BFCElvis

There have been a coupla/few people who have been unbanned. The first name that pops into my head is Fionn. Unfortunately that didn't end well.

I'd be surprised if it didn't get locked up. If for no other reason than because Dorosh can't respond. I've resisted comment for that reason. Although I will say, for those asking for his return, Dorosh came by his banning honestly.

Yeah, something happened a few years ago that reset a lot of people's "join dates". Mine was affected too. I had been very proud to be Forum Member 152. When they switched to dates instead of member numbers, they adjusted my date for me.

Here ya go. http://www.battlefront.com/helpdesk/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=34

Please send me a private message about your order

I finally had the chance to read through Bils posts. I have no idea if the game would have ended any better for me but I am struck by how hamstrung I was by having only black sound contacts for infantry and armor for most of the game. Bill made mention a few times about what I may have been thinking about his armor movements on my left. I had no indication that he had armor there. The one time I spotted a T34 with riders it was headed toward BLAU. Bil was making plans assuming I knew things that I didn't. I hope this doesn't sound like sour grapes because I don't mean it to. Looking at both sides of the battle the only chance I had was if I took out all 3 of his T34s without losing any. No small feat. Possible but not probable. Damn, does he put on a great presentation. If I feel any shame as a result of this battle, it is that his presentation was so much nicer than mine.

I'm still in the clinic. There is an entire wing devoted the people Bil has taken to school. A lot of people curled up in the fetal position weeping quietly. But the meds are nice.

Maybe it is because we were "on the ground" for the game but I've gotta tell you...That is the first thing that I have heard suggested to me that I can see as a real and viable alternative to what I did. Most others could have made things go bad in ways similar to what I ended up with, but that just smells right. It would have been huge if I had stayed in place and finished off the first one and then hunted the other down like a dog. You would have either changed your plan to make a run on GELB or taken it and had to come back after my armor had it's way with your infantry for a little bit. Yeah, I wasn't able to see that at all. I seriously thought I had you pinned back there and before making my move had spent a couple turns where it seemed like each of my AFVs had line of sight to enough of GELB to see if there was much movement back there. Thanks for the kind words

Calli, Thank you for your feedback. I don't take any offense. When you do these things you go into them knowing your every move will be dissected and not everyone will agree with what you do. The only point of yours that I absolutely agree with is that I should have made better use of my HMGs. I'm still not sure of what but something better could have been done. I put them in the only spot that had any kind of real LOS. And even that was not very far. My final decision to pull out of BLAU was when I had the sound contacts that meant his ISUs were about to reach the southern edge of BLAU. At that point they would have been free to level the place and the area just beyond. I needed to protect every man until I dealt with his armor. Which is where I disagree again, in my opinion. ..job #1 for my armor was to neutralize Bil's armor. Only with his armor out of play did I feel that I could concentrate my armor on his infantry. And in the early part of the game around the bridge, it would have been suicide. You had the advantage of seeing both sides. I didn't. Not only did I not see both sides, I didn't really see my side. All the Russian sound contacts were black for me most of the game. There was no way for me to tell if what was approaching was infantry or armor. The more blind you are the more conservative you have to be. As you suggested I did essentially leave GELB undefended. The HMG was a token unit holding a VL that had a little punch if necessary. As I said before, I never in a million years expected Bil to blindly rush down that road. There was plenty of time for him to do a methodical advance through the woods (as you point out he probably would have done if he had met resistance on the road). Which at that point it becomes a coin flip over guessing which way he'd come. Attacking from that road/woods south of GELB across to ROT is not attacking across the open. As I mentioned earlier and in other posts, visibility is very short. The ISUs where beginning to target the second level building in ROT but my guess would be that they had no LOS to anyone else in ROT. Again, I appreciate you feedback and maybe all of your ideas would have changed the battle., maybe none of them would, There are some aspects that you can only appreciate if you are in the moment with much less information than someone watching both sides has and you have to make a decision.

Ok. I guess I should say a think or two about how the game went down. I don't regret my purchases, other than I should have found a way to get a couple of TRPs. When I deployed, even looking back at it, I like what I did with what I had. I am still convinced that Bil will come through those woods in front of GELB and take a nasty beating. I do wish that when I split my teams I had broken off an assault team from each squad so that one team would be mostly sMGs. Doing the recon/hunt with 2 squads was not done as well as maybe it could have been. Taking greater pains to protect themselves would have been prudent. I thought pulling the platoon that I had set up in ambush positions east of BLAU and moving them further to my left to oppose in force, any approach along the map edge seemed like a good idea but I lost more than I dished out over there. I'm not sure how much better they would have made out if they had stayed in their initial set up positions. In hindsight the cover that the buildings provided to an HMG team and the flamethrower team was much better than the woods gave me. Putting my HMGs in ROT is a choice that we never got to find out about. The map gave me very very few spots that afforded me anything but short lines of fire. I was happy with my evacuation of BLAU. Everyone was able to get out safely except for the flamethrower team. And that turned out to be a blessing, of sorts. I also can't complain about how I used my armor, until the very end. When I moved them all into position on my right with a clear view of the left side of the woods, I was able to get the jump on Bil. I regret not staying in place to make sure I finished the job. I doubt Bil would have brought the other one forward to protect the unmanned beast. When I did pull my armor back, I set up in BLAU with perfect position to take out Bil's OT-34. I don't remember if I posted a screen shot of it but I had the Panther in the middle and each Hetzer spaced out on each side. Bil had moved the flamer behind the smokehouse and had nothing to shoot at and if he moved, one of my AFVs had a clean shot. Turned out to be the Panther. The move he made on GELB was a complete surprise. Never imagined he would do something like that. However, I loved it. I felt I had the armor advantage and that he was pinned there. When my AFVs were on the little hill, they all had hull done line of sight to most of that area. I thought that, just like in BLAU, if he moved his armor one of mine would see him first. When I broke a scout off from the platoon by the mines and had him take a look at the area, I saw one just sitting there and thought a quick move could get it. The now famous Face command mistake took away that and ended the game in 2 turns. The spot I moved them to was the only spot where both the Hetzer and the Panther had a line of fire to where he was sitting.

Hey, I'm not an animal....of course I would keep it on the path.

And of course the flamethrower team. They hung in there and continued to fire without backing down.

It was hard to tell but I thought this HMG had gotten more. They were the crew that was slightly east of BLAU. This scout earned his medal. Here is a closer view looking back at GELB. And from ROT and behind BLAU

Thanks for all the kind words. It's about time I did some kind of wrap up. I'm going to post some end of battle screen shots. I had actually made some of the in game AAR but they were identical to the ones Bil already posted, so I won't double up. Here is what the battlefield looks like at the time of my surrender. It reinforced my feeling that the only way I could win this was if I eliminated his armor and was able to focus my armor on supporting my small arms fire. But we all know what happened to them........ Hetzer that too fire from his plane. He kilt 3 men, they were in the probe he did on my left, outside of GELB not long before the end. Hetzer that popped an Assault Gun but didn't kill it. Done in by a Face command. I did feel that I would get a little more cover from the trees. When I play golf, I always say "trees are 80% air" and then hit the 20% that aren't. This time he hit within the 80%. Next time I play golf I'm bringing a T34. Ah, my Panther. racked up halfway decent numbers before going down. My favorite was the OT34. Good times....good times...... And who could forget these guys!! The team I had set up in ambush on my left. Did a nice job and were rewarded the way I reward all my troops who perform nicely... I let them get killed.

There were two penetrations on the Panther. The first.....which was the kill shot......was lower front hull. The second penetration is as described. I only watched it 50 times.

14 was the body count that the flamethrower team got. I think I was making mental notes and the turns went on and had guessed 13. There where a couple of times I heard screams but couldn't see anyone. I've taken the screen shots of the end game but haven't been about to make them ready for prime time yet.

They had none. And no panzerfausts either. I purchased 2 schrek teams. One died trying to relocate and the other was in ROT and never came into play.

I probably should have added the word "did" at the end of the sentence. "Unfortunately I faced a better player than you did"

BG, nice to see you! I'll probably go into it in more detail during the recap but it was a game against you that gave me the idea to send teams rather than scouts forward from BLAU. You staged the best defense I've ever played against in an AAR we did on a different forum. In it you had just enough strength to cause me problems but didn't commit so much that you took away from your main defense. Seriously, I had you in mind when I did that. Unfortunately I faced a better player than you. From my point of view I thought doing that may have had Bil question where I planned to face off first and perhaps slow him down.

When I got the icons it was still a few turns before I realized that the black ones were vvehicles. At first I thought they may have been a different infantry type or something. Then it dawned on me that you may not have had the black icons at all. I was going to mention it in a post but thought it would sound like sour grapes. It isn't what lost the game for me, so ultimately it was a non factor. I saw someone post when I skimmed through the tea party that I was shocked when you raced down the road to GELB. The entire game I played as if you would go for those woods and GELB before going to ROT. But I assumed that you would approach it with caution. So I set up some mines and a platoon to surprise you. I did my best to have each team and squad set up so that they barely had LOS to the mines and the gaps between them. My thought was tthat I would have a bigger impact and cover a larger line that way. Up until I lost my armor, I still believed you would come through there.

I just posted in Bil's thread that I have offered my surrender. He is a fantastic player and really rang my through the wringer on this one. There were a lot of things that I felt I did well and others I wish I had differently. Ultimately I stand by everything I did because I had a good (ish) reason at the time. I just took a quick look at the Tea Time thread and haven't looked at Bil's yet. I imagine there are some questions about some of my choices and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Once we get the end game turns I can go into even more detail. Thanks for reading this thread. It is nerve wrecking and fun.

I have offered my surrender to Bil. He has accepted. I the next turn we will both hit ceasefire so that you can have a better sense of our end game condition. I wanted to post here first and thank Bil. You played a great game and took me to school. Thank you.

I can take it, Mike. Don't hold back.

Yes, there is. It's a number I don't admit to understand. I think the starting number was something like 242. And go down about 40 each time it was fired. I can go back and Check but I think the guy using exhausted it just before dying. It may even be in some of the screen shots. The other guy got his kills with an SMG.

Oh my......... Well, cats and kittens, I think the fat lady just sang. I didn't send a surrender turn to Bil yet but I might the next turn. Or more likely a ceasefire with the understanding of having conceded the game. With ceasefire it's easier to see kill stats. My Panther looked like sonny Corleone at a toll booth. The first shot was a killed, the second to make him twitch. I finally was able to spot the guy that did it as the turn ended. Even the remaining guy from my faithful flamethrower team was finally flushed out and killed. Und wir sind dann Helden. Für einen Tag