THE MAIN EVENT III! Arrow vs. Moondog

[Der Kuenstler]

Minute Twelve:

Arrow gets tired of waiting outside for Moondog to blow the central church down - he orders this Poineer squad to do it themselves. We can see the demo charge flying through the air.



The second charge brings down the church. Now Arrow's infantry can enter the remaining rubble in relative safety. In the background we see one of Mondog's stugs is area firing one of the light buildings to the north. Moondog's 105mm artillery begins falling downtown on top of two of Arrow's shermans but it only buttons them up - no damage is done.



Here we see a rather odd order - I'm not sure what Moondog's intention here is. He orders his vet Tiger, a stug, and the elite IVH all to fire smoke at the area circled in white. Does he want the smoke to enable his tiger to get closer to the Shermans? If so, why? The Tiger has great sights and would actually do better from farther away. Maybe someone else has an idea of why this would be a good move? (The third stug pivots and area fires at the house marked with a blue "x.")



At any rate, the smoke orders end in absolute disaster. The vet tiger fires only one smoke shell into the ground, and, about six seconds later, the dust unexpectedly clears over the house he was hiding behind. The German tank crew is caught with their pants down, trying to pull out the next smoke shell and frantically insert an AP shell. But they aren't fast enough - both Shermans get LOS instantly, and the vet Sherman hits home - boom - one shot, one kill. A partial penetration. Arrow doesn't know it is dead yet, but the complete stillness of the big beast for the rest of the minute gives him a clue.



The German high command is in shock - now Moondog has bumbled away both of his best assets - the Elite Panther and the Vet Tiger. What was practically a guaranteed victory for Moondog a few minutes ago has now become a toss up, and perhaps even advantage Arrow. Now it is three regular stugs and a Pz IVH against four M4A3(76)W Shermans. The IVH is easily pierceable and the stugs are hindered by their fixed carriages. In this shot Goebbels shows Hitler a security guard position at Auschwitz that would be ideal for Commander Moondog....



At the Northern flag, things are going better for the krauts - we can see they have driven Arrow's southern platoon out of the woods and sent them on the run. Arrow has been forced to send another '44 platoon to reinforce this Northern flag, and they are on their way now. But one platoon may not be enough to stem the German infantry tide.