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Here are some tips about this game (copyright Pascal Ode 1996)
You can make copies and download it freely provided:
A- You just mention the author and this site URL
B- You do not use it for commercial purpose
Please contact me (100257.1375@compuserve.com) if you need to use it
differently.
CLOSE COMBAT TACTICAL TIPS 1- Be patient: Choose your point of attack
(my preferred is the church) and supress the defenders for a while with some
fire concentration: you have more teams, more MG, more mortars, and maybe one
tank. The germans AI just can't hold the ground after a while. You can see the
germans have problems from the color of the shooting line: if you can see more
blue shooting then the german are beeing softened. If you see many red
shooting lines never, never move your units especially using the fast move
mode. You can also (k inda cheat) looking the statistics of enemy teams, if
you have troops close to them you will get a lot of info about enemy teams.
2- Concentrate your firepower: You want to attack the church? Fine have the
majority of your troops in the southern woods. Just keep a few teams/MG north
to help supressing other german teams in different building and avoid cross
fire. Do not move the northern teams, just keep them sh oting from good
defensive terrain. Soften the defenders with mortars/bazooka/MG/Rifles fire
concentration in the south. 3- Be very very conservative with your tanks:
Stay in good cover, far away from the front until you have spotted all the
panzerschreck positions. Once it is done just move them into blind
panzerschreck spot and use your tanks to supress/kill German MG or Teams. If
you only have half tracks just hide them until you have spotted/supressed all
panzerschrecks *and* all MG. Remember it is much better not to use them than
losing them since it will influence your moral and moral is much much more
important than victory hexes in this game. 4- Use intermediate objectives:
For assaulting the church a good intermediate objective is the wall. Once the
defenders are supressed move your troops to the wall and concentrate a few
teams here (take care to supress also all flanking shots). 5- Use the
overwatch technique: During the assault on the church send a team to assault
and have the rest supress the defenders. Drop some smoke on the flanks for
good measure. 6- Assault *only* with fresh troops: The color of the team
must be green. Fresh troops assaulting fatigued supressed enemy will make
great job without any casualty. The reverse will end with no results and a
bloody mess (for you, not for the opponent). If you haven't any fresh troops
let th em rest before assault. Also you assault team should have some grenade
left therefore be sure it didn't assault previously. 7- Reinforce
immediately after the assault has been succesful: The german may organize a
counterattack against your succesful team, therefore you should immediately
send another fresh team to help repelling the bad guys. 8- This one is very
important. Focus on making enemy casualties and avoid casualties on your side:
You are not in a hurry. You can take all the time you need to soften the
defenders before moving. Controlling objectives is not important for wining
*provided* you manage to get the enemy in the "red". You will get a decisive
victory and save many good g uys lives. 9- Try to save ammunition: When
shooting make sure the LOS to target is bright red, not dark red you will get
more efffect from your very limited ammunition. If the line is not bright red
try moving (very carefully) to better shooting places. Use the overwatch
technique during the move: one team moves others give protective fire. 10-
Try to get flanking shots at enemy teams: Teams can't get good cover from
every angle therefore try to maximize cross fire at wide angles against enemy
teams. CLOSE COMBAT FEATURES COHESION/LEADERSHIP From:
wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson) There is a Team Cohesion that changes
color gradually as the team goes under more stress, losses men, etc. The
soldiers will show morale states of either Normal, Panicked, Routed, Herioc,
Fanatic, or Berserk. You just never know when someone is going to be
Berserk, but you can usually tell by what quality the team is, how much fire
they are undergoing, and how much friendly support they have whether the
soldiers in the team will start panicking or not. In thi s game, you cannot
send a Green team by itself to rush a building and expect them to make it all
the way there before they start panicking and soldiers start running back to
where they came from. Or, even worse, if they do make it, they may very well
sur render. The Soldier Monitor also lists the weapon each soldier is using,
which ammo is loaded for that weapon, the amount of that type of ammo the
soldier has and will tell you if the weapon has jammed or been destroyed. The
physical status of each soldier is sh own as either health (Green) hurt
(Yellow), severely wounded (Orange) or Dead (Red). His fatigue is shown as
rested (Green), winded (Yellow) or fatigued (Red). Thus at a glance, you can
see how well the team is doing by the colors in the Soldier Montitor for that
team. There are 4 types of leaders. The company commander (you), 1 to 4
platoon leaders, 1 to 16 squad leaders, and then numerous team leaders. Team
leaders can only affect soldiers in their team. Squad leaders primarily affect
soldiers in their squad and so o n. Leadership is evaluated for the quality
of the leader, the rank of the leader and the proximity to the leader. By
keeping your teams grouped with a high ranking leader nearby, the teams are
less likely to break, more likely to obey orders, and rallying a ny broken
soldiers is quicker. ELEVATION/WEAPONS From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith
Zabalaoui) You seem to have a grasp of this game design b'ness. (You
commented on features that can wait until CC2.) BRAVO! Those are the designs
issues we had to contend with from the begining. 1) Men from one team will
not pickup/man weapons from another team, but men within the same team, a
spotter for instance, will takeover an MG (for example) if the gunner buys it.
Same with vehicles, and field guns. 2) No hills or second level buildings.
We will probably never do multi-level buildings, but we do have hills on the
list for CONSIDERATION in CC2. But that's not to say we don't deal with
elevation now. We handle foxholes, trenches, gullies, low obstacle s (like
stone walls around a churchyard), medium obstacles and high obstacles. Each of
these offers its own line of sight and line of fire rating. RALLY AND
HEROISM From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith Zabalaoui) 1) will your men try to
regroup and pull back reasonably to a safer place and hold there for further
orders? Yes. Absolutely. And if they still have a previous order, they will
continue to try to achieve it. So for instance, you order a rifle team into
the grainery. Someone from the gate house starts firing on them. They will
have to decide if they should hit t he ground, run back to where they came
from, or make a dash for the grainery. Let's say they drop to the ground, then
they have to decide which way to go. And each man decides, based on how he's
feeling. At this point (at any time really) you can tell them to go someplace
else and they'll try to, but let's say you don't. They are still trying to get
to the grainery. Sooooo you open up on the Germs in the gatehouse with your
.30 cal and a BAR. This tends to suppress or pin or even kill some of the guys
that had been firing on the first team, allowing the first team to make it to
the grainery - where they find a full German rifle team hiding in wait for
them - but that's another story. 2) And IS there a possibility in the game
for super-freaking-god- fantastic-amazing-he-did-that-all-by-himself feats of
HEROISM once in AWHILE? To Hell and Back - The Game. They can (but seldom
do) go berserk, fanatic, and heroic. Berserk is the most fun. The soldier
screams this gawdawful scream, drops his weapon, and runs toward the enemy.
And dies. MOVEMENT From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith Zabalaoui) I listed
the 6 commands you can give, earlier. The reason those commands work so well
is that your guys do act with their own intelligence. You can tell them to
MOVE to a location and they will pick their way there, taking the safest
route. You can tell them to MOVE FAST to an location and they will double time
in the most direct path. If they get fired upon, they will go prone and crawl
for cover. If they stop taking fire, they'll get up and try to make it to
where you told them to go. They will do the ir best to get there, but if
enough of them die and the rest start to panic, they might surrender to nearby
enemy troops or flee or just stay right where they are. This philosophy
applies to all aspects of the game. Let's say you have a Sherman 76 firing at
infantry. Then it spots a StuG IIIG. It may - on its own - stop shooting at
the infantry target you gave it and begin firing on the StuG. Now, it was
probably f iring HE ammo at the infantry. When it targets the StuG, it would
switch to AP, although the first round it fires at the StuG may be an HE round
it had already chambered for the infantry. Whew! I think you get the idea. Now
if it were firing at a Marder, it may very well continue to fire HE. The
point is that we have developed a very detailed game here, but wehave refined
the interface so that you can concentrate on PLAYING. REPLAYABILITY
From Keith Zabalaoui For each map, we have several pre-defined setup
"options" for the computer player. He randomly chooses from these, based on
how many units he has. Also, we provide the computer player with "probable"
locations for the human's units. Sometimes, you'll see the computer player
firing on an empty building. That's why. So the short answer is that you'll
see similar set ups each time you play, but there is diversity built in.
COMBAT From: wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson)
rcrane@unicorn.it.wsu.edu (Bob Crane) wrote: >> From what I've seen in the
demo, I have little doubt that Close Combat will win all of the game of the
year awards from the major gaming magazines. This is a truly amazing
SIMULATION, imo. My only major beef thus far has to do with the fragility of
th e armored vehicles. The american halftrack is too easily killed by the
German medium-light machine gun. Basically, if it gets shot at it dies. I even
had an M4 tank get taken out by a MG once. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this
is very unrealistic.<< I doubt that the M4 was killed by the MG but killed
by the Panzerfaust that the loader in the MG team carries. Rule #1 of survival
with American armor: Never move closer than 60 meters to a potential german
location. Even 120 meters is too close if there is a Panzerscreck team near.
As for the MG killing the halftrack, this is why the M3 HT series was known as
"Purple Heart Boxes". With only 6mm at a 20o slope of frontal chasis armor
(10mm effective) and 12mm at 20o slope frontal upper structure (17mm
effective), the German MG42 could easily penetrate it at close range (less
than 200m or so). While the MG won't necessarily destroy the M3 HT at this
range, it can injure or kill the occupants resulting in a soft kill. Also
watch out for the MG42 when you are in a wooden building at very close range
(50 meters or so). That gun (as well as the US 50cal) can rip right through
the walls making it much safer to be outside the building in some nice big
shellhole or foxhole. One of the strategies a tester came up with is to
deploy a couple of MG42 teams in the interior of a large stone building so
they could not be shot at by the Americans until they entered the building, at
which time the MG42s opened up, shredding the inte rior wooden walls between
them and the Americans as well as the Americans themselves. UNITS
STATISTICS From: wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson) I'll try to give a quick
rundown of some of the displays: Team Monitor: Scroll list on the far left
bottom. Sorted by the team type with the exception that the Company and
Platoon Commander Teams are always at the top. Left side: Contains Team Icon
(pict of soldiers/vehicle), and Team Quality (a set of bars ranging from none
(Conscript) to 4 (Elite). Top Center: Contains the Team Type Name (general
description). Background color represents the team's cohesion, or ability to
fight. As the color drops from Green to Red or Black, it represents that the
team is taking losses. Bottom Center: Contains the Team's Strategic Order.
If this order is Green, it is an order you gave. If it is white, the team is
doing it's own thing. If it is Red, the team is disobeying you. Right side:
Enemy Threat Compass. It represents the direction that team sees the enemy. If
the center dot is red, then that team is alse being shot at. Soldier
Monitor: I won't go into a lot of detail here, as there is so much to
explain, but I will cover the high points. Top Right: Firepower Graphs.
These are graphed at 10s of meters at the number listed, thus the column with
an 8 represents firepower at 80 meters. Green, good firepower, grey line, no
firepower. This color will also show up on the Fire Line as you drag i t
across the screen. Soldier List: This has the soldier name, action, status
and weapon info. Most of this is pretty obvious, the key here is to see if the
soldier action is Green, Red, or White (see Team Strategic Order above).
Message Monitor: Remember you can click on a message and it will center on
the team that issued the message. You can also restrict which priority of
message will appear by deselecting the color associated with that message
priority. FORCE CONCENTRATION From: robear@access5.digex.net (Robear)
I'll take my guys and assemble them in the woods, say. Then I set the tank up
top, to mess with the two buildings up there. As the game starts, they just
sit and take shots to try to drop the German morale. I'll pound the gatehouse
with mortars until fire from there stops, then shift the mortars to the church
and move out. At this point, I've eliminated the main support building (the
stone gatehouse, tied down the enemy left flank with the tank and maybe an
infantry unit as well, and I've got my main assault underway to the church.
With this plan, I can get to the rectory on Easy, and to the church, gatehouse
and the other building on Normal, while still winning. I take around 13 KW,
Germans about 24. All this, and usually all I mess with are the mortars and
the tank, to keep them focussed. Everything else is done by the units...but I
stack the deck with the initial setup. So far, it seems to work, and to me,
the Op Orders fall out from the initial se tup and the established goals.
This is a very challenging game. I've gone from losing to winning, and the
only way I did it was by recalling the stuff I've read about real tactics.
Simple plans, covering fire, preparatory fire, and a light grip on the units.
That is what seems to do i t. YMMV, but I think I'm going to love this game.
:-) David Pipes David, You've got the idea. Combined arms is the key. And
patience. The Americans can mass rifle fire far greater than the Germans can.
Once you've mortared the guys in the east-most wing of the church, try
MOVE-ing the guys from the woods to the wall. MOVE cau ses them to take the
safest path in the safest mode. MOVE FAST sends them on the fasted path at a
run. And don't forget your smoke! Keith Zabalaoui BATTLE REPORT From:
e-mote@ (E-Mote) So I got lucky, but I finally got a Decisive with the Germs
on Hard. I take back what I said before; they are fun to play, even if most of
it is based on luck, and you don't get to do very much. In this one play, I
got 5 teams, 2 MGs, 2 rifles (one is understrength), and 1 AT. Total of 19
guys. The Yanks have 72 guys, including that nefarious Zabaloui along with his
cohort Szymonik in the rolling coffin, otherwise known as a Sherman. The MGs
go into the gatehouse and the far-end of the church. Rifles on the flank at
the granary and the near-end of the church. AT sits in the middle of the
granary, busy engraving Zabaloui's name on a Schreck shell. This one opened
fast. The Yanks started charging right away. The halftrack got blown away
within the first minute, by one of the two MG teams (both are elite, BTW).
Zabaloui dude rolled up about 80m in front of the granary and started beating
up on my po or rifle guys, who are also taking 81mm mortar fire and all the
inf stuff. AT FORWARD! And about a minute later, Zaba and Szym were
exchanging their tanker suits for ones with wings and a halo. (Hey, wassup
with the 100% crew casualty? Crews get so sentimental about their tanks that
they don't bail or what?) My 4-guy rifle team by this time had lost 2 guys, so
the other 2 broke and ran for the back door. The AT guys were holding the
northern rampart with a toothpick and a knitting needle. On the southern
front, I had set the 6-man rifle team back inside the building a ways, so may
be that's why the computer decided to make the brunt of its attack there. They
charged with about 3 teams, using the patch of woods as a jump-off point. The
maj ority didn't make it to the stone wall, as my rifle guys hustled into
their firing positions and doing the duckshoot. The MG teams also had their
fun. Some Yanks did make it to the wall, and there we were, lobbing grenades
back and forth. Since I was ins ide a bldg and he just got a stone wall to
hide behind, I was winning most of my serves and he didn't. What was
strange, and which probably decided the game, was that the 2 American 81mm
mortars keep targetting my routed rifle team up north, following them to the
back of the bldg, and leaving the MGs to wreak havoc on the rest of the Yanks.
With their AFV s knocked out, they had nothing else to challenge the MG42s.
The MG guys didn't even break a sweat. Anyway, after a while of shooting
back-and-forth, I finally ran outta MG bullets, so then the computer decided
for another go at the church, with another 2 teams to help out the survivors
at the wall. My 6-guy rifle team (2-stripe dudes) by this time had had their
fill, and by this time and routed to the back of the church waiting for God to
deliver a miracle (like a Tiger tank or something). So then I double-timed
the one MG team from its position at the other end of the bldg to the front
lines. Got there just in time to stop the Yanks from getting a foothold in the
church proper. Knocked off another 4-5 guys. At this point, I'm in the yello
w, and the Yanks were way in the red, and the thing was flashing so we knew
we'd live to see some Iron Crosses at least. At the north end, the AT guys
were still holding, and the mortars killed one of the 2 panicked rifle guys
and the other guy--Otto his name was--finally ran into the orchard behind the
granary (Otto finished the battle with 4 cowardice points, but if I ha d my
say, he would've gotten about 10 medals and a trip to Paris, since he diverted
all the mortar fire away from the MG guys). So then we ended the game with 7
casualties and 40 enemy KIA/WIAs, along with 2 AFVs (why does the game list
the halftrack as a truck?). Turned out that we didn't get any Iron Crosses
after all, just a couple of crummy assault badges. Guess I have to pay the 40
clams before I can get my paws on some spiffy crosses. Questions to
Atomic: 1- What happens to wounded guys during the campaign, are they gone
for good, or do they sit out a few rounds? The guys that get wounded with
one yellow cross come back. The 2 red cross guys don't, with the exception of
your commander. He never dies and always comes back, albeit with reduced
physical ability. (If he gets wounded during play, he's down until the n ext
battle.) Keith Zabalaoui 2-Also, can you play the campaign with 2 players?
Absolutely! One reason we picked the 29th and 352nd was that they were in
constant contact for the duration of these battles covered by this game.
Keith Zabalaoui
You can make copies and download it freely provided:
A- You just mention the author and this site URL
B- You do not use it for commercial purpose
Please contact me (100257.1375@compuserve.com) if you need to use it
differently.
CLOSE COMBAT TACTICAL TIPS 1- Be patient: Choose your point of attack
(my preferred is the church) and supress the defenders for a while with some
fire concentration: you have more teams, more MG, more mortars, and maybe one
tank. The germans AI just can't hold the ground after a while. You can see the
germans have problems from the color of the shooting line: if you can see more
blue shooting then the german are beeing softened. If you see many red
shooting lines never, never move your units especially using the fast move
mode. You can also (k inda cheat) looking the statistics of enemy teams, if
you have troops close to them you will get a lot of info about enemy teams.
2- Concentrate your firepower: You want to attack the church? Fine have the
majority of your troops in the southern woods. Just keep a few teams/MG north
to help supressing other german teams in different building and avoid cross
fire. Do not move the northern teams, just keep them sh oting from good
defensive terrain. Soften the defenders with mortars/bazooka/MG/Rifles fire
concentration in the south. 3- Be very very conservative with your tanks:
Stay in good cover, far away from the front until you have spotted all the
panzerschreck positions. Once it is done just move them into blind
panzerschreck spot and use your tanks to supress/kill German MG or Teams. If
you only have half tracks just hide them until you have spotted/supressed all
panzerschrecks *and* all MG. Remember it is much better not to use them than
losing them since it will influence your moral and moral is much much more
important than victory hexes in this game. 4- Use intermediate objectives:
For assaulting the church a good intermediate objective is the wall. Once the
defenders are supressed move your troops to the wall and concentrate a few
teams here (take care to supress also all flanking shots). 5- Use the
overwatch technique: During the assault on the church send a team to assault
and have the rest supress the defenders. Drop some smoke on the flanks for
good measure. 6- Assault *only* with fresh troops: The color of the team
must be green. Fresh troops assaulting fatigued supressed enemy will make
great job without any casualty. The reverse will end with no results and a
bloody mess (for you, not for the opponent). If you haven't any fresh troops
let th em rest before assault. Also you assault team should have some grenade
left therefore be sure it didn't assault previously. 7- Reinforce
immediately after the assault has been succesful: The german may organize a
counterattack against your succesful team, therefore you should immediately
send another fresh team to help repelling the bad guys. 8- This one is very
important. Focus on making enemy casualties and avoid casualties on your side:
You are not in a hurry. You can take all the time you need to soften the
defenders before moving. Controlling objectives is not important for wining
*provided* you manage to get the enemy in the "red". You will get a decisive
victory and save many good g uys lives. 9- Try to save ammunition: When
shooting make sure the LOS to target is bright red, not dark red you will get
more efffect from your very limited ammunition. If the line is not bright red
try moving (very carefully) to better shooting places. Use the overwatch
technique during the move: one team moves others give protective fire. 10-
Try to get flanking shots at enemy teams: Teams can't get good cover from
every angle therefore try to maximize cross fire at wide angles against enemy
teams. CLOSE COMBAT FEATURES COHESION/LEADERSHIP From:
wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson) There is a Team Cohesion that changes
color gradually as the team goes under more stress, losses men, etc. The
soldiers will show morale states of either Normal, Panicked, Routed, Herioc,
Fanatic, or Berserk. You just never know when someone is going to be
Berserk, but you can usually tell by what quality the team is, how much fire
they are undergoing, and how much friendly support they have whether the
soldiers in the team will start panicking or not. In thi s game, you cannot
send a Green team by itself to rush a building and expect them to make it all
the way there before they start panicking and soldiers start running back to
where they came from. Or, even worse, if they do make it, they may very well
sur render. The Soldier Monitor also lists the weapon each soldier is using,
which ammo is loaded for that weapon, the amount of that type of ammo the
soldier has and will tell you if the weapon has jammed or been destroyed. The
physical status of each soldier is sh own as either health (Green) hurt
(Yellow), severely wounded (Orange) or Dead (Red). His fatigue is shown as
rested (Green), winded (Yellow) or fatigued (Red). Thus at a glance, you can
see how well the team is doing by the colors in the Soldier Montitor for that
team. There are 4 types of leaders. The company commander (you), 1 to 4
platoon leaders, 1 to 16 squad leaders, and then numerous team leaders. Team
leaders can only affect soldiers in their team. Squad leaders primarily affect
soldiers in their squad and so o n. Leadership is evaluated for the quality
of the leader, the rank of the leader and the proximity to the leader. By
keeping your teams grouped with a high ranking leader nearby, the teams are
less likely to break, more likely to obey orders, and rallying a ny broken
soldiers is quicker. ELEVATION/WEAPONS From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith
Zabalaoui) You seem to have a grasp of this game design b'ness. (You
commented on features that can wait until CC2.) BRAVO! Those are the designs
issues we had to contend with from the begining. 1) Men from one team will
not pickup/man weapons from another team, but men within the same team, a
spotter for instance, will takeover an MG (for example) if the gunner buys it.
Same with vehicles, and field guns. 2) No hills or second level buildings.
We will probably never do multi-level buildings, but we do have hills on the
list for CONSIDERATION in CC2. But that's not to say we don't deal with
elevation now. We handle foxholes, trenches, gullies, low obstacle s (like
stone walls around a churchyard), medium obstacles and high obstacles. Each of
these offers its own line of sight and line of fire rating. RALLY AND
HEROISM From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith Zabalaoui) 1) will your men try to
regroup and pull back reasonably to a safer place and hold there for further
orders? Yes. Absolutely. And if they still have a previous order, they will
continue to try to achieve it. So for instance, you order a rifle team into
the grainery. Someone from the gate house starts firing on them. They will
have to decide if they should hit t he ground, run back to where they came
from, or make a dash for the grainery. Let's say they drop to the ground, then
they have to decide which way to go. And each man decides, based on how he's
feeling. At this point (at any time really) you can tell them to go someplace
else and they'll try to, but let's say you don't. They are still trying to get
to the grainery. Sooooo you open up on the Germs in the gatehouse with your
.30 cal and a BAR. This tends to suppress or pin or even kill some of the guys
that had been firing on the first team, allowing the first team to make it to
the grainery - where they find a full German rifle team hiding in wait for
them - but that's another story. 2) And IS there a possibility in the game
for super-freaking-god- fantastic-amazing-he-did-that-all-by-himself feats of
HEROISM once in AWHILE? To Hell and Back - The Game. They can (but seldom
do) go berserk, fanatic, and heroic. Berserk is the most fun. The soldier
screams this gawdawful scream, drops his weapon, and runs toward the enemy.
And dies. MOVEMENT From: keithz@atomic.com (Keith Zabalaoui) I listed
the 6 commands you can give, earlier. The reason those commands work so well
is that your guys do act with their own intelligence. You can tell them to
MOVE to a location and they will pick their way there, taking the safest
route. You can tell them to MOVE FAST to an location and they will double time
in the most direct path. If they get fired upon, they will go prone and crawl
for cover. If they stop taking fire, they'll get up and try to make it to
where you told them to go. They will do the ir best to get there, but if
enough of them die and the rest start to panic, they might surrender to nearby
enemy troops or flee or just stay right where they are. This philosophy
applies to all aspects of the game. Let's say you have a Sherman 76 firing at
infantry. Then it spots a StuG IIIG. It may - on its own - stop shooting at
the infantry target you gave it and begin firing on the StuG. Now, it was
probably f iring HE ammo at the infantry. When it targets the StuG, it would
switch to AP, although the first round it fires at the StuG may be an HE round
it had already chambered for the infantry. Whew! I think you get the idea. Now
if it were firing at a Marder, it may very well continue to fire HE. The
point is that we have developed a very detailed game here, but wehave refined
the interface so that you can concentrate on PLAYING. REPLAYABILITY
From Keith Zabalaoui For each map, we have several pre-defined setup
"options" for the computer player. He randomly chooses from these, based on
how many units he has. Also, we provide the computer player with "probable"
locations for the human's units. Sometimes, you'll see the computer player
firing on an empty building. That's why. So the short answer is that you'll
see similar set ups each time you play, but there is diversity built in.
COMBAT From: wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson)
rcrane@unicorn.it.wsu.edu (Bob Crane) wrote: >> From what I've seen in the
demo, I have little doubt that Close Combat will win all of the game of the
year awards from the major gaming magazines. This is a truly amazing
SIMULATION, imo. My only major beef thus far has to do with the fragility of
th e armored vehicles. The american halftrack is too easily killed by the
German medium-light machine gun. Basically, if it gets shot at it dies. I even
had an M4 tank get taken out by a MG once. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this
is very unrealistic.<< I doubt that the M4 was killed by the MG but killed
by the Panzerfaust that the loader in the MG team carries. Rule #1 of survival
with American armor: Never move closer than 60 meters to a potential german
location. Even 120 meters is too close if there is a Panzerscreck team near.
As for the MG killing the halftrack, this is why the M3 HT series was known as
"Purple Heart Boxes". With only 6mm at a 20o slope of frontal chasis armor
(10mm effective) and 12mm at 20o slope frontal upper structure (17mm
effective), the German MG42 could easily penetrate it at close range (less
than 200m or so). While the MG won't necessarily destroy the M3 HT at this
range, it can injure or kill the occupants resulting in a soft kill. Also
watch out for the MG42 when you are in a wooden building at very close range
(50 meters or so). That gun (as well as the US 50cal) can rip right through
the walls making it much safer to be outside the building in some nice big
shellhole or foxhole. One of the strategies a tester came up with is to
deploy a couple of MG42 teams in the interior of a large stone building so
they could not be shot at by the Americans until they entered the building, at
which time the MG42s opened up, shredding the inte rior wooden walls between
them and the Americans as well as the Americans themselves. UNITS
STATISTICS From: wargamer@atomic.com (John Anderson) I'll try to give a quick
rundown of some of the displays: Team Monitor: Scroll list on the far left
bottom. Sorted by the team type with the exception that the Company and
Platoon Commander Teams are always at the top. Left side: Contains Team Icon
(pict of soldiers/vehicle), and Team Quality (a set of bars ranging from none
(Conscript) to 4 (Elite). Top Center: Contains the Team Type Name (general
description). Background color represents the team's cohesion, or ability to
fight. As the color drops from Green to Red or Black, it represents that the
team is taking losses. Bottom Center: Contains the Team's Strategic Order.
If this order is Green, it is an order you gave. If it is white, the team is
doing it's own thing. If it is Red, the team is disobeying you. Right side:
Enemy Threat Compass. It represents the direction that team sees the enemy. If
the center dot is red, then that team is alse being shot at. Soldier
Monitor: I won't go into a lot of detail here, as there is so much to
explain, but I will cover the high points. Top Right: Firepower Graphs.
These are graphed at 10s of meters at the number listed, thus the column with
an 8 represents firepower at 80 meters. Green, good firepower, grey line, no
firepower. This color will also show up on the Fire Line as you drag i t
across the screen. Soldier List: This has the soldier name, action, status
and weapon info. Most of this is pretty obvious, the key here is to see if the
soldier action is Green, Red, or White (see Team Strategic Order above).
Message Monitor: Remember you can click on a message and it will center on
the team that issued the message. You can also restrict which priority of
message will appear by deselecting the color associated with that message
priority. FORCE CONCENTRATION From: robear@access5.digex.net (Robear)
I'll take my guys and assemble them in the woods, say. Then I set the tank up
top, to mess with the two buildings up there. As the game starts, they just
sit and take shots to try to drop the German morale. I'll pound the gatehouse
with mortars until fire from there stops, then shift the mortars to the church
and move out. At this point, I've eliminated the main support building (the
stone gatehouse, tied down the enemy left flank with the tank and maybe an
infantry unit as well, and I've got my main assault underway to the church.
With this plan, I can get to the rectory on Easy, and to the church, gatehouse
and the other building on Normal, while still winning. I take around 13 KW,
Germans about 24. All this, and usually all I mess with are the mortars and
the tank, to keep them focussed. Everything else is done by the units...but I
stack the deck with the initial setup. So far, it seems to work, and to me,
the Op Orders fall out from the initial se tup and the established goals.
This is a very challenging game. I've gone from losing to winning, and the
only way I did it was by recalling the stuff I've read about real tactics.
Simple plans, covering fire, preparatory fire, and a light grip on the units.
That is what seems to do i t. YMMV, but I think I'm going to love this game.
:-) David Pipes David, You've got the idea. Combined arms is the key. And
patience. The Americans can mass rifle fire far greater than the Germans can.
Once you've mortared the guys in the east-most wing of the church, try
MOVE-ing the guys from the woods to the wall. MOVE cau ses them to take the
safest path in the safest mode. MOVE FAST sends them on the fasted path at a
run. And don't forget your smoke! Keith Zabalaoui BATTLE REPORT From:
e-mote@ (E-Mote) So I got lucky, but I finally got a Decisive with the Germs
on Hard. I take back what I said before; they are fun to play, even if most of
it is based on luck, and you don't get to do very much. In this one play, I
got 5 teams, 2 MGs, 2 rifles (one is understrength), and 1 AT. Total of 19
guys. The Yanks have 72 guys, including that nefarious Zabaloui along with his
cohort Szymonik in the rolling coffin, otherwise known as a Sherman. The MGs
go into the gatehouse and the far-end of the church. Rifles on the flank at
the granary and the near-end of the church. AT sits in the middle of the
granary, busy engraving Zabaloui's name on a Schreck shell. This one opened
fast. The Yanks started charging right away. The halftrack got blown away
within the first minute, by one of the two MG teams (both are elite, BTW).
Zabaloui dude rolled up about 80m in front of the granary and started beating
up on my po or rifle guys, who are also taking 81mm mortar fire and all the
inf stuff. AT FORWARD! And about a minute later, Zaba and Szym were
exchanging their tanker suits for ones with wings and a halo. (Hey, wassup
with the 100% crew casualty? Crews get so sentimental about their tanks that
they don't bail or what?) My 4-guy rifle team by this time had lost 2 guys, so
the other 2 broke and ran for the back door. The AT guys were holding the
northern rampart with a toothpick and a knitting needle. On the southern
front, I had set the 6-man rifle team back inside the building a ways, so may
be that's why the computer decided to make the brunt of its attack there. They
charged with about 3 teams, using the patch of woods as a jump-off point. The
maj ority didn't make it to the stone wall, as my rifle guys hustled into
their firing positions and doing the duckshoot. The MG teams also had their
fun. Some Yanks did make it to the wall, and there we were, lobbing grenades
back and forth. Since I was ins ide a bldg and he just got a stone wall to
hide behind, I was winning most of my serves and he didn't. What was
strange, and which probably decided the game, was that the 2 American 81mm
mortars keep targetting my routed rifle team up north, following them to the
back of the bldg, and leaving the MGs to wreak havoc on the rest of the Yanks.
With their AFV s knocked out, they had nothing else to challenge the MG42s.
The MG guys didn't even break a sweat. Anyway, after a while of shooting
back-and-forth, I finally ran outta MG bullets, so then the computer decided
for another go at the church, with another 2 teams to help out the survivors
at the wall. My 6-guy rifle team (2-stripe dudes) by this time had had their
fill, and by this time and routed to the back of the church waiting for God to
deliver a miracle (like a Tiger tank or something). So then I double-timed
the one MG team from its position at the other end of the bldg to the front
lines. Got there just in time to stop the Yanks from getting a foothold in the
church proper. Knocked off another 4-5 guys. At this point, I'm in the yello
w, and the Yanks were way in the red, and the thing was flashing so we knew
we'd live to see some Iron Crosses at least. At the north end, the AT guys
were still holding, and the mortars killed one of the 2 panicked rifle guys
and the other guy--Otto his name was--finally ran into the orchard behind the
granary (Otto finished the battle with 4 cowardice points, but if I ha d my
say, he would've gotten about 10 medals and a trip to Paris, since he diverted
all the mortar fire away from the MG guys). So then we ended the game with 7
casualties and 40 enemy KIA/WIAs, along with 2 AFVs (why does the game list
the halftrack as a truck?). Turned out that we didn't get any Iron Crosses
after all, just a couple of crummy assault badges. Guess I have to pay the 40
clams before I can get my paws on some spiffy crosses. Questions to
Atomic: 1- What happens to wounded guys during the campaign, are they gone
for good, or do they sit out a few rounds? The guys that get wounded with
one yellow cross come back. The 2 red cross guys don't, with the exception of
your commander. He never dies and always comes back, albeit with reduced
physical ability. (If he gets wounded during play, he's down until the n ext
battle.) Keith Zabalaoui 2-Also, can you play the campaign with 2 players?
Absolutely! One reason we picked the 29th and 352nd was that they were in
constant contact for the duration of these battles covered by this game.
Keith Zabalaoui