MAIN EVENT VII! Ratzki vs Joonny....

[Der Kuenstler]

Welcome back, fight fans! It's been a while and I for one am ready for another play-by-play battle! This time we have Ratzki and Joonny, two strong supporters of our club who also know their way around a battlefield.

Ratzki is 44-25-15 here at the Blitz. He's a very smart player and you have to have sound strategy to beat him, and sometimes you still lose!
Joonny is 62-54-22 here at the Blitz. He is also a tough player and very learned in the mechanics of the game. Neither of these commanders have met on the battlefield so far, according to their player stats.

This battle will take place in CMBB this time, at a sleepy fishing town somewhere in the East.

Both players are to pick a number between 1-50 and send it to me - the winner gets to choose the side! Stay tuned for a look at the parameters and map....

[willow]

This ought to be good! Looking forward to it.

[Der Kuenstler]

Yes indeed.

OK guys, Ratzki picked number 38, Joonny picked number 30. The number I picked was 33. Therefore JOONNY will pick the side he wants to be.

I have attached the final map. Joonny will choose his side and set up the game, according to these parameters:

DATE: July 1944
REGION: Central
FORCE MIX: Unrestricted
NATIONALITY: German Infantry / Russian Infantry
QUALITY: Unrestricted
PURCHASE UNITS: Human
FITNESS: Fit
CASUALTIES: None
AMMO: Full
SEWER: No

BATTLE TYPE: Meeting Engagement
FORCE SIZE: 3000 points
MAP: Import
HANDICAP: none
RARITY: Standard
TIME: Mid day
TEMP: Warm
WEATHER: Overcast / Breeze
LENGTH: 30 variable

Both commanders will choose a simple password for the game that they don't normally use and send it to me. Then they will send all of their turns with a "CC" to me so I can open and report on the game. (Of course neither of them can look at the thread until the game is over.)

In addition to the regular ladder points, the winner of this battle gets 100 ladder points and the "Main Event" medal. The loser gets 50 ladder points and the "Main Event" medal.

[Der Kuenstler]

Here is the map. It is oriented North-South. To the North is the Sea of Azov. To the South are some Sea Cliffs and beyong the cliffs are some high plains where crops are growing. I have drawn a blue line where the cliffs are. No vehicles will be able to go up or down the cliffs, so this will force our combatants to make some decisions. Should you try to dominate the cliffs (where no flags are) so you can fire down on the town, or just send all of your forces to the flags? Should be interesting...



Here is a shot looking from the German side, in the Northeast. A couple of Tigers up in those cliffs to the South could see across the whole map and do some real damage, but they couldn't get down to the flags.



This shot below is from the Russian side closer to town. Looks like a nice playground of buildings for a pack of speedy T-34s - if they can make it there. The blue tinted buildings are my mod and are all heavy buildings. Whoever gets there first will be tough to pry out.



This fisherman had better get home - there's a bad storm brewing - this time one of steel, hot lead, and blood....

[Der Kuenstler]

Joonny won the numbers pick and he has chosen the Germans. He included his own explanation of his picks in his email so I will include that here:

"After a bit of thought I decided to go for the Germans on this one. I hardly ever play as the Germans so I may well have made my first mistake there, but that late war kit just proved too tempting, and my personal preference when playing as the Russians (Guards or Mech Guards) were not available so I thought I'd try this.

My force is built around the veteran armour force. The vets were so much more expensive than regs (an extra 200pts in the plt of panthers) but i feel to get the most out of their in built accuracy advantage a good crew is necessary to make the most out of this. Infantry wise I've brought as many SMGs to the party as I could, i expect my opponent to do the same as we'll be doing plenty of short range fighting I expect.

I have a serious lack of arty (IE nothing), but on the terrain it shouldn't really matter as much, mortars would be pretty much useless against inf in buildings and heavy arty is just too expensive for a battle of this size.

I bought my usual mix from the support column, a couple of snipers to do recon, some tank hunter teams to recon and try and confuse the enemy, who knows they might even bag a tank and an MG42 LMG to fill out the points."




So now we have the German side set for battle.

No shreks?

No Anti-Tanks guns? You'd think 2 ATGs could have had quite a party up in those cliffs.

At least one FO with fast (1 minute) call down time would have been a must for me - an FO here could see across the whole valley and delay and confuse the Russian advance.

Good call going with vet armor - good for long range shooting. (Although I'd have mixed some regulars in there for building demolition)

I think Joonny is going to be seriously short on infantry, though.

Any thoughts from our readers yet?

[cargol]

I would have trade some of the Stugs for a couple of Brumbars.
I think that the SMG and Jager choice is not wise as even if they have some decent firepower still they cant match the Russian SMG teams and their limited ammo load will be a serius disadvantage in a 30+ turns battle.
I agrre with DK that a FO will be very usefull in the specific map.

[willow]

Yes, for 3000 points he doesn't seem to have got a lot. 1 less StuG platoon would have given him options for a bit more infantry or a spotter. DK, are you thinking of posting the map for us to download? It would be fun to try out.

[Der Kuenstler]

Yes - here is the map they are using...

[Der Kuenstler]

Now we have Ratzki's picks for the Russian side - the backbone of his force is a regular quality '44A infantry battalion:







Half the squads in this battalion have one less rifleman and an added LMG for more punch - but at a cost - their ammo is reduced from 41 to 28. Surprisingly Ratzki gets no SMG platoons. He rounds off his infantry with a regular pioneer platoon.

No snipers?

He is light on armour compared to Joonny.

Now for the real surprise - here's how Ratzki picked his forces, in his own words:

"Here is my strategy for my forces selection: .... I have none. I hate this part of QBs so I let the AI choose a force for me, I just tweeked it a little with a few less armored Cars and I added a Pioneer Platoon, and a couple jeeps. There you have it, my secret's out."


Yikes! Could this be overconfidence? Insanity under pressure? Stalin is aghast...



But now there is no going back - the forces have been picked, the setup turns are being sent, and each commander must live or die with the consequences of his own decisions....

[Der Kuenstler]

Below are a couple of shots from Joonny of his setup and plans, but first a shot of these seacliffs. You can see that ANY vehicles set up on either side of these cliffs will NOT be able to cross over to the other side. There are just too many jagged rocks and too steep of a slope, as we can see by this PzIIIM's movement line. However, there ARE a few spots along the ridge where infantry can get down, contrary to what I believed earlier.



Here Joonny sends me a couple of shots of his setup with pre-drawn plans of where his forces will go - two brownie points for him. This first shot is in the North half of the map facing East. He appears to have three Panthers and three Stugs on the lower area headed for town. These vehicles do not appear to have any riders. His Jager company is all on foot down there.



This next shot is above the cliffs to the South. He has three more Stugs and a Panther headed along the bottom of the sea wall, along with two SMG platoons. His MG42s, sharpshooters, and a rifle platoon are all up above the seawall - a good place for them with their long range ability. He puts his remaining Panther and two stugs up there - they can't get to the flags, but their shells can. Overall I like this setup - except I would have put riders on the vehicles headed for town - he's going to lose valuable time getting them all there on foot.