Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Command Ops 2: Rescuing Cavalry

Yes sir, troopers need to be rescued sometimes too.

In this scenario, US Cavalry (brown icons) is caught off guard along the 25 km front held by the 7th US Armored Division. In this screenshot, fallschirmjägers are swarming north along the road network in the town of Ospel (Holland).
This is from a game I played as the Allies against the computer. The game is Command Ops-Westwall and the scenario is "Counterstroke in the Swamp". Massive spoilers warning.



The situation is not less ominous in the village of Meijel, with German infantry (grey icons) moving towards the B and C Troops of the 87th Cavalry Squadron.

A feeble delaying party of the D Troop near Hooge Brug. There is a bridge there that can support motorized units, so I will be looking at this specific are with much attention.
By mid day, the fallschirmjägers at Ospel have forced the US Cavalry to withdraw. Fortunately, CCA (7th US Armored Division, green icons west of the German force) are on their way to the village's center.

CCR ( (7th US Armored Division, green icons) is making good progress towards Meijel.

The situation at Meijel is becoming desperate: Note how the US Cavalry is getting surrounded by German units (grey icons).
It is only after the sun goes down that the tides of battle change. CCA and other US assorted units are taking good care of the German  fallschirmjägers at Ospel.

Stopping the Germans at Meijel took more effort because CCR took a long time to move in.

The areas of control for each side (blue: Allies, Red/Orange: Axis).
The battle is shaping up nicely, but it is becoming more difficult to stop the German incursion across the canal.

I try to move towards the two bridges. These are the only points where motorized units can cross. But I make a critical mistake: I decide to move my reinforcements from north to south across the frontline. I was convinced that these reinforcements could sweep German units while moving south. But look at what happened with CCB: stalled at Liesel and surrounded by polder terrain.
There is more coming. Stay tuned.

Cheers,






4 comments:

NW said...

This looks great! If I'm understanding what I'm seeing correctly, can you fight on a large, operational, scale and then zoom down into the individual tactical combats and take it from there, thus developing a reciprocity of action that is player controlled at both the coy level tactical, regimental/brigade level tactical, and divisional-corps operational levels? That's very Total War-esque and something I very much appreciate in game design, as I always get frustrated when such and such a division is randomly number generated into failure on taking a single objective when I'm pretty sure I could have done better tactically myself.

NW said...

Ah Johan, that would be me totally screwing the pooch on reading comprehension today, is where I see that.

Combat Mission I really like; would really, really love to see them release a unified latest-generation engine into which I simply plug the various scenario and unit modules (extant releases) and that'd be optimal. Kind of a DCS:W approach there.

JC said...

Hi,

It looks like you sorted it out. Thanks and sorry for the confusion.

Cheers,

Johan said...

NW, I couldn't agree more. Combat Mission really needs a unified system like DCS:W, instead of each module being separate, like it is now.