Panzer Battles Normandy - AAR, Part 3: The German Counterattack in a Crescendo

0730

I have given up the initiative in my west flank. With "The Factory" objective secure and the demands on keeping it on our hands are more than what the Calgary Highlanders can take. The German armor and the infantry south of the objective are the telltales of an impending assault on the objective. I can't afford to lose it.

Another indirect fire mission is called on the grenadiers and support troops (highlighted red) directly south of objective "The Factory".

This is game play from the soon to be released Panzer Battles Normandy. Graphics and game play functionality are subject to change. The briefing for this scenario can be found here. For a better view of the screenshots, right click and open in a new tab. Short entry tonight again, lads. Day job is being quite a ride lately!

Panzer Battles Normandy - AAR, Part 2: Pressure Mounting and a General Paucity of Good News

The Germans are not willing to let us just own the ridge. At the "Factory", they start to move troops for a counter-attack. At Verrieres, they hide at their trenches, picking up the right time to fire.

0700

On the west flank, the Calgary Highlanders stand fast onto Objective "Factory" (brown box with a 50 and a Canadian symbol). On the center the Black Watch stumbles onto yet another German position. Their tank support (1st Royal Tank Regiment, highlighted yellow is busy dealing with German grenadiers on top of a hill (1 man down legend). On the east flank, the Hamilton Regiment and start to move onto objective Verrieres. Tanks from the 1st Hussars Regiment are on the lead, which is a risky proposition because there are multiple concealed German positions on those fields.

Panzer Battles Normandy - AAR, Part 1: With Our Backs to Caen ...

... We move south onto an entrenched enemy who is tenacious and a master of reinforcing defensive lines in record time.

0400

The 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade (highlighted yellow) has just made contact in the proximity of "The Factory" objective (light blue box with a 50). Grenadiers from the German 272nd Infantry Division (light blue counter) open up immediately onto the platoon-sized patrol from the Calgary Highlanders Regiment. 

Panzer Battles Normandy - AAR, The Official In-Game Briefing

This is a continuation from my previous blog entry. The game is the soon to be released Panzer Battles Normandy. Graphics and game play functionality are subject to change. Thanks for the crew at John Tiller Software for allowing me to have the first AAR ever of this war game!

My little gig of keeping a shroud of mystery on the location of the whole game and the particular scenario I am playing kind of miss-fired. Over there at TheBlitz.org a couple of fellows figured out the exact location of the scenario. Brilliant work they have done!

... And The Next Panzer Battles Takes You To ...

Black blocks are not html malfunctions, they imitate obliterated text from an official document. The text behind the blocks will become visible later this week when any of you answer the question at the end of this blog entry. 

Welcome to my command post. Today I'm in charge of the ██████ Infantry Division and what a tough mission is upon us!

A cropped view of the battlefield. Although this game is at an advanced stage of development, graphics and game play functionality are subject to change. 

Steel Armor Blaze of War Short Video: Dawn Attack

Thanks to Asid (Dogs of War Virtual Unit), I got back into Steel Armor Blaze of War. A very brief video of a T-62 Iraqi platoon attack is shown in this blog entry.

Scourge of War Waterloo - Formations, Transitions

Well, I've read it all about the I-take-everything-explicit crowd complaining about scale, conga lines and passages of lines in Norbsoft's Waterloo (check the Matrix official forums if you don't know about this). My turn now: what does the game can do right? Today's topic: transition between formations.

A battalion in a column by divisions formation (right) will take 25 seconds of game time to transition into a line formation (left).

Combat Mission Black Sea - Pre-planned Indirect Fire

This is from the smallest canned scenario included in your copy of Combat Mission Black Sea. I played this one to death and I always find myself wanting for another try.

Combat Operations Kickstarter

It has gone live yesterday.

Combat Operations Kickstarter Campaign

Cheers,

Combat Operations - Supplementary Material

Matt, the indie developer of Combat Operations was kind enough to share with me these annotated figures that will help to follow the action mentioned in his presentation of last Monday.