Soviet Battalion in Steel Beasts - the right way?

[PincerDK]

Hello gentlemen!

I have been for a long time tried to make a classic Cold War scenario in Steel Beasts that is about a Motorized Rifle Battalion/tank Battalion attacking an area while a company or equivalent is defending, you know the standard 1:3 ratio. Mostly the company is recon based, so it's either units:

US Divisional Cavalry Squadron (1 troop of 6*3 M3's + HHT with 2 M3's),

Canadian Recce Squadron (Mostly 2 platoons of 2*4 Lynx (M113A1) with an attached platoon of 1*4 Leopard 1 (Leopard 1AS1)

(For those interested in this, check the previous post I made in the Tactics section, there are some interesting input from those who know about this)

German Recon Battalion (2 Sections of 2*2 Luchs (ASLAV-25) and a Leopard 1A5 platoon of 1*4 Leopard's)

In this mission I'm currently working on it's the German unit I have chosen and they are supposed to be advancing up a valley that is situated on the boundary between a US Division and an German Division. The objective is a city and they are meant to recon the valley and defeat a possible counterattack from an MRB.

The problem is the MRB. Whenever I try to make it so the Soviet Battalion attacks in Company columns, I have to go through a lot of scripting in order to make sure 1 company is not moving ahead of the other and I have to make places where they stop in order to let 1 unit catch up with the others.

If I make these stop places, then BLUFOR has an easy way of killing them while they stand still.

Also for me there are 3 options how to make the units move:

1. You can make a route for each platoon and HQ and set them so they follow each other but that is just quite tedious to do and like the 3rd option just makes it confusing to do.

2. You can make them all follow a company route so you have all the units in one company follow a route and another follow a second and another a third.

This I have had sucess with before but the problem is then tanks since they are given the same route to follow as an BTR80.

3. You can use the copy route chain in order to copy a units movement and apply it to others. The problem is then that the routes are laid perfectly 100 m between each other which means some of the routes are going through woods and some through lakes and it's a bit confusing to try to correct them all.

I just want to hear some ideas/suggestions from those who have made those scenarios that is similar to this like Volcano's Deliberate Attack 01 or Hasty Defense 01, NGP 85 scenario which have some of the same ideas, Zipuli's scenarios or HoH pt1.

1. What was your procedure with this? did you use any of the three? or do you have you own way in order to avoid making it too tedious?

2. Some ideas?

Another question? How does people make screenshots instead of printing in Steel Beasts? I have tried some of the printscreen programs but they just provide me with a blank picture.

[Gibsonm]

Shift+F12 gives you a screen shot.

Will dig up a scenario to send you that shows the scripting I use.

[PincerDK]

Please do Mark

[PincerDK]

The situation:

The enemy is attacking from either of these two directions and then advances down the valley in the west.

The friendly units have moved from that valley and their objective is the city of OBJ BISMARCK (German city of Lauenau) which they need to hold while defeating the counterattack.

If the BLUFOR commander decides not to hold the city, he can instead retreat back into the western valley to OBJ NELSON (Auetal) and hold it but he needs to inflict at least 50% casualties on the enemy.

If he decides to not hold either of these he can retreat back to his starting point and inflict at least 75% casualties on the enemy.

The problem is still how the Soviet Battalion advances down to BISMARCK and then to the valley.

SS_22_20_0201.rar

[Eisenschwein]

Sorry, short in Time. Hope do get in more Deep. ;-)

- Use for a RED Co only 2 Plt, First with 6 Tanks, second with 3 Tanks + CO

- Use coordination Rooms to collect the Tanks (follow if ) in cover Position

- When you have a minimum of 3:1 Ratio let them attack

- Use "follow if" Condition to direct them in one Direction

- Try to get all of the KI to attack at once

- Don´t spread them to wide, RED Bt attack at a max of 3 Km

- Use Arty to cover Attack

If you need some guidance, PM me....

[PincerDK]

Thanks Eisenschwein!

My idea is mostly to still keep the platoons separated so 3 platoons per company. I might have to put the CO's tank in one of them, haven't decided yet.

Coordination rooms was my original plan and what I have used mostly and it has worked most of the cases, the only problem is the risk that BLUFOR might take advantage of it. But in real life, I think you also operate with "Coordination rooms" or something similar so maybe it's not an issue after all. I would also use coordination rooms if I was in command of a whole tank battalion.

What do you mean by the "Follow if" option?

Yes my plan is to keep them attacking simultaneously and on a narrow

frontage. Thanks for the 3 km, I thought the frontage was something like that.

And I have tested with arty before so I could get a simultaneous attack AND arty impact but since this is not a major attack, I might have to keep it to either 6 tubes corresponding to the battalion mortar battery and some assorted preplanned fires.

[Gibsonm]

PM with file sent.

Just:

open in the Editor

choose Red

start

then fast forward "F12" until the action starts.

[Panzer_Leader]

The approach I used in my recent Heavy CT Delay v Tank Battalion FD scenario was to time the arrival of the platoons and companies at a certain point, in this case the assault formation line approximately 1000m from the objective, and adjust their spawn times to synchronise their arrival. It's not necessarily elegant or easy but it works well enough and avoids units sitting around waiting for others to catch up. Once they spawn they move as planned towards the objective and only enemy action influences them.

I'm not saying it's the "right" way but it's one that worked for me.

[Volcano]

Hmm I thought I replied to this but I guess I didn't.

The only real way you can make a soviet battalion move "intelligently" (AI) is by creating routes for one company. You should have short route legs to waypoints where a branch occurs if something you want happens (ie. enemy spotted). Enemy should probably begin in company columns, then deploy on line if enemy is located and then attack. Once you get the scripting down for one company, you can copy and paste the route change to the rest of the companies and adjust. Make no mistake, by the time you are done you will probably have over 200 waypoints at least, and it is not uncommon that the map can no longer be seen because of all the routes on it (use the pick route feature to declutter the map). I have made one scenario that had upwards to something like 500 waypoints. :eek: