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[Plain Ian]

Turn 46 Allied - Bastogne



Not much to see. All quiet just artillery and some tactical withdrawls.

I've abandoned Compogne (F/2-424th 106th Div) and also pulled 2-505th back to Bertogne which is garrisoned by another 106th Division unit, the K/3-424th (2 co's).
No point in leaving the Para Bn to be shot up by the whole of 2nd Panzer.
The 504th has also moved to close up on Bertogne.

If things remain quiet I will send the 505th north to La Roche.

I've also pulled back towards Tillet and Magerotte. Again no point sitting in Clear terrain and given his artillery target practise.

501st will need most of the day to rest. The 317th is still waiting all trucked up to see which way it should go, although I did send the 3-317th to occupy Chaumont and support the 2-318th.

The only thing missing from the picture to make it historical would be for the 101st to be sitting inside the German perimeter. Of course if it was, I'm not sure what troops I'd be using to hold the outside of the perimeter with? I think the 101st is better off outside...........

[Plain Ian]

Turn 46 Allied - La Roche - Rarmont



Pretty quiet. The main action was at Rarmont, the 17th/40th Tank Bn's against his VGD Bn. I've very little artillery coverage in this area. I then pulled the 48th Arm'd Inf Bn back.

La Roche is now garrisoned with an Engineer Bn plus a Para bn of the 505th. I've pulled back the 35th Engineers on Nadrin road. The bridge was blown several days ago. This will slow him down a bit so no need to lose Engineers making delaying actions. I also moved up the 82nd AAA unit but thats pretty silly and I'll move it away.
He won't come down the Nadrin road with much as moving on secondary roads in Mud is like treacle. He must be coming down the Primary road from Samree.

Samree has been garrisoned by the Cav just now. The 333rd couldn't reach it. The 333rd Bn's are just over 600 men each so I can get two stacked there plus one to watch Dochamps and enemy activity from the Grandmenil area.

At Grandmenil I have the 335th deployed.

I guess that that is me more or less set in this area. Only tactical reserves will come from any Engineers I can find, a few Batallions from the 505th (82nd) and the 84th's Tank Destroyer Bn (638th) which is sitting back on the Aisne next to the artillery. (forgot to mark up)

Strategic reserves I guess are the 334th Rgt of the 84th Division but they are at Aywaille.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 46 Allied - Spa



There is another Commando unit active in the Chession area.

More tactical retreats. At La Gleize I am withdrawing 1 hex at a time. He follows me and uses artillery. There is a Primary road here, so I guess he could have used armour in T mode and tried to Disrupt and assault me to speed things up?

My forces which are just north of La Gleize are now out of position and I'm trying to get them back into useful positions. However the commandos are going to make this difficult even if they can reach the road ahead of his forces attacking towards Staumont.

I've started moving the 1-120th north and also the 99th. I wanted to rest them a bit more but will have to use them. The 1-120th is an A rated unit so will be useful.

Spa is waiting for the onslaught next turn.

Artillery results were quite good because of the amount of 155mm I have in VII Corps. I targeted his armour but only managed to take out 2 but had about 3-4 Fatigue hits on his Panthers.

The 3-517th engaged in an uneven battle with his 150th Bde unit and added a further 36 casualties to his 12 from artillery.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 46 Allied - Elsenborn



Map shows artillery results plus the results of the 745th Tank Bn against his Assault Gun group. I don't have a lot of artillery at the moment as its mostly fleeing to the north west in the Woods. The results from the 745th were a bit surprising. The Jagdpanzers were easier to kill than the StuGIII's?

Monschau lost so its now time to get out of Dodge. The road NW from Monschau does have a Swamp hex which means he can't deploy in here if I chose to stand and fight behind it.....but I have nothing to fight with.

I've started to deploy some of the artillery hidden in the woods just off map to the north. I guess I should have enough time to limber up and move west, even if he comes after me up the Monschau road.

I shuffled some units on the Sourbrodt road.

3-18th relieved by 51st Engineers and moving across.
703rd TD Bn moved in to support 745th Tank Bn.
1st and 2nd Combat Engineers pulled back. The hex is Clear but IMPROVED which will give some protection from the inevitable WW1 artillery barrage next turn. Both units are B Morales so should last a few turns.......

I guess I just have to wait and see if he follows me into the Hoes Venn.

Lastly I'm still a bit puzzled by the artillery results against the 3-9th? Is it possible in PzC that a map hex which shows as being Swamp can in fact be a Marsh hex? I know some games have a terrain array behind the map mask so it might be showing one terrain type on the map mask, but the game treats it as per the data in the terrain array?

Of course the other obvious possibility is that my opponent is playing with a different map?

[ComradeP]

The direct and indirect fire results are variable, and the success of shots aimed at vehicles are determined by a die roll, so it seems he got high rolls on his artillery and direct fire against the 3-9th and you got good rolls against his Jagdpanzers.

[Plain Ian]

The direct and indirect fire results are variable, and the success of shots aimed at vehicles are determined by a die roll, so it seems he got high rolls on his artillery and direct fire against the 3-9th and you got good rolls against his Jagdpanzers.

Hmm well I'm not convinced that he rolled well for 13 of his 15 artillery rolls plus all of his ground fire rolls? The last 2 artillery roll results were actually ok as well. In my current turn 47 I'm rolling -1 losses against his infantry in Forest terrain which is -30%, not the -40% for Swamp. That's an average roll I would say.

As for the Jagdpanzer result what surprised me was that the Jagdpanzer IV has a defense of 19 and the StuG III a defense strength of 12.
Again in my current turn 47 I got the opposite results of what I'd expect with the same unit against these two target types.

Anyway on to turn 47.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 47 German





My turn losses were down from last turn. The unlucky 3-9th lost a further 90 men. I didn't bother moving them last turn assuming that they would retreat when fired but they stayed still even though they could retreat? Admittedly the hex they could retreat to was in an enemy ZOC but had one of my units in it, but I assumed they would jump back.....they didn't.

My tank losses were also reasonable. You just have to keep them out of the way most of the time. Plus I've been noticing that tank recovery is actually quite respectable. I gained 8 tanks this turn. Unfortunately most of these were in tank units which had high fatigue and which are days away from being of any use.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 47 German south



A
The Germans brought up probably all of their armour and used a pioneer unit to screen them to the north. The 51st/53rd Arm Inf Bn’s were heavily attacked losing almost 50 men between them. However ground and artillery return fire did cause damage including a Disruption to his StuG co.

B/G
The 19th/10th Tank Bn’s north of Brouch were hit by two assaults. Group G (212th/352nd) attacked first losing 6 men in defensive fire then a further 30 men in the assault. The 10th lost 3 tanks but both Tank Bn’s held their ground. He then used Group B (mixed 5FJD/Pz lehr) losing a further 61 men in the assault and 12 men in defensive fire. A further 2 tanks were lost but he disrupted my defenders and pushed them south to Brouch. 2 of his units were disrupted in the attack.

C
He pushed some A/T guns forward but lost 3 to defensive fire when they unlimbered and fired. The 70th Tank Bn lost 1 tank.

D
The Manic MG group is back in the front line.

E
He reinforced the 212th group in the south.

The 2-12th and 3rd tank Bn were not attacked and in fact the 3rd recovered a tank this turn.
Its difficult to estimate his tank strength but I’d guess 40-50? Possibly this might be too high looking at his infantry stacked in Group A.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 47 German - Bastogne



There was little action here. 26th VGD followed up my Paratroopers falling back at Longchamps and 2nd Panzer armour continues to stay in the Compogne area.

The unknown SS units up by Nadrin are now identified as 9th SS.

Possibly if the weather had remained Snow he might have attacked at La Roche? Who knows. He still can. Michael has bridged a River in an area hidden by Woods before in the south so possibly he might go for this in the Nadrin area?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 47 German Grandmenil - La Gleize



Again little action mostly artillery and my reaction/return fire.

The 560th VGD seems happy to hold where it is at Grandmenil and Rarmont.
The 116th continues to grind slowly forward towards Webermont.
The 1st SS (Peiper/Hansen/Sandig) continues to advance on Stoumont.