A Canadian Cat

I recorded follow up movies so you can see how these move orders played out. It will take me a while to produce them and put them up because I am going to play turns for a few days instead of play with video.

More of the same kind of orders – moving forward looking for the enemy along with some moving in convoy in safe areas. The bridge is still a bottle neck but the bunching up is getting better instead of worse. 5 Company's Recon elements move forward while 1 Battery protects them from the top of the hill. 5 Company itself is going to have to move through this area to get to the tree line so elements of 1 Battery will stay here to keep the enemy tanks from getting an opportunity to pick off 5 Company's half tracks. 3 Company deploys into the orchard. They will stay here and observe the village – perhaps sending in scouts while I see if any artillery fall on the objective in the next few minutes. Elements of 1 Company begin to deploy into the tree line near the town. The infantry will begin to scout forward from here towards the town. 3 Battery arriving at its staging area. I tweak their orders to better provide cover on my right flank and make sure they are in a good position should they be needed to support the assault on the town.

One of the Stugs from 1 Battery spots a Churchill tank on the other side of the valley (one of the Churchill tanks originally spotted by the Recon Half tracks and the Panther). Fires: And Hits: Mean while the Panther also fires at the same Churchill. And hits... I counted five hits on that Churchill tank's turret. No penetrations and the enemy tank moves out of view. 1 Company begins to deploy into the tree line near the town.

A few shots were fired this turn – by my side. Most of the turn was still moving into position to begin searching for first contact. On my left flank here is the lead positions of 1 Battery. 5 Company's recon Half tracks successfully extracted them selves and have been replaced by Stugs. Near by 3 Company is deploying into the Orchard.

Hey I like that sound mod:). It is "Mike's Vehicles of War Sound Mod".

While plotting the moves for this turn I took some video of the convoys in action. Here are some thoughts on convoy management: 3 Battery moving with no issues http://youtu.be/4lAM1-FINhg Traffic is clogging up near the bridge http://youtu.be/PV9iNQaeFVQ Managing the traffic flow over the bridge http://youtu.be/HUyYsRTbxVc Managing 5 Company's convoy http://youtu.be/WucSC8KLx7o

Across the bridge 2 Battery and the first elements of 1 Company arrive at the tree line that will become their jumping off point for an assault on the main town.

1 Platoon from 3 Company fans out to secure the Orchard while the rest of 3 Company arrive. Their trucks will stay in the cover of the Orchard while the company deploys into the Village. The convoy over the bridge has bunched up. I give pause orders down the line to spread the vehicles back out. By the time I was up to the corner the pause time was already at 1:15 so no new vehicles will be added to the convoy this turn. It is taking longer for each vehicle to cross the bridge than expected. I will just have to take that into account when I setup the pauses for the vehicles. North of the Village elements of 1 Battery take positions in the orchard to cover the bridge. The plan is that once the Orchard surrounding the village are secure we can move to create a bridge head over the river. Also we agreed that we would allow preplanned bombardment but only after 10 minutes. So I am in no rush to just move directly onto the objective just yet. Meanwhile to the West of the Village 5 Company is moving in convoy along the road to take the high ground North of the Village in preparation of an eventual assault on the Norther Village with the rail crossing. I add two platoons to the end of the convoy. 5 Company's recon half tracks spotted Churchills so it is time for them to get out of the line of fire and move Stugs up to take their place. Hopefully the Stugs will engage the Churchills.

First shot fired! One of my Panthers following up 1 Battery and 5 Company spots a Churchill on a hill across the valley. I forgot to look at how far it is but the shot was high and sailed right off the map. The Panthers are waiting on the tree line just south of the Village near the road bridge waiting for the assault guns to take up positions in the orchard beyond the Village. 3 Company disembark from their transports in the Orchard just south of the Village near the Road Bridge. The plan is for them to leave their trucks under cover in the Orchard and then advance into the village securing it and then being a river crossing to secure a bridge head as well. The first platoon will secure the Orchard and obverse the Village while the rest of the company arrives.

I am glad you like the idea. I do hope others will try this concept out too. That's what the instructions referenced in the first post are for. Yes, I failed to mention that. The first thing I did was give each squad a additional 1000 rounds of 7.92 and 100-200 additional rounds of 9mm. Snipers too (each company has a sniper team attached to a platoon). Note that I have no intention of putting trucks in harms way. They will be well back from the fighting and only move up when I need to move a long way again. They each still have lots and lots of amo available. In addition for 5 Company I made sure that each Pazer Fuast was acquired by a squad.

Absolutely - I was just focusing on the platoon level and pacing their advance. The ideal is, as you said, while one unit is regrouping (they are often still in a supporting position offering a fire base for example) you have others that are on the move. You time the way you advance to allow this - just as @slysniper said. However it does not always work as planned. I have one fight going on now where, as the attacker I decided to attack on two flanks and "ignore" the centre. I am not really ignoring it. One flank is moving really well my platoons are bounding along their route and have rolled up one line of defense in the centre and are working on the next one - from their flank. Just as @slysniper suggested that company is putting constant pressure on because one or two platoons are always moving while the other one or two are regrouping. This is "going well". On the other flank they met a real stubborn resistance. The company at the pointy end has just overrun their main strong point and are in need of a slower pace. Normally my second company would be right there ready to go. But my attack time table was thrown off by enemy artillery. My following company is getting tired trying to catchup. I have no choice but to slow the whole thing down for a time. Again taking my ques from my men. This is "not going well". This is where patience comes in. My lead company does not have to move out before the second company gets there I can wait to do it properly. There are still plenty of targets to shoot at and I can see a possible counter attack in the works. With any luck the defender will not notice much of a slow down at all. Or they might even mistake if for a loss of momentum and strike with a counter attack just when my fresh company arrives. Patience sometimes has other dividends.

The schemes describing a head on assault would be my plan B. Plan A would be to maneuver into the nearby buildings and try to flank their position. If possible, time it so that the flanking team gets eyes on the enemy behind the building and has been firing for a time and then storm the building. Which plan I pick would depend on how much back up your enemy has. In other words is it safe to find a place to flank them from or not.

One thing I have been doing lately is getting my pacing ques from my own men. Once a platoon has moved or assaulted into their latest position I have a look at their status, Tired, Tiring, Ready etc. I'll give the whole unit a breather letting each squad get back to Ready (unless something urgent comes up of course). During that time I can reorganize their formation and split / not split choices. Perhaps split of a scout team from the first squad to recover to start to get ready for the next step in the plan. Seems to be working pretty well.

Also if the enemy surrenders you are credited with any occupy VLs.

I would be interested in hearing your test results. I have only had the one experience and I really don't know what caliber my Sherman was being hit with. In my case I was actually giggling to myself after the third strafing run. It would be good to know if I was just lucky - or not.

Hehe I just keep doing it - to my self:) When it happens to me is when I am looking from level 3 or 4 at a section of the battle field I often select a whole platoon to get a better idea of their relative potions to each other - and other platoons. Then when I want to actually issue move orders to a section or team I zoom down to level 2 and close to the unit. That's when I forget that I have the whole platoon selected. My new SOP is to click into open space to deselect everything and then select the unit again before I plot any moves. So far so good.

Awesome. I have a few UI mods but the animated text mod is one that I feel makes the game easier to follow rather than just making it look nicer.

I feel this is a good opportunity to point out that officers in the modern era make an effort *to* look just like the private near by. I have no knowledge of WWII but I have talked to my Dad (Infantry officer up to Battalion 2IC in the 60s and 70s). On many an occation he wore a helmet and not his barett and carried an assault rifle not an SMG all because he wanted to *not* stand out. Did officers - working close to the front obviously - in WWII make a similar effort? Or not? I am curious?

While I do not have a lot of experience with air power - I have only tested it and had it used against me once. It is not really that effective against tanks. Of course if the big 200+Kg shell hits a tank - even a Tiger say good by. The trouble is they miss way more often than they hit. When I had an air strike used against me: sure one shell destroyed to HTs and half a squad hiding in the building it hit. But then the thing straffed a buttoned tank several times and missed the infantry that were in the open (the first time:-). After that it proceeded to strafe his infantry and honestly I think it took out more of his guys than mine. If I had air strikes available and the other guy had a Tiger I would *not* be dancing in the streets I would be looking for additional ways to deal with the Tiger cause the air strike is a long shot - just like the other options:)

Who or what is a PBI?

I count 13 Tigers - so that's 4 unaccounted for on the Island. Correct?

That looks like a Russian SMG. Am I missing something or miss identifying his weapon. Enlighten me please.

+1 to that. Trying to figure a way out of a tough spot is where learning really kicks in to high gear. At some point though throwing in the towel is a good idea. Well done and nice AAR too!

Hummm I wonder if the n00bs you were beating were just more mature - it sounds like you have turned into one. Oh that sounded like an insult - not my intention. What I mean is, you have grown up and want grown up fun not just to smash the other guy in the face over and over. Which you clearly thought was fun when you were 15:D Yeah, they are tough to deal with. I have faced tigers several times - mostly in ladder games. As long as I do not face them every game I am OK with that - I like the challenge. At least in CMBN you have options that can deal with them (M10, Achillies, Firefly, 76 Shermans). Even with all that they are still a real challenge. I am not sure in CMFI how I'll feel facing a Tiger. I am glad you brought it up. I have a game going right now where it was 2 Tigers and 2 PzIVs vs 5 Shermans (2 76mm) and 2 M10s. Not a match up I would like to bet on. So far I am not doing too badly but the number of threats I have left is dropping... On the flip side I had one ladder game where I KO'ed one of the guys 2 Tigers at the cost of 7 Sermans (I took various other tanks of his down too) and my opponent Rage quite complaining that CMBN was broken because everyone was buying too much armor (I had a battalion of infantry too BTW). I had to laugh at that considering I was down to only three Shermans and a couple of M10s I was feeling like there was no way I could get that other Tiger before being picked apart. I have only bought Tigers once - 14 Royal Tigers for one battle. Yes, it was a huge battle - the dry run for the 20 000 point battle I am writing my DAR for. BORING, I'll say it again BORING. The only downside of those guys was there were bridges they could not cross and streets they could not go down. Other than that there were unstoppable. I lost one to an Achilles but absolutely shredded my opponent's Churchills. It was like they weren't even there.

LOL I was thinking that while I watched my turns. It is just after dawn so the light will get better as the game goes on.