Operation Bluecoat (no OJW)

[ComradeP]

This AAR will cover the Axis side of Operation Bluecoat, by far the longest scenario in the game at 144 turns (but not the biggest in terms of the number units involved). My Allied opponent is Outlaw Josey Wales.

I'll try to make this AAR as reader friendly as possible when it comes to explaining details of how the game works, and why certain results appear.

That does mean the AAR will get somewhat technical at times, and that I'll also give my opinion on some of the mechanics and on what currently works well and what could use some improvement as I see it.

If you have any comments or questions, don't be afraid to ask. I'll do my best to answer them or to explain certain moves.

Operation Bluecoat starts in the Caumont area and goes south to the Vire-Vassy area. It involves both US and British forces on the Allied side, and Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and SS forces on the German side.

The briefing:




Basically, in order to win the Allies have to smash the initial German defenses as quickly as possible and exploit as far south as possible before II. SS Panzerkorps arrives/before the Germans can establish defensive positions with a realistic chance of containing the Allied onslaught.

The British forces will slowly trickle in, the same goes for German reinforcements. US forces will release on the second day.

Due to the size and to keep things interesting, I'll update the AAR every 3 in-game hours (6 turns) or so on the quiet turns and on a per-turn basis when the action heats up. There's not going to be too much action initially as I'll try to move the 326th Infanterie Division away from certain death instead of holding in place.

I'm usually a cautious defender, preferring to preserve strength for counterattacks. In my opinion, in long scenarios units should die a meaningful death, if they are to die. Keeping units in place so they delay the enemy by a turn or two isn't very helpful in a 144 turn scenario. Like in chess, it's essential to know when sacrificing a piece helps you, and when it will hurt on the long term.

Stopping the initial Allied advance isn't possible no matter what I'll do, so I'll try to keep as much of 326 ID alive to help the SS and elements of various mobile formations at a later stage.

Another reason for withdrawing is that, compared to Kursk, German regular Heer infantry isn't very good and can inflict only limited casualties. British infantry is even worse, but they have numerous tanks and plenty of artillery to compensate. The priority will be knocking out Allied tanks, particularly mixed 75mm/Firefly units as the HA value of German Heer infantry is still decent.

Unlike PzC, mortars and infantry guns don't have any organic (non-T mode) movement, which means that with Allied interdiction at 15%, they will die if they move longer distances. I'll have to put them in bunkers or out of sight deep in the bocage if they are to survive.

Operation Bluecoat uses a special PDT file which changes the day/night sequence, the most important change being that there are just 2 night turns. This rather dramatically limits German reorganization capabilities as night turns are the only turns when there is no Allied interdiction. German short-ranged artillery like Nebelwerfer units are also more vulnerable to counterbattery fire in practice due to not being able to move when the enemy gets closer without being interdicted. This makes unit placement crucial.

A significant part of the Commonwealth artillery units starts off-map, which will limit their artillery support for their infantry divisions somewhat later on, even though the artillery of the armoured divisions arrives on-map to compensate on the operational level.

In the current version, there seems to be a glitch with off-map artillery not firing in support, which helps the Germans in this scenario.

Defensive Allied artillery support on my turn fires at 200% effectiveness which hurts, a lot, and means I'll have to limit the number of times I fire in order to limit return fire (that, in turn, means firing using the relatively weak regular infantry isn't efficient in terms of the likely exchange ratio when not in bunkers).

Defensive artillery support fire doesn't depend on spotters unlike on a normal turn (where artillery units can only fire at targets spotted by a unit belonging to the same organization or corps/army), so anything can fire at anything else in range. This favours the side with the most guns and the most artillery units, meaning the Allies.

Unit stats:





As you can see, regular infantry stats on all sides are similar. Due to the higher SA value and a quality advantage (more on that later) SS motorized and mechanized infantry units mop the floor with Allied regular infantry, which is why initial Allied success is all the more important.

In terms of tanks, the more common medium tanks on all sides are similar. One thing worth noting is that American Shermans have a higher defence value than British Shermans, due to using earlier M4 models which get a slightly better rating. This does make a genuine difference in casualties, as I've noticed in other scenarios.

The Panther is a superior tank to all Allied medium armour, but due to how the vehicle losses are calculated, its superiority is not as pronounced as you might think. The same applies to the Tigers. In this scenario, the Germans also receive Panzer VIB's or King Tigers as reinforcements.

The handful of Achilles units are very dangerous when used for shoot-and-scoot firing, so keeping my tanks out of sight after I fire is essential (also because the system favours the side with the most tank units, more on that later as well).

Next up: initial unit placement and OOB.

[ComradeP]

Quick OOB overview:



It is worth noting that the Allies start with hundreds of tanks on the map and the Germans start with...5 Panzer IVh's belonging to the 2nd Panzer Division, an A quality formation, deep in the south.

Initial positions:

I'll try to explain the initial positions in two screenshots.

Note: there are impassible hexes preventing the US and British forces from linking up immediately. La Drôme, a major river, forms the initial dividing boundary.



The highlighted units belong to the US 2nd Infantry Division, a C quality formation. The tank battalion north of them also belongs to that division. The 2nd Infantry Division participates with two regiments, one of which arrives as reinforcements.

Its neighbour on the right is the 5th Infantry Division, a D quality formation. It also participates with two regiments, one of which arrives as reinforcements.

US infantry forces start at 75% strength (90 men), and have 3 companies worth of infantry in each battalion like the Fallschirmjaeger units as opposed to 4 for the UK and German regular infantry forces.

Below the US forces is the 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division, a mostly B quality formation, which particates with 4 battalions of infantry, a battalion of combat engineers and (together with the corps recon unit) about a battalion of recon infantry. As such, it is outnumbered by the US forces about 2:1.

3. FJD also has some C quality armoured car units in their area, belonging to II Fallschirmjaeger Korps, its parent formation.



On the British part of the front, the highlighted forces belong to the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, a B quality formation. The entire division participates in the battle. Most of the formation arrives later on.

Mixed with the Scots (the non-highlighted tank units) are the Churchills of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade, a B quality formation.

Its neighbours on the left are the lead elements of the 11th Armoured Division, a mostly C quality formation, aside from an A quality Royal Tank Regiment. The rest of the division will arrive later.

Its neighbour on the right is the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, a B quality formation, participating with one brigade. Only a single battalion ("regiment" in British terminology) starts on the map, the rest arrives later.

The Guards Armoured Division, an A (the infantry)/B (the tanks) quality formation, has yet to arrive.

A small number of units from the 79th Armoured Division, a B/C quality formation, are spread out along the front. These units use Sherman Crab/Flail, Churchill Crocodile and Churchill AVRE tanks. Sherman Flail units can clear mines and the AVRE tanks have a 1 hex HA value of 30 and a minimal SA value, suitable for targeting bunkers or shotgunning weak AFV's. They also have an assault value of 19, which is also very good. Churchill Crocodile (flamethrower) tanks have a magnificent assault value of 45, and decent HA (18) and SA (12) values.

British forces are full strength at the start of the scenario.

The German units south of the British forces are the men of the 326. ID, with 8 regular infantry battalions, a Feldersatz battalion, a recon battalion and a pionier battalion. The division also has a handful of Marders and StuGs. It is a C quality formation. The 326. ID is quite strong in terms of manpower, but not in terms of combat power.

Initial German infantry formations, both Fallschirmjaeger and Heer, are full strength at the start of the scenario.

The Germans receive most of the 21st Panzer Division, a B quality formation, as initial reinforcements.

Later on, they receive about 2/3 of the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, an A quality formation and part of the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, a C quality formation.

Combined, the two SS divisions form about one full strength SS Panzer Division.

The difference in quality, two quality levels, between the Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg is surprisingly pronounced considering their fairly similar service record up to this point and their nearly identical ratings in other games including Normandy '44, but luckily most of the reinforcements consist of the better division.

The Germans also receive a variety of tank, StuG, artillery and pionier units as reinforcements, as well as a handful of units from other divisions. I'll mention them as they arrive or as the fighting gets to them (for the units that start on the map).

[nim8or]

This looks lovely indeed. I'm sure many (including myself) will really appreciate your insights into the technical details and mechanics of the game. Much appreciated and good luck!

[Gregor]

This looks lovely indeed. I'm sure many (including myself) will really appreciate your insights into the technical details and mechanics of the game. Much appreciated and good luck!

I agree

Realy an epic quest. Will be interesting to follow and will surely give alot of insight into strength and weaknesses of the engine and possibly generate some good and informative discussions. Good luck!

[ComradeP]

When it comes to non-combat related mechanics, the way bridging works will have a big impact on this scenario.

Though I can understand the theory behind the assault and vehicle/gun/aircraft system even if I feel the results in-game are not what they should be, the way bridging works puzzles me both in theory and in its practical application.

Some engineer units can build bridges. They can't technically repair bridges, they just build a new bridge over the old one. The first problem, in series where units can abandon bridges, is that they have to stay in place to maintain their bridge for the rest of the game. If you move them away, to prevent the destruction of the unit for example, they can never build a bridge again. This isn't possible in Panzer Battles, so units have to pack up their bridge before they can move away.

In PzC where a campaign game can last months, where it is very strange that a bridging engineer unit can never recover its bridging equipment, in a system where there are no limits (in terms of there being a certain finite pool) for something like replacements.

This is the only wargame I've played where bridging engineer assets are restricted in that manner. As a side generally has only a handful of bridging engineer units, blowing up several bridges across major rivers is likely to stop an advance all by itself. There is literally nothing the attacker can do after his bridging assets are “used up” by maintaining bridges elsewhere.

Bridging is also a slow process, 15% per unit/per turn base percentage chance of building a bridge for company sized units of at least 100 men in Panzer Battles: Battles of Normandy. Platoons have 1/3 that value, and the value is proportionally reduced for units with less than 100 men. As the Allies have mostly bridging platoons or 3 vehicle (30 men) bridgelayer units, their percentage change of building a bridge is about 1.5-2.5 ( roughly ((15/3)/2) or roughly ((15/3)/3.3) )

The US forces in this scenario don't have any bridging engineer assets at all as far as I can tell, so they'd simply be screwed if I start blowing bridges across major rivers in the central part of the map.

The defender is likely to target the units building the bridge, which can quickly make bridging a nightmare.

Due to how problematic the way bridging works is in practice, it is common in PzC for scenarios to use the wired bridges feature, where bridges can be set to being wired and no bridges can be blown up manually. Usually, large bridges along major roads or railroads are wired and have a small chance of blowing up in PzC and the other bridges are not wired.

That feature isn't active in Battles of Normandy at the moment, and I'm hoping it will be activated in the patch as there are somes scenarios where the Germans blowing the right bridges nearly guarantees victory.

House rule:

As a self-imposed house rule, I'll only blow up bridges across streams (which only increases the cost of moving along a road in T-mode due to the units having to cross the stream using normal movement costs) and along the major rivers along the Y-axis of the map in the upper part of the map (seperating the US and UK forces).

The major rivers along the X-axis, which give significant defensive benefits, will keep their bridges.

[Gregor]

I fully agree that blowing up bridges increase the PIA factor, but isnt it so that all engeneers can help units across rivers at their full movement cost? I thought that would help a lot in such a long scenario as this, or are there something I dont get?

[Ricky B]

When it comes to non-combat related mechanics, the way bridging works will have a big impact on this scenario.

Though I can understand the theory behind the assault and vehicle/gun/aircraft system even if I feel the results in-game are not what they should be, the way bridging works puzzles me both in theory and in its practical application.

Some engineer units can build bridges. They can't technically repair bridges, they just build a new bridge over the old one. The first problem is that they have to stay in place to maintain their bridge for the rest of the game. If you move them away, to prevent the destruction of the unit for example, they can never build a bridge again.

Though this might make some sense in a scenario lasting a day, the feature is ported from PzC where a campaign game can last months, where it is very strange that a bridging engineer unit can never recover its bridging equipment, in a system where there are no limits (in terms of there being a certain finite pool) for something like replacements.

This is the only wargame I've played where bridging engineer assets are restricted in that manner. As a side generally has only a handful of bridging engineer units, blowing up several bridges across major rivers is likely to stop an advance all by itself. There is literally nothing the attacker can do after his bridging assets are “used up” by maintaining bridges elsewhere.
...

ComradeP, I have a question about the part you said where an engineer that moves away, it is unable to build a bridge again. In PzB context, I don't believe this applies at all, and even in PzC context is not really correct, from what I recall.

In PzB, an engineer with a bridge may go through bridge ops to take its bridge down, move to another location, and build another bridge. I just tested it and there is no issue. I don't believe there is a command in PzB to abandon a bridge in one turn - if it is there, I don't see it available in the menu and the User Manual doesn't state how to do it, although it does have what I think is a bad reference regarding abandoning bridges.

In PzC, which is from memory going back for awhile, if a bridge engineer takes down its bridge, it works exactly as above. If it does abandon its bridge so it can run away, I believe it can get its bridge back by starting a turn with its HQ. I will set up a test of that to verify.

Just wanted to put this out there, and I could easily be missing something for either game series but it is what I can tell right now.

Rick

[Ricky B]

Okay, I can see that bridge engineers can't regain bridging capability if a bridge is abandoned, in PzC. But I still can't see any way for an engineer to abandon a bridge in PzB so I think this specific point is not an issue.

Rick

[ComradeP]

Ah, yes, you're right. I didn't notice there being no "abandon bridge" option anymore. I'll edit the post to indicate that is only possible in PzC.

This is worse in a way, though, as the bridging unit can't move until it packs up its bridge in that case, and is thus more vulnerable.

My apologies, I assumed the way bridging works had been ported over in its entirety.

I fully agree that blowing up bridges increase the PIA factor, but isnt it so that all engeneers can help units across rivers at their full movement cost? I thought that would help a lot in such a long scenario as this, or are there something I dont get?

Infantry units can be ferried across rivers by engineers units, but they have to be of the Foot, Ski, Bicycle or Horse movement class or On Foot. Amongst other things, this means HQ's can never be ferried across, as they're motorized and can't go On Foot. Units that were ferried across a river also end their turn in T-mode and are likely to take a beating.

The lower stacking limit compared to PB: Kursk also makes it more difficult to ferry numerous units across in a single turn.

As the US forces don't have any engineer support at all from what I can tell, this also won't help them.

From the manual:

Engineer units can also ferry some units across Rivers and Canals.

The requirements are:

• The unit being ferried must be moving into the hex containing the Engineer unit or out of that hex.
• The unit being ferried must be of Foot movement class, or be of Ski, Bicycle, or Horse movement class and consist of men (right click in Unit Picture to see this information listed) or be a unit which is On Foot (see section on Movement).
• The unit being ferried must have full Movement Allowance, must be in Travel Mode, and must not be Disrupted or Broken.
• The Engineer unit must not be Disrupted or Broken, must have full Movement Allowance, and must not be in Travel or Rail Mode (Note: the Engineer unit must not be conducting Bridge Operations, but can be maintaining a bridge).
• The hex being moved into must be valid for movement for the unit being ferried. If valid, then the unit being ferried uses its full Movement Allowance to perform the movement. (The movement does not cost the Engineer unit movement points.)

One special case is that it is possible for an Engineer unit to ferry itself. In this case, the Engineer unit must be in Travel Mode.

[Dog Soldier]

Bridging is not that big an issue in the Bluecoat scenario. The British receive sufficient bridging units to create a credible threat that thins out the Germans in the south.
That is what is left of the Germans at that point.

The SS that arrive are for a historical counter attack the Germans mounted.

Dog Soldier