2 hours later eastern sector:
At Stavelot the Americans have pulled back from their earlier attempt at a frontal assault downhill in the open terrain.
This is the beginning of AI's efforts to try another tact. They begin trying to flank the town and infiltrate through the woods.
You can see a stack of ghost outlines piling up where the track enters the woods from the area of open terrain on the hill where they were pushing on the town.
They sent one company down to the Ambleve river east of Stavelot. I got worried that if it was a leg unit it could cross the river and break my supply line since
I have nothing covering that approach. I sent one co of the town defenders off to flush them out. While this move secured that flank the unit given the task will
end up suffering about 40% casualties by the time the mission is over and they have returned to the defense of the town.
American units are piling up on the track leading to the crossroads the FJ is holding.
The first surrender cross caused by the FJ is just visible right on top of the kilometer grid line half hidden under the Ami units.
I mentioned before that the FJ stops everything that comes at it. That is obviously not true in light of the tank unit that infiltrated past it and destroying an infantry
gun company of the schutze bn that had pulled out of Stavelot. I guess I don't count those units that bypassed the FJ since it is holding a potion of such an overextended line.
All units that try to fight their way through the FJ down the track get stopped cold.
The tank platoon that infiltrated was attrited to 2 tank destroyers and since I was getting nervous about the infiltrators west of Trois Ponts I ordered the schutze
bn to deal with them before sending it on to the vanguard. I sent one co from Stavelot to finish off the tank platoon. Here is one of the times when the AI seemed
to put an overfocus on the wrong thing. The reason the co sent to finish off the tanks is routing is because every last Ami tube on the map fired in support of those t
anks when I asaulted them. The American defense at the important bridgehead to the west suffered because the AI threw everything it had into the lost cause of
saving this isolated unit.
Sandig's artillery has moved into place along the roads to the south leading to Stavelot. The 88's of the 3.1 company set up just east of Trois Ponts will eventually
force the surrender of the pesky engineer that has been lurking in that area all game.
Day 3 1700 hours:
