Bulge 16.01s alt

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 German - Dec 24th 6pm Night - the north



In the north [A] the 2-395th received the 'werfer treatment' losing 102 men to artillery and a further 23 to direct fire. The unit went from low green fatigue to mid range yellow. Howber allied counter battery had a rare success and return fire killed one VG man and disrupted the unit???? The two 395th units have no real offensive cappability as they are D rated units to start with. So I'm relatively happy to lose 125 D rated men.......

At [B] he withdrew his 'vulnerable' armour (Sturm PzIV and StuG42H) and moved in a Sturm Tiger. I'm prety sure this will be artillery proof.

North west of Robertville my patrolsare showing his heavy armour and PAK stacks. [C] and [D]

In the south the 3-26th is heavily shelled. Despite the pounding the unit remains undisrupted and finishes its digging. The 26th is a good B rated Regiment of 1st Division. The 2-26th and 2-18th are now IMPROVED. He is digging in with the 12th VGD opposite. I can't allow this. You are not allowed to dig in in Bulge. <g> 

The 12th SS are in TRENCH so he has moved back in two small units (both [XX]) as added protection. This arre looks promising for me to attack but I'm pretty sure that the 3rd PGD has been resting in this area for several days so any attack will quicly come to a halt.

Further north in the Hess Venn how best to attack. Should I spread out to maximise the number of units I can get in contact or stay stacked every alternative hex?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 German - Dec 24th 6pm Night - Spa



All quiet at Spa. He rested most of his units and only the 3-60th came under direct fire. 

At Stoumont he has brought up another Bn of 62nd VGD and continues his attempts at digging in. 

I've plenty of artillery in the area and may just do the same as him. I'll rest most ground units (even artillery maybe) but try to hit all his units with artillery so that they don't recover fatigue.  

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 German - Dec 24th 6pm Night - Samree - Flamierge



The 9th SS continues to snipe away at my 75th Division units in contact. 

Similarly he continues the battles at Flmierge and Bertogne. I will return fire here as per usual. 

The big decision will be what to do with 2nd Armoured.

Option 1 send against 2nd Panzer at Nadrin and then on to Houffalize?
Option 2 move to Flamierge then use in frontal assault towards Bastogne plus also maybe a push on Bertogne form the south west?

Both have merits. Bastogne allows the support of a full Div (53rd) plus element of 82nd. Nadrin will be a slugfest but I'm hoping it will suprise him and maybe be difficult to reinforce? 

The other decision will be timing? Keep moving now and suffer night time fatigue or rest up?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 German - Dec 24th 6pm Night - Magerotte - Redange



At Magerotte Cesar went for a bit of HQ bashing. His artillery targeted the 501st HQ and his 2nd SS added their support. I'll pull back the HQ but the 3-501st will have to tough things out. The 2-104th (I've labeled this as 1-504th by mistake) is at Max Fat and withdrawing. I have the fresh 2-101st and 3-104th available (26th Div) but they are D rated units and its not a great idea to move these units at night. 

2nd Tank Bn (20 x M4 Fat 9) and 52nd Arm Inf (116) both CCR 9th AD are moving south to join rest of Division.

Near Martelange the US 19th Tank lost another M4 to Panzer Lehr.

The 4th Combat Engineers were well and trully battered losing 131 men this turn. They were pummeled by artillery then assaulted. They were pushed back onto 4th Armoured armour. However he has made no attempt to follow up. However you never know......

Strangely Cesar has left two 212th VGD units in clear adjacent to my tanks in the woods? 

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 German - Dec 24th 6pm Night - Mersch - disaster on the Alzette



Last map. 

In the far south the sound of German bombers approaching causes confusion? Can't be? But it is and 5 minutes later the 735th (I think it should be 737th) is missing an M4.

The 1-11th is hammered by artillery (and disrupted) then its assaulted by two VG Bn's of the352nd. The 1-11th loses 81 men in the assault and 115 men in total for the turn. One of the enemy Bn's is disrupted during the assault.

The 3-10th further south comes under fire (even though its already disrupted?) then its hit by an assault and retreats......south??? I couldn't work out what hexes he attacked from? Does that effect the retreat path? I doubt it? Anyway whatever it was  the WRONG WAY!

The 2-2nd (and the 3-10th now) are hit in a second assault (no idea what he used) and the result is catastrophic. I lose 663 men and he loses 43.
In total the 3-10th loses 361 men for the turn and the 2-2nd loses 355. Both units are disrupted but amazingly the 2-2nd has only a Fatigue of 16? (3-10th is Fatigue 140)

And that folks is how you lose over 800 men and why I can't see me getting anything but a Draw in this game. Stack to defend and you lose due to overstacking. Spread out and he werfers you one unit at a time. Plus because his frontage is far smaller than the historical Bulge he has plenty of reserves...in fact whole Divisions. Plus I suspect a large part of his armour is still intact.



Just for a change here is the 3D map.



And to finish off a map showing my artillery and HQ posiitons and my escape plan. The one good thing about the turn is that the road and the bridge are still open. If he had advanced in the north then this would have made it difficult to get any units out apart from the infantry which is ready to go on foot and ferry over. However I guess he doesn't realise I have a bridge. Remember it only took one turn to build!

So I stand a good chance of getting a few more units away.....providing of course they don't get hit with Night Disruption. 

I'm not sure what units I will sacrafice yet. I've saved the 818th TD and I'd like to pull out the 735th Tank Bn but I may need it to hold him back? I'm also thinking that I may use the HQ's as road blocks rather than get them to safety, as they will come back when killed. Will have a better look tomorrow night when I start moving things.

Lastly I was actually wodering IF the 9th Panzer were in fact there??? I thought that he was double bluffing me although Cesar and I usually pretty open about our moves in the game. However during the assault against the 1-11th I spotted a Recce unit which probably proves that the 9th is there. I guess he may be resting the 9th to prevent Night Fatigue because he is happy to use the VG to do most of the work? However the number of VG units disrupting is starting to rise. If they do not recover next turn (again) then he might be ready to use the 9th?

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 Allied - end results



Ok my results are above. During my phase the best I could manage was 395 men, 2 vehicles (1 a Panther!) and 2 guns. I lost 59 men doing this.



So overall losses for the turn look like above. It doesn't look good and the situation in the south (5th Division) means I'm probably going to be seeing these rsults for the next few turns.



Final total results above.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 Allied - Mersch



I'll start with the south then jump back to the north and work down. Operation Dynamo worked pretty well. For a C rated unit the 5th Division had very few night disruptions when it moved off road. I still had to spend some time working out which units to move first, but the end result was that all my artillery got away apart from a Regimental gun unit. I also managed to evacuate 5 out of the 9 Infantry Battalions. I possibly could have got 6 Battalions out, but my brain was fried so I settled for 5. 

I decided to pull out HQ's rather than use them for defending. 

So thats roughly 1800 men and 3 guns left in the bridgehead......which means it was a costly mistake to bring the Division onto the map.

I moaned about the bridge being in the wrong area when in fact it was actually in the right place. The hex SW of 55th Eng is a Clear hex so I could pile units in here to help free up space for moving units along the main road.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 Allied - Hoess Venn



Most of my artillery results are shown above. The 277th VGD unit which was digging in was disrupted. (-43 men) but my artillery and direct fire didn't have any effect on his 12th SS or 12th VGD. 

The 5th FJD units were heavily hit and both targeted units disrupted. (so all 3 were showing as disrupted when I hit end turn)

A 62nd VGD unit digging in was disrupted, as was one of the Pioneer units stacked beside it.

My casualties are not shown, apart from 2 A/C's I lost from return fire from his VG.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 Allied - Odeigne - Flamierge


I had a surprise result in this area by killing an SS Panther tank with artillery. I was using my artillery to hit all of his units to prevent them reducing fatigue and it must have been a very lucky hit. I'm going to buy a lottery ticket as I think the odds of killing a Panther are higher than winning a lottery!

The US 2nd Armoured was moved up. The 41st Rgt is now more or less in place. I'm still debating what to do with the rest of the Division. I'm thinking that armour is best advancing in Clear towards Bastogne and infantry should be used in woods as much as possible. German artillery shreds infantry in clear. 

The 325th Glider Rgt is getting a bit far north but I need good units to hit the 9th SS.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 79 Allied - Magerotte - Pratz



26th Division is using its Regimental HQ's as a shield at Vaux, but I can't see him advancing at night.

In the south I hit his 212th VG hard but he did leave them out in clear terrain for some reason? Apart from that I sat tight behind my armour and rested everything.

No major movements by me.