Scenario 1: How can you win this as the U.S.?

[ioticus]

I've played this scenario 3 times vs. the AI and am only able to get a draw as the U.S. Anyone do better?

[DRG]

ioticus said:
I've played this scenario 3 times vs. the AI and am only able to get a draw as the U.S. Anyone do better?

If it's any consolation, when sceanrios were first starting to be built for MBT I asked that they not be designed as walkovers. I wanted a real victory to be an accomplishment to players. Easy scenarios are played once. Hard ones again and again ( as you have proven ). Not all of ours are hard but generally they will be challenging to the average player

Don

[Mobhack]

DRG said:

If it's any consolation, when sceanrios were first starting to be built for MBT I asked that they not be designed as walkovers. I wanted a real victory to be an accomplishment to players. Easy scenarios are played once. Hard ones again and again ( as you have proven ). Not all of ours are hard but generally they will be challenging to the average player

Don

It's the few victory hexes on the NK side, which the USMC player has no realistic hope of taking whatsoever that tips the balance I think, after playing it a couple of times.

I have a modified and enhanced version of this which I'll release in a few days, depends on time available to test it out. Hopefully, the new one will give the NKA some chance of acually swarming infantry over the ridge, but also for the USA to throw them back and re-take the V-hexes (now placed more along the ridgeline and behind it - and none on the NK side).

Cheers
Andy

[Skirmisher]

I just finished this one,got a draw as well. I thought that was ok though since the USMC was outnumbered.

I fixed the missing SU-76's and replaced the bearcat and hellcat aircraft with corsairs dropping 1000 lb bombs.

Look forward to trying out the official revised scenerio.

[BigJim]

Heh I have tried many of the bundled senario's and they indeed took your word Mob, none of them are winable in a big way and many are not winable at all. My solution??? why I just fix them with some game balancing (raising troop quality etc.) To me senario's which have a predetermined outcome are just no fun (especially when the designer gives you the losing side). I just tried one which has the Isralie tanks trying to cross the entire board in 10 turns vs Arab entrenched ATGM's spread out so as to make it an Arab turkey shoot. Any commander who was so stupid as to NOT know about man carried ATGM's and plan an attack such as this would be cashered in the real army.

Cluswitz (sp??) axioms calls for at least 3:1 advantage in the attack, few if any of these bundled senario's follow that UNLESS the human player is the defender, then the AI gets tons of arty and troops for the attack.

[Chaim_Krause]

BigJim said:
Heh I have tried many of the bundled senario's and they indeed took your word Mob, none of them are winable in a big way and many are not winable at all. My solution??? why I just fix them with some game balancing (raising troop quality etc.) To me senario's which have a predetermined outcome are just no fun (especially when the designer gives you the losing side). I just tried one which has the Isralie tanks trying to cross the entire board in 10 turns vs Arab entrenched ATGM's spread out so as to make it an Arab turkey shoot. Any commander who was so stupid as to NOT know about man carried ATGM's and plan an attack such as this would be cashered in the real army.

Cluswitz (sp??) axioms calls for at least 3:1 advantage in the attack, few if any of these bundled senario's follow that UNLESS the human player is the defender, then the AI gets tons of arty and troops for the attack.

Once again you make claims that don't jive with reality.

First of all, it wasn't a Karl von Clausewitz axiom. Among Clausewitz's ideas are "There is only one decisive victory: the last.", "War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.", and "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war."

As for 3:1's origin, it is unknown, but it is mostly Lanchester who formalized the concept. For a fuller discussion of the subject read Mearsheimer; who I studied under at the University of Chicago.

Although I understand Steel Panthers is a game, you call for more realism and then go on to say that many scenarios are unbalanced. Most battles are unbalanced. That is why they occur. Any commander worth his salt will only attack if he has an advantage (or a dictator ruling the country).

Your claim that "Any commander who was so stupid as to NOT know about man carried ATGM's and plan an attack such as this would be cashered in the real army." What experience do you have with IPB, MDMP, or any military planning? Sometimes a commander doesn't have any options but to traverse a particular portion of the battlefield. That small of an engagement would also be part of a much larger operation and is thus taken out of context. Additionally, the Israelis have historically been out numbered. And BTW, ATGMs can be effectively neutralized with proper suppressive fire.

[Mobhack]

Scenarios need not be designed so you can "win" them, other than perhaps by getting a better final total score next time you play it, but still say a "draw" result in game terms.

Cheers
Andy

[Skirmisher]

Id like to throw a couple cents in here. I personally like grave situations and hard battles. Walkovers are boring to me.

[DRG]

Skirmisher said:
Id like to throw a couple cents in here. I personally like grave situations and hard battles. Walkovers are boring to me.

As do I. That's why you'll see very few WinSPMBT that are anywhere near that. If "average" players are expecting to sit down and get decisive victories almost every time you play they're playing the wrong game. If it too hard they can dummy up the AI side in preferences but the game is supposed to be a challenge. This is not SP2 anymore

Don

[BigJim]

Well first off, it sees to me that Clauswitz included MASS in his nine principles of war, hence the 3:1 was developed to give a "number" to this principal.

As a Viet Nam vet I have had "actual" combat experience not at the level of planning this game depicts to be sure.

As for tactics in neutralizing the ATGM's thats a fine statement, now play the senario and do it in the 10 turns allowed.

I don't want walk over's either BUT I want some chance to use proper tactics to obtain the objective. I can tell you that sitting behind a desk in Washington at the top of the chain of command and being the "point man" on a S&D is quite different. And yes virginia, men did refuse to obey stupid orders that would get them killed with no chance for success.