Bil Hardenberger

I'm sure the Panther will be fine... but I too am getting a tad impatient for the next turn.. it's getting on 24 hours since I returned the last one. What I am doing actually, is a little shoot and scoot action with the three Hellcats on the ridge to keep the Panther's attention while I move both of the Hellcats near KT1 forward a bit in an attempt to get a flank shot or two. I hope he doesn't get too aggressive with that JT yet... I want to take care of the Panther first, then I will worry about the JT. I wonder if he will get aggressive or tentative with that JT now that he knows I have five TDs and two tanks in the general vicinity.

Fabulous! You have a nice talent and an interesting style Cobetco.

I meant to include these gifs in the Turn 10 report but didn't have time last night and I wanted to get the post up.. so here they are: Hellcats v Panther.. the Panther is the contact all the way to the left, if yo uwatch carefully you will see the JagdPanther contact pop up and disappear... The Sherman section moves into their positions opposite the L Shaped Wood.. note the transition from road to snow...

It can take the loss of only one or two dismounts to stop a dismounted infantry advance in its tracks. Right now in the terrain he is in dismounted is okay I guess, the problem is going to be when he has to exit that terrain, not as much cover as the terrain moves towards the second Phase Line objective... he is going to be moving very slow and could be caught in the open by rampaging armor. I would at least have a good portion of my force mounted and ready to perform a deep attack to take advantage of any hole in the defense I could identify, any dismounts would be scouts... Baneman seems to have his entire infantry force (at last what I have identified so far) dismounted.. and yes I question that decision, his reactions are simply going to be too slow. It's possible he still has a mounted force in hiding and if so, then bravo.

TURN 10 (1:21-1:20) HELLCAT SECTION: Wow, a lot of action with these guys this turn... the stationary tank was not the JagdTiger, it was a Panther... The Panther never got a spot on my Hellcats, though I suspect Forsyth's Hellcat on the right (left in the above image) might have been spotted. The Panther never fired. Also spotted in this area was a Stummel which was moving towards my Hellcats. It was in view for only a few seconds before it disappeared in a treeline. Finally, in this area opposite my Helcats was the freaking jagdTiger!!! This behemoth was in view for several seconds and never spotted my Hellcats, it was spotted by Olson's TD... though Olson was busy firing on the Panther.. I had ordered a withdrawal for Olson after 45 seconds and with this pull back I lost the spot on the JT. Range to the JT was about 400 meters. This image shows these new contacts and my setup... should get real interesting in the next few turns. The Shermans are both on line now for their attack on the infantry in the woods, the Easy 8 got off a few well aimed rounds and at least one landed right in the middle of where i suspect one infantry concentration to be located. next turn both of these tanks will be firing on this target. Olson had fired once at the Panther, but missed short. As the turn wound down, two Hellcats, Olson's and Forsyth's both had a round in the air... both targeted at the Panther. Range to the Panther is about 760 meters Mace's Hellcat on KT1 started receiving mortar fire again.. one round hitting way too close for comfort.. though no damage was done. SITUATION: I now suspect that there is more than one platoon in the L Shaped Woods.. from two Platoons up to a full Company. Some of the infantry thatwas in the little treeline next to the L Shaped Woods has started moving toward the center... perhaps away from my blocking force on KT1. Also spotted were some new infantry, an HQ of some sort and some support teams, including an HMG started running from the small village on the map edge toward the Rectangular woods. There is probably more than one platoon in that wood mass as well. I now know that Baneman bought at least one Panther to go along with his JagdTiger. If nothing else my Hellcat advance has uncovered some very useful intelligence. I am still gobsmacked that his infantry is almost entirely dismounted... any maneuver on his part is going to be very slow and plodding, while mine should be fast, should have little problem outmaneuvering him, well, his infantry at least.

TURN 9 (1:22-1:21) SOLUTION EVENT 1 and EVENT 2: Thanks to those of you who contributed solutions to my little interactive questions... well except for Ken. I was actually surprised that most thought I was going to attack or support my right (Baneman's left).. surprised because I have the least information on my right thus it would be premature to conduct an offensive action on that flank. SPOILING ATTACK My plans were for the Hellcat section (x3 TDs) was to take up hulldown positions on the ridge overlooking the L Shaped Wood and attempt to get eyes on that enemy tank that has been sitting in the same position since the beginning of the game. If this is the JgdTiger then hopefully I can get a flank shot or two off before it can react.. by the end of this turn I had one Hellcat in position (#1), another almost in position (#2), and the final Hellcat (#3) will be in position next turn. The Sherman Section is going to drive down the road, take up hulldown positions on on or near the road in order to attack the infantry in the L Shaped Wood. The Hellcat section near KT1 will provide overwatch for this attack, protecting the flanks of the other two sections. After several turns of my opponent moving very slowly and that enemy tank contact not moving at all, I thought I had an opportunity I could not miss. SITUATION: In Cobru I am conducting some misdirection.. I am moving a few jeeps around the town to hopefully provide some UI contacts for Baneman to puzzle over. I will do this for a few turns then I will withdraw from the town and this flank and let him attack an undefended position. My hope is that the UI contacts will convince him that there "might" be defenders. After the town and the woods on this flank the terrain opens up and will be more to my liking.

WHAT!!??? Baneman gets a Cobetco original character in his thread but I get nothing in mine? I am hurt. Baneman, I hope bratwurst girl gets helmet hair.

You can try either the Squad Attack Drill or the Fire & Movement Drill as described on my blog. Let us know how you make out.

Always. I try to never work my armor in isolation... I almost always get in trouble when I fail to work in at least two-tank teams. Nope. I have left that development effort.

Perhaps... ...any other guesses? Post your guesses and I'll reveal the answer in my next turn report. Hint, the Hellcats and the Shermans are on different missions.

TURN 8 (1:23-1:22) Near KT1 Mace's Hellcat moved back into a hulldown position to keep an eye on the L Shaped Wood and to provide overwatch... ...Mace spotted an infantry team in the woods, squirted some MG fire and caused at least one confirmed casualty. Right at the end of the turn Zeiger's Hellcat spots another infantry team. And now for the INTERACTIVE PORTION of the AAR!!! EVENT 1: The Shermans from Team Pain are on the move!! See if you can predict where they are headed and what their mission will be! EVENT 2: The remaining three Hellcats (those not near KT1) are on the move!! See if you can predict where they are headed and what their mission will be!

Four Hellcats are rated Regular, and one is Green. Mace's Hellcat that made the halftrack kill is regular.

You play your way and we will continue as we are. I often let my units make their own targets and many times I assign the target myself. How is this unrealistic? A C.O. Can't assign targets? BS. By the way, in this particular instance the AI did self target that half track I totally disagree with you about the one shot kill thing as well. You expected a Tank Destroyer that has been sitting for a minute in the same position to miss at that range? That is an unrealistic expectation.

I moved the Hellcat into that position early in the previous turn and it wasn't until the very end of the turn that the Hellcat spotted the halftrack (which was moving). Then this turn it only took one shot to kill it.. it was only a few hundred meters, point blank range for any tank at this point in the war, those are the facts.

TURN 7 (1:24-1:23) Target halftrack, 30 second pause, then withdraw...all went according to plan. On KT1 I had a feeling that I had been visible too long so while I limited the length of time the Hellcat sat on the hill, just long enough to take out the halftrack, I also pulled the recon team off the hill back towards their jeep. Time to fall back and take up a position somewhere else. I only feel bad that i could not complete the medic duties as it kept getting interrupted by the halftrack's MG fire. I pulled off just in time as at the end of the turn a few mortar rounds fell in the trees.. that could have been ugly. SITUATION: while I pulled off of KT1 I also pulled the jeep I had along the edge of the town and the HMG Jeep, as I never could get it to a good spot to fire on the other halftrack. Not much movement noted this turn.. as I am re-positioning it might be a few more turns before I start to see him move again. He has to come out somewhere, and I think I know where that might be.

KRAKA-THOOM !!!

Well, IMO its a good idea to prep a building prior to assaulting it if you suspect it might contain an enemy unit. However doing so definitely shows your hand, so I concede your point.

Fight the enemy, not the terrain. To be honest, I am fighting the enemy force, if I do that the objectives will take care of themselves. The objectives should be used to help orient your force in reconnoitering and attacking the enemy, because chances are he is going after the points. Well in my opinion, he can have them, and I'll fight his force instead. I am conducting a zone defense, my goal is to defeat the enemy force, the objectives are secondary to my effort.

Unfortunately there won't be melting snow Re: the objectives... not a new feature, its just the way they were painted on the map, you could always do this... in fact on the map we used in the CMFI-GL BETA AAR (Sante Maria Infante) the S-Ridge objective was also split, between two separate hilltops.

TURN 6 (1:25-1:24) Baneman attacked a building on the outskirts of Cobru.. this was gun fire.. I doubt it was a dismounted gun, so probably a tank, or perhaps one of the many German SP guns. This is an unspotted vehicle but I suspect it came from the position as outlined in the image. I suspect this is simply prep fire which means he must have infantry close enough to start assaulting the town.. time to withdraw my forward elements in the town. Clearly I didn't have very good visibility in this area. Near the L Shaped Wood, I don't think Baneman heard my Hellcats as he moved his halftrack-2 forward to get a better shot at my scout team on KT1. Mace's Hellcat moved into position, and I was afraid that the new halftrack position would put it in a blind spot, but right at the end of the turn Mace and crew spot the halftrack and carefully take aim..... (to be continued)

TURN 5 (1:26-1:25) I received an email from Baneman today after he watched the last turn and he said to me, "it's quiet, too quiet." Well, its about to get a little louder! On my far right I moved an HMG jeep forward to try to get a spot on Halftrack-1, they moved forward just fine, but failed to make the spot. I will let them sit and hopefully they will pick it up next turn, or I might hunt them forward a bit more (I need to check their LOS first). I also moved two Hellcats balls to the wall towards KT1 (these suckers are so damned fast), the first (belonging to CPL Mace) is hunting halftrack-2 and it's movement fell just short of it being in position. The second (CPL Zeiger) was sent forward to back up Mace, but also to close off a dead zone in front of the L-Shaped woods (as shown by their covered arc). I suspect that Baneman will have sound contacts from this movement, at least from mace's Hellcat... but those woods are very restrictive to vehicles so he might not be able to extricate his halftrack-2, if that is what he decides to attempt. Situation: The enemy infantry continues to move through the L Shaped Wood and the other platoon continued to moved toward the rectangular wood, elements might be in it by now, but I can't see the lead elements now... some additional units joined this movement and i suspect it might be a bit more than a platoon now. Actually I suspect that both of these infantry platoons are larger than platoon size. On the right, I am really surprised that I have seen no movement, none moving toward the town. It is looking more and more like he is concentrating on my left and center.

Hey Mark, well I don't know that Baneman hasn't already purchased a force capable of defeating what I have.. it's possible he has. If I were the Germans and attacking in this situation with it's very open map and long AO, I would have gone armor heavy, with maybe only a company of mounted infantry, but with some good artillery support to blast the US units off of each objective as I approached. The terrain is so open that it really is asking for an armor heavy force... that was my major fear and is why I went so armor heavy with my force purchases.

Yes, that's the way they are setup... he needs to capture the road intersections on each objective line to capture that objective. And I hope the task is challenging for him.

I think you deserve a better answer than the flippant one I gave above. If I see a mass of armor assembling behind the infantry dismounts then I will set the armor in overwatch to armor only target arcs and let the HMGs and infantry engage any dismounts. Right now I have seen no evidence of an armor concentration so I plan on just letting my units that are in overwatch pick their own targets. The plan can and will evolve as I gather more information.

I can only say, it depends!