Coil whups CT, a memoir in advance (Colonels Keep Out!)

[The Coil]

Turn 17/Orders 18

CT puts the finishing touches on the annihilation of my 2 forward platoons, in the middle and on the far left. The boys in the middle get beat up pretty bad, one pinned plt of 3 men, one routed plt, nothing else left. Satchel charges and flamethrowers take their toll. Same story on the left, still 2 plts and the HQ left, but beat up and low on ammo, not to mention sort of surrounded. Still they got some licks in and burned a few turns. With luck, CT will use up another turn or two chasing down the survivors. Took much worse than I gave out, but not unhappy with the results. Every satchel charge and flame burst now is one less when he hits the MLR.

The center looks like this after turn 17:


My forward HMG in the middle continues to miraculously hold on, on the receiving end of fire from a whole mess of units. Maybe fanatical or something. Plus CT is using half squads for most of the forward work, so it could be a lot less firepower than it looks like. I give him the short cover arc and 'hide' order multiple turns, try to get him to duck and recover his morale state, but he keeps blasting away. Turn 16 he takes 2 more casualties (only 2 guys left), and then the gun jams. Lucky break for me, because he stops shooting. Turn 17 I hide him, and CT loses contact. Beginning of turn 18 he pops up again, and lo and behold, the gun is unjammed. Always thought they wouldn't unjam while hidded, but turns out they do... I put cover arcs on a few of the HMGs deeper on the board, make sure they still have plenty of ammo when the real fight starts, while keeping up some sporadic fire against anyone who tries to advance.

The whole board looks like this from my view on turn 18:



Soon he's going to try to push forward and trip cover arcs with half squads, so I adjust my arcs so that only one or two shooters will reveal themselves to stop the advancer. In lieu of a true defense in depth, I'm opting for the poor man's version, only exposing a few shooters at a time. He'll quickly gun them down, but it'll take him a few turns each time. Still want to maintain a critical mass for the final assault, though, so I don't want to push that strategy too far. But CT still has a little too much time left for my liking.

Not sure what CT is up to on my right, no LOS over there any more, but he doesn't seem to have made it to the flag over there that I left undefended. Some of his left flank seems to have shifted to deal with my forward platoon in the center, but no idea where the rest are...either waiting in place or sneaking forward through the scattered trees. He'll get those flags, but have to get past my MG bunker and a few guns for those dudes to help out in the middle. Not sure what I was thinking on the MG bunker placement - it really should have been turned a bit towards CT's lines, but it has LOS all over that big flag that I left undefended. My LMG on the right (which survived the Priest shelling unscathed) is now behind CTs guys, so he heads back down the map toward my lines to see if he can get a peek at what CT is up to.

In the middle, I'm wavering on whether I let him have the forward small flag or try to hit him hard before he can get it. I have much better sightlines if he has to come forward to that clump of woods. I also consider shifting a platoon from my right to the middle, where it looks like the biggest force is, but decide to hold off until I have a better idea of what he's doing on my right.

I'm still figuring a battalion of engineers, which would make me reasonably happy - it's roughly an even fight in terms of numbers of units, even if his hit a bit harder and have more ammo. Although I keep reminding myself it could be a coy of engineers backed by something else. CT has been chortling with glee over his satchel charges, but he's going to have a hard time using them as well when the cover is a bit sparser on my end of the map.

I'm still afraid of an arty hit on the center, that could be bad news. Also wish I'd bought some mobile HE. I love mobile HE. That's my thing. How could I have gone into battle without it?