A Legend Is Born DAR (Now completed)

[Crossroads]

TURN 5: MANTEUFFEL'S VANGUARD

A detail from turn 5:



The Greatest Tank Battles series, and the two episodes on Kursk explained the German Panzerkeil formation.

From Wiki: The panzerkeil was an offensive formation used by armoured vehicles, most commonly tanks. The tanks would form into a wedge-shaped formation, with the most heavily armed and armoured vehicles forming the tip. At the battle of Kursk, Tiger Is (Panzer VIE) would form the tip, Panthers (Panzer V) the base (where available), with the Panzer IVs and Panzer IIIs forming the wings.

The previous turns have witnessed a series of armour engagements, with both sides having larger concentrations of tanks facing each others. Not without losses, I have managed to maintain an upper hand with my Panthers in the middle, and mkIVs in the flanks and behind.

My opponent opted to play this with AF=on. While it was discussed on another thread that this scenario would be more suited for AF=off, at Arracourt the US tanks and TDs ambushed German armour in hordes, from flanking hull-down positions. By turn 10, my opponent has shown he is more than capable of emulating that as well

Visibility is only two hexes, those long 75 mills will not give me an advantage against Shermans 75/76mills. Lots of Stuarts around as well. The lack of friendly recon units is a pain.

I am not complaining, though. The option would be facing a gazillion of P-47 air attacks, as the Allied made a wreck of any German unit they spotted when skies opened up.

Luftwaffe was completely missing from the battle, once again.

I am already forced to use my mortar and arty halftracks for recon, I keep loosing them as well. Valuable VPs lost! :(

With morale 5 units, Leaders must be nearby to rally any disrupted units and have them continue going forward. East front awaits any cowards who will not do their part in this fight! On this turn, I made a note of 0/10 units recovering from disruption...

TURN 6: LOW MORALE, EMPTY STOMACHS

With a base supply of 60%, those all important Battalion HQs may not be far behind either. Leap frogging them forward is quite a task.

Pictured below, I have the Bn HQ of my Panther Brigade stationary on an IP. Road movement helps a lot, but still it is i) move ii) out-of-supply iii) in-supply-if-lucky turn sequence for my troopers. While the Panthers do enjoy a thick frontal skin, their fangs are seriously blunt here.



As shown in the picture, even on a narrow front, tanks on flank duty are outside the command and supply range. The mk IV HQ is in the same IP, the command range for those lighter skinned cats is the same. As you can see, some of them are within supply range, some are not.

In addition, there's the Regimental HQ, supplying all the Battalion HQs. It needs to be in supply, for the Bn HQs to have a chance? I have no clue. Need to visit the thread again: https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...#pid336112

Oh, there's the CC rule as well. All other platoons need to be within a 50% range of a Bn HQ from their 1st platoons, in order for the chain-of-command to work.

There's a Leader stacked in the same IP hex as the two HQs, he should add to the command range the same number of hexes his Commander level is. This is helping, but again, with morale 5 units, the leaders are busy dashing around the battlefield, keeping thinds moving.

Quite a logistical nightmare, I tell you. Loving it!

The US artillery has caused a lot of casualties. While I have a nice ratio on tank kills, on VPs we are pretty even.

I have not kept a track of VPs at this point of time... Onwards and forwards, that is the order of the day!

I assume I need to keep this a bit abstract for a while still, as at least I am for the most part still trying to figure out where the enemy is...

...to be continued