Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day Two

The following post is Day Two of the Historical Campaign for Eindhoven, a nine day nine hour scenario in Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. Breaking the blog post up into structured segments for each day should allow for better tactical analysis and reassessment of the battle plan based on the situation on the ground (as well as a more organized approach to writing an after-action report for a scenario as long as this).

Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day One

The Eindhoven campaign is one of three historical campaigns (Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen) that are part of the scenario list for the original Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. The scenarios also include some coup de main campaigns and a number of smaller and what-if scenarios. Arnhem and Eindhoven clock in at nine days and nine hours where Nijmegen is approximately half that at four days and ten hours of total scenario time.

Silent Hunter III XXI Scenario

XXI is the tenth and final single player scenario available in the game. It takes place in November 1944 and is based on a hypothetical patrol of a Type XXI U-Boat. These were the first submarines designed to operate submerged instead of on the surface, and in real life only two of these vessels made war patrols (sinking no ships). The U-2522 that I am provided with in the scenario was actually assigned to a training flotilla and eventually scuttled just seven months after having been launched.

Silent Hunter III U505 Scenario

“U505” (as it is titled) is the ninth of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It takes place in June 1944 and is based on the capture of U-505 by American Task Force 22.3, a Hunter Killer group formed around the USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) that was heading towards Casablanca to refuel. A destroyer had detected the German submarine and made an accurate depth charge attack which caused a significant amount of damage and flooding that panicked the new captain, Oberleutnant Harald Lange.

Silent Hunter III Narvik Scenario

Narvik is the seventh of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It takes place in April 1940 and is based on The Second Naval Battle of Narvik, where the British battleship HMS Warspite was sent with nine destroyers into the Ofotfjord to engage the Kriegsmarine forces operating off of the coast of Narvik. In the real life operation a catapult plane launched by the Warspite bombed and sank the German submarine U-64 which I have been assigned to captain in this mission. It would prove to be the only instance of the war where a battleship launched aircraft sank a U-Boat.

Silent Hunter III Malta Scenario

Malta is the sixth of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It takes place in August 1942 and is based on U-Boat operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The boat that I am piloting for this mission is the U-331 that in real life was skippered by Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen who was featured in the first episode of this series Barham. In real life during this period the U-331 was on a number of uneventful patrols in the Med, and would later be attacked and sunk on November 17, 1942 while on her 10th wartime patrol.

Silent Hunter III Courageous Scenario

Courageous is the third of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It takes place in September 1939 and is based on the sinking of the British carrier HMS Courageous by U-29, a Type VIIA U-Boat captained by Kapitänleutnant Otto Schuhart. The Courageous was originally a cruiser during the First World War, but was decommissioned and later reconfigured as an aircraft carrier during the 1920’s. She was hit on her port side by two torpedoes from Schuhart’s U-Boat, and sank within 20 minutes with a significant loss of life among her crew.

Silent Hunter III Bismarck Scenario

Bismarck is the second of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It takes place in May 1941 and involves the Home Fleets mission to destroy the German battleship during its sole offensive operation of the war, an effort to break into the Atlantic and conduct raids against Allied shipping from North America to Great Britain. The Bismarck was scuttled by the crew following incapacitating battle damage on May 27, 1941, causing significant loss of life.

Silent Hunter III Barham Scenario

Barham is the first of 10 single player scenarios available in the game. It is based on the sinking of the HMS Barham by U-331 captained by Oberleutnant zur See Freiherr Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen in November 1941 while operating in the Mediterranean. In the real life incident, he had surfaced to periscope depth and observed three British battleships and eight destroyers. Having just missed an optimal solution on the HMS Queen Elizabeth, he fired a salvo of four torpedoes at the second capital ship in the line, the HMS Barham.

Fleet Command Single Mission 05

Macho Madness is the fifth single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game, in which Brazil and Argentina fight over fishing rights. The mission tasking for the player (Brazil) is to seek out and destroy Argentine military units operating in a battlespace defined as being within 25 nautical miles of grid reference 36-30 S/051-20 W. The friendly units on hand are the frigates Dodsworth and (if available) the Bosisio. We are cleared to engage and destroy Argentinian frigates but to avoid casualties to any civilian craft.

Forward to the Past

Given the myriad of issues that I am having with some games in the Windows 7 environment (as well as AMD video card specific game issues), this weekend I began the process of rebuilding my Windows XP computer. I had tried a dual boot option with my Gateway however it didn’t work, and even if it did in hindsight it would not have resolved the scaling issue with Command Operations (and other Airborne Assault games) as I would still have been playing off of the same GPU and drivers.

Fleet Command Single Mission 04

Pacific Pirates is the fourth single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The mission tasking is to intercept a vessel being used by pirates who have raided a cruise ship in the South Pacific resulting in the death of several American and Australian citizens. The orders given are direct: locate the pirate vessel and a prop aircraft operating from a nearby airstrip and destroy both platforms without causing any casualties among the civilian fishing boats and aircraft operating in the area.

Fleet Command Single Mission 03

Shore Bombardment is the third single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The mission tasking is to utilize the surface force and air assets to destroy known hostile land targets. The lead surface combatant is the USS Caron (DD-970) which is supported by the USS Essex (LHD-2) that is operating several miles off of the coast. At the start of the battle there is one airborne AV-8B Harrier II ground attack aircraft and one AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopter.

Highway to the Reich Devil’s Hill

Berg en Dal, Netherlands: On September 20, 1944 the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment seized and then defended the higher ground in the Groesbeek-Nijmegen area which effectively cut Highway K, preventing the Germans from either reinforcing or escaping through the corridor. After having the inexperienced German 406th Infantry Division fail to remove the US 508th, General Walter Model awaited the arrival of better forces in the form of KG Becker, a regiment from the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division.

Fleet Command Single Mission 02

Chinese Special Forces is the second single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The mission tasking is to patrol the northern sector and to sink any Chinese patrol boats within 50 miles of Taiwan. There are numerous fishing vessels present which makes visual target identification a requirement before engaging any surface craft that have not already been flagged as hostile.

Fleet Command Single Mission 01

CVBG Norwegian Sea is the first single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The general task is to protect the aircraft carrier from cruise missile attack. The more detailed mission tasking is “Protect the carrier from attack by bombers equipped with long range air-to-surface missiles. Kill all hostile aircraft”. The area of operations is off of the coast of Norway, between Bergen and Alesund.

Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day Ten

The following post is Day Ten of the Historical Campaign for Eindhoven, a nine day nine hour scenario in Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. Breaking the blog post up into structured segments for each day should allow for better tactical analysis and reassessment of the battle plan based on the situation on the ground (as well as a more organized approach to writing an after-action report for a scenario as long as this).

The Eindhoven scenario is one of three historical campaigns (Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen) that form the backbone of the Operation Market Garden representation in the Airborne Assault engine at that time (preceded by Red Devils Over Arnhem and followed by the HTTR expansion pack for Command Operations). The missions feature various elements of the Allies 30 Corps fighting against the Axis 1st Fallschirmjäger Army and 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day Nine

The following post is Day Nine of the Historical Campaign for Eindhoven, a nine day nine hour scenario in Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. Breaking the blog post up into structured segments for each day should allow for better tactical analysis and reassessment of the battle plan based on the situation on the ground (as well as a more organized approach to writing an after-action report for a scenario as long as this).

The Eindhoven scenario is one of three historical campaigns (Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen) that form the backbone of the Operation Market Garden representation in the Airborne Assault engine at that time (preceded by Red Devils Over Arnhem and followed by the HTTR expansion pack for Command Operations). The missions feature various elements of the Allies 30 Corps fighting against the Axis 1st Fallschirmjäger Army and 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day Eight

The following post is Day Eight of the Historical Campaign for Eindhoven, a nine day nine hour scenario in Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. Breaking the blog post up into structured segments for each day should allow for better tactical analysis and reassessment of the battle plan based on the situation on the ground (as well as a more organized approach to writing an after-action report for a scenario as long as this).

The Eindhoven scenario is one of three historical campaigns (Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen) that form the backbone of the Operation Market Garden representation in the Airborne Assault engine at that time (preceded by Red Devils Over Arnhem and followed by the HTTR expansion pack for Command Operations). The missions feature various elements of the Allies 30 Corps fighting against the Axis 1st Fallschirmjäger Army and 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

Highway to the Reich Eindhoven Historical Campaign Day Seven

The following post is Day Seven of the Historical Campaign for Eindhoven, a nine day nine hour scenario in Highway to the Reich by Panther Games. Breaking the blog post up into structured segments for each day should allow for better tactical analysis and reassessment of the battle plan based on the situation on the ground (as well as a more organized approach to writing an after-action report for a scenario as long as this).

The Eindhoven scenario is one of three historical campaigns (Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen) that form the backbone of the Operation Market Garden representation in the Airborne Assault engine at that time (preceded by Red Devils Over Arnhem and followed by the HTTR expansion pack for Command Operations). The missions feature various elements of the Allies 30 Corps fighting against the Axis 1st Fallschirmjäger Army and 2nd SS Panzer Corps.