I thought it was time for another AAR. I chose Elasson as it is fast paced, very challenging for either side, but not too many units. I played this scenario in less than 4 hours-not bad at all. Please fell free to comment about my game, your game, or the battle in general.
In this battle both the Allies and the Germans need to exit on the south end of the map, in addition to keeping/capturing objectives and inflicting losses. The Allied side could only stop the German attack completely with great effort, but the real objective for the Allied side is to delay the Germans and extract as much of their fighting force as possible toward Larissa off the south edge of the map. There is a delicate balancing act that needs to be performed. If the German side is allowed to advance too quickly, they will overwhelm the rear guard and exit right behind you-not a good thing too early on the game-if at all.
I had just been beaten by the AI (marginally) and decided to roll up my sleeves and get even. The German AI is quite adept at finding holes in the line and bypassing. In my last effort, the Germans were exiting troops on the south edge of the map before I even knew they were in the area. I also suffered higher losses do to some units being cut off early on in the northern areas.
My solution was to minimize the battle north of the Elasson Bridge, and concentrate the armor south of the river-largely in the open. One Inf
Bn would hold Elasson until the armored regiment could not reasonably hold back the German flood. At this point both units would begin a delaying action (with moderate loss, high fire and aggressiveness) to the south-initially on either side of the woods to the east of Elasson (2nd NZ Armored Regiment to the east). my initial orders included placing an Inf Bn at the crossing at Meneskos Pass North (the bridge was also primed). This initial deployment worked out better than I hoped. After the delaying action began on day 3 the units fell back in fairly good order. When the Germans reached the Meneskos crossing they were hammered so bad by the entrenched infantry (extra machine gun coy and one fresh arty Btry), I was briefly tempted to counterattack with the tank regiment, but that would not have been prudent.
Towards the western end of the A.O., the German AI once again pulled a fast one. I knew better to leave the one bridge at Magoula (about 13 km west of Elasson) unguarded. Much to my surprise, they move even farther west under cover of darkness and crossed at Amouri. I was not even aware of the crossing until they struck my units in the area in the rear. Fortunately, they were too weak to block my moves of withdrawing the 3 arty Btry's and infantry in the area. I did make things rather more interesting trying to get my units all the way back around on the highway-but they (mostly) made it.
In the end, my defense was a great success. I had just began giving orders to exit to the south about 1.5 hours before the end of the battle. I wanted to make sure that no Germans would sneak through this time.
The result was a decisive victory for the Allied side-and a relief for me.
