Bil Hardenberger

Hoien, I might be puling back after another turn or two as well

No full report this turn. Panther 1 did not move, but Panther 2 moved forward and was able to spot and knock out my forward ATG, but not before taking several more hits. He can now advance his Panthers right up to my Shermans and kill them at leisure if he likes. My goal is now to attrit his infantry as much as possible and capture at least one of the center objectives. I am playing for a draw at this point.

Hey Bud don't feel sorry for me.. this is all part of the joys of Combat Mission.. you can't win them all. All you can do is try to handle each situation to the best of your ability regardless of how dire it looks for you. I do not expect to win every battle and am content with the thought that at least I put up a good fight under the circumstances... whether I actually am doing that is debatable I am sure.

The ATG got the Panthers attention alright, it fired five Rounds, four of which hit and one even got some internal spalling. I Need a flank to be able to really hurt those tanks. Bravo to Doug, he's doing a great job.

The Fourteenth Minute It took three more penetrations, but my Sherman was finally knocked out this turn... My M10 didn't really follow the path I had set, instead of moving directly into a hull down position it moved to the side slightly, which took longer, and it fell into the sights of Panther 2.... I'm not saying the game is over.. but the hill got a lot steeper for me after this turn.

Just sent the file back to Doug... M10 coming over the top... Infantry moving far right... ATG taking aim at Panther 2 as a distraction, hopefully that will allow the M10 to get a few shots off without being spotted. Could be a crucial turn... usually though when I expect crucial turns full of action they turn out to be rather pedestrian...

The round that hit this tank in turn three was also a penetration , so a total of three penetrations I wasn't counting the bullet that entered through the open hatch.

I was working my way that direction.. this is the tank that backed up the hill last turn so it was not positioned as I wanted it to and I was working to get it to the far right.. but I have to be careful as I know he has at least one infantry team over there and I want to lead with infantry. By the way this tank never left the concealment of the trees... but I am finding these trees are a curse... blind in some spots and very exposed in others.

Yep that tank now sports three holes. I doubt it'll survive a fourth.

The Thirteenth Minute ​Doug obviously came to the same conclusion I did regarding the position of Panther 1 in the woods.. so he moved it to the edge of the woods and got a pay off this turn... I moved M4 #1 off the side of the Junction Ridge hill and right into the sights of Panther 1... the Sherman took two penetrating hits, but luckily only suffered one crew casualty and minor damage... however I have nothing with a gun that can spot the Panther so I suspect it'll brew up next turn. Some good news, the German infantry on the wall is taking a beating from the other Shermans.... Doug moved Panther 2 forward some a bit also and is starting to fire at my infantry in the woods again, this means its time to unmask my M10 once again...

I was just showing the movements by the Panther during that turn as I saw them... Nothing analytical.

The Twelfth Minute The HMG team that re-positioned last turn did not enter the building as I thought, but instead stopped and started setting up behind the hedge next to it. Looks to me that Doug is setting up for my push on Finnochio. I didn't see anything of Panther 1 this turn.. it's icon did not move and from this position he should not be able to interfere with my Shermans (in blue)... of course LOS checks are never exact and sometimes it is surprising what a unit can see from specific positions. This is not a good thing... M4 #1 was engaged by small arms fire and something freaked the crew out enough that it reversed far up the side of the Junction Ridge hill... luckily not into the sights of Doug's Panther 1... the tank was unbuttoned and took an opening penetration (from an MG round) so maybe that was what caused it. Doug has started to push a couple HMG teams up the hill that leads to the S Road Ridge... looks like at least one of them is setting up in that position... I do have several support assets on the Junction Ridge that can attempt to deal with these guys.

Because I thought is would be interesting, guess it wasn't.. sorry for cluttering up the AAR.

The Eleventh Minute Doug moved Panther 1 forward in response to my Shermans... from where they are located he will have to move fairly far through those woods.. and that will not be a fast move... I have two Shermans over the top now, next turn they will be able to put some direct fire on Doug's units near the Finnochio objective... I can already interdict his units on the Rovinetta objective. He has to maneuver his Panthers in response. Panther 2 is still defending against my M10, which effectively takes it out of the Sherman fight. Separating armor is rarely a good idea.. they need to work in teams to be most effective. Doug is starting to move infantry forward out of the trees and up to the wall (red line in the image below).. this actually makes them easier targets.. he seems a tad impatient to come to grips... the more movement from him the more clear the picture of his dispositions becomes. The HMG he had setup in the trees pulled out of position in response to my mortar fire and it looks like it headed towards the building I have circled.. I saw one casualty from this team,and it was the team leader (pistol). He has still only engaged one platoon of my infantry... he is winning the infantry fight right now, but I expect that to change as my full weight comes on line. One ATG has completed setup and is in good position (I hope) to defend against Panther 1's movement.

The Tenth Minute The Panther HE round that hit the MMG team last turn panicked the truck parked nearby and it backed onto the road, was spotted and destroyed by Panther 1. Panther 1 is busy interdicting my forces near the road while Panther 2 obviously has a target armor arc on the S Road Ridge to defend against my M10 coming over the top again. Meanwhile Easy Company's support assets are moving up the rear side of the Junction Ridge to setup a Support by Fire position for my push towards the Finnochio objective.

I would trade them all. Then it would become an infantry only game and I like my chances in that sort of game.

The Ninth Minute I am starting to get a picture of what Doug is doing... on the Finnochio objective side he has a few teams and an HMG in overwatch, while he pushes at least one infantry team across the valley floor to my side of the map... that is rather rude. On the Rovinetta objective side Doug has excellent overwatch with both Panthers now pulled up on the wall Panther 2 was sitting on when I hit it. I am going to continue to push my lead platoon towards this objective to hopefully keep him interested... while my main force will go the other way, at least until his Panthers change direction.. and that actually is the move I am waiting for... His panthers seem to have excellent vision into my rear areas, shown by this event far in my rear area.. this round was fired by P2 by the way, which was unbuttoned and firing just fine.. so no casualties or damage from that partial penetration... damn. Here is an overview of my side showing some of my upcoming moves... note the Shermans will be coming over one at a time so I can gauge the Panthers reaction...

Give me the original time frame.. we already have the up to date equipment in CMBS, why more of the same? It'd just be CMBS in the desert.

The Command Ops games do this at the Operational level... and they are pretty slick. At the tactical level, I don't think there is anything that attempts to simulate C3 to a level approaching the realistic, just simulating the communications network would go a long way to getting closer to a real command sim... ...however, most players, I would bet, are not remotely interested in something that would make it harder to play the game and make their unit's slower to react to player orders. There are some people around though that are very interested in as realistic a command environment as possible and that's what I'm attempting to create with this system.

Slim, first of all I'm glad to hear you are playing John, he is a smart guy and should give you a good fight, Let me know how it goes. Agusto, I think it looks more complex than it really is... most of the rules are explanatory, I have tried to keep the actual rules to a minimum. The workbook is the real key to the system and I have tried to make that as easy to use as possible as well. All of the code is pre-set, so all you need to do is fill in the soft factors for each unit, then assign tasks, monitor the workbook to determine when a task can be changed, etc... I will be adding to this AAR as well, Warren uses Initiative in his next turn, so I'll talk through that.

Yes my mortars are both still operational and one has 2 rounds left, the other 9... but I have a third medium mortar that has yet to enter the fray. I knocked out the HMG, and if I got the mortar as well then the expenditure of ammo was worthwhile. I have 5 additional 60mm mortars each with 32 rounds... one for each infantry platoon. I have gained a 6 to 1 hit ratio in the tank v tank battle so far.. can't let him hit me at all though... so I have to be very careful how I engage his armor... don't worry i have a cunning plan. Edit: sorry, that should be a 6:1 shots fired ratio, I think I only have 4 hits.. two other rounds missed.

The Eighth Minute To answer Holien's question first... this image shows the path of my Sherman platoon which got off the S Road Ridge behind the smoke screen they laid after one of them got hit by Panther 2... they are moving very slowly off road, I figure it'll be two or three turns before they are in position and ready to provide support to my forward infantry. Before pulling back over the ridge into a safe position my M10 spotted Panther 1 reversing.. it fired and hit the Panther, this round like the other two that hit this tank... bounced. It appears that Doug had at least one of my mortar teams spotted as we had a bit of a mortar battle this turn... his fire caused five casualties over the two teams I have on the line... his took many very close rounds and I do not know whether it has been knocked out or is just cowering. Following is an overview of the situation... there appears to be about a platoon's worth of infantry moving on the left most objective.. in fact Doug had one team that was much closer than I expected him to be.. this team used its high ROF small arms to take out my lead team (HQ team - ATG Platoon HQ). Other teams that I have IDed are noted on the map.

Well the M10 has a better chance than a Sherman will. Like I said I just want to mess with his head at this point and maybe he'll start moving those things around more, who knows what will happen then... The angles might indeed be in my favor, the height difference already saved one of my Shermans from getting knocked out and I'm sure it'll work the other way too. By the way my Shermans are already down the slope and are in the valley moving up to support my infantry force.

The Seventh Minute I had quickly moved my M10 from the crappy location it was on laterally across the ridge to hopefully take advantage of the clearing smoke screen left by my Shermans... it spotted, fired on, and got a partial penetration on Panther 2.. so now I expect Doug will rethink the idea of keeping his Panthers in such an exposed position. I don't think either Panther ever spotted the M10... On Finnochio Ridge my mortars finally caused some damage taking out the HMG Doug had setup there... several rounds landed near the mortar team as well, but no casualties were noticed, in fact it is now set up and ready to fire. I will be converging my mortar fire (joined by one 60mm mortar that has this enemy mortar spotted)... I am feeling better about this game... I don't know if my M10 actually caused any damage, but that wasn't the point of engaging his Panthers... I want him to think twice about their current positions and perhaps place them under cover.. that kind of fight would be to my advantage. I want to engage his Panthers at very close range with my Shermans.. but really I want to use my Shermans against his infantry and use the M10 to snipe at and keep the enemy armor busy.

No images this turn.. basically my M10 is having some serious issues with the slope on the ridge and never got into position. A few more infantry contacts appeared next to the Finnochio objective... my ATG is pulling back out of its exposed position and still lives. One thing, the terrain is giving my armor fits... I need to be patient with them.