Sunday, May 22, 2011

Bullying Tigers - Fun with Combat Mission Battle for Normandy's Quick Battle System

There is so many good war games these days that I am having issues choosing. Today I settled for a quick battle in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy (CMBN). Something simple just to blow up stuff. I used CMBN's quick battle system and chose a platoon of Shermans vs. a platoon of Tigers in a fairly open map.




Trying to get good hull down positions takes some time, but after that our first bounding overwatch was uneventful.
How to bound with a platoon of five tanks? It's a bit disconcerting. Here I left just one tank overwatching the other four.
This position (we were getting close to a village and I got nervous) was a total waste of time. The LOS from here was definitively shorter than a stone throw.
First contact was quick and brutal. One Tiger tank in the depths of the map took the tank in our extreme left flank. I should have moved that tank immediately after contact. After that kill, the Tiger moved towards the village. I was relieved to see the Tiger moving forward because I have no chance in long range engagements. I moved my four remaining tanks forward and then pivoted right ... something was moving in the village.

I couldn't believe my luck. Almost the full platoon of Tigers was in the middle of the village, slowly moving forward. I had my four tanks deployed in a line and fired at the Tigers' flanks. I think that part of my fortune was that my guys fired at the closest tank first and the smoke form the wreck obscured the LOS of other enemy tanks. This was like an unintended smoke screen. In the screenshot above, the crew from a Tiger tank calls it a day and runs away.

Our attack by fire position. The village is to the left of this screenshot.
A knocked out Tiger tank near the village. My four Shermans are in the background (green icons).
Total victory! Five Tigers knocked out for the Germans, one Sherman knocked out for the US.

I'm kind of remembering my previous Combat Mission Shock Force tricks and vices now and they are coming in handy for CMBN.

Cheers,

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just bought this after playing the demo and it seem to bring back all the good memories of playing CMBO back in the days. I now feel more convinced than ever that CMSF was a sideshow to what most of us really wanted.

JC said...

CMSF was good in itself, at least for me. Grew a bit tired of certain things like the so-called TacAI. I still don't know how my petty gripes will fare in CMBN.

Cheers,

Unknown said...

I'm sick of WW2 so CMSF is not a sideshow for me.

RangerX3X said...

WW2 still sells though...