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BETA AAR- Spoiler- Discussion Thread


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Oh I don't know if things are that dire for baneman. I think he will do better than that.

I agree, Baneman has lots of cannon fodder to throw at Bil, that will buy him plenty of time when he needs it.

It just depends on Baneman gathering intelligence on the enemy force. Right now he's still acting as if he knows what the enemy is, and where he is. He's spending an awful lot of energy and time attacking through an empty town. Bil's planned deception maneuver will probably exacerbate the situation further.

There is one very good note however, Baneman has succeeded in pushing a substantial infantry force through an area Bil does not have under observation. Bil himself said AA4 was least likely to be used, and Baneman has pushed troops right down that route under Bil's nose. What Baneman does with this advantageous position remains to be seen.

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Baneman needs one thing to go his way. that is keeping them tanks alive. As long as they are alive and a threat. It will help him with allowing him the ability to move his infantry. To win, he will need to get that infantry on them objectives. the infantry will need to get into the fight.  His armor is support and he will not be able to push it forward.

One principled I have learned over the  years playing these games. is when you are out gunned in armor. Going into a armor duel will sacrifice you armor and likely leave your opponent with some and no ability to defend against it hardly from that point on. Battle over.

So in them situations I have learned to pick my battles carefully and expose my armor to a minimum and create possible threats of their use instead of using them at times.

I find it to be of more value and in many cases actually pays off in kill ratios also.

 A live tank is always a enemies concern. A great tank that has killed 2 or 3 enemy tanks but is now a charred hunk of steel is just a memory with no worth anymore.

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Bane has a heavier armor with deadly guns and better range on his side. His few heavies are hugging the side of the map. He needs to act before Bil's tank platoons become mutually supporting, bil seems to be manning arcs for now but that is about to end once the recon is all done and they push in from 3 different directions. I say take a gamble the enemy first shot will not penetrate frontally and follow up with the assured kill shot on the hellcats. Jag in front, panther slightly behind. For added distraction get infantry out there and HTs ranging mg42 area fire on those Hellcats at the same time. Maybe lob in some screen smoke to dissect the map and lessen the threat on his left flank. Enough with the dancing, time for a right hook.

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It's a stunning minute of action. 

But a part of me is not surprised that Hellcats would not fare well in a frontal confrontation against Panthers at 700m+ distance. Not that Bil wanted that exactly, but it's what ended up happening. 

I'm very curious to see Baneman's write up of this turn, because he doesn't know everything either and this FOW about one another often gives surprising viewpoints about the same event. 

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I suggested earlier in this thread bane should come out and take a swing with his heavies,  banking that the EZ8 gun on the Hellcat may not damage, or might miss, and he could follow up with a kill shot. That move seemed to have worked for now. Bil will have to close tight and fast now I would guess.

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So long as Baneman doesn't make any assumptions about that being the whole, or even the majority of Bil's armour force, he's got a chance of keeping his "fist" together. As Bil said, his recon wasn't sufficient to the task (I'd assumed he'd be trying to get shots the other side of the L-shaped wood, rather than sneak flank shots on the Panther behind the wood. I always had doubts about the infantry force Bil picked for recon; it's fragile and with only 12 elements, can't actually be everywhere.

One thing that occurs to me is that both sides seem to be getting some lopsided vision results, and I wonder whether that's a consequence of the weather conditions.

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It's a stunning minute of action. 

But a part of me is not surprised that Hellcats would not fare well in a frontal confrontation against Panthers at 700m+ distance. Not that Bil wanted that exactly, but it's what ended up happening. 

He moved his armor up so he must have wanted it. I'm actually flabbergasted as to why Bil would attempt taking out Panthers and JT frontally. Deploying his armor in open fields has also shown his hand early and restricted his get away options. Baneman doesn't have too much more guessing to do in order to have Bil's entire OOB.

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He moved his armor up so he must have wanted it. I'm actually flabbergasted as to why Bil would attempt taking out Panthers and JT frontally. Deploying his armor in open fields has also shown his hand early and restricted his get away options. Baneman doesn't have too much more guessing to do in order to have Bil's entire OOB.

I think Bil has said that he didn't intend to attack the JT frontally, and he thought, I think, that the 76mm on the Hellcats had a chance of defeating the Panther glacis at that "mediumish" range. The central Hellcats were aiming to flank the Panther, but Bil's recon was, for once, inadequate, and they ran into a surprise. I am surprised the Panthers' hit percentage is so much higher than that of the M18s; 700m or so is still pretty much a point blank shot for those high velocity guns on the TDs.

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Welp, some of us were making the (admittedly non earth-shaking) observation that there was a tremendous amount of pressure on the Panzers to stay alive and deliver out-sized exchanges.  More so than outstanding news for Baneman this is simply necessary.

Still, from his perspective, a morale boost and certainly better than the alternatives!

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I think Bil has said that he didn't intend to attack the JT frontally, and he thought, I think, that the 76mm on the Hellcats had a chance of defeating the Panther glacis at that "mediumish" range. The central Hellcats were aiming to flank the Panther, but Bil's recon was, for once, inadequate, and they ran into a surprise. I am surprised the Panthers' hit percentage is so much higher than that of the M18s; 700m or so is still pretty much a point blank shot for those high velocity guns on the TDs.

True, but his deployment of all (or at least most) of his armor up front is basically saying "I'm taking you head on". M18s are great for cat and mouse engagements from behind cover but he's put them all in the open, and, it's hard to tell the lay of the land but it doesn't seem like they have a safe place to retreat to. He spotted the JT on turn 10 I think and hasn't moved his 3 TDs that are right in front of it - I'm not sure they can just back up to safety behind a crest?

It also seems that he's not really waiting for his recon teams to do their jobs and he's rushing into his decisions. Recon by force I guess, but it's a risky gamble.

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I recall when we were shown the map initially (here - I didn't touch the map in Beta) I was thinking wow, allied defense seems to be awfully far forward. Its a big map but only the front half is being used. Well, Bil can still take lemons and make lemonade out of it. Initial success may cause Baneman to push his armor forward, which increases the chance of him getting outmaneuvered and shot up by the more numerous Americans.

About hit percentage, I had asked earlier about the experience level of the TD crews and Bil had said they were only 'regular', I think. Combine that with fighting in a snow storm and you can see why performance isn't 100%. Oh, let's remember first shot fired a TD drilled a 251 HT through the middle. So they can hit stuff.

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True, but his deployment of all (or at least most) of his armor up front is basically saying "I'm taking you head on". M18s are great for cat and mouse engagements from behind cover but he's put them all in the open, and, it's hard to tell the lay of the land but it doesn't seem like they have a safe place to retreat to. He spotted the JT on turn 10 I think and hasn't moved his 3 TDs that are right in front of it - I'm not sure they can just back up to safety behind a crest?

It also seems that he's not really waiting for his recon teams to do their jobs and he's rushing into his decisions. Recon by force I guess, but it's a risky gamble.

The M18s over to Bil's left are in hull down positions, aren't they? Or was that the centre pair (wrt the intended target at least)? AIUI, the reason the Hellcats in front of Big Kitty aren't in LOS of the beast (and vice-versa) is the crest of the ridge they're behind. But I may be misinterpreting.

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As much as I like that kind of showcase battles, there´s actually not that much to create real tension in a probe setting and scattered objective locations known to both, Bil and Baneman. It will basically revolve around how the JT and Panthers will fare against superior numbers of tank destroyers and other armor in snow setting. But it´s only known to us who read both threads, so it keeps interesting how Bil and Baneman develop from a situation basically starting and possibly ending in a remis (or Bil sooner or later wiping the germans off the map, when at least one Panther gets killed and the JT getting out of action any way) . If taken seriously, Banemans probe task now would be actually completed, knowing that there´s considerable US opposition in the area, that can´t be easily dislodged with the probing forces at hand. I want some action. Or the preorder page getting online. :D

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He moved his armor up so he must have wanted it. I'm actually flabbergasted as to why Bil would attempt taking out Panthers and JT frontally. Deploying his armor in open fields has also shown his hand early and restricted his get away options. Baneman doesn't have too much more guessing to do in order to have Bil's entire OOB.

 

I think Bil has said that he didn't intend to attack the JT frontally, and he thought, I think, that the 76mm on the Hellcats had a chance of defeating the Panther glacis at that "mediumish" range. The central Hellcats were aiming to flank the Panther, but Bil's recon was, for once, inadequate, and they ran into a surprise. I am surprised the Panthers' hit percentage is so much higher than that of the M18s; 700m or so is still pretty much a point blank shot for those high velocity guns on the TDs.

As Pak40, I think that Bil made a mistake - probably he was overconfident.

It made no sense to engage any German "state-of-the-art" armour frontally with his Hellcats and Shermans. That's not going to work very well, unless the Germans are conscript, have damaged optics or are led by the AI that woodenly follows a pre-set plan like a cuckoo clock. I sincerely thought Bil would try to engage Baneman on his left flank in force, and told him so... that was what made sense.

He felt he lacked intel in that area... which he could have gathered easily with those recon teams doing a song and a dance to implement a maskirovka (which has by the way  worked, Baneman advance on the left is going to take ages if he's going to bound all the way through Cobru). 

I think we're seeing here Bil's IPB training in action - which sometimes is very conservative, and I am not sure it works very well out of the box when one side armaments are substantially superior to the those of the side doing the IPB. This is no T-72 vs. M1 match up, but more like a T-72 vs. M60 match up or even T-72 vs. M48. Intelligence is an enabler for success in the battlefield, but if you get wrong the assessment of your combat power, it is not going to help you.

He also got the timing wrong. If you want to engage laterally an advancing enemy, you will probably need to wait for him to advance a bit past your "holding" positions. He sprang too early those Hellcats on Baneman's left flank, resulting in yet another quasi-frontal engagement with a Panther doing flank security duties. That engagement hasn't gone very well, either.

Indeed, he says he want to engage the JT laterally, but if you look at the tactical situation, I cannot see how can that happen. The forest is teeming with AT-rocket equipped Volksgrenadiers and to the left the map ends. He's basically run frontally into the Jagdtiger in what looks like an alleyway. 

In any case, I think that now Bil has a near perfect intelligence picture of Baneman force - if he recognizes that Baneman has no platoon of Panthers out there. That may constitute a force multiplier, if he isn't too rattled by his losses this turn (and doesn't seem to me so).

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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