Battle Report #2

[Chief Looking Glass]

Hello,

This is a another battle report for a battle that is currently taking place between rampant and I






Here I outline the initial advance.

I split my force into three groups

Infantry, Tanks, Weapons crews and officers

The infantry are to take the left side of the field en mass. I want to establish a zone from where I use the cover most effectively while inserting engineers, pioneers and officers into the closest buildings on the perimeter of the town. I will fix on positions withing the town while figuring out a couple of different approaches.

You can see where I have parked my armor to idle until threats present themselves. Able to go right forward or left i want travel time to hot spots to be balanced and clear of obstacles.

The weapons crews consist of three machine guns and 5 mortars and their accompaniment. I want to scatter them length wise along a natural ridge in the landscape. I have highlight the positions in yellow and brown.

this maneuver is dangerous as it leaves my infantry without suppression fire, and it leave my crews exposed with little to no AT. The tanks in the middle are to relieve either side if needed but if my opponent crashes this side with any armor at all... it will get ugly.

On the other hand if I can establish a good line and remain un bothered I can wait to see what positions the germans take up in town. I will skirmish my officers up into the outlining buildings to try and fix positions and pick off entire teams with the mortars. I also hope if things work out to be able to find good spots for my machine guns to create crossfires on moving infantry through the town.

The idea for now is to create a big right angle.






Here is my armor taking a coffee.




Here is my rifle teams and engineers making haste








weapons teams looking for the ridge to lean up against

[Chief Looking Glass]

The while closing the distance I develop a plan. I begin to lay smoke with the lead tank in hopes of creating a screen/decoy/confusion. I wanted to blanket the structure my engineers intend to occupy. I know this may draw enemy artillery but i'm content with him using up some of his support points early in the game trying to flush out some hard spots.



The idea is to use this structure as a command post and observation post to deploy a crawling set of off map 81 fire to create a corridor. This corridor will divide the town into two sections. I hope to creat a direct line of site from where this command post is and the opposite of town by collapsing the buildings in this row.


I then can take up positions along the backside of the structures my side of this corridor. Hopefully if the command post holds I will be able to bring up some machine guns making advances across this line terrible for my opponents infantry.



While taking up position I notice some germans hovering around one of my intended areas of fire! I mark in grey the first two targets for my off map 81s and the the rest of the corridor down range in red.

My rifles are on there way to occupy this edge of the town.

[Chief Looking Glass]

I started to see ranging fire from the germans so I decided to slow the advance and take up some spots to cover a retreat if need be. I also spotted a half track under my pattern of fire. I wanted to keep it there so I moved up my forward sherman and park it on the left hand side of my command building. My first salvo is ranging in.


On the right my weapons crews spot a panzer up at the top of the map. He seams unaware of my presence so I continue to establish my right angle along the natural ridge.






During the next couple of minutes I became aware of a squadron of halftracks lurking on my rear flank. I immediately called in some mortar fire hoping I can get them holding. I bought it a little this way from the tree line hoping he would advance across this line and My mortars would show up in time. If anything if he cleared the area maybe I could return his advance and he would be retreating across the area.

I highlighted a ridge that exists between my rifles and these half tracks. I completely concealed my guys all the way up to the far left. Fearing he would keep trying to get around me I broke off two rifles to see what I could see.