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[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - south



Cesar (Indragnir) has halted the Pz Lehr sotie and is probably resting them now. In the replay it looks like 5th FJD Bn was disrupted by my artillery last turn?

The bad news is he has started a new sortie. (Group D) I think it was the 352nd (C morale unit?) which advanced first against my 51st Arm Inf. (sorry wrong label on unit) The 352nd must have disrupted from the night move. (4th AD) He then brought down quite a bit of artillery on the 51st and advanced the 212th. (B morale?)  The 212th lost 16 men to opportunity fire and artillery and also disrupted. I think this must have then caused Cesar to use all of 7th Army's artillery against the hapless unit. The 51st went from 559 men/13 fatigue to 371 men/164 fatigue.......yep 188 men. Nebelwerfers took out 44 men with one salvo but possibly this was more than one unit combined firing. 

I think the morale is that you cannot sit in Clear and not dig in in the south, he has too much artillery to call on.

I also lost an M7 Priest when he targted it. This is a novelty for me as Michael never counter batteried anything. 

Miraculously the 51st recovered from disruption, which is the advantage of a good B class unit in good command. Not much use however to me. 

51st patrols show Cesar probably rearranging things in Boevange (E) and suspect this is night disruption effects?

My turn? Well I have enough artillery to probably get 100-150 against the two VGD units sitting in Clear. I'll probably stop at 40+ each however, and rest some of my artillery which is 70+ fatigue. I see no point in using more than 40 as 40 will do the job.
I will also have to take better care of my artillery and dig in in woods if possible.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - Margerotte - Warnach



High level map as no action. Patrols show him digging in still at Bastogne and also at Margerotte where he is adjacent to 26th Div/501st Para Rgt. I believe its the Fuhrer Begleit Bde at Bastogne as well. 

No rest for him tonight. I'l probably just use artillery and tanks at Margerotte and let sleeping dogs lie at Bastogne. I'll wait for morning but I don't want to send Paras up against armour? I need an armoured division here. 29th Armd Bde would have been a good idea. Will check reinforcement schedule when I do my turn.

Sainlez and Warnach are still occupied.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - Bertogne



The wood attacks by 2nd Pz/2nd SS Pz has been halted, and he has not followed up my last pull back. A PzIV group was left behind and used the 2-423rd for target practice. Results were not high so I guess this unit is a low 10-15 tanks?

An assault gun unit from 26th came bowling down the road and stopped in T mode adjacent to 504th/508th? It spotted for some artillery against 1-504th. I fired 4 times for Opportunity Fire for 3 NE's and 1 Fatigue hit? If my Paras had been VGD they would have taken out about 3 guns.......

Apart from that he decided to pick on the 3-506th. This was well hit by direct fire and artillery fire. All return/opportunity fire failed. The tanks must have shielded his infantry. 

He also used counter battery again, except the Infantry HQ's stacked with the guns took the hits. 

Patrols show 26th VGD digging in, except for one unit in the Clear. (no point I suppose)

My turn? I will probably withdraw the 3-506th (93 fat) but hold with the 1-502nd. Just to make sure he doesn't advance and cut the road. If he is just going to hold and dig in where he is that would be fine.

However this doesn't quite fix things for the road. That 26th VGD unit in the Clear (E) has a zoc on the road and is clearly effecting supply. (See white figures) The supply levels of the units north of it are pretty low. I think I need to get a unit in the hex or else I'll probably get Ammo-Fuel Lows for these units after next turn? (midnight turn?)

[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - Stoumont -La Roche



Well a lot of things to see but not much happened in terms of casualties.

9thSS recons units appeared from all directions this turn.
The 3-333rd lost 4 men when an SS Recon appeared by Samree, dismounted and opened fire. The unit disrupted but has since recovered. It lost a further 3 to artillery. It could have been worse I suppose.
D/771 TNK lost an M5 to a bigger 9th SS Recon unit at Oprdegne. [C]
Lastly 2nd HCR met a disrupted 9th SS recon unit at Baraque. (D)

The 18th VGD has reappeared opposite my 17th Tnk/48th group and the 48th came under artillery fire. His 75mm rolled up and unlimbered as per usual with no opportunity fire.

Further north the 116th armour and recon unit has pulled back and I can only see infantry. (skirmish line?) His Sturm panzers? have also pulled back. 

Good news for me is that 38th Arm Inf has finaly undisrupted. (Morale C unit) The 31st Tank Bn also undisrupted.

One more night turn left. I can't see me making many moves.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - Spa



So does the new commander fall back from Spa. Nein? Nichts rückwärts? There is a lot of reorganisation going on. Plus he is digging in from Franchorchamps to Spa? Well I understand this slightly because when playing Normandy the US player is advised to land and dig in at Omaha. It reduces his losses in the long run. Possibly Indragnir is going to see if he can hold open the corridor to Spa? In which case it makes sense to do this.

There was some artillery this turn and a few firefights. At Spa he targeted the plucky B/643 TD unit. They lost 7 guns and only have 1 left. (Fat 200+) However artillery and opportunity fire made this an expensive thing fo rthe Germans as they lost 21 men and 1 vehicle. Since the only vehicles in Spa are King Tigers then it must have been a King Tiger? Amazing as it was a 105mm M7 unit that did the damage! 

The 150th/62nd group (H) targeted the 1-517th. The hard units there must have protected his infantry as there was an amazing 4 fatigue hits with opportunity fire. So maybe I should break down my armour into companies and stack them with infantry? That way some of the return fire hits the armour? The only problem is that German units have pretty good hard attack values.

Intersting patrol information shows a mass of disrupted units behind his line. (D) The other intersting thing is he has left the disrupted Pioneer unit (F) in the front line? Assault with armour?

His PAK group NE of Spa must still be there as well.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 53 German 10pm Night - north




Its all artillery here. Michael mentioned that US artillery was prety strong in his last email. However having been on the wrong end of German artillery for 5 days, I think he should see how devastating German artillery is. 

The 1-394th receives minor attention but the 39th Rgt HQ was absolutely pounded into oblivion. 108 men gone. He didn't even have to use the 12th SS units next to the trapped unit so they get to rest. The HQ didn't appear to get much protection from the Swamp (-40%) it was stuck in? Nebelwerfers/Mortars took 20+ chunks out of it with every salvo.

Plus his artillery wasn't finished. He advanced a 12th VGD unit (losing 5 men) next to the 2nd Combat Engineers, and then used every artillery piece left to take another 86 men. Fatigue jumped from 50 to 100. 

The annoying thing is I can't see any Mortar/Nebel spotted units on the map to fire at.

In my turn I probably could reciprocate and take 50+ from his Pioneers and 12th VGD unit. We'll see.

Thats enough for tonight. Will do my turn Sunday and probably post results Monday.

[ComradeP]

Pity your original opponent quit, good thing that somebody else took over.

I can understand wanting to quit if you know you're going to lose, but for this battle pushing far enough so you might get at least a draw is presumably what it's all about for the Germans, which makes it odd to quit.

If he didn't have fun playing anymore, that makes things more understandable, as completing a lengthy campaign game that you don't really want to play anymore could be frustrating.

As to the HQ in a swamp hex: could it be that, somehow, it is treated as being in T-mode as it could not otherwise enter the hex, even though there's no road there?

Otherwise, it would have to be a pretty big stack of artillery if the terrain gives a -40 penalty to incoming fire.

[Plain Ian]

Pity your original opponent quit, good thing that somebody else took over.

I can understand wanting to quit if you know you're going to lose, but for this battle pushing far enough so you might get at least a draw is presumably what it's all about for the Germans, which makes it odd to quit.

If he didn't have fun playing anymore, that makes things more understandable, as completing a lengthy campaign game that you don't really want to play anymore could be frustrating.

As to the HQ in a swamp hex: could it be that, somehow, it is treated as being in T-mode as it could not otherwise enter the hex, even though there's no road there?

Otherwise, it would have to be a pretty big stack of artillery if the terrain gives a -40 penalty to incoming fire.

I don't blame Michael for giving in as I felt the same many times early on in the game. In fact if he had been a bit more aggressive and had been willing to take more chances then that would have probably tipped things. Michael played a pretty straight forward game with no cheesy moves or dancing that I could detect. I like the way he plays.

Well the HQ's entered the Swamp when it was frozen and treated as Clear. No road so when it unfreezes and becomes a Swamp again its stuck. Same with tracked units. Only motorised infantry can get out because they can go 'on foot'. 

Its a pity that HQ's (motorised) can't go 'on foot' but then we would also have to add code to prevent them 're-motorising' any on 'on foot' sub unit which stacked with them. Or else it wouldn't make sense that the HQ didn't have transport for itself but did have transport for a unit which stacked with it.

[ComradeP]

Normally, the only way a motorized HQ unit could end in that hex is if it's in T-mode on a road, which is why I wondered how the game treats the HQ now that it's in a hex it can't normally enter.

[Ricky B]

Okay, you guys got me curious about this HQ in the marsh situation. Easy enough to set up a test and see. Sure enough, for any man type unit that is motorized, in a marsh, not ON FOOT, it does not get the benefit of a negative terrain modifier. As soon as it goes ON FOOT, it gets the benefit of the terrain modifier - and of course if it can't go on foot, it can't get this benefit.

on the other hand, in some of the games the marsh modifier is positive, I believe, and that means not going on foot is probably a benefit as I assume it prevents the positive modifier from being applied. Or maybe the code purposely applies the greater of values between ignoring the terrain mod and nothing, if not on foot. I am not going to bother testing, but you have the answer, and it surprises me.

Rick