CMBN Round #2 AAR's

[SlySniper]

Well, as we end round Two, we exit a battle that at first gives the Germans such promise.

A few German players were smart and did manage to get some of those forward touch objectives early in the fight.

But as the Battle progresses, the Americans come with the Might.

One of two things happened, Either the German managed to hold what he had or fall back some without losing too many key units and if he did not managed this he was totally overrun.

Or the other factor was the American player didnt seize the understanding that as the battle progressed he had a advantage and did not attack aggressively enough.



Anyway, the results was most Americans that won points, really went right through the German lines and Touched most of the Objectives.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

Interesting. I, as a German player, did not realize I had an early advantage. Kudos to my opponent for keeping me unaware of that. I did push forward further than "my half" but apparently not as aggressive as I could have been.

I did OK at keeping him off my back field but a couple of leakages at the end did cost a few points.

What I did was push beyond what I normally felt comfortable doing in a meeting engagement and then I setup to try to block him from getting his high value objectives. Then as more stuff arrived I tried to probe forward to get a few of my other objectives. That didn't go so well

I lost both of my big guns to their drivers doing really annoying things and exposing their flanks which were easy pickings. They shrugged off a lot of frontal hits but in the end amounted to a big nothing because of driver idiocy. Must train those divers better...

 

[Shady Side]

I had the US vs @Guardsman's Germans. The briefing said something like go take all the real-estate you can before the Germans do but be careful you probably have them out numbered but they probably have better equipment. Given the fact I was going to have a company of Hellcats that made me nervous. I figure since I have (I think) the best anti-armor gun the US has at the time I will be facing an enemy with some mix of Panthers Jag-panthers maybe Tigers. I was made more nervous because a few months I had played a test game made of US vs German armor. Lining these type of units up on a firing range will give an ideal of who can kill who and at what ranges, which is important to know. But playing against another player trying to outplay u gives different maybe better info. It was to long ago to remember details but I did remember that even the up-gunned Sherman's and these Hellcats bouncing off Panther's frontal armor at medium to long-ish range doing little to no damage. Of course not many German shells bounced off Shermans. They almost always did serious damage or killed with 1shot. Even the better US guns have to either 1-flank the heavier German armor 2-try to outnumber them when contact is made or3-run as fast and far away as possible. The narrow map rules out option1 (flank). Real life Shady would have had a different plan then what CM Shady did. The first sign of J-panther or Tiger Real Shady would be gone. Might send u a postcard if/when he stopped running. CM Shady decided to try to get the max value out of the numerical edge I was supposed to have. So I sent all my lighter units Task Force Speedbump to the the best defensive ground the farthest forward. I was going to prioritize best defensive ground a lil ahead of the farthest forward.. I liked what i came up with which was Task Force Speedbump forming 2 defensive lines near the center of the map and I as able to get to them with no problems. The ideal being to hold up the Germans there as much as possible while I was bringing up my Hellcats.

This plan worked out better then I thought it would. Setting the first speed bump line behind the first row of objectives gave them a lil reverse slope to defend the line behind the stream had a good field of fire. Neither line was very heavy but I hoped it would look like a tough defense long enough to get my Hellcats forward. Using these I wanted to keep them in line. I forced myself to stay disciplined moving them forward in short bounding over watch trying to keep the entire line together as much as possible. So that when we did make contact with whatever German heavies were out there I would have as many eyes and guns in the fight as quickly as possible. The German heavies turned out to be the one I dreaded/love the most. I am not a German tank fanboy, but those J-panthers look like a tank/sports car hybrid. Low profile makes them harder to see. Armor looks a mile thick when you are bouncing shells off it and the high caliber high velocity gun can mean you wont be seeing them or bouncing shells off them for very long. That gun can almost be it's Achilles Heel though. Guardsmen mentioned after the game being disappointed at how fast their main guns got KO'd. I told him it was because of the numbers game. He said that he remembered a lot of 2v1 engagements. I remember it being worse then that usually 3v1 at least with a few of 4v1s happening to.

I kept my gunline advancing slowly together. I knew I had gun killed some heavies but they would always back off and shift around a lil making it hard to get a good handle on his total force. Until the later stages of the game it started to become clear that most of his heavies were out of the game even if they were still alive. This is when the Task Force Speedbump started to scout forward tying to get some of those touch objective points. I dont remember the exact sequence my probes had gained a lot of ground without hitting much resistance. and has the clock gets shorter I begin to think if i push faster I might get all the touch objectives but I also know there is bound to be more enemy out there with fight left in them. So I push faster until do take some losses which slows me down some and causing me to leave the last two of the 150point objectives i could/should have got. These are the final positions and show if i had not slowed down for 1or2 turns near the end i would have got all the touch objectives. The Scout car with nothing in front of it to stop it from getting that obective

And an attempt on my right that was not even made but should have been.

Even though I left those points on the table. I was happy with my pregame plan and at how it worked out. But I also realize that it could have very easily went the other way. When our heavy forces made contact things broke my way. I tried max out the chances of getting those breaks but in truth it very easily could have broke in @Guardsman favor instead of mine. Either way it was a good game vs a good opponent that went my way in the end. Not much more you can ask for out of a CM game is there?