied to some of the Arab-Israeli wars, however.

The UI, for better or worse, is the same as the other APOS games (Operation Hooper is a DLC, not a standalone game and so uses the APOS engine).  All of the documentation and translation woes we've come to expect from Graviteam are still present, and maybe a bit worse this time around.  Still, this is an incredibly fun game to play if you've become familiar with how this system works.

To me, the strength of the APOS engine is that you can really function as the battalion or brigade commander.  The operational maps and elements of the game allow you to concentrate on developing a sound tactical plan and to provide direction to your subordinate units during combat, rather than worrying about the minutiae of making sure each squad is taking a covered route or other micro-management of your forces. Troops behave pretty intelligently, taking cover when appropriate and prioritizing targets.  Despite its warts, the APOS engine remains in my opinion possibly the best battalion/brigade-level simulation engine available today - and with Operation Hooper we now have a modern campaign to re-fight.

The SADF assault failed, by the way.  While I was able to overrun the outlying positions and the T-62s actually entered the area around Tumpo Tri, the dug-in AT guns were too much for the assault force.  My attack would have benefited from some indirect fire on the enemy positions.