TURN: 23 OF 60	SCENARIO NAME: Going to Town

Fionn Kelly - Germans vs. Americans - Martin Turewicz

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My artillery strikes… It looked pretty damned impressive too by the way so I’m going to describe it all in loving detail. This is going to be a very picture-intensive turn report but I think it is worth it. I’ll also include a little analysis of my artillery strike. What went right and what went wrong etc.

The Barrage:

As you may remember I called in most of my artillery this turn. I fired a battery of 210mm Nebelwerfers at the church and a battery of 105mm artillery at the multi-story building overlooking the river.

My primary aim was to annihilate or greatly attrit the two platoons of American infantry in these buildings so as to:

1. facilitate the wiping out of the Americans on the west bank of the river by removing their long-range fire support,
2. removing the nearest American defenders to the bridge so as to facilitate my movement across it,
3. to reduce the American northern defences so that my green Volksgrenadiers would stand a better chance of taking the church and outflanking the defenders of the village when my main assault goes in and
4. tempting Martin to redeploy. ANY redeployment at this stage would be visible to me and exposed to a large amount of long-range fire.

Before continuing on to discuss the barrage and its effects I should point out that I felt that the Nebelwerfers had the potential to destroy houses with direct hits but that I knew the 105s would not do so.

This shot shows three shells which have impacted at almost the same instant. You will notice that two are relatively close to the church (and these are Nbw 210mm rockets) whilst the third, a 105mm shell, has impacted nowhere near to its target zone. Check out the HUGE blast radius of the 210mm rockets. Truly they are devastating weapons.

In the above picture I have created a red filled circle to denote the location of a Sherman which was advancing towards the river. This tank was within 15 metres or so of the nearest Nbw shell and I am confident that it has been badly damaged. NO tank can survive a near-miss from a Nbw 210 without damage.

The circled infantry unit in the bottom of the picture is running into a house. A 105mm shell landed only metres from the location from which it appeared seconds ago so it would seem that this unit is seeking cover from the bombardment in the nearest house.

More Nebelwerfer activity. This shot shows a DIRECT HIT on the church which has, no doubt, caused heavy casualties to the American defenders but more importantly it also shows three American infantry units (circled) which seem to have panicked and are running for the edge of the map. This is excellent news since every unit which runs away is another which can’t cause me any further casualties when my infantry assault goes in.

Note also that this shell has landed very close to the Sherman. During the course of my barrage three Nebelwerfer 210 mm rockets landed closely enough to the Sherman to cause it damage. I would be extremely surprised if this tank is not immobilised or otherwise damaged by the end of my barrage. This is excellent news.

A "wide" Nebelwerfer hit directly beside the American infantry platoon guarding the west bank of the river. It obviously must have caused some casualties (although I couldn’t actually see any myself ) but most importantly it seems to have panicked one of the American units defending the river. I have identified three infantry squads and a machinegun unit in this platoon and I am 90% certain that this is the platoon HQ. If this is correct then I have removed the platoon HQ which will make this platoon MUCH more likely to surrender to my forces. This is very good news for me since I don’t want to waste infantry in destroying this unit which Martin has left to "whither on the vine" in front of his main defensive position.

So, what became of my 105mm barrage? Well, it was much more accurate, as is to be expected, and largely fell on and around the targeted house. Of course there were a few misses but there were a good half-dozen direct hits and extremely near misses on the multi-story building. Unfortunately the 105s lack the punch to bring the building down but I’m hoping they will have attrited the defenders infantry and destroyed any bazooka teams he has in that building. I aim to rush it and use extremely close-range HMG fire from my Panzer and remaining SPWs to force the surrender of its occupants so I want to remove any bazooka teams which might be present

This top-down view of the village shows the locations of all Nebelwerfer rockets which landed on-map. Approximately half of all rockets landed on-map and of these only four landed in or near the church.

Out of a bombardment of roughly twenty-four rockets only four actually hit on or near the target and only one more landed within the confines of the village. This solidifies the Nebelwerfers reputation as an awesome weapon but also one which was notoriously inaccurate. Basically a Nebelwerfer is an "area effect" weapon and shouldn’t be expected to take out "point targets" such as the church.

Of course, when you don’t have a textbook target for a weapon a good commander will attempt to choose the next best target. This is what I did and even though only five rockets actually landed inside the environs of the village it would appear that I have caused heavy casualties to the forces inside the church, immobilised a tank (I hope) and caused four or five enemy infantry units to rout towards the rear. Of course, some of these effects were due to the concomitant 105mm barrage.

Let’s examine the 105mm barrage at this juncture. The 105s are far more accurate than the Nebelwerfers and, as such, managed to plant virtually all their rounds within the very close surroundings of the building overlooking the bridge. I’m confident that they have caused a lot of suppression and, probably, a few casualties.

Overall I would have to judge my bombardment a success. I think it will have rid Martin of one and a half to two platoons of infantry and destroyed or severely damaged one of his two remaining Shermans. This reduces Martin’s numerical superiority nicely. We’re still not even but I still have a few 105mm rounds and a few armoured vehicles available to compensate.

Kampfgruppe Backe:

The American position is overrun. Two Americans, a bazooka team member and a 0.5 calibre machinegun team member surrender to me within seconds of the Action Phase beginning as the last free American unit makes a run for the river. Seconds later the escaping American unit is destroyed.

This unit fought extremely hard. Only two of its men have surrendered to me so it seems that American morale is not as shaky as I had hoped. Ah well, I’m sure the casualties wrought by my bombardment will have shaken the American Global Morale. Mine has been reduced from a healthy 50+ to about 42% due to the casualties inflicted by the American fighter-bomber.

An SPW 251/1 crewman precedes my Panzergrenadier platoon as they advance through the American position. My plan was for him to be in place to escort any captured Americans back to the rear. Unfortunately…

One of my Nebelwerfer shells lands a few steps behind the SPW 251/1 crewman and, POOF, he’s dead. This location is a good six hundred metres from the targeted location and goes to show you just how widely the Nebelwerfers scattered.

The red circles denote the locations of more shorts. It looks like I was correct to call in my fire now. If I’d waited any longer I would have been even closer to the village and lost even more men to "shorts".

This picture shows my rough plan of advance for the river crossing.

I intend to, as soon as possible, push the remnants of the three platoons in the south across the river and into the scattered trees to the south of the village. This powerful threat in being will be in an excellent position to punish enemy redeployments and overwhelm his southern defence force of two platoons.

I am employing a little deception here also to boost my apparent strength to Martin since I really want to draw ALL his attention to the southern flank so as to minimise resistance and re-deployments aimed at combating my central and northern thrusts.

My plan is as follows:

1. Leutnant Frich’s green Volksgrenadiers will cross the river first and dash towards the cover of the trees on the far side. They are the least effective cityfighting units on this flank and so are the ones I am most willing to lose in a "test" dash if Martin has major ambush forces in position to destroy anyone crossing the river.
2. Once I have judged if it is safe to continue passing forces across the river I will advance Kanther’s Panzergrenadier platoon.

As both of these forces are much reduced by casualties I will not split them into half-squads to make Martin’s fire control problems much more difficult.

1. The final Panzergrenadier platoon, which is largely intact, will be split into half-squads so as to appear to be two platoons to Martin’s watching forces and, also, because splitting itself into seven manoeuvre components instead of four will have the effect of preventing Martin from concentrating his fire and should allow the Panzergrenadier platoon to make its way across the river with fewer losses than would otherwise be possible.
2. Vehicle crew are also being ordered across the river. Ostensibly they are being ordered to cross so as to appear to be yet more infantry squads. Their secondary role will be to guard prisoners and quickly escort prisoners taken in the village towards my rear in case my assault should fail and the enemy should counter-attack whatever of my forces make it into the village.

Overall I feel there is a good prospect for making Martin estimate that I have ordered the survivors of five platoons to cross the river and assault the southern flank of the town. Martin knows as well as I do that two US platoons located in scattered trees will not stand up to a five platoon juggernaut and may re-deploy his forces towards the south. This, as much as the destruction of those platoons, is one of my aims.

Redeployment allows interdiction fire and a more accurate estimate of enemy strength and dispositions to be made. Of course, if Martin holds his nerve he will hold his forces in place. That would be a sub-optimal outcome for me but those 105mm shells I’ve saved when combined with a company-sized assault should still account for those two American platoons.

Kampfgruppe von Kelly:

Kampfgruppe von Kelly now consists of a single Pz IV J, two SPW 251/1s (one without a gunner), a green volksgrenadier platoon, four panzergrenadiers and a few scattered vehicle crewmen. Hardly an imposing force but probably, if ably supported by the Pz IV J, sufficient to take the western bank defences.

As prisoners stream to the rear my SPW 251/1s and Pz IVJ move along the main road towards the village. I don’t want them to sit still and be easy prey for Martin’s butcher bird but I also don’t want to rush them into the fields of fire of the Sherman to the north.

I intend to swing the Pz IV J off the road once it is level with the northern Sherman and have it wait in a hull-down position for the blocking smoke to clear before ripping the Sherman open.

The four panzergrenadier strong scouting team is only one building away from the river and still hasn’t met any stronger resistance. Next turn it will bound forward to the next building and, from there, will attempt to stop Martin’s machineguns from retreating across the river to the west bank as well as securing a jumping off point for my dismounted assault on the western bank positions

I expect to have all my forces in position for this assault by approximately turn 30. I estimate it will take that long to secure the flanks, distract Martin’s attention to another area of the map and destroy the Sherman to the north.

Kampfgruppe Vossen:

As this shot shows the Puma is doing a wonderful job of pinning the American machineguns on the east bank which were attempting to pull back to the west bank. It even appears that one is panicking as it is running towards the EAST !

In other action on this front the infantry of Kampfgruppe Vossen continue to move through the forest. If my tanks can’t destroy the Sherman then my infantry will.

Conclusion:

Overall my artillery barrage went relatively well. It was not the house-destroying behemoth I had hoped for but I’m certain it caused several units to panic and/or suffer heavy casualties. I had hoped to set the church and the multi-story building overlooking the river on fire so as to cause massive casualties to the occupants but unfortunately this did not happen.

Overall I think that I killed approximately a platoons worth of infantry BUT that this damage was spread over 3 to 4 platoons and not concentrated as I would have wished. The upshot of this is that my barrage, whilst successfully attriting his forces, will NOT have damaged any one position so badly that Martin will have to redeploy. This is bad news for my plans as I had hoped to force a redeployment of forces.

If my Pz IV survives it will have a few HE rounds left and I will order it to shell the multi-story building overlooking the river in an effort to set it afire prior to launching any ground assault.

I underestimated just how widely the Nebelwerfer rounds would scatter and also overestimated the amount of damage the 105s would cause to an entrenched enemy. As a result I have ordered the 105s to cease firing and will use them to shell the enemy infantry in the southern woods once Kampfgruppe Backe’s infantry are in position to follow the shelling up with an immediate ground assault.