A Strong Response - DAR

[Ratzki]

I don't think that I really had a decisive blow at any time in the game. I just seemed to have the chances to nibble away all through the battle. I would say that the122mm did not cause that many casualties, but with the fire from my squads, it did make the enemy retreat out of the area in a hurry. With only 195 casualties according to the endscreen, I only reduced his total troop count by 1/3 or so. I would not call this a bloodbath, but it appeared that I did manage to Route and Break alot of his squads along the way, and this was probably more effective, specially at the start when I was short of men and trying to buy time more then anything.
If anything was the real game breaker for me, it was the Anti Tank Rifles; the Russian squads just did not seem to be able to pick up their locations. I think that this kept the enemy tanks out of the battle for most of the turns. With hind-sight being 20/20, I would say that if the Russians would have pushed hard at the start, when he first encountered my men in ambush, he would have collapsed my main defence and I would have been scrambling to try to stop his advance. But that little delay he had let me re-organize and fall back out of his tank's LOS. Had I been playing the Russians, I probably would have done the same, the thought of moving through the woods and getting ambushed all the way would have played heavy on my mind as well.