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  The Game is on! Please do not post spoilers in other threads than this oneGerman Thread Soviet Thread Russia, Summer 1944. A great offensive - Operation Bagration - has gone into action, and Russian forces are advancing against fierce German resistance. Millions of men are fighting across hundreds of miles of front.  Now, in a small corner of Bellorussia or Eastern Poland (because who is keeping track at times like these) two forces are clashing, while only a few hundred men amougnst millions, thieir fight is no less important in the grand scheme of things. in fact, the men fighting on the ground should, in some way, be pitied. For their commanders are a bunch of Goons. Welcome to my Combat Mission : Red Thunder take command thread, which will hand the command of units at a single tank/platoon scale to the hands of you ugly lot, you will give your unit an order, and I will put that order into the game. The catch? Both sides in this game will have goon commanders, and each side will have its own thread and videos, meaning this will be a head to head battle! What is Combat Mission: Red Thunder? CM:RT is a turn based game with realtime turns - you play as either Russia or Germany in 1944. (other games cover D-Day, Market Garden and Italy, as well as a fictional 2012 war in Syria which is haunting the devs.) Turns are WEGO - both sides plots their orders, then is forced to sit back and watch as sixty seconds of chaos play out where you can’t change a thing. The game is super grognardy - it measures rate of fire, weapon penetration, armour slope and thickness, and tropp quality and morale. It does have its faults however, the UI hasn’t changed much in ten years, orders can take a long time to plan and graphically its a little old compared to modern games - although RT has added hit decals so you can now see how many times your T-34’s gun has bounced off the front of that Tiger. So, How will this work First, we will pick a battle type - the options are as follows: quote:German/Russian Assault - One side will be on the defensive, the other will be given the task of taking ground. The attacker will have nearly twice the points of the defender, and some recon of the ground before the attack. The Defender can purchase fortifications. More points are awarded for holding objectives. At the same time, people who are interested in having a unit will declare their side. There will be four ranks Force Commander - Will be in charge of picking the forces for the side, and for giving orders to company commanders and overall strategy. Company Commander - In charge of giving orders to the platoon commander. Platoon commander - is in charge of three or so squads of infantry. Tank/Support unit - A single tank or a selection of support squads - exactly how this will work will be decided between me and the commander. Once chosen, we will deploy for battle on a map of my choosing, and then orders will be given.  A very strategic deployment. The plan is that each level of command should not be micromanaging the one below - so here is an example of a bad order chain. quote:CO - Right, I want 1st Squad here, 2nd here. We will attack the hill up these lines with artillery support… Tanks, I want you to pause for thirteen seconds……. Yeah, thats going to be no fun for the lower commanders, and does away with the point of having each level with a separate commander. Here is a good order chain Example. quote:CO - “1st Company, take that hill, 2nd company provide support, tanks provide overwatch” See everyone is useful! To get over the initial moving to contact part of the game, the first phase will be a five turns - i.e, you will need to supply enough orders for five minutes of game. After that I’ll decide if we need another 3/4/5 minute turn or if we should switch to 1 min turns - if there is no contact in the first 5 min turn, I’ll most likely ask for another 5 mins, then stop if contact is made before then. What kind of units can we buy? Red Thunder has most of the famous tanks and support units, as well as a good selection of units - so pretty much anything that saw action in 1944 could be on the field.  How will we give orders? I will make a large 2000 pixel version of the map, with units marked as follows.  1/1/1 means 1st squad, 1st platoon, 1st company. The red border will allow groups to be quickly distinguished. This will show where your units are. I’ll also provide a top down view from the current turn, which will show exactly where the units are and the enemy. Orders should be given my marking the route/destination for your unit(s) on a copy of the map, making it as clear as possible what you want your guys to do and where. You screwed my order up!  You mean you didn't want a whole company to charge forwards en-mass? Oh, sorry, those were the Russian orders! Maybe, maybe not - Combat Mission Pixeltuppen have their own AI, so may take different routes to a target than you would expect, or flat out refuse to charge that german MG position across 300 meters of open terrain. If I have misunderstood your order, then you obviously didn’t make it clear enough! I will say so and then ignore any calls to replay the turn because your entire platoon now lies dead in a Russian swamp. What is the LOS on my guy? I will only be supplying LOS in specific situations, otherwise I’ll be supplying 100 screenshots per turn. Grey, what if I am a complete child, and I get annoyed with your misspelling of the thread title for the Germans. This causes me to throw my toys from my pram and post the complete German OOB in the Allied thread, forcing them to change from a balanced force of MKIV’s and other support units to a much more gimmicky force of Tigers and Panthers?” Then you will become the second person on my block list. There were some problems with the last time you did this, how will you address these? 1) The main problem last time was some people got bored in the “move to contact phase and wandered off. the 5 min start should deal with that problem. 2) The large annotated map should solve the “where are my units” problem, and should just be a matter of me moving bits around in photoshop, once things get going. 3) I’ve manned up to my own voice, so while the last videos had no commentary, this time I will be providing (hopefully unbiased) vocal support in the videos. I’m also a lot more confident with my video editing software, so I will be doing fixed point main runs with cuts to closer views of the action. What timescale are you looking at for this I plan to do a Advance Tactics Gold LP at the same time, and of course I have Roleplaying games two nights a week. the videos themselves will take some time to put together and render - longer for the first few turns of course, and it should be quicker once we are in the 1 min per turn with a few zooms. Given you lot time for orders, and for me to do my side, we are looking at around two turns a week I think. So please don’t sign up unless you can commit to a good few months - we can sub for a week or so if you are going on holiday, but if you're going on a six month holiday in three weeks, please don’t take a spot someone else can commit to. I’m in, now what? I’ve created a spreadsheet Here There are columns for if you are interested in a command, and a separate tab for the battle options. To register/vote, please put your username in the correct column. (Please don’t vandalize this to much) As some of the battle options are independent, you are allowed to put a vote in each relevant column. in this case, I’ll take the winner from each column, and try and find a map that matches these requirements as best I can. Commanders will be voted for amongst those who are interested. The game will play differently for the different layers of command, as the CO's will only have their own people to move. Let the terrible decisions begin!  “Hold me, Hans.” “Its okay, it will all be over soon Fritz. The command to charge just came in,” Grey Hunter fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 05:51
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Jobbo_Fett posted:In as German support unit. I wonder what options I have I'm classing support as unattached Machine guns, Flamethrowers, AT guns - basically smaller units Tank Destroyers are close enough to tanks to be in that category. depending on how many people are interested and what positions we have once the forces are picked, we can move people around. We may end up with one a few tanks and 10 tank commanders, but huge numbers of infantry being needed. also, the mobile flak-wagons the Germans use are an odd case.
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Jun 26, 2014 12:25
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Willie Tomg posted:HOLY FRIJOLES the last CM game I every played was Barbarossa to Berlin and while my impression wasn't the later entries in the series weren't too radically different gameplay-wise, the series has gotten a lot better about making some visceral dang footage. Yeah, while not CoH's pretty, this game does have its own charm. and two years of Roleplaying games have helped boost my confidence somewhat. No one going to man up and take command of Ze Germans? I've added a few people to the spreadsheet, 15/12 Soviet German split, with meeting engagement in a village winning so far. Don't worry about not knowing what you are doing people! As long as your orders seem realistic, they should work.
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Jun 27, 2014 05:54
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Okay! We seem to be good for the higher ranks, and we may need to give a couple of units a person, but we have enough votes to move forwards. dtkozl & unwantedplatypus You are the commanders. Please get in contact with me, at thegryehunter@gmail.com. We can then get onto picking units. There is still plenty of time to join in! I'm just getting this moving forwards
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Jun 28, 2014 12:54
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gradenko_2000 posted:This thread will still be open and have overall updates for the peanut gallery, right? Yeah, so you guys can all laugh as they drive a tank towards a load of infantry....
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Jun 30, 2014 17:10
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I've picked the map now, and I have both army selections, so I plan on doing the video tour tonight and getting that up so people can see what they think. After that, we'll split into different threads and start divvying up the troops. This will be the long part on my end, as I need to do all then photoshop stuff before hand - once the photoshop files are made up, it should be quicker after each turn, but getting every unit an icon will take a little time. That said, I can be doing that while you lot are deciding on your deployments..... (still plenty of time to sign up is what I'm saying)
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Jul 1, 2014 07:21
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 There is the map I have selected. I'm part way through a Distant Worlds update, but once I've done that, I'll get to work on the threads for the two sides. (Click for video)
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Jul 1, 2014 17:31
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Nenonen posted:"River... fordable probably all the way across" Look, Would I do that to you. I have tested this, and the following parts of the river are defiantly navigable by vehicles.  Click here for the full 1918x1607 image This is also the size of the main battle map I'm going to be making.
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Jul 2, 2014 06:31
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Nenonen posted:Someone asked in the spreadsheet how big forces will we have. I don't know what Grey has in his mind but the max is 7209 points (Huge meeting engagement) which buys you a samovarload of poo poo, for example: a platoon (5x) of Panthers, a platoon (4x) of Hetzers and two companies of mech infantry on halftracks along with a heavy arty battery and some flak and flamethrower vehicles for Germans, or a company (10x) of T-34/85s with a Tankodesantniki company and sapper platoon, a company (x5) of IS-2s and a loving rifle battalion for Russians. This on an average attributes, you can fudge the values by making them fearless elite supermen or conscript mice. This is going to be a large battle, so about a battalion a side. The new threads should be going up tonight, getting my rear end kicked in over in Ghana took longer than expected, so I didn't have the time to start them this morning. the main thing that will take me some time is writing out all the positions for both sides.....
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Jul 2, 2014 07:50
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We've already picked forces, but if the commanders really want another couple of thousand points I'm willing to give it to them. Both sides would have to agree, as they have seen the map now.
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Jul 2, 2014 10:40
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Nenonen posted:Oh. If the forces have been picked already doesn't that mean that joining is closed, what with you can't have more commanders than there are command posts? I'm not sure exactly how many posts there are for each side yet, so people can still put their names down.
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Jul 2, 2014 13:46
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Soup Inspector posted:Quick question - how much help will complete neophytes like myself get? Sure, our panicked flailing is probably going to be amusing, but I imagine that our team mates would appreciate it if we could at least muster something approaching worthwhile actions. I'll make sure to tell you if something is impossible, but each thread should have someone who can play in it, if not, I'm fine for the penut gallery to chip in for purely mechanical things.
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Jul 2, 2014 14:17
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The threads are up! German Thread Soviet Thread AttentionIf you are playing the game, please do not read any further than this post. Go to your thread, unbookmark this one, come back when the game is over and you have won/lost. thanks! Everyone else. you may now begin spoilers! the rest of this message will be blank to provide some space so the next post isn't all !Tigrs! Tigers! Grey Hunter fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 17:43
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Depending on which side you are on they may not have been assigned yet
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Jul 2, 2014 18:30
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sniper4625 posted:Dunno how much help this will be, but it was handy to have in the old threads: Thanks! I knew I forgot something! I'll post this into both threads.
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Jul 2, 2014 19:01
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sniper4625 posted:Hahaha, sorry for the snipe Grey. Just thought I'd go ahead and post in when I saw Dkotzl request one in thread. No problem, I was playing GNUorder in the Bloodbowl Lp, so was a little distracted at the time. I'll get you scale as soon as I can, but I've got a busy day today, so I'm not sure when thatb will be - maybe even tomorrow morning! Tevery Best posted:Am I the only one who thinks Germans would literally get instantly curbstomped if those IS-2s just rolled towards them? No fancy tactics, just tanks on the move. Those Panzer IV Ausf. Js are light years behind, they won't be able to even scratch them before it's too late. Yeah, the Germans are light on AT, I tried to hint that towards UP, but I didn't want to be seen to be pushing, hence the chance to redo your forces - they are dropping the halftracks for some artillery and a Jadgpanzer, which will have a good chance of killing the IS-2s. Also, every German unit carries panzer fausts, so the Germans always have something that can kill armour! (Double checks which thread he is in) I get so paranoid about posting the wrong thing in the wrong thread!
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Jul 3, 2014 07:34
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We're playing a meeting engagement, so most of the points come from holding the objective. That said, killing all the enemy gives you the objective for free. If one side ignores the objective to kill the other, they could win if they hit them hard in the flank, if they miss them, then they will lose as all the other side has to do is dig in in the buildings and hold on for an hour. whats more likely is both sides will send a good chunk of their forces towards the enemy, with a smaller force tasked with taking the station - the main fighting will be over trying to stop each other from crossing the river at the five obvious crossing points. To begin with, the Tanks will be the main players, as they have the range, but as they get knocked out (and they will) the infantry will come into play. the Russian SMG's will have an advantage in the buildings, so I expect them to try and cross the river while the riflemen hold off the Germans. All in all, this should be an interesting game.
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Jul 3, 2014 09:24
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Pierzak posted:When does the game proper start? Well, the Germans have their forces now, so as soon as they divide them up they can get to deployments and orders. Once the setting up stage is done, we should be able to move quicker, its just getting all the logistics sorted that takes the time in this game.
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Jul 4, 2014 05:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Are we going to get updates in this thread too or are we supposed to check in on the per-side threads as well? At least maybe Grey could copy-paste them here? I was going to copy paste them with a FOG less map.
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Jul 7, 2014 08:23
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  This map is 100% accurate, but it doesn't help you tell who is who.  This map is 100% inaccurate, but at least you know who is where!    And, for you lucky viewers, here is a combined map. 
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Jul 8, 2014 17:39
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I'm going to let them stew for a while and then just post the reminder that if I fouled up and order, its because their orders were not clear enough. Plus I've just laid in orders for roughly 50 units, there are going to be mistakes somewhere! Just wait intil the artillery lands on that ford where they are about to try and funnel two companies of infantry. That's going to put the cat amongst the pigeons!
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Jul 8, 2014 18:23
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I assume hes thinking that they have equal numbers of tanks, limiting the number of troops crossing. He's also betting his Panthers are better than the Russian tanks. (to be fair, all they have seen so far is T34's and T70s.) The ford bombardment is a good idea, the Russians have gotten more troops across, but they have put all their eggs in one basket, and that basket is about to be shelled constantly for a good while - most likely enough to spook the Russians in playing it safe. at that point they either have to go the long way around to the upper right ford, or risk moving into the open for a ford in the left. The movement of the IS-2 is going to be key, if I were the Russian CO, I'd take the risk of trying to interdict the ford (which is what I thought they wanted to do, hence the tank positioning) and try and pick off some of the tanks they know are in the region. As it is, I can see the Russians panicking now and throwing away an early lead and a frankly terrible German deployment of a whole company of men. They need to take their licks and get their infantry into the town, where their SMG guys will rule the roost.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:48
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So, Am I crazy in thinking that this could become a mini campaign? basing the next battle off the results of this one. I thought I'd mention it in here so as not to disturb the fighters to much. Current early form is something like this. German decisive victory - German attack on Russian possion (new map) German minor victory - Russian Attack on railroad (map modified to represent attack more from east) Draw - another meeting engagement (same map, new map, or modified map.) Russian minor victory - German attack on railroad (mao modified to represent attack more from west.) Russian decisive victory - Russian attack on new German position. (new map) This is all if I don't go crazy before then and start smashing Panthers and IS-2's together while shouting "NOW KIIISSSSSS!"
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Jul 10, 2014 12:50
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Execu-speak posted:I'm not commanding for either side and all I'm doing is giving the Germans poo poo. Yeah, can you cut that out. Peanut gallery should be done in this thread, not the game threads, we should leave them all to make their own mistakes.
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Jul 10, 2014 13:42
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Fat Samurai posted:About two months ago I was thinking of running an LP of Fields of Fire, a tabletop solitaire game. The main mechanic of the game is that there is a chain of command, and it's way more efficient for the CO to use one of his available order to "activate" a platoon leader so he orders his platoon around with his own stock of orders rather than order the units directly from HQ. I have done these before, and I know the ropes, that's why I may come off as being a little harsh when reacting to mistakes - I'm putting in orders for both sides, some of which are not as clear as the writer thinks, and I am going to foul up at least one thing a turn. The thing is, people should see this as fog of war - they already have more information than a real soldier, so the occasional order going wrong should be accepted, even if it does throw a plan into chaos. One idea I'd like to try at some point is something similar to the way I ran Jutland - start off the forums, with all information coming through me, and people only getting what they can see and what they hear - I thought of using tabletop wargame rules for the base, and setting it around either the Napoleonic or American civil war, when battles are long, drawn out affairs and reinforcements matter. I'd probably need a hand running it, and it would be a long affair - weeks or months - so I'm not sure how many people would be interested.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:54
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Two more turns, where oh where will that artillery shell land?   Two more minutes tick by, and blood has been drawn.....   
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Jul 12, 2014 16:18
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Green Intern posted:Does this game model fuel supply as well as battle fatigue and ammo? No, engagements are only an hour or so long, and somethings just take it to far.
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Jul 13, 2014 16:09
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Yeah, the Soviets do seem much more organised, they've messed up by sending all their guys across that ford in a clump, but the losses are not to bad yet - the Germans however have lost a tank (one of their weak ones, but still a tank) and have half of their force in a terrible position - they either go for the Soviet start zone (which will be empty) or try and cross back up to the river, with two IS-2's watching that ford..... Time to go tell them about the campaign I think!
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Jul 15, 2014 08:00
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Pimpmust posted:This would probably go even better* if there wasn't such a long time for orders to come in Yeah, I would like to do quicker order cycles, but I've got a lot going on atm, so I never really seem to have the time to do a quicker update cycle. I blame the inlaws and their visits that seem to only be a few weeks apart at this time.
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Jul 16, 2014 08:06
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reagan posted:I'm kind of surprised the Germans didn't buy a few Stugs. You can never have too many Stugs. It's the call of the big cats, UP did have some in his first list, but then "upgraded" them to MKIV's before they became Panthers.
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Jul 16, 2014 14:51
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    I think another 2 minute turn is in order!
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Jul 16, 2014 17:19
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Jul 20, 2014 11:46
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Perestroika posted:The 'classic' 88 could be a danger to the IS out to a fair distance (~1 km), but it's also kind of huge and obvious and would probably draw artillery and sniper fire the instant it fired a shot. However, there's also the upgraded PaK 43, which is basically the even longer 88 of a Tiger II as a relatively low-profile standalone gun, and it would be able to penetrate pretty much any russian tank from any distance and angle. It could even be wheeled around by its crew without a vehicle in a pinch. I wonder if it'd be available for the era in this setup and how much it costs in points. The PaK43 88 is 157 points, and 451 rarity points, the Pak43/41 88 is 143/805 points.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:24
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What I find interesting is that the Russians have lost a lot of troops with their own mistake - running their troops through that ford all bunched up. The Germans could so easily put two full, and undamaged, companies into the village by now. Also, complaining that the Germans are "Gaming" it by ordering a barrage on a key point - its not like either side ordered a turn 1 heavy barrage on or around the spawn, and they only targeted one of the fords.
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Jul 22, 2014 06:17
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I'm really expecting both sides to take up their positions then hit the opposite side of the village with all the artillery they have. We could have a glorious five minutes of all hell being let loose! Or the Germans will charge in and get butchered. The Russians have more troops in the objective now, and that forces the Germans onto the offensive. EDIT - I post that and Bacarruda posts his bombardment orders while I was typing..... Grey Hunter fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 07:41
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Every war game should have the Cannon Fodder boot hill on the ending of every mission/game. "Yes! It took me three hours, but I finally took that hill!" Three hundred new crosses appear "Oh." Hmmm...... Oh God, the 3D modeling program is coming out this evening I can see.....
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Jul 24, 2014 12:27
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  Here is the Artillery I laid in for you, ETA is now about 3 mins.    Okay, I lie in the video, I did actually manage to lay in a single artillery barrage, its linear, not point, and looks like this. ETA approx 7 mins.  
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Jul 24, 2014 16:41
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  No highlighted map as people have not moved much, I may do a 2 min turn if things stay similar as they are.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:13
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SMG's put out out a huge amount of fire, but burn through their ammo like anything. That turn they didn't do much damage and fires off a hell of a lot of rounds - I did mention it in the video, but the Russians need to be careful, or they could have their best troops fire off all their ammo and then have to retreat from the Germans. I have no idea why that tank is refusing to move. I really don't know why. Grey Hunter fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jul 29, 2014 |
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Jul 29, 2014 08:17
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Yeah, when people in the thread said that the SMG company would murder the Germans in close quarters, that's why! Of course, that platoon has taken heavy losses now and will not be able to hold that position for more than a few minutes if they carry on shooting like that, the Germans should be able to dislodge them if they move carefully.
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Jul 29, 2014 13:39
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