GreenAsJade
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Posts posted by GreenAsJade
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As I feared, Bil appears to have spotted my M10s, from his right flank (my side) KW guy.
In came the artillery this turn - it looks like 2 tubes of 88 or 105.
Fearing that this was coming, I plotted some running away manoeuvres for the M10s.
It looked like this:
The right hand guy moved forwards, away from the supposed target impact zone, and paused to take some shots at where the KW guy might be, before reversing back to my right.
The left hand guy moved the other way, zig-zagging back also eventually to my right (avoiding facing his rear to any surprise manouvers or exposure from my left).
Well, the right hand guy proved he can't hit the side of a vast open field, his area fire falling dismally short of the target zone...
... and the first two shells came down - one right next to him! (the other far off to the left)
Then, the next two shells arrived landing on the building right next to the left hand guy...
As is often the case, the manoeuvers actually moved the tanks nearer to the impacts than if I'd stayed still!!
In action, it looked like a movie script, explosions to the left, explosions to the right ... and of course the good guys narrowly escaping
I'm thankful they are still alive ... they'll keep dodging next turn!
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Well, that was all very exciting.
But ... the Elefant ran away!!!
It was not in response to me opening fire - it started moving right at the beginning of the turn, so it looks like my ATG was spotted already!
One could ask "Was that an Elefant or a Mouse!?"
The net result of this was that I didn't get to take the shot at the Elefant, but the ATG was opened up, so it decided to fire on Bil's scouting HT. I imagine that this guy will be reporting back that there's an ATG on the hill
I'm not completely sure, but I think those might be my first confirmed kills for this game.
There were plenty of other explosions going on this turn...
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Yes - John - that's why I said "the Elefant is at the worst angle".
These 76's can definitely penetrate the side at 90 degrees, surprisingly easily, I found in tests, FWIW.
I better go look at the movie
GaJ
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I haven't seen the movie from Bil yet. The decider for taking the shot was the experience with the JgPz ... how hard it is to hide the gun. If he's going to spot the gun, there's not point in _not_ taking the shot...
The turn has arrived, but I have to go do family stuff, so more later...
GaJ
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Yes. "Have LOS" does not mean "spotted/can see".
GaJ
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Yeah, well, a saner commander might resist the temptation, but really the JgPz experience was telling: even if it's a long shot, if you don't take it, then he's gunna get you anyhow!
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... and of course, I will be taking the shot
I mean, how often do you get to shoot at an Elefant, even if it's just a glancing blow to it's rear?
Maybe, just maybe, it won't spot me as I fire. There's a chance.
Maybe I'll even do some damage.
Maybe Bil's artillery can't quickly reach that far back on the Hill 172 ridge, so my ATG can live a little longer ... at the very least, he has to spend time doing that.
I'm glad to have your support for this decision
It will be interesting to see what happens in any case.
However, note that this is at 1400m through two trees, so when it all goes pear shaped I guess no-one will be surprised, and I will be left to curse the rotten fates, handing me such a tantalising long shot
GaJ
(the Elefant is stopped, it's busy firing down on the right ridge)
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... there's another tree in the way!
And, the Elefant is at the perfect "bad" angle.
I know for a fact (having tried it) that the 76mm can punch a hole in the side of the Elefant, but not the front. It can also damage the optics and even the gun relatively frequently.
But with the side at an angle like that, the shell will likely ricochet if it hits, and the front is at a low presentation.
As the Sea Witch says ... "life's full of tough choices"!
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That's not the only headache I've been served up this turn. Have a look at this:
Um... thanks Charles! A blue line that goes right through a tree.
This is strikingly similar to the JgPz firing decision. If I fire, it will hit the tree and give myself away. If it don't fire, the Elefant presumably will spot me like the JgPz did, and I'm given away anyhow.
Plus... moving past the tree that's in the way...
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(A brief moment on this point, kinda in defence of my defence plan. Before the game I did some tests, running tanks up this approach route, and my ATG got 4 or 5 shots off before being spotted by them, despite there being 4-5 tanks that were opened up until they came under fire. So I had some reason to think that the ATG was hard to spot ... wrong as that turns out to be!)
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However, he won't be flumoxed for long
. This turn delivered it's own "WTF?!" ...
Bil's right wing KW man has moved all the way from his car in the woods up to the west ridge without being spotted, despite all those eyes on that completely open space!
This is a drama for me, because from where that sound contact is, he can see right up the gob of the mid-field keyholes:
... and as we know, ATGs, bunkers and presumably tanks are easy to spot!
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One impression that I have right now is that Bil is a little bit flumoxed through lack of intel - his attack has stalled for a moment. As I mentioned, his HT's just stopped. And, he's spent time and resources chasing my Sniper on Right Tit. The Brumbar turned side on to the main battle to continue firing shells in the general area of the sniper. And an HT came down from behind the Tit and opened fire:
I presume this guy is a goner next turn. Bil must be very concerned to free up his KW scout.
Over behind left Tit the HT's mowed down the sniper then continued to wizz off in the direction of the west ridge. It looks like he's splitting his forces looking for a good option to pursue.
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I am a military man, and find nothing “gamey” about using the flanks as it simulates flanking.
I completely agree. If nothing else, it simulates in an abstract way the friendly support from neighboring units not represented in the battle.
I was just stirring up Bil, who will surely eventually read this thread. It's a funny kind of conversation that we have: each participant in the conversation has to say their whole part of it before hearing the other guy's part
GaJ
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Seeing these Ht's moving down that ridge road, I am just wondering what makes Bil doing such a risky move. I don't know what he might be seeing for attempting it.
Well, I'd say he's trying to clear the way for tanks coming up the middle.
We've just learned that ATGs are easy to spot, and it's almost a given for him that I have ATGs watching over this approach. Which I do (one). Until I get rid of the HTs, he's sitting there with eyes on my midfield, and probably it's the ATG that will get spotted first.
Fortunately, it seems that the HT has not come far enough forwards to spot the ATG ... at least, my ATG can't see his HT.
The strange thing is that the HT's stopped this turn. As if to say "here I am, come and get me". As far as I know, the only thing that they can see from where they are is a mortar on Hill 153 - which got wacked by the barrage on the east ridge
That barrage intensified this turn, but fortunately did not come far enough up the ridge to catch the ATG or M10 in that vicinity. 
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Please don't feed the troll, at least not in this thread.
GaJ
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Simultaneously with his HT push, Bil has turned the harassing fire on the back ridge into a full linear barrage. I think that the harrass may have been mostly "keeping the barrage back by dropping spotting rounds with an out of LOS spotter" to control the timing of the barrage arrival, rather than deliberate harrassment for the sake of harrasment.
All very cunning, except that my response to an HT push is not on that ridge.
However, it is forcing me to dance around with the M10 that's back there... please please let me not bump into a stray shell!
GaJ
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Over on Left Tit, 2 HTs came barrelling around heading for the left flank all of a sudden!
This caught my sneaky sniper over there quite by surprise, and the dummy decided to fire on them instead of hide.
So I imagine that's the end of him.
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Another turn... Bil is rushing forwards with HTs. 2 HTs are pushing into the centre, up the main road:
The main response that I have to this is the AAHT. The rest of the whole midfield is on hide (except an MMG). Ideally, 2 HTs will come tearing into the middle and both go up in flames without seeing anything other than maybe 4 big barrels pointing at them. I can hope...
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Hey, I thought of something else to report.
Bil opened fire on my right flank harassers (MMG, Mortar), but those guys escaped unharmed, yay. The Elefant fired a big shell, it fell well short. MG fire rained around my MMG as they packed up - I still didn't get a sighting on any troops up on Left Tit, so it may be that this was all from the Elefant.
This is a good opportunity for me to go hunting the other KW guy...
GaJ
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This is your best pic yet!
Thanks! It's fun making them, but even more fun to know they're being appreciated
The "zoom" tool is excellent for getting good looking views - and as we've just discovered has a good
in-game use too. I can't say I've really used it that much at all before these AARs...
GaJ
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In other news, an HT has come pushing forwards from the Tits, looks like we are indeed moving into the next phase recon. (wait a minute, isn't that a bit gamey, using HTs as something other than backfield busses?
)My defence is reverse slope to The Spur for the most part, so it will get to proceed further unmolested for a while.
About 1 shell per minute continues to fall in the backline behind Hill 172. They are working their way north to south, getting closer to the Hill 153 VL. There's a HMG in their path, hiding in a foxhole. If Bill got really lucky one of these shells might land on them, at the rate they are going. It's a bit like dodging a tornado though - not very appealling. The HMG is just staying put, heads down.
The sniper fired on poor ole KW guy. I didn't see a red cross, he curled up and disappeared...
I guess a miss might be explained by the snipers being tired and hurt eh?
Gotta say those olive trees look gorgeous.
Also, did you notice the uniforms on the snipers, last turn screenie? Fantastic detail: boot sole patterns, textured belt ... awesome.
GaJ
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Heh heh - I don't think Bil has a gamey bone in his body, he's a Military Man. Heck, he comes up the centre every battle, spurning the obvious gamey benefits of the flanks
Well, as I said, the Bunker Is Spotted incident caused a lot more LOSing around the map. This uncovered the fact that an MMG posted in a nearby building, supposed to be covering the Left Approach Valley is also exposed to Hill 130:
looks OK, unless you know what you're looking for. In fact:
Oh man! Those guys are quietly out of there, I can tell you
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... or is it?
Getting out the binoculars, and peering at max zoom, lo and behold:
There are 3 little holes in the treeline that expose an LOS from Hill 130, and by some miracle the JgPz has parked right in the middle one, giving it a view of the bunker!
(you can see the dust from the shot it fired, the bunker can't see the tank itself)
So I got out the LOS tool, and went over Hill 130 with a fine tooth comb. Here is what I found:
... there are 4 long very thin areas from Hill 130 to the bunker, and the JgPz is right at the head of one of them. The Brummbar is not, and it didn't fire this turn. Everywhere not marked blue on Hill 130 in the above picture is out of LOS. Man! It's not like I didn't LOS Hill 130 from the bunker when I sited it - but I didn't go over every inch of it, obviously. Moral of that story: use the binos from every site for LOS checking, and be verrry careful about gaps in trees!
Even though Bil can see the bunker, he didn't have to fire on it. It's interesting that he clearly thinks he can take it out from there. This bunker, as described much earlier, is supposed to be a backstop defence, preventing troops from coming up the middle through the lower houses of SMI to the VL. As such, it's firing slit faces very obliquely to Hill 130. (And darn, could have faced even further around). Here's the shot that the JgPz has:
That is one heck of a long shot to put a shell into the slit.
So Bil must be thinking to actually blow the thing up. Personally, I've never experimented with that way of dealing with bunkers. If anyone has any concrete(*) experience to share, that'd be wonderful. Or maybe I just wait and see. It's not like I can do anything about it, heh. Certainly the shell that hit just pinged off and the occupants didn't batt an eyelid. Here's hoping that continues, though it might be worse if/when the Brummbar starts putting 88s onto it.
And, ooh, look what a JgPz shell looks like in flight from a barrel's eye view
*: Hah hah very droll
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Wow.
This turn delivered a massive "Holy crap, WTF??" and retaking stock of things. Bil opened fire with his JgPz on the Santa Maria Infante area!
At first I just couldn't believe my eyes. He is shelling an HQ unit hidden in a building, never moved, who don't have him spotted, at 1500+m range.
How could he have possibly known they were there? Is he just shelling all the buildings? That would be an unbelievable expenditure of rounds...
Then, after a subsequent shell (second? third?) hit the bunker that you can see in the middle of the above shot, I realised that he must be firing at that.
This led to a lot of zooming around and LOSing, I can tell you. That bunker was supposed to be below the ridgeline of The Spur from Hill 130.
Here's what it looks like from in the bunker. Peering through the concrete, you can see that Hill 130 is "completely" obscured by The Spur and the trees on top of it...
. This turn delivered it's own "WTF?!" ...
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ALLIED : Gustav Line BETA AAR Round Two - Eye of the Elefant
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
Interestingly, no similar fate befell the ATG on that side, so maybe it has actually remained unspotted.
Bil paused his assault on my bunker this turn - the JgPz did a little postion adjustment instead, so the guys in there got back to their game of poker.
He also stopped firing on the sniper that's on Right Tit. That was interesting: it seems both the Brummbar and the HT had been guessing where to fire. In the case of the HT, it guessed really well - I thought I was under direct attack. So those guys lived for another minute, and as a result have spotted left-hand-KW guy again...
He has sensibly followed my advice, and moved off the path into the grass, but it hasn't helped him. I'll take another pot shot at him this turn.
That guy is in trouble whichever way you look at it anyhow: artillery has started falling onto the Spur that the KW dude has the job of scouting...