GreenAsJade

It's an inevitable fact of CM that good fortune doesn't last long. This turn I have the agony of watching 5Co2Plt get cut to pieces due to me not realising that the Sherm on P509 can see way down behind MonteG ... I did have a very lucky friendly fire escape though. Watch this mortar round:

Maybe I'll throw a bunch of artillery around for historicality's sake ... a bit later GaJ

As with anything, it was a lot luck of luck I wouldn't claim differently But to a certainly extent you make your luck eh? GaJ

Ooo - that's harsh! It's a bit hard to reconcile this with your advice to send one of my tanks hunting his Sherm at close range I think I'll stick with trying to keep my PzIVHs at a distance, and where optics may be favouring them, and the fast Shermie turret is less of an advantage for him, and where they can more reliably work as a pair. Note that the short duel with the P511 Shermie was not in fact 1-1, Braun also had LOS to that spot a few seconds after Christoff achieved it. (Both were also positioned to be able to spot the place where the Shermie had been parked looking down P532 Valley, further to the right in this picture... basically this spot behind the MonteP plateau is a pretty reasonable answer to his commanding viewpoints from P511 and P523): As I said, it was certainly wonderful luck that the first shot hit, and I am very thankful. But describing the outcome as "pure luck" ... that does seem a tad harsh! GaJ

As you've perhaps noticed, I've counted out every artillery shell that I've fired That's because I feel that every one has to count: each time I do an artillery mission, it's the equivalent of firing HE from a tank that I didn't buy. "Harass", especially on suspected but not spotted contacts, would be like tank area fire. But worse, because artillery fire is less well directed than tank fire. It feels like it would be easy to chug through a bunch of ammo without acheiving much if I'm not careful. With still an hour of play to go, I feel like I need to look after my supply of shells ]. Therefore I want to be sure I have a good chance of hitting something before I start firing, at this stage. GaJ

Yes, but remember how long it takes. That's a 4-5 minute traverse. Also, remember that there is an overall plan here, despite the apparent madness of bringing less tanks than Bil. The plan is to use artillery against the bulk of his infantry, rather than hunt them with my couple of tanks. At least for this turn, I'll wait to see what his next move is before rushing anywhere... BTW, it might be nice to at least concede that my choice of position for my tanks is not turning out as completely useless as you made it out to be It was lucky that my first shot hit, but it wasn't an accident that my tanks have a hull-down view to that location... GaJ

Well, as I said, there's something you don't see every day: the critical shot that you need to hit actually hits! I was actually expecting to open that turn and see first my shot miss, then his tank hit me, then Braun (who was reversing back into position to also see the Sherm) get whacked as well. I see that his other Sherm and Stuart were also rushing up to try to press home an advantage. Now what I desperately need to do is not get over confident and waste the break that I have been given. While all the excitement was happening with tanks, Bil was also trying to get a look over behind MonteP. My far left eyes spotted this and opened fire - only to be themselves fired upon by a new HMG: Fortunately, my guys up the back can juuust see into the valley where the HMG is: so the 6Co guys pushing down around the MonteP valley will pause for a moment while this mortar tries to remove that HMG. I had thought that there was a Stuart coming up that valley, but now I'm not so sure ... since the one that I do know about has pushed up to the middle, I'll pull my Shrek back across, and also try to creep up on it with some fausts: Similarly, my Faust guys on P509 are going to move back around and see if the Shermie there stays long enough for them to get near to it. Over on the right, my guys have come under fire from what appears to be another Rambo unit. I don't even have a sound contact on it ... just tracers and death. Meanwhile, Bill has units almost the whole way over to my side of the map trying to get looks behind MonteG and P509. My rear facing mortars have to look after this: As you can see, I also have 5Co32Plt moving around P502 towards the MonteG saddle - it may be that I need to come from that angle down the vally to get rid of this new Rambo unit without being whacked by the Sherm. Overall, this is a turn of consolidation for me ... I need to see what Bil does after that nasty shock, before I rush anywhere... GaJ

Wow. There's something you don't see every day: Pass my commiserations on to Bil ... that must have stung!

You may well be right. If my tanks survive the exchange with the one on P511, it's not too late to push them back around P509... GaJ

Well, one lesson that I never seem to learn in CM is that if you take a silly chance, you get whacked. In this turn, I paid for bad judgement big time on the right. First of all, the HQ did not pop it's smoke. Oh, that's another lesson: never rely on smoke. As a result, my precious HMG got taken out by the Sherm that came into view last turn. Well, duh, GaJ, what exactly were you expecting?? Sigh. And the right flank Shermie was not witdrawing, it was just repositioning slightly so as not to be exposed to my guys in MonteG saddle. As a result, 5Co1Plt took heavy damage as it tried to push forwards. We found Rambo and took care of him at last: but at terrible cost My comment of the previous post is now being proved true: I need Christoff and Braun over here! I also need that TRP to be further over to the right. I'm a bit stuck again now. Meanwhile, on the left, a cliffhanger emerged. In the last 10 seconds of backing up away from P509, Christoff spotted a Shermie over on P511... Will that shot hit?? Of course, experience tells me "no way, Jose". But I have to hope, I guess If it were to hit & kill, what an awesome lucky break that would be!!!! GaJ

Note that I do not know that he has only a single tank at 523. You may know that, but I do not. Last thing I saw, there was another tank at the other end of 523, and I don't know where it went: it may still be behind 523. I think that this is an "easy in hindsight" analysis. It wasn't until quite recently that it became apparent that (1) he has lots of tanks and (2) he was spreading them around. Once again, _you_ may have known these things, but I did not. I was basing my plans on an expectation that he would be making a tank stronghold at P523. Further, it it not at all easy to "develop my tank force". It is in fact very easy to get them killed, since there are only two of them, and there are vicious lines of sight from all over the map to other places all over the map. In addition, as you've seen, it is quite a slow business getting tanks from one place to another on this map. I'm not at all keen on the idea of "spotting a lone tank of his and trying to get my 2 to take on his 1". I think that this is not practical due to the slow terrain, and way too high risk of my 2 getting surprised from the side. Indeed, I think that a very big mistake I made was going hunting with them earlier on - I should have stuck to my original plan and kept them supporting the main force on the right flank. GaJ

By the way, that Stuart on the right from the HMG point of view, just behind MonteP, presents such a temptation from my Shreks: Unfortunately, I know (or at least am pretty certain) that there is another nasty HMG on the lower slope of P511 just waiting for me to do something incautious like rushing over the top of MonteP with a Shrek to attack the Stuart: Since Bil has the tank superiority, by far, I need to be very cautious to make every Shrek count, so I'm not going to try that one, this time. Instead, that 6CoPltn is pushing down the valley towards Bil's platoon that copped the mortar fire last turn, and the other 6CoPltn is waiting for him to pop his head over P509. I'm now so tired that I actually am going to go to bed _before_ looking at the 1:07 movie from Bil ... just in case it's awful and stops me from sleeping Later.... GaJ

So - what I'm doing this turn is pushing 5Co 1Plt forwards:the guys you can see on the right there are rushing down into the valley, aiming for a hollow that can't be seen from the head of the valley... if they make it, it will be encouraging news about the overwatch or lack of that Bil has up there (which right now I can't see). The HMG, mortar, and other squads are also coming forwards, while one squad continues taking potshots at the scrambling inf: Similarly (but more understandably) Bils PIAT squad over on the MonteP plateau did a hasty reversal this turn. The other units that had already made it to P509 were pinned there under the HMG fire: Unfortunately (for the HMG) Bil now has two tanks that can see it: I can't resist keeping on firing with the HMG anyhow! So, instead of pulling it back, I have the nearby HQ popping smoke into it's path, hopefully allowing a few more bursts of fire then shielding it from the tanks for a pack up and bug out next turn if needed. (more)

It appears that Bil did a massive rethink, suddenly, on my right hand flank. The Sherm that came barraging into the P523 valley reverse back equally rapidly, and I can also see men scurrying back behind P523. I'm honestly not quite sure what's behind this - I don't have insight into what the thinking was in pushing that tank forwards, nor into what I did that made him change his mind. I can think of encouraging explanations, but also discouraging ones. For now, I just have to try not to second guess, and operate on what I can see. Incidentally, it's a bit satisfying to see all Rambo's dead mate theres, though as you can see I don't yet have a positive ID on the dead body of Rambo himself. He may still be cowering ^H^H^H^H^H strategically lying low in that little hollow. (to be continued)

The game isn't even 1/3rd of the way through. Far too early, in my opinion, to be talking about "too late" for anything (other than a good force selection ) ... those impatient for action should have petitioned for a shorter game and differently structured map Obviously Bil and I had to confront this idea when selecting forces. The design of this particular game was such that we could choose whatever we liked (within "1500 pts of airborne inf") ... that results in each of us trying to select the most competitive thing, which is unlikely to be the most exotic thing. I guess this is food for thought for future demo AARs: maybe the forces need to be more controlled by the organiser, since the participants have to choose the best weapons they can Cheers, GaJ

Yes, just to confirm that I played the 1:08 turn, and took screenshots, and sent it t0 Bil to keep things moving, but haven't had a chance to report yet. I have the 1:07 turn from Bil waiting for me to look at it. In the last 48 hours I: - Got up at 6 am - Went to 8 hour meeting near Stuttgart - Drove for 2 hours to Frankfurt airport - Flew for 13 hours to Singapore airport - Flew for 7 hours to Sydney airport - Flew for 2 hours to Adelaide airport - Slept. Hopefully action and reporting should resume from my side tomorrow, my time GaJ

I'm bit torn on the topic of having open posting in these threads. Overall I'm in favour of it. I'm reasonably sure that the threads are being watched by the moderators, and a post would get deleted if it went out of bounds. If we made it all more serious and started protecting the threads etc it might make it all to much of a big deal. It's nice to have the "company" in the thread - some feedback that the story is being enjoyed, some encouragement through the set backs. GaJ

More!? Geez - I thought I was providing a deluge already!!!

Yes, this pretty much matches my thinking, and should match what you're seeing me do already Cheers, GaJ

As you can see, I've completely abandoned the plan of pushing the PzIVs up to the central plateau crest. I've lost track of where Bil's other Shermies are right now, and it just took waaay tooo long for them to get up the valley. Ironically, it seems like I chose the slowest path up the valley: ... this rough bushy stuff seems to slow them to a crawl. On the left, a bunch of inf has appeared pushing up the valley behind MonteP. They are meeting resistance from 6Co2Plt. Bil poked out my eyes on the far left, but not before they spotted another platoon of his coming over the lower part of P511. I must surely be seeing the bulk of his infantry here, which is heartening again (dare I say that) about the prospect of pushing around the right. Speaking of which, I threw a few more mortar shells at Rambo, and am pushing gently forwards there again: while also trying to get Shreks in place for that tank that's heading this way: Overall: GaJ

Whoa, it started happening all over the place this turn! Bil appears to be pushing a lot of infantry into various positions up the left flank, and also pressing from the centre up MonteG. He seems very spread out ... and why not since he must be feeling largely unopposed! Over on the right it seems I wasted 8 81mm smoke shells on a screen to block his rightmost tank ... which came rushing towards me! As you can see, the lookout in the MonteG saddle is going to take a pot shot at the tank, in hopes of closing it up, then get the heck out of there. On the centre left Bil has made a rush with at least 4 squads up the right hand side of P509. I really really hope that this is going to result in him discovering why I have been reluctant to camp on that place. My HMG on the rear of P502 has a lovely view back to this area of action: ... and I can quickly pull my rear mortar up onto the rear slope, and one of the organic mortars on the far right up near the HMG to add HE to the mix. If his guys try to continue on over the top of P509 to get out of view there will be 6Co waiting for him.

Well, if you look in next turn's Axis AAR (when I get it typed ) you wil see that the map is not as friendly as I for one thought. No disasters, but the terrain has caused a "hmmm - Plan B" situation"... GaJ

Bil has declared war: Rambo won't die: Gotta keep trying to get past him: GaJ

I was actually astonished how much of our QB map is passable by tanks. This is very much a designer decision: there are much less forgiving maps. GaJ