The Fleeting Moment - Mission 3 (spoiler alert)

[Albe Pavo]

Hello guys!

I'm playing the italian campaign the Fleeting Moment.

I'm now in Mission 3, i don't remember the name: my mission is to proceed along the highway bypassing a US defensive position in 50:00 minuts going on towards Gela.

I found some difficulties, some of you played it already? What course of action did you followed?

My plan was to dismount the 81mm mortars on the far left with the spotter nearby, to develop with them a smoke screen along the tree line on the side of the highway and rush with all trucks as left as possible towards the exit, while all my tanks covered my left flank close to the highway.

I found many difficulties in timing, since my movements are really slow and smoke screen was not so effective as i thought!

[Albe Pavo]

Please help, i'm really interested in any suggestion about a plan! Someone alredy worked it out?

[Placebo]

It is a really tough mission, the only thing that stopped it being a massacre for me was the Wespe with their smoke shells. This is a lifesaver if placed well, to screen the exit area and as much of the road as possible on the final stretch.

[Albe Pavo]

When do you get the Wespe? I have no Wespe in my Forward Observer list, just italian mortars.. They are available later during the mission?

[cool breeze]

You need to scroll a couple times to get to the wespes, they are last, you get em right away. The artillery gets full resupply so shoot a lot. I eventually won this one with few losses by ninja-ing it HARD. you dont have much time so you need to keep doing lots of stuff at the same time. I smoked up their front with a preplanned barrage then rushed a force of infantry and tanks to win the short range firefight as the smoke cleared, and did some work to capture the buildings. I should have brought engineers for both of the building but didnt for the left. But I had to have the infantry hide in the grass after the first part of the fight to avoid being mortared too bad. So for me occupying their front lines was my step 1. step 2 was started after step 1 but before step 1 finished. step 2 was driving guys to the end of the orchard where they ran out to fight from behind the walls, they were machine gun guys for the long range. step 3 was to call in arty all over em and suppress/route them hard and start going down the road with my tanks and starting to pull back my units with the longest way to go and send dudes driving through the fields on the right. step 4 drive everyone down the road unloading people for security and using pauses to try to keep traffic ok. You don't need to get everyone off just enough to get enough points for the win.

[Albe Pavo]

You need to scroll a couple times to get to the wespes, they are last, you get em right away.

You mean to scroll down the Forward Observer artillery choices?

I smoked up their front with a preplanned barrage then rushed a force of infantry and tanks to win the short range firefight as the smoke cleared, and did some work to capture the buildings. I should have brought engineers for both of the building but didnt for the left. But I had to have the infantry hide in the grass after the first part of the fight to avoid being mortared too bad. So for me occupying their front lines was my step 1. step 2 was started after step 1 but before step 1 finished. step 2 was driving guys to the end of the orchard where they ran out to fight from behind the walls, they were machine gun guys for the long range. step 3 was to call in arty all over em and suppress/route them hard and start going down the road with my tanks and starting to pull back my units with the longest way to go and send dudes driving through the fields on the right. step 4 drive everyone down the road unloading people for security and using pauses to try to keep traffic ok. You don't need to get everyone off just enough to get enough points for the win.

Nice plan! So you have not byassed them, but instead assaulted them, just bypassed in the end with some troops, right?

[TheVulture]

You mean to scroll down the Forward Observer artillery choices?

If you have more artillery assets than can be shown at one time (more than 5 or so) then little arrows appear on the list of artillery assets to let you scroll left right to look at the next page. The arrows aren't all that obvious - I've wondered where my promised howitzers were before now in some battles, before eventually noticing that there is another page of stuff beyond all the mortars I could see.

[Albe Pavo]

Thank you very much! I'll take a look to find the Wespe!

What about DENIED artillery?

I understand about artillery without radio that need to be close to the FO, but what about artillery not on map DENIED?

I'm playing a scenario with Livorno battlegroud attacking Gela (it's just a scenario, i don't remember the name): i checked all my officiers and there is a howitzer battery out of map which is DENIED, to anyone! How to call its fire???

[cool breeze]

It sounds like you don't have a radio connection to the howitzers yet in your non campaign battle. non of the Italian infantry have radios so unless/until you get a FO you wont have your connection.

"Nice plan! So you have not byassed them, but instead assaulted them, just bypassed in the end with some troops, right? "

Thanks I thought it a good plan too but it took me some trying to get it to work. However Id generalize it a little differently than you did, see to get my minor victory I think I exited most of my force, I felt like I would have exited em all in less than 5 more minutes, I thought I had to get em all out. See, assaulting is how I would have described the previous mission where I basically drove through them with my tanks and tried to crush them all, destroying most of the force. For the 3rd mission I did a very HARD bypass, ninja style. You don't have time to destroy their force, just enough time to destroy their ability to guard the way to the exit zone. I started it with a sucker punch to the forward defenses and eyes(the two story building by the river) which got me in position to suppress a big key chunk of their defenses. Then I kinda wrapped my base of fire right and forward to bring the suppression around to the enemies guarding the second half of the road. Artillery did most of the work on this last main batch of defenders.

[Albe Pavo]

It seems a very good approach because if you rush too much the AT guns will do many casualties on troops rushing forward.

Now that i fouded the Wespe, i also founded many italian howitzers: now i can do a better plan to bypass those US troops!

Interesting to hear that if you only rush forward, you get a minor victory. I thought to rush forward with all troops, but this is not a good way to win!

I will try a more aggressive strategy!

Playing with italian troops is very challenging and interesting, i like them a lot (and not just because i'm italian.. )!

[cool breeze]

Wait hang on I dont think youll be able to get a minor victory by just rushing forward and trying to exit everyone asap. I tried a few rush to the exit plans and never managed a victory without loosing all my armor. You want to carefully rush to methodically crush their ability to defend the road and the fields to the right of the road, THEN you rush everybody you can off.

[Albe Pavo]

Now i'm trying a totally different approcah, much more aggressive.

I will tell you how it goes!

Really interested in seeing how the campaign goes on!

[Albe Pavo]

I nearly finished the battle.

I choose the following battle plan.

Everyone was in the hollow north of the road, infantry dismounted and ready to strike at yankees position.

I ordered a pre-planned smoke screen with Wespe near the firt wall (in line with the first farm and the end of the orchard south of the road).

When smoke screen developed, i rushed with everyone forward up to the stone wall, tanks and infantry together.

Then when smoke was clearing, we were in position to open fire. All tanks moved forward out of the smoke trampling US positions, then smoke cleared and all infantry started firing. Amercian started run when the tanks came out of the smoke, a min later smoke cleared and all were killed while running away. Ottimo lavoro ragazzi!

The only real danger was american mortars that could annhilate my very tight formations, but they cannot hold morale when tanks came near and were killed just like the others.

When smoke cleared i ordered also a full bombardement of next american positions and awaited bringing on the firefight at distance with italian infantry. In the meanwhile, i noticed how few AT support the american had, so i moved on and on with tanks, blasting the few AT guns i spotted with brixia mortars.

When the iron rain started fall upone the last orchards where americans had their positions, i simply did the same.

Tanks forward, american fell, american KIA, italian infantry forward.

Now bombardement is over, i'm near the last american positions with infantry and my tanks are running throught them, americans are fleeing everywhere but they're in open terrain so it's just like shooting quails for my infantry.

I also took many prisoners.

Now i founded a last strongpoint near the last farmland, with a few dangerous mortars (fortunately without LOS to my infantry). PzIII are dealing with them. Those mortars spotted them last turn and started firign at them: very accurate fire stomping on one of my PzIII top, fortunately without killing it, but i was really scarred for that tank.

At the moment, i lost a single R35 (rushed too close to american trench and blasted with granades) and some infantry (i think no more than a dozen).

Just one trouble ahead. In last turn, while spotting the last strongpoint, one PzIII spotted also a ATgun beyond the last farm. Let's see what's next.

At the moment is a great victory for my italians!