GreenAsJade

It depends. In this instance they are open. However, I forgot the golden rule: never get cheerful while playing CM. In the last movie, Bil has come out of the woodwork everywhere. It's as if he's decided "carumba, Gaj has no tanks, just Arty, I can beat him by keeping on the move". Screenies and more later... GaJ

Because of the flat shape of the hill, the inf would spot the upcoming PzIVHs well before they have LOS on the Sherm. It would take better timing than I possess to time it so that it would all happen in one turn ... as soon as the inf spot the tanks, the Shermie would be pulled back the next turn. I too wondered whether I should hunt up to spot the Shermie from the planned location. I didn't because time is of the essence. Based on the pattern so far, Bil only leaves that thing in one place for 3-4 turns. So he's going to be thinking about moving it away next turn. I have become deeply suspicious of covered arcs in general, except for very early in the game when critical threats are far away and not-giving-yourself-away is important. Covered arcs are far too powerful: units do not reply to life threatening fire from outside the arc. If, for example, a Stuart or a Piat pop up over P511 direction, the PzIVs need the freedom to respond to those. Back in the good old days, units with covered arcs would still respond to critical threats outside the arc, which made covered arcs much more useful. GaJ

Christoff and Braun should be cresting the ridge that leads down to the ruins plateau and over towards his Shermie next turn... GaJ

On the left hand side, Bil's Stuart has decided it needs to go see what I'm up to behind MonteP. What I'm up to is sending a Shrek to greet it: In the centre plateau there has been some strange comings and goings. First, some guys departed the ruins: Then some other guys headed up there (with a Piat): I tweaked the artillery planned for this area slightly ... I wasn't sure if he was going right up to the ruins or not. On the right, those bastards with the scary gun are still alive and doing damage I'm talking another shot at them with the mortar, while I wait for the smoke on P523.

So instead, I'm going to have Christoff and Braun go up to the MonteP Plateau and see if they can drive him away from there: 6Co1Plt will support, helping with spotting and warding off nasty bazookas if they pop up: Finally, on the right, it seems like the time has come to resume the push up the flank. Smoke is 4 mins away, and a scout group has been chosen to go see where that nasty MG we spotted before got to I _could_ just stay put and hope to attrit Bil as he bumps into me in various places. I may be marginally better placed than him for this sort of engagement, now that he's started to get drawn onto the various TRPs. But the idea of a more decisive battle is a bit more appealing ... even though it has the risk of a decisive defeat GaJ

However, those are small things. The more significant thing this turn is action in the mid left and centre. First of all, he's moved his Shermie that was defending P532 valley back higher up that side of P523. This appears to be a compromise position: it doesn't really defend against my right flank push... he's given up that view in order to be able to see down the middle and further across P509. I guess he's making sure he doesn't leave this guy in one position for too long, lest I take a careful shot at it. At the same time, he has moved men, and by the sound of it one of his Shermies, up towards the MonteP saddle: My spotting HQ over on MonteG ridge opened fire on them, from what appears to be a nice reverse slope position. Unfortunately this stopped them in their tracks, so I'm not sure what their plan was, but it seems as if they were likely going to try to stop me continuing my press up the left. The heartening thing about all this is that it seems like perhaps Bil is being reactive rather than aggressive, and if he has so many men and a tank in the central valley, then the it means he does not have a "full force defence" waiting behind P523. One thing I need to start planning is how to get rid of the previously pictured Shermie. It is a nuisance having it controlling the MonteP plateau. One option is to put the PzIVHs on P509. There is a nice view of the Sherm from there... However this is unlikely to succeed, because the whole of this side of P509 is exposed to Bil's men in the main valley:

This turn I've cheered up a fair bit. Over on the left he's pulled his Stuart over towards the centre. I guess the thinking is to move it from where it was spotted shooting at my mortar last turn, and to see if I'll walk again into it's repositioned line of fire. This means that he doesn't know I have eyes on the far left that can see this. Over on the right, his scout-with-scary-weapon open fire on my guys who for some reason decided to move around in their action spot: ... but they might have wished that they'd pulled back a little instead: Once again I'm left just hoping the required damage was done: I didn't see any red crosses. But the "bang" looked like it was in the correct place.....

It's funny - sometimes you can incurr great losses and it's not a morale blow, it's just part of the battle. Other times, the death of 5 men unexpectedly can take the wind out of your sails. Anyhow, onwards GaJ

OK, I picked myself up, it wasn't such a terrible blow really, just a bunch of nasty suprises all at once. I noted an HMG coming over the ridge at the right flank of P523. I think this is an indicator he really is doing more than just scouting. So I've pointed some arty into that area, and it looks like there will be a fight GaJ

Totally agree. I've also asked for a map preview with the units on it, in the purchase phase. Then even if there isn't the info on the purchase screen, we could see what we'd be getting...

(split due to too many inline images) I got some insight now into what the smoke in the saddle might have been about. Perhaps Bil was trying to stop me from seeing his own thrust up this flank: what I've been interpretting as defense may actually be attack. Interestingly, there was never really a prospect of overwatch by me from the saddle: that position is too exposed on the side from P523 top. Those guys you can see there do not have LOS down the valley. Over on the left, I screwed up with a sloppy move order of the organic mortar of 6Co2Plt, and they paid the price, coming into view of the Stuart: and Christoff and Braun are taking their sweet time in the steep rough ground behind P509. The one thing I might have celebrated is Bil's removal of another Shermie from P523 valley overwatch: ... I might have thought "woo hoo, he's coming over to the left to defend my feint there". However, now I have to think "Argh, by right flank is under serious attack, maybe his pushing back the way I had meant to go, with armoured support". All in all, a worst case outcome for this turn from what was a quietly hopeful turn last time. I'm gonna have to lick my wounds for a while before sending the next turn - this is a definite morale blow. GaJ

Oh groan. What a disappointing turn, with death all over the place due to silly little mistakes,and surprises Over on the right flank, Bil pushed a scout up towards my waiting men. I don't know what weapon they are carrying, but it was lethal: one burst of fire from it killed 2 men in one sqaud, one in another, and one in yet another. My wretched HMG guards weren't deployed All in all a balls up.

Another Stuart! It looks like Bil is a fan of tanks. And so he has two Stuarts watching over the left hand side. He has also, it seems, taken "Shermie #3" from up on P523 and it's now moving down the middle of the central valley. I have no idea whether he knows, or not, where Christoff and Braun are. I have been assuming he has sound contacts, at least, on them. I can't really tell though. It's almost starting to look like the defense of the back of P523 is weakening - forces are being diverted to the middle. And 2 Stuarts are a tempting looking target for 2 PzIVHs. Be still, my heart ..., be patient! GaJ

I ran another unit across the top of MonteP to draw the fire of the MG on P511, just to make sure that I can see if this sucker got hit by the artillery coming this turn: It cost about 10 shells to hit him, please please tell me he's dead now: Overall, nothing much else happened. This turn with that MG theoretically out the way, 6Co1Pltn is running across behind MonteP. Hopefully soon the tanks will be there to support a push up the left instead of the right, to see how committed Bil is to defending the right. GaJ

Hey, my infantry aren't naked. They are Darth Vaders, bristling with Panzer Shreks!

OK. Um. What turn do you think that it is now? Maybe I should label with the time clock. GaJ

Not much to report this turn. I sacrificed the second man of the scout squad of 6Co on top of MonteP to confirm that the HMG over on P511 is still there - it is. Next turn the TRP'ed artillery is due to arrive on that guy's head. The feared inf-attack on P502 saddle through the smoke did not eventuate, and the backup has arrived there, so this feels OK. The Sherm continued shelling P502, and for some stupid reason the Radio Op of 8Co HQ decided this was a good moment to pop up and call home. Fatal. The first spotting round of the on-map arty called for the HMG on P532 barely landed on the map. I hope the second does better, this turn.... GaJ

Heh - we seem to be in agreement, what you have described is the action that's in progress right now I have to say it's darn nice to have someone agreeing with what I'm doing, because right now I seem to have problems wherever I look. One problem is that I've just fallen for the trap I was afraid of over on P509, but on P502. Ooops: My HQ that was creeping up to try to spot out to the head of P523 valley has obviously been spotted from over somewhere on the right (I'm fairly sure that the actual head of P523 is out of LOS ... my guys certainly can't yet see down there). As a result, the tank at P532 head has started shelling the area: Once again I have a silver lining though. That tank fired 4 or 5 shells this turn, all but one of them flying over head, and the last one landing as you can see. It pinned my guys, but didn't hurt them. I'm really quite tempted to leave those pinned guys there and see if Bil will keep expending his precious HE not-hurting them. It's interesting to see the little pile of smoke that's appeared in the P502 saddle. I'm not sure whether this is an attempt to block spotting towards P511, or whether it's heralding a push from him up that slope to try to break into my stronghold behind MonteG. It will be a bummer if a platoon of Inf suddenly appears there and wipes out my shrek who's up there. I'm not sure really what I was thinking putting that guy there, other than he was close by a couple of turns ago, and I wanted a look over there. Some backup is on it's way. Meanwhile, my overwatch of the central valley is precariously exposed: As you can see, a nasty Shermie on P523 could pop up at any time and they would be in bad shape. So I have to make some adjustments there. I've also started to get worried about my planned barrage on the MG at the head of P523. I can't see that MG anymore. Maybe it's because it's stopped firing, or maybe it's because it's moved away. Plus ... the LOS to there is really marginal. I'm not sure if I'll see the spotting rounds, and unfortunatly that position was just out of the radius of the TRP. Problems problems problems.... GaJ

You guys just want to see booms and bangs and stuff You'll just have to be patient. The artillery is about 3 mins away. What I think he has: - 1500 pts of units chosen form an Airborne Battalion (because that was the deal) IE basically infantry. I can see two HMGs, the same as I have - we agreed I should have brought more, so he probably has brought more. Some organic mortars as well, I presume. - 1 Stuart, 3 Sherms (I've seen them) Other than that, I don't know. So far, I'm too lazy to go look what the points balance is after 1500 of inf and 4 tanks. It can't be a whole lot... GaJ

Well well. _Another_ Shermie has showed up on P532. At first, this seemed like "Oh crap". But the silver lining on this cloud is that he must have quite limited supplied of artillery, if he's invested this much in tanks. I was getting pretty nervous about my whole force being stalled bunched up on the right just waiting to be bombed. Maybe that's a little less of a risk ...not that I can count on that. So... it's definitely time for a Plan B. There's no way I can go rushing around there with 3 Shermies up on the ridge. Sherks might have dealt with one or maaaybe 2, but not 3. Also, Bil is now started to try to find out really where I am ... he has scouts coming down the central valley, with the clear mission of looking around behind MonteG to see if I'm there. He's also apparently got them coming from P532 direct towards my right flank ridge: they seem to be shooting at me, though I can't see them. So I need to do a couple of things: - Set up to defend behind MonteG. This means spreading out (to not get bombed hopefully) and to be ready to counter probes from any direction. - Increase my press up the left side. He looks really invested in P532, so maybe I can make some gains over on the left. In fact, I was actually anticipating this a few turns ago, and already have Christoff and Braun heading over that way: Basically, it seems like the back of MonteG will be defended by infantry, so rather than needing the tanks to support a press, they can go hunting. Maybe they will find that Stuart, or maybe they will help 6Co start making a real nuisance of itself up the left hand side. In a dream scenario, this will distract him from the P532 defence enough for the right hand strike to be resumed.... GaJ

I think you're right Steiner: with care, there's the potential to use P509 in the way that you're describing. It's the "with care" bit that had me bothered at the outset. Maybe I'm under-utilising that asset. At the bottom line was my decision that I wasn't going to go for a "hold some terrain" game, but rather a "go find him,hopefully achieve an advantageous position to strike, and strike". This made me group all my forces pretty much together for that strike. I could have thought "but, I will set up my base of armoured fire from P509". This didn't seem like the right thing, because chances are the place that I need to make my strike from will be out of sight from P509, so the tanks end up not actually being able to support. The way things have worked out, it turns out that P509 would have been great for hitting his exposed tank at the head of the P523 valley. In retrospect, given my right flank plans, I could have expeted him to set up blockers exactly there. I hadn't really expected a tank with it's side exposed though (hence the artillery cover of that location, but not AP). He must be pretty confident I do _not_ have tanks hiding behind P509, though I'm not sure yet how he _could_ be sure about that. GaJ

In my experience, soldiers see shells when they are in sight. I do watch enemy shells and try to figure where they came from. You would have to be pretty dedicated to try to pinpoint the location of the enemy mortar well enough to fire back at it if you can't actually see it's location already. GaJ

He's now started shooting at my P509 area scouts with machine guns. In addition, he's setting up a real welcoming party for my right flank press: I wonder if he will sit there long enough.... GaJ

Mate... I'm no veteran, I'm green as jade!. All advice, observations, lessons very welcome GaJ

It struck me that unlike fortress-P523, any force "camped" on P509 would be too exposed from a wide range of angles. A hull-down view on P523 is exposed to forces peeking up from the valley behind MonteP. Indeed, my scouts creeping along each side of that hill are feeling very nervous about it. The screenies on the previous page show what I know about where the tanks are - the last thing that I saw was the right most Shermie is parked there watching my high up scout on the right. The middle Shermie pulled back. The left Stuart was, as far as I know, sitting there, though he may too have pulled back. Right now I'm pondering what steps to take to break the standoff that is developing... at a low level, left hand scouts might achieve this, but also maybe I should take a new stance. I have a little time to think about this, it seems, since it's Bil's turn at the moment. GaJ