Leto's View - To assault a Soviet. QB DAR vs Colonel Talvela ***

[Copper]

Strange goings on in Daveland.

A T-34/85 is spotted, and it appears to be vacating the area in the west quite rapidly...



"Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

"Dave... where is your tank going? Dave."

"Are you sure you are making the right decision?"

"Do you not like having your tanks panzershrecked from behind? Dave?"

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HALeto 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. lab in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992."

"Dave...my mind is going...I can feel it...I can feel it."

Ahem.

Anyways, my thoughts on this are few:

1) he has another 2 tanks and bought a platoon of those beasties and is now leaving to join his other two tanks to help take on my Hetzers.

2) Dave does not like the possibility of getting his ass shrecked by my flanking company.

3) The Soviet tankers have been into the mash again and are just driving around in circles.

This sighting at least provides me some level of confidence that he has not bought SU-100's... that would definately cause me to run straight to the infirmary and turn my head and cough for the doctor.

Turn 19 and my main attack is about to commence, and unbelievably, I have two full companies behind his main flags on either flank.


Cheers!

Leto

[Copper]

[Copper]

[Copper]

Apparently the leaflets dropped the night previous, inviting the Russians to trade in their guns and rifles for S'mores has not been taken seriously.

Perhaps Dave's troops have no idea what a S'more is, and I may have likely had better results if I had advertised for pickled bulls balls or beet candy.

The more S'more's for me I guess.

The eastern flank is opening up a bit, but the going is still much too slow for my liking. Thinking that of the remaining 3 of 4 russian 57ATG's, Dave can't have tucked one away in the path of my onrushing panzers now that they are crossing the hill and heading for the flag.

I will be gleefull if I do not lose a tank next round, but expect that the far eastern flag has the SU-100 parked behind it for a reason: no more ATG's. And that being said, I am slowly pushing back the Monster SU with threats from the infantry being pushed into its flank from behind. Note, that I do not have a leader with the two units flanking, and that is bad news. Being behind enemy lines means you need to work with a leader holding a Luger to the back of your troops heads, for sometimes they will up and surrender if their retreat lines (the back of my side of the map) are not available to them. That would truly suck to lose my sturmtroopers that way, so I am going to try and rush the leader over there toot sweet.

Here is the East:



Note, the two hetzers charge forward (the damaged gun first) to make sure there are no hidden guns. The Grille will maintain fire on the 1st gun position and the other will move into firing position for the woods.

In the middle, I prepare to smoke em up a bit and charge the light woods in front of me.



With the soviet foxhole that had LOS to my advance has now vomited out its occupants (running with their pants on fire in retreat). Smoke is precious, so I only want to use 1 or 2 rounds from the mortars. I pause the mortars 10 seconds and then give them a "rotate" command. They should fire one round of smoke and then cancel the orders to move. Great way to conserve smoke.

Notice the red circle. This is a deep dark path I do not want to go down. I plan on isolating the soviet troops there and cutting to the left to take out the very center flag. 105 arty is centered and dropping on that flag, and another platoon to the far west is using the smoke dropped to protect them from the T-34 to gain entrance to the woods in front hopefully unscathed. Note how Dave has placed his defenders... deep enough in the woods so that he can see the first few feet of ground in front of them, but very hard to shoot at due to their depth back of LOS in the woods. When setting up, make sure that you have limited LOS to your positions much like this.

In the West, the encirclement continues. Another soviet unit is unearthed with my run and go half squad tactics. 81mm mortars will drop on the far west flag in one minute, and after another minute, a full scale assault will take place. The hetzer gives support but is wary of ATG's... (one has to be close). I'm hoping that by keeping the hetzer hull down he'll not incur the wrath of the gun until my arty drops to knock it out.



So far, I have a lot of work to do on the far east flag, and have my strongest forces deployed there to take it on.

In the middle, I do not expect to gain any flags, but perhaps I can contest the middle one.

In the west, I think I have the far west flag with some work, and I will be in good position to take the second flag, barring I can knock out his T-34 somehow.

So far, my strategy of flank manuevering has limited my casualties to a handful, and staying away from the depth of Dave's kill zones may give me enough points leeway to scrape a draw or minor victory with 2 flags in possession and a couple contested.

I have 16 turns left, so the real assaults have to happen soon.

Cheers!

Leto

[Copper]

[Copper]

TURN 25 DAR in 3 slides:

Dave's SU-100 retreats again after failed pincer with his AT gun.



Dave's SU-100 stops to smell a rose. Oh look, a red one!



And slide three:




I feel good (da na na na na na naa), I knew that I would, now (da na na na na na na naa).

Sing it to me JAMES!

: )

Cheers!

Leto

[Copper]

Leto]
I feel good (da na na na na na naa), I knew that I would, now (da na na na na na na naa).

Sing it to me JAMES!

: )

Cheers!

Leto

now I know what you did when you killed my tanks in our battles....

[Copper]

Upon receiving some unit info, and more taunting from Dave, I've drawn a very unnerving conclusion as to the kit selection Dave has made.

The guns that I have come across thus far ARE NOT 57mm, but 76mm Russian ZiS.

This tells me that Dave has not picked the Soviet SMG battalion, but FOUR COMPANIES OF GUARDS MECHANIZED SMG/LMG troops.

Why do I think this?

1) The absence of ATR's. I would be plinking away at my soft armor with these, and I have not come across one yet. The battalion pick has something like 8.

2) The company picks provide Maxim MG's, but no ATR's.

3) The guns are not 57's (very expensive if chosen outside battalion).

4) Dave's continual tauntings that his defense is not built around the SU-100, but on SMG's "come and get them" he taunteth.

5) The surprising amount of infantry that Dave has popping up now that I am in close proximity to his eastern flag (see below).



6) The reason for having the SU-100 itself, 76's have a small capacity for taking out German Panzers. I've encountered 2 on the east side and the SU-100 is there to compensate.

I believe Dave may have one or two 57's on the west side as he has his T-34/85 there, and that tank plus a 57 may give a good defense against even a Tiger platoon.

Therefore after doing the points summation, Col T has the following:

SU-100
T-34/85
Crack Sharpshooter
4 Companies SMG troops
2 mortars
3 76mm ZiS guns
1 57mm gun
15 strips of barbed wire.

This is very close to 2000 points.

Strategically, this is a "break your offense against a rock" defense, and there are 4 companies or 36 SMG units to defend 5 flags (note that Dave has a wealth of resources enough to place foxholed men on the flank side of the eastern forest on approach to that flag - see above slide). Each SMG placed in a strategic area around the flags (his defense is deep) so you must trigger each (and each time you do so, you lose a squad theoretically).

The weakness to this defense is thus:

1) If lured into a firefight at range, the SMG/LMG are no match for the Sturmtrooper with its MP44 heavy troopers.

2) Artillery will disrupt and destroy a good lot of these bastards (note front of the east flag hit quite hard.

3) It is susceptible to mobile artillery attacks (my grille's of which I only have 2 functioning) and heavy tank attacks but he's deeply engrained in the forest areas, and thus hard to get at.

4) Concentrating my forces so that I have a full oversized company attacking each objective mitigates the advantage Dave has (I have taken very few casualties thus far, but have lost a sturmtrooper squad in the east because of sloppy play and not taking my time to check the backside of the forest).

Luckily, the 81 mm arty has completely nutted his west flag defense, and I feel confident that I can take it with a platoon and my hetzer now. (He's lost over an entire platoon so far that I can see, and the rest are most likely now pinned or disrupted, making them susceptible to attack, especially from the rear).



It will be a real tough fight to get the East flag (I suspect an entire company is there), but my grille and hetzers will now be able to attack unabated. AS well, the front part of his defense has been smashed by heavy arty.

I may be able to secure the second west flag if I can coordinate my flanking company with my MG company to its front, and take out that T-34/85 next turn (hetzer moving to intercept). IF dave continues to area fire my MG units, then the hetzer will get it (barring a gun getting the hetzer in the meantime).

In the middle, my dilemna is sealed. I can't go any further.

I'll use the grille and 150 IG to blast as much as I can, and my troops to engage at range on his SMG's if I can turn them up.

A very hard fight, and an extremely well planned defense by one of the best in the game. A draw is looking very good right now.

Cheers!

Leto

[Copper]

After a week of Dave retreating to his thinking cave in the himalayas, a turn appears. Whether or not he has solved the problem of defending his flags from my German sturmtroopers or solved the Caramilk secret, I have no idea.

His defenses based completely (from what I have observed thus far) on the SMG/LMG unit has definately allowed for some analysis and introspective on the usage of these troops. For one, I have purposely kept my troopers out of the woods where close combat would be very hazardous to their health. The German sturmtrooper with the very powerful MP44 has shown its superiority over the SMG trooper. At ranges of 50-100m, the German Sturmtrooper definately has the advantage. The reasons for this are due to the powerful fire effects they have at range, and the 36 ammo load over the 20 ammo load (that Soviet SMG's chew through extremely quickly at range fights.

Turn 28 overturns another interesting discovery. For some reason, Dave has moved an artillery spotter into the fire zone, and the Sturmtroopers have keyed in on him with a vengeance. Thankfully, no arty has dropped yet, and as I have said previously, due to my massed advance tactics, arty could be devestating.



As you can see, my Imperial Sturmtroopers are holding their own at range. Why Dave has opted to try and keep them at bay with SMG troops at ranges between 50-90m is beyond me. I would have pulled back into the depth of the woods and made my stand there, safe from ranged attacks of both my riflemen and HE. Now he stands to lose his entire flank as his men run out of ammo and are broken one by one. I only need about 5 turns to make it to the East flag, so 7 turns to deal with SMG troops defending the gap between the woods and my attack position is a good period of time to do it in.

The added bonus of winging his arty spotter before he can drop a can of corn on my Sturmtroopers heads is also a huge sigh of relief.

Things are looking better.

THE BOOK ON DEFENDING WITH SMG TROOPS:
1) Keep them on short LOS attack covered arcs of between 20-30m, depending on your terrain.
2) LOS to your SMG troops by the enemy should be within that covered arc... they work best when they can pop up and fight within that 20-30m range.
3) NEVER, and I repeat NEVER expose yourself on a ridge or woodline and duel with better ranged attack troops, mortar fire or HE!!



Cheers!

Leto

[Copper]