TURN: 33 OF 60	SCENARIO NAME: Going to Town

Fionn Kelly - Germans vs. Americans - Martin Turewicz

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The infantry of Kampfgruppe Vossen are now proceeding as quickly as possible towards the bridge area. As half of them are leaderless and the other half are severely attrited I simply can’t rate this green platoon’s worth of survivors as capable of launching aggressive house clearing urban operations. They can hold buildings previously captured by other troops but aren’t of the quality or quantity to do much more.

I’m taking advantage of a house along the route of march to pause my men and conduct some necessary re-organisation. I don’t want to present Martin with a large number of piecemeal targets crossing the river over a number of turns. Better to storm over the entire platoon's worth of survivors and, cumulatively, take fewer losses that way.

The western bank position has totally collapsed and prisoners are being sent to the rear. One infantry squad escaped to the north and has joined up with an enemy MG there and whilst it is well within my power to crush the escapers and the MG nest to do so would rob my southern force of the solidity which a tank will lend to its assault so I decide to let them go. I don’t have the resources to do everything I want and while it would be satisfying to crush those men it wouldn’t further my main mission.

As the half-tracks approach the bridge I have ordered the infantry they carried to dismount and seek the shelter of the nearby house. The instant the infantry dismount MG fire cuts two of them to ribbons. Martin’s machineguns have, I estimate, attrited all of my units by between 10 and 20% as they have marched to the front. The loss of the half-tracks has caused this attrition. It has been a high price indeed.

Unfortunately for me this, my last combat-worthy and relatively intact Volksgrenadier platoon has had its command team anihilated by MG fire. As they rushed towards the bridge MGs picked them all off and thus have rendered the twenty-one line infantry almost useless in the attack. It seems that lady luck isn’t smiling at me. The only units with active leaders are those too smashed to advance whilst those units I have carefully saved from all combat in preparation for my town assault manage to lose seven men out of twenty-eight to long-range MG fire in only 100 metres or so and conspire to lose the entire four-man headquarters team.

This leaves only the single reserve veteran panzergrenadier platoon in the south as being close to full strength and with sufficient leadership nearby. It too has been whittled down by long-range MG fire.

One nice thing I’ve learnt while playing Combat Mission is how to use shell-holes created by my own artillery barrages to help advance my forces at minimal cost. The two half-platoons which are leading my advance here are each aiming to enter different craters in the hopes of finding some cover and laying down a base of fire for my reserve panzergrenadier platoon which I hope to move forward and push into the block house overlooking the river as soon as my HTs and Wiesenhofer are in place to support this.

Martin has pulled the platoon which escaped my barrage into the blockhouse. He now has two platoons in the blockhouse and I wonder what he would say if he realised that I am attacking it with only two platoons worth of men. Sure I have two more which will be able to be there within ten minutes BUT one of those platoons is leaderless and the other is created from two battered half-platoons, one of which is leaderless.

It’s time to bluster. I’m willing to bet that Martin will get scared if he sees my HTs and tank grinding up the hill towards the blockhouse and may do something regrettable like abandoning it. At this stage I want to try to win the blockhouse as bloodlessly as possible and if a bit of bluster, posturing and making scary noises can do that then I’m all for it.

The nice thing about the fog of war in Combat Mission is that Martin probably thinks that I am advancing with at least 3 full platoons of men on his positions and certainly has no idea that my formations are mainly just shattered shells of what they once were.

Of course, it may also be that these precipitate retreats are a sign of HIS weakness and that my foreboding is misplaced but I doubt it. It’ll be extremely interesting to see how my bluster works out and I am truly looking forward to reading Martin’s AARs to attempt to gain a better idea of exactly what his threat assessment is at this time.

I captured an entire M1919 MMG machinegun team which were trying to escape from the western bank position. Another five men have fallen into my prisoner cages.