Parker's Corner Mini Campaign - Battle of the Bulge

[Hamaha15]

Parker’s corner – the fighting around Baraque de Fraiture crossroads on Dec 23rd, 1944

 

Hello all, the initial intention was to set a stage to rehearse directing a platoon of my favourite Sherman tanks using the tank commander’s menu. I ended up with a historical micro-campaign of three missions because the selected battle scenario appeared too complex to be condensed to a single mission. The more so because the rearm, repair and crew replacement functions have not been made available yet.

 

The fighting at the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge raged from Dec 19th through Dec 23rd, 1944 at the intersection of the Manhay-Houffalize and Samrée-Vielsalm highways. This spot gained strategic importance after the loss of St. Vith during the initial stages of the German offensive through the Ardennes forest. Three 105 mm guns plus four M16 AAA halftracks made the core of a scratch defence force. Later a few M7 Priest self-propelled guns joined in and infantry was provided by the F company of 2^nd Battalion 325^th Glider Infantry Regt. Commander of the defenders was Maj. Arthur C. Parker of the 589^th Field Artillery Battalion. Maj. Parker was wounded on Dec 22nd and evacuated. Early on the next day the Germans attacked with tanks and Panzer grenadiers prompting Maj. Goldstein who had taken over to send for reinforcements. Acc. to some sources a platoon of five M4 Sherman tanks managed to break through the German troops who had begun to encircle the crossroads. Late in that afternoon, after a barrage of artillery fire, German tanks supported by assault guns attacked in several waves. The three surviving Sherman tanks were ordered to withdraw after successfully holding the position until dusk. Despite heavy own losses the Germans finally overran the position. From an initial force of 116 GIs there were 44, some sources say 25, survivors. By their nature and ferocity, the events at the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads may have served as the prototype for the final scenes of the 2014 Hollywood movie Fury.

 

There are different versions around of what exactly happened on Dec 23rd. This present campaign is based on the version which allows to recreate a tank battle involving a platoon of five Sherman tanks.

 

Each mission lasts about 30 min. Much room is left for manoeuvring the tanks of your platoon. I’ve got the impression that there are still a number of bugs in the tank commander’s menu. In particular the turning commands do not always work as expected. The AI seems to occasionally confuse left and right and doesn’t stop after reaching the preset turning angle. I have not understood the pattern yet, however, moving backward appears to work better. Thus, limit your manoeuvres to the simplest moves: straight, reverse, stop, reverse turn 10°, 45°, move to point – stop, etc. Furthermore, it seems to be helpful to address individual tanks rather than the platoon as a whole.

 

Mission text is available in English, German and French.

 

In order to make the missions more logical and realistic the attached landscape MOD should be activated. The Rheinland map only includes the Manhay-Houffalize highway. The MOD adds the missing roads to make Baraque de Fraiture and La Belle Haie crossroads in the first place which emphasises the meaning of the location. It adds also textured ground to the new neighbouring villages included in the missions.

 

You may know much better than me how to manage mods. This is what I did: I secured the original “LANDSCAPE_Rheinland_wi” folder by adding the suffix “_initial” and created a backup folder before editing the surface details. In order to make the modified surface files work with your game the suffix “_Fraiture” must be deleted to replace the initial files and the MOD option must be activated. Should work that way...

 

What the interested player may kindly ignore: the M4A2 is the export version of the Sherman fitted with a Diesel engine. This version was largely used by the SU, GB and Free France, not to my knowledge by the US. The most obvious compromise, however, is that the crew wear Soviet tanker uniforms. Until the team or a skilled Modder will provide us with US tanker gear our friends here are supposed to be the first Russian tankers to operate West of the river Rhine… At least the interior stencilling is in English.

 

Due to a little error in the initial download files I had to upload them again a little further downstream.

The mission files have been updated to work with the 4.701 release. The link to the download files can be found downstream in this thread.

 

 

References:

-          Osprey Campaign 005 – Ardennes 1944

-          Osprey Order of Battle Series 5 – The Ardennes Offensive

-          https://www.grandmenil.com/attacking-baraque-de-fraiture-2/

 

 

...and a couple of pictures from the Mini Campaign...

 

 

Cheers

Edited December 23, 2021 by Hamaha15

[jollyjack]

That's a reason for me to buy TC LoL And now we really need infantry and player controlled Willys Jeeps.

Edited July 9, 2020 by jollyjack

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

Thank you for your efforts. Will be playing missions soon.

 

With a initial look there is a Minor correction needed. Your Campaign folder should be named Campaigns folder. Plural.  

[Hamaha15]

Corrections done. New attempt...

 

 

The mission files have been updated to work with the 4.701 release. The link to the download files can be found downstream in this thread.

 

Enjoy

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Hamaha15

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

Thanks a lot!

[352ndOscar]

When you get some free time, you need to start a new thread in the Mods section on exactly how you did this:

 

”In order to make the missions more logical and realistic the attached landscape MOD should be activated. The Rheinland map only includes the Manhay-Houffalize highway. The MOD adds the missing roads to make Baraque de Fraiture and La Belle Haie crossroads in the first place which emphasises the meaning of the location. It adds also textured ground to the new neighbouring villages included in the missions.

 

You may know much better than me how to manage mods. This is what I did: I secured the original “LANDSCAPE_Rheinland_wi” folder by adding the suffix “_initial” and created a backup folder before editing the surface details. In order to make the modified surface files work with your game the suffix “_Fraiture” must be deleted to replace the initial files and the MOD option must be activated. Should work that way...”

 

Kind of A “Step-by-Step” Tutorial.......

[Thad]

Yes, such map mods could open up a whole new world of mission possibilities. 

[Hamaha15]

Good morning

 

I'm working on it in the southeasternmost corner of the Rheinland map around Frankfurt/Main (FRA) because that's my area...

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14803-the-groups-sharing-corner/page/9/?tab=comments#comment-945577

 

However, this work is really time consuming and I intend to share the surface mods only when the whole area will have been updated maybe by the end of the year. The reason is that I don't know how to add different map mods to each other. I'd need a tutorial for myself at this point.

 

In my opinion the Rheinland map isn't really well suited for ground fighting simulations. The buildings are systematically too high relative to their footprint and the damage model is simplistic - both features have obviously been optimised for a flight simulator. That's why the Fraiture-Hut buildings are borrowed from the Ukrainian countryside.

 

 

Opel works at Ruesselsheim           

 

Nierstein and Oppenheim with 3rd US Army's Captain-Love-Bridge across the river Rhine

 

Aschaffenburg on the river Main

 

Rhein-Main airport in 1944

 

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Hamaha15

[Thad]

7 hours ago, Hamaha15 said:

Good morning

 

In my opinion the Rheinland map isn't really well suited for ground fighting simulations. The buildings are systematically too high relative to their footprint and the damage model is simplistic - both features have obviously been optimised for a flight simulator. 

 

I totally agree. 

[104th_IronMike]

It is a pitty they didnt give the battle of the bulge more "accessories", the same btw for the Hurtgen Forest, which is ofc there, so is the Kall Valley, etc, but it was a bit disappointing to see that neither Hurtgen nor Grosshau, etc were even in there. I know, they are tiny Villages, but they played such a significant role during the war that it would have been nice to have them and they would be perfect for campaigns like this. Same goes for Bergstein, Zerkall and Hill 400. (and a bit disappointing also when you think that all those mini-villages that plaid a role during the battle of moscow are very well in there..)

 

Thank you for the campaign! There can never be enough battle of the bulge scenarios.

Edited July 12, 2020 by 104th_IronMike

[Thad]

If we were given some basic map tools from the developers... it would be amazing what our mission creators would come up with. 

[jollyjack]

On 12/8/2020 at 6:43 PM, Thad said:

If we were given some basic map tools from the developers... it would be amazing what our mission creators would come up with. 

Still all's suspiciously quiet on the western front ...

[Hamaha15]

Parker’s corner – version 4.701 update  

 

Hello,

Parker’s corner mini campaign updated to work correctly after the release of version 4.701.

The new weather conditions required considerable rework because the thick fog had gone with the new version although it played a significant role in the real events.

 

The cloud height appears to be not freely controllable anymore. After much trying, I found a setting (04-overcast_09, level 10, height 100) that places the clouds low enough to produce thick fog on the battlefield at 650 m altitude. I’m afraid that this solution works fairly well because of lucky circumstances rather than design. The new dawn/dusk fog option produces a nice haze in the distance. Altogether the result appears OK for me.

A hidden change has obviously been done to the daytime file. Dusk on 23^rd Dec 1944 has been pulled forward by half an hour. The last mission ended after four minutes with the new settings. In order to avoid vehicles running across the battlefield with their headlights on after dark I preserved the sunset trigger but pulled the mission start forward from 1700 to 1635.

 

The missions remain basically the same. However, a lot of animation has been added: heavy shelling and village smoke mainly. The SdKfz 222 armoured scout car has entered into the German inventory, and an error in the random logic has been fixed: a timer cannot be deactivated while running, once it had been triggered.

 

The objective of the first mission has been simplified. It’s enough to arrive at the destination on time and to report in to the command post. Moving the tanks of your platoon into position is optional. The tanks behave now as they should. It’s fun to observe the Sherman ballet on the new dance floor. However, there appears still to be confusion about the directions from East to West.

 

The map with its surface updates in the Manhay area is integrated into the campaign folder. The added features are visible without MOD option on. The same applies to the two customised effects ‘impact_ground1’ and ‘impact_object1’. Please make sure that these two are saved to the ‘data\LuaScript\worldobjects\mapemitters\test’ directory.

Please give me your feedback in case you encounter problems.

 

The campaign file can be downloaded from the dropbox:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6npxfd38j05l2q5/Parkers Corner 4701.zip?dl=0

 

Merry Chrismas

Enjoy and stay safe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Hamaha15

[Wolzow]

Thank you for that gift...happy Hollydays! ?

[ralk59]

Merci et bonne fin d'année

[352ndOscar]

Thank you so much for this.  Many of us, myself included, always seem to dwell on Kampfgruppe Peiper (et.al) (1 SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”) and the Northern Sector of the battle area.  This mini-campaign puts a needed spotlight on the equally intriguing 2 SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” and it’s supporting units in the Central Sector as they faced off against the US 3rd Armored Division and 82nd Airborne Division.

Edited December 29, 2021 by 352ndOscar

[Na-zdorovie]

agreed, he 2nd are m fav, has why all my tigers are Das Reich badged

thanks a lot for the campaign @Hamaha15

[jollyjack]

? thanks, one Q: must the snapviews be installed too? as with 4.702b some have new planes ..

 

BTW i am no good with tanks; the time needed is too short for an old fool like me.  i need another hour i guess LoL.

And then to boot there's that turret auto rotating bug seemingly not fixed yet ..

Edited December 31, 2021 by jollyjack

[Na-zdorovie]

as i never get that bug i wonder if its hardware related,like all using same driver or amd or smthing?

[Hamaha15]

During the rework trials the turret rotating bug showed on occasions. I concluded that it is related to toggling between gunner and observer mode: e.g. if you change from gunner to commander and press 'T' to switch off the gunner mode to have the commander use his looking glasses and then switch back to gunner the autorotation will take place. To avoid this I pressed 'T' again before closing the commander's hatch and going back to the gunner position. This worked as I remember...

Edited January 1, 2022 by Hamaha15