Real Germans?

[Ivan_Zaitzev]

I will start a MOD to change a little the german BG.
Most of this changes will be adding vehicles not only to the force pools but to the active roosters too.

The name of the MOD is not decided yet and of course it can contain some changes in the Allied BGs too.
So, if you have any change you would like to see in the BG just post here.

[Sapa]

More panzerschrecks and bigger teams for German and Allied[;)]

Mats

[TheReal_Pak40]

Sounds great Ivan,

I was going to make a post soon about how someone (other than me because I don't have the time) needs to re-make the battle groups and make changes to the Grand Campaign. The historical units were not represented well in the stock GC. What are your sources for OOBs? I assume you have a copy of "It Never Snows in September" which has excellent German OOB. My initial thoughts are:

* Mk III, IV, Tigers I & II in the appropriate battle groups as noted in INSinSept
* There were at least a couple of 6 lb AT guns at Arnhem Bridge
* Can the BG sizes be enlarged? It's quite unrealistic to only fight for Arnhem Bridge with a small handful of units.
* unit cost system in the stock GC completely prohibits actually purchasing an expensive item such as an AT gun or 80mm morter unless you trade in half or more of your current force.

[kojusoki1]

I fully agree! BGs are way to small - its simply no fun to play that!

[Ivan_Zaitzev]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
* Mk III, IV, Tigers I & II in the appropriate battle groups as noted in INSinSept
* There were at least a couple of 6 lb AT guns at Arnhem Bridge
* Can the BG sizes be enlarged? It's quite unrealistic to only fight for Arnhem Bridge with a small handful of units.
* unit cost system in the stock GC completely prohibits actually purchasing an expensive item such as an AT gun or 80mm morter unless you trade in half or more of your current force.

Grat ideas!
As for 6lb in Arnhem, 2nd Para has at least one (in line difficulty) in the Force Pool.
Maybe I could add one to the Active Rooster in order to make it more fun. [:)]

As for my sources I am using Concord´s German Armoured Units at Arnhem.
Martin Middelbrook´s Arnhem 1944.
The Defending Arnhem web page and I have some other small books like Osprey.

All German OOBs from other sources are welcome in order to make this game better.

[TheReal_Pak40]

ORIGINAL: Ivan_Zaitzev
As for 6lb in Arnhem, 2nd Para has at least one (in line difficulty) in the Force Pool.
Maybe I could add one to the Active Rooster in order to make it more fun. [:)]

Well, I just finished the GC a couple of weeks ago (on in line) and the 6lb gun never showed up. Not once. I couldn't have afforded it anyway unless I sold every one of my infantry units. Anyway, I know there were at least two at the bridge. I'll have to find some documentation to support my claim but I'm sure that I read it somewhere.

ORIGINAL: Ivan_Zaitzev
As for my sources I am using Concord´s German Armoured Units at Arnhem.
Martin Middelbrook´s Arnhem 1944.
The Defending Arnhem web page and I have some other small books like Osprey.

All German OOBs from other sources are welcome in order to make this game better.

It sounds like you've got the details you need for the German side but "It never snows in September" is another excellent source, but only for the German OOB.

Another issue I had with the GC is the offboard 105mm artillery. I'm not a big fan of how they implement it in the game (instant artillery is too gamey), but I know that the 82nd and I think the 1st Para both had 105s glided in on the 1st day. I suppose this is hard coded in the game and unchangeable because you need "full supply" for major artillery.

Also, when I played as allies, the Germans never used their artillery until the last day before I spanked it's butt on Sept 21. However, I know from "It Never Snows in September" that the Germans had excellent artillery especially around Nijmegen, which is one of the reasons why the allies had trouble capturing the bridge there. I'm not sure if the game has it incorrectly modeled or if the AI just didn't use it's assets on the first 4 days.

[Ivan_Zaitzev]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Another issue I had with the GC is the offboard 105mm artillery. I'm not a big fan of how they implement it in the game (instant artillery is too gamey), but I know that the 82nd and I think the 1st Para both had 105s glided in on the 1st day. I suppose this is hard coded in the game and unchangeable because you need "full supply" for major artillery.

Also, when I played as allies, the Germans never used their artillery until the last day before I spanked it's butt on Sept 21. However, I know from "It Never Snows in September" that the Germans had excellent artillery especially around Nijmegen, which is one of the reasons why the allies had trouble capturing the bridge there. I'm not sure if the game has it incorrectly modeled or if the AI just didn't use it's assets on the first 4 days.

I don´t know about 105s but the Light Regiment had some 75mm Howitzers, I supose it could be possible to implement some kind of Forward Observers like the ones in Der Kessel in order to recreate the Artillery support for this units. But this would be much like Mortar Support.
A FO for the Germans could be useful maybe?

[7A_Woulf]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40

Another issue I had with the GC is the offboard 105mm artillery. I'm not a big fan of how they implement it in the game (instant artillery is too gamey), but I know that the 82nd and I think the 1st Para both had 105s glided in on the 1st day. I suppose this is hard coded in the game and unchangeable because you need "full supply" for major artillery.

Only US airborne had 105mm artillery, Brits only had 75mm, but both these divisions had artillery from the first day (101st prioritised infantry since they were to link up with XXX Corps directly.)
But instead, British Para divisions had 17 pounder AT-guns in their AT Battalion (From www.bayonetstrength.150m.com :"sixteen 17-pdr guns were allocated to each Airborne Division, which could be used to supplement or replace the guns of the existing 6-pdr Troops") I've also seen sources, and pictures, of the 1st Para Division using the 20mm Hispano AA gun during Market Garden.

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Also, when I played as allies, the Germans never used their artillery until the last day before I spanked it's butt on Sept 21. However, I know from "It Never Snows in September" that the Germans had excellent artillery especially around Nijmegen, which is one of the reasons why the allies had trouble capturing the bridge there. I'm not sure if the game has it incorrectly modeled or if the AI just didn't use it's assets on the first 4 days.

For a German unit in September '44 the entire II SS Panzer Corps packed a terrible artillery-punch. 10SS had more artillery than it ever had; -during the retreat they had found a train with artillery pieces in factory mint condition. These guns were deployed north of Nijmegen with a system of pre-set 'boxes' to fire at, all the FO had to do was to give a number and the gunners new where to fire.

Further north, in the Arnhem area, the 120 men of 9SS artillery fought as infantry, but the Corps 'Neberwerfer' units were deployed there (II and III batteries, each with six 32cm rocket launchers) and on September 20 the 9SS was offered ARKO 191; -An entire artillery Regiment!

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
* Mk III, IV, Tigers I & II in the appropriate battle groups as noted in INSinSept
* There were at least a couple of 6 lb AT guns at Arnhem Bridge
* Can the BG sizes be enlarged? It's quite unrealistic to only fight for Arnhem Bridge with a small handful of units.
* unit cost system in the stock GC completely prohibits actually purchasing an expensive item such as an AT gun or 80mm morter unless you trade in half or more of your current force.

All the equipment you list are in the existing Battle Groups and Force Pools. Pz III, IV, and VI E are in KG Knaust. sPzAbt 506 has its own BG for the Tiger IIs. Every British airborne battle group has some 6pdr and/or 17pdr guns in their FP.

What you actually have available depends a lot on your difficulty setting. At the harder difficulties you will typically not get rare units in your FP (where there was only 1 or 2 in a whole battalion, or larger, formation.) Some unit types only appear in the FP after certain dates -- the Pz III and IV tanks didn't join KG Knaust until the 19th, for example, so they won't appear in the FP until that date.

If you'd like to maximize the amount of 'rare' kit you see (and get more points for buying them) you can play on a lower difficulty for both sides.

For German OOB research, I went back to the original German records where they were available. Some additional information can be pieced together with records from Heeresgruppe B and various post-war "Foriegn Military Studies" papers written by German commanders for the US Army after the war.

"It Never Snows in September" is a pretty good source, IMO. One thing to keep in mind is that Kershaw's charts, which show the organization of the German units, can lead you to overestimate the strength of many German formations. Where he will show a battalion with 3 companies on paper, the actual strength of the such a unit was often only 300 men or so (50% of full battalion strength, or less).

"In the Firestorm of the Last Years of the War, II. SS-Panzerkorps with the 9. and 10. SS-Divisions 'Hohenstaufen' and 'Frundsberg'" by Wilhelm Tieke is a pretty good narrative covering II.SS Panzer Korps, but does not have a lot of details on specific strengths or equipment.

Wehrkreis VI kept an accounting of the equipment and personnel that were sent into the field during Market-Garden, and these records are available on microfilm. Strength and equipment for KG Knaust and units in Korps Feldt were quite well detailed.

The website http://www.sturmpanzer.com has some digitized microfilm of the original records for LXXXVIII Korps, which gives some specifics on equipment and strength for many of the formations involved in KG Von Tettau and the east side of the 1.Fallsch.Armee area of the corridor.

One thing to keep in mind is that no source is 100% accurate, and that a lot of books about Market-Garden use earlier books are their primary sources, and thus mistakes are often repeated without being checked against the original records. This is why I tried to always find primary sources. For example, in "It Never Snows in September", Kershaw includes KG Roestel in the units facing the XXX Corps bridge head on September 17th. In fact this unit (10.SS Panzerjaeger Abt) was off fighting under AOK 7 at the time, as the records for Heersegruppe B show. Assault guns reported by the British in this area were actually StuGs (a period photo confirms a knocked out StuG III near Valkenswaard), most likely from 599.PzJg.Abt. A digital version of the Heeresgruppe B September KTB can be found here, if you're interested: http://members.home.nl/ron.mourmans/KTB ... 01944).pdf

Cheers,

Steve

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: 7A_Woulf
I've also seen sources, and pictures, of the 1st Para Division using the 20mm Hispano AA gun during Market Garden

7A_Woulf, if you could point me to these sources, I'd appreciate it. My understanding was that the Air Landing units decided the 20mm AA guns were not worth the space and weight in the gliders, and never actually took them into combat.

[TheReal_Pak40]

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
* Mk III, IV, Tigers I & II in the appropriate battle groups as noted in INSinSept
* There were at least a couple of 6 lb AT guns at Arnhem Bridge
* Can the BG sizes be enlarged? It's quite unrealistic to only fight for Arnhem Bridge with a small handful of units.
* unit cost system in the stock GC completely prohibits actually purchasing an expensive item such as an AT gun or 80mm morter unless you trade in half or more of your current force.

All the equipment you list are in the existing Battle Groups and Force Pools. Pz III, IV, and VI E are in KG Knaust. sPzAbt 506 has its own BG for the Tiger IIs. Every British airborne battle group has some 6pdr and/or 17pdr guns in their FP.

What you actually have available depends a lot on your difficulty setting. At the harder difficulties you will typically not get rare units in your FP (where there was only 1 or 2 in a whole battalion, or larger, formation.) Some unit types only appear in the FP after certain dates -- the Pz III and IV tanks didn't join KG Knaust until the 19th, for example, so they won't appear in the FP until that date.

If you'd like to maximize the amount of 'rare' kit you see (and get more points for buying them) you can play on a lower difficulty for both sides.

Steve, thanks for the input. I suspected they (tanks and guns) were in the forcepools and I know that all of the BGs in the game have a fraction of the historical number of units in them. However, the Grand Campaign is still seriously flawed. I played as allies on in the GC on "Line" difficulty which, according to the manual, is supposed to be "historic" difficulty. Germans were set to "Line" also. I wanted a historic battle, but what I got was Frost holding the bridge with 4 units left (0600 on the 18th) eventually being attacked by a German BG with only about 6 units left. My point is that neither side could actually afford to spend any points to acquire the units that were in the force pools. Frost's battalion couldn't afford to "buy" an AT gun to defend the bridge and I suspect that KG Knaust could never afford points to buy armor which is why I never saw any MkIIIs or IVs.

It's really the point system that is ruining the Grand Campaign. Either do away with the points OR add enough points to these units so that they can actually afford to buy units that are needed. It was just idiotic defending the bridge with 4 units on the 18th when there were tons more in the forcepool. I just couldn't "purchase" the units. Like Frost every had to deal with that BS[8|]

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
I just couldn't "purchase" the units...

Thanks for your feedback. With the point purchase system it does change the game play from earlier versions. If you bash away every turn your BGs never have a chance to recover. Try to rest a weakened BG to recover more points. Resting overnight is particularly effective. The AI does try to rest in similar circumstances and there will be no battle on a turn where both sides rest.

Or if you prefer, you can edit the stock Grand Campaign in the scenario editor, give each BG a few thousand purchase points at the start, and be able to buy pretty much anything for the whole campaign. Shift+Click the map diamonds in the scenario editor to bring up the dialog box for this.

Steve

[TheReal_Pak40]

Steve,

Thanks for the info to alter the points. Can I also alter the BG size in the Grand Campaign or is that a value in the BG text file? Basically, I feel that the unit limit for the Battle Groups really hampers Grand Campaign. I know this means that Battalion BG will be on equal footing against a Regiment BG in a single battle, but the real value of the Regiment BG is that it has a much deeper forcepool and in the end attrition will wear down the smaller BGs.

In regards to your suggestion to rest BGs, I have done this when possible. But, have you actually played the GC as allies? You cannot rest Frost's BG, it is constantly being attacked (or should be by the AI). Also, resting from one battle only brings a small amount of points. Hardly enough to purchase a Bren group, if that. I shutter to think how many turns of rest it would take to purchase an AT gun. Besides, rest should not be a determining factor of bringing up reserves, especially in "hold at all costs" situations such as 1st Br AB div at Arnhem. Basically, everyone was on the front line. If someone had told John Frost that he had 7 Bren units in reserve but no "points" to purchase them because he didn't rest the 2nd Battalion, I'm sure he would have shot him on sight.

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Can I also alter the BG size in the Grand Campaign or is that a value in the BG text file?

The number of slots you actually get for a BG is dependent on how large a formation it is, which is measured by the men and vehicles in the force pool. So the only way to increase the number of slots is indirectly, by increasing the quantity of teams in the force pool.

You could do this by setting your difficulty lower, which will give you bigger force pools and thus more slots. The only other way to do it would be to mod the force pool file.

Steve

[TheReal_Pak40]

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Can I also alter the BG size in the Grand Campaign or is that a value in the BG text file?

The number of slots you actually get for a BG is dependent on how large a formation it is, which is measured by the men and vehicles in the force pool. So the only way to increase the number of slots is indirectly, by increasing the quantity of teams in the force pool.

You could do this by setting your difficulty lower, which will give you bigger force pools and thus more slots. The only other way to do it would be to mod the force pool file.

Steve

What??? That's horrible! Why on earth didn't they just make it a setting that can be adjusted in the BG text file?? Now modders are stuck with this unrealistic force size that is ruining the game play. I'm sorry, but that's a bad game design decision.

[Neil N]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40

What??? That's horrible! Why on earth didn't they just make it a setting that can be adjusted in the BG text file?? Now modders are stuck with this unrealistic force size that is ruining the game play. I'm sorry, but that's a bad game design decision.

Relax, you can increase the number of teams in the FP in less than 5 minutes. Not exactly difficult, and it gives the results you are looking for.

[xe5]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
What??? That's horrible! Why on earth didn't they just make it a setting that can be adjusted in the BG text file?? Now modders are stuck with this unrealistic force size that is ruining the game play. I'm sorry, but that's a bad game design decision.

Same "bad game design decision" Atomic made with ABTF.



btw - Steve McClaire is 'they'.

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
What??? That's horrible! Why on earth didn't they just make it a setting that can be adjusted in the BG text file?? Now modders are stuck with this unrealistic force size that is ruining the game play. I'm sorry, but that's a bad game design decision.

As noted by others, the LSA mechanic is more in line with the game play in the original Close Combat 2 game. LSA is more about choosing when and where to fight rather than bashing away until one side or the other is completely out of teams.

If that's not the game for you, you are free to mod the files (as described above) or wait for someone else to make such a mod -- I doubt it will be long.

Cheers,

Steve

[TheReal_Pak40]

ORIGINAL: Neil N

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40

What??? That's horrible! Why on earth didn't they just make it a setting that can be adjusted in the BG text file?? Now modders are stuck with this unrealistic force size that is ruining the game play. I'm sorry, but that's a bad game design decision.

Relax, you can increase the number of teams in the FP in less than 5 minutes. Not exactly difficult, and it gives the results you are looking for.

But then you get unhistorical force pool sizes. As a battlefield commander one should be able to make the choice to deploy as many units as possible(15 in the case off CC) at the risk of using up reserves. We can't even mod this unless we make the BG bigger as a whole, i.e. I would have to make Frost's 2nd Battalion have as many units as a Regiment. Sorry, that's just not going to cut it. The game designers should have the the scenario designers dictate how many units a BG can deploy, especially since they're marketing this game as "modable".

Among the moddable features: ALL strat layer features, ALL campaign details including weather, turns per day, scoring, all support mission types for both sides and locations, battlegroup recycling, battlegroup retreat/disband, supply and much more!

Except BG deployment size.

[kojusoki1]

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire
[...]

Or if you prefer, you can edit the stock Grand Campaign in the scenario editor, give each BG a few thousand purchase points at the start, and be able to buy pretty much anything for the whole campaign. Shift+Click the map diamonds in the scenario editor to bring up the dialog box for this.

Steve

Steve - please clarify as I am a bit lost:
which file must be changed to add points (NOT SLOTS) for a BG. Or maybe how to make teams less "expensive"?
What Id like to do, is to just double the available points per BG. Not setting a thousands per each BG.