jasoncawley@ameritech.net Posted February 21, 2001 Share Posted February 21, 2001 Jumbo AAR Spoiler alert - this AAR contains a wealth of detail about the forces involved and their default placements, so do not read it if you plan to play the scenario. In fact, I recommend you play the scenario first, and then read this AAR. It will give you an experience to compare with the description of mine, and also let you enjoy this fun fight. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * First I examined the terrain. I notice the perfect wooded ridge to the left, with higher ground masking the approach to it, at "overwatch" range from the objective village. Other high wooded clusters are noticable, and are obvious possible gun locations. As SOP and because of the threat from those, the infantry generally scouted ahead for the overwatching tanks, to avoid AT ambush. Assessing my force, I find I have 5 tank guns with ~200 rounds of 75mm HE, an FO with 100 rounds of 105mm HE, and ~100 rounds of 60mm mortar as well. I decide this is ample firepower to adopt a firepower based strategy. Meaning, I will not finesse my way to the objective, but level the place and send the infantry into the ruins to mop up. I then tasked the elements of my force. I paired off the M-10s with the regular Shermans, trailing each as an anti-tank "shooter", while the Shermans led. The jumbo I treated as a seperate "element". One 2-tank element was sent left toward "overwatch ridge" while the other was retained in the center with the jumbo. Examining the infantry, I found one excellent platoon HQ and put him in charge of the overwatch operation. He was assigned 1 bazooka, same as every platoon to maintain some infantry AT capability wherever there is infantry. He was also assigned the weapons platoon HQ, both MMGs, and 1 60mm mortar. The heavier MGs, mortar, and zook rode the vehicles, while the faster HQs and squads were on foot. They ran left then forward in the first 2-3 minutes, slowing to "move" half a turn to catch their breath, and arrive safely behind "overwatch ridge". The tanks got a little ahead of them when they slowed their pace. I divided the remaining infantry into a point platoon, with just a zook and a middling commander, the reserve platoon with the stealthy one, and an HQ-weapons element with the company HQ, 2 60mm mortars, and the FO - between these two. The point lined up in the low ground opposite the first house and planned to scout down the main road toward the town to discover the enemy positions. The HQ-fire element headed for a portion of woods just barely up at the level of the plain, left of the first house, with the company HQ spotting for the 60mm mortars and the FO spotting for himself beside him. The reserve platoon moved into the woods to the left rear of the command group and goes to ground to await events. The lead Sherman hunted forward to a hull-down position behind the first road crest, trailing his M-10, while the jumbo waited to his left rear. In the first few minutes, I opened up with the lead Sherman at the church on the objective itself, 500 yards away. No waiting. As the spot seemed safe, the jumbo pulls up on the right side of the same road location and a little bit above the crest, while the M-10 pulled back to make room for it. The point platoon was by now running and moving down the thin lines of scattered trees on either side of the road toward the town, and the HQ element was nearing position. At this point the first enemy fire was encountered - an MG on the second floor of a forward building in the village pinned down elements of the point platoon. Front row buildings and high up - a "forward" defense. Just what my firepower strategy is best at handling. Seeing no need to move, I finish demolishing the church and shift the fire of the two Shermans to the MG's building, using "area fire" to keep it up and knock the building down regardless of whether he ducks. The 105mm FO calls for the first fire mission on the forward building with the MG in it too. I notice its "beaten zone" should hit the woods in front of the buildings and the second row behind. The point keeps moving, though by smaller bounds now. On "overwatch ridge", the regular squads go into the woods to scout them, and as these are clear the vehicles come forward, drop their teams, and then work their way toward firing positions. The M-10 steers for the top of the hill, through some scattered trees, while the Sherman takes the end of the ridge closest to the enemy to peep around. At this time, the point comes under fire from a gun position to their right, making the "overwatch" tanks cautious at first. The point returns suppressing fire at the gun from the excessive range of ~300-400 yards, and the command element goes into action. I choose not to switch the 105mm barrage as it is already well placed for other roles. Instead, the light mortars try to suppress the identified gun. The lead Sherman from the center 2-tank element backs up, and then heads right behind a line of woods, hunting around the corner to find the gun from 90 degrees away from its angle to the point platoon. It KO's the gun at ~500 yards with its 4th HE round. At the same time, I decided to send up the M-10 to replace the missing Sherman firepower at the road-crest position, where the jumbo still is, merrily plinking away at the town with HE. But I send it up to the right of the road, in a spot of open ground not 40 yards from the safe position of the jumbo. This M-10 is promptly knocked out by an unseen gun position, losing 2 men but not brewing up. A gun is however, soon identified blasting at the still somewhat exposed point platoon, which skulks about a little but mainly just keeps their heads down and waits for supporting fire to deliver them. The 105mm barrage lands on the front of the village, and the jumbo finishes off the building with the first MG in it. From overwatch ridge, another gun is spotted in front of the town, in the middle of the 105mm barrage, which promptly KOs it. But yet a third gun is still blowing up the point platoon, after it moves one more "jog" down the road toward town. This gun is identified in the woods to the right of the town, between the other two - it may have been this one that got the M-10, or it may have been the one in front of the town center (probably the latter - this one seems "sighted" at an "inward" angle, towards my left). All of this has taken 8 minutes so far. To deal with this third gun, the 105mm fire mission on the town is cancelled, having delivered around 40 shells. A new one is called in on the gun, or rather on some open ground close to it the FO can actually see. The mortars smoke the gun to help protect the point platoon while waiting for this to arrive, and the two right-center tanks put HE rounds near it without being visible to it. Meanwhile, the overwatch MGs and tanks begin shooting up the left front of the village, continuing the initial firepower strategy. The next four minutes see this third gun KOed by the 105s, a nearby MG position routed and shot up by tanks while the barrage is still falling, the point freed briefly from fire and cautiously advancing again, only to drawn renewed MG fire from the rubble in the front of the town. Overwatch ridge levels the left front of the village and the center tanks move to reply to the MG hitting the point, while the reserve platoon moves forward and right somewhat, but still staying in the woods. The HQ section mortars, their ammo expended, are sent to the rear. The 105s cease their fire on the woods to the right of the town with 24 rounds remaining. After 12 minutes, only one prominent building is still standing in the forward edge of the village, and enemy fire has dropped off to practically nothing. I decide the enemy forward fire elements have been neutralized and it is time to rush the objective. All four tanks remain in overwatch, along with the two MMGs and one mortar on overwatch ridge, with the weapons platoon HQ left to command them, and the FO with 24 rounds 105mm. The point advances cautiously, taking its time as it has already taken losses amounting to about 1/3rd - it is effectively the new reserve. The overwatch and reserve platoons, with their zooks, move out for the objective. The first of those does so over plain open ground and so goes at a dead run, including the zook team. They head for the scattered trees on the left forward edge of the village, without trying to press in to the rubble or buildings. It is assumed they may have to clean out some remnants before entering those. The reserve platoon runs through open, and moves through wheatfield, terrain. With farther to go, I do not want them exhausted on their arrival, and they will be a minute afterward regardless. Their initial movement point is the edge of the wheatfield nearest the town, but they soon "lift" these to locations inside the scattered trees beyond, same as the other platoon. As it turns out, there were still some Germans in the last remaining, standing, two-story building at the forward edge of the town. They managed to take out half a squad from the "overwatch" rushing platoon, but well led as those were, they pushed on into the scattered trees as ordered. The same platoon took 2 losses from its left flank, ranged fire by some Germans closer to the secondary objective, but nothing serious. The reserve platoon took a little light MG fire from the far right (around the first KO'ed gun), and when closer to the town a few mortar rounds before they got too close for those - but again nothing serious. Meanwhile, the massive overwatch fires smashed the resistence that was encountered. The last standing building on the forward edge of the village went down while the led elements of the overwatch platoon were running toward it and only ~60 yards away. The Germans on the flanks soon had the attention of a tank apiece and their fire slackened, and the men had reached the cover of the village anyway. One mortar was discovered, apparently knocked out by 105mm, and another was overrun and silenced. The last 105mm mission was called in on the center of the town (using a second story as an aim point) while my infantry clung to the forward edges, to cut up the fleeing survivors of the tank fire. The survivors of the defenders of the village, proper, fled into this 24-round barrage or were cut to pieces by ~70 men trying to avoid it, in short order. The point platoon on the right edged forward and occupied a useful stone building on the right side of the town. All of this took around four minutes. Incidentally, you can see a characteristic firepower tactic in the previous paragraph, which I call the "sandwich". The point is to make it difficult for the enemy to go forward or back, while applying your infantry's full firepower, stationary, if he advances to get out of the barrage. Instead of sending the infantry after him, it waits ready to fire while the guns make his present locations unpleasant. Anyone who panics doesn't make it. And if anyone is left after the barrage, they are often too rattled to oppose the infantry when it does advance. The battle was by now won, but the Germans were not done fighting. They still had infantry on the flanks of the town, and these tried to press back into the town to evict its new owners. The "overwatch" platoon was soon joined by the weapons, riding in on their tank team (MG + mortar, MG and HQ). The point platoon was the only one in any trouble, as they were attacked in front and from the right by what appeared to be about a platoon of infantry, while they were only 2/3rds strength and their ammo situation was the worst on my side. They were supported by two tanks (one the jumbo), but HE ammo was getting low and the terrain around them was tight enough (woods), that the tanks had to stand off to support them. The overwatch platoon had an easier time of it, but did face some Germans who made it into buildings on the left side of the village and fire-fought them from house to house. But the Germans were disorganized, seperated by the destruction of their center and main strength, by this time outnumbered, without heavy weapons or artillery support, and facing four functioning tanks (although the M-10 was out of HE and the rest had ~35 rounds of it left between them). The attack on the point platoon was beaten off, with help from the jumbo entering the village proper and sighting rightward along one of its lanes. The other right side Sherman shot up some desperate moves toward the center by the surviving elements around the farthest gun position - a lone German HMG was still operating there. At the end, it was found the counterattacking platoon opposite my point platoon had 2, 1, 1, and 1 men left in its squads and HQ element, while its assigned Schreck and MG teams were wiped out. They had been under a barrage of ~35 rounds of 105mm in woods (by the 3rd gun position), then tried to attack 2/3rds of a platoon frontally (some of them in a stone building), and also drew fire from two tanks, while crossing a road and then in no better cover than scattered trees whenever they did try to attack. It is not surprising they did not do very well. They also could not know how low on ammo my point platoon was by the end. The overwatch platoon won its firefight - it was in the buildings now, while the Germans had to advance through scattered trees - supported by its Sherman, and soon the MMGs were in the second story of a building on the far side of the village, looking out beyond it and shooting up the fleeing stragglers. The reserve platoon passed through the center of the town essentally unscathed, between these two flank platoons, finishing off a few survivors of the barrage-and-infantry "sandwich" described above. Their right elements turned and helped support the point platoon, which by the end was down to 3 half-squads with 3, 2, and LOW ammo remaining. I lost one M-10 and 2 men in it, 19 men in the point platoon, 13 men in the overwatch platoon, 3 in the reserve platoon, and 1 in the HQ of the weapons platoon. About 2/3rds of the point's losses were from the guns, the rest from the late counterattack. About 2/3rds of the overwatch platoon's losses were from the rush to the village, the rest from the counterattack on their side, and rolling that back - the weapons HQ hit is also in that category. The reserve losses, such as they were, came from mortar and long-ranged MG fire as they crossed the center fields. German losses were listed as 108 WIA, 40 KIA, 27 PWs, 2 81mm mortars and 3 88mm FLAK. The score was 87-13, a total U.S. victory, as the Germans surrendered a little after the 25 minute mark. The decision was, in my opinion, achieved by fire before and during the actual rush to the village. The SOP of infantry scouting for the tanks kept the vehicle losses from 3 88mm FLAK to a single M-10. The 88s were defeated by 105s, to which they could not reply, and suppressed or masked by 60mm mortars in the meantime. The tanks helped and took out one gun, exploiting the fact that it was otherwise occupied and facing in the wrong direction. Direct and indirect HE defeated the defenders of the village - they were hit with ~65 rounds of 105mm HE and more like 150 rounds of 75mm HE (more than 10000 total blast value in CM terms). At the end, I had 27 rounds of 75mm HE left, and most of the tanks had fired their MGs ~75 times apiece. Everything else was timing and pacing, using the simplest possible movements to mass the force on the objective and then to refuse its flanks, defeating weak local counterattacks. A frontal assault across open ground and a complete success, because fire before and during was the real point and decided the matter. Incidentally, if I had a bit more ammo (105mm or 75mm), I would have taken my time and knocked down even more of the place before the rush, and probably would have saved 6-10 men as a result. That would have reduced manpower losses to ~1/6th rather than 1/5th of the force size. The defenders lost more like 7/8ths of a force nearly the same size in manpower terms, with the remainder captured. I note in passing that some seem to think fire and frontal strategies are about expending men, but actually they are about expending ammo. And there are direct substitutions in many such situations - the more you shoot, the less you bleed. I also note that the platoon that went up the middle took the lightest losses. Because the front and center of a position that has been thoroughly plastered is no longer a dangerous place, but in fact the safest one, while still remaining tactically decisive as a point to occupy. The enemy was poorly deployed to meet this sort of attack, in a conventional "forward" defense. He did not really have the firepower for that, but it did make the most of the long lanes of fire protecting his fine defensive terrain. A rash attack with armor forward would not have fared as well as I did against it. His infantry was too dispersed, trying to cover everything, with the right and left flanks of the village position weighted as heavily as the village itself. As the tale of the counterattack on my point platoon relates, this did not "reinforce" the village defense effectively. In addition, the 88s were co-located with MGs and near infantry too often, making the 105 barrages that took them out, "two-fers". A better deployment would have had the 88s farther back, with only one forward to provide some surprise, and sighted inward instead of forward if possible. Notice the problem that one 88 encountered, of a tank hitting it from 90 degrees from its angle of aim, practically without leaving the U.S. start line. The MGs would have been much better sighted on the flanks firing inward from range, than in the tops of the forward buildings, where they only drew fire and got killed. In fact, the one HMG on my right (co-located with the one 88 not taken out by 105s, incidentally), caused me more headaches moving through the fields than I have had time to relate. Its fire pinned rather than killed, but it was still effective, and incidentally the source of the fire was not easily located. The infantry would have been better positioned inside the village rather than on its forward edge, and not in the most conspicuous targets. There were for instance a number of one-story stone buildings, with limited fields of fire but inversely shielded from most ranged fire, that would have worked admirably. If the other platoons wanted to guard the flanks, they should have been somewhat closer and more able to defend the village by moving into its rear before I got there but after the prep fires. Some of that is probably just a dumb AI commander, waiting until the objective is "lost" before sending anyone. The barrage would have made it somewhat difficult regardless, but as it was the men were out of position as well as poorly "directed". On the German force structure, the two on-board 81mms would have been better replaced with an off-map 81mm module, which e.g. could have done far more to my point platoon when it was pinned in scattered trees, or had a chance of stopping the rush if well timed and placed e.g. on the scattered trees just at the southwest edge of the village. Lack of any off-map indirect fire weapon was a serious weakness in the overall defense. Whether one 88 might be profitably traded in for a mobile AT asset - even just a Marder - to reduce the U.S. tanks ability to roam about - is a different question. It might be an improvement in CM effectiveness terms, but the "infantry and guns" defense is a historically realistic set up. I hope this is interesting. [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-21-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasoncawley@ameritech.net Posted February 21, 2001 Author Share Posted February 21, 2001 Shameless self bump... Has anyone read this, at all? LOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vergeltungswaffe Posted February 21, 2001 Share Posted February 21, 2001 Very interesting and informative AAR, Jason. I have not played this scenario, but do not envision playing it anytime soon, so I doubt that any of the information will still be sharply in focus when I do, lol. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted February 21, 2001 Share Posted February 21, 2001 I'm going to read it! Where do you download this scenario? BTW, Jason, how's that Stars!Supernova beta shaping up? I'm counting on this being the Next Big Thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasoncawley@ameritech.net Posted February 21, 2001 Author Share Posted February 21, 2001 You can find the scenario at CM-HQ, linked to off of the Gamers Net. Follow the links off of the main Battlefront site and it isn't too hard to find. Search for "Lorraine" and you should find the scenario easily enough. If it helps to follow the AAR, just grab it and start it with fog of war off, if you don't plan on playing it - although I again recommend trying the scenario as the U.S. before reading the AAR, as the "best case". As for Stars, I hear the beta has shipped to 33 testers, but I am not one of those testers. I actually haven't been doing stars things for nearly a year now. When SN comes out I may get back into it, depending on available time. They are another small programming outfit that understands the "strategy" part of turn-based strategy, no question - though in a quite different genre than Battlefront. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karch Posted February 22, 2001 Share Posted February 22, 2001 Very impressive Mr. Ameritech.net Lots of good points to learn from. I'm pretty poor at setting up good defences and pretty poor at attacks How do you log the battle AAR. Do you keep a notepad or word processing document open and type turn by turn? I'd like to keep a running AAR of some of my games and trade back with my opponent after the battle so we can see what our strategy was.... even if it doesn't pan out. regards Scott Karch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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