THE MAIN EVENT III! Arrow vs. Moondog

[Der Kuenstler]

Next is Moondog's setup - here is an overall view:



Interesting - I have drawn a red line where the Germans would logically go - but Moondog appears to be doing the opposite - he has almost nothing by the Southern flags and most of his forces facing the Northern flags. Is he trying to trick Arrow? Or did he just make it harder for his men?

In a closeup to the North we can see all of Moondog's key fighting vehicles except the Tiger are here. They are all loaded up with MG42 HMGs and one HQ. Instead of leading with his elite vehicles, he plays it safe and leads with his stugs. (Worried about hidden guns?) Further to the North some foot infantry are ready to go - all of Moondog's infantry are hiding - and none of them lined up in single file as Herroberst and others have done during setup.



Lastly, a shot of the vet tiger. The Tiger and the 251/1s are carrying the poineer platoon and some FT units.



From Commander Moondog:

"Purchases - I bought as much armour as 800+pts can buy and a Battalion of infantry plus a few other bits. It took me ages to decide what kit to get and I'm still not sure if I should have bought a Tiger, mine normally get bogged but hey at least I haven't wasted points on 150mm guns as I sometimes do. I love those things but one shot is normally all they get, however impressive that shot is. ....Also I have an Elite Panzer IV that I can't even remember buying. :-S

Terrain
(Great map by the way).
The map edge and river have basically created an island with limited entry points. This narrows down the tactical options quite a bit and with 5 out of 6 flags on the "island" the obvious plan is to get as much stuff on there as possible and as quickly as possible. I'm therefore expecting Arrow to rush across the two bridges onto the island and I'm sure he expects me to do the same.

My Plan.
There is a lone flag in the South outside the island and nearer me than him so I'm going to hope he thinks that this flag is just too easy for me to secure and defend and ignore it. I am only going to send a small party to secure that flag and patrol the southern area. It's a gamble that leaves me enough men to stand a chance at the other end of the map. If he sends a huge force down south we might not meet up till the game is over :-)

In the middle I have some engineers on apc's ready to do a flag rush up the middle and at least get a presence in the town. All of A company are followng this rush on foot to support them.

This commotion should convince Arrow that the centre is my main thrust and draw any Artillery or nasty surprises into the the town while my real strength will be to the North where I already have a foothold on the 'island'. I hope to quickly occupy the wood and overwhelm his right flank with B C and D companies before moving south to meet up with A company and finish the job.

I haven't mentioned armour as I'm treating this as an infantry battle with tank support and plan to be very cautious with my cats until i know where he is coming from. Especially as he has an Elite sherman with nasty ammo out there.

Of course plans never work and against the Allies and the USA I'll probably get shafted by a huge barrage of coke machines ice cream makers and whippets and be told to fark orf and have a nice day but we will soon see."

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

Counting the bazookas and 57mm guns in this battalion, there are at least 18 units that can hurt or kill big cats.

The worth of the bazooka should not be overestimated. I'm playing a CMAK game right now in which I picked the same batallion. Although my bazooka's have knocked out 2 Panthers, they do need an awful lot of hits ! One Panther was hit (with armourpenetration) 4 times and still drove on (eventually KO-ed by a Sherman 105) and another one was hit twice in the side, but is still happily killing my infantry.

Oh, the good old days in CMBO times: one hit, one kill.

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

I'm a bit confused: does Moondog have a Panther or doesn't he ? According to the screenshots he has one, but according to the purchase screen by Lord Bane and the post by DK from yesterday, in which he cites Moondog, he has not.

[Rico (FGM)]

Great work as usual!

Just one small request -- can you leave in some of the trees? Maybe on the lightest setting -- just to give us viewers a slightly better sense of the map, terrain. (currently the screenshots give a false sense of a compltely open map ;-) )
You can always make them completely invisible when they get in the way of showing something in a screenshot.

[Der Kuenstler]

I'm a bit confused: does Moondog have a Panther or doesn't he ? According to the screenshots he has one, but according to the purchase screen by Lord Bane and the post by DK from yesterday, in which he cites Moondog, he has not.

Oh yes - he has an elite panther that was given to him as a bonus unit. Arrow also has a bonus elite Sherman loaded with 20 extra tungsten rounds.

Yes Rico - I will add some trees - I usually play with them off so I have a bad habit of leaving them off.

Next we have Arrows setup. I have drawn a green line where the most convenient flags would be for the Americans to go for, and it looks like Arrow is going to do just that. He has an infantry force to go get the northern flag, the bulk of his force for the three flags in the center, and nothing at all to the South. Looks like he's going to let Moondog have that Southern flag.



Most of his armor is lined up in the Southwest. He is leading with a halftrack pulling a 57mm gun. His lone vet Sherman leads his sherman platoon and the platoon leader is trailing the pack. He elects not to line up any of his vehicles on the road side by side. His foot squads are flayed out side by side, not lined up straight in a row.



To the Northwest we see Arrow's elite Sherman. A lot of hope rests on this nimble tank and crew. It must kill something - something big - before it goes down, or all that tungsten will be lost. But look - Arrow will be facing the bulk of Moondog's armor ahead, including the elite Panther. Will he live long enough to hurt the Germans? He's leading with halftracks, so hopefully he will be able to back out of there before going up against 5 German afvs, two of them elite. But Moondog will have the same trouble to the South - his lone Tiger will be facing five of Arrow's shermans.



Message from Arrow:

"My plan is to seize two small knobs for ATG support. The first on my left flank is between the wooded flag and the church flag. The second is in the middle between the church flag and the 2nd from the right flag. I'm holding my armor in reserve until I see what he does. His armor is great at range, mine are better up close. German infantry needs to be engaged quickly to use up their limited ammo. Infantry to capture the 4 flags on the right, Except for a light recon in case he neglects the points, I have given up the flag on my far left. I already made a couple of mistakes, one of which was not pre-targeting my arty. In purchasing assets I like buying the whole batalion it gives me the superior numbers. I give up quality for quantity, typical attrition warfare."

"You must do your damndest and win!" says general Patton....

[fluidwill]

This is going to be a cagey one after the fireworks last time, couple of careful percentage players.
Assuming no-one wins the armour battle out right and in that regard a lot depends on the performance of Arrows elite sherman I draw your attenntion to Moondogs 120mm mortar spotter, I love those and on a map like this they can do a lot of damage to troops cowering in scttered trees.

[herroberst]

Does anybody support the idea of pre-planned artillery fire, heavy caliber to take out the opposing bridges on this kind of map? Seems to me that dropping the bridges or just barraging the area would fatally slow up the opposing side. What do you think - feasible? Another tactic would be to strike set up zones with widespread heavy rocket fire to disrupt infantry and vehicles.

[Mikey_FGM]

Pre-plotted artillery is only available in Attack or Assault Battles, not Probes or Meeting Engagements...

[herroberst]

I thought you could during first turn plot it and it would fire but you could not move it thereafter...

[Der Kuenstler]

nope - can't do it in meeting engagements...because it would require pre-planning and these armies are considered to be meeting abruptly. (that's why some players insist on having all guns mounted on transport at startup.) This map has some shallow fords in it so it wouldn't be a gamebreaker anyway to blow bridges...