American Crusaders (untested old campaign)

[MarkSheppard]

I rescued this from oblivion last night by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine on the Wargamer's scenario depot. Not very many scenarios were archived, but this one was.

Steel Panthers: World War II : American Crusaders
File Author : wulfir
File Added : 10 OCT 2004

Location : ETO
Opponents : US Army vs Germany
Date : 6 JUN 1944

Description :

This is a SPWW2 campaign based on the history of the 743d Tank Battalion - Omaha Beach to Germany, 1944-45.

AMERICAN CRUSADERS

Date: June 1944 - April 1945

Nations: USA vs Germany

Campaign location(s): European Theatre of Operations; France
Belgium, Germany

Description:
This is a US Army campaign stretching from the landings in France to the end of the war in
Germany. It is (loosely) based on the WWII combat history of the US Army 743rd Tank Battalion,
which began on the Normandy beaches on D-Day and ended with the taking of Magdeburg, Germany at
the end of the war.

The US Army tank battalions were organised to support infantry and were attached to infantry
divisions. As a result the tank battalions fought under different conditions than that of the
armored battalions of the armored divisions. There was little in the way of racing ahead and
tearing into the rear of the enemy, on the contrary, the tank battalions moved quickly only if
the infantry moved quickly - and often they were forced to help clean up areas of resistance
bypassed by the armored divisions.

Notes:
You are free to tailor the core force to your own style of play. The build points allocated are
equal to a tank battalion (three medium tank companies, one light tank company, assault gun
platoon and mortar platoon).

However, note that the companies of the tank battalion were frequently parcelled out to the
regiments of the infantry division, and fought their battles 'away' from their parent unit.
The battles you will face in this campaign are best solved with combined arms tactics.
The WWII battlefield experiences of the 743d Tank Bn includes amphibious, summer, winter,
night and urban warfare. Keep it in mind when purchasing your core force.

Also, American military thinking since the Civil War has been dominated by the idea of taking
the fight to the enemy. A majority of the engagements in this campaign depend on your ability
to attack - in the Bocage of Normandy, in the winter of the Ardennes, through the towns of
Germany.

Refitting points will most of the time be great. You belong to an army unsurpassed in the field
of maintenance and service support, not to mention an near overwhelming materiel and manpower
reserve.

Support points will also be generous, you can always count on purchasing air and artillery
support forces.

Design by Ulf Lundstrom

WE KEEP THE FAITH

Contained within the ZIP are two folders -- one is the original version uploaded to the Wargamer, the other is the (slightly) converted version I put together last night by using CAMPAIGNHACK to convert it, and then manually renumbering from slot 10 to 20.

I also edited the campaign description text to be a little more informative of what was in a Tank Battalion:

Notes:*
You are free to tailor the core force to your own style of play. The build points allocated are
equal to a tank battalion, which are:*
*
3 x medium tank companies*
1 x light tank company*
1 x assault gun platoon (3 x 105mm Sherman CS)*
1 x Mortar Platoon (3 x 81mm Halftracks)*
1 x Recon Platoon (5 x Scout Jeeps)*
1 x HQ Section (2 tanks)*

As well as increasing the build points at the beginning to be enough to buy the aforementioned tank battalion -- I think there was a re-pricing between the time this campaign was originally created and WinSPWW2 version 7.

This is a big 33-scenario campaign; opening with a doozy -- DOG GREEN sector of Omaha Beach on D-Day; as the 743d was a Duplex Drive tank unit; although it was decided to keep the tanks on the LSTs and not deploy them into the water.

At this point; this is a raw untested campaign -- I put it here to save it from obscurity; there's a lot of work to be done -- for example; the 743d landed in support of the 116th RCT at DOG GREEN; the opening campaign briefing needs to be changed, as well as possibly the support points for that opening scenario; so that the player knows to buy forces roughly equivalent to the 116th RCT.

[Ts4EVER]

opening with a doozy -- DOG GREEN sector of Omaha Beach on D-Day

I thought I was the first one to do that

[wulfir]

American Crusaders was one of the first campagins I made back in 2004 - and it will show. I used William B. Folkestad's book 'The View from the Turret' as my main source.

Some of the maps from this campaign were included in SPWW2, and a few of the German ones into SPMBT (lack of MBT maps back then), but IIRC there was something wrong with American Crusaders and it never made it into the game. Douglas McBratney told me what the problem was, but I no longer have the e-mail and I'm getting old, can't remember...

One historical problem is the fact that the player will wield the full tank bn which historically was usually not the case as this type of unit was parcelled out to units of the division it was attached to...

[DRG]

I'm happy these old ones I didn't even know existed are being resurrected and tested and if the legacy issues can be worked out I would certainly be interested in issuing them with the NEXT update... better that than "just fade away". Nobody wants to see their work lost

[RetLT]

Hit a glitch after the end of the scenario. Here is the screen I got:

[DRG]

thats from the ANZAC campaign ( #10 )

[RetLT]

Any idea what may have caused the cross link?

When I go to edit campaign the correct scenarios are there.

[DRG]

To be honest it's been a LONG time since I did any work with campaigns and I had put this problem on the list to investigate when the I start working on the game again. I need to install the files then take a deep serious look at this which I don't have time for now but my guess ( and that's only a guess at this time...... ) is that originally this campaign was designed for the same slot the ANZAC is in now. I think......... but as I say it's been a LONG time for me dealing with something like this..... I think what's going to have to happen is all the scenarios in this campaign need to be extracted then the campaign rebuilt again BUT........... once I extract the file I may see another answer but I really don't have time for that at this time.....a month or two maybe

I DO want to preserve these older scenarios and campaigns and the way to do that is to put them into the game and it surprises me the number that have been built that didn't get put into the game as I normally ask for submissions before releasing a patch

The question is.....which of the two versions are you playing ? The original or the modified version ?


Don

[RetLT]

Thanks for the update and for your hard work to keep this great game alive.

I wonder what would happen if I deleted the Anzac campaign (which did not work anyway) before installing this one. I will have to try this when I get a day off.

Also, I will gladly help test anything you are working on. I only have the free copy of the game so I can't create content

[RetLT]

I got it to work!

I deleted both campaign #10 and #20 and reinstalled the original version (#10). I had to modify the build and support points to get it to work since these were all weird (negative support points and only 25 build points).

The revised version (#20) crashes after you save or finish scenario #1 since it looks for the file in campaign slot #10.

End result: It looks like the campaign is playable with some minor editing. I will keep you updated.

Thanks again for creating this.