Operation Bluecoat (no OJW)

[ComradeP]

This AAR will cover the Axis side of Operation Bluecoat, by far the longest scenario in the game at 144 turns (but not the biggest in terms of the number units involved). My Allied opponent is Outlaw Josey Wales.

I'll try to make this AAR as reader friendly as possible when it comes to explaining details of how the game works, and why certain results appear.

That does mean the AAR will get somewhat technical at times, and that I'll also give my opinion on some of the mechanics and on what currently works well and what could use some improvement as I see it.

If you have any comments or questions, don't be afraid to ask. I'll do my best to answer them or to explain certain moves.

Operation Bluecoat starts in the Caumont area and goes south to the Vire-Vassy area. It involves both US and British forces on the Allied side, and Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and SS forces on the German side.

The briefing:




Basically, in order to win the Allies have to smash the initial German defenses as quickly as possible and exploit as far south as possible before II. SS Panzerkorps arrives/before the Germans can establish defensive positions with a realistic chance of containing the Allied onslaught.

The British forces will slowly trickle in, the same goes for German reinforcements. US forces will release on the second day.

Due to the size and to keep things interesting, I'll update the AAR every 3 in-game hours (6 turns) or so on the quiet turns and on a per-turn basis when the action heats up. There's not going to be too much action initially as I'll try to move the 326th Infanterie Division away from certain death instead of holding in place.

I'm usually a cautious defender, preferring to preserve strength for counterattacks. In my opinion, in long scenarios units should die a meaningful death, if they are to die. Keeping units in place so they delay the enemy by a turn or two isn't very helpful in a 144 turn scenario. Like in chess, it's essential to know when sacrificing a piece helps you, and when it will hurt on the long term.

Stopping the initial Allied advance isn't possible no matter what I'll do, so I'll try to keep as much of 326 ID alive to help the SS and elements of various mobile formations at a later stage.

Another reason for withdrawing is that, compared to Kursk, German regular Heer infantry isn't very good and can inflict only limited casualties. British infantry is even worse, but they have numerous tanks and plenty of artillery to compensate. The priority will be knocking out Allied tanks, particularly mixed 75mm/Firefly units as the HA value of German Heer infantry is still decent.

Unlike PzC, mortars and infantry guns don't have any organic (non-T mode) movement, which means that with Allied interdiction at 15%, they will die if they move longer distances. I'll have to put them in bunkers or out of sight deep in the bocage if they are to survive.

Operation Bluecoat uses a special PDT file which changes the day/night sequence, the most important change being that there are just 2 night turns. This rather dramatically limits German reorganization capabilities as night turns are the only turns when there is no Allied interdiction. German short-ranged artillery like Nebelwerfer units are also more vulnerable to counterbattery fire in practice due to not being able to move when the enemy gets closer without being interdicted. This makes unit placement crucial.

A significant part of the Commonwealth artillery units starts off-map, which will limit their artillery support for their infantry divisions somewhat later on, even though the artillery of the armoured divisions arrives on-map to compensate on the operational level.

In the current version, there seems to be a glitch with off-map artillery not firing in support, which helps the Germans in this scenario.

Defensive Allied artillery support on my turn fires at 200% effectiveness which hurts, a lot, and means I'll have to limit the number of times I fire in order to limit return fire (that, in turn, means firing using the relatively weak regular infantry isn't efficient in terms of the likely exchange ratio when not in bunkers).

Defensive artillery support fire doesn't depend on spotters unlike on a normal turn (where artillery units can only fire at targets spotted by a unit belonging to the same organization or corps/army), so anything can fire at anything else in range. This favours the side with the most guns and the most artillery units, meaning the Allies.

Unit stats:





As you can see, regular infantry stats on all sides are similar. Due to the higher SA value and a quality advantage (more on that later) SS motorized and mechanized infantry units mop the floor with Allied regular infantry, which is why initial Allied success is all the more important.

In terms of tanks, the more common medium tanks on all sides are similar. One thing worth noting is that American Shermans have a higher defence value than British Shermans, due to using earlier M4 models which get a slightly better rating. This does make a genuine difference in casualties, as I've noticed in other scenarios.

The Panther is a superior tank to all Allied medium armour, but due to how the vehicle losses are calculated, its superiority is not as pronounced as you might think. The same applies to the Tigers. In this scenario, the Germans also receive Panzer VIB's or King Tigers as reinforcements.

The handful of Achilles units are very dangerous when used for shoot-and-scoot firing, so keeping my tanks out of sight after I fire is essential (also because the system favours the side with the most tank units, more on that later as well).

Next up: initial unit placement and OOB.