ACHTUNG! Codex! Let's Defend Kharkov, in 1943 (FAILED!!!)

[Yeesh]

What a gyp! I'll miss this LP the most.

 

[Cassidy]

It seems that not only the games that Paradox develops, but also the ones they publish have a curse regarding their release versions.

 

[overtenemy]

Well, I wasn't going to do this, but since this LP ended at such a disappointing moment, I solemnly vow that upon the release of Operation Star I will resurrect this thread and lead our Tigers to victory over the Communist threat.

Yes please.

Although, the distressing lack of news makes me question whether or not it'll be released in English, or at all. http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=59720 is a thread about it, in Russian. I'd Babelfish it, but...well, you know. I want to hear about Operation Star, not the Presbyterian Church. It'd be too bad if it didn't get released, the features, vague though they may be, make it sound amazing.

1. 8 operations for the Red Army and Wehrmacht

3. Huge realistic landscapes (260 sq km), reconstructed by the topographic maps and photos- Built-in operations editor

8. Realistic simulation of the structure of divisions and subdivisions, soldiers morale and stamina

Those three combined make it sound as if the scale will be considerably larger, which is great. Will allow for more strategy on the operational map. And, of course...

2. More than 40 detailed units of the Soviet Union, Germany and the UK, including Pz IV "Tiger", MkII "Matilda" and KV-1 with various modifications.

Damned Ruskies keep blue balling me. Man of Prey, now this?

 

[Cenobyte]

I've heard that it's already released in Ukraine/Russia (or at least that it is completed), but a western release before 2011 is highly unlikely.

 

[eklektyk]

so much promise
so much potential and then ...

end

*waitin for moAR tank action*

 

[Korgan]

Holy fuck, looks incredible. Don't you just LOVE snow, mud, steel and corpses? I gotta torrent Operation Star somewhere.

 

[overtenemy]

Holy fuck, looks incredible. Don't you just LOVE snow, mud, steel and corpses? I gotta torrent Operation Star somewhere.

Won't do you much good unless you read Ruskie moonspeak. They've yet to release it in a real language and aren't releasing much news as to when they're going to bother. There's an interview every few months or so but that's about it. Goddamned motherfucking Commies.

 

[Yeesh]

Won't do you much good unless you read Ruskie moonspeak. They've yet to release it in a real language and aren't releasing much news as to when they're going to bother. There's an interview every few months or so but that's about it. Goddamned motherfucking Commies.

Particularly in this age of digital distribution, I find the lack of English releases to be baffling. BAFFLING. Can't you get like an intern to translate shit? Have some native English speaker clean up the output, host it and set up Paypal or fucking whatever, BAM income for free.

I just don't get it.

 

[overtenemy]

Part 1 Again: The Rebeginnining

Many moons ago, I vowed to combat Bolshevism if only Graviteam would finally release Operation Star in a real language. Well, here we are, and the game has been properly inclined in a variety of ways. Keeping the screenshots the same size as before because the text becomes more difficult to read the further I size them down.

Taranovka, February 12-13, 1943, as the Krauts. Must break encirclement and join up with the SS Division Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler.

They've unfortunately scaled down the information. Before, it'd tell you the story of how the battle played out in reality as turns progressed. Now...you get this. It does provide some basic information. The western part of our forces is supposed to stay put evidently. We'll be advancing on a cavalry corps (hopefully not an entire corps, jesus) and beyond that, Soviet tanks are rushing northwest to complete the encirclement. That makes things sort of tricky. If I attack and accidentally attack tanks, well, I'm in deep shit. German infantry is woefully ill-equipped to deal with them even on the defense, so to actually attack them...I'd rather not even consider it. Already northwest is a recon platoon or company, not sure which.

The new face of Achtung Panzer. The scale has been increased from previous iterations. There are simply more troops, making for huger and more awesome battles. Additionally, the old irritation of being unable to station more than a single platoon in a 1x1 kilometer square is gone. You may now have up to four platoons. This is of course extremely necessary given the increased amount of troops. It'd be very frustrating otherwise. Anyway, the Northeast once again is our attacking force. We've got no mechanization. It's all infantry and anti-tank guns, and again I feel the need to point out that rolling up anti-tank guns to ATTACK tanks is just a terrible idea. Believe me, I've tried. A little west is the force we'll be leaving there as a blocking force to cover our flank from the advancing recon elements, or the tanks should they reach their goal northwest and wheel around to the east. They're currently considered to be "encircled." I'm not sure what difference that makes since they have a supply depot right there. I'm a little fuzzy on the new supply mechanics and don't entirely understand how they work. After this I reckon I'll have to read the manual. The encircled dudes further south sitting there all by themselves are under my command. I dunno what to do with them. I can't move the supply depot, and what they're sitting on is considered a key point. On the other hand, based on what I know of the situation, they've got tanks fixing to run right over them and not a single gun to their name. I could begin to withdraw them west to meet up with the units you see there. Those are not under my command. They're part of the SS LSAH.

Most of their units are in reserve and are not yet part of the battle, which is sad, coz get a look at that shit. Tigers to the rescue baby!

After some deliberation I move my units as such. The northeastern guys begin their trek to attack southwest, while linking up with the encircled guys, which ought to relieve said encirclement by next turn. I left the guys down south alone because losing a key point costs a lot of victory points. There's houses there to defend from. If they get lucky and go a turn without being attacked by tanks, possibly they could be reinforced by some platoons from the SS LSAH. It's a gamble, but I'm not quite yet willing to give up an important piece of ground without a fight.

Well fuck me. All those question marks are enemy units that haven't been identified yet. You have to first fight a unit before you can be sure exactly what it is. But we've got 5 units of some kind or another coming at the southern crew, and they've only got 3 real platoons. One is just supply troops. The chances of one of the enemy units not being a tank platoon seems...remote. This is sad news. Also, enemy recon advances further on the northwest side, and strangely, what I assume to be the Soviet cavalry troops advances a little north to meet my infantry. If I were them, I'd have just stayed dug in. Now that they've moved, I can be confident they won't have any prepared entrenchments if I choose to attack them next turn. Well, I'll worry about that later. In other news, a recon element from the SS LSAH is being attacked by something or other. It also has a friendly infantry platoon near by. I'm a little worried. I mean, the briefing didn't say there'd be tanks there. But it also said that if its the Soviet recon would be heading north, not going south and attacking the SS LSAH. I deal with that issue first.

Because of where this fight is taking place, many of the adjacent squares are sort of off the battlefield. It gives me less to worry about. Now to decide in what manner to deploy. I haven't got much anti-tank capability in this platoon.

That's about it. Just one APC with a cannon on it. I don't think it'd stand up to a T-34. The recon platoon is all mechanized...not easy to hide. If it's tanks, I'll have to hold them back so they're not spotted and the infantry can effectively ambush.

I consider this spot. The decline means it'd be impossible for tanks to spot my infantry. They could hide, close to a road, and ambush them as they drove past, hopefully taking out a tread at least. That is of course assuming they use the roads, and assuming that the enemies are in tanks. And even so, then what? My anti-tank capability is so pathetic that even if I did ambush a tank there it's unlikely I'd do real damage to it. I decide against it.

Instead, I choose back here. I use the line of sight tool to place my infantry in commanding positions on top of a slight, but very clear hill. The recon APCs are deployed even further back so as not to be detected. If it's infantry, we'll slaughter them. If it's tanks, I'll sound the order to retreat and hopefully take only negligible losses. I don't think there's a better way to do it.

The final positions. I'm aided by the fact that there's only so many ways the Soviets can come from. Makes the battle less confusing. I do have one APC up with the infantry platoon, because it's the artillery spotter, and Operation Star has a new artillery system that necessitates line of sight and short bombardments to adjust fire and such.

Like so. You now have three artillery points. They are by default quite close as you can see - so close they'd practically hit friendlies. But they're very precise. When you reposition them farther out, you lose accuracy in bombardment. To gain it back, you have to do short bombardments to adjust. The more you fire at one of them, the more accurate it becomes. Also once again, it helps tremendously if the spotter can actually SEE what is being bombarded.

Anyway, time passes. Occasionally I call in some flares to see if we can get an early warning on what the hell the enemy is, to see whether I want to fight or retreat.

Far off, some Soviet shells strike. So they've got an artillery spotter as well. Fortunately, it's nowhere near us. About 30 minutes pass. I'm beginning to take the lack of action for a sign of weakness and consider attacking. I also notice that the enemy artillery has been gradually creeping toward a certain key point and conclude that is where they're attacking.

The APCs form up and move to intercept. I sincerely hope it's not tanks now, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

Enemy spotted as they approach the key point...and what do you know. It IS the Russian Recon. That right there is a shitty Soviet APC. I know from personal experience how easy it is to kill their crews. This ought to be a turkey shoot.

Before long, the infantry on both sides are dismounted from their vehicles, and my 75mm cannon APC has a shot.

What'd I tell you? Dead crew already. I tried to screenshot some gnarly pictures of tracers flying about, but failed miserably. We take a few casualties, and if I recall correctly, two of our APCs lose their machine guns, but no actual vehicles are lost and infantry casualties weren't that bad. Meanwhile, a few things happen.

I order up to the battle the two squads that were guarding in the direction of the battle, since they're no longer doing anything useful, as well as the artillery observer in his APC. Shortly after, an artillery round falls right next to said APC, destroying the machine gun and causing him to retreat like a little girl. So much for that.

And also on the other side of our position, a captured German APC is spotted advancing on a key point. It's spotted several times later along the road. If it keeps following that road and then hangs a right, it'll be on a collision course with our APCs. I intend to intercept and destroy it.

Another Ruskie APC drives up the road, but by the time he arrives most of his pals are dead already. They're taken care of quickly.

With the battle all done and two Ruskie APCs and accompanying men destroyed, I ordered the two infantry squads through the forest to ensure that it was clear and that the APCs wouldn't walk into an ambush as they drove up the road. They're now ordered into a column and ordered to move on the road that I hope to meet the captured German APC on.

In the future, to illustrate this sort of thing as well as the situation in general, I'll take more map screenshots. In the meantime, this screenshot shows what I mean - the small yellow tank icon far in the distance was the last sighting of the captured APC. The road is sort of perpendicular to us right now, but then turns towards us. Hopefully, he follows it. The two infantry squads ahead are ordered to hold at a key point and wait.

Not long after the APCs traverse the narrow part of the road the forward squads have a sighting. It's what I'm looking for...cept it's not on the road. It's in the forest and coming straight at them. APCs are ordered in to assist but they've got no line of sight and it may take some time. The race is on.

Drives parallel to their line, straight towards the APCs. Good, good.

Til it does a 90 degree turn and goes right at them, headlights illuminating various soldiers. Not cool. I can't fucking take it anymore, FIRE!

Grenades are throw, guns open up. The Russian infantry dismounts but already they've taken casualties. The machine gunner on the APC is dead as well thankfully. Now you see em...

Now you don't.

The APC keeps driving til it crashes into a tree. Presumably, the driver is dead. The troops make a big deal out of it for a little bit but I'm sure it's toast. Now convinced that resistance is mostly broken, I begin moving to take control of various keypoints.

The remainder of the infantry is told to attack the key point around where the captured APC was first spotted. Friendly APCs and their accompanying two squads move further northeast. For some reason, the artillery spotter refuses to go along with them. Fucking coward.

Some time later, we get enemy contacts, but the game doesn't slow down the time compression so I can't respond very quickly. Before I know it, a commander squad has lost several troops to a Russian APC sitting right on the point and its dismounted infantry.

Shortly thereafter however, the squads bombard the APC and its surroundings with grenades. Most of the enemy dies in a heartbeat.

With that last vehicle in flames, the enemy retreats and leaves all the territory for us. Total victory!

Well, sort of, according to this. But we did break an enemy platoon where none of ours broke, and we took all of the territory, although none of it was vital. For this, we receive victory points. But enough celebrating, onto the hard part.

Yeah...about that. I should've just pulled them back when I had the chance. The odds would be much better and since the tanks probably came from the southeast, they might not've been in the battle. The only thing that's stopping me from simply retreating right now is that I'm not entirely sure what will happen to them, given that they're considered to be "encircled." If I retreat and they're all considered to be captured, I'd have given them three perfectly good squads in exchange for nothing, and then I'd surely be fucked. I'll fight it out.

Cool rifle grenade K98 as an aside.

This is my deployment. It's snowing and dark out, meaning we'll be very difficult to see. More than likely, the enemy will advance on us with tanks in the front, and probably along a road, although not necessarily. The platoons in the north are situated on a decline next to a road, partially wooded, making them difficult to see. The idea is that they will quickly ambush a passing enemy tank with mines and grenades, hopefully at least damaging something vital. They will then run down the decline away from the tank, breaking contact with the enemy who will surely know where they are, depriving them of the surprise that'll be necessary to fight off larger numbers. They'll then meet up with the friendly reserve force in the southwest, form a line, and get ready. The reserve force is stationed as such because it's unlikely that the enemy will advance from the southwest. The dudes in the southeast are stationed in a very small town, so they're in houses, and are also along a road. This makes a very defensible position against advancing infantry, especially in lieu of trenches, and can be useful vs tanks as well if they're foolish enough to get close. The dudes to the west and east are the supply troops, who are allowed to entrench. I'm just using them as early warning systems. They've got like three dudes per squad and have only K98s for weapons.

Also, no friendly artillery.

A view of one of the ambushes along the decline by the road. So hard to see I don't think I can even make out a single soldier.

In what I assume is just an incredibly lucky barrage or two, the enemy manages to direct artillery onto the troops stationed at one end of the town. A house collapses, and by the end of it I believe 4 soldiers died from one squad and a few from another. Bad news. The rest of the barrages are inaccurate for the time being, thankfully.

Flares light up to the north, also where some artillery has hit previously. Guess the attack will come from around there. Figures, most of the enemy platoons came from the north.

Couple of apes spotted to the north, heading at us. Odd...I don't hear any vehicles. The infantry are attacking unsupported? I'm not really deployed well for this eventuality. Remember, the idea behind my positioning was that the attack would be lead by tanks, and that my platoons would be in a good position to quickly attack them with clusters of grenades and mines, hopefully disabling something vital before breaking line of sight and hopefully retreating without too many casualties. To accomplish this I deliberately deployed in a spot that has very poor line of sight to the direction of the enemy. That is precisely the opposite of what is good if you're fighting infantry - you want to stay down in a long, open field, so that when you open fire your machine guns mow down the hapless Communist hordes as they try to advance. That's not likely to happen here, both on account of positioning and lack of manpower.

This shows where they are, exactly. I guess I'll wait a little then tell the platoon there to open up.

After the firing starts, naturally, the enemy can see where I am and fire in return, allowing me to see where they are. There's quite a few of them.

At this point it occurs to me that this simply isn't going to work. We didn't have a very advantageous position to engage infantry and we're outnumbered locally in a big way, with more dudes coming around east evidently.

The ambushing platoon I had further west is ordered in to attack to relieve pressure and hopefully inflict a ton of casualties, but...would you just look at all those Bolsheviks?

It's not enough. Before long, the area of first contact looks like this - as in, without any friendlies. They've all been killed or captured. Staying there was a hideous mistake - I should've retreated the minute I saw that things weren't looking well. Also I realize this is very dark. There's an option to brighten things up when you pause. It looks sort of silly, but makes for easier to view screenshots. I'll turn it on next time.

So now with most of the eastern squads destroyed, the dudes attacking from the west are sort of just wasting lives. They've taken bad casualties too. Rather than keep up the attack, I'm ordering them southwest. The reserve platoon will move up and form a line facing north. They'll be on a slight hill on open terrain. Against infantry and no tanks, it ought to be enough to stop them...unless I've lost too many men already.

The retre-erm tactical withdrawal begins, but it's already too late to save most.

Fortunately, when the enemy came into contact, he called artillery down on our positions. But they advanced so quickly that it's now hitting the Russians. I'm not sure how many they lose, but the shellfire on several occasions comes down right in the middle of them. Slav incompetence is funny.

But they must have two batteries because the houses are under fire again. More casualties.

The retreat is mostly done. A few squads routed but eventually get a grip on themselves, but they're just a tiny shell of what they once were. The anti-tank rifleman I had has been killed as well. That's no good. Anyway, the reserve platoon is almost done moving to a point where it'll be able to check the infantry attack further west, while some of the Russian elements have already reached the houses. They don't accomplish much, however, and are gunned down.

Managed to screenshot some shells falling behind Russian lines. Is nice.

Meanwhile...this happens. So far it's just one tank, south of the houses, unsupported, but once it clears the houses it'll have a clear shot on the now vital reserve platoon. Something must be done. When it gets closer, I'll have the squads on the southern end of the houses leave them and swarm it, accomplishing...something, I hope.

As the tank approaches, the reserve platoon finally gets into position and begins halting the Stalinist scum very effectively.

Some more shells explode but our casualties are negligible. The Russians on the other hand...they ain't makin it. What hope they had at overrunning the weakened northern houses has been shattered by a stalwart defense, the reserve platoon, and their own shelling.

That is, unless the tank gets out into the open and runs everyone over. It's finally getting line of sight by wheeling around the houses. It's time.

They manage to get in close.

The turret turns, casualties ensue...but after awhile, it stops firing. Keeps driving, but stops firing. I'm completely unable to actually destroy the tank, but I assume the turret mechanism has been destroyed and its no longer much of a threat. Great success. Sort of.

Flares arrive, letting me take some funny screenshots. This is some burned earth, ravaged on account of Russian artillery. Look closely and you'll see corpses strewn about. Not all of them are German. When the dots are grey instead of blue, it means the dude in question is dead.

I lolled

Anyway, here's how things look with the flares in the sky. Pretty good. Grey dots once again are killed enemy, and I'm not seeing much blue. There's a few Russians out of sight to be sure but its safe to say they're mostly dead.

Things calm down, but there's one problem. They had a tank, meaning, well, tank platoon. There's got to be at least three left but possibly even more. And flares have gone up east of the houses.

Before long, three tanks are spotted, supported by infantry to boot. I was planning on ambushing them, but someone disregarded orders and fired, giving the position away. We come under tank fire. As I aptly demonstrated against the first tank, our AT capabilities are slim to none. I now feel there's no real hope here, and no sense in fighting. I order a retreat, and just take the risk that the encircled platoons may be destroyed.

The text is very hard to read. I think in the future I'll just play in a lower res instead of scaling it down, maybe that'll help. Anyway, the one tank I damaged lost its turret mechanism AND its gunner, so it was pretty harmless. However, the gunner is easily replaceable and the turret mechanism can be repaired in a few turns. Against it, I did no lasting damage.

The houses where the tanks were attacking...or whats left of them. Poor little town. The battle is considered a minor defeat for me. I actually lost more infantry than the Russians did due to my ridiculous error in the beginning. This might have been an acceptable trade were it not for that, because it looks like our platoons didn't break. One of theirs, however, did. When friendly platoons will be available to use again and where remains something of a mystery though.

Russians currently ahead in victory points, partially due to the capture of key points. They have two broken platoons. It says we have four, but like I said, I think they'll resurface later...I hope.

The situation. Since the enemy tanks are south, and I know that enemy infantry has moved north and can't have dug trenches, I'm very tempted to go on the attack while I still have the chance. The Russians'll have houses to hide in though, but I'm not sure I'll get a better opportunity. Our orders are, after all, to break through and link up with a friendly division. But it may be smarter to bait the Reds into attacking me instead, something the AI is all too keen to do when it has perceived superiority. I could then bleed their infantry first then attack with great local superiority. But this would also give them time to move their tanks to me....but then, the tanks are supposedly moving northwest to complete the encirclement. What to do?

 

[Ulminati]

It lives! Wunderbar!

 

[Quilty]

It's here! Thanks, overtenemy, that was a great read. I won't pretend to know enough about the game to give you advice on your next move, but I'll be waiting for the next chapter eagerly.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Concerning screen shots, consider compressing the images less when converting/resizing. High compression usually works acceptably when you don't have to resize images. In my experience setting jpg compression quality to 80-90 works well for LP purpose with small text that should be legible, though going higher will usually only give considerably larger file sizes for little gain in quality.