Round 4 AAR
After reading the above posts, I had a lot of thoughts. Here they are
RE Turn 1 Arty: I was one of the ones who did not have a turn 1 fire mission, but that was because I forgot to re-target my asset after having set a mission, and subsequently deciding to adjust it. So I cancelled the original, but forgot to plot the new mission. As a result I plotted it on turn 2, but the delay caused it to not FFE until turn 15 by which time my men were in the target zone. I believe some spotting rounds actually caused some friendly casualties before the cancel took effect.
Left-Center-Right: First, I'd like to define these zones. Left is the area to the front of the Trenches 4 & 5 and Mound 2. There are two center zones ( or 1 center and 2 rights, your choice). The left of these is the area that leads to the open space between Trench 3 and Trench 4. No walls, but dangerous from the left and the back-right. To the right of that is the other center zone (fronts to Trenches 2 and 3, which has fairly good cover, particularly once you get past the initial wall. This area does have exposure from the back left (which I learned the hard way), but almost none from the right, and none to or from Trench 5. Finally, the far right, which fronts to Trench 1 and Mound 1, and the right flank, and yes this is too far, and too exposed to the rear.
Turn 1: The decision I finally made was to run 1 platoon of Pz III M’s behind the buildings on the left, and remaining platoons of M’s and N’s into that right-center zone through the gaps in the wall. I prepositioned those platoons as far to the right as I could to start them closer to the existing gaps. Gave all tanks a 20 sec. pause with the N’s divided between firing smoke and HE while the M’s fired HE. Their targets were the two mounds. So as to not create a traffic jam at the two wall gaps, I ordered the left most platoon of N’s to remain in a depression I found in the setup zone. It wasn’t much and some got KO’d as did a few of the tanks in the other N platoon. The M’s made it into the safety of the area inside the wall unscathed. Two smoke plumes appeared, 1 behind each mound, so I had some initial luck with the area fire and my fighter-bomber.
Post Turn 1: For the next 15 minutes I fired more smoke, and traded shots with various spotted targets, mostly sound contacts, including some infantry in Trench 2, 3, and eventually 4. This quieted Raging Al’s ATG guns on Mounds 1 and 2, but gun tracks he positioned amoung the two building groups behind Trench 5 and Mound 2 got a number of surprise kills. The ones behind Trench 5 took out two of my M’s from the group on my left, and the tracks in the building group behind Mound 2 had some successes against tanks in the 3 platoons I moved into that area in the center-right. I was unable to get LOS back to these AFVs, so I used more smoke to protect my tanks. I also fired HE in their direction, and did get a lucky hit to knock out one of them.
When the infantry arrived, I decided to go left. Sent all three platoons into the cover of the two building groups in front of Mound2. The Hummels and PSW’s concentrated on the sound contacts in Trench 4 as engineers blew gaps into the walls in front of Mound 2. When the defenders in Trench 4 appeared to be suppressed with some routing, I advanced a mounted platoon to the base of Mound 2 where they unloaded, and moved onto Trench 4. Repeated this process for Trench 5, followed by the remaining tanks of two platoons. Raging Al had moved his replacement HT’s to his right, and his tanks straight down his left, so by swinging my tanks around the left of Mound 2, they were able to target his tracks, and clear out the remaining defenders behind Mound 2 without being exposed to his tanks.
Al sent his Stuarts charging straight down my right flank. I had three Pz III N’s on that flank that were there as a decoy, and to keep him honest. The Stuarts traded shots with my three tanks. The kill ratio was well in my favor before all three of my tanks died. I had about 6 more tanks, and about 6 Hummels/PSWs in the center-right area. These moved to flank his remaining Stuarts as they were cleaning up. The counter attack was very successful, eliminating all the remaining Stuarts.
With 5 mins left, I sent my remaining mounted infantry platoon on a diagonal from where they had originally moved, behind the cluster of buildings in front of Mound 2, to Trench 3. I did this slowly (1 or 2 vehicles each turn) out of concern for his Shermans which had LOS to that path from their positions behind Trench 2 and Mound 1. I was able to distract them using smoke, HE, and by exposing some of my tanks, Hummels, and PSWs from their positions in the area around Mound 2. One of the PSWs spotted a Sherman, and scored a kill. I also moved into Trench 2 using some Engineers, Half-Tracks, and Tanks that were part of the counter-attack against the Stuarts. Both trenches turned out to have been vacated from the earlier tank and Hummel/PSW fire directed at contacts that appeared. Three Pz III Ns and 2 Hummels, also part of the counter-attack, attempted to swing around Mound 1 and get behind his Shermans, but this was repelled by infantry located in Trench 1.
The game ended with Al’s GIs holding Trench 1 and Mound 1, while I had control of the remaining objectives.
