Demo Situation

[Aured]

Okay, so everything's going good on this mission. A few casualties, the occasional Italian caught in a mortar barrage and the Luftwaffe forces have turned up and begun their up-hill assault on the Villa.

With perfect fire superiority, MG's, PzIII & IV's, and Artillery covering them, they advance up the hill with zero casualties and end up at the Villa.

They go inside and we take around twenty casualties from Americans in the courtyard. There was literally no way to suppress them save for danger close artillery that no spotter can call in because of line of sight issues. We slaughtered the Americans in the courtyard after a bloody close-quarters firefight, but it just seems so sloppy to lose so many men to something so simple.

What could I have done to prevent those casualties? Picture illustrates the situation:

1: Luftwaffe (two platoons) enter fortress from this direction. (I wish I'd have just entered one section in first, instead of the whole platoon, but they would have got wiped out and I wouldn't be any closer to defeating the Americans in the courtyard and in the building.)

2: They face a wall of fire from the interior and the courtyard.

3: After a short period of time, the exposed Americans are slaughtered and the men inside the building are suppressed. Around 20 of them quickly surrender.

Final question - the section on the left of the picture are running away. They were moved up into the left tower and immediately engaged by a Sherman, losing five or six men. I know a few ways I could have prevented this, but can someone tell me a way to deal with a tank in a hidden position that you have no anti-tank to engage with? (All too eager to finish the mission and take the fortress, I ended up moving a Panzer III up to engage and it was wrecked by the Sherman. The Americans surrendered before I could think of another approach.)

Jeez that was long. Apologies if this is in the wrong board; I'm new.

[Lanzfeld]

I guess you could have smoked the villa and slow crawled your guys into the buildings. This may have prevented the courtyard crew from seeing you first and shooting.

or....after sending in scouts (<-----see...not whole squads) you could catch a glimps of the courtyard crew and then call in arty on the whole villa knowing that some rounds will fall into the center.

[YankeeDog]

If there's truly no way to lay in suppressive fire, or ideally just blow the whole place up with HE before you enter, it's going to be a bloody business no matter what you do. There may be some tactical adjustments that, on average, will reduce your casualties somewhat, but don't expect too much.

As experiences from Stalingrad to Fallujah have shown, MOUT is a bloody business. Rooting out infantry that gets in "under the floorboards", deep inside buildings were it's difficult to hit them with fire from the outside, takes lots of bullets and blood.

[womble]

I like to deal with situations like this through the overwhelming application of HE. In this specific scenario, the closed side of the courtyard was entirely rubble by the time my (also two platoons) of Luftwaffe started coming up the hill. I was advancing directly from the direction of the bottom of that screenie, having snuck up along the scrub-filled draw. My 105s (IIRC) had taken big bites out of the garden wall, too.

To deal with a tank in a hidden position, you can use obscurants yourself to get past whatever it is that's giving the enemy his advantage, or find a different way round. If you have superior numbers, you can have several tanks engage in "pop up" attacks, appearing briefly in his view at different bearings at the same time, so even if he nails one of your tanks before they can back off, the other(s) will be able to fire unchallenged (this can also work against ATG, once you've spotted them, since your area fire at the "popped up" waypoint will probably go in before the ATG has acquired, layed upon and fired at your briefly-appearing tank. Particularly effective with fast-traversing Shermans, and enhanced with covered arcs if you aren't area-firing.

[Aured]

Thank you for the replies.

>>Lanzfield

Yes, I think I would have done this. I remember now you can split teams into small scout teams. I would have put my infantry against the wall (to shoot up anyone inside) and then sent the scout team in. Upon contact, I would have hid them, but they probably would have still been slaughtered and then called in Arty to catch the ones in the open. The problem is, the 105's take so bloody long to call in on Iron (11 minutes!) and I wasn't prepared to wait. The dangers of impatience, I suppose.

>>YankeeDog

That was how I was comforting myself after lol... "There was no way to suppress except danger-close artillery, you would've lost those men anyway..."

>>Womble

I ended up sneaking a Panzer IV around his rear, supported by an infantry section. We ended up destroying an American mortar platoon and a Halftrack with an M2 and then the AI surrendered. No chance the Sherman would've been able to see him, so I think this choice was the most tactically sound - with the supporting infantry the tank was quite safe.

The Panzer was only hit by a few 50. cal rounds. It's absolutely awesome to watch your tank get hit by rounds that aren't even doing any damage. Makes such a change from having to keep it safe all the time...

Again, thanks to all.