Section Leaders:
  Fionn Kelly & Madmatt 

Reviewed By: Maastrictian

The views and opinions expressed here don't necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of CMHQ, they might, but we would never say that in public!

September 19^th, 2000

The Destruction of Caen
(CrazyCurt)
Played as Allies.  My first downloaded Operation.  I’m generally intimidated by user created Ops as they tend to be Huge and/or involve more than 90 turns.  Caen was just right for me, only 75 turns.  The map is truly astounding, very appropriate, an enormous amount of destroyed buildings and fires.  I thought some of the terrain to the north west of the city was mediocre, but the user doesn’t interact with it much.  One thing I especially liked about it was the logical progression of reinforcements.  Starting with recon units, moving to infantry and tanks and finally including specialized vehicles.  On the German side, I thought the battle was a bit tank heavy, not enough bunkers and pillboxes.  IIRC the battle of Caen was a very static one and I find it hard to believe that tanks survived the bombing or made their way up through the city.  On the other hand, the prevalence of AAA on the German side was very appropriate.

3 Bridges
(Chris Dufresne)
Played as Allies.  The first of four (sorry, not three) bridge type battles I played.  I generally prefer a more historical scenario, but this one was a lot of fun.  I felt the premise, that an allied company would have to take three separate bridges in a 45 minute time period, to be a little weak.  However, the steep terrain combined with dense urban areas makes this a very interesting scenario both strategically and tactically. There are a number of different strategies that the both sides can rely on and that was where the scenario really shined.  I think this would make an excellent PBEM, both blind and not.

Bloody Bridge
(Panzer Man)
  Played as Allies.  First, my niggling complaint:  The assault boats are fun… but why bother?  Why not just start that platoon on the far side of the river so that the user can play as both sides?  Second, the whole map was off center.  The important area, the bridge, was tucked in one corner so the Germans had no rear area to speak of.  Third, the “spotting hill” by the Allied starting area.  Hills with good fields of fire are often good to put arty spotters on etc.  It is possible to incorporate such structures well into the landscape (see 3 Bridges) and to incorporate them badly.  This one was, unfortunately, the later.  It was too steep and too circular.   Try incorporating it into a ridge line.  Fourth (and most importantly) the SS were set up badly on the wrong side of the river in an easily flankable position.  It was easy to DF them while staying out of sight of their support on the other side of the river.  They also did not have enough support.  There was really only one thing capable of reliably killing tanks and it died pretty quickly.  The reinforcements came far too late, when I already had a company of troops surrounding the flag and all my tanks in hull down positions behind the stone wall.  There is definitely some potential here, but work needs to be done.

Who is Gunther
(Howard Bjerke)
  Played as Axis.  Lets face it, at least half the reason I liked this one is because it is called “Who is Gunther.”  Even though that question is never satisfactorily answered, this was still pretty good.    My main objection, which is often a problem in the “attacking across a bridge” genre is that the AI just couldn’t deal with the challenge of making the attack.  The fact that the German position was pretty perfect helped.  The main aide was the terrain masking by elevation seen at the German end of the bridge.  The Allies were only able to come at the Germans one at a time and generally they got hosed.  The wrecked vehicle now blocked the way for the next Allied tank.  Not so good.  Some sparse cover close to the bridge would force the Axis to think about whether to employ better cover further back or to deny the enemy use of the cover close to the bridge by occupying it.  This one really only needs some tweaks though.

Victory in the Vineyards
(Terry “groundpounder” Flemming)
  Played as Axis.  I gave this one an extra half star for the briefing.  A very creative, daring briefing that, while saying almost nothing of the situation, the forces involved etc still works beautifully and gets you involved in the game.  The actual game itself is quite good.  It avoids the traditional problems of the computer attacking across a bridge by presenting multiple avenues of approach that the computer can use and limiting Axis setup intelligently.  Axis AT assets are relatively plentiful, but the Axis has so many routes to cover they are effectively depleted.  A very interesting battle, the obvious attack routes are not necessarily the best ones. 

Indian Fighting
(Keith Schur)
  Played as Allies.  A very simple scenario.  I almost bumped this one up a notch, but its real limitation is its lack of options.  The defender just sits there, setup is the only important thing (mostly).  Where as in Victory in the Vineyards (for instance) the defender has to react to enemy thrusts here there is just one flag, there is not much need to react.  That being said this is a very interesting historical scenario.  It is great to see a reinforced platoon take on 3:1 odds (or possibly higher) and hold out, for a time.  The tension is well done, just when you think things are lost, they are not (quite).  I wonder if this would be too easy from the German point of view, but that’s just speculation.

Withdrawal at La Viet
(G.R. “LeBlaque” Mathews)
Played as Allies.  I guess I like this one because of its quite original concept.  Hold off an attack while rotating one force out and replacing it with another.  One of the best “exit” type battles I’ve played.  My main complaint is that the Allied reinforcements appear in a very exposed position.  By extending the map a bit they could have appeared on a reverse slope allowing them to enter the battle in an organized fashion.  They also appear late enough that it is a real challenge to get them to the battle before time runs out.  Possibly a flaw, possibly a feature, depends on your point of view. 

Recon Meeting in the Ardennes
(Bob Cook)
Played as Allies.  So this scenario illustrated something to me that I’d never noticed.  The Stuart is the Panther of Recon vehicles.  It is immune to all German recon vehicles except the PSW/2 and PSW/3.  This is because German recon carries the 20mm cannon, great against infantry, but very little penetration.  The Stuart’s “thick” hull is impervious.  Given the rarity of the Puma and the inaccuracy of the short 75mm at long range this means that Allied recon kicks the but of Axis recon.  Who knew?  This fact, combined with the fact that the flag was significantly closer to the Allies than the Axis conbined to make this one a bit too easy.  There was also a tendency for “special” tanks that I find a bit annoying.  Rare vehicles do not need to appear in every scenario, especially one that bills itself as a recon engagement.  My final problem was the predictability of German reinforcements based on what Allied units I was given.  All the reinforcing medium tanks were 76mm armed.  This definitely implies that there was a Panther or better coming.  Throwing in at least 50% 75mm tanks would have made is harder for the Allies (which was needed), as well as making the battle more realistic and less predictable.