Hünfeld's Bridges v1.6

[Hackworth]

New Scenario upload to the downloads area under Multiplayer Coop Large...

Excerpts of the Squadron commander's orders for Team Alpha...

1) SITUATION:
a) Enemy:
An enemy advance guard detachment holds several bridges west of Hünfeld. Reinforcements from the parent division are expected to pass through and exploit during the next hour.

b) Own:
Your Team is located west of Hünsfeld with local Bundeswehr reservists controlling Burghaun (F Company, AI controlled). The bridges west of Hünsfeld must be recaptured or controlled by fire to prevent the commitment of the enemy DIV's main body across the River Haun.

c) Attachments and detachments: Alpha Team is 100% FMC with ammo platoon and FISTv support. Additionally, 1/D (M2A3) and 2/D (M1A1) from Recc Company are attached to bolster your strength and provide additional scout support.

2) MISSION:
Team Alpha will clear all enemy activity from west of PL Sabre NLT 30:00 min from start. Team Alpha will then prepare a hasty defense in the eventuality the enemy main force attacks along this axis. You will control all bridges west of Hünsfeld until 90:00 from mission start and retain the use of all bridges near Burghaun by assisting F Company as necessary. Your mission is to destroy the enemy tank battalion leading the enemy Division's advance before it can break in across the bridges surrounding Hünsfled...

This scenario may be played single player if you are accustomed to managing company-sized elements on your own. It is in fact intended as a single player mission, but there are many units to manage and it will take some time planning ahead as single player mission.

The terrain map is excellent, one of the best I've ever seen... and I didn't make it. Gary Owen made the terrain map. :mrgreen: The terrain replicates the Hünfeld area of Fulda Gap, Germany. Well, I hope you enjoy, have fun and good luck!

[stalintc]

Great! thanks for taking the time to do it Hackworth, ill give it a go next chance I get :biggrin:

[Koen]

Played it,
enjoyed it.

1) Mission itself is not too original: attack & occupy ENY position - then hold it.
BUT the setup is realistic and ahem, intellectually challenging as you are forced to think about:
- your best approach route
- where & how you will deploy TKS and IFV's
- and your tactics to hold the position.
=> so, interesting.

Also neighbouring AI units are simulated (F-coy): always a big plus in my book.

2) Briefing: clear - realistic feeling - and not tool long

3) Number of units: reinforced coy.
Still doable in SP, but IMHO, barely only.
Big problem is ENY arty => regularly changing of BP is necessary,
better plan that ahead, so that it happens automatically (e.g. 2 min. after reaching a certain WP: shift position).

Creating some routes in planning phase helps a lot in this mission.
Now that "Save Plan" function temporarily is disabled in BETA, I 'd like to create routes in Mission Editor, so that I can replay mission later (and add more msg + add M88 to dig Brads out of brooks where they got stuck).
=> Hackworth, care to upload a password free version (both Blue & Red) ?

4) Great map of course !

5) Replayability: unable to check, cfr. passworded.
But AAR showed that RED has several crossing points over the river,
also in German sector of F-coy.
Could be intersting situation, where RED main attack happens there so that you have to support F and probably deal with diversionary attack as well.
-> Possible situation in this sce, Hackworth ?
(and if so, does msg from F call for help ?)

6) How did it play out:

* I advanced not from North, as recommended by briefing, but through woods on plateau overlooking RED objective:
went fairly well, RED was out on the ridge, its infantry not even occupying the village below it (!), so they were defeated quickly.

* In fact RED seemed to have a static position there. Correct ?
If so, maybe let them have some alternating positions as well: vs arty, or fallback option when losses are taken ?

* Then things went quickly wrong:
ENY arty took out various tks
RED tks shooting from across the river, out of Hünfeld, was also dangerous
=> lesson (re)learned: when occupying a hill, do not expose yourself, get off the ridge ...

* Final RED attack completely blew us away because:
a) bad positioning of BLUE:
cfr. above
and also because of very safe but slow approach through woods, so late arrival.
b) difficult terrain: there are so many bridges there to overview, difficult to control all of them ?
c) very large RED forces:
=> Hackworth, can a BLUE company take those on ?
What do you suggest to do, where to postion
& did you win already the mission ?
=> OR, should BLUE have retreated to Autobahn, in face of overwhelming RED forces, to deny access to Autobahn ?

Nice little adventure,
THX Hackworth !

Koen

[Ssnake]

Any review is excellent, and this isn't even of the kind of "any". :)
The question is, is there a way to add these reviews to the download area so that it's directly connected with the scenario that it describes?

This seems to be one of the challenges - the user wants to download a particular scenario but doesn't know if it is any good (=worth the download and playing it at least once, which is likely to cost a total of one hour or more, eventually the entire budget of daily spare time).
Since only a tiny minority of scenarios have ever been reviewed so far users will also quickly learn that the forum's search function usually is worthless. So there must be a way to at least place a link to this review directly to the download link of the scenario file.

[Hackworth]

That would be an excellent feature to link reviews here to the download Nils.

In the meantime, I posted a comment to the download with a link back to this thread.

Koen, I'll have a response to you today. I posted this over a year ago and have not played it in quite some time. As for passwords, I normally use "Moody" for blue and "Bates" for red -- though it may or may not have caps and could possibly be juxtaposed as bates for blue and moody for red. All I ask is that if you or anyone make changes to the mission, please do not save it under the same name or merely change the version number. something like Koen's Hunfelds Bridges 1.6. I want to reserve the right to new versions and do not want existing versions to be overwritten when played online.

[Sean]

Good idea. People can either:

1. Write a review in the forums, and link it in the comments area.

2. Write the review and cut and paste it into the comment. The comment field size is something like 65,000 bytes, so it should allow for fairly long reviews.

[Hackworth]

3) Number of units: reinforced coy.
Still doable in SP, but IMHO, barely only.

yes, this mission is difficult as single player, but doable. it's not so much the number of controlled vehicles as what happens when Red's main attack starts. The player become very busy real quick and it's easier to keep your units alive while taking down the attack with more human players.

=> Hackworth, care to upload a password free version (both Blue & Red) ?
see my response above. i really don't like leaving my missions unpassworded for the reasons i state there, but i don't mind sharing the passwords when asked. i always use the same ones by the way.

4) Great map of course !
One of the best! Thank you Gary Owen!

Could be intersting situation, where RED main attack happens there so that you have to support F and probably deal with diversionary attack as well.
-> Possible situation in this sce, Hackworth ?
(and if so, does msg from F call for help ?)
The main attack will always hit the southern half of the map, BUT, there is an alternate route for one of the companys right over the bridges at Burghaun. There are alternate routes for all of the Red companies. Just two each (x4 companies) so as to not overcomplicate things -- just enough to make it replayable.
I just finished a version 1.7 (and 1.7b with Leo2A5s) and added the messages for help ;)

* In fact RED seemed to have a static position there. Correct ?
If so, maybe let them have some alternating positions as well: vs arty, or fallback option when losses are taken ?
Red has just taken the position and not consolidated it yet. Several Red units will displace when under fire and take up alternate positions near the original BPs. However, T-xx vehicles do not move real fast in reverse, so they get wacked pretty good when attempting to do so.

* Then things went quickly wrong:
ENY arty took out various tks
RED tks shooting from across the river, out of Hünfeld, was also dangerous
=> lesson (re)learned: when occupying a hill, do not expose yourself, get off the ridge ...
=> Hackworth, can a BLUE company take those on ?
What do you suggest to do, where to postion
& did you win already the mission ?
=> OR, should BLUE have retreated to Autobahn, in face of overwhelming RED forces, to deny access to Autobahn ?
Haha, yes....as good as it sounds, try to never skyline. oooo, but the positions are so good sometimes! You really want to be careful while red is crossing the bridges down in the valley. The temptation is to peak over and shoot them up -- that works, but it also exposes your units. If all of Red's units are down there (i.e. none still cresting at Hünfeld), then it's not so bad.

Yes, the company can defeat the attack. This is much more difficult for a single player to accomplish as stated above, but it is possible. It took me three tries yesterday and only successfully with first try playing the new version... :D
Based on the fact that most people play single player, I created a version 1.7 reducing Red's ARTY and removing ICM from its types available. I converted Blue's M2A2 platoon and the XO to M1A1s. Armor versus armor should work better, though I left the M2A3 scouts (I love the Bradley...but, they are almost useless in this mission). I also changed one of the HEMTT platoons into an M88A2 based on your recommendation and its availability.

I do not recommend falling back while in contact though we've done it playing MP Coop successfully. It's very difficult as a single player.

I normally take up the ridges west of the river Haun and Hünsfeld pushing straight in from the west. Take a moment to knock out the enemy's BRDMs scouting ahead from the enemy bridgehead. They can make trouble for your supply/repair trains following you and/or take down the HQ element to the rear which will cost you points. You can control all the bridges with fire from there as well as defeat the ADV GD Detachment holding the town. Rolling them up from the north sounds good on paper, but I find it's better to have my forces concentrated and mutually supporting one another. Crossing Burghaun and rolling up the ADV GD DET from the north on both sides of the river leaves your units in positions where they are chewed up peicemeal due to the inability to mutually support one another by fire. We've pulled it off in multiplayer, but it's difficult since it requires close management of your platoons.

I pulled it off with only 3 tanks left. Also, even though Red ARTY was reduced and ICM removed, I suffered many damaged tanks from Red's barrges -- loss of mobility played a major factor in that several immobile tanks were killed on my southern flank as Red crossed the southern bridges at Hünfeld. I saved the AAR. If you would like to take a look, please PM me with your email address. The darn thing is 10MB. I can break it down into RAR files and send it in two or three emails if you like.

I'll post version 1.7 and 1.7b shortly.

Thank you very much for the review Koen. I really appreciate it.

[Koen]

And thanks for your interesting feedback !
IMHO a bit too rare here that scenario's are discussed more indepth.

No need to send me the AAR, as I will try out your method asap with version 17.b.
-> THX for creating the new versions for the SP players !

Rgds,

K

[Hackworth]

And thanks for your interesting feedback !
IMHO a bit too rare here that scenario's are discussed more indepth.

No need to send me the AAR, as I will try out your method asap with version 17.b.
-> THX for creating the new versions for the SP players !

Rgds,

K

Non problemo Sir! BTW: I played the 1.7b version yesterday and only lost like 2 tanks and 2 AFVs although several of my tanks were wrecked by direct and indirect fire. Ivan's ARTY is still very aggressive though cut back. Either way, it was much easier to kick Ivan's ass - almost too easy. But then I made the scenario so it should be easier for me ;)

Also, a correction to my statements above regarding variations on Red's routes: the left and right companies of the enemy BN formation have two possible routes each as well as the fourth trailing company of T-80s. The company in the center always attacks along that route. And the ADV GD DET will set up in different BPs at start with alternate BPs at each location to use when under fire. I *remembered* that the hard way when playing 1.7b yesterday resulting in one of my tank loses at very close range coming out of the woods to attack the western bank of the Haun river, hehe. It's all about replayability ;)

[Koen]

I played the 1.7b version yesterday and only lost like 2 tanks and 2 AFVs although several of my tanks were wrecked by direct and indirect fire.

1.7 b: a victory, finally ...
but with only half of my units left over !

Rgds,

K