Maleme: Stemming the Tide AAR

[Red Penguin]

Hey, I bought CoA a couple of days ago, and I've been completely sucked in. I thought I'd share my AAR of the Stemming the tide scenario by way of introduction.

The whole file is here as a word document if you want it in a more eye friendly fashion.

Maleme: Stemming the Tide AAR

[Red Penguin]

This is an after action report of my German defence of Maleme. I haven’t played the scenario before, although I completed the ‘Kiwi’s Fight Back’ game once, more through sheer bloody mindedness than tactics, and got a marginal victory. The game starts on the 21st of May 1941 at D1 04:00, and finishes on the 22nd of May at D2 1800. This is the 5th scenario I’ve played, and so far (basic tutorial aside) I haven’t had a decisive victory. Since this is the last scenario I’ll play before moving on to the advanced tutorial I thought I’d write about it.

Initial Troop Situation:

At the moment in the Luftland SturmRegt I have the 1st Glider battalion, the 2nd FJ battalion, the 4th Heavy battalion, and a few support companies, most noticeably Braun and Osius.

The Gliders and IV Heavy are mainly scattered slightly west of Maleme Airfield, with Braun & Osius on the bridge south of it. The II Paratroopers are currently on hill 107, since it will be invaluable in the defence of the airfield, and the later push east. The 9th Fall Company are SSE of point 107, in Xamoudokhori. The remaining support and HQ units are west of Tavronitis River.

At between 8:30 and 9:30 I’ll be reinforced by 2 companies of Mortars, and 2 of Artillery. After 15:00 some para’s will drop - at the Pyrgos-Platanias road objective. Lastly the first troops of Mountain Division 9 will be arriving at 17:00 on the first day, with other bits of it arriving later. All my current troops are absolutely knackered, some a little more so than others.

The airfield, hill 107 & Xamoudokhori are all currently in my hands, but intelligence says there will be a counter-attack by the Kiwi’s soon.

[Red Penguin]

Initial Defence of the Airfield and Hill 107

In ‘Kiwi’s Fight Back’, the main counter-attack came from the south, focused on the hill, and since Xamoudokhori wasn’t an objective then I pulled 9th FJ coy back to the hill to assist with defence. This time, since the town is important I’ll keep the 9th there and move the II (Minus the Mortar company, who stay on the hill to support and secure the objective) to the east slope attacking the Pyrgos-Xam road. If the main assault does come from the south, it’s likely the 9th will need assistance, so I’ll have to be prepared to move a company, or even the whole of the II to their assistance.

The ‘1st line’ consists of IV Heavy battalion and Kompanie Osius. These are the least fatigued of my forces, and have the only real Anti-Tank weapons available to me. They will best be able to hold if the main assault comes from the north, and even to push forward if it doesn’t. The second line will be the I Gliders, 3rd Flak Coy and Kampftrupp Braun will make up the 2nd line, and will be assigned to wherever they’re needed. The artillery is in a town west of the airfield and the main HQ & base will be on the airfield itself.

[Red Penguin]

1st contact is made at 5:03 by the II FJ battalion on the Pyrgos-Xamm road, and by the IV heavy at 5:10. Between the airfield and the fort there’s only 1 company of infantry, which is already retreating by 5:43, so I tell the 1st line battlegroup to advance to it. At this time I notice a sneaky mechanised company has climbed the hill and is bearing down on my Mortar position.

[Red Penguin]

I send Braun and a company of the IIFJ to deal with it. And order the mortar to retreat. For some reason it never captured the objective anyway. The 2 divisions haven’t got much AT capabilities, so I hope they can cope, or even better, the intel is wrong (which would make sense, seeing how they got through the woods so quickly).

It turns out the intel was wrong, the division on the hill is plain infantry. Braun will take ages to get there, but since the enemy on the Pyrgos-Xamm road are retreating, I can commit the para company with more confidence.

[Arjuna]

Red Penguin,
 
Welcome to COTA and thanks for the AAR.
 
Did you do the tutorials before this scenario?

[Red Penguin]

At 6 it started to get light, and I could see the main force massing around Pyrgos, while the forces in the south retreated towards it. It looked like the main attack was in the north, making my decision to try and reach the fort with the 1st line battlegroup a huge mistake. Seeing as the vanguard of the enemy is only a few meters away, I tell them to stop where they are (Just west of the creek) and defend, while trying to get some elements of 2nd line battlegroup to hurry the hell up.

IIFJ in the south I had move to lower ground, since the Aussies had a well placed machine gunner just north of Manoliani, who could just about see them.

At about 7, FJII weren’t doing anything important, and were sitting on the Pyrgos-Xamm road, while the main attack was taking place not 200m north of them.

[Red Penguin]

So while assaulting through woods with Braun to try and cover IIFJ’s left flank, I ordered them to assault the objective and try and surround the forces in west Pyrgos, keeping to the left of the road and creek.

Not long after that there was a mass allied rout on the 1st line, leaving only C.23 & D.21 to defend the fort. If one of them broke I could advance 1st line to Pyrgos given covering fire by 2nd line, and have a 2 pronged attack from the west and south!

Halfway to the objective, I changed IIFJ’s objective. They were completely shattered, and Braun wasn’t having much luck getting those troops out from the woods, so I got IIFJ to support them, and afterwards they could maybe have a break. I told 9th company (holed up in Xamm) to rest, seeing as there were no obvious threats, and a fresh company would probably look like divine assistance come night time.

At 8:00, 1st line was starting it’s assault on the fort, Braun had cleared the woods and IIFJ had pulled into the woods and was getting rested while the fort was taken.

By 9 I pretty much had the fort, and a couple of mortar coy’s had turned up, and were setting up outside the airfield. The counter attack was broken, and it was time to start planning my own.


Moving east

The plan from now is pretty simple; slowly overlap 1st & 2nd lines ever eastward, hopefully taking Pyrgos before the fresh army arrives, when they will become my main frontline force, smashing through the now tired Aussie’s to the Pyrgos road objective, where with any luck some para’s will be waiting for them. My experience from the ‘Kiwi’s’ scenario taught me that if I move fast and keep north, lot’s of enemy units will get caught on the beach with their backs to the sea, where my Luftwaffe troops can drive them to surrender.

I achieved the Pyrgos objective at 11:30, with most of the enemy forces regrouping at the Pyrgos road objective.

[Red Penguin]

(The pic I forgot to put in the last post)

[Red Penguin]

There were still quite a few support troops and Artillery around the Daskaliana objective, so I decided to send IIFJ from the woods near Maleme to the fort just west of Daskaliana and try and drive them back to Pyrgos road, and harass troops retreating towards it from Pyrgos itself. They were still very tired, but hell, they’d have to suck it up. At 12:30, though, the Allies started moving most of it’s force to Daskaliana it started looking more and more likely that they would make a stand there, and not at the next objective along like I’d hoped (although on the plus side, this leaves the 2 incoming para unit’s free to secure the Pyrgos Road objective almost unharrassed). This scuppered my plans for IIFJ, by now outside the fort. Pretty soon they’d have a thousand angry New Zealanders bearing down upon them, and they’d have no chance of securing the Daskaliana objective. D.28 (the only infantry company left in Pyrgos in the picture above) was putting up a spirited defence, and even though I technically held the town, it could be a while before I broke through and fully finished them. Meanwhile I’d moved up my artillery and HQ to the airfield and hill 107 respectively, in order to keep the objectives there secure. The mortar company was no longer needed on the hill and rejoined IIFJ, hopefully providing them with some dedicated artillery support to hold of the many motorised and MG companies on the road south of Daskaliana.

[Red Penguin]

IIFJ is retreating, and even worse, the Allies have trying to push a wedge between them and the main army. The only thing stopping them is Braun (BRN) Company. 2nd line is successfully attacked NW, driving D.28 onto the beach, where C.23 had already surrendered. Of course this left my right flank more vulnerable than ever, with 1st line too far away to counter it. As much as it pained me to put them through more, I ordered IIFJ to hold the road, out of the LOS of the guns south of Daskaliana, and try and stop the 3 infantry companies breaking through my flank. I also pulled a company of I Gliders (3.LL) to help Braun harass them as they went down the road.

It seemed like I’d overestimated the threat posed by the flanking manoeuvre. Braun and the Gliders Company routed them easily, before IIFJ even reached the road. I decided to keep them there anyway, as it was relatively safe from fire down there, and it was a good place to rendezvous with its mortar company.

At 16:00 the reinforcement para’s had dropped successfully and secured Pyrgos Road objective, but were surprised by the sudden arrival of an Australian tank company. They didn’t have anywhere to retreat to, and the New Zealand forces to their west were taking a real pummelling (my main force was at Daskaliana by now). They managed to hold, but lost the objective as Kiwi forces retreated from the west.
The army arrived just after 17:00, and were rushed to the front. By 18:30 the Luftwaffe Battalions were exhausted and were starting to waver, and the para’s on Pyrgos Road were attracting increasing attention. I ordered the Army to attack straight away, a full frontal assault, slightly to the south to try and drive them onto the beach where the other companies could pick them off at leisure.

[Red Penguin]

The picture above was the situation at 20:20. The army had forced the majority of the enemy onto the beach, and the Glider troops were pushing forward. The IV heavy’s were getting some well earned rest, as was the IIFJ’s. I ordered the para’s from the Pyrgos road objective to push forward. I didn’t know if they stay there long – the enemy presence was too great – but it’d at least put pressure on the allied forces to safeguard their rear. The only problem region was the south; there was only one company there, and it was taking a battering. I moved Braun forward to support it.

[Red Penguin]

By nightfall, aside from some resistance in the south the enemy was well and truly cornered. 5th & 6th FJ (the two para units dropped on the Pyrgos road objective) were doing incredibly well cornering the routers, and had already forced 3 or 4 units to surrender. I decided to keep on fighting through the night, since hopefully there would only be a few tired stragglers left by dawn. I moved the IIFJ’s to the south to try and prevent any breakout, since this would be possible with the reduced visibility. I had to be careful though, If I pushed too far with my Army troops, the enemy would flood west, where they could easily overrun the 5th & 6th.

Dawn broke at D2 5:00 and it found the New Zealand force almost eradicated. It had gone a lot slower than I’d thought it would though. They had been reinforced from the east at about midnight by unit’s assaulting Daskaliana, and Braun - who had been stationed there while the 5th & 6th continued forcing allies to surrender - had to retreat. Luckily the IV Heavy’s were already on the way, since I had started bringing them round to help the para’s on the east side of the encircled troops. The invaders were driven out, but only to the village to the north. Now I had to worry about fresh Kiwi’s, which was problematic, since the 5th & 6th were in positions vulnerable to attack from there. I decided to leave it, and fortunately they ignored them and tried to Braun’s position again.

The picture is the east side of the map, Since the one in the first post is only up to Daskaliana

[Red Penguin]

At 6:30 I woke up the IIFJ’s, and started them on the push for Platanias. When the force on the beach were down to just one unit I started moving the Luftwaffe battalions to Daskaliana to prepare for an assault on Platanias, but at 7:47 the 5th NZ Infantry brigade offered an unconditional surrender.

So, my first decisive victory, and the first scenario I can honestly say went just the way I'd hoped.

Sorry if the colour's a bit messed up in some of the pictures.

[Red Penguin]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Red Penguin,

Welcome to COTA and thanks for the AAR.

Did you do the tutorials before this scenario?

Yeah, I've been doing them in the order in the quick-manual, so I've done the tutorial, one of the Sarantaporon one's, Platamon, and both the Maleme's. Thisis the first one where it all came together though.

EDIT: And thanks for the welcome BTW [:)]

[Pergite!]

Great AAR!

Makes me want to boot up that scenario the first thing I do tomorrow. Anyway, try it with Realistic order delay and you will experience even more of the greatness this game has to offer... cant promise any decisive victories though [;)]