Bud Backer

They were incredibly brave women. I don’t think they were really known. So I made a point of mentioning the wayyyy back when in my “Somebody’s Hero” CAAR Years ago.

Thank you very much. I really do want this to feel like a story.

Had the same experience myself with assault squad. It was painful at times. I’m sure RT can be fun, but like anything, it has advantages and disadvantages. Can’t imagine the frustration of a battalion level RT battle.

Yes. Though that is unlikely to be recognized. After all there should be daily updates on moving a bolt 3 microns on a model. Not that that would satisfy anyone.

No, they just do backseat coding and business management instead.

Indeed, although I think that is unlikely. Ian had a few minor stumbles but he has plenty of time left (about 45 Min) to use his otherwise overwhelming power to clobber me. I hoped the heavy mortar barrage (120mm mortars are equivalent to 150mm howitzers) would disable some of his armour but that doesn’t seem to have happened. And I don’t see what happened to his infantry, though if it was walking around in the woods they hopefully were savaged.

I’m wondering how long before anyone notices Kurt’s picture changes slightly each time...

I assume that it did not. But the bloody crew is running toward me like a bunch of raving lunatics! Given nothing happened to interfere with the Pantherturm that destroyed his 105 Sherman, I’m hoping/guessing that the precise origin of the shot is still unknown to him. The LOS is actually very tricky there, so he probably had no eyes beyond the Sherman crew on the shooter. My hope is that happened again with the flak 88. If it did, I’ve caused another delay and may get another kill too. We’ll see...

Yes, but by my calculus, I want each Pantherturm and 88 to take care of 4 enemy tanks. I want my limited armour free to deal with the hordes of enemy infantry. Thanks, Bil. I would like to hope that I am the cause of that with my defence plans. Indeed. Especially because my 88 crew is veteran with very good morale. They were enjoying their Sulima’s a bit too much this morning...

I agree. I thought I had set it farther, but I must have misclicked and not noticed. You wont be disappointed with the result, however.

3/4 of my force is not in the first line of buildings.

Haha I didn’t even think of it that way. Thanks, mate, appreciated.

I know. For me too, you know. You’re just reading this stuff, I’m living through it and this is where I ended yesterday and sent the turn back to Ian. OMFGTHESUSPENSEISKILLINGME!

You had me there until I looked at my own post above. On the map it shows 309m. The way things look in the screenshot he sure does seem to have the advantage: facing me directly, while my 88 is slightly off from his Sherman. But, what I know of Ian is he doesn’t go for risky moves, charging forth guns blazing and all that. Which suggests to me he thought he was quite safe moving there. An informed guess is that *if* he sees my 88 it’s as much a surprise to him as his Sherman's daring appearance in the open is to me. My assumption is that he doesn’t have a clue the 88 is there. Whereas I was able to give the 88 a target order on the Sherman. Let’s hope Kurt deployed his little team properly and this goes right.

If it doesn’t miss, it will kill that Sherman. It’s also in a trench, which in my experience affects spotting of the unit (the trench is easily spotted) and has the not-moved concealment bonus. This should be exactly what Kurt envisioned: a first shot advantage engagement. I don’t see infantry with the Sherman (maybe Ian is getting wary of my artillery?) so he may also be losing some advantages of shared spotting info. All working in my favour...

Finally, I am moving an HMG team and attached ammo-bearers from the far side of town where they are unlikely to be useful for some time (and I have quite a few organic HMG teams) over to the woods in the ridge. I think I may be able to engage those men in the woods approaching the village and still be covered by the curve of the ridge from the allies forces much further east. I am very concerned about protecting the flak 88 and if at all possible would like to avoid it being spotted as long as possible so it can engage enemy tanks.

Let’s get oriented again! This map shows you the basics of what is about to happen in the next moment or so. Plus I’ll add my own thoughts on some things I’m seeing here. I plotted my artillery quite a number of turns ago. Frankly, I’m not the best I’m using it, far from it. So it was not unexpected that I would have to make adjustments and cancellations of missions. Ian’s stationary forces facing the village really was ideal from my standpoint, sitting there and expending ammunition and giving me time to drop a reasonably heavy bombardment on where I think his forces are. I don’t expect the armour to take heavy losses, but I am hoping that he had infantry there to spot and protect his armour and they may have taken some heavy casualties. What he has succeeded at is making me lose LOS to his forces on the ridge. I can see a tank or two but no infantry except the one guy (a forward observer?) near the wrecked bunker. Spotting from the village is...um...spotty. I am moving some stuff around but the outcome of that remains to be seen. I am pleased with the results of my non-engagement strategy in the village thus far. 20% of game time has gone by and he is still within spitting distance of where he started, and (I think) has very little info to go on as to my disposition and composition. The Sherman on the ridge facing the flak 88 was a surprise. He didn’t have infantry that far forward and I have good LOS to that area from 3rd squad’s teams and the Luft’s HQ in the tower. Last LOS I had didn’t have Ian near there. Yet I see no infantry supporting it, just a sea of contacts still before the woods on the ridge. The 88 would already have killed it had I not set the target armour arc just slightly too close. Since I can’t see enemy troops I am cancelling the fire mission near that tank. While I have a generous amount of organic artillery with the Luftwaffe and Gebirgs, I don’t have enough to play whack-a-mole. I have also rescheduled the artillery that is to land in the woods just south of the hamlet. There aren’t even contacts near there so I am not going to tear up some trees. Once again, there is an approx 6 min delay for it to land there near some of the men from 3rd Squad. Having said that, I am using a light mortar to fire a few rounds at the “observer” near the bunker. If he wants to call down arty, or spot my defences in the town or hamlet, I want him gone. Replotted 105mm artillery:

The village is almost entirely flat, with no true reverse slope. My casualties there are only 3 dead and 1 wounded, which is not significant. Well worth the observation I’ve had on his forces, which let me conserve my artillery ammo. I would have to check but I think I expended about 40% of the 120mm rounds. Good comments!