Celles (a.r.r.)

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Celles, December 23-26, 1944

Size of Battle: Medium
Type of Battle: German Attack
Axis: German
Allies: American
Location: Ardennes
Description: This is the furthest extent of the German offensive in the Ardennes. Initially, the two German panzer divisions will have a relatively easy time making headway, but the arrival of the U.S. 2nd Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”) will make their gains hard to hold.


I originally played this one quite a bit into it vs. mi1291 from the forum. I had severe problems due to a problem with bridging, which effectively let mi block round half my troops with only a few of his, allowing him to butcher up my other half through concentration of his forces.

After Cooney released the next patch to repair this bridging bug (each side should get 1 bridge per division), we restarted this one; though after a few turns into it mi had to leave on a vacation for a bit. That is rather good for me since once again he was giving me a trashing (very aggressive player he is). Usually too much aggression gets you in trouble but perhaps luck was on his side?

Quite likely I also have my own faults which may be to blame. At least now I can take this opportunity to sharpen up vs. the AI while he is gone and exercise some of my neurons in typical war-gaming fashion.

So… I will probably play axis again, and check into what and where the allies are going to send into the game through the reinforcement screen so I can know what to roughly expect near the games end. I’ll get back with some of these details later on this evening and we can start. Hopefully I can just maybe get around to mastering both sides before mi returns.


* Note! I apologize again that the counters & images always seem a bit blurred here. They do not appear so in-game, and I haven't figured out yet as to why this happens when taking screen shots.

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And now, for the Axis OOB.  Most units I have currently in the field:





And then at 2:00 26’th Dec, I’ll have these little babies arriving South East by East, the 9’th Panzer Div.





And taking a sneak peak at what the allies have, it is no surprising to me why I had my work cut out for me before.  It’s a little shocking, but the tank destroyers are not as bad as they seem, due to only one platoon worth per company:

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Time to get a shot of the map before we start.  I had to use maximum zoom to capture it all, so that will have its consequences.  In fact, it will probably be hard here to spot the small grey axis counters on snowy hexes in the South-East.  So... that's the battlefield for now.

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16:00 23, December

I had battled the previous 2 hours, and here’s how it looks so far with the 1’st Panzer Lehr Division.  This is just one of the three battle areas I had set up, but it’s the most important.  Since the Americans can so easily block me from crossing the primary roads over the river.

The highlighted Engineer is there for a reason.  I put the armored E. there so he can lay down a bridge this turn.  As long as he is not disrupted or in EZoC then things are ok.  There is a bit of damage on the other side of the river where the americans are, due to my artillery barrage.  Also I’ve taken some hits.  From  fighting there, and others from being on the receiving end of further artillery.  That’s a little painful but what else can one do.

The green hex numbers basically let me know how far I can move in my current posture, before I can’t change to another stance.  

Anyhow, to make a long story short, my other minor battles went so-so, but I did lose the initiative, so I got hit by a double-movement by Allies.  Which in turn, hurt me a bit more, but such is life in the Axis lane.

I hate doing reports sometimes with games like these because once I start I simply DO NOT WANT TO STOP!  

Anyhow, the weather this turn went bad, visibility is now at ‘Limited’, I am assuming that means SNOW.  So FoW rules for night-time are now in effect.  This blocks me from seeing a lot of stats on adjacent enemy units but I know they couldn’t have improved from last turn so I shouldn’t have TOO MUCH to worry about just yet.




In the meantime, I have been re-studying some war-game scenario design texts, and strategies.  Unfortunately most of the good stuff was for Napoleon based eras, and hence has very limited use here.

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18:00

Another 2 hours goes by, and now night has fallen.  As you can see, I got a few companies across the river.  And a sneaky tank that hid inside a nearby town took some opportunity on one of my Stugs as I ran into position.  Opportunity fire wasn’t bad against me this turn, but I got mangled up again by allied artillery.

The green boxes were due to my #8 hotkey, which I use for quick checks on what units are in command or have lost it.  There are other ways to do this, but this is one of my preferred ways.  Most my losses to contact have been due to getting so badly mauled up by bombardments.

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22:00

Notice the hours are now doubled per night-time turn.  

I hit my #7 hotkey this time to check my postures.  In case it’s not obvious, A = attack mode, and D = (take one guess).  M = Moving, T = Traveling, E = Emplaced, and R = tactical reserve.  I’m using the reserve to shake off disruptions faster.

I had surrounded that tiny city pocket in order to maximize flanking bonuses.  Unfortunately I rolled bad so there is at least one fully strengthened company still in there.  Though I suspect he could be badly disrupted, and probably out of contact, not to mention supply as well.

I’ll try and knock him out next turn.

Elsewhere in the map I pursued some retreating counts with a tank, unfortunately moving deep at nighttime causes a lot more quality checks, and I got up to level 4 disruption which means on the counter-turn I’m probably in trouble now.

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2:00

Looks like I rolled bad again during assault.  I was able to knock off a squad from that counter but that’s it.  Seems that city defense sure is getting its money’s worth.

Elsewhere in the battlefield, my totally disrupted 1/3 Panzer company seems to have survived some counter-fire, so I guess you take the goods with the bads.

In the far East my tank destroyer got ambushed earlier by a stack of nasty American infantry and who knows what else, so I’ve been Pinned down there in a defensive stance ever since.  If I don’t get too many allied units raining down on me, I may be able to dislodge that stack and free the destroyer, but that may end up being a pipe-dream for quite some time.

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6:00

Six AM and we start a new day.  Night-time FoW is lifted and I can see in more than one place where U.S. reinforcements are marching their way towards me.  Now you KNOW that can’t be any good.  So I had better double my efforts by trying to knock out what I can now before they arrive en-force.

I finally did get around to digging out that surrounded company.  I also seem to have did ok elsewhere in some skirmishes.  In fact, I may be able to rescue my pinned-down tank destroyer sooner than later, thanks to a lucky artillery bombardment there.  (hey , I was due).

Here’s the scenario data, actually the Allies have 2 air supports per day, IIRC.  I know this because I remember looking at their side one time in the past.

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8:00

I moved units from the 1st Division and surrounded an isolated infantry for maximum flanking.  Needless to say, you can see from the combat results table that I simply can’t lose (barring enemy artillery).

On the other hand, up north one of my prized armored infantry units was hurting pretty bad as you can see.  Silly me ran right into an ambush, and then got raped by opportunity fire.  I decided to still carry out an assault to try and knock out that recon unit, unfortunately, I got further assaulted during the battle (pretty bad), where all by one unit had to retreat.  So the one left behind then naturally got rapped on the counter-turn.

So in essence, I got raped before the battle, raped during the battle, and raped again after the battle.

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10:00

Visibility was still limited the last couple hours.  I badly mauled up another counter I pocketed in the East, and then during the allied withdraw check, they failed so bad that it self restructured.  That’s one less turn I’ll have to worry about now. 

On the other hand, a recon counter of mine was shattered to pieces and removed due to a stack of tank destroyers.  All due to that ambush I ran into earlier.

In other news, I tried to dislodge some infantry that had my tank destroyer pinned down  Things didn’t go too well in that battle and one of my units was forced to withdraw.  I’ll TRY and get him on my up-coming phases.

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12:00

Well, finally I shattered that unit which had my nice tank destroyer pinned down since what… yesterday?  Unfortunately, I lost a counter elsewhere because I was just not too bright, and got blasted by opportunity fire.

Currently we see I am in quite a defeat as far as the scoring goes, however there are cities far off to the West which are worth 5x as much as the little stuff we are squandering over at the moment.  I have a little less than 2 days left, so in less than 24 hours I’ll try and sneak the 1’st division over there and see what I can take.

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14:00

Some more battling around.  I have almost cleared that whole stack of destroyers that came at me earlier, but it’s a never ending problem with other units appearing in spots, just when you think you are cleaning up the area.

I broke off some units of the 1st in order to scout around far and wide to the West to see what could be guarding those cities.  So far I only ran into two artillery, but looks like they just moved away on me now.  I’m also going to have to try and set up my units better so I don’t keep losing command as much.

Anyhow, here’s a quick snapshot from some of the log.  Once again one of my recons takes a hit.  I’m having pretty bad luck with these units so far.

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16:00

Far to the West I found most those key cities undefended (for now).  So I started whipping around with a destroyer to gobble them up, and then ran straight into a fully loaded tank company.  It was a disaster.  I ended up losing another prized counter.  *sigh.  

It seems I just don’t ever learn.  I am too housebroken in with the Panzer General form of MOVE-MOVE-MOVE!  MOVE OR YOU’LL LOSE ON TURN #8!

This is generally not that kind of game, and seems to punish for that sort of wrecklessness.

Off in the Eastern district, things were not looking very happy.  A wall of allied units was bearing down on me in a most threatening manner.  I had the chance to withdraw a couple counters, but decided to abort that, since even a withdraw can go terribly wrong.  I decided to add in my support artillery and make a stand.  It turned out to be the best (I think!).  I took a hit, but got a couple scored back on them, and forced a few withdraws on THEIR side.

But that is still no consolation for losing a full company of tank destroyers like I did!

Oh yes I forgot to mention, some allied unit is trying to be a bit sneaky and sending in a unit behind my lines to gobble up territory I grabbed in the rear.  Great, just another hassle as if I don't have any already.

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18:00

I made a mistake and moved an HQ one tile too far away from a few subordinates, so that will cause some problems on the next turn.  However, since it will be night time starting at 18:00, maybe I’ll just sit tight for now and direct fire for a phase or two anyway.

There were a few skirmishes during the last 2 hours.   Due to the fact I had good vision to this painful stack, I decided to bombard since I’d only get -1 column shift instead of two this time.  I had a 50% probability to get at least 1 kill this way, and hopefully could cause the whole stack to go into quality checks.

The machine-gun was dislodged due to the assault I carried out.

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Since we are now during night-time hours on the 24’th of Dec, I thought I’d take a break and instead Santa can get cracking for a while.  In the meantime, I’ll quote the scenario description right out of the manual.

Description:  After a couple days of fighting and then awaiting fuel, 2nd Panzer Division on Hitler’s orders, had bypassed Bastogne and by the 23rd was within striking distance of Dinant and the crossing of the Meuse.  Mounting serious attacks on the 23rd, lead elements of the division--Kampfgruppe’s Bohm and Cochenhausen--cleared the area in front of the division’s main body and continued their advance all the way to Foy-Notre Dame.  The rest of the division exploited these gains to Jamelle.

Meanwhile, Panzer Lehr was fighting for control of Rochefort.  The American defenders fought off repeated attacks until withdrawing, without pursuit, later in the day of the 24th.

Also on the 24th, the U.S. 2nd Armored division attacked south, cutting off the 2nd Panzer’s advance elements.  This caused the Germans to commit the 9th Panzer, which joined the fray on the 26th.

2nd Armored launched a major attack on the 26th, completely isolating Kampfgruppe’s Bohm and Cochenhausen.  With the help of air support, an attack by 2 Panzer was repulsed and both Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer under incessant air and artillery attack were unable to break through.  9th Panzer, after making initial headway through Humain and Havrenne, was stopped at Buissonville.

The isolated German units were in a hopeless position.  After launching a successful effort to break out, they abandoned their heavy equipment and vehicles and made for friendly lines on foot.  The initiative had shifted to the Americans and the German mission was no longer to cross the Meuse but merely to survive.

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22:00

Four hours later, and it looks like things are holding ok during the night-time hours.  Some moderate battles ensued, with the same old tactics of trying to wear down our opponent’s stacks, get them weak… and break em.  Well, it’s a little more involved than that, but it sums things up.  Hits have been carried out on both sides, but I believe over all we are coming out ahead during this night.

Here’s a clip from some of the log:



Not much else happened, except in the far west I split some of my small garrison forces, and sure enough, that’s just when three infantry companies and an SP artillery counter run right into me.  Well that is Murphy’s law for you on the battlefield.  It just never damn fails.  Believe me, no matter how many times I try to out-think Murphy, you just can’t out-sneak him.

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2:00 Dec 25

Well, a new day rolls by, though it’s still night.  After the last 4 hours again of fighting, I managed to lose yet another Panzer recon.  Arggg.  I just keep throwing away these units sometimes, I tell you.  On the other hand, I was able to save a strong infantry company in the far West despite being up against odds of more than 6-to-1.  Luckily, with my unit dug in and entrenched, a little bit of defensive terrain, a forced withdraw at just the right time, and perhaps a little bit of luck, I was able to escape out of danger from getting myself shattered to pieces.  

I could have been shattered to pieces I tell you…


I thought I’d take a moment to examine some more of the FoW issues with one of the skirmishes going off in the North East of the battlefield right now.



Notice the red and white digits on my Att/Def values.  I’ve actually changed the display to instead show my counts in their Division/Regiment values instead.  It helps me keep track of OOB better this way.

The only allied unit that show their Att/Def values are the adjacent ones to my units.  It’s often hard to get this knowledge during night-time, but due to them being so close, and having fought in skirmishes, the info now becomes available to me.

That 7-7 unit seems a little under-valued due to it still having 3 platoons worth.  So I can tell right now before examining it in more detail, that it must have had a little bit of disruption already.

The other infantry units aren’t giving us that much info, but we still know they are infantry units at least despite they are not adjacent because we have already exchanged fire with them at some point.  And for the same reason, we know the artillery unit is artillery because it had fired upon us.  Now if we could get closer we could find out more statistics on it.

There is a stack of FoG units at the very north of the shot.  We just don’t know what they are yet because we haven’t engaged and they are not adjacent.  However, we CAN make some educated guesses on what could be in there.  The fact that they are not totally invisible to us gives us some hints on what to eliminate.  Also by studying their movement patterns & distance we could try to guess a bit more of the puzzle.  And then by studying the general’s manual vision for night-time hours:

Fog:  The unit is in cover terrain and an opposing unit is adjacent.  The unit is in open terrain in Attack, Move or Travel Posture and no opposing unit is adjacent.

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6:00

A new day, and I’m happy to have sunlight to get a better analysis of the battlefield again.  During the last 4 hours of the night, I had some not-so-great results.  And those then spiraled off into getting more bad results from getting counter-hit.

But that is the least of my worries for the moment.  Sure enough, at 6 am in the morning the allies got a whole army full of reinforcements.  The Brits have entered with a tank division, and the Americans have added stacks and stacks of other units. 

I’ve taken this shot from the Western sector, almost every unit you see here is a new reinforcement.  Unfortunately I do not get any of my up-coming 9’th Panzer division until around midnight on the 26’th.  And even then it pales in comparison.

This is going to take some serious thinking on what to do from here, so I’m going to retire from the field for now while I try to come up with some plan to dig me out of this mess.

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8:00 Dec 25...

This scenario has been waiting around too long for a finish.  Now I see again why I took a break before, I really didn’t have that much going for me at this point.  But let’s see what further damage we can do. So, we started out on our 6 am turn and I did quite well, I THINK.  I may have had to retreat a few units, ran into more disruptions, etc.  However, I didn’t really lose anything that can not be replaced.  I also managed to at least butcher up a strong fresh infantry unit.  And when I say butcher, that could be an understatement.  Now if I can keep things up like that, just maybe I can eek out a nice victory here.   Sadly, the AI managed to take out a platoon from one of my counters during direct fire phase when 8am came around.  Well, I guess I shouldn’t really complain, as things could have gone much worse for me.  I have some really mauled up units pocketed that could have had a worse fat.  Of course, the allied units around that area are also beat up as well, that’s the problem for the both of us.   I did switch one of my units into travel posture and zoomed up next to a US artillery to prevent it from bombarding me.  It also allowed me to get a good look at its stats.  Interestingly, this 327 FA Bn unit has a quality rating of 70%.  Yet, my Panzer Lehr HQ only has about 60%.  Hmm!  You would think more experienced and elite units should have the higher quality!  Though this is probably taking in other factors such as replacements & reinforcement abstractions.

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10 A.M.

I’m not too happy with this turn either.  I lost another mauled up unit due to opportunity fire when trying to move into position to pin some artillery.  I also moved up three towed artillery companies from the extreme south since they were getting out of range of enemy units.  Unfortunately the enemy decided to bombard them while I had them in travel posture and besides getting disrupted, I lost one platoon worth.  Not my hour I guess.

That one melee pocket in this shot  is still a bloody mess.  The only good thing about it is we are both so badly beat up the fighting is down to a minimal here.  

In the far west of the map I have some elite units waiting in an ambush, but the AI just isn’t falling for it.  

My main mile-stone goal will be to break up this melee pocket here.  I’d like to have it done by midnight, but realistically that will take a bit of luck, and a lot will depend on my artillery.  Hopefully I don’t take any more artillery casualties!