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Axis Side - 20 000 point Quick Battle DAR


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Here is the overall position after 10min. Friendly force symbols in white with defensive positions in blue. Known enemy positions in red. Key terrain is marked in green. Right now I do not have much real intelligence on the enemy's force composition part from there is a sizable armor force with some recon elements leading the way. It looks like the British have moved into the main town quite quickly and are holding the high ground to the north as well as scouting the river area and bridge crossings.

059WhereWeAre10Min.jpg

The approach to the town is proceeding well. Given that we know the enemy has positions in the town I see no need to rush. My plan is to have elements of 3 Battery to move to the South ridge line and get into an over watch position of the town. Meanwhile 1 Battery and 1 Company will use the woods to approach closer to the town. Once I see what I am up against I can plan some artillery and the final assault. 2 Company will provide flanking protect for 1 Company.

060AproachingTheTown.jpg

5 Company and 3 Company will occupy and hold the village with the road crossing and the hill that overlooks it. 3 Company will cross the river with support from the platoon of panthers and establish a bridge head. Again no real rush here I suspect that artillery will begin to fall shortly and I want to see where it falls before moving into obvious targets.

061HoldingVillageAndHill.jpg

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A little bit of action this turn. One of 2 Battery's Stugs is hit from an unknown source.

062Minute151-150-UnseenAssalant.jpg

Eventually the assailant is identified as a Stag Hound on the far side of the bridge near the village. 3 Company's sniper takes a few shots but only manages to force the commander to button up. I thought 2 Battery had the approaches to the bridge covered better.

063Minute151-150-SpottedRecon.jpg

1 Company continues to advance towards town using the cover of the forest and the support of 1 Battery.

064Minute151-150-AdvancingOnTown.jpg

Meanwhile on their flank a Panther and a platoon from 2 Company take up positions to protect them.

065Minute151-150-ProtectingConvoy.jpg

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I need to block access to the village to his recon units. 3 Company is staying in the nearby orchard a little longer. So, for now I order a Panther to take up a position on the main street with a view of the bridge. That should keep any armoured cars from crossing into the village.

066Minute150Orders-HuntingRecon.jpg

1 Company continues to move from one covered position to another.

067Minute150Orders-AdvancingToTown.jpg

And finally 5 company continues to deploy into the woods on the hill.

068Minute150Orders-5CoAdvancingToWoods.jpg

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Really great stuff Ian, I'm enjoying this immensely. How long do you spend on a turn?

I am glad to hear you are enjoying it. This DAR is certainly moving slower than the others on the forum right now so I was worried we were boring everyone:)

Each turn is taking me a little under an hour to play. It is quiet now. I expect it will take over an hour later once things start heating up.

The way I play is to watch the four areas of the map where things are happening starting with viewing from level 3 or 4 (so I can see the enemy positions and see what my guys spot). Then based on what I see I watch the turn from a few angles at ground level often locked on one of my units. If any fire is exchanged it gets some extra attention or sometimes I flip to watching my men from the enemy's position.

Right now the areas of the battle field I am watching are:

  1. 5 Company moving to the hill and deploying into the forest.
  2. 1 and 2 Company's convoy across the river.
  3. 1 Company's move from cover to cover towards the town
  4. The village with the road bridge objective where the enemy recon has been spotted.

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Very quiet turn. The Recon armoured car spotted at the end of the bridge backed away. So the panther that was sent to cover the bridge had nothing to see.

069Minute150-149-CoveringTheBridge.jpg

1 Platoon from 2 Company deploy to protect their convoy's flank. The have spotted no one as of yet.

070Minute150-149-ProtectingTheFlank.jpg

Meanwhile the lead units of 1 Company spot a Churchill off in the distance.

071Minute150-149-SpottedChurchill.jpg

Minute 1:49 Orders

Orders are similarly quiet. Mostly moving 1 Company closer to the town...

072Minute149Orders-1CoMovesForward.jpg

and 5 Company further into the woods.

073Minute149Orders-5CoMovesForward.jpg

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Enjoying this. Just a thought -- those look like some long "Quick" segments for your infantry. Do you put in some pauses between segments? I'd worry about them getting tired at that pace. When I use "Quick" for leg infantry I try to keep segments no longer than 30m before adding at least a 5 sec pause, with periodic longer pauses to stop-look-listen-and-rest. (No wonder my pixeltruppen like me so much -- they may die, but at least they die refreshed...)

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Enjoying this. Just a thought -- those look like some long "Quick" segments for your infantry. Do you put in some pauses between segments? I'd worry about them getting tired at that pace. When I use "Quick" for leg infantry I try to keep segments no longer than 30m before adding at least a 5 sec pause, with periodic longer pauses to stop-look-listen-and-rest. (No wonder my pixeltruppen like me so much -- they may die, but at least they die refreshed...)

No, I do not worry about long stretches of quick moves for my guys. I tend to keep my Fast moves short - across the street. Certainly never longer than 100m. But with quick, I will plot great long multi way point moves with. But what I will do is only let them go until they are Tiring and then start adding 30 or 45s pauses at the way points and if they hit Tired then I pause for longer 1:15 or so at times. Or I cancel their moves and just quick to cover and stay until they are rested.

The above applies during move to contact. Once my guys are where I want them they get rest and short bounding moves at quick or hunt as needed to pressure the enemy.

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Not a chance, love the inital period of moving to contact and watching how events unfold.

Not bored at all. I'm especially enjoying the overall layout of your strategy and unit positions. Naturally the on-the-ground action is the best part. Suspense is building as you search out the enemy.

Keep it going - this is great stuff.

Good, good, I was *not* thinking of stopping just noticing the different pace between the action in several of the ongoing AARs. Ever since playing Huzzar I discover that I enjoy recon and maneuver as much as the intense action.

I just watched the latest turn this morning and stuff started happening. 1Co is being hit on their left flank by a troop or more of Churhills and a recon force drove right into the middle of 3 Battery's position as their infantry teams started arriving at the end of the turn. All hell is going to break loose there next turn. Hopefully I can get my screen shots sorted out and my writeup done this evening.

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This turns out to be a tough turn. 1 Battery looses their first AFV and no other assault guns have a LOS to the attacking Churchill. The enemy tank is perfectly positioned to hit 1 Battery on one leg of the L shaped woods where they are positioned and the assault guns on the other leg, along with the Panther, do not have LOS to the Churchill's position.

085ChurchillPosition.jpg

Taking fire

074Minute149-148-TakingFire.jpg

Hit

075Minute149-148-Hit.jpg

Destroyed

076Minute149-148-KOed.jpg

2 Platoon of 1 Company moves across the field covered by and assault gun from 1 Battery. 1 Platoon has already made the trip safely.

077Minute149-148-1CoCovered.jpg

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As 2 Platoon reaches their covering Stug a new Threat to 1 Company appears on the outskirts of town. A Stuart light tank. If the Stug where not there that Stuart would be free to chew on my infantry in the open. Hopefully with the Stug there he will not get that opportunity.

078Minute149-148-NewThreatTo1Co.jpg

1 Platoon from 1 Company moves through the woods towards the town.

079Minute149-148-1CoMovesThroughWoods.jpg

Meanwhile on the other side of the map 5 Company is doing much the same thing atop the hill.

081Minute149-148-5CoMovesThroughWoods.jpg

Right at the end of the minute 3 Battery and their supporting infantry get a big surprise! Enemy recon elements drive right into their lines. It seems that Carius's 3 Battery have failed to watch their flanks and an armoured car has managed to cross the open field and end up right between 1 platoon and 2 platoon just as their infantry support arrive.

080Minute149-148-EnemyReconInfiltrate.jpg

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Elements of 1 Battery reposition to deal with the Churchill spotted this turn.

082Minute148Orders-AddressTheFlankThreat.jpg

3 Battery scramble to deal with the infiltrating armoured cars. This is going to be a mad minute for these units. The additional soft vehicles that were heading there way have stopped on the road before they get into trouble as well.

083Minute148Orders-AddressRecon.jpg

Meanwhile 5 Company continues to deploy onto the hill.

084Minute148Orders-5CoContinuesToDeploy.jpg

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Ian, where is your recon? Your flank protection? I worry about the scramble in reaction to the Churchill... I hope that doesn't come to tears for you.

Those stugs and the Panthers were / are the flank protection for the infantry and additional stugs moving on the town. My problem is he positioned his Churchill in the perfect place half the AFVs have no LOF to its location and the other half were facing at a angle from where he was. I was not fussing with recon there because I thought I had the field and treeline covered and I am not planning on going that way.

Big mistake

Plus, he is positioning his tanks perfectly. In past engagements my opponent had been careless about tanks in trees while I have been careful and it has payed dividends for me. Looks like he learned from his past mistakes.

Sadly there are tears on my end - update coming shortly - not good for me. Although we were laughing in a GTalk chat this morning because he was commenting on how bad the last turn was for him. I love this game - with both of us thinking the turn sucked. Lets hear it for incomplete information!

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... My problem is he positioned his Churchill in the perfect place half the AFVs have no LOF to its location and the other half were facing at a angle from where he was. ...

You have to love the way opponents always manage to do that.

I remember a CM1 game where my PAK waited in its perfect ambush position, gleefully watching his tank roll down the road towards the killzone.

... and then it stops. Literally one metre ( 1 metre ! For the love of god ! ) from my LoS.

From this position, it calmly obliterates half my force with HE !

Psychic opponents. They're out there ! And they're playing CM2 now !

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Last night when I was finalizing my write up for last turn I noticed I have made a mistake. I mixed up 1 Battery and 2 Battery in my most recent posts and tactical diagrams. I can fix the diagrams but it is too late for the posts.

Just remember:

Hofmeister's 1 Battery is supporting 5 Company on the forested hill between the two river crossings while Heubaum's 2 Batter is supporting 1 and 2 Company's approach to the town.

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Well there were tears this turn that's for sure.

2 Battery reported being under fire from a Churchill tank that none of them managed to return fire upon. 2 Battery lost two Stugs this turn. On top of that they also came under fire from armoured cars in the other direction. They did manage to destroy one Armoured car but the Churchill is positioned perfectly and none of the surviving Stugs had a clear view of the enemy tank let alone have a LOF to its location.

Taking fire from the Churchill:

086Minute148-147-ThatChurchillAgain.jpg

Spotted armoured cars. At least 2 Battery got one of them.

087Minute148-147-MoreArmouredCars.jpg

The Panther with 2 Battery comes under 37mm fire. No damage but they have no idea where the shot came from. Time to back out of there and try to find that Churchill.

088Minute148-147-ArmouredCarsSpookPanther.jpg

On the other side of the treeline 2 Platoon from 2 Battery comes under fire from the Stuart tank spotted last turn. The Stuart gets the first shot.

089Minute148-147-StuartGetsFirstShot.jpg

But it is its last.

090Minute148-147-AndLast.jpg

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But this Stug's work is not done there are more armoured cars to the left. They are everywhere.

091Minute148-147-TurningToFaceMoreRecon.jpg

3 Battery has real problems. An enemy armoured car has driven right into the middle of their position. The limited reports that I revived from Carius indicated a lot of confusion. Clearly mistakes were made that allowed the armoured car to get past the Stugs that were covering the fields on both sides of the road. The reports indicate that our casualties were minimal but the enemy lost three armoured cars. But it is no over yet there are more of them still between 1 and 2 platoon.

You can see two Stugs below and an Kübelwagen and behind it the Humber armoured car.

092Minute148-147-EnemyInThierMidst.jpg

Thankfully the Stug is able to dispatch it before it causes any casualties.

093Minute148-147-EnemyDispatched.jpg

The trouble is there are more of them coming. And Staghounds are more dangerous than Humbers.

094Minute148-147-DispatchedButMoreComing.jpg

Confusion reigns. My first infantry casualties comes from this rather big exposition. Where did that come from? That looks like a bigger calibre than 37mm.

095Minute148-147-WhereDidThatComeFrom.jpg

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Turns out it is blue on blue. Watching this action is very difficult the confusion is clearly evident and I am unable to help.

096Minute148-147-BlueOnBlue.jpg

The good news is as the mad minute draws to a close there are several burning wrecks and none of them are Carius's Stugs it is a minor miracle that there were only four casualties and one Kübelwagen lost.

097Minute148-147-OthersDeltWith.jpg

The trouble is – it is not over yet. There are still at least two active armoured cars around and one is right back in the middle of 1 and 2 platoon again.

098Minute148-147-StillInOurLines.jpg

Here is a higher view picture as you can see there are smoke columns but there are also at least two active armoured cars and a contact.

099Minute148-147-TheConfusion.jpg

Meanwhile on the other side of the map the infantry of 5 Company spot a Churchill moving towards their position. No sign of the Stuart but clearly more dangerous stuff is coming their way.

100Minute148-147-5CoSpotsChurchill.jpg

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Heubaum orders his Stugs from 2 Battery that are engaged with the now hidden Churchill to fire HE at the treeline near the corner of the field. He reports that he hopes the HE will kick up some dust and cause a distraction while the Panthers try to flank its position. He does not want to use smoke so the view stays clear for the Panthers.

One of the Panthers takes a bit of a risk and attempts to flank the Churchill by hiding on the opposite side of the nearby rise.

102Minute147Orders-FlankChurchill.jpg

Meanwhile more of 2 Platoon 1 Company move into position to assault the town. The highlighted Stug has been doing an admiral job of covering them from its hull down position in the a low point in the field.

101Minute147Orders-1CoBackOnTheMove.jpg

Now that the convoy of 1 and 2 Company along with 2 Battery has passed it is time to pack up and rejoin the main force.

103Minute147Orders-ConvoyPassedPackup.jpg

Members of 5 Company begin to move into the orchard supported by Stugs on both of their flanks.

104Minute147Orders-5CoBeginsSearchingOrchard.jpg

The situation for 3 Battery is still messy. The Stugs shift position trying to get eyes on the open ground the armoured cars used to slip into their lines. Meanwhile the trailing platoon skips driving in convoy and instead heads across country as fast as possible in attack formation.

105Minute147Orders-StillScrambling.jpg

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