Bil Hardenberger

In case anybody missed the threads where this was laid out, here is how I get a tank into a hulldown position: 1. Understand that hulldown only applies to a specific target or direction.. you might be hulldown to one enemy, but exposed to another 2. Add your movement waypoints up to the hill/ridge you want to deploy on 3. Select the last waypoint and, using the targeting command, check to see if you can "see" into the target area, if you cannot see into the targeted area, then move the waypoint until you can 4. When checking LOS with the target command it will say either "Spotter is hulldown" or "Spotter is partially hulldown".. either is acceptable.. if it does not say this move the waypoint until it does 5. Change the last waypoint to Hunt and your tank should stop to fire immediately upon sighting an enemy unit, you will then be in a nice hulldown position In addition, if I know where an enemy tank is located precisely then I will also give the last couple of waypoints very tight armor covered arcs over that location (not just the last one).

The Fifty Ninth Minute The last retreating Firefly spots, or gets a UI contact from the Tiger platoon on his right... but it is the Pz-IVs around Gaumesnil that take him out. It's this sort of coordination between widely separated assets that can make or break a battle. If you can dangle a carrot that attracts the enemy unit (in this case the Tigers), at the same time wind up a punch from somewhere else (the Pz-IVs) then you will stack the odds in your favor in these sorts of engagements. This is the same technique and effect used in my last game with GaJ when I moved a Pz-IV aggressively near an M10 while maneuvering a Brummbar in for a flank shot... the M10 was caught responding to the Pz-IV and never knew the Brummbar was there. Links to this action: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1450581&postcount=686 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1450626&postcount=691 Wittmann had fired on and penetrated this fleeing Sherman III at the end of last turn, but it wasn't until this turn that he finishes it off. Note the Firefly also in this image, that was the tank taken out by the Pz-IVs as stated above. Here is the current situation in this part of the battlefield. Note the Jpz and halftrack headed towards objective 3 (top of map)... ...I have identified the spots where the Firefly and Sherman III that were knocked out this turn were located. ...note the Jpz Section at the bottom of the image... they are the subject of my next little vignette. The Sherman III they are facing has already destroyed two of my Pz-IVs over the past few turns. Jpz Section This image highlights the power of hulldown and the danger of not getting a proper hulldown position. The Jpz on the left I failed to plot into a good hulldown position to the Sherman III, it is immediately spotted, fired on, penetrated, and the crew bails. Luckliy the tank is not knocked out and as soon as the crew can recover they will remount. The Jpz on the right is in a very good hulldown position... it is never spotted, never fired on, and in fact gets off several rounds at the Sherman III, three of which penetrate. At turn's end the Sherman was still listed as okay, but I bet its getting ready to bail. My point is to ensure you place your tanks, tank destroyers, whatever, in hulldown positions whenever you have the opportunity. The benefits to remaining unseen and or getting the drop on an opponent are too great to ignore.

Heh Nicely done.

I've learned the hard way that reversing out of a face off like this is usually a losing proposition... better to stay and duke it out. Moving you will most likely miss if the STuG fires, and there is a chance that he will be the one to blink and attempt to reverse out of the fight, leaving himself vulnerable. It's a nail biter regardless when making these types of decisions and waiting for that next turn can be torture! Curious as to how it ends up.

cool breeze, this game had already been completed by the time I started pulling together the AAR.

The Fifty Seventh & Fifty Eighth Minutes The environment is not friendly to Pz-IVs or Shermans... one of my Pz-IVs fires on and kills a Sherman III that came up behind an already burning Firefly... ...and immediately falls to a different Sherman III in the trees. A friend, a serving armor officer, told me recently that you want to stay away from dead friendly tanks... I wish I had that piece of advice back when I was playing this game.. I moved this Pz-IV next to Prinz's dead Panzer... he fires at a Sherman III, and simultaneously another Sherman III fires at him... ...the panzer is destroyed, but so is the other Sherman III which erupts into a huge fireball creating a large crater. My Pz-IV Reserve force has been whittled down to next to nothing.. I think two tanks survive. It was foolish of me to press this advance when I saw that Warren had this area so well defended. Elsewhere, Dollinger's tiger takes out one of the remaining Fireflies. Warren had two in position on the edge of the treeline... now one remains, and that one is withdrawing under fire from my Pz-IVs near Gaumesnil. Two of those have a spot on him at turn end, so hopefully he doesn't have long to live.

Thanks George, I have read Tout's books and they are highly recommended for those who haven't had the chance. Thank you for an amazing scenario!

The Fifty Sixth Minute - Part II With the 10th Firefly kill, that makes at least 10 enemy tank platoons, with one more Firely (at least) to be accounted for. So I was facing around 44 enemy tanks, having killed 31 so far Warren must be running out of options.

The Fifty Sixth Minute - Part I Prinz tried to reverse out of danger but was spotted by a Sherman III that appeared in the same woodline the Firefly was sitting in.. one round killed the commander and knocked out the tank. Note that there was a Pz-IV to Prinz's left, and another to his right... the left side Pz-IV spots the Firefly and knocks it out... ... while the right side Pz-IV spots and destroys the Sherman III. This Panther was not moving together with the Tiger Platoon to its left.. and it paid for it. A Firefly on Warren's firing line takes it out as it advances. Lone tanks are dead tanks. On the North edge of the map I have a Jpz moving with a halftrack, the halftrack has driven through the first touch objective (objective 2) and is on its way to objective 3. The Jpz is tasked with protecting it. It does its job this turn as it spots a Sherman III in the village up ahead and knocks it out with one shot.

I think I have sufficiently explained how I operate in my numerous AARs. I don't have time to give you a proper long answer... but the short answer is that how I apply recon is highly situation dependent... the recon teams could be out on a limb by themselves with no friendly forces in the vicinity, or they could be backed up by the rest of their squad, or more... again, it all depends on what I expect to encounter and if I am performing a movement to contact (i.e. enemy contact is expected) or if I am solely in an information gathering mode. Regardless I live by this doctrine: make contact with the smallest possible element I am planning a series of posts where I hope to get into all of this in more depth (and tactics in general)... so sorry if this seems dismissive, I don't mean my response that way. Bil

How much I actually use is situation dependent... I will use more assets for recon the more obstacles or terrain features there are on a map (I try to leave no stone unturned)... if it is an open map then I will use fewer scouts, for a close terrain map (wooded, urban, etc.) I will use far more, yes up to a third in these cases. Bil

Reconnaissance There are different types of reconnaissance: • there is Command Push, where you have a route of advance already in mind and send patrols on ahead of your main body to discover any enemy activity along that route. This is basically the type of recon I did at the start of the Wittmann's Demise AAR. Personally I am not normally a fan of this type of reconnaissance because except in certain situations you will not have enough information about the enemy force at the beginning of most CM scenarios to create any sort of plan excepting what you can determine from your terrain analysis. One other thing to be aware of is that when finalizing a plan up front, without good recon and gathering some information, can tend to make you stick to your plan much longer than you probably should have... this is what happened to GaJ in our first GL BETA AAR, he was convinced, even after the battle was over that his initial plan was still sound... he should have abandoned it early in the game and changed his tack as the enemy situation changed. • there is also Recon Pull, in this type of reconnaissance you send out a net of recon units (I sometimes use up to a third of my force in this role) in order to discover the enemy avenues of advance, or where his defenses lie, but really you want to strive to discover his intent. I use this type of recon in most battles, for examples see my two games against GaJ. The end result is to discover where the enemy is and attack where he is weakest. • Recon by Fire - when you fire into a terrain feature that could hold an enemy unit, in the hopes that they will fire back or be forced to move, thus giving away their position. I use this all the time, especially when approaching a terrain feature that could hold enemy units. • Terrain analysis is a form of recon as well.. actually its a part of Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), but for this discussion I believe it counts as a form of recon as it can guide your recon effort and identify key terrain features that you might want to place extra emphasis on. ============================================================ My philosophy when approaching a CM battle (and I only play H2H) is to gather information before I make a plan. Sure I might have key avenues of approach identified, in fact you better have an idea on how you want your main body to maneuver, but I will not actually make a firm plan until I know something concrete about the enemy force and have an idea regarding his intentions. Even then any plan has to remain flexible and I am not afraid to totally change my approach depending on what new information is uncovered. This is a chart that I created a few years ago when writing up a guide to tactics for another game. Note that you never stop conducting recon, estimating the situation, and issuing orders. These are components of the Decision Process that will not end until the battle does. • Receive Mission: You start off by receiving your mission (this is given to you at the start of a scenario), insure you fully understand what is expected of you. • Estimate the Situation: You then immediately begin to estimate the situation. This step, along with the reconnaissance and issue orders steps are ongoing processes that will not end until the battle does. • Create a Tentative Plan: This plan is created from the situation estimate. This step will also get your major formation moving towards their likely jump off positions or defensive locations. These movements should be used to task organize and arrange your forces for the final orders, which will come later. • Conduct Reconnaissance: The tentative plan, along with information gathered from the situation estimate will drive your reconnaissance. Your reconnaissance will add data to the situation estimate and will help finalize the plan. • Finalize Plan: The information your reconnaissance gathers will be used to adjust your situation estimate and to finalize your plan. You can then task your reconnaissance with this final plan in mind. • Issue Orders: As the situation changes you will need to change or adjust orders. Use your situation estimate and reconnaissance to give you enough time to be able to make these adjustments. Hope this helps. Bil

Yes the Pz-IV is definitely out of its league at this time period, as evidenced by the loss ratio in this game. It needs to be used as you would a TD, from hide positions, carefully hulldown (when possible), etc. It still has a good gun.. not a great gun, but certainly capable of killing Shermans, Fireflies, etc. if it connects in the right spot... even from the front. Don't try to go toe to toe at closer range with it though. For a good examination and demonstration of the proper way to use Pz-IVs read my CMBN BETA AAR (top link of my AAR links below). Oh, and Baneman.. yep, your guess was not correct. Bil

The Fifty Fifth Minute As the Pz-IV reserve (I really need to get a better name for this formation... perhaps Ken Force ) begins to pass through the wreckage of Warren's counter-attack, one of the lead tanks (commanded by the Reg. Commander Prinz) gets hit by fire from a Firefly. Though the Pz-IV is not knocked out (yet) it does take damage to the main gun and the optics so is out of the fight regardless of what happens next. The presence of a tank in that location took me by surprise.. so Warren has tanks to spare it seems. Two platoons on the treeline (well one + after last turn), now at least one more on the left flank (from his perspective) of the treeline, and at least one more facing off against my southern kampfgruppe. How many more can there be? Southern Kampfgruppe In the south, one of my advancing Jpz's falls to the Firefly in the treeline up ahead.. damn. I really need some hulldown positions for these guys. One of the overwatching Pz-IVs takes revenge however and destroys the Firefly before it can do any more damage.

Rake and Buzz, let me think about the game files.. this game really doesn't have as much to teach as say either of the games I played with GaJ, or even the BETA AAR game I played against ND. Storage space would be an issue for these files. Let me think about it. Bil

RevJack, I appreciate your comments. It is comments from lurkers like you that keep me motivated to do these AARs. Bil

The Fifty Fourth Minute I have now started to push my Tigers and Panthers forward to put some pressure on Warren's firing line. There are precious few hull down positions along this route, or anywhere really on this map, so it is brute force and trust to my thick armor and the quality of the crews. The initial goal is to engage and destroy the left most of Warren's platoons. These tanks will be my blocking force supporting the Pz-IVs. The Pz-IV reserve is moving forward with the intent of taking Warren's line in the flank and rolling him up. They will be joined by the Jpz section mentioned last turn when they finally arrive. I try not to have all of my tanks in the same unit moving at the same time.. but in my haste to move forward I did not follow this procedure for the Pz-IVs. One of my two surviving Panthers (Wittmann is in the background of this image) fires on and takes out the left most Firefly. Everytime one of these bastards fall I give a little shout of joy. Three of the tanks belonging to the left side platoon fall this turn, the Firefly already noted fell to the Panther, and the two Sherman IIIs fell to Tigers. It has to be getting a little tense on the British side of the fence now. I find it interesting that over the last three turns I have knocked out 10 British tanks for the loss of one Pz-IV.

The Fifty Third Minute The last Firefly from Warren's counter-attack force was frantically backing up and popping smoke at the beginning of this turn. It was targeted by two of my Pz-IVs, penetrated at least three times until my immobilized Pz-IV got off the killing shot. The Sheman III that had killed one of my reserve Pz-IVs and immobilized another finally falls to a third Pz-IV this turn... this tank was fired on and penetrated another three times, from three other Pz-IVs in quick succession after it had already started smoking. This was the last survivor of the two platoons that attempted the cross field counter-attack. Iriohn's Tiger gets a spot on one of the Sherman IIIs in Warren's support by fire line killing it after three shots, but with the first hit. On the top right of this image can be seen the smoking remnants of Warren's counter-attack force. In the South, I have one Jpz section maneuvering on the Firefly and Sherman III in the treeline in front of the infantry Company, a Pz-IV section is in overwatch, with another section moving forward along with a Marder. The second Jpz section is moving towards the area where the counter attack happened to help with that effort.

Ken I expected you to tell him to go and vigorously attack something.

I use flickr.com for my images, much better image support. Too image intensive? Is that possible? I like your approach to this battle Fizou, everything seems to be going your way. Don't let up on the accelerator, now is the time to push! Bil

I think the arbitrary 1 battalion for each side in the CM battle is the problem, not the reinforcement issue... the attacker should be allowed to attack from more than one hex, regardless if that means he has more than 1 battalion in the battle. It doesn't matter if those units are in at the battle start or if they come in as reinforcements to illustrate an uncoordinated attack (which would be very common in this time frame). Basically what I would do is: allow attacks from multiple hexes, if the units are not in the same line of command (companies from different battalions, etc.) then those forces come in as reinforcements (have a table to roll on to come up with the delay, in fact this would be a good idea for all attacking units... just have a negative modifier for units in different lines of command to extend their entry even further). Perhaps your stacking limits are too high and need to be reduced? But really a smart commander is not going to have hexes filled with a battalion each.. or he would leave a lot of holes an enemy formation could slip through. Just my two cents. Bil

John, thanks.. wow that was a bright day, eh? I have worked on the map some more, lots left to do to make it scenario ready, but its coming along. Bil

The Fifty Second Minute - Part 2 Kister's Tiger if you will remember was penetrated by one of Warren's Fireflies on the left losing two crew several turns ago during the left side attack... well they get even this turn by knocking out this Firefly: Towards the end of the turn this little drama played out... Warren's flank Sherman III and one of my Pz-IV reserve tanks open fire almost simultaneously... in the bottom image you can actually see the rounds passing each other... ...as time ran out my Pz-IV was knocked out, while Warren''s Sherman III was penetrated but I could not tell whether it was knocked out or not yet. This image shows the state of Warren's counter-attack force of two platoons at this point.. note that only two tanks remain, the Sherman III that was was penetrated at turn end, and a Firefly. This Firefly was reversing at turn end as it had been hit a couple times and penetrated once... two of my Pz-IV reserve force have it in their sights. The current Blood Board shows that the pendulum is swinging back my way. Not a bad turn at all.

The Fifty Second Minute - Part 1 At the very end of last turn, Iriohn's Tiger had fired on and penetrated this Sherman III.. I didn't know it's fate until I fired up this turn... These images show my movement during this turn.. the Pz-IV reserve moves forward while the blocking force of Tigers and Panthers moves back slightly to get out from under the guns Warren has along the hedgeline and in the edge of the woods backing up his counter-attack. My Panther starts off the show with a neat kill on another Sherman III. One of the Tigers gets in on the action seconds later with another Sherman III kill. On the enemy formation's flank, a Sherman III holds its ground while my Pz-IV reserve advances... he quickly fires and immobilizes one tank. This Pz-IV is not out of the fight, it has spots a few of Warren's tanks.

Defender should definitely be allowed reinforcements.. you will be hamstringing the defensive player if you disallow it. Any reinforcements should come in seriously delayed of course.. say at the half way point of the CM battle. I haven't read your rules so I'm not sure how you setup the reinforcement timing. Bil