The 2nd Armored Campaign

[Gregor]

The plan:

Before I start playing a scenario I always try to form a plan for my actions. As I have the orders to attack and the enemy should be weaker in the start of the game I am going for a full attack early.

Another good reason for the early attack is the night turn. In most Normandy scenarios the Allied have a lot of air support and that can be devastating for units moving in travel mode to the front. I therefore plan to use this first turn to move in travel mode along the roads with as much troops as possible. As the sight is limited in the next turn too, dawn, I will be able to end turn in travel mode without risking being spotted and taking too much artillery fire in return. Other times I usually try to switch to deployed at the end of turn to prevent the damaging return fire from artillery of other sources at my travel mode units.

Then to the actual plan. If there should be any hope to take back Carentan I need to control the hill 30 and the rest of the hills to the south-west. Especially the 7 hexes marked with red circles will enable control of the open ground south and west of the town and the ones close to la Billonnerie will enable fire support directly into Carentan itself. Remembering that high ground gives a nice bonus the fighting for the higher ground is usually intense in PzB and controlling the hills are important as it were in the real fight. The posison on the hill will control the bridges and make the American reinforcement of Carentan more costly.

To take the hill I send the 37th PzGr reg to take Donville and the area close by and the 38th PzGr reg are attacking along the main road to the South-East. The FJ reg 6 is wore down by earlier fighting, but will support in the attack except the most heavy fatigued ones that will rest for as long as possible to get to green fatigue again. Fatigue is what prevent you driving your troops much harder than historically and the fighting effectiveness is fast dropping with increasing fatigue.
The StuGs (close to 40) and about 10 Marders and other support will move forward alongside 38th regiment and help secure the hill and eventually engage any armored counterattacks  by the Americans.

Unfortunately I don't have a end of turn picture as I forgot to take the picture before I ended the turn. In standard games that is OK as the window stays open but in the campaign the widow is closed and the game returns to the campaign window. Mainly the move made contact with a few elements in the fields south west of Donville. Else there were mostly full speed move along the roads to get the troops into the fight as soon as possible.