Slitherine

HA!!! Caught me in a Alzheimer's Moment Justin....Lol....

started challenge for Caen..password caen

Gents,
For those new to GJS'44, you can easily find previous battle results from the Order of Battle.
Open in excel, or an excel reader, and hover your cursor over the red comment triangle for each BG's name.
That will show a pop up with types of battles, sectors fought, opposing BGs and losses...

Hey Jon ... the 125/21Pz at Vimont doesn't have any artillery even though the OOB shows it. Did the right BG get put in for the PM battle?

They have Mortars?? There is no Arty left for this round...I think the only one to get is at Hillman...All chits were used...werent they?

I have 2 mortars. No off board artillery.

mowby1 wrote:Hey Jon ... the 125/21Pz at Vimont doesn't have any artillery even though the OOB shows it. Did the right BG get put in for the PM battle?

Hey Brian, Just to be sure, what do you mean by Arty exactly?

With so many of us new to the campaign, would it be useful to recap which sectors grant "Arty bonuses" (copied below just in case)? Double checking the Commanders' orders for June 7th, the Germans allocated their 4 Arty to 858/346 in Ouistreham (no battles), II/726/716 in Hillman (2 battles), II/22/21Pz in Vimont (1 battle), I/22/21Pz (1 battle) -> viewtopic.php?f=87&t=38844&start=460#p368652... PS. These 8 "Arty sectors" are important so win yours (Allies), hang on to yours (both sides) and deny the enemy theirs (both sides) as soon/for as long as you can.

Although the German commander allocated "off board" Arty to his first wave of Germans attackers, attempting to retake Vimont and Villers-Bocage, he could not allocate Arty to his second wave too... PPS. It's worth noting that bonuses are allocated to BGs, not sectors, so II/726/716 can use all of its bonuses for all of its multiple battles this turn (June 7th)... Always consider applying strong bonuses to BGs that you expect to be involved in multiple actions.

The OOB shows which arty units should be available from the force selection. Essentially, if your BG has it in its pool, you should be able to choose it -> http://bit.ly/BA88gjs44oob.
125/21Pz will have been offered up to 2x mortars, 1x 88, 2x Pak40, 1x Stielgranate at the force selection stage.

Btw, if anyone wants to understand the history of how a BG got to its present strength, just open up the OOB in Excel (or an excel reader) and hover your cursor over the red triangle in the top right of the cell with the BG's name. That will show previous battles and losses for each day of the campaign.

Hope that helps? Good luck guys!

GJS'44 Rulebook wrote:6.5 Germans will receive +1 Artillery bonus for each of Merville/Franceville, Hillman Battery, Cagny and Hill 112 held.
6.51 Allies will receive +1 Artillery bonus for each of Gold, Juno, Sword and Ouistreham held.
6.52 Allies will always receive +2 Naval Artillery bonuses. This artillery can fire up to two rows deep into Normandy, reaching the Vaux sur Aure to Ranville line.

If anyone's having trouble posting hi-res screenshots, you can always do it this way...
viewtopic.php?f=87&t=39487#p370116
(and you'll bag both of us 500MB free space, which I'd be grateful for! )

i am trying vimont and villers bocage, (allied) but at the beginning of my first turn, i get the "objective failed" message and i cant play. WTF, over.

Gents,

As a quick reminder, BGs arrive on battle maps from their actual direction on the Strat Map, for example 7/3cdn will approach Hillman from the direction of Juno beach. Prior attacks from different directions may have won some VP flags, eg. 69/50 attacked Hillman from the direction of Sword, June 7th AM, and won some flags but not the battle... 69/50 has now left the battle map...

Hopefully that makes sense and feels logical? Come back to me if not...

7.4 Different types of battles will be setup differently, to reward smart strategists with field advantages. In each case the GM will set up the battle map to approximately replicate each BG's direction of arrival.

carllarsen wrote:i am trying vimont and villers bocage, (allied) but at the beginning of my first turn, i get the "objective failed" message and i cant play. WTF, over.

Hey Carl,

Do you mind posting this one on this thread instead -> viewtopic.php?f=87&t=39073
I'd like to keep any non-GJS map stuff separate from our continuing GJS'44 campaign. Thanks for your help mate.

When you post up on there, can you give me some extra detail, like which version of the maps are you using, v.1.2 or v.1.21?
Are you playing the Vimont and Villers-Bocage from June 6th, June 7th AM or PM? Is your scenario called Vimont 2 or Villers-Bocage 2?
Ok, forgive the dufus question, but please confirm you're playing as MP and both of you actually selected some troops at the force selection stage.
Are you PC, Mac or iPad? What's your opponent using?

If you can help me with that, and post up on viewtopic.php?f=87&t=39073, I'll try to replicate your situation and find out what's happening...

jcb989 wrote:Hi Jon,

When you get back from vacation, it would be interesting for me and perhaps new downloaders too, if you could give a brief dissertation on the why's and wherefore's of the unit-level modifications that come standard in GJS44. Such as, the vision behind a true 8-man squad, the terrian % modifications, and any other workings that are note-worthy. Just a thought.

-Justin

Hey Justin, Sorry missed your post on the other thread...

Good question! To be honest, most of the mods were figured out by smarter people than me experimenting around, or things that I asked for and had to beg/borrow from other places... but to give you a line by line recap, here goes...

9.2 Dual deploy - Basic BA only permits one side of an MP game deploy. Granfali (the genius beyond the first GJS) felt that this was an unfair advantage (and he was correct because he was playing solo as the Germans, generously always giving us the right to deploy as Allies). Richcat helped me to find some Merr code, which let us add dual deploy to MP, so we now do that as standard.
9.3 Smokey mortars - Another of Merr's brilliant ideas, rejuvenated by Enric. Adds a sneakier dimension to just using mortars to pound things to smithereens.
9.4 Swap places - Something I'd been pleading for, for a while, which rf900 worked up for his Saving Private Brian campaign and my Fast'n'Sneaky, and then kindly shared the code for everyone.
9.41 Walking mortars - Enric and I had been looking to do this, and figured out that it could be modified in squads.csv. At some point we diverged, with Enric using a version that prevents mortars from loading/unloading as soon as they become wounded. I felt that was a bit harsh, so added a fix to permit that, and then added another fix so they can also move diagonally. Mortars can only move 1 square, never in hunt, and cannot move and fire.
9.42 Walking HMGs - Granfali & I were looking to do this, so we copied what Enric & I had done with mortars. Initially HMGs were limited to 1 square movement (compared to 4 for infantry/PIATS, and 5 for scouts) but having looked into what the MG42s were actually capable of in Normandy, I increased this to 2. Obviously, HMGs can't move 2 spaces in hunt, so their accuracy is significantly reduced if you move and fire. It's unrealistic to insist MG42s must be carried in a truck, but it's wiser to relocate, wait, then fire, if you want to grab a high impact shot without giving your position away.
9.5 Stronger infantry - To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how Granfali came to select 8-men infantry for GJS, but I do know he described experimenting (a lot) with different unit types and sizes before making his decisions. I suspect this may have been partly guided by rf900's use of 8-men infantry in Saving Private Brian. I kept Granfali's 8-men infantry because the little guys die very, very easily in plain vanilla BA, and smaller teams would mean losing units too quickly for the 25-day carryover campaign.
9.53, 9.54, 9.55 Stronger HMGs, piats/pzshreks, scouts, mortars, etc - Again, this is me just copying what Granfali experimented with and we had fun using for the original GJS. My belief is that once we bought into Granfali bumping up regular infantry sizes, to give more of them a chance of staying alive for carryover, it became necessary for Granfali to resize all of the other infantry units, to keep everything in balance. To be fair to Granfali, it seems to work very well, to the extent that Mike was chasing me in the first days of GJS'44 to add back Granfali's fixes (so that's got to be a good sign, right? ).
9.51 Stronger base morale - After we'd played about five game days of GJS original, Granfali explained that he felt that infantry-to-infantry duels were still ending too quickly. There just weren't any real gun battles to speak of. If an infantryman got caught in the open, it was dead meat and gone. So Granfali proposed lowering the suppression point (in BA units normally suppress below 50 morale, so he lowered this to zero). This made our infantry more durable and improved the infantry fights making the campaign more fun. The problem was, once one starts playing around with suppression rules for different unit types, it gets complicated for showing white flag animations, etc. More code to find and fix. So, instead of lowering the suppression point, I raised base morale (what units start with), to achieve exactly the same effect. BA tiers morale for paras/SS above regular infantry... I just extended that tiering so that paras/SS have slightly higher base morale than experienced specialists, eg. scouts and engineers, who have slightly higher base morale than regular conscript infantry, who themselves have slightly higher base morale than "ost" volksgrenadiers. VGs are genuinely weak, so you have to use 'em together, never one-on-one. The ratios of morale drop required to achieve suppression have been kept consistent with the ratios from normal BA.
9.6 M16AA fix - BA is an awesome and complex game, which looks like it's been built up in layers over time, so every now and then little errors have crept in, which Pip and Iain quickly correct. Arminius spotted that the M16AA armour is waaay too strong when he tried to shoot one from point blank with a Puma, but couldn't. Checking squads.csv, the M16AA (which was modified from the M3 truck) actually has front and side armour nearly as strong as a Sherman, and stronger than an M5 tank! It's wrong, so we fixed it. I'm pretty sure Pip/Iain will add this fix to the next version of BA too.
9.61 Firing ranges - BA sets all armour and ATGs with firing ranges of 8. This just adds some tiering so genuinely much longer ranged weapons, get 1 or 2 squares extra. It's all based on actuals, where for example, the max effective range for an 8.8cm flak 36 is estimated around 16,000 yards versus a ground target, less for a Firefly (which carried a 17pdr), maybe half that or less for a regular Sherman. Although you can fire from a little further with a Tiger or a Firefly, it's still better to get closer because BA includes an accuracy factor, which heavily rewards "waiting until you can see the whites of his eyes".
9.62 Recon cars - There aren't many scouts in GJS'44, and once you're through 'em, you're through 'em... so I added recon cars with a true recon ability, slightly upping their line of sight... The armour on the M5 and the Puma is still painfully thin, but they're remarkably handy mobile eyes when used carefully.

Hopefully, that all makes sense? You can always browse the full list of mods used, in section 9 of the Rules (so it's easy to see everything, if we add/change anything later).
Don't hesitate to back to me with any questions at all. Or if you think we should do something new to improve the campaign...

GJS'44 Rules & Regs wrote:Allied Order of Battle


German Order of Battle


9. Modifications

9.1 GJS'44 employs a number of mods to the core BA game engine to enhance gameplay, and we believe, to improve realism:
9.2 Dual deploy - Both sides of the MP battle are permitted to deploy into wide deployment zones (thanks Merr)
9.3 Smokey mortars - Mortars can choose to fire smoke to temporarily hide positions from the enemy (Enric)
9.4 Swap places - Neighbouring units can swap positions (RF900)
9.41 Walking mortars - Mortars can move one space per turn (Enric, GL88)
9.42 Walking HMGs - HMGs can move two spaces per turn (Enric, GL88)
9.5 Stronger infantry - Infantry, Engineers, Paras, Waffen SS and Volksgrenadiers have 8 men (Granfali)
9.51 Stronger base morale for infantry - Volksgrenadiers begin with 100 base morale, Engineers & Scouts 175, Paras & Waffen SS 200, All Other Infantry 150 (Granfali, GL88)
9.52 Stronger base morale for specials - Tigers and Churchills begin with 125 base morale, All Other Vehicles remain at 100 (GL88)
9.53 Stronger HMGs - Heavy Machine Guns (MG42, Vickers) have 5 men (Granfali)
9.54 Stronger auxiliaries - Scouts, Panzerfaust/Piat and flamethrower teams have 4 men (Granfali)
9.55 More powerful mortars - Mortar teams have 3 men (Granfali, K9mike)
9.6 Realistic M16AA - Armour of M16AA corrected to similar to M3, from which it was derived (GL88 c/o Arminius)
9.61 Realistic firing ranges - Range of Tiger and 88 pushed to 10; Range of Panther, Firefly, 17pdr, 75mmPak40, Marder III, M10 raised to 9; other armour stays at 8 (GL88)
9.62 Recon cars - Puma and M5 have LOS of 7 (versus true scouts LOS of 8 )(GL88)

Wow its cool getting fed the history for each mod, thanks I appreciate that a lot.

mowby1 wrote:For the German side ...
CAEN.... morge4
VIMONT.... mlazar
VILLERS-B.... cavehobbit
HILLMAN.....mowby1

Are all four games up and running now? I know VIMONT and HILLMAN are, wasn't sure about the other two games if they've been picked up yet...

June 7th PM - Battle updates...

Is everyone up and running (shooting )?

Allies vs Germans
CAEN: iProp vs Morge4
VIMONT: K9mike vs Mlazar
VILLERS-BOCAGE: Random27 vs Cavehobbit
HILLMAN BATTERY: Jcb989 vs Mowby1

I think I can see Morge4's Caen battle still up and offered... so I'm guessing the rest are already in action...
Out of curiosity, how are the paras finding it second time 'round? Are the same hide and sneak tactics still working? Or did the Germans learn?

GottaLove88s wrote:June 7th PM - Battle updates...

Is everyone up and running (shooting )?

Allies vs Germans
CAEN: iProp vs Morge4
VIMONT: K9mike vs Mlazar
VILLERS-BOCAGE: Random27 vs Cavehobbit
HILLMAN BATTERY: Jcb989 vs Mowby1

I think I can see Morge4's Caen battle still up and offered... so I'm guessing the rest are already in action...
Out of curiosity, how are the paras finding it second time 'round? Are the same hide and sneak tactics still working? Or did the Germans learn?

Caen challenge is still out there...have not started yet against iProp

GottaLove88s wrote:June 7th PM - Battle updates...

Is everyone up and running (shooting )?

Allies vs Germans
CAEN: iProp vs Morge4
VIMONT: K9mike vs Mlazar
VILLERS-BOCAGE: Random27 vs Cavehobbit
HILLMAN BATTERY: Jcb989 vs Mowby1

I think I can see Morge4's Caen battle still up and offered... so I'm guessing the rest are already in action...
Out of curiosity, how are the paras finding it second time 'round? Are the same hide and sneak tactics still working? Or did the Germans learn?

Villers-Bocage is up and running. We've just played a few turns so far.

/P-A

I don't know Iprop's status, as yet. Can we give him at least until Saturday to grab CAEN, sound OK?
Maybe he's tied up with you-know-what.
After that maybe Al you will find me commanding there... =/

jcb989 wrote:I don't know Iprop's status, as yet. Can we give him at least until Saturday to grab CAEN, sound OK?
Maybe he's tied up with you-know-what.
After that maybe Al you will find me commanding there... =/

Sure, that works for me...

morge4 wrote:

jcb989 wrote:I don't know Iprop's status, as yet. Can we give him at least until Saturday to grab CAEN, sound OK?
Maybe he's tied up with you-know-what.
After that maybe Al you will find me commanding there... =/

Sure, that works for me...

That seems fair... I haven't heard from iProp either, so I suspect it's just Life getting in the way...