GoodWood Revised

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the view of the West side in T32. German counterattacks have unwound my surround and has gotten one of my units in
severe trouble. I think we have a ''broken arrow'' here. And I don't think there's a way to save it either. D'oh.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the East side in T32. The biggest hamper over here is the low supply level. I'm having to move the supply-poor units to the
next nearest good supply hex and let them rest there for a bit. Then move them back into combat after they get above 65% of supply.
Lots of moving units back and forth. Lots of detail to keep track of. Part of the game really.

[larryfulkerson]

I guess the victory was less than decisive. The German Panzer counterattacks were detrimental to my progress. The German units
were just too strong to overcome easily. The Allied groups in the middle were just finished mopping up any remnants and were getting
ready to press south.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the West side in the end of the scenario. You can see the Allied groups on the right who are ready to go into refit programs or
press south into the German lines.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the east side at the end. As you can see the units on the far right edge are just finishing up some mopping up and are getting
ready to pess south;

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the German losses at the end of the scenario. I'm guessing that Steve is going to make some changes and I guess we'll playtest
the changed version here at the end of the AAR after Steve makes his changes.

[sPzAbt653]

How many tanks did the British/Canadians loose ?

[larryfulkerson]

The closes turn I have to the end is T32 and here's the losses in tanks to the Allied side as of then:

[sPzAbt653]

Excellent playtest and AAR Mr. Fulkerson, Thanks so much !! [&o]

I'm guessing that Steve is going to make some changes ...

It should have ended after turn 35, so I added a dedicated event for that to happen. The only other change was to the northern flank, where there is now an Exclusion Zone (see screen shot) until turn 3. I mentioned why I did this in an earlier post, but I'll mention again its because the Germans suffer shock penalties the first two turns and this gives the Allies an unfair advantage in that area. In reality, the player has no reason to go in that direction, there are no objectives there and this wasn't planned as a battle of maneuver, it was Dempsey smashing in the Germans' teeth (well, that was the plan at least). The planned action on that flank was for the British infantry to move from Escoville to Troarn and from there south, in order to protect the flank of the Armored Corp.

[sPzAbt653]

Ok, great report on the Allied tank losses. I'll say a few things, but first from the briefing :

Allied Infantry Replacements are very low, but there are many tank replacements. You cannot afford to get involved in costly infantry attacks, but can pound away with your tanks!

Read no further if you are not interested in some pointers.

As you pointed out in one of the early posts, you've got plenty of tanks. So if you are interested in playing again this is the recommended course of action : blast away with tanks ! Leave the infantry to much lesser exposure (as you noticed, the Germans will counterattack fiercely and the infantry is vulnerable). Use the 17-pdr and Achilles units to bolster any infantry that runs up against the Panzer attacks.

Once your tanks are worn out or wiped out, reset things by using the 'Operation Spring' Theater Option.

Keep those Supply Units next to the Artillery Units, the artillery needs all the help it can get. The Supply Units can only move during the 9 turn cease fire and can only move one hex per turn. This tends to keep the artillery in its best positions west of the Orne, which was the historical situation due to needing the tubes to be located near the ammo dumps.

There is a point in the early going where a breakthrough is quite possible, but historically the British weren't flexible enough to recognize it. Watch carefully and plan for it, but as Monty warned 'beware of German counterattacks!'.

[sPzAbt653]

I'm packing up the latest version and will send it to you shortly. I'll wait a few minutes to see if there is anything you wanted to comment on.

More on the Tank/Infantry situation. Dempsey had 500 tanks in his replacement park, so he was not concerned with losing tanks, but his infantry replacements were nil. During this battle the British would get their tank knocked out, and the crew would often run back to their lines and hitch a ride to the tank park, pick up a new tank and head back to the front. So as the briefing says, smash ahead with the armor !

Estimates of historical losses vary, but most concur that the British lost 400-500 tanks.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I'm packing up the latest version and will send it to you shortly. I'll wait a few minutes to see if there is anything you wanted to comment on.

Nah, I'm just about out of new data on this scenario. I admit that the 'Victory Bug' bit me on the behind when I attacked to the direct east
and gained the map edge. I should have just set up some kind of screen and pressed south like the scenario is designed for. By all
means send me the changed version and we'll do it again. I'm kind of doing the Burma 42-43 scenario because someone asked
me for it. But I estimate that it'll take less than a week to do it. Meanwhile you can make whatever changes you'd like and send me the
updated copy at your lesiure. How do you spell leisure?

[sPzAbt653]

I used to live on Leisure Court. It's 8º here right now, yesterday this time it was 3º. As the geeks on the Weather Channel say, its heating up. [8D]

Ok then, no more comments. I'll ship it off to you and when you are done with Burma maybe you will feel like running Goodwood again. Thanks again for all the great playtestin' [:)]

[larryfulkerson]

So I swapped out the files concerned w/ Goodwood w/ the new ones Steve sent to me and started up TOAW and went to the directory
where Goodwood is stored and when I select it I get part of the scenario briefing on the right side and it's got an updated version number.
So I get to do Goodwood again now w/ the updated version.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm only just now starting the scenario and I'm already 185 victory points in the hole. That's an overwhelming defeat.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my T1 moves. I'm pressing south into the minefields and into the German lines. I'm doing three-dot attacks to make some hay
while the sun shines.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the positions at the beginning of T2: I'm going to replace the tanks not on the front lines w/ INF and race the tanks toward the
breech(es). That way I might be able to keep the advance going.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my T2 moves. I'm pressing south and spreading out slightly. Resistance is stiffening.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the beginning of T3 front lines. The advance has already stalled. We're going nowhere now. The Germans have brought up
some more units and resistance is getting to be heavy.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. Here's my T3 moves. I've gotten a surround on one and I'm working on another and we're busy as beavers.