Bulge 16.01s alt

[Plain Ian]

Turn 80 –Night 10pm – Martelange – Redange



First thing I did was to move everything off the Martelange – Attert ‘highway’ to allow me to move the 2-12th and 3-12th into ‘reserve’ positions. It called for quite a bit of juggling because of night disruption and HQ command radius checks as most of the units juggled were HQ’s. However I’m used to this type of juggling, its part of the game when playing Bulge. If you can plan 2-3 turns ahead when placing units in positions then this is the game for you. If you can't then just don't leave units on roads unless you have no choice especially if night is coming up.

As usual I’m dancing to Indragnir’s tune and reacting to his moves but I feel I don’t have much of a choice as I’m running out of fresh units down here. Of course with night movement fatigue the 1-12th and 2-12th won’t be fresh after this move but hey ho.

The 25th Cav Sqdn was also moved into a reserve position. Its A quality so I had no fears about moving it...although I have had a few A quality units disrupting when moving at night off road.

In the north I pulled back 19th Tank Bn. Its morale is still good but its losing 1-2 tanks per turn and is down to 22. This leaves the 2-318th to weather the storm. My artillery did its best against the 212th VGD Bn opposite it. I ignored his Pz Lehr tanks here.

70th Tank Bn and the M5 tank coy fired at the 212th units opposite and obtained good result and no losses. 70th tank is down to 14 runners.

North west of Redanges I juggled my units as best as possible to make sure I had retreat paths and here would be no overstacking. The 4th Combat Eng were pulled back leaving the 51st and CCA HQ to take the assault. Both are in TRENCH so hopefully will survive the werfer/artillery deluge.

The 37th Tanks were pulled back. The 51st Arm Inf were moved away to reduce stacking levels.

The 8th and 35th also pulled back but were able to move into the hex occupied by 1-12. (which lost 3 men to opp fire) They both fired and gave a satisfying loss of 40 men to the top 212th Bn opposite them. (35th has 48 tanks and 8th has 42) They should be assault proof. Both are B quality.

My artillery results are shown on map. I had pretty good results despite not having a lot of artillery available. Because his units are in clear each shot takes out 5-6 men.

I checked the map after hitting next turn and saw that I had disrupted 4 of the 6 units shown. Whether this is enough or not we will find out next turn. I suspect the Panzer lehr Panthers may appear next turn anyway. I'll talk or 'haver' as we say here in Scotland about Indragnirs aims in my last map.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 80 –Night 10pm – Mersch



At Mersch I have only made a few moves.
 
(B) The 1-11th and 2-11th fell back onto the D/735th. Surprisingly there was no opp fire? The D/735th then went to T mode and ran away across the engineer bridge built by the 55th Engineers. Unfortunately as I predicted it was hit by opp fire and was disrupted. It lost 2 tanks (M5’s). However it had enough MP’s to allow it to get away.
The 1-11th (582 men) and 2-11th (613 men) are left to their fate. Hande hoch time. 

(A)  The 2-2nd (315 men), 3-10th (278 men) and 3/10 Cannon (3 guns) were taken off the map.

I moved the 5th Div artillery a hex as I want them to be out of sight before day breaks in case the visibility is 5 hexes.

And that was that. I did not move any other 5th Division units west as I wanted to take advantage of night to rest them. I also did not move any 10th Armoured units as the road is blocked by the 5th Division.....
 
Now in Indragnirs last email he said “the situation in the south is interesting”. This has made me think. What does this mean? What is he planning? I can see from the offensive he has launched with the 212th VGD that he seems to be trying to block the crossing north west of Redanges and put the 5th and 10th Armoured Divisions in a tricky position. Of course he might just be going for a ‘small solution’ and wants to gain possession of the wood hexes and force me back into clear terrain? Which ever one it is, I think it clearly suggests that he has reserves (79th VGD arrived on the map 22nd Dec 6am? 9th VGD arrived 24th Dec 6am?) on hand.

He also said in the email that “9th Panzer is free to move anywhere now”. But will it? Yes it can now instantly reverse its direction and go back to Ettelbruck/Diekirch and operate north of the Attert River but that will take it at least 2 turns and increase its fatigue. However with the 9th Pz division (40+ Panthers) I think he will easily be able to smash through to Attert town and effectively bottle up the 5th/10th..... if they are still down there.

What if he leaves 9th Pz Div here and waits on me stripping the 10th armoured and the 5th, then attacks over the Attert? He has 2 VGD’s here which probably have incurred low to moderate casualties, plus he probably has plenty of pioneers and lots of Corps/Army artillery. I think this is also a realistic possibility?

A few things to ponder. What should I do with the 5th and 10th and when should i start moving them?  The next allied reinforcements in the south (6th armoured Div/35th Infantry Div) are scheduled for 6am, 26th December which is almost 36 hours away. I can’t afford to waste any more units sitting in non active area. I need every unit on the front line or available in reserve.

[Plain Ian]

German Turn 81 – Night December 25th 2am - Results



Turn back from Indragnir. It actually came back last night about 2 hours after my last post here at the blitz. 

So its a new day, Christmas day in fact. The weather is back to snow and allied turn losses are back over 1,000 unfortunately. I haven't watched the replay or checked the map too carefully but I have Indragnirs email report on the turn. When we exchange files we usually give a brief description of the turn and even talk about strategy. In his email he's reported that at Mersch he captured 1,050 men and at Spa he assulted and killed three M4 tanks. So if you take these out my 'normal' turn losses were actually pretty low at just over 300 men.
Edit add: tank replacements for the turn were 1 Firefly, 6 M4's, 4 M5's and 7 armoured cars of various types. So allied tank losses for the turn were covered. However it was the 11 successful improved positions I dug this turn which were more important to me. <g>



Thanks to the 1,050 POW's his VP's have jumped back up. 

[Ricky B]

One thing you could have done Mersch, although it may not have saved too much, would have been to put those last 2 bns in T mode if possible. Losses to fire would have been high, but if they were assaulted, they could have retreated across the bridge, it appears. Not sure they could have gone into T mode but something to keep in mind when trapped with a bridge and river at your back.

Rick

[Plain Ian]

One thing you could have done Mersch, although it may not have saved too much, would have been to put those last 2 bns in T mode if possible. Losses to fire would have been high, but if they were assaulted, they could have retreated across the bridge, it appears. Not sure they could have gone into T mode but something to keep in mind when trapped with a bridge and river at your back.

Rick

Yes good point. I did think about this but unfortunately I thought of it after I had done my turn. Doh. 

Its good to know that it would work though. 

Looking at the situation I would have had to go into T mode next to his 9th Panzer infantry and also move one hex into a Forest hex again opposite German units. (2 x VGD Bn's) So a lot of opp fire would have been possibly triggered. I'm not sure that this would have worked though as my units start of disrupted and I don't think they have enough movement points to enter the woods hex after they go to T mode? 

I can check this from the old file I have as it won't reveal or give anything away about Cesars units.

If my units could have reached the Woods hex opposite the bridge, would they have survived the assault and artillery fire? Mmmmh. Cesars has a lot of 7th Army and Corps artillery, although some of it must have moved forward?

Against weak forces though, going to T mode is worth a shot I guess. You've got nothing to lose really. Of course if your opponent plays clever and ensure that there is a free hex adjacent on the wrong side of the rive then I guess the AI might pick this one instead of retreating over the bridge.

By the way, I did a stupid thing with my engineers. I did not want them sitting there too long dismantling the bridge nor did I want to abandon the bridge. So I actually started dismantling the bridge last turn expecting it to take 2-3 turns......and they did this in one turn. The two units over the river (50+ and 60+ I think) are now doomed! If the bridge was still here I might have got them out this turn. Doh!

A few maps tonight when I get home. 

Ian

[Plain Ian]

Mersch revisited - mistakes learned



I went back and looked at the file. Yes it looks like I could have saved the two Battalions. The 1-11th and 2-11th can easily reach the woods hex occupied by D/735TNK as shown in the picture above. In the test I did they lost only 25 men to opp fire when moving. Of course what they would have lost if I had moved them in the game would have been different, unless of course I made it the first move in my turn which is what I did for the test. (unlikely because I play and move north to south usually and have only played south to north once or twice)

How much they would they have lost to artillery sitting in Woods in T mode I don't know? Maybe 1-200? Looking at Cesars units I can't see him being able to try and leave the hex sw south east of my stack clear so that an assault might have pushed it there? I think he would have been forced to just use as much artillery as possible and then assault as heavily as possible. I might have saved over 50% of each battalion? 

I still can't get my head around the fact that to MOVE over a bridge on a RIVER you need to follow the road stacking rules but to ASSAULT or RETREAT over bridge on a RIVER, road stacking does not come into the calculation? (I've talked about this before)

In case anyone is wondering what the actual situation is, well here it is below.



I haven't watched the replay to see who or what assaulted the 1-11th/2-11th but you can see from the picture how deadly it was in terms of casualties. I'll come back to this sector when I do the maps for Cesas turn in an hour or so starting north to south.........

[Plain Ian]

Turn 81 German – 2am 25th Dec Snow – Hoes Venn – Chession
 


Well 10 days into the campaign and the snow is back, just in time for Christmas! It was a quiet but interesting turn.

Unfortunately the Germans have forgotten the Christmas cheer and the 3-39th learn what werfers can do to you when not dug in to TRENCH level. Two blasts take out 39 men and some more artillery and direct fire from the 277th adds in further misery. The 3-39th disrupts and joins its partner2-38th which although low fatigue stays disrupted. The 3-39th is down to 163 men. (21%)

The 1-395th and 2-395th are also struggling to ecover from disruption.

Things are not that rosey for the Germans though as patrols show that they are not immune to disruption recovery failure. (1) and (2).

Further south the 1st Divisions forward troops 3-26th and 3-16th are hit hard by artillery. The 3-16th suffers the worst barrages and is disrupted. Its crime.....digging in.

The god news though is that the 12th VGD is still suffering from bent shovels and fails again to dig in. 3 battalions digging in and no sign of a TRENCH.....Adolf will not be pleased. 

And here is the interesting bit. He assaulted the 1-33rd tank Bn. (6) I had left it on its own after pulling back the battered 2-26th and he hit it with his 12th SS/KG Hansen group. They were pushed back but have recovered from disruption. I lost 3 B quality M4’s and he lost 35 A quality men.
To fill the gap he brought up two more battalions of 12th SS (7) and selected the 38th Cav for some artillery bombardment. (he ignored the 2-33rd stacked with it) It lost 2 armoured cars There seems to be a small offensive happening here as he has also advanced some Pioneers. (9)

The 3-60th were hit by direct fire from his Panther group. (8)

North of Stoumont he was content to use artillery against my armoured cars (?) and ignored the British M44’s. The British M4’s only have a defensive strength of 12 (compared to the US M4 strength of 20) but an M8 (Greyhounds) of the 24th Cav has a defensive strength of 3. 2 more B quality vehicles to add to his VP tally. I assume he gets the same points for an M8 as he does for an M4.  

I patrolled the Stoumont road and there were no surprises to find that he has set up double defences with a VGD Bn and VGD Pak unit in each hex. (11) and (12)

What is a surprise is that he has blown the bridge over the river at Chession. In the replay I wondered why fire was triggered against his Pioneer uni,t but if Cesar had not mentioned the bridge blowing in his email I probably would not have realised for a few turns. I’m not sure of the implications of this act? Nor the reason he blew it?

The 31st Tank Bn was hit by quite a few artillery shots but did not lose any more tanks this turn. It did recover from disruption hooray! The 740th Tank Bn to its north in Chession did not recover. Boo hoo...but its yellow fatigue 160 anyway.

And that was as much as I could cram onto the map folks. Maybe too much. I blew up the Spa area. Interesting situation. I have a few infantry units with reasonable fatigue in the area but my tank strength is pretty low. (see numbers on tank units) I think his units are reasonably ok in terms of fatigue and I guess his units are possibly around about 500 strength apart from his Pioneers. (KG Hansen could be 600+)

In the Hoes Venn I might advance the 741st Tnk Bn to stop his disrupted units recovering fatigue.
I’ll continue the attacks against 12th SS/12th VGD but I’ll wait for dawn before I start any other moves.....

[Ricky B]

Unit point values are based on unit ratings and abilities. A tank will have a higher VP value than a recon vehicle, in general. Just as an A unit is worth more than a D, by quite a bit.

[Plain Ian]

Unit point values are based on unit ratings and abilities. A tank will have a higher VP value than a recon vehicle, in general. Just as an A unit is worth more than a D, by quite a bit.

Thanks Ricky for keeping things right. I just thought it was strange that Indragnir went for the easier target rather than the biggest threat. 

Will try to finish rest of maps tonight.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 81 German – 2am 25th Dec Snow – Grandmenil – La Roche
 


A fairly quiet sector. All that can be heard is the sound of shovels and German swearing. A lot of sweat and fatigue but no results.

In the RUBBLE of Odeigne the Jagdpanzers are busy whilst the Panthers sit watching. Cesar is happy to rest and no fire comse from them?

South of Odeigne everyone is digging, but they do have time to fire at the 1-290th.

On the Samree – Baraque road you will see something that you won’t see very often. A disrupted German unit sitting adjacent to two US elite units!!! Admittedly the German unit is an SS unit in a TRENCH, but the 9th SS is a C quality unit and if disrupted its D. So I have 1,200 paratroopers next to 400+ disrupted SS troops? Cesar did not pull them back??? So he is expecting me to assault? Well I probably have to do this. One Bn might not be enough so both? Its one more hex along the road. There will be a fresh SS Bn behind it dug in no doubt.
 
Back at Samree the Engineers have finally cleared the RUBBLE and look back waiting for the armour to roll through. Guys where are you? I’m afraid the 2nd are back at Champion awaiting a decision. The engineers have performed remarkably clearing the town in under 24 hours I think? (I’ll have to check)

And thats it for this sector. I’ll have to get something done in this area. 9th SS infantry have good soft attack/defensive factors but are C quality. The 75th is a D quality unit so not the best unit for attacking. I’ll need the help of good units like the Paras and the 84th Division to the north. (C quality)