CMBN PVP: Tin Cans

[@RokkStrongo]

was pretty amazed when I realized maybe ~20 minutes in (and only after hearing all the village names) that I made this map, many years ago, glad to see its being put to good use! I can still remember hand placing and then rotating each and every one of these damn telephone poles at 50m intervals or so... (on a 4x3km map)

[@nathangun2261]

A good map maker is worth his weight in gold.

[@spiraling6980]

Great job! Its people like you that keep the game alive!

[@decimated550]

Great job on this very life like map. Now. Now are all these maps used randomly even if I'm playing combat mission cold war? I noticed that on red thunder and cold war had a same map or 2 shared between playing both games

[@whyme943]

@@decimated550Might be justified for those two.

[@GenSirAnthonyCHMelchett]

Excellent video Hapless! thank you for a fun game. Quite interesting to see how many of those glancing blows the Sherman's took on the chin.

[@cf453]

Darling! :D Well done Melchett. Thanks for letting us watch.

[@DJsharp707]

Good game gents

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Yeah, always surprising to see a Sherman survive... well, anything.

[@decimated550]

@@usuallyhapless9481 Are you playing this on wego or are you playing this live head to head ? Are you able to give small orders on the fly to your men or are you relying on the AI after you've set your one minute moves?

[@decimated550]

30:56 Last Stand of the Scouts! Died with honor

[@MegalonJonesSlattery]

Your breakdown of the two armor fights is excellent and instructive. My technique is more 'Look at all this chaos!' using montage editing. I do know that the 57mm gun doesn't get enough credit. High rate of fire comes in handy.

[@themodernwarfarehistorian825]

Well, I like both UH and yours editing style ahahah

[@Spider-Too-Too]

your story telling skill is getting better and better

[@thecbrndude6208]

Stumbled upon this video (And subsequently channel) thinking it was going to be a simple review of a PVP match, but the amount of detail you put into reviewing this encounter between American and German armored forces have earned you a subscriber. Very well made and showed exactly why you never underestimate the 57mm!

[@cf453]

That was a SPECTACULAR battle, and perfectly narrated and presented. The TacAI seemed to do rather well with what you presented it.

[@dakaodo]

Your editing and narration are wonderful. The tank labels and your reminders of the Shermans' main armaments helped me keep them straight. Same goes for your overall narration and continuity reminders about which units you'd mentioned moving or in action previously. I feel like I've learned a fair bit, as if a WW II tactics history book had been put into motion. I've read a few descriptions of battles, but with this game as a medium it helps me understand and orient myself on the battlefield so much more easily. The small details you mentioned in angles, terrain, and particular situations also feel like a historical battle description brought to life.

[@masonm9316]

I’ve read a lot of reports of later Sherman upper front plates being pretty effective in bouncing German late war ammunition. I don’t think it’s modeled in game, but it was considered by the Germans that that panthers long 75 effective range when engaging the frontal 45 degree arc of the Sherman’s was about 200 to 300 meters. Supposedly the reason is very poor metallurgy in the shells. The guns had the power but the combination of American steel not being brittle, unlike soviet steel and the metallurgy of the late war shells apparently didn’t give the German tankers much confidence when engaging American armor. Interesting this wasn’t the case on the eastern front, probably because of the brittle Soviet steel that would either shatter the shell or fail entirely. I wish I could find my exact sources I would publish them, if I can find them again I’ll come back and edit the comment with the links. I know one of them was my old material science books from my engineering classes.

[@thepinkplushie]

By 45 even on the eastern front this problem should have been present for the Germans I'd think. Having looked into Soviet wartime metallurgy, it seems the problem was being heavily studied by 42. By 43 there was both scientific and industrial efforts to come to solutions. By 44 some factories were getting very consistently high armour quality, but that still meant the front lines were very hit and miss, with even tanks in the same company having wildly differing armour quality. By 45 however, at least by Soviet claims and the limited data I've seen, it appears consistency had massively improved. Most factories were able to produce quality plates at least most of the time. I believe the percentage I saw was 60-80% consistent quality, up from ~30-40% even up to late 43, early 44. I'd speculate it took so long due to the organization of the soviet industrial effort, where making changes to tooling, equipment and process was only done if absolutely necessary, as it slowed down production significantly until the factory had adjusted. They also kicked out changes in phases, allowing factories producing new equipment to fully switch, while older equipment was still produced at others. While this is understandable, it's somewhat of a self fufilling prophecy (if you make lots of low quality tanks, you're more likely to lose tanks, which requires you to build more tanks, which makes it more difficult to improve tanks, as demand remains very high)

[@masonm9316]

@@thepinkplushie this may be entirely true and seems like it is so, the documents/archival sources where very western centric mostly interviews and interrogations of German officers and industrial staff of how they viewed allied(American) armor. Only really referencing the eastern front to draw comparisons. From what I’ve gleamed from the reports is that American tanks where much better protected than the Allies thought they where. I think the report mentions that they wanted to do a follow on study of this but couldn’t find enough examples of Shermans that had frontal impacts of long 75s or short 88s. After the war I am pretty, though I have no source I can relate to that the Allies did fire a long 75 at the Sherman and it cut through out to about 800m but they might have had good ammo and not war time production. I do remember a addendum that told of the long 88 being able to punch through at 2km even with very poor ammo. It was more out of pure Kinetic energy than anything else. I am not sure and I think all of this might be lost to history, I do find things like this fascinating! The paper says the Sherman’s armor couldn’t stand a chance against the long 75 but in reality it was much more muddy.

[@thepinkplushie]

@@masonm9316 Makes sense they'd try it. That said, I know the Americans often used their own guns of similar power and calibre in range tests to approximate, due to a lack of captured German guns and ammunition. This is something the Soviets had to do less, as far more tanks were captured on the eastern front than the western. I find it highly believable (and sources I've read seem to agree) that American armour rated far higher than it was given credit for (and still is). Likewise German armour tends to be overrated in some aspects. The Germans did a great job adopting effective plate sloping with the Panther, but the Tiger used a pretty conventional design and was used far past it being outdated on the field. Likewise though the Panther's armour pattern was exceptional for the time, the weld quality and metal quality wasn't up to snuff even in '43 and continued to decline until the end of the war. There's many pictures of German big cats that were hit by large Soviet rounds that didn't pen but burst the weld lines. And that's not even to talk about the spalling, which seems to have just gotten worse and more common as the war went on.

[@MrChainsawAardvark]

One of the rarely discussed aspects of the war was access to materials like vanadium, molybdenum, and tungsten. The main delay in German Turbojets was not so much orders from above, as a lack of alloys to build turbine blades. Making the high-temperature spinning components from simple steel would result in so an engine would fail after ten hours of use. To type qualify a pilot in a twin engine ME-262 with 20 hours flight time would eat four jets before you even got to combat. Tungsten is needed for both machine tooling to make tank armor, and as a component of AP shells - meaning by the end of the war the Panzers need to choose between making tanks or ammunition.

[@thepinkplushie]

@@MrChainsawAardvark To put in perspective how dire it was for the Germans, even the allies had tungsten shortages to the very end of the war. Demand was sky high and many of the largest tungsten operations wouldn't be completed until after the war. Germany didn't have easy imports from around the world like the eastern and western allies. The Soviets were wise to focus tungsten and other rare resources on armour and tooling rather than shells in my opinion. The T-34-85 and IS-2 both had "good enough" killing power (the later easily disabled most German tanks even when failing to penetrate). The western allies had a steady tungsten supply, though not as much as they needed to fufill all the requests. In the end all sides were rationing AP ammo, especially HVAP/APCR.

[@d.c.6065]

1 hour of Hapless? On the day after Thanksgiving? With a leftovers sandwich? Yes, please! 😍 Edit: With GSACHM? Oh sweet god

[@Donnerino]

Excellent example that being outnumbered and outgunned doesn't mean you're going to lose. That tank fight that decided the match would go into a field manual.

[@TopHatHat]

Tank battles in this were absolutely amazing! As you said a better map layout would have been the solution, but I for one want to see a rematch between you two on whatever game or map you both decide. Looking forward to the next video!

[@markraffety3246]

Excellent video as always UH. The resilience of Shermans is often understated. I just finished a battle where I had some 88 flaks dug in on a hill. They engaged Shermans of various types at ranges of 1800 to 2000 meters. They had very few full penetrations at that range. One thing this video brings out is the advantage the US player has in recon and speed. US recon elements punch above their weight. Jeeps have radios and can distribute mg and bazooka teams around the battlefield quickly. Again a very well done video that serves as an excellent tactics training film.

[@jp38able]

Great video and game. It shows the importance of combined arms really well. A good example that the armored fist of the german army was only one part of their success. Integration of recce, armor, fires and mobile/armored infantry was possible of greater importance than the heavy stuff on its own. Here, your enemy lacked artillery to shape his area of advance with fires/smoke, strong recce to fight for information (when his Panthers stubled into your position on the deep right) and infantry to exploit the dominance of the tanks/secure objectives.

[@thespfgirl]

Glad to see new content from WW2 CM. Love the new arrow graphics!

[@doctorfresh3856]

MORE, MORE, MORE! Your the only one really doing it. Making good, NARRATIVE DRIVEN, Combat Mission videos. I want to see more and more frequently. 😉

[@TotallyNotElPresidente]

I was not expecting this to be an almost exclusively armor engagement, pretty awesome!

[@decimated550]

6:40 the infantry action is short sharp and nasty! Super exciting. I love pure armored infantry battles vs their counterparts

[@XVansenX]

This is the best video I watched so far from Combat Mission AAR. Great narration and editing!

[@SimonPageVideo]

Wow. Recently returned to CMBN after years as it's still my absolute fav. This video is awesome. Such story telling and tactical explanations. Really enjoyed it and you made me late for work!

[@patrickhaller669]

Amazing battle analysis. Very well done by both players. Thanks for sharing. I can't overstate the amount of knowledge I am gaining from watching your videos

[@thewitherchannel1053]

This is the best CM channel out there. so good editing skills.

[@overwatch1828]

This kind of Combat mission videos is what I adore the most from you. PLEASE do more of these PBEM matches in an AAR format. To me its hands down the best format to watch. You get it all, the tactical planning and the put into action movie that goes with it all beautifully filmed and edited. Simply put excellence all around. If I had the extra cash I would gladly pay you to put one of these out a month they are so enjoyable to watch.

[@negawan]

that was an awesome account of the battle. i was completely invested in how the battle played out.

[@whya2ndaccount]

I enjoyed it although to me it brings out the fundamental flaw in the CM family concept of a Meeting Engagement. No bounding, mutual support or Advance to Contact, just a peddle to the metal, first in best dressed, dash for the Objective.

[@kevlarburrito6693]

As someone whose been playing Combat Mission since it first came out over 20 years ago; I always, ALWAYS, give any recon teams I use a fire arc order in the shape of a circle around them that is no more than 25 meters away. This keeps them observing and spotting without letting them open up on everything that comes into sight.

[@WPrice-bb6xo]

God that hellcat crew must've been terrified

[@d.c.6065]

Can't be terrified if you're dead

[@4rnnr_as]

I much enjoyed this format than watching turn by turn. Your storytelling skills are really showing here too. Excellent opening and narrative in a tense battle!

[@MegalonJonesSlattery]

An hour long installment?!? I know what I'm watching tonight.

[@adavis5926]

Great narrative all the way through. Taking notes for my own CM plays. Thank you!

[@vicgalvalo8853]

Hapless Uploads: happy day

[@yeahno6100]

Great video Hapless, sort of reminds me of Josey Wales' videos, another asset to the Combat Mission community that we seem to have lost.

[@DwarfElvishDiplomacy]

This is one of the most entertaining things i have ever seen on youtube, thanks

[@donotlookherethereisnothing]

The return of the king! I've been on combat mission withdrawal for too long!

[@russellhall1756]

An absolutely beautifully well put togethor video hapless, this is by easily your best video yet! Great Job

[@kennethruns]

This is really exceptional, I was enthralled the entire time. Incredible work!

[@karlhungus545]

Excellent video, as always. Watched the entire thing. I'm more than a little surprised your experienced opponent kept allowing you side shots on his tanks. I would have sent a concentrated attack directly into that short route, smoked the field, and used the tanks to blast the hedgerows while artillery rained down on you. Methinks he maybe spent too much on tanks? This is also the problem with Meeting Engagements...zerg rush at the beginning.

[@mjkypta]

Wonderful engagement, and presentation in editing and narration. I hope you feature more of these battles with your friend on your channel.

[@richardhutchinson4740]

Amazing! Another battle against Melchie. Would love to see from his side as well.

[@armchairgman6568]

Awesome video Happless. I've been watching your channel for a couple years now. This longer format is my favorite. Keep up the good work!

[@Wubs4Scrubs]

Great video! Loved the breakdown and the on screen graphics. Hope you continue doing PVP content for this game!

[@hamishneilson7140]

Oh man, I always get so stoked when I see you upload again! Great video man

[@wartsnall7332]

Always good to see more Normandy footage from you.

[@lorgius]

Absolutely love that videos and the way they are narrated and presented.

[@cartergeorge1545]

What a great video, I love the little graphics showing defensive lines, breaks in the bocage, etc.

[@creedencerat9032]

That was some great bait by the general could’ve turned the engagement into a slaughter

[@jepkratz]

Excellent play by play coverage and analysis of the battle. Good show!

[@EnRandomSten]

really like the use of visual aids in this video, very helpful and informative

[@dv6000islame]

Amazing stuff as always Hapless! Excellent editing and commentary. Thanks again!

[@seankong9733]

An HOUR long Hapless video??? You really pulled out the stops on this one Hapless! Applause to you!

[@funkzeit]

Awesome video Hapless. Thank you so much for all the effort it took to make this.

[@majorintel9623]

Good to see the narration saying where the units currently being talked about are located, most of the time. I kept wondering why the Germans did not lay down smoke with artillery to cover the right flank of their armor push, and avoid fire from Beuron.

[@UrkkiTheMan]

Your best AAR so far!

[@bobtank6318]

Great job Hapless. Your use of the Shermans in the face of those Panthers was well done. I feel like the German player brought to many tanks and should've brought more infantry. I also like the focus on the Sherman in this video. It is one of my favorite tanks and in my opinion was the best tank of the war. The reliability and crew ergonomics were superb, and it had one of the first stablizers. Of course, the Sherman's strengths aren't really present in CM due to the lack of reliability modelling (how many of those Panthers would've broken down or ran out of fuel before the battle IRL).

[@pipsqueaks_home]

Nice to see you back, Hapless. And damn fine job, as per usual. Many thanks!

[@artemis4661]

Excellent presentation as always.

[@davis06]

This was an excellent video. I really enjoy watching them. If the general is open to suggestions; he may have been more successful by using all of SOSRA. Specifically the O, obscure. Smoking the tank positions on the right side of town may have presented advantages for his breaching push.

[@Redstarka22]

That transition at 8:39... Your camera skills get better with each and every video!

[@PitterPatter20]

Another excellent video from one of my favorite channels! Can't wait for the next video from you!

[@williamlydon2554]

An excellent video, but I must ask when we'll see more of SFII Valley of Death? I love some good small unit actions.

[@danielsonlisik534]

This is so entertaining to watch, this game series is hard as hell.

[@gunsalot]

Those panthers sure are terrifying to look at.

[@nathangun2261]

Another excellent report Hapless. I've missed them.

[@michaelcharles4596]

FUNS A POP'N. Great AAR, thanks so much for posting. Very impressive recovery on the German armor push. [[Whiners, you gotta to love'em (oh gosh did I just say that).]]

[@fraleo2192]

Are you ever going to continue the SF valleys of death series?

[@TCrag]

I realaly enjoy the format of your videos. Great work.

[@Ekstrax]

Man i love to watch these

[@Tee-Ess]

That was a very interesting battle. Looks like the Germans brought way too little infantry.

[@Zenonaut]

Late to the party, but I absolutely loved this AAR and your commentary on the battle. Thank you.

[@biggestboss1756]

Pretty nice feature lenght video,although i hope you dont get burned out from doing such long projects.

[@lutherburgsvik6849]

An hour?! O M G

[@System-Update]

Even with tweaks, this map is honking to attack across.

[@berrymcockiner3906]

Straight into the action! Amazing

[@graysoncarter9925]

Your best video yet! Great job hapless!

[@jake2.035]

Really good watch, the video was very well made and the commentary kept me interested. Wp.

[@TheSonOfDumb]

Very interesting. I did not know aircraft could crash on-map.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Yep. Usually on my friendly forces... of course.

[@JuergenGDB]

Damn, that was epic... The 3rd shot from the Panther was a through and through. Nice Job Hapless!! Was a really good game. Damn, I love this game!! Damn! Just a beautiful AAR. Say Hapless I have a scenario for H2H play if you are interested. GhostRider3/3 from the forums. :)

[@JuergenGDB]

I think after the first engagement with A1 being the General, I would have tried to flank that bocage before committing.. and disengaged till I had better Intel. But hell was a great battle.

[@vinnart]

Well played, and fantastic presentation with fluid narration and camera work/ editing that gets better and better Hap! Really liked the overhead graphics with the labeling, and showing of lines for planning and movements in giving the the viewer a clearer picture of the forces and the situation. Tip: I did extensive testing with track damage with obstacles way back with a test map I map for the exercise. The conclusion was that it did not matter the speed the FIRST time going over an obstacle which usually gets a 1 point downgrade to dark green, However, after the first point of damage it did make a BIG difference the speed going over future obstacles with SLOW getting the best outcome to reduce damage over sustained going over obstacles. Not very experienced with the hedgecutter variant, but expect the same damage model would apply. At what speed were you hitting the hedges? If it wasn't slow after the first damage then try this next time and see if the tracks fare better for a longer time.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Thanks very much man! I had the Stuart ploughing through everything on 'Quick', so obviously worth trying out slower speeds to see if it incurs less damage.

[@ivanivanov7246]

thats a great work, love it. more interesting than 20 videos of 1 battle

[@engineer5520]

Man imagine how the A3 and C4's crews felt when the panthers started rolling towards them.

[@spiraling6980]

Great battle! Very entertaining! I absolutely love CM and have all the games except for the Cold War release. Recently though I've been thinking more and more that it might be time to see a newer modern game engine with better graphics and smoother gameplay. I haven't been to the forums in over a year so I'm not sure if this topic was brought up or not. Much rather see time/work go towards a new game engine instead of cranking out more scenarios with the current engine.

[@Vatniks_are_clowns]

Love the narration!

[@M1912TrenchGun]

An absolutely excellent video (also RIP B3, the luckiest (and unluckiest) Sherman in the ETO)

[@momjuicer8482]

Another great video! Bro you should really do a battle of Berlin scenario with the fire and rubble module. That would be epic

[@aanders1990]

This made my day. Thanks!

[@rikwilliams6352]

& thats why I rate this game so highly, well played & excellent AAR. What version are you using?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

v4.03

[@briansmithwins]

Given German AFV strengths in ‘44 you just gutted a Panzer division.

[@normannobrot]

this was cool. prefer the big battles etc. altho if this was a quick battle i did tend to feel the axis went for the armour spamming....would've looked better with a more mix combined force. but i enjoy this video, good game guys.

[@sirfanatical8763]

I love these videos. Play some more cmsf2 pvp please (as the syrians)

[@InnerWiggy]

Hapless how do you get vehicles right up close to the bocage so that they can see through it? Where do you put your waypoints? Cracking videos! Subbed for more!

[@usuallyhapless9481]

it takes a bit of experience to judge it right, but pretty close to the bocage. Too far and you might ride up it and expose the lower front plate though, which you probably don't want.

[@InnerWiggy]

@@usuallyhapless9481 Thanks mate, I'll have a play with it!

[@Rutang835]

good lord that's a lot of armour

[@Loonsloon]

great battle! The after action review you have here is so well done - great editing and narrating to guide the viewer through this large battle. A few times I saw the 'done' appear so I'm guessing this is turned-based PBEM? How did you record your video segments - as far as I can tell in turn based you can only replay a single turn - did you record your video segments every turn or have some way of reviewing the entire replay? Awesome battle and great work using that hedgerow to give your Shermans the edge!

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Thanks very much! Yes, the best (only?) way to make this style of CM AAR is to save every turn, making notes as you go along and then incorporating the notes into a script and going back to film the relevant footage. There is no replay function that strings together all of the turns. And, like you spotted, sometimes something interesting straddles a turn divide!

[@Loonsloon]

@@usuallyhapless9481Thanks for this - one remaining query I have - do you save at the beginning of each turn? My sense is that combat mission computes the outcome when you press end turn and that it can produce different outcomes if you replay a turn after loading (maybe different random roles). Unless there is a way to save after the turn is computed? Maybe in PBEM this is what is sent?

[@jamesw9232]

Amazing match, I cant help but think I would have handled a Panzer blob with far less grace! One thing I always think with these matches is what do you take the etiquette with air assets to be? You had them strafing the starting zone but I believe only after you saw the panthers?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

The P47s had engagement areas some distance away from the setup zone and IIRC came in at the 5 minute mark. It's not foolproof because they pick their own targets and might always decide to go after something outside the designated area, but both setup zones were also exposed to the high ground in the centre so they were always going to get compromised at some point

[@MarkusMaki]

Excellent video as always. Whenever a Hapless video is posted the highest quality can be expected. Very enjoyable breakdown of the action and interesting storytelling. A question: did you at any point consider using the artillery on the attacking Panzers with the same intention as the aircraft, wearing them down. You mentioned artillery at the start but I didn't notice it being mentioned later.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

I considered it, but the problem was hitting the moving panzers with a long call in time. That and artillery effects vs tanks is somewhat under-modelled in CM, so it's not as effective as it perhaps should be.

[@elledhe3116]

I love your vids keep it up one day we will be on the road to 1M.

[@johngojcevic8731]

One of ur best. Poor Stuart and scouts though 😢

[@jacopofolin6400]

Hey can you do a tutorial video to play online, especialy of shock force 2?

[@lawsonbrady2586]

awesome game man keep up the great work

[@HolgerHendel]

Great, again.

[@Themaritimes99]

Great Video!

[@ernoldlezzequiele3651]

amazing video