CC XIV Announcement

US North Africa & Italy Campaign by Steve Brown for Adlerkorps Efile.

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CC XIV Announcement

Post by CC Team » 2019-09-20 16:08, Friday

JP’s Panzers
Campaign Challenges Presents
Campaign Challenge XIV

Steve Brown’s
USNAIC
With the Adler Korps Conversion
By Jan “PzManiac” Hedstrom


I had the privilege of Playtesting this campaign in it’s Builder’s Paradise form and am very much looking forward to seeing USNAIC’s AK version. Due to tight caps and low prestige we have adjusted the Prestige Levels for Campaign Challenge XIV.

We will use the following scale:
General of the ARMY 50% or lower
Field Marshal’s Challenge 75%
General’s Challenge 100%
Officer’s Challenge 150%
NCO’s Challenge 175%
Troopie’s Challenge above 175%

Are ya scared yet? :devil

Welcome to my US North Africa and Italy campaign v4.0, modified for AdlerKorps by Jan Hedström (aka PzManiac). The following is a short history of the campaign, which leads to some important comments about unit purchasing.

A short history of the campaign
I started developing this campaign in early 2000 and, initially, it was designed using the Waffenkammer equipment file. The whole concept was to make a campaign covering battles over a short period of time (November 1942 to about June 1943, I think) that would follow mostly historic battles. I hoped to keep prestige low to encourage use of a smaller historically-accurate core. In my initial version, somewhere around developing Kasserine Pass I got profoundly bored with the campaign because no matter what I did I could not force a player to buy anything except the best tanks and artillery and a few engineers - so I gave up the campaign for a long time. :whine

Then, one day, Lasse Jensen released his equipment file, with high values for the best equipment and low values for 'regular' equipment. Like others I was sceptical at first, but after playing the Blitzkreig campaign a few times I was convinced and converted the campaign to the new file - not only was campaign designing fun again, players would now have the option to buy more 'regular' equipment, few of the top-of-the-line equipment or a mix. I will not get into a discussion of h-efiles, but if you have never played a campaign with an h-efile please keep an open mind. ;)

The first version was released in October, 2000 and the version you will be playing is v4.0, which was converted to AdlerKorps - 100% of the work on the v4.0 conversion was done by Jan so read his comments below.
The readme for this campaign is also worth reading, I think :|

Purchasing equipment
One outcome of my design is I do not expect you to have the best equipment, you can easily survive this campaign with 'regular' equipment, and some purchasing advice follows. A few points here; first, this advice is based on the BP equipment file version, since I have not actually played the AdlerKorps version; second, in many scenarios you have the option to buy British and French equipment, I did this because it makes purchasing decisions more interesting but, personally, I have only ever played using US equipment and will be doing the same when playing cc14, there is no right or wrong way to play this campaign but if you want to play a 'pure' version then only use US equipment; lastly, at the start of the campaign you have to purchase all your core units, wait until you get past the 'choice' scenarios before you do your purchasing but do the purchasing BEFORE you start the scenarios.

Transports: I do not know if Adler has horsecarts available for the USA, but if he does do not buy them. For the desert you will need at least trucks, some elite units can have halftracks but you should mainly use trucks. When you get to Italy I think trucks are better, since they have better road movement...

Tanks: In general go with the light M3A1 and M5 tanks until at least the end of North Africa, these tanks are fast and you can spend your prestige better on other things. Once you get to Italy you should look at the M4s. One important thing is many of the German tanks, in both North Africa and Italy, are very powerful compared to yours (imagine going up against a Tiger with an M5) so you have to use all your forces to deal with them. Even if you have M4s in Africa they are not much more powerful than the light tanks, so often Panzer attacks have to be defeated with a mix of units. This was my intention from the start.

AT: At the start you will only have towed AT guns and M3GMCs available, but they are cheap and will gain experience if you buy them; after a while the M-10s become available which will out-shoot many Axis tanks. It is true they do not have overrun ability but you should definitely have tank destroyers in your core and use them for destroying tanks and save your tanks for exploiting weaknesses, overruns of softened units and attacking soft targets. Your armored forces should definitely have a significant proportion of M-10s.

Artillery: In the early scenarios go for plenty of 75mm batteries with truck transport, you may want to upgrade some of these to heavier units as you go along, but even at the end of the campaign 75mm guns are useful. The combination of the 1 movement and large ammo load for 75mm batteries is important for most scenarios.

AD: AD is vitally important in this campaign. I have made the Axis airforce often stronger than it probably should be, to force the use of AD. You will usually have aux fighters, and you may even have one or two of your own, but without plenty of air defenses to soften up the Axis air force you may have trouble. My personal preference is for good long range towed units (particularly if they have some movement) which I upgrade to SP if they get a leader.

Recon: There's not much to say here, recon is always important and the US has some nice armored cars.

Infantry: Concentrate on regular infantry in trucks, but a couple of elite units (Engineers and mountain troops are good, as are Rangers) are very useful. It is my intention that you should have plenty of regular infantry in your core.

Aircraft: You can survive without core aircraft, since there are always some aux units, but a bomber is a VERY good purchase at some point. personally I am not into giving the player the opportunity to have TOO many aircraft... :devil

Campaign choices
At the start you have a choice of 3 "Operation Torch" scenarios, Casablanca, Oran or Port Lyautey. Lots of people seem to choose Casablanca (because of the name, I guess) but the others are good too :) . I myself will probably choose Port Lyautey, which is fun. Later in the campaign you have another choice after Kasserine Pass; whatever choice you make you play the same amount of scenarios and there is no 'right' choice, just go with your heart ;)

Final note
This campaign is supposed to reflect the 'feel' of the original campaign so there are a lot of somewhat similar scenarios on the same map, I do understand that not everyone will like this but I cannot please everyone ;) . This is not the easiest campaign out there, but it is not the hardest, however i hope you like it.

Steve Brown - June 11, 2003


Some comments on the conversion
When converting this campaign from the Builders Paradise version I strived to make it as similar in playing experience, since I really liked the way that version worked. When it comes to prestige settings and caps I used Steve's settings as a basis, then I raised the cap levels with 500-600 reflecting the difference in pricing compared to the BP e-file. The caps are raised gradually until you arrive in Italy where the cap remains constant for the last couple of scenarios (seeing that here is no need for adding units to your core or major upgrades at that point of the campaign).

Due to the difference in sea movement in comparison to the BP-version, all landing scenarios had to be adjusted. Salerno 1 and Anzio (where you start the scenario with all your units in the sea) are the scenarios that have changed the most, so particularly in those two scenarios it might be slightly easier to take a V and TV in those scenarios compared to the BP-version (but the BV level shouldn't be affected at all).

I've also taken the liberty of using the variety of the Adlerkorps (in comparison to the BP e-file) meaning that not all units have been converted to the 'correct' BP counterpart. For example instead of having to fight only French Panhards 178 which is the only French recon you'll find in the BP e-file at the date of the landings, you'll get to fight four-five different types of recons. Instead of having to fight Italian Fanteria you'll meet Adler's San Marco, Litoranea Fanteria, Albanese, M Arditi etc. This might not be historically correct, but I thought it was a pity NOT to use the variety in the Adlerkorps. In any case I've playtested all the scenarios thoroughly to see that it doesn't affect the playability of the scenarios.

Regarding moving arty and AT units. I haven't felt the need for 'anchoring' any of these units. Personally I like the unpredictability of a moving arty, and AFAIK there are no defensive scenario set-up that has been radically affected by an AT unit moving out of an entrenched position. When playtesting the Adlerkorpsversion I was normally able to take a BV/V on the same game turn as when playing with the BP e-file.

The campaign has been playtested using the Adlerkorps beta 0.615. After playtesting the campaign there has been some adjustments to the BV-level in some of the scenarios making it harder to take a BV. BV should be possible in all scenarios (although I've never managed it myself at Kasserine and at Fondouk, so in these two scenarios you really will have to work hard to achieve a BV...).

Jan Hedstrom, aka the PzManiac

Good luck Generals, I’ll see you in the Desert!
General Christopher “Lobo” Nies

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Download package for OpenGen:

EFILE_CC14.zip

Original post updated by lvjtn
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Parabellum, Urica, Wonderdoctor, lvjtn

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