CW Wittmann's Demise - Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy

I played the German force and found the scenario heavily imbalanced in my favour. The main issue is a large disparity in victory points and excessive scenario length. The imbalances with respect to opposing orders of battle and terrain are consistent with historical attack/defend situations. When historical situations are imbalanced, game results can still be balanced through victory conditions, victory points and time constraints.

In this scenario the allies have three occupy objectives totalling 600 points versus two German touch objectives totalling 3000 points. Not only are the points hugely disproportionate but so is the degree of difficulty between touch and occupy, the former being much more easily achieved. The German player need merely touch a single objective to exceed the potential allied points total.

My opponent and I are wargaming grognards (>25 years) and are not given to reckless mistakes (at least, he’s not). My opponent is the better tactician and conducted a very capable (well-positioned) allied defence that confused, intimidated and slowed me down. Taking into account our experience - a major German victory underscores the imbalance. In my opinion, this would not make for a very enjoyable scenario for the allied player.

Rebalancing this scenario. The following suggestions may not be perfect but would, I believe, move towards improving play balance:
1. German victory points total should equal allied victory points total at 500 pts. The lower number increases the significance of casualties suffered by both sides.
2. German victory locations should number four and include the Canadian location (100 pts), the two touch objectives (150 pts each), and the British held village (100 pts).
3. Allied victory locations should number three and include the Canadian location (100 pts), the forest adjacent to the first German touch location (200 pts) and the British occupied village (200 pts).
4. Change all victory locations to occupy for both players.
5. Change all victory locations to known to both players.
6. Reduce the scenario length to 1 ½ hours.
7. German infantry (only) reinforcements to arrive earlier consistent with the new timeline (otherwise they will not have an opportunity to contribute to victory conditions).
8. All reinforcements have variable arrival times to reduce the effect of the allied player pre-plotting artillery barrages at the arrival locations and times.
9. Each side receives 100 points for reducing his opponent to 50% strength on the assumption that further action the following day would be significantly reduced (i.e. a small victory).
10. Each side receives 100 points in the unlikely event that it manages to sustain less than 15% casualties.
11. Victory points for specific armoured targets are eliminated on the justification that eliminating opposing armour will help achieve the ultimate victory conditions anyway.

Other interesting observations:
1. Both sides have reinforcements scheduled to appear one hour after the scenario ends. This is intentional. This is the designer’s method to keep those units out of play.
2. During our game, at one end of the spectrum the first Tiger tank knocked out was the victim of a mere Sherman (not a Firefly) and was hit on its left side between the wheels. At the other end of the spectrum the Tiger that reached the second touch objective survived 35 hits including penetrations with only its driver left before being killed by a Firefly. I used the mod Forensic Hit Decals to analyse the hits.
3. Three out of four Panther tanks had their main guns knocked out by the first hit received. A few Tigers suffered similar fates. The number of gun hits seemed disproportionate.
4. A number of German tanks, SP guns and halftracks were put out of action by bogging.
5. The German player had a lot of OBA which he neglected to use. The allied player used his very well but it had little virtually no effect on the German tanks other than as intimidation and forcing them to button-up.

I will upload a revised version with my vp modifications.