SSKG Griffon War Dairy - 18 April 1945
After 24hrs of probes, the Americans hit us as I predicted more or less. This was not a hasty attack, but was put in deliberately, and designed to miss the strongest of our defences. They hit our northern defensive line, but at the moment my hasty minefield is doing it's job and letting the Yanks though in small or unit sized groups and being jumped on by my hidden Grenadiers and well sited Panzers.
Two things of note, Our Tornado Gp is staying alive, it seems to have figured how avoid the Yank’s 50s, and preformed interdiction sweeps, spotting and looking for targets of opportunity, in particular their HQ. Did some damage, but neither found their HQ or Organic Arty.
The Other thing is a new US Panzer has had been discovered, from reports it is much larger that the Sherman and has a long cannon. I've just been handed an photo taken by one of Tornado Crews.
This ought to be intersting as one of these has been reported inside our defensive line...........
.......Cursed JABO's!! Several Mustangs showed up and made a concerted rocket attack on one of my Panthers, despite my AA's best efforts, the Panther and crew died. At least one JABO went away smoking.
The new American panzers, I now count 4, a troop perhaps on trials, are much tougher than their brother Shermans. The one that got loose in my lines however succumbed to heavy MG suppression and one lucky 10.5cm HE round from one of my StuH's. The others seem to be taking 75 & 88 hits easily. Of note, the cannon on this panzer has not as of yet penetrated the front armour on the several Panthers and one Tiger they've hit. Also for the first time, it appears that one of these panzers used its cannon & 50cal to fire at one of my HUBZ, I sent in for a closer look. The HUBZ was only shaken not hurt.
The American's appear to be trying to breach my lines with their armour alone, and not massing their force for this, or keeping any infantry closed up with them. (This maybe due to the effective suppression that was rained on them when they hit the minefield.)...............
.......Along with some JABO's making harassing attacks, a Yank Panzer Company or so is attempting a breakthough to the centre objective. The new Panzers arose from the smoke first but with no supporting infantry, they've become the focus of all fire, then two of my PzGren Sections quickly dispatched two of the new heavies with Panzerfaust. The third took a seires of hits before a Tiger got in a good side aspect shot.
The demise of the Heavies, moved the rest of the Company into an open field where I ordered all arty and local fire to concertrate on. This had the desired effect and broke the final fury of the enemy attack.
Loses, in this defensive battle were minimal, and mostly occurred during the final segement of the American attack. Besides the Panther the JABO's took, 2 more Panthers and 2 StuG's plus assorted casualities can be pegged down to the final attack.
In the failing light of the day, it's apparent now this attack was designed to fix us place while the Third Army withdraws even further. So even though we won the day, the enemy's objective of buying time was bought, with blood.
Of note: It turns out the new Panzer, so I'm informed, is called the Pershing, another US General of note, or the M26. A Catkiller so to speak, it has a 9cm cannon and has heavy armour. Our present Panzers and their coming follow on models, are it's equal, interesting after piling up so many Shermans, the Allies are finally fielding a Panzer worthy of their industrial might.
Again the Tornadoes, earned their keep, I'm glad these machines were wrangled away from the Luftwaffe.
[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img] Obersturmbannführer PanzerBob
