Snippet's From the Meuse to the Rhine

[Daz]

Your welcome mate.
It truly is an epic.
Very intimidating for a new player, but it would seem that the longer you have been involved with the game, the bigger the scenarios you crave.

I'm trying something different with this one.
The HQ's have large counters, and the minions have small counters.
what do you think?

 

[john connor]

What a display, Daz! You've almost encircled them and it's only day 5. I look forward to mass surrenders as the net closes. And I'm never ever playing this scenario again - you've inspired me in quite the other direction - I consider it cracked now. Just not by me....

Like big counters/little effect. It's good, but it must take ages to do, no?

 

[Daz]

Thanks mate, it did take quite a long time, that's why there has been a bit of a gap in my posting.
Guess it took about 3 whole evenings, off and on.

You can play it as Axis, or change the favour settings for variety mate, or maybe even try adjusting the points for the railway bridge, perhaps that will give you inspiration to play it again?

 

[john connor]

I was only joking. Will have another go at it, of course, at some point. If you like playing as Allies, on the attack, on really good maps, in a historical scenario then it's the best there is, I think. I might do a really really small one next (Tanks at Platamon), then move onto Joe's Bridge Breakout, which I've never done, then the Screaming Eagles/Eindhoven mega scenario, then back to Maas-Rijn. Maybe by then we'll have CO2.......

I suppose it's going to be academic whether the AI is sitting on a possible 100 points if you manage to surround him and starve him off them. You will achieve the exact reverse of the historical situation. The Axis will be holed into an 'Arnhem pocket'. Lol.

 

[john connor]

Quick question for those who can't be bothered with the key (sorry...) - I can see what the rigid blue lines demarcate, but what do the squiggly blue lines mean? is it the FLOT? If so, I think it might be nice if it stood out more - maybe yellow, or white, or thicker. Ditto the Axis FLOT, if that's what the red squiggly lines are. Just my pref - so you can see immediately the most salient and important fact ...

 

[Daz]

The "squiggly" blue lines are indeed the FLOT.
They have to be in a hue of blue to denote them as friendly.
If they were yellow, that would indicate a neutral FLOT.

I am still experimenting with these graphics so any feedback is very welcome indeed.
In the image previous to the last one I experimented with different shades of blue.
Darker blue for the boundaries, cyan for orders, and middle blue for text.
This was to try and distinguish between them as it does get kind of cluttered, but I didn't like the look of it in the end, as some of it was hard to see.

In the last image, I used a thicker stroke to denote Division boundaries (3px), and a thinner one for Brigade (2px), I was going to use an even thinner one for the battalion boundaries (1px), but it became to cluttered.
All the graphics were in cyan, and I think it looks much better as it stands out more, even if it does get a bit jumbled in places.
The problem is the boundaries have probably become a little to overpowering now, as like you said the FLOT and the FEBA, that should probably be dominant have taken a back seat to them.

I think in the next one I will reduce the weight of the boundaries, and take your advice to thicken the FLOT.
The friendly graphics will always be more dominant on this map as the red doesn't show up so well.
Maybe that's how it should be anyway?

For maps at the zoom level of the last one, I will continue to use big counters for the HQ's and small for the subordinates.
As we zoom in Ill continue to use big counters for all the units.

 

[john connor]

Wow. Loads of work, Daz. Amazing results. It would be great if CO2 could add some of this in as part of the overlays business - especially the graphics for phase lines, boundaries, axes of advance, defence points etc. Would make doing AARs more fun, then more might share.

 

[Daz]

I agree mate.

 

[john connor]

Well done! Excellent change to the FLOT boundaries. Thanks. That really works well, I think. Haven't read it or looked at the content yet!

Edit: I'm a little confused, maybe stupid. I've read through it now but can't work out who is subordinate to 8th Armoured. Which of the units you've listed in the brown boxes giving the op plan structure, I mean? Or none of them? Maybe that's a dim question. I can see very clearly from the pic who is attacking and to where, but if I want (which I do) to know the command hierarchy then I can't quite work it out. Maybe it's too late in the day for me....

Edit 2: Now I notice the boundary lines state the 8th Armoured limits - so is everyone within the lines part of the 8th armoured attack?

Again I wish there was a simple way to take a pic of the entire OOB, to have to compare, as you look at the map.

 

[Daz]

The only units subordinate to the 8th Armoured Brigade HQ are the engineers, and the base. It is still attached to XXX Corps HQ with a defend in situ command.
The units that are attached by black lines are in groups, subordinate to the one at the top as per standard, OOB's.
All the units without black lines have been given individual orders by me.
Which is most of them, as this is the centre of gravity for the scenario, at this point in time.

 

[john connor]

Ah. Got it. I was assuming (oddly) that when you said 8th armoured was once again at the centre of things that you were commanding at that level. Sorry. It's all very clear, in fact.

 

[Daz]

Hope this helps clear things up a bit better for you mate.

 

[john connor]

Lol. Couldn't be clearer than that! Thanks. I can now see how they all fit together organically too.

 

[Daz]

I don't have time for the write up tonight, but here is the latest situation.
I have actually caught up now with the AAR to the point I am at in the game, so time to play some more I think

From this day on the John Frost Bridge will be known as the Vincent Dunkerly bridge lol

 

[Erik Springelkamp]

I am surprised that those tank units can successfully attack through polder land, as all the water gullies would prevent such operations. In practice the tanks were confined to the roads between the great rivers Meuse, Waal and Rhine. Which gave the Germans great long range anti-tank targets for AT guns.

Look for instance at this Google location, close to your operations (actually a little to the South, as the South bank of the Rhine near Arnhem is now fully build-up:

https://maps.google.nl/maps?q=Brede...arsche+zeeg&t=h&hnear=Bredelaarsche+Zeeg&z=17

When you zoom in you can see all the water filled gullies between field, that would prevent tanks from crossing.

 

[Daz]

Hi Erik.
Any vehicle using the Polder in game does so as an incredibly slow speed.
Which was fine for this supporting attack, as it was the long range firepower from the tanks that I needed to support the infantry on the right, and the main attack up the highway to the left.

In fact they are only half way across it now, while the main attack is crossing the bridge.
I assume that movement is still possible, albeit at an incredibly slow speed to simulate a leap frog progress along the raised sections between the ditches?

 

[Daz]

 

[john connor]

Now that's something! How did you do that? And did they really advance like that in formations, in RL, I mean? And does it work in game - do they provide overwatch and outflank etc? I guess not if it's at platoon level (except as an abstraction, in out imagination) - but if you were to have a Bn attacking like this, so each unit was a company, would the rear company stop and provide overwatch etc whilst the other two attacked or outflanked?

 

[Erik Springelkamp]

In reality it just wouldn't have worked. There are some tractor tracks to allow entry to the fields, and they will be the reason to allow some movement in the game, but in reality they are mostly dead-end, allowing only entry from one side, no exit on the other side.

Tanks wouldn't be able to cross the ditches, because they would get stuck in the soft borders, if they wouldn't already get stuck in the fields, as only low pressure tires can support vehicles there. The photo's you included illustrate this nicely: those tanks wouldn't even be able to leave that road and enter the field next to it, as they would get stuck in the ditch, which is too soft to leave once you enter it with a tank.

I do a lot of bicycle riding in my area, which has some similar terrain (as I used to cycle in the neighbourhood of Beek near Nijmegen, where I have lived), and the route is always channelled through some essential bridges that allow crossings of the water ways. So you have this nice flat land that seems fully accessible, but in reality it behaves like mountains with a few passes.

So fire support from tanks would have to be provided from the roads, but advancing would only be possible in column formation along those road, even though at some places the tanks could move into a field and back up again, they wouldn't be able to leave on the other side.

It is something that the game abstractions cannot handle perfectly.

Never mind for your great AAR, we just have to assume that the tanks actually follow the roads instead of crossing the fields.

 

[john connor]

Quite easy to alter the movement rates in the mapmaker, I suppose. Especially if 'polder' is a type. you could set movement there to '0' for motorised. But I think there must have been ways to find your way through a polder very, very slowly, and maybe this is what the scenario designer was thinking of when he didn't give a '0' mot value to 'polder'. The starting ditches you speak of, for example, Erik, they could have filled those fairly easily, I assume. Would take some time, but they're not so deep that a quick, makeshift bridge wouldn't be possible, surely, using whatever (spare tracks, for example - wrecks, parts of wrecks, I don't know..) Then once in the Polder there would surely have been variations in firmness across those enormous areas, and you would have to find, by trial and error, the firmer pathways? No? You really think it would have been 'always' impossible/impassable? The stories from the RL op, of course, speak of the tanks being confined to the highways through large areas of land. But they may have been more cautious than we are in the game.....