Kampfgruppe Vossen:
Well, in one way, very little happened on the northern flank this turn but in another sense much happened, all of it bad. Very little movement occurred and the same forces which were firing at eachother last turn are still firing at eachother but my casualties have been heavy.
While my forces and the enemies do not appear to have moved much I wish I could say the same for my casualty returns. Since I carelessly led off with platoon and company HQ units these units ran straight into the American ambush unsupported by friendly units. The half-squads which were following them panicked and ran with unbelievable alacrity. The end result of this was that I lost both the platoon and company HQs of the Volksgrenadier company. The end result of this is that the remnants of these two platoons must not be led by a Volksgrenadier platoon HQ which is in the process of rushing the wall line.
Kampfgruppe Student:
This is a zoomed ( x 4) top-down shot which I’ve taken of the northern portion of the apartment complex to show the sheer weight of numbers here.
As you can see there are six American infantry units in the building along with two surrendered German units. Three of Leutnant Lamers’ platoon HQ team and one of his infantrymen have surrendered to the Americans. The fact that there are six American infantry units visible in this building leads me to believe that there are at least two platoons worth of infantry attacking the German forces here. Two platoons would equal eight infantry units ( 2 HQ units + 6 squads). I have noticed at least three of these units either routing or being pinned so it seems that I have definitely hurt at least 3 separate squads which is good since I need to whittle him down as much as possible.
The southern flank of my defence, consisting of barely a dozen Fallschirmjaeger, was ordered to fall back deeper into the building in an attempt to avoid further suppressing fire and also to ensure that the American will have to enter the buildings to get at them.
Here you can see the remaining Fallschirmjaeger moving deeper into the building. These deeper positions are invisible from outside the building and thus the Americans will have to enter the complex to root them out. Since my Fallschirmjaeger have many automatic weapons I have every certainty that they will give a good account of themselves.
As the Fallschirmjaeger move deeper into the building I spot glimpses of the enemy advancing on their position until, finally an entire platoon bursts into the complex.
Again, it’s very difficult to know exactly how badly the enemy have been hurt by my fire but the knowledge that at least one component of the enemy squads has been pinned (the three men crawling on the ground) gives me hope. It certainly does like I’m causing extremely heavy casualties to any one squad since all squads in the building are still represented by three man units but I probably am killing a couple of men in each. Whilst I would prefer to be virtually annihilating 2 or three squads rather than spreading my kills around so widely, at this stage, I’ll take kills anyway and anywhere I can get them.
The first enemy unit in is pinned by concentrated submachinegun and grenade fire. Also, my Panzerschreck team fired at it but the rocket travelled so fast I wasn’t able to get a picture of it… Panzerschreck’s shouldn’t be able to fire from inside houses though but I think that’s going to be fixed. One point which I must bear in mind from this is that I can therefore expect Martin to be placing bazookas in houses along my route of advance. Note to self: spray any houses on the route of advance with machinegun fire just in case.
And now for the story of my central position. Five fallschirmjaeger and one Panzerschreck team are barricaded into position here. The enemy can only come at them from one direction here and, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have done well to push all the remnants of my units into this single position since there is only one entrance to guard. Isn’t hindsight and omnipotence a wonderful thing… Of course, I am making what turn out to be sub-optimal decisions since I am struggling through a huge amount of Fog of War… It’s not much fun when you’re losing due to the Fog of War BUT it really increases the whole tension and overall enjoyability of the game ;-).
More enemy units tumble into the house only to be fired on and pinned by my Fallschirmjaeger half-squad (of five men). Wow ! I now REALLY wish I had moved an entire platoon in here. It would have taken Martin an entire company to clear me out of this position. Well, we haven’t done much cityfighting in Combat Mission before this so that’s definitely something I’m going to be seeking to improve. I believe the US Army has a cityfighting manual and I think I’m going to go looking for it. Cityfighting is great fun and really intense and I want to do more of it ;-)..
Combat Mission has a "camera shake" function in which the view shakes around a lot of a grenade or shell lands nearby. Well, during the assault on the centre building here there were so many grenades, rockets and shells landing around that my view just continuously shook for about the last twenty seconds. Sometimes small touches like that really just add to a game. It’s not something I’d have thought about adding to a wargame myself but once it is in you really get to appreciate having it around. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out any way to actually take a screenshot which shows off viewshaking yet so you’ll just have to take my word that it looks great.
Kampfgruppe Backe:
I called down an artillery barrage on some exposed enemy troops a minute or so ago. The termination point of the yellow line marks the location at which I can expect the shells to fall. As you can see it is directly in the midst of this enemy platoon. Unfortunately for me just fifteen seconds before the expected arrival of the 120mm mortar rounds the enemy infantry platoon begins to land. Although some FAR misses do land amongst the enemy troops assaulting the apartment complex this is not the concentrated blow I wished to deal Martin. This illustrates why I am unwilling to call artillery in on Martin’s troops until they are finally ensconsed in their static positions. One contributing reason is that I’ve always felt myself to be abysmal at calling artillery in on moving targets. Thus, I prefer to get a few certain kills against stationary targets rather than risking an all or nothing gamble versus moving troops. Of course, if I had more than one minute’s worth of ammunition for each battery I’d probably be more willing to take low probability shots. I wish I had as much ammunition as the Americans had.
The enemy hilltop position is taken and 12 enemy soldiers have surrendered to me. My headlong advance has cost me dearly. I admit to being rattled by the massed artillery strikes Martin carried out and making many mistakes in the following turns. I moved units forward without ensuring command and control would be maintained and rushed forward with fragments of several different units instead of striking hard with an assault by one unit supported by others.
Well, I have decided to re-organise when I take the wall line. I have taken severe losses to artillery and machinegun fire and I want to stop this now. I am halting the main body of Kampfgruppe Backe in the small dip in the ground in which his knocked out Sherman is located. Already my last intact veteran SS Panzergrenadier platoon is in place and is rapidly being joined by the 9 survivors of the Volksgrenadier platoon which also assaulted the hilltop. Things aren’t as bad as they might seem since one entire Volksgrenadier squad of eight men still has to move up (another example of letting command and control go haywires) and this will boost the combat potential of this group.
With a bit of judicious re-organisation I may eventually pull together a weak company on this flank and I intend to push them across the river and into the town if the situation should present itself. As a precaution against American shelling I have ordered the twelve American prisoners into the dip also so that the American commander will hesitate to order an artillery barrage for fear of killing his own men.
The two red circles in the bottom of the picture show the assembly zones of my Panzergrenadier and Volksgrenadier platoons. If you look carefully you can also see the five surrendered American units making their way towards my positions as a safeguard against artillery fire. The two other circles on the map mark the positions of Panzergrenadier units. The circle around the house near the bridge marks the position of the Panzergrenadier squad which was riding the SPW 251/1 during the Dash O’ Death. Martin seems to have forgotten all about it since he is not firing on it but it is doing an excellent job of recon for me so I am going to leave it exactly where it is for now. Just on the other side of the hill you can see a lone figure running forward. This represents the two survivors of the SS Panzergrenadier squad which played such an important part in taking the hill. I have ordered it forward to scout ahead and am moving a HT forward to accompany it and provide some covering fire if necessary.
My luck just keeps getting worse and worse. These two SPW 251/1s are trying to use the same stretch of road at the same time. Of course, this has resulted in a minor collision and both are now stuck in full view of the enemy Sherman.
I MUST save the one which is transporting the Panzergrenadiers and so I order it to advance quickly, bypassing this portion of the road whilst having the other SPW 251/1 halt in place for a few seconds to let the troop-carrier pass. Of course, this puts the second SPW 251/1 at risk but it is the quickest and most certain way to save the more important Panzergrenadier squad.
Where are the Feldgendarmerie when I need them eh? I’m beginning to think I need to study traffic management ;-). Take note everyone, this is what happens when you don’t pay complete attention to your advances when C&C plays a part.
The above shot shows a Volksgrenadier squad marching towards the front with a view to joining up with its parent Volksgrenadier platoon HQ (mentioned earlier). It also shows an artillery spotter and a HMG team which I want to place onto SPW 251/1s to help speed their movement to the front so they can provide timely suppressing and artillery fire.
A Panzergrenadier platoon HQ is in one of the half-tracks I’ve just shown you BUT whilst its entire platoon has lost only 7 men in combat so far it is also totally combat ineffective since none of its subordinate units are even within 200 metres of it. In most games I could easily get away with this but not in Combat Mission. Time to relearn AGAIN ! ;-) The black lines lead to its subordinate infantry squads whilst the single red line leads to a spotter unit which is close enough to be ordered around by the platoon HQ. Spotter units, MG teams and such non-platoon assets can draw command and control from any platoon or company HQ but squads within a platoon can only draw command and control from either their own platoon leader or their own company leader.
Kampfgruppe von Kelly:
Unterscharfuhrer Achtzehn’s squad has penetrated into the midst of the enemy line and, accompanied by his platoon leader ( Achtzehn’s squad is reduced to two survivors and his platoon HQ is reduced to 2 men also. One squad was completely destroyed during the attack whilst the third squad was killed outright when one of Martin’s artillery shells hit their SPW 251/1. ) So, this entire platoon is now reduced to just four men. )
Now that some of my men have broken into the enemy line I’m confident that they will break soon enough. It is merely a matter of time so long as I keep the pressure on them.
In the meanwhile however the enemy is fighting back. During the turn I counted at least two bazooka launches against my half-tracks (and possibly more) but fortunately both missed due to the extreme range.
Martin has set up his bazooka in the house so obviously this is going to be a staple of his defence… If he’s able to put his bazookas into houses in the town then I’m in a lot of trouble since I’ll never see them so long as they hide in the houses.
HE shells fired from friendly tanks help my advance immensely as shown above. A shell has hit the top story of the house causing casualties and suppression ;-).
I intend to stand off from the village once this line is taken and shell as many houses as possible out of existence using my tank’s main guns. If Martin places his squads in these houses then not only will the houses be destroyed but so will his men inside them.
More HE shells impact. I took this show to show the severity of the shelling Martin’s forces are undergoing. This shot is taken within two seconds of the previous shot and as you can see the infantry unit in the top floor is still pinned. Three shells have hit home within 2 seconds. I’m sure this must be hurting these units badly.
Here are the three tanks which have been doing all the damage. Stationary and placed with clear fields of fire they are dominating the battle for the wall line with their HE shells and machinegun fire.
As my SPW 251/1s add their MG fire to the maelstrom and my Panther holds position and pours fire into the scattered trees a Volksgrenadier platoon moves forward towards the multi-storey building to end this all.
This is a nice panorama shot taken at the very end of the turn showing Martin’s troops fleeing their positions and heading for the woods. I can see at least two squads of infantry running although a good half-platoons worth is still holding out it is only a matter of time.
Once I take the wall line I will re-organise. I will have to since my forces are mainly in disarray by this time and won’t be able to fight effectively until I remedy this. I know that I had planned to rush the town but this simply won’t happen. It will probably take me until turn 20 to clear the wall line and re-organise but it will be time well spent. By the time turn 20 hits I should have over 50 American captives and I just may call my artillery in then to prepare the way since I can’t afford to take any more casualties during the next phase of the fight which will be that portion of the battle covering my advance from the wall line towards the river.
