Courage and Fortitude; 116th Regt. seize bridge, hill

[PondScum]

*** SPOILERS ***

I used TheVulture's approach of infiltrating a platoon along the far river bank and up the right side, and got a German surrender on elite with 12 minutes to go.

The initial German artillery fire blocked my lead (and best-led) platoon, which I was planning to quick-move down the road. Instead I sent the next platoon in line racing across the fields on the left to skirt the fire and do a dog-leg to the bridge. They got down into the swamps on the far side with only a couple of casualties from grazing MG fire. It may have helped that I broke them up into separate well-spaced teams, on the theory that would reduce their chances of being spotted in the dark. Once at the river's edge, they can quick-move two squares a turn for several turns before tiring, so I just kept moving them slowly along.

Meanwhile I had spotters and HQs looking for contacts, and engineers moving to the bridge to blow the wire (and themselves, courtesy of an apparent mine). Helpfully, the shellholes from that initial German bombardment provided a nice staging area just before the bridge. I tried luring down artillery fire by moving scout teams around in the open, but nothing worked until I moved the weapons company MGs out - that prompted massive retaliation which probably accounted for half my casualties.

The tanks moved out VERY cautiously, sending the lead tank out on its own for a short distance, and only following in its footsteps when there was no response. Thankfully the AT guns opened up one by one at long range, getting mostly partial penetrations. Inevitably the lead tank would get hit, panic, pop smoke, and reverse out of line. I'd then wait 4 minutes while my FOs called down 60mm mortar fire on the gun, and mass-move my other tanks out at the end of the barrage, with area-fire orders from their final move point onto the gun location. The ex-lead tank would bring up the rear for a bit, to calm its nerves

By the time my tanks reached the bridge, my river platoon had reached the right side of the map, so I laid down the first of two 105mm smoke barrages to cover their advance. With individual German teams now running from their foxholes under tank and 81mm mortar fire, I got over-confident and started trying to move my best platoon over the bridge. That was a bad mistake, because the improved visibility allowed unseen machine-gun fire to pin them in place, where artillery then slaughtered them. That made up most of the rest of my casualties.

My tanks kept their slow advance along the road, and their luck, with several missed Panzerschreck shots and one non-damaging hit. German infantry who found somewhere to hide from the tanks routed under flanking fire from my platoon now advancing behind the hedges on the right, and everything broke in front of the hill (which also got the loving attention of my 105mm). Thankfully my platoon found the last AT gun on the other side of a hedge just before my tanks would have advanced into its sight-line.

Towards the end I was getting bored, and finally sent all my tanks on a hell-ride down the road and up around the back of the hill, while my platoon consolidated in the farm at the rear right of the map (every team was now rattled, and they were down to 2/3 strength). I had to run my tanks up to the rear of the trench lines before the AI finally threw in the towel. I suffered 86 casualties.

Things I would do differently next time:

1. Try to get two platoons to the river instead of just one
   
2. Lead with engineers, to blast the wire ASAP and give the two platoons a fast route across the bridge. Maybe use the 81mm mortars to lay down a WP smoke screen as well, for a little extra cover
   
3. Experiment with 60mm mortars in direct-fire mode, if I could find a good spot to hide them (in the trees on the left, maybe?)
   
4. Never leave any big infantry unit in the same spot on the battlefield for more than 5 minutes (on the assumption that enemy FOs will call down an artillery strike in 6 minutes). I might even track this in a game log.
   
5. I wouldn't bother trying to move ANY infantry across the bridge, except engineers to clear mines and maybe an expendable HQ to spot. I'd rely on the same slow tank advance up the middle, artillery on any enemy that showed its head, and a flanking move by my own two platoons on the right.
   

[DavidFields]

Very impressive. What I liked was the idea of infiltrating the platoon to the far right side. Even without knowing the German disposition, I think that is an excellent reading of the battlefield, and one I would be glad to try if I replayed the scenario.

But run the same plan 10 times, I wonder how many tanks would be lost, on average, with your battle plan. The AT guns for me got a knock out on each of two tanks on the first shot, and it seems you were fortunate with the Panzerchecks.

Perhaps in real life I would have been relieved of command: given only one go at this battle, I would have not have wanted the possible loss of all 5 tanks.

One of my regrets, actually, was taking my engineers to the bridge. I think the enemy artillery cut the wire (I...think), and my engineer platoon was decimated--losing that unit for me forever. Maybe I would bring one engineer squad, under smoke.

Waiting for my forces to be in better position for the attack would have been my choice, in any case. I'll take the draw, but wish I had tried the right flanking infantry, as noted above.

[PondScum]

Yeah, for all the problems people have with this mission, it is a cakewalk compared to razorback ridge.

Sigh - agreed. I moved on to Razorback Ridge, and essentially gave up with 20 minutes to go. I had taken the farm, but interdicting artillery meant that any squad trying to move through it towards the final objectives got cut to ribbons, and my platoon holding the farm itself was rapidly being whittled down. So I took a ceasefire and a minor victory on points.

Then the final mission starts and I find out that many of my units haven't even had a decent ammo resupply. Ugh. I think this has put me off CMBN for a while.

[Boche]

I agree this mission has put me off CMBN for a couple of days, im trying to get back into it through scenario making hopefully it will work

[darker4308]

I just played this mission for about the third time and lost. It's just a meatgrinder. The real trick is to keep the tanks alive by knocking out the AT guns and marking the mines. I can't seem to keep tanks alive.

[womble]

I just played this mission for about the third time and lost. It's just a meatgrinder. The real trick is to keep the tanks alive by knocking out the AT guns and marking the mines. I can't seem to keep tanks alive.

*** Spoiler ***

Don't show any more tanks than you need to draw the ATGs until you've killed the ATGs with your mortars. Get engineers to the wire under the cover of pre-dawn gloom and blow it. Once the ATGs are gone, your tanks can trundle over the bridge and kill everything else without ever coming into range of cover that might hide a Shreck or Faust. The infantry, other than FOs and engineers, are unncessary to win this one. Using both batteries of 105s on the hill will pretty much break any infantry in the trench complex.

If you want to advance your infantry to the hill, use smoke (from artillery, mortars, offmap guns and tank main guns and smoke dischargers - you've got a lot of smoke - to cover your advance. The AI won't fire even TRP missions into clouds of smoke because it doesn't know there are any units there to shoot at.