TURN: 19 OF 60	SCENARIO NAME: Going to Town

After the surrender of the Americans who had escaped the wall line the Panther and Puma which had forced it begin to scatter. The Puma remains in place to attempt to kill the last member of the American company command team spotted whilst the panther moves out to attempt to skirt the wooded hill and bring fire to bear on the enemy Shermans visible in the town. Things don’t quite work out as I expected though.

As the roar of American aero-engines fills the battlefield and my crews with fear the Panther’s fate is sealed. In the above picture you can see, circled in blue, an American aircraft bomb whistling down towards my Panther.

I can’t describe the sinking feeling I got when I saw this picture… Knowing that this was one of my only two anti-tank capable units left and was probably about to be destroyed was not a nice feeling at all.

Direct hit ! Damn, my Panther is totally destroyed by an almost direct hit from a massive aerial bomb. Destruction is denoted by the turret being slanted and the gun pointing downwards as though the turret had, almost, been blown off. Just look at the size of that crater the bomb has left. Awesome !

A split-second later I took this shot to show the blast radius of the bomb. It certainly looks, to my eye to be at least a 500 lb bomb and possibly a 1000 lb bomb. It doesn’t matter what exact size it is though. All that matters is that it was "big enough" to kill my Panther.

The rest of Kampfgruppe Vossen continues to march across the snow towards the newly captured Americans with a view to moving through the woods and, perhaps, killing the enemy Sherman on the other side with a close-range Panzerfaust round.

Kampfgruppe von Kelly continues its advance down the road. I have ordered the Pz IV which has been damaged (Unteroffizier Heubaum’s) to speed down the road as quickly as possible in an attempt to clear the field of fire of the enemy Sherman to its front. Reversing, or stopping to try to move off-road, would simply slow the Pz IV so much that the next shot would definitely hit and destroy it so, whilst it may seem stupid to charge straight at the enemy when your main gun isn’t working, this is the best option available to me. If the Pz IV makes it to the cover near the house my Panzergrenadier squad is sheltering in I fully intend to use its machineguns to help my infantry clear the enemy’s river line.

Uhoh! This looks like it isn’t going to work out for me. Within seconds of the action phase starting Unteroffizier Heubaum’s Pz IV J is hit on the mantlet by an American round. It survives the impact but for how much longer can it survive this flurry of shots?

The good news from an analysis of this data is that it is highly unlikely that the Americans are equipped with Sherman 76s. A 76mm gun would have almost certainly penetrated Heubaum’s Pz IV J at this range whereas this Sherman has hit it twice with no penetrations occurring at either time. IF my Panther had survived this would have been extremely encouraging since I could have simply advanced directly towards the Sherman 75 and destroyed it with ease.

The two blue circles in this shot denote the position of an American AP shell which has just missed my Pz IV J and the position of the Sherman which fired it (obscured by a large number of trees).

Unfortunately my dash to cover has exposed my Pz IV J to fire from its flank. Sherman 75s CAN penetrate my Pz IVs flank with ease so this is an extremely sub-optimal development.

The moment of death. The second shot from the flanking Sherman strikes home and immediately brews up Heubaum’s Panzer IV J.

This development means that I only have two tanks left and only one of these has AP shells. My one remaining Panzer IV J must face and defeat at least 3 enemy Shermans. It is a tall order but, fortunately, I’ve always been more of a treadhead than Martin so there’s still some hope. Martin handles infantry better than I but I think I handle tanks better. We’ll soon find out if this is true.

As Carius’ StuG III approaches the knocked out Panzer IV it swings out of line and moves off the road so as to bypass the wreck. This is SOP and absolutely the correct thing to do. However, it also illustrates one of the horrible side-effects of a successful anti-tank ambush on a column formation.

Simply put it is possible, by knocking out the lead vehicle, to cause all other vehicles in the column to slow and move off-road. As they slow they are much easier to destroy and it is not uncommon to be able to pick off an entire enemy column as they slow down if your ambush is properly set.

My StuG III is dead, it just isn’t burning yet but soon will be.

As my tanks are mauled on the road to the village my infantry continue with their own tasks. I have ordered the Volksgrenadiers which arrived as reinforcements to mount my remaining three SPW 251/1s and have ordered the remaining four men from the veteran Panzergrenadier platoon which took the wall line to advance towards the nearest building with a view to clearing it. I strongly suspect the presence of a bazooka team there and want to clear it before passing tanks through the road beside it.

Obersturmfuhrer Kanther’s half-platoon stands ready to advance. It turns out that the little house was empty after all but there is most definitely an enemy heavy weapons platoon in the woods to the north. Next turn they will begin to advance and clear the scattered trees in front of them of all American resistance.

Leutnant Frich’s infantry move forward to be in position to support Kanther’s advance. I expect Kanther to succeed without too much difficulty but it pays to bring along a little extra firepower as "insurance". I’m also ordering them forward in case Martin has plotted an artillery barrage on my reorganization position.

Artillery:

I’m expecting my artillery to begin hitting the town in turn 22. It should continue landing throughout the whole of turn 23 and eventually my ammunition should be exhausted by turn 24. These are simply rough estimates I am making about how long my ammunition will last. Once the last rounds have fallen I intend to push some infantry across the river. It looks like only my Kampfgruppe Backe will be in position to force infantry across the river at that stage so it looks like a re-evaluation of my plans is in order.

I have settled on three main American target locations:

1. The church: Targeted by 210mm rockets
2. The multi-story building over-looking the river. Targeted by 105mm artillery
3. The troops on the west bank of the river in the scattered trees. Targeted by 81mm mortars and the remainder of my 120mm mortars (which are very low on ammunition).

Martin has located three platoons in these locations. I have high hopes of virtually annihilating all three with a combination of artillery and direct fire. If I manage this then Martin and I would have a rough equivalency in infantry numbers and I will be able to press my infantry assault home.

Conclusion:

Half of my anti-tank capable force is now gone. All that I have left to battle with Martin’s Shermans is a single Pz IV J and a Puma. One tank and one reconnaissance vehicle versus at least 3 Shermans. It is time for desperate measures and it seems that I will have to attempt to utilise my Puma to harass the enemy armour and infantry in some way. It’s extremely discouraging since I know that pitting one Pz IV J against three (or more) well-sited Shermans is simply a recipe for disaster.

I have called down smoke to block the LOS of the enemy Sherman in the village. In this sort of fighting getting off the first shot is vital and the stationary tank will usually get the first shot. I am calling in the smoke to try to force Martin to move to a new firing position. My surviving Pz IV has good LOS down the roads on both sides of Martin’s Sherman in the village so by forcing his Sherman to move to get a clear field of fire I hope to get the drop on it and be able to destroy it.

My southern assault progresses well and if my Pz IV can handle the two Shermans which are, directly, assaulting it and its brethren I’m confident of reaching the river by Turn 25 in good order.

The game will be decided one way or another by turn 25. If my artillery has done its work and my infantry are able to establish a beachhead on the western bank then I have hope. If my artillery does not devastate Martin or if my last Pz IV is destroyed OR if my green volksgrenadiers break under the volume of enemy fire as they conduct their crossing of the river then all will have failed.

Far more things must go right for this plan to succeed than must go wrong for it to fail totally so, by this stage, I’m quite prepared to settle for sharing the town with Martin. I think that even if my infantry assault fails I should be able to wrest control of the bridge, the church and possible the multi-story building overlooking the bridge from Martin with its survivors. I may not be able to control them BUT I can certainly deny control of those locations from Martin.