My stupid fight against Mr. Hankey, that lovable poopy, is over. Here's a brief AAR!!

[Jarmo]

The match started during the "unbalanced attack/defend point ratios" thread. I would have posted this on that same thread, but I didn't find it anymore. Lost during the board crash.

I had this veery clever idea that you can win a fight against much greater odds if you have very good units.

To be specific: I assumed a fight where defender has 1:3 ratio in men and tanks, is winnable if the men are all in flamethrower & MG teams and the tanks are Panthers vs Shermans.

Mr. Hankey stepped in and promised to make me eat my words.

After a looonngg debate about what we were allowed to use, I ended up with a few dozen MG & flamerteams, about a dozen minefields and 4 Panthers. Hankey got about a battalions worth in infantry, a dozen Shermans and some arty. Four of the Shermans were Easy 76's and I believe one 105.

Setup

When the match started and I saw the map, I realized I had talked myself into the deep end. The map was big, the flags scattered and I had way too little of everything.

I scattered my units in small groups. Basic idea was for the MG's to harass the enemy and flamer to lay by it's side in ambush. Either Hankey would rush my MG under fire and get a faceful of flames, or he'd just spend some time to shoot the MG in pieces. And my flamer would still wait in ambush.

I placed all my mines in a large minefield on my left flank. All kinds of mines. Something very unpenetrable. The spot I selected after a careful study of the map. A very probable course of approach.

3 Panthers were waiting behind the town in a group. 1 went to far right. To disturb Hankey's advance.

Action

Hankey advanced his main force directly towards the town. At least 2/3 of his men must have been there. His tanks were about 1/3 in right, left, and center.

As it happens, my überminefield was totally useless. No armour or any significant amount of infantry ever got close to it..

The fight started slowly.

Hankey tried to kill the 3 Panthers with arty. I backed them away.

My lone MG on my right harassed Hankeys infantry. Hankey blasted the MG with 105 Sherman.

My Panthers whacked a couple of Shermans from long distance.

Then things got ugly.

Hankey fell straight into a couple of my well prepared ambushes. And ripped straight through them. Two MG's and two flamers go only that far when facing 2 companies of charging infantry. No matter how well prepared the ambush is.

The ambushes did slow him down though. Especially since I torched lots of forest.

Around the town my Panthers started to suffer casualties. Easy Eights are not tin cans. Well, they can bite anyway...

Lost two Panthers, but the cost was high for Hankey. Lots of dead Shermans.

My Right wing Panther did good, destroying every tank he came across. Including one E8 that tried to circle behind.

The net result of the tank fight was a victory for me, lost only 2 panthers for 11 Shermans. But the fight tied down the cats. I could do little to help my suffering infantry with them, while Hankey managed to blast my men a few times. I had quite a bit of luck anyway. I think both of my surviving tanks had suffered a penetrating but undamaging hit.

I couldn't stop Hankeys advancing infantry spearhead with the units I had along the route. And I couldn't move in the units that weren't. Not very suited for mobile defense, those flamethrowers.

I did slow him down though. Enough that he didn't have time to capture quite every flag. About 1/3 of my troops didn't even see combat before the fight ended.

The match ended in a draw.

My stats were:

100 casualties

14 captured

2 vehicles KO

66 men OK

Score 42

And Hankey

200 caasualties

11 vehicles KO

1 mortar KO

367 men OK

score 47

So my 180 men fought a horde of 567 men to a draw. I'm happy with the results, but this was definitely the last time I'll choose as stupid units as I did there.

[ Message edited because I'm stupid and can't post pictures ]

[ 06-14-2001: Message edited by: Jarmo ]

[Panzer Leader]

I am quite shocked that you managed a draw out of it. Did you play to the end or agree to a cease-fire? Wow, with the forces you bought, I would have assumed that the attacker would sweep over you like "Linengin vs. the Ants"

That was a good game though. When you first talked about starting it, I heckled you for such a crazy choice of units. I am impressed by your panther's ability to stand up to all the shermans. They did their duty, and fought to the 3:1 ratio needed for a win.

However, infantry-wise, there is no way that ANY infantry can survive a 3:1 ratio, no matter what kind. The best you could have managed, IMO would be to get rid of ALL the Flamethrowers and all the MGs. Replace them with SMG squads and 20mm Flak guns.

In fact, get rid of the panthers, what 800 points worth? And buy up 200 pts of Puppchens, and some more Flak and SMG squads. Now set your ambushes.

That is how I would win a defense. It doesn't always work, though, especially on the maop you used. That was a near-impossible one no matter what you got due to the terain.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Good AAR and you learned the right lesson from it, as well!

Interesting to see the typical storybook 5.5 to 1 kill ratio for Panther over Sherman, too. In my experience, its more likely to turn out that way when Panthers are present in at least platoon strength (and well handled, as Jarmo obviously did).

[Barticus]

I am also under the impression that the large map size only helped your Panthers in their fight. If the ranges had been much shorter, he could have used their superior numbers to outflank you quite quickly, as well as having a better chance of penetrating your front armour.

[Mr. Hankey]

Ahh Jarmo, my tank driving friend. I think I lost that fight (I did lose it despite what the AAR says) for two reasons.

First, advancing too slowly with my infantry. I frankly had no idea what to expect from engaging hordes of Heavy MG's and Flamers. So I thought that a slow advance would give me time to react to something I didn't count on. Unfortunately, I think that in order for me to have decisively won that fight, (due to the fact that I had so many troops) I would have had to pretty much kill every one of your soldiers. I may have been able to do it, but not in the time I had left.

Do you remember when I mentioned that I'd blundered badly? Well what happened was that I had just gotten through your main ambush point in the woods leading into town and was consolitdating my forces in those woods. At the same time, I had called in smoke to cover my advance into the town proper. The smoke was to be 81mm, with 105 mixed in for supression. Well, the arty started to fall, and I sat there for two turns waiting for the smoke to pop up, but it never did. Well duh, I had targeted the area with the 'T' key, not the 'K' key I didn't realize it until I'd spent all my 81mm ammo, and I'm saying. "Where the hell is that smoke?" I had some 105 left so I smoked with that, but I'd lost like 3 turns that I really couldn't afford to lose.

The second reason I lost, is that I've realized that I've no idea how to properly engage German armor with a Sherman. . I mean you hagged me but good at every turn. I did get a couple of lucky hits, but I lost every tank but one. I was trying to standoff and engage, but I quickly found out that doesn't work with a Sherman. And when I tried a knife fight with you, Lady Bad Luck sat on my shoulder causing my last 76 to miss you twice from between 150 - 50 meters on a fast move, my TC takes some machine gun fire in the face and bites the big one, so now he's shocked, and then the turn ends with my ass pointed 21 meters from the end of an 88mm cannon! Needless to say, the next turn was not pretty...

All in all, it was a fun, interesting fight. My shear numbers made it possible to cut through the defenses, but it was also my undoing as I think the game wanted me to kill everything in sight to win.

Good game.

[Jarmo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Leader:

I am quite shocked that you managed a draw out of it. Did you play to the end or agree to a cease-fire? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I assume you already guessed the answer to that,

but yeah. Full 30 turns. Large map is a double edged

sword. On the other hand it's hard to defend, but

the attacker has a long way to go.

[Andrew H.]

I'm surprised that the defender was able to get a draw here, too. I think that the defense was basically sound, but I'd have made a couple of changes.

--Defense--

(1) HMGs are good,and you can have an effective defense with spread out HMGs with enough space and open area.

(2) Flamethrowers aren't flexible enough and are very fragile. I would bag them and substitute infantry units, preferably SMGs, to back up the HMGs. Ideally, the SMGs are in a location where they can't be shot at except from close range -- so when infantry charge to take out the HMGs, they get hit by SMG units at close range. Foxholes help a lot here.

(2) Minefields. I generally don't pick minefields because it seems too random. If you have an isolate HMG based defense, though, you can be pretty certain that the enemy will, at some point, charge your HMGs (after suppression, etc.), so it's sort of a safe bet to put a minefield in front of them. It can be very effective if the enemy hits the minefield at the same time that the SMGs are uncovered.

(3) Panthers. I thought your tank choice wasn't bad. Maybe it would be worthwhile to give up one if you needed the points for more infantry.

(4) Arty. 81mm mortars are effective at breaking up attacks across the open, but they might be too expensive.

(5) AT guns. Maybe on the flanks instead of a Panther. Although it's really hard to argue with your use of the Panthers.

I still don't think I could do as well as you did with that set up, though.

--Attacker--

I think that that attacker made a worse unit selection than the defender.

(1) Tanks. I think the attacker chose too many. I probably would have given up one, or maybe two platoons of tanks in exchange for one or two additional infantry companies.

(2) Arty. 81 + 105 is not a bad choice, for artillery; I think that the biggest problem you had was not using smoke; in a battle like this I think it should be used from turn 1. With that in mind, 81 + 81 isn't a bad choice because of the extra smoke; I might have gone for that; it would also give you the flexibility to smoke two areas at once.

[Mr. Hankey]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

I'm surprised that the defender was able to get a draw here, too. I think that the defense was basically sound, but I'd have made a couple of changes.

--Defense--

(Snip Opinions)

--Attacker--

I think that that attacker made a worse unit selection than the defender.

(1) Tanks. I think the attacker chose too many. I probably would have given up one, or maybe two platoons of tanks in exchange for one or two additional infantry companies.

(2) Arty. 81 + 105 is not a bad choice, for artillery; I think that the biggest problem you had was not using smoke; in a battle like this I think it should be used from turn 1. With that in mind, 81 + 81 isn't a bad choice because of the extra smoke; I might have gone for that; it would also give you the flexibility to smoke two areas at once.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, the object was ONLY for Jarmo to Defend with MG's and Flamers against a 3:1 mix of conventional army units. That's all. No extra this or that. Finito. The End.

As far a smoke goes, I don't and didn't see any point in blowing smoke when I had to travel about 800 meters on foot. I knew he wasn't going to be moving from his entrenched areas. The tree cover was adequate and he already knew what I had. Flamers can only engage from short distance and I didn't worry much about the MG's until I apprached the town, which is where I expected the heavy fighting to take place. And that is as it happened. I only needed the smoke to get into the town and as I said, I pooched that critical step. It was kinda funny actually.

Basically, I lost on time. Just like few chess matches I've played in the past.

The tank fight, while ugly for me, was a battle separate from the main objective. I could have lost all my tanks (actually, I pretty much did ) but it would not have kept me from winning had I had time to consolidate and mop up his remaining forces.

I don't get to play many attack games, but my basic strategy is to get a foothold on a flank and roll across the battle field with the infantry. The attackers numbers usually will allow this to happen.

Jarmo played a great game. A formidable foe. I salute you.

[ 06-14-2001: Message edited by: Mr. Hankey ]

[Jarmo]

Hankey already pointed this out somewhat, but it's worth repeating.

The point values were totally irrelevant.

Pointwise, I had almost as much stuff as Hankey did.

Flame team's 2 men, so I got 2 teams vs one Hankey's

infantry squad (12 men) with 1/3 odds in menpower.

HMG squad has 6 men, so Hankey got 18 men vs one. (3 squads vs 2 MG42's)

[[Wiking]]

Mr. Hankey, the Christmas poo; he loves me, I love you ... I can make a mr hankey too, spppppljaaatttt!

I just dig that song, hehe

[ 06-15-2001: Message edited by: SS_Obergruppenführer ]