Henri Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 This is an AAR of a 1000--point Meeting Engagement TCPIP Quick Battle. It has some bearing on the discussion about the distribution of armor points in Meeting Engagements, the value of Hetzers against infantry, the relative resistance to breaking of US and German squads, and is probably the first AAR in History written by the loser! The map was a slightly wooded village map with small hills. The Germans in a 1000-pt QB ME have 200 points for armor vs 300 for the Allies (allegedly for historical reasons); since a Panther costs 199, I figured that was too risky, because if I lost it, that would probably leave me tankless against one or two remaining Allied tanks. This was probably wise, since it turned out that my opponent had used his 300 points to buy an M10 tanks destroyer and an M4 Sherman. I decided to go for 2 Hetzers, an infantry Company and bought 2 Pumas with my extra points (well, so much for historicity...). In addition to his two tanks, my opponent had a US veteran infantry platoon apparently consisting of John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Hanks and other supermen who cannot be killed in order for Hollywood to keep making money. As the scenario started, I had one Puma slightly forward in the middle of the road that went all the way through the middle of the map through the village, with my 2 Hetzers and the other Puma slightly off to the right in the rear. The enemy had his M10 also on the road at the other end, and as soon as the scenario started, the M10 picked off my Puma and advanced a bit into view of one of my Hetzers, who put a shell through the front of the M10, to the consternation of my opponent, who wished that he had been a bit more reserved about the use of his M10. My guess that my opponent would have at least one heavy tank or TD had been right, and I was glad that I had the Hetzers.I was sure tht he would have another tank. While my infantry raced toward the village on both sides of the road, my remaining Puma moved far along the right flank toward the enemy rear, with the intention of wheeling left deep into enemy territory and hopefully flanking his remaining armor or perhaps killing some support units. The two victory flags were opposite each other in buildings on both sides of the road, about 60 m apart, and I parked my infantry in houses before the flags, keeping one platoon in some woods on the left as a covering force.I would not commit my infantry until the enemy intentions became clear. It turned out that his intention was to concentrate on the left side of the map, and he quickly seized the objective on that side as I pummeled him with artillery and fire from my 2 platoons on my left flank (fairly effectively, he later said). While this firefight developed, my Puma advancing far to the right spotted a Sherman coming up near the center on the other side of the village; the Puma and the Sherman shot at each other without effect while I tried without success to move my Hetzers to get a LOS to the Sherman. I spotted a bazooka unit moving rapidly to the right toward the Puma, so I moved it back toward my lines closer to and behind the Sherman, who did not dare turn toward the Puma out of fear of the two Hetzers.Despite having a clear shot at the flank of the Sherman, the Puma failed to hit it, and as it got closer, it was hit by machinegun fire and abandoned by the crew (BOO!...). The flag on the right had now also been captured by a US squad, but I could see that side of the village was almost free of enemy units, so I moved the squad on that side closer into houses adjacent to the flag, then rushed the lone unit there and captured the objective. Now I had the enemy platoons on the other side in a crossfire, and the only fly in the ointment was the Sherman, who was supporting his infantry from behind some houses on the far edge of the village. Now I moved my 2 Hetzers forward, one along the road and the other to the right, with the objective of getting the Sherman with a Pincer attack. The M4 should not be able to kill a Hetzer from the front, so I felt fairly confident that I had the upper hand if I avoipded exposing my flank. As the rightmost Hetzer moved to the right of the town, the Sherman tried to make some maneuver, but got confused due to the proximity of the houses and turned his flank to the Hetzer on the right just as it appeared from behind the houses. The Hetzer put a shell through the side of the Sherman, and things looked very bright. I had 2 Hetzers and an infantry platoon against one infantry platoon that had been pummelled incessantly by 2 81 mm mortars and who, I thought, must be fairly frazzled. At this point, Murphy's principle intervened and during the same minute, enemy mortar shells crashed down the house containing my Platoon commander on the right, and set the house with the flag on fire. My infantry ran out and were mowed down by enemy fire. Two almost intact squads and a HQ wiped out in a few seconds! Undounted, I brought forward my 2 Hetzers and began to fire HE at two houses across the road that contained enemy squads, and I managed to collapse the two houses.However this time the enemy squads inside kept fighting and none ran out, although they were severely attrited (one squad was down to one man). When my Hetzers ran out of HE, I ordered them to fire at the enemy with their MG, but I could never get one to do so, so I had to use the remaining AP rounds, which had no more effect than the HE on the apparently invulnerable Americans. While the Hetzers were supporting the infantry, I rushed the rubble with my squads with supporting fire from the other infantry, but the enemies there, although severely attrited and outnumbeed, killed all my assaulting squads. After a while, a couple of enemy squads who had been moving on my left flank assaulted my remaining squads, and despite fire from two HMGs that were my only units not short on ammo, they walked all over my men until only the invulnerable Americans and my hapless Hetzers remained on the map. At this point I requested a ceasefire, and conceded a minor victory to my opponent. Avoiding the debate about the wisdom of the armor point distribution, I found out 3 things in this battle: 1) Hetzers are practically useless against infantry; 2) German infantry is no match for US infantry in a close battle; 3) contrary to historical fact, US infantry is much harder to break than German: during the battle, not a single US squad broke, although a number of them were reduced to 1,2, or 3 men. Henri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
engy Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 To answer your 3 conclusions: 1. I agree. 2. This completely depends on *which* German infantry you are talking about. German Rifle 44/45 vs US Rifle 44/45 and you are absolutely correct. Take a Panzergrenadier squad, and it's equal. Ah...forget the verbiage, let's do the numbers... Squad Type..........Firepower at 40m ----------..........---------------- US Rifle 44...............209 US Rifle 45...............230 German Rifle 44...........161 German Rifle 45...........178 Ger. Panzergrenadier......215 Ger. Volksgrenadier SMG...288 Ger. Fusilier SMG.........324 US Para...................231 US Glider.................257 Ger. Gebirgsjaeger........315 Ger. Fallschirmjaeger.....281 US Engineer...............209 Ger. Rifle Pioneer........131 (BTW, using an old Excel CM database, and I did not check against 1.1 for accuracy.) So, it completely depends on the type of squads in the battle, for the advantage can go to either nationality. 3. I'm going to nitpick on this one, but in general what you have said is true: due to the larger squad size for the US, they are more able to take casualties then their German counterparts. However... ....#1. I've played PBEMs when my US squads literally would not advance without panicking/breaking under moderate fire ....#2. Again, "historical fact" might be debated...are you thinking of US Green troops under fire for the first time compared to seasoned Germans, or should we compare '45 US troops vs "old men-young boy" Germans? engy Edited because I used spaces the first time for the table, and they seemed to be deleted when the message was posted. Any help to be offered? [This message has been edited by engy (edited 01-18-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photon Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 As Henri's opponnent in this game I'll weigh in too. Definitely one of the best and hardest fought games I've played. I can think of three times in the game I thought: Crap! I'm screwed! FOW and luck really are queens of the battlefield. My strategy at the beginning was this: Use the M10 to keep his armor at bay (not necessarily kill it, but keep it from running all over the place. and hey - If it got kills on things I wasn't going to complain.) Use four two squad manouvre elements and my Sherman 105 to gradually assault the town. Let him take it and then use the 105 to dig his men out of buildings gradually. Now, on the first turn my M10 popped a puma, but got chewed to little gooey bits by his Hetzer. At this point I thought: Crap. I'm screwed. The 105 can't kill the hetzer unless Henri made a huge mistake with it, which I wasn't counting on. Anyway, main attack force was 2 two squad mini-platoons supported by 1919s and a 60mm mortar. They were advancing through some woods when 81mm mortar fire fell on them bigtime. one of the 1919s fell with 2 casualties and the mortar took 1. I also lost 5 riflemen and 1 man from the platoon HQ to this barrage. By this time my 105 was in town beating the crap out of his right flank. I think it broke about 2 squads and a schreck. Unfortunately, with two hetzers he worked in a beautiful side shot on my poor tankers (all of whom lived to run away luckily) However, my two mini-platoons holed up in buildings by the 81mm fire were flanked. Bad. He had a full platoon to their immediate left and one to the immediate center. I did have their reserve (2 squads, and the company HQ) moving up, but it was going to be late. Things were looking very very bad. Again I said: Crap! I'm screwed! At this point both of us were calling in mortar fire on the town and one shell (I don't know whose) hit the large light building his left platoon was holding and set it on fire. His HQ and one squad came charging out right into the guns of my men. This was (in retrospect) probably the decisive moment of the battle. It gave me time to reinforce my men and set up to defend the major VL. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do with: 4x Rifle '44 (Depleted) 1x Platoon HQ (Depleted) 2x M1919 MMG (Depleted) 1x .50 HMG (Full strength!) 2x 60mm Mortar (Out of Ammo) against two Hetzers. Except die-a-lot. Which a bunch of my guys did. The reason Henri didn't see anyone running out of the buildings he collapsed is that my whole PHQ and one whole rifle squad were casualtied in them. This was the third time I thought: Crap!! I'm screwed!! Luckily, the Hezter's worthlessness against infantry is matched only by the feared and mighty M7A3E4 Truck "Truck" armed with fenders and a copious supply of tires. They quickly ran out of ammo and proceeded to poke holes in my remaining men and buildings with AP shot. Now, I did have one more 2 squad manouvre unit off in the wings. As the game was drawing to an end they swept out of the flank full on ammo and ready to rock. Without this reserve I would have definitely lost. I had a total of 2 points of ammo left in the town. 1 with a 3 man broken rifle squad and 1 with a platoon hq. Having a good reserve for the endgame makes a HUGE difference. All in all this was one of the most fun and best fought games I've played. The lessons I would learn are: 1. I agree with Henri: Hetzers are lame against anything but tanks. I think the only mistake he made in the game was getting two of them instead of maybe a stug or stuh. (I made a couple of mistakes, like losing my on the first stupid turn M10...) 2. I agree with Henrie - German Riflemen have a really hard time dislodging US Riflemen without some big HE-whomping fun to back them up. 3. Reserves Reserves Reserves! Lots of them! Tactical and Strategic! I had half my force as reserves and this really made a difference. 4. Umm - Luck is the Queen. If that building hadn't cought fire I lose. Fast. Can't emphasize this enough. I'd rather be lucky than good any day. All in all, a tight, well fought battle! - Photon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henri Posted January 18, 2001 Author Share Posted January 18, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by engy: ....#2. Again, "historical fact" might be debated...are you thinking of US Green troops under fire for the first time compared to seasoned Germans, or should we compare '45 US troops vs "old men-young boy" Germans? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for your well-documented response. Actually I was thinking mostly of US doctrine of the period (I forgot the word for it), which consisted of avoiding casualty-heavy fighting in favor of exploiting the US greater firepower and control of the air. This was modeled in teh US module of Squad Leader which caused a furor when it came out, because US units would break somewhat easier than their German or British countgerparts. Don Greenwood and the designers of Squad Leader had to write an article in The Avalon Hill General (I still have the article) explaining why this modeling of US behavior was historical, and did not reflect an inferiority of US soldiers' fighting ability but rather a difference in tactics. Clearly this is not modeled in Combat Mission, where at least in my games "normal" US squads seem much harder to break than the German ones.I haven't made any detailed study to determine whether or not this is generally true.It may be a factor not only of how many men are left in the squad, but also of how much firepower they are receiving, and leader quality may have played a role, I don't really know.In the above game, I think that both US and German infantry companies were "ordinary" veteran army companies. Henri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
engy Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Henri: Actually I was thinking mostly of US doctrine of the period (I forgot the word for it), which consisted of avoiding casualty-heavy fighting in favor of exploiting the US greater firepower and control of the air. This was modeled in teh US module of Squad Leader which caused a furor when it came out, because US units would break somewhat easier than their German or British countgerparts. Don Greenwood and the designers of Squad Leader had to write an article in The Avalon Hill General (I still have the article) explaining why this modeling of US behavior was historical, and did not reflect an inferiority of US soldiers' fighting ability but rather a difference in tactics. <snip> Henri<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ahh, I see where you are coming from now, and knowing that makes your original statement make a lot more sense to me. *Tries very hard to remember the SL squads...* German 4-6-7 US 6-6-6 How did I do? I'm thinking that I have both "morale check" numbers (7 vs 6) correct, and I remember how *huge* of a difference that one point made for a 2-12 dice roll result! [This message has been edited by engy (edited 01-18-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacky Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 Henri I found your AAR very insightful. Retrospecting into your game, I feel the Germans came out on top of the situation. Your armor force won the battle of steel, while suffering minimal losses. Hetzer's generally have more HE rounds than M-10's. As a bonus, the Hetzer is also significantly cheaper. The Allied artillery did what it was designed to do, neutralize the Axis infantry. There appears to be a notable difference between regular's and veteran's. Veteran infantry generally never break and run from cover while in command radius. I've had entire veteran platoons stand to the last man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mensch Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 I have played Henri once in a tcp/ip game and that too was a harry battle! many times I thought I was done for or a gonner but luck shine on me my arse was saved. by reading this AAR, me finks Henri is one of those fine players one can realy have fun and a truck load of excitement to play against, he has tactics that make you think even more and witty comments durring the play that makes one feel as if you were not playing against some player who all cheezy. He chooses his units as historicaly if possible or at least in the spirit of making it seem historical, his german troops have no bloody english accent like one sees often in movies and a player I feel, I'll be looking up to battling again against. Good AAR Henri, I was cracking up with your comment: "my opponent had a US veteran infantry platoon apparently consisting of John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Hanks and other supermen who cannot be killed in order for Hollywood to keep making money." I wouldn't like to run up agains that squad..LOL mensch -------------- Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windstarz Posted January 18, 2001 Share Posted January 18, 2001 "my opponent had a US veteran infantry platoon apparently consisting of John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Hanks and other supermen who cannot be killed in order for Hollywood to keep making money." Well, I have always believed that if the U.S. would have sent all of their tough guy actors in a couple of platoons that the war would have been over at least a year earlier if not sooner. Their kill ratios would have been truly amazing. Excepting Grenada, which a Boy Scout platoon would have been all that was needed to roll back that Communist bastion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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