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Drifter Man vs CDavid DAR

Lethaface said:
With regards to your last PaK soldier on the left flank gun: I wouldn't be surprised if he will actually fire the gun if he gets a solid contact and enough time. An armored arc target might help him remind. IIRC I faced an 88 not too long ago, with only one or two crew remaining, which was still very active (to my surprise, as I thought it was abandoned/decrewed).
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This is the story of Obersoldat Rohrbach and his private antitank gun, to this moment. After the 60mm mortar attack in Turns 13-14, which left his four comrades dead or incapacitated, Obersoldat Rohrbach was not willing to acquire the gun. Instead he remained on the ground, huddling his MP40. Although not suppressed or fired upon, he remained prone and could not see past the hedgerow. He would accept a target armor arc and rotate himself in the correct direction, but the gun would continue pointing in the old direction. He would not accept a Face command. I didn't try the Move command and maybe I should have.

Rohrbach1.jpg

So, having nothing to lose, I ordered Obersoldat Rohrbach to pack up his private gun in Turn 19. He duly complied and started packing. In the next turn I ordered him to deploy again, but this order had no effect - he kept packing. Even when the M10 opened fire at his position and he was Shaken (semi-transparent icon), his state didn't change - he kept packing and finished bang on time in 4.4 minutes from the moment he started.

From that instant he manned the gun and was able to rotate it. He now has LOS on the location of the Sherman but does not see it yet. But, of course, the gun is Limbered and will take more than 2 minutes to deploy again. And he was spotted and fired upon again by U.S. infantry as soon as the gun started moving. So the chances are minuscule.

Rohrbach2.jpg
 
Lethaface said:
Yes it's at least attributed to him, in a letter to Joffre iirc. It's a good motto for life :)
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And a good one for CM, too. It never hurts to steal some initiative from your opponent if you can.
My favorite is "Your plan is just the starting point for changes" - I'm probably paraphrasing - I saw it attributed to an Israeli army tactics textbook but whatever. It is important to stay flexible.
 
Drifter Man said:
And a good one for CM, too. It never hurts to steal some initiative from your opponent if you can.
My favorite is "Your plan is just the starting point for changes" - I'm probably paraphrasing - I saw it attributed to an Israeli army tactics textbook but whatever. It is important to stay flexible.
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A wise saying, imo.
It is always good to make plans, imo. But indeed rather possible courses of action (flexible), rather than tracks set in stone (rigid planning).

I once came across the quote of Ferdinand Foch, while reading the standard work of the 1st World War (which describes every large battle quite detailed at the strategic and operational level). At the time I had plenty of RL problems/challenges to overcome, some had taken it's toll. Somehow there was a big connect: at various times in my life, things weren't looking good from various viewpoints. However, I always feel great when having to get out of difficult situations. There's few things more exhilarating.
So although I guess in war it all much more real, dire situations can often be also viewed as excellent opportunities to make gains; achieving under pressure!

And indeed for CMx2 this can also be very true.
 
Lethaface said:
A wise saying, imo.
It is always good to make plans, imo. But indeed rather possible courses of action (flexible), rather than tracks set in stone (rigid planning).

I once came across the quote of Ferdinand Foch, while reading the standard work of the 1st World War (which describes every large battle quite detailed at the strategic and operational level). At the time I had plenty of RL problems/challenges to overcome, some had taken it's toll. Somehow there was a big connect: at various times in my life, things weren't looking good from various viewpoints. However, I always feel great when having to get out of difficult situations. There's few things more exhilarating.
So although I guess in war it all much more real, dire situations can often be also viewed as excellent opportunities to make gains; achieving under pressure!

And indeed for CMx2 this can also be very true.
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Good that you found your way out. I am fortunate that I haven't got into a situation where I would look to Foch for an inspiration to go forward.
 
Turn 24. My opponent is still deploying on the left flank, so not much action. This buys me time to bring the reinforcements. An M1917A1 HMG team has appeared, and one of my old 60mm mortar friends can be seen again at the hedgerow, deployed and ready to fire. The Sherman has trouble finding targets and keeps turning the turret all over the place, while the M10 pours more AP at Obersoldat Rohrbach and his private AT gun. The M10 crew haven't learned their lesson and another crew member is again peeking out above the edge of the armored turret.

Turn24_M10.jpg

At the crossroads I'm doing well eliminating U.S. infantry in the woods but it is dangerous to go into the woods. I lose two men here. A contact is made with the enemy 81mm mortar firing from the woods. Looks like only one man is left. It is targeting a MG position on the right flank, I think.

Turn24_woods.jpg

Enemy mortar fire hits two men on the right flank, an MG team leader and a mortar team leader, who was the last survivor of the team.

I need to clear the woods around the crossroads to deploy an MG team (and possibly a sniper) to get a flanking position on my opponent's main push on the left, but it is tricky because there are small U.S. infantry teams on
all sides.

Confirmed casualties: 71 U.S. / 39 German.

Turn24_overhead.jpg
 
Turn 25. To my shock and surprise, the fresh rifle platoon rushes the MG position, Red Army style. It doesn't go well, but it doesn't go entirely badly, either, as CDavid has deployed a fair amount of firepower. The Sherman (lasers only; for some reason it hasn't used its main gun yet in this battle - ever) plus one M1917A1 HMG, plus support teams of the rifles, develop enough firepower to produce casualties and suppress my MG's. Surprisingly, his 60mm mortars and the other HMG he moved in are not firing. This all cannot change the fact that the advancing troops lack any cover in the field and there is just too much lead flying around. Eight Americans are seen hit, while my MG crews lose three men.

Turn25_madrush.jpg

Obresoldat Rohrbach and his private AT gun... interesting and sad story, although it is not yet over. After spending more than 1 turn Shaken under the fire of the M10 and others, he finished deploying his gun... well ahead of time, in about 1.7 minutes. He is an unstoppable machine when it comes to deploying and packing up. Unfortunately, just before he was finished, he spotted U.S. infantry, as well as the Sherman, in the field. And because the gun was not ready at that point yet, and because his target armor arc had been nullified when he panicked (I didn't have the chance to reinstate it), he opened fire with his MP40 at the U.S. infantry. Then he finished deploying the gun before returning to his Shaken state under heavy return fire of the U.S. line. Will he get another chance? I doubt it. At least he is drawing fire though.

Turn25_ATG.jpg

In the center I advance, trying to balance speed and caution. A sniper clears out the rest of the pioneer squad. The enemy mortar in the woods is under fire but is able to get away another shot that is aimed at somewhere on my right flank. 6 U.S. infantry eliminated against one German loss.

Confirmed casualties: 85 U.S. / 43 German

Turn25_overhead.jpg
 
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"Es ist nicht vorbei, bevor die Fette Frau singt"

-Obersoldat Rohrbach
 
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Turn 26. A violent exchange of fire – with streams of automatic fire going in both directions crossing above the ground – erupts on the left flank. Having lost another 10 men, U.S. infantry is pulling out of the field. The attack is defeated.

Turn26_leftflank.jpg
Turn26_assault.jpg

Obersoldat Rohrbach reverts to his original state – holding an MP40, prone, unable to see past the hedgerow. Three Machinegun teams that are closest to the enemy lose their main weapons – it looks that when the enemy is close (meaning something like 100 m), the Gunner switches to pistol. In my case it means losing the Gunner altogether because he is also prone and away from the hedgerow and cannot see anything. But under the circumstances, the rifles and MP40s do the job just fine. HQ teams also join in, but I keep the MG platoon HQ out of harm’s way – this HQ is way too important for keeping morale up.

Turn26_MG.jpg

At the crossroads I advance a bit too fast to get my flanking position and lose two scouts to a hidden three-man infantry team - before others can return fire effectively, hitting two Americans and sending the third one running. The mortar in the woods is also taken out (ironically by a mortar crew using an MP40 and a rifle), finally. I am now moving to deploy the MG into a flanking position at the crossroads.

Turn26_ambush.jpg

An unexpected mortar attack hits an ATG position on the unengaged right flank, hitting 4 men. The gun is abandoned. Apparently indirect fire, I do not think the mortar has direct LOS on the gun. I did not see this coming, the gun has not moved or fired since the start of the battle and my opponent had not done anything to indicate he was aware of it. A sniper fires (to no effect) on an enemy HQ team who may be directing the mortars.

Turn26_mortarATG.jpg

Confirmed casualties: 99 U.S. / 50 German.

CDavid announces surrender. A ceasefire would be appropriate, but in any case, the battle is coming to its conclusion.
 
A couple of quick tactical thoughts as I see it.

There are basically two main approaches for the attacker in this map. Top part through bocage or bottom part over open ground. I think CDavid correctly identified that the bocage part was the best approach when it's a US assault against Germans. If the Germans had been on the attack, probably the best route would be the open ground.

Talking about the bocage part, the brown field at the top is the absolute key terrain. If CDavid could have gained that, he would open up most of the other defensive hedges to flanking fire and you would have had to fall back.

But there's also another key terrain: The area and buildings just at the tip of the "forest arrow" are really important to control the approaches to the brown field. It seems you realised that towards the end with your counterattack, but it was a missed opportunity not to deploy there, I think.

Your force purchase puzzled me a bit. AT guns are great at longer ranges, but in bocage like this, Panzerschrecks would have been much cheaper and more flexible and still able to take out any Allied tank. Hindsight is of course 20/20 and I think you realised this too as the battle progressed.

As for CDavid, I won't comment so much, because I haven't seen things develop from his side or read his thoughts about tactics either.

I will just say that it seems his main worry was encountering German tanks, so he brought a lot of tank destroyers. Which makes sense, but then going through bocage those tanks would be vulnerable to bazookas anyway, so they were always unlikely to play a big role.

I think the main reason he lost the battle was that he used a "recon pull" approach, to probe and see if there were any holes in the defence. But with so many points on a small map like this, there won't be any gaps. An assault against heavily defended bocage needs more of a "command push" where you take note about what key terrain you need to hold and then figure out a way to achieve that. This includes a fire plan.
 
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Thanks for this analysis @Bulletpoint - I read it while I'm waiting for the last file to do a proper debriefing.

I find it difficult to identify what a key terrain is - usually it crystallizes for me during the fight, and as it turned out, the brown field and the building Cluster (in that order) were indeed the focal points of the battle. You can compare the early turns with the late turns and see how heavily my force got rebalanced to the left in response to the U.S. pressure.

My opponent's artillery plan was my main concern early on, and realizing the vulnerability of my force to artillery, I left the first line only lightly defended. This included the Cluster, which I might try to smash with heavy pieces if I were the attacker on turn 1. Then I gradually found out that there will be no arty, and panicked to close the gap as soon as CDavid's scouts dashed across the road and to the buildings.

The AT guns worked for me today but overall I agree - a questionable choice to bring a full company. Perhaps half as many ATG's supplemented with a few Panzerschrecks would make a better, more flexible AT defense. 4 out of 9 AT guns did not fire a shot in this battle - that's 400 points out of ~2800 just sitting around. In most cases the ranges were around 150-200 meters so Panzerschrecks would have a hard time but they would be useable. On opponent's part, I would also prefer bazookas to tank destroyers - although they might end up being out of effective range.

Overall this was a battle of on-map mortars. Mine were in action from the beginning to the end, making the U.S. side of the hedgerow a very hot place. My opponent had mortars, too - at least 4 x 81mm and 3 x 60 mm, if not more - but I wasn't getting much mortar fire, especially not where it mattered.

The machineguns worked well. When combined with their leader's MP40s they make a powerful defensive force. But like with the AT guns, perhaps I should have bought only half as many and intersperse them with more flexible types of infantry for better fighting at close ranges. Interesting experiment though.


Finally, thanks everyone for following. I'll be writing more of these because the writing helps me organize my thoughts. And big thanks to @CDavid for a challenging battle and for his regular, reliable turn rate (y)
 
Drifter Man said:
I find it difficult to identify what a key terrain is - usually it crystallizes for me during the fight, and as it turned out, the brown field and the building Cluster (in that order) were indeed the focal points of the battle.
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I can't always identify all key terrain either. In this case, I identified the brown field from looking at the map on your AAR, but then I went ahead and set up a practice QB battle as attacker against the computer on the same map. That's when I suddenly (and painfully) realised the value of the terrain at the point of the arrow. Once I saw it, it was so obvious, but I didn't spot it going in.
 
Bulletpoint said:
I can't always identify all key terrain either. In this case, I identified the brown field from looking at the map on your AAR, but then I went ahead and set up a practice QB battle as attacker against the computer on the same map. That's when I suddenly (and painfully) realised the value of the terrain at the point of the arrow. Once I saw it, it was so obvious, but I didn't spot it going in.
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Yeah for me it's just the terrain we ended up fighting for, even though it wasn't the objective.
It reminds me of the old days in CMBB/CMAK when I used to run a twin game in hotseat mode, with opponent's forces deployed in the way I thought he was deployed in the real game. Just to test various ideas.
 
Indeed, great AAR!

Sometimes it is difficult to identify key terrain indeed. I usually try to look at the map where I want to attack and where I would want to defend, relative to the objectives. But sometimes it might be better to play with the destruction of the enemy forces in mind, to hell with the objectives if there are no more enemies to hold m ;-).
 
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