Some areas for possible larger, longer SB scenarios

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I thought these might make some good fights as well as having more room and time for more maneuver and strategy........

Team Cherry and Rose in front of Bastogne

Bastogne itself

The defense of St. Vith

KG Peiper

Ste Mere Eglise as well as other areas in the U.S. and British drop areas

Same for Market-Garden

I know there are many more that could be done like alot of the beach landings.

I know the age old and tired arguement of being too long or large, but I bet if you make them, they will play! Even if they were done as new and make them similar to the Close Combat series with SBs Normandy or Arnhem or Market-garden or Bulge or Anzio, Sicily or Salerno and so on and so on.

An area type movement system for non active areas and the two hour turn in contested areas. If passing through non active areas, the units would have to be placed in an Order of March so that when they do reach active areas, they will enter over the course of several turns. They could move as an entire group through the nonactive areas. If you send a group to defend a nonactive area, then at some point you would have to deploy them in case it becomes active or you move them to another area. I know there would be alot of areas, but there would be so much more one can do in those scenarios than just shoot them up for 10 turns and move on to another.

Just rambling, but think this would be a good direction to go.

[Ashcloud]

I thought these might make some good fights as well as having more room and time for more maneuver and strategy........

Team Cherry and Rose in front of Bastogne

Bastogne itself

The defense of St. Vith

Ste Mere Eglise as well as other areas in the U.S. and British drop areas

Same for Market-Garden

I know there are many more that could be done like alot of the beach landings.

I know the age old and tired arguement of being too long or large, but I bet if you make them, they will play! Even if they were done as new and make them similar to the Close Combat series with SBs Normandy or Arnhem or Market-garden or Bulge or Anzio, Sicily or Salerno and so on and so on.

An area type movement system for non active areas and the two hour turn in contested areas. If passing through non active areas, the units would have to be placed in an Order of March so that when they do reach active areas, they will enter over the course of several turns. They could move as an entire group through the nonactive areas. If you send a group to defend a nonactive area, then at some point you would have to deploy them in case it becomes active or you move them to another area. I know there would be alot of areas, but there would be so much more one can do in those scenarios than just shoot them up for 10 turns and move on to another.

Just rambling, but think this would be a good direction to go.

Sounds great, I would play them.

[TheBigRedOne]

The age old argument has nothing to do with the scenarios being too large, it's finding someone willing to dedicate the enormous amount of time to put together a massive scenario like you're suggesting. It would require a person with very strong design skills, a fair amount experience with the editors and, most importantly, a lot of time on their hands. Right now those people are in short supply. The only main SB scenario designer who is here semi-regularly is Jeff. The rest are working on other projects or real-life has taken them away from the game.

And, of course, the maps. If they aren't available, there isn't really anything you can do.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I understand the problem with the maps. I'm thinking more along the lines of titles, rather than a scenario here and there. Of course there would hasve to be stuff added like supplies along the lines of explicit similar to PzCs, and replacements as well for those uniits pulled out of the line to rest. There would be more detail to these titles, but would be well worth it. If nothing else, try one and see how it goes. It would be a mix of PzCs and SBs I guess as the areas where you have units moving out of contact would have to be placed in an Order of March, takes a little time but I think would work as far as arriving in areas that are contested and fought over at the SBs level. That would make movement of larger amount of forces away from the fight easy.

Just pipe dreaming really. Something to do at times, but at least an idea is out there and one never knows what is coming.

[TheBigRedOne]

The new series that has been on Tiller's site, Panzer Battles, is supposed to be a game that is an intermediate size between the Campaign and SB series. I believe the units will be platoon sized rather than squad. I don't know, however, what the status of that series currently is.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I'd love to see more of that, but obviously in the same boat. I've been reading "A Time for Trumpets" again and good books like that get my mind to wandering and wishing.

[Wodin]

Some large Stalingrad scenarios have been done by Marco..One requires a ref though.

The main issue is ammo supply. With out ammo trucks to restock and ammo dumps it makes the large scenarios difficult to play.

It's why the effectiveness mechanic is my biggest issue with the game. The game goes into so much detail compared to other tactical games like CoH or the upcoming LnL i.e my fav thing actual soldiers represented and not an abstract full squad\half squad..yet it then goes all abstract with the ammo and no rof setting which not only can't be easily topped up but also can make your MG42 like a pea shooter. If only JT had gone for proper ammo counts and RoF settings it wouldn't have been a huge undertaking then for JT to have added ammo carriers in a later patch. SB is just a feature or two from being the ultimate tactical wargame..and that really frustrates me.

[Rabbit]

There actually might be workarounds to that. I don't know the game engine well enough to say for certain, but two easy workarounds seem like you could have one or more trucks arrive as reinforcements loaded with fresh weapons or else you could leave weapon caches lying around in specific locations and leave it to the player to retrieve them (which actually would add a nice element of strategy). Or the weapon caches even could be in the same hex as the units holding their current arsenal, leaving it to the player to decide when and what to drop and pick up.

I might be remembering incorrectly, but I believe Oz created a cool scenario in Eagles Strike in which some of the weapons were dropped by parachute and units had to go retrieve them.


The game engine definitely doesn't allow for resupplying your current weapons, but I don't see why scenarios couldn't be created in which you could get fresh weapons (which would simulate resupply).

[Stejones82]

Hmmm ...... interesting. Say you as the scenario editor scheduled a truck to arrive on game turn 12 with a 1 man squad and lots of fresh weapons.

Another concept I would like to see employed is the "Commitment of the reserve" approach.

Basically, your assault kicks off and you do all things you need to do to achieve first line objectives. Now some of you experts can correct me if I'm wrong, but WWII era troops were only considered to be effective on close combat for about an hour, right? By that time, if they had not blown through the defense, it was time to bring in the reserve force which would pass through the first units in order to continue the pressure to break the enemy. In game turns - a relief force could be scheduled to arrive on turn 12 or 18. These would be fresh with 100% effective weapons - but up to the player how to bring them in and deploy them. This might be a more effective and realistic way to handle long scenarios. And it might better reflect tactical doctrine which dictated a superiority of at least 3 to 1 (IIRC) in order to go on the attack.

So one might see in AOTR, e.g., two German companies assault one Soviet company. Long about game turn 12-ish, here comes "scheduled" units of one or two more companies to either exploit the gap or push through.

The only problem with this approach is that while great fun for the attacker, the defender would have the proverbially difficult row to hoe.

Steve

[Wodin]

Sounds great..but as you say it falls apart when it comes to the defender..maybe lots of fixed units..however ammo would be brought up to them which again can't really be done..once a squad drops a weapon it's effectiveness drops through the floor..so making that pointless.

Hmmm ...... interesting. Say you as the scenario editor scheduled a truck to arrive on game turn 12 with a 1 man squad and lots of fresh weapons.

Another concept I would like to see employed is the "Commitment of the reserve" approach.

Basically, your assault kicks off and you do all things you need to do to achieve first line objectives. Now some of you experts can correct me if I'm wrong, but WWII era troops were only considered to be effective on close combat for about an hour, right? By that time, if they had not blown through the defense, it was time to bring in the reserve force which would pass through the first units in order to continue the pressure to break the enemy. In game turns - a relief force could be scheduled to arrive on turn 12 or 18. These would be fresh with 100% effective weapons - but up to the player how to bring them in and deploy them. This might be a more effective and realistic way to handle long scenarios. And it might better reflect tactical doctrine which dictated a superiority of at least 3 to 1 (IIRC) in order to go on the attack.

So one might see in AOTR, e.g., two German companies assault one Soviet company. Long about game turn 12-ish, here comes "scheduled" units of one or two more companies to either exploit the gap or push through.

The only problem with this approach is that while great fun for the attacker, the defender would have the proverbially difficult row to hoe.

Steve