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[Plain Ian]

Overview - the south



Major changes here. 

III Corps has given up 26th Division to VIII Corps and will move back south. 

XII Corps has given up 4th Inf and 4th Arm Divs to VIII Corps. It has 10th Arm Div and the 5th Div which hopefully arrives 6am south of Mersch. Corps HQ will have to start moving east now.

VIII Corps has a great command range of 25 and has taken over most of the south. It will now have 4th Arm Div/4th Div/9th Arm Div (temp)/80th Div/26th Div/28th Div and 101st Div. 
4th Div is moving up to help form a defensive line. 4th Armoured may probe towards Berg or push north.  

XVIII Corps loses 101st but gains 53rd.

Initially I was going to bring 101st further south to help counter 2nd SS and use the 53rd to hold the line and start to make minor advances. 

I'm now thinking that IF I get plenty of air today (24th) I may use 53rd and 101st to push on Bastogne from Flamierge. Therefore the 101st shifts its weight north? This may cause him to pull back 2nd SS? 
Two Divisions from two different Corps allows two Corps worth of artillery support.

[Plain Ian]

V Corps



No turn back and too much time on my hands. I thought I'd take a snapshot of V Corps. The same 4 Divisions have been attached to the Corps from the first day. (December 16th....another day of infamy) 

As you can see, in terms of strength its in pretty good shape. The columns from left to right is men-guns-vehicles. (veh=tanks/AAA/armoured cars/M7 Priests)

Even the 99th Division is averaging 500 men per Battalion just about. In fact most units of the 99th are now down to low-mid Green fatigue as is most of the other units in the Corps apart from a few units. (3-38th is one) The 99th even has two complete Bn's of artillery left although no regimental guns. However the most important thing is that the Division has not lost any companies and each Battalion is complete.

The 1st and 9th are probably the best equiped units. 60th Rgt is still fresh althouth now involved in heavy fighting north of Francochamps. The 2nd although battered over the first few days has managed to hold on to most of its armour. 

Replacement rates for armour have been pretty good and I think I'm averaging 6-10 tanks/tank destroyers per turn. 

I've also listed V Corps artillery. I cannot get the total listed for V Corps to match what I physically have on the map though? I have 27 vehicles (18th Rkt/62nd FA) but I do not have 102 guns?) You can see a breakdown of the types of guns I have.

I've also shown todays reinforcements which arrive in the north. All artillery, 4 of which are for V Corps.

So the future looks bright for a push east very soon.....

EDit: ignore the 6am label down by Sourbrodt. That was accidentally left on and has no significance.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - Losses



Dawn startiing to break and its another bruising turn. He minimised his losses as per usual, only losing 1 tank and 162 men. US losses in tanks were light. 

I'll post VP's and end of my turn. 

[Plain Ian]

[b]Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - the north[/b]



A pretty quiet turn. He picked the 1-26th as his main artillery target and there was no ground fire. 

He has brought up a 277th Pioneer unit to support the souther hex. He says the rest of the Division is moving to support this?

He does have a fresh VGD arriving this turn but it comes on in dribs and drabs and will take a while to walk to the front line. 

I have Corps artillery arriving. I will have to clear a road path for the two VII Corps artillery units to send them west. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - Spa



Heavy fighting. 

He refreshed his eastern group [C] with a 12th SS units and also the group below Spa (B) with units from 12th SS and KG Sandig.

His 12th SS tank group hit two of my tanks and just took 4 fatigue hits in return.

As usual, before his tank attack he used the pioneer/engineers (broken down into 6 companies)  to run down my tank return fire.....this is getting really annoying. He did lose 30 men and take disruptions but he must think that its a good tactic!!

His Spa group (A) did their usual damage agaiinst the recently arrived 2-36th. He takes 15-20 men with each shot 

He shuffled his 5th FJD units in the south bringing up non disrupted and pulling back the disrupted. He took a few losses to opportunity fire 

More maps later.......

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - Chession - Samree


North of the river at Stoumont he advances a few small Pioneer units. Indragnir said he was surprised to find my armoured cars here. 

At Chession the heavy werfer fire continues. The 38th Armoured Infantry take their turn. One consolation however is that the firing units are revealed. (Both TRENCH -40%) Indragnir has said that the Pioneer's at Chession have served their puprose? I'm not quite sure what he means unless he means blocking access to the Stoumont 'corridor' and acting as spotters?

At Bra he was forced to rotate undisrupted troops from the 18th VGD. 

At Grandmenil the whole of 9th SS panzers remains camped and showing no signs of moving. 

Similarly the 2nd Panzer seems happy to keep both its Panzer Battalions here now that they have 9th SS infantry support. 

I don't have a counter against his Panzer Death stacks at the moment apart from going around them if I can. A drive from Odeigne to Baraque would be nice but he would just use his panzers to come in behind me. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - Bertogne



As expected he selected the undisrupted 159th but did not attempt an assault. he now has 7 Battalions against 4 of mine (2-505th is at 40% 302 men and the 159th is 55% 275 men) he aslo has a further 3 Bn's southwest of Longchamps. He can't have much inbetween?

I have 3 air recons this turn so I might have a look.

53rd(Welsh) Division will move into the line this turn. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn - Warnoch



My 158th Engineers miraculously recover disruption despite losing heavily. He has decided to stay in Hollange rather than assault out.

At Warnach he has moved quite slowly and methodically much to my surprise. The B/103rd Engineers was overran and forced to surrender but he made no ther assaults? The 101st Engineers did lose 90+ men and narrowly avoid an air attack but he has opted to go for positioning this turn. He will obviously pull the trigger next turn?

At Bigonville he was content to take 4 tanks off of the 702nd Tank Bn.

I looked at his OOB a few nights ago and was surprised to see that the Fuhrer Grenadier Bde is a C morale unit. Not that it makes much difference when they are driving about in 32 Panther V's.........

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 German 6am Dawn -the south Mersch



He doesn't like Engineers so the 24th Armoured Engineers took a pounding although my decision to get them into Forest probably saved them a bit. 

My bridging engineers are ready to build a bridge at Boevange but I will wait until daylight so I can see where he is first. If he has a los on Boevange then my Engineers will be pounded by 7th Army artillery.

The 20th Armoured Infantry paid the price for racing to the river and sitting in Clear terrain. (down to 53% with 291 men) I'll get them into Mersch this turn along with the 11th Tank Bn. 

I was hoping that he would withdraw the 352nd as I thought he was within a protected entry zone......but I miscounted. I counted 3 out from the entry hex when in fact you should include the entry hex...duh.

The 5th Infantry Division has arrived this turn so I will have to move the unit into a small trap. I'll  lead with M4 tanks and try to air recon to see what is there. Motorised infantry in T mode can easily lose50+ men so I may have to dismount and probe on foot. 
My biggest concern is 5th Division's artillery which will be a juicy target for him. 

I could delay the 5th I suppose? Anyone have any thoughts on this before I get on with my turn?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 73 Allied - end of turn VP's and losses

VP's 



Losses by phase



Turn losses



Not really a good turn for me. I inflicted 476 losses of men on him but it cost me 224 men which pushed my losses for the turn over 1,000. I did better with vehicles and guns. I think 6-8 of his vehicle losses were tanks. No Panthers though. 
Hopefully most of his gun losses from my counterbattery were werfers.