newlife

Problem solved. I just did a test with Tigers, and they can drive through 3 AS of vineyard before losing mobility almost all the way through the 4th. So I can risk cutting the corner a little tight.

So do I cut the corner short and risk immobilizing, or do I cut it wide and risk giving the Sherman a side shot at 20 meters, or do I back up and reposition in town? The last is the safest. The first two are the tempting ones because if I can get this Tiger to successfully turn the corner I have crazy position on a LOT of his vehicles moving forward. That tank could single handedly crush a significant portion of his units. Could. If it makes it around in working condition... Know that I'm not worried about the Sherman in front of him alone in the middle of the field. The Tiger near the SE ridge buildings already has a spot on that Sherman and is bringing his gun around. So that Sherman will be a little occupied.

TURN 4 The picture from behind the defender (looking to the east) Screen Shot 2013-05-14 at 8.28.15 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr Notice the sound contacts all the way up to the town, including infantry. Womble apparently bought halftracks and ferried his troops all the way up. So you'll be getting your MOUT! I'm assuming he must have cut his artillery off short if he's driving them up so close. Looks like my barrage will be a little late. Perhaps I can still catch something and maybe not ALL of his troops are on HT. You can see one of my Tigers amidst the smoke on the right side (south side). There is a Sherman about 20 meters away who is obscured by the smoke. I'd love to drive the Tiger out to close, but I have a small problem of making a clean turn around vineyards. Anyone know just HOW far vineyards spread their evil enfoulments? Notice the sound contact in the lower right of the shot below. I left the cursor on the corner of the visible vines. Screen Shot 2013-05-14 at 8.17.43 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr

Thanks guys. It's nice to know people are watching and appreciating. I think I underestimated the artillery. I'm now thinking its more in the 150mm range. The size of craters is bigger than I originally saw as most hits were on the buildings. I'm going to be a little delayed getting all the pictures out on the next turn. I have the turn back but the action is starting to pick up and becoming harder to distill into just a few pictures. Maybe I'll just start with the overview and work from there.

I've been thinking about how possible my tactics would be without the hand of Aces in the Tigers. The Tiger that took out the Sherman shrugged off 2 or 3 shots at 50 meters before killing the Sherman in one. For the same purchase power, I could have had 11 Panzer IVs. If had wanted to do what I'm currently doing, I probably would have kept 2 or 3 panzers guarding the north from behind the mountain top ridge. That would leave 8 tanks for the south. I would have had 4 power along the southern map edge to the SE corner with the other four following them halfway and then turning north, taking the SE ridge road only after knowing what was going on. So still possible, just not possible to immediately take the ridge.

The shelling damage stands at: 3rd Company, 2nd platoon: 8 KIA, 5 wounded 3rd Company, 3rd platoon: 7 KIA, 1 wounded 3 teams panicked, 1 eliminated Note that I'm counting a "yellow gun" as wounded, and any serious wounds and kills as KIA, as for my purposes they are identical until its time to score. 3 or 4 buildings have fallen. Next turn I'll give an updated unit sheet as lots of stuff will be moving next turn and it will help people have a sense of things.

As the above pics show, I get my first Sherman kill. 1 down and many, many, many, many more Shermans to go. I've yet to see pure infantry. Perhaps womble went all armor with just a few recon attachments. Perhaps its still slogging up the hill. I have a great deal of smoke blocking my vision. If anything, my southern flanking maneuver has provided increased visibility. Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 2.17.27 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr You can see the dead sherman bottom left, killed by the Tiger inside the courtyard far left. There is a suggestion of infantry on the other side of the wall by that courtyard. I already have some troops in there with more moving in. We'll see if the Americans try to contest it or back off with a Tiger in there. The other Tiger in that area is repositioning itself and will hopefully get a shot off on the Sherman near the center (along with all of his mates). It appears Womble may be trying to skirt the edge of town, or perhaps he means move his tanks directly into town. The lack of German infantry portable AT assets will really hurt here. The Tiger Plt. HQ that has moved onto the road headed towards the SE ridge (road on the left side of the screen) will be turning into the town and braving the artillery fire. He's headed for the clump of trees in the middle of all the smoke on the left side of the above picture. The Mountain Top Tiger and northern most Tiger are both repositioning. It will be a careful dance of flanking the enemy tanks while not showing my flank, and dodging the shelling. Here's an overview shot from behind the defender (from the west) Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 2.57.13 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr 2x 81s and a section of 120s have been called in on the TRPs in front of town. These will land in 3 and 4 minutes respectively. I'm guessing that is how Womble has timed their advance if they exist at all. I'm keeping one 120mm section in reserve. The Btl HQ is moving up to the Mt Top and will call it in on the first layer of buildings. Over on the far south (right side of the shot above) you can see the Plt and Tigers cleaning up the recon element. They should be eliminated next turn. Due to my guess of a rolling barrage and that Womble is not contesting the Southern valley directly, I am moving out 2nd Company's 3rd and 4th platoons out of town to the south. After his first line of shelling is done, I hope to reinsert them in front of the new shelling. This will expose them to long range attack from the southern valley, but that doesn't seem to be a big problem right now.

Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.42.03 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.43.19 PM

TURN 3 Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.48.56 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.50.45 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.51.03 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.52.02 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-13 at 1.52.59 PM

With the amount of points Womble has, I'm now anticipating a rolling barrage. Turn 5 he should start shelling the middle parts of town while his units move into the front section. My turn 3 orders are away, but my next chance I'll be calling in 81s and 120s on the TRPs. I don't have any infantry contacts, but he's probably hustling his troops up the hill. I won't be able to stop him cold at the front edge, but it would be nice to delay him long enough for his artillery to get ahead of his troops giving my guys time to recover. At the moment, 1st Plt and my attack forces are probably happy they got the assignments they did rather than playing dice with the artillery in town. Of course it will eventually get tough on all of them.

Meanwhile, the northern attack group gets into position and gets a flurry of contacts, including getting two shots off on a Pltn. leader sherman. Sadly the shots go high. Both tanks are hull down to each other. I've given my Tiger a 5 second pause and then retreat orders as he pulled into this position at a little too much of an angle. He'll pull back over the crest of the hill and come back up, this time closer to the wall. Meanwhile the other Tiger will pull just into the building area to fill that whole. My infantry should start taking buildings in that area next turn. The big question is how fast Womble moved his guys up to take the same buildings... Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.30.51 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr This shot gives you a better view of why my Tiger needs to be pulled back. He's 45 degrees to several tanks that Womble raced up the hill. Its unclear whether he means to move them to flank my Tiger by driving close to town or not. Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.31.46 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr I'm moving my CO tiger on the Mt. Top to a position to cover some of the exposed hill in front of town. I'm also positioning my Plt HQ Tiger over onto the road in anticipation of that move as well. On the shelling of the town. 1st Plt. is currently unharmed. 2nd Plt. has taken 6 KIA and 3 wounded, one whole team has been wiped out. 3rd Ptn. has taken 4 KIA and 1 wounded. As you can see below, 3 teams are now panicked. Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.35.25 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr

TURN 2 The Americans manage to unload their recon team with bazooka okay. Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.25.43 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr But as the driver tried to get the Jeep to cover, he wasn't so lucky... Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 8.28.21 AM by pj olandt, on Flickr As it stands, the driver of one jeep is in retreat, one Jeep is abandoned, and the other destroyed. There are two recon teams (one bazooka seen) heavily suppressed and my infantry will be moving up next turn. I expect this to be cleaned up in about 2 minutes or so barring a larger force coming over the crest.

Over at town, the artillery is falling. The picture below gives you a sense of what is being targeted. This is the view from the east (so the attackers view). He has small caliber (I'm pretty sure his 60mm) targeting the northern rock wall and the bush line just south of the city, 4 tubes on each area. Then he has 4 guns of some sort of 105 or 107 mm hitting the small advance cluster of buildings. I choose not to place anyone here as it had bad escape routes and poor forward visibility. So these rounds will do nothing and I hope he keeps those up for a while. He has another 4 gun battery of 105 landing on the front line of buildings. I do have guys here and suffered 4 casualties (one team has now panicked). Continued shelling of this area will eventually break the teams I have in the forward buildings. The two clouds at the bottom of the screen are my harassment rounds of 120 landing. These most likely hit nothing, but it will certainly make Womble worry about where to advance. I'll keep these going only for another minute or 2 as the 120mm mortar section has a 4 minute delay on my TRPS (add in another minute for cease fire orders), and I want to hit him with those. Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 5.02.52 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr On the left of the shot above you can see some of my infantry east of his 60 mm fire on the south side of town. These guys cleared the beat zone just in time as you can see below... Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 4.59.02 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr

Turn 1 Sit Rep: All right! Here we go. Anticipation of immediate of action was not without reason, although it's not the 20 on 5 tank action I was worried about. Two recon jeeps pop over the SE corner deployment hill heading for the southern map edge mini valley. 4 of 5 tanks had visual, one got a shot off that went high, and the MG fire mostly went wide except for a late penetration on the jeep carrying a bazooka team. The screen shot below shows the SE corner situation. The 2 jeeps are visible in the bottom left. In the upper left you can see the two Tigers of the southern attack group. You can pick out the dust trail of the northern attack pair just under the mountain top label. In the upper right you can see the american artillery starting to hit. Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 4.20.18 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr I'm guessing Womble has now spotted these tanks... Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 4.17.08 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr

I'll give one thing to Womble, his troops are cool cucumbers: Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 4.01.33 PM by pj olandt, on Flickr More to follow...