Scheldt '44 Market Garden (expanded) Allied AAR - settled for a Draw turn 69

[NikolaiB]

Wow, this is an exciting plan!

[phoenix]

Great AAR, Comrade P. Really enjoying it. Would you not say that on balance it's playing out rather like the history, at least in terms of what is actually possible and what is not, given relative strengths?

[The Real Rake]

I see that blocked or non playable hexes are now a nice purple colour? Is there any changes to the hex array showing in the Maps folder for non visible hexes or hexes that cannot be reached? I've always found them too intrusive so changed the density and colour of the pixelated dots. 



This works fine....until the weather changes from Snow to Mud! 10% chance of Mud on the 17th....
Will need to find another colour.




Ian

Can anyone point me to the correct files for changing the density of non-visible or unreachable hexes, etc.?  I'm finding in Scheldt (and presumably all updated games) that the shading is now not dark enough and making it difficult for me to determine which hexes are "greyed out".

Thanks!

Edit: I just changed my primary monitor and the shading is showing up plenty dark now... Still, I'd like to know where the shading is located, so I can have a substitute file for when I swap back to my main monitor. Thanks Again

[Strela]

I see that blocked or non playable hexes are now a nice purple colour? Is there any changes to the hex array showing in the Maps folder for non visible hexes or hexes that cannot be reached? I've always found them too intrusive so changed the density and colour of the pixelated dots. 



This works fine....until the weather changes from Snow to Mud! 10% chance of Mud on the 17th....
Will need to find another colour.




Ian

Can anyone point me to the correct files for changing the density of non-visible or unreachable hexes, etc.?  I'm finding in Scheldt (and presumably all updated games) that the shading is now not dark enough and making it difficult for me to determine which hexes are "greyed out".

Thanks!

Edit:  I just changed my primary monitor and the shading is showing up plenty dark now...  Still, I'd like to know where the shading is located, so I can have a substitute file for when I swap back to my main monitor.  Thanks Again

It's on the 2D features series of files under the Map directory.

The easiest way is to change the individual pixels to the colour you want. I tried a lot of different colour combinations to end up where I did, but like al things it is all in the eye of the beholder.

There is such a mix of terrain heights and ground conditions that is very hard to get a universal colour that works.

David

[Plain Ian]

It's on the 2D features series of files under the Map directory.

The easiest way is to change the individual pixels to the colour you want. I tried a lot of different colour combinations to end up where I did, but like al things it is all in the eye of the beholder.

There is such a mix of terrain heights and ground conditions that is very hard to get a universal colour that works.

David

Yep the difficulty is finding a colour that fits all weather and terrain types. Red was great for snow but looked awful in mud. So I have to swop out the 2DFeatures100.bmp files when ever the weather changes.

Red


Black


By the way those are single pixels all the same size. For some reason the windows graphic engine shows them as different sizes when you zoom them in file explorer.

Keep all your colours stored in Map.

[ComradeP]

It's been a busy month at work. I'll try to make more regular updates instead of posting a number of turn overviews on the same day with gaps in between updates.

Turn 27, 05:00 Dawn September 20th 1944. Normal Conditions.

Now that link-up is a matter constructing a bridge across the Meuse, it's time to turn my attention to securing the flanks.



1st Airborne is slowly moving across the river. What helps is that the road at Opheusden isn't ZOC-blocked. I can draw fire from the German unit next to itwith the 82nd Airborne units and move 1st Airborne units along the road. There are AT guns firing from across the river, but they don't do much damage.

I'm trying to keep about a 2000 men lead in losses inflicted.

82nd Airborne is maintaining two bridgeheads across the Maas-Waalkanaal until Guards Armoured can get there. One battalion is being ferried across the Meuse at Nitrijk.



A lot of the variability in the scenario comes from which wired bridges blow up and when engineers can construct a bridge. The Guards engineers are not in any kind of hurry, which leads to delays. Admittedly, there's only a company at both locations. Nederasselt and Nitrijk. As you'll see later, on turn 48 the unit building a bridge at Nederasselt still hasn't succeeded in constructing one...

The Welsh (light blue) are moving north. They'll be moved across the Waal to support 1st Airborne and 82nd Airborne. In the next few days, 101st Airborne will be relieved by other formations and move to the northern side of the Zuid-Willemsvaart so it can advance north-west towards 's Hertogenbosch.



The 3rd Infantry Division is arriving in bits and pieces, it's still split in two parts at the moment. One brigade at Valkenswaard and one at Best. The third brigade is approaching the bridges across the Bocholt-Heerentalskanaal in the south. The divisional engineer units have outperformed their counterparts thus far. Recently, a bridge in Eindhoven to move around the Congestion hex in the city center has been completed so units can move across the river without having to spend several turns moving through the Congestion hex.

11th Armoured Division (orange) will start to put some pressure on Division Erdmann and other German forces west of the Zuid-Willemsvaart.

The idea is to "leapfrog" the 11th and later 7th Armoured Divisions and the 4th Armoured Brigade across the canals to the east, putting operational pressure in each sector to force a withdrawal in another due to the threat of flanking German positions. This would work very well as you'll see later.

Detailed status overviews per battalion turned out to be a lot of work, so I'll just post strength dialog updates for now. There will be a full status overview for turn 47.

I'm still trying to find corps assignments that work in changing battlefield situations. They'll be ironed out by turn 37.

[ComradeP]

Turn 31. 13:00 September 20th 1944.



The idea north of the Waal is to slowly pull back and maintain frontline stacks in just 4-5 hexes, so the other units can rest.

The artillery and AT units in 1st Airborne will be moved south across the Waal.

The Welsh join the traffic jam south of the Meuse.



The third brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division is at or near the frontline at Best.

107th Panzer Brigade is split in two parts, with the armour facing 11th Armoured and 4th Armoured Brigade and other units facing the glider regiment of the 101st Airborne east of Helmond.

The Prinses Irene Brigade is moving north and will relieve 101st Airborne Division units south-west of Sint-Oedenrode.



The 43rd Wessex Division has been released, together with the remaining XXX Corps corps assets (mostly engineers) and is moving north. The 43rd Wessex Division will move to the area north of Overloon.

The rest of the 7th Armoured Division has finally been released, though parts of the division are still arriving. They'll form up along the Reusel-Eindhoven road and move east to where the glider regiment of the 101st Airborne is currently.

As you can see, German forces east of Valkenswaard are withdrawing now that 11th Armoured is threatening to flank the units further west. 11th Armoured Division and 4th Armoured Brigade have knocked out 6 Panthers and a Jagdpanzer IV for the loss of 10 or so Stuarts and one medium tank. Considering that the Panther "battalion" starts with just 33 tanks, that's a good blow.

[ComradeP]

Turn 37 05:00 Dawn September 21st 1944. Normal conditions.



After the engineers built a bridge at Nitrijk, the Welsh and Guards Armoured Divisions moved across the Meuse. The Welsh will cross the Waal mostly by being ferried across the river by engineer units with the Has Boats flag.

The first wave of the Polish Airborne Brigade will arrive at DZ "O" just before night.

At the bottom of the screenshot you can see the tail end of the 43rd Wessex Division arriving at its jump off point for a push south-east.



The lead elements of the 43rd Wessex have been in contact with German companies in and around Sint-Anthonis during the night. That reveals the presence of my division, but the Germans don't have any troops to reinforce the area with.

11th Armoured and 4th Armoured Brigade will take a short detour through Beek and move across various canals to the area north of Deurne. 4th Armoured Brigade is now at full strength after the rest of its armour and armoured cars arrived.

You can see 101st Airborne's paratrooper units slowly moving north as they're relieved by other units.



7th Armoured is moving east.

Some towns/villages in the area are RUBBLE hexes. It happens with surprising ease, due to the big Allied artillery units. Sometimes a single salvo by a 24 gun units reduces an urban hex to RUBBLE.

The brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division at Valkenswaard will join the rest of the division. The rest of the 50th Northumbrian Division is finally released and will move towards Maarheeze, where it will join the units of the division active since turn 1.

The 15th Scottish Division is still engaged in trench warfare with various German units in front of it. The Belgian resistance has liberated Turnhout.

[ComradeP]

Turn 41 13:00 September 21st 1944.



The first Welsh units are moving across the Waal.

XXX Corps artillery units set up in a position where it can support both the units across the Waal and the units south of Nijmegen.

Guards Armoured is waging trench warfare for the moment.

82nd Airborne combat units are now all across or moving towards the Waal.

I've decided to move 4th Armoured Brigade north to support the offensive by 101st Airborne Division.



43rd Wessex is about to give the German company screen in the area a major headache as it cuts through them like a hot knife through butter. 43rd Wessex has tank units attached to it, which gives it considerable offensive punch.

After some consideration, I decided to move 7th Armoured to the breakthrough in progress instead of advancing towards the south next to 11th Armoured Division.



50th Northumbrian Division discovers that nobody's home in the area between Eindhoven and Weert. It can advance unopposed.

At the start of the day, there will still Division Erdmann units in the area, but they're rapidly withdrawing towards the east.

[ComradeP]

Turn 47 05:00 September 22th. Soft conditions. The weather will continue to worsen from now on.



Some of the Division Von Tettau units west of the units across the Waal are no longer in fighting shape. The division withdraws to positions to the west. The SS and various Heer battalions are still holding firm on the eastern side. I'll first try to secure another full hex ferry at Ochten.

Nijmegen is securely in German hands for now, but that's fine for the moment.

Most of my strategy is focussed on applying just enough pressure in various sectors to force the Germans to commit to the area with more than a screening force. It's much easier for me to move units around than it is for the Germans due to all the non-airborne units being motorized. The Germans have an excellent rail capacity, but it's tricky to use that for moving units from one part of the map to the other as I'm firmly in control of the central part of the map. As the Allies, you always want to try to start as many small fires across the map as possible. Keep the Germans off balance.

As the big spike in German losses shows, the operations on September 21st were very successful and destroyed a number of battalions worth of company-sized units.



The bridgehead the 43rd Wessex Division has established across the Meuse by using a ferry hex is a bit too risky. 107th Panzer Brigade is now in the area and it has knocked out a Stuart company that was in T-mode after moving across the ferry. The single infantry company across the river will either perish from German assaults or move across if it succeeds in recovering from its Disrupted state.

The attack by 101st Airborne and 4th Armoured Brigade is making good progress, but the Fallschirmjaeger battalions in the area are putting up a spirited defence. With their good soft attack ratings, they're no joke.

In front of 3rd Infantry Division, the German 59. Infanterie Division and parts of 246. Infanterie Division have pulled back a bit.



It turns out that there was nobody home south of Deurne either aside from a few companies around Asten that couldn't get to safety, so the 11th Armoured and 50th Northumbrian Divisions made good progress. They bumped into the tail end of Division Erdmann at last light. I doubt I can encircle any of the German units so close to the Siegfried Line which starts at Venlo.



The 15th Scottish is still holding the south-western flank.

In case anyone is wondering what the orange artillery unit is at the bottom of the screenshot: that unit belongs to 11th Armoured and it's erroneously Fixed after reappearing on the map as part of 11th Armoured Division instead of 5th AGRA.