Section Leaders:
Fionn Kelly & Madmatt

Click Here for Print Friendly .DOC version

German Commander - Fionn Kelly

German Turns 26-End

On my left flank I finally spring my ambush. It accounts for approximately half a platoon of infantry, garners me some POWs and sends the survivors scampering back to the clump of scattered trees in which their company HQ must be established.

Chris responds to this ambush by laying down a base of fire from the platoon in the woods in front of my ambush position and bringing fire from the MMGs he’s moved up to bear. My positions are better but he is bringing triple the fire to bear than I can muster.

I finish bringing the HMG42s into position and set them to firing on the clump of scattered trees. Of greatest importance here is the fact that by placing these HMG42s in their current positions I force Chris to split his attentions. I also greatly complicate his task if he is trying to organize a rush from the scattered trees into the heart of my platoon’s positions.

The delay forced upon him by the renewed contribution of the HMG42s allows me to bring the Panther into position, concentrate its fire on a forward bazooka team, eliminating it, and , by virtue of its ability to prevent any further advance and pin Chris’ HMG teams the Panther institutes a stalemate on this flank. A less experienced player wouldn’t recognize this and would throw away lives and material trying to assault but Chris recognizes it and, immediately, I begin to notice him creating a more defensive-minded position.

I won’t press the issue as my platoon has taken many casualties in its primary role of stopping the company on this flank so, by mutual assent, this flank will simply lapse into quiescence with both of our forces simply exchanging fire to keep the other committed but with neither of us mounting a major attack.

This situation remains until the end of the game.

In the centre I feel that my SMG platoon has done what it can and begin to pull it back. As I do this several of its men panic and so I slow my retreat to let them catch up. Chris’ force begins to follow me and I decide that as I continue to retreat I will leave half-squads behind to spring surprise ambushes on his following platoon. This should slow him down and hurt him tremendously. Unfortunately, the game ends before I can commit any stay-behind forces.

On the right flank Chris commits his armour… Unfortunately Geier’s Jpz IV is laying wait and proceeds to pick off Chris’ armour with surgeon-like precision. By the end of the advance all of Chris’ tanks near the plateau lie smoking and wrecked in the open fields where Geier’s gunner caught them. The greatest importance of this massacre was that I feel it negatively affected Chris’ morale. He may not agree but from this moment on I feel his forces lost their heart. Of course, with two-thirds of their remaining armour support being blown up by a single German tank at no cost to the Germans I wouldn’t blame them for losing heart.

A platoon makes a dash for the hill behind which my men are in reverse slope defences. I feel this is the beginning of Chris’ attempt to outflank the reverse slope defence I have established and so have the 2cm FlaKVierling open up on them. It doesn’t seem to cause any casualties since they are running laterally across its field of fire but once these troops begin to advance over the hill they will face directly into the stream of cannon shell and will definitely suffer from both  morale and attritional points of view.

Elsewhere my 81mm FO calls down what little ammunition is left in his battery’s positions before abandoning the last house before my new MLR (Main Line of Resistance). As he runs for cover he is, again, brought under fire. Chris, being ever-careful to watch out for my ambushes sends a half-squad into the house. Unfortunately for me it triggers some of my veterans into firing. I’m not happy about this but, in the end, they wipe out the half-squad at little cost so I haven’t lost much. I assume Chris knew he should expect some resistance from my positions and so the presence of infantry won’t surprise him too much.

After the destruction of his other tanks the Sherman crocodile and Sherman 75 on this flank keep a respectful distance from Geier and any possible Panzerschrecks.  They do lay down some area-denial fire but this doesn’t unduly trouble me since the areas he is denying me are areas I didn’t plan on using in any case.

In the end Chris sends a platoon into the scattered woods along the extreme map edge. Unfortunately for him he chooses a junction in between my forces where a kink in my line creates an L-shaped ambush. As one would expect this quickly reduces his probe into nothingness.

At this point Chris asked for, and I agreed to, a ceasefire Admittedly he could have continued the attack but, as my repulse of his two probes ( the half-squad into the house and the damaged platoon into a clump of scattered trees)  showed I was strongly positioned and would have inflicted an inordinate slaughter on his troops. I feel quite confident that I could have killed between twice and three times as many troops as I had in the reverse slope positions if he had attacked. Those odds aren’t attractive for a US commander and, as such, Chris halted the attack and waited for more arty support, tanks etc.

Analysis and Conclusions:

Well, from my point of view almost everything went right. About the only mistake I could point out, from my point of view, is mis-timing the move of the FlaK unit on my left flank. Apart from that I managed to predict Chris’ moves in time to shift forces to stop them, utilised my interior lines of communication to shuttle forces from flank to flank as necessary to gain parity or superiority when needed and managed to use my artillery well. It didn’t always kill his men in droves but it hurt his men, sent some running for cover, disrupted his advance, broke his co-ordination, delayed his follow-on forces, weakened his primary forces etc. All in all my artillery did all those things which artillery is supposed to do in a battle of this sort.

Chris’ attack plan was very good. His attack on my left wasn’t really a weak feint but a feint with enough strength to cause me real problems if I’d held it in contempt. His main attack on my right, when it came, was powerful and strong. He didn’t push his armour forward as I would have done but then again I’m an aggressive SOB who is willing to accept heavy losses as the cost of doing business.

I don’t think my local counter-attack had any major effect on the end-result except insofar as it helped my reverse slope defensive positions remain free from artillery fire and made Chris even more cautious than he might have been in the end-game. I have the feeling that he was constantly aware that if he showed even the slightest sign of weakness or confusion in his front-line units that I would have no hesitation in sending a platoon of infantry in to counter-attack him.

Mostly though, I think I owed my victory to tanks. Geier and the remaining Panther G with a functional main gun inflicted a exacted a horrifying toll from his advancing infantry. The horrifying toll wasn’t so much exacted in terms of absolute casualties but in the fact that by the time his platoons had crossed the fields and reached my positions many of  their component squads had suffered 2 or 3 casualties AND been broken. In close-fighting a broken unit is almost worthless. It will break again in mere seconds.

By concentrating on breaking squads as much as possible on the approach march I produced the situation where only three of Chris’ rightmost platoons were actually in good shape for close-fighting by the time the time came for them to engage my troops up close. The rest of his platoons had either suffered excessive casualties or  had too many broken squads to form a serious threat.

The strength of a woodland defence shouldn’t be under-estimated. Even when Chris sent an entire platoon in on the second-last turn or so and I opposed it with less than a third of a platoon I ended the game with Chris’ platoon in deep trouble and my dozen or so men in with a good chance of wiping out the entire platoon if it stayed put. I really think Chris had enough strength left to wiped out my two platoons on my right. I also think that doing so would have cost him two companies. That kind of exchange rate is better to avoid.

Now, the sheer math of the situation,

I lost 4 FlaK guns, had one tank damaged and two recon vehicles destroyed. I suffered 72 casualties of whom 17 died. In essence my losses were light when you consider that, basically, I put a reinforced company head to head with a reinforced Battalion.

The American forces lost 1 Jabo ( YES !!! ), 5 tanks and one half-track, one AAA gun and 215 casualties. I also captured three of them.

In short, I created a roughly 3 to 1 exchange rate in my favour which was enough to convince Chris to call off the attack without further loss ( even though if he had pressed it he could have taken the map IMO… albeit with around 500 casualties or so ).

Both forces were in pretty good shape after the battle. My forces could still field 3 fully combat-ready platoons with 2 deadly tanks and several artillery battalions in support once resupply had been effected. Chris’ force would have been able to field a slightly weak infantry battalion with minimal tank and no artillery support but I feel that American profligacy would soon have given him more tanks and artillery. It would have been an interesting scenario to continue forwards as part of an operation. However, I feel that if I’d gotten the damaged Panther back and a company of Panzergrenadiers as reinforcements that I could have held that ground against anything the US Army threw against me.

I was quite surprised to see how high Chris’ casualties had been when the ceasefire was called. I had known they'd be high but not that high as I really hadn’t had the chance to accurately count casualties being inflicted given that my arty and DF HE did most of the killing.

For those looking to emulate this a little here’s the rough and ready guide.

A defence should comprise five phases (of which you only ever hope to need four).

Phase 1: Artillery barrages on the enemy during their approach march. Simply keep hitting your enemy with discrete artillery barrages during his advance. This will slow his advance, break up his co-ordination and cause casualties.

Phase 2: DF HE… Once your artillery runs out the artillery will begin to close on your positions. At this stage you should order your tanks and infantry guns and FlaK guns to open fire. All of these weapons systems are at their best when their target is at a great distance and unable to fire back effectively. If enemy tanks are threatening your position your tanks and ATGs should take care of them first of course but, if free of the tank threat, be sure to let these units contribute their HE to the general fracas.

Phase 3: Outpost line ambushes. Simply what it says… Allow your forward positions to ambush the enemy’s recon screen and kill it. If you’re lucky entire enemy platoons might venture into your fire sack but, at the very least, you should get to kill his scouts.

Phase 4: Fallback to MLR. After your outpost line has taken its pound of flesh it should fall back to covered positions in the MLR. When the enemy closes your units should unveil themselves and open fire. This is your “stand and fight” line and should only be abandoned under the most dire of circumstances.

Phase 5: The Alamo…. This occurs when your MLR crumbles or is obviously about to be overwhelmed and comprises a fallback to an unprepared position from which no retreat is possible. At this unprepared position your men are more vulnerable than usual ( since they don’t have foxholes etc) and must stand and fight to the death. Generally a retreat to the Alamo signals impending defeat as only a truly great player can turn things around at this stage.