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[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 German 24th Dec 8 am - Stoumont - Bra



Again another area where he was content to re organise rather than attack. He moved his armour stack down away from my rs are a threat 17 pdrs and lined up his 75mm and 88mm units. I'm still a bit bewildered why he thinks 24 17 pdrs are a threat but there you go. 

He did try long range 75/88mm fire but no hits. 

Interesting change in tactics. Two HQ's were pouned by artillery and both disrupted, annoyingly for me. he usually ignores these units?

In the north his Pioeers killed an armoured car.

[Plain Ian]

[b]Turn 74 Allied[/b]

Ok I think thats my review of his turn complete.. It wasn't quite in sequence but should have covered the whole front. Here is my turn. First the results.



So I lost 90 men and 8 tanks but killed 781 men, 7 guns and 3 vehicles which I think were Flak. Net results for the turn aare as below.



So for the first time since Dec 23rd I've actually inflicted more losses in men on him than received. So despite my criticism of air power.....I think that its starting to have an effect. Not stopping his armour though so thats still a worry and something I'll have to find an answer to. How do you stop a Panther?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - South



Sorry but my maps for my turn will have to be a bit rough and high level. I've already got back Indragnirs turn. 

In the south 5th Division did probe and saw that he is well dug in and waiting on me. I did see a minor flaw in his set up and attacked the Festung unit with tank fire. (this unit should be Fixed and sitting in the West Wall) It broke (I think its an E uit?) and this meant that the units to the south wer isolated...except i moved my tanks into Mersch. I then had to ensure that I had a line of units /ZOC behind to block his supply trace.

This is a minor inconvenience, it doesn't change things. 9th Panzer is coming and 5th Infantry is still trapped. I di however move the Engineer unit over the river. I will start to transfer units back over when it is ready. 

I will also try to send as many Enginees down here as possible.

Clever move by Indragnir. he has said that he moved 4 Divisions back over and got them ready in advance. So while I thought I was getting a well earned rest he was 1 step ahead of me down here.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - Bigonville - Longchamps



At Bigonville the 5th Rangers pulled back to join the tanks. (702nd Tank Bn and 19th Tank Bn). Both tank units have about 27 tanks each but are D morale. Not the best morale when up against B morale Panthers and StuG's of Panzer Lehr. 

A speculative carpet bombing attack against SS infantry hit the target (20% chance) and I followed thsi up with attacks against his 15th Pz Gr Div at Hollange. The Paras at Chaumont continued fighting despite being heavily fatigued. However my aim is to get everything back to the Winfield line hopefully in one piece. 

I've rushed some 17 pdrs down from Flamierge whist the rest of 53rd Division forms up behind the 101st.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - Nadrin



I didn't have much choice but to pull back here. 2 more Battalions of the 290th Rgt 75th Div are coming up but these are not offensive units as they are D rated. It will be up to the Airborne to do that. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - Samree - Chession



This was a pretty quiet sector for me. I mainly used artillery. 

At Chession I thought I could shift his Pioneers but the air and artillery didn't soften them up enough and the 740 lost 2 tanks and was thrwn back. Its fatigue jumped to 150. 

At Manhay I pulled back the 17 pdrs and put a Firefly unit in. C sq 2nd FFY. (12 tanks) 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - Spa



Fighting still goes on. South of Spa I pull back, I don't think he will follow me. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 74 Allied 24th Dec 8 am - North



I made one assault in this area but it wasn't painless. I continue my slow buildup. It looks like he will have units in place to meet it. He says he hops that I come out into Clear terain as he has 200 werfers in this area........if that is true then he has more werfers that V Corps has artillery pieces???

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 German VP total



Phase losses



US total losses just under 50k men. German losses now climbing past 30k. I can see that the loss ratio in men is actaully falling. In turn 64 his losses were 55% of mine and now they have climbed to 62%. 
Its a similar story for guns where his losses on turn 72 were 78% of mine but are now 88%. 
The only disappointing area is tank/vehicle losses wheer the gap has not changed. 

Another 800+ men lost this turn. Despite making a few assaults his losses dropped a bit from last turn. He did lose 3 vehicles which I'm pretty sure were tanks.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 German 10 am 



One quick map. I'm afraid I'll have to do high level maps with little detail as I've still to start the turn.

Its 'shock and awe' time in the south as Indragnir applies the psychological thumb screws. He targets units not in Forest with werfer and artillery fire.
 
The 10th Armoured Infantry lose 32 men with 2 blast and then a further 6 to a third.
CCB HQ/4th Armoured receives the same treatment except he decides to keep going and uses all of his artillery to destroy the whole unit. 100 men gone. The unit miraculously respawns disrupted with 57 men and fatigue 197. A zombie HQ. Just what I need for fighting the undead.
 
The intention is pretty clear. He wants to show me that any infantry unit not in Forest will be heavily punished. Pretty impressive. I guess I just have to somehow stay in the woods and fight forward, or just use tanks or just accept that 1 unit a turn will get very badly beaten up.......
 
As usually with each painful lesson dished out by Indragnir I looked at a few things. Defensive strengths. My armoured infantry were beaten up pretty easily. I checked their defensive strengths. 16.  I checked a standard US infantry unit. 16. Mmmh so no difference?
 
The one surprise I did get when looking at all the defensive strengths was finding out that a German ‘mechanised’ Bn in a Panzer Division (shown with half tracks) is also 16 BUT an SS equivalent unit is a 6 BUT IS A HARD TARGET????  That explains a lot of my results against him at Spa. Pourqoui?
 
Anyway as to his turn, at Bigonville his Pz Lehr tanks followed up my retreat and killed 3 tanks with one shot. (stack firing....yes we all do it because sometimes tactically it makes sense but what would happen if we played a game with a house rule which said units had to fire individually?) 
It just reinforces my view that in PzC sometimes the best defense is no defense....so keep my tanks away from him. Artillery then rained down on the 5th Rangers who started the game with 450 men and are now down to 344.
 
The 5th Division lost just under a 100 men and another M4 tank this turn. He sent in a unit from the 276th VGD to make contact with his cut off 352nd stack. He pulled out one Bn but left one Bn and the 75mm unit still dug in (TRENCH) on the river line. This did however cost him 22 men due to opp fire.
 
5th Division is in a tricky spot and its hard to see how I can get them out. They got battered by artillery (more?) and fire from adjacent units. I really regret bringing them on, because if they were not there I would be saying sod this keep this terrain Indragnir, and pull back to Attert.  Best defense is no defense so lets not bother defending. 

I noticed VG units appearing behind Pz Lehr and of course a VG unit appeared in the far south to stop the 1-2nd sneaking past his roadblock in the south. 

Night.