Bulge 16.01s alt

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - North



Indragnir continues to reinforce the east. I've moved pretty slowly so I guess this is to be expected. He has the whole of the 277th VGD committed now, all 6 Battalions. (I think the Pioneer unit was mauled and fell back south) He now has back up armour as well although ithey are not the largest units (5 each?) they will do a good job at stopping assaults. He has also moved a Sturm Tiger unit away probably headed to the rear as well. Lets hope it loses a Tiger unit due to brealdowns as thats the only way I can kill one of these monsters.

I've made up a simple crib sheet of VGD units with their Morale and starting strengths. The 277th is a reasonable C morale Dicvision although it started off the cammpaign under strength. Its Bn's start at 66% and 430 men. He moved up 4 Bn's next to the 1-16th/1-39th so they must be down to an average 350 men now. 

During the turn his artillery was fairly moderate. The 1-16th was the worst hit, but it also lost 17 men to one direct fire from the 4 VGD Bn's of the 277th. The 3-47th lost 7 men to long range Tiger fire.

He spotted the 1-38th digging in and hit it with artillery disrupting it. In fact this was a regular feature of his play this turn, targetting units digging in.

For my turn I will continue my schnell blitz. Mixing the 2nd and 99th (with a Rgt of the 9th Div) is useful for calling in artillery but it meansmy assaults suffer penalties. However because the 99th is D morale I have no choice but to stiffen it with B morale 2nd and 9th Division units. 

I'll go for an assault against his 326th stack. The Pioneers are already disrupted. It would be nice if I could assault and shift the other 326th stack with the StuG but it might be better falling back with 1-16th/3-39th as they are up aginst 2 hexes with probably 1800 Volks Grenadiers and will get quickly chewed up. I could pull back the 1-16th and put a fresh unit in but this is not a great hex to fight for. One turn of daylight left after this turn. I either crank it up or continue to be selective.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - Spa



The fighting at Spa continues. He has his objectives and now wants to secure his flanks. The 3rd FJD pushes up against 3rd Armoured tanks and the 99th is badly hit and the armour losses an M4. 

The Pnther Bn from 12th SS reaches the front line and 1-33rd losses 2 tanks in tank battles. My artillery surprisingly kills a tank in return fire. 

I'm amazed that he just doesn't keep going. His King Tigers are fresh as daisies and still probably at their original strength and his infantry at Spa must be also be in reasonable fatigue? US forces are in no condition to contest him. 

I actually feel like just pulling out of this area all the way back to Verviers. Instead I guess I just sit and watch him over no mans land and patiently use artillery and try to builfd up on his flanks.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman -Stoumont 



At Stoumont, Peipers Panthers continue their stand off with my 34th Tank Bde. During the long range exchange (2 hexes) he hit and disrupted C Sqd 147th RAC.  The Sqd lost a VC Firefly bringing it down to 15 runners.

In total he fired 3 times (1 hit (D), fatigue, fatigue) and of course the 6 units of 34th Tank did not reply once. My artillery did fire twice and killed 2 pioneers stacked with the Panthers.

The 34th Bde on paper is a formidable force. The Firefly offensive stats are actually better than the 75mm Panther but as you would expect the Panther defensive strength is much much better than the Firefly. In fact the 12 defensive strength is pretty woeful. Good enough to take on 20+ Panthers in TRENCHES?

I’m a bit puzzled why US M4 mixed tank Bn’s have a better defensive strength? 20 versus 12? That’s a considerable difference? Anyonr know why? US M4/M4 76mm better than British M4's?

Just arriving from Stoumont you can see more VG units. Indragnir says that this is a Division he has been resting behind the front line???? Well I realise that he sometimes puts a bit of spin on his emails but this could be true. The 62nd VGD hasn’t been seen for a while so this could be it? So he is playing that well that he can afford to have a Division out of the line resting?????

At Chession the 5th Bn Duke of Cornwall was hit by werfers. The unit disrupted but recovered. Stiff upper lips or what. The 7th Bn Somersets were not so lucky. He spotted them digging and treated them to some artillery and they disrupted and didn’t recover. At Chession he brought up more Pioneers. They lost 6 to my tank fire. I looked at the stats for his Army level Pioneer units and they are 400 man C morale units so quite respectable.

The 31st Tank Bn came under long range 75mm and 88mm fire fronm his dug in guns but survived this turn without losing a tank. (I think they lost one last turn) My artillery did reply though.

And that was his turn in this area. He appears happy with his ground and it look like he is set to see the game out where he is. The 116th Pz Div’s armour is sitting somewhere just behind his dug in PAK line. So its the usual film palm wave....come and have a go............Marvellous!

If anyone can see any tactical moves I can make in this area feel free to chime in............I wish someone had told me not to bring the 5th Division onto the map. Even Indragnir now refers to this area as Stalag IV.

[Ricky B]

Turn 75 Ferman -Stoumont 


...

I’m a bit puzzled why US M4 mixed tank Bn’s have a better defensive strength? 20 versus 12? That’s a considerable difference? Anyonr know why? US M4/M4 76mm better than British M4's?

...
 
If anyone can see any tactical moves I can make in this area feel free to chime in............I wish someone had told me not to bring the 5th Division onto the map. Even Indragnir now refers to this area as Stalag IV.

For the defense values, they appear to be from the VM OOBs, one of something like 9 versions of the OOB that he included in his download for Bulge. As the lower numbered versions have the defense fairly consistent, and I am unaware of anything that resulted in a severe difference between US and UK Shermans, I would say it is an error and the UK defense is way too low. Only specific answer would be to ask VM/Ed by either email or in a new thread in the main forum. But that is my take, the ratings are way off as used in this scenario you are playing.

For the 5th Div, the only suggestion I would have is if it is getting crushed, pull it back to the map edge and withdraw the units off the map. Of course, one they are gone, they are gone forever, but Cesar won't get points for killing the division either. Been there is a similar situation years ago and made sure I had a bridge to the west before bringing the div on so it had somewhere to go besides off map.

Rick

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman -Stoumont 


...

I’m a bit puzzled why US M4 mixed tank Bn’s have a better defensive strength? 20 versus 12? That’s a considerable difference? Anyonr know why? US M4/M4 76mm better than British M4's?

...
 
If anyone can see any tactical moves I can make in this area feel free to chime in............I wish someone had told me not to bring the 5th Division onto the map. Even Indragnir now refers to this area as Stalag IV.

For the defense values, they appear to be from the VM OOBs, one of something like 9 versions of the OOB that he included in his download for Bulge. As the lower numbered versions have the defense fairly consistent, and I am unaware of anything that resulted in a severe difference between US and UK Shermans, I would say it is an error and the UK defense is way too low. Only specific answer would be to ask VM/Ed by either email or in a new thread in the main forum. But that is my take, the ratings are way off as used in this scenario you are playing.

For the 5th Div, the only suggestion I would have is if it is getting crushed, pull it back to the map edge and withdraw the units off the map. Of course, one they are gone, they are gone forever, but Cesar won't get points for killing the division either. Been there is a similar situation years ago and made sure I had a bridge to the west before bringing the div on so it had somewhere to go besides off map.

Rick

Thanks for the answers. I'm actually thinking that 12 is the correct defense strength for M4's? If a Pz IV is 11 then you'd think an M4 would be in the same region. 20 seems high when you compare it with a Panther at 25? However with VGD units having a hard attack value of 6 then an M4 unit is likely to lose 1 per turn adjacent to a VGD unit. 

Not a bad idea really since thats what happened to tanks left alone in 'closed' terrain. I just wish that the same treatment was given to the US infantry. My gut feeling is that the most German tank losses were from fuel shortages (ie tanks destroyed when no fuel to move), air/artillery, infantry then other tanks. I don't have any stats to support this. 

Indragnir has said that I can withdraw the unit from the map to save losses and VP's. I will consider this but I'm also planning to ferry some of them over the river.  Of course that only saves the infantry units, Tanks, artillery and HQ's can't ferry. Infantry without HQ's are pretty useless. He has said that 9th Panzer will take a few turns to get there? A bit puzzled by this as it comes on the map at 6am and I didn't think would take long to get here but checking the map I can see that depending on what bridging engineers he has left behind there might not be too many places to cross the Sauer. Diekirch is probably the easiest place to cross. I might as well try to start a bridge but it will be clobbered. 

Next time yes I will only bring a unit on if it it has an escape route. However I thought I could build one with my 5th Divisional Engineers, until I saw that they can't build bridges.....duh. 

Anyway thanks for replying. I'll get to the situation at Mersch shortly.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - Manhay - Samree



Nothing much happend at Bra so I haven’t bothered mapping this area. 

To the south from Manhay down to Samree there was not much action here either. I think you can tell whats happening here by the amount of German units digging in. Herbst Nebel has finished and Festung Nebel has started. 

His VG units are digging in guarding the secondary road, whilst the 9th SS holds all the main roads.


The 1-289th of 75th Division got the worst of it in this area. It was probably pay back time for hitting his 9th SS infantry last turn. He had broken them down into 3 companies and was digging in. I bumped into them and managed to hit and disrupt one. Well the bad news was that the unit recovered and he reformed and fired back plus for good measure he added in artillery. Just to add salt in the wound his digging worked and the hex is now TRENCH.
The 1-289th is at 94 Fatigue. His fatigue must be quite high as well. If only he wasn’t in a TRENCH I might persevere here. The 9th SS is a C Division unit but his infantry units are 500 man units.

At Samree my engineers begin clearing the Rubble although I don’t know why I’m bothering as there won’t be much US advancing down that road.

Again this is another area that I need to rethink what I’m trying to achieve now that its clear he is happy and is basically saying come and get me.......... if you can. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - Bertogne



At Bertogne he follows me up and continues to hit the 2-505th and 159th. They both stay disrupted. The French 2nd/Lt In does recover disruption however. I can't fall back any further as he will have access to the road. Maybe he wants to blow it????

Near Flamierge he indeed does send in his assault guns and infantry from the Fuherer Grenadier Bde to replace the garrison of 15th Pz Grenadier/26th VGD.  There a small exchange and I come out ahead. Nice. However the his tanks will be a problem.

As predicted he did rain down artillery on my 17 pdrs but they stood up well and we only lost 1. I guess small A/T units can survive. Artillery in this region overall was lighter than normal? Holding back? Maybe he is waiting for me to attack and then hit me when I am in clear terrain?            

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - Magerotte - Martelange



A high level shot of the action.

At Magerotte I had put the 735th Tank Bn (84th Div) in T mode to send it south to Chaumont and then forgot to move it. He eventually spotted it but luckily only after he had fired off all his artillery in the area. He then brought his armour up and it was a turkey shoot. I lost 9 M4’s and the unit now has fatigue 144.

The 1-101st also suffered losing 75 men because it was sitting in clear terrain. I had brought it forward to allow 

2-501st and 2nfd Tank Bn to pull back. It was a costly exercise. The 2-501st lost 51 men mainly due to fire from his Panther Bn.

At Hollange he assaulted my Engineers (158th) then brought up more tanks.

The one big surprise was ther change in direction of Panzer Lehr? His armour has pulled back and not pursued me to Martelange. I guess Indragnir and clear terrain are like Vampires and sunlight! <g> He must be worried about my 4th Armoured Division and its 3 Battallions of M4's. I'd swop these 90 M4's for 20 Panthers any day.

So how do you play PzC Bulge. Run away is the best defense it seems. I must be defending too far forward? Too spread out. Wish I could stick a Panther pillbox on every main road and just go home job done.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 75 Ferman - Mersch



A high level shot again of the south from Pratz to Mersch. I’ll be a bit more detailed in my turn.

At Pratz he contended himself with artillery against the 1-12th (4th Inf Div) which lost 43 men. The 25th Cav also lost a Greyhound. He also reinforced the woods hexes at Pratz with more 5th FJD units. They could be fairly fatigued though?

The werfers at Pratz were spotted agains this turn. I’m not surprised, their barrels must be glowing red! I’ll have to ask Indragnir after the game how often ammo low effected his artillery and they became Unavailable? I’ve got 12 Unavailable artillery at the moment, nearly every one of them is 90+ in Global supply. The one that isn’t 90+ is 89.

At Mersch he pulls back his infantry and lets fly with his 75mm’s and artillery. The 11th Tank Bn loses an M4 and the 735th of 5th Division loses 2. The 2-10th Infantry stacked with the 735th loses 27 men. He does lose a 75mm from his rearguard unit he left behind.


I will have to attack out now with the 5th. With luck his units might remain disrupted a bit longer. If I can’t push him away from the hexes outlined he will have pefect observation on my Engineers as they attempt to build a bridge in this area. I should be able to assault and push his 75mm out of the town as they are disrupted. I will have to see if I can disrupt and push back the 352nd unit. Its not the best Division in this area but it should still be reasonably high strength. Lets hope its a D morale unit.  I have two air attacks (one is a carpet bomber) and two artillery Battalions for this operation. 

[Plain Ian]

Turn results 76/77

Sorry I'm a bit behind posting. Real life and turn/battle fatigue setting in.  I've played my Turn 76 and of course Indragnir has played Turn 77 and sent it zipping back. Spanish people do not sleep it seems. 

I'll start off with the current turn total losses and VP's.



Losses by turn



And a breakdown of these losses by Phase.



So in my phase of Turn 76 I did reasonably well. I actually inflicted 808 losses in terms of men and suffered 191 doing so. So for Turn 76 I German losses in men were greater than US. 

However the euphoria didn't last long......Indragnir's turn came back and US losses were back over the 1,000 mark! 590 of these were POW's captured when an assaulted stack could not retreat. 

And just to cheer me up he has started a fresh offensive in the south which is going to be very difficult to counter. But more on that later. I'll post two quick snaps of my Turn 76 then post the situation after his turn 77.