AAR: Eagles Strike - Buchholz Station

[Rabbit]

I have not seen a lot of After Action Reports for Squad Battles, so I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to play a scenario playing both sides of a PBEM game with fog of war enabled and document it.

I remember when I first sat down to the game and thinking "Okay, now what do I do." The main goal of this AAR is to give new players a rough idea of how to approach the strategy side of the game.

Hope it helps,
Bill

[Rabbit]

Turn 1 Germans:


START OF TURN:



Nothing exciting, just simply moved forward. I am keeping my units stacked and avoiding "Ground Mode" since this is a very short scenario that requires great haste and also because there aren't any US units in sight and I am not expecting to see any in this move or the next move either.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 1 US:


START OF TURN:



This scenario is very short at only eight turns so I am not worried about the Germans being able to penetrate my lines very far. If you look at the map, the roads form two circles in the lower middle of the map. It looks like most of the battle will take place within the larger of the two circles. As such, the US will be splitting its forces into three main areas so as to protect each objective. So this turn the US simply started spreading out their troops towards each area.

Note that darker brown denotes higher elevation. This is important in this scenario because the lower left-hand objective is at the very top of a steep ridge. There is a similarly high ridge to the right of the US forces. I hope to get my forces atop that left ridge before the Germans. I also plan on moving a machine gun onto the ridge on the far right, since it has a great deal of visibility.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 2 Germans:


START OF TURN:



Remember the golden rule that "he who tries to conquer everything, conquers nothing; he who tries to defend everything, defends nothing." I would venture to guess that the most common mistake veteran players make in Squad Battles is to simply move their forces forward and attack all fronts, engaging enemy positions as per the natural "flow" of movement and opportunity seems to take them. As the attacker, you need to have a significant advantage over your opponent in order to displace him. Unless you have a significant upper hand overall (that is, the scenario is lopsided in your favor or you know you are that much more skillful than your opponent), you usually need to create the significant advantage by concentrating your forces rather than attacking all fronts at once.

With the above in mind, I decided to go fully after the lower objective with the hopes of also getting the middle objective. Feeling the need for haste and having not encountered any US forces yet, I kept my units out of Ground Mode for one more turn, though this might backfire greatly if there are US troops waiting in ambush. (Based on the very short scenario length, I am assuming the scenario designer is allowing the Germans a turn or two of unhindered advance. This is not always the case, but sometimes you have to take calculated risks.) I unstacked my forward facing units in case they encounter enemy forces, while my rear forces are still stacked in order to continue advancing quickly.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 2 US:


START OF TURN:



Continued to fan out, putting units into terrain with good protection. Once there, they go into Ground Mode. I set many of them to "Hold Fire" until the Germans get close enough. I plan on ascending both ridges, but it will likely take several turns for me to climb them.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 3 Germans:


START OF TURN:



Moved most of my forces southward, with just one platoon heading eastward to serve as a decoy. Encountered my first resistance and had to go to Ground Mode in both locations. Note the Germans still can only see a very small fraction of the US forces. Similarly, the US side cannot see many of the German forces either. Until this move, I had been stacking up a lot of the German forces in order to maximize movement as much as possible. However I am unstacking my units as much as possible now that the enemy is in sight.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 3 US:


START OF TURN:



I continue to hold fire with many of the units in the middle to upper right sections, with the hopes of luring more Germans into open terrain before I ambush them. I am trying to obtain as much of the ridge in the lower left section as is viable. Overall, nearly all of my forces are within the large roadway circle. That is somewhat unconventional and risky, because normally you want to have your forces spread out thereby creating more opportunities for crossfire. For instance, you probably want a couple of squads on opposite sides of the road and machine guns at roadway cross-sections so they have lines of sight down the roadways (as my jeeps are currently positioned). Also, I have no units held back in reserve in case my lines get breached. The reason I am bucking convention on this is because the scenario is uncharacteristically short and I am betting the Germans won't have enough time to flank me. Also, the roadway at my back should allow me to redisperse my units quickly in the event that the Germans come at me heavily from any particular side.

I am sending the truck in the lower right-hand corner up the ridge in the bottom right in the off chance it might be able to observe German units that would otherwise be hidden from my view. People often forget about trucks once you have them dump their payload, however they can still sometimes serve other functions like scouting.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 4 Germans:


START OF TURN:



After moving units south/southeast, it appears I have encountered the front of the US lines. At this point forward, I should expect to draw fire every time I move a unit and therefore I am trying to take advantage of terrain and protection as much as possible.

The lower left-hand objective is at the top of a steep ridge. I have started moving squads up the ridge. The two squads on the far left-hand side in adjacent tree hexes are both machine-gun squads. I plan to use them to provide cover for my squads ascending the ridge, trying to pin down the two US squads immediately below the objective as well as any US units that might climb to the top of the ridge before I get there. I have unstacked most of my units except for ones that are in good protection. I also have most of my leaders in the hex behind their associated squads. This formation keeps the leaders close to their troops without getting shot. Units that get pinned or disrupted can always drop back a hex or the leader can move forwards to get their morale back up.

Note there are only four turns remaining in this scenario. It is critical to start thinking about the end of the scenario a number of turns beforehand. Moving in Ground Mode, moving uphill, getting pinned/disrupted, etc. can often limit your movement to just a single hex per turn, so you must get your units positioned properly in time for your final assaults.

By the way, it finally dawned on me to edit the images to add lines denoting movement and firing. Red denotes firing. Green denotes movement. (Although I accidentally used blue for movement in one of the future screenshots.) Assaults are denoted by a thick green line with a thin red inner line.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 4 US:


START OF TURN:



Moved units onto the entire ridge in the lower left-hand corner. It is very hard to assault uphill, so claiming the whole ridge should make it very challenging on the Germans to take the top of the ridge.

The US forces opened fire in the upper front as well as in the middle front, ambushing a couple of German squads in open ground. This resulted in pinning some of the German forces in addition to getting a couple of kills. The Germans automatically fired back and were able to pin some of the US forces. Definitely a worthwhile trade-off from the US perspective as that should help stall the German advance.

Overall, the upper and middle fronts seem in decent shape for the US. As such, I have started to move a squad and a leader (currently just to the left of the industrial hexes) from the right-hand side down the middle road towards the lower left-hand front since that seems to be where the Germans are spearheading their assault.


FINISHED MOVE:

[Rabbit]

Turn 5 Germans:


START OF TURN:



The Germans focused their fire on the hex that now shows a pinned German squad just above the left-hand objective. There was a two-man US bazooka squad in that hex. We were able to pin them before assaulting them which enabled the assualt to be successful even though it was uphill. After that, the Germans next pinned the machine gun squad in the objective hex, so we attempted an assault on that hex as well. The assault failed causing the German squad to become pinned. However, we killed two out of the three men in the machine gun squad, which should make a subsequent attempt much easier.

The German squads in very lower left-hand corner attempted to move further southeast so as to flank the US and prevent reinforcements from coming down the road, however it turned out to be a bad idea since both squads were quickly pinned.

The uppermost squads continued to advance solely to keep the US forces occupied on that front, but aren't expected to move much further, since they are outnumbered on that front. The uppermost pinned squad retreated into the hex above where their leader could rally them without exposing the leader to enemy fire.


FINISHED MOVE: