Axis - CMBN Buying The Farm - Crowd-sourced DAR

[c3k]

Shift.

 

Get some guys (the platoon w/hq in the southern trenches) up to the farmhouse. Don't press up on the hedges with them. Once Ian does that, those guys can gun 'em down. Or something. You've got to get some auto weapons to fire along the road, from behind hedges if possible, to slow down Ian.

 

Tell your landsers that each man is expected to bring down at least one of the enemy. Then show them what you mean.

 

Edited: By "something", I mean use them to do something useful, like, you know, shoot at the enemy. If they go up to the bocage, Ian'll shoot 'em up. If you pull them back (in the farmhouse or the next line back) then they can have cover and prevent Ian from entering the farmyard.

Edited August 11, 2015 by c3k

[A Canadian Cat]

I got a bit of a reprieve this turn. The fire from the allies continued, but there wasn't much left in the open to shoot at, so there almost no casualties on the German side this turn.

 

My mortar team (1) continued to drop a lot of shells on the tree line, and I think that helped to reduce fire from the allies on the southern sector. I did want to stop firing on that treeline so that I could instead fire on the road, however, the mortar team was executing a mission given to them by an HQ, and now that the HQ is out of contact (it's the one in the farm), I don't know how to tell them to stop firing.

 

I think you are reading the situation correctly and BTW you are quite right the mortar fire on the bocage line has taken its tole on my men there.  Plus It would be bad for me if that mortar switched to hitting the road.  Having said that if you want an on map mortar to stop firing you can use the artillery panel like you tried or you can select the mortar team directly and cancel from there.  I just did it in another game I am playing.  You either hit the del key with the unit selected or the clear target (or is it cancel target) command or manually target something and then cancel that.  One or more of those actions will cancel the call.

[womble]

Or you can, I believe, undeploy and redeploy and the "orphan" fire mission will be cancelled.

[MethodGamer]

Minute 15-14

This turn saw a lot of activity. I decided to try and shift my troops around to put them in a better position to defend the road, which I think I'll be able to achieve. Unfortunately, this turn also saw more fire being applied to the southern defenders, and while I didn't take many casualties, a lot of troops started losing their nerves.

 

In the southern sector, allied tanks started pulling back from the treeline due to the shelling, but on the way out, they fired a canister shot that panicked two half-squads that were placed to cover any allied infantry advance (1). Just south east of them, two more half squads and an HQ lost it and are now panicked (2). That's almost half the southern defenders. Fortunately, the HMG team pulled itself together (3), and are now in a position to fire on the allies that are still in the tree line.

 

Note that all these units are all bunched up together. This is definitely not what I ordered. But soldiers that are panicking tend to pay more attention to incoming fire than orders. 

 

Just south of the farm yard, a squad made it across the road to help shore up the defenses there, taking only one casualty while crossing the road. Unfortunately for me, the casualty was the LMG (4). The ammo team and HQ made it to the farm as well, so I do have a few defenders there that could make life a bit difficult for the allies.

 

 

Minute 14 Orders

I don't have a lot of units that are (a) in good order and ( able to fire on anyone. The units that are in good order are in a position to defend once the allies show up, so I don't have many orders to give. Although, this is usually what gets me in trouble in other games where I defend. I'm hoping that things will be different, but I'm not holding my breath either.

[MethodGamer]

Minute 14-13

 

The allies continue to fire, and the Germans are having a hard time keeping it together. Fire starting pouring into the farm, and the already nervous units there fell apart along with the building (1). I'm trying to get them into defensive position, but given that half of them aren't taking orders, it's going to be tough.

 

In the southern sector, the Germans took a few shots into what targets they could see, but the return fire was just too much; some units ran away (2), while others simply broke (3).

 

 

Minute 13 Orders

 

I have almost nothing left, so I'm out of ideas. At this point, I'm almost ready to start experimenting with really unorthodox tactics, like racing my mortar team west across the field to attach the allies from their rear. Has anyone else been in this situation? If so, what did you do to hold on for a few more turns?

[Bud Backer]

Is there anywhere you can hide slightly behind the objective and maybe take out a tank or some infantry as the enter it? Near your #1 above there seems to be a hedgerow?

I'll admit by this point I'd be as desperate as you...

[hobo]

Honestly, this is the point in the game where the troops in the real world would admit defeat and fallback to some point outside of the map and fight another day.  Probably call in the heavy arty on the farmhouse.  Anything else is probably suicidal as the outcome was determined a while ago.

Edited August 18, 2015 by hobo

[womble]

As pointed out before, the barn type buildings offer little or no cover and only slightly more concealment (though I guess you're mostly taking "fly-through" suppression rounds from fire directed at the Bocage, so concealment's not the issue here). The only hard building is the actual farm house at the rear of the VL. If you have any Fausts that you can get there, don't stack them on the same floor as troops without 'em. Give a small unit Hide orders and a tight Target Arc on the upper storey and they'll be hard to see and winkle out. Until the real suppression fire comes in, they go Shaken or Panic and rout from their position into a hail of (aimed, because they stood up and got spotted) lead.

[MethodGamer]

Ian and I had a chat, and we decided to end this game. As Hobo mentioned, once troops in the real world realized there was no hope for victory, they would give up and save what remained of the men.  I thought it was a good idea to do the same in the game (although it was to save us time and not drag this out for another few weeks). It was pretty clear that there was no way for me to win this game, and given that it takes at least 2-3 days to turn around a turn for Ian and I, we decided it wasn't worth the month it would take to wrap up this AAR.

 

Here are the final results:

 

 

I'm not too happy with these results. I wasn't expecting to win, but I was hoping to put up a bit more of a fight. As usual, I couldn't put the AT Gun to use. I thought it was in good position, but for whatever reason, it never saw anything, even though its ammo team just a few feet away did have line of sight on one of the tanks. Obviously a tank kill wouldn't have made much difference, but at least it would have restored a bit of hope for AT Guns.

 

On the other hand, I am happy with my mortar team's performance. Usually, my artillery just barely harasses the enemy, but in this game, I think they good damage and held up the allies in the south. A big gold star also goes to the half squad setup with a line of sight down the road. Even though the alliance eventually broke through, they did manage to hold them up for a few minutes all by themselves (until they were eliminated).

 

Overall, I think this was a useful exercise. A lot of good advice was shared, and I'm going to go back and read through the posts again. But it's not something that I'll be repeating too often. It's a lot of effort to put posts together after each turn, even when the posts were as simple as mine. I'm far more appreciative of the work others put into their AARs, so kudos to everyone taking the time to put all those detailed AARs together. You're doing a great service to the community.

 

That said, I will definitely continue asking for advice on the forums, in the form of "true" AARs (i.e. summaries of battles after the fact), and questions during battles (with permission from my opponents of course), for feedback and critique. I still have plenty to learn (obviously), and this AAR demonstrated that there's a lot of advice to be found here. 

 

To wrap up, a big thanks to everyone who posted in this thread, I really appreciate the time you took to share your advice and make me a slightly better CM player.

[womble]

I don't think the Germans stand very much chance of winning this scenario with the points set as they are. The Germans have 2 AT assets with any standoff range at all, and the number of Stuarts makes that insufficient. In some ways, it's a bit of a crapshoot: if the Americans commit to your minefield-defended side it's a very different battle to having to actively fight them.

 

I don't know what was wrong with your ATG placement, but I can assure you that ATGs can do quite nicely. I have one in the KG: Engel campaign that has a dozen Sherman/TD kills after mission 4, nearly as many as the Panther that's been in the same missions. I think, in this case, that it was the trees that were bollixing the ATG's spotting; one AS either way certainly can make a difference.

 

Thanks for taking the time to do what you've done. The suggestion input has been tremendous, and your efforts have provided the forum for that.

[hobo]

Nice game MG and thanks for taking the time to put this together.  

 

Frankly I think this scenario would be better for H2H if the Germans got to pick all of their defensive placements.  A mine or two in the woods and more fallback positions for the trenches would have helped tremendously.  In CM games I find the trench line to be rather useless and prefer a bunch of parallel short trenches facing the line of attack.

 

As to the ATG, I think MG was a little bit unlucky with the LOS as he should have been able to pick off at least one of the Stuarts early in the game which would have made a very big difference.  With that said, putting it so far forward was risky.  I would have tucked it back in a corner some place and waited for the Stuarts to expose themselves in one of the fields and covered the road with shreks and fausts.  Just my 2 cents.

[Bud Backer]

Thanks for doing this, MG. It is a lot of work to write it all up and do the accompanying graphics, so I appreciate you making the effort. Definitely a lot of lessons for me in this demonstration so it was well worth it.

[A Canadian Cat]

On the other hand, I am happy with my mortar team's performance. Usually, my artillery just barely harasses the enemy, but in this game, I think they good damage and held up the allies in the south.

 That mortar did a lot of damage to 1st platoon which took most of my casualties.

 

A big gold star also goes to the half squad setup with a line of sight down the road. Even though the alliance eventually broke through, they did manage to hold them up for a few minutes all by themselves (until they were eliminated).

Yes, the held things up quite a while. My green platoon along the road was constantly ducking for cover. The lead tank saved the day for me.

 

Overall, I think this was a useful exercise.

Agreed. I think it will be a fairly useful thread for new players.

[MethodGamer]

I reviewed the map and units after the battle. The stats are interesting:

 

Company HQ - None

1st Platoon HQ - None

1st Squad / A Team - None

1st Squad / B Team - 3 Casualties (This team was the one near the tree line that held on)

2nd Squad / A Team - 3 Casualties (This team was the "ambush" team in the southern sector near the road)

2nd Squad / B Team - None

3rd Squad - None

HMG Team - 2 Casualties

INF Gun - 4 Casualties

INF Gun Ammo Team - None

2nd Platoon HQ - None

1st Squad - 1 Casualty

2nd Squad -  None

3rd Squad - None

3rd Platoon HQ - None

1st Squad / A Team - 2 Casualties (I believe this is the "Road Team")

1st Squad / B Team - None

2nd Squad - None

3rd Squad - None

AT Gun - None

AT Gun Ammo Team - None

Mortar Team - 11 Casualties

Mortar Ammo Team - None

Panzerschreck - None

 

So there you have it, the full break down of who caused the casualties on the German side. I'm not surprised by the mortar team or the INF Gun, they fired a lot of HE into the woods, so even without seeing what they were firing at, the volume of fire was more than enough to cause damage. The teams that were held back from firing (probably too conservatively on  my part) didn't do much. I'm a bit surprised that the Road Team didn't do more damage than they did. 

 

Given this, I'm thinking that unless I've got a solid ambush planned, I should not be waiting until I get the perfect shot, but start firing in the general area of where I think the enemy will be.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MethodGamer

[hobo]

 

 

Given this, I'm thinking that unless I've got a solid ambush planned, I should not be waiting until I get the perfect shot, but start firing in the general area of where I think the enemy will be.

 

Yep, fire and displace.  I was dying for you to unleash with the HMG.  Between he and the INF gun they should have died with no ammo left.

[MethodGamer]

A lot of the advice I received was in the lines of "set a fire arc so that no one fires at the slightest leaf ruffling, as to not give away your position". I probably took this too far, set my fire arcs too short, and kept the fire arcs even after I had sight on enemy units, with the idea of holding fire until they were very close or in the open. I should have been firing a lot more.

 

And I totally agree, if they're going to die, they should definitely not have much, if any, ammo left.

[hobo]

In most cases that is probably sound advice.  However, in this scenario you needed to buy some time before being completely overwhelmed.  Shoot first and ask questions later would have served you better.  Remember, your advantage was quality of troops (not sure if you actually new this) and timing.

[womble]

Yep, fire and displace.  I was dying for you to unleash with the HMG.  Between he and the INF gun they should have died with no ammo left.

The scenario isn't long or large enough to have the HMG run dry. If it had opened up early, it would just have died to 60mm mortar fire sooner. Maybe it could have started with suppressive fire earlier, but it wasn't ever going to run through 2000 ammo in this situation unless you just have it blind firing on a flank the attacker's not interested in pushing on, and even then you'd have to start up at minute 1 to run out of ammo before MG capitulated.

 

...your advantage was quality of troops (not sure if you actually new this) and timing.

The troop quality advantage was the tiniest possible. The Amis were "Typical" variations on Green, Normal, 0. They had a very few Regulars there, and some High or Low Motivation and +1, +2 and -1 Leaders. The Germans were consistently Green, Normal, +1. Leadership is a very subtle advantage (represented in QB purchase as a small cost increase per man). The tiny advantage the Germans may have had there in no way compensates for the restrictive setup zones and > 2:1 armour:AT (376:135 in QB purchase points) ratio. Fortifications prove their limited utility (as implemented currently) in this scenario.

[c3k]

Thanks for doing this! It'll be cool to see more.

 

FWIW, this can be very hard on the Germans, and you seemed to get the bad coin flip at a couple critical moments.

[A Canadian Cat]

A lot of the advice I received was in the lines of "set a fire arc so that no one fires at the slightest leaf ruffling, as to not give away your position". I probably took this too far, set my fire arcs too short, and kept the fire arcs even after I had sight on enemy units, with the idea of holding fire until they were very close or in the open. I should have been firing a lot more.

 

Don't swing to far the other way. The advice to hold fire until there is something good to shoot at is solid.  Once the bullets start flying (from either side) then forget about holding fire and let it rip.

[Bud Backer]

Don't swing to far the other way. The advice to hold fire until there is something good to shoot at is solid.  Once the bullets start flying (from either side) then forget about holding fire and let it rip.

On the defensive I also find it hard to gauge whether to keep holding fire or to open up - the tipping point isn't clear to me when it is ideal. And of course it's completely situational so it's not like there is a clear "open fire when they are within 400m" or whatever.

[hobo]

I felt you needed to be very aggressive here because of the time constraint and quality of the opposing troops.  Just my 2 cents.