GreenAsJade

I think that ATGs come into play in scenarios, not QBs, where the TO&E is configured by the scenario designer to be more realistic & representative of what was available. Also, they have their role in defence, not in mobile engagements such as this one. Thus, it's not "unrealistic portrayal of AT guns" that means you don't see them in QB's, its the fact that in QBs the players have more choices, and they are often MEs. I think. GaJ

Now you know the secret of how the Axis thread view count got ahead of the Allied one: tank wall crossing is a hot topic! GaJ

Alas ... what a wonderful cunning plan, but: Elefants were not available to me as a selection for this battle (I'm not grog enough to know whether this is due to the date, or the Luftwaffe not having them at all, or just actually they weren't ready in the version of CMFI-GL that we were playing with!). GaJ

Yes, no Panthers, Tigers or Fireflies. GaJ

I agree that I could have won with the forces that I had but different play. Or at the very least, I could have provided much more of a fight. I do not agree that my plan was a "shot in the dark" nor that "I had the impossible task of shifting forces". This isn't where the problem was. The problem was that I had a good plan and I did not stick to it. For some reason, I had a brain fart and decided to move my tanks away from my main force and up onto the horrendous plateau, despite having previously assessed that as "the place to stay away from" - an assessment that was proved correct by events. There was absolutely no good reason for this decision - it was a crazy impulse. My tanks were supposed to be supporting the right flank thrust, keeping his Shermies away from getting direct lines of fire onto my troops (stopping them coming over the crest as one ultimately did do), while I piled indirect fire onto his troops. (*) In such a role, my exposure to his greater number of tanks would possibly have been manageable - he would have had the frustration of trying to bring his tanks to bear on mine, while mine were not forced to comply. In the nooks and crannies behind MonteG 2 tanks would have been defendable, with it being very hard for him to get numerical superiority of armour and with the accompanying inf keeping hordes of PIATs at bay. I think that this in a nutshell is what turned a very interesting encounter (two different force selections) into a wipeout. As soon as I turned the game into an armour duel, I lost it. The rest of my tactical mistakes were significant but secondary. I have to say I am still stunned by the lack of spotting that I got from the back right corner. It's been observed that I had little intel. Actually I had two units up the back there with binoculars looking over 2/3rds of the map. The fact that Bill was able to walk his force up through the ruins and onto MonteP without being seen is a complete surprise to me, and another significant (but also secondary) factor in what went wrong. Anyhow, this is just my opinion. Having had my play assessed thusly: ... I guess that my opinion might not be counting for much. But at least now you know what it is. It's clear that AARs are a lot of fun and create a lot of interest. I think that the next one should be between slysniper and emrys. I am not joking: I think it would be extremely interesting for all to see them put their money where their mouth is, and I could do with the education on purchase selection, battle plan, use of units and general skill that this would surely provide. GaJ *: My two tanks were _not there_ for providing direct fire onto his troops. This is why I was not making a press with 2 tanks into the Central Valley - Wodin asked about that. I wasn't supposed to be trying to kill his guys in that valley, I was supposed to be killing them when they came up to the high land and into view.

Well, it was a fun game, for the most part, but I'm certainly beaten now, so I've hit surrender. I contemplated trying to see how long I could keep the force on the right alive, but I concluded there's not a lot of point: I'm clearly outnumbered and outclassed, so I'm calling it for what it is. Very well done by Bil. It was clearly a mistake on my part to choose artillery over tanks in a meeting engagement - probably the mistake that doomed me. It was also a mistake to not stick to my plan - if I had the PzIVHs in support of my right flank, I might have been able to keep the tanks on P523 at bay and get close enough with Shreks & Fausts. I also obviously have a lot to learn in plain old low level tactics. So overall, obviously Bil is the better player - let's leave it at that for this one! Hope you all enjoyed our AAR. GaJ

Well, I've been driven back off the plateau, which really means that I'm a gonner. Something that took me rather by suprise is the army that Bil has been able to bring up over MonteP without me spotting them. I thought I had this whole area covered with binos from the back corner: However, he was able to bring a bunch of PIAT wielding dudes up over there without me being aware that they were coming and thus without me doing anything about it. With both PzIVHs gone from the plateau, his Shermie on P523 is free to keep coming over the top and thus he completely dominates the valley there. It seems like all that's left is for him to mop me up! On the left hand side it's definitely all over, unless by some miracle my PzIHV plugs his Stuart that has moved up the valley. On the right hand side, I might be able to put up a bit more of a defense in terms of "see how long I can stay alive" but with 4 tanks unchecked, there's not much I can do about anything! GaJ

I think he probably pulls it off with superior knowledge, planning and manoeuvring Lots of nasty Piats came out of the woodwork that turn - he obviously has the area covered. I am in dire straights over on the P523 valley. With that Sherman still on the MonteP plateau, I can't put Christoff in place to force the P523 Sherm backwards, so it's probably going to keep moving forwards largely unopposed and chew up my men in the valley.

I wonder whether things would have turned out better if I had left Braun sitting still instead of reversing him back (note, that picture is with Braun deselected - he does not have the Sherm spotted, I deselected him so you can see the icon showing you where the Sherm is.) Note the other Shermie coming into view over on P523. Darn!

I guess he's too cunning to get caught by me at longer range...

I'm sold on Stens. Gotta get me some trucks full of them... (Judging by the number of bullets that seemed to get fired, great marksmanship wouldn't have been needed, sheer weight of numbers seems to do the trick!) GaJ

I have one last thing to share with y'all this turn. Bil's infantry units are driving me nuts with their firepower. It's hard to capture this properly with a screenshot, but perhaps you can get the sense of the hail of bullets that these guys are putting out. That one spread you can see took down 3 out of the 4 HQ guys that were rushing across in the distance. That'll teach me to go rushing around the place... It's these nasty looking weapons: They seem to be everywhere: here's another unit over in the valley of P523 with one: Nasty nasty things, whatever they are! GaJ

A couple of other notable things happened this turn. One is that two 81mm mortars chose to fire HE at Sherms, unbidden. At the back, that mortar spotted the P509 rushing Sherm and has launched a shell: Given it's previous accuracy at 1000m, I'm not sure why these guys think that they can get anywhere near a _moving_ Sherm at 500m. Also, one of the mortars that was supposed to be smoking the P523 Sherm also fired HE instead. He was rattled - I wonder if that is the reason? As it turns out, the other two smoke firers did a good job, so it was nice that some smoke shells were saved Unfortunately, smoke is a fickle friend - the P523 tank still has eyes on one of my mortars: I couldn't decide whether to order that guy to keep firing more smoke, or try to bug out. If you could re-man mortars, I think I'd have bailed and run, to come back later if possible. However, given a 20s packup, during which time the unit will get killed if the tank has spotted it and decides to fire, I decided to try to stick it out and try to use that time to shoot another smoke shell.

Assuming that the Shermie does keep coming, Christoff is going to try to get a more side on shot, if that happens, as you can see in the previous shot - hunting forwards to the left with an armoured covered arc on the plateau. Meanwhile, Braun already has LOS to the smoke on P523, but he needs to reverse a little to spot the position that I would move the Sherm to if I were trying to push it forwards out of the smoke: Also, Braun of course will need to fire at the closer Sherm if/when it comes over the crest. This picture shows the risk that the Shrek is under from P509 (and hence why the mortar is firing). It also raises the question "why doesn't the Shrek pop up over MonteP to the left a bit, and get a side shot on the Sherm at this range (150m)?" The answer is that there's still a pesky unit just on the other side of MonteP:

Well, it's all gotten very busy. A nice thing is that the smoke screen on his P523 Sherm went up quickly and well. I think you can see a nice group of shells in the above screenshot. But I missed out the arrows! And circles! And Text! Here they are: A bad thing that happened is that the P523 Sherm came further forwards before stopping and being smoked, which gave him LOS to my precious Shrek who was sneaking down into the valley. That guy is no more Over on the left you can see that I found the Stuart that went missing some time back - it's lurking in the valley on the far left. That valley is full of guys with Fausts and satchels, so I'm not too worried right now about that tank. The other Stuart sounds like it's on its way up the central valley to come and support Bil's defense of P523. That's gonna have me wishing the PzIVs were over there, I'm sure. Speaking of Christoff and Braun, one unexpected thing is that Bil's P509 Shermie has come rushing around P509 towards where they are manouvering. This makes that whole plateau area pretty intense: I really don't know what to expect in the next turn. Can Bil see the PzIVH's or not? Can he see both of them? If he can, why is he rushing into a 2:1 confrontation? Is that really what he's doing, or something else? One possibilty is that he has sound contacts showing the PzIVHs going down the valley on the left, so he's hoping to catch them from behind. And of course, he may have seen things in this movie that completely change his plan. Nonetheless, I have to assume that the Shermie is going to keep coming, looking for a fight. What I had actually been doing is getting Christoff & Braun ready to take pot shots at the P523 tank if it decides to leap forwards out of the smoke. I want to continue with this option, so I'm going to try to have Christoff & Braun ready for both. In the above screenie you can see that there's a lot of rushing around trying to be ready to button the Sherm, and maybe take pot shots at it with Shrek & Faust. Plus a mortar covering action firing on P509, where I spotted some infantry heading again this turn.

Hmmm, and there was me thinking "try to show them what you mean". I take it all back... no arrows next time! GaJ

My back-corner mortar took too long to find it's range on Bil's HMG, which managed to bug out before any rounds got into the vicinity: I see that Bil has a truck coming to pick it up - I wonder if it is to be ferried over to P523? I also wonder whether my HQ on the far left can pick off the truck driver at 500m? Over on the right, the Sherm was repositioned to the top of P523 looking down on the right flank battle zone. As you can imagine, this caused a massive scramble for smoke, and HQs exposed in the saddle to rush down where the tank can't see them: Bil is obviously not going to let this flank go easily - maybe he had his own plans to press through here, because he's sent another unit across scouting the valley. My guys who came through the saddle are positioning to try to stop this sort of stuff. Meanwhile, on P509, I have a team with some fausts trying to get close enough to that Sherm. It's a dicey mission, because they are exposed from my left... It's the sort of long shot that is usually doomed to failure, yet I feel like I need to try!! GaJ PS - by accident, I posted a picture in png instead of jpg. Though bigger, it seems to be noticeably better, so I've started doing it all the time. Good or bad?

I think it was Vanir who was a bit concerned about the exposed sides of my tanks. I thought it worth a few shots just to show that I didn't leave them completely at Bil's mercy, though there was a brief moment where disaster could have struck: At the beginning of the manouver you can see that Bruan had Christoff covered: The way it worked out, there was a brief moment before Christoff rotated to reverse, where they were both side on to P509 and that nasty Sherm on the other side: but it was only brief: As it turns out, the Sherm decided to stay where it was - presumably hoping for more tasty treats over in MonteG valley. Thankfully, my inf in the valley managed to wriggle down out of sight.

About 450m GaJ

On the topic of my guys herding ... it was one of those unfortunate "I thought I was behind safe lines" things. Thinking that this valley was out of view, I was operating sloppily ... "whoa, quick, 2Plt got around the back there". You always pay the price for sloppiness in war, I guess:( But who maintains complete discipline behind lines... when you think you're safe, you move fast.... GaJ

Or unless they miss. Or unless the other guy sees them first. Etc

If he comes popping over the top of 509, they're side on, it's true. Is he really going to go 1 sherm against 2 PzIVH? That'd be bold!

On the left, Christoff and Braun are working their way forwards, looking out for tanks on the far horizon, and also ready if that Shermie pops over P509... and 6Co2Plt continues to slowly work it's way down the valley (really waiting until the cross-map arty lands on the HMG before trying to go around the corner). GaJ

Over on my right, Bill pulled that tank back around P532: and appears to be moving his men right into the back corner as defense: So it seems like at last it might really be time for a push. I actually would have preferred to have Christoff and Braun much farther up the left side before making the push up the right, but I feel that I do need to move, while the Sherm appears to be going someplace else. Therefore, I've asked for some artillery into the back corner: and am pushing the guys who made it to the saddle ( ) over into the valley: