BFTB AAR: Race for the Meuse

[HansBolter]

same time western sector:

Earlier along the stretched out northern flank I advanced north out of the woods with a handful of units with fierce bravado
hoping to take the initiative and keep the Americans off balance. I ended up getting in over my head instead and became
concerned that the Americans were starting to bypass me in the dark and infiltrate the woods again so I have turned tail
and are heading back to the blocking positions at the outlets from the woods.

Jupp Diefenthal's Schutze Abteilung has orders to drive to the bridgehead and come to the aid of Heinz von Westernhagen's
501 SS Schwere Panzer Abteilung that is being hard presed at Chevron. I mentioned before that I wished I hadn't sent two
panzer abteilungs to that bridge without infantry support. Those tigers are ill suited for the task of holding a town against
infantry in nearby woods without infantry support of their own. Werner Poetschke's I.1 Panzer Abteilung has arrived at the
destination of it's earlier attack order on the opposite side of the woods from the tigers and and along with the 1.501 Tiger
Kompanie, which has advanced from the southern bridgehead, has started filling the gap betwen the two bridgeheads to
consolidate a solid perimeter while pushing the Americans back.

KG Knittel and the II.2 Motorised Infanterie Abteilung from Sandig's Regiment are not making as much headway at the southern
bridgehead as the night has slowed them down, as well as the Americans directly west of them in the edge of the woods.

I detached the 2.1 Motorised Infantry Kompanie and sent it south of the bridgehead to clear that flank and it is now pressing hard
on the American D.80 Infantry Company.

Rudolf Sandig, the commander of the 2 SS Panzergrenedier Regiment and KG Sandig is operating back at Stavelot with only one
of his battalions as I detached one to send forward earlier and another, the armored infantry batallion, started the scenario already
detached from it's regiment as it was asigned to KG Peiper for the offensive. This was common practice with German panzer divisons
which were not fully mechanized. Only one of their six infantry batallions was armored, riding in half tracks. The other five were
motorised riding in trucks. It was the third batallion of the second regiment that was the armored one and it was routinely detached
from it's regiment to form a KG with the batallions of the panzer regiment.

Day 3 2300 hours:




Sorry for the short installment tonight, but my time is limited. It may be a couple of days before I can pick it back up again. Keep an eye out for the next installment. [;)]

[GoodGuy]

17" 4:3 CRT here. Could you crop the images or do manual line breaks (so that the text can be read without scrolling), at least? That would be cool

[HansBolter]

4 hours later:

Let's zoom in on the defense of Stavelot.

Day 4 will see the heaviest fighting in this sector.

Both the FJ and the pak have been pushed slighty back from their positions on the crossroads
although the FJ has held better than the pak. This has allowed American units to slide past down
the track that leads to Stavelot. The FJ and pak were under tremendous pressre from 7 American
units, the 4 still on their frontage and the 3 that slipped past. The small amount of ground they have
given is unbelievable.


I have a motorized infantry company sort of covering the possibility of advance southward from that
track, but it is covering a lot of frontage and you can see the ghost outline of a possible unit still in
the rear of my troops. The 4 strength panzer company is the 7.1 that was originally attached to the
schutze batallion. I left it behind to have at least one tank company in this vicinity. It already has, and
will continue to be, a stalwart of the defense of the town.

The 3.2 motorised infantry company is blocking the oulet of the track from the woods northwest of
Stavelot. I'm still pretty solid in the town, but the gap between the 3.2 motorised infantry company
and the next closest unit in the town allows enemy units to slip through. An Ami tank destroyer platoon
is getting a hot reception from the motorised infantry batallion headquarters entrenched in the industrial
district of the town.

Day 4 0302 hours:


GoodGuy,

Sorry, but I can't crop the screenshots. I force wrapped the text. I hope that helps. [:)]

[HansBolter]

same time central sector of the map:

You can see a bit of the Stavelot defense in the upper right corner of the map.

All is quiet in the Trois Ponts area with flak and artillery screening crossroads.

Jup Diefenthal's schutze abteilung has discovered an American infantry company
along the supply road in the woods on it's way to the bridgehead. The orders delay
involved in trying tio get them to react to this discovery and the fact that I really don't
want them distracted by this annoyance leads me to decide to ignore them and push on
to the bridgehead. I will end up pulling one of the units from the northern flank escapades
down to hunt for the infiltrator later. KG Peiper HQ is on the move behind the schutze abteilung
on it's way to the bridgehead.

You can see I haven't completely given up on my earlier efforts on the
northern flank at Cheneux. Although the two units furter west, the 2.1 mech infantry and the
9.1 mech pionier have pulled back to blocking positions at the edge of the woods, the 3.1 mech
pionier is still keeping the pressure on the town with an attack order while the 1 pionier zug
stopped it prior fallback and dug in just southwest of the town to support the attack effort of the 3.1.

Day 4 0302 hours:

[HansBolter]

Sorry, just a little screw up. See the next post. [8|]

[HansBolter]

same time western bridgehead:

von Westernhagen's tigers are extremely hard pressed in Chevron while they
wait for the shcutze bn to come up and suport them. I started getting worried about
enemy units slipping in behind them toward the bridge so I detached a motorised infantry
company from the batallion south of and advancing on Oufny to cover the norhern bridge.

The remainder of that batallion is moving north to Oufny to support the lone tiger company
that advanced there earlier. Their trailing mortar units are getting a hard time from an Ami
infantry company still in the town south of Oufny with the obscured name as Knittle's recon bn
has been slow to advance from the bridge. They are finally starting to make some progress now.

Poetschke's I.1 panzer abteilung is covering the gap betwen the bridgeheads and threatening the
encirclement of the American units in the woods by Chevron.

Day 4 0302 hours:

[HansBolter]

2 hours later eastern sector:

Since the FJ is holding tough and giving a bloody nose to the remaining units on
it's front, I pulled the pak out and sent it around to try and block the gap that keeps
filling with infiltrators. The tank destroyers that encountered the bn HQ in the last time slot
moved away to the north and are now caught between the 3.2 and 2.2 motorised infantry
companies. However, I have yet another American infantry company in my midst.

KG Sandig will be very, very hard pressed over the course of this coming day and night.
Two of his batallions are off at the bridgehead supporting Peiper. He has one batallion of motorised
infantry, one tank company, one FJ company and three flak companies to hold a major town and
a flank frontage of 5 kilometers.

There are no German reinforcements on day 4. They get their last wave of reinforcements very early on day 5.
This consists of KG Hansen, the 1 SS Motorised Infantrie Regiment (HQ, all 3 bns, 2 mot art btys & a nebelwerfer bn).
On Day 4 I have to fight with what is already on the map. Every last line unit I have is comitted. This is likely a
habit ingrained from so many years of boardgaming where you develop a mentality that any unit not in the line
fighting is being wasted. I have a hard time keeping reserves and always seem to scrape the bottom of the barrel
by diverting some unit from it's current task to deal with surprises and upsets.

Over at Chenuex the 3.1 mech pionier co completed it's attack order into the town bypassing an enemy engineer
platoon in the process. The succesful advance of the 3.1 led me to issue new orders to the pionier zug to attack into
the town on the left in support.

Day 4 0500 hours:

[HansBolter]

same time western sector bridgehead:

Here is an example of what can happen when you forget you are playing with painfully realistic orders delays.
Remember in the last bridgehead screenshot I was worried about the schutze bn not coming up fast enough
to cover the northern bridge so I detached a motorised infantry company to do the job.

Well, the motorised infantry company got only halfway there before the schutze bn lead units arrived. In addition,
since KG Peiper HQ came up to the town of Chauveheid I sent the flak that had been in the town on to the bridge
and since it was well rested it got there way ahead of the motorised infantry company. I should have left that damn
company attached to it's bn instead of weakening the bn. However, since it is already on it's way in that direction
and there are American infantry in the woods I needs to clean out, I change their orders to attack northwest of the bridge.

The tiger companies are holding tough in Chevron as the HQ keeps taking fire.

KG Knittle is encountering the American unit in Habiemont that sent the II.2 mortar zug reeling.

The II.2 motorised infantry bn, the 1.501 tiger co and the I.1 panzer bn have all reached their attack objectives and
will now hold and rest for a bit.

Day 4 0500 hours:

[HansBolter]

Time for a candid shot.

All screenshots so far have been from loading saved games.

That's why none have messages or fire lines or smoke clouds from bombardments.

This is the only candid action screenshot I took.

The D4, 07:51 message made my day: [X(]

[Rebel Yell]

Nice message, indeed.  [8D]

[flintlock]

Appreciate you taking the time to continue with this AAR. 

[elmo3]

That message is a bit worrisome to me. Was that an edge of the world effect where the HQ was trapped against the west edge of the map? If not then why is the AI putting a Div HQ in harms way? Seems prudent to have it well back from the front line, even though defining such a line is admittedly difficult in this scenario.

[HansBolter]

The AI placed the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and the 504th Regimental HQ in the woods next to Chevron.

I came in with mechanized forces and am in the process of surrounding those woods.

The Divisional HQ got caught in the southern portion of the woods and destroyed by heavy fire.

Ruben Tucker's 504th RCT HQ will eventually turn up in those same woods as I complete the surround and eventually destroy all the units there.

Was deploying in the woods a good move? Probably not. But it is a natural location for HQ elements of units expecting to deploy to cover both the nearby bridges. They just didn't expect me to come racing in with such strong force so quickly.

Had any of the bridges been blown along the way, the rapidity with wich I arrived would certrainly be affected.

I see this scenario as having great replayability once the at start arrangements are properly set up with the major bridges being primed. One play through may see a race to Werbomont as I have done and another may see a diversion to the north as happened historically when bridges got blown.

I'll continue it again tonight as the action heats up at Stavelot and I break out from the bridgehead.

[Llyranor]

I've only finished the first page, but it's been a great read so far. Thanks for taking the time.

[HansBolter]

Sorry I haven't been able to pick this up again and finish it as I intended to do Monday night.

I have unreliable internet service at home and it has been out since I got home from work Monday.

As soon as I get reconnected at home I'll pick it back up again.

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
As soon as I get reconnected at home I'll pick it back up again.

Might I suggest "moving" as a solution ? [:D]

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: sterckxe

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
As soon as I get reconnected at home I'll pick it back up again.

Might I suggest "moving" as a solution ? [:D]

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

That may be the only way I'll ever get reconnected. [:(]

I have DSL service through the local telphone company monopoly so I am sure you can imagine what I'm going through dealing with their beauracracy.

I wasted an hour with their so called online chat help this morning. [:@]

I'll be contacting the local cable company today to arrange for cable service installation as soon as possible.

Until I get one or the other working I'm afraid the progress here is on hold.

[HansBolter]

I'm very sorry there has been no progress on this for so long. I am still struggling with getting functional internet service to my home.

I have gone back and force wrapped the text on all posts to make them easier to read with the limited time I have to do so from my connection at work.

Eventually, I will get new service at home and pick this up again.

Hopefully everyone will not have lost interest by then.

[06 Maestro]

We'll still be here, don't worry.

Just don't go "postal" on your internet providers.[;)]

[Rebel Yell]

Yep, looking forward to more of this one.