German Campaign using War Cab

[Imp]

Turn 9 Start

Smoke off as between us & routing Poles fair amount placed

After softening up the Mech Assault went as well as can be expected, we lost 2 men to a squad in the woods as one unit unloaded so placed smoke. No PIAT teams but detected a couple of patrols on the way in.
3 Damaged squads & partial patrol are all that escaped & tanks killed another one in this area.
Down South we killed a marksman for 9 kills in total - 7 by assault.

Down South we lost a further 2 men 1 to a sniper & 1 in an exchange of fire between squads. Unfortunately those 5in took out a Halftrack & its HMG passenger.
Giving up on CB fire its not happening plotting on the group in the South, there are around 15 batteries getting one wont make much difference. We should probably get off the hill the Sturmpanzers are on I expect it to get hit hard.

The squad protecting the immobile MkIV fended off 2 adjacent attacks.
We can defend from a front push he is the weak link, considered supporting by moving couple of squads & a tank. Just changed my mind have a halftrack on hand to pull him out if arty hits we could lose both of them.

Pulled out AT Teams to act as spotters as no armour however funny situation arose ended up going head to head with a Piat team & killing a man. Piat & SMG are both range 2 my weapons are range 4 & 3 yippee.

That poor Dingo keeps trying to approach but keeps taking fire & running its nearly at the map edge now. Probably need to kill it & see if we can send a few squads through the smoke to the back area.
Risk sending the spotter a bit deeper then to try & locate the AA so I can send the planes in.

[Imp]

Turn 12 start

We have relocated including our artillery, still a bit to do its quite now but expect incoming in areas A-D in that order.
Its more like 10 batteries & 6 on map I think, we lost contact with 17cm so it CB fired!

Relocating caused problems we lost control of the North group who gained ground & took some casualties.
Two of our Squads caused problems deciding to go heroic instead of retreating as I wanted them to.
We can finally pull the top squad out this go instead of committing units to save him.
The bottom one was the only unit on the hill & decided to rally twice & take everyone on by himself, eventually giving up when down to 3 men.
I made a silly move killing an AT team in the process.
We did bail out the tank crew, not done that in ages.
We have some decent fields of fire for the MGs now.

We have lost 4 units around 55 men including damage, a few squads would do well to head for our rear. Killed 44 Poles got one Dingo the other vanished & killed our first AA unit.

NORTH
Fall back slightly in case of arty & head back on the hill if its safe.
Under cover of woods & smoke gone searching for AA & with some luck the HQ. Also to cover road if they route here & tell tale smoke puffs say arty lies this way, halftracks heading back before they run into AA.

SOUTH
Minor risk 2 tanks went looking for AA think its in an area we cannot see. Tank is exposed 11 hex blind spot but still in kill zone for an ATG so dischargers are on.
There were a lot of Piat teams on the flank spotter plane missed most of them.
Not great position here due to expected arty more have moved East than I would have liked. A few moved West but till we know the situation hiding or selective shots - there are 3 snipers somewhere in there.
Letting them exit the depression MG has LOS & we have brought up the SPMortars using in direct fire mode.
Be nice if we can move into the tree line behind the depression.

Planes are plotted to come in here tank is going to risk a look it is vulnerable at short range to AA fire. If finds nothing cancelling & sending in to the North as we should have cleared AA there in a few turns.
Hope those 5in miss all transports are empty.
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Off topic but who needs war to thin the masses what is the US playing at with COVID 19 I thought they had the CDC.
Only a handful of countries have an upward trend in cases but the US curve is truly frightening.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Imp

Off topic but who needs war to thin the masses what is the US playing at with COVID 19 I thought they had the CDC.
Only a handful of countries have an upward trend in cases but the US curve is truly frightening.

John

Let's put this into perspective and look at the really big picture

https://www.worldometers.info/

These numbers change upwards constantly and the stats all come from UN or similar sources

The number of deaths worldwide from the Hunan virus as I type this is 605,587 ( call it Covid if you like , I will use the same naming convention they used for Ebola )

Certainly that is a high number but the number of deaths worldwide from all Communicable disease this year is 7,121,141 of which Hunan accounts for 8.5%

Road traffic accident fatalities this year to date is 740,494

Deaths caused by malaria this year to date is 538,070

Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year to date is 922,161

The number of Abortions this year to date is 23,332,916

And the "Big "C" --Deaths caused by cancer this year = 4,508,393

and with all that the Net population growth this year to date is 44,589,299 ( and that growth HAS slowed considerably since 1963 but it still is growth worldwide )

WW1 and the Spanish flu combined didn't slow that trend.( 20 million for the war + 50 million for the flu ) In 1900 the world population was 1.6 Billion and by 1927 it had grown to 2 Billion and it's getting near to 8 Billion now ( 7,799,091,129 and climbing)

That is little comfort to those who are most susceptible to this latest outbreak or their families but the numbers say this current pandemic is doing nothing to "thin the masses" as you say. Cancer and HIV/AIDs has taken nearly 9x more than Hunan/Covid has so far and traffic fatalities contiunes to lead Hunan/Covid so you are more at risk driving to the store to pick up a face mask statistically.

And one final number....0.1% ( one tenth of 1 % ) the number of reported confirmed Hunan/Covid infections (14,468,218 ) as a percentage of the total world population ( 7,799,109,384 right now ) and that's not deaths just confirmed infections

"Don't worry....be happy"

[Imp]

Just an update found the Polish HQ 3 hexes West of where I wrote the top AA on the screen.
Bad news is I had better run towards him or the woods what a view - only 1 arty fell at B

[Imp]

Turn 14 start

So we finally got a HQ that will make dealing with the remaining forces easier when morale dips.
Bonus to that I pulled further back as he has had a good view for a few turns after the smoke cleared.

NORTH

Did not pull West quite enough but 5in only damaged the halftrack its still operational, it missed the squads or just minor effect. We can move back onto the hill now so all is good.
Rest moved SE further than I was going to, Pioneer caught it heavily routed & 2 men down.
Restricted ranges on all vehicles here as fast moving & wanted to let them out off the rough hexes they may get hit by their own artillery if we let them come, letting them into the woods is not ideal though.

We could have done a better job of finding the AA Panther was waiting for the squads that killed the HQ.
Poles turn bottom AA truck moved to treeline & attacked the squad there killing 2 men before our HMG dispatched it.
The AA Gun just off shot revealed its self by opening up on both MkIV's damaging one. They returned fire & the Panther joined in, AA truck then appeared, it missed but MkIV's turned to engage & the AA gun damaged another one with a flank shot.
We caused no damage in the exchange but took 3 & 2 damage on the MKIV's
Infantry will have to risk a shot at the truck to break target lock, Panther should get the gun range is 7 hexes.

Planes are plotted to come in from NE on the infantry but delaying by a turn as spotter should come in next turn so can fine tune target hex.

SOUTH

3 Squads & a HMG got hit by the artillery halftrack can pull the HMG out (not shown) &the others can clear the area themselves.
Have support from the North including MGs when smoke allows so aim to make some inroads here in a few turns.
The 2 MkIV's will pull back enemy is getting to close, we killed one of the snipers here.
Tank searching for AA only had a quick look before returning after receiving no fire. Squad can take a better look but low priority planes will not be used here.

Kills now 62 for 4 losses with no supporting units against armour the poles face an uphill struggle, not seen a ATG or MG yet.
Sturmpanzers will be pulling out shortly to reload.

[Imp]

Quick update spotter plane made its pass remember at the start I said attacking here was not viable here is why.
Artillery has bunched, my guess several hexes with 2-3 units.
Have been killing them for quite a while now it was a lot more than a couple of Companies - 4-5 probably.
Planes are coming in on them this go they should find a target okay

We have started intercepting Scouts that made the run just North of the road, killed 2 so far.
Also found 2 more AA units without problem this time, spotter did not take fire so clear in this area.
Let them advance this turn but Poles cancelled the artillery here so not the effect I was hoping for.
I was wrong 3 squads got hit by 5in last turn thought it missed, really getting a dislike for them.

[Imp]

Turn 16 end

NORTH

Planes wondered what type I bought one attacked the infantry the other strafed the infantry then dropped its bombs on my MkIV 11 hexes away - its okay but not sending them again.
We have closed the gap again pushing them back, had to head into woods as some Poles are in it.
Killing artillery up here & moving 2 MGs round to there rear.

Noticed the Poles seem pretty good at going to pinned status after retreating routing in the same turn. Seen several times this game & lost 2 men because I assumed a squad was broken.

SOUTH

Full on route going here see if I can wipe them out without losing anyone by using area effect weapons to keep them running.
Unless its important have been switching off tank main guns to conserve HE & putting it on in my turn to make it count.
We have a Mg 2xAA 2XSPMortrs & 5 or so tanks with area weapons carefully placed shots should finish this.

Polish losses should be well over 100 if this turn goes as expected.
Plotting all artillery on North force to finish this.

[Imp]

Screen Shots sorry

[Imp]

Turn 19 start

It will all be over soon this is all that remains & the MG should keep them running, other MG will turn up this turn it got delayed by artillery.

We lost another soft halftrack to artillery so our losses are as follows.
AT Team, HMG, 3 halftracks (2 of which are soft) & around 40 men over 20 damaged squads 5 have taken heavy damage.
Artillery has been the problem not the Polish infantry who have killed less than 20 men, AA guns gave us a scare though nearly lost a tank to them.

The Poles did not stand a chance really winding up just as tanks are running out of HE, most AA units are also out so should gain some valuable experience. AA units seem to be my units most prone to dying normally to enemy artillery & air.

62 Polish units died in the last 2 turns South force was wiped out at the cost of 2 men & the halftrack all due to arty.

Star of the show has been the Sturmpanzer's (I play with Blast Circles on) a shot into the packed infantry could hit 4-6 units causing a ripple as they all move. Found out that big gun takes a long time to reload only 6-7 rounds a turn.

They are not in the same league but made me think of the Jagdtiger at Bovington Tank Museum go if your in the area they have a working Tiger & fair assortment of other stuff. That Jagdtiger though man it has a presence like no other the thing is intimidating.

[Imp]

Got lazy last couple of turns so lost a few more men to artillery, 1 of the soft halftracks crews must have survived we lost 2.
Marginal victory in the end only remaining Poles were 2 men from a crew.

5 battles in on average we are losing 120 men a battle the enemy averaged 806 for the first 4 battles losing 3225 men. This one was costly accounting for 2/3rds of their men lost.
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The next battle takes place at Torrebruna & has the potential to go badly.
I moved 2 Vhexes - moved the one by the North road East a few hexs & placed the top one on the top group of buildings.

Defending against the British visibility is 17 hexes - screenshot extends 19 hexes past my deploy line.
AUX UNITS Spotter plane meant to buy a couple other things but forgot, not deployed yet difficult map.