July 44 QB AAR

[jtcm]

July 1944, our Battalion attacks, towards a German held wooded ridge, which dominates open and slightly dipping ground, with some cover. Two companies frontage, one company in reserve, one special assault platoon with SMGs; one platoon of assault pioneers; SU-76s distributed across the front to deal with MG-42s (penny-packet, infantry support, slow because out of command reach of their Lt.-- what the hell); one platoon of T34-85s to deal with armour close up; one platoon of SU-122s for luck.

In the centre of our sector, a big clump of woods leads straight up to the enemy-held ridge: perfect to unleash an assault group-- one rifle platoon, spread out in half squads, to move to contact, a SMG platoon to blast away anything the recon platoon finds, and one rifle platoon to support and to hold. Once the infantry has broken through, it will roll up the enemy line, while the armour lines up to support their progress in parallel, but from afar. A second company will launch a holding action on the left. The third company waits behind the first.

Is Fritz waiting ? Heavy weapons groups set up, to hose the woods, if necessary; SU-76s move to just outside LOS ; the artillery fire plan in our sector calls for 120mm preparatory fire to fall on the woods. Here it comes; infantry moves out. The forward elements reach the treeline without trouble. Speed is of the essence: the SMG platoon crosses the open ground to the woods, fast, with no trouble; the rifle platoon follows. Our preparatory barrage has lifted, and the recon platoon spreads out within the woods.

Meanwhile, on the left, a support group sets up; the company moves to its jump-off point; the enemy position must be at and behind the ridge, here undulating and lightly wooded

In the centre, the recon elements drive on: they locate and wipe out two weak enemy outposts, half-squads. They push forward: a wire obstacle, with some gaps. Just behind, an enemy trench line, at the crestline. It could be worse. Our preparatory 120mm barrage has fallen short. The recon plt. stops and regroups. The SMG plt and the rifle plt. move up.

On the left, the usual game of escalation has occurred. Heavy weapons have emplaced, infantry has moved out, hit the ground under MG-42 bursts; a long range firefight ensues; a SU-76 has ground forward, and squeezed off a few shells; a 75mm ATG has knocked out the SU-76, then another; the company has taken the ATG under fire, while mortarmen adjusted the range; the ATG has been silenced. The enemy advance line has been eliminated or driven off, under assistance from the heavy weapons group, and the ridge has been reached, but there is a strong reverse slope close defence behind it; the advance platoon has been routed by close range, concentrated fire; a SU-76, engaged rashly, is lost to ATG fire. Only desultory action: long range exchange of fire with some Germans who seem to be relocating along exposed parts of their line, disorganized attempts to gain a toehold on the ridge and build a base of fire or find enfilade fire on German squads. The heavy weapons group tries to relocate, but is caught by long range MG fire in the open, and slinks back into cover.

In the centre,a short range firefight breaks out, between our assault elements and the Germans in their trenches. They are powerfully armed: Sturm elements, in the defence. At some points, the German trenches are within LOS of the wire, and our men cannot progress. At others, our men cross the wire, protected by dead ground, and engage the Germans at point-blank range. The SMG men pour in fire; the various elements get confused; the Major commanding the company throws in whatever he can muster into the meatgrinder, and directs the fire of whole platoons, or their equivalents, SMG and rifle mingled in the fight, upon single German squads. a german sally is driven off. The Germans finally are all dead, wounded or driven out. But the assault elements are terribly shot up, and their ammo badly depleted. They rest in the first German trenches, and seart re organizing. One squad, fitter than the others, sneaks off sideways, towards the enemy line on our left, under cover of woods, then scattered trees: maybe it will be able to crawl up on an enemy MG team or mortar position, or even an ATG pit, and spray it with rifle and SMG fire ? This might help the stalled attack on our left. But the four or five men, wandering in the midst of enemy positions with no recon or overwatch elements, blunders into a German rifle squad, which gets off the first volley. Hoarse shouts, a hurricane of fire, silence. No survivors of this infiltration group. Bad tactics, immediate retribution.

There remains one Company: it is launched on a set piece attack at a brisk but methodical pace over open ground on our right, towards the wooded ridge that makes up the enemy line in our sector. The enemy holds his fire. Armour moves up, ready to support or exploit. By the time the enemy opens up in force, it is too late: the whole area in front of him is swarming with squads and platoons, in good cover, moving in bounds, spread out, backed up by well sited support groups; the layered return fire, a well rehearsed routine, from rifle platoons at 150m, snipers at 200m, HMGs and mortars at 300m, armour at 500-600m methodically sweeps him out of his foxholes in the tree line. A 75mm IG fires, in desperation, at our infantry line as it pours out fire; it is instantly pinned by Moisin, Degtyarev and Maxim fire; mortar shells suppress the crew; a SU-76 trundles up and silences the gun by direct HE. Our first elements reach the ridge: here the enemy line is surprisingly thin, near collapse. Two platoons turn towards their left, to start rolling up the line; one remains, to try to clean up some stubborn elements.

There is a gap in the woods, between the segment of the ridge we have just seized and the woods where our assault group wore itself out; all the armour rushes towards this gap, pioneers embarked. The pioneers disembark when they find a mine belt and start breaching it with demo charges, the T-34s drive through the avenue cleared among the mines; but the Su-122s drive through the minefield, one is immobilized by a mine blowing off a track, the others pass. The rear part of the central block of woods is revealed to be strongly held by the Germans, in trenches; it is systematically raked and pounded with HE and MG fire from the T-34s and Su-122s, including the immobilized one, before infantry rushes in, to start tackling squad after squad of German infantry. Some plts from the central assault group join in the fight. Our infantry even surprises and wipes out an ATG nest.

The Germans try to shift some infantry from his right flank towards the point of our break in; they get pinned by rifle fire from the remnants of the original assault group. Our armour rushes out-- too rashly: it is taken by flank fire from an ATG battery on our left: in quick succession, the T-34s are destroyed, before they can do any harm to the enemy right. The Su-122s hang back, their ammunition low; the few remaining Su-76s hesitate. The support groups have been left behind by our advance, and are only now starting to relocate; our attack on the left has long petered out, with little ammunition or fighting power. Our infantry is still rooting out the Germans in the woods.

Regiment HQ calls in. How is the attack developing ? “Could be better. We've breached the line, but there's a stronghold with 75s on my left that's given me hell. I need some time".

[JasonC]

Nice AAR, thanks for it. Not easy to follow every bit without a map.

One thing that stands out is not having enough depth to exploit winning where you did. Another is finding yourself taking on infantry in trenches with just other infantry (you want on map mortars dropping on them etc). Another is losing multiple AFVs to the same ATG before being able to take them out - not once, but several times. (Against good overwatch most ATGs die before they kill, or after they kill one vehicle).

I get the impression you are sending forces everywhere, and "empirically" as it were, encountering every portion of the defense as a result. Without the defenders needing to reposition much. If you get stopped cold, of course you have to try someplace else, and scouts may look in several places. But if you spend the men to break through at A, it seems a waste to attack B (and get repulsed) and C (to get around as well, just because A won't be resolved for 5 minutes. The net effect is to "engage the enemy closely" and just exchange him off. Compare that to the escalation chain description, where it sound like you were doing things right, tactics-wise.

So if I have to advise one thing, it is have a narrower plan, be a bit more patient, focus more on that overall plan and less on the tactics used in each spot. It is a lot easier to pry apart one position with most of your force to call on to do whatever tactical mission needs doing, than three of them side by side with a third as much in each spot.

[Ardem]

Originally posted by JasonC:

So if I have to advise one thing, it is have a narrower plan, be a bit more patient, focus more on that overall plan and less on the tactics used in each spot. It is a lot easier to pry apart one position with most of your force to call on to do whatever tactical mission needs doing, than three of them side by side with a third as much in each spot.

From a historical perpective compared to a CM perspective a narrowed attack is that more desireable?

I see a lot of CM games won via CM tactics which don't always fit with historical tactics, for instance the typical CM tactic to load all your troops on a map edge and sweep up the outside of it then when reaching the rear pressuring the flank.

NO Map edge in real life, so I am just curious when you narrow the attack in real life how many troops are you able to narrow into a pentrating attack without hindering your own advance?

BTW Really nice AAR, but do agree a map picture would be helpful.

[JasonC]

Real attacks got quite narrow at the CM tactical scale, once the weak point they decided to hit was found. I am not thinking of exploiting edges incidentally.

Notice how even in the first trench fight it takes 3 platoons in sequence to make an impression? Scouts, SMGs, rifles reinforcing. I think a company is the minimum effective unit for attacking with infantry. A platoon can scout and grab unoccupied areas, but you won't get any enemy out of them. jtcm did that right enough, had enough on that one axis to outlast the defenders. But he didn't have anything left to exploit it with, that he hadn't already committed elsewhere.

The point of depth is to expect an engagement that doesn't just play out spatially at the moment of contact, but also plays out in time. The front line platoons in hot sectors are not going to be in any shape to follow up, even when successful. Ranks, reliefs, echelon formations etc were all meant to deal with that consistent fact. From Roman times modern, from tactical scales to operational. Redundant formations are inherently stronger, they continue their mission after taking damage. One thin wave can't do much of anything, beyond scout.

Operationally, the contrast is between the commander who puts 1/3rd of everything on each bit of his frontage, and thereby passes along an average problem to his subordinates without helping them solve them. Versus a commander who has a clear conception or plan, who uses most of his force to do one thing violently and well.

[jtcm]

Apologies for no map-- I found these notes on my hard disk and thought I'd upload them, for fun.

JasonC:

that's basically a correct analysis of what happened (and what usually happens when I fight)-- empirical, Wile E Coyote (if X fails, try Y), rather than concentrated violence. My first Co. effort ran out of juice after shooting it out with a Sturm plt in trenches (horrible), my second Co. got nowhere (didn;t have the patience or the skill to tackle a good reverse slope defence), the third Co. had good overwatch and clear fields of fire and blew the defenders away (should have started there)-- but the clock had run down and one half of the map was still in enemy hands.

My opponent was /very/ heavily into ATGs.

Incidentally I dislike map edge crawling, But I should learn to concentrate.

[Bigduke6]

Great AAR! I was cheering for you the whole way.

Sounds to me like you need to be a bit more paranoid with your armor. Maybe think in terms of: "Ok, if I go there, how can the Germans nail me? Maybe I don't need to go there. Tanks are expensive, maybe they can rest this turn."

Especially SU-76 - it may look a bit like a tank, but you need to think of it as a very vulnerable gun on a chassis. They're cheap as dirt, but MGs can destroy them. Use them like the Germans halftracks - don't bring them into the open until you've won the armor-anti-armor fight in a sector.

One thing about Soviets, unless you get your boys together and have most of them shooting at part of the Germans, you really are spotting your opponent a free advantage. So maybe a bit more distance between your "finding" elements and your "killing" elements would help.

A final note, you might want to think about taking a bit more time with your artillery. 120mm will come down in 3-4 minutes usually, and in most games it will take you that long to get your infantry and so on in place to put in an assault. If you can rig things so that the rounds are falling until your infantry are 100m or so off, then the assault goes a lot easier, usually.

So maybe plan ahead with your artillery a bit more: I think my infantry will begin shooting for real on that objective by turn X, so I want to have rounds falling for turns X-1 through X-4, so I want to call for the rounds to fall on X-7 or X-8. It's not so hard to look 7-8 turns ahead, and if you get it right, it's really gratifying!

Keep playing Soviets. Show those Germans what for!

[jtcm]

Thanks for the advice ! and sorry for absence of map. I should make clear that the central block of woods led straight into the depth of the enemy line, so much so that the trench network was in fact in the rear part of these woods-- it was a close range SMG etc fight in woods against entrenched enemy. Even the Co command element and the plt command grounds were in the firing line, burning up their ammo and shooting away at the Germans, killing them in ones and twos with each exchange of fire. If my opponent had had a TRP in front, and called down something nasty, it would ahve been over.

The Su-76s were played aggressively, in the hope of making him reveal his AT network. It sort of worked, but was very costly.

[Andrew Kulin]

Who needs a map! That was a very well written AAR - It read like a novel (well a very short one ...) and with a good story you don't need pictures.

Andrew

[jtcm]

If anyone recognizes himself in the opponent please let me know-- this game dates back to early summer 2003, I think.