A Legend Is Born DAR (Now completed)

[Crossroads]

TURNS 21-24 THE BATTLE FOR ARRACOURT

Turn 21: The US artillery prove to be a major pain, disrupting my troops, forcing them to retreat. Just not enough officers to rally them.

The noose is tightening around Arracourt city center, where the GIs are putting up their last stand. A succesfull assault conquered the hex west of them, while a just ridiculous amount of direct panzer fire cleaned the hex northeasto to them.

US troops arriving from north, where elements of disrupted platoons are ordered to hold them at bay. Additionally, I have ordered my tanks to break west to find-and-destroy the US artillery units. Last such effort resulted in a complete bloodpath – on my troops. Spreading out too thin is a big mistake in this foggy map!

From -76 VP to -28VP this turn.

Turn 22: 1 platoon out of 20 recovered from disruption! All disrupted units highlighted in the previous pic. It seems the advance towards Arracourt, after all, was the easy part!

Friendly US artillery causes one of the enemy engineers to retreat into IP east of Arracourt centre. They get hit from all sides, and all 5SPs of them are destroyed by the end of turn. Three platoons remain at Arracourt. I manage assault them once, failing with no casualties to either side. I plot friendly artillery to hit the hex again.

Meanwhile, enemy tanks appear from South, as well as from North, with enemy infantry attacking my rear far in East. I get a feeling I just managed to seal off Arracourt in time, before the US relief troops were able to march in.

I try to find the enemy artillery in the West. During the enemy turn I found out (again!) that they are protected by a platoon of Hellcats. I loose a few tanks.

-61 VPs.

Turn 23: I fire smoke again to cover my hexes in the city. After that, three arty rounds hit the defendes, resulting in one disruption.

To keep the pressure on, I pound the defenders, hiding in the smoke, time after time with the MG units and tanks that I have in the vicinity: one disruption only!

Never willing to let my spirits go down, I order my troops (those that are not disrupted, that is) to fix their bayonets:



First assault! One SP killed from the defenders. Second assault: Arracourt falls to my troops!!! WOO-HOO!



(EDITORIAL NOTE: I did not take any screen captures turning 23, as in contrary to what I wrote down, I was quite pessimistic on being able to take Arracourt in the midst of the heavy enemy arty. I actually managed to take the hex on my FIRST assault, on this re-enactment. Extreme Assault, I fear thee no more!)

(ON ANOTHER NOTE: the troops I had were one SP2 Pzg platoon from Northeast, and one SP3 and two SP5 Pzg platoons from the Southwest. Not a lot of firepower, but still plenty enough it seems.)

(EDITORIAL NOTE #3) By mistake, I actually re-played turn #22 (!) for these screen shots, in a manner that I was facing 2 armd infs and 2 engineers, and still was succesful... A true situation for the #23 assault, and additional discussion on EA, can be found here: https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...#pid338663)

TURNS 25-30 MOPPING UP THE ENEMY

Turn #26 starts at 2991 VP. I sent my panzers to actively engage enemy tanks. North and South of Arracourt they do that, just marvelously. I have to say, playing this with AF=ON, I have a feeling I can ride anywhere with my Panthers as the tip of my Panzerkeil:

At Harlauville, my panzergrenadiers engage with a Hellcat platoon. I sent an understrength Panther platoon to deal with them. Hellcats, having used their other salvo at my grenadiers, see the other salvo bounce off the Panthers frontal armour. They, in turn, fall to victims to my 75mms from upper elevation



At the end of the turn the points are at 3070. Losses to both sides have been just hideous, to say the least...

Turn 27: The 4th AD is not about to give up, as a MkIV platoon is destroyd North of Arracourt. Despite of their infantry support, the Sherman platoons are destroyed, infantry forced to retreat, and their two commanders killed.

South of Arracourt, I continue to search for any enemy unit there. Nothing found. West of Arracourt, an infantry platoon spots two batteries of enemy artillery. They aredestroyed by the grenadiers, with the Panther platoon in close support.

The preparation for a push towards Nancy is begun. I am concentrating the remaining panzers to North. I plan to surround and destroy any enemy units I meet, as I don't believe I have enough units to exit for a Major Victory.

VPs: 3187.


Turn 29. Skirmishes all over the map. South of Athienville, a US cavalry platoon takes out my scouting HTs. Infanrty support knocks out one of them, and my single mk IV the rest of them.

M7 Priest’s continue to give me problems west of Arracourt, they just seem to be all around. US artillery is still very strong, despite of my best efforts to knock them down.

Heavy, heavy losses. The smoking columns of German and US vehicles mark the terrain all around Arracourt.



As seen in the map, my forward troops start to advance the road towards Nancy.

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TURNS 30-34 RELIEF OF NANCY

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To cut a long story short, the remaining turns continue to be very painful for the remaining few US troops, and to their general :( .

With several little mobile task forces, I just repeated the following time after time:
- recon with a HT, spot the enemy, move in to destroy them with Mk IVs and Vs.

The map is soon cleared all the way to exit hexes, where the sole remaining Engineer platoon is ruthlessly destroyed, together with several US HTs hiding near by.



I have just enough forces to exit enough units for a Major Victory. SPs are at 4005.

I estimate I have some 50 SPs to exit in addition to this, it seems the massacre of hidden US units was needed for this result. While I left some units to defend Arracourt, they were mostly SP 1 or SP2 grenadiers and MG units, with one Mk IV and one Mk V to support them.

What a tough fight this have been! Lots of fun as well!

How we played, I judge this scenario to be quite Pro-Axis. Having said that, it was no walk in the park. I will post my ultimate judgement tomorrow.