DAR: Sicily

[RERomine]

Turn 29

Incoming mortar fire on G1, but no other activity. All flags turned and objective secure.

Enemy infantry is still turning up South of G2. The enemy is now trying to move toward G2, but I have units there to stop them with small arms. Advance elements are now 100m from G2. They are moving slow because they are advancing through cratered woods.

Enemy artillery is now firing into the West woods, rather than on G3. On empty track was immobilized. Two bunkers were found South of G3 and I've got units moving on them.

Three of the enemy Shermans were destroyed; two were destroyed by Tigers and one blundered into a panzerfaust toting scout. Mark IVhs engaged a couple of others with no effect.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 10 casualties.

Enemy: Three M4 (Early) tanks destroyed and estimated 10 casualties.

[RERomine]

Turn 30

More incoming mail on G1, resulting in a few casualties. No other activity.

One flag of objective group G2 turned. There is some light resistance by pinned enemy infantry, but nothing more. Not even any artillery.

Enemy artillery still hitting West woods. No further damage. My core infantry pushed out a bit farther inflicting some casualties on nearby infantry. Both bunkers have been destroyed as well. No real threats in this area.

Two more Shermans destroyed around hill 3. One was nailed by a PzKw IVh. The other one was one previously unseen and it blundered into another scout. That makes two for my little flank guard. There are two Shermans on the hill still and the M10 is now parked. It hasn't moved since I spotted it again a few turns ago.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 10 casualties.

Enemy: Two M4 (Early) tanks and two bunkers destroyed and estimated 20 casualties.

[RERomine]

Turn 31

Artillery a little lighter around G1. Nothing else is going on.

Four flags turned on G2 now. The other three will turn next turn. Light enemy resistance is still being encountered.

Units around G3 didn't encounter any resistance, but did take some shots at running enemy units.

Another unseen Sherman just showed up in the woods East of hill 3. This one also blundered into a scout, but unfortunately the scouts only have one panzerfaust and they already used it. They took a couple of casualties. The other two Shermans are trying to get to G3.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 5 casualties.

Enemy: Estimated 10 casualties.

[RERomine]

Marginal Victory!

Turn 32

All quiet around G1.

Last flag turned on G2. No activity in the area.

Enemy artillery hit G3 again, inflicting light casualties.

I wanted those last three Sherman, so I went after them. First, I took a chance on the Sherman in the woods by assaulting it with a scout only having grenades and SMGs and it worked. That was the third one they destroyed in those woods. A Tiger moved forward and took out another Sherman, but couldn't get a shot at the last one. Core SS infantry fired and suppressed it, before one moved up and assaulted. The assault immobilized it. Next, I moved up one PzKw IVh and tried to destroy the Sherman on my turn, but failed. During the enemy turn, the Sherman fired at the assaulting SS unit triggering OpFire from my mark IVh and it killed the Sherman at that point. That M10 never did move again, so it survived.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 5 casualties

Enemy: Three M4 (Early) tanks destroyed and estimated 5 casualties.

Total Casualties

German

Men: 231
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 1
APCs: 14
AFVs: 3 (1x PzKw IVh, 1x Hummel, 1x SdKfz 251/2 GrW)

Americans

Men: 447
Artillery: 9
Soft Vehicles: 0
APCs: 0
AFVs: 32
Aircraft: 5

Score

Germany: 7206
USA: 1098

Final Comments

I did a little bit of math and figure out the difference between the marginal victory I got in this battle and a decisive victory are the following:

Two P-47s
Two P-39s
Two P-51s
Four P-38s

The American air force did a lot of damage to my force. Near as I can figure, they destroyed nine units and damaged at least another 11. That pretty much accounts for almost half of my vehicle losses. Two hits really hurt. The first one during prep fire because my units were still grouped together and the strikes where they saturated my defenses. Overall, my air defenses were adequate. It would be nice to be able to shoot down everything before they get a chance to strafe or drop bombs, but it's not realistic. This is the first time in the 37 battles of this campaign I've seen 10 planes hit me. The most I've seen before this was four. Of the 10, five were shot down and the other five damaged (I damaged that one P-51 and didn't know it). That was done by eight SPAA units and a host of AA machine guns on half-tracks. All in all, I think they did pretty well.

The other major source of damage I suffered was by enemy artillery. In assaults, you always get nailed by artillery. The way to avoid artillery is to keep constantly moving, which is something that is very difficult to do during an assault. With mine fields, fortifications and defenses you can't generally see until they fire, moving fast to avoid artillery just allows you to die a different way. Artillery ended up destroying seven vehicles.

I'm puzzled about the "soft vehicle" it said I lost, because I didn't have any. Near as I can figure, it counts an "ammo carrier" as a "soft vehicle". The SdKfz 252 LGM is a half-track with a closed and armored top. Everything else I lost were tracks, SPAs or a tank. Counting that "soft vehicle", I lost a total of 18 vehicles. Aircraft and artillery accounted for 15 of them. Of the rest, I lost a track and tank to Shermans and one recon track to a 57mm ATG.

Artillery and aircraft were two of the four things I mentioned the Americans had that were dangerous and they were responsible for most of my damage. I managed to keep the other two things under control. American bazookas didn't get any shots at any armored vehicles and the same goes for the M10s.

What I considered to be a short time for an assault turned out to be plenty of time. Normally, I find myself crawling across the last objective with less than five turns left when I have more time than I did with this battle. I suppose that's because I prefer to punch through along an edge and take the objectives from the rear. High visibility, terrain and a relatively short amount of time made me decide to hit the middle. That same high visibility, terrain and centered deployment made me more vulnerable to artillery strikes. Anyhow, this is probably the first time I've finished an assault with more than 20% of my time left. No matter, since you don't get bonus points by winning fast. If this circumstance comes up again, I'll have to think on how I can better protect my units from artillery and air strikes.

As far as the other American assets were concerned, they were about what I expected. Infantry and scouts destroyed eight enemy tanks as far as I recall. Most of the rest were destroyed by Tigers. I can think of four that were killed by PzKw IVhs. There might be a few more. The bunkers were easily dealt with as well, most of those destroyed by infantry. No real notable impression was made by the American infantry. They seemed pretty much like all the others I've faced.

What is my reward for winning this battle? I get another assault against the Americans again This time visibility is relatively low(32) and the length is longer(51). What will make this different is it's a city assault. The AI loves to mine roads and a city has a lot of them. My tanks will have to slowly follow infantry into the town. I can't recall my last city battle, so I will have to give this one some thought.

I've attached the save just before I ended my last turn. Enjoy!

[WarrenOzz]

A good read - keep up the AAR`s!

I find it interesting reading and like to hear the plans you make. Its one way I can learn and improve my game play.

I`m on my first long campaign as Germany and am only in 1941. Not looking forward to the arty and air power against me in later years.....

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by WarrenOzz

A good read - keep up the AAR`s!

I find it interesting reading and like to hear the plans you make. Its one way I can learn and improve my game play.

I`m on my first long campaign as Germany and am only in 1941. Not looking forward to the arty and air power against me in later years.....

Thanks!

There's not really a lot you can reasonably do about air power you face. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. I keep eight SPAAs in my core and that's all I use aside from AAMGs on tracks. I could buy a couple hundred points of support AAA units for each battle, but most of the time it would be a waste of points. If the AI takes aircraft, I just deal with it.

The same applies with AI artillery, but that will always be there. I take some long range off board artillery, plus onboard stuff and counter battery when I can. The off board stuff is exclusively used to counter battery AI off board artillery. This battle, I took five and didn't use them once. All artillery I fired was onboard. It's all to try to minimize what the AI does to me.

With assaults or any battle, you will take damage. If you try too hard to avoid damage, you will lose the battle. The best you can do is try to minimize damage. I'm planning my next battle now and am going to try to see if I can alter my plans some to reduces my losses somehow. In that battle, the AI shouldn't have any planes. All that means is it will have more artillery.

I am trying to keep my core force as realistic as possible, as well. Panthers are available now, but since I have two 3-tank platoons of Tigers, I'm keeping my PzKw IVh tanks. I really don't want to add another 2000 points to my core because that translates into more points for the AI to spend. Later in the campaign, I might make changes, but not now.

The city assault should be interesting. I'm going to hit it with pretty much the same units I just fought this assault with. One big difference is my support engineers will have their own transports this time. I didn't like having my tracks do double duty. It's an option if you need the points for something else, but at this point I don't. My attack force was in the range of 15,000. If that's not enough points to beat any force I'm up against, there will never be enough points. To top it off, I'm going into battles with over 9000 repair points I can spend if I need to.

One thing I would suggest is when you get to the point where you can pick where you fight (North Africa, Balkans, Eastern Front), try to stay in the same area because tactics you use in one area won't work as well in others. If you can mentally change tactics easily, it might not be a problem. The most difficult is probably the Eastern Front because Russian tanks can be a pain to deal with. It all depends on what the come with. North Africa is easier as the British and American tanks don't tend to be as good and in the Balkans, well it's more infantry territory than anything. No matter what, remember it's a game and have fun!!

[WarrenOzz]

Wow - you have a much bigger core force than I do.
Mine is about 3000.

I use my off-board artillery primarily for counter-battery as well. Made the mistake of updating my 10cm K10 batteries into 21cm K39/40 (I think??) and found that no smoke ammo was available.... Arghh - total change of tactics as I rely on smoke to screen my forces.

I find that I am a very passive attacker as I too try and minimise losses. I find it difficult to get the tempo of my advance/assaults correct as I take too much time finding where the enemy is! End up with a manic 5 turns at the end rushing to take victory hexes and find they are covered by an AA gun....

Keep up the AAR`s - I will certainly be reading them.

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by WarrenOzz

Wow - you have a much bigger core force than I do.
Mine is about 3000.

I started my core at 3000 points, in September, 1939. As your experience goes up, the exact same core will cost more. At 100 experience, the same core will cost about 4000 points. Also, my tanks in the beginning were PzKw IIcs at 35 points each. In October, 1943, my tanks are PzKw IVhs at 90 points each. Infantry and ATGs have been upgraded, too. I also expanded my core slightly adding things I couldn't afford early on, like ammo tracks and SPAAs. My core now is around 8000 points for those reasons, but it's still just one tank company, two SS infantry companies and some support formations (ATGs, SPAAs, SPAs, recon and a couple of heavy tank platoons).

I use my off-board artillery primarily for counter-battery as well. Made the mistake of updating my 10cm K10 batteries into 21cm K39/40 (I think??) and found that no smoke ammo was available.... Arghh - total change of tactics as I rely on smoke to screen my forces.

I use those guns, too, but honestly never noticed the lack of smoke. The reason I use those are the 220 range. I also use the 17cm guns for their 220 range. The guns I use for artillery support are 15cm on-board howitzers with ammo bunker support. Against the AI, counter battery doesn't usually become a major factor until near the end of the battle. For smoke, I use my on-board stuff. Mortars are real good for laying smoke screens.

I find that I am a very passive attacker as I too try and minimise losses. I find it difficult to get the tempo of my advance/assaults correct as I take too much time finding where the enemy is! End up with a manic 5 turns at the end rushing to take victory hexes and find they are covered by an AA gun....

Keep up the AAR`s - I will certainly be reading them.

Well, it takes time to get use to losing units. It's going to happen. Where possible, I try to let support units take the lead so if I do lose some, they aren't units I've built up experience in and don't have to replace. After a while, you figure out how long things typically take and can attack faster, but it's always a learning process. I'm still trying to decide how I want to assault that town I have to take. If that wasn't bad enough, I have several streams with roads crossing them I have to deal with, creating choke points with bridges. Once I get this assault figured out, I'll post it out there and thanks for reading