Back to Town - Soviets

[MikeJ19]

The advancing TB starts to come to the rescue

[MikeJ19]

The end of the command cycle. My next one is 50 minutes long....

[StuccoFresco]

Hope the tanks can turn the tide: it looks bad in the city.

[MikeJ19]

I hope they can too. It is going to be a while though. The TB will not start moving for another hour! Damn.

[MikeJ19]

I'm going down fast...

[MikeJ19]

It is all done...

[MikeJ19]

The Germans did not even have to use all their firepower...

[MikeJ19]

I will review and post my concluding remarks in a bit. I enjoyed the battle, but I like winning more than losing.

[MikeJ19]

AAR

What did I do right?

Use of the Tank Battalion. I used the initial TC as recce to make sure that the TB did not run into an ambush.

My initial plan was alright. I think the idea of defending inside the city was correct, but I could have done a better job of deploying the initial MRB.

Reaction to the German attack. Overall, I think that my response to the attack was good. I tried everything I could think of to rebuild the defence of the VP locations. The Germans just had too much.

What could I improve on

Initial plan. Couple of things here. I should have grouped the 3 MRC more closely. Also, I blew the wrong bridge for the way I deployed. The Germans were able to take on one MRC at at time because of my deployment.

I need to monitor ammunition levels better. Too often, I had units resupplying at the wrong time. In some cases, I had too many units resupplying at the same time and right beside each other.

Reserves. I had two TCs in WESTERBRUCK and I should have given at least one of them move orders much earlier. The move orders would have been for them to attack/reinforce the lead MRC. Instead, the TC arrived too late.

Final thoughts

This was fun and frustrating at the same time.

It is very challenging working with a command cycle of 30+ minutes. It was hard to watch my units being pounded for so long.

The ability to see and engage in the town was very surprising. I think that this needs to be investigated a bit more. I’m not saying it is wrong, but I think that the defender should have more advantage defending in a town/city than they currently do.

The German artillery was devastatingly powerful. They really did a number on me. As a gunner I love that. I found the Soviet artillery to be less effective than I would have suspected – my 3 batteries had 10 kills. The command cycle did not help, but even when they hit the mark, they did not cause many casualties.

[StuccoFresco]

There were just way too much Germans to mount a defence anyway, i suspect.

[MikeJ19]

My feeling too. They did not even use them all... Thanks!

[StuccoFresco]

Thanks to you for your AARs, i'm an avid reader of them [8D]