Canadians Attack! - BigDork vs Tiresias AAR - German defence

[Tiresias]

Hello everyone. After a hiatus of some months, I've started a new PBEM game with BigDork - a name which by now strikes fear into the hearts of all my pixeltroops after complete batterings in my two earlier encounters. This battle should be no different, because he's proven much more capable than I, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless. Just a reminder to veteran CM-players that I'm a relatively inexperienced player myself, so if you're looking for deft tactical manoeuvring, best look somewhere else! This should be a good AAR on the comedy front, however.

Setup to follow; happy reading!

[Tiresias]

The map

OK, so, it's April 1944 and my intrepid Germans have been tasked with defending a village from a pending Canadian attack. The village itself is well protected, as it sits above a bend in a shallow river and nestles against a high ridge on the side from which we're expecting the Canadians to advance.

Here's an overhead view of the map, with my setup zone marked in red, on which I've made some annotations which I'll explain in a mo:

Two things strike me about the map at first glance. Firstly, that a frontal assault on the village would be pretty nuts. If the Canadians were going to do that, they'd have to advance across this:

And then come down this:

There's a superb opportunity for an extensive reverse-slope defence on my side there, and I don't think they'll risk it. Instead, I'm anticipating an attempted encirclement. Which brings me to the second interesting thing about this map, which is the extent of my setup zone.

As you can see, I control a large portion of the right flank; so much so that I can only imagine that the Canadians are going to move in strength from the top left corner (marked with the green circle). From there, I would expect them to advance against my left flank, and along a protected road, through some outlying farm buildings on the right. In both cases, they'll be moving through orchards on their side of the map during the first turn or two. I've marked the expected lines of advance with the green arrows.

It's possible that I've got this very, very wrong. Roughly top centre of the map, you might be able to pick out a farmhouse and some trees across the river. It's possible that the Canadians may attack from here instead, but I think that's less likely - their advance would be more exposed and slowed by the river. An attack from the top-left corner offers more concealment in the opening stages of this battle, plus puts a portion of their force across the river before the game has even started.

I'm staking a lot on this assumption about where the Canadians are coming from, as you'll see. I'll submit another post in a minute outlining my unit deployment and plan, so that those of you who want to follow this can do so in bite-sized chunks!

[Seedorf81]

I thought Canadians always came from Canada?

(Terribly sorry for this lame joke, couldn't resist.)

[Tiresias]

Unit selection, deployment, and the initial plan

...possibly to be re-entitled "I Am An Idiot" as this battle develops.

I'm making some pretty bold decisions with this battle. If they turn out to be the wrong ones, it'll be over in about 10 turns, and there will be a lot of dead Germans to show for it. Fingers crossed.

My unit selection is effectively a weakened Panzergrenadier Company. "Weakened", because I've reduced it to two regular platoons, plus a heavy weapons platoon of 4 MG42s and a mortar team. I have, however, supplement both of the regular platoons with another MG42 team, and a Panzerschrek team. Given the wealth of MG42s within the squads themselves, it makes for a lot of machine guns on my side of the battlefield, if I can create effective fields of fire.

Here are the riskier decisions: Armoured support is just one tank, although it's a good 'un:

In addition, I've purchased two off-map assets: 2 81mm mortars, and an Me-109.

And therein lies the essence of the risk, really. Although conditions make this a good map on which to have air support, if my opponent has anti-aircraft assets on the map, or if the Me-109 isn't effective, or if it manages to engineer a friendly fire incident, we're quite possibly toast. Or at least on the way to being toast. Lightly grilled bread, perhaps. Call-in time for my air support is likely to be many minutes and will depend on clear and effective spotting from two forward observation teams I've also bought for the battle.

The logic here is that, if I'm right about where the Canadians are starting the battle, we might just be able to hit them really, really hard in the opening turns, thereby severely hampering their advance through relatively open terrain. I don't think those orchards give great cover, and the top of the ridge, or the area on my right flank, also looks pretty exposed.

Broadly, my defence therefore breaks down into three overlapping stages:

1.) Off-maps.

Staking everything on my presumptions about the Canadians' deployment, I'm going to call in the ME-109 to hit a large area in the centre of the battlefield, just over the ridge from the village itself. Meanwhile, the 81mm mortars will conduct a light bombardment just to the rear of my aircraft's target area, in an effort to flush out units in the Canadian rear and to guarantee some damage. It looks like this:

If this in any way succeeds in pinning the Canadians down, I'll use both the on-map and off-map mortars to create as close to a rolling bombardment as I can manage, overlapping with the ME-109's (guesstimated) attack duration. I'm hoping that by the time they reach the village, they will have lost quite a few men and, maybe, some tanks as well.

If this goes wrong, the plane will presumably call off its attack in the first minute or two and I'll have to try to use the mortars to pin the enemy down while I call it back in more precisely. Yikes.

2.) Outlying MG's, Tiger, others.

If I'm right about the attempted encirclement, or just flanking assaults, I have placed a few MG teams around the flanks of the village in foxholes, from which they should have good, interlinked fields of fire in which to trap the enemy. The tiger will operate in support of this. He's currently hidden (I think) beside some buildings on my side of the village, but can move from here into two hull-down positions which I've checked carefully. His placement emphasises the right flank, where the Canadians have fewer steep slopes to confront and a bit more cover and concealment dotted about the terrain. I think this is where the heaviest assault will come from.

3.) Infantry platoons, supporting MG teams.

Once the Canadians reach the village, I hope I'll be able to effect some bitter house-to-house fighting. My MG teams here are stationed in positions where they can also contribute to pinning down advancing enemy infantry during stage 2.) If the Tiger is still in play at this stage, he'll be critical in moving across the rear of the battlefield and taking out any advancing enemy armour or other vehicles. If not, I'll be reliant on those Panzershrecks, and the AT equipment of my regular infantry.

One last thing: We've put anti-personnel mines around the right flank of the village in areas where I think the Canadians are most likely to try to find cover or establish bases of fire. Disconcertingly, they seem to come with multi-lingual warning signs:

Never mind. Maybe they're French Canadians.

Back with more when we've played Turn 1!

[Tiresias]

I thought Canadians always came from Canada?

(Terribly sorry for this lame joke, couldn't resist.)

Curses, you're right. I'm going to have to rethink my WHOLE PLAN...

[sburke]

Woohoo, thanks Tiresias!

No need to worry about AA, but having said that I think the purchase of aircraft could be a real coin toss. Be fun to see if it works though. Did you purchase TRPs? They would really help with your time to fire artillery and accuracy. Also allow you to hit some areas that Big Dork would use to rest his troops in what he would think are out of LOS.

[Darknight (DC)]

I actually played this map as defending Germans versus Americans a couple of months ago.

It was a very interesting map for a defense.

I had a reinforced German Company + a few HMG, 2x PzIV and 2x ATG.

(my opponent had, among his assets, a fighter bomber for the assault)

My setup was a platoon on the left flank, supporting an ATG on the leftmost ridge and supported in turn by a PzIV; the other three platoons were responsible for the village, split to defend from the reverse slope of the ridge (and a few scouts forward of that to keep an eye on enemy movement), with C&C from the upper floors of the village buildings; and the weapons platoon on the extreme right flank to harass any movement in that direction, supported by the other ATG and PzIV.

My opponent moved in force against my left flank, overwhelming my assets there but was halted by the panzer and the platoon on that side of the village. That was when the fighter-bomber showed up. A bomb fell on the village causing a 3-story structure to disappear in a cloud of dust, troops and all, panicking a lot of nearby squads. Most annoying was that the lingering dust/debris cloud completely messed up LoS for several turns. The strafing also hurt many individual squads. Despite this, the plane also strafed my opponent during his attack, so all-in-all, I don't believe it was worth his purchase points.

It was very difficult for my opponent to move over the ridge and gain any toe-hold on the village, and eventually I was able to grind the assault down (having the two PzIV as a mobile reserve element was an important part of the win).

[Tiresias]

Thanks for the comments guys.

SBurke - yes, I thought long and hard about the possibility of using TRPs. The slight snag was that I only thought long and hard about them after I had made my unit picks. D'oh! Still learning. That said, I reckon that I can possibly create some effective overlaps between the mortars and airstrikes to cause some damage, particularly in the early stages of the battle, because the Canadians are obviously going to have to cross quite a lot of open ground. Some of my MGs may successfully pin them down a bit as well, opening up opportunities to rain some shells on them in later turns.

Darknight_Canuck's assessment of this map is really interesting. If I was attacking on this map, I would seriously think about air assets for similar reasons - the defender's set up area outside the village involves a lot of exposed terrain and the village itself is vulnerable to bombing or bombardment. Interesting that D_C's opponent aimed for the left flank, though. It seems to me that this is the better protected of the two flanks, simply because the ridge bisects this side of the map completely. I reckon my MG42s will be in a good place to cut up any infantry coming over the top there. Totally agree about the importance of having marauding armour sweeping across to the rear.

[Darknight (DC)]

I think my opponent directed his initial assault onto my left flank because of the partial concealment of the terrain along that road. The strength and speed of his initial push along the left overwhelmed my units there and he established himself around the single building just on my side of the ridge near the road. He made a major assault from that area towards the village on my left and there was a lot of fighting towards the little vineyard there but my platoon held (supported by the PzIV). My opponent actually infiltrated troops all the way along the left to the back of the map but he couldn't move on my rear because I shifted the other PzIV across from my right in support.

The other major push came at the ridgeline near the centre of the village and slightly to the right, where the stone walls run. That area became a killing field of mortar and small arms.

My right flank probably seemed to be too much open ground to cross, though he did place some troops in the farmhouse complex at the right rear, probably for observation.

One of the most important things I did right was to have small units doing recon/observation so that I could see where the masses of troops were going heading as soon as possible. The most dangerous moments of the entire game came when I had to retreat my recon or I lost them as casualties, because I was essentially blind (also when the dust/debris cloud was lingering, for the same reasons).

[Tiresias]

Hey Darknight - that's a really interesting review of your battle on this map. I can see what you mean about the road on the left flank. I've just had turn one back from BD and early signs are that he might be playing it slightly differently.

One thing I completely agree with is the importance of having eyes on the other side of the ridge to monitor the enemy's movement. I've got my two forward observation teams hidden in positions with excellent LOS on the advance, plus a PHQ further back with a similarly good view of the battlefield. The latter is a handy fallback for calling in the mortars if some of my forward observation teams bite the dust!

[Tiresias]

Turn 1

Well, then. So far, not too bad.

Seconds into the first turn, the propellors of my air support are heard overhead as the first mortar rounds also start falling to the rear of where I expected the Canadians to be. My prediction, in this regard, seems to have been roughly accurate, men start pouring forwards from the riverbank pretty much as soon as the clock starts ticking and thanks to my hidden forward observers, I can see lots of the action.

The direction of approach is a slight surprise, however. It looks as though rather than moving against both flanks, the enemy are sending infantry towards the right. One group, roughly a company strong, is moving across the top of the map and looks to be aiming to execute a hook around the far right. The other group is moving more centrally, and where I expected, along the road that's covered by the ridge. Here are the apparent lines of advance:

It's impossible to tell whether the mortar rounds are doing any damage; certainly my FO's see nothing in that area and the top-left corner of the map is soon obscured by smoke. If there was anything in that area, it's probably taken a bit of a hammering.

Meanwhile, the ME 109 swoops back in and releases a bomb which lands agonisingly close to what looks like an M10 just forward of where the mortar rounds are landing:

Unfortunately for me, it's a near miss. The crew duck down but appear to be unscathed. I hope that the explosion did enough to cause some damage if there were other, unseen units nearby.

My immediate concern is that the ME 109 stays in play. It should do on the strength of the orders I've given it, and, if so, the Canadian infantry advancing across the map - right in the aircraft's designated kill-zone - should be ripe for strafing. They're moving in relatively close formations across very open terrain and I think the plane could do some serious damage.

With no contacts at the far side of the map, I'm going to order the off-map mortars to cease fire. I'm thinking that they'll be of more use around the orchards, where the Canadian infantry closer to the village appears to be heading.

Meanwhile, my other FO team are calling in the on-map mortars to hit the area at the top of the map where the other prong of the Canadian advance appears to be directed.

I reckon that if my ME 109 doesn't clear those guys up in the next turn or so, they will reorganise themselves in this vicinity before pushing towards my positions along the right-hand side of the map. The call-in time for the mortars is three minutes; which is about the time we'd expect them to arrive and form up. If they don't get there in time, they'll still be in the aircraft's kill zone, and I can call the mortars off.

[Tiresias]

Turn 2

As the Canadians sweep forward, I'm frustrated by the failure of my air support to strafe the columns of infantry which are moving across open terrain, where they would be vulnerable to attack. Admittedly, I bought the aircraft in the express hope of hitting tanks before they could get close to my men, but at the minute the ME-109 pilot doesn't appear to be managing that either. Another bomb is dropped somewhere in the midst of the Canadians' advance this turn, but it's impossible to see whether it hit anything. One thing that doesn't appear is a pall of black smoke from a burning vehicle, which would be a welcome sight (on their side). The explosion is impressive enough, but the infantry push continues unabated.

Meanwhile, the off-map mortars have ceased firing and I've ordered a new strike just beyond the ridge, where some of the enemy appear to be amassing. The on-maps, as instructed last turn, will begin firing on the other Canadian push, which is heading across the far end of the map, in a couple of minutes. I've also noticed a few scouts popping up more centrally beyond the ridge, but it looks like the weight of the advance is still against my right flank for the time being. Below I've highlighted the airstrike area (blue), off-maps (green) and added a green circle to show you where the on-map mortars are hoping to hit the enemy forces which have so frustratingly eluded my air support so far. Hopefully between them they will cause some more casualties than we appear to have managed in the first couple of minutes of this battle.

[Tiresias]

Turn 3

Well, this is getting ridiculous: Another turn and the ME-109 again bombs an unseen target but appears to hit nothing. Has he caused an ounce of damage so far? I reckon he can make two more bombing runs and then he has to strafe whatever he can see. I'm pretty sure that I bought a decent quality unit, so if it proves to be fruitless, I'm sending the pilot straight to the Eastern Front when this is over.

The only major development this turn is on the left. The scouts I spotted last turn are being joined by more infantry, and the view outside my forward observation team's window suddenly gets a little uncomfortable.

It doesn't look like these Canadians know that their advance is being observed, but that will change if they turn and move towards the house. I suspect that they might, and if so, it's goodbye FO team. This is the group calling in the on-map mortars (there is another FO team positioned elsewhere) and I set them up presuming that I would lose them - and indeed the other team - at some stage. A close encounter like this could actually enable them to do some damage, as one of them has an MP40 and the range is probably to its liking. More importantly, however, if the Canadians enter that house, two MG42s are sitting in foxholes beyond with their sights trained on the building.

Although the advance in the centre is moving forward more steadily, the main push appears to be along the rear of the map. Some armour starts to slowly move up in support of the rear advance this turn. This is interesting because a couple of checks with my Tiger suggest that the river is almost impassable for tanks directly in front of my right flank - certainly it's pretty muddy and marshy round there. That means that in all likelihood the enemy are planning to conduct a massive flanking move, coming right across the map, then down the far right, before cutting in sharply to assault the village along the road which approaches it from the right. It's good news for my Tiger, provided that he can adjust into assorted positions to attain fields of fire around the contours and trees that stand in his way. All of this is several turns in the future, however, and like most of my force he's sitting tight for now.

[Tiresias]

Turn 4

Generally a quiet turn, except for those scout teams (or whatever they are) on my left flank. As anticipated, a few start straying too close to the house containing one of my forward observer teams and my men head for the windows to get a shot at them. They're still on the move, however, when a Canadian soldier opens up with his Bren to devastating effect, resulting in my first casualties of the battle.

Moments later, the Canadians storm the house and one of my MG42s covering the left flank sends bullets ripping into the building. I doubt they'll try that again in a hurry without more support.

The plane is circling round for another run at the turn's end. My off-map mortars are two minutes away from starting to hit the centre of the battlefield and my on-map mortar team got their ranging shots off this turn. Should be fireworks over the next couple of minutes. I just hope they have some sort of effect.

[Tiresias]

Turn 5

Another huge explosion at the start of the turn signals my plane swooping in and inevitably failing to hit anything. At least, not anything that I can see (which may be very different). Either way, the tank destroyer I spotted a few minutes ago escapes with its life twice this turn, as my pilot decides to strafe the area nearby, seconds after his bombing run falls shy of the M10.

His cannon-fire, however, may be aimed more at infantry which is glimpsed by my forward observer between these two events, moving in the direction of the house on the ridge where the action took place last turn. This may be an early sign of the Canadians shifting focus slightly to my left flank, but it's far too early to tell. Anyway, hopefully he hit a few of them as they made their move.

Meanwhile, up at the house itself (that's the one where my other f.o. team got knocked out last turn), the MG42 maintains fire on enemy troops who are left cowering on the ground floor. This should impair any artillery spotting that's going on up there, but even if they do try to drop some shells on my MG, we've got another cluster of foxholes positioned just to the left, and they can move there unseen behind a low hill in the space of about a turn. Besides, this is all just a sideshow judging by the current emphasis of the Canadian assault.

Overall, there's little movement visible in the centre of the map. This is the right flank and centre at the end of the turn:

It's becoming clearer and clearer that most of the enemy force is concentrating to carry out a two-pronged assault; one across the far end of the map, then down my right flank and across the river somewhere around the village; the other immediately to the right of the village. These prongs are likely to converge pretty much where we've mined potential areas for cover and concealment during such an approach. The Tiger is likely to play a critical role knocking out enemy armour. It's tempting to see if he can reverse into the field behind his current hiding place and target some of the enemy tanks moving across the eastern flank, taking advantage of his superior firepower over such a distance. This, however, would disclose his position too soon. He has a great spot just to his right, where he can move into a hull-down position and open fire on enemy infantry converging around the river crossing below the village. I'm hoping that he'll be able to do this, thereby forcing any tanks which are trying to establish a base of fire from the right to move forward and into his path.

In an effort to shift the balance my way, I'm shifting the attention of my on-map mortars to the M10 which is being fruitlessly targeted by my plane. I'm hoping that they can drop some shells on top of him and either hit a few of the crew or disable him a bit. The M10 is the biggest threat I've spotted so far in terms of my Tiger's ability to win us control of the battlefield later; if I can knock him out early, it looks (thus far) like we'll just have Shermans to deal with. These deserve respect, but they'll be far less of a threat to my own tank if I play my cards right.

Not that I've proven myself particularly good at that to date, of course...

[zukkov]

thanks for the aar. looks like you have a lot of canadians heading your way! if you lose the battle, they'll probably make the survivors be the broomer guys in a curling match.. :-p

[Tiresias]

thanks for the aar. looks like you have a lot of canadians heading your way! if you lose the battle, they'll probably make the survivors be the broomer guys in a curling match.. :-p

You're welcome. As a former resident of Scotland, I'm fully in favour of curling. As fictional commander of the German forces, however, I will of course arrange for all my men to commit suicide before this is allowed to happen. Fictionally, of course.

[Tiresias]

Turn 6

The Canadians are retreating! Ha, I knew it all along: If we just sat here and did nothing for six minutes, those propaganda leaflets we dropped yesterday proclaiming the inevitable domination of the Fatherland would take their psychological toll and create a pro-Fascist mutiny in their ranks.

OK, not exactly, but this mainly quiet turn does see a couple of tactical withdrawals by the Allies, and a marked lack of forward movement. At least, none that I can see. In the centre of the battlefield, the forward-most infantry units I've spotted are seen pulling back, although they are still gratifyingly well within the kill-zone for my forthcoming mortar bombardment.

Meanwhile, further back, the M10 carries out a more irritating withdrawal, moving out of sight of my forward observer which pinpointed it for my on-maps only last turn. With two turns to go until this second bombardment is due to start, I'm going to keep the order in place for the time being and see if it doesn't reappear somewhere. I suspect it was reversing to get out of the way of my plane, and it appears to have done so pretty successfully if so. Next to him, another Sherman pulls up in support of the infantry. I'm quite keen on the way the enemy are splitting their armour in this battle so far, with some moving around to the right flank. Hopefully this will enable my tiger to pick them off in smaller groups later on.

Anyway, speaking of the plane, the other main development this turn is a more promising-looking strafing run. We've got a glimpse of an infantryman cowering behind a stone wall as the Me-109 comes in for the kill. Hopefully, he's brought his friends with him.

Could it be that the Luftwaffe are finally coming to the party? As things stand, the pace of the Allied advance puts us still very much in phase 1 of this battle, so there's still time to use my air support and artillery in combination to reduce their advantage before they reach my main emplacements.

[Tiresias]

Turn 7

Finally, this turn there's some evidence that things are coming together, and roughly according to plan. As the turn starts, the infantry we saw pull back last time turn once more and start hunting forward. I've no idea what's going on there - my best guess is that because of the spotting rounds from my off-map mortars they were worried about walking into a kill-zone for the artillery. Well, it turns out they were right. Seconds later, the first shells land right on top of the grove that they're slowly moving through.

As they hit the deck, the plane swoops in on another run. The machine guns open up right on the Canadians who are cowering on the ground because of the mortar bombardment, and they're sitting ducks:

This appears to be the spearhead of the advance through the centre of the battlefield, but with mortar fire also falling to the rear of these guys, I might even have got lucky and taken out some of the platoons lying further back. As smoke fills the air, it's difficult to tell what else is heading our way from that direction.

At the back of the map, there's little sign of any movement. During the first few turns of this game, I saw maybe a company of infantry heading over that way, and I think they're moving around to my right flank pretty slowly, using the cover of the hill to keep themselves hidden. It's a really sensible move, and I'm probably going to have to rely on my MG42s on the right flank and the Tiger to do most of the hard work here in terms of reducing them before they hit the village. However, I think this move signifies that the Canadians are expecting more strength on the right than I've actually placed there - although I do have some infantry dotted around, most of my men are concentrated within the village - this map's only VL - and even if the Canadians end up encircling it as a result, we have plenty of MG42s covering them from all directions. Plus they'll have to deal with that Tiger on the right, which hopefully will be no picnic.

The only action in this rear area of the map this turn is a glimpse of another Sherman heading to support the infantry. But right at the back, where I guess the Canadian setup zone must have been judging by their advance, we do spot a mortar team:

I'm tempted to call in the on-maps to see if they can't hit this next turn. Support like this will be a threat, certainly, to the MG teams I have in foxholes on both flanks. But it's not urgent. My main order this turn is simply to call off the on-maps from targeting the M10. It's still not reappeared and I don't want to waste their ammunition. It's a worry because with roughly three, four, maybe five Shermans knocking around as well, that tank destroyer could pose a threat to my Tiger. But there's no point going after something that I can't see.

[Tiresias]

Turn 8

A quietish turn for us, but not for the Canadians, as mortar fire continues to pound the centre of the map. Most of it falls on the groves where, as far as I can see, one of the two prongs of the main Canadian assault seems to be concentrated. I cannot believe that they will have escaped this without some sort of hammering. I dearly hope it's cost them some men after my earlier disappointment with the air support failing to hit any tanks.

Finally, my off-map mortars run out of ammo. The fun is over for them, although the fighter might still get a few more strafing runs in. We're probably two or three minutes away from some serious contact between the enemy who have survived this bombardment and the outlying MG posts which are positioned to the right of the village. For now, though, we've sent their forward sections running.

We've made very few spotting contacts on the right flank, where the other prong of the attack appears still to be looping round behind the cover of a hillside. All my FO team and other forward units can pick out are a couple of tanks working their way around in support. This gives me some indication that the infantry ahead of them are making slow progress.

I have limited hopes that my second FO team will survive the battle long enough to see that hook round against my right flank come to fruition. The house in which they're concealed lies in the path of the other push, and once the Canadians have recovered from this bombardment, they will probably suffer the same fate as their fellow FO team earlier in the battle. That's acceptable, because their work here is essentially done - the off-maps have finished firing and the aircraft will only sustain a few more strafing runs before it has to land. But there is a chance that I could hit the move against the right flank a little with my on-map mortars if I can call them in accurately.

Anticipating this, I've positioned a Platoon HQ team with a radio on the ridge overlooking the likely bottleneck to the right of the village. But frustratingly - and stupidly - I've not checked their LOS well enough. They need to be a few metres forward, but this would place them on a bare patch of ground where they are likely to be exposed to enemy fire. So instead, I'm going to have to move these guys slowly behind the ridge, then along it a few metres, and then up again - hopefully without them being spotted in the process.

It's going to be tight, but it's worth a shot.

[Tiresias]

Turn 9

Smoke starts to clear in the centre of the battlefield, revealing a few stray Canadian infantrymen who were caught in its midst pulling back to safer positions, and, gratifyingly, leaving quite a few casualties in their wake. Otherwise, it's a quiet turn. My PHQ team start to make an awkward movement around the ridge, per my orders last turn. The first stage of this passes without incident and they're ready to crawl back up and into a better spotting position after a minute has passed. It will be a bit of a tiring move for them next turn, but after that they will have plenty of time to catch their breath - unless the Canadians spot them and start to target some HE in their direction, that is.

Meanwhile, my plane comes in for another strafing run, forcing the enemy to keep their heads down. Not clear what he's targeting this time, but I am feeling a bit better about that purchase than I was at the start of the battle, now that I can see that he has caused some grief out their. The mooted overlap between the mortars and the air support seems to have gone quite well, overall. At least, the theory worked, at any rate.

With so little going on, it seems like a good time to take stock and take a look at the battlefield again, so that you can see what the hell I've been on about for the past few turns:

The green circle indicates the (roughly) company-strength move against my right flank which emerged in the first few minutes. In the last few turns, however, that corner of the map has been remarkably silent. The Canadians have real strength here, but it's well concealed behind high ground.

As the arrows indicate the intent still seems to be to have that converge with a push through the centre of the map, and then launch an attack to the right of the village. That, at least, would be the obvious place to do it. But the more comprehensively-spotted force in the map's centre has, if I'm right, taken a serious pounding during the last few minutes and I think (hope) that they will be substantially weakened by the time they run into the MG42 teams who are dug in covering the small junction at that convergence point.

As you can see, the Forward Observation team are going to find themselves right in the thick of it when the two prongs come together! However, as I said last time, they have pretty much done their job, and I hope that in the course of encountering them I might confuse some of the forward Canadian units and cut them up a bit with my heavy weapons teams as they try to work out what they're facing. The lone HQ unit you can see to the right of my outlying MG teams on this flank is the spotting HQ team, moving round and back on to the ridge in the hope of catching the Canadian push down the right of the map. The mortar unit behind it will, if this is successful, be called in to lay down a small barrage in an attempt to weaken this advance a little before it reaches the junction.

The left is more puzzling. The dotted line indicates what appears to be almost a skirmish line of Canadian troops, to use an anachronistic term. They aren't doing very much out there and so far their only contribution has been to take the house in which my other FO team was stationed. At that point they fell foul of my MG42 teams on the left flank, took at least one casualty, and apparently left. Having made the spotting contact, they might have crept back in with a view to laying down some artillery fire against my MG, but I actually have two teams with LOS on that building, and so far there's been no sign of anything going on. I think that this scattering of infantry on the left flank is a combined diversion, and also a sort of banker from which the Canadians can launch a third move against the village if the other two lines of attack don't work. For the time being, however, I am pretty sure that we have it covered.

[Tiresias]

Turn 10

It's another quiet one, as the push through the centre of the map remains pinned down by my fighter. It's not without its benefits, though: These guys, in the so-called "skirmish line" I mentioned last turn, perish under fire from another strafing run by the Me-109.

I think the Canadians probably haven't calculated for the size of area which I've instructed the plane to fly over, which isn't surprising because it's very broad. This is enabling my pilot to pick off small clusters of infantry which appear to be in a safe place, but in truth are far from it.

Meanwhile my tired PHQ unit on the ridge on the right flank have crawled back up the slope and into a position where they have a much better field of vision, should they need to call in a mortar strike.

Surprisingly, they still haven't picked up any contacts on that right flank. The enemy are moving very slowly here - perhaps because they are waiting for their comrades in arms, who took the hit during the first few turns, to recover.

[Tiresias]

Turn 11

Well, after 10 minutes of harassing the enemy - apparently with mixed results - my pilot has decided to fly back to the airfield whence he came to refuel. That's about it for round 1 of this battle, I think. The fighter has a little bit of ammo left, but not much, and the chances of my FO team surviving long enough to call him back in (the time needed is a stonking 11 minutes) makes it essentially irrelevant. On the off-chance that this turns out to be possible, I've made the educated guess that 10 minutes from now, battle will be raging somewhere around the road junction, and I've instructed the fighter to target this area.

Really, though, who am I kidding? A more accurate prediction becomes possible on the right flank, as my PHQ team stealthily complete their move on to the ridge. Although tired, they've picked up some contacts straight away. Signs are that the Canadian hook around towards my right flank is going really slowly - they're still heading for that top-right corner of the map when we spot them. I've set an initial area for my mortars to fire on, based on where one would expect them to be concentrating in about three minutes time on this basis. If this changes, my men on the ridge have great oversight of their approach, so I hope they haven't been spotted. Their adjustment of the mortar fire will be critical.

One worrying development at the start of this turn is the sound of, apparently, a spotting round being fired in my direction. Despite scouring the map from different angles four or five times, I'm none the wiser as to where it has landed - although it appears to have come from the outlying Canadians pushing through the centre. I hope they're not aiming for my HQ unit on the ridge.

[Tiresias]

Turn 12

All remains fairly quiet, and overall the Canadian advance appears to be proceeding very cautiously at the moment. It may yet be a turn or two before the battlefield really bursts into life following the opening stages; the advance on the right looks to be particularly slow.

The good news is that I pick up where the spotting rounds are landing - good, because the enemy appear to be targeting my left flank. Earlier in the battle I had an MG42 team open up on the house where my FO section was taken out. I had thought the Canadians had scarpered, but judging by where the mortar fire is landing they can only be targeting one thing (see red circle, image below).

Fortunately, I've got two clusters of foxholes set up for the MG team (numbered), and they're going to slip behind the rise on which they're stationed and move to the next one. Both have good eyes on the ridge where the house sits. And if their brief departure causes some tentative activity on my left, I have another MG team with their gun already trained on that building ready to take a shot.

[Tiresias]

Turn 13

My remaining FO team and the HQ team whom I moved to the ridge a couple of turns back are, it seems, doing a great job of observing the enemy. From what I can see the Canadians are still reorganising themselves in the middle this turn, while on the right their movement is unexpectedly slow. The company-or-so of infantry that appears to have made its way round the far end of the map is reassembling in a wheat field just to the rear of the area which I've ordered the on-map mortars to target. I'll have to adjust fire but if I can catch them reasonably accurately, I should be able to cause some casualties.

Meanwhile my MG team on the left flank start to move to their new position as spotting rounds continue to fall nearby. Disturbingly both spotting rounds are closer to their intended assembly point than their first position! However the Canadian mortar team are clearly still finding their range. Hopefully a stray round won't land on my men as they relocate.