[WIP] Campaign - Breakout!

[Ts4EVER]

Hello,
to celebrate the return of the amazing Venhola tool, I made a new campaign! This is a sweet and short one, featuring a disorganized enemy and mechanized American forces (a company from CCA, 2nd Armored Division). There are 4 battles + an intro scenario. As always, I would appreciate any feedback. Last time we caught several bugs in the Russian campaign that way!

"Breakout!"

American Campaign

July 26th - 27th 1944

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The battle to break out of the Normandy bridgehead proved long and arduous. The original plan called for Caen to be taken on D-Day, with Cherbourg falling only 15 days later. Instead, Caen fell a whole month after the landings. In the American sector, progress was slow as well, in no small part due to the difficult terrain: the so-called "bocage", characterised by small fields surrounded by high, almost impassable hedges, made the mechanized warfare favored by the Americans extremely hard to implement.

In order to finally break the stalemate, a new offensive was conceived: Operation Cobra

Planned to be launched on the 25th of July, it is to consist of three phases. In the first phase, after a massive aerial bombardement, the 9th and 30th Infantry divisions will break through the German frontline. After that, the second, or exploitation, phase will begin. The 1st Infantry and 2nd Armored divisions will pass through the breakthrough force and strike into the German rear. In the third phase, the Americans could then make the whole German position untenable by cutting off the Britanny peninsula.

IMPORTANT GAMEPLAY NOTES
This campaign consists of 5 scenarios, one of which is a non-combat intro scenario to set up the first battle. A battle resulting in a draw or better will allow you to advance to the next scenario.

You command a tank company from Combat Command A, 2nd Armored division. Due to the "heavy" organisation of your division, you lack armored infantry. Because of that, a company of 4th Infantry division has been attached to your force. Having no apcs, they will have to ride on your tanks "in the Russian manner". In preparation for the offensive, 2nd Armored is about 15 % overstrength. Because of that you have 200 repair points for the campaign, for use at your own discretion.

In addition to this, you have been reinforced with an engineer platoon, some trucks, an artillery battery and a scouting element with jeeps and armored cars. As a spearhead behind armored lines, you will have to fight as a self-contained fighting force most of the time, but you might receive air support or help from local partisans.

This is a small and quick campaign. Your most important skill will be the cooperation between infantry and tanks. Mounting your infantry on tanks is risky, but allows you to quickly bring your forces to bear on the enemy.

[RetLT]

Is the Sherman Rhino (Found in misc) a mod for this campaign? I can't find it in the encyclopedia.

Screenshot attached.

[Ts4EVER]

Can't see the screenshot, but the campaign uses no third party mods.

[Mobhack]

Unit 818 in the USA OOB.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by RetLT

Is the Sherman Rhino (Found in misc) a mod for this campaign? I can't find it in the encyclopedia.

If you sort the encyclopaedia by unit class it's on the last page, third from the bottom and it was added for scenario variety.

..........
These tanks have no effect on Hedgerows in the game at this time but have been added for scenario variety.

[Ts4EVER]

Interesting, I might add one or two of them in a later revision then. I already edited the force to use many different Sherman models.

[RetLT]

Originally Posted by DRG

If you sort the encyclopaedia by unit class it's on the last page, third from the bottom and it was added for scenario variety.

Thanks. I could not find it yesterday.

It says it has no effects on hedgerows in the game but is it itself less likely to get stuck in one?

[DRG]

It will have the same chance in a Hedgerow as any other tank. It was added for scenario designers to use for a variety

[RetLT]

Finished last night.

You need to be very careful not to lose tanks due to the limited replacements. I managed to lose only 1.

Standard routine was:

1. Infantry moves forward and gets shot at until they spot the shooter(s)

2A. Infantry pops smoke, pulls back, and calls in massed arty on targets.

or

2B. Infantry engages target(s) to ensure there are no AT guns and then brings up the tanks for massed fire at the target(s).

3. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I would suggest adding a few AA guns to the scenarios that don't already have them. The P-47s were not very good at taking out tanks but a few more AA guns would add a challenge.

In the last scenario the deployment instructions are a bit confusing. One says "Deploy below this line" but there is one a few rows higher that says "Deploy behind this line". These instructions seem to conflict.

You could also reduce the player's force by 4-5 tanks since I often had several that didn't get to fire a shot in the scenario.

Thanks for making this.

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks for the feedback! Regarding that line, I did that because I thought that "behind" was a bit more accurate because the line becomes vertical further up. But if it is confusing, I will change to "below" for both.

If you lost only one tank, I assume you got a decisive victory?