Assault Gun... Scripted Campaign for the STuG-III Ausf. G

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

 

          Fight alongside the Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. G crews of Grossdeutschland's Assault Gun Battalion with the 911th AG Detachment in a five mission semi-historical campaign offering the player an immersive experience against a researched background of German Army Group South's advance along the Belgorod-Oboian'-Kursk Axis.

   Embedded with the German 4th Army's XXXXVIII Panzer Corps during Operation Citadell. The Campaign's 911th Assault Gun Detachment missions support Grossdeutschland Panzer Grenadier, 3rd Panzer and 11th Panzer Division operations against their historic Soviet tank armies, mechanized corps, rifle regiments and anti-tank units manning 6th Guards Army in-depth defensive positions.

Running anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes or more depending upon players actions. The missions have a built success timer to allow advance to the next mission. A ReadMe with installation instructions, credits and other pertinate information is also included within the Download.

 

*Campaign requires the following IL-2 Great Battles Series module and collector vehicle to work:
IL-2 Sturmovik: Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka
STuG-III ausf. G

 

Assault Gun v5004c.zip

 

Enjoy the Campaign,

Tip

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by [DBS]Tx_Tip
HUD Fonts enlarged, lengthened duration. v.5004c

[SCG_Neun]

Thanks Tip, good to see you making something for the tanks like this.  Just finished first mission Tip, very immersive and about as good as you can do with no infantry to depict the battlefield.  Two thumbs UP!

Edited January 28, 2023 by SCG_Neun

[WitchyWoman]

Nice! It would be cool to see a Stug campaign featuring Wittmanns early days in which he chalked up much of his kills in before Tigers.

[Billsponge1972]

 Hey Tip,

   I tried the first mission and got a mission success but the campaign wouldn't let me proceed with the next mission. 

  I found the .eng files and noticed there was no mission number in the header. Haven't tried it again but I'm wondering if you or anyone is getting this issue? 

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

6 hours ago, Billsponge1972 said:

 Hey Tip,

   I tried the first mission and got a mission success but the campaign wouldn't let me proceed with the next mission. 

  I found the .eng files and noticed there was no mission number in the header. Haven't tried it again but I'm wondering if you or anyone is getting this issue? 

 

 

Seriously?

No problem proceeding here, and the language files have nothing to do with the campaign software seeing the primary objective targeted directly in a set time by a (MCU Mission Begin), as being achieved.

 

Replay the mission wait for a minute or so and if that doesn't work then delete and then Redownload and install the campaign again.

Tip 

 

[Billsponge1972]

That did the trick! Thanks Tip!

 

Love that first mission. It looked and felt like a real battlefield! ?

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

Thanks a lot

[ShampooX]

OK, I got to the second mission and crossed a field across form the train station.  All of a sudden my tank caught on fire and sustained massive damage for no apparent reason.  Did I hit a mine?

[GenMarkof007]

S! Tip,

 

Great single player campaign...
Just did the first mission... the overall is immersive and was pretty good! I do like that we are not in the commander seat...
This help's a lot with the AI movement!

Just 2 little things...
1- some of the message at the bottom looks pretty small for me. Maybe have those message a bit bigger for any indication to our Stug squadron!
2- after the 3rd target on the first mission... I did get the grey screen with the text... but I didn't know if I should continue or this was the end of that mission? Might be good to have a message saying to finish the mission?!! If not, just let me know how to finish it after getting this info.

Will be looking to proceed to the 2nd mission in the next few days!
Cheers and a big thanks

 

GenMarkof

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by GenMarkof007

[Billsponge1972]

If you wait a few minutes the gray screen goes away and can finish shooting them up.

I think Tip set them up like that.

 

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 1/28/2023 at 7:29 PM, ShampooActual said:

OK, I got to the second mission and crossed a field across form the train station.  All of a sudden my tank caught on fire and sustained massive damage for no apparent reason.  Did I hit a mine?

 

Exactly. Moving too far westerly gets you into the Kassnitz's Fusilier Regiments' predicament as mentioned in the briefing, ..."soon become mired in mud, landmines, withering anti-tank and artillery fire before the ravine to its front."

 

Glantz and House goes into more detail on the use of mines in the Soviets in-depth defenses:

"for the 13th, 6th Guards, and the 7th Guards Armies, the defenders installed approximately 4000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines per mile of the front."  They further use a number of, "the 6th Guards Army emplaced 64,340 anti-personnel and 69,688 anti-tank mines in its main defensive belt and 9096 anti-personnel and 20,200 anti-tank mines in its second army defensive belt.

 

Straying too far gets the player into trouble.

 

 

On 1/28/2023 at 10:35 PM, GenMarkof007 said:

S! Tip,

 

Great single player campaign...
Just did the first mission... the overall is immersive and was pretty good! I do like that we are not in the commander seat...
This help's a lot with the AI movement!

Just 2 little things...
1- some of the message at the bottom looks pretty small for me. Maybe have those message a bit bigger for any indication to our Stug squadron!
2- after the 3rd target on the first mission... I did get the grey screen with the text... but I didn't know if I should continue or this was the end of that mission? Might be good to have a message saying to finish the mission?!! If not, just let me know how to finish it after getting this info.

Will be looking to proceed to the 2nd mission in the next few days!
Cheers and a big thanks

 

GenMarkof

 

 

 

Thanks. I can certainly appreciate the sentiment of enlarging the HUD messaging and I went back and forth with several font sizes when creating the campaign. Old eyes are just that. Getting old. For myself, it's a trade-off between immersion but necessary information. I'll certainly look into enlarging the command ones for the STuG group.

 

The greyed-out background messaging means it's up to the player to continue at his discretion in the first screen. The mission objective(s) are met.

But evenly or even more important is the second screen which explains the historical context in which you're playing and segue into the next mission.

 

Appreciate the comments all.

Tip

Edited January 30, 2023 by [DBS]Tx_Tip

[GenMarkof007]

S! Tips,
A few photos that my StuG group took on our way to battle!

 

 

 

[Billsponge1972]

Just finished mission 3. 

Loved it! 

Tip, your missions are top notch and your ME skills are the same!

Many, many thanks for all the work you do! ?

[SCG_Junkman]

Tips,

Finished Mission two, still working on three. Wow! Great Emerson of infantry, air, and artillery, makes for a great tank crew game.

Thanks again for your efforts.

[SCG_Neun]

These are indeed very challenging.  Top notch.  Let's just say that they test the ability of the player in a very real setting.

Edited February 8, 2023 by SCG_Neun

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

Appreciate the posts folks. 
   The more I educated myself with the Prokhovka Map how the actual terrain and Soviet  in-depth defenses created the tactical situations against perceived and in some cases better German equipment really aided me in creating these historically researched missions directly taken from the Grossdeutschland Panzer Group and the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps reports as well as Glantz and House’s extremely detailed Soviet unit actions within their excellent book: The Battle of Kursk.

 

Glad you’re enjoying the campaign,

Tip

[alpenspion]

I buyed the Stug extra dir this campaign. What a Great campaign! Hope you make more missions!

[csThor]

The problem with Glantz/House is their unreflected and unchallenged overreliance on soviet sources (and the outright fairy tales of soviet post-war "historiography"). As such they continue to peddle myths, such as the supposed "failure" of the Panthers on July 5 1943 when George Nipe has pretty comprehensively debunked that and laid the blame for the "mud hell" in that balka (the area between the villages of Gertsovka and Butovo) at the feet it belongs to - that of Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz von Camminetz und Groß-Zauche (colourful character and one heck of a mouthful of a name, but at times a real shithead). I generally prefer to rely on the more modern "Blood, Steel and Myth - the 2nd SS Panzerkorps and the road to Prokhorovka July 1943" since he does a critical appraisal of sources.

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

5 hours ago, alpenspion said:

I buyed the Stug extra dir this campaign. What a Great campaign! Hope you make more missions!

 

Appreciate the post alpenspion. I really enjoyed creating the campaign. The STuG is a hoot to use.
 

 

2 hours ago, csThor said:

The problem with Glantz/House is their unreflected and unchallenged overreliance on soviet sources (and the outright fairy tales of soviet post-war "historiography"). As such they continue to peddle myths, such as the supposed "failure" of the Panthers on July 5 1943 when George Nipe has pretty comprehensively debunked that and laid the blame for the "mud hell" in that balka (the area between the villages of Gertsovka and Butovo) at the feet it belongs to - that of Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz von Camminetz und Groß-Zauche (colourful character and one heck of a mouthful of a name, but at times a real shithead). I generally prefer to rely on the more modern "Blood, Steel and Myth - the 2nd SS Panzerkorps and the road to Prokhorovka July 1943" since he does a critical appraisal of sources.

I am away at the moment from notes, but I didn’t get the impression that the Panthers were a failure on 5 July from Glantz, House. Rather that they were extremely tardy due to the terrain, opposition, and “where are they?” to a welcome sight for the fusiliers on the advance according to the Grossdeutschland PzG and XXXXVIII Corps reports.

 

Anyway,

Very interesting battle to research and apply that knowledge with the idiosyncrasies of creating workable scenarios within the  game.

Tip

[HylaHyla]

So nice to play a well constructed campaign that is based on research, especially with the StuG. Thank you for your efforts to be as accurate as possible and your abilities and time spent to put it all together in very immersive mission settings. Plus sharing all of this with our community! I totally appreciate your placing the user behind a "leader" - helps put one in the right place at the right time, rather than heading off to make all kinds of useless mistakes. Made it thru all 5 ( a little setback with some engine trouble in mission 4. Funny how an engine won't run after taking a 76.2mm round lol) and found every one great! Thank you so much Tip!

[csThor]

To put a long story short: Panzerbrigade 10 (with the Panther battalions 51 and 52) had not even reached their jump-off points on July 5 when Strachwitz ordered a headless "charge" straight into the muddy balka by his own Panzer Regiment. He immediately blamed the Panzerbrigade and its commander for the failure (the very experienced and highly decorated Otto Dekker) with whom he continued a really nasty "brush war" (for reasons that stink to high heaven of self-aggrandizement and power-mongering) and utilized his tight connection not only to his divisional commander but to the commander of XXXXVIII Panzerkorps and even Hoth himself to sideline Dekker and to get his hands on the Panthers. And in the following days he would simply waste the potential and lives of his own Panzer Regiment "GD" and the Panthers in foolish head-on-charges into prepared soviet defenses. No other division fared as poorly as Großdeutschland with regards to losses and lack of successes. Heck, even the understrength 11th Panzer Division achieved better results with far fewer losses. 

 

The Panther was technically far too unreliable in July 1943 for frontline service, but a bootload of the bad reputation that came along with that basic fact was due to the foolish employment under von Strachwitz (who was by no means an incompetent commander, as he had proved previously and would afterwards). 

Edited February 13, 2023 by csThor

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 2/12/2023 at 2:40 PM, HylaHyla said:

So nice to play a well constructed campaign that is based on research, especially with the StuG. Thank you for your efforts to be as accurate as possible and your abilities and time spent to put it all together in very immersive mission settings. Plus sharing all of this with our community! I totally appreciate your placing the user behind a "leader" - helps put one in the right place at the right time, rather than heading off to make all kinds of useless mistakes. Made it thru all 5 ( a little setback with some engine trouble in mission 4. Funny how an engine won't run after taking a 76.2mm round lol) and found every one great! Thank you so much Tip!

Thank you for the heads up. Enjoyed making and certainly playing this myself.

Tip

 

 

22 hours ago, csThor said:

To put a long story short: Panzerbrigade 10 (with the Panther battalions 51 and 52) had not even reached their jump-off points on July 5 when Strachwitz ordered a headless "charge" straight into the muddy balka by his own Panzer Regiment. He immediately blamed the Panzerbrigade and its commander for the failure (the very experienced and highly decorated Otto Dekker) with whom he continued a really nasty "brush war" (for reasons that stink to high heaven of self-aggrandizement and power-mongering) and utilized his tight connection not only to his divisional commander but to the commander of XXXXVIII Panzerkorps and even Hoth himself to sideline Dekker and to get his hands on the Panthers. And in the following days he would simply waste the potential and lives of his own Panzer Regiment "GD" and the Panthers in foolish head-on-charges into prepared soviet defenses. No other division fared as poorly as Großdeutschland with regards to losses and lack of successes. Heck, even the understrength 11th Panzer Division achieved better results with far fewer losses. 

 

The Panther was technically far too unreliable in July 1943 for frontline service, but a bootload of the bad reputation that came along with that basic fact was due to the foolish employment under von Strachwitz (who was by no means an incompetent commander, as he had proved previously and would afterwards). 

Interesting back story. Certainly not the first “headless charge” ordered by commanders with axes to grind.

Good Stuff.

Tip

[moustache]

wow, that's an awesome job @[DBS]Tx_Tip! great battles, atmosphere, realism... really great (I hope one day that bugs will stop spoiling the experience, but you can't help it...)...

 

just one question: in many missions filled with unity (whether modder missions or official missions...), when there is a lot of unity, a rather unpleasant slow motion effect appears (several players have already talked about it , whether in multi or solo...), but it doesn't do it in your missions... any secret?

 

Oh and a second question (it's free...): do you plan to do other missions/campaigns?

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 2/24/2023 at 11:49 AM, moustache said:

wow, that's an awesome job @[DBS]Tx_Tip! great battles, atmosphere, realism... really great (I hope one day that bugs will stop spoiling the experience, but you can't help it...)...

 

just one question: in many missions filled with unity (whether modder missions or official missions...), when there is a lot of unity, a rather unpleasant slow motion effect appears (several players have already talked about it , whether in multi or solo...), but it doesn't do it in your missions... any secret?

 

Oh and a second question (it's free...): do you plan to do other missions/campaigns?

Thank you for the comments.

 

The secret?

Basically extensive experience with what, why, where and how to manipulate the AI within the parameters of MCU’s dictating their behaviors and cpu use on appropriate terrain, atmosphere with applied layers of effects with an eye towards performance. TC requires getting down on the ground and really using the terrain along with several different ways within logic streams to keep a short leash on the AI and creating that immersion.

 

I’m enjoying this aspect of creating TC missions at the moment so most probably will continue along the lines of this campaign and the earlier submitted content.
Perhaps another combined arms or SP campaign exploring a different aspect of the Kursk battle or suitable terrain on one of the other maps.

 

Appreciate the post,

Tip

[Leady_Brickov]

Hi there

 

I've played through the campaign and quite enjoyed it, however, my one complaint is that the messages need to be displayed for a minimum of 30sec and need to be in larger font 30-40. I missed a lot of instructions when I played through. In a couple of missions I got "mission successful" but wasn't exactly sure how I had achieved my objectives other than by surviving.

 

Thanks for making this available, I'm looking forward to seeing your future missions ?

 

Leady

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

9 hours ago, Leady_Brickov said:

Hi there

 

I've played through the campaign and quite enjoyed it, however, my one complaint is that the messages need to be displayed for a minimum of 30sec and need to be in larger font 30-40. I missed a lot of instructions when I played through. In a couple of missions I got "mission successful" but wasn't exactly sure how I had achieved my objectives other than by surviving.

 

Thanks for making this available, I'm looking forward to seeing your future missions ?

 

Leady

Thanks. Appreciate the comments. Enjoyed making and playing this campaign myself.

Am away from puter at the moment and will correct the hud messaging font and length when I get back. 

Tip

 

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

What's New?

Campaign HUD Fonts enlarged, duration lengthened as requested.

Download, extract and allow overwrite. Will not reset your progress.

 

Find download link up above in the Original Post here:

Assault Gun... Scripted Campaign for the STuG-III Ausf. G - Missions and Campaigns - IL-2 Sturmovik Forum (il2sturmovik.com)

 

Give a heads up if there is a problem and most of all...

Enjoy,

Tip

 

[GenMarkof007]

S! Tx_Tips,
Big thanks for the update!

 

Cheers,
GenMarkof

[HylaHyla]

Thanks very much for the improvements to your great campaign!

[Levsha]

Tx_Tips, thanks for your good campaign!

[Thad]

On 2/25/2023 at 3:43 PM, [DBS]Tx_Tip said:

Thank you for the comments.

 

The secret?

Basically extensive experience with what, why, where and how to manipulate the AI within the parameters of MCU’s dictating their behaviors and cpu use on appropriate terrain, atmosphere with applied layers of effects with an eye towards performance. TC requires getting down on the ground and really using the terrain along with several different ways within logic streams to keep a short leash on the AI and creating that immersion.

 

I’m enjoying this aspect of creating TC missions at the moment so most probably will continue along the lines of this campaign and the earlier submitted content.
Perhaps another combined arms or SP campaign exploring a different aspect of the Kursk battle or suitable terrain on one of the other maps.

 

Appreciate the post,

Tip

 

Salutations,

 

As a (not comparable) mission creator... I have found the building process as rewarding as playing the game. It is very gratifying to complete well conceived and challenging missions.

 

Well done.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Thad

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 3/20/2023 at 9:10 AM, Thad said:

 

Salutations,

 

As a (not comparable) mission creator... I have found the building process as rewarding as playing the game. It is very gratifying to complete well conceived and challenging missions.

 

Well done.

 

That's a kind remark Thad and agreed, enjoying what one has created certainly makes a difference on continuing some of the tedious aspects within the process.

S! Tip

[=AD=AlmanAndorrano]

Thanks a lot!

great start! 

[Leon_Portier]

This campaign is most excellent

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 4/13/2023 at 2:03 PM, [N.O.G.F]Leon_Portier said:

This campaign is most excellent

 

Thanks for the kudos.

[Spinnetti]

Devs really came up short just giving us the machine and not fully integrating it (quick missions etc).. Thanks for filling the gap with some good content 

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 11/13/2023 at 4:02 PM, Spinnetti said:

Devs really came up short just giving us the machine and not fully integrating it (quick missions etc).. Thanks for filling the gap with some good content 

 

Appreciate the sentiment.

Tip

[Aquila-7]

Bought the Stug DLC just in order to play this campaign. Thanks for your work.

Edited January 14, 2024 by Aquila-7

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 12/17/2023 at 2:38 PM, Aquila-7 said:

Bough the Stug DLC just in order to play this campaign. Thanks for your work.

 

and a Happy New Year, back at cha' Thank You for the comment. Aquila-7.

Tip

[murkz]

Enjoying this very much, thank you Tip. I hope to enjoy more tank missions from you!