Friday, October 17, 2014

Battles of Kursk, Southern Flank - Order of Battle Navigation

With my operations going from bad to worse at this virtual battlefield by John Tiller, I started to mix and match my units to form kampfgruppen to expedite my attacks as the Germans.

For a better view, right click and open this image in a new tab. A tank company was selected and with the use of the "highlight organization" you now can distinguish all the units in the same organization because every single of them is highlighted within a yellow frame. 

Unfortunately, having a unit detached from its HQ imposes serious penalties in the subordinate unit. As far as I know, there is no way to attach a unit to a different HQ than the one it was assigned by the scenario designer (no dynamic order of battle). On the bright side, the size of the maps and the duration of the scenarios does not lend itself too well to assemble a kampfgruppe. Time is so tight in the average scenario!

For a better view, right click and open this image in a new tab. With the unit and the whole organization to which it belongs already highlighted, press "Alt" and "o". The next organization, the battalion to which the original company belongs gets highlighted in yellow.

For a better view, right click and open this image in a new tab. A new press of press "Alt" and "o" will highlight the entire regiment.

For a better view, right click and open this image in a new tab. And so on, a new press of press "Alt" and "o" will highlight the entire division, in this case the  SS-Totenkopf Division.

This hotkey combo is available also in the WWI, and Panzer Campaigns series. I find it very useful to keep track of formations during battle. Remember that HQ units are more than just counters.

Cheers,




























2 comments:

Doug Miller said...

Being able to cross-attach units would be a wonderful thing!

Unknown said...

We actually looked at more flexible attachments. The code could easily support it. We decided not to include at this juncture as it was open to abuse without additional code being written. One example that we needed to consider was attaching units/formations that were currently fixed. It would be too easy to prematurely release forces by attaching them to an existing active unit, that would then release due to line of sight/combat activity.

Personally the need for various attachments in game should only happen in longer scenarios and we will continue to monitor play activity as well as the historical situation to see whether there is a need.

Finally, with the extended range if many HQ's it is relatively easy to group forces that you require in various battle groups / kampfgruppes with little or any degradation.

David