Some tips for the second German campaign mission? (Spoilers!)

[ZPB II]

I'm having a lot of fun with this campaign. A plentiful sprinkling of tanks and the new target briefly command!

I'm now on the third mission, but I feel I got a win from the second too easily, seeing as this is a 6 mission campaign I will play it again.

The mission is simple. You have a company of infantry, some artillery and two platoons of tanks (PzIVs and IIIs.) In front of you are Amis in a reverse slope defense and you need to break through. On my first play, I analyzed the terrain and came to the conclusion that all the good defensive positions beyond the ridge in the treelines can be neatly covered by 2 linear fire missions. I gambled and told them to expend most their ammo (since there's no way I can order arty on the other side of the ridge after the mission starts.) I anticipated correctly and the barrage obliterated the defenses and I pretty much moved my tanks forward unopposed. This was boring so I tried it again, but now it's breaking my balls. If I don't pre-bombard the enemy line it's harsh. There's no way to order artillery on the enemy due to not having LOS and moving units onto the ridge is a big no-no. I move scout teams on the ridge to spot guns, then rush all the tanks on the ridge simultaneosly to target the spots where the AT guns have been seen, but this always ends up with 50% of my tank force gone. I also tried sneaking a spotter on the ridge to point target the guns but I will fall asleep before the mission ends.

Any hot tips or do I just accept the fact that it's a very bipolar mission and move on?

[dokken1212]

Personally I sought out all the AT guns ....as I knew they would likely be on the ridge and possibly mortars on the reverse slope behind the Abbey. My hunch was pretty much correct (for once !!). I used spotters to identify AT positions on the right hand side of the map of which there were 2 ....possibly three ... cant quite remember. So I bombarded them. I also sent a scout car onto the left of the map to the road and drove it up the road to try and scout for more AT ....it was hit ...therefore I knew there had to be an AT gun somewhere to the left of the map. So my plan was to 'roll up' the right hand side of the map as I knew pretty much all AT had been disposed of there ...so I moved my tanks up slightly ahead of infantry and they mowed down pretty much any infantry resistance. This way I managed to push up to the Abbey and take control with infantry support. Then from the right side of the Abbey sweeping round behind it with tanks and infantry managed to destroy mortar teams there as I suspected and worked my way around ...there I identified the 'rogue' AT gun that killed my scout car. Disposed of that AT gun then made a dash for the 'green zone' on the road. I encountered plenty of infantry and a few with zooks .... lost one tank ...but managed through a combined push to pretty much eradicate all resistance.

In effect I 'softened up' the right side ... and concentrated my forces to push in that direction and then once the Abbey was taken sweep down to the the road.