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BETA AAR- Spoiler- Discussion Thread


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I think now is a good time for Bil to withdraw to alternate positions, he rode the early wave of success until it broke on the rocks. I don't know exactly what the LOS is from the JagdTiger's position, but it looks like Bil's two Shermans in the center could be at risk from flanking fire if they don't move quick. Personally, I would lay a smoke screen and run for it. Let Baneman slog through the snow a while before attacking again.

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Bill just lost an easy-eight! I must admit that for the longest time the match looked as if it would be a total walkover for Bill, I felt annoyed at Baneman for picking what appeared to be such poor force for the map, so naturally I was rooting for Baneman since his force seemed to be the underdog, so the fact that he seems to be absolutely wrecking Bill feels really good indeed. 

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I'm scratching my head wondering how a successful spoiling attack became a sustained attack from a disadvantaged position. Early success leading to overconfidence maybe?

I think Bill smelled blood and thought if he could kill Baneman's numerically inferior armoured force quickly the battle would be effectively over. Which it would have been. It was a bold move but one much more prone to catastrophic failure than a more passive defence.  

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I'm scratching my head wondering how a successful spoiling attack became a sustained attack from a disadvantaged position. Early success leading to overconfidence maybe?

I think Bill smelled blood and thought if he could kill Baneman's numerically inferior armoured force quickly the battle would be effectively over. Which it would have been. It was a bold move but one much more prone to catastrophic failure than a more passive defence.  

I think Bil tried to "reinforce success" - but looks like that reinforcing success in this instance would have meant to take a deep breath and a step back.

 

But if he had taken the BEAST out everyone would have hailed it as a master stroke.  Oh so easy for fate to lend a hand.  Oh and a sneaky panther hiding and just waiting to eat American armour.

The TacAI reacting to incoming fire and driving the JT onto a "shallow" can still happen... but perhaps when and if it happens isn't going to matter much if Bil's loses numerical superiority in armour (and he's very close to that...)

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But if he had taken the BEAST out everyone would have hailed it as a master stroke.  Oh so easy for fate to lend a hand.  Oh and a sneaky panther hiding and just waiting to eat American armour.

This. Too much judgement with the benefit of hindsight going on here. Until it went wrong few and far between were the odes to Bil's doom. Manifold were the comments about a mismatch, what with Baneman's seemingly armour-light force and Bil's armour-heavy one. 

The way I see it, it's turned into a real match now, with forces that can cause grievous damage to one another, rather than a cakewalk for either. I'd think we should be delighted at the upcoming fireworks! ;)

 

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Bil and Baneman have had considerably less trouble with bogging than I was expecting, considering the snow cover. Though that German HT briefly bogging early in the game put the fear of God into Baneman. Which I guess is why you don't see him using the FAST command much.  :)

Edited by MikeyD
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Bil and Baneman have had considerably less trouble with bogging than I was expecting, considering the snow cover. Though that German HT briefly bogging early in the game put the fear of God into Baneman. Which I guess is why you don't see him using the FASH command much.  :)

My tests certainly have me scared of bogging. I am surprised that there have been no immobilizations and only one bogging incident. 

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Personally I don't see this tipping (back) into Bill's hands. He only has 2x M36 and 2x Jumbo,  while both Jumbo's seem to be in a bad position. Even if Bill gets the JT, Baneman still has 2 Panthers, about a battalion of INF, some halftracks and mortars.

I predict the Jumbo's will fall soon while the M36's will prove to be a challenge for Baneman. Wouldn't rule out the possibility of Bill admitting defeat if he loses the Jumbo's.

Imo Bill gambled and lost. Credit to Baneman for the handling of his limited armor. One thing that wonders me is how Bill managed to, in effect, feed his armor piecemeal into jaws of (Big) cats. He is probably the one that taught me not to do that :-P

I guess everybody can have a bad day, even the sensei. Unless I'm absolutely wrong I guess this is Bill's first proper defeat in an AAR, as I don't really count his CMBS loss against the Abrams Army.

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Its been a good battle, Both Bil and Baneman  have made some excellent decisions and both have made some less than excellent decisions.

That is the nature of these games. No one has a foresight of what the future brings, no one is working with a perfect knowledge of what he is facing or up against.

The results is showing who has made the best choices so far.

I was not a fan of Baneman force selection, but I have enjoyed watching him as to how he has used them, it never hurts to have a little "gods of fortune" on your side either with your opponent making choices that play into your present situation.

 

 

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I think the M36s are pretty important. The Jumbos have already shown that they can bounce Panther shots. I've lost track of Bil's force. If he has 2 Jumbos and 2 M36s, then it's not as bad as it could be. JT is slow and non-turreted. Bil needs to (IMHO), pull back and focus on picking off Panthers. Once they're down, the Jumbos can destroy the halftracks at will, if he so desires. Then the remaining US forces should be able to engage the JT. At least one should be able to get a flank/rear shot. After that, it'll come down to whatever of Bil's survives to mop up the infantry/seal them off.

This doesn't even need to be done aggressively. If he pulls back, he'll force Baneman to advance. That's when Bil can pick off individual Panthers. Etc.

Baneman needs to keep his infantry moving, taking the objectives. His JT needs to sit in overwatch with the Panthers protecting it. 

It's been a good game.

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I think the M36s are pretty important. The Jumbos have already shown that they can bounce Panther shots. I've lost track of Bil's force. If he has 2 Jumbos and 2 M36s, then it's not as bad as it could be. JT is slow and non-turreted. Bil needs to (IMHO), pull back and focus on picking off Panthers. Once they're down, the Jumbos can destroy the halftracks at will, if he so desires. Then the remaining US forces should be able to engage the JT. At least one should be able to get a flank/rear shot. After that, it'll come down to whatever of Bil's survives to mop up the infantry/seal them off.

This doesn't even need to be done aggressively. If he pulls back, he'll force Baneman to advance. That's when Bil can pick off individual Panthers. Etc.

Baneman needs to keep his infantry moving, taking the objectives. His JT needs to sit in overwatch with the Panthers protecting it. 

It's been a good game.

I agree with you if he is able to retreat his Jumbo's to fight another day. However, how I interpret the current situation is that one Jumbo is trading shots with the JT while the other is in LOS of both Panthers. In other words, they are in bad positions.

Those M36's are indeed very potent and very dangerous to at least the Panthers, not sure about the JT. But without any escort left (Jumbo's / infantry) I don't see too much viable tactics left to pursue, except for selling one's life dearly (I like the Dutch version much better, 'To sell one's skin expensive').

Indeed a great game, let's see how those Jumbo's fare.

Edited by Lethaface
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The Hellcats if utilized for what their advantage is could have turned this. They have the highest off-road and speed rating in the game. Means less odds of bogging. An endrun past the JT by the M18s full speed, with the Sherman's moving slowly forward, and the Jackson's hanging back for sniping might have done it. I mean its easy to play armchair corporal but its fun.

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Wow, well that was a thing.

I think it's pretty clear where everything fell apart. I do think Bil's force choice wasn't bad (even if it was extreme), and it could have easily gone the other way - as mentioned, if the Jagdtiger had died to a lucky shot, we'd all be calling him a genius.

Excellent analysis and setup for the AAR, really keen to get into CMFB

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I think it's pretty clear where everything fell apart. I do think Bil's force choice wasn't bad (even if it was extreme), and it could have easily gone the other way - as mentioned, if the Jagdtiger had died to a lucky shot, we'd all be calling him a genius.

I agree, Bil's force was potent and he could have won if he had played the force the way he originally intended, i.e. mobile hit and run tactics.

A few thoughts on how things unfolded and what I would have done differently if I were Bil (obviously all this is hindsight):

1. Force Selection - Although the game didn't progress long enough, the lack or infantry and anti-infantry assets in Bil's force selection would have hurt him eventually. Baneman had a long march to reach his objectives over open terrain. Artillery would have caused lots of casualties on Baneman and more importantly would have caused slow downs. Infantry would have also served the same purpose. The recon teams served their purpose for spotting but were useless otherwise.

2. Bil's strategy and execution - His plan was to be mobile, get some jabs in early then fall back to next line of defense. His execution didn't quite pan out that way. It seemed to be a static frontal defense where the bulk of his armor had no place to retreat to. Sure he would use his Hellcats on a few shoot and scoot type tactics over a ridge but the lay of the land wasn't enough to protect them.

3. Setup - This is the part that kills me: The M18s and other armor assets are put up front early in the complete open. This gave Baneman two advantages -1) He quickly figured out Bil's force composition and knew that he couldn't have much infantry 2) Baneman knew that if he pushed his JT up to the ridge that Bil had no place to run to.

The M18's best advantage would be to scoot and shoot from behind cover and to flank armor. It's impossible to flank that early in the game because Baneman's units would be very congested. Bil could have more easily flanked in the southern parts of the map once Baneman's infantry was more spread out and/or partially neutralized. He had more favorable terrain in the southern part of the map too.

 

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Some thoughts from the hindsight is 20/20 for armchair generals' department. 

I loved how bil used a screen of jeeps to help him figure out what was going on before baneman did.  It definitely illustrated to me how useful reconnaissance can be, vs. my normal technique of charging my entire formation in a likely direction without having any sense of what is in front of it.

That said, at least how Battlefront models them, even late war U.S. tanks and tank destroyers are heavily overmatched by German equipment in a straight up head-on fight.  I wonder if bil getting lucky on his early hit and kill on a Panther helped him forgot about that in the critical moments when he had to choose whether to fade away after icing the Panther or charge to glory. Hindsight of course says he should have set some flanking ambushes, got the heck out of dodge and made baneman's little armored force advance on him.  

Secondly, even if bil had been able to get more guns on the Jadgtiger, trying to engage it from the front would have only been successful if he had been able to hit it enough to start disabling major systems, (like um, the cannon).  Maneuvering against it in twos and threes was never going to be enough and that, coupled with baneman's cagey repositioning meant that instead of trying to fight the thing head to head it would have been better to just get away and either shell the heck out of it, or wait until you get a flank shot (or make your own by actually charging the thing through the hail of panzerfausts).  But had bil been able to get five or six guns pointed at it during the same moment, who knows?

Third, I wonder if a little bit more infantry (a couple of platoons even, one in Cobru and the other holed up in some of the forested areas), would have been enough to have slowed baneman down and made some sort of defense possible even after the failure of the armored counterattack.  While he took some casualties, baneman was able to infiltrate his infantry all over the place, and while watching those jeeps zoom around was fun, they were a pretty darn thin screen when it came to actually holding that force.  Also, we never got to see how much firepower of squad of stg. 44 equipped volksgrenadiers can put on target.

In any case it was a fun read, and, honestly turned out very differently than I expected when it started.  I'll miss compulsively checking the forums for the latest from the front... Thanks guys!

Edited by petergottlieb76
redundancy...
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